All right, y'all, welcome back to the show.
It's anti-war radio.
I'm Scott Horton and our first guest today on the show is John Glazer.
He's an editorial assistant at the American conservative magazine, home of the anti-war right.
Welcome to the show, John.
How are you?
Good.
Thanks for having me.
Well, I'm very happy to have you here.
And, uh, of course I should also mention you got a archive.
You're starting to work up here on antiwar.com.
As well as, uh, on the blog, not just, uh, well in both places there.
Uh, and, uh, so far it's two, two very important articles, I think.
Uh, first of all, let's talk about the latest one, the American deep state.
And, uh, as so often happens, a good criticism of American foreign policy begins with a critique of something written by Eli Lake.
So what did he do to us now?
So he wrote an article, um, in the new Republic, um, about Pakistan's deep state.
A deep state is what he calls, um, a network of current and retired intelligence and military officers who actively undermine the official policy of the United of the, of the Pakistani government.
So saying sort of the military and the intelligence have more power and control than, uh, the, the politicians.
And that's probably true.
Uh, it's, it's sort of been written about a lot.
Um, but he talked about how, you know, there's some problems when we deal with the Pakistani government, especially in this last case of Osama bin Laden.
Um, he has some concerns that they, they knew about his whereabouts and didn't tell us more cooperative in that, in that respect, but his definition of the deep state, I think if you just swap out the name Pakistan for the name United States, um, it applies perfectly well.
The United States has an immense, um, unelected, uh, intelligence community that, you know, stays around beyond the election cycles and has huge amounts of, of influence, um, enough even to, you know, draw into conformity an entire line of presidents to make a completely consistent foreign policy since, you know, post-war, uh, you know, 1950s.
Um, and so I think his, unfortunately his criticism is a bit, uh, blindsided, but he's got blinders on because he recognizes, which is so easy for conservatives to do the wrongs and mishaps of other governments, but not about ours.
Well, a couple of things there, I guess, first of all, is the irony that America gives billions of dollars to Pakistan directly to their intelligence and military forces and different forces.
And different factions of them and who, who could possibly keep track, probably not the CIA.
And yet it's, you know, their deep state was built in a way, at least financed, uh, its creation by American taxpayers.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think that's right.
Um, especially, I mean, that started sort of getting pretty crazy around the time of Reagan.
Um, but it stayed pretty much consistent, uh, throughout all the way up until now.
And now Pakistan's becoming a country sort of in a different category and as Israel and Egypt have been, um, those two have been in a different category with, we give a lot of money to a lot of governments and a lot of those governments, you know, brutalized their own people, but, um, Pakistan's beginning to get so much money annually from us.
Um, and it reaches so many different dark corners in that country that, you know, it's starting to be sort of like a different category.
Um, this is our little sister state and.
Part of, part of the merit of, of Eli Lake's criticism is that, you know, this really is a problem because we don't have much control over, uh, over the Pakistan government and the military who often, who often pursues its own sort of policy, um, independent of, of the government and we're losing control of it.
I mean, they have, they do have, um, good relationships with say the Haq Haqqani network, um, in Pakistan and, and many others.
Um, yeah.
And it's, it's a problem and it's a, it's a sort of skittish schizophrenic piece of our foreign policy that we can continue to give billions upon billions of dollars to try and influence Pakistan and have sort of dominion over their country.
Yet it consistently represents national security problems for us and to the protection of the American people.
Well, you know, part of me thinks, I don't know, I should just disregard this part of my brain that thinks they're just, it's just too crazy to have a war with Pakistan.
You just, nah, go in there and seize the nukes like some Hollywood movie or whatever.
It just couldn't be because it's too bad of an idea.
And really I shouldn't listen to that part of me because being a bad idea doesn't ever seem to dissuade the people in charge of this policy.
And it really worries me how easy it is to call Pakistan they, and the war party just loves to, uh, you know, say they, this and they, that they back Haqqani and they knew Osama bin Laden was there.
I mean, that's how Hillary Clinton talks, right?
She was saying that before the raid, uh, she went there and said, y'all know where he is, but even if that's true, who's y'all?
I mean, uh, which that's my paraphrase anyway, but still, uh, you know, Pakistan, as much as maybe more than many states in the world, uh, maybe among the worst like this is completely fractured.
And, um, there are, you know, major divisions and factions within the ISI and within the military and within, uh, you know, the, the four states that make it up, it's, uh, it's a very kind of a ad hoc situation over there.
So if 50 people in the Pakistani government, ISI or military or whoever knew that Osama was there, that still doesn't mean that they knew in, in that sense, you know what I mean?
That it was some kind of official policy to protect him from us or something.
But that now works, right?
I think, you know, Pakistan is very fractured up and it's not easy to assign blame to the higher ups because the hierarchy is not, um, sort of, it's sort of clear, um, and then blame cannot, cannot really legitimately be assigned, but you're, you're worried about war in Pakistan.
Um, I mean, that sort of depends on what your definition of war is.
I'm, I'm concerned that we're already at war in Pakistan.
Um, the drone program has been, uh, you know, excessively increased by the Obama administration.
We consistently, you know, bomb, you know, weddings and funerals and, uh, civilian homes and other things.
Um, there's evidence that we have sent on the ground troops within Pakistan, uh, sort of the, even aside from the, the JSOC troops that went in to get, um, Bin Laden, um, and there's, uh, you know, a lot of, uh, CIA intelligence kind of people there.
Um.
And Blackwater.
If yeah, Blackwater and other things.
I mean, if this was done to the United States, you can bet we'd consider that war, but if you go and ask Obama, you know, we at war of Pakistan, he's going to give you a line of BS about how there are, uh, there are allies and we're working with them on the one terror and all this stuff, define it, right.
Because, uh, back and back to those divisions in Pakistan, we can war against the people of Pakistan all day.
And at least for the time being, we've been able to just pay off their government to let us like in Laos.
Right, right.
But, um, what I'm worried about is a war against their military and attempt to steal their nukes, uh, uh, a pinning of blame on them for all of our problems in Afghanistan and Osama bin Laden too, in a, in a easy kind of make a slogan out of it sort of way, like the war party likes to do.
And of course, you know, Robert Kagan and those guys have been pushing for an invasion, a real invasion against the Pakistani state, such as, such as it is since 2007.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think you're right.
And this is part of like, this is part of why I wrote the piece because we have people in the sort of American punditry have this ability to criticize Pakistan and get all sort of hyped up about what a travesty all this is and how they're betraying us and, you know, have intonations that we should go to war.
Uh, yet they're completely incapable of simply looking at our own situation and realizing that, well, first of all, our network of retired and intelligence military personnel, uh, confer the sort of unwarranted influence that Eisenhower warned us about, you know, over a half a century ago.
Um, it likely outmatches Pakistan.
Um, in the Boston globe, hold it right there, John, we got to go out and take this break.
Uh, but, uh, when we get back, we want to talk a little bit about that.
Cause that's really mostly what your article is about.
Um, kind of got, uh, focused on Pakistan, the first part.
And then I also want to talk about your other article about the secret war on Iran and how it hurts their dissident movements there.
Uh, it's John Glaser from the American conservative magazine and antiwar.com.
We'll be right back.
All right, y'all welcome back to the show.
It's antiwar radio.
I'm Scott.
I'm talking with John Glaser.
He's right over at the American conservative magazine and an antiwar.com.
It's got a piece here called the American deep state.
And, uh, it's basically the premise of the article is the, uh, the blindness, the narrow-minded hypocrisy of the war party in America who can sit there and directly describe, uh, problems in other countries, uh, perhaps that even warrant or violent intervention when they're exactly the same processes that in many cases even lead them to be writing what they're writing in the first place.
Like you think of, uh, John, I'm thinking of Fred Kagan and all those guys at AEI who wrote up the so-called surge plan when really it, we found out later, it was, uh, general what's his name was the guy behind it all who arranged for these civilian front men at the think tank to give Bush the excuse to double down in Iraq in 2007.
It was, uh, Bob Woodward was the one who wrote about that anyway.
Uh, in this article, you refer to, uh, the Washington post report and the Boston globe, I think you were about to get to the Boston globe when we went out to break here about, uh, the, the revolving door, that iron triangle of, uh, military and industrial interests and, uh, their influence in Washington, DC.
What was it that the globe found that you thought was so important there?
Well, yeah, so it's a good example.
It's a good illustration of how, um, sort of autonomous the military and intelligence community is in determined influencing policy.
Um, they said that the globe found last year that from 2004 to 2008, 80% of retiring three and four star officers went to work as consultants or defense executives, often still maintaining their positions as, um, as advisors within the Pentagon.
Um, and we can see, I mean, lakes, deep state critique on Pakistan seems to center on the ability of this sort of community to influence state policy.
I mean, let's take a look at how it influences us policy.
We have that sort of revolving door with the military industrial complex, and it leads to the fact that say, you know, the U S defense budget is the largest piece of the budget period.
Not only is the largest piece of the United States government government's budget, but it, um, it almost exceeds the rest of the world combined.
I mean, this is huge.
If you, if we're under the impression that this revolving door and this, this influence of the military industrial complex doesn't influence that policy.
The fact that we have this sort of undying need to continue to finance, um, you know, the war makers, um, we, we, we have another thing coming.
Uh, the other thing, um, was in the, in Washington post that Dana priest did a couple of reports that found, you know, similarly troubling things was about the extent of the intelligence network.
We have over 3000 companies, both public and private that work on programs related to terrorism and Homeland security and intelligence.
I mean, it's a monster on elected intelligence world.
That's clearly beyond the grasp of any president or Congressman.
Nobody can really fully understand the whole thing.
It's just too, it's just too big.
Um, and in the, in a post nine 11 world where our highest enemies are the result of blowback, um, these sorts of realities about an over-involved, overly interventionist military and intelligence community.
I mean, it's not rocket science.
Um, well, you know, it's interesting how in the, in the public relations about it and all that kind of thing, it's, uh, you have sort of the, the broad view and the Washington post version that says, wow, look at how big it is and whatever.
So we sort of know it's all there and it kind of creates an illusion of transparency where it's not a deep state.
It's sitting right on top and we really don't know what they're up to, but there's this kind of illusion that, yeah, that's just the American system like Henry Clay.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, Lake tries to sort of deflect any criticism of us, um, the U S deep state by saying, you know, he quoted a, a, a counter-terrorism official that remained anonymous at saying, imagine if the CIA was supporting drug cartels and over in Mexico, despite the wishes of Congress and the white house to do otherwise.
Um, and to say that really requires an ignorance of the history of the CIA and its connection with, with drugs.
I mean, the CIA trained and funded the Contras and Nicaragua who smuggled cocaine into the U S with CIA knowledge and protection, um, contributing to the crack at epidemic and street gang violence in Los Angeles in the 1980s.
Apparently that doesn't qualify in Lake's book, but it was surely beyond the wishes of the vast majority of elected officials in the United States that are supposed to represent the American people.
And of course, most of the American people had no idea about it either.
Um, you can also go to Afghanistan in the eighties.
Uh, the CIA funded the Mujahideen again in Afghanistan to fight the Soviets.
Despite the fact that they use part of those funds to ramp up their massive heroin trade and opium refining capacity.
Um, at one point they provided more than half of all the heroin use in the United States.
I mean, certainly if people had known about this and had a full understanding of it, uh, they'd be in, they'd be uproarious.
I mean, they wouldn't stand for it, but, um, you know, apparently this doesn't qualify as, as a deep state, which, which military in which military intelligence communities sort of overcome and overwhelm the policies that are preferred by the American people in Congress.
Um, he just can't see it.
He, he, he can't perceive it cause he's a new conservative.
And I mean, you and me, I mean, I'm sure you had a fine day yesterday, but it was Memorial day and that can be tough for anti-war types.
Um, but this kind of nationalism is just, uh, is just rampant and it's reinforced with diligence by the political class and media, people like Eli Lake.
Um, and it's a very intentional thing.
They do it on purpose.
Um, it is the whip and we are the caged lion.
So these urgings of patriotism and national religion are a way to just tame the population because when ordinary people get a full understanding of it, they start to advocate really radical ideas like say, having a government with limited powers and responsibilities or one that doesn't make war the way that, you know, most people make their morning coffee.
Um, that's a threat to power.
So what you have to do is you have to tell people stories about the inherent goodness of American government and the military that are overseas, higher moral purposes, you know, uh, all that kind of stuff while still, you know, assigning all this blame to other supposedly enemy states.
Um, but it's unfortunately pretty rampant and Lake Lake article is a perfect example of it.
Yeah.
You know, it really is amazing to me.
I mean, not what Eli Lake thinks, but that, uh, the American people and to any extent, even in the military are still buying any of this.
I mean, I've met plenty of jaded soldiers in my life.
Uh, you know, and that includes from the current wars too, who, you know, no better now, some of whom, you know, said they knew better going in, but already we're in, uh, things like that.
But, uh, it's amazing that after a decade of this madness, you know, chasing enemies around and making them everywhere we go, that anyone is still buying the whole.
Yeah.
But the flag is still red, white, and blue.
And so everything's cool.
And I'm still for it after all this John, but I guess here we are.
And I guess we're going to have to talk about Iran some other time.
I appreciate your time on the show today.
Good stuff.
All right.
Thanks very much.
Everybody.
That's John Glaser.
It's right for antiwar.com and the American conservative magazine.
The most recent piece is called the American deep state.
Another good piece about Iran on there too.
Check it out.
