Over the last twenty years since I started my foundation work, I spent a long time in Africa. I've learned a lot about how different tribes in different regions live and work and relate to each other. One of the most impressive examples of that is how people in the Central Highlands of Africa greet each other when they pass each other. Instead of saying good morning, hello, how are you and replying I'm fine, the reply translated into English is I see you. Just think about what that means for a minute. What they're really saying is I acknowledge your presence, your humanity, you matter to me. It's a very moving, empowering practice. So why am I telling you this Because in today's episode, I'm joined by someone who's dedicated his life to forcing people to see other people, to grapple with the fact that all our lives are interconnected, and then what happens to one person anywhere affects all of us everywhere. Bernard and Reid Levi is a French philosopher, filmmaker, activists and author of more than forty five books. His latest project, the documentary and accompanying book titled The Will to See, highlights the human suffering created by conflicts in places like Nigeria, Somalia, Bangladesh, Libya, and Afghanistan. The most relevant today, he spent time on the front lines of eastern Ukraine, where people have been dealing with the Russian occupation since well. This conversation was taped before the unjustified and totally unprovoked, full scalal invasion of Ukraine by Russia. The insights he shares about the bravery of the Ukrainian people and the importance of their struggle for freedom and against oppression rings even truer today. I hope you will find this talk as eliminating as I did. Thanks for joining me today. Thanks to you, Mr President, so great honor for me to join. Well, I've been a fan of your work for a long time. But for those listening who may not know you, can you take just a couple of minutes to tell us about yourself and how did you get in to this work going all over the world to see the unseen? You know, Mr President, I was I was trained and shaped as a philosopher, and I decided to practice a philosophy opening the windows, opening the doors, and going and stepping out as much as possible outside. But at the beginning there is philosophy. And when I was a young man, there was a great German philosopher who was very influential. He was dead, of course, called Edmund Husel. Edmond herself had a piece of work composed of two big blocks. One block was pure philosophy, nearly mathematical logic, and the other world the other piece. The other block was what he called phenomenology, which means going to the real things, going to fight with the things, going to confront the the anger of the world. So on one side, pure philosophy, on the other side the anger of the world. All my life, since I was a teenager, I decided to combine the two, to have a real academic, solid, consistent body of philosophy on one side, and to apply this body of philosophy fee to make it work, to plug it in the world, and to try to intervene in the world. In one sentence, I am these very strange animal which exists a lot in France, a little less in America, which is a committed intellectual, a public intellectual. I try to do both. Did you always know you wanted to do this? You speak very eloquently in the world to see about the influence of your father's life. Talk a little bit about that, because I think in the modern world, people spend so much time on the internet with their devices. They have more information than ever before, but I sometimes think they understand it less. Talk a little about your example of your father and what he did in the resistance and for the cause of freedom against Strico and the Spanish Civil War. My father was my my hero, and I think he was a true hero beyond what I think myself. You are right, Mr. President. When he was not quite eighteen years old, he engaged himself in the International Brigade in Spain, serving the Republican government against the fascism. He was one of those not men boys seventeen years old. Eighteen years old, You are a boy. You are a teenager who thought that fascism was a danger for the world. He felt that immediately that there was a very dark cloud in the sky of the whole Europe, that this cloud was going to burst, and that it had to be fought. So he did that very young international Brigade in Spain. Then a few years after he was one of the heroes of the Free French Army. It started with the Army of Africa. He was in the Battle of Tunisia, Libya, Italy. This for me was crucial because my father gave me, transplitted me the idea that it is better to take the risk of dying, standing that living on the knees, it's better to have a great life than to have a coward life. In your new film and book, The World to See, you highlight some specific forgotten wars. How did you choose them? And what are the common threads you notice that length the situations and all these different countries. The principle of the choice was very simple forgotten forgotten wars. I remember, by the way, twenty years ago, before The Will to See, I made the first series of reportage of the same sort. I did that for Lamonde, the French daily newspaper Mode, and I remember the team of Lament coming to me and offering me to hire me as a reporter. I said, come on, I'm a philosopher, I'm a writer. Why should I be a reporter? No? Except except, I said, if you send me to places where you never send anybody. Except if you send me to places which are forgotten. The people of Lamonde, like New York Times Lament. You know it is the arrist the cream of the cream. They told me, Mr Levy, this does not take east. Every war is covered by us. There is no forgotten wars. Everything is on the map. I said, okay, let's check. Give me two days and I will come back with a series of wars which number one last since at least ten years. Number two count tens, if not hundreds of thousands of dead in a short time. And number three to which you never devoted a big article. Don deal. Two days after I came with this list of forgotten wars, which I covered for the moment for this book, The Will to See, I did the same. I went to a series of magazines and newspaper and I said, I want to go two places to which you did not devote and the reporters since tenures example Morgat issue in Somalia, example, the trenches in Ukraine, the front line between the Russians today and the Ukenyan army talk a little about Ukraine. Where are we know? What do you think is gonna happen? My feeling, but it's a bet I might be wrong tonight. My feeling that President put In would do a huge mistake. If he decided to invade Ukraine, it will be a huge mistake for too reasons. I know the spots. I spent some time there. I had the honor to be embedded among the special units of the Uknyan Army. Number one they are good. Number two they are patriots, they are ready to defend their land. And number three detail, but which is not just in detail. I'm not sure that the Russian soldiers, the basic Russian soldiers, will shoot so easily their cousins, that the the family cousins of Ukraine. It would be a real mess. If the General in chief of the Putin's Army give the order to shoot. It will not be like Chicken. Yah, it will not, which was a big crime. It will be a difficult story. What do you think he wants? Does he want a puppet government in Ukraine? Does he? I agree with the Ukrainians are tough and strong, and they're proud of their country, and I don't want to give it up. But he has had more or less favorable governments there is that what he wants. He wants that first, Yes, a poppet government as much as he can as he had with Yanukovic, before Porshenko, and he wants to create a mess among us, the biggest, the mess the best for him, divisions between Germany and France, divisions between America and Europe, mess between Baltic countries who are very hawkish and Hungary, who is very sweet because Mr Abad has a good personal relationship with Mr Putin, because he shares some parts of his ideology. Whatever. But the aim for me, the target of Puttin is to inflict us what he thinks we inflicted him at the time of the collapse of Soviet Union. Mr Americans, Mr French, Mr Europeans, you inflicted me a humiliation by destroying my empire in I will inflict you the reverse by destroying as much as I can your dear free world, European continent. And so what this is the target? Revenge? Revenge about don't forget you know that better than any one, Mr President that for him, the collapse of Soviet Union in the biggest catastrophe of the twentieth century, and he really wants to make a spay for that. This is the target. According to me, of course, the truth is quite a and that basically it brought it from the inside out to Soviet Union and the rest of the world just stayed strong and preferred freedom to domination. But I remember when I became president, Russia was in terrible trouble and they couldn't even afford to bring their troops on from the Baltics. They had no place to house them, they had no food to feed them, they had nothing. And the first thing that I did as president was to meet with President Elson in Canada and organize a twenty four billion dollar relief operation for them, which was real money back then. That was, you know, twenty nine years ago, and they were able to bring their soldiers home and to treat them with dignity. And I did everything I could to help Yelson succeed, and even in Bosnia we let them be part of the peacekeeping mission, even though it was a difficult thing politically. They Yelson trusted me and we worked together and he worked it out. And I think what Putin thought was that because of his energy resources, when he got rich again, he could exercise more muscle, and that I always thought that the great decision Russia had to make after the collapse of the Soviet Union was not how to get revenge, but how to define greatness in the twenty first century, and Putin has chosen, in effect, a nineteenth century Czarist model of greatness. He can pray on the fact that his country was invaded by Napoleon and Hitler, and there's still a sense of distrust of the outsiders, and he can use all these new levels the unconventional warfare, if you will, their enormous talents and cyber technology and their ability to so mischief all the way to the American election. And that's how he defines greatness. He could have made a very different decision. He could have decided to become the in effect second Silicon Valley, the Internet capital of half the world, and he decided not to. He decided the ironed hand was better. But I think it was a mistake. You are right, and here comes what we could call the human factor. Putting is Putting. He's not a cynical man. He believes. He has some beliefs. He has a doctrine. For example, he believes in Eurasia Eurasia Razi. He believes in an alternative pattern of society against democracy. He believes in illiberal regimes. He hates what America or Europe embodies. He has a real doctrine. I don't know if we should qualify it a new fascism. I don't know if it the revival of just offer Zarius to Russia. Maybe it is that plus a bit of Stalinism plus a bit. I don't know. But there is a doctrine, and this doctrine is really opposite to ours. It is a real opposition of visions of the world. And this makes so crucial that we we stand by our worlds with the West, stand by our values, defend them with wisdom, of course, without aggressivity, without being hawkish. But if we don't stand by our own values, we will be strongly defeated. Because he has a double force of an army and of a doctrine. That brings me to bay. Let's talk about little bit. As you know well, Bosnia was the first place where NATO approved out of area operations. The Germans voted for it even before it was legal for them to send any forces outside Germany, and um I was trying from to get our allies involved because I didn't think America could do this alone, because Bosnia had to be a part of Europe. And what broke largely because of France. I might add what broke the European paralysis was Srebinitza. The slaughter and Strebitza led the French to believe that their faith that they could somehow reason with or do business with Milossovich and the Serbians was misplaced. And so we were able and only with you know, a few days, maybe four or five days of bombing, to start the peace talks, and we were able to stop the slaughter and to preserve a kind of rough order which has existed to the present day. But we did not have at the time of what we did, and they know how the ability to fashion an agreement which would prevent to Serve from vetoing the national government of Bosnia from doing anything to make it a real nation and to put it on the path to prosperity. So the good news is we stopped the killing. The bad news is, as long as the Republic of Serbsca, which is part of Bosnia, is governed by someone who in effect is an anti unity which pleases Putin and no one else, we're stuck. What what should happen in Bosnia? What's your take on this? I remember the night you decided to launch the bombing on the Hills which were bombing Sarajevo. I was with Ambassador Harrimana, General Wellesley Clark, and Ambassador Old Brook. The three of them, me plus the President is a bigovich in the dining room of Ambassador Harriman. It was more than a relief. It was a full joy. It was a blessing. I remember having blessed you for having taking after two years this decision. This day you made a lot for the Bostian people, for the cause, the cause of the Boston people, and for the cause of values and truth. It is a date for my generation. This night is a real date. Number one, number two. What is what is true is that the data and agreements we're not good. He hesitated till the last minute to sign or not. He was he has a prospect. It was a visionary He knew that disagreement will postpone the problems instead of solving them. Really, and this is what we see today, the ditch, the chief of the Republican subscript is again playing with fire. What I believe, I told that to my President recently. We are still in a quiet situation. The fire is not yet there. We should intervene now, we should deal a step ahead in the future entry of Bossia in Europe in exchange of a remolding of the institution of the two entities Croats and Muslim on one side, Orthodox on the Serbian on the other one. We should not let it as it is. I hope that your success Hals in America in France will take this problem now before it is too late, and before we have to extinguish a real fire. It has to be done. If not, the war could resume, could come back. I agree with that, and and I was back there. I went back to the twentieth anniversary of Svensen and it was very moving, and the then president of Serbia came, and he was young, like the then mayor of the community who was the only survivor of the massacre, and ReBs in his family and in his class, only male survivor in his high school class twenty years earlier. And these two young men offered us promise, but they took a totally different direction. And I remember walking through the crowd that day. All the older people were really glad to see me, and they were grateful that I'd stopped to slaughter. All the younger people were angry because they took it for granted that they weren't going to be shot, but they had no hope because nothing good was happening. And then the Serbs went back to their hard line direction, and we're paying for it now. It's something that has to be watched and the United States should be supportive, but the Europeans are gonna have to take a lot of initiative. You're because they're part of Europe. If anybody had told me when we did all this more than twenty years ago that by the in now that Kosovo would have a more enduring government and greater prospects at the future than Bosnia, I wouldn't have believed it then too. And they're in a precarious position geographically, of course, but it's worth remembering that the aftermath of conflict will determine whether we lead the seeds of another one or give people a chance to live a normal future. And I'm very worried about it. And the further away you get from the scene of a place like that, the more the politicians can turn away from it. And you just hear the barking dogs. And if you're an American politician today, all the barking dogs are at home. I don't think they're thinking about it very much, but it's a real problem. We'll be right back. I sense from your reading that you have a great affinity for the non governmental organizations that try to keep humanity alive and all these difficult circumstances. And the first person who exposed me to the potential power of NGOs in the United States and around the world was Hillary because her first job out of law school was working for what became the Children's Defense Fund, and she began to and when she was in the White House and she would take trips from me. She would every time she went to a country, she would meet with the main NGO leaders along with the government officials. And she got me to do the same thing, which often upset the leaders you know who saw NGOs as a threat. But they're a threat by and large only because they highlight forgotten people and the real condition of human beings instead of the stated superficial positions of politicians. So what you're feeling now about the NGO movement, I'm very worried about Afghanistan, as I'm sure you are. I'm gonna stud you all right. The it is heartbreaking and it is a shame the situation. It is heartbreaking because in reality, in Afghanistan we did succeed. We did not fail. We did succeed in which sense, under the umbrella of American forces, women got liberated, dared to go in the streets with a with a naked face. Under the umbrella of American forces, a free press began to take birth, and so many Geo Afghan ev and geos civil society began to take shape also, So it is false to say that we failed. You know, this is the motto we no, we did not fail. Those who maintain, who keep the candle lightened, are the angels, the humanitarian movements, who at big risk, risk of their lives, working in so dangerous situations, are keeping the hope alive. Thanks God, we still have a few angels in Afghanistan trying to do their work. Generally speaking, I share absolutely your point of view. I am an old traveler now, like Hillary, I went in so many places in my life. I will tell you I understood very early that the true ambassadors of France, maybe of America often not always, because we have also some great ambassadors, but often the true ambassadors were the angels. They are the ones who have the best contact with population. They are the ones who are the most closely embedded in the in the real concrete situation. They have a lot of information about the situation. When you want to know something today, when you arrive in a in Burundi, or even in Mogadisho or in Afghanistan, you have to go to the angel. They waive the flag of America and of Europe. They have the datas and they help. They are our true ambassadors, and they are brave. They are exactly like the journalists. The reporters there risk a lot by doing their job. So it is the wealth of the angels. Maybe after the war in Biafra in the sixties might be one of the real progresses, one of the great inventions of the modern times. One of the things that bothered me about the whole thing is we never really explained to the American people what was going on in Afghanistan. And there were many people, including many who were upset about to withdrawal, who wanted to end the conflict in I thought, we cannot make over the whole country. And I think what we did was good because, as you pointed out, we hadn't been at war in Afghanistan in nearly a decade. So what would you do now? What do you think should be done now in Afghanistan? I think we should prevent the ordinary people from dying by hunger. So help should be provided through angels, through you and energy. Certainly not one dollar directly in the pocket of Taliban's because they are corrupted and they would steal it. Number one, we should help people not to die. Number two, we should help the women, the movements of women in Counda Heart, in Mazari Sharief, in other cities who refuse the iron rule of Taliban's. We have a lot of ways to help them, concrete and moral. We knew how to do that. We Americans and Europeans in the time of the Cold War, at the time of the Soviet Union. We knew without inflaming the whole world, how to encourage, how to help, how to do underground support. This is what we have to do with the people, especially the brave ladies who are opening the rule of Taliban's a. Number three, there is a man. I know him well. I knew the father well, and I know the son ratherwell. I know him since he's a little boy. Now he's a grown up man Ahmad Massoud Ahmad Masud, who is the leader of the resistance in Panshir, which is the only province who refused to submit to Taliban's I saw him among his commanders in Panshir. I filled him in a moving gathering where we had the old commanders of the Father Amachamasud, the legendary father, and the young commanders of the Sun together, you know, sort of amalgam mixing of the old commanders and the young. And I saw young Basswood addressing this bunch of commanders. He was great, he was charismatic, He was respected by those proud horseman cavalier. As Joseph Kessel said, so this man has to be supported by many means. I cannot enter in details. I'm not an expert, but he has to be supported. He is at this moment, that's my opinion, the only asset which not only the West, which the free people of Afghanistan have on the ground, The free people of Afghanistan, the women who want to remain free, the journalists who want to continue to do their job, they have one asset. I'm admussment. We still can in spite of our retreat. We still can try to repair which is reparable by helping this man. His father's death was a tragedy. I know, I know, I know. I knew him well. He came in Paris. I made him. I organized his visit in Paris in May two thousand one, a few weeks before his death, and a few weeks before September eleven. He was so melancholic, he was so sad. He had with him some informations which he wanted to give to French government. He was not properly received, He was not properly hosted by the authorities of my country. Because there was a black male of the Talibans in Kabul saying, if you receive Massoud, there will be retaliation on the ground against the angel. I think again it was the bluff. But let's forget. So I have so sad souvenirs of the of the sadness, of the melancholy of Massoud. The last time I saw him in in in Paris, it was in April. He was a great man. Yeah, he was a great fighter. He was a poet. He was an intellectual. He loved books. He had his personal library following him from battlefield to battlefield. He was one of those men who wage war without liking it. More after this, before we close, let's uh, I think our listeners would be interested to know about your very first endeavor in this area. So tell us how you wound up as a young man going to Bangladesh, which at the time was East Pakistan, and how did it become Bangladesh and what was your roller. My role was very small, but my and divor and my enthusiasm was great. There was a slaughter in Bangladesh, mass crimes. Even today we don't know if the Pakistania Army killed five one million, two million, maybe three, maybe four, We don't even know. And Andre Malra made a call on French Raggio. He was very old, he was very nervous. He was a real old man, and he said, I make an appeal. I make a call to the constitution of an international brigade, as I did in Spain. He did that in Spain in nine six. He was at the head. He was the commander, the coronel of a fleet of planes and listed in the International Brigades, doing a real good job in Spain. So at this moment he's seventy, but seventy of this time, not like us. It was a real seventy. He was really tired, and he launched his appeal. I heard that. I thought that it was so moving, so beautiful and so true. That's what did I do. I took my phone. I called the secretary of the assistant of I said, I am in, please take me. So my name was in the least I was at all the and I went the Reality International Brigade never is Andrew was so tired that he did not come, Thanks God, he came after the war. But I was there. So being there, what can I do? I embedded myself in a group of freedom fighters Mukti Bahini. I entered into Da Car and I stayed there for a few months at the side of the first President of Bangladesh Check Mujiba. But this is important because it is the first time I was twenty one or twenty two, I understood for the first time that the real affair of our generation, the real the real tragedy, the real fight will be the opposition of the radical Islam and the enlightened Islam. Radical Islam was embodied by the Pakistani army. You know, Pakistan, the country of the pure and Mujibu Ahman President of Bangladesh was an enlightened Muslim. He was Muslim, pious, worshiping and so on. But Democrats, friend to human rights, friend to the Western world, deciding to support the women who had been raped during the war and to name them Birangona, which meant he ruins of the nation. He was a very open minded man. I was twenty. I understood that this radical Islam versus unlighted Islam might be the great affair of my life and of our generation. And he turned out to be right. And Uh, we can end on an upbeat note a little bit. Arguably the two most successful NGOs in the developing world took birth in Bangladesh. Father Lavin, who sadly died just a couple of years ago. It was a good friend of mine founded Brack and Muhammad Yunis founded the Grameen Bank, and Uh when he got the Nobel Prize for Economics. I think it's important to know that even though Bangladesh still has deeply divided politics, there were three years in the early part of this century when they in effect had no government. It was totally paralyzed, and the economy still grew with no government at six percent a year because of the micro credit work of Brack and Gramen and others. So this work is worth doing. And I'm so glad that you've pointed out that you if you go in this direction that you've lived your life, you can't keep score by whether you win a hundred percent of the time and whether everything you live and dream can be realized more or less immediately. Well, first of all, I want to thank you for your life and thank you for being a public intellectual, which is another way of saying someone who is an active citizen. We didn't get into the number of times when you could have been killed yourself. You were repeatedly in danger because you went to where people were hurting. And I think the whole world owes you are dead of gratitude, and I hope that someday. I know you said you didn't want it, but I would like it if France would acknowledge what you have done as a Frenchman to make the world a better place. And I'm glad you've got your energy and I hope you never lose it. I remember somebody asked me once why I went to law school, and I said, I don't want to practice law, but I don't ever want to be forced to retire. I want to die with my boots on. I think that you have lived and I hope we'll live decades more with your boots on. And we're all very grateful to you. Thank you, same for you and Mr President boots On, boots on VC the good and boots on for you and for me, bless you, Thank you. Why am I telling you? This is a production of our Heart Radio, the Clinton Foundation and at Will Medium. Our executive producers are Craig Menascian and Will Monadi. Our production team includes Jamison Katsufas, Tom Galton, Sara Horowitz, and Jake Young, with production support from Liz Raftree and Josh Farnham. Original music by What White. Special thanks to John Sykes, John Davidson on hell Orina, Corey Ganstley, Kevin Thuram, Oscar Flores, and all our dedicated staff and partners at the Clinton Foundation. Hi, I'm Dr Mike Kimpill, Director of the Presidential Leadership scholars Program, a one of a kind partnership between the presidential centers of Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, George H. W. Bush, and Lyndon Baines Johnson. President Clinton often says that the key to great leadership is in finding our common humanity, something that's needed now more than ever. That's why each year we bring together a dramatically diverse group of leaders, from doctors to teachers, elected officials to scientists, active military and veterans, all of whom have a passion for making the world a better place. We create a culture of collaboration that transcends partisan divides and ideological differences in service of a greater good. Today, presidential Leadership scholars across the country are working together and actively applying the lessons learned in our program to help tackle today's most pressing challenges. You can learn more about this work and see how you can get involved by visiting www dot Clinton Foundation dot org. Slash podcast

Over the last twenty years since I started my foundation work, I spent a long time in Africa. I've learned a lot about how different tribes in different regions live and work and relate to each other. One of the most impressive examples of that is how people in the Central Highlands of Africa greet each other when they pass each other. Instead of saying good morning, hello, how are you and replying I'm fine, the reply translated into English is I see you. Just think about what that means for a minute. What they're really saying is I acknowledge your presence, your humanity, you matter to me. It's a very moving, empowering practice. So why am I telling you this Because in today's episode, I'm joined by someone who's dedicated his life to forcing people to see other people, to grapple with the fact that all our lives are interconnected, and then what happens to one person anywhere affects all of us everywhere. Bernard and Reid Levi is a French philosopher, filmmaker, activists and author of more than forty five books. His latest project, the documentary and accompanying book titled The Will to See, highlights the human suffering created by conflicts in places like Nigeria, Somalia, Bangladesh, Libya, and Afghanistan. The most relevant today, he spent time on the front lines of eastern Ukraine, where people have been dealing with the Russian occupation since well. This conversation was taped before the unjustified and totally unprovoked, full scalal invasion of Ukraine by Russia. The insights he shares about the bravery of the Ukrainian people and the importance of their struggle for freedom and against oppression rings even truer today. I hope you will find this talk as eliminating as I did. Thanks for joining me today. Thanks to you, Mr President, so great honor for me to join. Well, I've been a fan of your work for a long time. But for those listening who may not know you, can you take just a couple of minutes to tell us about yourself and how did you get in to this work going all over the world to see the unseen? You know, Mr President, I was I was trained and shaped as a philosopher, and I decided to practice a philosophy opening the windows, opening the doors, and going and stepping out as much as possible outside. But at the beginning there is philosophy. And when I was a young man, there was a great German philosopher who was very influential. He was dead, of course, called Edmund Husel. Edmond herself had a piece of work composed of two big blocks. One block was pure philosophy, nearly mathematical logic, and the other world the other piece. The other block was what he called phenomenology, which means going to the real things, going to fight with the things, going to confront the the anger of the world. So on one side, pure philosophy, on the other side the anger of the world. All my life, since I was a teenager, I decided to combine the two, to have a real academic, solid, consistent body of philosophy on one side, and to apply this body of philosophy fee to make it work, to plug it in the world, and to try to intervene in the world. In one sentence, I am these very strange animal which exists a lot in France, a little less in America, which is a committed intellectual, a public intellectual. I try to do both. Did you always know you wanted to do this? You speak very eloquently in the world to see about the influence of your father's life. Talk a little bit about that, because I think in the modern world, people spend so much time on the internet with their devices. They have more information than ever before, but I sometimes think they understand it less. Talk a little about your example of your father and what he did in the resistance and for the cause of freedom against Strico and the Spanish Civil War. My father was my my hero, and I think he was a true hero beyond what I think myself. You are right, Mr. President. When he was not quite eighteen years old, he engaged himself in the International Brigade in Spain, serving the Republican government against the fascism. He was one of those not men boys seventeen years old. Eighteen years old, You are a boy. You are a teenager who thought that fascism was a danger for the world. He felt that immediately that there was a very dark cloud in the sky of the whole Europe, that this cloud was going to burst, and that it had to be fought. So he did that very young international Brigade in Spain. Then a few years after he was one of the heroes of the Free French Army. It started with the Army of Africa. He was in the Battle of Tunisia, Libya, Italy. This for me was crucial because my father gave me, transplitted me the idea that it is better to take the risk of dying, standing that living on the knees, it's better to have a great life than to have a coward life. In your new film and book, The World to See, you highlight some specific forgotten wars. How did you choose them? And what are the common threads you notice that length the situations and all these different countries. The principle of the choice was very simple forgotten forgotten wars. I remember, by the way, twenty years ago, before The Will to See, I made the first series of reportage of the same sort. I did that for Lamonde, the French daily newspaper Mode, and I remember the team of Lament coming to me and offering me to hire me as a reporter. I said, come on, I'm a philosopher, I'm a writer. Why should I be a reporter? No? Except except, I said, if you send me to places where you never send anybody. Except if you send me to places which are forgotten. The people of Lamonde, like New York Times Lament. You know it is the arrist the cream of the cream. They told me, Mr Levy, this does not take east. Every war is covered by us. There is no forgotten wars. Everything is on the map. I said, okay, let's check. Give me two days and I will come back with a series of wars which number one last since at least ten years. Number two count tens, if not hundreds of thousands of dead in a short time. And number three to which you never devoted a big article. Don deal. Two days after I came with this list of forgotten wars, which I covered for the moment for this book, The Will to See, I did the same. I went to a series of magazines and newspaper and I said, I want to go two places to which you did not devote and the reporters since tenures example Morgat issue in Somalia, example, the trenches in Ukraine, the front line between the Russians today and the Ukenyan army talk a little about Ukraine. Where are we know? What do you think is gonna happen? My feeling, but it's a bet I might be wrong tonight. My feeling that President put In would do a huge mistake. If he decided to invade Ukraine, it will be a huge mistake for too reasons. I know the spots. I spent some time there. I had the honor to be embedded among the special units of the Uknyan Army. Number one they are good. Number two they are patriots, they are ready to defend their land. And number three detail, but which is not just in detail. I'm not sure that the Russian soldiers, the basic Russian soldiers, will shoot so easily their cousins, that the the family cousins of Ukraine. It would be a real mess. If the General in chief of the Putin's Army give the order to shoot. It will not be like Chicken. Yah, it will not, which was a big crime. It will be a difficult story. What do you think he wants? Does he want a puppet government in Ukraine? Does he? I agree with the Ukrainians are tough and strong, and they're proud of their country, and I don't want to give it up. But he has had more or less favorable governments there is that what he wants. He wants that first, Yes, a poppet government as much as he can as he had with Yanukovic, before Porshenko, and he wants to create a mess among us, the biggest, the mess the best for him, divisions between Germany and France, divisions between America and Europe, mess between Baltic countries who are very hawkish and Hungary, who is very sweet because Mr Abad has a good personal relationship with Mr Putin, because he shares some parts of his ideology. Whatever. But the aim for me, the target of Puttin is to inflict us what he thinks we inflicted him at the time of the collapse of Soviet Union. Mr Americans, Mr French, Mr Europeans, you inflicted me a humiliation by destroying my empire in I will inflict you the reverse by destroying as much as I can your dear free world, European continent. And so what this is the target? Revenge? Revenge about don't forget you know that better than any one, Mr President that for him, the collapse of Soviet Union in the biggest catastrophe of the twentieth century, and he really wants to make a spay for that. This is the target. According to me, of course, the truth is quite a and that basically it brought it from the inside out to Soviet Union and the rest of the world just stayed strong and preferred freedom to domination. But I remember when I became president, Russia was in terrible trouble and they couldn't even afford to bring their troops on from the Baltics. They had no place to house them, they had no food to feed them, they had nothing. And the first thing that I did as president was to meet with President Elson in Canada and organize a twenty four billion dollar relief operation for them, which was real money back then. That was, you know, twenty nine years ago, and they were able to bring their soldiers home and to treat them with dignity. And I did everything I could to help Yelson succeed, and even in Bosnia we let them be part of the peacekeeping mission, even though it was a difficult thing politically. They Yelson trusted me and we worked together and he worked it out. And I think what Putin thought was that because of his energy resources, when he got rich again, he could exercise more muscle, and that I always thought that the great decision Russia had to make after the collapse of the Soviet Union was not how to get revenge, but how to define greatness in the twenty first century, and Putin has chosen, in effect, a nineteenth century Czarist model of greatness. He can pray on the fact that his country was invaded by Napoleon and Hitler, and there's still a sense of distrust of the outsiders, and he can use all these new levels the unconventional warfare, if you will, their enormous talents and cyber technology and their ability to so mischief all the way to the American election. And that's how he defines greatness. He could have made a very different decision. He could have decided to become the in effect second Silicon Valley, the Internet capital of half the world, and he decided not to. He decided the ironed hand was better. But I think it was a mistake. You are right, and here comes what we could call the human factor. Putting is Putting. He's not a cynical man. He believes. He has some beliefs. He has a doctrine. For example, he believes in Eurasia Eurasia Razi. He believes in an alternative pattern of society against democracy. He believes in illiberal regimes. He hates what America or Europe embodies. He has a real doctrine. I don't know if we should qualify it a new fascism. I don't know if it the revival of just offer Zarius to Russia. Maybe it is that plus a bit of Stalinism plus a bit. I don't know. But there is a doctrine, and this doctrine is really opposite to ours. It is a real opposition of visions of the world. And this makes so crucial that we we stand by our worlds with the West, stand by our values, defend them with wisdom, of course, without aggressivity, without being hawkish. But if we don't stand by our own values, we will be strongly defeated. Because he has a double force of an army and of a doctrine. That brings me to bay. Let's talk about little bit. As you know well, Bosnia was the first place where NATO approved out of area operations. The Germans voted for it even before it was legal for them to send any forces outside Germany, and um I was trying from to get our allies involved because I didn't think America could do this alone, because Bosnia had to be a part of Europe. And what broke largely because of France. I might add what broke the European paralysis was Srebinitza. The slaughter and Strebitza led the French to believe that their faith that they could somehow reason with or do business with Milossovich and the Serbians was misplaced. And so we were able and only with you know, a few days, maybe four or five days of bombing, to start the peace talks, and we were able to stop the slaughter and to preserve a kind of rough order which has existed to the present day. But we did not have at the time of what we did, and they know how the ability to fashion an agreement which would prevent to Serve from vetoing the national government of Bosnia from doing anything to make it a real nation and to put it on the path to prosperity. So the good news is we stopped the killing. The bad news is, as long as the Republic of Serbsca, which is part of Bosnia, is governed by someone who in effect is an anti unity which pleases Putin and no one else, we're stuck. What what should happen in Bosnia? What's your take on this? I remember the night you decided to launch the bombing on the Hills which were bombing Sarajevo. I was with Ambassador Harrimana, General Wellesley Clark, and Ambassador Old Brook. The three of them, me plus the President is a bigovich in the dining room of Ambassador Harriman. It was more than a relief. It was a full joy. It was a blessing. I remember having blessed you for having taking after two years this decision. This day you made a lot for the Bostian people, for the cause, the cause of the Boston people, and for the cause of values and truth. It is a date for my generation. This night is a real date. Number one, number two. What is what is true is that the data and agreements we're not good. He hesitated till the last minute to sign or not. He was he has a prospect. It was a visionary He knew that disagreement will postpone the problems instead of solving them. Really, and this is what we see today, the ditch, the chief of the Republican subscript is again playing with fire. What I believe, I told that to my President recently. We are still in a quiet situation. The fire is not yet there. We should intervene now, we should deal a step ahead in the future entry of Bossia in Europe in exchange of a remolding of the institution of the two entities Croats and Muslim on one side, Orthodox on the Serbian on the other one. We should not let it as it is. I hope that your success Hals in America in France will take this problem now before it is too late, and before we have to extinguish a real fire. It has to be done. If not, the war could resume, could come back. I agree with that, and and I was back there. I went back to the twentieth anniversary of Svensen and it was very moving, and the then president of Serbia came, and he was young, like the then mayor of the community who was the only survivor of the massacre, and ReBs in his family and in his class, only male survivor in his high school class twenty years earlier. And these two young men offered us promise, but they took a totally different direction. And I remember walking through the crowd that day. All the older people were really glad to see me, and they were grateful that I'd stopped to slaughter. All the younger people were angry because they took it for granted that they weren't going to be shot, but they had no hope because nothing good was happening. And then the Serbs went back to their hard line direction, and we're paying for it now. It's something that has to be watched and the United States should be supportive, but the Europeans are gonna have to take a lot of initiative. You're because they're part of Europe. If anybody had told me when we did all this more than twenty years ago that by the in now that Kosovo would have a more enduring government and greater prospects at the future than Bosnia, I wouldn't have believed it then too. And they're in a precarious position geographically, of course, but it's worth remembering that the aftermath of conflict will determine whether we lead the seeds of another one or give people a chance to live a normal future. And I'm very worried about it. And the further away you get from the scene of a place like that, the more the politicians can turn away from it. And you just hear the barking dogs. And if you're an American politician today, all the barking dogs are at home. I don't think they're thinking about it very much, but it's a real problem. We'll be right back. I sense from your reading that you have a great affinity for the non governmental organizations that try to keep humanity alive and all these difficult circumstances. And the first person who exposed me to the potential power of NGOs in the United States and around the world was Hillary because her first job out of law school was working for what became the Children's Defense Fund, and she began to and when she was in the White House and she would take trips from me. She would every time she went to a country, she would meet with the main NGO leaders along with the government officials. And she got me to do the same thing, which often upset the leaders you know who saw NGOs as a threat. But they're a threat by and large only because they highlight forgotten people and the real condition of human beings instead of the stated superficial positions of politicians. So what you're feeling now about the NGO movement, I'm very worried about Afghanistan, as I'm sure you are. I'm gonna stud you all right. The it is heartbreaking and it is a shame the situation. It is heartbreaking because in reality, in Afghanistan we did succeed. We did not fail. We did succeed in which sense, under the umbrella of American forces, women got liberated, dared to go in the streets with a with a naked face. Under the umbrella of American forces, a free press began to take birth, and so many Geo Afghan ev and geos civil society began to take shape also, So it is false to say that we failed. You know, this is the motto we no, we did not fail. Those who maintain, who keep the candle lightened, are the angels, the humanitarian movements, who at big risk, risk of their lives, working in so dangerous situations, are keeping the hope alive. Thanks God, we still have a few angels in Afghanistan trying to do their work. Generally speaking, I share absolutely your point of view. I am an old traveler now, like Hillary, I went in so many places in my life. I will tell you I understood very early that the true ambassadors of France, maybe of America often not always, because we have also some great ambassadors, but often the true ambassadors were the angels. They are the ones who have the best contact with population. They are the ones who are the most closely embedded in the in the real concrete situation. They have a lot of information about the situation. When you want to know something today, when you arrive in a in Burundi, or even in Mogadisho or in Afghanistan, you have to go to the angel. They waive the flag of America and of Europe. They have the datas and they help. They are our true ambassadors, and they are brave. They are exactly like the journalists. The reporters there risk a lot by doing their job. So it is the wealth of the angels. Maybe after the war in Biafra in the sixties might be one of the real progresses, one of the great inventions of the modern times. One of the things that bothered me about the whole thing is we never really explained to the American people what was going on in Afghanistan. And there were many people, including many who were upset about to withdrawal, who wanted to end the conflict in I thought, we cannot make over the whole country. And I think what we did was good because, as you pointed out, we hadn't been at war in Afghanistan in nearly a decade. So what would you do now? What do you think should be done now in Afghanistan? I think we should prevent the ordinary people from dying by hunger. So help should be provided through angels, through you and energy. Certainly not one dollar directly in the pocket of Taliban's because they are corrupted and they would steal it. Number one, we should help people not to die. Number two, we should help the women, the movements of women in Counda Heart, in Mazari Sharief, in other cities who refuse the iron rule of Taliban's. We have a lot of ways to help them, concrete and moral. We knew how to do that. We Americans and Europeans in the time of the Cold War, at the time of the Soviet Union. We knew without inflaming the whole world, how to encourage, how to help, how to do underground support. This is what we have to do with the people, especially the brave ladies who are opening the rule of Taliban's a. Number three, there is a man. I know him well. I knew the father well, and I know the son ratherwell. I know him since he's a little boy. Now he's a grown up man Ahmad Massoud Ahmad Masud, who is the leader of the resistance in Panshir, which is the only province who refused to submit to Taliban's I saw him among his commanders in Panshir. I filled him in a moving gathering where we had the old commanders of the Father Amachamasud, the legendary father, and the young commanders of the Sun together, you know, sort of amalgam mixing of the old commanders and the young. And I saw young Basswood addressing this bunch of commanders. He was great, he was charismatic, He was respected by those proud horseman cavalier. As Joseph Kessel said, so this man has to be supported by many means. I cannot enter in details. I'm not an expert, but he has to be supported. He is at this moment, that's my opinion, the only asset which not only the West, which the free people of Afghanistan have on the ground, The free people of Afghanistan, the women who want to remain free, the journalists who want to continue to do their job, they have one asset. I'm admussment. We still can in spite of our retreat. We still can try to repair which is reparable by helping this man. His father's death was a tragedy. I know, I know, I know. I knew him well. He came in Paris. I made him. I organized his visit in Paris in May two thousand one, a few weeks before his death, and a few weeks before September eleven. He was so melancholic, he was so sad. He had with him some informations which he wanted to give to French government. He was not properly received, He was not properly hosted by the authorities of my country. Because there was a black male of the Talibans in Kabul saying, if you receive Massoud, there will be retaliation on the ground against the angel. I think again it was the bluff. But let's forget. So I have so sad souvenirs of the of the sadness, of the melancholy of Massoud. The last time I saw him in in in Paris, it was in April. He was a great man. Yeah, he was a great fighter. He was a poet. He was an intellectual. He loved books. He had his personal library following him from battlefield to battlefield. He was one of those men who wage war without liking it. More after this, before we close, let's uh, I think our listeners would be interested to know about your very first endeavor in this area. So tell us how you wound up as a young man going to Bangladesh, which at the time was East Pakistan, and how did it become Bangladesh and what was your roller. My role was very small, but my and divor and my enthusiasm was great. There was a slaughter in Bangladesh, mass crimes. Even today we don't know if the Pakistania Army killed five one million, two million, maybe three, maybe four, We don't even know. And Andre Malra made a call on French Raggio. He was very old, he was very nervous. He was a real old man, and he said, I make an appeal. I make a call to the constitution of an international brigade, as I did in Spain. He did that in Spain in nine six. He was at the head. He was the commander, the coronel of a fleet of planes and listed in the International Brigades, doing a real good job in Spain. So at this moment he's seventy, but seventy of this time, not like us. It was a real seventy. He was really tired, and he launched his appeal. I heard that. I thought that it was so moving, so beautiful and so true. That's what did I do. I took my phone. I called the secretary of the assistant of I said, I am in, please take me. So my name was in the least I was at all the and I went the Reality International Brigade never is Andrew was so tired that he did not come, Thanks God, he came after the war. But I was there. So being there, what can I do? I embedded myself in a group of freedom fighters Mukti Bahini. I entered into Da Car and I stayed there for a few months at the side of the first President of Bangladesh Check Mujiba. But this is important because it is the first time I was twenty one or twenty two, I understood for the first time that the real affair of our generation, the real the real tragedy, the real fight will be the opposition of the radical Islam and the enlightened Islam. Radical Islam was embodied by the Pakistani army. You know, Pakistan, the country of the pure and Mujibu Ahman President of Bangladesh was an enlightened Muslim. He was Muslim, pious, worshiping and so on. But Democrats, friend to human rights, friend to the Western world, deciding to support the women who had been raped during the war and to name them Birangona, which meant he ruins of the nation. He was a very open minded man. I was twenty. I understood that this radical Islam versus unlighted Islam might be the great affair of my life and of our generation. And he turned out to be right. And Uh, we can end on an upbeat note a little bit. Arguably the two most successful NGOs in the developing world took birth in Bangladesh. Father Lavin, who sadly died just a couple of years ago. It was a good friend of mine founded Brack and Muhammad Yunis founded the Grameen Bank, and Uh when he got the Nobel Prize for Economics. I think it's important to know that even though Bangladesh still has deeply divided politics, there were three years in the early part of this century when they in effect had no government. It was totally paralyzed, and the economy still grew with no government at six percent a year because of the micro credit work of Brack and Gramen and others. So this work is worth doing. And I'm so glad that you've pointed out that you if you go in this direction that you've lived your life, you can't keep score by whether you win a hundred percent of the time and whether everything you live and dream can be realized more or less immediately. Well, first of all, I want to thank you for your life and thank you for being a public intellectual, which is another way of saying someone who is an active citizen. We didn't get into the number of times when you could have been killed yourself. You were repeatedly in danger because you went to where people were hurting. And I think the whole world owes you are dead of gratitude, and I hope that someday. I know you said you didn't want it, but I would like it if France would acknowledge what you have done as a Frenchman to make the world a better place. And I'm glad you've got your energy and I hope you never lose it. I remember somebody asked me once why I went to law school, and I said, I don't want to practice law, but I don't ever want to be forced to retire. I want to die with my boots on. I think that you have lived and I hope we'll live decades more with your boots on. And we're all very grateful to you. Thank you, same for you and Mr President boots On, boots on VC the good and boots on for you and for me, bless you, Thank you. Why am I telling you? This is a production of our Heart Radio, the Clinton Foundation and at Will Medium. Our executive producers are Craig Menascian and Will Monadi. Our production team includes Jamison Katsufas, Tom Galton, Sara Horowitz, and Jake Young, with production support from Liz Raftree and Josh Farnham. Original music by What White. Special thanks to John Sykes, John Davidson on hell Orina, Corey Ganstley, Kevin Thuram, Oscar Flores, and all our dedicated staff and partners at the Clinton Foundation. Hi, I'm Dr Mike Kimpill, Director of the Presidential Leadership scholars Program, a one of a kind partnership between the presidential centers of Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, George H. W. Bush, and Lyndon Baines Johnson. President Clinton often says that the key to great leadership is in finding our common humanity, something that's needed now more than ever. That's why each year we bring together a dramatically diverse group of leaders, from doctors to teachers, elected officials to scientists, active military and veterans, all of whom have a passion for making the world a better place. We create a culture of collaboration that transcends partisan divides and ideological differences in service of a greater good. 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