 So next up, I want to introduce Medea Benjamin. She is the co-founder of the Women-led Peace Group Code Pink and the co-founder of the Human Rights Group Global Exchange. She's been an advocate for social justice for more than 40 years. And she's been described as one of America's most committed and most effective fighters for human rights by New York Newsday. And one of the high profile leaders of the peace movement by the LA Times, which I think we all know. Medea, thanks for being with us. Thank you so much for putting this on. I know a lot of work went into this and it seems like a kind of macabre reunion of many of us who've been together for these last 20 years. And Fernando, I want to say my heart goes out to you. We were together in Iraq and went to the place where his son died to pay homage to his son to be with Pat and Mary and military families, speak out so much pain, so much suffering. Norman, it's always great to be with you, Mustafa. Thank you so much for sharing your stories about the effects here at home. And Rachel, I want to thank you for getting so many young people on this call and involved through your work as a teacher. And I want to say thank you for your service. I want to put my remarks in a very simple framework for understanding these wars. And it's so simple that it literally goes on a banner that we often held during these years as Code Pink. And it said, who lies, who dies, who pays, who profits. And to me, that is the framework. Who lies? Well, we know it's the politicians, the generals, the lobby groups, the think tanks, the neocons, the corporate media, they distort the facts, they manipulate people's fears. Sometimes it's easy to do that as in the case of Afghanistan when people were ready for exacting revenge. And sometimes it's difficult, like in the case of Iraq where they had to invent weapons of mass destruction and al-Qaeda connections. They had to manipulate people into believing it was in our interest to overthrow Saddam Hussein. I went there with Jodi Evans and Wright, a whole group of us who went before the US invasion and had the women holding on to us and saying, don't allow your country to invade. We don't want to be liberated by bombs. We can't be liberated by bombs. The US wanted to roll out its campaign to convince people about the need to get rid of Saddam Hussein in the summer of 2021. But the Bush's chief of staff, Andrew Card, told the New York Times, they decided not to do that because, quote, from a marketing point of view, you don't introduce new products in August. So they waited and they found the perfect time to introduce this new product. And that was exactly one year after the 9-11 attacks, September 11th, 2002, to introduce the, quote, need to invade Iraq. And people now know, in the case of Afghanistan, the lies we were fed for the last 20 years. Who died? Well, we already heard some of that from Fernando today, from military families speak out, people who joined our military because they wanted to do the right thing for this country or because they simply wanted to get an education which they couldn't afford. But the same is true in places like Afghanistan where we were told by women there when we traveled that their sons joined the Taliban to put food on their table. Most of the young men who have died in these wars no matter what side they're on are from poor families. But we know that most of the people that died have been civilians. And while we are rightfully mourning those civilians who died in the US on 9-11, there is barely any mention from those in power about the millions of people who were killed, maimed, displaced by a wars in Afghanistan and throughout the Middle East. Who pays? Well, we know it's us the taxpayer. I was actually flabbergasted to hear Biden acknowledge the cost of the Afghan war in his speech the other day when he said twice to $300 million a day we had been spending for the last 20 years. I was so glad that millions of Americans got to hear that figure. But it's not just what we've been spending every day and to think, well, that's over now that the troops have left Afghanistan. In fact, Brown University says that the costs will be paid by decades to come and estimates that in 2050 the interest alone on the Afghan war debt will amount to $20,000 for every single American in this country. And then the last question is who profits? And we know there that it's the merchants of death, the weapons companies, the military contractors. We've seen how the share prices of those weapons companies have soared since 9-11. We've seen how some of them as in the case of Lockheed Martin has gone up over a thousand percent. Lockheed Martin, the producer of the quote precision bombs that in Afghanistan hit weddings and funerals and hospitals, the precision bombs that in Yemen hit a school bus killing over 40 children. One of those profiteers is General Dynamics who CEO made over $20 million last year peddling these weapons. And I had a chance to get inside their shareholder meeting and confront her and the board. And I said, if you have a business model where you need war to make money, there's something fundamentally wrong with your business model. She replied saying, you're wrong. We pray for peace. We work for peace. But just a week before she said that the potential of the world becoming even more dangerous was producing a quote nice cadence for their orders. These weapons companies are really important not only because of their moral bankruptcy and their profiteering, but because they help determine our policies. They bribe our politicians with campaign contributions. They put generals on their board who influence the Pentagon. They make their death machines in districts all over the country, giving communities and politicians a stake in keeping the war machine humming. So if we are to break this machine, if we are to stop the money flow, if we are to stop the wars, especially a new one that they are gearing up to with China, it means cutting the Pentagon budget. It means confronting, like Norman said, the politicians who want to continue to shovel obscene amounts of our tax dollars into the death machine. And that's why I'm so excited about CodePink's new campaign to cut the Pentagon budget. Now is the time. I have seen just in the last few weeks going to different rallies, an eviction, anti-eviction rally and an affordable housing rally, a Medicare for all rally, a rally for climate justice. In every single one of them, the question was asked, if there is trillions of dollars for war, why isn't there money for these life-affirming activities? So that is our job right now. And I look forward to working with all of you on the CodePink and the broad alliance we're putting together for this campaign to move the money precisely from war to life-affirming activities. Thank you. Thank you, Medea. That new campaign is incredibly, incredibly important. I encourage everyone to visit the link that was just put in the chat to learn how you can get involved.