Alright, so welcome back to the show It's anti-war radio I'm Scott Horton and our next guest is Fred Bronfman.
Our first guest on the show today is Fred Bronfman He runs the website truly alive org.
He has an archive at the Huffington Post and Also writes for alternate his latest for alternate is in the viewpoint section on anti-war comm today in it.
Yeah, and It's really good It's called Obama's secret wars how our shady counterterrorism policies are more dangerous than terrorism.
Welcome back to the show Fred How are you doing?
Great It's been a long time since we spoke.
I really dig this article.
It's about the brand-new Quote-unquote national strategy for counterterrorism The best summary and criticism of this thing I've seen so far Why don't you go ahead and tell us about the future of the terror war according to the Obama White House Well, I think we should begin with a quote from the document itself It says that the US government intends to quote disrupt dismantle and eventually defeat al-qaeda and its affiliates and Adherence in the following quote areas of focus unquote now Listen to the Scott here are the areas of focus the homeland meaning America South Asia Arabian Peninsula East Africa Europe Iraq Maghreb and Sahel Southeast Asia and Central Asia Now it's been packaged Yeah, why it's a good point I Don't know why it's been packaged as a Surgical strike only aimed at a small number of Al-qaeda leaders planning to kill Americans But in fact by their own official documents, we now have 60,000 special operations Forces whose mission it is to assassinate people right now They're operating in six Muslim countries totaling 280 million people In Afghanistan Pakistan Yemen Somalia in Iraq and their Particularly since David Petraeus is now taking over the CIA His mission will be to integrate the US military assassination capacity in the CIA assassination capacity Into one what what this is not my quote what lieutenant-colonel of retired Nagel John Nagel calls an industrial-sized killing machine.
We presently have an industrial-sized killing machine Operating in six Muslim countries that has taken upon themselves to surveil hunt kidnap and or murder anyone they choose Without any judicial oversight without any of the victim having any rights What most of us when we were growing up the only up organizations that supposedly operated that way were the Gestapo and the KGB, but we now have An industrial-sized killing machine that takes it upon itself to murder anyone they want anywhere on earth at their own choosing now I'm sure I don't have to tell anyone listening to this program what the moral and legal implications are of that So I'll skip over that for a moment this this program of President Obama's national strategy for Counterterrorism is also justified on the basis, of course that it's going to protect us Against people who are trying to murder us that it's enhancing national security But there's overwhelming evidence But the opposite is true that as a result of these don't drone strikes and assassination Are in fact strengthening the forces who want to kill us increasing the ranks of potential suicide bombers exponentially this destabilizing friendly governments And increasing the risks of both conventional and nuclear attacks on the United States And let me just take one example the the greatest laboratory for this so-called Counterterrorism strategy today is Pakistan where as you know we're flying hundreds of drone strikes and and Have ground assassination teams operating in the tribal areas now They have killed several thousand people they can only name 56 Al Qaeda leaders by name the rest of them are people who they have no idea who they are they could be Reuters cameraman Carrying cameras, but that aside.
Let's assume that even the other piece to felt that we have killed 2,000 militants who want to attack America, which is totally untrue, but let's assume that for one moment We have created tens of thousands hundreds of thousands in the course of doing of killing these 2,000 people We've created tens of thousands hundreds of thousands people Who want to kill Americans and who are threatening the Pakistani government?
Since David Petraeus took his became AfPak commander and began attacking Northwest Pakistan the insurgent forces have quadrupled This is by official count the number Their number their attacks, and they've grown far stronger according to former CIA Counterterrorism chief Robert Grenier They've organized themselves their Their cooperating together and whereas before their main concern was the Pakistani government.
They've now expanded Their mission into what Grenier the CIA counter-terrorism chief calls a global jihad against Americans The unfortunate fact is that if that the likelihood that large numbers of Americans are going to die over the next decade from this policy Is really beyond any any serious doubt?
The the fundamental mistake of President Obama's but really David Petraeus is National strategy for counter-terrorism is there's an assumption that there's a limited number of Al-Qaeda people who want to kill us and if we kill let's say 10% of them.
We've reduced the threat by 10% But in fact, this is a kind of grade school mentality In the real world, there's 1.8 billion Muslims There's an endless number of new recruits to jihad That are being angered by this counter-terrorism strategy To kill a few thousand people and create hundreds of thousands of more who want to kill us It's quite literally insane in my in my view and I think what we have to understand is what Julian Assange Just talked about after reading all these WikiLeaks documents that no one's really in charge anymore of American policy abroad It's basically a bunch of different groups the CIA the military the military companies all competing to advance their own interests Which in this case is going after the money available to create this industrial-sized killing machine and the result is that American national security is much weaker as a result of this so-called Counterterrorism policy and one last point Scott That I think is very important to remember I know it's hard for a lot of people most of us many of us who are critics of the u.s.
Are used to thinking of our leaders as evil or immoral or or wrong?
It's very hard for us to accept the fact that they're also utterly Incompetent they have no idea what they're doing and if you don't believe this let's back up a moment The only concern is to is to stave off the feed until the next election So in Vietnam they constantly escalated in the cause of staving off the feet of the next election and by the end of that enterprise 55,000 Americans were killed several hundred thousand were wounded and over 3 million Indochinese were murdered and we lost They supported the Shah of Iran in fact Henry Kissinger made the Shah of Iran the linchpin of the so-called Nixon doctrine within a year of his doing so the Shah was overthrown and we got a virulently anti us Regime in Iran, which has become one of the number one problems Facing the United States today, but Khomeini would not have come to power if we if our leaders hadn't stupidly supported the Shah, but we then went ahead and gave Saddam Hussein enormous amounts of weapons the technology for so-called weapons of mass destruction And to get him to fight against the Iranians Yeah, I'm sorry, but we'll have to hold it right there as we go out to this break I want to recommend again that everyone go and check out this article.
It's incredibly comprehensive and full of excellent points It's at alternate Obama's secret wars.
How are shady counterterrorism policies are more dangerous than terrorism?
We'll be right back with more after this You All right, y'all welcome back to the show It's anti-war radio.
I'm Scott Horton.
I'm talking with Fred Bronfman His new piece at alternate org is called Obama's secret wars How are shady counterterrorism policies are more dangerous than terrorism and it's an extensive review of the new so-called counterterrorism strategy published by The White House or the Pentagon What last month?and now when we went out to the break Fred you were talking about The inherent stupidity the Empire and given the example of backing Iran And then we have to back Saddam Hussein against the reaction to our you know Puppet dictatorship being overthrown in Iran and then of course Saddam Hussein gets too big for his bridges So then we got to go have a war against him and then you know all these things the way that They all turn, you know crisis to worse crisis Although I'm not certain That's an argument for Stupidity.
I mean it seems to me that at a certain point the people at the highest levels of power whether on Wall Street In the Pentagon, they must realize that stupidity and failure Always benefit them.
So why not?
I don't know blockade and bomb Iraq from 10 for 10 years straight from bases in Saudi Arabia Especially if that's what's pissing off Osama bin Laden and making him want to attack us good even and then as you know the reaction to our Intervention won't justify more intervention same with the war in Pakistan leading to the fall of that government and an excuse to intervene to go and Seize those Islamic bombs from them before they get into the hands of the bad guys That wouldn't be in anywhere near the the position to get them if it wasn't for our intervention You say the same thing about Somalia where now they pretend that they never intervene there But all of a sudden we have this al-shabaab problem that we have to go and have a secret war against in Somalia They're they love this stuff, right?why would they ever choose to act smart if if You know if all their incentives are to keep screwing up and buy more drones more bombs make more money till more well, I mean that I have this argument a lot with my my friends.
All I can say is that let's just take one very specific example Ambassador and Patterson US ambassador says in the WikiLeaks documents that there's a great danger that nuclear nuclear materials will fall into the hands of People unfriendly to the United States Bruce Riedel has just written the book called deadly embrace about Pakistan Saying it's almost inevitable that there's going to be a coup there Not almost inevitable, but there's an inevitable possibility that there'll be a coup there and An Islamic Emirate will get a hold of nuclear weapons Which could then threaten the United States now no matter how?
Self-interested and how short-sighted The people who run our country are Maybe they're smart at making money I don't think it's it's in their interest or our interest to increase the likelihood of a nuclear attack on me a nuclear terrorist attack on the United States Which is precisely what this counterterrorism is making happen.
And if you think that's an exaggeration Let's remember what I'm and and Patterson said in the WikiLeaks documents She said I mean, I mean I could read you the quotes, but take my word for it for a moment.
She said look We're hated by the Pakistani people Since we're hated by the Pakistani people the Pakistani government feels it can't cooperate with us on Safeguarding their nuclear stockpile because the public believes we want to steal their nuclear weapons The public believes we want to steal their nuclear weapons and they hate us so much As you know 69% of the Pakistani people today as a result of the drone strikes Not just because they were born that way because of our actions regard the u.s.
As their enemy Including thousands potentially thousands of people who go to work every day at their nuclear stockpile their nuclear stockpile By the way is the world's fastest growing and most insecure by all experts There's nobody on earth who would challenge that statement.
So as a result of our leaders Alienating the Pakistani people We've lost any ability to to get control of their nuclear stockpile vast increased the Possibility of conventional nuclear attacks on the United States, which would turn us into a police state now I suppose you could argue that that the people running this country really want that to happen I find that a little hard to believe I My experience with them and I was always amazed, you know I used to be a cabinet cabinet level member Jerry Brown's cabinet when he was governor first time and I had a chance to interact with a lot of CEOs In my old days, I used to interact with generals colonels people in charge of things I've always been amazed at how short-sighted they are how they don't think about the big picture how their only real interest is in More wealth more power and advancing in their careers.
Well, I have to say I I totally agree with you I just I really wanted to kind of try to provoke you and set you up there Yeah, I think that they are really stupid and short-sighted in fact just the last few weeks dealing with AT&T, which is you know, a government-granted monopoly basically and Therefore acts, you know, my wife's from the Soviet Union She says this is like dealing with the bureaucracies in the USSR when I was a kid Dealing with AT&T and I figured out this is how 9-11 happened for example like every person at AT&T that I talked to was a great person and tried to bend over backwards to help me and that goes for everybody on the phone and Everybody who drives a truck and does the installs and whatever and yet none of them can talk to each other None of the different departments have have authorization to do anything, right?they don't understand each other's protocols and whatever and it's a complete and total disaster and because You know all their incentives are they don't care if they treat their customers, right because they don't have any real competition they continue on like that and you can just see how easily you could put the NSA the CIA and FBI in the exact same Position as these four or five different departments at AT&T that can't turn on my damn Internet in in a week and a half You know Yeah.
Yeah, let me tell you where I am on this now Scott.
I I've been changing a lot In the last years as I've begun to study I Describe this when I was a kid these walls were the movies where the walls were closing in on you Was always my scared, you know, this movie scared me the most, you know There was no escape if you look at the wall of what they're doing on global warming what they're doing on To increase the risk of terrorism in the u.s What they're doing to destroy the economy and what they're doing to cause social chaos It's quite clear that the current political system Is is beyond repair in my opinion?
I mean I I've written an article pointing out that we all would have been much better off if John McCain had won in 2008 rather rather than Obama McCain would have done all the things Obama has done but there would have been a big difference Which is the Democrats would have won the 2010?
Congressional elections, we'd be much they'd be much stronger in Congress now and in the position both to Try to solve the best business problem by raising taxes on the rich and preventing all of these cuts to help hurt poor people To cut Medicare Medicaid and so forth The political system is no longer provides any answers whatsoever Other than to stave off even worse catastrophes, which is what I suppose worth doing It's worth I think we're all in a situation right now very similar to the early 60s when?
Events were conspiring to make it clear to all slowly clear to all of us that we had no choice But to go out into the streets to devote our energy to build Political movements and to get engaged in around-the-clock political activism This is where we're at we don't realize that yet most of us including myself.
I have a pretty comfortable life I'm sorry, we have to leave there got this break everybody.
That's Fred Bronfman He's a new piece at alternate is Obama's secret wars how our shady counterterrorism policies are more dangerous than terrorism It's a great article.
I urge you to read it post on your Facebook pass it around.
Thanks very much for your time Fred I really appreciate it Thanks
