I was thinking about probably something that that triggered Glenn. I'm putting words in his mouth, but I'm, I'm thinking about a story that Dave Smith retold, which every libertarian knows incredibly well. I think he, I think he was talking about this on Rogan recently that, that, that presidential primary debate where Ron Paul schooled Rudy Giuliani and it was, it was filled with Republican donors. And of course he, Ron Paul got
booed on that stage. But it and also ignited a cultural grassroots fire understanding of, of what blowback is and what, what one of the fundamental costs of interventionism is. And I believe you open your book with a story that I, I had never heard this story before. I, I knew about that the Pulse nightclub shooting and I knew about the official narrative that it was, that it was a hate crime. But I didn't know that the shooter had actually explained what his purpose was.
Tell, tell that story because it's, it's, it's fascinating how blatantly the government lied to us on that. Briefly, on the case of Ron Paul and Rudy Giuliani, what the claim was initially was that Ron Paul said 911 happened because we invaded Iraq. How could you say such a thing? What he's implying is that Ron Paul didn't know that 911 happened before George Bush's full on invasion of Iraq one or
two years later. What Ron Paul, of course, was referring to was the bombing and sanctions campaign under the Clinton administration from 1991 all the way up through September 11th. The reason that he used this because when Osama bin Laden had everyone's attention and he had his speeches, declarations and interviews, he didn't focus on here are quotes from the Quran. Here's why everyone should believe in Muhammad and all infidels should be killed.
What he said was the Americans are bombing Iraq and they have a sanctions campaign. According to Leslie Stahl in the United Nations that these could have killed 500,000 people. The UN ambassador Madeleine Albright said they have 500,000 children. It's a high cost, but we think the price was worth it. Killing hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians as a causal result of sanctions in the 90s before 911, that's where the US was with Iraq.
So Bin Laden's grievances were sanctions and bombings of Iraq, US support for Israel, especially during Operation Grapes of Wrath and the first Khana massacre. This would have been in 1996. And 3rd, the occupation of Saudi Arabia. Where they made a deal with King Fahd to station troops in Saudi Arabia and bomb Iraq for 10 years. Those were Bin Laden's three grievances. This is what caused the blowback of 9/11. Ron Paul knew that.
Rudy Giuliani pretended like he didn't know that or literally didn't. So that's the case of 911. So let's Fast forward 15 years to June 12th of 2016. A man named Omar Mateen entered the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, FL murdering 49 people and injuring 53. If memory serves, Barack Obama's still president in 2016. And Barack Obama said this was an attack on the LGBT community. Assuming that, well, Pulse nightclub is a gay club. He shot a gay club. Must have been because they were
gay. Americans were targeted because we're a country that has learned to welcome everyone no matter who you are or who you love. And hatred towards people because of sexual orientation, regardless of where it comes from, is a betrayal of what's best in us. So Barack Obama speaks to Americans. This is from whitehouse.gov. I got this quote. He also said this in public on camera. So this is Obama's take away. Look, unfortunately, we're too
nice. We're too tolerant and too welcoming, and we can't give into bigotry. That's the lesson. So what you can do is actually look at the words of Omar Mateen, not because, well, I like terrorists and I want to hear them out, and we should consider their point of view. The goal is recognizing that terrorism is a shortcut to fame and an attempt to bring the world's attention to a certain idea. What Omar Mateen did is he went into the nightclub, shot up the
place and held people hostage. He then called 911. Here was a transcript of what Mateen said when he had the world's attention on the 911 call. According to Obama, you'd think he'd say stop engaging in homosexuality, sodomy should be a crime, outlaw interest and start reading the Quran. According to Obama's thesis, this is the reality that we should see. Here are the actual words of Omar Mateen. You have to tell America to stop bombing Syria and Iraq.
They are killing a lot of innocent people. What am I to do here when my people are getting killed over there? You get what I'm saying? You need to stop the US air strikes. They need to stop the US air strikes, OK? They need to stop the US air strikes. You have to tell the US government to stop bombing. They are killing too many children. They are killing too many women, OK. I feel the pain of the people getting killed in Syria and Iraq. They need to stop bombing Syria
and Iraq. the US is collaborating with Russia and they are killing innocent women and children. OK the air strikes need to stop and stop collaborating with Russia. OK tell tell the fucking the air strikes need to stop. You see, now you feel. Now you feel how it is. Now you feel how it is. According to the Council on Foreign Relations, in the year 2016, the year this happened, the US government had dropped 26,000 bombs on Middle Eastern countries.
More than 20 thousand of those were on Syria and Iraq. This was in the operation against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. So this was the ISIS attack that happened. The exact number from the CFR 24,287 bombs dropped in 2016. And the US government likes to say it's fighting a war on terrorism. It's the biggest terrorist organization probably in the world, maybe. And that maybe that's just because they have the power to do it.
And if any other organization had this much power and influence, they would do the same thing. The reality is they lie actively, both Democrats and Republicans, about the nature of military warfare and why Americans have to bear the cost of people getting killed. Whether it's on 9/11 in New York or whether it's in Orlando, FL. We know the motive of these people and both Democrats and Republicans actively lie about it.
This was one of those things that I came across and I go, well, how have I never heard of this before? I get 24 hour news from CNN, 24 hour news from Fox News and this doesn't get a mention at all. I found one local CBS News organization who interviewed someone who was in the nightclub and this woman had actually said he said he was upset that we were bombing his country. Other than that, this should
have been wall to wall coverage. Hey, the US government engaging in mass murder is 1. Immoral. And two, we have to bear the cost for their terrible actions. As the government constantly says, there's externalities in the free market. There are huge externalities when the state engages in mass murder based on lies.
This was such a blatant example of deception that when originally I had really liked Barack Obama, seeing him as an anti establishment figure who was going to unite the country and was not playing the race card as early as 2008. In 2008, he was asked if you lose to John McCain, will it be because you're the first black candidate? And he responded that if I lose it will be because I didn't form a narrative. I didn't really tell a story
that Americans could get behind. And I thought that was such a great answer. I said Hallelujah, yes, this guy is awesome. And then it turns out he is George W Bush just looks a little different, no different in principle than George W Bush. He, we're still waiting for him to close Gitmo. He only had two terms to do it.
Maybe he's going to stage another coup, get another president to stop running his campaign, get their vice president to come in, and then he'll end the torture programs at Guantanamo Bay. I'm sure he wouldn't lie about that as well. But yes, the Pulse Nightclub deception, The myth of Pulse Nightclub, which by the way, Donald Trump also jumped on to. He basically had the same position of Barack Obama never citing empirical evidence.
You would think that if someone in 6th grade made a claim like this guy hated us because we tolerate homosexuality, you'd expect some sort of citation, some sort of reasoning from a 6th grader. But the sitting president doesn't have to cite their sources. We just blindly trust the experts.
Whether it's Tony Fauci, whether it's Barack Obama or Donald Trump, we don't have the slightest standards for the politicians who are the CEOs of the monopoly on violence called the state, but we have impossible standards for the private sector. It's all just too predictable. But yes, the Pulse nightclub massacre was one of the main things that I looked at and said, all right, what is an innocent explanation for what Barack Obama said versus the
reality of what happened? And I just cannot think of one. That was another one of the early reasons I left progressivism.