09/30/13 – M.J. Rosenberg – The Scott Horton Show

Hey, Al Scott Horton here to talk to you about this great new book by Michael Swanson, The War State, The Cold War Origins of the Military-Industrial Complex and the Power Elite.
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First, get the facts.
Get The War State by Michael Swanson, available at your local bookseller and at Amazon.com.
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Okay, so next up is our friend MJ Rosenberg.
He writes at MJRosenberg.com and you got to spell out J, like Homer J Simpson, MJRosenberg.com.
And actually, my man, do you actually own the URL mletterjrosenberg2 and have it forwarding on?
I should test that.
Somebody else has that.
Oh no!
Someone else has that?
That's terrible.
Someone just has it and never has used it.
Oh man.
Yeah, so I'm stuck with that J-A-Y, but what can you do?
Yeah, no, it's alright.
Some other guy's got ScottHorton.com, he's a newspaper man in Oklahoma.
Nice guy, but he's owned ScottHorton.com since 1994 or something.
He's never given it up.
Can't complain about that too much.
I should just thank my lucky stars, I got .org.
Oh yeah, right.
Alright, so listen, you write great things.
The one I'm looking at is called The Lobby Sets Out to Defeat Obama on Iran.
And I was thinking, you know, really, a good way to set this up would be to allow you to give a little bit of friendly advice to AIPAC about whether they're really blowing it here and jumping their shark and overdoing it and flying too close to the sun and making a terrible mistake that might cost them their future-powered influence on other issues.
So I should give friendly advice?
That is almost impossible for me to give, because I'm an unfriendly.
But I can tell you what I originally thought they would do.
I thought the obvious thing they would do after that phone call between President Obama and President Rouhani was that they would simply claim victory.
That both Netanyahu and The Lobby would just say, well, the sanctions that we wrote – and remember AIPAC wrote them, I mean, Congress passed them, but AIPAC wrote them – the sanctions that we wrote did the job, the Iranians are surrendering, they're basically going to agree to our terms – this isn't necessarily true, but they're going to agree to our terms on the nuke stuff.
And therefore, this is a great day for everybody.
Great day for Iran, but most of all, great day for Israel, great day for the United States.
This is great.
And because that's what you do if you're a smart organization or a smart government or anything.
You're much better off claiming victory, especially when a few weeks ago AIPAC was widely and correctly seen as being defeated in their efforts to get that bombing of Syria.
So I was sure they were going to do that.
I said that to my wife, and I said, oh, they're definitely going to do it, they'll finesse this.
They can figure this out.
And she said, are you crazy?
Netanyahu won't let them do that.
Netanyahu really is incapable of doing that for a number of reasons, including the fact that, one, he is insanely devoted to the idea of defeating Iran militarily, and also because he's got all these right-wingers who would never, you know, fellow or further right-wingers who would never let him do it.
So instead of them doing the thing that would save AIPAC and preserve its role as the most dominant lobby in America, they are instead going to fight Obama.
And I think it will start with the Netanyahu U.N. speech.
I, excuse me for always, like, I interject, sometimes I say Israel, sometimes I say Netanyahu, sometimes I say AIPAC, but it doesn't matter.
It's all the same.
It all just means those who run the Israeli state.
Yeah, exactly.
And try to run this one.
Yeah.
Well, why throw in try?
I mean, come on.
Yeah, why try?
Right.
All right.
Well, now, so they're going to be fighting alone on this, right, or with Lindsey Graham, but is anyone, I mean, it seems like, well, maybe I'm just wishful thinking.
I'm having such a good time with the Iranians and Americans talking at the level they're talking at at this point that I'm a little bit giddy, but I sort of think that maybe this means that some significant parts of the American establishment, if not at AIPAC, have decided that let's go ahead and put this thing to bed.
We can deal with these guys.
And it's it's so obvious that Rouhani really means it, at least for now.
And he has the the backing of the Supreme Leader, at least for now, to really make a deal.
Am I right about that?
Is it AIPAC versus everybody on this?
Yeah, it is.
Well, there are also the regular old hawk right wingers who like war in general.
I mean, the the the the people who who in general like to resolve all the international problems by killing people are it's not limited to Israel.
I mean, there are lots of just, you know, free floating right wingers, if you can read them in the media.
I can usually tell by reading them whether their main concern is Israel or just the fact that they like to kill, you know, innocent people on the ground.
But there's more.
It's more than that.
You know, there are like, for instance, the Republican right.
The Democrats who are hawkish on these issues are entirely driven by AIPAC, because it goes against in general, it goes against the general worldview.
They apply to everything else, which is it's better to negotiate at least first before you start going to war.
But the Republicans, I mean, you know, they don't need AIPAC to tell them that they want to kill Muslims.
They're driven by all kinds of other things, including the Christian need that, you know, they're Christian, appeasing their Christians, or not just appeasing them.
Actually, they are.
I mean, you know, they're into civilizational war with the Muslims, but in general, look, the fact is the one poll I've seen so far shows that 75 percent of the American public welcome this talking to Iran.
So if that's true, and the same kind of 75 percent was opposed to bombing Syria, it really does indicate that there might be some kind of a shift within the thinking of the American people that makes it impossible for AIPAC to put over another war the way they have in the past.
I mean, I think that's, you know, I mentioned I think last time that, you know, Congressman Alan Grayson, who was the leading opponent of bombing Syria, and is totally an AIPAC guy, nonetheless an AIPAC guy, was asked, well, is AIPAC losing this?
And he said, well, AIPAC can't win when the American people speak in one voice.
And that's so, you know what, I'm as giddy as you are.
I really am.
And I think that's because it's unprofessional.
Yeah, exactly.
We've got some cynicism to maintain here.
And, you know, I have no belief in Barack Obama at all.
It's simply a matter of mathematics on a page, just like LeDouit von Mises says.
It's simply a calculation for him in terms of measuring the power of the Democratic Party and its allies in Washington, D.C., you know, that's all he cares about.
And so it does have to be just like that, you know, the American people versus AIPAC and the lines that clear, where even Grayson has to do the right thing, would be how I would put it.
But you know, The only thing you have to worry about, though, is that it only happened on Friday.
What happens if the, I don't know who's the head of the, oh yeah, the head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has the wonderful name of Steve Israel, which I think is the best name ever for someone whose sole job is raising money for the Democratic Party House election.
You're such an anti-Semite, dude.
I am!
Yeah, right.
I'm an observant Jew.
Not even the washed-out assimilationist kind.
But anyway, when Steve Israel comes to Obama and he comes in maybe with the head of AIPAC and they say, this is going to cost you this much money.
I don't know.
I mean, as I've mentioned to you in the past, the Democratic Party is so heavily reliant on the AIPAC crowd for campaign contributions.
So right now, I think, okay, so I go along with you on this.
Obama makes, this is an unsentimental calculation he's made.
But if that's all it is, it can then go the other way.
And I don't think that's all it is.
I think this is what Obama wants to do.
I think that the last thing he wants to do is have the war with Iran that George W. Bush rejected.
You know, even leaving it at the status quo where George Bush left it is a pretty bad legacy if you ask me.
And of course, it makes perfect sense to make the deal.
I mean, it's ridiculous to still have this kind of official enmity with Iran after all this time.
And there is a real, real politic reason for it, even from a hawkish point of view, which is that it looks like the most anti-American forces in the Middle East right now are the extreme Sunni Muslims, like the al-Qaeda people and their followers in Syria, the people that put the Saudis back, all those people, the people who pulled off that awful massacre in Nairobi.
Those, I mean, the hawks like to always talk about something, what they call the Shiite arc or Shiite, like this thing in the region that just threatened all American interests, which ran from Iran to Syria, Hezbollah, that kind of thing.
Right now, the threat really looks like the people backed by the Saudis, and the people that the Israelis don't even care about, which is these various al-Qaeda-linked crazy people who like blowing up things for its own sake, rather than having any kind of particular interest in fighting for their country or anything like that.
Those people are more scary right now, and if the United States settles its differences with Iran, Iran can help us deal with them.
They've done that in the past.
They don't like the Taliban any more than we do, and they helped us with the Taliban in the past.
So it could be a real, you know, actually in cold terms, it could also be a good idea.
You know, cold strategic terms, even though I don't really know how to think that way, but you know.
Well, you know, I was thinking I could probably make a fortune doing public relations for Israel right now, because they're just blowing it, man.
They keep blurting out things like Ehud Barak saying, the world must rally behind General Sisi and the new coup d'etat dictatorship in Egypt.
Like, hey man, shut up!
I don't even like Ehud Barak or agree with his prop-up dictatorship position at all, but just from an objective point of view, hush!
They seem incapable of not saying everything they think.
We had people in the, you know, one minister in the Israeli government said, well, actually, we're not for any particular side in Syria, we just want them all to kill each other off.
So we know that's what their position is.
Well, and then Michael Oren, the Israeli ambassador to America said that, basically I'm paraphrasing, yeah, we prefer al-Qaeda to Hezbollah in Syria.
That's what this is, ultimately.
And because Hezbollah and Syria's government are backed by Iran, that means we prefer whoever the jihadists are fighting them on the other side, which also means that's why America supports them, too.
They're our only real enemies, the guys that attacked the towers, we support them because they're opposing Israel's enemies in Hezbollah right now.
And why do they even have access, anyway?
Because the neocons and Ariel Sharon's office pushed us into war with Iraq ten years ago, turned that entire civilization upside down, and spread their Sunni-based insurgency back to Syria.
It had come in part from Syria to help them fight, and now it's gone home to roost.
Yeah, exactly right.
The Israelis don't care about al-Qaeda at all.
I mean, look, we never would not...
Benjamin Netanyahu wasn't prime minister then, he was the leader of the opposition, but what he said on 9-11-2001 was, this is a great thing.
He said it's a great day, because now America and Israel have the same enemies.
Well, from his point of view, it might have looked like that for a day, but the fact is we're seeing now, we've been seeing over the past few years, they don't give a damn about al-Qaeda, these nihilists from al-Qaeda.
They don't care, and also, every time anybody attacks the United States, they think it's good because it will eventually lead us to opposing all Muslims or something.
But we're really not on the same side of this stuff.
You know, Iran and Hezbollah are not a threat to the United States.
The threat are the people who blew up the World Trade Center.
Can it be any more obvious that it was a gigantic hole in the ground for ten years?
Right.
I mean, but that's not the way they see it, and that's why Joe Biden has his favorite line about, there must be no daylight.
I always like to quote him.
He says it twice.
He says there must be no daylight, no daylight between Israeli and U.S. policies.
Well, nice try, but it's a gigantic sun rising of daylight right now that shows that Israel's interests and Israel's security concerns are not the same as ours.
Also, if they were in all understanding, if the government of Israel really cared about its own people, it would realize that having Al-Qaeda on its northern border, rather than Hafez Assad, who for all his crimes kept the peace with Israel for 20 years or 30 years, well, you know, why are they on their own side of this?
They don't even care about their own people, and I believe they don't, because actually, if you look at it logically, and in terms of real, live people, people with children, people like that.
The peace between the United States and Iran, a situation where the United States can talk to Iran and has good relations with Iran, are infinitely better for Israel than what they're proposing, which is what?
That we ultimately have a war that erupts that entire region and can consume Israel completely?
They're nuts!
Right, yeah, it makes no sense whatsoever.
I mean, the people of Israel, you know, I know they're pretty much as helpless to control their government as we are to control ours, but man, they ought to be doing everything they can to just shut Netanyahu up.
His speech to the UN ought to be, thank you, America, for seeing what's good for me, better than me.
Because otherwise, like you're saying, and this could be the last chance that we have for a long time to normalize these relations, and think of it from the American national interest point of view.
If Obama, and I keep, it's just too obvious, I'm sorry to be a broken record on it, audience, but the Nixon-goes-to-China thing.
Nixon made it okay that he lost the Vietnam War, because he undid domino number one in the domino theory, that if they all go communist, they'll all be under the sway of red China.
Well, he made friends with red China, so it doesn't matter.
And then, so he went ahead and lost Vietnam, because he couldn't win anyway, so he went ahead and lost it, but it was okay, because he had made friends with red China.
Well, in this case, we can go ahead and make friends with green Iran, and then we don't have to back Al-Qaeda against Hezbollah and Syria anymore, you know?
It'll be great.
Exactly.
It just makes sense.
I think the thing we have to really worry about, well, first of all, you know, that even though we both say that it's common sense for Netanyahu to get up there and say, thank you, President Obama, this is a good opening for all of us, we know that we're going to enjoy it a lot more when he goes up and he has cartoons and pictures and talks about the Germans in 1942, and all this crazy stuff, because it's fun watching him in extremis, you know, just watching Netanyahu going down, and I'm sure that's what the speech he's going to give.
It's going to be a wacko hate speech, because that is pretty much the only kind he's capable of.
I think the thing we really have to worry about is the people who really run Iran, the ones who have allowed the president to go ahead with this and were backing him, his opening to the United States, we don't know how much time they're giving him.
I mean, you know, if Iran keeps reaching out and the Israelis keep doing their stuff and President Obama, let's say, just pulls back a little, because he has to reconciliate AIPAC or whatever, they can decide to just pull money back.
An opening like this doesn't last forever.
I mean, that China-US moment in 1972 might not have lasted forever.
It was seized.
So I think AIPAC, the AIPAC-Netanyahu game right now could be to slow things down.
I don't think Obama's going to go along with it.
I think Obama also wants a fair spiel.
I mean...
Well, he better.
I mean, why even make the phone call?
Why even go along with this at all, if he doesn't really mean it at this point?
The phone call was really the sign, because we all knew this was going on in the back, you know, that this stuff was going on, but it was almost like, hey, and before you go out of town, I've got to give you something concrete.
I'm going to pick up the phone.
I mean, wouldn't you have loved to be in the AIPAC headquarters when that happened?
Oh my God!
I would say that was the worst moment they have ever lived through.
They're present.
They're Democratic present.
Oh my God.
But, you know, never underestimate the mischief that they can do.
But nonetheless, I'm really optimistic.
If someone asked me, I said, if I had to put money on it right now, I'd say we're going to get a deal with them.
There's going to be a U.S.-Iranian deal, and the world is going to be a much better place.
It's still going to suck, but it's going to be a much better place.
Well, the possibilities right now are certainly better than they have been in a long time.
And of course, if they really wanted to exploit this thing, they could use the obvious nuclear deal that's already been laying on the table for a few years now.
They could use that as just a method to really open the door to normalized relations completely and do the go-to-China moment, really make friends with them, and, you know, who needs enemies except arms dealers, you know?
No, I think that, you know, I think that old deal that, I don't know, we basically walked away, yeah, we walked away from, yeah, it's still good.
Look, I think in this kind of situation, all you need is both sides having the will to make a deal.
And we can see on the Iranian side they've got it, and it looks like Obama has it too.
And I don't see, you know, there are no reports at all, I think it's significant, that they are, that there's an undercurrent in the administration itself of people against this.
You know, it would be kind of troubling if, you know, if there was, let's say, if you were reading the secretary of state or the secretary of defense, this might be why it's significant that Chuck Hagel is there at the Defense Department.
Because despite all the lies he had to tell about his positions on Israel, when in fact we all know what he really thinks about things, he's somebody who, you know, I'm sure he's backing Obama.
Kerry, obviously, is.
He doesn't have to worry right now about Hillary Clinton rushing off to fund-raisers and saying, oh, I'll help slow this down.
So, you know, it could be a very propitious moment.
We only said it would happen in a president's second term.
So, I mean, like, you know, why not do it?
But, you know, one thing that might be a little bit tricky in terms of knowing what the Republicans think.
They're so busy right now trying to, you know, shut down the government and then hopefully destroy America's economic standing in the world and make everybody more poor than they were before that they really can't focus on silly things like this.
They really have a job to do right now, and their job is, in my opinion, sedition and treason.
And, you know, I don't even see any of these guys like Eric Cantor saying anything.
I think they're distracted.
It's like, where can I do the most evil?
And they're thinking right now they could do more evil domestically.
Well, yeah, I don't know.
Yeah, geez, you'd think that Eric Cantor could multitask if all people put in.
So what do you think about the so-called peace process in the West Bank and all of that two-state, one-state bogusness?
Kerry and Martin Indyk over there going to bring peace?
Oh, absolutely not.
I don't see this.
Look, the day that I see concrete evidence that Benjamin Netanyahu was willing to give up one square mile of land in the West Bank, I'll believe it.
I mean, they wouldn't even...
No, you know, it's...
You know, you talked about the Nixon goes to China thing, and sometimes people say that about Netanyahu.
Well, the difference is that that slug Nixon really wanted to go to China.
That slug Netanyahu really wants to keep every inch of the West Bank.
It's entirely different.
Right.
By the way, you know what?
That's two Nixon references.
I gotta mention, it's in the New York Times today about him and Kissinger conspiring with the government of Pakistan to massacre a million people in Bangladesh, which was East Pakistan at the time, today.
And Kissinger and Nixon both mocking the deaths of a million civilians.
I mean, I'm halfway through that book.
It's called Blood Telegram.
Oh, yeah?
It is the most amazing book.
You know, I'm older than you, so obviously I was around.
I remember that, you know, I remember the tour to Pakistan.
I had no idea that it was this bad.
If you really want to see how America operates, this book is it.
And the good side of it, the flip of it is there were amazing people at the State Department, including this guy named Blood.
It's called Blood Telegram, but his name was Blood, who was the Consul General in East Pakistan, who publicly fought the administration on this.
And the U.S. Ambassador to India, whose name was Kenneth Keating, who actually, who wrote, they sent cables back home to Kissinger and Nixon and said, this is genocide.
This is Kissinger, that old bastard.
I'm sorry, am I not allowed to say that?
Go right ahead, man.
That's his middle name.
I don't know what it is.
It's okay.
Well, here it is.
I'm so glad that he is alive and got a chance, as you know he did, to read that New York Times book review of this book yesterday.
This is, I mean, it's somehow, you know, the Chile anniversary wasn't, you know, there wasn't enough pointing to the fact that he and Nixon were the guys who overthrew the end-day government.
This story is, but this is, we're talking mass murder here.
I mean, there were also murders in Chile, too.
Nothing like this.
We're talking genocide that was supported by Nixon and Kissinger.
Everybody should read this book.
I'm trying to remember on, there's a master list of American post-World War II interventions by William Bloom or Blum at Third World Traveler, and I'm trying to remember if this one is on that list.
It's such a long list of innocents murdered.
It's incredible.
Someone else is bringing up on my Facebook page about Kissinger again here, I believe, Sukarno, and killing a million people in the one-sided civil war, if you want to call it that at all, you know, back in the 50s in Indonesia.
Kissinger is really something.
He really belongs there on the Hitler-Stalin list.
You know what?
I think once you get responsible for more than a million dead, you're kind of stopped at the list.
I mean, it's a big enough list, but Kissinger really is a mass murderer.
And I really want him to live to be 100, because I'm hoping that in time he will just be recognized as the absolute monster of America, almost a monster without parallel in American history.
And there have been a lot of them.
It's just amazing.
Well, what's funny is he's writing op-eds saying, hey, stay out of Syria.
This could be a mess.
He's a reasonable one now.
I know.
You can't keep up with people like that.
All right.
Hey, thanks, MJ.
It's great to talk to you again.
Okay, Scott.
Take care.
Hey, everybody, read MJ Rosenberg at MJRosenberg.com.
Hey, y'all.
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