How do we best honor the victims of 9/11? Not sentimentally, Brad Johnson says, but by preventing another attack. Have we stopped the threat? Or are we too busy playing politics with our national security? Bringing his 25 years as a senior CIA Operative and Station Chief, he is now retired and devotes his life to Americans for Intelligence Reform.
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at johnson it is september 11th of 2020
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the 19th anniversary of a catastrophic
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failure i think in maybe certain systems
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in the united states and a major
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major attack and uh you know we’ve all
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got lots to say about it but i’d like to
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hear what you what you do
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yes i have there’s a couple observations
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i’ve been i’ve been watching the news i
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i have been following today kind of what
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the different news programs and stations
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have done and
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and you do see people sort of try to
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spin it off their direction for politics
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and that sort of thing which is
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you know unfortunate on 9 11 and you
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hear like joe biden said they
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suspended all their ads for today out of
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respect and you hear it you
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see a lot of that sort of thing go on
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and people remembering the different
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things and all of that which
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uh you know i’m not a type of guy that’s
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i’m not
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big on symbolism let’s just put it that
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way so i find most of what’s going on to
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be
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you know uh useless i’ll put it that way
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remembering the people that were killed
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is great but you know how do you honor
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their memory and by you know telling
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sob stories about the losses of family
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and how what a tragedy it was
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all that stuff is fine and dandy but i i
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for me that’s not the
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the way you respect their their memory
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and the losses that were taking place
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the way you do that
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win the war is what you do yeah exactly
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right is go make sure that those guys
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who did that on 9 11
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cease to exist you wipe them off the
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face of the earth
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and uh make sure that they’re not able
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ever able to do it again
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so instead of doing something where we
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reflect
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on what we’ve done right over the last
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19 years and what we’ve done wrong
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over the last 19 years is not mentioned
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by anybody so most of what’s out there
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you know forgive me i don’t mean to be
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insensitive to those families
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that lost somebody it’s all crap and
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what we need to be doing is is
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something i i complain about a lot and
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that is one we should be looking at the
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911 commission because basically
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everything that we did
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came out of that 911 commission which i
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i remind everybody
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the 911 commission was made up of a
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bunch of academics lawyers
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and politicians and what did they come
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up with they came up with a big
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huge stinky pile of bureaucracy
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and they created the dni the director of
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national intelligence position
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and his office that was supposed to
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coordinate and streamline
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and what’s happened with that thing that
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went from from this new director of
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national intelligence and
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you know a dozen people around him to
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then suddenly hundreds of people and now
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thousands of people and you know we’re
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we were closing in on tens of thousands
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of people in this new office what it did
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was create this
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horrible new brand new layer of
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bureaucracy
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that’s what we got out of the 911
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commission what did anybody ever think
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anything else was going to come out of
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it because if they did they don’t
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understand government and they don’t
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understand bureaucracy
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bureaucracy begets bureaucracy and
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nothing more and the creation of dhs
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department of homeland security nothing
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no complaint about those guys per se but
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what has department of homeland security
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done to improve the situation what works
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so much better now
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that was terrible then you know the way
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it was organized before
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and moving departments around between
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treasury and doj
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and the different things that have gone
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on like that i mean
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there’s nothing out of any of that
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that’s that’s overall
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useful in the fight against it have we
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destroyed them since then no
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and the problem is is what what
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bureaucracy
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is and you had uh george bush who is
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junior
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you know son who not a junior the son
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who was
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who was president at the time which you
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know
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he did okay but what he’s he is a
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bureaucrat
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and and took that bureaucratic
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perspective put bureaucrats in charge of
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a 911 commission and what we got was
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bureaucracy from bureaucrats we should
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be reflecting on what we needed to have
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done at that time and we should have
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people that have actually
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fought in those arenas the operational
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cadre and i always talk about this but
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and i do want to
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clarify by operational cadre i mean
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people like myself from the cia
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perspective
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who spent the time in the field working
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counter terrorist
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operations because those are the guys
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with the boots on the ground
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and i say the same thing out of law
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enforcement there are
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fbi and a lot of other federal law
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enforcement people
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who have been overseas or domestically
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fighting against terrorism the guys with
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the boots on the ground
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and military most especially them you
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know there are a lot of guys
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the the special forces units in
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particular
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but a lot of other people as well who
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have supported
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counter-terrorist operations and were
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the boots on the ground guys
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those are the people that should have
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made up the 911 commission
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and those are the people that we should
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have on tv all day
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on all the networks talking about what’s
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been right and what’s been wrong what
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could have been done different
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and what needs to be changed now and
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that is what in my opinion
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would honor the memories of those people
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who were lost
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and and helped those people who lost
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family members knowing that we’re
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actually
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freaking doing something instead of just
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reflecting
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philosophically on all this stuff and
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who’s on tv
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the people that are on tv are all the
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reporters all the reporters talking
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about oh i you know
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was here this day and reported on it and
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you know so what
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i don’t care where you were it you know
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that’s great for
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for a topic of conversation over drinks
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at the bar with your buds
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but that’s not what should be on
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national tv in this day and age
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and let me just say isis and al qaeda
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are
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not gone the number two guy under osama
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bin laden and osama bin laden was in
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many ways
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a figurehead the man that actually ran
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out
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was i’m an al zahiri he is still there
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he’s still running the show and that has
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not changed and a lot of the things he’s
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pumping out
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uh into the public arena for these you
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know minions of theirs to follow
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are still out there still taking place
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and let me just
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use as an example something that’s a a
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hot topic no play on words intended
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but a hot topic right now and that’s
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those fires out in california and oregon
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something that they’ve published and
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something we’ve talked about previously
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in these interviews
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al qaeda and isis both over the last
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year and a half or two years and as i
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something we’ve
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talked about in previous interviews over
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the last year and a half or two years
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pump out these magazines that say
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different ways to go
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attack the united states and the west
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one of them that they’ve been talking
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about for the last
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at least two years is to use fires
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go set fires during periods where it’s
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vulnerable it’s dry that
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fires can be effective into summer dry
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period and suddenly we have all these
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fires
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well i i i’m not saying this is
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terrorism it’s not conclusive
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but this is the type of thing at train
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derailments those
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these are the types of things they train
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people to go do all the time
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to try and just constantly attack the
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economy in the united states and wear it
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down
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and how many resources are being
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expended out in oregon and california to
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fight these fires
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huge amounts of personnel money
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equipment and many of these things are
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being used up and destroyed it’ll all
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have to be replaced
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it’s an enormous drain and something
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like
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10 of the people are affected and have
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to leave their homes and just
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where these fires are active it’s it’s
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it’s an it’s an enormous problem
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now if it had been a terrorist attack it
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was well conceived
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they did it just right because look at
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the problems it’s causing
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the origins the fire departments will
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figure all of this out in forestry they
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know how to
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track this back and see where it got
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started and they’ll know if it
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looks like it was on purpose or an
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accident they’ll figure those things out
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but these are the types of things that
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could easily still be going on
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that’s just one example of the types of
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things that can be going on
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and yet nobody’s talking about any of
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this on 9 11. i find this a
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an insult and a tragedy that instead of
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doing what would actually
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uh really truly honor the memory of
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those that we lost
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we’re we’re sitting around and
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reminiscing i can you know
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a bunch of useless bureaucrats and
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that’s what we see out of the news media
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that’s what we see our politicians
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that’s what we see out of everybody
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and where are those individuals standing
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up like this
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talking about what should be done and
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what should be discussed and the type of
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things that can be done to fix this
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we have this intelligence community
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that’s deeply political
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highly politicized and weaponized very
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active in our
08:35
presidential campaigns but what are they
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doing to make sure those
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those terrorist groups are wiped from
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the face of the earth and
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i would say damn little if you looked at
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the last as
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again something i mentioned the last
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report that came out
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every presidential election we get a
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four-year report from the intelligence
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community telling us what we need to
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look at
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and their big topics were globalization
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and global warming
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terrorism was a lesser topic it’s not
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that much of interest right now
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but those groups are not gone they’re
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not
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dead yes they’ve had setbacks president
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trump has done a
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great job taking away territory for them
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but we still haven’t taken away
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all of their powers and they’re still
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out actively recruiting
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look for people to go commit acts of uh
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of
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of murder on the streets or uh sabotaged
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by starting fires and doing all of these
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things
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and you know those things are going on
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actually
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there may have been two attacks today
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they haven’t said who did it
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but there was an axe knife attack in the
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jewelry district of a
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big british city and there was a strange
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of the truck
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that deliberately ran into as many cars
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as it could on the california highway
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so it’s not like these things those are
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precise examples and that’s what they’ve
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done is they’ve gone horizontal
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they’re they’re reaching out doing lots
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of little attacks so these are the
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things like i say
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it’s a slow drip of things that they’re
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trying to do all the time
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to damage overall the economy and
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uh and and do what terrorism is supposed
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to do and that’s make us afraid
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so these are the types of things that
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are still going on
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and where is the outrage where is the
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pushback where are people standing up
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and calling out these politicians
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had ladies and gentlemen i’d say you got
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one place that’s right here
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where’s everybody else brad i i gotta
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say for
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for this entire 19-year period i have
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quietly thought to myself
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that grieving and mourning and
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commemoration
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is a luxury that’s afforded to the
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winner and somehow
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it’s been weaponized against us so that
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we will do this thing
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and create the illusion amongst
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ourselves that we’re in control
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yeah and i’ve not seen like i said i’ve
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been kind of following the different
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networks and seeing who’s reporting on
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what
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and it’s all this philosophical morning
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type of nonsense that’s out there
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like i said i do not mean to insult
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those people that lost family members at
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that period of time
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but where’s the show with all the guys
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the old ops
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guys boots on the ground from law
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enforcement from military from
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intelligence
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who’ve actually fought in this arena
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know the truth of the matter
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and are out there saying look this is
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what we should be doing and haven’t been
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doing
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this is where we’re failing this is how
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we fix it this is how we honor our dead
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by going out and kicking their ass and
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this is the path to that ass kicking
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that they deserve
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where is that i i have not seen hiding
11:27
her hair of a single program on
11:29
any network radio or anything else that
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has covered the topic in that manner
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you got to ask yourself why why and i
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think you
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touched on that precise thing and that
11:39
is we’ve been marginalized we
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marginalize ourselves
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that we we we just sit back in our
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chairs and
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you know put our thumbs where they don’t
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belong and get philosophical about the
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issue
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rather than getting up out of our chair
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and going out and finding the problem
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taken care of
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thanks very much for saying being for
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saying that out loud it’s so needed to
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be said thanks brad
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you
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