Substantial forces in europe. After world war ii we were prepared to fight in east asia and have fought before 1980 pretty substantial wars in asia one in korea and one in vietnam. We havent been fighting that we are prepared to fight in the islamic world since 1990 strikingly virtually every american soldier whos been killed in combat has been killed in that part of the world and i believe its something americans should be more attentive to what the geographical specificity. The numbers are on the screen if you want to chat with the retired army officer. For those in the mountain and pacific time zones we will get to those calls right away. Oil is always defined the race for the war on the greater middle east. Lution on is the iranian revolution that perceived to be a great threat to u. S. Interests in the region. The second events occurring in 1979 was the soviet invasion of afghanistan and the perception that washington is together those threatened our access to the persian gulf at
Theres a huge muslim fundamentalist population in pakistan and the reason that the pakistanis never said anything publicly about having them is when they told us, he came in, it could be earlier. The pakistanis kept them secretly because the public will go nuts. The public loved bin laden. 450 of the country saw him as a hero and so as long as they had bin laden they can privately tell alqaeda groups and both pakistan and afghanistan, we have your guy, pay more attention to us, keep us informed, they had more control. That was their argument, the second argument they made is explanation for keeping them is the saudis paid him a lot of money. The Saudi Arabian came from big construction family, not royal family but major constructionists in building and very wealthy and the assumption we make and i make is that nobody wanted an american Interrogation Team to talk to him. You can watch this and other programs online at booktv. Org. Book tvs Live Programming from the Miami Book Fair conti
Cope public until three hours after the first word and what was going on was a fight because there was pressure on him, political pressure from his political advisers not to wait seven or 10 days. As they were angry at robert gates the republican secretary of defense who gauge saidd basically reappointed he had been hece replaced rumsfeld by george bush and he was close to the bush family and when obama came himd he reappointed him, but to a half years later there was tension inside with a republican doing things and gates was very much against some of the things that. Thought happened in the operation and he that we should just bomb the place and let it go not jeopardize the seals because if something had gone wrong and they had been captured they had no protection and they were basically committing a war crime. He was a prisoner of war and t and they executed a prisoner of war and they went into a country without any notice to the authorities. Anyway, heres what the issue was gates,
Iraqis otherwise became combatant and would have provided something that iraqis and the region really needed. Their electricity is very spotty and is, in fact, a part of the conflict turning power on and off to different neighborhoods. It could have been done for a fraction of the multitrillion dollar cost of the iraq war and with low risk to american lives and it would be a template for something that the u. S. And rich nations could and still should do i think across the middle east and global sun belt. And so i wonder is this still any realistic possibility that a program of mass and solar energy aid to the middle east and worlds other literally hot and bothered and conflicted regions could be could plant at least a major part of this endless war and that serves no problem and instead something i think we got the point gregory. Lets hear from andrew. Im not able to comment on the feasibility of that kind of a project. But the premise of the question deserves our attention and that i