10/05/15 – Phyllis Bennis – The Scott Horton Show

Hey, all, Scott here.
If you're like me, you need coffee, lots of it.
And you probably prefer it tastes good, too.
Well, let me tell you about Darren's Coffee, company at darrenscoffee.com.
Darren Marion is a natural entrepreneur who decided to leave his corporate job and strike out on his own, making great coffee.
And Darren's Coffee is now delivering right to your door.
Darren gets his beans direct from farmers around the world, all specialty, premium grade, with no filler.
Hey, the man just wants everyone to have a chance to taste this great coffee.darrenscoffee.com.
Use promo code Scott and you get free shipping.darrenscoffee.com.
All right, you guys, welcome back to the show.
I'm Scott Horton.
It's my show, The Scott Horton Show.
All right, on the line, I've got Phyllis Bennis.
She directs the New Internationalism Project at the Institute for Policy Studies.
Her most recent book is Understanding ISIS and the New Global War on Terror.
She has other books, including Understanding the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict, Understanding the U.S.-Iran Crisis, Understanding the U.S. War in Afghanistan, et cetera, et cetera.
And this brand-new one is here at Common Dreams.
Bombing hospitals, all in a day's work.
Doctors Without Borders Hospital in Kunduz, destroyed by U.S. bombing.
Welcome back to the show, Phyllis.
How are you doing?
I'm good, Scott.
How are you doing?
I'm doing real good.
I like reading this article, because I can tell you're pissed off.
Me too, which not like we're anything like going through what the survivors of the dead are going through here today.
But go ahead, and first of all, just break down the facts as best you know them before you get too polemical on us.
Well, this was a large hospital run by the international charity Doctors Without Borders, or Médecins Sans Frontières, known as MSF.
They had provided, all along, their exact coordinates, their GPS coordinates, to both the Afghan and, crucially, the U.S. military to make sure that an attack like this did not happen.
And it's exactly what happened.
The attack began around 2 o'clock in the morning.
Doctors on staff who survived later said that they heard the bombing, and then there was a pause, and then it started again and went on for almost an hour.
They immediately called both the Afghan and U.S. officials in Kabul and said, Stop the bombing, you're hitting a hospital.
And it went on.
It went on anyway.
Twenty-two people so far are dead, twelve of them doctors and other medical staff, three of them children, the others were patients in the intensive care ward who burned to death in their beds because they couldn't move.
Now, the U.S. position, originally, was this was a military strike that was called in to protect U.S. troops that were under attack by Taliban fighters inside the hospital compound.
The hospital staff who survived immediately said there were no Taliban fighters in our compound.
And then there was a change, and the commanding general just a couple of hours ago announced that that wasn't quite right, that what happened was the U.S. called in an airstrike for close air support for Afghan fighters that were being attacked by Taliban inside the compound.
So the same story, just saying that it was to defend Afghan fighters rather than U.S. fighters.
But again, the people who were there said there were no Taliban fighters in the compound.
The other problem is it's an even-if situation.
Even if there was somebody in there with a rifle, which there wasn't, according to people there, international law doesn't allow a military force to go in and destroy a civilian hospital and kill dozens of people and injure dozens and dozens more to get somebody with a rifle or whatever it was.
So this was a clear violation of international law, a clear war crime.
Well, is there any indication that maybe there was some high-value target, or they thought that there was some high-value target in there that made them just say...
Nobody has claimed that, and, you know, the position of Médecins Sans Frontières, part of the reason they've been so successful in such dangerous areas all over the world, is that their policy is they will provide medical care to anyone who needs it, period, full stop.
They don't allow weapons in their hospital.
They don't allow soldiers or militia or fighters to come in and order them around.
They don't allow any of that, and it doesn't happen.
They're respected by everyone because they will provide medical care to anyone based on need, not based on what their religion is, what their ethnicity is, what militia they happen to be accountable to, or anything else.
So that's the kind of hospital this is, you know.
Well, and America's official policy, then, would be that they respect that, and even if there is a high-level Taliban guy in there, that they would at least claim that they would never attack them in a place like that, right?
I don't know what they would claim.
They've done all kinds of things when they claim that there's a high-level Taliban or whatever, but they haven't made any such claim.
Nobody has claimed that.
Oh, I'm not saying that that would be an excuse.
I would actually think that that would be the secret reason that they did it, was they just decided, we don't give a damn if it's a hospital or not.
There's a guy in there we think we want to kill, so attack it.
Well, I can't say.
I can't say.
All we know is they had the coordinates, they knew it was a hospital, they knew it was a civilian hospital, and they bombed it.
That's what we know.
Yeah.
That's what we know.
And I guess, so they now are saying that it was, well, it was Afghans called in the airstrike, so stop bombing yourself, idiot.
It's your fault.
Well, no, but this was a U.S. airstrike.
The Afghans don't call them in on their own.
They have to ask U.S. advisors with them to call in an airstrike.
So this was a U.S. decision.
Nobody is claiming that.
The only distinction was now they're saying it was called in to protect Afghan fighters on the ground.
Actually, I saw on CNN this morning, on CNN this morning they were saying, well, Afghans, it was us that did it, but it was Afghans that called it in, so blame them.
Well, yeah.
I think we will see an effort to shift the blame, that's for sure.
Yeah.
We heard in these weasel words from President Obama yesterday when he said that he regretted the deaths, but no apology.
That was very clear, no apology.
He sent condolences to the victim, but no apology because that would imply accountability, that would imply that somebody might have to be held accountable.
Well, word clearly went out from the State Department or the CIA or whoever to the major media that they're to build as much weasel words and B.S. into their headlines as they possibly can.
Bombs explode, people die right around the time that America is accused of dropping some bombs, maybe, or something reads the New York Times headline.
Just completely ridiculous obfuscation.
It's very carefully done to make it sort of passive voice.
Right.
People died, people were killed.
Bombs exploded and accusations were that maybe America happened to be nearby.
Wow.
Really, because it was Reuters, AP, NYT, all of them.
Collateral damage.
They did claim already this was collateral damage.
It's collateral.
We're supposed to be in Afghanistan, if you listen to them, to help people there, and somehow Afghans then are collateral when they die inconveniently.
Of course.
Well, that's what Timothy McVeigh called his innocent victims too, and wonder who taught him that.
Indeed.
He was in the U.S. Army, of course.
No, but I think what's as important here as the immediate outrage and anger that we're all feeling for all the right reasons, it's also true that this is the inevitable result of an ongoing.
It's now this week.
The day after tomorrow, Scott, is the 14th anniversary of the initial U.S. assault and invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.
Yeah.
And this week, this bombing actually capped a week that had a bombing of another hospital in Afghanistan.
The Saudi so-called coalition, which is basically the Saudis backed by the United States, bombed a wedding party in Yemen out in the desert away from anything.
I mean, we've seen these massive increases in civilian victims of these bombing campaigns, and yet we continue to hear this language of collateral damage, and this is inevitable.
The U.S. is still flying these bombing raids, drones, planes, etc., across a country like Afghanistan.
In this case, it was a big city.
Kunduz is the largest city in northern Afghanistan, more than 300,000 people.
And when you start bombing, for any reason there, you're going to have civilian casualties.
There is simply no way around it.
And they know that, and yet it was done anyway.
Well, now, you know, Slate has an article today that says, and they're making a pretty bold claim, really, in order to argue their point, but they say, how come the Afghans, meaning the leaders of the Afghan so-called state in Kabul, how come they're not complaining too much about the hospital strike?
And the answer is because they need us and want us to stay, and they're afraid that Obama's going to actually ever end the war like he claimed he already did.
Exactly right.
This is a problem when you have a government that was installed and created and is now paid, backed, and armed by the United States, is dependent on the United States.
You know, they used to call the former president of Afghanistan, who was put in power first in the end of 2001, they used to call him the mayor of Kabul because there was a sense that his brief as president really only extended through the city and maybe not even that far.
All right, I'm sorry, hold it right there, Phyllis.
We'll be right back, everybody, with Phyllis Bennis.
Read her brand new one at commondreams.org.
Bombing hospitals all in a day's work for the empire.
Hey, Al, Scott Horton here for NPV Engineering.
This isn't for all of you, but for high-end contractors specializing in industrial construction and end users who own and operate industrial equipment, NPV offers licensed professional consulting on chemical and mechanical engineering for your projects.
Tanks, pressure vessels, piping, heat exchangers, HVAC equipment, chemical reactors for oil companies or manufacturing facilities, as well as project management support and troubleshooting for those implementing designs.
NPV will get your industrial project up and running.
Head over to NPVengineering.com.
Hey, Al, Scott here.
Ever wanted to help support the show and own silver at the same time?
Well, a friend of mine, libertarian activist Arlo Pignotti, has invented the alternative currency with the most promise of them all, QR silver commodity disks, the first ever QR code one-ounce silver pieces.
Just scan the back of one with your phone and get the instant spot price.
They're perfect for saving or spending at the market.
And anyone who donates $100 or more to the Scott Horton Show at scotthorton.org slash donate gets one.
That's scotthorton.org slash donate.
And if you'd like to learn and order more, send them a message at commoditydisks.com or check them out on Facebook at slash commodity disks.
And thanks.
All right, you guys, welcome back.
I'm Scott Horton.
I'm talking with Phyllis Bennis.
Bombing hospitals all in a day's work.
This is her piece at Common Dreams.
It'll be running on antiwar.com tomorrow.
And where we left off, we were talking about how Hamid Karzai was referred to as the mayor of Kabul.
And I think our old friend Michael Hastings had quoted McChrystal's guys as saying, who, this chunky?
He's the mayor of his own palace is what he's the mayor of.
He's not even the mayor of Kabul, much less the president of the whole country.
And, of course, the new president, Ashraf Ghani, who was elected under a U.S.-backed election process, he's talked the talk much differently than his predecessor.
He talks about ending corruption.
He talks about wanting collaboration with the United States.
And clearly he wants the U.S.
10,000 troops that are on the ground, as well as the military pilots that are flying bombing raids, he wants them to stay.
You know, the problem that we face is that this is really a civil war that is, of course, going to increase when the troops are pulled out.
It's not going to change whether that's next week or whether that's in three years.
But it is something that the Afghans are going to have to work out for themselves.
And the problem that we face is that while the Taliban are a horrifying organization, that when they are in power, what it means, particularly for women, is awful.
But the other side of that is that the warlord-slash-government in Kabul, these are warlords that were known for human rights violations in many cases, that have been transformed through a U.S. magic wand into a legitimate elected government, they're not that much better.
We're talking a quantitative difference here, not a qualitative difference.
You know, the guy who invented throwing acid in the face of young girls who dared to go to school was not from the Taliban.
He was from the so-called Northern Alliance, which is the guys who fought against the Taliban, backed by the United States, and now make up the bulk of the government in Kabul.
So what it means for women isn't going to change all that much, and it's something that the Afghans are really going to have to figure out for themselves.
They can't do it while the U.S. continues to occupy their country.
Yeah, well, I mean, this is the real problem, and it's the perpetual excuse for continued occupation until the dollar eventually breaks, however long that is going to take.
Indeed.
Is that if we leave, there is going to be worse violence, because like you say, I mean, right now, I guess what's preventing the Taliban from a full-scale march on the capital is, hey, there's still 10,000 troops and plenty of air power there.
Right, although it's not clear that they intend to march on the capital tomorrow.
I mean, the Taliban don't have that many soldiers, in many cases.
In many of these situations, you're talking about a much smaller group of Taliban and a much larger group of Afghan soldiers who simply are not committed to fight for this government.
They don't see it as their government.
They're not committed to it.
They're not accountable to it.
So they put down their weapons and run away.
The Taliban then gets the weapons and they move in.
That's what we're seeing.
We're seeing it in Iraq, the same thing.
We're seeing it in Afghanistan.
You can't, and this was an interesting piece in the New York Times of all places, the front page of the Sunday Times, a big investigation piece about the longstanding failures of the U.S. to create, to raise up and arm and train militias in a way that will keep them accountable to U.S. interests.
They're simply not accountable to our interests, nor should they be.
We're in their country, not the other way around.
And it's failing.
This is a policy that's failing.
It's failing in Afghanistan.
It's failing in Iraq.
It's failing in Syria.
It's failing in Libya.
It's failed everywhere they've tried it.
Well, and it's been clear for so long, I mean, long before the surge, in that book Little America, the guy whose name I can't pronounce reports that Obama knew about, but deliberately did not read the CIA report that told him to don't bother surging in Afghanistan.
It couldn't possibly succeed.
It was one of the points, I think, very early in the Obama presidency where there was a real debate about what to do about Afghanistan.
And it was one where this was in some ways the most unfortunate, I think, of Obama's decisions because it was one that, it was clear that politically he could have made a different decision.
This was not one of those situations where the entire military and the entire intelligence agencies were all saying the same thing, and they were saying, you've got to escalate, you've got to escalate.
They were completely divided.
And President Obama, at that moment, could have made the judgment that a surge is not going to work, and it's going to put more people at risk, cause more violent deaths.
We're not going to do it.
He could have made that.
It would not have been political suicide to do so.
And he made the wrong call.
There's no question about it.
He made the wrong call.
Yep.
Well, and the excuse at the time was he's afraid he'll look weak if he gets out of two countries.
But instead, and maybe his political calculation actually turned out to be right.
I guess we'll never know without the counterfactual and all that.
But at the time, he looked really weak for laying down before Petraeus and McChrystal and doing what they wanted him to do.
But I guess it didn't really count against him cause most of his supporters just looked the other way and continued loving him.
Well, I think a lot of supporters were very angry about it.
But I think the reality is this isn't just about the politics.
We have to look at this in the context of the continuation of an existing policy.
Well, I'm just saying that was why he did it was because of the politics.
They were saying, oh, you're dithering, you're dithering.
Perhaps.
But, you know, I don't like to look at the politics.
I don't think that tells us very much.
I like to look at what's happening on the ground.
What's happening on the ground now, what was happening on the ground then, is the same thing that was happening under George Bush on the ground.
It was a global war on terror.
It's a global war on terror today.
In my new book I used as the title Understanding ISIS and the New Global War on Terror cause it's a little bit different.
It's being weighed somewhat differently.
But the impact on people on the ground is pretty much the same.
So now, back to Afghanistan, the future of it here.
Justin Raimondo wrote an article where he pointed out that the reason that the people of Afghanistan and not just the Pashtuns accepted the Taliban takeover back in 1996 was because they started executing the pedophiles.
And the very worst of the mass rapists and warlords, they at least marginalized, I don't know where they fled to, but Dostum and Hekmatyar and Massoud's guys, they had to run.
And the Taliban, they were mean and oppressive, but they weren't corrupt.
They weren't a bunch of just gangsters.
And so they were stable.
There was one other thing going on.
All of that is true, but I think that was less important than what I think was the most important reason that the Taliban got support.
They promised to end the civil war.
And they did.
And that was what people were suffering under so dramatically.
The war had gone on for more than five years.
This was after the U.S.-Soviet proxy war that had been waged for a decade.
People were thoroughly tired of war.
There were too many victims, too many civilians dying, too many houses being destroyed, villages being bombed.
It was a nightmare.
Kabul had been bombed almost to smithereens.
And finally, the Taliban was seeming to win, and they came in and said, you know what, we're going to stop this.
We're going to stop the fighting.
And I think that alone was what brought them so much public support.
The things you're talking about were important as well, but I think in the broad scheme of things, it was the promise to end the war that led to the Taliban gaining support.
And we do have to keep it in mind that when the Taliban took power, they did have a lot of support, not because of the severity, the harshness of their understanding of what Sharia law means, their brutal punishments, but despite those things, despite those things, people were prepared to accept them because it brought some level of stability.
Now, I'm afraid I have to get off the air in just a minute, but I think that's the most important thing we have to look at today.
The war itself is the most oppressive part of what is facing people in Afghanistan.
And this attack on the hospital was just one more piece of it.
Yeah.
Well, and we could also point out here real quick, and we're about out of time anyway, but it's the very same warlords that we're putting back in power now, Hekmatyar and Dostum and these guys.
Yep, absolutely.
Who skinned their victims alive and helped Osama escape as Hekmatyar bragged.
Ha ha, I took your CIA money and then I helped Osama escape.
How do you like me now?
And isn't he the vice president or something now?
Yeah, Dostum is the vice president.
Oh, Dostum.
Yeah, yeah.
Anyway.
But it's a nightmare.
Yep.
All right, well, listen, thanks for writing and thanks for doing the show as always.
I sure appreciate it.
Thank you, Scott.
All right, y'all.
That is Phyllis Bennis.
She is at CommonDreams.org with this one, Bombing Hospitals, All in a Day's Work for the Empire.
And, you know, I really like that title and there was a guy that tweeted me earlier and said, Isn't it funny how people connect all the past school shootings but not all the past U.S. bombings?
U.S. government wakes up every day brand new, pure as snow.
And that is the way it is.
Don't you get sick of the Israel lobby trying to get us into more wars in the Middle East?
Or always abusing Palestinians with your tax dollars?
It once seemed like the lobby would always have full-spectrum dominance on the foreign policy discussion in D.C.
But those days are over.
The Council for the National Interest is the America lobby standing up and pushing back against the Israel lobby's undue influence on Capitol Hill.
Go show some support at councilforthenationalinterest.org.
That's councilforthenationalinterest.org.
Hey, Al Scott Horton here.
It's always safe to say that one should keep at least some of your savings and precious metals as a hedge against inflation.
And if this economy ever does heat back up and the banks start expanding credit, rising prices could make metals a very profitable bet.
Since 1977, Roberts & Roberts Brokerage Inc.has been helping people buy and sell gold, silver, platinum, and palladium.
And they do it well.
They're fast, reliable, and trusted for more than 35 years.
And they take bitcoin.
Call Roberts & Roberts at 1-800-874-9760 or stop by rrbi.co.
Hey, I'll check out the audio book of Lew Rockwell's Fascism vs.
Capitalism, narrated by me, Scott Horton, at audible.com.
It's a great collection of his essays and speeches on the important tradition of liberty.
From medieval history to the Ron Paul Revolution, Rockwell blasts our statist enemies, profiles our greatest libertarian heroes, and prescribes the path forward in the battle against Leviathan.
Fascism vs.
Capitalism by Lew Rockwell for audio book.
Find it at Audible, Amazon, iTunes, or just click in the right margin of my website at scotthorton.org.