 So, I want to say welcome to the Cold War Truth Commission, a day of education, testimony, and action. It's an honor and privilege and a responsibility to be here today. My name is Rachel Brunke and I'm President of the Board of Directors of Witness for Peace Southwest. I want to first thank the people who have helped us make this happen today. Frank Dorrell, my dear friend from Addicted to War, Code Pink, so many great people speaking from Code Pink today and also just the whole infrastructure that they have really taken on to help this issue move forward of taking on the Cold War. Specifically, Emily and Mary are running tech today and I want to give a shout out to Carly who's been helping, and you know who you are, helping for so long. So, we've had so much response, especially in the past month, in the past six weeks, to this opportunity to testify at Cold War Truth Commission. The response has been incredible and to us it's a sign of the times and the need for us to take the reins of this conversation. Dear people, we know and we believe from Congress or even common Americans are really asking themselves what happened on January 6th? How did we become such a violent and dysfunctional and lied to and lying country? And we believe today that our testifiers will be providing a lot of that answer. So we ask for people to put their Congressperson into the chat because we really want you to after this event and tomorrow's Monday, after this event or even during this event to contact your congressional representatives. So I'm going to have first a young man from Honduras. He has a short clip and he would like to say hello to all of us at the Cold War Truth Commission. I want to welcome you all and thank you for participating in this true commission today. My name is Miguel Angel. I am 25 and a student activist for my country, Honduras. I am in political exile in the U.S. ironically for Americans continuing Cold War again. Socialist values everywhere in the world could kill and ruin countries and we get testimony of what has happened to me and to my country later in the program. For now I want to say thank you and I hope many good things come from today. This is the commission on the so-called Cold War which for so many countries never was called. Thank you. That is my my dear friend Miguel Angel and you will be hearing from him later his personal testimony. And if you didn't understand I want to highlight one concept that he did say he said coups kill and they ruin countries. And so we are here to pay tribute to the people around the world and in our own countries whose lives have been deeply affected by the U.S. Cold War. This is our second Cold War Truth Commission. Obviously the largest amazing. Our first was in 2017 we did it in Los Angeles and some of the speakers here today were also speakers at that event and I want to read a little language that we used at that first event to put this in context. Are you now or have you ever been discounted and ridiculed for your ideals and activism or called a red or a communist or a socialist in order to intimidate and discredit your ideas or your solutions to today's domestic or international problems. You're not alone. In fact you're part of a hundred and fifty year long drama of U.S. red baiting, illegality and anti-communist hysteria a history that if understood can help us unravel and understand both today's domestic and international events. Our mission statement is that we consider the U.S. Cold War to be our nation's third and as of yet unrecognized crime after the genocide and land theft against Native Americans and the kidnapping and enslavement of African peoples. Our mission with the Cold War Truth Commission is to continue exposing U.S. illegal and immoral actions in the name of anti-communism at home and abroad. We seek to show how today's perverse violence and injustice both at home and abroad are intimately tied up to the perpetration of the U.S. Cold War both historically and ongoing today. We believe that unraveling the web of lies and beginning a formal truth telling on this issue will help the people in the U.S. and around the world understand. Our truth about the U.S. Cold War that can be no true reconciliation for our times. The Cold War Truth Commission because it was never recognized and because it is still happening. Let the trial begin. Frank to you. Thanks Rachel. Thanks so much. Hello everybody. My name is Frank Dorrell and I'm an anti-war peace and justice activist. We are here today to talk about the big lie that we live here in the United States. We have many important truth tellers who will be testifying to the illegal and immoral wars this country has waged against many poor and defenseless countries around the world resulting in the deaths of between 20 to 30 million people during the so-called Cold War. I want to thank Rachel for making this event happen. Thank you, Rachel. It was her idea and as she said she had the first Cold War Truth Commission three years ago at a church in Los Angeles. I was there. I also want to thank all the speakers who will be testifying today, all the amazing people we are having today. This is unprecedented. It is historic what we are doing today. I want to welcome, a big welcome to all the anti-war activists and others who are watching today on Zoom and on YouTube. I don't want to acknowledge Mary Miller and Emily Dorrell who are running the Zoom meeting. They both work for Code Pink and Emily Dorrell is my daughter. And I do want to thank Code Pink for all the help they have given us in making this event happen and for all they do. And I want to mention the other organizations that are endorsing this event, World Beyond War, Veterans for Peace, KPFK 9.7 FM Radio here in Los Angeles, Roots Action, Project Censored, Covert Action Magazine, Media Freedom Foundation, Peace Workers, Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space, excuse me, the School of America's Watch, the Harriet Tubbins Center for Social Justice, Anti-Racist Action, COVID-19 Global Solidarity Coalition, and Women Against Military Madness. Thank you for all these groups for endorsing and spreading the word of our event. For me, I first learned about the deadly and barbaric nature of U.S. Foreign Policy when I discovered KPFK radio here in Los Angeles in 1980. It goes back 41 years. I first heard Noam Chomsky talking about U.S. supported desks, you know, Salvador. And for me, that was my beginning because I didn't know anything about this. I first put my film together of what I've learned about U.S. Foreign Policy, the war against the Third World in 2000, in an attempt to educate people about the major crimes committed by our country. It's been updated since then, and it's now 13 segments, speakers and films added down, giving the truth, like we're going to do today here. Then in 2002, with the help of AK Press, we printed 20,000 copies of Addicted to War, Why the U.S. Can't Get Melturism by Joel Andreas. And we have now distributed close to 240,000 copies of this fantastic anti-war book, which is being used in hundreds of high schools and colleges as a history book. And certainly, I was associate producer of the film, Paying the Prize for Peace. The story of S. Brown Wilson came out four years ago, the fantastic film. What I remind everybody watching that this event will be on YouTube after today and will be available for others to see at any time in the future. Now, I'm going to read what Blaise Pompein wrote for the first Cold War Truth Commission three years ago. But before I do that, I want to tell you just a little about Blaise. He was a longtime anti-war peace and justice activist. He was a marinal priest in Guatemala until he was kicked out of the country for refusing to support the CIA and what they were doing to the poor people there. Blaise and his wife, Teresa, found their group, the Office of the Americas in 1983. Blaise hosted his show on KBFK called World Focus for something like 40 years and half of the people speaking today probably were on Blaise's show. And he was a mentor to so many of us in Southern California and all across the country. Blaise passed away two years ago. Well over a thousand people came to his memorial. He was so well loved and respected. And I want to just finish about Blaise. He always said that he did his anti-war work because he wanted to stop his country, the United States, from killing millions of innocent people all over the world. Blaise Pompein presented and I'm going to read what Blaise wrote three years ago for the Cold War Truth Commission. The Cold War was an attempt to continue the military industrial windfall profits in World War Two. The Cold War was followed by a long air of profit without useful production. Millions of innocent civilians were murdered simply for being called communist. The word communist could be simply translated as OK to kill. In the past 28 years, the word communist has been replaced by the word terrorist. Our nation conducts a war of terror primarily against civilians. The commercial media silence in the United States during our current devastation of Yemen, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Somalia and Pakistan, together with the immediate threat of biocide by thermonuclear weapons is outdoing the demonic holocaust of the Third Reich. Sinus is complicity, Blaise Pompein, PhD.