All right, y'all.
Welcome back to the show.
It's Anti-War Radio.
Happy to welcome John Glazer back to the show.
He's our new assistant editor at AntiWar.com, was an intern at the American Conservative and at Cato, worked on an economic plan for Israeli and Palestinian reconciliation at the Institute for Humane Studies.
I didn't know that.
That's cool.
And is or was a beat reporter at Melrose Weekly.
What do you know?
Welcome back to the show, John.
How are you doing?
Pretty good.
Good to talk to you again.
Well, I'm really happy to have you here, and I got to recommend everybody.
I always do all over my Facebook page and on the radio show, I've been trying to remind myself to remind others to go and look at the AntiWar.com blog, which you have brought back to life over there.
A thousand thank yous for that.
AntiWar.com/blog.
You got about three or four pieces a day up there, usually it seems like.
All real good stuff.
Instant analysis of the highest quality, so everyone check that out.
AntiWar.com/blog, as well as, of course, whatever the address is for your regular column and your news articles at news.antiwar.com there with Jason.
Great stuff, man.
All right, so let's talk about your recent news piece.
This is at news.antiwar.com, where usually you can find all Jason Ditt stuff, but this is by John Glaser.
Minor withdrawal in Afghanistan.
War continues.
Your assessment of Barack Obama's speech last night.
How's it go?
Yeah, unfortunately, it's being billed in the media as, you know, this major withdrawal, but anyone who paid attention knows that even after this end of the year, and by the end of the year, he said he's going to take down 10,000 troops, and then by the end of next summer, which is a long way away in and of itself, the 30,000 search forces that he sent in in 2009 will come home.
By that time, almost 70,000 troops will still remain in that country.
That's just U.S. troops.
There's additional NATO troops and diplomatic services and so on and so forth.
So that's a huge, massive occupation, and so I, you know, rather than some drawdown, I really think that his speech last night should have been billed as, you know, hey, America, we're continuing the war in Afghanistan, by the way.
Yeah, well, no, I didn't watch the speech, thank goodness, but I wonder, is that really the way it came off, was like, hey, everybody, I'm beginning the end of that war, just like I promised.
Aren't you excited?
That's precisely right.
That's what he said.
He said this is the beginning of the end, but of course it's not.
I mean, even there's been various reports that Karzai came out and said publicly a few weeks ago that he was in talks with U.S. officials about staying past the 2014 deadline to get all foreign troops out.
And furthermore, there's been reports about permanent U.S. military bases being set up there in conjunction with a security agreement between Afghanistan and the United States to keep troops there and a base there, or a number of them, for decades and decades to come, similar to what we have in Germany, similar to what we have in Korea, similar to what we have in many, many countries, where we have security agreements or arrangements in which the U.S. guarantees that they will provide security for the sovereign nation of Afghanistan.
But really that just means, like, yeah, we're expanding our global military empire, and we're keeping all these other states militarily dependent on us.
It's just another set of imperial policies.
And there doesn't seem to be an end in sight in terms of U.S. military occupation of Afghanistan, despite what Obama said last night.
Well, and you know, it's funny because when they talk about negotiations with the Taliban, it sort of sounds like, you know, you might think that what they mean is negotiating an end of the war, and then after the war's over, then we get to leave, right, kind of a thing.
But no, as Gareth Porter was explaining, he had the quotes from the State Department functionaries saying that, oh, yeah, the negotiations are all about, you know, just how many bases we're going to have forever, and no negotiation with the Taliban should ever be construed to mean that we ever plan on leaving.
We just have to, I guess, blow up enough of them that then they'll agree to let us stay for a while or something.
Right, that's exactly right.
I mean, the negotiations with the Taliban are largely centered, as far as I know, on a power-sharing agreement where they would get, you know, a substantial amount of control over various provinces that they have dominion over in Afghanistan, and Karzai would welcome them into the government.
But the price for that is that U.S. troops get to stay.
The Karzai government gets to continue to be a, you know, puppet of the U.S., and, you know, we get to continue to have military bases there.
So that's the extent of the Taliban negotiations, as far as I'm aware.
And, you know, American people are just sick of it.
This is a 10-year-long war.
Nation-building efforts have just failed and fueled corruption in the Afghan government.
It's distorted local economies.
It's getting deadlier and deadlier.
I mean, just last month, it was the deadliest month for civilians since 2007.
And records like that are broken all the time.
It's just really unfortunate that, again, this is being billed as a withdrawal from Afghanistan, or drawing down troops, or stuff like that.
I mean, it's just a pure falsity.
Mm-hmm.
Well, a couple of things there.
One, I can't help but point out the abandonment of the coin doctrine.
McClatchy had an issue of their paper that came out a couple of weeks ago, where they said that at West Point, they've stopped pretending to teach the counterinsurgency doctrine.
They've given up on all of that.
And basically, all that did was serve to prolong the thing, escalate the number of troops there, and prolong it.
But, you know, switching to more night raids certainly didn't do anything to get the Americans and NATO ahead in the war over there.
No, that's right.
Night raids and bombs, similar to drone attacks in Pakistan, consistently kill civilians.
And they don't speak to a broader goal for a broader mission for Afghanistan.
I mean, it's a sad day in America when a president gets to conduct and implement a decades-long war in a foreign country, without even being clear about what the goal is, or what the aims are, or what the mission is.
If it's to dismantle and destroy Al-Qaeda, well, that was accomplished years ago.
Back in 2009, there was only an estimated 100 Al-Qaeda forces in the country.
And, you know, fears that the Taliban presence will create a safe haven or sanctuary for Al-Qaeda-type people is wrong as well, because people don't understand that the relationship between the Taliban and Al-Qaeda has soured very, very much over the years.
And it's just not, it's not tenable.
And then, you know, none of the mission is clear.
However, we still continue to do these, what are billed, what are called, counterterrorism operations, but which consistently embarrass and infuriate innocent Afghans, if they don't actually kill them.
We're creating more enemies, and we, there's literally no way out, other than just picking up and leaving, but that's not an option for Obama.
Right, well, now, and another thing you said was the American people are sick of it, and I'd like to give you a chance to prove that assertion.
There's some new polls out, and just, you know, even on cable TV news occasionally, there's some comments from some pretty warmonger right-wing Republicans saying, that's it, I've had it, my constituents have had it, we're giving up, we're done.
Seems like something's really changing in the country.
Right, it's pretty significant.
Not only, I mean, depending on how questions are asked in the poll, sometimes it's sort of close to half and half, like 55% are against the war, or, you know, 60% are pessimistic about the war.
But in a recent Wall Street, sorry, Washington Post poll, it was shown that 73% of Americans prefer a substantial withdrawal this summer.
They probably interpret a substantial withdrawal as pessimistic.
We'll have to leave it right there and pick this back up, the American public opinion on the wars, with John Glaser, assistant editor at antiwar.com.
Find him on the blog at antiwar.com/blog, and on the other side of this break, in out loud format.
All right, y'all.
Welcome back to the show.
It's Antiwar Radio.
I'm Scott Horton.
I'm talking with John Glaser, our new assistant editor at antiwar.com, and we're talking about the politics of the Afghanistan war in Washington, DC, and the sea change in public opinion.
I'm sorry, you were just getting us some poll numbers there, John, when interrupted by the break, but I'll let you go with that, and go ahead and transition, if you would, too, into what the polls have to say, and what the politics are when it comes to the conflict in Libya as well.
We'll take it that direction from here.
Sure.
Afghanistan, obviously, I mean, the public is getting more and more sick of the ongoing war, and that's part of why the Obama administration has gone to such great lengths to have this drawdown, supposed drawdown, of troops in Afghanistan seem like it's actually an end to the war.
But this opposition to war in the public is also finding itself in the Libya situation as well.
Now, there are three bills set to be voted upon tomorrow in the House.
One of those would direct the president, if it was passed, to withdraw forces engaged in offensive operations in Libya, period.
Another one would be sponsored by Representative Tom Rooney of the Republican of Florida, would strip funding for those offensive operations, period.
Effectively, both of those would end our participation.
Effectively, both of those would end our participation in the Libya intervention.
However, there's another one, which actually doesn't seem to have that much support.
And I think it's because of this congressional response to the opposition that the public has to the Libya war, which is even more great than the opposition in Afghanistan.
Another one was introduced by McCain and John Kerry of Massachusetts just recently.
And under that bill, they would give the president, Obama, the authority to continue operations in Libya for one year.
So these three bills are supposed to be voted upon tomorrow.
At least one of them will be voted upon.
Maybe they'll push the others to next week.
We'll have to see.
But this bill that McCain and Kerry introduced, I mean, it's just amazing.
It's amazing what they're trying to do, because this is sort of the senior senators and the Obama administration colluding together to find a way to, number one, disregard what seems to be the growing opposition in Congress against the illegal, unnecessary war in Libya.
But it's also an attempt to say to the American people, shut up and stay out of this.
This is our business, and your opinions don't matter.
We're going to be in Libya because we want to extend our military empire and use our military force wherever possible, and you don't have any say in it.
And the reflection of the popular will against the war in Congress is similarly being just totally disregarded.
McCain, Kerry, and their minion, as well as the Obama administration, want a situation where the president has unitary power to make war and wage war and be accountable to nobody with total impunity.
It's a drastic situation.
But thankfully, it doesn't seem to have that much support in Congress or among the American people.
All right, now, I'm a little confused.
I just want to make sure I have it straight here.
There really is no comparable bill to the Kerry-McCain bill in the Senate in the House of Representatives.
All they have is more or less anti-war bills to choose from in the House.
Am I right?
That's correct.
That's correct.
So they can't find anyone in the House to introduce a similar bill in conjunction with Kerry and McCain there?
I'm standing here beside myself.
I can't believe it.
Well, yeah, this is what I'm saying.
It's pretty incredible that the anti-war sentiment in the public is being reflected this much in the House.
The House of Representatives is much more reflective of the popular will than is the Senate.
The Senators live in their own little bubble, similar to how the President does.
They don't have contact directly with many of their constituents as they do the House of Representatives.
So, yeah, in the House of Representatives, we have two bills that are supposed to be voted upon tomorrow, might be pushed until next week, that are effectively ending our military operations in Libya.
And on the Senate side, we have a bill which actually, if we're honest, doesn't have that much support, but will continue the war for at least a year.
So it's possible this lack of an anti-war bill in the Senate just means that the Senate, whoever is in opposition to the Libyan war, is waiting for the House to pass their two bills, or one of them, and then it'll come to the Senate, and then eventually the President will be forced to do it.
That could be the case, but it doesn't seem, you're right, that there is any sort of pro-war bill in the House of Representatives, which is encouraging.
Yeah.
Well, Rand Paul, we're looking at you, man.
Absolutely.
Yeah, we are looking at them.
Him and various other Tea Party, or even people that are just sort of starting now.
Hey, I'll take Bernie Sanders.
Yeah, absolutely.
Dennis Kucinich as well.
Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul sued Barack Obama for engaging in an illegal war, and we'll see how that case goes forward.
But what's actually interesting to me about this case in Libya, as interesting as it is to figure out what will happen in the recent politics and going forward, it's also interesting to look at it in a broader context of American war, because history seems to have presented us with a bit of a controlled experiment.
On the one hand, we have the Libyan war, which was fought out in the open with the U.S. military, had the support of NATO and the U.N., it was all out in the open.
And it's getting really harsh, or at least not as harsh as you and I would prefer, but it's getting some pressure from Congress and the American people.
You know, there's pressure to stop because it's done out in the open.
And then the other side, we have Pakistan, where there is a secret drone program going on for years and years and years.
It's killing many more people than we've killed in Libya.
It's a much more egregious way of doing things because it's technically covert.
And unfortunately, Obama, I think, is going to learn a lesson.
And unfortunately, the lack of accountability that we see him conducting the war in Pakistan with drones is going to also reflect future wars that he decides to get involved in, because the incentive structure for him is, why would I do it out in the open like I did in Libya and get all this congressional backlash and all this criticism when I can just do it secretly, not have anyone question my authority, have no accountability, and kill people with drones?
And unfortunately, that's what we're seeing in Yemen, is signals that a future secret war is going to expand in Yemen, and who knows where else?
So it's a very troubling set of circumstances.
Well, and of course, part of the breakdown there, too, is in the JSOC and CIA robot wars in Pakistan and Yemen, we have the permission of the government, like bribing the Laotian princes back in the days, you know?
Whereas in Libya, the war is against the rulers of the state that they're trying to destroy.
So it's a little bit, I guess, harder to do that and keep it just a JSOC robot war.
Yeah, I guess you're right.
But what we're seeing is, you know, the troubling point is that Obama has the incentive now, after learning these lessons, that future wars that he decides to get involved in are better left to the CIA and JSOC drone attacks with people, as opposed to doing things out in the open.
And like I said, that's a troubling development, because technological advances have allowed such a thing.
And, you know, there doesn't seem to be any limit to what the president can do.
It's sort of like King Obama in that set of circumstances, and it's pretty troubling.
Well, hopefully it's hurting him some.
I know the approval ratings are mostly based on whether you like the guy or not kind of thing, and those remain somewhat high.
But his job performance seems to be suffering, and hopefully this part of the war.
I guess, you know, thinking about it over the long term or whatever, I guess it's better to have a Democrat in power waging war, because his base doesn't really support it.
You've got the Obama bots, but no one else.
The rest of the people who supported him are basically peeling off, especially over an issue like this.
And it's really nice having right-wing allies against the war from the conservative side, which are almost non-existent except for the American Conservative Magazine when Republicans are in power.
Yeah, you're right.
And I think that it's possible, despite how troubling the trajectory of American war going into secrecy and the unitary president, despite how troubling all that is going forward, I actually do see more of the anti-war sentiment on both sides, in both parties, and in more of the public.
And so that's quite encouraging.
Yeah, absolutely.
It sure is.
It's nice to talk about some good news for a change on the show, even in the context of some horrible news.
Thanks very much, John.
Okay, thank you.
That's John Glaser, everybody.
He's our new assistant editor at Antiwar.com.
Find him at Antiwar.com/blog.
