02/10/14 – Chase Madar – The Scott Horton Show

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All right, y'all.
Welcome back to the show.
I'm Scott Horton.
Our first guest on the show today is Chase Madar.
He's a lawyer in New York, and he's the author of The Passion of Bradley Manning.
I don't know if they're updating the cover of that thing or what, but it don't matter.
It's a great book.
You really ought to read it.
Hey, sometimes people change their identities.
You know, I don't care.
Anyway.
So I'm Scott Horton.
I'm the author of The Passion of Bradley Manning.
It's a great book.
You really ought to read it.
I don't know if they're updating the cover of that thing or what, but it don't matter.
It's a great book.
You really ought to read it.
I don't know if they're updating the cover of that thing or what, but it don't matter.
It's a great book.
You really ought to read it.
Hey, sometimes people change their identities.
You know, I don't care.
Anyway.
So, and that it really is a great book, too.
I read the whole thing, and I highly recommend it to people.
If you want to understand the story of Bradley Manning and the origin of the WikiLeaks there.
And, you know, hey, I hope especially it would inspire you to go digging through those State Department cables and those Iraq and Afghan war logs, et cetera.
There's some great stories in those.
And, you know, hey, I hope especially it would inspire you to go digging through those State Department cables and those Iraq and Afghan war logs, et cetera.
There's some great stories in those.
And, you know, hey, I hope especially it would inspire you to go digging through those State Department cables and those Iraq and Afghan war logs, et cetera.
There's some great stories in those.
And, you know, hey, I hope especially it would inspire you to go digging through those State Department cables and those Iraq and Afghan war logs, et cetera.
There's some great stories in those.
And, you know, hey, I hope especially it would inspire you to go digging through those State Department cables and those Iraq and Afghan war logs, et cetera.
There's some great stories in those.
And, you know, hey, I hope especially it would inspire you to go digging through those State Department cables and those Iraq and Afghan war logs, et cetera.
There's some great stories in those.
And, you know, hey, I hope especially it would inspire you to go digging through those State Department cables and those Iraq and Afghan war logs, et cetera.
And, you know, hey, I hope especially it would inspire you to go digging through those State Department cables and those Iraq and Afghan war logs, et cetera.
There's some great stories in those.
And, you know, hey, I hope especially it would inspire you to go digging through those State Department cables and those Iraq and Afghan war logs, et cetera.
There's some great stories in those.
And, you know, hey, I hope especially it would inspire you to go digging through those State Department cables and those Iraq and Afghan war logs, et cetera.
There's some great stories in those.
And, you know, hey, I hope especially it would inspire you to go digging through those State Department cables and those Iraq and Afghan war logs, et cetera.
There's some great stories in those.
And, you know, hey, I hope especially it would inspire you to go digging through those State Department cables and those Iraq and Afghan war logs, et cetera.
And, you know, hey, I hope especially it would inspire you to go digging through those State Department cables and those Iraq and Afghan war logs, et cetera.
And, you know, hey, I hope especially it would inspire you to go digging through those State Department cables and those Iraq and Afghan war logs, et cetera.
And, you know, hey, I hope especially it would inspire you to go digging through those State Department cables and those Iraq and Afghan war logs, et cetera.
And, you know, hey, I hope especially it would inspire you to go digging through those State Department cables and those Iraq and Afghan war logs, et cetera.
And, you know, hey, I hope especially it would inspire you to go digging through those State Department cables and those Iraq and Afghan war logs, et cetera.
And, you know, hey, I hope especially it would inspire you to go digging through those State Department cables and those Iraq and Afghan war logs, et cetera.
And, you know, hey, I hope especially it would inspire you to go digging through those State Department cables and those Iraq and Afghan war logs, et cetera.
And, you know, hey, I hope especially it would inspire you to go digging through those State Department cables and those Iraq and Afghan war logs, et cetera.
And, you know, hey, I hope especially it would inspire you to go digging through those State Department cables and those Iraq and Afghan war logs, et cetera.
And, you know, hey, I hope especially it would inspire you to go digging through those State Department cables and those Iraq and Afghan war logs, et cetera.
One of them is that, oh, well, we have to give Israel $3.1 billion in advanced weaponry every year because they're our ally.
Now, of course, we have dozens of allies all over the world, but we don't arm them to the teeth like we do Israel.
Or another one, and this one's my favorite, is that if we don't heavily arm Israel, then we will be retreating back into isolationism.
Actually, wait a minute.
Go back.
Let's get back to isolationism, because that's a good one.
I like it.
But on the, you know, they are our ally, there's that unsaid assumption, right, is that if we weren't giving them all these weapons, they would be extinct.
They would all be killed.
This is necessary.
Since we are our ally, we are bound to give them as much as is necessary for them to survive, even though nobody ever proves that bogus assumption underlying the argument.
Yeah, that's right.
I mean, it's just assumed that they depend, you know, for their survival of their people on massive infusions of U.S. aid.
And, you know, that's pretty potent emotional blackmail, especially after a century of truly genocidal anti-Semitism.
I mean, you can see why that sticks and why playing that card works.
It's not a rational argument, though, and they do not depend on American aid for their survival or their security.
I mean, by now, Israel has an incredibly powerful and thoroughly modern military, the biggest and most potent military in the region, the most advanced, including nuclear weapons, which they've had since the late 60s.
Well, that's why you've got to leave that assumption unsaid.
Because once you say it out loud, you go, well, no, that's not true.
They're as powerful as, you know, France or something militarily.
What are you talking about?
Yeah.
So, I mean, the idea that they depend on military aid for security and survival is totally bogus.
And I think it really has a negative effect in encouraging really bad behavior on the part of successive Israeli governments across the political spectrum to keep up their violent colonization and ethnic cleansing of historic Palestine.
After all, if you're going to get year after year this free, gratis supply of weapons, no matter what you do, you have no incentive to change your behavior in any way.
And that's what we've seen.
Right.
Well, and, you know, when you talk about the $3.5 billion a year, they even passed an appropriation, which I guess, you know, the money is to be doled out on a yearly basis or maybe a biannual basis or something.
But the bill itself guaranteed $30 billion over the next 10 years plus.
So that's the kind of thing that is banned by the U.S. Constitution when you're talking about the Congress appropriating money to the military.
Any military appropriation can only be for two years at a time, max.
There's just too much incentive to build them up into a permanent, you know, collection of job holders.
But when it comes to Israel, no, we'll pass a law promising them welfare just into the indefinite future.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, another bogus argument that's related to this is that Israel is this wonderful strategic asset to the United States, that, in fact, we depend on giving all the state to Israel because it benefits our security.
And having Israel there, you know, loyally cashing checks and receiving our shipments of military material is somehow good for us.
This doesn't stand to reason either.
Even if you accept Washington's foreign policy on its own terms, which you and I don't, but a lot of people do, you know, let's think about how was this client-state relationship with Israel actually useful in either Gulf War?
Can that be explained in two senses?
No, it can't be.
It's also very, you know, well-established, and you hear this from unguarded moments from U.S. military officers as well as terrorists that our funding relationship, our lavish donations of military aid to Israel, really inspire a lot of ill will towards the United States and direct a lot of wrath and, in the end, terrorism against American targets.
It promotes anti-Americanism in the region, and that does not make us safer, needless to say.
Right.
Well, and, you know, this is why I got such a chip on my shoulder about it is because of, you know, just very straight journalism.
For example, like by Terry McDermott, L.A. Times reporter, and Lawrence Wright, reporter for the New York Times.
When these guys write, or James Bamford, for that matter, when these former producer for, you know, World News Tonight with Peter Jennings, this kind of caliber of journalism.
These guys write that, hey, it's just a scientific fact, man, there's no dispute in it, and they don't have a bone to pick about it.
They're just reporting the fact to you that bin Laden himself and Mohammed Atta said that the reason that they did what they did on 9-11 was due in great part to America's support for the Israelis, and not for their existence, and not for being a bunch of nice guys, but for their permanent, at that point at least, occupation of southern Lebanon, and their occupation of Palestine, East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip, and the hell that they unleash on their Palestinian helots on a constant basis.
That was part of it.
In fact, Israel's war in Lebanon where they did the Kwano massacre at that same time was when Mohammed Atta, I think it was the day before or something, they say, Mohammed Atta filled out his last will and testament, and then bin Laden when he put out his first declaration of war, the Kwano massacre in Lebanon, and a lot of the rest of Palestine issues take up about a third of that thing.
This is why they're attacking the United States, because of what we're doing in Palestine.
So I'm not saying that's necessarily why we should not back Israel, but boy, we ought to have to take into account that that's the price we're paying for backing Israel.
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, we have to take a hard look at the strategic costs and benefits when it comes to lavishly arming and bankrolling Israel.
And the question of the liabilities, which you just listed perfectly, I mean, that's something that seldom comes up, and most Americans are oblivious to it, even though it has been reported from pretty unimpeachable sources, too.
It's not every foreign policy issue where concerns for human rights and kind of basic morality are in pretty perfect alignment with questions of strategy and national self-interest and security.
But this is one of them.
I mean, we get nothing out of lavishly bankrolling Israel, but the human rights cost is huge, I mean, with the ongoing ethnic cleansing of the West Bank, and the blockade of Gaza, and the ethnic cleansing of East Jerusalem on the one hand, plus the strategic liability to the U.S.
There's really no good reason for it.
All right, y'all, it's the Scott Horton Show.
I'm Scott Horton.
I'm talking with Chase Medar.
He's the author of The Passion of Bradley Manning, and he's got this great piece at TomDispatch.com and AntiWar.com about USA to Israel, the folly of arming Israel.
We'll be right back after this.
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All right, you guys, welcome back to the show.
I'm Scott Horton.
This is my show, The Scott Horton Show.
I'm talking with Chase Medar, author of The Passion of Bradley Manning, and this great piece at TomDispatch.com and at AntiWar.com.
It's called The Folly of Arming Israel.
We're talking about the general strategic liability of Israel.
We hear all this hype really loud about, oh, it's the only democracy in the Middle East.
Never mind, America always cancels anybody else's elections because they never turn out the way the Israelis wanted.
But, oh, so that makes them our bestest, bestest friends.
But again, with the unspoken assumptions and premises of these questions, nobody ever really explains what a great benefit America gets for being friends with the Israelis.
And I try real hard to be honest and self-critical and whatever is best I can, and I really try, and I don't know what benefit.
Can anybody tell me what America gets out of this relationship as far as even the empire's interest, Washington, D.C.'s interest, never mind the greater wealth and freedom and prosperity of the American people?
I just don't know.
Do you, Chase?
I don't see it either, Scott.
No way.
You know, in my article, one thing I try to do is just to correct the language about how we talk about the U.S. relationship with Israel, because there's so much euphemism and so much disingenuous half-truth and some outright lies here.
One thing, we need to stop talking about Israel as an ally and call it for what it is, a client state.
We also need to stop talking about a peace process when we're arming one side in the conflict to the teeth.
What we have is a war process.
And instead of talking about settlement expansion, we need to use words like violent colonization and ethnic cleansing, because that's what it is.
And I have a feeling that if this kind of thing were happening in the Balkans or elsewhere, we would have no trouble using those words.
Well, and you know, the way you put it in your article, you win.
I just can't imagine what anybody could say to the argument of, what if you just turned it around?
And it was the Arabs are coming and pushing the Jews out of their houses and bulldozing them on five minutes' notice and building a museum of their hurt feelings on top of your cemetery and all this kind of crap the way the Israelis are doing, taking Jerusalem, the old city of eastern Jerusalem and all that, and the West Bank.
If it was the other way around, people would be completely freaking out.
Can you imagine?
I mean, there would be calls for airstrikes in Washington.
I mean, yeah, people would be freaking out.
And, you know, justifiably so.
Yeah, exactly.
It would be horrible, right?
You know, what's going on right now on a day-to-day basis and what's getting done to Palestinians is horrible.
It's an absolute violation of their most basic human rights.
For whatever it's worth, it's a violation of international law, and it's certainly a violation of just any basic standard of morality or common decency.
And, you know, what we Americans really need to know and absorb and internalize is that we are not just sitting on the sidelines as a friendly referee trying to make peace.
We are actively involved in this nightmare, and we are actively arming a country that is committing ethnic cleansing.
There's no way around that.
No matter what kind of rich palette of euphemism you use, that's the bottom line.
We are lavishly arming and bankrolling and providing diplomatic cover to a country that is perpetrating ethnic cleansing.
Well, I'm sorry, go ahead.
Well, you know, the first step is just to recognize our own responsibility in this and change our own role.
You know, there's a lot of lively intellectual debate in the U.S. about the BDS campaign, Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions.
You know, people of goodwill disagree on it.
Me, I think it's a good thing.
I'm all for it.
But I know smart people who don't agree with me there.
There's also a lot of debate about is a one-state solution for Israel and Palestine the best where they'd have equal rights or a two-state solution where you have one country for the Israelis and one for the Palestinians.
But the one thing that does not get discussed, and I find this incredibly weird, is our own active role because that is what we are most responsible for in the end, what we are doing, not what we're not doing.
And that's why I wrote this piece.
We just have to look at this front and center, our vigorous role in giving $3.1 billion to Israel year after year in advanced military equipment, not to mention military training exercises, a lot of military research for the Iron Dome Missile Defense Project, and constant diplomatic cover in the U.N. and elsewhere.
We're a major player in this game, and yet we pretend that we aren't.
And in the piece I compared most U.S. news coverage of Israel-Palestine to this one Agatha Christie novel.
I'm going to spoil an Agatha Christie novel for everyone.
People may want to, you know, turn off the set for a little bit.
But there's this great Agatha Christie novel called The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, and it's narrated in the first person from this very calm, semi-detached voice of a guy who's still observing the action, commenting on it, telling the story.
And guess who turns out to be the killer, the narrator?
And that's a good, I think, metaphor for so much U.S. news coverage of the Middle East in general, but especially the Israel-Palestine conflict.
All right, well, so there's this article today.
It's in The Times of Israel, which is a pretty right-wing paper.
I don't know everything about who runs it or whatever, but it seems a pretty right-wing paper to me.
And they say, on a single source, unverified, they even admit, but it sounds right.
Kerry fails to get Obama backing to confront Israel on peace terms.
And what it says is that Kerry really wanted to go in there and tell the Israelis, look, man, come on, make a deal within this framework, whatever this stupid framework is and whatever.
But he just doesn't have the backing of the White House to make any threat or any promise really stick.
And the reason I buy it is because this is what Andrew Coburn reported, was that Obama will be damned if John Kerry's going to solve this Israel-Palestine thing and take all the credit instead of him.
And he'd rather they all burn forever than let John Kerry be the big man of the day or whatever, so that's fine.
I could see how that works.
So then my question is this.
I actually have a question after all this, is that after this falls apart and doesn't work, and the peace process is a joke for the umpteenth, millionth time, whatever it is, does it matter that in the EU or, I don't know, Eastern allies or any other powers on earth, does it matter that, come on, it's too difficult to pretend that we believe that the Americans mean well and are some kind of honest broker here.
I mean, I know there's the BDS movement, but as far as the nation states that have any power and influence here, does it matter if the Americans basically, it's not the right term for it, but bluff their way out of legitimacy as the dealer at the game, you know what I mean?
You know, I think that the sooner the U.S. stops pretending to be a neutral arbiter and an honest broker here, the better.
It's just past the point of any possibility for Washington to realistically broker something.
And, you know, I've got to read that, is it a Patrick Coburn article?
No, it's Andrew Coburn.
Oh, Andrew Coburn.
I mean, they're both really smart guys and I love their work.
I think it's just structurally impossible, even if Obama or Kerry, you know, work together and put their all into resolving this.
You can't put your foot on the gas and on the brake at the same time and expect to make any kind of progress, and that's what we're doing.
On the one hand, lavishly funding and bankrolling Israel no matter what they do, and then on the other hand, you know, spinning wheels and saying you're working for peace.
They don't go together.
You're not part of a peace process if you're lavishly arming one side.
And think about it.
I mean, if you were Israel, why on earth would you make any compromises and accept any limits on your power if you know that you're still going to get that sweet shipment of $3.1 billion worth of advanced weaponry year after year, no matter what you do?
The level of American military funding and assistance to Israel is only going up.
And Obama bragged, and he was completely accurate, that no president has overseen as much military aid to Israel as he has.
So they have no incentive in Israel to make any compromises, to make any peace, and they'll be happy to, you know, let this just go away.
Now, in the past, when a peace deal collapses and fails, it's been the habit in the U.S. to blame it all on the weakest party in this trio, the Palestinians.
That's going to be a little harder to do this time.
I mean, there's just nothing left to squeeze out of them at this point.
And, you know, more and more people are reporting how Netanyahu and his cabinet members are just openly contemptuous of John Kerry and even of Obama.
And they're not a very, you know, cuddly, fuzzy group of people the way, say, the old Labor Party people were to many American intellectuals.
So there's going to be, you know, a real test of America's journalistic creativity to find a way to blame this on the Palestinians.
We'll see what happens.
Yeah.
Or, well, they'll just oversimplify it and make it the unproven, unspoken assumption that you know how them savage Arabs are and no offer's ever good enough for them.
They don't ever have to prove it.
They just say it and everybody digs it.
It sounds right to people, I guess.
I don't know.
I'm sorry I want to keep talking to you, but I've got to go.
We're all out of time.
Thanks very much for your time on the show again, Chase.
Great talking with you again, Scott.
Take care now.
All right, y'all.
That is the great Chase Medard.
He's a lawyer in New York, but he's still great.
He's the great Chase Medard.
Writes for Tom Dispatch.
He's also the author of The Passion of Bradley Manning.
Great book about Bradley Manning in the WikiLeaks there.
The State Department cables and all that.
You should know.
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What was the only interest group in D.C. pushing war with Syria last summer?
AIPAC and the Israel lobby.
What's the only interest group in D.C. pushing to sabotage the nuclear deal with Iran right now?
AIPAC and the Israel lobby.
Why doesn't the president force an end to the occupation of Palestine, a leading cause of terrorist attacks against the United States?
AIPAC and the Israel lobby.
The Council for the National Interest is pushing back, putting America first and educating the people about what's really at stake in the Middle East.
Help support their important work at councilforthenationalinterest.org.
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