Climate crisis and during our lunch break we started talking about the 9 11 attack, the u. S. Invaded afghanistan 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 color coated. It was really to keep people in a state of fare fear and that we needed another colorcoated alerto that theres another way of dealing with this. Thats when we came up with the idea of code pink. We wanted to be hot pink because we were fivesy women but it was already it was taken by a foreignut group. We game pink. How do you pickos your issues . We started out not wanting to be an ongoing organization. And so we did that, we got involved. We had tremendous support around theme country without without really trying we had hundreds of groups that formed in places around the country and we were part of a much Larger Movement that did things that come out to protest on days like february 15, 2003 which is recorded as the largest demonstrations around the world ever in the history of human kind. So our issue was to stop the war in iraq, unfortunately we werent able to do that, but in the process we realized that there was a need for our voices to continue to try to bring our troops home, to try to stop future wars and to really address the issues of violence, and we have continued to do that. We pick our issues, peter mostly by what is our government int the u. S. Involved in. We do have supporters around the world, most of us are from the u. S. How can we as american citizens fulfill our responsibility to try to make our Foreign Policy as positives in the world as possible, so we look to where our government is not doing well in those respects and try to move government policies. So the war in afghanistan justice we did not think it was the right think to do. We thought that we should go after individuals that attacked us and not invade and occupy other countries. We have just commissioned a report tot come out in the fall that will look at the results of all of the years of the u. S. Being in afghanistan the number of u. S. Soldiers that have died, the number of civilians that have died. Mainly we want to look has life improved for women in afghanistan. With the research that we have been doing theres no changes despite the fact that we spent dollars in iran. Your most recent book is of drone warfare. Any justification to use drone in the warfare . Unfortunately the u. S. Has been involved in all too many wars and in those situations drones become just another piece of technology that is used in warfare, but we see some special things that are happening with the use of drones that u. S. Are using them in places where were not even at war like pakistan, yemen, the Drone Technology itself has been making it easier for the u. S. To get involved in place where were not at war and making i ut easier for the u. S. To get voled in involved in military affair without conversation in congress as to whether or not we need to be involved in thosefl conflicts. The only danger they face is mental. Er it it has been shown that drone pilotsim face ptet like soldiers in the battlefield. Its not easy for a soldier to sit as a desk and be watching a screen for 1012 hours a day getting toer know people on the ground, because sometimes they are hovering over a particular house and might watch the father playing with his children or see the mother going out to watch wash the laundry and kids going to school and then one day theyrere told to kill that person so theres a lot of problems that the drone pilots are facing. Thats why theres actually a shortage of drone pilots now. You write about u. S. Born son of alima. 16yearold american citizen born and raised in denver. His family moved back to yemen his father was killed by a u. S. Drone strike, and then he himself the 16yearold in a separate drone strike while he was having dinner with a bunch of other teenagers was killed in theil u. S. Drone strike. This is just an amazing example of the u. S. Killing an american citizen,n 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, on purpose what did he w ever do, was he ever charged with anything, no, was he ever tried did the u. S. Ever try to capturetu him no. Was he ever given a trial. No. It was one of the most blatant examples of illegal use of drone ware far. Here is the president at the washington correspondents dinner. Do jonahs brothers are here. Theyre some where. Sasha and ma will recollect are fans. I have two words for you drones. [laughs] its not funny at all. T not funny to the people that live under the fear of drones. One thing that i learned that just the people that are killed, whether innocent civilians highvalued targets its the entire population in the area that is being punished collectively. Imagine that you were out w in your home or wherefore you wherever you live and there was a buzzing of drones. You knew that the drones had missiles on it that was going to kill somebody, you didnt know who, when where and why, and what i found is that in these areas where the drones are flying overhead, parents are afraid to send their children to school, theyre afraid to go to any Community Events whether its even weddings or fun funerals. So its a terrifying thing to live under drones. I dont think its anything that the president should be joking about. January 30th, 2015 code pink isry pretty well known in capitol hill for interrupting hearings. Lets watch this video. [screams] in the name of the people we dont want to hear from you. In the name of the people in vietnam. You know ive been a member for many years and ive never seen as despicable about the demonstration that took place. If we cant get the policed police get out of here you lowlife scum. [applause] so henry i hope on behalf of all of the members on both sides of the aisle in fact from all of my colleagues, i would like to apologize for allowing such disgraceful towards a man whoou served his country with the greatestti distinction. I apologize profusely. Lowlife scum. Reasoned and yes, this is coming from john mccain somebody who pushed us to the war in iraq. I could name many many. Unfortunately people in this country rarely are held accountable for their acts. I have lived in latin america, i have seen the kind of responses to henry responsible chile that lead to so much death and destruction in the country. He gave a green light for the death and destruction there. Im, remember henry and all the lies that we were told, so henry to me is a war criminal and should bel treated as such. John mccain has is mb who somebody who is responsible who lead us to deaths of thousands of u. S. Solders. Why arent people held responsible . Perhaps because this is the superpower, this is the country that has been all powerful and the powerful countries are usually not held accountable. Look at the International Criminal court. Its not the powerful that go there for war crimes. I think its important that there be voices out there that say that we we remember and we do not hold some of these people in high regards as statemen that we should listen to. These are people that have taken down a path that has made such mayhem around the world. Lets have a Foreign Policy based on diplomacy. From our Facebook Page this question from steven, i would understand if you chose not to answer, he writes, how do you and other activities gain admittance to the conference and hearings, i would think they would know you right now but maybe its open to the public. Theres a very good question. When i went to my first hearing i was living in San Francisco at the sameea at the time. I read that ronald was going to testify about why we should go to the war in iraq. I was so opposed of the war in iraq that in asked another friend from texas if she would fly to washingtonet d. C. And get into this hearing, he said if somebody help me pay for me ticket, then i would do it. We dressed up in pan suits. We got steno pads. We tucked the Washington Post and we put our banners down our pants because we thought we better pretend we were journalists. Anybody was allowed in there if you got up early. These public hearings means the public is invited. We tend to be the first ones on line we get up very early. There have been times when people were trying to get in the hearings we slept outside to be the first ones to get in. Techtechnically we have to be allowed inside. Now, sometimes when we have gotten arrested we might have a stay away order that said we cant go to the buildings for x amount of time. Sometimes peoplee that run the hearing they bring in all their staff, they take up all the seats so theres no seating for the public, but in general pun lick hearings, and i would say towe your viewers more public should attend. Look up online the hear that is are happening. Its fascinating to go to those hearings, its important for peoples who dont live inside the beltway and feel how Government Works in action, and actually its not pretty oftentimes. You see very narrow viewpoints by democrats and republicans asking the questions and by the witnesses who tend to be people that think alike. Iea find remarkable to go to the hearings and feel frustrating that the questions as citizens were not being asked. He was being asked some softball questions by the Congress People abou bt why he was advocating that we go to war. And so i felt like i had to stand up and say, i have some questions as the public, how many lives are going to be lost in this, how many civilians are going to die in this, how Many Companies are going to make a lot of money from this what is the exit strategy in this plan, have you exhausted all Nonviolent Solutions why are the u. N. Inspectors saying that there are no weapons of mass destruction, and so i was asking all these questions and holding up a banner. I realized that i feel an obligation as a u. S. Citizen to expand the conversation. I think, for example that public hearings should have a time 1015 minutes at the end of the hearing where the public gets a chance to say something. I think before the gavel goes downth the public should be able to express their views in these hearings. Unfortunately because of code pink being out there and holding up signs and doing this nonviolent protest the police have been told to be harder on us even before a hearing start if were there holding a sign, we can be arrested for that. I should ask that the Capital Police are not too happy about that. They too believe in free expression, we should have a chance to express ourselves. Unfortunately there are people who run these committees like johntt mccain who opposed to any expression coming from the public. What happens to you after youre escorted out after most of the time were arrested. It depends how many times youve been arrested. If if its your first arrest you get a fine, a second arrest you get a fine. If its your third you get assigned a date to come back, youre either taken to trial or might be given plea bargain you might have to do a certain number of hours of community service. You might have a certain financial amounts of money that you have to pay. Sometimes people refuse to pay these fines and say that this is moral position that weso have. How many times have you been arrested, how many of those penalties that youve encountered . Ive been arrested dozens of time. Many of those arrests were involvedol before 9 11, trying to fight thing like sweat shops corporate abuses. Ive spent ive spent time in jail. Unfortunately i would say that this comes with the territory. Its not like were try to go trying too get arrested. There have been a number of times where weve done protest at the white house and we know that if you dont keep moving at the white house and youre over 25 people that thats arrestable and weve had hundreds of people for just standing around the white house. There were times when people were getting arrested. But when were speaking out in the hearings specially before or after it started we dont plan to get arrested we dont want to get arrested and we dont think we should get arrested. Do thehe Capitol Hill Police know you when you come in . Do they plan for that . Theres actually big smiles on their faces because they come to like us a lot. We have a friendship with the Capital Police. They g give us big hugs when we come inside, sometimes were standing in line and one of the police theyll come in and give us a highfive or a hug. They know that we are nonviolent. Absolutely nonviolent, they know we wouldnt touch anyone or hurt anyone. They know that we are passionate about these issues and they appreciate that just asia appreciate people who might be on the totally opposite side of thehi issue but we have something in common, we believe in getting involve. The Capital Police were trying to have a party for a lieutenant that retired because we enjoyed having conversations with them about these issues. They oftentimes dont agree with us on a lot of the things, they appreciate our passion involvement and other the years have com he to understand that we feel this responsibility as citizens to try to steer our government on a better path. Many of the Capital Police have been on the military or their sons or daughters are in the military. They att this point dont want to see them sent off abroad on what they consider a full admission. So over the years they have come to recognize that we have been o right on these issues. We shouldnt have invaded iraq. We shouldnt have always seen as problems overseas that military ca n solve. May 23rd, 2013. Lets watch. We went we went can you tell the muslim people their lives are as precious as our lives can you take the broans from the cia can you strike to the chile people . Can you apologize to the thousands of muslims that you have killed . Were addressing that, maam. I love my country. Drones are making us less safe. Thehe voice of that woman is worth paying attention. Obviously [applause] obviously i do not agree with much of what she said, and obviously she wasnt listening to me in much of what i said. I love my country and i love the rule of law. I think thats important for your viewers to understand. I dont do these things because i want to. My heart was pounding, it was coming out of my chest peter. Theret was a voice saying dont dof this, hes the president of the United States. Another voice was saying, you just got back from yemen who were absolutely innocent people and your government is lying 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 for their loss. These two voices were wrestling in my head. I chose the voice of the victims, and i feel thats so important, peter because president obama drone warfare has been almost victimless. When have you seen the media . Its hard to show their bodies. Can we talk to their loved ones, mothers, fathers wives husbands and so American People havent been able to get the kindet of empathy that i have from going to these places and meeting these families, and so i feel my f government has been lying to me about the number of innocent people killed. My government has been using illegal practices of just dropping missiles on people because we think they might be bad people without ever having to prove it, without ever having tocc account for the innocent people killed. That was my chance to address the president and i addressed. I think for the muslim world its important to see a nonmuslim. And im also jewish. I think thats important to say. My children and i have two and i have a granddaughter who i just adore are so precious to me that i dont want other peoples children or grandchildren killed. And so i havei to stand up and say tota my government, stop lying, stop using killing, capture people, give them accuse them of something give them a trial and treat every life as if it were your own childs life. Youre watching book tv on cspan2. Once a month we invite an author. This time author and activist. Shes well known as cofounder of code pink. Hereut are her books. Dont be afraid gringo. Nore free lunch food and resolution, food and cuba today. The peace at war. Cuba talking about a revolution also in 1997. Shes a coeditor of that book 2002. How to stop the next war now . Coeditor, 2009 and finally drone warfare. What is it about the u. S. And latin americas relationship over the past 150 years . Its about the u. S. Try to go tell latin america how it should return its internal affair, the idea that its our backyard and we can make and break governments at our will. And its funny peter because i feel that my politics came from my first experiences of traveling to latin america. Going to guatemala and learn about the beautiful culture and what i learned about was my own history. I learned about the brothers and how they were imposing u. S. Policy on guatemala, i learned about the overthrow jacobo. I learned about chile and the overthrow of the democratic. People said, wait a minute, you should go back and learn about your own country your own history and work to change your governments policies so that you allow us to elect the governments that we want and dont interfere in our internal affairs, and that became a lesson to me and one that has stuck with me my entire life, which is that we should not try to dictate how other countries and people behave. Its a lesson that more of our leaders try to work, they try to engineer other countries, and one its not fair, and two it doesnt work. Were going to put the numbers on the screen. If you want to participate. Here are the numbers. And if you cant get through the phonelines you can get through via social media twitter at book tv is our twitter handle. You can make a comment on our Facebook Page facebook. Com book tv. When did you become ma dea . I was born susan, i was born in a suburban household in long island, new york, and i was growing up in the 60s. I look back at my youth and i realized that i was tremendously affected by several things, one was the war in vietnam and i started a peace group in my high school. Another was race issues that i had lived in a white suburb where black families started moving in and it brought out some really ugly racism among my neighbors i and i sided with the black families, and the other wass issues of materialism. Im thinking about Martin Luther king talking about the evils and i noticed in my own ne