 And Angela is going to take it live now on YouTube and Facebook. So, Ben Norton was once on the front lines for Peace with Essacode Pink, and I think the last time I saw you, Ben was on the streets of Columbia. He's the editor of Grey Zone and the producer of Moderate Rebels podcast, which he co-hosts with Max Blumenthal. They're on the front lines of the lies that oppress and take us to war. Thank you so much. Ben's a journalist and a writer whose work primarily focuses on US foreign policy, the Middle East, and movements for economic justice. So, Ben, you know the drill, you teach the drill. They use lies and fears so money will flow to the Pentagon and the need for more war. You know, I first started working on China because it just seemed like a rock all over again to me. And you were young then, so what is this for you as you look at this playbook on China? Yeah, I think it's very fair to compare it to an Iraq-style scenario, although we're talking about a country that is significantly larger. And I think we're talking unfortunately about a conflict that will go on much longer than Iraq, although it would be difficult to be longer than the Iraq war, considering the US still has troops in Iraq. The latest news is that NATO is going to increase from 500 to 4,000 troops in Iraq. It's 2021. The invasion was in 2003. And then that's not even to mention the 1990-1991 war. So, I mean, the torture of Iraq has been a 30-year process now. But unfortunately I think with China it'll be even longer, even longer than 30 years. And I think that it's going to be the defining conflict of this century. Now, it doesn't have to be, but the reality is that China has a massive economic power, primarily economic, not so much political, because China has a very hands-off foreign policy. For many decades, China has had a lot of bilateral relations with countries and has not meddled in their internal affairs, including countries that, you know, honestly you would not expect to have good relations with China. So China diplomatically and politically has shown itself to be a very hands-off partner, unlike the United States. But economically, the United States sees China as a massive threat in scare quotes because it's the largest economic engine in the entire world now. And, you know, there's estimates about when or whether or not China will overtake the U.S. economy. I think those questions miss the forest for the trees. China is the dominant economic power. And we even see, for instance, the European Union. Just there was a new study that shows that the majority or rather the plurality of the trade it does is with China, not with the United States. So the U.S. as the country that has dominated the world since the end of the First Cold War and the overthrow of the socialist bloc, you know, George H.W. Bush declared this era that we're new in the new world order. And, you know, that that's been kind of distorted. And it's not some grand conspiracy involving like lizard people. Now, I mean, the new world order is that it's a unipolar world in which the U.S. is the global hegemonic power. And essentially the entire planet is ruled by the U.S. It's pox americana. And we have seen that the rise of China is a so-called threat, not a threat in a way that it actually poses a threat to Americans, but rather the U.S. sees it as a threat because it's a country that can challenge Washington's unipolar domination of the world. I think that's the moment that we're living in right now. And that's why I think it's so important that you have this initiative because the reality is that there isn't need to be conflict. There can be diplomacy. There can be positive relations between these countries. And believe it or not, the U.S. doesn't need to be the world's policemen and emperor and merchants. I mean, there can be multiple powers in a multipolar world. And I think that's what we should advocate for as peace activists. But unfortunately, that view is not popular, not only in the Republican Party, but also in the Democratic Party. Yeah, and so to go back to your tweet this morning, it's trying to also move that hegemony of opinion down to the progressives and the left. And clearly with the propaganda targeting, I talked to people who are on the front lines of the struggle here in L.A. on homelessness, on housing. And, you know, they, they get the China's bad. And I'm like, why is China bad, you know, like, and, and also, you know, just our, we have a local peace economy project in Oakland, and they were all out last weekend against Asian racism that's happening in their community that's driven by this hate and propaganda that is literally focused on progressive and and left forces. So, and that's new for me, but you kind of really laid out, you know, where the hegemony already is and where it's attempting to go as far as just the propaganda that drives us to war. Absolutely. And I think this is a really important example of how imperialism and racism fuel each other. There's there's like loop a feedback loop a kind of dialectical relationship and frequently when liberals when Democrats in the United States talk about anti racism. To ever move what what in my view is that is the most important part of anti racism opposition to war and empire. I mean, what what is more racist than bombing black and brown people and bombing Muslims and imposing medieval sanctions on them as we see with Iran so millions of civilians in Iran and Venezuela and all these countries that just so happen to be racialized countries in the global south are suffering can't get food can't get medicine. I mean to me that is the most extreme form of racism but frequently. You know there's this kind of cooptation the Democratic Party and kind of neoliberal forces have done so racism becomes all about micro aggressions but but what about the macro aggressions that the war is an empire so. The point you just mentioned is is so important that we now see this massive demonization campaign against China and so frequently US politicians say, whoa, we're not against the Chinese people. We're just against the Chinese Communist Party that the government of China but the reality is that oftentimes that that so called distinction is not actually what what manifests itself in political culture and that's why we see people who have Chinese descent being attacked at record levels in the United States in Canada and Western Europe hate crimes are rising it's not a coincidence that the same thing happened at the beginning of the so called war on terror. And the US government said well we're not against Muslims were just against terrorism, but we saw a massive increase in racialized violence against brown people who people assumed were Muslim I mean some of them weren't even Muslim they were like Indians, like Hindu Indians people thought were Muslim so I mean, this is a pattern here right at every time the US pivots toward a new conflict. It needs to justify that imperial aggression and it uses racism as a tool. So now, just as we saw during the war on terror we see dehumanization of Chinese people the narrative around. COVID is, it's the China virus as Trump and his administration said, and we're supposed to believe that it came from Chinese people eating bats or something there's this racist narrative that Chinese people are are backward and they're barbarians in some way it's absolutely preposterous, considering actually much of civilizations most important advances come from Asia and specifically China the compass. Forms of mathematics and so many other invent inventions. So, these things are all related but frequently, like I said, the Democratic Party kind of liberal establishment will intentionally leave out some of these key issues that's why I think it's so important for us to talk about it, and for us to center opposition to war and empire at the heart of the progressive movement because, in my view, if the progressive movement doesn't revolve around anti war and anti imperialist politics it's not progressive. Thank you so much for saying that because I mean that's we're you know addressing the progressive caucus with that every week that there are members of the progressive caucus that own weapon stocks and weapons companies, and take money from weapons companies and they're called progressive so yes constantly pointing out where the hypocrisies are thank you so much for doing that every day all day, Ben. So, on the propaganda. It's a lot of work on the propaganda piece like in in your, you know when you've been talking about China what have you found to be the pushback and how have you come back at it. Yeah, well, I think there's a few ways to approach this first of all, there are the media narratives and the myths and the frank the frankly the lies that are being spewed. And I think that, you know, we can talk about people kind of rationally in a way. And, you know, unless they're too far gone and they think that like Biden is a Chinese sleeper cell and, and I mean, it's incredible to see how after years, Democrats, you know the Democratic Party government weaponized this Russia gate conspiracy, claiming that Trump was a Putin puppet and everything bad in the US is the fault of the Kremlin. And now we've seen some people on the Republican side of the aisle doing basically the same but just replacing, just taking every article but replacing Putin's name for Xi Jinping and replacing the Kremlin for the Chinese Communist Party and it's basically the same thing. But that kind of thing. A lot of those people are kind of, they just drank the Kool-Aid and we should, you know, try to debate them and argue with them but that that's just a religion at this point, and the US religion is always scapegoating some foreign boogeyman but I think a lot of people, they otherwise they might you know have good intentions but they think because they've consumed so much media propaganda that China is some evil boogeyman it's this totalitarian regime. And the reality is look you have to just look at basic facts like one, and this isn't to say that Chinese government's perfect at all, of course, but the reality is that polls consistently show that the vast majority of people in China are supportive of their government. We're talking about over three quarters up 80 percentile range of people in China have positive views of the government which is pretty incredible considering, and the US usually it's around 40% or even lower depending on what government we're talking about. So we have to, we can first of all say look, I mean, certainly the Chinese government is issues but the reality is that the vast majority of Chinese people have a very positive view of the government so don't you think that maybe we should rethink some of the myths that were told that the Chinese people are oppressed by their government. And then second of all, I mean you can look at some of the absolutely preposterous things like it's so funny every time there is some kind of technological element of surveillance or social media. When US corporations do it, it's portrayed as some normal innocuous thing but if a Chinese company does it oh it's, it's totalitarianism so there's also the perspective of people say, well, the Chinese government is always spying on the people and, and we have to say well, first of all I'm against mass surveillance of course but you realize that you're living in the most mass surveilled country on earth right I mean, did you forget the NSA scandal did you forget Edward Snowden did all that just just go away. So I mean, there's all these double standards so China is just portrayed as some uniquely evil country when the reality is that some of these problems that people in China, you know they often have criticism but some of those problems are dealing with are are the same in the United States or even worse. I mean, we're talking about police brutality I mean those are problems that are unique to the United States the extreme racism in the United States. Those are, we do not see this the near the same level of police brutality in China so there's a matter of such a way to get in that context and then finally there's just like the preposterous lies that were told frequently so the latest is that China is committing genocide to this new campaign to basically portray Beijing as the new Nazi Germany. So if you don't support us aggression against it, whether that's military aggression or economic aggression through sanctions and a trade war. Then you're, you're helping fascism and you would have supported Hitler, I mean it's, first of all it's preposterous because one, the people who started this narrative were the Trump administration, led by a racist who wouldn't condemn white supremacists, and who said it after a Nazi rally they were good people on both sides. So the Trump administration is the one that started this myth that China is committing genocide, and then you can talk about other things like Adrian Zenz who's this far right extremist who's the one pushing this narrative who works for the victims of communism foundation, which is so extreme and right wing that it considers every death caused by coven to be a death of communism. So, so the reality is that we're talking about far right groups are talking about Trumpist extremists, and a lot of liberals have internalized their narrative so I think we should ask those liberals wait a second. You say that Trump is wrong about everything and I agree with you Trump is wrong about all these things. So why do you think Trump will be right about China. And the reality is that the Democratic Party, of course, is always bipartisan and I'm born with these issues but I think if you actually, if you try to interrogate these issues with people, especially progressive minded people I think they, you can move them a bit and and we don't we're not expecting people to overnight change their mind but the reality is that I think a lot of people don't realize how they're, they're feeding into this is essentially new Cold War propaganda. And now the latest news by the way, is that after Anthony Blinken this very hawkish new new conservative figure who's leading the State Department, even his own lawyers are now reconsidering the whole genocide thing because they realize there's not actual evidence of genocide so you know, I think we're pushing back slowly. But my concern, like you said is that more people who are left wing oriented are going to unite with the right wing and I think that's something we have to push back against. Thank you so much for saying all that because I think that's you know our concern and why China is not our enemy is like, but we, you know, why do people kind of lose their minds around China, because here you know, who know wars never the answer, who know that the disaster of war, and all of a sudden they are willing to accept lies and hate about China, because, you know, it's about human rights of Muslims. And who think does is the, that's all we do is care about the human rights of Muslims. And where have you been, you know I say to everyone where have you been for the Palestinian people for the Yemen people for the people in the Middle East, where were you for the people in Iraq and and people are starving in Iran but you are your your knee your knee is on their throat starving them to death. My knee is on the throat of Yemen. Me, I like, you know, I care deeply about human rights. For me the first casualty of war is the truth. And the second is human rights. So why would you even think of using this to drive us to a war when you know the next is, you know, women's bodies, you know, I do this for those reasons. And I would love that all this care about the human rights of Muslims I have so much I could give you to do right now. The wars are not being released to you know Muslim countries that are starting, you know, there is so much to do. And I was like what do you want me to do when the way that you can address these issues is only cooperation, only a relationship that, you know, listens to what's happening. And, you know, all these newspapers that are printing these lies from one person, and no historical context about the Saudi King saying that I was, you know, paid by the United States to take Wahhabism to the Uighurs in China so that the US would have a flank on China, and that we taught them Wahhabism and now the Uighurs are the most fierce fighters in Yemen and Syria, and then they come home and they bomb shopping centers and they have to do something. I mean, we had got Gitmo I would say you know they're not torturing and keeping people in jail for 16 years with no due process. But yeah they're you know trying to deal with the situation. I'm sure it's not pretty trying to deal with these situations are never pretty. But is it a reason to go to war on a billion and a half people, which I think is the other thing that's so strange is like, when we talk about white supremacy, and we talk about racism and that those are issues that are, you know, high on our basis to not be able to see that white supremacy and racism is at the core of this like even to speak, you know, why be used by something you don't have a relationship with that you haven't, you know, taken the time to really study, because there's more out there that you could read and understand even like how right wing, the root of this is so thank you for bringing that up I just would love to understand. Why is that snap happen, why is that thing that you just described that here you won't believe any, you know, you know everything Trump says is wrong, but you'll believe this happens I would have any, any insight into that. Yeah, because I think a lot of it revolves around this narrative of fascism. And, you know, there is a very real threat of fashion of neo fascism, and that threat emanates almost entirely from the West. I mean, India has a fascistic regime and Turkey you could say is kind of fascistic which is a NATO member, but really the main kind of fountains of neo fascist extremism today are coming from the United States and Western Europe. Well, in other parts of Europe, Central and Eastern Europe. And I mean, Poland, which is a NATO member and EU member, Poland just was exposed for having a state historian. He had to resign. This is a historian who's employed by the Polish government because he was doing Nazi salute So like the coup in Ukraine in which neo Nazi forces and other fascists were at the forefront of overthrowing the Ukrainian government in 2014 because it was insufficiently anti Russian as part of an EU neoliberal free trade agreement I mean, and then this isn't even to mention the white supremacist terrorism in the United States, the rise of the neo fascist Volks Party in Spain, the far right National Front in France I mean we're seeing a massive rise in far right movements. But what's interesting is that Western liberal imperialists have realized that they could weaponize that and and put the blame on China and also Russia. And that partially explains why there's been this narrative that Vladimir Putin is a crypto fascist, and he's supporting fascist I mean it's absolutely ridiculous. I'm not a fan of Vladimir Putin's politics you know he's, he's kind of center right conservative but he's not a fascist and in the context of Russian politics he's pretty centrist honestly. And actually, Alexei Navalny is much more fascistic than Vladimir Putin and he's the darling of NATO and that's another example of this I mean Alexei Navalny, who, who now is on the front page of every newspaper Navalny released an ad several years in which he compared Muslim immigrants in Russia to cockroaches who'd be who should be stepped on or shot. So this is this is the guy that NATO wants to replace Putin, who are supposed to believe is supposedly a fascist so it's that was I think the beginning of the part of this narrative and now China, basically what they're saying is China is Nazi Germany. And if you don't oppose China, then you're not an anti fascist and in order to be anti fascist you have to oppose China I mean that that's part of the ideological sleight of hand that's going on. It's incredible because if you look at China's foreign policy abroad I mean China consistently supports progressive forces throughout Latin America and other parts of the world whereas it's the US it's the one that's propping up far right fascistic regimes in India, right now in Colombia, where Ivan Duque is trying to extend his term in Honduras. I mean, not even to mention, you know, the Gulf regimes and so the hypocrisy is incredible but that's why I think we have to push back so hard against this idea that China is fascistic in some way. And the main narrative it's incredible like you said the people pushing this idea that China is committing genocide against the Uighur Muslim population are themselves neoconservatives who have supported every war on Muslim majority countries, people who supported the Iraq war the Yemen war the Syria war the Libya war. This is the 10th year anniversary of the Libya war Libya still doesn't have a central government that country was destroyed it was the most prosperous country in Africa. It was destroyed there were opener slave markets for for Sub-Saharan African refugees for dark skin Libyans. Meanwhile, the people who supported who oversaw who led that war are telling you you have to support more conflict against China because China is violating the rights of Muslims. This isn't a dispute that China has a very heavy handed draconian policy against Uighur extremism, but at the same time, we can't just close our eyes and pretend like the government isn't meddling I mean, it was incredible the National Endowment for Democracy the NED, which is an arm of the US government it's basically a CIA cut out. It was founded by the Ronald Reagan administration in the 1980s to do, as one of its co founder said to do what the CIA was doing covertly but in the open, and the NED bragged several months ago that they have spent nearly 20 years, funding with millions and millions of dollars Uighur separatist groups. This is the world Uighur Congress. We know there's a variety of so called human rights groups that are not human rights groups I mean that's the term they use the weaponization of human rights. And these are groups that are often extremely right wing by the way, and speaking of fascistic. They're often collaborating with not just the United States but also Turkey, and the Erdogan regime which is extremely ethnic cleansing the Kurdish population in the south, which is militarily occupying northern Syria. So we're supposed to believe that Erdogan and US neoconservatives like john Bolton and Mike Pompeo who hate Muslims who are Islamophobes. They're the ones supporting Muslim rights against evil China. I mean, it's incredible but the reality is unfortunately, a lot of people don't think about geopolitics because when you when when they see the term concentration camp thrown around their brain turns off, and they're China is Nazi China Nazi China Nazi I mean, because that's the whole it's the distortion of what's going on in China and Xinjiang. It's, it's a complete there I mean there are a lot of lies it's a complete turning on the head to portray China, which is again supporting Nazi forces in the world as Nazi like and not the United States, which, frankly, not to not to be too hyperbolic but just being realistic here. If we had to look at what happened in the 1930s with the rise of Nazism and fascism and previously one of the most powerful countries in the world, Germany, becoming this horrible fascist dictatorship that committed genocide. And if we had to pick one country in the world that is most similar I'm not saying it's the same but most similar to that scenario it's going to be the United States, not China. But of course, that's why we're seeing such an insane new Cold War propaganda drive is to distract from the extreme, the extreme surge to the far right in US politics, and the rise of extremist groups and militias and white supremacist terrorists and mass shootings and endless war. I mean, that's the most Nazi like. Thank you Ben. And I think also the thing that people in the United States don't remember is that it was the United States, you know, billionaire millionaires at the time or heads of industry that funded fascism that it would have been stopped without the oil and from different, you know, heads of industry in the United States, and that it was Russia and China, without which they, Germany would have won it. The United States tends to believe they're the big you know white heroes white heroes that ran you know wrote in on the horse, but it was really you know China and Russia who lost the most soldiers fighting fascism. And there's no comprehension of that in the United States. No, absolutely not the Soviet Union lost over 26 million people 26 million. Meanwhile, in the US and Britain we're talking about 400,000. And that's not that's not to downplay how horrible that is but we're talking about 400,000 in the US and Britain, compared to 26 million and the Soviet Union and that's not that always should also be in the between 12 and 20 million Chinese killed. I mean, we're talking about the vast majority of deaths in World War Two came from the Soviet Union and China. And the Soviet Union was responsible for killing more than four fifths, or for killing, wounding or capturing four fifths of Nazi soldiers in World War Two, basically all of the fighting in World War Two happened on the front until around 1943. And then when we're talking about breaking the back of the Japanese fascist army. It was the Chinese. And again 12 to 20 million Chinese killed, and another kind of Japanese Holocaust committed against Chinese people so the sacrifices these countries have made fighting fascism is incredible and yeah that's not to say of course Russia has a very different government today. Russia has a capitalist government that is much more conservative in the Soviet Union, but there still is a lot of national pride and anti fascist sentiment today and every year, one of the biggest celebrations in Russia is the great patriotic war against fascism, because Trump, most recently he, he just gave an incredible speech, I believe this was last year in honoring the anniversary of World War Two, and he didn't even mention the Soviet Union. He said, we thank the United States and Britain and France for defeating Nazism just writing out the role of the country did the vast majority of the fighting against fascism so I mean that's a whole new level but but this isn't this is not an irrelevant point this is not just a historical debate because this is actually feeding into the rise of neo fascism today. And there's a really good scholar named Jonathan Katz, who lives in Lithuania, and he's an expert on the history of Jews in Lithuania. And he has a very good website called defending history in an academic journal. And it's called defending history because it's about the attempt to rewrite the history of the Holocaust and World War Two, and how these far right groups in Eastern Europe, almost all of which are anti Russian and pro NATO backed by NATO back by the United States have been trying to rewrite the history of World War Two to portray the Soviet Union as the villain and Nazi Germany as if not the good guys like the bystanders. And this is part of I mentioned that in Poland, a state historian was just forced to resign because there was photos of him Nazi saluting. And we see all across Eastern Europe and Ukraine in the Baltic states that there's this rise of these neo fascist movements, which are all uniformly pro West pro US pro NATO anti China and anti Russia. So this is directly related to the fight against fascism. And again this isn't to say that like China and Russia today are like some great perfect countries no I mean they all have their own problems every country in the world has problems there's no perfect country. But the reality is that we have to recognize, especially us as US citizens that it's Washington that is the one driving this aggressive policy, it's Washington that is supporting these extremist groups as proxies to try to weaken China and Russia it's Washington that is constantly engaged in this great game, trying to surround Russia with NATO members and US military bases and now surround surround China, not only with bases and allies of the United States, but also with troops. We saw in the Obama administration or now as it's referred to as the Obama Biden administration. We saw the pivot to Asia was kind of the hallmark of the foreign policy of the Hillary Clinton State Department. And when they say pivot to Asia they mean pivot to war with China is what they really mean. They mean sending two thirds of US military personnel over on the border of China into the South China Sea to surround China. Why are you doing that why do we want to war with China this is the largest country in the world. We saw the horror of World War two to be really on a World War three it's insane. Oh my god, yes war is never the answer that is just, you know, the insanity of it. And you're right the irrational, if they can take you into the irrational they can make you believe anything and I think that's really what we're seeing with this propaganda. And you've filled us with a lot today I'm so so grateful. I just one last question. There's a question in the chat about how do you talk about some of the anti China government conversation without it coming out as without it without fueling anti Chinese Chinese sentiment. You know, my responses is like it's propaganda it's not journalism. And there's never a whole look at it what would, you know, that's not. So therefore it is anti China, but how would you answer that. These are difficult questions because you know there's several questions kind of related to this one you sass as well about, you know, how do you report on real human rights abuses without feeling at the China sentiment. Well first of all, there's a few different questions here are a few different responses I would say, one, you have to answer the question depending on what your perspective is I mean I'm a journalist. A lot of people aren't journalists they're activists and organizers so it's different for each of us. I mean look we can acknowledge again that these countries have real problems and human rights abuses again every country in the world does. And it's pretty incredible hearing us politicians complain about people being put in reeducation facilities that they call concentration camps considering which is insane it's a ridiculous smear they're not concentration camps I mean you can criticize them I'll get to that in a second but they're not concentration camps. Meanwhile, the United States has children, immigrants undocumented people in what you could call internment camps I mean if they're if they're concentration camps in China then the US definitely has concentration camps. I mean, we're talking about extreme abuse of immigrants in the United States, and their privatized and for profit facilities but we never hear people say that the United States is is running massive concentration camps for Latinos, which is basically what they are. There's the insane hypocrisy there but then we can also knowledge yes and like I said, we can acknowledge and we should acknowledge that okay China has a very heavy handed policy I would not support it, and the, you know, the reeducation facilities you know, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's pretty awful right, but at the same time those are not concentration camps, like that's a very different thing. And what we're talking about is that I mean this information is public that the Chinese government talks about it and this isn't to defend it but just the reality is that these are facilities where there are often Muslim leaders there are people are allowed to worship. Those are like kind of the Muslim equivalent of priests who give lectures and talk to people I mean these are facilities where people who have extremist views are put in. And the reality is that the US, its response to extremism is just to kill people with drones. It's just to murder people, or in the case in the United States to put people throw people up in, in Gitmo. I mean but autonomous still open by the way it hasn't been closed, even though Obama claimed it would be. And again, so this isn't to defend that policy but we're talking about different degrees of extremism here like the, in terms of the response. And, and also just again, these are it's not, it's not concentration camps because the whole point of the use of concentration camp is that it's supposed to turn your brain off and make you think China equals Nazi. And then there's also the whole element of the numbers, I mean the numbers aren't totally insane. I mean one week there's 8 million and there's 13 million there's more than the entire Uighur population and others won't know I mean these numbers are absolutely absurd. They're totally fictitious. We know that because as we've documented the gray zone my colleagues, Max Blumenthal, Ajit Singh, they've documented how these numbers come from two different studies. One of them is a group called Chinese Human Rights Defenders which is a right wing lobby group funded by the National Government for Democracy CIA cut out, and led by people who have called for overthrowing the Chinese government that's their goal. They've weaponized this notion of human rights to try to overthrow their government. Most of them live in Washington and exile or New York, and they did a study in which they interviewed eight Uighurs in Xinjiang, eight, and asked them about their families and their friends. And then they use those testimonies of eight Uighurs and multiplied it by the number of towns and the population of Xinjiang to get 1 million. I mean it's totally absurd. If you submitted this report to an undergrad statistics class, you would get an F, you would fail your statistics class. I mean this is totally fake numbers here. And then the other study comes from Adrian Zenz. And that's that this particular number also comes from this extremist group based in Turkey I should mention that a lot of these Uighur separatist groups are living in Turkey, supported by the Erdogan regime which is again pretty And they, there's this interview that was released by Radio Free Asia that was translated that came from a Uighur extremist channel that has had on people who support this extremist Al Qaeda line group called the Turkistan Islamic Party TIP, which is active in Syria. They have child soldiers and they proudly post the photos of them fighting. They work with Al Qaeda they have links even to ISIS. So we're talking about extremist fascist groups that released this, these claims that were then translated by Radio Free Asia which is created by the CIA as a propaganda arm. And then that number is just circulated so we have to also number, I say that okay, you can criticize China policy but you have to always situated within the context of what's actually happening, as opposed to the insane myths and narratives and distortions in the media. I mean, that's why it says a tricky thing to do because the, if you actually saw what actual China policy is you would see that it's, again, this isn't to defend it and say it's perfect but it's not, it's much more innocuous than we're than the extreme Nazi-esque comparisons that we're supposed to believe in and I know that this is kind of complicated and the reason is that I don't want to get really, because in order to have a deep in depth conversation about this you have to look at the numbers, at the statistics, at the sources, at the facts and that's actually very complicated which is why it's so easy to dispute this propaganda and say China concentration camps millions because very few people actually look at the granular details and see there is no, they're there and in order to look at that it takes a long time to explain it's complicated, it's confusing, it takes long articles but anyone who's interested in looking in this issue more deeply you can go to thegreyzone.com that's grey with an A and we have a lot of reporting on this just showing how ridiculous it is but at the end of the day the point is that the most simple answer and the most true answer just disqualitatively is that this is new cold war propaganda No one is saying that China is perfect and has a perfect human rights record but it is propaganda, it is disinformation, it is information warfare that is aimed at turning people's brains off and manufacturing consent for Washington's aggression in the new cold war Unfortunately that's what we're in right now. That's not even just my view. If you listen to neoconservative prominent right wing figures like the one of the most prominent right wing historians at Harvard University, who publish a New York Times op ed, Douglas Murray saying that we're in a new cold war with China and we should not embrace that term or listen to the right wing billionaire oligarch in Hong Kong who the Trump administration worked with Jimmy Lai who said we're in a new cold war or listen to Mike Pompeo himself. Mike Pompeo gave a historic speech at the Richard Nixon library saying that Richard Nixon was a good president but he made the mistake of having the meaning with China 1972 he never should have done that the opening was a bad idea China's the enemy we need to overthrow the Chinese government. The US government said that the US State Department said that under Pompeo, we are in a new cold war you can't ignore it. Now, I think our responsibility should be to expose the lies and propaganda of the cold war and to end the cold war, and return to a peaceful diplomatic relationship with China. And I think that's what code pink's doing and I applaud them for it. Thank you so much Ben thank you for being with us today thank you for making a smarter on this issue. And please everyone follow the gray zone to literally not have your brain co opted by the powers that be, but to be able to support those near you with the facts and the deep research. Ben, thanks, as always for being out there for telling the truth and for really doing the deep research so that we can stand on something firm. All right, everybody is my pleasure is never the answer. A new cold war is a really innocuous term to something very horrible and dangerous and a new nuclear war on this planet would be the end. So even just saying and you know it's a cold war. It's a very serious thing. These are two nuclear powers. And that is the end of life on this planet, not to be played with with that we've been lucky for a very long time and luck runs out. Let's not take it there. So peace out. Thank you for all you do. Keep sharing truth. Bye Ben.