Coming up next from earlier today code pink founder was on the indepth program to discuss her writing and answer viewer questions. Among her books bridging the global gap how to stop the next war now into and at the most recent, drone warfare. Host Medea Benjamin how and when was code pink found it . Guest we were a group of women environmentalists sitting together in a retreat right after 9 11 talking about how he we could deal with the Climate Crisis and during the lunch break we started talking about the 9 11 attack and we were talking about how horrible it was that the u. S. Was about to invade a country that had nothing to do with 9 11 and we started laughing about the colorcoded alerts. Remember that yellow, orange, red and seeing how it was to keep people in the state of fear and that we needed another colorcoded alerts to say theres a different way of dealing with this. We go after whoever attacked us and not a wholesale nation of countries and thats when we came up with the idea of code pink. Originally we wanted it to be hot pink because we are feisty when anybody was already taken by a porn group. We were in on the organization and wanted to stop the invasion in iraq. So we did that. We got involved and we had a tremendous support around the country without really trying we found we had hundreds of thousands of people that signed up to the email list and we had hundreds of groups that form spontaneously and we were pretty much Larger Movement that did things like come out to protest on the click february 15, 2003 which was recorded as the largest demonstration around the world in the history of humankind, so the issue was to stop the war in iraq. We were unable to do that but in the process, we realized that there was a need for the voices to continue to try to bring our troops home, to try to stop future wars and address the issues of violence and militarism and weve continued to do that. We take the issues mostly via what is our government in the u. S. Involved in because while we do have supporters around the world most of us are from the u. S. And so we look at how can we as american citizens. Fullstop our responsibility to try to make the policy as positive in the broadest possible so we looked to where the government is not doing well in those respects and try to move the government policies. Host so the war in afghanistan, justified . Guest we did not think that it was the right thing to do. We thought we should go after individuals that attacked us and not invade and occupy other countries. We just commissioned a report to come out in the fall that will look at the results of all of the years in afghanistan the number of u. S. Soldiers have died, the number of civilians that we want to look at how is life improved for the women of afghanistan, and with the research that weve been doing their thing very few changes in the lives of most afghan women despite the fact that weve spent probably at this point the chileans of dollars and that we have been there over 13 years, so we dont feel that the afghan occupation and balances a popular thing. Host your most recent book is on pro warfare. Any justification for using drone . Guest i dont like the war at war and also i would like any technology to be used. The u. S. Has been involved in all too many wars and theres too many going on in other places and in those situations they become just another piece of technology thats used in warfare that we have seen some special things happening around the use of drones and in places we are not even at war in pakistan or yemen and i think that the technology itself has been making it easier for the u. S. To get involved in places and its been making it easy for the u. S. To get involved in the terri affairs without a conversation even in Congress Much less with the American People about whether or not we should be involved in those conflicts. Host from the book drone pilots thousands of miles away from the physical danger before they are fighting of the war they are fighting the only danger they face is mental. Guest its been shown by several studies that drone pilots face a level of ptsd similar to those in the battlefield. It is not easy for a soldier to sit at a desk and watch a screen sometimes for ten, 12 hours a day. And they might watch the father playing with children or see another going out. They coached soccer team and so theres a lot of problems that drone pilots are facing and there is a shortage now. Host you also write guest this isnt born and raised in denver has father was killed by a u. S. Drone strike and then he himself was having dinner with a bunch of other teenagers was told in the u. S. Drone strike. This was an amazing example of the u. S. Killing an american citizen killing a child and doing it without any kind of attempt to explain to the family or to us why it was done, was it a mistake was it on purpose what did he do was he ever charged with anything . Did they try to capture him . It was a blatant example of illegal use of drugs or. Host may 1, 2010 years the white house correspondents dinner. They are out there somewhere. Sasha and malia are huge fans that dont but dont get any ideas, i have two words predator drones. You will never see it coming. Host your reaction to that joke. Guest its not funny at all to the people that live under the fear of drones. One thing i learned in the research its not just the people that are killed whether they are innocent civilians, militant highvalue targets, its the entire population in the area that punished collectively. Imagine if you were in your home wherever you live and you were looking up at the sky and there was a buzzing of drones and you knew it had missiles that was going to kill somebody that you didnt know who when where, why coming and what, and what i found is that in these areas it is playing overhead, parents are afraid to send children to school afraid to go out to the market or any Community Event but there it is weddings or funerals because theyve been known to target so it is a terrifying thing and i dont think that its anything the president should be joking about. Host january 30 code pink is pretty well known in capitol hill for interrupting hearings. Lets watch this video. [inaudible] in the name of the people. Ive been a member of this committee for many years and ive never seen anything as disgraceful and outrageous and despicable as the last demonstration that took place about youre going to have to shut up or ill have you arrested. If we cant get the Capitol Hill Police in here immediately get out of here you lowlife scum. [applause] i hope on behalf of all of the members of the kennedy on both sides of the aisle in effect from all of my code geeks i would like to apologize for allowing such disgraceful behavior towards a man that served his country with the greatest distinction. I apologize profusely. Host guest this is coming from john mccains committee that pushed to get us into the war in iraq. Whether its Henry Kissinger or john mccain or george bush or Donald Rumsfeld i could name many, people in this country are rarely held accountable for their acts. Ive lived in latin america. Id seen the kind of responses to Henry Kissinger that led to so much death and destruction in that country. Ive been where Henry Kissinger gave a green light for the dictatorship to invade the island, and again so much destruction there. I grew up in the time of the vietnam so i remember Henry Kissinger and all of the lies that we were told. So, Henry Kissinger to me is a war criminal and should be treated as such. John mccain is somebody that is responsible partially for getting us into a herd in this this war in iraq that led to the death of deaths of thousands of centers in vain. Why arent people held responsible . Perhaps because this is the superpower and a country that has been all powerful and powerful could raise that are usually not held accountable. Look at the International Criminal court. They should tell us how to run our Foreign Policy. These are people that have taken us down the path of militarism that has made such mayhem around the world that we should look for other voices from the voices that say lets look for Nonviolent Solutions and have a Foreign Policy based on diplomacy and Mutual Respect and that is not the policy of people like Henry Kissinger. Host from the Facebook Page this question from steve and i would understand if you choose not to answer. How do you and other activists in your organization gain admittance to the press conferences and hearings . I would think that they would know you by now but maybe it is open to the public. Guest is a good question and we are asked that a lot. When i went to the first hearing on capitol hill i was in San Francisco at the time and it was when i read in the paper that Donald Rumsfeld was going to justify testify why we should go to the war in iraq and i was opposed and i asked another friend from texas if she would fly to washington, d. C. And join me and she said if somebody can help me pay for my ticket i will go ahead and do it we didnt know that the public could go to these hearings in fact we dressed up in pantsuit and journalists got a little standout had. And we thought we should pretend we were journalists. Love and behold anybody was allowed in there if you got up early enough and got online. So it was a revelation to me that these public hearings mean the public is invited. We tend to be the first ones online editor of the times when there were so many people trying to get into the hearings that they stepped outside of the building to be the first ones to get in. Technically we have to be allowed inside. Sometimes when weve gotten arrested he might have a stay away order that says we cant go to the buildings for this amount of time and sometimes the people that run the hearings try to stack the hearings but in general i would say more of the public should attend the hearings if youre coming to washington, d. C. On vacation looked up online senate. Gov or house. Gov. Its important to go to these hearings and its important for people who dont live inside of the beltway to go to these hearings and feel how the Government Works in action and actually its not pretty often times because what you see is very narrow viewpoint that the democrats and republicans who are asking the questions and by the witnesses that tend to be people who think alike. I found it remarkable to go to the hearings and feel frustrated that the questions that i as a citizen for not being asked. For example the first hearing with Donald Rumsfeld he was being asked some softball questions by the congresspeople about why he was advocating that we go to war. So originally i thought i would put up the banner and say i have questions as the public how many rights are going to be lost in this and how many civilians are going to die in this and how Many Companies are going to make a lot of money from this. What is the exit strategy in this plan . Why the un inspectors and i have just been to iraq saying there are no weapons of mass distraction and so i was asking all these questions holding up the banner and i realized that to expand the conversation i think for example the public hearings should have a time maybe ten minutes, 15 minutes at the end of the hearing where the public should get the chance to say something. I think before the gavel goes down the public should be able to express their views but unfortunately because of code pink. The police have been told to be harder on us even before the hearing starts. I should add add the Capitol Police are not very happy about that. To their credit, they believe in the freedom of expression and they think that we should have a chance to express ourselves. Unfortunately there are people that run the committees like john mccain. What happens after you are escorted out of the hearings . Its taken to capitol hill headquarters. Its how many times youve been arrested. You are assigned date to come back you are taken to trial and you might be given some kind of plea bargain which might include a stay away that you cant go back to the Congressional Office for a certain amount of time and you might have to do a certain amount of Community Service and have a certain financial amount of money that you might have to pay sometimes in some say this is a moral position that we have. Host how many times have you been arrested and how many penalties have you encountered . Ive been arrested dozens of times over the course of the work i do and many have been before 9 11 and i was in baltimore around economic work trying to type things like sweatshops or corporate abuses that ive been arrested dozens of times. I spent time in jail ive done many shares of Community Service and unfortunately i would say that many times this comes with the territory. Its not like we are trying to get arrested. There are times people do want to get arrested for example, thereve been a number of times where weve done protests at the white house where people will stand arm to arm and not move from the white house and we know that if you dont keep moving at the white house and and youre over 25 people but that is arrestable and weve had hundreds of people getting arrested for just standing there in front of the white house. Those are times when people are voluntarily getting arrested and i appreciate and have participated in organized in a number of those kind of arrests. But when we are speaking out in the hearings especially before or after the hearing has actually started we dont plan to get arrested or want to get arrested and we dont think we should be. Host do the police know you when you come in . Do they plan for that . Guest as soon as we walk in the door there is a smile on their face because theyve come to like us a lot. We have a friendship with the Capitol Police. They give us big hugs when we come inside. Sometimes we are standing in line to get in the hearing and they will give a high five or a hug. They know us and they like us because they know that we are nonviolent and that we wouldnt touch anyone or hurt anybody and they know that we are passionate about these issues and they appreciate that just as i appreciate people that might be on the totally opposite side of an issue that i am on that they are passionate about the issues that we have something in common. We be leaving getting involved in government activities. This domestic issues or international issues. The Capitol Police we are trying to have a party now for one of the lieutenant that recently retired because we enjoyed over the years having conversations with him about these issues. They often times dont agree with us on a lot of the things that again they appreciate the passion and involvement and over the years i think that theyve come to understand that we feel this responsibility as citizens to try to steer the government on a better path. Many of the Capitol Police have been on the military or their sons or daughters are in the military. They at this point dont want to see them sent off a broad on what they now consider the fools mission. So over the years theyve come to recognize that we have been right on these issues. We shouldnt have invaded iraq. We shouldnt have always looked at these problems overseas as one that military can solve and so i think not only do they appreciate us as individuals but theyve moved closer and closer to the position. Host may 23, 2013. Lets watch. We went [inaudible] can you tell the muslim people that their lives are as precious as ours and to take the drugs out of the hands of the cia and stop killing people on the basis of suspicious activities and apologize to the thousands of muslims that could have killed and to the innocent family victims that wont make us safer here at home. I love my country and the world abroad. [inaudible] the voice of that woman is worth paying attention to. [applause] obviously i do not agree with much of what she said and obviously she wasnt listening to me and much of what i said. I love my country and i love the rule of law and i think thats important for the viewers to understand. I dont do these things because i want to. My heart was pounding almost coming out of my chest and there was a voice saying dont do this he is the president of the United States and there was another saying you just got back from dmn and met with people whose mothers were killed whose children were killed who were absolutely innocent people and your government is lying to us saying we dont kill innocent people. You met with people who are asking the u. S. Government to explain why their loved ones were killed to apologize for killing them, to compensate them for their loss just as a gesture to show that they are sorry so these voices were wrestling in my head and i chose the voice of the victims, and i feel that is so important because president obamas drove warfare has been almost victimless in the eyes of the people. Where have you seen the mainstream people coming just the missiles basically incinerate the victims so its hard to show their bodies. Cant we talk to their loved ones . Cant we talk to their mothers their fathers, their wives husbands . American people havent been able to get the kind of empathy that i have from going to these places and meeting these families coming in so i feel my government has been lying to me about the number of innocent People Killed and my government has been using illegal practices of just dropping missiles on people willynilly because we think that they might be that people without ever having to prove it without ever having to account for the innocent people and there was a chance to address the president and i interested and i think that for the muslim world its important to see a nonmuslim and i also jewish and i think thats important to see to say that their lives are more in precious. I have a granddaughter that i