Latest / UK Column Radio / From West Point to Military Accountability | UK Column Interviews

Transcript

From West Point to Military Accountability | UK Column Interviews · UK Column Radio

0:08
Speaker 1: Hello. I'm Charles Mallett with a UK Column interview, and
0:12
Speaker 1: today I have with me Brad Miller, who is formerly
0:15
Speaker 1: a lieutenant colonel in the US Army, having had a
0:17
Speaker 1: battalion command in the one hundred and first Airborne Division,
0:21
Speaker 1: and also most notably, the author of the Declaration of
0:25
Speaker 1: Military Accountability. Brad a very warm welcome to UK column.
0:29
Speaker 1: Thank you very much indeed for joining me.
0:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, thanks so much, Charles. I really appreciate you reaching out.
0:34
Speaker 3: I'm happy to dig into some of these topics here
0:36
Speaker 3: and I think we're gonna have an interesting discussion. I
0:38
Speaker 3: will make one tiny modification to what you said in
0:42
Speaker 3: the intro there.
0:43
Speaker 2: I am one of a group of authors.
0:45
Speaker 3: Of the Declaration of Military Accountability, not the principal author,
0:49
Speaker 3: but definitely one of the individuals who was key in
0:53
Speaker 3: helping to promote it and get it out there. If
0:56
Speaker 3: I had to name one person who is the primary author,
0:59
Speaker 3: I would actually to Rob Green, who is actually still
1:01
Speaker 3: serving as an officer in the United States Navy. But
1:06
Speaker 3: Rob and I worked together quite a bit on kind
1:09
Speaker 3: of propagating the message out there. But I do just
1:11
Speaker 3: want to make that one tiny correction. I would just
1:13
Speaker 3: not want to misrepresent the role that I had in
1:16
Speaker 3: crafting the declaration.
1:20
Speaker 1: That is a very critical clarification, Thank you very much. Indeed, Brad,
1:24
Speaker 1: that's great because when we do come to talk about that,
1:27
Speaker 1: it does already demonstrate that you were not acting on
1:31
Speaker 1: your own as some fringe lunatic, that this was this
1:35
Speaker 1: was something that a lot of people were thinking about
1:38
Speaker 1: and taking seriously. Now I introduced you as a former
1:40
Speaker 1: military man. In fact, your facial hair at the moment
1:44
Speaker 1: would absolutely qualify you for pretty much any rank in
1:47
Speaker 1: the British Army these days. But let's get just let's
1:51
Speaker 1: get some of the sort of military history out of
1:52
Speaker 1: the way, because I think people have a tendency to think, Okay,
1:56
Speaker 1: here we go somebody else who was embedded really for
2:00
Speaker 1: nearly twenty years in the sort of you know, the
2:02
Speaker 1: state's architecture. Why do we want to be listening to him.
2:05
Speaker 1: Just tell us a little bit about your career, and
2:07
Speaker 1: I think for most people who've served, it's sort of
2:10
Speaker 1: characterized by the interspersement of high highs and low lows.
2:14
Speaker 1: Just give us a bit of an insight.
2:17
Speaker 3: Sure, So I graduated from the United States Military Academy
2:22
Speaker 3: at West Point. I graduated in two thousand and three.
2:25
Speaker 3: I would go on to serve a little over nineteen
2:27
Speaker 3: years on active service and ended up retiring from the
2:32
Speaker 3: or excuse me, resigning for the military in late twenty
2:36
Speaker 3: twenty two. My last day of active service was September fifteenth,
2:41
Speaker 3: twenty twenty two, and ultimately I resigned before reaching that
2:46
Speaker 3: critical juncture of twenty years. Twenty years is the mark
2:49
Speaker 3: in the United States Military at which you can qualify
2:52
Speaker 3: for your retirement pension, So it's a pretty significant mark
2:58
Speaker 3: on the wall. And the reason that I resigned about
3:00
Speaker 3: eight and a half months shy of that mark is
3:03
Speaker 3: that I got to the point in which I realized
3:06
Speaker 3: that I could no longer reconcile the way in which
3:11
Speaker 3: I viewed our government, our constitution, the oath that I
3:14
Speaker 3: had taken as a military officer to support and defend
3:17
Speaker 3: the Constitution with military service. Now on the outset, a
3:22
Speaker 3: lot of people are going to look at that and
3:23
Speaker 3: find that quite paradoxical that you, as a military officer
3:28
Speaker 3: who had taken an oath to the Constitution in your
3:30
Speaker 3: capacity as a military officer, you're saying you can't reconcile.
3:34
Speaker 3: Continued service in the military with that oath. But that
3:37
Speaker 3: is in fact the yeah, the seemingly paradoxical situation that
3:42
Speaker 3: I found myself in. Now, that issue in and of
3:44
Speaker 3: itself is quite large, But the occasion that brought me
3:49
Speaker 3: to that realization was the COVID shot mandate. So in
3:55
Speaker 3: the summer of twenty twenty one, the Pentagon mandated that
4:00
Speaker 3: all service members would take the COVID shot. Now, by
4:04
Speaker 3: the summer of twenty twenty one, I.
4:08
Speaker 2: Was extremely resolute in my own mind that I was
4:11
Speaker 2: not going to take the shot.
4:12
Speaker 3: And sure that was a decision that was partially about
4:15
Speaker 3: my own health, that's true, but I also felt that
4:18
Speaker 3: there were bigger.
4:18
Speaker 2: Issues at hand.
4:19
Speaker 3: I was a commander of a battalion at the time,
4:22
Speaker 3: which meant that once this mandate came down that in
4:24
Speaker 3: my command capacity, I would then have to order others
4:28
Speaker 3: to take the shot as well. But even in a
4:32
Speaker 3: much larger if we look through a much larger aperture
4:35
Speaker 3: than even that, I just felt that we had been
4:38
Speaker 3: lied the entire time.
4:40
Speaker 2: About COVID, what it was or wasn't.
4:43
Speaker 3: A lot of narratives had clearly been spun A year
4:47
Speaker 3: and a half into this madness that we all experienced
4:51
Speaker 3: in twenty twenty, in the first half of twenty twenty one.
4:54
Speaker 3: So by the time that we got to the late
4:55
Speaker 3: summer of twenty twenty one, there was just no way
4:59
Speaker 3: that I was going to go along with this. Like
5:01
Speaker 3: I say, one because I didn't trust the shots just
5:04
Speaker 3: from a safety or and efficacy standpoint, but even that
5:07
Speaker 3: issue aside, I was just not going to be part
5:10
Speaker 3: of something that.
5:11
Speaker 2: I felt was was.
5:13
Speaker 3: Much larger, much more tyrannical than even the issue of
5:17
Speaker 3: the shot, which even on its face is already quite tyrannical.
5:20
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's putting it, putting it rather diplomatically,
5:24
Speaker 1: But let's just go to that. I mean, there's a
5:27
Speaker 1: lot that we want to talk about from there. But
5:31
Speaker 1: you were thinking that and making that decision in command
5:35
Speaker 1: of a battalion. What was the feeling leading up to that?
5:41
Speaker 1: So when the balloon went up in effect in sort
5:43
Speaker 1: of early twenty twenty and the world appeared to go
5:46
Speaker 1: completely mad, what were your subordinates and your superiors thinking,
5:51
Speaker 1: as far as you could work out.
5:53
Speaker 3: Yeah, So interestingly enough, so I was in twenty twenty,
5:57
Speaker 3: I was not yet in command. I was actually stationed
6:00
Speaker 3: in Korea. In twenty twenty, I left Korea. I finished
6:03
Speaker 3: my tour there. I returned to the States in the
6:06
Speaker 3: summer of twenty twenty. By this time, most of the
6:10
Speaker 3: world had kind of gone mad with the COVID response measures.
6:16
Speaker 3: The United States military was not unique in that regard,
6:19
Speaker 3: but we had not gotten to the point of the
6:21
Speaker 3: shot mandate yet, And in fact, in the summer of
6:23
Speaker 3: twenty twenty, operation warp speed would have been in full swing,
6:28
Speaker 3: but the shots would not be distributed until the end
6:30
Speaker 3: of the year. I think the first shots were distributed
6:32
Speaker 3: about December of twenty twenty, but I returned to the
6:35
Speaker 3: States in the summer of twenty twenty. I attended a
6:38
Speaker 3: course in Kansas from the summer of twenty twenty until
6:41
Speaker 3: the summer of twenty twenty one, and then in the
6:44
Speaker 3: summer of twenty twenty one, I moved from Kansas to
6:47
Speaker 3: Fort Campbell, Kentucky, which is the home of the storied
6:51
Speaker 3: one hundred and first Airborne Division, and I assumed command
6:54
Speaker 3: of my battalion.
6:55
Speaker 2: And I was an engineer.
6:57
Speaker 3: Officer, so it was a combat engineer battalion. But I
7:00
Speaker 3: assumed command of that battalion on June tenth of twenty
7:04
Speaker 3: twenty one. The mandate would go into effect on August
7:07
Speaker 3: twenty fourth, so about two and a half months later.
7:11
Speaker 3: So to answer your question more specifically, in the beginning,
7:17
Speaker 3: I would say, and I was not necessarily unique in
7:19
Speaker 3: this regard. We were all kind of bombarded with whatever
7:22
Speaker 3: this was. It was all over the news, and I
7:26
Speaker 3: didn't know what to make of it either. But by
7:28
Speaker 3: that time, by twenty twenty, I had long been skeptical
7:32
Speaker 3: of narratives that we would hear. I had long been
7:35
Speaker 3: skeptical of my own government's involvements and operations around the world.
7:41
Speaker 3: By twenty twenty, I had been looking into the issue
7:43
Speaker 3: of nine to eleven for well over a decade. By
7:46
Speaker 3: that point, I had started looking in that as early
7:48
Speaker 3: as two thousand and seven, and in fact that had
7:51
Speaker 3: almost led me to leave the army around two thousand
7:55
Speaker 3: and eight or two thousand and nine, I did not.
7:58
Speaker 3: But then fast forward a decade or a little bit
8:00
Speaker 3: more than a decade later, a little you know, a
8:04
Speaker 3: decade older, a decade more of just doing research into
8:07
Speaker 3: kind of how the world really works. And I was
8:10
Speaker 3: extremely skeptical of what we were being told. But I
8:12
Speaker 3: still didn't necessarily know what the truth was. So then
8:16
Speaker 3: you fast forward to the summer of twenty twenty one,
8:19
Speaker 3: and I will tell you that I felt quite lonely
8:24
Speaker 3: to be a lieutenant colonel who was a battalion commander
8:27
Speaker 3: who had newly taken command.
8:29
Speaker 2: I knew right away that I was not on the team.
8:33
Speaker 3: I think this is something that you'll certainly understand just
8:36
Speaker 3: from your own background in the military and anybody else
8:39
Speaker 3: who comes.
8:40
Speaker 2: From a military background.
8:42
Speaker 3: If you were a battalion commander, you are very much
8:45
Speaker 3: expected to be on the team of your brigade commander,
8:48
Speaker 3: your division commander. So when an unpopular mandate comes down,
8:54
Speaker 3: some would say that you have a professional duty to
8:57
Speaker 3: make sure that your subordinates kind of get in line
9:00
Speaker 3: with that mandate, regardless of how popular or unpopular it
9:04
Speaker 3: may be.
9:04
Speaker 2: And on the one hand, I can understand that.
9:07
Speaker 3: However, on the other hand, we also have a duty
9:11
Speaker 3: to our subordinates to one first and foremost ensure that
9:15
Speaker 3: we are making good on the oath that we have
9:17
Speaker 3: taken to support and defend the Constitution. I think the
9:20
Speaker 3: mandate was wildly outside of the parameters of that duty.
9:25
Speaker 2: I also think that the.
9:26
Speaker 3: Mandate was unequivocally unlawful on its face, and again we
9:32
Speaker 3: expect commanders the mantle of the command is something that
9:35
Speaker 3: should be taken extremely seriously, and so I at some
9:39
Speaker 3: point just realized, this is the decision that is going
9:42
Speaker 3: to characterize my command. It's not going to come down
9:45
Speaker 3: to my tactical acumen. It's not even going to necessarily
9:49
Speaker 3: come down to the way in which I might have
9:52
Speaker 3: dispensed what we refer to as the uniform Code of
9:56
Speaker 3: Military Justice. Obviously, you have a lot of authorities that
9:59
Speaker 3: are vested in you as a commander, but that's not
10:02
Speaker 3: how my command is going.
10:03
Speaker 2: To be characterized.
10:04
Speaker 3: It's going to be characterized by this one decision about
10:07
Speaker 3: do I or do I not support the mandate. Ultimately,
10:10
Speaker 3: I made it very clear even before the mandate went
10:13
Speaker 3: into effect, which I said was about two and a
10:15
Speaker 3: half months after I took command, I made it very
10:17
Speaker 3: clear to my immediate superior, the brigade commander, and my
10:21
Speaker 3: superior two levels up, the division commander, that I was
10:25
Speaker 3: not going to take the shot even once it was mandated.
10:29
Speaker 2: And then once the mandate.
10:30
Speaker 3: Went into effect, I reiterated my steadfastness that I would
10:35
Speaker 3: not go along with it.
10:37
Speaker 1: My immediate response is good for you? And where was
10:40
Speaker 1: everybody else? But Brad? This is really serious stuff. And
10:45
Speaker 1: I think for anyone who's been listening so far thinking
10:48
Speaker 1: that this is perhaps slightly to one side of being
10:52
Speaker 1: relevant because they don't have a military background, or because
10:54
Speaker 1: they don't necessarily see how important what was going on
10:59
Speaker 1: within the military, in fact, in many militaries, not just yours,
11:03
Speaker 1: what I would say to anyone who's having that thought
11:07
Speaker 1: is actually that this exactly what you've described was seen
11:11
Speaker 1: across the board, in effect the shifting completely of the
11:16
Speaker 1: moral goalposts. So what you've just described is taking an
11:20
Speaker 1: action born of a thought process for the preservation of
11:24
Speaker 1: your subordinates, those under your care. And had it been
11:29
Speaker 1: an issue relating to almost anything else, then I would
11:33
Speaker 1: contend that you would have been given a fair hearing.
11:36
Speaker 1: Is that is that a sort of you know, approximately
11:40
Speaker 1: the right view of things to take? Is that the
11:42
Speaker 1: way you see it? I mean, certainly this side of
11:43
Speaker 1: the Atlantic everything went crazy, and it was because it
11:50
Speaker 1: had this this sort of bizarre shield of protection. You know,
11:53
Speaker 1: it's a vaccine, therefore everything is different.
11:57
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's exactly right.
11:59
Speaker 3: So we we kind of collectively lost our minds.
12:04
Speaker 2: And that was not uniquely an American phenomenon.
12:06
Speaker 3: It was it was like that all over the world, right,
12:09
Speaker 3: And now we look back on it and we realized
12:11
Speaker 3: this was this was deliberate, this was planned, This was
12:15
Speaker 3: a well coordinated and executed event. We can certainly talk
12:17
Speaker 3: about that. But at the time you kind of mentioned
12:22
Speaker 3: a moment ago, where was everybody else? Well, I'll attempt
12:26
Speaker 3: to answer that question quickly before I go on to
12:28
Speaker 3: what you just recently asked, and that is to give
12:31
Speaker 3: you some perspective. I don't exactly know how many battalion
12:35
Speaker 3: commanders there are in the active duty US Army, but
12:39
Speaker 3: I mean it's it's hundreds. And there were only two
12:42
Speaker 3: active duty battalion commanders in the Army that refused.
12:47
Speaker 2: To the extent that they were relieved of.
12:49
Speaker 3: Command, so that they that they refused to comply with
12:52
Speaker 3: the orders associated with the mandate without relenting, you know.
12:56
Speaker 3: And and to the credit of those above me, I mean,
13:00
Speaker 3: I was given an opportunity to kind of, you know,
13:02
Speaker 3: come to my senses, as it were, because my my
13:07
Speaker 3: brigade commander, I mean, I think he genuinely liked me.
13:09
Speaker 3: I mean, I think I think he understood my resolve,
13:14
Speaker 3: but he really hoped that it would not come to this.
13:16
Speaker 3: I mean, he told me that ultimately it did. But yeah,
13:20
Speaker 3: I felt very lonely because I mean, I remember thinking
13:23
Speaker 3: to myself at the expense of and again, this is
13:27
Speaker 3: not about me, It's just I know my own situation
13:31
Speaker 3: and explaining my situation and how this situation happened with me.
13:36
Speaker 3: I know that in some regard, I'm speaking for what
13:39
Speaker 3: happened to a lot of other people, even if they
13:40
Speaker 3: weren't necessarily in the military, But very similar situations happened
13:44
Speaker 3: with other people in other institutions. But I remember just
13:46
Speaker 3: thinking to myself, you know, I'm looking to my left
13:49
Speaker 3: and my right, and I don't see anybody standing next
13:51
Speaker 3: to me, at least not kind of at my rank,
13:54
Speaker 3: at my level. There were younger service members that did.
13:58
Speaker 2: Refuse the shot. They didn't quite maybe have the.
14:02
Speaker 3: Same notoriety associated with their decisions just because of my
14:07
Speaker 3: rank and my position. That said, I look at some
14:11
Speaker 3: of these these junior service members that had I don't know,
14:16
Speaker 3: maybe I had as many years in service as they
14:19
Speaker 3: were old, you know, And I look at how some
14:22
Speaker 3: of these eighteen nineteen twenty year old privates stood up
14:26
Speaker 3: against the behemoth that is the US military, and I
14:29
Speaker 3: think that was, you know, far more courageous than maybe
14:32
Speaker 3: what I had to do. But there is this issue
14:35
Speaker 3: of and this is certainly something that service members understand
14:40
Speaker 3: and that maybe those who have never served may understand,
14:43
Speaker 3: but there may be some ways in which maybe they
14:46
Speaker 3: get lost a little bit in this line of thinking.
14:48
Speaker 3: And that is, yes, the military is an orders based institution,
14:52
Speaker 3: and yes you must follow orders, and yes you must
14:55
Speaker 3: follow the orders that you do not like, and in fact,
14:57
Speaker 3: you may even have to find orders that you think
14:59
Speaker 3: are unsound. Now, we all like to think that if
15:02
Speaker 3: you're given an order that you disagree with for whatever reason,
15:05
Speaker 3: tactical reasons or otherwise, the conditions may permit that you
15:11
Speaker 3: approach the issuing authority, typically a higher commander, and you
15:15
Speaker 3: discuss your issues with that order for reasons A, B,
15:19
Speaker 3: or C. Conditions permitting. There may not always be time,
15:22
Speaker 3: or there may be other commissions that preclude your ability
15:25
Speaker 3: to do that, but where.
15:26
Speaker 2: That is possible, generally speaking, you can do that. You
15:30
Speaker 2: can go and approach a.
15:31
Speaker 3: Higher commander and say, Sir, I think I understand your order,
15:35
Speaker 3: but I see this potential issue here here, and here,
15:39
Speaker 3: And you may be told, hey, you know what, you're right,
15:41
Speaker 3: thanks for bringing that to my attention. Or you may
15:43
Speaker 3: be told, hey, there are other things that you don't
15:45
Speaker 3: necessarily understand, or you may be told, hey, got it.
15:50
Speaker 3: You go execute the order as given. And generally that
15:53
Speaker 3: would mean that you have reached what we would refer
15:55
Speaker 3: to as the salute point, where you salute and you
15:58
Speaker 3: carry out that order.
15:59
Speaker 2: You have made your.
16:01
Speaker 3: Issues known, the order still stands, and you execute the order.
16:06
Speaker 3: Now all of that kind of changes when we talk
16:10
Speaker 3: about orders that are unlawful, and this is something that
16:13
Speaker 3: the US military, ostensibly on its face, does a very
16:16
Speaker 3: good job of educating even its most junior service members
16:19
Speaker 3: of They are taught very early on, you do not
16:22
Speaker 3: have an obligation to follow unlawful orders, and in fact,
16:26
Speaker 3: you have an obligation to disobey those orders, or at
16:29
Speaker 3: least approach for clarification. Make sure you understand the order
16:33
Speaker 3: before you carry out something that you think is unlawful.
16:36
Speaker 2: So this is something that was understood.
16:39
Speaker 3: This is something that cadets at West Point are taught
16:42
Speaker 3: that junior service members are taught that very young officers
16:45
Speaker 3: are meant to kind of assimilate in their being in
16:50
Speaker 3: terms of understanding their conduct within the profession of arms.
16:53
Speaker 3: And yet somehow we discarded all of that because of
16:59
Speaker 3: COVID and in the supposed emergency associated with it.
17:02
Speaker 1: Okay, this is very good because it's I think it's
17:08
Speaker 1: exposing people to the way in which the system was
17:11
Speaker 1: a couple of things I want to come back to,
17:13
Speaker 1: which I think will lead into discussing the Declaration of
17:17
Speaker 1: military accountability, because I think one of the issues at
17:20
Speaker 1: stake here is what we might describe as leadership, but
17:26
Speaker 1: really the sort of conditioning element of it. So let's
17:31
Speaker 1: just first talk about West Point. But just before I
17:34
Speaker 1: ask you the question, I just want to hold in
17:37
Speaker 1: mind the private soldiers that you're talking about, because there
17:42
Speaker 1: is this and I think this was seen in the
17:44
Speaker 1: United Kingdom as well, not not I don't mean necessarily
17:47
Speaker 1: inside the armed forces, but the man or woman who
17:52
Speaker 1: might be regarded as lesser educated and perhaps of a
17:57
Speaker 1: of a lower socioeconomic group did have I would say
18:02
Speaker 1: a greater tendency to realize what was going on and
18:05
Speaker 1: to resist. So, just with that in mind, just describe
18:11
Speaker 1: from a West Point perspective, how this is either a
18:17
Speaker 1: failure of leadership or indeed a success of the system,
18:21
Speaker 1: which way should one regard it.
18:24
Speaker 3: Yeah, West Point is regarded as a leadership laboratory.
18:30
Speaker 2: You know.
18:30
Speaker 3: For the four years that I spent there, it was
18:34
Speaker 3: everything was geared towards you learning to become a leader
18:38
Speaker 3: and preparing specifically to be a platoon leader, because that
18:41
Speaker 3: is often seen as the first real role of leadership
18:44
Speaker 3: you will have as a very young lieutenant. And so
18:47
Speaker 3: all everything you did, even your academic classes, everything was
18:51
Speaker 3: kind of oriented with that goal in mind, and a
18:55
Speaker 3: tremendous amount of effort and time was put into talk
19:00
Speaker 3: about personal conduct, teaching about maybe working through moral dilemmas,
19:07
Speaker 3: or the honor code at West Point, which just simply
19:09
Speaker 3: states a cadet will not lie, cheater, steal, or tolerate
19:11
Speaker 3: those who do. Even that, the lessons that are meant
19:15
Speaker 3: to be learned from that are supposed to shape your
19:18
Speaker 3: characters so that you were prepared to lead America's sons
19:22
Speaker 3: and daughters in the crucible of combat should you ever
19:25
Speaker 3: find yourself in that situation. So everything is oriented towards
19:28
Speaker 3: that and so in some regards, I would say West
19:32
Speaker 3: Point takes that role very seriously, which, on the one hand,
19:37
Speaker 3: leaves you kind of scratching your head and asking yourself, well,
19:40
Speaker 3: how did West Point and how did the military writ
19:44
Speaker 3: large get this so wrong? Now there's an interesting wrinkle
19:47
Speaker 3: to that, because you also asked, well, in some ways,
19:51
Speaker 3: can we look at this as almost like, you know,
19:54
Speaker 3: ratification of the of the idea that the system works.
19:57
Speaker 3: And sadly, I think that we did see that the
20:01
Speaker 3: military has long been accused of indoctrinating its service members. Well,
20:06
Speaker 3: if you look at what happened during COVID, and you
20:08
Speaker 3: look at how common sense without the window, and how
20:14
Speaker 3: individuals just became these orders following automatons, even when the
20:20
Speaker 3: orders seemed to be in real, real tension with the law,
20:26
Speaker 3: not some sort of invented conflict, but real palpable tension
20:33
Speaker 3: with the law. And yet the rigidity of the system
20:38
Speaker 3: unfortunately seemed to hold sway and individuals sided with the
20:43
Speaker 3: institution over the law that that institution is supposed to
20:48
Speaker 3: hold itself to.
20:50
Speaker 1: Yes. No, I think this leads us nicely into talking
20:55
Speaker 1: about the Declaration of Military Accountability, which I think I'm
20:59
Speaker 1: right in saying was published in January twenty twenty four.
21:03
Speaker 1: As I said, when we were sort of getting in
21:05
Speaker 1: touch about sorting this, I did cover this a couple
21:07
Speaker 1: of times on UK column News, and you know, it
21:10
Speaker 1: was very significant at the time. However, for those that
21:13
Speaker 1: either may not remember sufficient detail, just talk us through
21:16
Speaker 1: the process by which you even arrived at deciding upon
21:21
Speaker 1: doing such a thing.
21:23
Speaker 2: Sure, and thank you for the coverage that you provided.
21:26
Speaker 3: You know, I do appreciate that that this received coverage
21:30
Speaker 3: outside of the United States. I think that's a testament
21:34
Speaker 3: to what it was that we did, and also just
21:36
Speaker 3: the fact that the message resonated with individuals, you know,
21:39
Speaker 3: outside of the United States. So the Declaration of Military
21:43
Speaker 3: Accountability or the DMA is the brainchild of a good
21:47
Speaker 3: friend of mine, Rob Green. So Rob Green at the
21:49
Speaker 3: time was serving as a commander in the United States Navy.
21:52
Speaker 3: He is still serving in the United States Navy currently,
21:56
Speaker 3: and so he was the same rank as me before
21:59
Speaker 3: I resigned. I was a lieutenant colonel in the Army.
22:01
Speaker 3: He was a commander in the Navy. Both are five's
22:04
Speaker 3: and so Rob had.
22:07
Speaker 2: Rob had written a.
22:08
Speaker 3: Book and it's a fantastic book for anyone interested in this.
22:12
Speaker 3: And the book is called Defending the Constitution Behind Enemy Lines,
22:17
Speaker 3: and it kind of details the story of the service
22:21
Speaker 3: member as he kind of confronts this issue, and he
22:24
Speaker 3: talks about the legal issues he talks about. He gives
22:27
Speaker 3: a lot of anecdotes from these service members and what
22:30
Speaker 3: they face as they were trying to navigate this issue,
22:33
Speaker 3: and it's just it's a really fascinating book. So he
22:36
Speaker 3: published the book, and then he had this follow on
22:40
Speaker 3: idea where he thought, we're not gaining as much traction
22:43
Speaker 3: as we should.
22:45
Speaker 2: We need to write an open letter to the American public.
22:47
Speaker 3: So he drafted some language, he sent it out to
22:50
Speaker 3: a small circle of friends.
22:51
Speaker 2: I was one of those individuals.
22:53
Speaker 3: We played with the language, We played with the draft.
22:55
Speaker 3: We shortened it just a little bit to get it
22:57
Speaker 3: to one page, got it to where we thought it
22:59
Speaker 3: was ready to go. And then the idea was, let's
23:04
Speaker 3: send this out on New Year's Day of twenty twenty four.
23:08
Speaker 3: And so we came up with the plan as to
23:10
Speaker 3: how we were going to do that. So we decided
23:12
Speaker 3: that I probably because I was I was already out
23:15
Speaker 3: of the military, and therefore you know, maybe it could
23:19
Speaker 3: be touched less easily by the military. So we decided
23:22
Speaker 3: that I would send it out. So the idea was
23:25
Speaker 3: very early on the morning of January first, twenty twenty four,
23:29
Speaker 3: I would send an email first to senior leaders within
23:32
Speaker 3: the military, and I did that at exactly four am
23:35
Speaker 3: Washington d C.
23:36
Speaker 2: Time.
23:37
Speaker 3: I sent an email that had attached a copy of
23:41
Speaker 3: the declaration, and I sent it to the Chairman of
23:44
Speaker 3: the Joint Chiefs, other chiefs of Staff, and you know,
23:48
Speaker 3: a whole series of three and.
23:51
Speaker 2: Four star generals and admirals.
23:53
Speaker 3: And then I turned and basically that email said, this
23:56
Speaker 3: is a letter that we have written to the American public.
24:00
Speaker 3: We are merely apprizing you that this document is about
24:04
Speaker 3: ready to hit the streets.
24:05
Speaker 2: So the and this is an important point.
24:08
Speaker 3: The declaration is not addressed to senior military officers.
24:12
Speaker 2: It is addressed to the American.
24:14
Speaker 3: People and calls out what we would say, are the
24:18
Speaker 3: are the crimes of the senior military officers against the
24:23
Speaker 3: rank and file, But then by extension, you're the American people.
24:26
Speaker 3: So that's kind of the characterization that I would give
24:29
Speaker 3: of what the Declaration of Military Accountability is.
24:31
Speaker 2: Nonetheless, kind of truth in lending here.
24:34
Speaker 3: We sent it first to these military officers, just basically
24:37
Speaker 3: letting them know this document's about to hit the streets.
24:40
Speaker 2: I sent that.
24:40
Speaker 3: Email, I turned right around. Of course, no one was
24:43
Speaker 3: answering that email at four am on New Year's Day,
24:47
Speaker 3: but I turned right around then and posted it to
24:51
Speaker 3: Twitter or now X. I think I posted it at
24:54
Speaker 3: four oh seven, so just a couple of minutes later,
24:56
Speaker 3: four oh seven am, Washington, d C.
24:59
Speaker 2: Time.
25:00
Speaker 3: Again, that was January first, twenty twenty four to two
25:02
Speaker 3: and a half years ago.
25:04
Speaker 2: But over that time.
25:05
Speaker 3: It is I believe that that post has received about
25:08
Speaker 3: five million views, the overwhelming majority of which were within
25:13
Speaker 3: the first days and weeks. It caught immediate traction, resonated
25:17
Speaker 3: with a lot of people.
25:20
Speaker 1: Okay, and just give a summary version of what the
25:24
Speaker 1: declaration actually contains.
25:26
Speaker 3: Yeah, So it's interestingly enough, and I have to credit
25:29
Speaker 3: Rob with this. So he wrote it kind of in
25:33
Speaker 3: the voice of some of our founding documents, you know,
25:38
Speaker 3: principally probably the Declaration of Independence. So if you kind
25:42
Speaker 3: of read it in that voice, you will see that
25:45
Speaker 3: is somewhat mirrored in the Declaration of Military Accountability.
25:50
Speaker 2: But in essence, what it says is there have.
25:54
Speaker 3: Been a series of crimes perpetrated by senior military officers
25:57
Speaker 3: against the service members because of the COVID shot mandate,
26:03
Speaker 3: which is unlawful. And we we because two hundred and
26:09
Speaker 3: thirty one of us attached our names, we all signed
26:11
Speaker 3: the document. So we the undersigned, are not going to
26:14
Speaker 3: stand by and allow these senior military officers to continue
26:19
Speaker 3: to get away with these crimes. And therefore we appeal
26:22
Speaker 3: to the American public for accountability. And we are just
26:26
Speaker 3: apprising these generals of that, but also appealing to the
26:28
Speaker 3: American people. And the idea there is that, Okay, we
26:32
Speaker 3: live in a republican system of governance. That means that
26:35
Speaker 3: we as the citizens have amazing responsibilities on our own
26:39
Speaker 3: shoulders because ultimately we are the stakeholders in this republic.
26:44
Speaker 2: And therefore, if we appeal to.
26:46
Speaker 3: Our representatives to no avail, and we appeal to other
26:49
Speaker 3: representatives to no avail, then ultimately we have to appeal
26:53
Speaker 3: to the highest authority, which in a republic is the people.
26:56
Speaker 3: So that's kind of the the ultimate idea under the
27:00
Speaker 3: Declaration of Military Accountability is we're now taking it to
27:04
Speaker 3: the people and letting them know that this this cannot stand.
27:08
Speaker 3: And we named generals and admirals. I mean we had
27:10
Speaker 3: we had them named in there, you know, quite a
27:14
Speaker 3: few of them. But one of them was the chairman
27:17
Speaker 3: of the Joint Chiefs that would have been in place
27:20
Speaker 3: at the time the mandate went into effect, was General
27:22
Speaker 3: Mark Amilly of the US Army. He's one of individuals
27:25
Speaker 3: that is by name mentioned in the declaration.
27:28
Speaker 1: Okay, now, before we get to the response, in so
27:33
Speaker 1: far as those who were on the on the distribution
27:36
Speaker 1: list are concerned, what about the media I was saying.
27:40
Speaker 1: I mean I've always said, you know, UK column obviously
27:43
Speaker 1: covered this, you put it out on Twitter. But was
27:45
Speaker 1: this picked up at all by mainstream media?
27:49
Speaker 3: Okay, yes, yes and no. So it generated a lot
27:54
Speaker 3: of interest and picked up significant interest, I would say
28:00
Speaker 3: in the alternative media and some of the mainstream media
28:04
Speaker 3: that's kind of more on the fringe.
28:05
Speaker 2: So that's why I kind of say yes and no.
28:09
Speaker 2: Some of the major.
28:10
Speaker 3: Outlets, if they were more they were more left leaning, no,
28:13
Speaker 3: they were not going to pick it up. If they
28:15
Speaker 3: were more right leaning, they might. And this is kind
28:18
Speaker 3: of tricky ground because I'm not one of these individuals
28:21
Speaker 3: that really looks at things within the left right paradigm.
28:25
Speaker 3: That said, I think what we wrote was something that
28:29
Speaker 3: could be useful for those who operate within kind of
28:33
Speaker 3: that right half of that paradigm.
28:37
Speaker 2: I think we gave them something that was useful. This
28:39
Speaker 2: was actually a cause of immediate concern for me.
28:42
Speaker 3: So yeah, there were some mainstream outlets that did pick
28:46
Speaker 3: it up, did give it some attention, But in the
28:48
Speaker 3: more alternate media spaces, I would say it picked up
28:53
Speaker 3: a lot of attention.
28:55
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's interesting. I mean, you've hit it the left
28:58
Speaker 1: right thing. The reason I asked it's because I was
29:02
Speaker 1: wondering how in a way it would be spun or
29:06
Speaker 1: how it would be probably tarnished by association to this,
29:11
Speaker 1: if there was any treatment of it that suggested that
29:14
Speaker 1: there was a very deliberate push for it to be
29:17
Speaker 1: sort of kicked into the long grass or marginalized.
29:21
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think this is where we so, first of
29:25
Speaker 3: all those of us who had a hand in either
29:28
Speaker 3: pinning the document I mean really was written by Rob,
29:30
Speaker 3: but then a small circle of us kind of helped
29:33
Speaker 3: edit the language a bit. And then there were two
29:36
Speaker 3: hundred and thirty one of us in total that signed it.
29:39
Speaker 2: So of the two.
29:40
Speaker 3: Thirty one, all were either currently serving or were veterans.
29:46
Speaker 3: So particularly with those who were currently serving, I mean,
29:50
Speaker 3: we we wanted to remain apolitical.
29:53
Speaker 2: We didn't want this.
29:54
Speaker 3: To be of about certain political personalities. However, when got
30:00
Speaker 3: picked up, it could be easily used to kind of
30:04
Speaker 3: attack Biden or the Biden administration, or the Secretary of
30:09
Speaker 3: Defense that was in charge of the Pentagon during the
30:11
Speaker 3: Biden administration, which was Lloyd Austin, because of course, you know,
30:15
Speaker 3: Biden was the president when all this happened. Now, me personally,
30:20
Speaker 3: I've always seen that as something that we and I'm
30:24
Speaker 3: kind of speaking for myself here because there are others
30:27
Speaker 3: within the DMA movement that have seen it a little
30:29
Speaker 3: bit differently. But for me, that was always a concern
30:33
Speaker 3: of mine because I don't necessarily want to reinforce that
30:36
Speaker 3: unhelpful dialectic of the left versus the right, or the
30:39
Speaker 3: Republicans versus the Democrats, you know, kind of this elephant
30:42
Speaker 3: versus donkey smokescreen as I call it. And so I
30:46
Speaker 3: think that's that's where you have to be careful with
30:48
Speaker 3: our DMA because I know.
30:50
Speaker 2: The individuals who created it.
30:52
Speaker 3: I know that it was genuine in content, and that
30:55
Speaker 3: the individuals who who wrote it and signed their names
30:59
Speaker 3: to it potentially a great risk to themselves in their career.
31:03
Speaker 3: I know that they were one hundred percent sincere in
31:06
Speaker 3: doing so. But I also know that if you're not careful,
31:09
Speaker 3: even something that is written totally sincerely can still be
31:14
Speaker 3: used as a tool to kind of reinforce you know,
31:17
Speaker 3: those unhelpful dialectical traps at times.
31:19
Speaker 1: Okay, now, what I absolutely want to know, what the
31:22
Speaker 1: audience will want to know is what sort of response
31:25
Speaker 1: came of it. But before we get to that, the
31:27
Speaker 1: question has to be asked, how the hell is Rob
31:29
Speaker 1: Green still in the Navy?
31:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, great question, great question.
31:33
Speaker 3: So you know, I give all the credit in the
31:35
Speaker 3: world to Rob Green because he was still serving when
31:38
Speaker 3: he did this. You know, he he put his name
31:41
Speaker 3: on it. Before this, he had already written a book
31:43
Speaker 3: that he had put his name on. He would not
31:44
Speaker 3: publish the book anonymously, and again I would encourage people
31:48
Speaker 3: to go pick that book up.
31:49
Speaker 2: Again.
31:49
Speaker 3: It's called Defending the Constitution Behind Enemy Lines and just
31:53
Speaker 3: a fantastic book. But he refused to publish it anonymously.
31:57
Speaker 3: He put his name on it. And he's told me
31:59
Speaker 3: before or that he had a conversation with his wife
32:02
Speaker 3: and he told her, you know, if I if I
32:05
Speaker 3: end up, you know, in military prison because of this,
32:09
Speaker 3: you know, we're gonna have to figure out how you're
32:10
Speaker 3: gonna take care of the kids with me being locked up.
32:13
Speaker 3: But I'm not I'm not going to shy away from this.
32:16
Speaker 3: So I give him all the credit in the world.
32:19
Speaker 3: His career has not been without significant obstacles, but he
32:22
Speaker 3: is still serving and and he unlike me, and this
32:27
Speaker 3: is just a difference of perspective. There are some individuals
32:30
Speaker 3: that when when they have been faced with what we've
32:33
Speaker 3: seen over the last couple of years, they have decided
32:36
Speaker 3: to fight from within the institution, whereas I made a
32:38
Speaker 3: very deliberate decision to fight from from outside. Even when
32:43
Speaker 3: I was relieved of command, I was still inside the army.
32:47
Speaker 3: And then I chose to resign. So those are two
32:50
Speaker 3: different sets of decisions that I made there. I didn't
32:54
Speaker 3: I didn't want to stay till twenty I didn't really
32:56
Speaker 3: want a pension from the government. I kind of would
32:58
Speaker 3: have considered it blood money to my decision.
33:01
Speaker 2: That's my perspective.
33:02
Speaker 3: There are others faced with a similar set of circumstances,
33:06
Speaker 3: made a different decision strategically for their own career and
33:10
Speaker 3: kind of you know, their place and the way that
33:12
Speaker 3: they wanted to kind of fight. And I don't necessarily
33:15
Speaker 3: judge anybody for the decision that they that they made.
33:17
Speaker 2: You know, Rob's a great guy.
33:18
Speaker 3: There are plenty of others that have continued to try
33:20
Speaker 3: and fight from within that just wasn't right for me.
33:23
Speaker 2: And I also maybe see the situation.
33:26
Speaker 3: Slightly differently that they than they do in terms of
33:29
Speaker 3: how bad things are, how far gone our institutions are.
33:33
Speaker 3: But I don't necessarily take anything away from anybody who
33:36
Speaker 3: wants to continue to try and.
33:37
Speaker 2: Fight from within.
33:38
Speaker 1: Yeah's fascinating. Okay, we'll come back to that later because
33:41
Speaker 1: I've got I've got something that you've written that I
33:43
Speaker 1: will quote back at you. But before we do, let's
33:45
Speaker 1: just go to those military that were on that email
33:49
Speaker 1: list and those around them. I mean, what sort of
33:53
Speaker 1: response did come of it, or what are even you know,
33:55
Speaker 1: turn half years on, what effects are being felt from
33:59
Speaker 1: what you did on the first of January twenty twenty four.
34:02
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was met with.
34:05
Speaker 3: Resounding strategic silence, and I think that was deliberate. It
34:10
Speaker 3: was the same way in which they had approached Rob's book,
34:14
Speaker 3: which is one of the reasons that I think he
34:15
Speaker 3: wasn't maybe punished more than he kind of was. His
34:20
Speaker 3: career was a bit marginalized for a while, but I mean,
34:23
Speaker 3: he was never locked up or anything like that.
34:25
Speaker 2: And I think it's because they made a.
34:27
Speaker 3: Deliberate decision don't go after his book, don't try to
34:31
Speaker 3: discredit his book. I'm conjecturing here, but I do think
34:34
Speaker 3: a deliberate decision was made. Don't even touch the book,
34:37
Speaker 3: because even by trying to refute it, you're already lending
34:41
Speaker 3: it some credibility.
34:42
Speaker 2: Don't even touch it.
34:43
Speaker 3: And so I think when the DMA came out, which
34:46
Speaker 3: was very pointed towards them, I think a similar decision
34:50
Speaker 3: was made.
34:52
Speaker 2: But yeah, so.
34:54
Speaker 3: No response initially from senior Pentagon officials. Now clearly that
34:59
Speaker 3: which change a little bit. Towards the end of twenty
35:03
Speaker 3: twenty four, obviously we had our election, and then in
35:06
Speaker 3: January was the inauguration, and so the new administration came
35:10
Speaker 3: in and at least on its face, was going to
35:13
Speaker 3: try and correct some of the wrongs of the COVID
35:16
Speaker 3: shot mandate.
35:16
Speaker 2: I think.
35:18
Speaker 3: The new Pentagon leadership and the new presidential administration has
35:24
Speaker 3: kind of misrepresented how much they've done to try in
35:27
Speaker 3: and repair the wrongdoings associated with the mandate.
35:29
Speaker 2: But that is kind of the.
35:31
Speaker 3: Narrative, is that they are trying to correct everything that
35:34
Speaker 3: the previous administration did wrongly with the mandate.
35:37
Speaker 1: Ye okay, I think that sounds absolutely fair. I'm not
35:41
Speaker 1: going to read something that you wrote relatively recently, and
35:46
Speaker 1: I would like your comment on this set against what
35:50
Speaker 1: it is that drives people to join the armed forces,
35:55
Speaker 1: perhaps the army in particular, and yet to consider some
36:00
Speaker 1: of the things that you were evidently thinking about for
36:02
Speaker 1: quite a lot of your career. So you wrote, the
36:06
Speaker 1: United States military is a capital reallocation consolidation enterprise that
36:11
Speaker 1: operates at the behest of a powerful syndicate of bankers,
36:15
Speaker 1: asset managers, and investors that enrich themselves at the expense
36:20
Speaker 1: of everyday people around the world. Now that's pretty damning,
36:26
Speaker 1: and yet I would wager that you treasure the memories
36:31
Speaker 1: that you had during your nineteen year period and that
36:34
Speaker 1: you served alongside some outstanding people, and I would imagine
36:38
Speaker 1: that you don't regret your service? Am I right?
36:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, you are right.
36:43
Speaker 3: It's a complex issue, and I'm sure that you understand that,
36:49
Speaker 3: and others that are in our shoes as well, those
36:53
Speaker 3: that have been in our boots probably understand that as well.
36:56
Speaker 3: Is how can I make a comment like that, which
36:58
Speaker 3: I wrote relatively recently, How can I make a comment
37:01
Speaker 3: that is that damning but then also kind of cherish
37:04
Speaker 3: my own service or say, hey, I understand why people
37:08
Speaker 3: want to serve, and I understand why peers of mine
37:11
Speaker 3: are still in the service even if I'm not.
37:14
Speaker 2: Now when you read that, you.
37:15
Speaker 3: Can certainly understand why I'm no longer in service, and
37:19
Speaker 3: how even though I've been approached to return, I have
37:23
Speaker 3: not seriously considered that just because I feel like that
37:27
Speaker 3: the true root causes that drove me out of the
37:31
Speaker 3: military haven't really been addressed to a significant enough degree
37:35
Speaker 3: that I would consider going back. That's me, and I
37:40
Speaker 3: do stand by what I wrote there In terms of
37:42
Speaker 3: what the US military has become now, many people who
37:47
Speaker 3: choose to don the uniform, that's not the frame that
37:51
Speaker 3: they have when they enter military service. It is certainly
37:54
Speaker 3: not the frame that I had when I went to
37:55
Speaker 3: West Point. It's not even the frame that I had
37:58
Speaker 3: when I graduated from West Point. It's not even the
38:00
Speaker 3: frame that I had when I went on my first
38:03
Speaker 3: deployment to Afghanistan. It's not even the frame that I
38:05
Speaker 3: had when I returned from my first deployment. It was
38:09
Speaker 3: something that I came to believe kind of after that,
38:13
Speaker 3: once I started doing my research, once I kind of
38:15
Speaker 3: started to put together my own picture of how the
38:18
Speaker 3: world operates and what I think is the US governments
38:21
Speaker 3: and more specifically, the US military's role in kind of
38:25
Speaker 3: maintaining that global order.
38:27
Speaker 1: Okay, so let's go therefore to the sort of the
38:31
Speaker 1: young and this is the bit. You know, I'd like
38:35
Speaker 1: this to really hit home with the sort of lifetime
38:39
Speaker 1: civilians because we're talking. You know, you and I have
38:42
Speaker 1: both served in different capacities, and I absolutely understand what
38:47
Speaker 1: you're talking about. I understand that language, I understand that
38:49
Speaker 1: apparent enormous paradox. But for many others it's really not
38:55
Speaker 1: apparently clear. If you came across and I dare say
38:59
Speaker 1: that you do young man or women, young men, young
39:03
Speaker 1: women who are considering this as a career, what do
39:07
Speaker 1: you say, how do you deal with that these days?
39:11
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's an enormously important question, and obviously it's one
39:16
Speaker 3: that I grappled with and I made.
39:19
Speaker 2: The decision to go into the military.
39:21
Speaker 3: So I certainly can understand why a young person today
39:26
Speaker 3: would look at the military as an option. So that
39:29
Speaker 3: I understand now I have been saying for the last
39:32
Speaker 3: couple of years, and I will continue to say that
39:34
Speaker 3: I cannot recommend military service at this time and when
39:40
Speaker 3: I have broached the subject before, and the way that
39:43
Speaker 3: which I would approach it today. If I were sitting
39:45
Speaker 3: down with, you know, an eighteen year old who's trying
39:48
Speaker 3: to decide what they want to do with their life,
39:53
Speaker 3: I would ask.
39:53
Speaker 2: Them, okay, well, what are your goals?
39:56
Speaker 3: What do you find attractive about the military? Is it
39:58
Speaker 3: the sense of camaraderie. Is it because you want to
40:00
Speaker 3: serve your nation? Is it because you need money for
40:03
Speaker 3: school and that's a route to be able to do that,
40:05
Speaker 3: And maybe that option wouldn't be open to you without
40:07
Speaker 3: military service. And then maybe just try and pull on
40:11
Speaker 3: those threads and see.
40:12
Speaker 2: Exactly what their goals are.
40:15
Speaker 3: And always, when you're when you're approaching a young person
40:18
Speaker 3: about this, you know, my mentality is much different than
40:22
Speaker 3: it was, you know, thirty years ago when I was
40:24
Speaker 3: thinking about you know, when I was first really considering
40:26
Speaker 3: the idea of going to West Point. But one of
40:30
Speaker 3: the reasons that I went to West Point was is
40:34
Speaker 3: I don't know, maybe that you know, there's this this
40:36
Speaker 3: sense of idealism or lyricism attached to it, but it
40:40
Speaker 3: was this love of country. You know. I was always
40:42
Speaker 3: a big fan of history, and you know, West Point
40:45
Speaker 3: is just almost like mythical and kind of its historical prominence,
40:49
Speaker 3: you know, within the United States. So so there may
40:54
Speaker 3: be other young people today who feel the same way.
40:56
Speaker 3: So uh, you know, I don't want to crush anyone's
40:59
Speaker 3: dreams or whatever necessarily want to tell a young person
41:01
Speaker 3: exactly what to.
41:02
Speaker 2: Do or not do.
41:02
Speaker 3: But what I would say is, here are some things
41:05
Speaker 3: to consider. Here maybe some other ways in which you
41:08
Speaker 3: might be able to achieve your goals. And here are
41:11
Speaker 3: some potential pitfalls that you might not have considered that
41:16
Speaker 3: you may have to confront if you go into the military,
41:18
Speaker 3: like something as simple as just the vaccine requirements, you know,
41:21
Speaker 3: or have you considered maybe what drives why we.
41:26
Speaker 2: Go to war? Where we go to war.
41:27
Speaker 3: When we go to war, you know, and I understand
41:29
Speaker 3: that some of that stuff maybe, you know, we don't
41:32
Speaker 3: expect eighteen year olds and necessarily be geopolitical experts.
41:35
Speaker 2: But I think there are.
41:37
Speaker 3: Ways in which we can kind of tease out some
41:38
Speaker 3: of those ideas. But here's the other thing. If someone
41:42
Speaker 3: were to tell me that they are going to join
41:45
Speaker 3: the military, maybe their dad and grandpa and great grandpa
41:48
Speaker 3: served and they just they feel they have a moral
41:50
Speaker 3: and a family obligation to go.
41:52
Speaker 2: It's what they want to do.
41:52
Speaker 3: They've never seriously considered doing something else. Then I would say, Okay,
41:57
Speaker 3: I understand if you so, or here's a little bit
42:02
Speaker 3: of guidance about how to do it, how to make
42:05
Speaker 3: some decisions ahead of time before you're ever confronted with
42:07
Speaker 3: some of these moral dilemmas, and how to maybe protect yourself,
42:10
Speaker 3: you know. So make the decision before you ever put
42:14
Speaker 3: on the uniform as to what you believe is right
42:16
Speaker 3: and what you believe is wrong. Make the decision before
42:19
Speaker 3: you ever put on the uniform that you know why
42:23
Speaker 3: you're going to serve, why you're going to put on
42:25
Speaker 3: that uniform, and that you understand that it's not just about.
42:31
Speaker 2: Some sort of prestige associated with the uniform.
42:33
Speaker 3: That it's about, you know, your love of country and
42:35
Speaker 3: your love of your compatriots, your countrymen, your fellow Americans.
42:40
Speaker 2: You know that should also weigh in.
42:42
Speaker 3: But also understand what it means to be in a
42:47
Speaker 3: situation where you potentially may have to say no to
42:50
Speaker 3: a superior officer. Not because you don't like the order,
42:53
Speaker 3: not because it may even put you at risk. That's
42:55
Speaker 3: not necessarily a reason to disobey an order, but understand
42:59
Speaker 3: what is a legitimate reason to disobey in order make
43:02
Speaker 3: that decision ahead of time, and just kind of know
43:04
Speaker 3: that if you're ever in that situation where you are
43:06
Speaker 3: confronted with something that you know is wrong, something that
43:09
Speaker 3: you know is immoral or unlawful, then just have the
43:14
Speaker 3: decision made ahead of time that you will not go
43:16
Speaker 3: along with it. That's some of the guidance that I
43:18
Speaker 3: would give a young person that is set on military service.
43:22
Speaker 1: I think that would be very very gratefully received by
43:24
Speaker 1: anyone that did hear it. And also I should congratulate
43:27
Speaker 1: I think you seem to have done a very thorough
43:29
Speaker 1: estimate before this interview, because I was going to go
43:31
Speaker 1: on to ask you exactly that question about how you
43:34
Speaker 1: would how you would encourage people who are serving to think,
43:39
Speaker 1: and that's exactly what you've just done. But what that
43:41
Speaker 1: brings out, and this idea of love of country, of course,
43:44
Speaker 1: love of country is an incredible tool there for exploitation
43:49
Speaker 1: by nefarious actors, and I think we're seeing that absolutely
43:54
Speaker 1: across the piece at the minute, particularly under the banner
43:58
Speaker 1: of national secuit, which obviously has never gone away. I
44:02
Speaker 1: mean for the United States, certainly for the United Kingdom.
44:05
Speaker 1: From the late nineties, particularly twenty five years ago. You know,
44:09
Speaker 1: national security was stamped on absolutely everything, and I think
44:12
Speaker 1: we're seeing a resurgence in that now. Just give give
44:16
Speaker 1: us sort of an American perspective on how far down
44:20
Speaker 1: the root of national security people are being pressed in
44:23
Speaker 1: so far as what they're supposed to do in the
44:26
Speaker 1: name of it.
44:27
Speaker 2: It is one of the chief.
44:31
Speaker 3: I would say engines of narrative is national security, because
44:36
Speaker 3: you know, who doesn't care about the security of their nation? Right?
44:40
Speaker 3: And we as human beings, and it's been like this
44:45
Speaker 3: since the beginning of time, Right, we worry about threats
44:50
Speaker 3: and we do some in everyday decisions big or small,
44:54
Speaker 3: we do some sort of even if it's a very
44:56
Speaker 3: rudimentary risk assessment. So I think, on the one hand,
44:59
Speaker 3: we can understand that, and therefore we can understand how
45:03
Speaker 3: certain power complexes then can manipulate our emotions and can
45:09
Speaker 3: manipulate what I would consider to be some of our
45:11
Speaker 3: most positive traits against us. And this is something that
45:15
Speaker 3: I think people have to understand when we look at
45:17
Speaker 3: how the world operates and who these shadowy global figures are,
45:22
Speaker 3: you know, whomever they may be, wherever they may be.
45:26
Speaker 3: Nothing seems to be beyond what they're willing to do,
45:31
Speaker 3: you know, And therefore that means that they will certainly
45:34
Speaker 3: manipulate some of your most positive traits against you. Love
45:40
Speaker 3: of country is one of those. Love of your family
45:43
Speaker 3: is one of those. I mean, perhaps one of the
45:45
Speaker 3: most extreme, ridiculous examples of this is the whole idea
45:49
Speaker 3: that if you didn't take the COVID shot you might
45:51
Speaker 3: put grandma risk.
45:52
Speaker 2: You were a grandma killer.
45:54
Speaker 3: I mean, that is manipulating your love of your family
45:57
Speaker 3: against you, or your love of your community, your love
45:59
Speaker 3: of your of your countrymen. So national security is one
46:02
Speaker 3: of those things that gets right at the heart of
46:07
Speaker 3: our sense of self, but also one of the senses
46:10
Speaker 3: of collective that we also feel if someone is threatening
46:15
Speaker 3: our country, you know, the citizens of our country, then
46:17
Speaker 3: to some degree they are threatening us. So with Americans
46:21
Speaker 3: are are particularly susceptible to this. I think just because
46:25
Speaker 3: of our own our own history, we've kind of over
46:29
Speaker 3: two hundred and fifty years, we've we've really come to
46:32
Speaker 3: believe our own hype in some ways.
46:35
Speaker 2: And I'm a I mean, I'm a I'm not an
46:38
Speaker 2: America hater.
46:39
Speaker 3: I mean, I'm you know, we're getting ready to celebrate,
46:41
Speaker 3: you know, the two hundred and fifteth anniversary of July fourth.
46:44
Speaker 3: I mean, I'm ready to celebrate. I love my country,
46:48
Speaker 3: but I am heavily critical of the government. You know.
46:51
Speaker 3: There's a saying that I've always liked from the author
46:55
Speaker 3: Mark Twain, which says patriotism means loving your country always
47:02
Speaker 3: and loving your government.
47:03
Speaker 2: When it deserves it.
47:04
Speaker 3: And that resonates with me because I think we have
47:07
Speaker 3: to draw a stark contrast between country and government. They're
47:13
Speaker 3: not synonyms, you know, They're they're not the same thing.
47:16
Speaker 3: And sometimes the best thing that you can do for
47:19
Speaker 3: your country or to support your country or express your
47:21
Speaker 3: love of country and your fellow citizens, is to rightly
47:28
Speaker 3: demarcate the authorities and limitations of you know, government encroachment
47:35
Speaker 3: into our lives.
47:36
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think your point will bring out Twain's quote
47:38
Speaker 1: is most opposite and in fact leads me on to
47:41
Speaker 1: talk about something else that absolutely has been wrapped up
47:45
Speaker 1: as national security, certainly in the United Kingdom and the
47:47
Speaker 1: United States as well, not least because of the extraordinary
47:51
Speaker 1: no convergence of the two militaries. But I want to
47:55
Speaker 1: ask you about Israel and the part that the state
48:00
Speaker 1: of Israel the government appears to play in the everyday
48:05
Speaker 1: lives of Americans who are paying their tax dollars into
48:11
Speaker 1: the military industrial complex. In order that you know, in
48:16
Speaker 1: order that what I mean is what is going on
48:20
Speaker 1: and how is that being regarded by by people that
48:23
Speaker 1: you're sort of in touch with.
48:26
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is a topic that has rightly garnered a
48:29
Speaker 3: lot of attention over the last couple of months. And
48:33
Speaker 3: of course we look at what's happening right now in
48:37
Speaker 3: and around Iran, but also just here domestically, some of
48:42
Speaker 3: these proposals that have come out recently for increased interoperability
48:47
Speaker 3: between the two militaries, and then we look at how
48:50
Speaker 3: it almost becomes hard to determine where from a foreign
48:54
Speaker 3: policy perspective, where policy objectives from the Israeli perspective end
49:00
Speaker 3: and American ones begin, or vice versa. So I think
49:04
Speaker 3: Israel has So I am not one of these individuals
49:07
Speaker 3: that believes that Israel controls of the United States. I don't
49:09
Speaker 3: believe that the verse is necessarily true either. I kind
49:13
Speaker 3: of look at it as there's clearly some sort of global,
49:16
Speaker 3: you know, power complex that kind of controls both.
49:19
Speaker 2: And there are a lot of.
49:21
Speaker 3: Financial, military, and even technical and dare I say technocratic
49:27
Speaker 3: initiatives that are served by the governments of both. But
49:33
Speaker 3: militarily speaking, Israel clearly serves as an outpost for certain
49:39
Speaker 3: operational objectives within that region. Now, some of that, on
49:43
Speaker 3: its surface is to be understood. You could say the
49:47
Speaker 3: same thing about South Korea in East Asia that that
49:51
Speaker 3: allows us to kind of project power just regionally. Now
49:54
Speaker 3: is that good or is that bad or whatever? But
49:56
Speaker 3: that's that's certainly not unique to Israel. But the israe
50:00
Speaker 3: relationship with the United States is something that I think
50:03
Speaker 3: a lot of Americans are rightly uncomfortable with for a
50:07
Speaker 3: variety of reasons. One the clear influence in US policy
50:13
Speaker 3: and with US policy makers that is very direct and
50:18
Speaker 3: highly outsized.
50:19
Speaker 2: Given you know other countries that also we have a
50:24
Speaker 2: strong relationship with right. But then also.
50:28
Speaker 3: There's the uh, there's the religious slash, you know, ethnic
50:35
Speaker 3: levers that are pulled for reasons of influence, and they're
50:40
Speaker 3: used quite often. I mean, I'm a very strong critic
50:43
Speaker 3: of Zionism, but that is something that has obviously influenced
50:46
Speaker 3: American politics and still continues to influence American politics.
50:50
Speaker 2: But also Israel.
50:51
Speaker 3: Has become a way in which the US government can
50:56
Speaker 3: achieve certain objectives without having to do it itself and
50:59
Speaker 3: therefore granted itself a screen of plausible deniability. And I
51:04
Speaker 3: would use as an example a lot of what has
51:06
Speaker 3: been going on in Gaza over the last couple of years.
51:09
Speaker 3: Another thing is is that there are innovations, largely technical
51:15
Speaker 3: but with military application that are I would say kind
51:18
Speaker 3: of being There are proofs of concept that are going
51:23
Speaker 3: on that Israel is conducting that I think will make
51:25
Speaker 3: their way back into the American military. And just some
51:30
Speaker 3: of the things that have been done in Gaza, particularly
51:33
Speaker 3: with the way in which AI and other tech initiatives
51:37
Speaker 3: have been used in their decision making models, or they're
51:39
Speaker 3: targeting cycles, and the way in which AI has become
51:45
Speaker 3: a crucial part of those targeting cycles, I think is
51:47
Speaker 3: going to make its way back into the US. The
51:50
Speaker 3: US is obviously already using AI systems, But I think
51:55
Speaker 3: the part that a lot of us kind of worry
51:57
Speaker 3: about is okay, as you remove more and more of
52:00
Speaker 3: the human decision making element from the way in which
52:04
Speaker 3: decisions are made as to what targets are going to
52:07
Speaker 3: be assigned, how effects are going to be delivered on
52:11
Speaker 3: that target, and then how battle damage assessments are going
52:14
Speaker 3: to be done. What is the role of the human
52:18
Speaker 3: decision maker in that? And I think some of that
52:20
Speaker 3: is kind of already being proved by the Israeli military
52:23
Speaker 3: in ways that I think will make their way back
52:25
Speaker 3: to Western militaries.
52:27
Speaker 2: But certainly, you know, the American one.
52:30
Speaker 1: I think you put that very well in so far
52:32
Speaker 1: as not necessarily suggesting that either the United States controls
52:37
Speaker 1: Israel or Israel controls the United States, because in a
52:40
Speaker 1: way it's a bit of a false binary. The point
52:43
Speaker 1: of it is that exactly like you say, the United
52:47
Speaker 1: States in effect is able to have that level of
52:51
Speaker 1: plausible deniability. But also, of course, there are an awful
52:55
Speaker 1: lot of people who are doing very well out of
52:57
Speaker 1: that situation. And exactly like I read out in the
53:01
Speaker 1: quote from your writing, this is driven in large part
53:06
Speaker 1: by enormous financial decision making processes.
53:11
Speaker 3: So our idea of the military industrial complex, I think
53:15
Speaker 3: does need to be updated.
53:16
Speaker 2: So this is a term.
53:18
Speaker 3: It's used very pervasively in the US and has been
53:21
Speaker 3: for the last six decades because it was used by
53:24
Speaker 3: President Eisenhower as he was leaving office Beware of the
53:27
Speaker 3: military industrial complex, and that for many decades meant.
53:33
Speaker 2: Largely military hardware.
53:34
Speaker 3: You know, these large corporations Boeing, Lockheed, Martin raytheon.
53:38
Speaker 2: North of Gronham that are are you.
53:41
Speaker 3: Know, who's building our munitions and who's building the computer systems?
53:45
Speaker 3: You know, the computer systems, the guide the munitions.
53:49
Speaker 2: What about our ships? Who build those? Who's going to
53:52
Speaker 2: build you know, tanks, et cetera.
53:54
Speaker 3: And I think if we take the same concept, but
53:56
Speaker 3: we update it, we realize that now the military industrial
54:00
Speaker 3: complex is concerned about data.
54:03
Speaker 2: You know, first and foremost.
54:04
Speaker 3: Right now, so there's this increasingly technical aspect of the
54:09
Speaker 3: military industrial complex. So it's it's not so much that
54:12
Speaker 3: Raytheon and Lockey Martin have become less important. They're still
54:16
Speaker 3: very important, but now it's Palanteer. And of course that
54:19
Speaker 3: has to be the first one that I that I mentioned,
54:21
Speaker 3: but it's not the only one. There are other data
54:24
Speaker 3: collection and analysis corporations out there that are becoming increasingly
54:30
Speaker 3: sophisticated and increasingly more important in terms of their contracts
54:35
Speaker 3: that they have with the Pentagon.
54:38
Speaker 1: Back in the day where the government, the Department of Defense,
54:42
Speaker 1: the Ministry of Defense, Department of War, you know, whatever
54:45
Speaker 1: day is, would purchase x number of leanfield rifles. There
54:50
Speaker 1: you go. Once you take control of that weapon system,
54:54
Speaker 1: of that ammunitional whatever you are in charge of it.
54:58
Speaker 1: We're now in an age where that balance of who
55:03
Speaker 1: controls what has shifted dramatically away from the military. And
55:08
Speaker 1: so with that in mind, my question I suppose, and
55:11
Speaker 1: it's impossible to an extent because obviously you don't have
55:14
Speaker 1: a crystal ball, but I mean, over you know, let's
55:17
Speaker 1: say the next five years, how do you see that
55:20
Speaker 1: situation playing out in the corporations you mentioned are in
55:25
Speaker 1: effect running the show. What's that going to do to warfare,
55:29
Speaker 1: to the to the militaries that are that are that
55:32
Speaker 1: are you know, sort of in the in the crosshairs.
55:35
Speaker 3: There's a there's a figure in American history that even
55:38
Speaker 3: a lot of Americans are not familiar with. And the
55:43
Speaker 3: individual's name is Smedley Butler. So, Smedley Butler was a
55:46
Speaker 3: two star Marine general, served for well over thirty years
55:50
Speaker 3: and wrote a little booklet that was published I believe
55:52
Speaker 3: in nineteen thirty five if I remember off the top
55:54
Speaker 3: of my head, but if I'm wrong, it's right around
55:56
Speaker 3: that time period. So the book is ninety years old
55:59
Speaker 3: and it was called war is a Racket. And interestingly enough,
56:03
Speaker 3: so Smedley Butler, you know, three decades of military service,
56:06
Speaker 3: he comes to the realization this is, you know, prior
56:08
Speaker 3: to World War Two, and he comes to the realization
56:11
Speaker 3: that he had been a hired muscleman for the bankers. Well,
56:16
Speaker 3: if we take that same concept and we update it
56:19
Speaker 3: by ninety years, just how much more sophisticated is the
56:23
Speaker 3: racket that Smedley Butler had identified. The other thing that's
56:27
Speaker 3: really interesting about Smedley Butler is he was also approached
56:31
Speaker 3: in the thirties by a group of shady businessmen that
56:36
Speaker 3: actually asked him to basically stir up a spirit of
56:41
Speaker 3: rebellion amongst a bunch of service members and disaffected veterans
56:45
Speaker 3: to overthrow the FDR.
56:47
Speaker 2: White House.
56:48
Speaker 3: Now this was he ended up blowing the whistle to Congress,
56:51
Speaker 3: and of course he would not go along with it
56:52
Speaker 3: because he was a principaled man. But if we take
56:56
Speaker 3: this idea of well, how powerful were these wealthy businessmen
57:00
Speaker 3: to where they even thought that something like that was possible,
57:04
Speaker 3: and when we just look at how much further we
57:07
Speaker 3: have kind of devolved in ninety years. So there are
57:12
Speaker 3: a couple of things that come to mind as I
57:15
Speaker 3: ponder your question. One, war does not look like the
57:20
Speaker 3: way in which even you and I were kind of
57:22
Speaker 3: taught that war should look when we entered military service.
57:26
Speaker 3: It definitely doesn't look the way in which, you know,
57:29
Speaker 3: pick your favorite military movie. When you think of war,
57:32
Speaker 3: you may kind of think that it looks like that's
57:35
Speaker 3: That's not the way war looks Nowadays. It is becoming
57:39
Speaker 3: increasingly more sophisticated, data driven. And there's a term that
57:42
Speaker 3: I use which I'm kind of borrowing from Professor Peterdale.
57:45
Speaker 3: Scott and his use of the terms you know, deep events,
57:48
Speaker 3: deep politics, and of course deep state, a term that
57:51
Speaker 3: he popularized in the West but really came from Turkey.
57:56
Speaker 3: But we are in what I would call it deep war,
57:58
Speaker 3: and what that means is that it's a war that
58:01
Speaker 3: doesn't look the way we think war should look.
58:03
Speaker 2: It's not always kinetic. Kinetic is one of the.
58:06
Speaker 3: Modalities through which it may be expressed, but there are others.
58:10
Speaker 3: It is increasingly difficult to understand where the battle lines
58:13
Speaker 3: are drawn. It's not always geographically determined, and it's not
58:17
Speaker 3: always determined as well this political entity that we call
58:21
Speaker 3: a state versus this political entity that we call a
58:24
Speaker 3: state kind of the geopolitics model that we learned in
58:27
Speaker 3: high school or in you know, international relations classes, and
58:30
Speaker 3: at the university level it's it's far more sophisticated than that,
58:34
Speaker 3: and the battle lines are very difficult, and I would
58:37
Speaker 3: say in some ways it's more that there are these
58:40
Speaker 3: power complexes that are global in nature, that are kind
58:43
Speaker 3: of waging war against all the people. And it will
58:46
Speaker 3: sometimes masquerade as war between state A versus State B,
58:52
Speaker 3: but then in essence it may be something there may
58:55
Speaker 3: be something more that is happening in the background. However,
58:58
Speaker 3: one thing that doesn't show is war is largely about
59:02
Speaker 3: the control of resources and therefore supply or transit routes
59:08
Speaker 3: or other shipping corridors that are used to move resources.
59:13
Speaker 3: And I think that's kind of what we're seeing in
59:15
Speaker 3: and around the straight of horror moves right now. But
59:18
Speaker 3: I assume this is clearly conjecture on my part. What
59:22
Speaker 3: I think is happening in the background is it's not
59:24
Speaker 3: so much a war between Israel and the United States
59:28
Speaker 3: on one hand, and I ran on the other, but
59:31
Speaker 3: it's more that you have interests at play. You have
59:36
Speaker 3: you know, power complexes that can kind of have some
59:40
Speaker 3: degree of influence over both sides. And I think that
59:43
Speaker 3: deals are being made in back rooms. Exactly how those
59:47
Speaker 3: deals are made, I don't know, but then the the
59:53
Speaker 3: effect of kind of some of that deal making then
59:56
Speaker 3: plays itself out, and that's what we see, and heads
1:00:00
Speaker 3: of state try and explain what's happening in a way
1:00:04
Speaker 3: that they're you know, their citizens.
1:00:07
Speaker 2: Will bite off on.
1:00:08
Speaker 3: And so I think that that's what we see Trump
1:00:10
Speaker 3: doing when Trump tries to come to the American people
1:00:13
Speaker 3: and explain what is happening with Iran, and the American
1:00:17
Speaker 3: people have trouble buying it because what we've seen recently
1:00:21
Speaker 3: is with the supposed deals with Iran is they're on again,
1:00:24
Speaker 3: off again.
1:00:25
Speaker 2: So is there a war?
1:00:26
Speaker 3: Is there not a war? Do we have a deal
1:00:28
Speaker 3: with Iran? If we do have a deal, what are
1:00:31
Speaker 3: the actual tenets of the deal? Because in the United
1:00:33
Speaker 3: States we hear one thing, the Iranian media says something else.
1:00:37
Speaker 3: Israel may say something totally different from either of those two.
1:00:42
Speaker 3: And I think, unfortunately, this is probably the way that
1:00:46
Speaker 3: it's going to continue to be. Is it's going to
1:00:48
Speaker 3: become murkier and murkier as to what exactly is happening.
1:00:52
Speaker 2: How do we find the truth?
1:00:54
Speaker 3: Statements will be made by heads of state and some
1:00:58
Speaker 3: of those the real reason and why those statements are made.
1:01:01
Speaker 2: Is because it's done.
1:01:03
Speaker 3: It's done deliberately to cause some sort of fluctuation in
1:01:07
Speaker 3: the market. I think that's a huge part of what
1:01:09
Speaker 3: we're seeing as well. So more than that, you know,
1:01:12
Speaker 3: it's it's kind of difficult to say, but this is
1:01:15
Speaker 3: where I would say for Americans or for those in
1:01:19
Speaker 3: the UK or other places that are just kind of
1:01:21
Speaker 3: watching what's happening. We should always kind of approach this
1:01:24
Speaker 3: stuff with with some skepticism of course as to what
1:01:27
Speaker 3: we're even as to a what we're being told and why,
1:01:30
Speaker 3: but b even what we're seeing. I mean, we're now
1:01:33
Speaker 3: in a day and age where I mean, you can't
1:01:35
Speaker 3: even you know, you can't even trust your lie in
1:01:37
Speaker 3: eyes because if you if you see it on the
1:01:39
Speaker 3: news or you see supposed footage, I mean, there's just
1:01:42
Speaker 3: no way to know that what you're seeing represents some
1:01:45
Speaker 3: sort of you know, reality on the ground.
1:01:47
Speaker 1: Very true. I certainly can't disagree with with any of that,
1:01:50
Speaker 1: and I think that sound advice and also as conjecture goes,
1:01:53
Speaker 1: I'd say that's pretty bulletproof. Now we are a bit
1:01:56
Speaker 1: short of time, but but I don't want to let
1:01:58
Speaker 1: you go before you explain where you are and why
1:02:02
Speaker 1: you're there, because what the UK Colon audience loves more
1:02:05
Speaker 1: than anything else is to hear about somebody who's actually
1:02:08
Speaker 1: doing something. Tell us what you're up to.
1:02:12
Speaker 3: Yeah, So I am currently in Ohio and I am
1:02:16
Speaker 3: here for an event that will take place tomorrow night,
1:02:20
Speaker 3: so the evening of June thirtieth, and that is for
1:02:24
Speaker 3: the viewing of a documentary that is called Duty to Disobey.
1:02:27
Speaker 3: And it was produced by on the one hand, by
1:02:30
Speaker 3: Children's Health Defense, which some of your audience may be
1:02:33
Speaker 3: aware of, and then the Tommy Burrows production company.
1:02:38
Speaker 2: And so the documentary.
1:02:40
Speaker 3: Tells the story of exactly how we kind of opened
1:02:43
Speaker 3: our discussion. So it tells the story of service members
1:02:46
Speaker 3: that were impacted by the COVID shot mandate. And in fact,
1:02:49
Speaker 3: that's where the title of the documentary comes from. Duty
1:02:51
Speaker 3: to Disobey kind of hearkens back to this idea that yes,
1:02:55
Speaker 3: you do have a duty to disobey unlawful orders. This
1:03:00
Speaker 3: documentary can be seen by anybody who wants to see it.
1:03:03
Speaker 3: We're gonna have viewings all over the US tomorrow night.
1:03:07
Speaker 3: But it can also be viewed online, So anybody can
1:03:10
Speaker 3: go to Duty to disobeyfilm dot com and can learn
1:03:14
Speaker 3: more about the documentary. So Duty to disobeyfilm dot com.
1:03:19
Speaker 3: But I appreciate you asking about that.
1:03:21
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, but just one more thing, because just just
1:03:23
Speaker 1: talk about the military chapter the Children's Health Health Defense
1:03:28
Speaker 1: just tell us a little bit about that, you know, So.
1:03:31
Speaker 3: How did somebody like me who doesn't you know, I'm
1:03:33
Speaker 3: not married I don't even have children. How did I
1:03:35
Speaker 3: get linked up with Children's Health Defense? Well, people who
1:03:40
Speaker 3: are familiar with the organization, and if you're not familiar
1:03:43
Speaker 3: with it at all, you can simply go to the website.
1:03:45
Speaker 2: At Children's Health Defense dot org.
1:03:46
Speaker 3: But they have become a recognized leader in education, primarily
1:03:53
Speaker 3: for parents or others about risks associated with the vaccines.
1:03:57
Speaker 3: That's kind of how Children's Health Defense kind of made
1:04:00
Speaker 3: a name for itself over the last couple of years. Well,
1:04:03
Speaker 3: service members were a particularly disaffected group of individuals that
1:04:08
Speaker 3: were looking to inform themselves about specifically the COVID shots.
1:04:14
Speaker 3: And as people were looking for information, a lot of
1:04:16
Speaker 3: them came across HD, which was providing a lot of
1:04:19
Speaker 3: good information in late twenty twenty, early twenty twenty one,
1:04:22
Speaker 3: et cetera. And so there arose this need for HD
1:04:27
Speaker 3: to be able to cater specifically to military needs that
1:04:30
Speaker 3: are a little bit different than maybe parents who are
1:04:32
Speaker 3: trying to educate themselves about whether or not to vaccinate
1:04:35
Speaker 3: their children.
1:04:36
Speaker 2: And so.
1:04:38
Speaker 3: CHD is comprised of a bunch of different geographically aligned
1:04:42
Speaker 3: chapters inside the US but also outside the US. But
1:04:47
Speaker 3: in twenty twenty three, we actually launched a military chapter.
1:04:50
Speaker 3: I'm one of the individuals who just you know, in
1:04:51
Speaker 3: my own capacity, just as a volunteer, I assisted in
1:04:57
Speaker 3: the launch of that chapter and remain in a capacity
1:05:01
Speaker 3: to help them along the way.
1:05:03
Speaker 2: And so, yeah, the Military Chapter.
1:05:05
Speaker 3: If people want to find out more about the Military
1:05:07
Speaker 3: Chapter specifically, you can just go to mil mil mil
1:05:11
Speaker 3: dot Children's Health Defense dot org. The page for the
1:05:14
Speaker 3: Military Chapter will come right up. But so, the Military
1:05:19
Speaker 3: Chapter had this idea a while back to potentially do
1:05:24
Speaker 3: a documentary. Well why a documentary now that would come
1:05:27
Speaker 3: out in the summer of twenty twenty six.
1:05:29
Speaker 2: What people care about? It? Is this issue still important?
1:05:32
Speaker 3: And here's the thing, Well, it is important, and it's
1:05:38
Speaker 3: important because unfortunately a lot of people I see this
1:05:41
Speaker 3: in the US, but it's probably the same there. A
1:05:43
Speaker 3: lot of people have kind of started to forget the
1:05:47
Speaker 3: tyranny that we lived through just a couple of years ago.
1:05:50
Speaker 2: It's been shocking to me.
1:05:52
Speaker 3: And if there's a message that I want people to
1:05:55
Speaker 3: take not just from this documentary, but just in general,
1:05:59
Speaker 3: we're not through this. Unfortunately, the COVID operation was not
1:06:02
Speaker 3: a one off. We don't know what they're going to
1:06:04
Speaker 3: plan next. Maybe it won't look exactly like the COVID operation,
1:06:08
Speaker 3: which didn't look exactly like nine to eleven or other
1:06:11
Speaker 3: operations they have performed, you know.
1:06:12
Speaker 2: Throughout history around the world. But they're not done.
1:06:16
Speaker 3: They're not done trying to strip resources away from us.
1:06:18
Speaker 3: And we do see elements of technocracy that are being built,
1:06:22
Speaker 3: you know, all around the world, and so it's important
1:06:24
Speaker 3: for us to kind of understand, Hey, this is still ongoing, Like,
1:06:28
Speaker 3: let's not forget the lessons that we learned just five
1:06:31
Speaker 3: or six years ago, and let's continue to build, and
1:06:34
Speaker 3: let's continue to look out for each other and also
1:06:36
Speaker 3: to promote resources that will help other people kind of
1:06:41
Speaker 3: understand the bigger picture of what's happening.
1:06:42
Speaker 1: I think you're absolutely bang on, and I'm afraid to
1:06:45
Speaker 1: say I completely agree with you with regard to the
1:06:47
Speaker 1: warning issued. Brad. Now tell me where can people follow
1:06:52
Speaker 1: what you do and what you write and all that
1:06:54
Speaker 1: sort of thing.
1:06:56
Speaker 2: Yeah.
1:06:56
Speaker 3: Thanks, So the easiest places to find me are my
1:07:01
Speaker 3: Twitter or x account. My handle is at Brad Miller
1:07:04
Speaker 3: one zero one zero, So at Brad Miller one zero
1:07:08
Speaker 3: one zero, you can find me at substack. It's just
1:07:11
Speaker 3: Bradmiller one zero dot substack dot com. And if you
1:07:15
Speaker 3: go on YouTube, and I think if you just if
1:07:18
Speaker 3: you search on YouTube at brad Miller one zero, I
1:07:21
Speaker 3: think my channel will come up.
1:07:24
Speaker 2: So I do try to.
1:07:26
Speaker 3: I mean, I have a day job, and you know,
1:07:27
Speaker 3: I'm pretty busy, but I try to find time to
1:07:30
Speaker 3: do things like this, just you know, my volunteer capacity,
1:07:34
Speaker 3: but also where I can find time. I'm fairly active
1:07:38
Speaker 3: on x but also in writing on substack or in
1:07:43
Speaker 3: making videos when I feel like I have something that
1:07:46
Speaker 3: maybe somebody needs to hear, or I don't know, maybe
1:07:50
Speaker 3: I'm just talking to myself sometimes, but I like to
1:07:52
Speaker 3: get out there and just you know, share my thoughts
1:07:55
Speaker 3: when I can.
1:07:56
Speaker 1: Good, okay, And that'll be links to all the things
1:07:58
Speaker 1: that you've mentioned companying this interview, Brad Miller, it has
1:08:02
Speaker 1: been a rollercoaster and a real pleasure to talk to you.
1:08:04
Speaker 1: Thank you very much indeed for joining me, and I
1:08:06
Speaker 1: hope we'll speak again.
1:08:07
Speaker 3: Charles, thank you really appreciate it. I appreciate the really
1:08:10
Speaker 3: good questions