Afghanistan War Vet Blasts Trump’s “Pathetic and Horrific” War with Iran

Welcome to the Mark Steiner Show here on The Real News.

I'm Mark Steiner.

It's great to have you all with us.

As the insanity of this Trump hex-eth war with Iran intensifies, we're going to bring

you a conversation today and hear an analysis of what we face from a man who knows our military,

who fought in it and understands the danger of wars that have no meaning of them pulling

us deeper into a quagmire that endangers our future.

Rory Fanning did two tours in combat as an army ranger in Afghanistan.

He wrote an amazing book entitled Worth Fighting for in an army ranger's journey out of the

military and across America, and co-author with Craig Hodges of the book Longshot, the triumphs

and struggles of an NBA freedom fighter.

And his journey was just that.

He walked across the United States for the Pat Tillman Foundation to work against endless

wars.

He speaks of high schools and colleges throughout the country, but the hell of war, the danger

of imperialism that drives us to those wars.

And then he speaks for family, but will drove him to become a peace activist.

And he joins us now.

So Rory Fanning, welcome.

It's good to have you with us and I appreciate you taking the time.

Thanks for having me, Mark.

Let's just begin it in a broad sense here.

Is someone who has been through two tours of combat.

Who thinks and writes about this and then backed off from the military.

I'd like to get your analysis about what you see at the moment with Iran, because to me,

it feels like we are on a precipice, a really dangerous one, but I'd like to hear your

analysis of where you see this, where we are.

Well, it feels like history is repeating itself.

I mean, I remember signing up after 9-11, you know, watching the plane sit for 20 hours

and I want to do my part to prevent a 9-11 from ever happening again.

And so I decided to sign up for the Special Forces, Second Army Ranger Battalion.

You know, when I landed in country in Afghanistan, I was really expecting to, you know, being

led by the CIA, being led by, you know, the intelligence agencies that run the US military.

And my immediate impression upon landing in Afghanistan is we have absolutely no idea

what we're doing here.

We didn't understand the culture.

We didn't speak the language.

We knew very little about the terrain and our job was just to go in there and sort of

think it up really.

I didn't know at the time that the Taliban had surrendered when I landed in country and

our job was essentially to bring them back into the fight.

And it feels like history is repeating itself in Iran.

I don't think the US has thought this through clearly, you know, evidence by the simple

fact that we don't even have escaped lands for civilians in these countries that are

now being, you know, attacked by Iran.

So it's business as usual, really.

And that happens often when the people who are ordering soldiers to fight are not directly

affected or impacted by the violence and all the problems that comes by it, meaning

they're not sending their own kids to fight and die.

And I think if they did fight, send their own kids to fight and die, they may be a little

bit more thoughtful in these operations.

And I just, just to pick up on your experience in combat as a soldier in the United States

Army and someone who's written about it and really thought through it all, Iran is a very

different place.

It's not Vietnam, it's not Iraq, it's a huge, huge country with a lot of complexity to

it.

And it feels as if some ways Trump and his cronies have no idea what to stumbling into with

his war.

I just like to hear your thoughts of that.

I agreed.

Afghanistan is very similar to Afghanistan in the sense that, you know, they call Afghanistan,

the place where empires go to die and Iran is very similar in that terrain.

You put boots on the ground and Iran and we're in for a lot of pain.

I think Iran is a place that is equipped to respond to the US.

It could potentially draw in its partners like Russia and China.

And this seemed like a very impulsive decision because of the whims of impulsive leaders

both here in the United States and Israel.

I mean, I think of one of the things you have, especially in terms of people who have

been through wars before to really kind of educate the public about is that you were

facing a war here in a country that has 80 million people.

It's huge.

And it's tentacles go way beyond Iran.

They touch a lot of the Islamic resistance across the globe.

And I think people don't really realize what Trump and the right wing have stumbled

into here have brought us along and the real danger this poses for the future.

Yes.

I mean, I think Trump has clearly underestimated the situation.

I think Netanyahu is probably, I think Netanyahu just wants chaos.

I think there's probably a number of reasons Trump is going along with this.

It does seem like he's being pulled by the nose here.

But yeah, I mean, 80 million people.

And yes, there are, I mean, there are absolutely people who are happy both inside and outside

of Iran that the Supreme Leader, how many is dead, but there are also people that bought

into his program and have an allegiance towards the revolution, essentially, that overthrew

the Shah of Iran.

I mean, there is, there is buy-in in Iran amongst a lot of people.

And they also, people also like the idea of self-determination.

They don't like these Western powers coming in deciding what's going to happen to their

country's oil or what's going to happen to their own destiny.

And that's, and if, how many had to go, the people of Iran needed to do it because overthrowing

a regime like this, the way the U.S. is done, and you can look at Iraq, you can look at

Libya, you can look at countless examples, never, never ends well.

And I think most people in Iran know that.

Other examples you gave show the effects of this kind of intervention by the United States

that ends up leading nations in chaos.

Yep.

Yep.

And you ask the leadership, well, what's next?

You know, I think Marco Rubio just said, that's not up to the U.S.

You know, they just executed the leader of Iran and say they have no responsibility for

what comes next.

I mean, if that isn't pathetic and horrific, I don't know what it is.

What you thought about Pete Hexas rebranding his cabinet position as the head of the Department

of War?

Yeah.

It actually reminds me of, you know, they used to call Veterans Day our Miss this day.

You know, and this is, this was a day to celebrate peace on this day was the end of war.

Because people in World War One understood how horrible and braved war actually is.

And when they needed to rally the troops, they had to take, they had to stay, hold on.

We can't, we can't be talking about peace anymore.

We have to, we have to celebrate soldiers willing this to kill and die for empire.

And that's why they changed the name from our Mrs. Day to Veterans Day or Mrs. Day

was a day to celebrate a peace of Veterans Day is the day that celebrates war.

And I think the name changed the Department of Defense, although I do think it is more

honest based on what the US military has been used for over the centuries, the US rarely

does anything in defense of democracy or freedom.

They do it.

So they fight so rich people can become richer.

So it does seem a little bit more honest.

It seems to me given what you just said and the changing the name to the Department of

War and launching us into a war which we will have a real difficulty controlling and

containing given the size of the country and what's going on around it with around the

world as well.

So I think that that's, this is, if they get through with this, this is just the beginning

of what we can face.

As someone who's been active in veterans groups who oppose these insane wars that we

perpetrate across the globe.

What do you think the actions are that people have to take on the ground to understand

what we face?

I mean, it's like people have no idea the dangers we're facing in this battle with Iran.

This could be a real turning point.

No, I agree.

I think Vietnam is our closest example of how you can push back against empire.

You know, you have to incorporate a whole number of things in order to do that.

I think you have to have massive protests.

I think you have to have extreme discontent on the part of soldiers.

And I also think you have to know how to withhold your labor.

I think we need to start building up the labor movement right in the United States because

ultimately, we're going to see businesses usual until we challenge the ruling classes

pocketbooks.

And so protests with holding labor and then general discontent amongst soldiers, I think

are the three most important things to ending this.

Let me take both those points for a moment and start with the soldiers, the men and women

who are in service now in the armed services.

You did two tours.

You wrote magnificently about it in your book.

But it took even you a while to get to a place where you saw something was wrong.

Yeah.

I mean, my understanding was I didn't really have a worldview when I signed up to the

military after 9-11 in spite of having graduated college with the great books majors in Notre

Dame.

I didn't understand how the world works.

And when I got over there, the situation was nothing like what you see in the movies

or on video games, you know, Black Hawk Down had just come out, which was a movie about

the operations in Somalia under Clinton.

And you know, I was expecting similar to kind of like looking after the guy to your

left and right, the U.S. is on the side of good.

And when I landed in Afghanistan, I immediately realized that we were a bully.

We had the world's most sophisticated army, the most expensive army, and we were terrorizing

some of the poorest people on the planet for a country that didn't even hold a sound

and lawn at the time.

So what I had grown up thinking the military was, you know, an institution that fought for

freedom and democracy, was the opposite after I started seeing what we were doing on

the ground in Afghanistan.

We were making the world a more dangerous place, though we were doing there.

And you know, the statistics bear that out.

I think between 1980 and 2001, there were about 200 suicide bombs around the world, with

only 10% aimed at the U.S. or U.S. interest, between 2001 and 2012, there were 2200 suicide

bombs around the world, with 90% aimed at the U.S. and U.S. interest.

And this was a professor pay for the University of Chicago's terrorism experts statistics.

So the U.S. is really good at making the world a more dangerous place for not only the people

who are being targeted by the U.S., but also American citizens.

So I'm curious in the work you're doing, as somebody who has written about this and

only reflected on the life as a soldier in combat, what it's meant for the larger political

picture.

How do you think that plays out into these military?

Yes.

You know, the U.S. military, you know, they pray on those with the least amount of options

after graduation.

Chicago has one of the highest numbers of junior reserve officer training program, Jero,

TC, candidates in the country.

And they pray and they go after kids on the south and west sides of Chicago because they

know they have the least amount of options after graduation.

So many people sign up for the military to get free education, free health care, and maybe

set out a little course for their life when their life may have not had a lot of options

before they sign up for the military.

So a lot of people find themselves in this situation like, I just wanted to sign up so I

could get health care and free education.

But there are consequences for that, you know, and when I go to high schools and colleges

and just talk about my experience and encourage these young people to think critically before

they sign up for the military because these recruiters don't tell them nearly the whole

story.

And if you're asking someone to kill and die for a cause, they should know what they're

getting into.

And so I think, yes, you may have free education, you may have free health care, but, you

know, if you can't leave your basement because of what you did, I mean, we just killed

160 girls in Iran on Saturday.

And every American soldier who participated in that mission is complicit in that and take

it from someone who knows this kind of stuff will haunt you for the rest of your life.

And I think we need to be able to communicate that stuff to these soldiers.

And they're not making the world safer place or making it a more dangerous place.

And there's no nobility in attacking Iran right now.

And I think we all need to communicate that to them.

Veterans for peace has a brilliant billboard campaign.

We're putting up refuse illegal order billboards, giant, giant billboards outside of military

bases across the country.

There's one on Great Lakes, Naval Air Base outside of Chicago.

I was just at that and they're all over the country.

And so we're just encouraging soldiers to, number one, realize that, you know, there

is a way out.

And number two, you need to not follow orders that are illegal.

And I would also add immoral too.

So six military folks were killed.

And I wonder in your experience and with the people you know, your contacts inside the

world of military, how do you think that most service people are thinking about this war?

In this moment, given this, we're not at the tip of the iceberg with just six killed,

but that's just the beginning.

Yes, the US military is very good at teaching soldiers how to be a political, to not think

critically about the larger politics behind missions.

You know, the military is about the guy or woman to your left or right.

And politics are not always a part of the equation when it comes to these missions.

So at least that's what the military chain of command discourages amongst the rank

at five.

And so I think right now, these soldiers are following their orders.

I'm sure many of them feel overwhelmed and stunned by the position they now find themselves

in.

I think they're blocking out the future and trying to live in a moment by moment basis,

because that's all they can really control at this point.

You know, I belong to a group called Veterans for Peace, I also affiliated with about

face and, you know, we are an anti-war veterans organization that encourages critical thought.

I've seen people who've killed for causes they don't understand.

I've seen people, you know, not be able to leave their basement after returning home from

combat.

And so I think we're just trying to encourage soldiers to think extremely critically,

extremely critically about what they're doing in the long term consequences of following

orders.

And right now, I think we can all say these are criminal orders that they are being toward

told to follow.

I like to explore that a little deeper.

Organizations like yours, the ones that are veterans coming back fighting for peace.

It makes me think of the 50 years ago in the founding of VVAW, Vietnam Veterans Against

the War.

And all the activists that came back from NAMM that ended up being anti-war activists and

how they kind of did affect the inside of the military and affected this country in ways

that just people, the protection in the world did not.

So talk about that in terms of the context we'll be are now and how do you think that

plays out?

Well, I think if we are, we're calling on soldiers to lay their weapons down and resist.

I think we also have to make sure the thing know that they have a safe place to land should

they do that.

Was that being safe place to land when they basically say I'm not going to fight anymore

and I'm willing to take whatever, I mean, quitting the military is not like quitting a normal

job.

I mean, I'm not doing a job at Pizza Hut, you go to jail, and in certain situations

you can be executed.

I mean, it's, you know, put it all on the table there.

So it's a very important decision.

And so you have to make sure that soldiers who don't believe in the mission don't want

to go against their conscience and want to do the right thing know that if they do decide

to make that monumental choice to leave the military, that they know that they will be

supported by organizations such as veterans or peace, you know, back in the Vietnam War

they had.

And I think they've been re rejuvenated a bit during the global war on terror were GI coffee

houses.

And this is places where people could meet, get information on how to become conscientious

the object or a war resistor.

And those resources are resources that are out there.

We just need to make sure soldiers active duty, so there's no bit for they are.

A little bit about your role in doing where you are with this war and what change that

can make and how effective that can be.

I mean, I just think these kinds of interviews, getting into schools, high schools, colleges,

you know, communicating some of this stuff I think is really important.

And also like, you know, when 160 little girls between the ages of seven and 12 are killed

by the, you know, by the US military.

These soldiers need to be called out for that.

People are used to just padding soldiers on the back and saying thank you for your service.

They're not serving anybody at the moment.

And you know, they need to know that this is a very unpopular thing that I think one in

four Americans believe in this war right now.

And so I think making sure that we're communicating this to them, letting them know that if they

are having second thoughts about what they're doing, there are organizations that can support

them.

And I think just generally we all need to start fighting for things like free health

care and free education because that really undermines US imperialism.

That cuts out a huge incentive to sign up for the military if people don't need to sign

up for the military to get free education and free health care.

Well, I mean, so this is the work you're doing is really important.

And what you just said a moment ago about the children who are being murdered in Iran

and can even remember that those kind of billboards and ideas that thrust out there for the

American people to say no to see the horror and the horrendous nature of what we're doing

or what's being done in our name is really important.

And I just want to say, Hey, thank you for all the work you do.

And I look forward to talking more about worth fighting for, which is your book, Rory

Fanning.

It's just an amazing book.

It's really important because out of this book comes conversations that we can have about

ending this insane war and ending the wars in total.

Well, thank you so much, Mark.

I really appreciate you having me on the show and I look forward to talking again.

Me too.

We'll stay in touch.

All right.

Take care.

Thank you.

Thank you, Rory.

Once again, I want to thank Rory Fanning for joining us today and for his book and all

he's done for peace and to expose the dangers of endless war.

And thanks to Cameron Gondino for running the program today, our audio editor is Stephen

Frank for working his magic.

Producer Rosetta Wally for making all work behind this scenes and everyone here to

our news for making this show possible.

Please let me know what you thought about what you heard today, what you'd like us to

cover.

Just write to me at mss at the real news.com and I'll get right back to you.

And once again, thank you to Rory Fanning for his work and for joining us here on the

real news today.

So for the crew here at the real news, I'm Mark Steiner, stay involved, keep listening and

take care.