All right, y'all, welcome to the Scott Horton Show.
I am the Director of the Libertarian Institute, Editorial Director of Antiwar.com, author of the book Fool's Errand, Time to End the War in Afghanistan, and I've recorded more than 5,000 interviews going back to 2003, all of which are available at scotthorton.org.
We can also sign up for the podcast feed.
The full archive is also available at youtube.com slash scotthortonshow.
All right, you guys, introducing Cliff Maloney.
He is the President of Young Americans for Liberty, YAL, and he's got a new piece in the hill.
Active Lessons Afghanistan Teaches Us About Iran.
Welcome to the show.
How you doing, Cliff?
Hey, Scott.
Pleasure to be here.
Happy to have you here.
Great article, because it quotes me quoting something in there.
So that's good.
Must be a good one.
Yeah, it was a fun piece to write.
I mean, we, you know, we sat around and obviously it's been a hectic couple of weeks when it comes to, let's say, normal Americans, you know, obviously paying attention with some big happenings.
But when these Afghanistan papers came out, it was like, you know, why are people not in the streets screaming about this stuff?
And so the team and I, I mean, we sat down and we said, we've got to try to put something together to simplify it, you know, not water it down, but simplify it in a way that we can get folks to have some interest or to understand, I mean, some of the lies and things that they exposed.
Because to us, I mean, this is, this should be big.
I mean, I don't want, I don't want to compare this to a Snowden revelation, but I mean, we should.
I mean, this is a learning that the government is falsely bringing us to war and understanding that what we're doing is, is not bringing about the solution as we want.
It's not bringing about real policy.
I mean, it's bullshit, to be frank with you.
This didn't get that much coverage, even though it's this huge special in the Washington Post.
And I'll let you describe what the Afghanistan papers even are.
I think a lot of people did miss it, if for no other reason than it all came out on the first day of the impeachment hearings.
There's so much going on.
And then as you say, for paying attention to wars, all eyes are on Iraq and Iran right now, rather than on the far side of Iran over in Afghanistan, where people decided to stop paying attention back 18 years ago or so.
So why don't you take people through, explain what are the Afghanistan papers?
And, and then let's start going through some of these points of what you say are the lessons in there for people to really internalize here.
Yeah.
So, you know, back in 2014, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, the SIGAR, they did this, let's say interview series.
You know, they talked to, I think it was like five to 600 different government officials, and they kind of put it together as a lessons learned, you know, what the hell happened in Afghanistan?
And it was kind of a fight to get this public.
But through some requests and putting in the FOIA, Freedom of Information Act, I mean, they were able to get these things released.
And the five things that I, after reading it, kind of, you know, came to the conclusion that most people should be alarmed about, you know, the first one, the real winner was Osama Bin Laden.
I mean, this guy, this is something you've talked about for years, Scott, but this guy wants us over there.
I mean, he said this, his family has said this.
I mean, how much more obvious do we have to make it to the neocon warmongering crowd that they want us over there?
We are an easier target if we are there on their soil.
I mean, this is one of the things that Ron Paul really said to me that kind of jolted me, like, why are more people not talking about that?
And so the first one, I mean, that popped up, the real winner in this is Osama Bin Laden.
And we need to be pretty clear about that.
And the lessons learned, the Afghanistan papers, they state that, they show that.
The second thing I talked about is no one knows or knew why we were there.
I mean, look, there's, you know, we could talk about this for days of who lied to who in front of Congress and to the American public.
But to this day, I mean, this is the conversation we're having right now regarding Iran and regarding kind of the whole Middle East.
What the hell's the mission?
Why are we there?
How many more of our people have to die before we come home?
So the second thing we looked at was no one knew or knows, you know, why we're there.
Slow down a second here, because, well, first of all, on the previous point about Ron Paul won this argument with Rudy Giuliani, Giuliani said, I demand you take that back.
And Ron was like, no, here's the deal.
And the thing was, he was right.
And that was the beginning of the Ron Paul revolution right there.
It was the Giuliani moment.
And yet somehow, even after he won the argument, we still didn't win the argument.
And society gets to go on and government and media get to go on acting like we don't know that that was right, that one, they attacked us for our government's previous intervention over there.
But two, that they were trying to provoke worse intervention, which is a little counterintuitive until you realize simply that they're playing a longer game.
They're trying to bog us down and break us and force us out the hard way because they figured just like Americans say about everybody else, these people only understand one thing, force and or bankruptcy.
And so that's just true.
And that undermines the argument for every bit of the intervention since then, that we fight them over there so that we don't have to fight them over here when nope, that's actually not right.
And so, you know, and then on the second point on none of the people in charge knew why we were there.
I'd just like you to slow down and elaborate a little bit about who you're quoting and what they said and what that means exactly.
Yeah, well, let me let me just make one comment about what you said about the Giuliani moment.
And I, you know, because that to me, I mean, it was a life changing moment for so many of us.
I mean, myself, I wouldn't call myself a neocon back in the day, but I definitely grew up, you know, thinking, oh, well, some people are bad and we're the good guys.
And you know, when Ron Paul made that comment and Giuliani challenged him, you know, everyone assumed Ron would just back down.
I mean, it's that it's that beautiful moment where Ron, he grabs a microphone in that slick silver suit and he leans into the microphone and he just doubles down.
And I mean, in my at where I was in my life, you know, I was in college at that time.
And so many people never have heard that word blowback.
You know what?
Let me stop you even there.
I love the way you point out the body language there.
I don't think I've ever heard.
I remember the moment seared into my visual cortex here.
I've seen it so many times, especially to and watch it at the time.
But I don't think I've ever heard anyone actually say it the way you just said it.
He does.
He grabs the mic and leans into it.
Make sure everybody can hear me loud and clear here.
Sorry.
Just go ahead.
I just love that moment.
It's so perfect.
Right.
And I, you know, my my objective in day to day life is how do I recreate that moment?
That aha moment.
You know, I'm a teacher by trade.
I'm like, how do you how do we create a how do we duplicate it?
How do we replicate it?
How do we scale that moment?
You know, so that it's not tens of thousands of people, it's millions, you know, if not hundreds of millions is obviously the ultimate goal here to get people to wake up, to get people to care.
And I think when Ron leaned into that microphone and doubled down, it was the first time, especially Republicans.
It was the first time that people, you know, heard this message of they aren't bombing us because we are or excuse me, they're not attacking us because they hate freedom, because they hate us and our ideas.
They're attacking us because we've been over there.
We've been bombing them for decades.
And I know, you know, this, Scott, I mean, listen, the millions of people have never heard that message.
And Ron not watering it down, not not trying to bring something that is, you know, this this milquetoast message, but bringing them the straight, pure truth that, hold on a second.
These are people, too.
And when you bomb and kill their brothers and sisters, you're going to create hatred.
And I mean, listen, you and I can go back and forth about, you know, him owning Rick Santorum versus Giuliani in future debates.
But that moment sparked it for so many people.
And because, of course, all he was doing was reminding him of the simple truth that the 90s happened, really, you know, Bush's whole narrative was that September 11th was the first day in history and never even you mind anything that his predecessors had done.
And yet you ask anybody and they'll tell you, yeah, Bill Clinton was bombing Iraq.
He bombed Iraq a bunch of times.
So did, of course, George Bush, Sr. before him and et cetera, et cetera.
So it was no secret.
It was just Ron Paul was the first one who was willing to say it out loud, as you say.
And so millions of people overnight.
And I just have to mention this because I just love it so much.
There's this documentary.
I'm sure you've seen it.
I'm sure you're in it, I don't know, called For Liberty, How Ron Paul Watered the Withered Tree of Liberty.
It's so good.
It has the word liberty in the title twice.
And it's like an hour and a half.
And it's way better than you could possibly imagine in covering the Ron Paul revolution of 2008 and showing especially how that Giuliani moment just literally made at least hundreds of thousands of people get up off of their couch and get involved to help support just for that.
And just because he was saying, you don't have to be Michael Moore, a big fat communist millionaire, hypocrite, piece of garbage, Hillary Clinton lover, to posture as anti-war.
You could be a guy who's a Protestant, conservative, married, Texas Republican congressman and be way more anti-war than that.
It's just fine.
If you like your identity, you can keep it.
You just change your mind on this issue, because why wouldn't you?
And millions of people rallied to that in an instant.
It was really something.
And people should really watch that documentary.
If you haven't had a chance to watch that documentary, it's really great, man.
It's really something else to see and take you back to that time, you know?
Yeah, I think the best part about that video is how, you know, that was like, I mean, that was the beginning days of YouTube, right?
That was like, it was one of the first, I would say, high cut videos that was kind of like, hold on, there's something to this Ron Paul guy.
He's been in Congress for 40 years, you know, voting the same way.
And I hate to say this, but I think, you know, if Ron came up in a different time, and you couldn't really have a short, succinct video, I'll tell you what, that For Liberty Uncut totally changed my thoughts on The Sound of Silence, Simon and Garfunkel, because now every time I hear that damn song, it's, you know, I jumped to, there's like, I guess, a 45 second clip where they use that, and, you know, talking about just profits.
But anyway, I prefer call me out, but yeah, good thing.
Let me dive in back, you asked me about some specifics to that second part of the piece.
No one knew why we were there.
So two quotes I want to point to, that I referenced that I think, draw out pretty clearly.
So the first one is Donald Rumsfeld.
And he said, we are never going to leave Afghanistan, unless we take care to see that there is something that will provide the stability that will be necessary for us to leave.
And you take that, and compare that with another comment, the war czar said, and he said, we were devoid of a fundamental understanding of Afghanistan, we didn't have the foggiest notion of what we were undertaking.
And so I look at both of those, and I kind of say to myself, like, if people at the top have no idea why we're there, with thousands of troops on the ground, killing hundreds of thousands of civilians, I mean, how is that not an atrocity?
How are people not?
So I just thought I had to point that out, it's like, this is not just some anti-war activist saying, we don't know why we're there.
These are the people in charge of our policy.
They're giving the directives to people on the ground, and they're incompetent.
There is no mission, there is no strategy.
And for Rumsfeld to say, provide the stability that will be necessary for us to leave, like, I don't know, I mean, maybe I see things in a different light.
But I just, I got to think that normal Americans have to read that and think to themselves, this is a crock of s***.
Well, you know, I saw the funniest thing yesterday, maybe it's not so funny.
But it's the new McCain, as they're calling him, Dan Crenshaw, was saying that we should never leave Afghanistan.
In fact, I was reading a, I'm sorry, I forget who wrote it, but it was about an interview that he did with Charlie Kirk, the young conservative activist.
And he was saying, well, you know, the real problem is that our leaders have incompetently and falsely told the American people that the mission is to win.
And so obviously people get upset because we haven't won.
But that's just not true.
That's not the mission.
The mission is simple prevention.
We just have to stay.
We just have to be there.
We don't have to win anything.
And then he, of course, retreats into ridiculous generalities about, you know, these people, they want to hurt us and, you know, them folk over there and, you know, this kind of thing because he can't define what he's talking about or else, you know, he'd have to admit there are no Arabs in Afghanistan anywhere.
Certainly not any terrorists targeting us and all of these things.
But God, doesn't, doesn't, doesn't that just perpetuate our, uh, what's the word here?
Doesn't that just perpetuate our fear that, you know, the neocon message still penetrates?
I mean, look at the, look at this, uh, excuse me, attack on Iran.
It's like on this general, it's like you could just, you just overnight, you, you just saw people come out and this clear divide.
I mean, well, one, I think the Democrats went nuts because, uh, you know, and that's easy to say, but I mean, it's, it's, it's truthful.
Like I still cannot figure out their message.
I mean, their message is what, uh, we've supported the wars for years, but, you know, now, cause we hate Trump.
We're not going to support that.
To me, it's just a, a mixed bag of, they can't figure out because they're trying on the opposite side of Trump.
Okay.
That's Democrats, but the Republican message, you know, here they come out and immediately, you know, aside from Massey, uh, Amash and maybe Matt Gates, you know, there's probably a few other Republicans that I'm not giving credit to, but it's like, you know, what's what?
I mean, immediately we go back to the talking points of like the Rick Santorum era of the party.
Yeah.
Well, the bad guys and anybody in the Middle East is, is bad.
I mean, you'd hope they'd have some sort of nominal progress, uh, within Republican consultant talking point making, you know, I mean, it's a hell of an industry.
You think these people would figure something out that the American people are still in their gut, you know, don't want war, but it's like they go, right.
I mean, Tom Cotton, you listen into this guy, they go right to that playbook.
And I'll tell you this, Scott, I think it separates the boys from the men, or shall I say, you know, uh, the people that actually have courage to stand up and say, if you're really a conservative, you have to be anti-war.
If you're really somebody who believes in limited government, you know, that's the conservative position.
And to see some Republicans, I got to give Massey credit.
I've got to give Matt Gates credit as Republican Amash, obviously an independent, but as Republicans and as conservatives standing up and being firm, you just don't see that.
And I think this is the type of test that, you know, it, it separates those that truly understand what non-intervention looks like.
They truly understand what it means to be anti-war, but they also understand in moments of, of, it would be so easy for them to sell out right now.
And they're not.
And I think, I'm not saying it's good to any of this happened.
Let me be clear about this.
These types of moments provide an opportunity for us to see, you know, who are the people that pander and say, Oh yeah, you know, I'm a Liberty Republican.
Bullshit.
It's time to be anti-war.
It's time to speak up.
And I mean, that's one of the reasons we wrote the piece is you can't just phone it in when it's easy to say, Oh, you know, we don't believe in intervention.
No.
Most of the time where we need people standing up.
Yeah.
Well, and specifically.
So yesterday they passed, the House of Representatives passed and the Democrats have a majority there, but there were, it was a War Powers Resolution, which is funny because Pelosi took this out in the conference committee.
They took this out of the NDAA and went ahead and passed it on anyway.
But then they went ahead and passed this War Powers Resolution and moving it onto the Senate.
And yeah, as you say, here you have Getz and you know, Massey, I mean, as far as I know, he just gets it right every time.
I'm not ever worried about him.
But this guy Getz, from what I know about him, I know he leans anti-war, but I know he's very pro-Trump and I see him defending Trump on TV all the time in this kind of thing.
For him, he has a huge partisan incentive to go ahead and be quiet.
And here he is, you know, sticking his head up and saying, no way, man, this is, you know.
Mike Lee in the Senate is making sounds like he, and I don't know what Rand Paul's going to do, but they better, you know, they're going to have to take this up in the Senate and they better vote right.
Yeah.
And the best part, so Matt Gaetz is, in my opinion, is, this is a very, very not easy choice for him.
A very simple thing to do was to get in line and say, well, you know, whatever Trump wants on this.
The fact that McCarthy, you know, I mean, poster boy for establishment, military-industrial complex.
I mean, him and Pelosi, you know, it's, it's, it's interesting to me to even see Democrats on the other side of this.
That's the majority leader of the Republicans, minority in the House, right?
Correct.
Correct.
For Kevin McCarthy, you know, he goes on TV and he, you know, this is the talking point.
Well, this resolution is anti-Trump, so it's pro-Iran and Gaetz just destroys it.
This is the resolution.
He tweeted this.
The resolution doesn't include Soleimani's name.
It includes no criticism of real Donald Trump or his policy.
And the best part, look, you know, I have my opinions on Donald Trump when he's in line with liberty.
I'm proud of it.
I'll support it.
I'm not afraid to praise him.
When he's against it, I'm not afraid to call him out and say, hey, get in line with liberty.
That's our policy at YAL.
Matt Gaetz, this tweet is the perfect tweet because it's like, listen, the resolution does not include the guy's name.
So throw that talking point out the window that he's like against us killing the Iranian general, whatever your opinion is.
And the second part, he's saying, listen, it doesn't criticize Trump.
It literally, for him to stand up and say that, it's hilarious to watch the GOP establishment who honestly doesn't like Trump, like McCarthy, you know, is a status quo guy.
And he has to sit there and now fight with one of the most pro-Trump congressmen because he's coming out as anti-war.
So regardless of what you think of Gaetz when it comes to Trump, this is the type of stuff I'd love to see because the anti-war coalition should be a coalition that is everybody.
And Matt Gaetz's district, he's the first district in Florida, he represents the most military members of any other member in Congress.
And this goes back to what went on in 2012, right?
More military donations.
We're talking presidential campaign donations, more military donations than all the other candidates put together.
If that doesn't tell you something about the anti-war message, I don't know what will.
Yep.
Well, and so that's the thing of it, right?
Partisanship rules over that kind of deal in Congress and the right wing in America are getting better and better on this.
Although, you know, I had a lot of people telling me anecdotally that over the past few weeks or, you know, a couple of weeks here that all their Facebook friends who they're anti-war when Donald Trump says so, or whatever, that now, yeah, let's kill everyone in Persia.
That'll make us feel better, blah, you know, stupid thing.
And then, but also I heard that the very same people who were saying that, that when Trump said a few missed missiles is not a big deal and it's all good now and let's not escalate, that they'll turn around and support that too.
And so it's always just going to be the marginal who actually have any principle at all.
The actual congressmen in power and all their fans on Facebook too are just blowing with the wind on all this stuff.
And you know, yeah, saving money is nice, but killing people is really thrilling too.
So hey.
Well, two points on that, Scott.
So the first one, you know, the partisanship wins.
It's pretty hilarious to me.
Because when we, you know, if we do a media hit, it's hilarious as the president of Young American Celebrity, because, you know, if I'm debating war, they'll typically, they have two seats, right?
There's a Democrat and Republican seat.
And if I'm talking about war, you know, they'll typically put me in the Democrat seat to debate like a neo-counter war monger.
You know, if I'm talking budgets or I'm talking spending, it could be the same topic, by the way.
You know, it could be like, hey, we want to talk about the cost of the Iraq war versus, hey, we want to talk about the merits of the Iraq war.
And I might have to switch seats, you know, depending on who I'm debating.
But our rule, you're right, it is such a marginal thing for people.
Either Trump is Messiah or Trump is the devil.
And that is, that partisanship just kills me because I get why people do it.
You know, I get it.
You raise money, you know, it's, it's, it's team sports, tribalism, okay, I get it.
But that's, that's one of the things that I think, I think people are getting tired of the bullshit.
I think people are tired of this idea that, you know, it's, it's, they're still doing it, though.
And I think your point is correct, which is Trump comes out and says, hey, you know, we killed this Iranian general, you know, people go, yeah, we got to kill them all.
And then the next day, it's like, you know, well, yeah, I want to focus on diplomacy.
You know, my, my advice to him was announce victory and bring everybody home, you know.
But it's, people do follow the political winds.
And it's hilarious to me to watch it, in a sick way, obviously, when it comes to war.
But it is fascinating that people, I think most people are getting tired of that.
You see the numbers of independents increasing.
You see a lot of people kind of saying, listen, you know, we need to think for ourselves.
But I think that this past week should show us the winds are still there.
And so I, that to me is, it shows us partisanship is still not an evil in the country, but people are going to follow where the leaders are.
But that also doubled down on the point that we need people to be boldly anti-war.
And I don't think you present it as, hey, we have this new idea or this fringe idea.
No, most Americans are anti-war.
I mean, look at the polling numbers on bringing people back from Afghanistan.
Most veterans of the Iraq and Afghan wars are anti-war, even more than the general population at times.
And that should be a huge point for people to say, hey, maybe we shouldn't be there.
Yeah.
Well, and so this goes to your final point in your piece in the Hill is just about the costs of war and all the dead on all the different sides.
And of course, mostly civilians, not combatants, and all those deprived to death that you mentioned too.
And just the straight number of dollars spent, six and a half trillion, probably be more than that by the time they're done paying off all the pensioners and 150 years from now and whatever it is.
And what could have been?
I mean, if everybody agrees now that, oh, geez, yeah, it wasn't worth it to do that.
Well, gee, that kind of means that everybody who said so all along was right.
And everybody who said, don't listen to them.
We know what we're doing.
And they know what they're doing was wrong.
But that means that we should at least have to grapple with the counterfactual here is, hey, what if we had had a 21st century without a big stupid war on terrorism?
My favorite moment is when I'm unfortunately stuck scrolling through cable news.
And you see these people talking, these talking heads that are saying the exact same things.
But more importantly, they all got it wrong on Iraq.
They all got it wrong on Afghanistan.
They all got it wrong with Libya and Yemen.
And just the list goes on and on, right?
Look at the last seven countries we bombed.
They've all gotten it wrong.
And I don't know how we fix this, by the way.
I hate not coming with a solution.
But the more that we can use technology or pull these clips of these people that have said the same thing and just show their hypocrisy, I mean, show how these people just consistently, you know, oh, regime change, and you know, we must take out this horrible, horrible person and replace them with what?
What comes next?
What does the vacuum look like?
And you know, look, the last part of the piece was, you know, just kind of about a lot of the money and the lives lost.
And, you know, one of the things I point to is, you know, if you had six trillion dollars, you could literally lay those dollar bills and encircle the earth over 23,000 times.
But the money to me is not how we capture more believers.
It's, you know, sadly, it's that death toll.
Over 800,000 people that have died in these post 9-11 wars.
I mean, to me, that was what was so special about Ron's anti-war message.
And not that it's Ron's message, but that Ron was on a national stage and able, we've got to pull on heartstrings.
The left is so good about doing this on certain issues.
And I think it's an opportunity for conservatives to say, listen, support the troops by ending the wars.
Well, and also, two things here.
First of all, that's a low ball estimate.
And they say so, by the way.
They're trying to do the Iraq body count best they can count up actual reports, kind of a thing, compared to, you know, the best estimates, which would have probably 800,000 or more dead just in Iraq war two, never mind Iraq war three, or the war in Syria that America caused, or at least, you know, probably tens of thousands, if not more than 100,000 in Libya, and certainly hundreds of thousands, you know, bombed and deprived to death in the wars in Somalia and Yemen.
So more, you know, 800,000, you can multiply that by each of the wars, pretty much, you know, certainly, you know, in Somalia, it's been like this since 2003, or so, you know, two or three, the wars going on there.
But also, it's not just the heartstrings thing, because right wingers are impervious to that.
But what it really is, is is to show that this doesn't really help the people.
You know, you say that, yeah, it sucks that our soldiers have to die in this thing.
But at the end of the day, it's worth it, because we're going to give these people a democracy, we're going to give them the, you know, black robe judges and freedom of speech and this and that kind of thing.
And yet, that's not true.
You just got them all dead and caused a massive sectarian war and freedom didn't win out at all.
And so that's the whole thing is, if it was a noble sacrifice, it's time to clarify exactly what was so noble about it, you know?
Yeah.
And I think Scott, you're brilliant in it.
And what gives me hope about the sentiment and not the public polling and everything, but like public opinion, what gives me hope is now with technology, you know, there were some people, even just some tweets that really hit me yesterday, where people posting photos of like Tehran and just showing that this is not some war zone, right?
I mean, don't get me wrong, some of these areas, you know, I mean, they've been leveled a lot of times by U.S. bombs, right?
But like, a lot of these places, I mean, these are normal cities.
And we're talking about, I mean, flattening them.
You know, you've got people from their basement in Kansas saying, you know, hey, let's take these bastards out, create a parking lot over there, level them.
And it's like, that 30 years ago, 40 years ago, you know, I think it's a different time now in that enough people are tired of the wars, but also the ability for us to see video of normal people talking, to see pictures and to see that these are human beings.
And so I think you're right.
And when I say, you know, focusing on the heart strains, I think you're right to even go further in focus on the fact that it doesn't work.
These are good people.
They're normal people.
Like the cultural aspect of like, what the hell would we do if Chinese or Russian troops were standing outside of our house?
I mean, we'd be objecting, right?
You'd grow a hatred for that country.
You know, it's not normal.
It's not something that is going, it doesn't work.
And I think the ability for this to be successful, I think you're right.
I mean, people, we got to paint that picture.
And I think it's a different time now.
And like I said, it's not a good different time.
You're right.
If the war never happened, I think that'd be a better time.
But it means we have a better opportunity because people are tired of the war.
And I think with technology, you make it real for people.
You make it personal.
And we can't just phone it in and say, everyone over there is bad.
Let's let's let's nuke them.
Let's let's let's just get rid of everybody.
That's not a solution.
And I think the neocons are losing when it comes to public opinion, because people are tired and they're seeing through the cracks.
Yeah.
And by the way, top headline on antiwar dot com today, US drone kill 60 Afghan civilians, supposedly along with the Taliban commander.
And this happens all the time.
There's just a story.
Actually, I just interviewed a reporter about one of these in 2008, where they killed 40 kids.
Yeah.
The Marines, special ops guys.
Flip the switch on that, Scott.
What happens if it says Afghan drone kills 60 U.S. civilians?
I mean, think about that.
Think about that.
I mean, we'd be in the streets.
Yeah.
People who literally be in the streets.
Yeah.
People who weren't the Afghan government, but we're living in Afghanistan, attacked us back 19 years ago.
And we've been killing people ever since in the hundreds of thousands.
So I think we have a pretty good taste of how we would react to something like that.
But it's just fascinating to me.
Yeah.
Well, you know what?
So we really are at a point, though, where I'm keeping you over here just a minute.
We are at a point, though, where essentially everybody agrees with us.
And even if, you know, not very hard, you know, we're not Afghanistan is hardly at the top of their list or anything, but most people don't believe in this stuff anymore at all.
And yet, of course, the military and the political establishments on both sides are, you know, going to continue to perpetuate it.
And this president, who we know is against the Afghan war and has been for like 15 years or something, is probably just going to escalate again.
He's not really going to get the guys out of there, even if he does hate years.
And so, you know, what does that mean politically?
Who's going to, you know, exploit that gap between the American people's position on this and the government's position on this?
And obviously that's a loaded question because you're the president of YAL.
But you know, what difference does YAL make, really?
I mean, are you guys helping elect Republicans?
Are you helping to elect Thomas Massie's that guys like me can count on?
That's the important question, right?
I think that's a very, very important question.
And you know, it's it's let me take a little bit of time here to kind of give you the quick rundown.
I mean, I, I'm 28 years old, I came in because the Ron Paul, I told you the Giuliani moment, got involved with Young Americans for Liberty, I kind of poked my head around and said, you know, how are these ideas not mainstream with everybody?
You know, how are people not in the streets screaming about these ideas and these principles of the Constitution and liberty?
But I'm going to say this and people are going to get mad.
I believe the Liberty movement has failed tremendously.
I think we failed to recruit enough people.
I think we failed to plan.
We failed to prepare.
We failed to act.
And most importantly, we failed to evaluate and better our processes and our plan.
So all that to be said, if you ask me, what's the short term solution or how is YAL going to make a difference and make sure that, you know, we bring all the troops home from Iraq and Afghanistan and all these countries?
And by the way, you might call me a radical, Scott, I'm not looking to bring troops home from a couple of countries in the Middle East.
I want to bring them all home.
You know, we've got troops in over 120 countries.
You know, I mean, we could we could probably even go higher than that.
But I just want to be pretty clear about that.
I don't think we have some short term solution.
The politicians, they're bought and paid for by the special interests.
You know, these defense contractors, I mean, this is you're talking about money.
You're talking about power and all this stuff at the federal level.
It's going to take time.
And a lot of people in the movement, let's call it the broader liberty movement.
They have focused in, you know, and look, we do have some victories.
You've got Thomas Massey.
You've got Rand Paul.
I'll look at Mike Lee.
You've got Amash.
You know, people there are some people, but they're only going to be able to do so much.
I respect those guys.
I do.
I respect their principled stances, but they're only going to be able to do so much.
And so you might say this is me deflected on the question, but I truly believe the only solution for the liberty movement is to start from the ground up.
And that is why we not only recruit students on campus with a pure message of liberty, but we focus on local elections as much as I as much as we can.
We I mean, I'm happy to come back.
We can talk.
I can give you the whole rundown on why.
But the reality is, if you can't get people elected and hold them accountable to the principles, it's not worth getting them elected.
I see these people all the time.
They run for Congress.
Oh, I'm a liberty Republican.
Bullshit.
They get in there voting.
They're wrong on every major vote.
You know why?
Because what's the incentive?
You get a million dollars from the defense contractors or you get a pat on the back from the liberty movement.
I mean, it's not even close.
Right.
I mean, these people are human beings.
So what we do is we focus on state legislative races.
I have a process from soup to nuts.
We recruit students.
We find candidates that are viable and principled.
We go out and we knock doors for them.
We endorse them.
We back them.
We get them elected.
But here's the most important part, Scott, that a lot of other groups don't do.
We hold them accountable.
We follow their voting record.
We follow their statements.
We follow what they're doing.
Yeah, but what's the litmus test, Cliff?
They got to be how good on which issues, right?
Obviously, they can't be for gun control.
You wouldn't support somebody like that.
But what if they say they're against the Afghan war, but they vote for the NDAA every year?
No, I mean, it's we have a seven page survey.
I'm happy to send it yaliberty.org slash door.
They can look at our entire survey.
We have a seven page survey that dives in.
We're not looking to just be one of those groups that gets like five yes or no questions.
I mean, we want to know who these people are.
And you'll appreciate this because of your obvious focus on foreign policy and your skill set there.
We're not looking to get pro, let's say, economic Republicans elected that end up becoming neocons when they get to Congress.
I want to be clear about that.
We're vetting state candidates.
We talk about foreign policy.
We talk about different issues that are considered, quote unquote, federal issues.
But here's the thing.
Are you familiar with Tyler Lindholm in Wyoming?
I am.
This guy's presenting a bill.
You weren't there, but I went to the meeting here with YAL and bringourtroopshome.us kind of all meeting together.
And this is, I think, the most important project.
Well, one of a few extremely important projects going on this year is the protect the guard act resolutions that are being introduced in state legislatures across the country, all by Ron Paul Republicans and YAL type Republicans, right?
Yeah, exactly.
So that's exactly the type of thing where it's like getting people to stick their neck.
I mean, listen, we have 56 people we've gotten elected through Operation Win at the Door.
The objective now is to get them all to put forward legislation like to defend the Guard Act.
I mean, to me, I think it is one of the most, it's an exciting time for us to believe in peace because no longer can people hide in the shadows in state government and we can start to lead on the issue rather than say, oh, wait till we get to Congress.
There's never a vote on a declaration of war in Congress.
We all know that.
I mean, I hate to say that, but it's like until we get control where enough people to have courage, it's just not going to happen.
They're derelicts of their duty.
It's a joke.
But pushing those types of things, so hardcore anti-war bills in the state legislators, pushing things that are civil liberty type bills, privacy.
We've got Stuart Jones in South Carolina.
Scott, this guy nullified the NDAA in his county when he was the county commissioner.
I mean, these are hardcore folks.
And believe me, keeping our principle, keeping people in that are going to be people we're proud of, going to be people that stay principled, that is a ...
This is our resume now.
Who are these people who are getting elected?
I'm going to be blunt with you.
I'm going to tell you something that makes us look bad, but I think it's good to be transparent.
We actually had to kick out one of our winners.
We got a guy in Vermont who we got elected.
We went in, we spent resources, time, and energy, and he voted for a plastic bag ban, some BS syntax, and we called him.
We said, what the hell is this?
And he said, oh, well, leadership, click.
That's where I hang up.
Because if we're really trying to build this bench of future Ron Pauls, future Thomas Massys, we don't have time to deal with the people who aren't going to be fully bought in, and not just reacting on our principles, but leading on them.
That's why we're pushing the Defend the Guard Act, and that's why we're going to really try to get a lot of these bills pushed.
But it's not just about legislation.
Look at Ron Paul.
People say, oh, well, we judge Ron Paul on the bills he passed.
I don't.
I judge them on the fact that they now have a microphone.
And if we can elect these 250 liberty legislators that we're trying to get elected, it's about the microphone.
It's about the message.
Yeah, I want to pass some hardcore liberty bills.
What I really want is a minor leagues, a bench for the liberty movement, something we have never had across the country, so people can message.
We can stop throwing bombs from the sideline.
We can actually be in there, force roll call votes.
Get all these clowns out.
Look at Tony LoBosco in Missouri.
The guy got up on the floor and absolutely destroyed the Republicans and Democrats pushing for eminent domain, and some of these others, I mean, just gave them a lesson on property rights.
Ron Paul-esque type lesson.
I got to tell you, this has never been my angle, Cliff, with the whole electoral politics, and especially infiltrating into the Republican Party, and all this kind of thing.
But I have to say that a stunt like having up to 20 or 30 different state legislatures have conservative Republicans introduce these anti-war resolutions, and very meaningful ones.
You can't have our guard troops without crossing a technicality threshold that we know you'll never cross.
That is huge, and that could be the most powerful public relations stunt for peace since the anti-draft rallies of the 70s or something.
I mean, this could be absolutely huge.
And because of the narrative, and this is, and I think you understand this, it goes back to Ron Paul and the Giuliani moment and all those things, too, is it's exploiting the irony of the situation, right?
Why would a young Republican group put anti-war first?
That sounds unusual and interesting, and so maybe there's a good reason.
And did you hear there's a bunch of anti-war legislation being introduced in the state legislatures?
Oh yeah?
Yeah, and all by Republicans, and a lot of them war veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan.
How do you like that?
Uh-huh.
That's meaningful.
That's huge.
And it's the kind of thing they'll do everything they can to ignore, but I don't think they'll be able to.
And so, you know, you keep coming up with examples like that, and you'll have my ear at least.
Well, let me just say this.
A lot of people ask me, are you guys moving from campus and educating and moving away from the philosophy and focusing on politics?
No.
If we don't, our secret weapon, look, who's out there knocking doors for Jeb Bush and Rick Santorum?
No one.
Nobody gives, there's no passion there, there's no principle.
All of what we're doing on campus is the only way we can then go out and try to get these people to have a microphone for our ideas.
And Scott, I probably should not say this, but I am a lot more with you than you think in terms of believing in educating and reaching people and focusing on culture and the community than politics.
I just see this as a tool.
I look at what Ron did, and I say, how the hell do I replicate that?
How do I get other people to get a microphone as large as he had that can get people to start thinking?
And when people come to me and say, Cliff, we love YAL.
We love what you guys think on economics and on civil liberties, but it's just that foreign policy.
I mean, you guys seem, if you would just change that, I got to reiterate what Ron said.
If you don't understand the foreign policy of peace, you don't understand any of it.
And I think, Scott, we have to lead on this issue.
I think it is how you recruit.
I don't think it can be a secondary issue.
And maybe a byproduct of that is what you said.
It comes off odd or it comes off, it grabs people's attention.
Why is this young group who's electing these liberty-minded Republicans, why are they leading on foreign policy?
And I fully believe that I think this is going to be the issue of our generation.
And I think that the liberty movement, we need to be leading on it.
And I think we've got a plan here to scale it, to get 250 microphones to say, the war's a racket.
It's time to bring these troops home.
All right.
Well, we got to cut it right there, but that's a good place to do it anyway.
Thank you very much for your time, Cliff.
Appreciate it.
Thanks, Scott.
All right, you guys.
That's Cliff Maloney.
He is the president of the Young Americans for Liberty, and check out his recent piece in The Hill, Five Lessons Afghanistan Teaches Us About Iran.
And the Scott Horton Show, Anti-War Radio, can be heard on KPFK 90.7 FM in L.A., APSradio.com, antiwar.com, scotthorton.org, and libertarianinstitute.org.
