03/22/17 – Daniel McAdams on Senator Rand Paul’s ‘Stop Arming Terrorists Act’ – The Scott Horton Show

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All right introducing Dan McAdams.
He runs the Ron Paul Institute for peace and Prosperity and they got a hell of a lot of great articles over there by Dan and by dr Paul, of course Adam Dick and a bunch of other great writers That they print reprint and publish Welcome back to the show Dan.
How are you, sir?
Hey Scott.
Thanks for having me back Yeah, yeah, very happy to talk to you again First of all, can you tell us real quick about this thing on April 8th?
We're a bunch of anti-war libertarian types are gonna be given speeches Yeah, it's it's gonna be a symposium on war and peace in the age of Trump And believe it or not.
It's going to be in that metropolis called Lake Jackson, Texas Ron Paul's hometown, but it's yeah It's the Mises Institute is a lead sponsor and you can find out more about it Mises org Backslash events and that'll have a lot more detail But we've got a lot of great a lot of great speakers Thomas Massey is going to be down here David Stockman is going to be down here Lou Rockwell, of course Ron Paul So we're all really looking forward to it.
Love to see more people come down Cool.
All right next thing Doing some activism here.
You got this stop funding terrorists bill in the house And I guess it's got the same name now introduced by Rand Paul in the Senate.
Is he trying to get me to like him?
This might could work.
Tell me what's going on with this thing now.
Yeah, I was on I was on a show the other day It was a more left-leaning show and they you know Say something wanted me to say something bad about Rand and I said first of all, he's my my boss's son So even if I felt something bad, I wouldn't but second of all, he's doing some things that are pretty good You know trying to block John Bolton and being very very out there and saying no way I think that's a pretty doggone good thing.
And I think anytime, you know teaming up with Tulsi Galbraith Teaming up with the left making a beyond left-right coalition against this incredibly stupid war machine Is always a good thing.
So I'm really thrilled to see that he's introduced it in the Senate.
It's a terrific bill Yeah, so What other kind of support do they have?
Do you know any well, you know, it's a broad It's a broad coalition certainly in the house, you know, they're Thomas Massey's on the bill You know the Barbara Lee is on the bill.
So it's the kind of thing we used to do when GW Bush was in office So it's nice, you know, it would be nice to see the old left Opposition to war start kicking in a little bit more But you know, I I had read the bill when it came out and I knew that it was a good bill But I reread it before we started talking today and it I have to say it is a very cleverly done bill It's very very interesting The part where it says the part that gets the most attention is that the US government has you know?
Cannot fund any of these terrorist groups Directly or indirectly and that's all very interesting but but but section to Be is is in my in my view even more interesting.
It talks about any Government that has provided the covered assistance meaning the relevant assistance to these groups No funds may be available To assist this government directly or indirectly and the way I read this bill Certainly when you look at the behavior of Saudi Arabia and Yemen and elsewhere This would have a definite effect on the relationship and I would say even Turkey with some of what Turkey's done Regarding turning the other eye while Isis is operating selling oil and this and that so It's actually a very interesting bill.
Hmm.
You know, I wonder about that I mean, I sure like it's music to my ears But I wonder if that's the problem with it that maybe that's going too far and it'll serve as a poison pill where maybe If we could just get the CIA to back off a little bit What good are the Saudis of the Turks without CIA to run it?
Anyway, you know?
Yeah.
I mean, I don't know I think I mean, this is just my reading of it.
Maybe you know, maybe I'm extrapolating too much.
No, I think that's right I've heard other others characterize it that way that that this has profound consequences for Saudi in it and I'm thinking Well, I like that screw them, but how are you gonna get Congress to support something that's that good, you know Maybe it's too good.
Yeah, but you know when dr Paul introduced bills in the house, you know, we never had the expectation that they would pass in a way that's kind of irrelevant They're useful as teaching tools.
And I think that Representative Gabbard has gotten a lot of mileage out of this bill.
Yeah, I think she's she's done a very good job Talking it up and she's you know, I have to give credit to her staff because it must be some clever people She has working with her I know that she's very clever But it almost is sort of irrelevant if it passes because they can always wiggle around and weasel around it But all of a sudden it's opened up people's eyes.
Hey what that sounds good.
We shouldn't be funding terrorism So hats off very clever Well, you know even if they pass is the Boland Amendment and then Trump did a Reagan and win around it Well now you got in a Ron Contra scandal, whatever.
So the the Boland Amendment is worth pursuing even though It didn't quite stick so yeah, I mean and the thing is here's here's my thing about this Daniel is that I Think that this could pass and I think that the reason why is because I think it could be framed possibly as Here's that bill you wanted.
Mr. President Yeah, it could be passed as the kind of thing that you know At least part of what Bannon has in mind now Bannon wants to go to war against all jihadists everywhere But hey, at least he wants to stop financing them directly.
So maybe we could go ahead and You know push that that you know, cuz Trump I think you and I've talked about this before three years ago Trump tweeted we shouldn't be backing these rebels in Syria.
We don't know who they are.
Which means yeah, we do They're al-qaeda dudes.
We should not be backing them, you know, so My think is that the Republican Party would support it If the president supported it and the president might just support it if it could be delivered to him, you know Like well try to get ran to say the right thing, but here he's doing the right thing Maybe we could get him to say the right thing that hey, mr.
Trump.
Here's that bill you wanted, you know We're doing this for you.
This is what you wanted.
This is our policy now, right?
Is that you know Islamic State is one thing but at least when it comes to Damascus We're no longer support rebels trying to overthrow Damascus right boss here sign this and then if he would say yeah Then that would be worth however many tens of votes talk about it Even if it didn't pass at that point that would be even a bigger Controversy at that point if we could frame it right try to yeah, I think you're absolutely right No, that definitely could be this is what you want And it would have the added benefit of wrong-footing the neocons because you remember Kimberly and Fred Kagan had a piece in The Wall Street Journal I guess a week or so ago saying we need to go back to square one and Put together a Sunni army in Syria and get them started first on ISIS and then on saw it Basically going back to funding al-qaeda again, so it would put them on the wrong foot as well but you know the Saudis have a lot of money to throw around in Washington and You know, but I think you could certainly be framed this way and I who knows, you know, Paul Ryan would be the guy I guess who's gonna put the kibosh on it?
Yeah, you know, so I you know, there's certainly there's certainly, you know Sort of lobbying things that could be done and should be done to raise awareness of this I sure wish we could get Tulsi Gabbard on the show We've been trying to get through to her because it would be great to to be able to interview her and have her Promoted in her own words.
Yeah, absolutely Yeah, I've been meaning to do that too but putting it off and you know, I wonder whether good luck Yeah, I wonder whether her experience on this has You know been an education about her At least previously pretty bad views about Iran and some other things Like I'm trying to give her the benefit of the doubt here that she's on a little bit of a learning curve But yeah, that would be nice if some of the other things were tempered a little bit more.
I agree No, it's no one's perfect, but this is a good start.
Yeah, and hey, let's get real about why she's good on this She's good on this because she was in the Iraq war So she knows the first thing about it as opposed to everybody else in DC She's like, well, wait a minute.
I can tell one militia from another here and these are guys that I don't want to fund Okay.
Yeah simple as that.
Everybody else is like yeah, I heard Assad is the bad guy in this one Yeah, as far as you know, yeah, you know cuz they don't know anything But she was like actually I do know a little something from Adam when it comes to this and it's enough to know better Exactly, you know Tom Cotton went to the war and got dumber when he got out He went to the war and got a lot smarter when she got out Hey, listen, man, so, um, let me ask you something I've been trying to track down the best information I got on this and and you're right there among the best of people keeping track So and I think we talked about this before in one or another context last fall right after Trump won The Washington Post ran two stories about how Obama had gone ahead and told Jay sock that basically All right, we're gonna go ahead.
I'm Very roughly paraphrasing here forget Hillary's policy We're gonna go ahead and go with Trump's policy now and we're gonna crack down on al-nusra Jay sock go ahead and hit al-nusra and But there was no mention the CIA in there and you know that as we've talked about as I know, you know and our both of our audiences, I think are pretty familiar with the fact that the military backed Kurds and the CIA backed Jihadists have come to blows a couple of times in this war and never mind the Bata Brigade from Iraq and stuff.
But anyway so now There was a report in Reuters is the only thing that I know of since last fall and I had originally missed this but It came out in February 21st it was Exclusive CIA backed aid for Syrian rebels frozen after Islamist attack So what it says is al-nusra sacked a bunch of stuff from whatever last little groups are still calling themselves the FSA there I don't know And stole their tow missiles and a couple other things so that what they're saying in the article though is That this is only temporary and it's only because they got a bunch of their stuff stolen And we just want to make sure that they can protect whatever stuff we're giving them, but we're not calling the mission off yet.
And and you shouldn't mistake this as a change in policy from Obama years to Trump years that the policy continues and the CIA is still back in these rebels at least Overall, or at least means to continue to back them but then I Think man, there must be other reporting about this that I don't know about from the last four or five months here And I just wonder whether you know, you're up on this and what is the status of?
The CIA efforts here.
I mean they'd have to be based in Turkey to be doing this anyway, right?
Yeah, it's a good question.
And is this difficult to get information and I'm always suspicious when I do get information I wonder what the sources are and what they want But I almost wonder if if this was a precursor to a shift in Trump policy toward more u.s Direct military involvement in Syria, and that's just pure speculation But it would make sense if your intention ultimately was to send a couple thousand u.s Troops that you're going to want to cut off the pipeline to people who you know are unreliable who you know may do things with the weapons that they shouldn't and You know, maybe that explains these two sort of seemingly unconnected but potentially linked events Yeah, in other words once they're done with Raqqa, well, what are you gonna do with all these Marines?
Damascus is right over the hill that kind of thing, huh?
I can't see them giving it back to Assad You know, maybe they will I would be awfully surprised There are a lot of people who I respect that don't believe the u.s Wants to own it, but are they gonna give it to the Kurds?
Yeah, I don't think so What are the Turks gonna do then?
I know so what the heck do you do?
Once you once you broke it you bought it when you know I was just talking about this exact question with Patrick Coburn an hour ago or something and he was Basically the same as you going through the process of elimination.
They can't just give it to the Kurds That ain't gonna last that ain't gonna work and we don't want the the Turks running through there because that'll be a full war with the the Kurds at that point and and So, I guess there's Assad but then You know Even if there's a deal where Assad's regime takes back over Raqqa after the Islamic State is gone That may be very difficult to enforce I mean they still got problems with the CIA back Nusrat guys in Idlib province and this and that right?
So and even if they agreed to that, I'm not sure it could stick Yeah, and you've got the Israelis who are getting pretty nervous Yeah, now talk more about that because there there been some some bombings but not much news about the bombings there Dan Well, I think you know, it's not me who thought of this It's our and I can't pronounce his name, but my Indian analyst who runs the Indian punchline website had a great piece About he's a retired diplomat about how the Israelis are feeling increasingly like they got the short end of the stick on this whole deal They wanted regime change They wanted to you know Essentially have a very weak in Syria that they could bully around But it looks like Iran is coming out on the top in these things and that might explain Israel's behavior its recent bombings around Palmyra Its bomb attack the pretty aggressive threats from Defense Minister Lieberman Who says if you dare lock on to our planes again while we're bombing you we're gonna take out your whole defense system So, you know, that's a that's a that's a wild-card factor They have been de facto allies with al-qaeda in Isis in Syria in their desire for regime change You know, maybe maybe BB finally pushed it too far.
Who knows?
Yeah, you know it never made sense to me I mean, I think they sort of backed off regime change relatively early at least publicly They started saying I think even back in 2012 or 13 that well We'd rather see both sides hemorrhage to death and not see either side win and not necessarily see the fall of Damascus But just see him weakened and all that But of course, you know the real goal behind all of that and weakening Syria is to weaken Hezbollah, right?
And yet, you know, all they did was give Hezbollah a big battlefield to practice on just what they're panicking about now I guess but now instead of having Hezbollah last battle hardened in 2006 you have Hezbollah battle hardened 2011 or 12 through 2017 and so I mean, I don't know the ins and outs of it But I'm just assuming that they have not faced serious losses They have gained incredible experience in this fight in Syria this whole time Yeah I mean I wish the Israelis would listen to us and our non-interventionist views because they probably would benefit and find themselves a lot more secure as Well, yeah.
All right.
I'm sorry.
I know I'm I kept you over here a little bit.
I know you got to go Thank you very much for coming back on the show Dan great to talk to you again.
Thanks so much Scott.
Appreciate it All right.
All right.
So that's the great Dan McAdams He runs Ron Paul's Institute for Peace and Prosperity and listen, I didn't say they do the Liberty Report daily It's a YouTube TV show Dan and Ron Paul talking foreign policy daily and it's so great It really is.
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