The Problem with Jon Stewart (2021) s02e08 Episode Script

[Stewart] Coming up on The Problem
America hired itself
as the guardian of world peace,
and our foreign policy has been
everything, everywhere, all at once.
[audience chuckling]
We're competing for talent.
Almost 40% of our budget is pay
for the people that we hire.
You don't want China coming in, going,
"What are they offering you?"
We are the agents of this instability,
in search of cheaper oil,
cheaper goods, cheaper labor.
It's certainly arguable.
Doesn't mean that I embrace it.
-You-- You will embrace it, sir.
[audience applauding, cheering]
Hey!
Hello!
Welcome!
I'm Jon Stewart.
You know, in the old Daily Show days,
I used to doodle and, like, pretend
that I was doing something.
Now I look at this
and pretend I'm reading it
because without [chuckles] my glasses,
I can't even read this script.
I just wanted you to know that.
I'm an old man.
My name is Jon Stewart,
and I wanted to ask you, uh,
the audience here
and the audience at home,
are you enjoying your peace dividend?
[audience laughs]
You know what a peace dividend is?
Your peace dividend is the bonus
that citizens of a country enjoy
when their country finally emerges
from years of conflict, of war.
We have had 20 years of war. Yes.
[whispering] Twenty years.
[normal voice] And from what I understand,
it's now-- It's over.
Trillions of dollars spent,
thousands of lives lost--
hundreds of thousands of lives lost
if you count the lives in other countries,
which as you know, we-- we do not.
[audience laughing]
The reasonable expectation
for Americans might be
that the war-fighting arm
of the American system,
the Defense Department,
would thus be receiving
a postwar bit of what we'll call
a haircut, budgetarily.
The Senate passing a record $858 billion
defense authorization bill.
[reporter] I believe $45 billion more
than the White House was asking for
in this budget.
Was that necessary?
No, it wasn't.
[scoffs] Wha--
-[audience laughing]
Take-- No. Take your time with the answer.
Yes. It almost never is.
You got it correct. $858 billion.
The war's ended,
and the Pentagon got a raise.
Forty-five billion dollars could hire
400,000 nurses,
subsidize health care
for over 15 million children,
fix every one
of America's failing bridges.
Why in God's name does the Pentagon,
in a postwar environment, need more money?
The world continues
to flirt with World War III.
[reporter 2] Tensions rising with China.
-Another object flying over Alaska.
[reporter 3] unprecedented number
of missile tests by North Korea.
[reporter 4]
A major incident is only a matter of time.
Putin and his military leaders
have threatened nuclear war.
[audience laughing]
Nuclear war?
No problem. They told me in grade school
that this would work.
Hold on, I'll be right back--
-[laughing continues]
So this never ends!
Because the world needs us on that wall.
And that wall has to be built
by professional contractors like Raytheon.
And those contractors
have to dip their balls in gold.
Oh, gold and balls. Perfect together.
-[audience laughing]
Two great tastes that go great together.
Heavy is the head that wears the crown.
For nearly seven decades,
the United States has been
the anchor of global security.
This has meant doing more
than forging international agreements.
It has meant enforcing them.
The burdens of leadership are often heavy,
but the world's a better place
because we have borne them.
I forgot how fucking slow he used to talk.
[audience laughing]
I literally--
I almost fell out of my chair like--
[audience laughs]
'Cause, you know, anytime he speaks
from the "I killed bin Laden" hallway,
you know shit's about to go down.
[audience laughs]
But the point is very simple.
The United States doesn't wanna do this,
but we have to,
for you, the free world.
And thus
"The Problem with Defense."
Since World War II,
America has hired itself
as the guardian of global security
and international order.
But for some reason,
this massive job of world peace
is funneled almost entirely
through the Department of Blowing Shit Up.
Of course, there are other avenues
to maintain world peace.
But when the entire budget
of your State Department,
the carrot part of our government,
is $52 billion,
and $75 billion is going
to just one stick-maker,
what do you think
we're gonna reach for first?
Carrot or stick?
How does it happen?
Well, there's 535 members of Congress.
And last year, there were
816 defense contractor lobbyists.
So war has more representatives
in Congress than Americans do.
Even our lead peace activist has pivoted
to selling bespoke dildos on Netflix.
[audience laughing]
I'm told each one of those costs
a million dollars at the Pentagon.
[audience laughs]
So the question becomes, are we getting
our world peace money's worth?
Because over the years, we've employed
many different costly international
agreement-enforcing measures.
We've tried
the bomb-and-leave methodology.
It's a bit of an ordnance sampler
that says we care,
but not enough for boots on the ground
that I know about.
[audience laughs]
-[clicks tongue]
Does it work?
Well, it's more cost effective, but it's--
pardon the phrase-- hit-or-miss.
And then, of course, we offer countries
the platinum package: the bomb-and-stay.
Your Koreas, your Vietnams,
your Afghanistans, your Iraqs.
You may ask yourself,
"Why do we have to stay so long
in those places?"
Well, it turns out that
when you bomb the shit out of a place,
the instability you create
needs to be managed.
For instance,
when we took out Saddam Hussein
[chuckles] the craziest thing happened.
ISIS originated with Al-Qaeda in Iraq,
going back to 2005, 2006, 2007--
We had to stay there
to deal with the ISIS threat,
which we caused by taking out Saddam.
It totally worked.
-[audience laughs]
[reporter 5] ISIS has spread far beyond
its strongholds in Syria and Iraq.
In fact,
US military officials tell NBC news
they worry about the growing signs
of ISIS presence
in a half dozen other places.
You see, sometimes a side effect
of spreading democracy
is accidentally spreading ISIS
and a refugee crisis.
Moving on.
Maybe you're looking for
more of a refresher package
without all that collateral damage,
in which case,
America will teach you how to bomb.
We offer military training
to nascent democratic republics
looking to shore up those aspirations.
We do that a lot. [chuckles]
-[audience laughs]
And while that occasionally does lead
to newly trained militaries
overthrowing those nascent democracies
you gotta risk it
to get the biscuit. [laughs]
[audience laughing]
And then there's just
the straight fucking coups.
Have we ever tried to meddle
in other countries' elections?
Oh, probably.
But, uh, it was for the good of the system
in order to avoid the communists
from taking over.
We don't do that now? We don't mess around
in other people's elections, Jim?
Well, mmm [mumbles]
[audience laughing]
She asked you if we do coups,
and your response was the same as you get
when you're lapping up soft ice cream.
[audience laughing]
Are we overthrowing leaders?
[imitating Woolsey]
Mmm, yum-yum-yum-yum-yum
Mmm. [smacks lips]
-[audience laughing]
[normal voice] The point is,
being the world's policeman is a big job
because the world is
a very dangerous place
filled with many dangerous weapons.
And here's where it gets tricky.
We are also
the world's largest weapons dealer.
While we are personally enforcing
global security agreements,
we are also seeding the world
with global chaos starter kits.
And while, occasionally,
two of the countries we sell weapons to
end up fighting each other
or use those weapons to commit war crimes,
we are very careful with what happens
to these precious weapons.
[reporter 6] Courtesy of Uncle Sam,
American-supplied armor
now riding under Taliban colors.
The spoils of victory being paraded
by the new masters of Kandahar.
[imitating Steve Urkel] Did we do that?
-[audience laughing]
[normal voice]
By the way, Masters of Kandahar is
the worst reality show I've ever seen.
I am starting to wonder
if the anchor of global security might be
attached to a sinking ship.
Since 1945,
our mostly chasing-our-tail
military strategy has been
everything, everywhere, all at once.
[audience laughing]
That's super fucking creepy, that graphic.
[chuckles, stammers]
-[audience laughing]
Such a good movie though.
And while it's incredibly expensive
and not that successful,
at least it's unsustainable.
Twenty percent of America's total budget
goes to defense.
Fifty percent of America's
discretionary budget goes to defense.
We spend more money on defense
than the next nine countries combined,
including China and Russia.
We spend $55 billion a year
maintaining about 750 military bases
in 80 different countries and territories
and then added a space force
'cause I don't think we appreciate
Venus's attitude.
Are you looking at us?
[audience laughs]
But we can keep this going
'cause we're America.
King Kong got nothing on us!
What goes up can stay up indefinitely.
Unless it's of unknown or Chinese origin.
And yes, our reach extends to the bases,
to our interventions,
the arms sales and to the coups.
We look a lot like an empire.
And as the Roman Empire learned,
and then the Ottoman Empire,
and then the British Empire,
we appear to be out over our skis a bit.
It's like we're playing
a game of Risk with ourselves.
Meanwhile, at home, our infrastructure
plan seems to rest solely on the stamina
of one 400-year-old man.
[audience laughing]
After decades of destruction
both at home and abroad,
maybe it's time for the United States
military and media industrial complex
to lay down our weapons and rethink
this suicide pact of a strategy,
believing that we can not just influence
but control the world.
Maybe we need a moment
to take a breather and think.
War with China could be coming
as soon as 2025.
Go fuck yourself.
[audience laughing]
Take a look at this.
[audience cheering, applauding]
America has
-no money
so please
-stop asking us
to provide for
-our own citizens.
We must be fiscally responsible.
We're broke.
We can't
-feed everybody.
We're broke.
-We can't help
every American.
We just don't have the money to do it.
But if you want to
-start a war
surely we can
find the money for that.
How much money do you need?
-A couple billion dollars.
5.7.
-Twelve.
-1.7.
Six trillion.
-Thirty trillion.
How about 35 or 40 trillion
-for defense contractors
all around the world.
We are always going to have
money for
-defense contractors
because they're our friends.
They pay for
-our campaigns.
So everyday Americans are
not important to us.
But if you
-profit from war
we'll give you
-anything that you want
for democracy.
Mmm [mumbles]
[audience laughing, cheering, applauding]
All right. So
-[cheering, applauding continues]
to help-- [exclaims]
Nicely done.
Uh, to help make sense
of our ever-growing defense spending
and its ramifications,
both abroad and at home,
we have with us today Michael McCord,
who is the chief financial officer
and comptroller at the Defense Department.
We have Farhad Yousafzai,
the former head of procurement
in Afghanistan
for USAID and military projects.
And Elizabeth Shackelford.
She's a career diplomat across Africa
and senior fellow on US foreign policy
at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs.
Thank you guys so much for joining us.
It's much appreciated.
[audience cheering, applauding]
-Uh
Michael, I'm gonna start with you.
-[McCord] Yeah.
And I want to make sure
that we understand.
You're just trying to make sense
of the chaos of the budget.
Would that be correct?
We can talk about
why is our budget the size it is.
I would say the first thing is,
is who we are.
Fifty years ago,
we decided to end the draft,
so now we're competing for talent.
So, almost 40% of our budget is pay
and allowances
and benefits for the people that we hire:
civilians, military especially.
So we're competing for talent.
We're-- We're paying for--
You know, be competitive.
You don't want them going to work
for other armies.
Not luxurious, but competitive.
You don't want China coming in, going,
"What are they offering you?"
[McCord] Yep. Yep.
Second is what we do
-[Stewart] Mm-hmm.
which is, we're expected to be--
-Global security.
Global. In this hemisphere.
Anywhere in the world.
If you send the military,
you expect them to be able to do
what you ask them to do, near or far.
And then the third thing is what we buy.
I'm talking about things
that are high-end, like submarines,
that only one or two companies can make.
-Right.
So
-[Stewart] Right.
Those things don't go on sale.
[Stewart, audience laughing]
[Stewart] I don't imagine they do.
Uh, what about
the diplomacy-industrial complex?
Let's just say
that the diplomacy-industrial complex
is not particularly robust
and doesn't
have a lot of lobbyists on the Hill.
You don't get the same big money that you
get from the military-industrial complex.
When I was in South Sudan,
which, at the time, was a country, um--
A war began while I was there.
It was a very high focus
of the White House
in terms of Africa policy.
And because we were so poorly funded,
we didn't have enough vehicles
to go to meetings and do our jobs.
So, for example,
while all of my military colleagues had
cars to take themselves somewhere,
USAID colleagues and myself,
and other diplomats,
would have to play Rock, Paper, Scissors
to decide who got to go
do their work that day.
Wow.
My military colleagues always wanted us
to be able to do our jobs.
All of them would stand up and say, uh,
"Can't you make it to this meeting?"
But the budget differentiation
is just a representation
of where we put our value.
Farhad,
that brings up an interesting point.
I remember, uh, being in Afghanistan
in, like, 2007, 2008.
And it was very clear
that America was Afghanistan's economy
Mm-hmm.
-at that moment.
But I also remember thinking,
"But we are an alien force
and culture here."
The-- In the beginning, there was--
People were very much optimistic
when the, uh-- after 9/11,
when the intervention start.
But after 2007 and '08,
things have been changed.
The US, they didn't work with
the people of Afghanistan.
The democracy that they were thinking
that they can implement it in Afghanistan,
exactly what we have here in the US,
it's not the way it work over there.
Mm-hmm.
It's exactly like
when we have a leakage in the roof,
and there is water all the way fall down,
and you're just cleaning the water
without patching the leak.
We were not fixing the real problem.
-[Yousafzai] Absolutely.
The real problem
and the source of the terrorism
never been touched in Afghanistan.
So, I guess,
the question that I would ask is,
was there any real connection
to the money that came in
and the strategic aims?
The money that's spent in Afghanistan,
the Pentagon approve it.
They are just not spent on the target.
We spent the money in the areas
where was no security.
We have no accountability
where we spend the money.
For example,
we spend the money on the infrastructure,
on the roads, on the buildings or clinics,
that was damaged back
after a day or a month.
And then we don't have anything--
So we would build a road,
and then we would bomb that road,
and then we would build it again?
We-- We bombed it,
or maybe al-- Taliban bombed it,
or maybe the contractor bombed it
because they were doing
a very worse quality of work.
That's right. We keep going into these
situations with an incredible aspiration.
And every time,
reality sort of meets us in the face.
And yet we continue to pursue
what feels like an identical strategy.
Just keep bolstering the military complex,
keep the diplomatic core there
but somewhat restrained.
Is-Is that a conversation in the Pentagon
about shifting resources?
Or are they really just concerned
about force projection,
and-and are they isolated
from these other missions?
There was an attempt to train
and equip the Afghan military
to-to stand on their own without us,
to do economic projects.
There were definitely,
I think, attempts to branch out
and think about how to address
that problem specifically
in ways that were different
than had been in other places.
But, um
-[Stewart stammers] It's difficult.
You know, in terms of a learning curve,
we go from world power problems
to global terror problems,
and now we're pivoting back
to world power problems.
I think a lot of it has to do with
the tools that we're relying on.
And I like to think of diplomacy as being
your primary care physician, right.
The person that you go to to do
preventative work, preventative medicine.
And when you're looking at places
that are already unstable and troubled,
you have-- you have underlying issues
that need to be addressed.
You have grievances against a government
that's not serving its people.
You have economic issues,
so people don't have jobs
and can't support their families.
You have food insecurity.
And none of those can be addressed
with a military solution.
So we understand--
-[audience applauding]
[chuckles]
[Shackelford] So, the mil--
-Hold on one-- You hippie motherfuckers.
[audience laughing]
-[chuckles]
So, we understand that we need that--
you know, that we need to use
those other tools.
But, you know,
you look at the additional $45 billion
that Congress gave
to the Department of Defense.
That's not a huge amount of money to them.
I don't know why.
But to the--
For the international affairs budget,
which is the entire
civilian foreign affairs budget
that covers State Department, USAID,
for development work
and a lot of other things
[stammers]
that's, like, 70% of what we get.
That additional tack-on from Congress.
-Really? The tip.
The little top-off that they gave
-That little top-off.
would be almost everything for you guys.
-Almost everything for us.
And so just imagine
how much more we could do
if we had those types of resources
and we were able to do our jobs
more effectively.
[Stewart] I think the experience
you had, Farhad, was,
if everything, uh--
if you're a hammer, everything's a nail.
And that's-- I was just trying
to go with the roof thing, Farhad.
I don't know.
-[audience laughing]
Y-You know what? [stammers]
We spent millions of dollar
on Afghan army.
But we-- we also spent million of dollars
to support Pakistan army as well.
And they were the people who trained
the al-- Taliban back
and bring them all of a sudden,
after 20 years, in one month,
and collapse everything.
And in 1980s,
our parents were the partner with the US,
and we defeated Russia.
At that time, we also left behind.
And what happened?
What happened on 9/11
in your neighborhood,
it was happening every day for 20 years
in Afghanistan,
but no one see it
until the world shock on 9/11,
and we went back to Afghanistan.
What happened right now in Afghanistan
is worse than that.
The Taliban is more trained,
well-equipped,
and also,
we leave behind a lot of equipment,
a lot of military equipment-- weapons,
night vision, body armor-- over there.
That is the biggest concern
for our future generation as well.
It does feel like we repeat
the same mistake in 20-year cycles.
I-I-I thank you guys so much,
uh, for being here,
'cause it really does appear
that we're chasing our tails.
Uh, thank you so much,
Michael McCord, Farhad Yousafzai
and Elizabeth Shackelford.
[audience applauding, cheering]
All right, well, uh
-[cheering, applauding continues]
So, uh, to get some perspective
from someone on the front lines,
uh, in our felt-like-forever wars,
we sat down with retired four-star general
and former commander of troops in Iraq
and Afghanistan,
General David Petraeus.
General Petraeus, in your mind,
what is the purpose of American
military might around the world?
Well, look, the purpose of our military,
of course, fundamentally, uh,
is to protect our territorial integrity,
our citizens, our sovereignty,
our interests
and Americans around the world.
Mmm.
To be a bit more specific--
I actually did a tiny bit of research
for this, uh, and I-- I--
I should have done that.
What was I thinking?
-What were you thinking?
I wrote down five foreign policy goals.
-[groans] Okay.
Um, and so to put those up front:
preserve our national security
-Okay.
protect world peace
in a secure global environment,
uh, maintain a balance
of power among nations,
work with allies and others
to solve international problems,
promote democratic values,
uh, and human rights.
So it's sort of a force
for balance, stability,
and the world order
Yeah, I mean, from our perspective.
-as we see it.
From our perspective.
-And from our perspective,
you might even say
it would be a force for good.
You know, my experience mostly
in the last 20, 25 years,
like everybody else's,
is Iraq and Afghanistan.
But it's hard for me
to look at those interventions
and see the metrics with, uh-- [stammers]
that you describe
as being on the plus side.
Let's start with Afghanistan
because that was the first intervention,
uh, understandably.
That's where
the 9/11 attacks were planned,
when al-Qaeda had a sanctuary there
under Taliban rule.
Mm-hmm.
-We went there for a simple reason.
When the Taliban refused
to eliminate that sanctuary
Mm-hmm.
-we went in to eliminate it, uh,
and to ensure that it could not come back.
Because we--
-And-And in that moment, though,
we also have the responsibility then--
We're training an army,
and we're trying to--
Well, we're helping a country
-Helping a country--
reestablish its institutions.
Right. [stammers] People would refer to it
as nation-building.
We're nation-building in Afghanistan
-Yes, sure. Yep. Yep.
after achieving a military objective.
-Yep.
Which was inescapable.
I know that a lot of the--
That many people conclude that, you know,
"It all went wrong.
We should have just taken out bin Laden."
Of course to take him out,
we had to take out the Taliban.
So the country is now
without any organizing principles.
Right. Yeah.
-And the problem was that
we didn't focus sufficiently early on.
We had an incredible--
-Well, we had Iraq.
And so then you shifted focus.
-That's right.
Ungoverned spaces in the Muslim world
will be filled with Islamist extremists.
It drives violence, more extremism,
sometimes a tsunami of refugees,
as we saw with the reconstitution
of the Islamic State after we left Iraq.
But thinking about our interventions
in not just Afghanistan and Iraq,
but you think about what we did in Libya,
they estimate that 37 million refugees
were created by the interventions.
So are we not creating,
through our
interventionist foreign policy,
the very conditions
that you say we're trying to avoid?
The fundamental question then is,
do you give up,
or do you just try to learn from that?
How do you get better?
I mean, the situation really throughout--
-Or do we humble ourselves?
I think we've been humbled.
Again, our ambitions have been
very tempered.
Um, and so, what we did, for example,
when we went back into Iraq,
which we had to do
because the Islamic State had established
a caliphate. That's very worrisome.
But in many ways, because of us.
-They were attracting tens of thousands--
[stammers] We'd been gone by then, Jon.
But we created the conditions for that.
-And pursued highly sectarian--
Well, again, the real question is,
it comes back to, you know,
when should you intervene,
how should you intervene
There you go.
-and how ambitious should it be?
And I would contend that our experiences
in Iraq and Afghanistan
have very much tempered
our enthusiasm, our ambitions,
our-- our views on what might be possible.
Have you seen the evidence of that?
Because it looks to me like
we lost 20 years in Afghanistan,
20 years in Iraq,
and the Pentagon got a raise.
They got 50 billion more dollars
than they even asked for.
There's no oversight.
That's not because
of Iraq and Afghanistan.
That's because of a return
of great power rivalries
and the need to transform the-- the force.
It feels like the military-industrial
complex is the one undefeated combatant
in all of our adventures.
I do think that the security challenges
that face us right now
Mm-hmm.
-are more complex and actually greater
than any that we have faced,
actually, during the post-Cold War era.
It's just hard to see the evidence
of a learning curve manifest.
It still feels like our foreign policy is,
uh, everything, everywhere, all at once.
Well, I th-- I think the argument there
is going to be that,
"Look, if we don't do it,
someone else will."
If you think of us as the guy
in the circus
who puts a plate on a stick
and gets it spinning,
the biggest plate, I think, bigger
than all the others together, is China.
It's the US relationship with China.
The US with our allies and partners.
They help us keep
some of these plates spinning.
But then you have still North Korea
with its nuclear program.
But perhaps maybe the issue is
-Then there's Russia, Islamists--
we're not gonna solve--
And maybe it's American understanding--
-It's okay. Just keep the plate spinning.
You don't want it to become a conflict.
-Let me give you a different analogy.
Rather than us being a plate spinner,
shouldn't we be the people
to go over and go,
"How you guys doing with the plates?
You good? You need anything? All right."
No, look. I think--
Number one, I think that challenge should
be out there, intellectually.
Right.
-I think we should have to address
that kind of, uh--
of view and warning and caution.
We could have continued
to manage Afghanistan.
Not win it, not solve it,
but you just manage it.
I would actually contend,
given the state of Afghanistan now,
which [stammers]
has half the population starving,
half can't go to school,
half can't participate in the economy,
and they're living under
this incredibly oppressive, again,
eighth-century interpretation of Islam
But, again, do you see--
-that that might have been better.
But-But is that for us to decide
for people in other countries?
No. Obviously we should ask them
about that.
These aren't chess pieces
to be moved around.
And I'll give you an example
with the toxic exposure bills
that we've been doing for, uh, soldiers
in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The burn pits legislation. Yeah.
-The burn pits.
We're having enough trouble
taking care of our people at home.
We have left those countries
as Superfund sites.
Those countries will bear the scars
of those burn pits.
The chemicals of those burn pits,
it's in the soil, it's in the air,
it's in their genes, it's in their people.
We don't ever reckon with the true reality
of our intellectualized exercises
in stability and democracy
with the people on the ground.
This is the beauty of a democracy,
that you can have--
Yeah.
-You can do what we're doing right here.
And I think
this is incredibly constructive.
But I actually do think that--
You know, I agree
we are the indispensable nation.
Now, that doesn't mean
you have to solve all problems
or that you should try
to solve all problems.
But-- But Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Arabia buys 20% of our arms.
This is billions and billions of dollars.
And so, we sell them these weapons,
they bomb the hell out of Yemen.
Let's stop on Yemen just for a second.
-Please.
Let's remember who started
the civil war in Yemen.
It's the Houthis.
-And the Houthis are supported by--
Iran.
-They're the proxies of Iran.
We've chosen a side with Saudi Arabia
because we think
they're a good counterpoint to--
Well, compared to Iran, um, I would--
I would say that that's correct.
They're truly evil.
-Truly-- Okay.
And killed a lot of our soldiers.
-Certainly not the Iranian people. But--
No, no, no, no. This is a regime.
-And-And why is Iran that way?
Because in 1953,
the CIA, the United States,
sponsored by British Petroleum,
overthrew the democratically elected
government of Iran
and installed an autocrat,
and that inevitably led to
the Khomeini era.
So my point is,
we are the agents
of a lot of this tumult and instability
in search of cheaper oil,
cheaper goods, cheaper labor.
That's my premise, thesis, only point.
Well, it's a wonderful one.
And it's certainly arguable.
Um, it doesn't mean that I embrace it.
-[audience laughing]
You-- You will embrace it, sir.
I believe in you.
-You will hold me here until--
But does that resonate with you
in any way?
Sure.
Look, we've made tons of mistakes
over the years.
Um, think about the Bay of Pigs.
I mean, think about all the interventions
in Central America.
When has it gone right,
as a matter of fact?
Oh, I think there's a number of cases
where our intervention's gone right.
I'd like to think that what we did
in South Korea was--
was quite admirable and noble.
And look how South Korea has turned out.
I'd like to think that what we did
in World War II did actually, um--
Right. But if we've got to go back
to the '40s and the '50s,
we're in trouble.
-No. I think-- The Gulf War.
I think, again, there have--
I'm not suggesting
you never utilize the power.
I'm suggesting that we have been cavalier
in some of these.
The question is, again,
"Okay, got it. Understand.
What do we do about it?"
And then you come back
to those five foreign policy objectives.
Yes.
-And how do you achieve those, um--
And how not to create
the other problems around it.
[chuckles] Exactly right.
-Right.
Thank you, sir.
-Great to be with you.
[audience cheering, applauding]
All right!
Can I tell you something?
First of all, uh, that's our show.
Thank you very much.
Almost more alarming to me
than, uh, th-the cavalier nature
of America's foreign policy,
is to see a retired general
in a sleeveless fleece.
[audience laughing]
You know, you're not--
You're not gonna catch Patton
Anyway, for more resources,
go to our website,
ya fuckers.
That'll take you to another website,
and then you might find
your life's true purpose.
Also, I have a podcast where I do
mostly the hits from the '80s and '90s.
Anyway, here it is:
one final "for fuck's sake."
It's apparently an F-35's bar mitzvah.
[electronic dance music playing]
[music stops]