 I am thrilled to be with you tonight along with my co-host Colonel Anne Wright, a diplomat in her own right. Cole Harrison, the executive director of Massachusetts Peace Action. Hania Jadad Barnes, an organizer with Roots Action, released alliances of progressive Democrats of America. And I think Brian Garvey will be joining us as well. He's also with Massachusetts Peace Action. Tonight we're looking at diplomacy. What happened to it? How do we revive this lost art? We desperately need it, right? As we face a hot war in Ukraine, a proxy war between the United States and Russia. A very dangerous situation. We are all aware of that. We're going to be talking about that tonight with Chaz Freeman, Ambassador Chaz Freeman, who has a long resume. And we'll be introducing him in a little bit. And then Professor Jeffrey Sachs will be coming to us via video. So we'll be talking about Ukraine. We'll talk about Yemen. We'll talk about China. And first we're going to have some updates. So, Hania, Hania, take it away. Most certainly. And again, good evening to you, every single one of you who's here, who's joined us at five o'clock. Delighted to have you. Just a quick update on Iran and what's happened with the morality police. Some Western media outlets just recently, like the New York Times in the Wall Street Journal just recently faced a ton of backlash from Iranian activists over headlines claiming that Iran has abolished, or is abolishing its morality police. Just a few days ago, the New York Times published an inaccurate article quoting one of Iran's elected officials. Attorney General Mohammed Javad Murtazavi, who was asked over the weekend about why the country's morality police or what we call in Farsi, Gashd Irshad had become inactive and he replied that the morality police had nothing to do with the judiciary and the same institution that established it now has shut it down. Well, just a quick background on the morality police, the guidance patrol has never been a police unit so it cannot be abolished. In fact, this program could be paused or continue depending on whether there is a heartliner president in Iran or someone who is more on the moderate side, but it is, and it pretty much resembles what we have here which is the stop and risk, but the decision to dismantle the morality police technically lies within the Supreme Council of Cultural Revolution, which is a body that was established in the early 1980s by Iran's first Supreme Leader, and right now, as it currently stands today, it is headed by President Ibrahim Raisi. The comments by the Attorney General came just a couple of days after pro reform outlet, and to have reported him saying that Iran's parliament and judiciary were reviewing the country's mandatory hijab laws that have been in place since 1983. Anyone who is currently following the Iran protest knows that problems in Iran go much deeper than just the hijab. Hijab is one of the biggest issues, but it is more of a freedom to choose for women. And again, time and time again we have student solidarity with our sisters and people of you. Okay, let's go to Anne Wright, Colonel Anne Wright, she's been a longtime Code Pink sister, and she's going to be helping moderate tonight. She's got a lot of experience as a diplomat herself. So and maybe you can just tell us a little bit about what you're up to these days in Hawaii with the Red Hill, and then update us on Ukraine, NATO, all of that in a couple of minutes. Just a couple of minutes I can do that. No problem. I am here at home in Hawaii where we are challenging the US Navy's just pollution of everything we've got from our water of 19,000 gallons of jet fuel a year ago that went into the drinking water of 17 different communities around the Pearl Harbor base. And then just last week here was anywhere from 1100 to 1400 gallons of AF F F F F, which is otherwise known as PFAS, aquas firefighting foam that is really really nasty and poisonous, it just leaked out of the same tunnels where we've had jet fuel. Here in Hawaii we are, we're having lots of demonstrations and putting pressure on the Navy, which is said it will close down the massive 220 underground tanks that hold 250 million gallons of jet fuel. Okay, so that's why plus a little action with our volcano over on Big Island, that is actually putting lava down into the Pohaka Loa military training area that has lots of unexploded ordinance there because it's one of the big bombing ranges. The military has so there will probably be some big explosions not just for the volcano but the lava going over some of this unexploded ordinance, but now other two other explosions on the war in Ukraine, where the cold weather setting in the Russian government has targeted civilian infrastructure. The apparently the Ukrainians have hit back with some drones that have hit air bases with the 200 miles inside the Russian border, and that should probably escalate what's going to be happening there on other issues of NATO besides NATO coming out here into the Pacific. We have NATO expansion in Europe where Finland and Sweden have both applied for NATO membership and the, particularly the accession of Sweden is being held up by Turkey, Turkey wants to have Sweden extra die Kurdish, Kurdish activists who have sought refuge in Sweden. So there that and the fact that what we had hoped would be talks between Russia and the US on the start treaty has now been postponed. So that's a thumbnail sketch of crises in Europe and around the world. Thank you. Thank you Colonel and right and we'll be going into those topics in greater depth with Ambassador chess Freeman who will be joining us in just a moment. I also wanted to draw your attention to the chat where ma is posting some links to articles that may be of interest. The Benjamin who couldn't join us tonight because she's on a nationwide book tour she's in Houston. She wrote an excellent article with Nicholas J. S. Davies, the co author of her book war in Ukraine making sense of a senseless conflict, an article on eight reasons why now as a time is the time to support a ceasefire and negotiations in Ukraine, and then I also we're also posting my article letter to the left on Ukraine because we've all probably noticed that there are a few on the left who think that we should continue to arm the Ukrainians. So my response that you know we have to look at how we have provoked this, and we have to look at why a military solution is not is not possible really. Okay, so moving on let's take a look at what's going on in Palestine coal. Sure, so all this year the violence and destruction have been increasing in Palestine the situation is increasingly tense settler violence is in as escalating without much intervention by Israeli soldiers or police. I think over 200 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces this year alone and now, of course there's a new far right coalition government coming in in Israel the farthest right Israel has ever elected. The, the coalition agreement between the right wing parties was published yesterday, and that was a lot of smoke rich who is the head of a party called religious sinism he's a far right settler known for Jewish supremacist rhetoric he will be in charge of administering settlements within the Defense Department so that's an extremely problematic situation almost guaranteed to produce conflict. So we really need to be concerned with what us policies going to be. And Marcy if I could actually, I was going to mention we're going to hold a code pink Congress session January 3 on this very topic so stand by for that first one in the new year. And if I could just sneak in a word about the NDA, the conferees announced the National Defense Authorization bill last week, and it's 858 billion, which is the largest ever and 45 billion more than President Biden asked for. So we're expecting the House to vote on that any day and it would be important to rally votes against it. Yes, and we'll be doing that tonight so do stay with us. We'll be following up on two actions tonight to support the Christmas truce the call for Christmas truce in Ukraine, as well as phoning we're going to get on our cell phones and call Capitol Hill and say vote no against the NDA. Brian Garvey is also with Massachusetts peace action and he has an update on Yemen. Hello everyone. Great to be back with you and great to report some good news came through this morning the intercept reported that Bernie Sanders senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont who has been a long time advocate for an end to the US role. The Israeli facilitation of the Saudi let war in Yemen is going to to bring his privileged war powers resolution to the floor as early as next week. Now this is something that advocates and activists have been pushing for. Well, really since the Biden administration began for what we've been pushing for for years even before that. But to challenge the Biden administration just as much as Congress challenged Donald Trump when he was president, which is, you know, a little politically difficult for the Democrats in Congress. The people of Yemen, who have endured now over seven years of blockade and bombing campaigns by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and their allies need continued relief. Since the introduction of the war powers resolution back earlier this year, there has been a fragile truce that truth has expired but even so the parties continue to observe that truce and and more or less and the Saudis have not resumed bombing campaign in the past. And activists feel that that has a lot to do with that war powers resolution that's hanging over their heads, because if they resume their bombing campaign, then this privileged piece of legislation can kick in. And if it does, it'll limit all us support for the Saudi Royal Air Force, and just to let you know how important that is. The US contractors with the authority of the Department of Defense, they service these planes every time they take off and land without that, without the spare parts and the service. The Saudi Royal Air Force essentially becomes very expensive paper weights. So it's a huge threat it's a huge piece of leverage that can be used to really provide this much needed relief to the people of Yemen. And as we know, Congress is about to change over, right. The Democrats are going to lose control of the House of Representatives, the GOP is going to take power. And that's why it is so important to get a vote on this right now, because in the House of Representatives. And 20 co sponsors already people who have signed up to support this which is no small feat, let me tell you 120 co sponsors is considerably more than it got when it passed and made it all the way to the president's desk back in 2018. But now we have a president who has said he would do the kind of things that are in this resolution makes so it makes it much harder for him not to to pass that resolution. We're going to tell our senators. Yeah, you got to tell your senators got to tell the people in the house and one more reason. And this touches on the little partisan things that politicians care a lot about Saudi Arabia really did put their hand in our recent midterm elections that cut in oil productions amounts to some election interference. And, you know, with the margins being as close as they are in the house used to say that that didn't have a difference. And if Congress doesn't do anything. Who's to say they won't interfere in the 2024 election and we know who the Saudi government prefers was in the Oval Office. So just another reason for you to tell your reps. Resolution. Thank you very much Brian Garby with Massachusetts peace action we will look forward to the reintroduction of that Yemen war powers resolution by Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont. Now, and right, who resigned from the State Department over the US invasion and occupation of Iraq is our special guest moderator tonight and she's going to introduce our first guest. Thank you Marcy and it is a real pleasure for me as a former diplomat to introduce one of the diplomats who I think really makes a difference in his retirement out of the State Department after he had been in for nearly 40 years, including many times as being the interpreter for President Nixon when he went to his the historic visit to China in 1972, and then being the director of the Chinese Affairs Department and State Department he was the ambassador to Saudi Arabia. He was the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs, a principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs. He has been in charge eight affairs or the acting ambassador and our embassy in China and also in Thailand. He has a wealth of experience and could take up this full hour in fact we need to invite him back. But what we are so we're so pleased back with women that you're with us to give us a thumbnail sketch on what's happening with diplomacy, is it, is it keeping the world more peaceful or is the diplomacy doing exactly what the administration may be wanting which is maybe not so peaceful things. So, Ambassador Freeman, it's all yours. Thank you. Well, thank you, Ann, and thank you, Marcy. Also, it's a pleasure to be with you. I think in order to do diplomacy, you need to know what it is and it's time to recognize that our country has a statecraft deficit sustained by a diplomacy free foreign policy. We don't know how to use measures short of war to solve problems, how to avoid starting wars, how to gain anything but more debt from them, or how to terminate them. We demand professionalism and proven competence from our military, but we're content with amateurism and mediocrity in our diplomacy and how did this happen. Well, for the first 120 years of our history, we were either content behind the two great oceans that separate us from Asia and Europe, or using our military to the next half of Mexico, engineer regime change elsewhere in Latin America, or kill indigenous peoples. After a brilliant start, people like Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, and so forth as an independent nation, we imagine that unskilled fat cats and political cronies were good enough for diplomatic work. In 1917, we sent troops to Europe, where they took the balance of World War One. Our president and an academic with no diplomatic experience named Woodrow Wilson had some untested theories about how the world should be run. We united Paris at the Peace College conference after the war. Our allies cynically indulged him, but then our Congress repudiated the new world order it proposed. We nonetheless decided to professionalize our diplomacy. 1924, we created the Foreign Services of the United States, but we continued to appoint wealthy dilatants with few relevant skills to represent us abroad. In Asia and Europe, our foreign policy was isolationist and consisted almost entirely of denunciations of foreigners and other affirmations of our presumed moral superiority. This annoyed the foreigners concern, but had almost no practical effect on them. Outside our sphere of influence in the Americas, we were all talk and no action. In 1941, we implemented one of Wilson's most appealing theories that economic deprivation could be as crippling as military assault and impose sanctions on Japan. The Japanese saw this as an act of war, a bullying existential threat, and responded at Pearl Harbor. When the death dust from World War Two settled, our armed forces dominated Asia and all of the Eastern Europe and the northern half of Korea. In an amazing flash of statecraft, we led the creation of an international system based on an analog to the rule of law. In theory, this created a universal set of rules for international interactions. In practice, we established American spheres of influence in Asia and Western Europe, opposed to the Soviet Empire in Eastern Europe and Eurasia. Our grand strategy rested on the judgment by George Kennan, a professional diplomat station in Washington. But if the Soviet Union were politically and economically walled off from the West, it would collapse of its own infirmities. It took 42 years to prove Kennan right. Then we had become habituated to military confrontation with Moscow and developed vested interests in a vast military industrial congressional complex. This made it convenient to interpret the Soviet decision to stop competing with us as a military victory, rather than the triumph of diplomatic strategy and reason that it was. It's clear to us that the only language foreigners understand is the use of force or failing that economic coercion. But diplomacy is about persuading others to see and do things our way. It requires recognizing that the other side gets a vote in relationships. And then what seems self-evident to us may strike others as wrong-headed. It demands an open mind, open ears, and the ability to consider viewpoints other than our own. You won't find much empathy on our social media or in our diplomacy at present. We treat diplomatic dialogue as little more than the deceptive foreplay that precedes an intended assault. In fact, our diplomacy now is mostly aimed at appeasing domestic opinion rather than persuading foreigners to see their interests as we do. This is diplomacy as transnational con game. The only peace process now underway in the Holy Land is that in the minds of the gullible here. The Biden administration's opening move with the Chinese pander domestic sinophobia by publicly informing them that we would deal with them from a position of strength in order to keep them down. Then we added that there, of course, you know that there were a few things we needed China to do for us and suggested to get about doing them. Rather than restoring the nuclear deal with Tehran, the administration placated the Zionist lobby by doubling down on its predecessors failed policy of maximum pressure on Iran. NATO was and is an alliance hostile to Russia. The administration refused to hear Moscow's objections to the deployment of NATO and US weaponry to Russia's borders. The rejection of any effort to negotiate a peaceful modest revenge between Russia and the US military sphere of influence in Europe helped bring on a war. Our response to Russian aggression relied on sanctions that produced a global energy and food crisis crippled European economies and pushed Russia closer to China while enriching our defense industry. We're not talking to Russia. And we have no strategy for ending the war in Ukraine or preventing it from escalating to the nuclear level. And this administration has no idea how to deprive North Korea of reasons or means to strike our country with its new nuclear on by CPMs. In Korea, we seem content to allow might to continue to make right. The result of all this is a deepening tragedy in Palestine, a rising danger of war with China uninterrupted Iranian progress toward nuclear latency. A war in Ukraine likely to last until there are no Ukrainians left to oppose Russia's dismemberment of their country and an ever more belligerent North Korea. Our role in these outcomes does not encourage our allies and partners to follow us. Now that we've convincingly demonstrated the ineptitude of military base foreign policy, perhaps it's time to try diplomacy. The Constitution gave Congress the soul power to authorize wars of choice. It must reclaim its authority rather than continue to rubber stamp wars launched by the executive. We need to recognize that the number of problems with military solutions is limited. Consider non military solutions to them and stop formatting forever wars. Our diplomatic service needs professionalization. The Cold War taught our diplomats how to act as imperial administrators. They must now rediscover the forgotten hearts of friendly persuasion, give and take and war prevention. Diplomacy is the software of foreign policy. Without it military hardware is likely to have a head crack. We need to fund non military instruments of statecraft and to demand the Senate disapprove nominees who are manifestly less qualified by experience or training to conduct diplomacy than our military is at the conduct of warfare. The bottom line is our country's margin for error is shrinking. We need a peaceful international environment to fix the many problems we have at home to enable that we've got to get our diplomatic act together. Thank you. Well, thank you very much, Ambassador Freeman. It's really an indictment on our own foreign policy and the diplomats that implement whatever the administrations that we elect come up with. Although I think behind the scenes there's a certain amount of residual things that go on no matter who's in the administration. I know you speak a lot internationally and and nationally and in fact you were at the National Defense University just a week or so ago. And one of the comments that you put in your speech there was about destroying destroying things in order to save them. When we are, I'm out in halfway out in the Pacific. Could you talk a little bit about China and Taiwan and the US relationship. Well, the sad thing is that we had a formula that prevented war in the Taiwan Strait was premised on allowing Chinese on both sides of the strait to solve their own problems and to do so peacefully. And we agreed with Beijing on a series of conditions which they respected and and we prolong also respected. We've basically gone back on all those on all those commitments and the framework for managing the relationship is now broken. So you hear the administration talking about fixing so-called guardrails on the relationship which basically is a substitute for agreement with Beijing. This isn't going to work for the Chinese this is a really an existential issue to revolutions in the last century were about unifying China and ending foreign spheres of influence on its territory. Taiwan has evolved and it has become a robust democracy and has a higher respect frankly for the rights of its citizens than we're demonstrating now its democracy is healthier. We're doing what we can to ensure that it continues to exist peacefully alongside the mainland and downstream people in China, the merits of the democratic system that's not what we're doing. We're preparing for war. And we have got Chinese attention, much as we got the attention of the Japanese in 1941. They're having up their nuclear forces in order to be able to provide cover for a military operation to take Taiwan. If they regard that as necessary. There's no diplomacy at all here and there's hardly any talk, although Secretary Blinken is going to Beijing in the coming year. There's no indication that he has anything to present other than more of a saying. So, I come back to the thesis that if you want to do diplomacy you need to know what it is, and you have to have people who are trained in it to do it. Secretary Blinken with all due respect is a congressional staffer who has been promoted above any reasonable pay grade. So, I would say we need to, as I said at the end, we just need to get our act together. We have a lot of problems in this country. And we're neglecting them in favor of looking for monsters to destroy abroad. Thank you very much, Ambassador Freeman and for everyone I'm sure would like to hear more from you and read more of your materials and your website chas freeman.net has transcripts from your speeches that. One in particular I saw was on diplomatic policy where you run through the diplomacy of all of the empires that we've seen in the world with maps of who got what where it's really fascinating and we would like to ask everyone to unmute and give Ambassador Freeman a big round of applause for being with us today. Thank you. We appreciate your candid assessment of the current leadership in the state. Back with neo conservatives, you know as a Bernie delegate 500 of us signed a letter to President Biden saying, fire your foreign policy staff because it was clear before how dangerous it, the situation could become with the people he had chosen so, you know, I would say, I just want to encourage you as though you need my encouragement but to write as many op-eds as you can calling for diplomacy, you know, because you have the credibility you have the gravity toss and we so desperately need it now. So thank you very much for joining us thank you and I wish you all a pleasant evening and I will allow you to go on with your business with my enthusiastic support in the background bye bye. So at this point, my if you can put in the chat the link to the petition for the Christmas truce. That would be terrific. We can sign it. We can do it right now. Let's see, just freeman.com. Yeah, if you want to see all of his resources and there are plenty as and pointed out. Okay, they're in the chat. You see, or you saw a link to a petition for Christmas truce. And this is a spin off of a statement that's been signed by over 700 religious leaders it's a separate statement from faith based leaders in the United States calling for the President Biden and members of Congress to call to publicly support a Christmas truce in Ukraine and this is reminiscent of the 1914 Christmas truce during World War one when soldiers crossed enemy lines along the western front something like 100,000 soldiers and said you know we don't have time to continue with this, they put down their arms, and some of them mingled and socialized and even danced. What a time right so it is possible and we hope that you will sign this during the course of this show and share it far and wide. And the next part of our program, we have a video interview that I did with Professor Jeffrey sacks who's been. Well he's with Columbia University but he's also a leader in sustainable development and he's been an economic advisor to various continents and countries including Russia. I'm going to continue to talk to him recently for code pink radio, which airs on most Pacifica stations, if you have a college or community radio station in your town in your city, please ask the program director the general manager to broadcast code pink radio, great show. So my husband a queue up the video for us let's see what he has to say about prospects for diplomacy in Ukraine and the role of China and all of this. Give my second to see if we can bring up the audio. He just today came out with another terrific article on diplomacy and how urgent it was that we practice this in Ukraine. Well, how would you think. Are you guys not able to hear the audio, we can't hear him. No there was no audio when he was the person sharing the screen would need to also share computer audio. Yep, this little box at the bottom left hand. Oh, got it. Sorry, got it, got it, got it. The United States by all report. To all stakeholders in this. The basic issues have been clear before there was a war. And there were three issues on the table before this war that could have been addressed to avoid the war. The same three issues were on the table in March, when Russia and Ukraine came close to an agreement that the United States by all reports that I've heard talk them out of. And it's the same three issues that are on the table now. The first and most important is if Russia leaves, they don't want the United States filling in with NATO period. So this has been the core from the beginning, and the United States doesn't have the decency to say we're not going to expand NATO. That's to save Ukraine saying that by the way, that's the compromise that saves Ukraine because Russia is going to fight to prevent NATO enlargement to Ukraine period. And so we never should have recommended this that's the first item on the agenda. The second item on the agenda is Crimea. Crimea has been the home to the Russian fleet in the Black Sea since 1783. Give me a break. And before we overthrew Yanukovych or help to overthrow Yanukovych in 2014, Yanukovych, who was trying to balance between the two sides and not have Ukraine suffer a war between the US and Russia was saying, Russia will have the rights to Crimea at least till 2041 and then with options for renewal. That was the pragmatic approach that a pragmatic president was trying to pursue. Now Zelensky says, oh, we're going to recapture every inch of it. Well, overall of our dead bodies will be the truth because that is not going to happen without complete escalation to Armageddon. So the second issue is de facto Russian presence in Crimea as it has been since 1783. And everybody knows this. Anybody serious knows this. But Zelensky for whatever domestic political reasons says things that just build the pressure that for escalation to complete disaster. And we say, I wonder how long, how long will the Biden administration put up with Zelensky. That's what I'm wondering. And we sit there sucking our thumbs as this thing escalates to even Biden said that it is on a path to Armageddon. And then he was quickly hushed up. Oh, don't say that. Don't tell the American people such things. Don't scare them. But, you know, even he said it a few weeks ago. So Zelensky, no, Mr. President Zelensky, you're not going to retake Crimea militarily, except over all of our dead bodies. It's not going to happen. General Milley knows it's not going to happen. I suspect President Biden knows it's not going to happen. It's time for the president to be presidential and tell the truth about these things. Then the third issue that has been on the table also from actually Ukraine's independence in 1992 onward. And then especially after Yanukovych's overthrow in 2014 is the Russian concentrated areas of the Donbas Donetsk and Lugansk. And the idea after 2014 was an agreement. It was called the Minsk agreements and Minsk to said that there should be autonomy for those regions. And the Ukrainians signed it and then they ripped it up. They said, we don't like it. We don't want to do those things. And Europe was supposed to be the guarantors of Minsk to France and Germany. They turn their eyes. The United States didn't want to press. This is our government in Kiev. And so there was no solution for the Donbas region. And before this year, this could have been settled on the basis of the Minsk to agreement, which only called for autonomy. It called for special arrangements signed by both sides. Then Russia up the ante. It said, OK, now they're part of the Russian Federation. Then they added two more regions. Well, this is not exactly going in the right direction. This needs to be negotiated. I would not accept that these areas are all going to be Russian. I would not accept that at all in the negotiations, but we're not going to have to. This is what negotiations are about. That's why we need to start the negotiations right now. But we need to understand three issues on the table. One is non NATO enlargement. Second is Crimea. And third is the Donbas. This is the basic issue. It's been the basic issue all along. We could have avoided this war by negotiating on these points. And this idea that it was a concession to give to Putin that NATO wouldn't enlarge. It wasn't a concession. It was sanity that why should we want to push a U.S. military alliance right up against Russia's borders? Well, only if you have neocon reveries. That's the only consideration. Otherwise, any sane person in this country would know that's not a good idea. That's pretty reckless. Why don't we chill out a little bit and not have a war over it? I'm with you a hundred percent, Professor Jeffrey Sachs. What about China? We know that President Biden recently met with the leader of China and that they had a cordial meeting. Do you think China holds the cards here? Well, the situation with China is the following. First, China would like this war to end. Second, China does not want NATO to enlarge. So the same issue we've been talking about is relevant for China. Why? Because these neocons are trying to enlarge NATO, which I hope people remember is the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. They want to enlarge NATO to the Pacific. And this is a kind of nuttiness that actually was shown at this year's NATO meeting when they invited Asian leaders, Asian allied leaders to NATO. How reckless can one be? This really is the neocon vision that US military alliances encircle the world and encircle China and encircle Russia and so forth. And that's the path. So my point is to come back to your question about the role of China. China does not want this war, but China does not want to underwrite NATO enlargement at all. And that's why the Chinese government has rightly said, not wrongly, but rightly said all the time, that we need a negotiated solution that also respects Russia's security needs. That's not cynical. People should understand what that means. It means that NATO doesn't enlarge to Ukraine. Very simple. And that's the terms on which China will help to be a guarantor for peace. It doesn't help that, you know, we're absolutely provoking a similar conflict across the Taiwan Straits right now, which is even more dangerous. And it's a very similar playbook, by the way, which is we prevaricate and make all sorts of miserable provocations over the issue of Taiwan escalate when China says don't do that. Then the speaker of the House flies into Taiwan. Great move. Raising the stakes further. Now military incursions every day. And then we say, well, we're going to arm them to the teeth, make them the porcupine island so that China can't attack. Are you kidding? This is an island of 23 million people. The mainland, I would like to remind everybody is 1.4 billion people. What are we doing? We really want to have a two front for here. Well, you know, are we really desperate for World War three? What is in the minds of these neocons in the White House and in the Congress and in the think tanks of Washington that don't think. And Jeffrey, we, we know that the White House looks to the center for new American security for some of this. I mean it's just crawling with these neoconservatives. And as you mentioned, are pushing for two large theater simultaneous wars with Russia and China. My next question. Last question is, what about this idea that some of the emerging leading emerging economies, the bricks nations, Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa. would form an effective alliance to institute an alternative currency to the US dollar. Is this a remote possibility? Is this a real possibility? And if so, would it be a game changer and halt this drive for full spectrum dominance of the United States, but the land of the sea of the world? Well, it's, it's happening already. And for the following reason, the US dollar for the last 50 years was the convenient global currency. It was the currency in which you denominated international transactions. It was the currency in which you settled international transactions. It was the currency in which you stored value held foreign exchange reserves. It was the global key currency. This has given the US lots of advantages, the ability to borrow at lowest cost in the world, the ability to have a lot of freedom of maneuver of our monetary policy and other privileges of being the world's key currency. But then somebody got the not very bright idea that we could turn this economic advantage, which was undoubted, into a geopolitical military advantage. We could militarize the role of the US dollar. And so we started to politicize and in effect militarize the dollar by confiscating the foreign exchange reserves of countries we don't like Venezuela or Afghanistan after we left. We kept their foreign exchange reserves. And then with Russia, something on the order of freezing $300 billion of their foreign exchange reserves, and then imposing sanctions outside of the UN framework and so forth. But we're doing that everywhere now, not just with Russia, but as a, what they think is a cheap foreign policy tool. You know, you don't have to declare war. You don't even have to explain anything to the American people. You don't need a congressional approval. You don't need appropriations. You just sign a piece of paper. And lo and behold, you have this powerful instrument. But you know what? Everyone else is understanding this. So they don't want to go through the US dollar banking system anymore. They don't want to leave their money in US dollars. And while they can't end the US dollar role overnight, we're seeing all over the world that countries are finding other ways to make transactions. And that's already happening. And there will be a digital renminbi. It's already in existence, but kind of in the beta run right now, there will be other ways to settle. And this is happening in real time. It's now whether there will be a BRICS currency. They're talking about a BRICS payment system. There could be, but what it really means is alternatives to using the US banking system, alternatives to using the US dollar. And the question is, will that happen? And the answer is definitely it will happen because it's already happening. And because there's nothing unique about using the dollar for settlements, it is convenient when much of the world, maybe 60 or 70% of settlements are done that way. And it's good for our banks and the business and it's good for the US economy, but you can't have your currency. Okay. All right, well, he went on for a little while, but I think we got the gist that our currency may not have much currency, and that the banking system may be the route in which we see the hand of diplomacy forced in other words, you know, because the United States dollar is not going to be the currency of the world forever. Okay. At this point, it's 10 minutes before the top of the hour. And any or Cole, any thoughts on what you heard? Well, the, you know, his analysis of what has to be solved in Ukraine is extremely important. And we don't have to adopt a final solution to the war before we open negotiations. It's important to go into a ceasefire. It's important to get the parties talking and declaring their positions publicly. And then we go from there. It's not going to be easy, but we have to move in the right direction. You know, in researching this article, letter to the left on Ukraine, which Maher posted in the chat, you know, I came across these documents, these joint statements that were signed by Biden and Blinken to a couple months apart in 2021. And both documents they talk about supporting NATO as an enhanced opportunity partner EOP, so that Ukraine, do I say Ukraine is their military is integrated into the NATO command structure. It's completely provoking this. And in addition, these documents talk about how the United States will never recognize Crimea as a part of Russia, and that we are committed to restoring the territorial integrity by arms of Ukraine. So, this is the provocation. All right, and I would just like to say, we're in for a long ride on this thing, and whatever we can do as citizens to put pressure on our, our Congress to put pressure on the administration. We really have to do it because it's, we're already in midst of one more in Europe and the potential for things happening in China is so great so everybody get ready, start getting ready to write to call to demonstrate out in front of offices. So try to stop this warmongering crap that's been going on forever it seems. Thank you. Absolutely. And I want to urge everybody who's listening to join us at the peace in Ukraine coalition. Cole and I are on the steering committee it's peace in Ukraine.org. We've got lots of resources for doing exactly what and mentioned, getting out in front of your Congress person's office demanding an end to all of these arms shipments. So 37 billion is on the table by the time the year is out in the US. We anticipate will spend 100 billion over 100 billion on Ukraine. And as chess Freeman said with absolutely no clue about how they're going to bring this to a resolution. All right, so do check out peace in Ukraine.org join us for our calls twice a month it's starting this month the first and third Wednesday of the month. Okay. So now it's time to take some action. And this action the second action, you'll need your cell phone. This is to call Capitol Hill your Congress person and say, vote. No, on the military budget the National Defense Authorization Act there it is in the chat and DAA what it's like 850. Here's 850 billion I think it's more close at 858 billion they keep adding billions to it. Do we really need to spend another 3540 billion on nuclear weapons and nuclear rearmament. Do we need billions to prepare for war with China know how do we stop this we got it we have to be vocal we have to be a lot louder so let's start let's call. Hi, this is Marcy Winograd coordinator of Codepin Congress. I'm done. How are we doing. We're good. Okay, Maha. I think we're done with that portion. I just want to, on behalf of my co host thank you all for joining us tonight. Can you hear me okay. Yeah. We are. We are going to be back on December 20, but earlier in the day we have a program that's, we're partnering partnering with the Women's International League for peace and freedom in the United States and they have a program they've organized on Africa. It's out of Africa so I'm looking forward to that and we'll let you know when that is. And then we'll start up the new year as Cole mentioned with a terrific program on Palestine what's going on there. Always the first and third Tuesday of the month. Cole Brian and want to say goodbye. Thanks everyone. And let's get peace in Ukraine. Amen. I'm going to be on that webinar. Oh, yeah. So I hope everybody tunes in to that one. Thank you. That's right. Yeah. And just lastly, a reminder, join our peace in Ukraine. That or the coalition visit the code pink website code pink.org to see various actions that we posted on the front page, including one that allows you to send with one click. And a message to your Congress person vote no on the 37 billion more that we're being asked to give to Ukraine 22 billion of which would be for weapons. All right, with that I want to thank you all for joining us it's been great to be with you we have a community here, and I look forward to seeing you soon. Take care. Save the chat.