Sorry, I'm late.
I had to stop by the Whites Museum again and get the fingered at FDR We know Al-Qaeda, Zawahiri is supporting the opposition in Syria.
Are we supporting Al-Qaeda in Syria?
It's a proud day for America And by God, we've kicked Vietnam syndrome once and for all.
Thank you very very much I say it, I say it again, you've been hacked You've been took You've been hoodwinked These witnesses are trying to simply deny things that just about everybody else accepts as a fact He came, he saw, he died.
We ain't killing they army, but we killing them We be on CNN like say our names, been saying, saying three times The meeting of the largest armies in the history of the world, then there's going to be an invasion All right, y'all, introducing the great Sheldon Richman, my partner at the Libertarian Institute, libertarianinstitute.org And every Friday he writes TGIF, the goal is freedom.
And this one is called Trump and Putin.
How about getting rid of your nukes?
Hey, that sounds like a pretty good idea.
Welcome back to the show, Sheldon I thought it was a pretty good idea.
Thanks.
Thanks for having me back Yeah, you know the thing is with the the nuclear weapons and the thermonuclear weapons is They burn really really hot, hotter than the Sun even.
They could kill your whole city Ouch.
Yeah, I don't I don't like to go to the beach because you know the Sun Burnies have fair skin.
So I don't I don't think my doctor would want me to be, you know In the vicinity of a nuclear explosion.
Yeah.
All right now So you want to talk about mutually assured destruction overall?
You want to get rid of all the nukes or just most of them or what?
Well, I'd like to get rid of all of them, I think they ought to start on the road They've been doing some of that.
I mean as the piece describes Just to give a bit of a context I start off by saying that I too was disappointed in the Trump-Putin summit, but not for the reasons that most of people Have been disappointed by it.
In fact, they're not even disappointed Those people are like tearing their hair out claiming that America, I don't know America has in effect been annexed by Russia.
I guess that's what they think happened at the at the summit Because they at least expected him to Trump to walk across, you know The little platform there and punch Putin in the nose, you know for meddling in our election And they didn't even get that much less worse things so I Dismiss all that that's not why I was disappointed.
I was disappointed because The two huge nuclear arsenals held by these two countries Were I mean he didn't tell us neither one of them told us that those were of you know Frank as I like to say Frank and full discussion during the closed-door meetings And to me given the dangers you just already cited That should have been at the top of the agenda Both of them are operating under a regime called the new start which was signed in 2011 which is a you know start stands for a strategic talks on reduction of Whatever the T stands for anyway, it's about reducing Launchers and nuclear and bombs and warheads it was signed by Obama and Reduction has occurred under that on both sides a lot of Warheads have been put in storage, although they're ready, but they're not they're ready They could be taken out of storage But the point is a bunch of have been and so the two right now if we're talking about strategic weapons now Not the smaller tactical nukes They're roughly even It's like 4,000 for the US and 4,100 or something for the Russians.
It's pretty even but that's going to That treaty is going to expire, but it can be it can be extended for five years now There were reports Fox reported that Trump that Putin told Trump that he was willing to extend But he wanted some clarifications first.
He thinks the u.s.
Hasn't fully complied, but he wants to talk about it We don't know what Trump said to him, but we do know that early in the Trump years January I believe of 2017 on his first phone call to Putin Putin asked him about new start and of course characteristic of Trump He had to say um hang on a second, please and he put his hand over the phone I'm imagining the scene here, but there were people inside the room who have told us this he puts his hand over the phone What's new start and They quickly described it to him and he got back on the phone and said hey you have lad That was one of those stupid anti-american treaties signed before I got here and I don't like it one bit and it favors you guys and I don't like it and Tore tore knowledge.
He hasn't said anything more about new start since then so It doesn't sound like he's gonna be in the mood to talk about it or to extend it As you mentioned in the article Putin apparently said to him or later at least he claimed that he had told Trump during their meeting that hey What about new start again, right?
Well, that's right.
Fuck it Fox News reported that and then Reuters Relayed the Fox News report that he brought up He said we are willing to extend it for five years Which is allowed as a provision for that and the agreement the treaty But he said we we need to sit down and talk about some things because he claims the u.s I don't know the details of this He claims the u.s.
Has not complied in all ways and he said we want clarifications We want to talk about this, but he said he's open to the extension We don't know what Trump said to that that wasn't in the report And we the only thing we have on the record from Trump about new start was what he told Putin in January 2017 Namely, that's it.
One of those idiotic things America has signed And I guess he had Obama and mine in particular and it it's it's against us and it's in your favor So that's the last word that was the first and last word on start from from from Trump's I don't know where it stands So there's reason to be nervous about this the bulletin of the atomic Scientists have this doomsday clock which they say is, you know now two minutes to midnight, which is dangerous Trump has taken all kinds of anti-russian Matt measures Despite statements he makes or things he might say about liking Putin or whatever people get so upset about I mean you look at the long list of things he's done Expanded NATO once again Montenegro became a member under under him We have NATO troops on the Russian border He's sending lethal aid to the Ukraine you cook to Ukraine which Obama opposed and he and that used to be Before he decided to do that yet that used to be evidence that he was a Putin puppet Right that he and the Republican Party generally as well Like the Democrats most of the Democrats opposed sending lethal aid to Ukraine, of course quickly Quick context there the US helped to foment the coup that drove a democratic elected president Yanukovych Who was friendly with Russia and Putin out of out of Ukraine with neo-nazis being part of the the coup and the new government?
But that's a different subject He's imposed sanctions on Russia he's kicked out diplomats on Russia.
He's done all kinds of things against Russia and yet that's not good enough They wanted him to throw I don't know a pie in Putin's face at this meeting because he allegedly Meddled in the election for which they have yet.
The government has yet to provide us any evidence I noticed that the media still say I know we're not on that subject But the media is still saying, you know, I saw on CNN the other day every every American intelligence Agency unanimously says assessed that the Russians, you know Meddled in the election.
No, they have to say every every agency Unanimously, they have to have the redundancy Because they know it's false.
The New York Times retracted that what was it sometime last year?
They said oops now we made a mistake hand-picked Analysts by Clapper from James by James Clapper noted liar who lied before the Senate and hold America all all the American people about mass spying He had picked You know a few analysts from three agencies Who came up with this assessment in January 2017 assessment not evidence assessment that Russia Did the hack this so-called hacking of the DS anyway, that's a different subject.
I know it's an important point In fact, there's news about that because just earlier this week or late last week The second to last ambassador to the Soviet Union Jack Matlock Reported that he had been told it's hearsay, but still I believe him He'd been told by guys in the State Department that the Bureau of Intelligence and Research Which is you know, they're CIA based the State Department's own little in-house CIA And who did such great buried dissents about Iraq war to that?
They told him that they disagreed but that they were not allowed to chime in So they did certainly as you say they did not do a national intelligence estimate on this also DIA Which knows the most about the GRU obviously was not included either Right, right and the New York Times said in a story at some point last year We were we are wrong.
We were wrong every time we said every intelligence agency signed on to this and we also know that one of the three from which the Hand-picked analysts came from only had moderate confidence in the assessment.
Okay, this is an assessment There's one more thing on that too is an Aaron Maté has shown this and Oh Scott Ritter showed this to in a recent piece in truth dig Which is that if you go back and look at the document that reality winner leaked to the intercept?
It shows right there and their color-coded thing green line red line yellow line in the key means this that and the other thing That the assessment that the GRU was behind the hack and was behind Guccifer, etc Was an assessment by an analyst rather than something that was a proven fact by say You know the National Security Agency with ones and zeros and science It was this was the best guess basically of some analysts.
That's all well That's what and that's what an assessment means.
They didn't lay out evidence.
They said here's what we think happens Well, I mean they might have a they could Hypothetically have evidence but still not tell you what it is.
Well still say this is based on intercepts This is based on solid facts, right?
But instead they're not saying that The indictment says that but the reality winner NSA document certainly does not and it's an NSA document So they're the ones who would know But look even the assessment in a famous footnote or infamous footnote said hey nothing here is a fact Right in a sense.
That's that's not a verbatim quote, but you can look that up.
It says these aren't facts We're talking about here.
So they have yet to give us evidence now people say well What about indictments?
We have the 15 from st.
Petersburg.
We've got the 12 Military intelligence guys allegedly but as everybody knows if you if you've ever covered criminal courts or watch criminal Shows about the cops and and trials and stuff Indictments or indictments their accusations.
They're not evidence.
So to say there was an indictment I mean after those indictments came down last week the week before but you know people were saying Oh Trump ought to cancel the summit But what happened to the the rule of law what happened to To the burden of proof presumption of innocence.
So suddenly an indictment is enough You didn't take measures.
So it's I don't know what they wanted.
First of all, Trump doesn't even If you look at Trump's statements through that whole press conference and it's worth watching you find it on one line It's like 45 minutes.
He constantly is saying Acknowledging that there was I mean he he seems to believe there was meddling now I realized there was confusion when he says something like why would they and then the next day said no I meant to say why wouldn't they I can't understand his mind.
He's got the most untidy mind I think in the human race, but he constantly talks about we did not meddle with Russia We didn't sorry we did not collude with Russia on the meddling all those statements Seems to seem to concede That he believes that he that he can see the meddling charge I don't because I haven't I want to see the evidence, but he seems to be saying look I'm not I don't question that they meddle But we didn't collude and there's no evidence and no one's been indicted for colluding So I don't even know what they want from Trump.
It seems like he's given him You know, what do they want a war which brings us being back to my topic?
We are living in dangerous times because these two countries and not the only ones we got China We got India.
We got Israel.
We got Pakistan.
We got France.
We got we got the England I mean a lot of other countries are nuclear powers acknowledged Israel's not acknowledged, but you know the greatest open secret ever This this is dangerous and we need to be talking about It lead, you know to begin scaling back.
I don't imagine in my wildest dreams they would ever just sort of get rid of them all in one fell swoop, but we need to Take things like new start and build on it and make it more vigorous and and really Try to defuse this we have look we have a whole bunch of Bombers on high alert in 2008 When Obama was running for president the first time he expressed concern about this and a typical of Obama he expressed concern about a whole bunch of things in 2008 when he ran for president and then never did a damn thing About any of them.
I mean this is he was such a loser such a non-entity I don't know how anybody has a ounce of respect for the guy but he didn't know he did nothing and the evidence for that is in 2016 a whole group of scientists wrote him and said This is really dangerous that we have all these bombers on high alert In other words, the president could just tell them to go and it wouldn't take very long this letter points out that George HW Bush took the Where did he take the land-based missiles off high alert forget the look at the letter but he took one one leg of the triad off of high alert and and And now these scientists say it's time.
We do this now with the With the you know, one of the other planes the HW Bush was the planes and now they're saying let's take the ground-based silo missiles off a high alert to Just the submarines which is more than enough to kill all of humanity.
Thank you And undetectable.
So yeah, yeah, they're kind of in a category by themselves Because they can't be bought hit on a first strike.
The land missiles can be hurt be hit on a first strike I'm sorry I have to add here that I've done an interview about this before that the only reason for the land-based silos is to attract Russian H bombs so that Colorado and Missouri and Kansas and Nebraska and the Dakotas and Wyoming These will be the nuclear sponge to save the people on the East Coast who started the war from getting nuked in the war that they started and instead letting flyover country take the bulk of the Russian Missile strike, you know, whoever started it.
And so that's the only reason that they're there really Yeah, the nuclear sponge that's their strategy that's what they call it they wrote that down and signed their names on the bottom of it this It's ridiculous that I mean, I'm glad there's been reductions.
It's not insignificant reduction But what's left is still sufficient to destroy the world So we can't just relax and we've been lucky that there and you know Accident is as much to be feared as an intentional war Maybe more so because at least you know, I assume well, I don't about Trump.
I think most of these rulers of nuclear countries Are not they're not suicidal and I think they'd be very nervous about anything that approached a the brink of nuclear war not that it's impossible, but I think everybody understands how you know Horrible that would be but there could be accidents and things could be set in motion And and there can be a misreading of signals and things like that there have been over the years We've been lucky that nothing ever, you know got launched as a special atmosphere like this Well, we can't count on that Just because we were lucky for 70 more than 70 years now doesn't mean we'll get through the next 70 years, right?
So we should not relax and I don't know why number one This isn't on the minds of people who claim they're for peace liberals and progressives and you know Anybody who says they're for peace?
And and why it was not front and center for these two guys and why they didn't you know If they talked about it, why didn't they talk about it more in public saying that would have been such great politics, too For Donald Trump to say look we're gonna do a new nuclear arms reduction deal Go ahead Democrats attack me for that and let's see how much mileage you get out of that You know the American people would support that.
Absolutely, you know, you know and Trump occasionally will say he'll talk about He'd learn this all from his uncle.
He says right.
It was at MIT Yeah, let's say something like I know better than anybody in the world, of course anything He knows he knows better than anybody in the world, right?
I know how devastating these weapons are He'll say that once he'll he'll sprinkle that into things now and then he kept he twice said during the summit both at the before the Closed meeting and after the closed meeting that the US and Russia have 90% of the of the nuclear weapons Which he was presenting as a negative thing, right?
So He does say this but he never follows through which is true on anything anything He says even when he makes a good statement.
He never has a second statement to show.
He really understands He just like a talking point or it's a pose of some kind It reminds me of Obama's big Prague speech in the Czech Republic where the whole first half of the speech He's like man, we've got to move toward a world without nuclear weapons and the whole crowd They're like on their tiptoes and they're all excited and they're all happy and then the second part of the speech He's like, yeah, but you know, of course This is just a pipe dream and I'm just blowing smoke and this is just an excuse to put anti-missile missile radar systems in your country and you can see the entire crowd like And then all their shoulders slump and they all start looking at their feet disappear Peace price exactly you mentioned missile defense, which I don't touch on that's a whole other subject.
It's a great subject Us us and of course has been putting missile defenses near the Russian border now people, you know I think it's an important point.
A lot of people will say well missile its missile defense.
What's wrong with that?
But that's not you know that that you got to think about that for a second, you know Imagine a shield.
Let's let's go back to sort of medieval conduct combat when you know I had a shield sure a shield can be Defense but a shield can also be an offensive tool, right?
You want to advance on your the person you want to kill and it helps to have a shield so he can't hurt you That doesn't mean you don't want to hurt him first So just because we call something defensive doesn't mean it can't be used as part of an offensive plan So same as defensive weapons, we're sending to Ukraine anti-tank missiles or whatever.
Well, you could use those offensively, too That's right.
Like any weapon like Shane in the famous movie Shane says about a gun, you know guns just a tool Like a hammer it you can build a house with a hammer.
You're gonna kill a person with a hammer You could kill a person in self-defense with a hammer, but you couldn't murder a person with a hammer So we shouldn't be fooled by this given the context the full context putting Missile defenses, you know in Poland or wherever they're planning to put them or where they're starting I guess I think Obama eventually back down on that That was the great quote where he was secretly caught on the mic Telling Medvedev once I get reelected then it'll be alright and I can change the policy which he did To his credit, but it but in the context with NATO expansion and maneuvers, you know at the Border or at the Russian border?
I mean think how scary that would be for any Russian having lived who lived through the 20th century where there were three invasions of Russia through through Eastern Europe putting missile defenses in this in this climate is Provocative.
Yeah, because it means hey we can hit you but we have defenses when you try to hit us back Well, and this is the whole thing right where everybody's supposed to have magic mind-reading powers, but they don't and so, you know you mentioned mistakes and I'm reminded of 1983 when the context was Reagan was canceling detente and was Reinstituting brinksmanship and arms racing and all this and had made all these statements joking around basically But pretty loose lips about the bombing starts in five minutes and this kind of thing and then when they did the big military exercise in The NATO military exercise Abel Archer in 1983 the Russians the Soviets were going to launch a war right then because they were convinced that this was cover For an American first strike that NATO was about to attack them and that it wasn't an exercise.
It was the war it's come and The only reason that they didn't start launching nukes at Western Europe and the US right then was because there was a communist Dirty rat traitor spy inside NATO.
I think he was a Brit Who told them I swear to God, it's just an exercise.
Don't freak out.
It's not an invasion.
I trust me I know what I'm talking about and so the Russians back down but that could have been the end of mankind right there based on a conclusion right an assessment by Russian intelligence that this Set of exercises plus Reagan's bellicose rhetoric equals we can't take the risk They're about to attack us and they were wrong.
But if it hadn't have been for that traitor telling them the truth.
We'd all been dead There's a general point here that I think it's worth pointing out the the Americans and this goes back to Right after World War two the Americans always applied a double standard to themselves and the and the the Russians And I suppose to the Chinese too, but mainly the Russians the idea was when it comes to the Russians You look at capability not in not intentions When it comes to us others should look at our intentions not our capability So in other words, we're good.
Our intentions are good.
So no matter what weapons we build and aim at people There's nothing to worry about we're the good guys and they must know that and so we can do whatever we want But the other side is even if you show they have no interest in it, they're not suicidal They're not gonna launch an attack on the United States The answer to that would be we don't care about intentions.
Look at the capability, but us don't look at our capability Look at our intentions.
Well, you know what?
This is not this this is not a respectable argument and it has rigged the whole public discussion ever since When you know Pat Buchanan, I think says that the best where he says listen The line was drawn during the Cold War by Truman Eisenhower and on through George HW Bush That if the Soviet Union ever tries to roll into Western Germany, then we will go to nuclear war That's the line in the sand.
We yes, we will give up your hometown to defend Western Europe from Soviet attack That was the line and as Pat says they've now moved that line more than a thousand miles east All the way where that line literally is the western border of Russia So if they roll and not that they're going to but if they roll into Estonia Then we will go to nuclear war to defend Estonia not Western Germany not France and Britain but Estonia Latvia Lithuania Poland now, you know all the Balkans as well Even talk about bringing Ukraine in and Montenegro, yeah all the Balkan states and so if the Russians were that panicked in 1983 under Reagan when the line was 1,500 miles to the west How must they really feel about it when we have guys we have you know Our boats in the Baltic Sea and we literally have troops just a few hundred miles from Moscow in the Baltic States And also, yeah and with Ukraine, of course, they they were NATO would therefore was threatening Their warm water port on the Black Sea in Crimea Which of course had been in the possession of Russia since the 18th century under Catherine the Great So no wonder they got nervous about that and did what they did with with Crimea No, regardless of what you think of what happened in Crimea.
You can't judge it out of context You have to look at the whole you have to watch the whole movie Not only beginning with the coup in in Ukraine, but you got to go back further It's you know, it's not for nothing that George Kennan who was considered the father of containment policy at the end of World War two in 1998 said it's crazy to move NATO and any Distance eastward and it broke the promise that George HW Bush made to Gorbachev He told Gorbachev look here's it here's the deal Don't if you don't object to the reunification of Germany and Germany's membership in NATO we will not move NATO one inch closer to you and This was delivered by I think James Baker secretary of state to Gorbachev and Gorbachev agreed unfortunately He didn't get it in writing and then it was completely ignored by by Clinton and his successors and they took in all the Warsaw pact countries the Baltic States now a couple of former Soviet republics and more talked about like you said Ukraine and Georgia that's still kind of on the and then I believe they're in that sort of halfway house that Partnership you can write you can be part of before you get full-fledged Navy, you know Like pledges or like NATO pledges pledges in the fraternity, you know, they got to go out and they get hazed a little bit But otherwise, you know someday there'll be members Why wouldn't a Russian look at this and and and say oh and I'll go even further It's the kind of policy that creates a Putin that brings somebody like Putin to to power After the way rush got treated in the 90s the way Yeltsin who was I guess drunk most of the time on on his vodka and The way they took advantage of the economy and sold off assets and then plus the NATO expansion How how would somebody like Putin not arise and say this is it too?
We're not going to take this anymore That's the kind of thing that creates Somebody like that, you know, I don't want to compare him to Hitler.
I know I know Hillary did that and it's outrageous I mean it minimizes it trivializes Hitler to say Putin's Hitler, but there's one similarity in the rise of Hitler in the rise of Putin and This is not controversial many many historians now argue this and others argue it Given the way Russia Germany was treated at the at the Paris peace talks where it was branded as the only guilty nation and had massive Reparations imposed and starvation blockade that went on for months after the armistice was signed given all those things Who'd be sub and after and after?
Lesser politicians in Germany tried to get a revision of the of the treaty and a lot of Westerners Americans thought the Versailles Treaty should have been revised because it was so Draconian to Germany who would have been surprised at a strong man Who could be surprised that a strong man didn't arise And of course, we should have learned our lesson from the fact that it was Hitler who reeked so much Havoc and then death and destruction on so many people wouldn't we have learned by then?
I mean they kind of knew it in 1815 when they after the Napoleonic Wars.
They had a much more even-handed respectable respectful peace conference and we didn't have there wasn't anything like a world war in the next hundred years, so Putin didn't come out of nowhere he came out of a Western and particularly American and World Bank and IMF and all that stuff Trashing of the Russians and it was a very hard time a transition from you know, they're the Soviet system to something more liberal was never going to be easy or You know abrupt that wasn't gonna happen overnight we're going to be difficulties dislocations people we're gonna be on hard times There's no doubt about that, you know free markets the greatness of free markets doesn't come in in an instant Nothing happens in an instant like the light doesn't travel in an instant.
We know that from the physicists So there was going to be it was a very sensitive time.
And what did the US do?
They played like it was their own Backyard and they could do whatever they want.
So of course a Putin is gonna arise.
So we once it you know, we created this Quote foe.
I don't I don't see why we should we shouldn't see him as a foe even if even if Trump does It's just all nonsense and here's the you know, the craziest thing is that the Democrats and people who call themselves Liberals and progressives are feeding this they're there, you know, they're feeding these flames.
What do they want?
What do they want war?
Well, they better think about it because they may end up getting that Yeah, I mean, I think they just want a cold war, but it might not stay cold.
That's the real problem, you know Yeah, Saddam Hussein to beat up on that's pretty easy.
What the hell's he gonna do about it, right?
But you Russians this could get out of control You know think of the image of Randolph Bourne when he was warning against the US getting at the World War one He said oh, yeah you you and he was arguing against, you know, his fellow progressives He said yeah, you think you could guide this and use it to achieve Reforms at home and he basically says you guys are nuts.
You're talking about mounting a wild elephant That's what you're doing.
Yeah, so don't tell me.
Oh, we're gonna use this for such constructive things, you know Self-determination and reform at home, you know, he was about the only person in his milieu I mean he would these were all his friends who then didn't want to have anything to do with him because he was like The only guy of that group saying that you're all crazy and I guess he's right.
He was right Yeah, where's the state and it's further it's also the health.
It's also it also causes chaos It certainly in an initial stage.
Let me look at the invasion of Iraq.
It causes chaos.
It doesn't cause good things So well, so what do you make about all the panic that now it comes out that Trump invited Putin to DC?
This is gonna be I mean this I thought that that was the first thing he should have done as soon as he took power Just to shove it down the Democrats throats, but at this point man, I don't know how it's gonna play out It could be really bad.
I Mean overall with including the reactions to it and everything You know while all this reaction scares me because who knows what they're gonna do It also I find it hilariously funny.
I mean, they think that there's some horrible thing That's gonna happen if Putin is standing in the Oval Office.
I Mean, I just don't understand these people.
I'm on a way.
I do understand them They can't get over the fact that their person lost for president who was entitled, you know She lost and not only did she lose to a Republican she lost to Trump, which I still find amazing I mean when I look at Trump behind the podium and you know I don't I am NOT enamored with the presidency or the White House or any of the trappings of nationalism to me It's all superstition and I throw it all out But when I see him back there, even I say now this is a dream.
Come on I gotta wake up and wait Donald Trump is the president of the United States.
I know I shared it, but I'm not deranged Yeah, I'm not deranged by it and they well, of course it's pretty easy for a guy like you to see why she lost She's Hillary Clinton.
She's had a negative approval rating that has never gone below 45% since 1992 in fact She's half the reason everybody hated Bill Clinton so much because he was billory and and he was more her than him And that was the she was the lightning rod even more than Bill was back then She was a terrible terrible candidate and you know Bernie Sanders tried to point it out.
Not that I like most of the positions Bernie Sanders was taking pretty judge He did try to point it out He said let's see your speeches to Goldman Sachs and she you know, like an idiot said well when Trump shows his tax returns I'll release my speeches.
What's one thing have to do with the other?
So, you know, we're Bernie fans supposed to be mollified by that.
He tried to point it out Trump was inept in even pointing out her problems.
I mean, there's so much he could have said.
Oh, yeah I don't mean personal stuff.
I mean all the decisions public policy decisions.
She was have been involved, right?
I mean he even debuted trigger happy Hillary But then he basically dropped it when that was the one man.
He could have just completely beat her over the head with that Oh Libya, he could have gotten her on Libya He could have gotten her on Chris her or because he was somewhat weakened because he called for intervention in Libya And he said told Howard Stern Yeah, we should go into Iraq his Bush's father should have done a ton you ten years ago I mean, so he lies when he says he was against those wars.
He wasn't There was a quote from him like one week after the war started saying it's a disaster Which that's pretty soon to turn on the war I think he may have changed his mind about it before the war started because that Howard Stern quote comes from the fall But you're right though.
I mean still all over the place Certainly he's no, you know reliable anti-war guy.
That's for sure.
Although you know what?
He didn't have the power at the time Hillary voted for the war in Iraq And she's the one who convinced Obama to launch the war in Libya So that's a whole other level of responsibility or as a magnitude greater than some hack You know TV star former real estate developer opinioning on the Howard Stern show Obama has said that He didn't want to go in and she was the last person he talked to and then afterwards, you know he said it was the the worst mistake of his It was presidency All right, you guys Tom Woods has been trying to get me to do this forever on Facebook, but I hate Facebook But now I'm gonna do it on reddit instead anyone who donates a monthly subscription donation at paypal.com or at patreon.com Slash Scott Horton show Will get a ticket to join up my new private reddit group at our slash Scott Horton show Just email me and I'll get you set up any single PayPal donation of $50 We'll get you a signed copy of my book fool's errand time to end the war in Afghanistan and $100 donation We'll get you either a QR code silver commodity disc or a lifetime subscription to listen and think audiobooks Of course, I accept all kinds of digital currencies as well.
You can find out all this stuff at Scott Horton org Donate and of course Don't forget to shop amazon.com by way of my link and give me a review on iTunes stitcher or Amazon if you read the book And liked it Thanks Well, not not invading but refusing to invade outright and stay and occupy and build the country like Worked so well in Iraq Yeah but when you think about that that really means invading because there's no way he was gonna get away with doing that or Right could have done to invade and uplap a ground invasion of another country.
Anyway, they Point being that only Hillary Clinton could have lost to Donald Trump and that's the only reason we're in this mess And you know what?
We might as well add that it was I don't know about her personally, but certainly her campaign said we need to push what they called the Pied Piper strategy of Getting their friends in the media to promote Cruz Carson and Trump above all because they're the wingers They're the kooks and they'll be the easiest to beat in the fall And so that was why they were showing, you know an hour worth of empty podium waiting for Trump to arrive You know throughout that whole year of 2015 16 Those were the days when I watched CNN and I would have that on and you know making dinner or something saying There's the empty podium again Trump's been coming be coming on soon It was reality and that wasn't because they were doing him a favor That's because they were doing Hillary Clinton a favor one that blew up right in her face.
It did him a favor He got oh, yeah, but I know I mean not intentionally they were doing it for I mean They were trying to help him but only to help her No, it makes sense that if you're Clinton and you favor Clinton You're gonna want what who seems to be the craziest candidate the easiest person to beat and and that's They were stung by that and so they got to blame everybody It's either Russia or Comey or somebody in fact, she said in an interview.
I think last year The she seems to me she was at least for the moment giving up the Russia Russia escape code because she said if the election had been October 27th, I'd be president today Well, guess what happened on October 28th?
That's when Comey made the second statement about the cases reopened because we're looking at what's his name's.
What was his name?
Anthony Weiner's Laptop, right because there were there were emails to it from what Uma Abedin?
So she's she was and the Russia stuff had already come out by then I mean not the Russia stuff, but I mean the emails had come out So here she is saying no in effect.
It wasn't Russia.
Comey did me in and so You know what?
Never forget to as Peter Van Buren points out in his article today on the American conservative magazine that Comey Clapper and Brennan have a huge personal interest in You know putting all of this on Trump and all on Russia to kind of obscure the fact that They're in charge of counterintelligence and all this happened on their watch, you know, they're saying this lady who was You know running around with the gun show circuit and the the NRA and trying to make these inroads with the Republicans knows this was Going on for years.
Well, where the hell was the FBI counterintelligence division during all this now It's the worst scandal that ever happened.
But while it was going on, where the hell were they?
Well, yeah, it's their fault in the first place if it's even true that she even, you know did anything beyond I mean And I think it was you actually that was pointing out to me That she was sending her messages to her handler by way of Twitter direct message This is not a deep cover agent here You know, they're not a very well-trained one Yeah Now it's a mess and Trump brings some of this stuff up, you know Trump He never knows what the right time to do it.
I mean in the press conference with Putin I don't know that he should have gone off on you know, where's the DNC server?
How come the FBI never got to see the DNC server?
These are valid points, but as usual Trump doesn't know the place or proper place or time Yeah, you should have been talking about nuclear weapons and and he did talk about nuclear proliferation the point I'm making the article He mentioned proliferation and he may he you know, he's not exactly up on the lingo He may mean by that.
He may include in that the the US and Russian arsenals But typically that means Russia and the u.s.
And the u.s.
Keeping nukes out of the hands of lesser powers, right?no, in other words, they're talking he's talking to Kim and North Korea in the name of Nuclear non-proliferation in other words keeping it out of new hands or getting little powers to give give it up But he so he kept talking about nuclear proliferation I don't know that he understands what he understands by that topic But he didn't explicitly say except for the 90% comment, but what he doesn't develop he should have said the most urgent thing for us and we're gonna talk about this is our Arsenals and we got to find ways to really drastically cut these and reduce the chances of accidents and just make them The world safer.
Well, of course when he talks about proliferation He seems to be going along with the John Bolton plan for North Korea from 2002 on Iran right now, let's see and we've heard Bolton say this before back in 2007 He was recorded on an American Israel Public Affairs Committee conference call saying that yeah I'm really disappointed because what we were trying to do was force the Iranians to go ahead and leave the Non-proliferation treaty and kick the inspectors out which we think would put us in a more advantageous position In other words do like he did with Korea push them toward nuclear weapons and then use that as an excuse to attack them Now in Korea, they were so bogged down in Iraq.
They never got to attack Korea So Korea just got their hands on a bunch of nukes.
Oops So at least they want to negotiate their way out of that crisis but it looks like Trump is following the Bolton playbook on Iran right now Iran that wasn't making nuclear weapons and they're still not but It seems like they're trying to get them to be so frustrated with the system that they'll go ahead and quit the NPT regime I don't think comedy is that stupid but John Bolton is you know Well, that's right so We you know these people that would claim that the people on the other side who claim that Trump is so pro-peace Need to explain what's happening with Iran.
I mean Iran never left the the non the nuclear non-proliferation treaty It was already under strict You know a strict regime inspection regime so they so this a JCPOA with the multilateral Talks it got even more and the most, you know as even Putin Pointed out at the press conference the you know, the most intrusive inspections ever known and Trump, you know Constantly trashes it and is now renounced it and If he's so pro-peace, what the hell is he making rattling a saber at?
Iran so often for you know, why is he doing that?
And you know if he's Putin's agent Why won't Putin just tell him?
Hey, man, the JCPOA really wasn't so bad, dude.
You ought to go back to it Yeah, they help facilitate the Russians were very helpful and get that getting this things going as you know, as you know I mean, yeah, they really did pressure the ayatollah that hey, we would like to see you do this thing You know say they weren't making nukes people can read Garrett Porter's a great book Manufacture crisis to for documentation of that.
They weren't making them The the Bush administration knew they weren't and so it lost a chance to go to war in During the Bush W W Bush years because they didn't have they didn't have the intelligence agency saying Yeah, they have nuclear weapons.
They said that even some research they've been doing earlier been, you know long ago We've been cancelled been scrapped.
So there was not there was nothing there, but still, you know, Iran is eager to get back into the world economy because the Sanctions have been crippling and so they were willing to do that and they've done quite a bit They obviously they're complying.
No one seriously says they're not complying.
But this is like a bee in Trump's bonnet and he won't let it go and they're all kinds of ugly things you point out constantly on your program how Terrorist groups are helped helped along by the US and Israel to to make a trouble for for Iran, including that MEK cult at the that's a great Americans like Newt Gingrich and Ed Rendell and Howard Dean love to get speaking on our area from What the hell's Trump up to with that I'm glad he sat down with Kim I hope I hope You know that continues and there's a peace treaty and all that stuff.
It's kind of on the back burner now At least publicly but what about Iran?
I don't know what he's doing with Iran.
Yeah, and you know what?
I mean, man It's such a backwards ass time.
We're living in here where You know, it reminds me of 2002 the level of You know just the ratio between the truth and the narrative here But then it was you know a mad president marching us to war and all the opposition against him was Saying no, we shouldn't have a war.
We we should have peace here instead and this and that but now You have a president who's bombing eight or ten countries.
Nobody opposed him over that at all I guess no criticism from the other party for that at all because he's just carrying out Barack Obama's policy there He's backed off to support for al-qaeda in syria, but he's still You know occupying the place and all this nobody ever attacks him for that They only attack him and because the resistance against him is led by the intelligence agencies and the political center and the military industrial Complex and the mainstream media.
So what they attack him for trying to make peace in korea or in russia And he's not doing that.
He's not doing that.
He's not doing that Mainstream media And if dealing with kim isn't treason It's at least the dumbest most naive horrible thing that the president could do why he's going to undermine Our justification for keeping troops in south korea, then where will we be sheldon?
Yeah No, the people who are spearheading this uh, this this movement against trump There's plenty to go after trump for but the people that are doing this uh I just think one day they're going to look back and say We we were just crazy we just went hysterical and uh lost all judgment.
I mean, I hope they would one day face it Yeah, I mean assuming that we all survived this Yeah, I mean, it's just it's crazy and What do they think they don't do that?
It means they're pro trump.
Well, that's ridiculous There are plenty of people like you and me who who uh, who hit trump were able to be hit And that's an awful lot of places.
We've been doing it today Uh, on the other hand point out where uh They shouldn't be hitting him he's done terrible lots of terrible things Look, there are probably even grounds for impeachment on some of these other things instead.
They're talking about You know collusion with with russia Meeting with kim meeting with putin ridiculous You know Does he get criticized for meeting with netanyahu?
Look what netanyahu's doing and to the palestinians in gaza and the west bank Why wasn't he?
Why isn't he accused of uh, you know cultivating that strong man?
By the way, as long as you bring that up Let me ask you one more thing here.
Um, and i'm late as hell.
I gotta go but um I blew it in my previous interview.
It was about russia, but we got off on a tangent about israel palestine uh, and the guys are ardent zionist and part of his argument was that Um, you know, even when the israelis offers may not have been perfect The palestinians refuse to even come up with any kind of counter offer much less a reasonable one And what have you and I know i'm wrong.
I mean, I know he was wrong But I know I dropped the ball on contradicting him on that.
So I was wondering if you could explain a little bit about um, and this is in one of your more recent columns to your reference to the palestine papers and and the Degree of obsequiousness of the palestinian authority over the last few years here over the last couple decades even well Well much much can be said about this including what the uh, even surrounding our countries have offered uh, because we have from the early 2000s 2002 a sort of a grand bargain made by the arab league which Iran even endorsed which would have been a comprehensive settlement a two-state settlement Uh, which uh israel just you know tore up put in the paper shredder But on the palestine papers, right and you go back to my article less from last week, I guess there's a link to it uh They were talking about uh, two states and the palestinians came up and they brought in like their most distinguished cartographers I mean people who know that territory like the like really like the literally like the palm of their hand.
They know every line And every bridge and everything that's built on it and every bit of open space and they presented a map Which made huge concessions?
Letting the israelis keep 60 some percent of the settlements in the west bank And now that's you know, that's a pretty concentrated area.
That's not a huge amount of territory It's only like two percent of the west bank and they asked in return For equivalent amount of land which they also showed on the map.
So they presented this detailed map to to uh, tippy livni who was the foreign minister and chief negotiator And according to descriptions out of those meetings because these palestine papers contain memos and uh, You know accounts of the meetings and transcripts and all this stuff and uh She was impressed with the map.
She even said well, what about these two settlements?
And the guy said oh a bridge could be built there or what about here?
Oh, there's already a road but you know an additional road In other words, they were completely prepared about how this was a workable map And she said ended up saying apparently the look of being very impressed a look of uh, you know, uh Being impressed on her face looked and said no Prime minister could ever accept this and survive politically her rejection of it was political Not that it was otherwise feasible.
In other words the the norman finkelstein makes this point There there people say the two-state solution is dead and i'm not so much taking a position here, but i'm sort of describing Because of all the settlements and the wall and things like that But it looks like from this offer that was made and livni's reaction to it that in a way It's not really dead.
I mean they could do it where there would still be a contiguous Uh, you know palestinian area in the uh in the west bank Linked to gaza and so it's not impossible.
I mean, maybe it's not the best thing in the world Maybe one secular state is best even I don't want to get into that But it's not it's not sort of physically impossible the way some people claim so As to the point you're raising it's just wrong to say they've never offered anything even the story about the 2000 camp david meetings with uh clinton and uh barack And arafat is false that they just rejected a generous offer.
That's the story, right?
Yasser arafat rejected this super generous offer and the the They it was turned down by arafat without any counteroffer.
That's just nonsense for one thing The talks picked up a few months later They then got canceled by israel because they had an election coming up and they didn't want to they were afraid they'd lose the election barack was So that's just wrong.
It's just wrong to say the way, uh, abba even famously said it and it was insulting and patronizing The palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity for peace.
That's just typical Israeli propaganda they never give an inch rhetorically or any other way They make no concessions regarding their own obligations under international law Oh, yeah, sometimes they may slightly modify one of their you know, bottom line demands and then claim Oh look how generous we are, but they don't make a single uh step in the direction of fulfilling their obligations on our international law, which apply to Refugees and applies to occupation of land, you know, they're 50 years.
They're occupying land That's not an occupation anymore.
That's a de facto annexation.
That's illegal under international law settlements transferring your population to the to uh, Occupied land against the international law building settlements building walls taking people's property to build walls our property That's all illegal.
They never make any concession in that direction Right.
Well, and that's the thing too about the wall Can you talk about the wall a little bit and how it doesn't just protect these settlements?
It snakes all over the damn place and and for a very good reason other than protecting those settlements, right?
I think people think that wall is along the 67 line, right?
It separates the west bank from israel pre-67.
Of course, it doesn't do that.
It's uh, it's not like uh, Trump's uh forthcoming wall that's supposed to go along the border It doesn't go along the border like you say it snakes deep inside.
It's it's it encircles things It encircles uh settlement jewish settlements jewish only settlements Uh, it uh separates palestinian communities from each other.
You can find the map Look up and then it was where was it?
Um, atlantic was the atlantic that had the map that shocked barack obama Just a couple the new yorker The new yorker looked at yes the new yorker look.
Yeah, that's right.
Look that up Uh, and actually I want to say one more thing about that over a second But you'll show you the map if you look at the map today and say Yeah You'll you'll immediately say how could the palestinians have a state?
Their little communities their little their towns are like all separated from each other because area a area c which is under the control which is 60 percent of the west bank and under control of the israelis is Not just like when you hear about a b and c because the the oslo accord set up three areas, right?
A b and c b is c is where israel mainly is right now There's some amounts now of home rule in a and b but that makes it sound like they're like three blocks stacked Right a b and c and so the southern part must be c.
No C c is all over the place.
It surrounds palestinian towns.
There would be no Contiguity in a palestinian state under that setup.
Let me add here too that this is the leaked video Of netanyahu bragging about how he screwed bill clinton and the the famous phrase Is the americans are easily moved 80 percent of them support us.
It's absurd He said mocking us Uh, but the context was they were talking about how yeah, so I told bill clinton Well, we're just gonna stay in area c Haha, but see the deal is area c is more than two thirds of the whole west bank sucker Look at the map.
It's not even like a like I say, it's not a block It's it goes all through the whole from north to south of the west bank And I want to say one more thing then about the uh, shocking this map that apparently shocked obama I saw a quick interview with uh, ali abu neema Of the electronic in a father.
He's a very bright guy He knew, you know, he knew obama when obama was his state senator in fact Right-wing sites you used to like to go after obama saying he's friends with this palestinian well big deal, but abu mama said Abu neema says well, we actually weren't friends.
I mean I met him He was my state senator, but it wasn't like they were buddies.
So but that aside He thinks it's a big lie that obama was shocked by this.
He's no fan of obama's He says there's no way obama was shocked by this because while obama was not an expert in the middle east He was somewhat curious and did have conversations with people even before he was president and he knew what was going on There's no way in 2016 State department people bring him this map and he's shocked.
He just uh, uh, abu neema just refuses to believe that He thinks it's whitewashing to make obama look that too Makes obama look bad, right?
They may think it makes him look good He was shocked, but why does he why does he only know about this in 2016?
So I think it makes him look bad.
But anyway, I think that's worth pointing out Yeah, absolutely.
I mean and this is something that my guest that I was arguing with has this whole you know newt gingrich line that barack obama was uh, you know some kind of leftist black nationalist anti-colonialist that Anti-americanist and that all he did was see the whole world as being poor and oppressed by america and all he wanted to do was You know weaken america's influence over the rest of the world and this kind of thing, which you know, I guess You know when it comes to question begging and that kind of thing If if that's your conclusion and you only see things through those eyes, then I guess you can You know see some of the things he did in that way But you know if that was really true and I said well if that was really true Look at all he could have done in israel palestine that he didn't do and then the answer to that was well He was just constrained by congress and others Oh, yeah, and guantanamo.
He was just restraint restraint.
Look even by progressive standards.
He's got to be the biggest fraud in american politics For a very long time all these things he said which he didn't give a damn about once he got in And i'm not buying.
Oh, I couldn't do anything congress this that uh, what did he do?
He he increased the bureaucracy over the medical system And uh, you know, what else?
Yeah, he raised my premium so high that I now have to be on welfare in order to even pay it and get Well, not outright medicaid, but the subsidy and then oh, I can't have my subsidy because my tax return and turned in on time So now my lupus wife has no health care at all.
Thank you democrats Oh, that's my fault for not being in good with irs.
I know except before I could buy her health care irs be damned But anyway, yeah, I didn't mean to open up a whole obamacare thing, but just in terms of I hate democrats so much In terms of world peace, I don't see how any honest progressive who cares about peace Can not see him as a just an unbelievable fraud and con man I mean, he made all these appeals.
He even gets this nobel peace prize And you know for his aspirations, I mean, I can't believe the nobel committee went along with this and then look what he did Look what he did He totally took and and you'll hear people say pro-israel people say he was the worst president for israel ever Yeah, he's sets a record for aid a 38 billion dollar package 10-year package Uh, what did he do besides, you know, maybe saying something about not liking netanyahu?
What he did was he went along with whatever netanyahu wanted which is terrible for israel over the long term So yeah, just like you know, if you really want to screw the israelis You should replace their entire air force with f-35s watch them fall right out of the sky I don't think that's what they mean No, I guess not.
All right.
Listen, i'm late as hell for my next guest I I hope andrew coburn will still want to talk with me, but I just love talking with you so much sheldon I can't put it up I don't want to take anything away from andrew coburn.
I'm a big fan of his Say hi to him for me.
I sure will.
Thank you very much again sheldon.
Appreciate it.
Okay.
Talk to you soon scott All right, you guys That's my good friend and yours the heroic sheldon richmond my partner at the libertarian institute libertarian institute.org and every friday He writes tgif The goal is freedom trump and putin how about getting rid of your nukes?
And by the way, you know, I was just thinking I was talking with jared last night our other partner at the libertarian institute About how you know, it must have been just about exactly 10 years ago At the fff conference in 2008 when I met sheldon richmond, and he said to me.
Hey, I love your show And I couldn't believe it.
We've been friends ever since ain't that cool?
Yeah.
All right sheldon richmond libertarian institute.org You All right, y'all that's it for the show check me out at libertarian institute.org scott horton.org anti-war.com twitter.com Scott horton show appreciate it and buy my book fool's errand timed and the war in afghanistan
