Welcome to Keith's night, don't tread on anyone any libertarian Institute today. I am joined by Dave to Camp, the news editor, at anti-war.com, and host of anti-war news with Dave de Kamp. Mr. De Kamp, thank you so much for your time, sir. Thanks for having me, Keith, what does it mean to be anti-war? Well, to me being anti war and for us at anti-war.com, it means more than just, you know, opposing your governments entry into a war because usually at that, Point.
It's go most too late. It really means kind of opposing all the policies that can lead up to, you know, the involvement in the war or as we see with Ukraine right now, you know, funding this proxy war on Russia's border by, you know, funneling billions of dollars in weapons in and really for me it's, you know, non-interventionism is the policy. And that's very reflective in my work and an anti-war.com where against sanctions were against, you know. Trade Wars and things like that.
And so it goes beyond just being against, you know, once the hot war starts just being against that and it's something that, you know, more Americans need to understand because a lot of people call themselves anti-war because they're against the wars in the Middle East, let's say for now, which is great that more people are against those Wars because of what a failure
they've been. But at the same time we have these huge escalations with Russia and China Cold War style as Escalations and relations are just souring so much with these two nuclear-armed powers. And, you know, people really need to be opposed to this stuff because it's not going to end well. For any of us, people will often look at the benefits of War. For example, stopping the German National Socialist Party from expanding throughout Europe, stopping stopping Japanese imperialism.
And their atrocities, the American Civil War leading to the end of Plantation slavery. What would you say? Are the costs or the downsides of war that people either completely ignore or don't appreciate the depth of. Well I mean you mentioned in World War 2 which is the one that everybody always goes to that's the interventionists you know greatest argument for every war is that somebody's next Hitler but you know and we're really kind of at least my
generation. You know, I'm 32 and I was raised on World War two movies, Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks world war two movies and it was kind of glorified. To us but really World War. 2 was the worst thing that's ever happened in the history of the world. I mean the scale of death and destruction in such a short time. So the lesson should be how could that have been avoided and there's many ways.
But it always goes back to really World War 1 and the Treaty of Versailles and trying to you know destroy Germany and punish Germany for what they did and it's just you know I mean you look at there's so many ways. I know you've gone over pack. Cannons book, Churchill Hitler in the unnecessary war and and that's it. You know I'm not it's not just me saying this some radical anti-war libertarian guy. It's Churchill himself has said you know that World War One Treaty of Versailles.
Why? You know gave rise to Hitler and the events leading up to it. Didn't all have to happen. So we have to look at these lessons and if you just look at all these countries that have been totally destroyed by War and for the United States, we kind of were seemingly unaffected by it. Until 9/11. And now, we're really starting to see the consequences of being a global Empire and trying to control the world and sanctioning everybody and the inflation.
And of course that goes into Central Banking and everything which is why I think being libertarian is the most consistent ideology with being anti-war because of the the Central Banking aspect. But anyway, the cost of it, you know, we're seeing the cost of being a global Empire right now and that's it. Are rising costs and how nobody
can really afford anything. And we're starting to see, I think really the decline of the American Empire and it's going to really hurt Americans. I want to focus on the costs a little more because we see a video in America of Eric Garner getting killed or Kelly Thomas or Tony tempeh. And we say what a horrible atrocity.
This is a person who could have lived and enjoyed life in the absence of, you know, someone just unjustly taking their life but When it comes to 60 million deaths in the second world war, people say well it is what it is, that's what you got to do, or, you know, the civilians and the donbas getting killed since 2014. Not really important. But the second Russia goes into Ukraine, obviously, it's hell on Earth which of course, is bad. But they have no appreciation
for both sides of the issue. They just almost randomly not so randomly, pick a villain to hate. So when it comes to deaths in war, when it comes, People losing their limbs, getting PTSD, kids growing up without parents. What else do people need to? Really appreciate. So war is not some thing that's in the distant that people in the military. Focus on how do you really make the cost real to people and say this matters? Well yeah I mean that's a tough
question because it's hard. You think about what our government has done for the past 20 years?
Let's just talk about, you know, the terror Wars all the civilians that have been killed in that children and and the hospitals that have been bombed by the US and weddings and drone strikes hitting Farmers as their harvesting their crops and just Horrors that are really unimaginable to people in the United States. So those types of costs, it's just really tough to to get people to understand what that means and it's really amazing to how easily they can shrug it
off. I mean, if they understand what's happening in Yemen right now with the Saudi impose blockade that Be happening without support from the US that it's just, it's a war on the country's, most vulnerable because children and, you know, elderly, people sickly people pregnant, women are the ones that are suffering the most from
this policy. And it's really, you know, people are starving to death in that country because of a war that the u.s. is imposing on it. And you really just, you have to try to put the shoe on the other foot sometimes, I mean you think about what the US is trying to do to Russia when Russia invaded. Crane abiding came out and said, you know, that they're going to try to destroy the Russian
economy and all that. So just imagine, you know what if Putin came out and said that about the u.s. you think about how much everybody freaks out about all this. These bogus stories about Russian election interference and stuff. Or if China, if she's in pain, came out and said we're going to make the American economy, scream, things like that. Like just what the US imposes on
the world. And I know I'm speaking from like, a very American perspective, when you're answering You asking me these questions but the cost it's just it's something that I think we have to really kind of get out there to people, is the destruction and the deaths and that's on my try to cover all the time about how us sanctions are killing people in other countries because they lose access to specialized medicine, and things like that.
And it's just such a brutal policy and it and it, you know, creates enemies and all that, it just the atrocities were unbelievable. People Oil, you know, saving and working their whole lives to buy houses that end up.
Getting bombed. One of my favorite Pap, you can and moments is he's actually warning about NATO expansion and a potential conflict with Russia because the u.s. is going back on, you know, what, James Baker, had promised Mikhail Gorbachev and he goes, you know, these sanctions that the u.s. government imposing around the world, you know, Saddam Hussein
Fidel Castro milosevic. They Well fed to me who do you think's getting punished by these and it's so so typical that you know Waging War on Putin and you know holding Saddam accountable. Well obviously Saddam and Gaddafi ended up getting killed but that's just one person. The massive amounts of you know, Terror. That's actually happening is totally innocent people and of course that that never gets any attention.
That's why I really appreciate places like anti-war.com when it comes to Two politicians making predictions and saying, look War isn't good, but we need to do it so we get this outcome. Historically, have you found any correlation between the predictions of politicians and real-world outcomes of Wars?
Well I mean you know just speaking with in our modern history here like absolutely no correlation especially with the terror Wars and what they said they wanted to do in Iraq and Afghanistan. I mean at every Turn the opposite happened in Afghanistan after. They changed to regime change. They said we got to take the Taliban out. What? When the u.s. left Afghanistan a year ago? The tablet, they left it. Like the country, it's more controlled by the Taliban now than it ever has been before.
They never control the whole country, but they do now. And now if you look at this economic war, that Biden tried to launch against Russia, that's totally backfired. And the line was, oh, this is going to help stop the war tutor, the war, but that hasn't happened. It's made Putin, you know, kind of solidify his control. And, you know, it gives them a foreign Boogeyman 2.2 to blame for all the problems. And, you know, going we could go back further during the Cold War.
I mean, you think about the Domino Theory with Korea and Vietnam and how Vietnam was just a total disaster and then, you know, the Communists ended up controlling the entire country against similar to Afghanistan after all that. And it's just the promises that they Make a go back to World War one. I mean that was about democracy, right? Wasn't that about spreading democracy across the world and it gave rise to Nazism and bolshevism. So the I think there's a lot of
examples like that. If you go back in history and the rise of Mussolini, don't strip them of a Mussolini credit. And of course, the Domino Theory didn't account for Hong Kong and Singapore being two of the most capitalist places on on the planet places that the u.s. can learn a lot from what do people need to know about the 9/11 attacks. Well, you know, we just had the anniversary and it does seem like a lot.
There's are so many more people now willing to say and that recognized that it was no blowback. It was the war coming home. We talked about these policies and one of the most brutal things that happen throughout the 1990s was the US sanctions and bombing campaign against Iraq. There's this PBS documentary, you talk about people saving up to buy their houses and I have
to find this clip. I saw it on Internet somewhere, I gotta seek it out, but they're interviewing these Iraqi middle class people that are dressed, like, you and me in these little suburban homes. And they're just saying how they've lost their losing everything as a result of the US sanctions, you know, post Gulf War and just what we did to that country. And, you know, that was a major major motivation motivation for bin Laden as he made very clear as well as us support for Israel.
And And we just have to remember that. It wasn't just some freak attack. And you also we have to keep in mind that there are still unanswered questions about 9/11, especially now we're recently, more stuff came out about how Saudi Arabia gave material support to the, to Al-Qaeda to the two hijackers that were in the country. You know, when they came in, they got help from the Saudi Embassy and stuff like that.
And we know that the CIA knew that these two guys were in the country and they didn't tell the FBI Yeah, I and, you know, I'm not saying because there's so much misinformation that was put out and when it comes to 911 and like the truth or movement, all the stuff, all there is no planes, they're Holograms. It's really been flooded with misinformation.
And I think, you know, that might have been a purposeful strategy because people look at anybody who questions, the the official story, as one of those Kooks. But really, there are a lot of questions to be asked and I, Especially just really it's either more. So about the failure of the CIA and FBI, how they couldn't prevent it. When all the pieces were there, yeah, well, no planes and Holograms are still more likely than they hate us for our freedoms yet.
When it comes, when it comes to sanctions on Iraq, this is a very fast one. That the neocons will often play Giuliani touched on it when he was on stage with Lauren. Polly goes. I've never heard that before nine. It happened because we went into Iraq. Well, when into Iraq is what people associate with something that happened a few years after 9/11. So he's making it seem like Ron Paul's argument as 9/11 happened.
Because years later, we went into Iraq, which is just totally Bonkers. It is widely not known by the average person that there were sanctions, what our sanctions. And why were they imposed on a rack by the US and UN in the 90s, walk us through that history. Well yes, so the You know, they were imposed on Iraq, you know, the idea was to pressure them to get rid of Saddam, and they who they accused of having weapons of mass destruction and
throughout the 90s. I mean, there, I believe two un officials who were, you know, stationed in Iraq who are in charge of that policy, that resigned and one of them, called the policy genocide, the sanctions campaign and it was also a bombing campaign. I mean, they bombed Iraq throughout the IDs and this is things, you know, for me for my personal journey into becoming anti-war and doing what I do. Like I had no idea about any that whole situation until I
was, you know, in my 20s. I didn't realize what the US did to Iraq. And, you know, especially they target, you know, wastewater treatment plants and things like that. They target the civilian infrastructure in these attacks, which is a tactic that the u.s. uses in just about all of its Wars. Going back to World War Two. R2 you know bombing civilian infrastructure. They did it in Korea, Vietnam Cambodia, Laos Iraq, during the Gulf War and after, and it's
just such a brutal policy. That yeah, like Giuliani just kind of inferring that we weren't doing anything to them. I think speaks to the the attitude that American us politicians have, it was kind of this thing. You know, I was pretty young in the 90s, but just from, looking back at clips. And C-SPAN and stuff. You know, Ron Paul was really the only one saying, hey, we should probably not be bombing Iraq.
This is gonna come back to bite us, but it seemed like it was just kind of in the background for most people. So we have the civilians and it also goes back to the first world war when Lord admiralty at the time Winston Churchill blockaded German civilians from getting food because of the crimes of their governments. So the sanctions in Iraq and then, and that was being done for. From Saudi Arabia. Why were their bases in Saudi
Arabia? And if they were, and if the base is existed, doesn't that mean that the Saudi Arabian government wanted them there? Well, yeah, that's a good point because that was another one of Bin Laden's. One of the things he cited for the for why he turned, why the u.s. became his his Target, you know, after the Soviet Union collapsed and they built those bases to launch the war It's Iraq to launch a war on the Arabian Peninsula.
So that's why it was such a sensitive thing for not just Bin Laden. Not just extreme, you know, extremists like him but for Muslims in general, you know, it's their. Holy place in the u.s. it turned into a hub of the US War Machine and they were supposed to just be temporary basis but they stayed there throughout the 90s.
And again, it was one of the main factors into Al-Qaeda, starting to attack the US and Then support for Israel who were the first countries to recognize Israel going back to May of 1948. Well, yeah, that was I mean the the British and the, the us and it was the UN mandate that created Israel as a country and it they drove out the Palestinians when it was first created about 750,000, people were driven from their, their homes and what they call the nakba in Palestine the catastrophe.
And that thousands of others were also killed people that didn't leave and that was, you know, they created a country on top of Palestine which was a country and that's another thing that just gets lost in. I think for me personally, another thing I just really had no knowledge of and that they don't teach in public schools in the u.s. at least is how I just was under the impression that Israel was there forever. But it wasn't and it was created by this man.
And eight and you know there's just a long history of the crimes that have been committed against the Palestinians since then and just that was, of course, such a another big factor in the war coming home. When it comes to Israel and Palestine today, what is the nature of the situation? Because you can say, well, a long time ago, the Palestinians did some bad things, the Israelis did and let's just call it even. And today Israel is mainly the good guys because they're very westernized.
Now a lot of them come over to America. They have their own organization, American Israeli political action committee Israel's very legitimate Palestinians are the The Savage people with rockets and who will use Omens as as a human Shields. So when it comes to that narrative, what are people missing about Israel, Palestine today? Well right now, you know you hear a lot about a two-state solution and kind of what's implied is that the Palestinians don't want a two-state solution.
But that leaves out a huge part of the situation is that in the West Bank, they're slowly. Israel is slowly expanding into the West Bank. Through settlements is already a lot of settlements that are, if you look at the map, You know, Trump, the Trump Administration put forward what I think he called the deal of the century or something.
This peace plan for a two-state solution, but it would have, you know, the West Bank looked like swiss cheese like the territory that Palestine would have gotten because all these settlements would have become Israeli territory and there would be Israeli only access roads, really? It would have formalized apartheid rule because there would be all these roads and stuff that the Palestinians couldn't access which is already the case.
But but you know it just would have formalized everything like I said and it would have been a tunnel to the Gaza Strip and that's a big part of why there hasn't been a two-state solution or anything like that. And it's not really a feasible solution now because of the settlement expansion and its continued, they keep approving new settlements under Trump. They approved record amount and they're demolishing, Palestinian homes demolishing villages to build these settlements.
And on top of that, you have Gaza, which is a small little Enclave of few million people that is under siege, it's been under blockade since 2000 and end of 2006 and to 2007. And when we see Israel launched a bombing campaign, you know, the narrative is that Israel is defending itself from terrorists in Gaza, but the people of Gaza are under seizure.
I mean, that's if you want to look at international law, I'm not trying to justify anything, you know, a country that's under siege under blockade, has the right to defend itself. So, technically the people in God, Aza, do you have under international law? Have the right to defend themselves? And of course, the way they do it is indiscriminate because they fired these Rockets, but there's just so crude compared to the weapons.
That Israel gets a lot of them from the US and this Iron Dome system. They have that shoots down all these rockets and then Israel bombs the hell out of Gaza every once in awhile and always kills children. Because it's one of the most densely populated places on the planet and it's just a, it's a horror show over there. And Gaza and you know, you always hear these numbers about just how unsustainable that it is. How they don't have any clean drinking water and stuff like
that. So the situation and the unemployment I remember I was always like pretty shocked by the unemployment rate in Gaza. It's about 50% and for young people it gets up until like 70%. I mean imagine being in your early 20s and living there, and you can't go anywhere. And there's no just no prospects for anything. It's just such a bleak existence for them. What do people need to know about the relations between us Taiwan and China?
Well, this is a big one now, because things are starting to really heat up and just going back, the history of it, you know, the US backed Shanghai Shack, and his kuomintang it in the Chinese Civil War, which officially ended in 1949, when Mao, and the Communists won and Chiang Kai-shek fled to the island of Taiwan. And then in the 1950s, There were some Chinese attempts at taking outer Islands, not the island of Taiwan. Exactly.
But Taiwan also controls some very small Islands on the mainland, they still do to this day and, you know, the u.s. intervened twice in the 1950s when Mao tried to take those territories and, you know, the US Navy, Eisenhower sent the Navy in. And at the time in both cases, the US military planners were pushing to Nuke China. Ah because they didn't have nuclear weapons at that point.
So this is history and there's a lot to it but really the current situation as it stands today exists, really? Because of the US intervention in the Chinese Civil War. Now I don't think Mao had the capabilities to launch an invasion of the island of Taiwan at the time. But the situation would have would be very different if not
for the US intervention. And now so the US after Mal one, the u.s. didn't recognize China, they Is Taiwan the Republic of China as China and they had a seat at the UN and everything and then that changed in the 1970s. When Nixon went over there, he shook hands with Mal and then that led towards normalization which was formalized in 1979 in 79. The u.s. severed diplomatic ties with type A which is Taiwan and opened up with Beijing.
And since then the US has pursued with day call this strategic ambiguity policy and really The one China policy that the u.s. follows is that they don't have formal relations with Taiwan, but they do sell them some weapons that have good relations with Beijing until recently. But for the over the decades, big trade relations, and really help build China up. And but now, that's that's all
changing. And that has changed significantly in the past few years and it really started under Trump because part of this policy is that, you know, the US doesn't send officials, Taiwan, they don't have a fit an embassy. They don't have official relations. And we saw under Trump, he started sending cabinet officials there.
He sent his health secretary there, which might seem kind of like it's insignificant, but it was the highest level Us official cabinet, official to visit Taiwan since 79 in decades and decades, and that really started escalating tensions around the island. So more Chinese flights. In the region, few years later that stuff has kind of continued more Congressional Oceans. And now we just saw Nancy Pelosi going early August. She visited Taiwan and she's
that speaker of the house. So for China's from their perspective, she's the third highest official in the US government and its a big signal of the u.s. moving away from the one China policy which, so, China's stance is that they want reunification, what they call reunification with Taiwan. And they want it to be peaceful. That's what they say. But they oh they don't rule out using military force in the thing that they say will make them use military.
Force is foreign support for what they call taiwan's,
Independence forces. And we've seen explicit warnings from Chinese officials over the past year as the US has been increasing support for Taiwan they say u.s. if you support Taiwan Independence, It's going to lead to war between the US and China and it's a confusing thing because Taiwan even right now with the ruling Democratic Progressive Party, if that the DPP sighing, when is the president and their independence leaning, but they have not formally declared independence.
Technically Taiwan, they act as an independent nation and they are, you know, in everything that they do, but they still are technically part of China and haven't declared independence.
But if they do declare independence, China says that that's when they'll move and the US support in that direction could also lead them to attacking Taiwan because they an invasion of Taiwan would be the biggest and fibia sin Vision in history of war and it would, you know, China doesn't want to do it. It would be very costly for them but again the thing that will make it more likely is the u.s. support for Taiwan and we just saw the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee. Just is this bill that would give Taiwan 6.5 billion in military aid, which is huge. They've, they've never given Taiwan anything like that. And it would, there is also other things in the bill, that would really change the relationship and China after Pelosi visited China launched its largest ever military exercises around the island, ever simulated a blockade, and they've been keeping up the pressure.
They're flying planes across the Taiwan Strait just about every day now, and this is big changes that Happening. And it's funny because they usually kind of overplay China's military drills around Taiwan that the Western media but after Pelosi's visit because it was so obviously like a u.s. provocation that they're responding to it hasn't been kind of covered in the proper light.
I don't think, I mean this is a huge deal and the road we're going down is very similar to what happened with Ukraine and NATO expansion. Of course, they can't stop murders in Chicago, Murder rates a skyrocketing in major cities but they're really going to protect Taiwan speaking of protecting everywhere. Except the places, they've taken an oath to protect the donbas region. What do people need to know about nato-ukraine? The donbas and Russia. Yeah.
I mean really you know, just to go back again in modern history, people just need to know what happened in Ukraine in 2014 which was the u.s. supported the ousting of Viktor Yanukovych Ukrainian president and there was the euromaidan protests that were sparked by Yanukovych kind of scrapping. His this plan to sign a trade deal with the EU and they started these protests. And you know since Russia invaded on February 24th, we've been getting a lot.
Push back to characterize that 2014 incident as a coup. But you know if you look at the definition of a coup it's a sudden violent change of power. And what happened in Ukraine was that there is these protests for months. And while this was happening, I mean, John McCain was there speaking to the protesters, Chris Murphy, all these American officials Victoria nuland who is in Obama state department at the time she played Lindsey Graham, Amy Klobuchar?
Yeah, yeah. All these people were going over there and then there was a deal, worked out between the opposition and the Yanukovych. That was brokered by the EU. But then the more far right what they consider far, right, and Ukraine parties didn't accept it and they called for him to step down immediately and they storm government buildings and then he fled Russia. So just that's what happened and it was supported by the US and of course is there's the leaked
phone. Call a lot of your listeners probably know this stuff about the Ukraine coup. I'm sure. Between Victoria nuland and Geoffrey piatt, who was the u.s. ambassador to Ukraine at the time, right? Before the change, basically saying who should be in the next Ukrainian government and then look who is, you know, those people made up the next
government. So this sparked the war in the donbas because the people that lived in the donbas and other places in Ukraine rejected, the post coup government and including in Crimea and Russia annexed Crimea. And there was a referendum. It was it something like 97%, they say of people in Crimea voted to join Russia. So people always say it was a sham referendum. But if you look at polling before that happened I mean years going back years since before it happened.
And after happened that people in Crimea, overwhelmingly wanted to join Russia and are happy that they did. And what really demonstrates that is that Russia took Crimea without firing a shot. I think there's like a few people died but it was like an if you look at the Wikipedia article but it was like it was like an accident or something.
But so that's lost in the narrative since Russia invaded and also the war in the donbas, there's 20 blast in that region two provinces that Donetsk and luhansk oblasts and they declared independence from Kiev after the coup. They wanted to secede and that sparked a war Ukraine didn't want them to go. Oh, and there is a brutal war.
In the donbas for years, it was at a stalemate, most of the time leading up to the invasion but about 14,000 people died, a lot of civilians and that, you know, so this is a war on Russia's border and we've seen learned from recent reporting that the u.s. deployed CIA operatives to the front lines of the donbas
war to train them. And NATO was in the country training troops and there's huge NATO military exercises in Ukraine. So, Yeah, people just need to know how involved the US was in all of this and not just the coup, not just the war, just all the whole situation. So, with this have been with poroshenko's government, or with the sobota party, like are they directly involved with the major government or they sort of working behind the scenes? You mean, the more like right-wing like sobota and
stuff? Like how influential are they you mean is the US government. Explicitly working with the government or is it like these ngos like the guy in Belarus is saying that America doesn't come in and say we the CIA want this
new thing. What their current scam is I think his name is Luca Shango. What the what they do is they use ngos as sort of proxies to sort of get the regime change operation set in motion is that what's happening or is it direct support poroshenko's on the phone with Obama. Here's Going down or John Brennan. Well, at that point it was a little bit of both because, you know, in the events leading up to the coup is definitely the ngos played a major role and you see them all over the world.
I mean, and if you can go to the any the National Endowment for democracy, which is one of the big ones you could go to their website and type in a country and it shows the all these programs that they're funding. And one example I always think of because I was writing about Bolivia and that they were
directly funding. You know, these like this opposition to the president that this this group that wanted to secede and declare independence from Morales and, you know, so that is the any day is funded by the US government. So it's it is have the u.s. does it these days? You know, they famously said, when the NAD started, I forget, what official was it was a CIA official who said that the any day is going to do, you know, openly what we did covertly, you
know, for the past few decades. But in Ukraine now, I mean all those ngos were involved and but it was also direct involvement especially, you know, after the coup I mean it was the u.s. training Ukraine for this war and NATO training them that they never join NATO but sort of became a de facto NATO member in a way because of all this support and Joint drills and stuff. So yeah, it became more openly. More open, the u.s. involvement in Ukraine.
After the coup. So if you were advising Bill Clinton in 1999, when Putin asked Clinton, if Russia could join NATO, what would you have told Clinton to do? I mean, if NATO was still going to be around and, you know, I would have told him to abolish NATO, but if it was still going to exist, I would have said, you know you could let him join.
I mean that was the idea was to get to let Russia become, you know, a part of Europe as they say and and Ukraine and this You know, a realist point of view that, you know, people that believe in the, you know, the state department and the
American Empire and stuff. Henry Kissinger has said this, that he said this at the time, that Ukraine should serve as a bridge between Europe and Russia and that it shouldn't be used as a wedge against Russia, and that's what it became and that's and William Burns, who's the current head of the CIA in 2008. When Ukraine was promised that it would eventually become a NATO member, he warned in a memo that was released by Wikileaks,
basically, what would happen. They said this, this would probably spark a civil war in Ukraine and Russia would intervene and that's what happened. And that's another point. I mean, with the donbas war and the view from Russia because people should know what the Russian, you know, nationalists and supporters of the war thing, you know, to them, this is Putin. Is Russia, finishing that war in the donbas, and it's a war against the US and NATO. And that's how they view it.
And just need to understand how dangerous it is to and just where we are now. It's really amazing to me that it got escalated this far, I didn't think we would be at this point in 2022. Funneling all this money into a war against Russia. When it comes to us relations with Iran, what do people need to know?
Well right now, I mean things are really not looking good with with the ran and what people need to know now is that the nuclear deal that the Trump Administration withdrew from and they impose all these sanctions back on Iran. That was really a policy driven by Israel. Now, of course, the Republicans are right Wingers, they were against the Iran deal and stuff, but the real opponent of it.
And the one that just looks like, they just sabotaged a return to this deal because it looked like for a minute there that the bottom ministration might have signed a deal with Iran. Israel is really pushing against this they want to keep up. This kind of cold war with Iran that they have, which involves covert attacks inside Iran, against Iran's nuclear. Program. There's really no reason for the u.s. to for Iran to be an enemy
at this point. I mean it goes back to the coup in the 1953 coup that the CIA backed and the Islamic revolution was a response to that and that's why the hostage crisis happened. Because the coup in the 50s was orchestrated from the US Embassy. That's why they stormed the embassy. So that's important context. But really since then, you know, since the 80s and the bombing in Lebanon that The Marines, you know, Iran could be tied to that since then.
They haven't really done anything major against the US, and as Scott, Horton has put it. And I think he put it very well that the worst thing that Iran did in Iraq was take advantage of the US invasion. You know, really how much that Invasion benefited or ran and gave their friends power just shows the shortsightedness and you were talking earlier about how politicians for just predict the wrong.
The thing with Iraq I mean we how much that Invasion helped the rent but right now all the scare mongering about their nuclear program is just totally ridiculous that there's no indication right now that they'll that they're going to build a bomb. And I would say if I thought there was but right now I don't think that there is they've explicitly forbidden it by their religion. But, you know, it's a fatwa, which is a religious edict, they cannot make weapons of mass destruction.
And what What's Happening Here is that is really something that people need to understand is that Israel has a secret nuclear weapons program. They have nuclear weapons, they have a few hundred nuclear warheads. Because another big part of the narrative is that if Iran gets a bomb, it's going to start an arms race in the region as well.
Israel already has has nukes and Iran, doesn't, and that because once you understand that, then you kind of start questioning this whole entire Fire Narrative of. Wait, why is Israel? So concerned about Iran getting nukes? And why do I always hear about that when Israel has these nukes? And we don't even know about it. And Israel's always constantly attacking Iran. I mean, assassinating people inside Iran. It just happened.
This past may, they gunned down in irgc colonel in the capital and and Donald Trump assassinated soleimani. Yeah, and that was for Israel. I mean that that there is no National interest in killing. Although many, I mean, it's
absolutely ridiculous. So, when it comes to, the day of 9/11, Donald Rumsfeld, talking about potentially in his memos, saying we could use this to not just go after Bin Laden, but also after Saddam it seems like anytime Israel has a big rival in the region Saddam in the early 2000s.
Iran today we haven't gotten a lot of the u.s. going after Hezbollah in Lebanon or anything but any time there's this big major rival in the region that the Israeli regime sort of uses the American regime in the American regime is happy to go along because of whether it's Halliburton connections or just increasing their social status or just having an enemy to
fight. You almost have this symbiotic relationship between these evil ruling classes that are able to operate at the expense of everyone else. Is that really what's happening? This smaller country? Pulling in this bigger country using its leverage. Yeah, to an extent. I think so. And it is also about control and power. I mean the US wants to dominate the region and control the oil
resources more. So, I mean, if you look back at what the neocon set of the 1990s and Dick Cheney said this that because now the the us could be totally relying on itself for oil, that it's more about keeping the resource out of
China's hands. Is that the Troll that they want over the Middle East or another, you know, adversary let's say so there's definitely aspect of power about it but and right if you look at what's happening right now, you know, the US has scaled back a lot from the Middle East and that's not to downplay the wars that are still going on the war in Yemen. The u.s. is still in Syria and Iraq and Biden was just bombing Syria. Just launched, just a little escalation in Syria. We're lucky.
That didn't spiral bigger, but It and in Syria, who was that, would that be against Islamic State? Fighters or Bashar al-assad's regime? The latest airstrikes, they were against what the u.s. called iran-backed Fighters. So, there are Shia militias inside Syria that actually helped the u.s. they were they were on the same side in the fight against Isis. So when the war against Isis was really over when they were obliterated by Trump, they kind of turned around and started
waging this. Low intensity war against these
Shia militias. And that's what led to sold, mainly being killed the series of events was really sparked by that, but Biden, said that because there's rocket attacks on us bases in Syria and Iraq. Once in awhile, and they always say, oh, it's a Rants friends and we have to bomb them and I know one target was this, I forget the name but it says she and militia actually Afghan. So, they're Afghans that have traveled there to help fight Isis and stuff and all Is
groups, some of them receive support from Iran, but in factories by group and they Clash sometimes, and they don't always get along, they butt heads with the ransom times, really? What's interesting? Is that Iran was trying to get these she a militias in Iraq, to stop attacking the u.s. to stop launching rocket attacks in the u.s. because they wanted to cool tensions. But they didn't want to listen to a rant. So but those were the latest strikes and it seemed like what
Biden did there. I mean, I don't see any other reason for For those strikes if it wasn't because it was when negotiations with the u.s. and Iran, it seemed like a deal was going to be signed and then Biden launched these airstrikes.
So it seemed like it might have been some sort of message to Iran or just a way to kind of escalate tensions and kind of killed the deal because he doesn't really want to return to it. But just to completely useless escalation, if you really just look at the facts because they said it was for some rocket attack a few weeks earlier. But nobody was injured or killed in it, it was very minor and he went and killed a few. People. So, that's what is going on in Syria.
I mean, Syria is another. It's a big messy situation that the u.s. is involved in if you want to talk about that. Well, this is another example of blowback Omar, Martin went to a nightclub in Orlando, and murdered more or less 50 people got on the phone with the 911. Operator and said five times explicitly, the US and Russia are murdering civilians. Ian's in Syria and Iraq. This has to stop the bombing needs to stop the air, strikes are killing women.
They're killing children. This is horrible, and but both Trump and Obama and Obama get out and just lie about it. So, even these awards that we don't hear about, we still have to pay the price for the crimes of the American ruling class. So, Syria War, not that popular, people are not that passionate about the holy war in. My generation was the invasion of Afghanistan. What do people before getting into the Afghan sanctions of recent, first talk us that.
Tell us what we need to know about the initial Invasion and Afghan war. Yeah, well, this was another thing. You know, just growing up, even when I started becoming like more anti-war. I always thought, oh, well Afghanistan was like the necessary War because they did 9/11 and we had to go over there. And, you know, No.
But really what? I mean, what Scott lays out in his book Fool's errand in the beginning is that he makes a strong circumstantial case that when the u.s. first invaded Afghanistan that they let Bin Laden go at Tora Bora and there's not if you that's the best case that I've seen for that theory and it's a pretty strong one and now another thing I remember listening to somebody on a podcast say this is years
ago again. Growing up as a post-911, teenager and thinking the Afghan war was necessary. I remember hearing somebody say, oh, the Taliban when they were, they would have, they were willing to hand over Bin Laden and I was like, what? That's not true.
And I went on Google and I just searched Taliban says, they'll hand over Bin Laden and just article after article at from 2001, from September 2001 from October 2001, that the Taliban said first, you know, oh well if you show us evidence will hand them to a third country Tree to stand trial or a first. It was will put him on trial and then we'll hand him to a third country. And and then it just kind of came back to me that we, you know, we won't negotiate with
terrorists. There will be no negotiations. And it's like, oh that's what that was all about. And then into think it was in 2002 there was that clip of bush a reporter asked him. So what are we going to get Bin Laden? Like what's next? And he's like oh well it's not really about Bin Laden, you know, it's about it's bigger than him and just looking back on that stuff. It's like wow, you see? Out. It was how they just use 911 as
an excuse to launch. This huge war in Afghanistan against the Taliban and became regime change. There was even a deal with the Taliban in December. That would have pretty much disbanded that rule, but Rumsfeld rejected that, and that was in December 2001. There's a New York Times article about it, looking back on this
stuff. As I as I was, was just so pivotal for me, like really understanding that it does, Afghan war was totally unnecessary and of course, staying there and nation-building. You know, it's easy to say that that was a waste and unnecessary just to have a look, how quickly the government collapsed. But the initial, the whole entire thing didn't have to happen, there could have been a, you know, post 9/11 could have negotiated with the Taliban to get Bin Laden, or could have
been a quick raid to kill him. I mean, even if he got away, they destroyed at what was what Al Qaeda was very quickly. And they could have left after that. But now they stayed in the had to turn it into this nation building exercise in spent trillions of dollars. Exactly, there are real. It's amazing these sources that Scott uses in Fool's errand. White House says no to Taliban
demand for proof. September 21st 2001, CBC News u.s. refusal of 2001, Taliban offer, gave Bin Laden a free past intern, press ABC News, October 14th us for Jack's new Taliban offer. I mean it is just unbelievable how that was hidden from us. George Bush, wrote a book, allegedly called the points and he goes, we had little faith. That the Taliban would hand him over after we demanded that they hand him over, but we needed that to increase the likelihood.
That we'd be able to get the International Community to support us in going to Afghanistan. I don't have the direct quote, it's in a chapter titled Afghanistan. And he doesn't say we asked for them to hand them over and they offered but we couldn't do it because of the he doesn't even say that they took him up on the offer and this whole thing could have been avoided. They're constantly in search for enemies. So we then replace the Taliban with the Taliban.
Now there are Afghan sanctions what talk us. Talk to us about the nature of the sanctions that the u.s. regime put on Afghanistan since 2021. Yes. So there's really two things to discuss here and the first is the Afghan Central Bank assets. So the u.s. froze 7 billion in Afghan Central Bank Reserves that were held in the US and other countries, they froze,
another few billion. And so what happened there was that you know, the u.s. built up this government and with it was an infrastructure in Kabul mostly, but in elsewhere and government workers, and they provided services, And Afghanistan because of the war. And because of other reasons, it's very poor country, and people were really dire need for
help. And by seizing this money, they really kind of pulled that infrastructure out from under them and you know there's an argument I guess that I've heard you know, Rand Paul make that. Oh well it was our money to begin with so we should just keep it from them. But when you look at the situation in Afghanistan, I mean I think you know trying to just take this This thing that we set up from them, you know, it's, it would the right thing to do would be to just release the funds.
And, you know, the Taliban is the government now, which is why the US big part of the reason why they don't want to do it. But it's just a, really being sore losers here. I mean, they left billions of dollars in military equipment behind. They can't just let them have. What is rightfully, Afghanistan's, you know, money. And also the sanctions on the Taliban So the Taliban are all under sanctions, the group, all their leadership us and un
sanctions. And so now the Taliban is the government in Afghanistan. So that means that the country is under sanctions about as intense as they could be sanctions like that are on Iran, Venezuela and places like that. So that discourages discourages Banks International Banks and companies from doing any business with Afghanistan.
So us sanctions technically have exemptions as for, you know, humanitarian goods and Aid and medicine and things like that, but history has shown us. And there was just a un report about this in Iran. How those exemptions don't really do anything because the US has the issue like a special
license. So, if you're a company, you just not going to bother doing business with these countries that are under these heavy sanctions because it's too much of a headache, you have to worry about violating sanctions. And if you want to do it, you have to get this special license from the US. So Is f gansan is facing this really bad food crisis food, shortages everywhere. Millions of people facing starvation and these sanctions are making the delivery of Aid harder.
The UN says, and it's just really it's turned into an economic war against the people of Afghanistan. Now, when it comes to Al Qaeda in other countries mostly in Yemen, Obama gets in in 2009. And he says that there was a justification to increase air strikes on aqap, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula because the majority of people in Guantanamo Bay were from Yemen. So we got a fight Al-Qaeda, not just in one place. They are in a number of
countries. So now from like the USS Cole bombing in 2000, you know, bush is working with President, Saleh Obama increases strikes against aqap, something happens in 2015, where the u.s. no longer is. Going to war against aqap in Yemen. Walk us through what happened there. Well yes, that was in 2015 was the year that the US backed the saudi-led Coalition.
You know it's called the saudi-led Coalition but it's really they wouldn't really be able to do this war without the US. They need support from the US but it's a coalition of the gulf countries Saudi Arabia and the UAE or the most involved but also you know Bahrain and And even Jordan is involved in stuff, but that was after the houthis took power in North Yemen and they drove out the, the saudi-backed government, the US backed government and haughty
the president, he fled to Saudi Arabia. And so the US backed this war against the houthis. But what's interesting about the houthis is that they are an enemy of al-Qaeda. And just a few months before in March, 2015, was when the Obama Administration And announced that they were going to back this war and it's in the Saudis
launched the war. Just a few months before that in January, there's reporting in the Wall Street Journal, and other outlets that the u.s. was starting to share intelligence with the houthis to help them fight. Al-Qaeda So then they turn around and switch sides, really? And because the UAE, there's been extensive reporting from AP
or there's a 20-18 report from AP about it. 20:19 report from CNN about it from have all places of how the US war of how, you know, they're backing al-qaeda-linked militants. That the UAE is more so than anybody else in southern Yemen there and, and how weapons that they're selling to Saudi Arabia. And the UAE are ending up in the Ends of al-qaeda's.
So at the same time when Trump came in, he actually really escalated, the Drone war against al Qaeda in Yemen as well as ramping up support for the Saudis. So that just shows what a mess u.s. foreign policy is, you know, that raid when he first came into office, circuit killed Al alack. We'd young girl, whose brother was killed a few years earlier by Obama in a drone strike.
That was a raid. Supposed to be a raid against al Qaeda. And so, yeah, I mean, it's just a total mess, but really by backing this Coalition that use, Al-Qaeda, guys to fight the houthis, you're on the side of Al Qaeda in this war. So, even though, while caters the enemy, they're on their side. In Yemen, we know from Jake Sullivan's, emails, that Al Qaeda and us are fighting on the same side.
Sometimes against Bashar al-assad's regime, and with a solemn on E and Iran. Depending on which day of the week, it is, apparently, is it true that LIF G? The Libyan Islamic fighting group is Al-Qaeda in Libya and the u.s. took their side against Muammar Gaddafi? Yeah. I mean that's another thing that came to light after the u.s. involvement in Libya was how involved Al-Qaeda was in that initial stages of that war.
So, yeah, we've seen this all over the place and I mean right now he's still in Syria. In idlib, province in the north, that's still controlled by Hyatt tahrir al-sham HTS who were there, formally al-nusra front, which was Al Qaeda in Syria. I mean, they're out kada. They're trying to pretend like they're not anymore, but they, they're in al-Qaeda group and the u.s. there's another, there's other groups, her a Cell Dean is one of them that are more there.
Another Al-Qaeda affiliate that the u.s. Targets in drone strikes in idlib They target this one group but then it's just such a mess because HTS is sort of is backed by turkey, not openly. But if you look at what turkey doesn't that region? They definitely have helped HTS and the u.s. kind of nominally quietly backs with turkeys doing in that part of Syria. But then they're against what turkeys doing against the Kurds in Northeast Syria just over
here. I mean it's just such a mess and it just shows how messy the foreign intervention can get. And when you find yourself in multiple countries, backing the people that are supposed to be our enemy that were responsible for 9/11. I mean, it's just such a disaster. One of the most difficult things to do is to wrap your head around people in large scale involved in large-scale institutions people with a lot of money. A lot of power and a lot of Fame
then being really, really wrong. Not just like a little bit away from the bullseye, but, like, 50 kilometers in the other direction. So, when it comes to, why are so many of these wars occurring, if the anti-war position is, right, shouldn't it have caught on globally and governments. No longer being able to wage war. How is it that war is able to survive if you have so many good
arguments against it? Well, I mean it's just you know if we want to get back to more of a libertarian view of it and you know, I always think of war is the health of the state which was the essay by Randolph Bourne and it just you see how powerful a state grows in war and how much more power they gain, especially after 9/11, the Patriot Act, Just a few obvious examples in modern history. And also, now with the US how intertwined the arms industry is the military industrial complex.
I mean, there's just so much money to be made here and sometimes I think it might just be as simple as that right now. And today for the u.s., I mean with what's happening in Ukraine, they're spending tens of billions of dollars on this war sending weapons to Ukraine. And then part of that is replenishing, the Weapons that they're sending to Ukraine.
And also the European countries are now buying more American weapons because they're worried about Russia, and it's just this cycle never ending cycle of just money money. And now Taiwan they're going to give them billions in a teacher. I mean, it's corporate welfare. It's just so obvious. And on the face of it that I think right now, I think it is
as simple as that. I mean, Lloyd Austin is Biden, Secretary of Defense, he was on the board of Raytheon before he joined the B Administration and that happened under Trump to James Madison. Forget blanking on it, but he came from another, you know, our defense, contractor arms maker, and then so did Mark esper his other secretary of defense. So it's just that's become kind of a new thing that person.
It's just so blatant. Now the person running the military comes from that industry where there's such an interest in starting Wars and funding proxy wars and all this stuff and it's just not sustainable. What the US is trying to do right now. It is like the most classic case of concentrated benefits and dispersed costs that the economist could come across.
It's so important because we see, you know, but the first world war, a little country of Serbia, you know, getting this whole thing, provoked between Russia and Austria and Germany, and Britain, and America. And then this little town, Danzig starts a war between Poland, and Germany, and Britain and everything else. And now again, we're back to these two little places that On bass and Taiwan not say that they're little and they don't matter.
But I don't think people appreciate the matches that that the ruling class is playing with in the sea of oil that they find themselves in. So that's why I asked that people check out anti-war.com, of course, links to Dave's writings will be in the description. Final question for you, sir, what is your message to members of the military past and present?
Well, so, my message, would be you know anybody in the military right now I think people should I don't think people should be joining the military and especially now we're we're standing on the precipice of potentially two major Wars with Russia and China. And that I think that's why movements like defend the guard I think are really important because they're trying to get the National Guard to not have to be deployed to these wars that aren't even declared.
And you know, we really need to not give them people to send to these wars, to send to die in this. Wars and for past people that were previously in the military. I mean, some of our strongest friends and allies are veterans who have seen this stuff firsthand and every veteran. I know have stories about just the exorbitant waste. That's really the big one that you always hear.
And of course, if they were involved in combat, they have horrific stories there or, you know, just about handing out money to, you know. Tribal leaders in Afghanistan and things like that, that they should share with people and really tell people what it's about and we have to stop glorifying it because the u.s. it's very clear.
Now it's a lot clearer now, I think that the government doesn't have people in the military's interest at heart at all so people should get out and should enjoy and I think it's clear now more than ever that that's what people should be doing. I used to kind of be hesitant really too. Speak out about this because I know so many people that have joined the military and had thought they didn't have any other options and went there to
get the GI Bill and stuff. But now it's like, I think anti recruitment activism and stuff is pretty important and I think veterans can play a big role in that because if he hears from some hippie it's not going to sound as powerful as somebody who did a few tours in Iraq or Afghanistan. And so it was really like. So let's name those name so people can check them out. I know Douglas McGregor is a big one. I know. Her Van Buren worked at the state department.
He's great on the amount of waste who are some other veterans that well, those two alone. There's so much to read. You can be busy for a year who are some of the other veterans that that come to mind. Well, Danny surcin is one of the best and he hasn't been writing recently, but if you just go to anti-war.com, I mean he's written prolific like prolific worry about these issues kind of
talking about. I was really thinking of a lot of his anecdotes when I was talking about the examples of waste and Matthew, ho to he's another good one and then McKnight, who's leading the defend the guard movement thing? I think he's a really important voice. And I think he can really speak to a lot of more people that could be leaning toward the military and stuff and Yakko willing was, was definitely in the Military and he had Scott Horton on the show. That's right.
Yeah. Jack / Sobek was a naval. I think psychological warfare officer something in that Arena and he's come out and said, Ron, Paul was right about this Libertarians are better than conservatives on foreign policy so we're we're getting a lot of people there. There's so many. Yeah, there is I think I've mentioned Ron. Paul was in the Vietnam. Yeah, that's right. I always forget that.
There's a lot to mention it. A lot of people that I could, that I will probably think of after we talk here and that I wish I mentioned. But yeah, there's definitely a lot and I think again that some of them are most valuable people are veterans because they speak from experience. I mean, Tulsi gabbard, she had she just came out and said that is Islam. Islamic terrorism is like the number one threat to the world. She says, a lot of stupid things
about the war on terror. She's really bad on that but she was kind of the You know, the anti-regime, change War candidate in 2020. And it meant a lot coming from her because she was there in Iraq and stuff, and saw it. Exactly yes, she's really good. Sometimes just throws us under the bus other times. Yeah, it goes to show you how what we need to D politicize things as much as possible because the best politicians are still just like the worst people
ever. The website is anti-war.com and libertarian institute.org Dave DeCamp. Thank you so much for your Time sir. Thanks for having me.