back to indexOliver Stone: Vladimir Putin and War in Ukraine | Lex Fridman Podcast #286
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If you could talk to Vladimir Putin once again, now, what kind of things would you talk about here?
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What kind of questions would you ask?
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The following is a conversation with Oliver Stone. He's one of the greatest filmmakers of all time
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with three Oscar wins and 11 Oscar nominations. His films tell stories of war and power.
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Fearlessly and often controversially, shining a light on the dark parts of American and global
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history. His films include Platoon, Wall Street, Born on the Fourth of July, Scarface, JFK, Nixon,
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Alexander, W, Snowden, and documentaries where he has interviewed some of the most powerful
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and consequential people in the world including Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez, and Vladimir Putin.
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And in this conversation, Oliver and I mostly focus our discussion on Vladimir Putin, Russia,
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and the war in Ukraine. My goal with these conversations is to understand the human
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being before me, to understand not just what they think, but how they think, to steelman their
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ideas, and to steelman the devil's advocate, all in service of understanding, not the origin.
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I have done this poorly in the past. I'm still struggling with this,
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but I'm working hard to do better. I believe the moment we draw lines between good people
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and evil people will lose our ability to see that we're all one people in the most fundamental of
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ways, and lose track of the deep truth expressed by the old Solzhenitsyn line that I've returned
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to time and time again, that the line between good and evil runs through the heart of every man.
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Oliver Stone has a perspective that he extensively documents in his powerful controversial series
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The Untold History of the United States, that imperialism and the military industrial complex
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paved the path to absolute power, and thus corrupt the minds of the leaders and institutions that
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wield it. From this perspective, the way out of the humanitarian crisis and human suffering in
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Ukraine, and the way out from the pull of the beating drums of nuclear war is not simple to
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understand, but we must, because all of humanity hangs in the balance. I will talk to many people
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who seek to understand the way out of this growing catastrophe, including to historians,
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to leaders, and perhaps most importantly, to people on the ground in Ukraine and Russia.
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Not just about war and suffering, but about life, friendship, family, love, and hope.
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This is the Lex Friedman podcast. To support it, please check out our sponsors in the description.
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And now, dear friends, here's Oliver Stone. You're working on a documentary now about nuclear
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energy. Yes. So it's interesting to talk about this. Energy is such a big part of the world,
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about the geopolitics of the world, about the way the world is. What do you think is the role of
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nuclear energy in the 21st century? Good question. And first of all, obviously,
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everyone's talking about climate change, right? So here I wake up to that a few years ago, and
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clearly we're concerned. I picked up a book by Josh Goldstein and his coauthor who's Swedish.
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Those two wrote a book called Bright Future. A Bright Future came out a few years ago,
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and I lapped it up. It was a book, fact based, clear, not too long and not too technical,
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and it was very clear that they were in favor of all kinds of renewables, renewable energy, yes.
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They hated, made it very clear how dangerous oil and gas were, methane, and made it very
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clear to the layman like me, and at the same time said that these renewables can work so far.
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But the gap is enormous as to how much electricity the world is going to need in 2050 and beyond.
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Two, three, four times, we don't even know the damage, but we have India, we have China,
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we have Africa, we have Asia coming on to the scene wanting more and more electricity.
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So they address the problem as a global one, not just as often in the United States. You get the
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ethnocentric United States point of view that we know we're doing well, blah, blah, blah.
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We're not doing well, but we sell that to people that were comfortable. We spend more energy than
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anybody in this country per capita than anybody, and at the same time, we don't seem to understand
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the global picture. So that's what they did, and they made me very aware. So the only way to close
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that gap, the only way in their mind is nuclear energy, and talking about a gap of building
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a huge amount of reactors over the next 30 years, and starting now, they make that point over and
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over again. So obviously, this country in the United States is not going to go in that direction,
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because it just is incapable of having that kind of will, political will, and fear is a huge factor,
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and still a lot of shibbles, a lot of myths about nuclear energy have confused and confounded the
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landscape. The environmentalists have played a huge role in doing good things, many good things,
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but also confusing and confounding the landscape and making accusations against nuclear energy that
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were exaggerated. So taking all these things into consideration, we set about making this
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documentary, which is about finished now, almost finishing. It's an hour and 40 minutes, and that
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was a hard part, getting it down from about three and a half hours to about this something more
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manageable. And is it interviews? It's interviews, among others, but essentially we went to Russia,
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we went to France, which is the most perhaps advanced nuclear country in the world, Russia,
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and the United States. We went to the Idaho laboratory and talked to the scientists there,
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as well as the Department of Energy people that are handling this. Idaho is one of the
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experimental labs in the United States. It's probably one of the most advanced, and they're
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doing a lot of advanced nuclear there. We also, we studied, well, Russia gave us a lot of insight.
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We're very cooperative because they have some of the most advanced nuclear, actually the
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probably the most advanced nuclear reactor in the world at Bellayarsk at the Ural Mountains.
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So we did an investigation there. And in France, they have some very advanced
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nuclear reactors in their building. Now they're building again. They had a little,
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the Green Party came into power, just not into power, but became a factor in France,
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and there was a motion. When Hollande was president, they started to move away from it.
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Actually, they were beginning to just abandon, they let not complete their, in other words,
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let close down some of the nuclear reactors. There was talk of that, but thank God, France did not
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do that. And Mac home came in and recently reversed it, reversed it and their building as
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fast as they can now, especially with the Ukraine war going on. There's an awareness that
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that Russia will not be providing, may not be providing the energy Europe needs.
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So, and then China is the other one too. That's the other factor. I'm talking about the big boys.
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They have doing tremendous work and fast, which is very hopeful. But of course,
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China is building in all directions at once. The coal continues to be huge in China and
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methane too. But basically coal, coal in India, in China, the biggest users of coal.
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And we know, as you know, Germany went back to coal a few years ago. So all these factors,
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it's fascinating picture globally. So we try to achieve a consensus that where nuclear can work,
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and where it will be working, it will be used more and more. The question is how much carbon
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dioxide China and Russia will be putting out. France is the only one that's not putting it out.
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The United States has not changed with all the talk and all the nonsense about renewables and
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the new lifestyle and all this. It's great for your guilt complex, but it doesn't do anything
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for the total accumulation of carbon dioxide in the world.
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Who's going to lead the way on nuclear, do you think? You mentioned Russia, France,
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China, United States. Who's going to lead? I don't think it's going to be a United Nations
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kind of thing, because the world doesn't seem capable of uniting. We go to these conferences,
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Kyoto, and we talk and we agree, but then we don't actually enforce. I don't think it can happen
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that way. I think it's going to be an individual race with countries that are going to just do
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it for their own self interest, like China is doing it. China, the thing is, if it works,
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and I'm praying that it will really work on a big scale, China will back away from coal naturally.
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The same thing will be true of India. They will see the benefits, because if you go to India,
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you see the cities, the pollution. You walk around and that stuff, and you get,
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there's no hope in this, and you sense it. People will move in this direction naturally,
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because nuclear is clean energy. The amount of casualties of nuclear is the lowest on the industrial
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scale for energy producing from coal down to oil, everything. The lowest casualty rate,
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very lowest, 0.002 or something, is nuclear. Not that many people have died from nuclear,
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not that many. I think 50 people at Chernobyl, which was the worst accident. Nobody died at
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Fukushima. Nobody died at Three Mile Island, and that's what you hear all over and over again,
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these accidents. The environmentalists have sold us the idea that they're dangerous,
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and it's a lot of environmentalists, thank God, of changing it. They've come off that routine,
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and they've said, we were wrong. We've done a lot of good work. Greenpeace did a lot of good work.
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Whale, saving this, saving that, but they admit themselves. Not they don't, but people who have
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been in the organization have said, we were wrong. In 1956, we show the articles in the
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New York Times that came out. The Rockefeller Foundation, which, of course, is a big producer
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of oil, the Rockefeller family, and the foundation came out with a study, which was weighted.
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They tipped the scale, put a thumb on the scale, but it was a scientific expose of radiation
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in the study that came out in the printed in the New York Times, because the New York Times
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publisher, Salzburger, was on their board. He was one of the board members, so they got a lot of
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strong publicity condemning radiation from which killed, started the process of doubting nuclear
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energy. The radiation levels that they pointed out were very minor, and, of course, if you go
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into a scientific analysis of this now with what we know, it's just not true, but it tilted the
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scale back in the 50s, 60s, and started the questioning the nuclear business.
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Do you think that was malevolence or incompetence?
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No, I think it was competition. I don't think it was conspiracy as much as it was a sense.
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We don't want this nuclear energy is going to end the dominance of oil. Absolutely,
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and it will, and it will anyway, because it's the only sane way for the world to proceed,
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but the world will have to learn through adversity. In other words, this situation could get worse,
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much worse, and certain countries are just going to have to adapt like we always do.
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When things become too hard, you've got to change your thinking,
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and humans are pretty good at that.
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Yes. Talking about human nature, they're very adept at that. Germany, for example,
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I mean, when the Fukushima happened, they went out of the nuclear business. That was shocking to
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me. They just pulled out, and they destroyed several of their nuclear reactors that were
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still functioning and put up coal and oil replaced it. As a result, Germany drifted into this place
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next to France. Their electricity bills went up, and France stayed the same. They have a
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different system in Europe, but more or less, no question that France was doing a lot better than
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Germany. Now, with this Ukraine issue, it's a very interesting fulcrum point, whether Germany is
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going, what direction they're going to go now? How can they keep going with coal? They just can't.
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What's the connection between oil, coal, nuclear, and war? Energy and conflict.
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When you look at the 21st century, when you were doing this documentary, were you thinking of nuclear
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as a way to power the world, but is it also to avoid conflict over resources?
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Is there some aspect to energy being a source of conflict that we are trying to avoid?
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I don't have the history of energy at my fingertips, and it's a very long history here,
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but I would say, apparently not. It does seem that individually each country can answer its needs
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by building, and up until now, we haven't had conflict accepted in this issue of Russia supplying
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Europe. Obviously, the pipeline Nord Stream 2 has been closed, and Nord Stream 1 is also
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probably going to be phased out, and the concept of Russia supplying gas to Europe
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is now up and near, and who knows what's going to happen? I just don't see how Europe can get away
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from using Russian gas. But Russian gas is not the solution, because it's methane too,
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and it goes up into the atmosphere. Methane in a short term is worse than coal, worse.
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There's all kinds of charts we show in the film. We try not to be too overfactual,
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but methane is not the answer. It's a short term answer.
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Will countries go to war over energy is a question that I'm trying to think of all
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the wars that happened. You could say Germany, of course, during World War II,
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needed oil very badly, and it dictated their strategy with Romania, etc., and
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it's getting the oil fields open. I haven't thought that one through. I'd have to make
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a documentary on it to really understand how energy and war interface.
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It's always part of the calculation, but it's a question of how much.
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That's the question. I just have to ask, because you mentioned your mom was from France.
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You've traveled, for this documentary, and you traveled in general throughout the world,
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in Russia, Ukraine. What are the defining characteristics of these cultures? Let's go
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with Russia. As I told you, I'm half Ukrainian, half Russian. I came from that part of the world.
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What are some interesting, beautiful aspects of the culture of Russia and Ukraine?
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I can't really speak honestly of Ukraine. I was there only in 1983 when I visited the
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Soviet Union under the communism, and Kiev was beautiful and was one of the nicer places I went,
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but they were very much stultified by the communist system. They all were. The best places to visit
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in Russia were always in the south, whether Georgia or the Muslim countries. It was always a better
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culture in terms of comfort, but communism was rough, and that was the end of it,
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pretty much Brezhnev regime. And then Andropov Gorbachev was three years in the future when I
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was there. So I can't talk about Ukraine, and they've not been friendly to me since. Of course,
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since I made the Putin interviews, Ukraine has banned me, I believe. They've been very tough
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on people who are critical. I think the Russian people have been very special to me, perhaps
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because of my European upbringing, but I enjoy talking to them. I find them very open, very
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generous, and they appreciate support. They appreciate people who say, you know, I understand
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why your government is doing this or this or this. I've tried to stay open minded and listen to both
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sides. The thing that I have seen as an American is, of course, this American enmity towards Russia
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from the very beginning. I grew up in 1940, 46, I was born in the 50s. It was so anti Russian.
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They were everywhere. They were in our schools. They were in our State Department. They were
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spying on us. They were stealing the country from us. That was the way the American
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right wing, not even the right wing, I'd say the Republican party, pictured the Russians. They were
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actively engaged in infiltrating America and changing our thinking.
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Television shows were based on this. It was very much the Jay Edgar Hoover mentality,
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that communism was even behind the student protests of the 1960s. This was the direction in
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which the FBI and the CIA were thinking. I grew up with a prejudice and it took me many years.
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My father was a Republican and he was a stockbroker and he was a very intelligent man. But even he,
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because he was a World War II soldier, he was a colonel, had fallen under the influence.
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It had, in order to be successful in American business in the 1950s, you had to have a very
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strong anti Soviet line. Very strong. You wouldn't get ahead if you expressed any kind of, let's
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end this Cold War, any kind of activity of that nature. You'd be cast aside as a Pinko or somebody
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who was not completely on the board with the American way of doing business, which was capitalism
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works, communism doesn't. And in particular, communism is embodied by the Soviet Union
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is the enemy. So hence the narrative behind the Cold War.
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That's correct. And it basically lasted. I mean, you saw the ups and downs of it.
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When Reagan came in, I was, well, first of all, we had the crisis of 1962 with the Cuban Missile
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Crisis. And Kennedy proved himself to be a warrior for peace. He resolved that with Khrushchev.
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That was a big moment, huge moment. And people don't give him credit enough for
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really saving us from a war that could have, could have affected all of mankind.
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But it still didn't avert. No, because the moment he was killed,
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honestly, there was a lot of, we can talk about that. And as you know, I've made a film,
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JFK revisited as a documentary released this year about the movie I made in 1991.
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But the moment he was killed, I would argue that Lyndon Johnson went back immediately to the old
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way of thinking the old way of doing business, which was the Eisenhower Truman Way, which we
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had adapted since World War II. That was an interim. You have to think about it from Roosevelt
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dies in 45. Roosevelt has an interim of 15 years where he has more of a democratic regime,
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more liberal. He establishes, he recognizes the Soviet Union for the first time
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since the revolution. And he actually has a relationship with them. He sends ambassadors
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who are friendly and he wants, he has a relationship with Stalin, etc. And Yalta,
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and, or not Tehran, rather, that's where he had the relationship.
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Do you think if JFK lived, we would not have a cold war?
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No, absolutely not. And we go into great depth on that in the film. I urge you to see it because
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it goes into all the issues around the world. Kennedy was being very much an anti imperialist,
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it turns out. And many people don't understand that. But you have to look at all his policies in
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Middle East with Nasser. He had a relationship with Sukarno in Indonesia, with Latin America.
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He made a big effort with the Alliance for Progress. And when Africa, above all, with Lumumba,
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he was very shocked at his death and tried to defend the right, the integrity of the
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Belgian Congo with Dag Hammershield of the UN. He made a big effort. Unfortunately, it didn't work
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out because Dag Hammershield was killed and then Kennedy was killed. And Congo descended into the
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chaos of Joseph Mabutu's dictatorship. But Kennedy was very active in terms of, as an Irishman,
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not as an Englishman, he was an Irishman. And I say that because, well, we'll come back to that
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because Mr. Joe Biden is an Irishman, but it's a different kind of an Irishman. They're both
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Catholic Irish, but Kennedy really made an effort to change the imperialist mindset
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that it still was very strong in America and Europe. Lyndon Johnson changed back to the old
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policy and we were never able to really keep big time going with the Russians. Briefly had it with
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Carter, but then Brzezinski came in. Brzezinski was his national security advisor. He was put
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there by Rockefeller and Brzezinski was a pole. He got revenge from the Poland. Poland has always
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been attacking Russia as far as I remember back to another century. I mean, the two world wars
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that occupied Russia so tragically, entry points were always through Poland and Ukraine.
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So Brzezinski got his revenge and Carter ended up being an enemy of the Soviet Union and
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creating, as Brzezinski took pride in it, he created the atmosphere of the trap for the Soviets to
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go into Afghanistan in 79. That trap was set, he says, he said in 1978. So there was never
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except for brief moments of periods of detente with the Soviets. And I grew up under that.
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I didn't really know anything of this going on because I was learning. I was educating myself
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as I was going learning movies and trying to be a dramatist and this and that. So I wasn't
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thinking about this. Then when Reagan came in, I was worried again, because it was it was a beat
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of the old beat, which was there, the most evil empire. I mean, it does, it goes on in American
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history. It doesn't end. Reagan got a lot of points for that. And of course, when when Gorbachev
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came in, it was a beautiful moment for the world. It was a great surprise. It was probably the best
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years of for America, at least from my point of view, in terms of this relaxation in the mood.
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1986 to 1991 were great years in terms of ability to believe once again,
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that there could be a peace dividend. But the world changed again in 1991, 92. There's an
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internal mechanism. Who knows, you could blame, you can blame the United States, you could blame
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Russia for it. Gorbachev was perhaps not the right man to try to administer that country. At
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that point, he had great visions. He was a man of peace. But it was very difficult to hold together
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such a huge empire. So vision is not enough to hold together the Soviet Union? I think
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the details are interesting. I followed up on that a little bit, because I was recently in
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countries like Kazakhstan, talked about the negotiations that were going on and the breakup
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of the Soviet Union. It's a very interesting story, because it involves everything in Ukraine.
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Of course, everything is going on now. Some, what is it, 30 million Russians were left outside of
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the Soviet Union when it collapsed. They had no home anymore. They were homes in other countries,
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such as in Ukraine. So it's an interesting story and with repercussions today. Kazakhstan
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is a good example of keeping a balance, keeping it neutral. He played both sides,
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and because Yeltsin wanted him to join the Russian Confederation in a certain way where
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he'd be supporting against Gorbachev. There's a whole inward battle there. I think the Ukraine came
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along with Yeltsin as well as, I'm sorry, I don't remember now, but two other regions came with him.
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That was a block that broke up the Soviet Union. It was Yeltsin's plan to, and it wasn't make the
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Russian Federation, and they did. I would love to return back to JFK eventually, because he's such
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a fascinating figure in the history of human civilization. But let me ask you, fast forward,
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in 2000, Yeltsin was no longer president, and Vladimir Putin became president. You did a series
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of interviews with Vladimir Putin, as you mentioned, over a period of two years, from 2015 to 2017.
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Let me ask you the high level question. What was your goal with that conversation?
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Oh, it came out in 2017. I guess I started them in 2014. At that point, the Snowden
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affair had happened. I was working on a movie on Snowden. That happened in 2013. Ukraine happened
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in 2014. And one thing after another, by 2014, Putin was enemy number again, becoming a wanted
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man on the American list. He was enemy. He was certainly in the top five. But the animosity
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towards Putin had been growing since 2007 at Munich. I remember that speech when he made it.
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It's in my documentary. That's a four hour documentary, four different conversations.
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I mean, we talked over two years, two and a half years. But I remember that image of him at Munich
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making a very important speech about world harmony, about the balance necessary in the world.
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And I remember the sneer on John McCain's face. He was in Munich, obviously eyeballing
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Putin and hating him. And it was so evident that McCain had no belief whatsoever that this,
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he was almost treating him like this or the communists are back. And we know that Putin was
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not a communist. We know that Putin is very much a market man. And he made it very clear and tried
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to keep an open climate, a new relationship with Europe. But the United States, certain people in
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the United States always sell that as a threat, like Putin is trying to take Europe away from us
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as if we own it, as if we have the right to own it. But Putin was making the point. It's very
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important about sovereignty and sovereignty for countries is crucial for this new world to have
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balance. That's sovereignty for China, sovereignty for Russia, sovereignty for Iran, sovereignty for
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Venezuela, sovereignty for Cuba. This is an idea that's crucial to the new world. And I think the
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United States has never accepted that. Sovereignty is not an idea that they can allow. You have to be
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obedient to the United States idea of so called democracy and freedom. But it's much more important
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is sovereignty for these countries. And the United States has not obeyed that, has not even
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acknowledged it. And it never comes up. So from the perspective of the United States, when power
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centers arise in the world, you start to oppose those, not because of the ideas, but merely
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because they have power. Isn't that at the heart of the doctrine of the neoconservatives? And they
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packed for the new American century, they wrote that in 1997, they said there shall be no emergence
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of a rival power. It was very clear was about power. And they have they've stuck to that doctrine,
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which is if you if you start to get dangerous in any way or have power, we're going to knock you out.
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Now that won't work. But I don't believe it can work. And that is unfortunately a policy the
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United States is following. And the neoconservatives group, which is very small, but it's very strong
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apparently. And their idea has resonated. It was it was behind the George Bush's invasion of
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Iraq. It was part of not only Iraq, but cleaning out the whole world, draining the swamp, going to
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Afghanistan first. And then although Iraq had nothing to do with Al Qaeda's attack, going after
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Iraq. And of course, 60 some other countries that were terrorism had some had some signs of wherever
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America judged would be a dangerous country. We had the right, you're either with us or against us.
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Now that is a disastrous policy and led to one thing after another. The Iraq war never learned a
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lesson. The neoconservatives were never fired, never thrown out of office. The people who
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who prosecuted that war are still around. Many of them are still around. And they're they're
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obviously guiding America now. Let me return to this question of power. Don't forget the sneer
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that I saw there. That emblemized the United States reaction. Also, there were several other
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American representatives who were laughing, kind of mocking Putin. It was very serious. I felt
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it was a divide there. So since then, I mean, in a certain sense, the Europe reaction to Putin
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is crucial. And they were they were more with him back then. And a big thing for America was always
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to keep NATO to keep Europe in its pocket as a satellite. And with this recent war, of course,
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they've succeeded in all beyond their dreams of the Russians have fulfilled the fantasy of the
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United States to finally be this aggressor that they have pictured for years. Yeah, we can talk
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about that later. But at that time, there was Europe had significant support for Putin. Yes.
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The United States was sneering at Putin. That's correct. You can say that. And then so there's
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this it was there was uncertainty as to the direction as to the future of Russia. And that's
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exact. And when you interviewed Vladimir Putin, I wanted to know what they thought because we
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couldn't get the the the the information war that the United States was fighting against Russia was
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in evidence back then. It was full out the condemnation of Russia on all fronts. I never saw
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a positive article about Putin. And although when I traveled in the world, and I traveled a lot
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doing documentaries, it was very clear in the Middle East, in Africa, in other in Asia, there
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was respect for him, that he was a man who was getting job his job done in the interests of Russia.
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He was, as I said, in the documentary, a son of Russia, very much so. In the positive sense, a son,
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a son of Russia, not that he's out there trying to destroy the interests of other of other countries.
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No, that he was out there to sell that provoked the interest of Russia. But at the same time,
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keep a balance, keep it, keep it, keep the world into a harmony. This has always been his picture.
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Peace was always his idea. In other words, he always referred to the United States in all these
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interviews as our partners. And I said, Well, you stop using that word. They're not. Well, and he
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was a little bit slow in waking up to what the United States was doing. Well, that said, he's
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one of the most powerful men in the world. He was at that time. And let me ask you the human question.
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As the old adage goes, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts, absolutely. Did you see
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any corroding effects of power on the man? Forget the political leader on just the human
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being that carries that power on his shoulders for so many years.
link |
Keep in mind that he's been unlike most modern leaders, he's been an office off and on because
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there was a Medvedev was president, and he was not literally in charge. He was, he was, he was,
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he took another appointment at that point, and he, but he was still very much involved.
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But for 20 years, more or less, he's been at the administrator of the state, the protector of the
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state. And he's apparently done a good enough job that the Russian people have kept him there.
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Because contrary to what many people think, I really believe that if the Russian people didn't
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want him, he would be out. I firmly believe that. I don't think you can let you can go against the
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world of the people. Now it expresses itself in many ways at the ballot box and so forth,
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but also in other ways in Russia, there's a strong currents of opinion. So contrary to what the
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position of him as a dictator, he wouldn't last if he was unpopular. Number one,
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number two, Russia is much more divided than people know. There's other factors in Russia.
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He is, there's, there are always tensions in, in, around the Kremlin who has power,
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who doesn't have power. That's been going on for a hundred years. But the, the factions in Russia
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are very much there. So when people refer to Russia as Putin, they're, they're mistaken.
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And they do this regularly in the New York papers and all this. They say, Putin did this,
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Putin did that, Putin's doing that, but it's Russia that's doing it. And that's what, there's a
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distinction there that I, it's changed. In the old days, I would read about Khrushchev,
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but it was never Khrushchev personally. It was about the Soviet Union. There was respect for
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a country. And now when it started to get personal with Putin, it, it changed and the, our thinking
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changed in a, in a negative way. We, we no longer respected it as a country. We were seen as a man
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and the man we had trashed repeatedly, repeatedly as a poisoner, as a murderer and none of which
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has ever been proven, but which has always been repeated and repeated to the point at which it
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becomes like an Orwell mantra. It becomes like he is, of course, a bad guy. Can I just ask you
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as a great filmmaker, as a human being, what was it like talking to one of the most powerful men
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in the world? For honestly, and I'm not naive. I've talked to a lot of powerful people in the
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movie business. There are powerful people and many of them are corrupted. I've talked to many
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people in my life. I've been in the military. I've seen, I've had other jobs. I have to say I
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found him to be a human being. I just found him to be reasonable, calm. I never saw him lose his
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temper. And I mean, you have to understand that most people in the, most people in the western
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way of doing business get emotional. I don't see that. I saw him as a balanced man, as a man who
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had studied this like you. There's a calmness to you that it comes from studying the world and having
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a rational response to it. It's interesting. His two daughters, one of them is very scientific
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and the other one's doing very well in another profession, but they're thinking, they're thinking
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family. His wife too was. I can't talk for the new wife because I don't know about it, but he's,
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he kept his family with great respect. He's raised his, his daughter's right. He served Yeltsin the
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way he looked at it. He served Yeltsin well and he, and he still, and he never trashed Yeltsin.
link |
Certainly a lot of people did, but you know, I asked him repeatedly, you know, was he an
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alcoholic or this or that, but he wouldn't even go that far. Just respect. And this man, Yeltsin,
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was, it was in many ways ridiculed, but by the Russians and he turned over the power
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because he felt like he was overwhelmed. He turned over the power to this man because why,
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how many people had he fired before him? Several, several prime ministers, this, that. Why did he
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turn power over to Mr. Putin? Because he respected him for his work ethic and his balance, his maturity.
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And that's what I can say is I saw in him a poor person, a poor, from a poor family who worked
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his way up through the KGB. Well, Americans keep saying he's a KGB agent, but I, it's like saying,
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you know, George Bush was a CIA agent, but you know, he became a, you grow, you grow in your life.
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And he went from the KGB to this technocratic position. He dealt with many problems, including
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the Chechnyan war, which is a very difficult situation, as well as the Russian submarine,
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probably several things happened early in his, that balance, that gave him a lot of experience.
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And he handled them all pretty well. Do you think he was an honest man? I do. Now, of course, the
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question of money, the charges that he's the richest man in the world are ludicrous, certainly
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doesn't live like it or act like it. If you're rich, I've, I've been around a lot of rich people
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in my life. You'd probably have too. In America, you run into them. So many of them are arrogant.
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I'm actually good friends now with the richest man in the world.
link |
Oh, of course. I saw your interview with Mr. Musk, who I appreciate. At least he speaks really.
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I am positive about him owning Twitter because Twitter has become censorship city has all the
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major tech. I mean, the censorship that we are now seeing in the United States is so unAmerican
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and shocking to me. And he is a resistance to that. That is true.
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Yeah. I like, I like Musk for that, just for that only. But I also appreciate him, his
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adventuresome, his nature and his desire to, to, to explore the world and to ask questions.
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Yeah. There's certain ways you sound when you speak freely. There's certain ways you sound.
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A man sounds when he speaks freely. Yeah. He speaks freely and it's refreshing. Yeah.
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No matter whether you're rich or not, it doesn't matter. When you speak freely, it's a beautiful
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thing. Actually, you must do it. A major point on going back to nuclear energy, you know, he was,
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he never believed in it at first, apparently. He was going for batteries, right? And he did
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put a lot of money into batteries. He made them bigger and bigger batteries, but
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it just won't, as Bill Gates has said, it's just, it's not going to get us there.
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Yeah. And now I think Musk is on another path. He understands the need for nuclear.
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Yeah. He's a supporter of nuclear.
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We're jumping around. Poon never asked for one thing, never. It was an interview. It was free
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form. Ask anything you want. No, no restrictions, no rules. As with Castro, frankly. Castro did
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the same thing as Dechevez. So I've had good luck in interviewing free ranging subjects,
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people willing to express themselves. He's much more guarded than Castro or Dechevez because,
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as you know, he's setting government policy when he speaks and anything he says is going to be
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taken out of context. But there was no restrictions on what to talk about, none of that.
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Nor any desire to see anything before we publish it. No need to check it with them.
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It was completely... Do you think he watched the final product?
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Yes, I do. But I don't think he made judgments on it. I think he was pleased.
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He doesn't go either way. You see, he's pleased. I mean, he went well and he's happy for us.
link |
But I don't think he had great enthusiasm expressed it to me. He trusted me and you
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could see the way he dealt with me each time. He warmed up to me four times. You know, the first
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time it might have been a little stiff. You're asking, you don't know who you're dealing with and
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so forth. I understand that. But he's used to it now. He's done a lot of press. The worst press
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he's done, frankly, has been the American press. And not because of his fault, but because of the
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way they have treated him. If you look at the interviews, they're awful. They put... First of
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all, I noticed one thing as a filmmaker right away. They use an overdub. They put a Russian speaker
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for everything he says. He's much harsher. He speaks Russian in a much harsher manner than
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actually Putin does. On my interview, I left him in his original language with translator.
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I think that's important because he expresses himself very clearly and calmly. When you listen
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to the American broadcast, it's a belligerent person who looks like he's about to bang his shoe
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on the table. And secondly, the questions are highly aggressive from the beginning. There's no
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there's no sense of rapport. There's no sense of, well, it's why, Mr. Putin, did you poison this
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person? Why, Mr. Putin, did you kill this person? Why are you a murderer? I mean, it's blunt,
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blunt negative television. Yeah, it's not just aggressive. So I obviously speak Russian. So I
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get to appreciate both the original and the translation. And it's not just aggressive. It's
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very shallow. They're not looking to understand. To me, aggression is okay if that's the way you
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want to approach it. But it should be, there should be underlying kind of empathy for another human
link |
being in order to be able to understand. And so some of the worst interviews I've ever listened to
link |
is by American press of Vladimir Putin. So NBC and all those kinds of organizations,
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it's very painful to watch. And you saw the reception to the Putin interviews in America was
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hostile without seeing it. So many people criticized my series without having seen it. Even, even I
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went on a show, a television show with this famous Colbert, you know, he's very famous in America.
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And I was shocked on the show to find out that he hadn't seen anything of the four hours. He was
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just attacking Putin. And he threw me. I was complicit. Therefore, I was a Putin supporter.
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And the show, the show was a disaster. It's one of my worst television shows. I actually,
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I had to just shut up and get off the air. I mean, at some point it was embarrassing
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because the audience too was clapping for Colbert on anything he said.
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Well, as an interviewer in that situation, because between you and Vladimir Putin, there was camaraderie,
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there was joking, there was, are you worried? Do you put that into the calculation when you're
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making a film with somebody that could be lying to you, that could be evil? You talk about Castro,
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you talk about, so are you worried about how charisma of a man across the table from you can
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do? No, I take that into account. I absolutely take that into account. I mean,
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doing Castro, he's a wonderful speaker. He's charismatic. So is Chavez. Look at those interviews.
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I took it into account. But Putin doesn't play that game. He doesn't charm you. He doesn't try to
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overwhelm you with his bon amie at all. He just asks your question. I'll give you my answer straight.
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Here it is. And he analyzes it. This is the history of NATO. This is the history of our
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relationship with the United States. How many times have we tried to talk to them about such and
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such and such and each time we get nowhere? In fact, it's a very, I would like to get along
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with the United States so much. He's saying it so clearly in all his words. So to play devil's
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advocate. But he's not making a big deal about it. But there is a charisma and a calmness.
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Yes, there is. So like, let's just calm everything down. It's simple facts. That you can call.
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So there's like the Hitler thing, which is screaming, being very loud, charismatic, strong
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message and so on. And then there's a Putin style. I'm not comparing those two. There's the
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Putin style communication of calmness. And that, at least to me, my personality, that can be very
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captivating is bringing everything down. The facts are simple. But then when you say the facts are
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simple, you can now start lying. And you don't know what's true and what's lost. It behooves you
link |
to do some research. Yes. And frankly, when it comes to research, you're going to have a problem
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because if you go to the Americanized versions of Russian history, you're going to run into a
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problem. And that includes even Wikipedia. They will tell you things that are just not factually
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supported. So it was a problem in terms of if you read all the books in the American
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the library about Putin, there's nothing positive about it. They're awful. They're awful. And a
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lot of them, I had a good relationship with Professor Stephen Cohen, who's the most, I think,
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one of the most informed men on Russia. He done a lot of research, all his life. And
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knew Gorbachev very well. And was very analytical about all these situations that happened before
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his death in 2019. I'm not quite sure when Stephen died, but I knew him well. And he was the, he
link |
gave me the best information I could get. I would go to Stephen and I'd say, I'm confused here.
link |
Tell me the history of this accusation of poisoning against this person and so forth.
link |
And he'd explain it to me in, I think, very the clearest ways that I understood. And he said to
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me once, he said, most of these people who go to Russia and write this stuff about who
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are going off the internet, the internet has really been a source of a lot of fractured facts here.
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He said, pure analysis, you have to go back to the texts, all the documents, and to really
link |
fully understand. But he spoke Russian. And his wife and him, Katarina Van Hoovel,
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who's editor, publisher of The Nation magazine, would go to Russia several times a year and
link |
talk to their friend Gorbachev. And Gorbachev's an interesting character. I talked to him,
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interviewed him, not interviewed him, but talked to him at length. And I like him very much.
link |
And I saw the divide, as you saw in the Putin interviews between Gorbachev and Putin early
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on in the interviews, you sense Putin doesn't particularly care for Gorbachev because he,
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in his point of view, he screwed up the administration of Russia and is responsible for
link |
so much of the disaster of leaving all those people outside the Soviet Union. So these are
link |
problems that continue into the future. But they see each other at the, or he sees,
link |
he knows he's there at the May Day parade, we filmed. And his attitude is funny. It's very human.
link |
He says, you know, he's welcome. He's got his pension. He's a pensioner. He's done his duty.
link |
He's, there's no, there's no animus towards it. Even when Gorbachev in the early days,
link |
you remember, criticized for his manners in terms of democracy. But I don't know that that,
link |
you know, that becomes a quarrel. But frankly, by the, by the end of the situation, it's very
link |
clear that Gorbachev is now moved closer and closer to the, says Russia is now really under
link |
attack. This is, he sees it. He sees where the United States has made a concerted effort
link |
to undermine Putin. And he does, and he's repeated this several times about Ukraine.
link |
I think you've seen what he said. You can quote it. And Gorbachev is, we have no respect for
link |
Gorbachev even, even at this juncture. When can you see Gorbachev's ideas printed in most American
link |
newspapers? Very rarely, very rarely and not, and recently not at all. So Gorbachev, who was our
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hero back in, in the American hero back in 1980s, 80s has now been condemned to the garbage can,
link |
so to speak, of history. Well, in this complicated geopolitical picture you just outlined,
link |
can we talk about the recent invasion of Ukraine? You wrote on Facebook a pretty eloquent analysis.
link |
I think on March 3rd. Let me just read a small section of that just to give context. And maybe
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we can talk a little bit more about both Russia and the man Putin. You wrote, although the United
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States has many wars of aggression on its conscience, it doesn't justify Mr. Putin's aggression in
link |
Ukraine. A dozen wrongs don't make a right. Russia was wrong to invade. It has made too many mistakes.
link |
One, underestimating Ukraine resistance. Two, overestimating the military ability to achieve
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its objective. Three, underestimating Europe's reaction, especially Germany, upping its military
link |
contribution to NATO, which they've resisted for some 20 years. Even Switzerland has joined the
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cause. Russia will be more isolated than ever from the West. Four, underestimating the enhanced
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power of NATO, which will now put more pressure on Russia's borders. Five, probably putting Ukraine
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into NATO. Six, underestimating the damage to its own economy and certainly creating more
link |
internal resistance in Russia. Seven, creating a major readjustment of power in its oligarch class.
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Eight, putting cluster and vacuum bombs into play. Nine, and underestimating the power of social
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media worldwide. And you go on for a while giving a much broader picture of the history and the
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geopolitics of all of this. So now, a little bit later, two months later, what are your thoughts
link |
about the invasion of Ukraine? Well, it's very hard to be honest in this regard because the
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West has brought down a curtain here and anyone who questions the invasion of Ukraine and its
link |
consequences is an enemy of the people. It's become so difficult. I've never seen in my lifetime ever
link |
such a wall of propaganda as I've seen in the West. And that includes France too, because I was
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there recently in England. England is, of course, really vociferous. It's shocking to me how quickly
link |
Europe moved in this direction. That includes Germany. I have German friends who express to me
link |
their shock over Ukraine. I have Italian friends, same thing. And Italy, of course, has been perhaps
link |
the most understanding and compassionate of countries. So it's quite evident that there's
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a united, and this attests to the power of the United States. And of course, you have Finland
link |
and Finland, which has generally been reasonable, jumping in, talking about joining NATO and Sweden
link |
too. Generally, there's been some more restraint in Europe. That's what surprised me the most,
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Europe, how quickly they fell into this NATO basket, which is very dangerous for Europe,
link |
very dangerous. This goes back to my idea, what I was saying earlier about sovereignty.
link |
These countries don't really give me a sense that they have sovereignty over their own countries.
link |
They don't feel, to me, I'm obviously intuition here is working. I just don't feel
link |
that they have freedom to say what they really think, and they're scared to say it.
link |
But when the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, I remember with great, in a sense,
link |
satisfaction that at least France, Chirac, who I had not really know much about,
link |
stood up and said, the United States, we're not going to join you in this expedition,
link |
basically into madness. Schroeder in Germany, same thing. Of course, Putin condemned the
link |
invasion. And Putin had been an ally of the United States since 911, if you remember correctly,
link |
and had called Bush, and they were getting along. So even Putin said, I won't go,
link |
don't go into Iraq. This is not the solution. He didn't oppose Afghanistan, but he opposed Iraq.
link |
Chirac and Schroeder stood for the old Europe. I remember De Gaulle, Charles De Gaulle,
link |
he was independent of the United States. Charles De Gaulle pulled France out of NATO
link |
because he saw the dangers of NATO, which is to say, you have to fight an American war
link |
when they say, and they put nuclear weapons on your territory in England and France,
link |
and Italy and Germany, and when they do that, you're hitched to this superpower,
link |
and you have no say in what they're going to do. If they declare war, and they use your
link |
territory, you're going to be involved in a major conflict. I'm talking about sovereignty.
link |
Where is that sovereignty? They don't have it. And that has influenced their mindset for years now
link |
since 1940, since, well, De Gaulle was the 60s. He actually reversed the whole flow,
link |
and I think it was Sarkozy who put France back into NATO.
link |
And now it's Macron, I hope, because he was talking to Putin, would at least
link |
have an independent viewpoint that could be helpful here. So he rolled it up. He may have
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told Putin something else, but within days he had rolled it up and gone along with the United
link |
States position, which was enforced by the United States in a very fierce way. The propaganda,
link |
as I say, I don't know how much time he spent in America, but it was vicious and
link |
everything was anti Russian. Russia were killing all these people, were shooting down civilians,
link |
although there was no proof of it. There was just, these are the accidents of war,
link |
but all of a sudden it was a campaign of criminality, and they were talking about
link |
bringing Putin into war crime trial. Well, why didn't they talk like that when
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Iraq was going on and Bush was killing far more people? Or for that matter,
link |
why were they not talking about the killings in Donbas and Lugansk during that 2014 to 2022 period?
link |
That is what, it's a crime. There were so many people who were killed,
link |
many of them innocent, many of them innocent. So what would be the way for Vladimir Putin to
link |
stop the killing in Donbas without the invasion of Ukraine?
link |
Yeah, that's a very good question. And I've asked that several times and I don't have the,
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I have not talked to him since about two years now. It's a very good question.
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What's the mistakes? What the human mistakes and the leadership mistakes means?
link |
It's a very good question. You see, what the American press has not said,
link |
and the Western press has not said, is that on February 24, was it, that was on that day,
link |
when they invaded, the day before, if you check the logs of the European organization that was
link |
you supervising, was in the field in Ukraine, these are neutral observers. They were seeing
link |
heavy, heavier and heavier artillery fire going into, into Donbas from the Ukrainian side.
link |
So they had, apparently Ukraine had 110,000 troops on the border. They were about to invade
link |
Donbas. That was the plan. That's what I think. Russia as a, as a, because of the buildup on the
link |
border of Donbas brought 130, they say 130,000 troops to the area near Donbas, right? So you have
link |
buildup of forces on both sides, but you wouldn't know that from reading the press in the West.
link |
You would be, you'd believe that the Russians suddenly put all these men into, into the situation
link |
with the, with the idea of invading Ukraine, not only Donbas, but invading all of Ukraine
link |
and getting rid of the, decapitating the government there, which is all assumption.
link |
We don't know what they would intend it to do.
link |
But you at the time, as did a lot of people, thought that the, all the talk of the invasion,
link |
Russian invasion of Ukraine is just propaganda. It's not, it's not going to happen. It's very
link |
unlikely to happen. Well, we thought, I think many of us thought that the United States is building
link |
this up into an invasion. In other words, that is the nature of false flag operations. When you,
link |
you create this propaganda, they are going to invade, they are going to invade. And then
link |
when they invaded, they were, the United States was completely ready and all their allies were
link |
completely ready for the invasion, correct? So why did Putin do that? He fell into this,
link |
theoretically, into this trap set by the United States. Here you're telling all your allies
link |
across the board, they're going to invade, but you, why do you think he did it? So here,
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is it madness or is it not strategic calculation? Perhaps this one, I cannot answer you faithfully,
link |
because first of all, we don't know what he was told. If he was indeed getting the right
link |
intelligence estimates from what I said earlier in that, in that essay I wrote,
link |
you would think he was not well informed, perhaps, about the degree of cooperation he would get from
link |
the Russian, the Ukrainian Russians in Ukraine. That would be one factor that he wasn't,
link |
he didn't assess the operation correctly. Remember this, Mr. Putin has had this cancer,
link |
and I think he's licked it, but he's also been isolated because of COVID. And some people would
link |
argue that the isolation from normal activity, which he was, he was meeting people face to face,
link |
but all of a sudden he was meeting people across the table 100 yards away or whatever, 10 yards
link |
away. It was very hard to, perhaps he lost touch with, contact with people. So it's not just power,
link |
it's the very simple fact that you're just this. I see, I'm speculating, I don't know.
link |
I see that. And I also, perhaps he thought in his mind that there would be a
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faster resolution that the Ukrainian, because the evidence had been that the Ukrainian
link |
Russians, the Ukrainian army had folded so many times in the, and that they were only
link |
backed up and they were stiffened by the resistance of the Nazi, or Nazi oriented,
link |
as off battalions. That was a factor, of course. And that is a big factor for the Russians, because
link |
these people are very tough, they rush. See, what people don't understand is that Ukraine,
link |
since 2014, has been a terror state. They've been run. Anytime a Ukrainian has expressed any,
link |
any understanding of a Russian, of the Russian Ukrainian position, they've been threatened
link |
by the state. From 2014 to 2022, there's been a set of hideous murders that people don't even
link |
know about in the West. Journalists, people who speak out, liberals, people who I interviewed,
link |
Viktor Medvedev, who they make out to be some kind of horrible person. But Medvedev was a,
link |
was a very important figure in the administration of Kushma, the first Ukrainian prime minister
link |
in the 1990s. And he did a great job on the economy. He was a very thoughtful man. If you'll
link |
see my interview, it's called Ukraine Revealed. He's very thoughtful about the future of Ukraine.
link |
He doesn't want to go back and join Russia. He wants it to be an independent country.
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Ukraine is independent. And he wants it to be a functioning economic democracy, more or less,
link |
a democracy, if you can get that, but between, that exists in a neutral state, neutral state,
link |
which Ukraine used to be before 2014. It was neutral from 1991 to 2014, neutral, very important.
link |
And under Poroshenko, it just immediately went into an anti Soviet Cold War position
link |
as an ally of the United States. And my point was that it was a very dangerous place in Ukraine.
link |
People were being killed. Death squads were out there. Medvedev, they stripped him of his
link |
television stations. Very suddenly, this is Zelensky, the new president, said Zelensky was
link |
elected on a peace platform. Remember that he was 70% of the country was for him to make peace
link |
with Russia. Did he ever have even tried to make peace with Russia? Did he attend any of the Minsk
link |
two agreements? Did he visit? Did he pay any attention to Putin? Did he go to Russia? No,
link |
not at all. The moment he got into office, I'm convinced that the militant the militant sector
link |
of the right sector parties of the Ukraine, let him know that you will not make a deal with Russia.
link |
There'll be no concessions to Russia. This is very dangerous. This is where this attitude,
link |
this very, very hostile to Russia has hurt us. The whole world is being hurt by this. And no,
link |
no one calls them out. No one calls them out. Zelensky backed off from his platform as running
link |
for president. And as president has been ineffective, did nothing to promote on the contrary, went the
link |
other way and seemed to support the Ukrainian aggression. Well, he found his support in this
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war. You've revealed through your work some of the most honest and dark aspects of war.
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Nevertheless, this is a war. And there's a humanitarian crisis. Millions of people as
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refugees escape in Ukraine. What do you think about the human cost of this war initiated by
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whoever, just as you write, whatever the context, whatever NATO, whatever pressure,
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as you wrote, Russia was wrong to invade. Okay. Yeah. Well, let's get back to the
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original question. You said, what was he thinking at that time? We never answered that.
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Yeah. Now, by the way, among those people who have been
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ruined by this war, you have to include the 2014 to 2022. Yes. Ukrainian Russians, 14,000
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were killed, not necessarily by some of them by maybe accident this and that, but certainly a
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large number of that is responsible to the Ukrainian military and the Nazi related battalions
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who have done a good job of death squatting that whole area. And remember, I did a film about
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Salvador. I know a little bit about death squads and how they work. And I know about
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paramilitaries because in South America, they're all over the place. America supports, hates
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Venezuela, goes on about Venezuela. But do they tell you anything about Colombia, its next door
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neighbor? Colombia for years has been plagued by paramilitaries that are right wing. And the
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United States has said nothing about them, except occasionally there's a newspaper report now.
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So this support of death squads by the United States is all over the world. It's not just in
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South America and Central America where we see plenty of evidence of it. It's here too. And
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this is what's horrible about this whole thing, this hypocrisy of America that they can support
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such evil, such evil. Now, going back to your larger question about, yes, it's a terrible
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refugee disaster. But again, we have to get the numbers. Let's get the numbers and get
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evidence because I would ask you, I'm not sure at this point whether more civilians were killed
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before 2022 in Donbas than have been killed in this latest. So we can't talk about this without,
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we can't talk about the invasion of Ukraine without considering the full war between Russian Ukraine
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since 2014. That's correct. Absolutely. And take the toll on both sides. And I mean,
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you might be surprised by the result. I think the Russian military, of course, I'm not there,
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and I'm not, this could be this speculation, the Russian military has slowed down. And part of
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that reason is not to keep the civilian corridors open. And I think the Ukrainian military has
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made it more difficult on purpose, especially some of these battalions that are death squad
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battalions have gone out of their way to keep the civilians locked into these cities in danger,
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because it's in their interest to do so. So there's no reason why Ukrainian military,
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who have killed Ukrainian civilians for years, would change their policies.
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They would have no compunctions about wiping out, for example, people with white armbands in Bukha.
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Okay. As to what Putin was thinking at the time, I wondered this, I still do. I said,
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okay, so Putin can say, let's say the Ukrainian government wants to now invade Donbas. This is
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on February 23. And they have artillery that pepper in the whole place, they're going to go in,
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and they're going to get Donbas back. What do you do? And you have Russian separatists who are
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Russian Ukrainians who are on, who are going to fight. How far do you go in supporting them?
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Can Russia at this point say, well, we can't help you, you have to get along, you have to somehow,
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you have to be absorbed by the Kiev, you're going to be absorbed by them, and they're going to be,
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they're not going to give you autonomy, and you have to live with them. And there's going to be
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a price to pay. You could do that. And you can also say, well, we open our borders to Donbas.
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You can come into our country, you can leave, and we will help you to, to resettle. And that's,
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that would be a reasonable approach. So you take it to the next stage, as Putin's thinking, you
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take it to the next stage, you, you stall it harder for your people. Of course, you have this pressure
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on Putin from inside his own government to say, what are you going to do? I mean, you can't do
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this to, there's a lot of nationalists in Russia, they would certainly bring, it would be to his,
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they'd say Putin is weak. And that's the biggest rap you can ever give a Russian leader is you're
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weak, you can't get anything done. So there would have been some damage. But let's say he goes
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with that. And he says, okay, we know what the United States intention is. It's to get rid of me,
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regime change, and to get another Yeltsin in. That's what they want. And they will go to any
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ends, they will destroy Ukraine if necessary, but they want regime change in Russia. And then
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after they do that, of course, they'll go after China. But that's the ultimate policy of the
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United States. This is a country that has no compunctions about going all the way.
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And it will use hypocrisy and all the news propaganda in the world to get what it wants.
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This is the equivalent, frankly, of Germany's goals in World War Two, world domination.
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There's no question in my mind. But we're going about it in our way, as opposed to Hitler's way.
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So just to finish your thought, where do they go? What's stage two? Okay, let's say they take,
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Ukraine takes back Donbas. Let's say people get killed in large quantities. So we now,
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to the next stage, we're finished with the Minsk two agreements that we're never adhered to.
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So what does Russia do? They wait for the next aggression, which is going to come
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in one form or another, perhaps in Georgia, perhaps, I don't know what happened, what the
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US is thinking. But the US cannot say Russia has done anything. They have not used violence to stop
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Donbas from belonging back to Ukraine, right? So you're in a new setup now. It's a whole thing
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rearranges. Now you have, but you still have nuclear weapons. And you still have a Russian
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nuclear weapons and they're serious weapons. They're very well developed, crude, but not as
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refined as the American nuclear force, but powerful. That becomes another game. Then you open another
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chessboard and know what you still haven't been condemned. The sanctions haven't been imposed.
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That's a new, it's a new game. Could he have done? Could he have lived with that? That's the question
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I asked myself. So you see ultimately Ukraine today as a battleground for the proxy war between
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Russia and the United States? The United States would have then NATOized Ukraine or
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certainly put more weapons. And the United States has already done a lot in Ukraine with
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intelligence, with training advisors. The intelligence aspect of the Ukrainian army has
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been raised enormously by the United States contribution. Is it possible for you to steal
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man to play devil's advocate against yourself and say that Vladimir Zelensky is fighting for
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the sovereignty of his nation? And in a way against Russia, but also against the United States,
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it just happens that for now, the United States is a useful ally. But ultimately, the man, the leader
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is fighting for the sovereignty of his nation. I would think he thinks so. Yes, and he could
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say that, but he's not acknowledging that the sovereignty of his nation was stolen in 2014
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with a coup d'détat that brought this right sector into power. And they have controlled the
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country since then. It's thuggery what they've done. The Medvedev case is a case in point.
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They just take what they need. They go to a house and they have a how many people have been killed?
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Serious people, journalists killed by these battalions. That's what people don't realize.
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In other words, you can't speak out. A person like me would have been on the death list on day
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five. There's no opposition to Zelensky. So he doesn't have a real sovereignty. It was a stolen
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sovereignty. Do you think President Zelensky would accept an interview with you today?
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Actually, since I made Ukraine on Fire documentary, which perhaps you've seen,
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which records the incidents of 2014 and the Maidan demonstrations and shows you the dishonesty
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behind it. No, I think that they've been very negative and they would kill me if I was in Ukraine.
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I mean, they don't have any. These people are very tough. These are as rough as they come,
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in my opinion. And I've seen rough in my life. I mean, these guys are not playing with fair at
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all. These are death squads. No, I don't think and Zelensky would have nothing to do with it.
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But of course, it would be dangerous for me. And they've been very hostile in their
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in their policies to any Ukrainians abroad are also threatened. In other words, you could be in
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Paris. But if you speak out too much, I think Ukrainians know that they're going to be targeted.
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And I think that's part of the reason they don't talk. You have to take the anti Russian line,
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but I think a lot of them are divided. So you think you would be killed and Zelensky wouldn't
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even know about it? So there is... Well, I don't think... If I was killed, certainly abroad. No,
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they wouldn't kill me abroad. I think they figure out... No, no, no, no. If you travel to Ukraine,
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I mean... I wouldn't get in. I wouldn't get in. Except through Donbass. I'd come... There are
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some Americans in Donbass who are reporting on the war there. And I read their reports,
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actually. They're pretty interesting because they show you the cruelty of what's going on. But
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never mentioned in the West. Never. That's what's so strange about this. This is the modern world
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that we're living in. And yet that's information is not coming out to the mass of the people.
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And on the contrary, the United States has closed down all the RT, all the information
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centers that are possible, alternative news, getting to the American people. They've seriously
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made an effort. And the BBC, English, and France. I was shocked when France closed RT now because
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RT is actually pretty good. They... Yes, they may... It's called... There are distortions,
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but you know as well as I do because you hear... You speak that RT has done a very
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brave job of putting correspondents into the field in very dangerous positions and they've
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gotten great footage of some of the violence that's going on. Well, given the wall of propaganda in
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the West, I also see the wall of propaganda in Russia. Yes. The wall of propaganda in China,
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the wall of propaganda in India. What do we do with these walls of propaganda? I talked to...
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Let's talk about Russia because you would know more about it. But my last experience there,
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newspapers, it was more interesting. There's... Put it this way, when I went to Venezuela,
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the United States was saying back then that Chávez controlled the press. I get to Venezuela and
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there's nothing but criticism of Chávez in the press. It was owned by the oligarchs of
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Venezuela and who hated him. So it was across the board. That's why Chávez opened the state
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television, spent more money on it and advertised his point of view through state television.
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But in Russia, what I saw was criticism. I met with a publisher who got the Nobel Prize of that
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famous newspaper and his point of view at that time when I spoke to him a few years ago was
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we're operating. There is criticism of him, but you can't call for the overthrow of the government
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nor in Venezuela, nor in the United States for that matter. If you call for the overthrow of
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the government of the United States, you're going to be in deep trouble.
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Well, all right. So to push back on that, it's interesting. It's so interesting because
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we mentioned Elon Musk and there's a way that people sound when they speak freely.
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When I speak to my family in Ukraine, I have family in Russia. When I speak to people in
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Russia, let's put my family aside. When I speak to people in Russia, I think there's fear. I think
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they don't... Sometimes when you call for the overthrow of government, that's important not
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because you necessarily believe for the overthrow of the government, but you just need to test,
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test the power centers and make sure they're responsive to the people. And I feel like there's
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a mix of fear and apathy that has a different texture than it does in the United States.
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That worries me because I would like to see the flourishing of a people in all places.
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As I said, my impression was that there's far more freedom in the press than was pictured by the
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West. And that means different points of view because the Russians are always arguing with
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themselves. I've never seen a country that's so contentious. There's more intellectuals in Moscow
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and the cities than you can believe. And you know the Russian people there. They've been fighting
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government for years. Back from the 1870s, the Tsarist times, they always plotting against the
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government. And the intelligentsia has known through history as being contentious and anti
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government in many ways. And we see the same thing, educated people turning against Russia. I don't
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appreciate those people because I think they're very spoiled and they don't understand some of
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this stuff that's going on in the West. But we have a lot of Russians in the Europe and America
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that attack Russia and sometimes don't understand that they are under pressure from the United
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States and they don't understand the size of the pressure. And that's why Putin connects with the
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people because he represents the common, more the common man who's saying to you, your interests
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are threatened. Russia is threatened. We are representing only the interests of Russia. We're
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not an empire. We're not going to expand. He has no empire intentions, although the West
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paints it as empire. I see no evidence of it. Why didn't he do something in all these years?
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Nothing. He did nothing except defend the country in Georgia and in Chechnya.
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So the imperialist imperative is coming more from the West?
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It's the imperialist agenda. Going back to, I'm sorry, where we left our discussion off,
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I mean, I was going to go on with America not only being censored, closed down now,
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closed down. And you say it's not fear. Well, it is fear. I am scared because if you get your
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Facebook page suspended or your Twitter account thrown off, a lot of good people are getting
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there thrown off. You can't say it. You can't speak out. It affects your business. It goes back
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to the 1950s when my father's world, when you could not express any sympathy for a Soviet Union
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without endangering your job, without basically being not trusted. You had to be part of the
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program to get along, to go along. Same thing when the United Kingdom, I mean, for all their
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talk, this Boris Johnson is an idiot, but all their talk about, do you remember with their
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policies with the IRA in Ireland when Ireland was threatening them? They cut off the IRA
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completely. Jerry Adams, who was a wonderful guy, I met him, was not allowed to even be heard in
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Britain during certain years. In France, all constantly through the Algerian war, the Algerians
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were not allowed to be heard. The Algerian war for independence divided France greatly.
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You could not even show Paz of glory. World War I film in France for, I don't know, 20 years after
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it came out. Censorship is a way of life when democracies also feel threatened. They are much
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more fragile than they pretend to be. A healthy democracy would take all the criticism in the
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world and shrug it off and say, okay, that's what's good about our country. Well, I'd like to see
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that in America. There are times that it's been like that, but it's so scary now. So it is scary.
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That's what I was trying to say. It's not unscary to me. In China, I would say to you, yes, it's
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much scarier to me because there is the internet wall that they cut off. And I got into problems
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in China too, because I said something in years ago about, you have to discover your own history.
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You have to be honest about Mao. You have to be, you have to go back and let's make a movie about
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Mao. That upset them and show his negatives. So China has been much more sensitive than
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Russia about criticism, much more. And it is a source of problems. But on the other hand,
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China has a lot of grievances, a lot going back to the 19th century and the British imperialism
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of that era and the American imperialism. If you could talk to Vladimir Putin once again,
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now, what kind of things would you talk about here? What kind of questions would you ask?
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Well, one thing I'm certainly asking is what you were thinking on February 23.
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And I would ask him to reply to my question about what if you took this to phase two? You
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surrendered in Donbass. You know no ego about it. You just surrendered. It's in your interest
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to your country. And you invited all the refugees from Donbass into Russia as much as they can.
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What would you do now? What's the US next move? And in your opinion, how are you going to,
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okay, where are we going to go? That would be the key question because it's,
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it's, but he didn't go that way. He chose to take the sanctions and to go this way.
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Why he did that is a key question for our time. Perhaps it was a mistake. Perhaps it was his
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judgment. Perhaps, as I said, but I don't, knowing the man I did, I don't think so. I think it was
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calculated. Now, this is projection and speculation, but there's something different about him in the
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past several months. It could be the COVID thing, the isolation that you mentioned. I listened to a
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lot of interviews and speeches in Russian. And there's, there's something about power over time
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that can change you, that can isolate you. Well, when I was there, no, he'd been in office for
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already 15 years. He had power. He didn't misuse it in my opinion. He was very even. I saw him
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go on television and talk to his fellows the same way he always talked to them. He grew with it.
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He grew in intelligence and knowledge because he had dealings with the whole world. Now,
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people had come to him. He was very well known in Africa and Middle East, certainly Syria.
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And I just never saw misuse of his power. I saw humility in him actually.
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So perhaps there was a calculation and he calculated wrong in terms of what happens
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if he doesn't invade. Perhaps there was a calculation. Perhaps he had a calm and clear mind
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and he calculated wrong. Well, he also made the point that he, the talk of Zelensky saying,
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well, nuclear weapons were going to come into Ukraine. There was talk about that right before
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the invasion too. And certainly that would have set off alarms. You know, the United States is
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already kind of doing that by not only putting its intelligence and its heavy weaponry into Ukraine,
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but you've got to deal with a question. The next question that comes up, the most immediate question
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is, is the United States going to start? And I'm saying this is good. They're making a lot
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of noise in the United States press about Russia using nuclear weapons and chemical weapons.
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That's a lot of noise. Again, going back to my analogy, when the United States starts that,
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it starts the conversation going. It's in the interest of the United States
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for Russia to be pinned with any kind of chemical or nuclear incident. For example, it'd be very,
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not simple, but it would be possible to explode a nuclear device in Donbas and kill thousands of
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people. And we would not know right away who did it, but of course the blame would go right to Russia,
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right to Russia, even if it didn't make sense, if there was no motivation for it.
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It would just be blamed on Russia. The United States might well be the one who does that
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false flag operation. It would not be beyond them. It would be a very dramatic solution
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to sealing this war off as a major victory for the United States.
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That's terrifying.
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No, but it can happen. It can happen at one kiloton device, low yield. It's possible.
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But when you walk across that line, you can potentially never walk back.
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Well, I think the United States is calculating that it's a dangerous, yes, I agree, but I think
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the Neoconservative arrogance is such that they really believe they can push their advantage
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to the max now because of all these propaganda successes up to now. The Ukrainian army could
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be wiped out for all we know. There's all that's left as a neo, nasty brigades, but they're being
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advised very well by US. And they're sending the weapons in our huge amounts of weapons.
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What about American budget? No one talks about how much money we're giving to Ukraine.
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It's a billion dollars already in weaponry and not most of it just poured in. What about,
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you know, the Russian budget is, defense budget is 60, some billion dollars a year.
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It's nothing compared to the United States, one 15th of it. But yet we've put so much weaponry
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into Ukraine. The money we've spent on Ukraine is equivalent almost to what we spent on COVID in
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our own country. It's astounding the distortion of our priorities. There's also chemical.
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Don't forget, chemical is probably the easier way to go. But in Syria, there was far too many
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incidents of America in its quest to demonize Assad and the Russians of all these chemical
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attacks that were happening that they were vowing came from Russia. And in spite of the fact that
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Russia is pulled out of the, signed the agreement on chemical arms and not, and apparently destroyed
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its stock several years ago, it's strange that the strangest incidents happened in Syria. You go
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back to them, trace everyone. Good journalism was done. The White Helmets got a lot of fame,
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but they were corrupted. And many good journalists tried to point out the inconsistencies in the
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American accusations. Robert Perry among them, who was one of my mentors at Consortium Press,
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a lot of good journalists. You'd have to go back, but trace each, like you would trace each time
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they made an accusation against Putin of murder. You need that same kind of Sherlock Holmes
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intensity investigation. And they don't do it because the United Nations or the chemical,
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not the United Nations as much as the chemical people, the organization has been tampered with.
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If you remember correctly, there was accusations that the chemical, chemical investigative unit,
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I don't know the name of it, was tampered with. And people quit, people who were working on that
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commission quit and said that this is not legit. It's a very interesting, that Syria story is
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wacko. So the United States is willing to use chemical in Syria freely. It did it three,
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four times. If you remember correctly, Trump was challenged that he did not attack after a chemical
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incident in Syria. All these new casters in the United States, the most heaviest of them were saying,
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well, President Putin, President Trump is now finally acting like a real president when he
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attacks, when he drops missiles in Syria. They actually said that. In other words, they wanted
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the Trump to go to war on Syria, but he didn't. Chemical weapons, when nuclear is really terrifying.
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Do you think now, combine this with the fascinating choice in your interviews with
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Vladimir Putin to watch Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strange Love or How I Learned to Stop Warring
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and Love the Bomb, given the fact that you did that, now looking at the fact that the word
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nuclear and it feels like the world hangs on the brink of nuclear war. Do you think that
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that's overstating the case? No. That's what worried me from the beginning and that's probably why
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I got involved in all this stuff because I go back to the 60s when we were so close to nuclear war.
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I lived through that period and I thought, as many people did, that this was going to come now.
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So I've lived through that. I didn't sense the period in 83 when Reagan took us to the edge.
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If you remember correctly, Abel Archer was an exercise that almost brought us to.
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The Russians were really paranoid at that point and they were responding to our military exercise
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on Abel Archer. There was also the Korean airliner. There were numerous incidents
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in the 80s, but I never felt the fear. I thought Reagan was testing the limits, but
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perhaps if I'd been younger, I would have felt it. But anyway, no, we come close. The United
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States has risked this several times. If I told you, it would be hard for you to believe. If I
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could set a scene for you in a drama in 1962 when Kennedy has a meeting with the Joint Chiefs of
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Staff and the CIA and they talk about a plan, the military plan, to first strike the Soviet Union
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and China. It was an Eisenhower plan that had been put into potential operation in
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the early 60s or late 50s, SIO P62. This was an attack on the Soviet Union, first strike.
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That's why the United States has never given up the concept of first strike. It's interesting
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that the Russian nuclear policy posture is more defensive than the American one, which leaves
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options open. The same options are open. A neoconservative agreement that we see from the
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late 90s where they say the emergence of a rival power will not be tolerated. That's a very broad
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statement and it allows you to do a lot, including nuclear. So you have to understand, the United
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States is always, first of all, it breaks so many treaties. We know that from the Putin story about
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the anti ballistic missile treaty in 2002 and then the INF treaty. They broke that one. That was
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the intermediate missile. That was 2019. I don't know when they broke it off, but the United States
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has not been very faithful on its nuclear agreements. I don't know that we can even deal
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with the United States diplomatically. It seems to be impossible. Now, it brings me to Biden.
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Yes. Another Irishman. This is the opposite of Kennedy. Kennedy was a Catholic Irish
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anti imperialist. Biden seems to be the opposite. He seems to be a get along, go along guy who's been
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not only old, but he's also gone along with this program, which I voted for Biden because I feared
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Trump, but I thought Biden at a certain age would mellow. I really did. He's not mellowed.
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Apparently, he's still listening to these people and he believes them. It seems that his horrible
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woman, Victoria Nuland, who was under Secretary of State, he appointed her to this sector of the
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world. She's very influential and she's been one of the worst people on Ukraine. She obviously
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was behind the coup. She was the one who boasted that we got our man in, Yats, Yatsenuk, and also
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remember the famous statement, fuck the EU, all these things. But she's back and she said the
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other day about if the Russians use nuclear weaponry of any kind, there's going to be a
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horrible price to pay. She was out of the blue. I said, what the hell is she doing? She's talking
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nuclear all of a sudden. And then since that day, everybody in the US press, all the shows have gone,
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talked nuclear, nuclear, nuclear. Secretary of State has done it, Blinken. It scares you.
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If you think about it, the United States scares me.
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So that's the military industrial complex machine fully functional, fully operational behind this
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whole thing. Is that what's the blame? Certainly is. That's why I showed him strange love,
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because I wanted him to show him. I wanted Mr. Putin to say, look at this film. You never saw it.
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How can you not say? It's a seminal film in American history to those people who care.
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And it shows you the Kubrick had a pacifist, thank God, antiwar mentality, which he showed
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in Bars of Glory, as well as strange love. And it's such a dire, well done scenario that
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I wanted Mr. Putin to be aware of the way the United States thinks.
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Yeah, the absurdity of escalation, the absurdity of war at the largest scale,
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the absurdity of nuclear war, especially. Can we walk back from the brink of nuclear war?
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Can we? Can we? Yes. Yes. What's the path to walk back?
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Reason. Reason and diplomacy. There's no reason. I mean, talk to the guy.
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Like, Mr. Biden, why don't you calm down and go and talk to Mr. Putin in Moscow?
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Why don't you just sit across the table from him and try to have a discussion without
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falling into ideologies and stuff like that?
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Can I ask you for advice? You did some of the most difficult interviews ever. Do you have advice
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that you can give to someone like me or anyone hoping to understand something about
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a human being sitting across from them about what it takes to do a good interview?
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Well, no, but there's a, listen, there's levels to this game. And interviewing somebody like
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Vladimir Putin, also language barrier, sit across from the man, try to keep an open mind,
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try to also ask challenging questions, but not challenging with an agenda, but seeking to understand
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and understand deeply. How do you do that? Seeking the truth. It's very simple. Seeking
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the truth. Being a questioner like you are, you want to know what is really going on. I could
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not get anywhere with Biden or Bush or for that matter, Obama. They'd be opaque with me. There's
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no interview possible with the president of the United States because he's got to stand for all
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the stuff that they stand for, which is imperialism, which is control of the world. How can you defend
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that? No one's going to come out and say that. They're always going to blame the enemy. They're
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going to blame Iran. They're going to blame China. So some people, it may not be possible to break
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through the opaqueness. You can't. Have you ever seen an interview with the president besides being
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personable where he actually discussed American policy? Yeah. I mean, not really, but maybe after
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their president. I could see Obama being able to do such an interview. I could see George W
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being able to do such an interview, or are they not able to reflect at all?
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George W hasn't shown much conscience in terms of thinking about what he's done. You've seen that.
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Have you ever seen my movie W? I think that's one of my best movies because it shows a man who's just
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out of his depth and has no, he has a conscience at the end of the movie. If you remember correctly,
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he talks to his wife and he says, I don't get it. I'm trying to do good in the world. I've done,
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I believe in good and right. And why do people not understand it? You know, that kind of complaint
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as if he can't get outside himself to understand the way other people think. Empathies, walking,
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like a dramatist is what I do. You walk in the footsteps of other people. When I did a movie
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about Richard Nixon, it wasn't because I liked him. It was because I wanted to, I think I understood
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a part of him because of my father and I think I wanted to walk in his footsteps. That's not to
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say I sympathize with him because I didn't. I don't think he helped the American cause at all,
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but it was empathize as opposed to sympathize. Same thing with Bush. People were shocked when I did
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the Bush movie. They said, how can you be in any way, any way receptive to this guy? I said,
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that's wrong. Dramatists don't have political positions. They walk in the shoes of, that's
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why Bush movie perhaps was surprising to me and maybe people didn't care for it. Maybe that's,
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but that's, you've got to go there. If you did a movie about a villain, you have to go there.
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You have to walk in their shoes. Yes. So see them because they usually, villains usually see
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themselves as the hero. Yes. So you have to consider what is it like to live in a world where
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this person is the hero? Yes. Is that a burden? Is that hard? Not for George W. Bush. He's
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bitching because they didn't understand him, but he had a good vision. He's out of democracy and,
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you know, democracy forgives a lot of sins. Can I ask you a hard question on that? Yes, sure.
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So because empathy is so important to a great interview, let's ask the most challenging version
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of empathy, which is when you're sitting across from a man on the brink of war that leads to
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tens of millions of deaths, which is Hitler. So if you could interview Hitler in 1939,
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as the drums of war start to beat or 1941, when they're already full on war, but there's still
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a lot of pacifists, there's still a lot of people unsure what are the motivations behind
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what Hitler is doing. How would you do that interview? What depends when you do it. If you do
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it in 1938, I certainly would have, no, you have to, if you sit down across from Hitler,
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you empathize. What is your beef? What do you, where have you been? What is your consciousness?
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Why do you hate Jewish people? Why, why, what is, you know, all these questions that come up,
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his sense of grievance as a result of World War I, there's justifications there, etc. But if I,
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and by the way, Churchill was trying to make a deal with him in 38. That's a fact that people
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don't know is Churchill himself. And, you know, there was still the desire in England to make peace
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with Germany. And he was seen as a possible, what Churchill really wanted was Hitler to go
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against Russia and anything to destroy the Bolsheviks. So he was using Hitler as much as he could
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to go after Russia. But Hitler was too elusive to get, to pin him down. But if you remember,
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Hitler was very kind at the end of, kind is not the right word, was did not go after the
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British Empire when he had France. And he could have. He had another objective, which was obviously
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the East. So Hitler's goal, I think, he always had an admiration for England. It's an interesting
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story, always. And the Empire. Yes. And certainly Churchill, we have no doubts now from history,
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revisionism, that Churchill's interest, main interest, was not Germany. It was the British
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Empire. Yes. And to preserve it to India, the road to India and all that. And Middle East,
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Churchill fought the entire war with the concept of preserving the British Empire. All his goals,
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he sent America on a goose chase into Italy, you could argue, instead of establishing a
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sincere second front in Western Europe. Interesting man. So I would have tried to get,
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you know, I think I would approach it the same way. In 1939, it would have been a different story,
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because at that point, he'd attacked Poland in 1940 France. So it's another ballgame.
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But certainly, at whatever point you talk to him, I would try to understand his point. So I'm not
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judging you, Hitler. I'm saying to you, tell me what you're thinking. Why are you invading Russia?
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What's your thought? That's all an interviewer should do. He shouldn't be expressing his contempt
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for Hitler, which is like an American journalist interviewing Putin. I'm getting brownie points
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for expressing my contempt for you. That doesn't wash with me. That's ugly.
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Yeah, seek to understand. Yes. This is a technical question, but was language a barrier
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as an interviewer? To some degree, it's very hard to learn Russian. But I had very, they have excellent
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translators in the Kremlin. Excellent. They are people who are trained very seriously for
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months or years before they, these people are young and they're very bright. I was very impressed
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with the Russian translator. It's interesting. I mean, I'm impressed as well, but there's a humor
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that's lost. There's a wit, a dry wit. There's stuff said between the lines. That's not actually
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have much content, but it's more kind of the things that make communication more frictionless.
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It's the, there's a, there's a kind of sadness to a Russian humor that permeates all things.
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And that sometimes is lost in translation. The translation is a little bit colder,
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meaning it's just conveys the facts. Would you call it sardonic humor?
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I would say so. Yeah. And so it's interesting. But I think you could see that from facial
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expressions when you're sitting across from the person and you can feel it. Let me ask you in
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general, what's the role of love in the human condition in your life, in life in general?
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You've talked, you looked at some of the darkest aspect of human nature. What's the role of this,
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one of the more beautiful aspects of human nature? I think without love, I wouldn't,
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I don't think I'd be able to carry on. I think that love is my, love is the greatest,
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the ability to love is the greatest virtue you can have. It's the ability to share with another,
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with your family, with your children, with your wife, with your lover, your partner.
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It's an ability to extend yourself into the world and it brings empathy with it.
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If you love well, I think you expand it to the human race too. And I, it's the strength behind
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the great novelists, the great artists of our time. I think part of the reason I suppose we're
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scared of science sometimes is because the scientists sometimes don't express that clearly.
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You can lose that when you focus on the facts, on empirical data, on the science of things.
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You can lose this, the humanity that's between the lines.
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I'm often struck by when I talk to scientists and I've talked to a few
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at how arrogant they can be about, they don't talk to you if you don't understand their world
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and they talk to each other and there's an arrogance, a closed circle kind of thing.
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Oh, he's not at my level. I can't, there's no discussion to be had with this person. He's a human
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being. That arrogance is terrifying to me because it's, it's next door neighbor to close mindedness,
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which then can be used by charismatic leaders as it was in Nazi Germany
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to commit some of the worst atrocities. The scientists can be used as pawns in a very,
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in a very cruel game. What advice would you give to young people? You've done, first of all,
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some of the greatest films ever. You've lived a heck of a life. You've were fearless and bold
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in asking some really difficult questions of this world. What advice would you give to young people
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today, high school, college, about career, how to have a career they can be proud of,
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or how to have a life they can be proud of? Well, I have three children. So obviously,
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I'm not necessarily the best, best advisor in the world. I, and they, I do find that the children,
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I've raised them with a sense of freedom and they do what they want. In the end, it's their life,
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their destiny, their character. That's what comes out. You can try to influence it, but you can try
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to get your daughter to wake up at a certain hour in the day, but it never works. So I long ago gave
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up on that and my children are all grown now. But aside from that, I think if I was a teacher in a
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school and teaching film, I'd say to the students, get an education. You can't just look at film.
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Because it's not a full education. It's not the spectrum. I don't think you should teach film as a,
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I think you need a base in other, in other worlds. One of the greatest courses I took in NYU
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was, and I was a war veteran on the GI Bill. So I was older than the other students. One of the
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great, I took a class outside the film school in Greek classics because I hadn't had much history
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or, and I wanted to know more about the world of Homer and so forth. And the teacher opened my eyes
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to so much in that class. And I wrote about it in my memoir. It's called Chasing the Light
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about Professor Leahy and what he did to me. He just, he gave me the concepts clearly of consciousness,
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which is the Homeric theme of Odysseus. And, and also lethe, L E T H E, L E T H E, which is sleep.
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And how most of the crew, Odysseus's crew, were experiencing lethe and how necessary it was to
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stay awake. So it's not just film. It's just, you have to learn the world as much as you can
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when you're young. And so that, I think, is the basis of a good education and a classic one is
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important. A basis. I think then you go on and you can learn computer if you want. But that's
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specialization, you know. If you're a computer geek, is that a life? Does that give you enough
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satisfaction? Do you get the joy out of, out of people? No, just like filmmaking is a skill.
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Yes, right. You need to have the broad back on to understand the world, literature, history.
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Absolutely. So one of the things about being human is life is finite. It ends. Do you think about
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your death? Are you afraid of your death? Yeah, sure. Absolutely. You have to come to terms with
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death. And that's a tough one for many people. It's always there. I'm older than you, obviously.
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And I'm getting closer to it. It couldn't happen any day, actually. When you get to a certain age,
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you can't assume that you're going to be alive tomorrow. So I try to deal with that.
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Are you afraid of it? Much less so than I was when I was younger. Remember, I was in Vietnam,
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but I thought I dealt with it there. But when I came back, I realized that I wanted to live.
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So yes, I've learned over time to get more and more used to it and get ready for it.
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What's a good answer to the question of why live? So the realization that you wanted to live,
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what was the reason to live? Because it was better than being one of those corpses that I
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saw in the jungle. I saw how finite death is.
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Are there things in your life you regret? Oh, sure. Too many.
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Is there something you wish you could have done differently? Like if you could go back
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to do one thing differently or that regrets all the time?
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It's much less. I'm curious. What do you say offline all the time?
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No, no. You'd be curious to know. And he's an engineer, too. And engineers really value mistakes.
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Engineers value mistakes and errors, because that's an opportunity to learn.
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I mean, this is what you do with systems is you test them,
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you test them, you test them, and errors is just information. He did.
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The same thing is true in its way of filmmaking. There are certain things you learn as you build
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films and you make mistakes. It's like putting an engine together and you, oh, the film is flawed
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in that way. You know it. Other people may or may not see it, but the car runs or made money
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or it didn't make money. It can be good and it didn't make money, but the point is that everything
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is a build. Every film is a construction. Same thing as he goes through on a Tesla,
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we go through on each film. But films are art. It's a little tricky.
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Yeah, the thing is one film does not lead to a lifetime guarantee of copyright.
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Well, yeah, you have the movie game, as you've called it, is a complicated and cruel game.
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But it takes an enormous amount of work, enormous amount of work to make a film.
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People underestimate that. It's extremely complicated to have something be successful
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because it has so many elements of luck involved and reception and so forth.
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What do you think, I apologize for the absurd question, but what do you think is the meaning
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of life? Why are we here? The why? I think to realize ourselves, to realize more of what you are,
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to realize what life is, to appreciate it, to grow, to honor our life, to honor the concept
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of life and to understand how precious life is, the preciousness of life as the Buddhists say.
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And of course, the immediacy of death all around us, the causes of death are all around us.
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And our life is like, as they say, is like a lantern in a strong breeze among the existing,
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among the causes of death. So life is so precious. And at the same time, we
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have the immediacy of death and then of course, the continuation of life in whatever form it's
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going to take. But in this life, to wake up to the preciousness of it, to the preciousness.
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Yeah, that's a wonderful thing. By the way, I didn't have that when I was young. I took it for granted.
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Oliver, like I said, I'm a huge fan. You're an incredible human being,
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one of the greatest artists ever. So it's a huge honor that you sit with me and talk so deeply
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and honestly about some very difficult topics. Again, you're an inspiration and it's an honor
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that you will spend your valuable time with me. Thank you very much. Thanks for talking to me.
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Fun being here. Thanks for listening to this conversation with Oliver Stone. To support
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this podcast, please check out our sponsors in the description. And now let me leave you with
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some words from Oliver Stone in the untold history of the United States. To fail is not tragic.
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To be human is. Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time.