Veterans For Peace has a message for Hegseth, Trump and our troops | The Joy Reid Show

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[00:00:05]Okay.

[00:00:14]>> So, um, sorry. What on earth is this?

[00:00:16]Jason, can you play C1 real quick?

[00:00:19]>> Pentagon bureaucracy was doing the same thing for decades. When our war fighters needed more weapons, aircraft, and ships, the Department of Defense allowed contractors to double dip at your expense. But today, President Trump's War Department is flipping this rigged system on its head. We're not tolerating delays in production or cost overruns anymore. We've pushed out the bureaucrats who've made these deals in the past and replaced them with the most talented negotiators in the private sector. A group of businessmen so elite they've been rightly dubbed Deal Team Six.

[00:01:03]Deal team six lethal effect not politically correct. I'm a cartoon standing in front of an illustration and I am also your department of war.

[00:01:15]Baby, what's wrong? Uh, Secretary of War crimes lame video about the deal 6 is designed to distract from the war disaster in Iran, uh, which has destroyed more of our military infrastructure than your government is telling you. While Iranians, uh, and US warships are now shooting at each other despite Donald Trump claiming that hostilities between the US and Iran are quote terminated.

[00:01:40]It makes no sense. So why aren't oil prices coming down if they're terminated? Why is Spirit Airlines still DOA? And you know, sorry if you're saving so much money, Drunkie Pete. Why do you need $1.5 trillion for your new Pentagon budget? Why are you still lying and saying it's Department of War? I think more relevant is this video of Whiskey Pete getting owned by New York Congressman Patton Ryan. Let's play that.

[00:02:02]>> Recognize gentleman from New York, Mr. Ryan.

[00:02:05]>> Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Head wounds, heavy bleeding, and then just shrapnel all over. So folks are bleeding from their abdomen, bleeding from arms, bleeding from legs.

[00:02:18]Secretary Hegth, do you know who said that?

[00:02:22]>> Um, I'm not sure I do.

[00:02:24]>> It was one of our soldiers describing the devastating Iranian drone strike at Porta March 1st in Kuwait. As you know, six of our soldiers killed, over 30 wounded.

[00:02:37]Secretary, do you know the range of the Shahed 136 one-way attack drone?

[00:02:41]Approximately, >> it depends on the variant, but it's got serious distance.

[00:02:45]>> Several hundred miles.

[00:02:46]>> Do you know how far Porta is from Iran?

[00:02:50]>> Um, there's a reason why we took it's extreme because we understand the proximity challenges.

[00:02:57]>> Mr. Chair, I'm going to reclaim my time.

[00:02:58]It's well under 100 miles. Before the war started, there was clear criminal intelligence that Schuea was high on Iran's target list. Internal analysis that said the site was indefensible from aerial attack and should not be used. Yet, you sent our soldiers from the 103rd Sustainment Command there anyway. Is that true or false? True or false? Straightforward question.

[00:03:22]>> Are you going to give me a chance to answer or just play gotcha?

[00:03:25]>> Did you send them there or not?

[00:03:28]I always we have we took proactive measures from the beginning to ensure force protection and defensive posture were maximized across the theater.

[00:03:36]>> Let's talk about what defenses they had >> prior to the attack. Officers on the ground knew our troops were vulnerable.

[00:03:42]In fact, they requested additional force protection. Did they receive it?

[00:03:48]>> Wherever humanly possible, force protection counter UAS made available.

[00:03:52]>> They did not. In fact, when asked to describe the base's defense, one survivor who's come forward from the unit said, quote, I mean, I would put it in the none category from a drone defense capability. None.

[00:04:10]>> None. No defenses for the troops that they've sent to Iran for no reason that they can articulate at all. Joining me now is peace activist Susan Schnel of Veterans for Peace. She's been active in peace social justice movements for more than 50 years. She was an active duty Navy nurse during the Vietnam War and in 1969 was court marshaled for dropping anti-war flyers over military bases in the San Francisco Bay area and wearing her uniform in the GI and Veterans March for Peace demonstration in San Francisco. She's the only woman officer to ever be court marshal for anti-war activities during the conflict in Southeast Asia. Um, it's great to meet you, Susan Schnull. Thank you so much, Joy, and it's wonderful to meet you.

[00:05:00]>> Uh, let's talk about this. It appears that this war, which is um killed an unknown number of US troops and an unknown number of Iranians, including we do know 161 little girls that were bombed in a school, but we don't know how many Americans have died. We do know they're eating crap food and that they have no force protection. What do you make of that as a veteran?

[00:05:26]As a veteran and as a member of Veterans for Peace, I should start by saying we are an organization of veterans that have been to war and seen what war does and we are against wars. And I know our focus today is on Iran, but we also need to talk about all the other countries in the world where the United States has military forces. I don't think it's well known to the American people that in fact we have over 350 bases across the world that we have troops that are right now in Venezuela.

[00:06:01]That seems to be another focus that we're taking a look at killing people in fishing boats who are out on the waters that we also are involved in the Sudan that we are involved in many many areas across the world and we have bases in countries that are supposed to be neutral countries because we want to send our troops and our armaments across countries and through countries like Ireland. So again getting back to the concern that we have Iran, it is a major focus right now and it's obvious to me that one of the reasons that the president is talking about peace and that he is talking about peace is that they are trying to avoid the requirement that Congress in fact has a mandate to declare war when it is longer than 30 days. So all that we have heard lately is yes there's peace there's active firing going on there are people being killed and it's more and more of the lies and I have to say this of the bone spur man who avoided military entering into the military because he was so afraid and now he is sending our troops all over the world and they're put in harm's way and it's for the benefit of those corporate interests that are making a fortune out of sending arms to Israel and sending arms to anybody that will pay for them. And I would say again that what we are doing, what the president is doing is illegal because Congress is supposed to have a role both in the declaration of war and the action of war and in the amount of military supplies that are sold to countries like Israel to decimate and commit genocide in Gaza. So you >> you've said so much. Yeah. Yeah. No, you've said so much and I want to I want to unpack a few of them because you made so many brilliant points here. Uh on the point of our presence around the world militarily, that is why our troops are dying. Most of our troops that have died as a result of this Iran war have not as we to the to our knowledge died fighting Iranians. They've died because they are based in these bases in UAE or in Kuwait. All of these places that accepted our presence in these military bases, they're now getting bombed by Iran. That's what Iran is bombing in our for friendly countries. That presence as as a military veteran, do you have any idea like what's the purpose of that presence? Who are we protecting by having bases in UAE? Are we just protecting oil >> and and money interests? And I would say it's also to the benefit of the corporate arms industry that is making a fortune. It's extraordinary. If you go to look at any of the TV business stations and you have the armament people on, they will tell you that within a week, within two weeks, they can get the fastest drones. They can get the best killing machine into another country. And that's why you should invest in those corporate uh killing machines. It's just extraordinary. And Joy, you mentioned we are all over the world killing people all over the world.

[00:09:11]I don't see that we have any Iranians in this country that are coming to the United States. I don't see any air force that's coming over or drones. But we the United States is the largest killing structure in the world. And that should make all of us take a step back and say, what are we doing as we we move into Memorial Day and we're moving into a celebration of what what is this country? What was it? What do we want it to believe? What do we want it to be?

[00:09:45]And how can we get that done? And how can we change the values and the politics of the people in this country?

[00:09:54]>> 100%. And the second piece that you said that cannot go unremarked upon is that you yourself uh are a veteran who was punished for being a peace activist during the Vietnam conflict and yet you as a woman, the kind of person that Pete Hegsath wants to run out of the military, run out of the Pentagon, uh expel from military service. You as a woman were a Vietnam uh veteran. You are you were what he calls a war fighter.

[00:10:22]And yet Donald Trump, the commander-in-chief, was a fullon physical coward whose family got him out of service in Vietnam, who refused to serve his country at the time that he and in your generation were serving. He did not. What do you make of the fact that he seems so gleeful about now using the military like a toy where he can just bomb anywhere he wants and he seems to deeply enjoy the idea of killing, but not killing himself because he's a coward, but having his the military that he now controls just kill fishermen, kill Iranian children, kill Palestinians, kill Lebanese people in their own apartment buildings, etc. It's it's as though he's sitting at a desk and doing video games because that's what he knows. I just need to correct one thing. I did not serve in Vietnam. I took care of the men who were injured in Vietnam and saw the >> That's still service. I still think that's service, Susan. To me, it is service. That is service. Absolutely.

[00:11:23]>> So, I saw what war does to human beings.

[00:11:26]I saw the young men who I cared for tried to save their lives or many who came back with terrible infections whose lives we couldn't save. So we saw the impact of war and I also saw the impact of how we train troops and we train our troops to hate the other and the other is who becomes our enemy and how that relates to what is going on in this administration today which is the ongoing impact of racism on this country and how this is I know this has been going on for years but it's become almost it's okay because the government says it's okay to do that. That is terrifying to me. That is bringing the war home to this country and saying now we're going to pit people against each other right here. It's extraordinary. We have we who want peace and social justice have a lot of do.

[00:12:24]>> And what do you when you talk to other people that are in Veterans for Peace, uh you know your fellow veterans, what do they think of Pete Hegsth? What what do people think of him?

[00:12:35]Oh my goodness. Um that he is a cartoon character. I And in my mind, that's what I see when I when I see him and see the way that he dresses and wears the shoes the president wants the president wants him to wear. These are people who are terrified of their own shadow. And yet they get up there and they send our young people to war to face danger and lose their lives. How dare they? So, just along with that, um I just would like to mention that Veterans for Peace has put billboards up near >> Can we show those? Yes, let's show the billboard. Good. Yes, we've got them.

[00:13:14]We've got them. Please talk over this uh this clip. Go for it.

[00:13:17]>> These are wonderful. So, we were in fact um inspired by um Senator Kelly who talked to the troops and talked to people about not obeying illegal orders.

[00:13:31]Um Rory Fanning, who you just saw there, is also a veteran in Veterans for Peace.

[00:13:37]So we put these signs up. Again, they're near military bases all around the country and the most active of the military bases. And they say to our troops, you need to understand what your orders are. And if you identify those orders are illegal, you have the right and the responsibility to refuse them.

[00:13:58]And important to understand that those orders are not just the direct orders that you get from your commanding officer. They are also orders that might be related to illegal wars. And we feel in Veterans for Peace that these illegal wars that we are perpetrating all over the world in fact are illegal and therefore the orders that the troops receive are illegal. Important to think about all of that. So, our signs are set up to say, "We are veterans. We have been to war. We know what war does." And we're saying, "You need to think before you go out there and participate in these illegal wars and illegal actions."

[00:14:42]>> I love that. Exit question to you, Susan. Um, you know, the new rules um from the uh Trump regime are that every 18-year-old male um will automatically be registered for the draft. They won't be able to do it proactively. it's going to be automatic and they've included in that undocumented uh citizens, people who are undocumented people who they are actively persecuting and attacking, but they're still willing to make them cannon fodder. What do you make of this change?

[00:15:10]It's it's extraordinary and important to understand that in fact Congress voted for this change in the selective service. It used to be that when young people young men reach the age of 18, they would have to sign up. It's as you mentioned Joy, that's no longer true.

[00:15:26]Now they're automatically enrolled and my understanding is that be with what DOJ has done with all of these bas these databases that in fact now there's the identification of immigrants in this country and I think it's so important for people watching your show to understand that our immigrants and they are immigrants they are not aliens they are human beings participate in this country in the workforce in this country that's why there information about them that is available nationally. So they are participating in this society and putting money into this government. So we need to understand exactly who they are. That database as you mentioned will now be available to selective service and they will automatically be then put into could be put into the draft. We also have um a project called deported veterans and we are actively involved in working with veterans who have been deported over the past 40 years uh to bring them back and to work with people to be able if you've served this country in war you actually you have a right to be able to come back into this country.

[00:16:41]So for all of those reasons, important to educate, educate, educate the American people about what is being done in their name and and get the information out there. And that's what we're hoping to do with our billboards.

[00:16:56]>> Susan Schnull, legend, thank you so much. I appreciate you. It is wonderful to be your sister in the struggle. I appreciate you so much. Thank you for being here. And thank you to Veterans for Peace. We appreciate y'all.

[00:17:08]>> Thank you so much, Joy. It's a pleasure to work with you and to meet with you.