Wednesday, February 7th Antiwar.com opinion editor Scott Horton will be giving a presentation for historian Thaddeus Russell’s Renegade University about the War on Terrorism.
Category: Empire
RIP Bob Parry
Bob Parry was a former good friend of the show. I had him on at least 18 times. (I can’t help but think there were more that got lost somehow.) He was actually one of the first guests when I started the daily show, Antiwar Radio, for KAOS 95.9 FM in Austin in 2007. I cussed him out and didn’t speak to him any more after he wrote some stupid bullshit about libertarians a few years ago, but I never stopped running him or his best guys at Antiwar.com since Bob’s journalism could not be beat. He was really great on so many things, especially Syria and Russia issues these past few years, including the coup in Ukraine in 2014.
Here his son Nat has a tremendous write up on Bob’s heroic legacy in journalism. It’s really worth your time.
There. Now live up to his example.
New Interviews by Scott Horton
I was interviewed recently by Stefan Molyneux, Jason Stapleton and Dave Smith. You know, about the wars and things.
Letter to the Editor
Chris writes:
For the last few months I have been battling some cognitive dissonance when making conclusions about the current state of U.S. foreign affairs. Ever since the Ron Paul days of 2008, I have been firm in my conviction that the libertarians are correct in this regard. I think on one hand that despite whatever disasters that may occur after a full military pull-out of all foreign countries, the situation couldn’t possibly be worse than allowing the U.S. government to continue the policy of the last century.
On the other hand, I am not privy to any inside-information. How can I possibly make conclusions about a subject that I have very limited knowledge of? What if Ron Paul himself made it into the White House and decided to continue the current policy because it’s the thing any sane person would do if they had the relevant facts and the ability to make the calls? This could explain the many reversals that we have witnessed from presidents as they transition from candidate-to-president.
While I still ultimately think the right course of action is a complete termination of the interventionist policy and that the politicians are war criminals, I don’t have a strong answer to the second, contradictory premise.
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I respond:
Chris,
Yeah, no, that’s all wrong. Bush was lying when he said he wanted a more humble foreign policy. Obama was telling the truth when he said he wanted to get out of Iraq so as to help shore up the power of the American empire elsewhere. Trump was lying when he said he wanted to abandon “globalism” (the empire). None of them ever truly ran as Ron or Kucinich did as actual anti-imperialists. And so none of them truly had their minds changed about anything. (Trump’s resistance to Afghanistan-alone was still only ever paper-thin.)
Look at what the generals did to lock down stupid Trump:
https://www.apnews.com/4cef63caf6b34cb796bc4c196d47c143
Nothing about preventing the end of the world, just “you like stealing money, right Mr. President? Well, that’s what we do here.”
Playing Nuclear Chicken – or is it Russian Roulette?
“It was not immediately clear how close the U.S. military recon jet was flying near Kaliningrad, a Russian enclave between NATO allies Poland and Lithuania. This fall, Russia moved nuclear-capable ballistic missiles to Kaliningrad, putting some European capitals in strike range.” — Armed Russian jet comes within 5 feet of US recon jet
“At the end, we lucked out. It was luck that prevented nuclear war. We came that close to nuclear war at the end. Rational individuals — Kennedy was rational, Castro was rational, Khrushchev was rational — came that close to total destruction of their societies. And that danger exists today. The major lesson of the Cuban Missile Crisis is this: The indefinite combination of human fallibility and nuclear weapons will destroy nations.” –U.S. Vietnam “War” Defense Sec. Robert McNamara, The Fog of War
So, is it just “Nuclear Chicken” – or is it Russian Roulette? Or maybe both?
And will M.A.D. still work after all these years?