Guests - Michael Pack, Dave Smith

Michael Pack Discusses "The Last 600 Meters" Documentary on Iraq War Battles

Michael Pack, director and producer of "The Last 600 Meters," joined Kathleen Winn on Winn Tucson to discuss his documentary about two of the biggest battles America has fought since Vietnam - Fallujah and Najaf in Iraq. The film will air on PBS on November 10th, the day before Veterans Day.

Pack explained that while he shot interviews for the film in 2006 when the battles were still fresh in veterans' minds, PBS initially declined to broadcast it in 2008, feeling it was "too pro-military." Now, 17 years later, PBS has changed its position and will air the documentary with slight updates.

"This is a good time to look back," Pack noted. "The film analyzes the war from the perspective of those who fought on the ground - Marines, Special Forces, and Army soldiers - from corporals up to one-star generals. We tell what happened as if it were any other battle, like Iwo Jima or Gettysburg, trying not to be political."

Pack emphasized the importance of honoring these veterans regardless of one's feelings about the war itself. "Their heroism has been clouded by people's strong feelings about the war, many negative. But the fact is these young men and women put their lives on the line for us. The right way to celebrate them is to look at what they actually did, and that's what the film attempts to do."

When asked about the film's relevance today, Pack highlighted the connections to current conflicts: "It's particularly relevant now. This was counter-insurgency, clearing house to house, urban warfare. That's what's been going on in Gaza and Ukraine - that kind of warfare. We tend to think of warfare like World War II or Desert Storm with massive troops, but a lot of it is this other kind of war."

Pack shared a striking example from the film: "In Najaf, one of our interview subjects, Seth Walton, now a Democratic congressman, talks about how his team was fighting in an underground cemetery. One guy on his squad encountered an insurgent and they had to fight each other with their bayonets in close combat. You think of a high-tech war, but it can be brutal - two people trying to kill each other with knives."

Pack's career spans numerous documentaries, including "Created Equal: Clarence Thomas in His Own Words." He served twice in government positions, including as the head of the Agency for Global Media that oversees Voice of America. Viewers interested in Pack's work can visit manifoldproductions.com for older films and plentyandpictures.com for newer ones, including a recent documentary about antisemitism.

The initial showing of "The Last 600 Meters" will be at the Navy Memorial in Washington D.C., with some veterans from the film planning to attend. Pack expressed interest in potentially bringing the film to Arizona, which has a significant veteran population across its three military bases.

Adelita Grijalva and Congressional Representation Controversy

Kathleen Winn addressed the situation regarding Representative Adelita Grijalva, who has been elected but not yet sworn in due to the government shutdown. Winn countered claims that Republicans are preventing Grijalva from being sworn in, noting: "The government is shut down because Republicans, including Congressman Juan Ciscomani, voted to keep the government open and functioning."

Winn pushed back against accusations that Ciscomani is "on a paid vacation," pointing out that "he has said 'I'm not going to take a paycheck until federal employees get a paycheck.'" She contrasted this with Democrat senators who she claimed are still accepting paychecks during the shutdown.

Regarding Grijalva's claim that her constituents lack representation, Winn noted: "Let's be very clear - the last year of her father's life, he was very ill and probably shouldn't have run again, but he did. There was no representation, and he died in March of this year, and there has been no representation since then."

"To have a fire drill now when it's your party - we need five more Democrats to vote with 100% of the Republicans who want to open the government. It's just not honest to say that the Republicans are the ones keeping you [from being sworn in]," Winn argued.

Winn advised Grijalva to focus on constituent issues rather than "theatrical temper tantrums": "Go talk to the people in your district about the crime, about the murders, about the failed policies in Tucson. Go talk to your constituents, because then when you do get sworn in, you'll be better prepared."

She suggested Grijalva reach out to Senators Mark Kelly or Ruben Gallego, noting that their approaches to House Speaker Mike Johnson "didn't work well for them either."

"This isn't on the Republicans, Representative Adelita Grijalva. This is on the Democrats. And you need to find five Democrat senators who understand how important it is for you to be sworn in while the government is closed."

"You can't serve the people if there's no government. There's no committee meetings. There's no meetings for you to attend. There's nothing for you to do except go talk to your constituents and be prepared."

Dave Smith on Political Philosophy and Current Events

Dave Smith joined Kathleen Winn to discuss political philosophy and current events, focusing on what he sees as the philosophical underpinnings of left-wing politics and their implications.

Smith criticized a letter published in the Arizona Daily Star attacking Congressman Ciscomani: "There was an op-ed about Congressman Ciscomani stating tongue-in-cheek that he's on a 'paid vacation.' But the fact is Congressman Ciscomani is not accepting a paycheck. The two Democrat senators in the state are. Congressman Ciscomani is working very hard. I've seen him like three times at different events. He's out talking to constituents."

Smith noted that the letter writer "calls young Republicans 'young Republican thugs'" and suggested this characterization was unfair, as the young Republicans he's met "are polite, are concerned about the future of the country, are reestablishing their relationships with God and faith and church."

When discussing political violence, Smith argued: "In the leftist world, there's no such thing as crime. There's just oppression of the social order, which permits them to commit violence, which is why when you're talking about political violence or social violence, it's almost always uniformly from the left. They're calling us thugs. Yet, in fact, it's the left."

Smith contended that traditional media presents a distorted view of current events: "Trump is slowly eroding the crisis created by the Biden campaign, yet our media is a cacophony of leftist malarkey and this denial of violence."

On political extremism, Smith stated: "The left has traditionally been violent and it's ingrained in its philosophical base. They're not even trying to hide it anymore. They try to hide it during the first administration of Trump, but I think that they see that the writing's on the wall, that they have no platform, they have no future."

Smith presented a controversial view of political ideologies: "When you go back to any of the socialist movements - and we've got to quit pretending fascism is a conservative movement - it is a socialist movement, every bit as much as communism. When you say democratic-socialist, they're fascist. They're on the same plot."

On judicial activism, Smith claimed: "That philosophy has permeated law schools. Now you have a bunch of judges out there that believe the laws can be easily reversed or ignored because they aren't just. And that's not how the structure is built. We are a society of laws, and it's not the judge's right to decide if a law is just or unjust."

Smith advocated for more balanced political representation in Tucson: "One of the solutions is to eliminate a one-party system, and the one party we have is irrational. It's ideologic and it's rooted in a philosophy that's destructive."

He contrasted his view of left and right approaches to governance: "The left doesn't have accountability. They just spend your money, and then nothing works, so they say 'ah, see, we didn't spend enough money.' Meanwhile, you see in Trump's campaign and other Republicans - we get it done because we have people like Jay and JL that have come from the corporate business world and are used to getting things done and having accountability."

Protests, Free Speech, and Law Enforcement

Winn and Smith discussed a recent case where a stylist was arrested after allegedly making threatening statements about Charlie Kirk and confronting ICE agents. Winn noted: "She confronted ICE agents near a courthouse and yelled 'Charlie Kirk died and we love it. We're coming for you. We're going to kill you.' I think that's a direct threat."

Smith agreed: "You're not allowed to say everything that our little hateful heads want us to say. We have to have some restraint. It's pretty close to yelling 'fire' right there."

He added: "These people are all advocates for free expression, or at least they were for decades during the free speech movement. Now they don't want you and I to have speech. Codes have always come out of the left, always. When your ideas are counterintuitive to human nature, you've got to suppress any opposition."

Winn described the incident further: "She failed to comply with commands from agents to back up and addressed them as 'Nazis' and 'disgusting authorities.' She continued to do what she was doing. She taped it all on her phone, so she had evidence against herself."

Regarding law enforcement officers, Winn defended their role: "The State Department and all those that are trying to protect us - the FBI and Homeland Security - are working together not against the American people, not against Democrats, not even against illegal immigrants, but removing those that have committed the most heinous crimes."

On hate and threats, Winn observed: "People don't know the people that they're hating. They don't know these ICE agents. They have a job to do. She's a stylist - that's fine, that's her job. No one cares. But when you start to threaten people's lives and you tell them that they're Nazis and you tell them that they're fascist, there's going to be a time where you're going to be held accountable."

John Bolton Federal Indictment

Winn discussed the federal charges against former National Security Advisor John Bolton: "He turned himself into federal authorities this morning in Maryland and pleaded not guilty after being indicted on I think it's 18 charges. He was released from custody after making his court appearance."

She noted that Bolton's response to the indictment was to claim that he had "become the largest target in which weaponizing the justice system" was occurring, to which Winn responded critically: "Hey guy, you took secrets, you took home documents, you emailed them. You got an 18-count indictment and your first response is 'I'm the largest target'? Stop it. This guy has an ego that is bigger than the state of Texas."

Commenting on Bolton's personality and approach, Winn described: "That was always sort of his signature, his pugnacious, self-possessed attitude. He was right a lot of times, but there was no war he didn't want to get involved in and no conflict he didn't want to start."

On Bolton's relationship with former President Trump, Winn stated: "They clashed over countries like North Korea and Iran. He was skeptical over Trump's outreach towards the summit with Kim Jong-un. On Iran, Bolton backed Trump's decision to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal but favored regime change, and he was frustrated when President Trump didn't listen to him and called off a planned military strike in 2019."

Contrasting Bolton's approach with Trump's recent diplomatic achievements, Winn noted: "If Trump has ever demonstrated that he's a president of peace, not of war, it has been in the last 10 months with the eight peace deals that he's made."

Regarding Bolton's book and legal issues, Winn explained: "The Trump administration sued to block the book release. Bolton's book, 'The Room Where It Happened,' was released in the run-up to the 2020 presidential election and was highly critical of Trump in his first term in the White House."

She added: "Bolton's Maryland home was searched in late August by federal agents. They had more than a thousand pages of notes that included sensitive national defense information that he gleaned from meetings when he served under the president. So you broke the law, Mr. Arrogance, and so you've been indicted."

Trump's Foreign Policy and Global Conflicts

Smith discussed ongoing global conflicts and Trump's approach: "The Ukrainian-Russian war is just dragging on and on, and now Trump is meeting with Zelensky. What NATO needs to do is take a bow because it was the NATO training that turned the Ukrainian army into such a lethal weapon against Russian tactics."

On potential U.S. weapon supplies to Ukraine, Smith noted: "Trump may give them the Tomahawk, which is a highly feared weapon, hard to knock down. That's something the Russians are looking at because this makes their fuel refineries vulnerable."

Drawing parallels with Trump's actions in the Middle East, Smith said: "Trump bombed Iran and now we have peace in the Middle East. He took out that giant shadow that was always over the Middle East - were the Persians going to get a nuclear weapon? They don't have that capability now. That was given to them by Obama and Biden's little gift - 'we're going to give you guys the power to be a nuclear weapon force.' That's lunacy, suicide for the West. But Trump said, 'No, common sense. We're not going to let you be a nuclear power,' and now peace is occurring in the Middle East."

On drug trafficking and enforcement, Smith recalled his experience and praised Trump's approach: "I was an admin narcotics agent for Phoenix Narcotics for DPS back in 1982. We started the war - Reagan started the war on drugs, and Bush was the drug czar. We immediately discovered our seizures in Arizona skyrocketed because the entire Reagan administration focused on Florida. We became the conduit for all these drugs, and we never catch more than about 2% of them."

"Now we have a president who says 'No, we're just going to stop it all the way. We're not only going to seal the border, but we're going to go right where it comes from, and we will kill you before you can kill our people.' This is the first guy that presents that kind of Machiavellian logic - force is what some people understand, period. And he knows how to use it and apply it."

Tucson Local Politics and Safety Concerns

As the show concluded, Winn expressed concerns about the upcoming weekend in Tucson: "Thousands are expected downtown for Tucson Meet Yourself festival, but there's also going to be a 'No Kings' rally. What could possibly go wrong?"

She offered safety advice to listeners: "As we go into this weekend, we do want people to be safe. Please don't put yourself in a position that you're not going to be safe and don't engage in skirmishes you can avoid. Don't look for a fight."

"There are so many ways to express yourself, and I don't have confidence, based on what I've seen around the country, that there are not people trying to instigate a fight, whether it be through rhetoric or actual weapons. We also have people in our community that appear to be violent. The violent crimes in Tucson are off the chart."

Smith offered safety tips: "Pay attention to who's around you, pay attention to where you are, and get your head out of your phone. Look up, look up, look up. Too many people are sitting there looking down at their phone, and you've got to have that awareness."

"Ask yourself, 'What's that guy doing standing over there? Why would he be there?' That's one of our key police questions. Ask yourself, 'Why was that car parked there? Where did they go?' The other thing is these protesters - a lot of these people love to instigate. They love that. They're pathological."

Call to Vote in Tucson Elections

Winn concluded with a call to action for local voters: "In case you've been under a rock or don't pay attention to city council elections, we're having one. November 4th is the last day to vote, but don't wait. Get it done this weekend. Take your ballot. Republicans percentage-wise are outvoting the Democrats. This is a very close election within a couple hundred votes right now. Your vote can matter."

"The Democrats aren't voting. If the Republicans turn out, and we turn out en masse, meaning we're going to need at least 50% instead of the typical 30% or 25%, we can turn the corner on a lot of the stuff that's happening here."

"We did win. We told them no to their sales tax just a few months ago. If you voted no on 414, this should be your opportunity to vote here in Tucson and vote for Janet Wittenbreaker and Jay Tocoff."

"Kevin Dahl's been there, but he doesn't have hours. He doesn't see constituents. He doesn't engage with his electorate. And he's been voting for these policies - free buses and homelessness and homelessness encampments. He can be replaced, and we should replace him."

"The best way to fix the system is 'too big to rig.' And how you do that is you turn out to vote. So if you live in the city of Tucson, check with your immediate neighbors who you're friends with and make sure that they're voting. Don't let the thought that you can't make a difference stop you. You can make a difference. We need you to make a difference."