 I'm a national organizer with Code Pink. And this event is a workshop, Funding Violence, How the US War Machine Works. This workshop will research both Pentagon spending and US military aid. We'll explore Department of Defense websites to investigate the house of US funding of violence abroad. And with us today is Curry Peterson Smith. He is the Michael Ratner Middle East Fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies. He researches the war on terror, Israeli apartheid and US support for it, the Palestinian freedom struggle and the militarization of borders. And with that, I'm gonna pass it over to Curry who has a presentation. And he dropped a link in the chat, so make sure to check that out as well. Awesome, thank you so much, Danica. And thank you all for being here. Really grateful to spend some time together on this super important topic. And I wanna make my presentation brief, because this is really, it's a workshop. We're gonna do some work and now I'm gonna try my very best to share my screen. Boom, okay, do you see my presentation? Yep. Sweet, all right. Well, this is how the US War Machine, okay, obviously the US War Machine is quite extensive, so this doesn't have a whole thing works. But I hope that we can kind of demystify, engage with some aspects, some really important aspects of how it works that are kind of like super public, to be honest. There's so much that the US military and kind of US militarization does that's clandestine. But there's a lot of it that's out in the open and it's kind of hidden in plain sight. And I think that so much of our work, those of us who are challenging US empire is just sort of revealing what's already there and making it visible to more people and legible. So with that, what are we gonna do in this workshop? So first of all, it's a working meeting and that means like we're working together, like I have some work that I'm gonna ask you all to do some little research and I'm gonna be doing it too, we're gonna be doing it together and we're gonna learn some things together. And yeah, I'm trying to work on this kind of radical research thing. That's not just, you know, those of us, I mean, I feel very lucky that it's my job to like critically research US empire. But we wanna actually have everybody critically researching US empire. We wanna expand the kind of collective of people who are doing this kind of work. And so that's what this is all about and I'm psyched to learn with you all. It's pretty elastic, you know, like I've got some exercises for us to do and we'll see how it goes. Maybe we'll take the whole hour, maybe not, we'll do whatever makes sense. I think there's a lot of space to kind of take this in a direction that makes sense. And then hopefully it is responsive to your own questions and thoughts. I dropped a link in the chat for a Google doc in the first kind of item or whatever is like questions that you have about how the US like war machine works. If you wanna just drop those in the chat, that'd be great just to get them down now or later or whenever. And, you know, yeah, let's actually address what's on your minds. And then this is an invitation to ongoing work together. You know, my hope is that this isn't just like us hanging out for an hour and then we piece out. But like I hope that, well, I'll just say that these questions are kind of how the US funds violence is something that I'm thinking about all the time. And I know that's something that you all are thinking about which is why you're here. And so let's stay in touch about it, you know? Let's kind of talk about how we're learning how the war machine works and then continue to do this work together. So when questions and thoughts arise, please, please, please be in touch with me. The image here in this little slide is, that's an F-16 American war plane and that's, it belongs to the Royal Saudi Air Force. So when we talk about the war machine, you know, we talk about kind of direct US invasions and occupations and also so much of it is actually US allies buying US weapons. So these are American planes, they're made in the US, all of the kind of stuff necessary to maintain them is made in the US. There's US contractors who maintain these planes and so on, even if they belong to and are piloted by Saudi Arabia. And we're gonna talk more about that. Okay, what are we gonna talk about? Two things, Pentagon contracts. So, you know, like, I think probably a lot of you know that the Department of Defense budget or the military budget, which actually goes beyond the Department of Defense, it's like, you know, $767 billion or whatever, you know, $737 billion or, you know, they're actually in the process of finalizing what's called the NDAA, which is the main kind of piece of legislation that funds military spending. So we always get these numbers, those numbers themselves are kind of starting points, they really do not capture at all what US spending on the military actually is because then they'll say, oh, but you know what? We have this occupation of Afghanistan and that doesn't count. We have a separate pot of money for that, you know? So whatever numbers we put out there are always kind of starting points, but even those numbers are so staggering. What does $737 billion look like? And we're gonna get into a little bit of what it looks like. The other thing is US foreign military sales along the lines of what the image that I just showed of this Saudi Air Force plane, which is a US-made plane, that came through FMS through foreign military sale, which is this wild system where the US has arrangements with allies where they say, we're gonna give you US aid. And then, you know, Saudi Arabia says, thank you very much for this aid. And then we will now get it back to you and buy your American-made weapons. And the US says, thank you very much and here are the weapons. You know, that's how that kind of thing happens. So those are the two things that we'll be talking about. This image, I'm gonna write, and actually I lifted it from this wild tweet, an engineer at Raytheon, which is a weapons manufacturer that is near me. I'm located here in Boston, on message he's at in Wampanoag land. There's a town north of here called Walfam and that's where Raytheon is based. And yeah, here's an engineer encouraging girls to use STEM by having them make missiles. This is what those billions of dollars are going to, it's weapons. All right, so this is happening. Why should we talk about this real quick? Like I said, it's about making US Empire visible. And there's so much about US Empire that's not only hidden in plain sight, but I think part of that hiding is the incredible normalization of, you know, American violence. And like I just mentioned, I'm living in Boston, but I was in DC for a while when I first started my job at the Institute for Policy Studies. And I think that US Empire is everywhere, but if you really wanna get a sense, go to Washington DC, where as you can see from this picture, the Pentagon is just like a place with a parking lot, you know, off this highway in Virginia. It's a stop on the metro. And this is just sort of considered normal when in fact institutions like the Pentagon and not just the Pentagon, the many different institutions that constitute US Empire carry out incredible unreal violence that I think is very intentionally rendered largely invisible to the US population. So how do I make it visible? And how do I make it legible, you know? Because again, they'll say, oh, we're gonna spend $737 billion on defense or freedom. And it's hard to interrogate that when you don't know how to read the military budget or access the different materials that the Pentagon produces that tell us what they're doing. So the hope is we'll do a little bit of that today. Lastly, why should we talk about this? Because it's about building solidarity with people around the world resisting militarism. This image is a protest against, a protest in South Korea against FAD, which is the Terminal High Altitude Aerial Defense System. This is a missile system that the US manufactures and sells to a number of places, but particularly the South Korean military. It is incredibly unpopular in South Korea. It is part of a whole horrific history of US militarization on the Korean Peninsula. And so every effort to install the system has been protested by people in South Korea. And you can see in this image, on the right lower corner is the protest versus the people in nice colors. Those are people who are protesting this weapon system. And then kind of on the upper left-hand part of the corner, part of the image is the US military driving these missiles to these bases and in between them are the South Korean police who are doing the job of defending the US military to have this weapon system. And so there are people like this all over the world who are resisting US militarism and not only do we need to build links with those people, but the more that we can kind of see these things legibly, I think we're in a better position to extend that kind of solidarity. And I just think about folks who I've talked to in South Korea, in places like Okinawa, other places that are heavily militarized by the US, who lived very far from Washington, DC, will never get to go to DC in protest. I think those of us who are located in this place called the United States have a real responsibility to learn these things and to engage with folks that we're in a position to kind of advocate what they're fighting for. So with that, let me stop, let me share. And cool, already see some comments in the chat. I am unable to simultaneously talk and follow the chat, so I know that there'll be a lag in terms of what I can see. And I want to actually get into the first part, which is looking at some Pentagon contracts. And again, there's a bunch of public information. And let's see, drop a link here, but I'm gonna ask you all to join me in that. So please go ahead and click on that, and it will take you to the Pentagon website. Could you share it, Cori? What's that? Could you also share your screen? Oh yeah, totally. Thank you. Yep. Or can I? Yeah. Cool, you all see it? Beautiful. Okay, so yeah, I'm gonna share this though. If you all can check this out, that would be good, because I want folks to actually be able to scroll through and see what this looks like. And so, basically, again, we take a number like 737 or $767 billion, and think about, okay, there's 365 days in a year, so how are you gonna spend that money? And this is how they spend it. If you click on the contracts for today, October 21st, this is the money that they spent today as part of the National Defense Authorization Act, which is the piece of legislation that does this funding. And yeah, I would love actually for you to just take a minute and scroll through and look at these different items and think of questions that you have, like super basic questions, like literally what does this word mean because this is not written in a way that is meant to be read alone by anti-war activists. Observations that you have, just take a minute, please. And then we're gonna talk about questions and observations. Something I find so funny is at the bottom of all of these, it says like star small business as if small business, like getting contracted to do US imperialism is impressive in any way. Reading these comments, I'm sorry about the anxiety, we're gonna say for real, like take some breaths and, you know, I'm glad that we're here doing this together. It's wild, actually, what this money goes to. Yeah, okay, I see a question. Why don't we start talking about questions and observations? So, and PL, do you wanna unmute and ask your question? Do you want me to read it? Feel free to respond in the chat. Oh, hey, you just wanted me to read it, right? Yeah, yeah, just ask me a question, yeah. I had heard of this before, this cost plus fixed fee thing and Naomi Klein shock doctor, I think, but it means they cover the cost of whatever they're making plus a predetermined guaranteed profit, right? That's what the fixed fee is referring to. Exactly, it's kind of, you know, for the weapons makers, it's like the best of both worlds. They're like, we're gonna give you the price. So this is how much it costs. Also, if it happens to cost more than that, we're gonna, you know, that's written into this spending. You know, oh yeah, if there's a difference between the price you gave us and how much it actually costs, we'll cover that. Yeah, it is where the engineering jobs go. That's like, I know at my school, this is where they were recruiting folks to work too. Yeah, other questions or observations? Can I speak for a second? Please. Yeah, my parent tricked it, I mean, NASA when I was born, and like, they get like defunding and stuff, like especially underbush and things, and like my mom basically was gonna be transferred to, I think it was Racy on, but you know, she didn't, and it's horrible. It's just so horrible how underfunded like something like NASA is compared to, I mean, it's just so gross, it's disgusting. Yeah, especially when you see, I mean, so this first item is $25 million, $25.6 million. That's one item. So yeah, the amount of funding is just, I mean, it really is endless, you know, when it comes to militarization and, you know, compared to, I mean, even like holding what you were putting on the table with NASA, which is like, there's all kinds of scientific research that is very important, does not have endless sort of access to money. There's, I wanna explore another one of these pages. So before I move on, I just wanna ask, there's any sort of space force is taken care of. I wanna ask you any, just last questions or thoughts on this page in particular? Okay. Yeah, really a quick question. Is there, I have to go through this website a little bit more, but if you wanted to do a search based on like over the past year, which companies and all, does this page give you the ability to do that also? Or are you going by what was done today and what was done yesterday and day before yesterday? Because that's 365 days a year. So that's a fantastic question. A lot of clicking. Yeah, no, that's a fantastic question. To my knowledge, there's not a search feature on this page. There are other ways to find out when corporations get contracts for certain weapons systems. And you know what I mean? So part of this, for example, will be, they'll be like a contract awarded to like Raytheon for the Iron Dome missile system, which Raytheon co-produces within Israeli firm as this Israeli weapon. They actually, they are like right now, the plan is to give an additional billion dollars to find that. And so there are like press releases and things like that that show the kind of award. And then this is what the disbursement is on one day. You know what I mean? Like, and then there are these kind of, these other organizations that do do some kind of monitoring and that do, they're very intentionally make this information searchable and more accessible. And I'll drop these in the chat, but one is the security assistance monitor, which is run by the Center for International Policy. So they are a kind of critical research operation. And then there is the national priorities project, which is part of IPS where I work. That is all about military spending. So I'll put their websites in the chat at some point. Okay, so Michael, you have a raise hand? Yeah, I had a question about the Iron Dome project. And this is something that kind of confuses me. So it's built by Raphael, Israeli company. So are we actually giving Israel money to buy the Iron Dome from their own company? Or are we providing something that they need to buy parts of it from our company to build the product? That's a great question. And that's, so this is a kind of unique project that I think reveals a lot about not only the US war machine, but for the US-Israel relationship in particular. You're right that this is a joint, the Iron Dome is a joint project of an Israeli company, Raphael. And then Raytheon, which is a US company, works on it too. And so Tom Cotton, the Senator from Arkansas, like very proudly in the summer was talking about the need to support this additional billion dollars for Iron Dome. And he was like, he talked about how proud that he was that Iron Dome, components for Iron Dome are made in Arkansas. So it is both, giving money to an American weapons manufacturer and subsidizing the Israeli arms industry, which is how the Israeli arms industry has become so proficient. It is the US for the most part through foreign military sales, which we're gonna get into in a little bit, are like, hey, we're gonna give you this aid, which we want you to use to buy our weapons. Israel has actually been an exception where the US has said you can actually also use it to buy Israeli weapons. You can use this US aid to buy Israeli-made weapons. And in that way, the US over many years subsidized the kind of foundation of the Israeli weapons industry. So if you watch promotional videos, I'm sure there are many by Israeli weapons manufacturers, they'll talk about how it's like Israeli know-how and expertise that has made them, this incredibly proficient arms industry. And it's like, yeah, they do invest a lot of research and develop expertise in terms of violence against Palestinians and other folks in the region and around the world, frankly, but also they've had a lot of subsidy from the US, the United States. Yes, beautiful. We're gonna get right into the Defense Security Cooperation Agency. So, okay, if it's cool, I wanna move to just one other page on this site. See, and you all actually can, if you can go to, because this item for today is like, these numbers are staggering, but it's actually not every day is like this. So if we can go to September 30th, so we're gonna go back to the kind of main page and scroll down again. You can on your own time, look and see how much day after day is spent and what they're spending on. But I just wanna click on September 30th because I think it's a more typical day of US military spending. So just please take a minute again to look through, like scroll through, look at what's being made, how much they're spending and what questions you have and observations you have. Michael, I see your hand up. Yes, so are some of the subcontractors, can they choose their own subs or are they spelled out in these contract awards? Does that make sense? Cause apparently a lot of little companies provide parts to another company which may consolidate it or whatever. And so is that, can they make their own dealing or is a lot of it spelled out? And is that what we're looking at is that it's being spelled out to their subs are? Great question. And I think that it's both and. So there's so many, I mean, let's think about something like really, I recently learned as a company in a town south of here in Massachusetts, that makes like backpacks for the Department of Defense. And so they got this contract to make a backpack and you think about like all the component parts of the backpack. Like I don't know if they make like the zippers or the snaps or, you know what I mean? So they get this contract and then they can subcontract to other companies to get the component parts. But also actually it's quite striking how many of these entries actually name some of the subcontractors. So I think again, as with everything that we see in these lists, there's sort of, there's a lot of information here but it's always partial. This is not the sum total of the companies that get these that are, you know, getting that are on the Pentagon kind of gravy train. Kerry, can I say something? Please. You know, I think it's so useful to know and bring up how weapons and parts are sold. Like in the context of like resisting the U.S. arms trade because, you know, Lockheed Martin might sell a whole weapon or they might provide certain parts to a certain weapon that could be made by Raytheon. It could be made by a company from another country. And so there's this constant argument that gets brought up when we resist to arms sales as a whole from the U.S. If we don't sell these weapons, China or Russia will sell these weapons to the whatever country is trying to buy them. But that is not a sound argument. And I think it's so important for everyone to know that because if a country has been buying parts or weapons from the U.S., from U.S. made like U.S. companies for decades, they can't just flip the switch immediately. And that's something we talked about in our last webinar. So that's something good for people to like know and remember and bring up often. And also just the argument is like, why should we sell weapons anyway? But we can't flip the switch that fast. Totally, we're gonna get into that in the next part when we talk about foreign military sales. I just wanted to, I think these points in the chat that Fahim is making about local companies is so important because it really, like scrolling through these, it really, it reveal, I mean, so yeah, I learn a lot. Like every time I click on this, I'm like, whoa, I didn't know, there are parts of Massachusetts where I know weapons are being designed. There's this whole area north of Boston where tons of, as a combination of tech and universities and the military, they're doing tons of research and development. And then I saw today actually looking through this that there's a company in Braintree, which is just south of Boston that is getting pedagone contracts. I'm like, I didn't know that was happening in Braintree. So it really does reveal, not only does it expose like these companies, but it actually reveals just how militarized where we are is. It also, one observation that I'll just say is, when you spend a little time on this, you realize how extensive the operations are even in one corporation. So like right now on the screen I'm looking at, this says Boeing Corporation of St. Louis, Missouri. But on another page on this website that I was looking at earlier today, it said Boeing Corporation of Seattle, Washington. And it's like, right, because Boeing actually has operations in both cities. And as you scroll through, you'll see the same corporations, but talking about funding operations in different cities. And it really gives you a sense of how extensive this whole industry is and how it works. Yeah, I see Michael. So in regards to the last statement about a country has to rely on one country like either Russia or China or US, are there some countries where their systems have interoperability like NATO countries? So if we did not sell the weapons, could they buy weapons, say from Germany, Italy, France, England or one of the other countries in the alliance and still not lose any functionality or do they have to necessarily buy weapons from us or really diminish their capacity for war making? Kerry, if you wanna add anything, it depends on the weapon for sure. But also, what was I gonna say? I'm blanking. Oh no, I had a good point. Kerry, you wanna go first and I'll circle back. Sure, it's such a good question. I'm so glad we're talking about this. And what Danica just said is like it depends on the weapon. And what that means is that different countries wanna specialize in different weapons systems. And so the United States will say, look, if you wanna buy, there are some guns that you can get from Leonardo, which is an Italian weapons manufacturer or French weapons manufacturers. But if you want the F-35, if you want the Joint Strike Fighter, you gotta deal with the United States. And hey, we are the best in terms of making planes. We are the best in terms of making ships. We're the best in terms of making submarines. There are some things that only the US makes. So the US actually talks about interoperability all the time. But the idea is to sell it. They're like, we want interoperability by making sure that all of our allies have American weapons. That is the interoperability. That by all of our weapons systems, so that all these NATO allies that work with each other can do so effectively with American weapons. Yeah, and sometimes it's not whole weapons. Some systems are not operable without Lockheed Martin Parts, if that makes sense. And also, I remember what I wanted to say is the US makes up almost 38% of the global arms trade. It would be so hard to kind of make up for that gap with smaller European countries. Super good points, yeah. Other thoughts and questions just on this site and on these contracts? Sorry, if I may jump in really quickly. So most of these complex weapons like Europe, whether it's a ship or a component within a ship like a turbine and so on and so forth. These, most of these companies, they make a huge margin on the aftermarket. So this whole interoperability thing is unlimited. Things like, for example, on firearms. Yes, you can use a nine millimeter round made by Italian company on a block or on a Beretta or whatever, yep, you can do that. But if you have a US-made tank, then that tank manufacturer is not gonna want to have a company X ally or no ally making that product without them getting a cut on it. So it's not, so largely it's not gonna be interoperable. I mean, as much as they talk about it, it's basically they're protecting their margins. That's it. Yeah, that's so true. And there's like a couple other things I would add to that kind of secures the American supremacy when it comes to interoperability. So one is like, if you buy, for example, a ship, from the United States, there are so many different components on those ships. Like there's so much tech that are also made by American corporations. Do you know what I mean? Like Lockheed or Electric Boat might make the ship itself. But then there's all these systems on the ship. That the point is, if you buy a weapon system, you're buying into, those systems are only compatible with American tech and their design that way. And so it means that you necessarily have to buy from all these other corporations. The other thing is that the US actually, there's all of these like legal restrictions on, like for US allies on purchasing weapons, because they frame it in terms of national security. So for example, Turkey, which for a long time has bought US weapons and technology like a few years ago said, well, we're interested in actually buying this Russian weapon system. And like the US Congress had hearings where they were like, well, this is a problem. We've been selling weapons to Turkey. And if they buy weapons from Russia, then maybe the Russians will have access to our trade secrets and all this. So it ends up becoming this legal issue. There's all these ways to make sure that they only buy American weapons. I see Madison. Yeah, thank you so much for all of this breakdown. It's helpful. You were talking about interoperability and like how certain components only work with certain technology. Can you add a little more about support services because that's something I've been tracking a lot in the China campaign. And it followed, I see a lot of connections to Afghanistan and how we kind of had to maintain the military there. And I see that happening in Taiwan. I see that happening in Australia where Australians are now saying we are in a vulnerable position because of how many US troops and weapons are in our nation now that we're in the crosshairs. So what do those like support? I see it written as like government technical contract support services. Do you know anything about what all that entails? Yeah, and that's actually, Danika, did you wanna, I saw your. Oh yeah, I was just gonna talk about that's very common in Saudi Arabia. Like once Biden made that announcement that the US was gonna stop being involved in the Saudi led war on Yemen, what involvement still looked like there was contractors upkeeping the Saudi Royal Air Force. So the framing here is like, it's still military involvement. But yeah, that's really common. And once we've left or stopped involvement in a war it often still looks like military training, intelligent sharing contractors on the ground. Exactly, and that's actually, so this is medicine that's like a perfect transition actually to the next part, which I think you already mentioned which has to do with foreign military sales. So I'm gonna drop this link in the chat. And if folks can go there and I'll share my screen again, but it's exactly what you said when the US sells a weapon system it isn't just selling that weapon system that is like the beginning of a whole set of relationships that are dependent on US funding and US corporations. And that includes the maintenance of these weapons system. It's really interesting because these systems you'll find I think as you explore this website that these weapons systems are very sophisticated they're very expensive. And they're also so, I don't know if fragile is the word but they require so much maintenance actually that it requires year after year an ongoing set of contracts to maintain the weapons systems that were purchased. So this is the website of the Defense Security Cooperation Agency. That is an agency that plays a central role in this like interesting and like somewhat complex process whereby the US sells weapons. And it has to notify the public of major arm sales. So I know some of you have been to this website before but please just take a look and just click on these kind of like we're doing with the Pentagon, the contract site and just to explore these different sales and what they're for and take a minute and I'd love to hear questions and thoughts, observations. Michael, is your hand raised? Yes, it is. Okay, so my issue is this is what we do. And it has become who we are or at least it may not be who a lot of Americans think we are but it's you the rest of the world is pretty well convinced that we are are people that promote war and are even willing to tax our people to subsidize the cost of the protection if you look at some of the money that goes to Israel and Egypt under the foreign military financing or whatever it is, there's like 10 billion a year or more so decide just to subsidize the cost of these weapons. So the moral argument seems to fall flat. It's like, well, you know, it's really not a nice thing to do to kill people, right? And people say, well, yeah, you're right, it's not but it's so profitable, right? And so I'm starting to wonder what would be the right arguments to make? It seems to me like arguments have been made for the last however many years even going back to World War I when the arms manufacturers made a killing off of all the stuff they didn't it was actually investigated by Congress and people said, yeah, we don't, you know we're poor yet a handful of men are making billions or millions at that time probably off of screwing people all over the world. I mean, I don't know, my frustration's coming out and I'm not really asking the question very well but the question is how can the narrative be changed to become more effective or is that possible? I love that you put that on the table because you know, the purpose of this is not just to sort of I don't know offer like the technical ability of exploring these websites but at the end of the day we're trying to disrupt these processes, right? So thank you for saying that and I have a lot of thoughts but I'd love to open it up to other folks and I'm sure folks have thoughts on those super important questions. I think one of my biggest takeaways from looking through the Pentagon contracts and something for him and a few other people brought up throughout it is there are so many levers to pull when there are so many contracts and subcontracts they're in our communities they're in our cities, they're in our rural areas of companies that help make the war machine run and they can be named and shamed even Boeing, Raytheon all these big companies can be named and shamed too and something else that Kodping is doing is naming and shaming people in Congress who take thousands of dollars from these companies that manufacture weapons. So it makes it harder for us to stop arms sales in Congress when they take my representative took over $40,000 from the top five weapons manufacturers just in the 2020 election cycle. So like identifying the levers of like what can you do like in your city, in your community with your member of Congress like what pressure is there to put in? There's a lot, it's a big issue but there are a lot of levers to be pulling I think. Right on, other thoughts? I'll just say, I think that I don't know it's like there are these, okay, so the way I think about it like there's so much that's invested into obscuring the reality of US empire particularly to the US population. I think that's it's a central part of what makes it function which we should kind of take as a bit of a compliment because it implies that if the residents of this country actually knew what the military did and how it works that we would not be okay with it. You know what I mean? Like it's a testament to our potential that the people who run the war machine think that they have to hide it from us. So that's good. And there are these kind of moments where something breaks through and like I think about August when the US had this withdrawal from Afghanistan which of course the US should have withdrawn the US never should have invaded Afghanistan but clear and also clearly like clearly nobody at the Pentagon or in the White House thought for like one minute about how this would impact Afghan people, right? And it was an absolute catastrophe for Afghans. And it was like when all of a sudden after basically 20 years of no coverage of what the US has done in Afghanistan when all of a sudden we have to see Afghan people who were trying to leave and were appealing to the United States for help with that and appealing for refuge and people were quite desperate they had all this, a lot of Americans were very sympathetic. You know what I mean? Like there was overwhelming sympathy for Afghan refugees and the overwhelming majority of Americans said yes, these people should be let in. And the Biden administration was basically shamed. And after basically having zero plan to evacuate people in a matter of days, they were like, oh, we evacuated like 10,000 people. It's like, right, that's because there was such widespread sentiment, you know, wanting that. So I think that's really powerful like when the humanity of the people who were on the receiving end of American violence actually breaks through. And I think that we have a role in working to help that and amplify, you know, those voices. And then I think it's like making the connections where we are locally because it's like this isn't just this thing that happens over there, you know, overseas. It's happening all around us. And I think that we have to take some honest looks, you know, it's not just like the United States which writ large, it's like Boston where I live like billions of dollars have flowed through this area about weapons manufacturing. And I think we've got some soul-searching to do, you know what I mean? Like I think we need to have that kind of argument. And like Michael, like you said, this is who we are. Well, that's deep, you know what I mean? Like it requires a really deep interrogation, you know, of who all we are. So it's a big task, but I think that we've got to do it. And I think people will respond well actually, not everybody, but there are people out there. Another question, do you see people in other parts of the world resenting our empire? I mean, we've been bullying a lot of people into submission. You would think that resentment is built up over the years. And if we ever back down, they would try to beat us up. I mean, it sounds silly and it sounds really like, you know, king of the hill school yard stuff. But in another way, I mean, if people had been doing to me, what the US has been doing to them, I would have a certain resentment that would have built up over the years. And sometimes you see this in other countries when, you know, like what happened to the Germans after World War II and everyone took revenge on them. And then it just kind of gets erased from history. It's like, well, they deserved it. They deserved everything that God is what people would say. So let's just not talk about it. And I find that an issue too, this concept of collective punishment. And it's kind of what we did with the Native Americans. We killed, what, 95% of them because they tried to fight back. It's just, it's really weird. And I don't know how to process it correctly. So I'm just wondering if that might play into it. Yeah, thoughts on that? When you say resentment, do you mean you're concerned? You see, I just want to clarify, Michael, it's like you can understand why people would resent the US. And you're concerned that that could turn into kind of like a vengeance. Well, yes, because there's many things that we've done to Russia and China that most Americans are totally unaware of over the years. And it's not just stuff that was done 10 or 15 years ago, but some of the stuff goes back two or 300 years or at least 150 years in the case of China. And so we have these long-term resentments that have built up. And I understand people like Vietnam have found a way to forgive us and parts of Korea, the southern part obviously, is somewhat forgiven, all the stuff that we did during the Korean War, but in another sense, I'm just wondering how much we can really back down without inviting retribution. I think it's more... It's about more than like stopping what we're currently doing. We have a lot of reparations to pay the rest of the world. And if we wanna take seriously the US's role in destroying countries and disrespecting sovereignty of other nations, it's going to take a lot of work on our end. It's gonna look more like we gotta cut the Pentagon budget, but we also have to kind of pay it forward and really actually address what we've done. Like we still have landmines in Laos. We have to get like, we have to... There's a lot of steps that we need to take. And of course, of course, so many people have valid reasons to not like the United States, but we do have to take responsibility and actually work towards accountability if we're serious about peace, I think. Hold on. Yeah, I think earlier I asked like, if we know how much they spent on propaganda and also I think like you said, like it does say something that they want so badly for us not to be aware, right? And so I think organizations like this do a good job like actually bringing a lot more awareness and that's a good thing. I think that's powerful. Right. And yeah, I mean, a couple of things I would say too is one thing that I've been really heartened but also moved by actually when like talking to like Iraqis or like Okinawans, people who have experienced, who've been on the receiving end of US violence in really horrific ways. A lot of people, unlike a lot of Americans, are able to distinguish between a country's government and its people actually. So it's like, I mean, I'll say like, I really have as somebody who has done a lot of research on US military tradition in Okinawa, I have benefited tremendously from the fact that like Okinawan activists have produced these amazing resources in English with the hope that American people will read them. You know what I mean? Like it's meant to appeal to the US public and they can distinguish between the government and the people, which is really inspiring me which we can learn a thing or two from. I mean, I think that's part of the American thing is like when the US demonizes Iran, it demonizes an entire entity as though the Iranian state and the Iranian people are wanting the same. And so let's develop our sophistication and we can learn a lot from people around the world with any number of things. The other thing is, I mean, just on what Danika said, which I so agree with, like I will say that I am incredibly inspired by the kind of abolitionist moment that we're experiencing in the US right now. And I think that so many of the ideas of abolition are so relevant when we talk about demilitarization, including essentially this notion that like people and organizations and institutions do harm, like that's a fact of our world and also the belief that people can repair, you know what I mean? And develop different kinds of relationships. Yeah, exactly. I mean, there's like, we should have a whole workshop just on abolition and demilitarization. But I just think about like that point in particular, like, you know, like Michael, it's the questions you're raising are fair. And if we can kind of put ourselves in the shoes of others, think, wow, I mean, how would I feel about the US? You know, if my only experience with the United States was through like the violence of an occupation or invasion, right? And also like those of us who live here are like the end of this story has yet to be written. You know what I mean? And like we are, we have a role to play. We have a really important role to play in writing it and thinking about, yeah, what are we gonna do to hold our institutions accountable, you know, in our, not just the US government, but like our cities and towns and in ourselves? We can do that. I think we need to do that. We're kind of at the end. Oh, and so I just wanted to call for letting last thoughts I see Nicholas's hand. Hey, yeah, I just wanted to circle back. There was something you said earlier to, I think they were websites you were mentioning like this that were good resources to go to to see kind of like latest up to date relevant information on what a Department of Defense is spending money on. And I remember one was security assistance monitor. Can you just refresh me the name of the other one? I see a national priorities. Exactly, yep. So securityassistance.org and nationalpatteries.org securityassistance monitor and the national priorities project. So those are really, really great resources on like budget, budget stuff and weapons sales in particular. Wonderful, thank you so much. Yeah, right on. Here the assistance monitor has a great like weekly newsletter that I highly suggest everyone. Right on and like follow them on social media. Like they're it's really like when the whenever when the U.S. is like making a weapon sale to the Philippines security assistance monitor will tweet about it. They'll make a fact sheet like it's super helpful. Yeah. Well, I guess we're wrapping up. And I want to thank Harry so much for being here for that wonderful presentation. Honestly, very inspiring conversation at the end. We got to do an event about abolition and demilitarization, I think personally. But, you know, I think, you know, I hope we can all take away that there are so many levers for changing the things that make us upset. Don't just be angry. Don't just be sad. Be motivated by your anger and your love for the world. But also there are things you can do about it. And I'm launching a new campaign at CodePaint called called to disarm to address arm sales and to name and shame these weapons companies. And there's a lot. There's going to be a lot of opportunities for local engagement that I'm really excited about. So please feel free to reach out to me about that. And I'd be happy to talk with any of you about it. Hopefully we can get that launched pretty soon. But that's what I'm really looking forward to. And we'll have many more events like this. So thank you all for coming. And thank you to Curry. If anyone wants to unmute and say thank you, I'll say thank you. Yeah, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you all. Please be in touch. Yeah, let's keep this going. All right.