With iraq, the u. S. Had just invaded afghanistan, and we were talking about how horrible it was that the u. S. Was about to invade a country that had nothing to do with 9 11, and we started laughing about the color code alerts. Remember the george w. Bush alerts, yellow, orange, red, and said it was to keep people in a state of fear, and that we needed another color coded alert to say, theres a different way of dealing with this. We go after whoever attacked us, not wholesale invasion of countries, thats when we came up with the idea of codepink. We originally wanted to by code code hot pink but the url was already taken so we payment code pink. Host how do you pick your issues. Guest we started out not wanting to be an ongoing organization. We just wanted to join the masses and mobilize to stop the invasion of iraq. And so we dead that. We got involved. We had tremendous support around the country. Without really trying we found we had hundreds of thousands of people that signed up to our email list. We had hundreds of groups that formed spontaneously in places around the country, and we were part of a Larger Movement that came out to protest on february 15th, 2003, which is recorded in the guinness book of world record of the largest demonstrations around the world in the history of humankind. So, our issue was to stop the war in iraq. Unfortunately, we werent able to do that. But in the process, we realized that there was a need for our voices to continue to try to bring our troops home to try to stop future wars, and to really address the issues of violence and militarism, and we have continued to do that. We pick our issues, peter, mostly by what is our government and the u. S. Involved in. While we do have supporters around the world, most of us are from the u. S. , and we look at how can we as american citizens fulfill our responsibility to try to make our Foreign Policy as positive in the world as possible. So, we look to where our government is not doing well in those respects, and tried to move government policies. Host so, the war in afghanistan justified . Guest we did not think that it was the right thing to do. We thought that we should go after individuals who attacked us, and not invade and occupy other countries. We have just commissioned a report to come out in the fall that will look at the results of all of these years of the u. S. Being in afghanistan. The number of u. S. Soldier that have died, the number of civilians in afghanistan that have died. But mainly we want to look at, has life really improved for the women in afghanistan . And with the research we have been doing, unfortunately, there have been very few changes in the lives of most afghan women, despite the fact that we have spent probably at this point trillions of dollars there, and that we have been there over 13 years. So, we dont feel that the afghan occupation in balance was a positive thing. Host your most recent book is on drone warfare. Any justification for using drones in warfare in your view . Guest well, i dont like war at all so i wouldnt like any kind of technology to be used. Unfortunately, the u. S. Has been involved in all too many wars and all too many wars going on in other places that other countryies have started inch those situations drones become just another piece of Technology Used in warfare. But we see some special things happening around the use of drones where the u. S. Is using them in places where we antibiotic even at war, like in pakistan, or in yemen, and i think that the Drone Technology itself has been making its easier for the u. S. To get involve in places where were not at war, and has been making it easier for the u. S. To get involved in military affairs without a conversation even in congress, much less with the American People, about whether or not we should be involved in those conflict jazz from your book, drone pilots sit safely thousands of mile. Airplane from the danger of the war theyre fighting. The only danger they face is mental. Guest it has been shown by several studies that drone pilots face a level of ptsd that is similar to soldiers who are in the battlefield. It is not easy for a soldier to sit at a desk and be watching the screen, sometimes for ten, 12 hours a day, in some perverse way getting to know people on the ground, because sometimes they are hovering over a particular house, and might watch the father playing with his children, or see the mother going out to wash the laundry or the kids going out to school, and then one day being told to press a button and kill that person. And then theyre supposed to go back to their homes, pick up a gallon of milk on the way home, and play with their kids, and coach the soccer team, and act like everything is normal, and its not. So, theres a lot of problems that the drone pilots are facing. Thats why theres actually a shortage of drone pilots now. Host you also write about abdur alawlaki, son of anwar alawlaki. His family moved back to yemen, his father was killed by a u. S. Drone strike, and then he himself, the 16yearold, in a separate drone strike, while he was having dinner with a butch of other teenagers, was killed in a u. S. Drone strike. This is just an amazing example of the u. S. Killing an american citizen, killing a child, and doing it without any kind of attempt to explain to the family or to us why it was done. Was it a may have stake . What is was on purpose . What did he ever do . Was he ever charged with anything . No. Was he ever tried to did they try to capture him . No. Was he ever given a trial . No. It is one of the most blatant examples of the illegal use of drone warfare. Host may 1st, 20, here is the president at the white house correspondents dinner. The Jonas Brothers are here. Theyre out there somewhere. Sasha and malia are huge fans. But, boys, dont get any ideas. I have two words for you. Predator drones. [laughter] you will never see it coming. Host your reaction to that joke. Guest its not funny at all. Certainly not funny to the people that live under the fear of drones. One thing i learned doing the research, peter, its not just the people who are killed, whether theyre innocent civilians, militants, highvalue targets. Its the entire population in the area that is being punished collectively. Imagine, peter, if you were out in your home in wherever you live and you were looking up at the sky, and there was a buzzing of drones. You knew that the drone had missiles on it that was going to kill somebody. You didnt know who, when, where, why. And what i found is that in these areas where the drones are flying overhead, parents are afraid to send their children to school. People are afraid to go out to the market. Theyre afraid to go to any community events, whether its even weddings or funerals, because drones have been known to target weddings and funerals. So, its a terrifying thing to live under drones, and i dont think its anything that the president should be joking about. Host january 30, 2015, codepink is pretty well known. Capitol hill. For interrupting hearings. Lets watch this video. In the name of [shouting] we dont want to hear from you anymore. In the name of the people of chile in the name of the people of vietnam. In the name of the people of east timor. In the name of the people been a member of this committee for many years, and i have never seen anything as disgraceful and outrageous and despicable as the last demonstration that just took place about you know, you have to shut up or im going to have you arrested. If we cant get the Capitol Hill Police in here immediately. Get out of here, you low life scum. [applause] so, henry, i hope you will dr. Kissinger, i hope on behalf of all of the members on the committee, both sides of the aisle, in fact from all of my colleagues id like to apologize for allowing such disgraceful behavior towards a man who has served his country with the greatest distinction. I apologize profusely. Host low life scum. Guest yes, this is coming from john mccain, somebody who pushed to get abuse the war in iraq. You know, peter, whether its Henry Kissinger or john mccain or george bush or donald rum felled and i could name many, many. Unfortunately people in this country rarely are held accountable for their acts. I have lived in Lattin America latin america. I have seen the kind of responses to Henry Kissinger, responsible for the coup in chile that led to so much death and destruction in that country. Ive been to east timor, where Henry Kissinger gave a green light for the dictatorship to invade that island, and again, wrecked so much death and destruction there. I grew up during the time of vietnam, so i remember Henry Kissinger and all the lies that we were told. So, Henry Kissinger to me is a war criminal and should be treated as such. John mccain has is somebody who is responsible partially for getting abuse a horrendous wore in iraq that led to the deaths of thousands of u. S. Soldiers in vain, and to, by some accounts, over a million iraqis, shy also say it paved the way for isil today. So why arent people held responsible . Perhaps because this is the super power, this is the country that has been all powerful and the powerful countries are usually not held accountable. Look at the International Criminal court. Its not the powerful that go there to be held accountable for war crimes. Its the vanquished. So, i think its important that there be voices out there that say that we remember, and that we do not hold some of these people in high regards as statesmen who we should listen to tell us how to run our Foreign Policy. These are people that have taken us down a path of militarism that has made such mayhem around the world that we should look for other voices, the voices who said lets look for Nonviolent Solutions. Lets have a Foreign Policy based on diplomacy, on mutual respect, and that is not the policy, unfortunately, of people like Henry Kissinger. Host from our Facebook Page, this question from steven i would understand if you chose not to answer, he writes. How do you and other activists in our yours gain admittance to these press conferences and hearings . I would think they would know you by now, but maybe its just open to the public. Guest well, its a very good question and were asked that a lot. When i went to my first hearing on capitol hill, i was living in San Francisco at the time, and it was when i read in the paper that donald runsfeld was going to testify about going to war in iraq, and i was so opposed to the war in iraq, i asked another friend from texas if she would fly to washington, dc and join me and try to get into this hearing. She said, well, if somebody can help me pay for my ticket, ill go ahead and do it. We found ourselves in line. We didnt know the public other could go to these hearing. Be dressed up in pant suits like we were journalists, got little steno pads pads and tucked a Washington Post under our warms and put our banners down our pants because we thought we had to pretend we were journalists. Lo some bee hold, anybody is allowed in there if you got up early enough and got on line. So it was a revelation to me that these public hearings mean the public is invited, and so we go to public hearings. We tend to be the first ones on line, we get envery early. There have been times, like during the iraq war, when there was so many people trying to get into these hearings, we actually slept outside the billing to be the first ones to get in, and technically, we have to be allowed inside. Now, sometimes when we gotten arrested we might have a stay away order by the court that says we cant go to those buildings for x amount of time, and sometimes the people who run the hearings try to stack the hearing. They bring in all their interns, all their staff, take up all the seats so theres no seating for the public. But in general, public hearings and i would a to you viewer, more of the public should attend these hearings. If youre coming to washington, dc on vacation, look up online senate. Gov or house. Gov, look up the hearings happening. Its fascinating to go to these hearings. Its important to go to these hearings. Its important for people who dont live inside the beltway to go to these hearings. And feel how government works, in action, and actually its not pretty often times, because what you see is very narrow viewpoints, both by the democrats and republicans, who are asking the questions, and by the witnesses, who tend to be people who think alike. And so i found it quite remarkable to go to the hearings and feel very frustrated that the questions that i as a citizen had were not being asked. For example, the very first hearing with Donald Rumsfeld he was being asked softball questions by the Congress People about why he was advocating we good to war. And so i had originally thought i would just hold up a banner budget i felt like i had to stand up and say, i have some questions as the public. How many lives are going to be lost in this . How many civilians are going to die in this . How Many Companies are going to make a lot of of money from this . What is the exit strategy in this plan . Have you exhausted all Nonviolent Solutions . Why are the u. N. Inspectors i had just been to iraq saying there nor weapons of mass destruction, and so i was asking all these questions. And holding up a banner, and i realized that i feel an obligation as a u. S. Citizen to expand the conversation. I think, for example, that public hearings should have a time, maybe its ten minutes 5 minutes, at the end of the hearing, where the public should get a chance to say something. I think before the gavel goes down, the public should be able to express their views in these hearings. And unfortunately, because of codepink being out there and holding up signs and doing this nonviolent protests, the police have been told to be harder on us. That even before a hearing starts, before the gavel goes down, if were there holding a sign, we can be arrested for that. And i should add, peter, that the Capitol Police are not very happy about that. They, to their credit, believe in free expression, and they think before hearings starts and after the hearing ends we should have a chance to express ourselves. Unfortunately, there are people who run these committees, like john mccain, who oppose any expression coming from the public. Host Medea Benjamin, what happens to you after your escorted out of the hearing. Guest most of the time we are arrested. If its somebody host taken to capitol hill headquarters. Guest it depends how many times you have been arrested. If its your first rarity you get a fine. If its your second arrest you get a fine. Your third arrest or higher, then you cant just pay your way out of it. Then you have to go to court. Youre assigned a date to come back. Then you are either taken to trial or you might be given some kind of plea bargain, which might include a stayaway that you cant go back to the congressional offices for a certain amount of time. You might have to do a certain number of hours of community service. You might have certain financial amounts of money you have to pay. Sometimes people refuse to pay the fines and say this is a moral position we have, and so might spend some time in jail. Host how many times have you been arrested and automatic of those penalties have you encountered. Guest i have been arrested dozens of times over the course of the work that i do. Many of those arrests have been before 9 11 and i was involved more around economic work, trying to fight things like sweat shops or corporate abuses, but ive been arrested dozens of times. Ive spent time in jail. Ive had a lot of fines. Ive done many shares of community service. And unfortunately i would say that sometimes this comes with the territory. Its not like were trying to get arrested. There are times when people do want to get arrested. For example, there have been a number of times where we have done protests at the white house, where people will stand and link arm to arm and not move from the white house, and we know that if you dont keep moving at the white house, and youre over 25 people, thats arrestable and we have had hundreds of people getting arrested for just standing there in front of the white house. Those are planned things. Those are times when people are voluntarily getting arrested, and i appreciate and have participated and organized in a number of those kind of arrests. But when were speaking out in the hearings, especially before or after the hearing is actually started, we dont plan to get arrested. We dont want to get arrested, and we dont think we should be arrested. Host do the Capitol Hill Police know you when you come in . Do they plan for that . Guest as soon as we walk in the building theres actually a big smile on their faces because they have come to like us a lot. We have a friendship with the Capitol Police. They give us big hugs when we come inside. Sometimes were standing on line to get in a hearing and one of the police will come in and give us a high five or a hug. They know us and they like us because they know we are nonviolent, absolutely nonviolent. They know we wouldnt touch anyone. We wouldnt hurt anybody. And they know that were passionate about these issues, and they appreciate that. Just as i appreciate people who might be on the totally opposite side of an issue that eye. On but they are passionate about the issues. We have something in common. We believe in getting involved in government activities, whether its domestic issues or international issues. The Capitol Police were trying to have a party now for one of the lieutenants who recently retired because we enjoyed over the years having conversations with him about these issues. They often times dont agree with us on a lot of the things but, again, they appreciate our passion, our involvement, and over the years i think have come to understand that we feel this responsibilityies a citizen is to steer our government on a better path. Many of the C