08/01/14 – Daniel McAdams – The Scott Horton Show

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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.
Next up is Dan McAdams.
He's the director of the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity at RonPaulInstitute.org and was Ron Paul's foreign policy advisor in his congressional office for a great many years.
Thank goodness for that.
Welcome back to the show, Dan.
How are you doing?
Hi, Scott.
Thanks for having me on.
Yeah, sure thing.
Very happy to have you here.
And yeah, it's nice, I think.
I'm glad I remembered to say that.
I think people will enjoy thinking back on all of the great Ron Paul speeches from the floor of the House of Representatives that they've seen over the years on American foreign policy.
And it's good for them to know that you're a major influence behind, at least not that you guide his principles.
He knows what he's doing, but you certainly deserve a lot of credit for making sure that he knew what was important and what was going on every day during his career.
I was just honored to work for him for so long, and times like this with the world just seemingly going up in smoke, I sort of miss him down on the floor giving speeches, making sense of it all.
Man, yeah, you're telling me, too.
But he's reaching a lot more people now with his new voices of liberty and everything, so he's still making those speeches everywhere.
I wonder if, well, I mean, assuming the media gave any kind of fair shake to these sorts of issues and questions in history, I wonder whether, if the people could have 2008 back, whether they would support Ron Paul, whether it's, I guess, it's not like TV has been reminding them that Ron Paul was right about all this stuff back then, and we all refuse to listen or anything like that.
If you think about all the stuff he was warning about and all the foreign policy warnings of why we should quit and all the terrible things that could and would happen from all the intervention we'd already done and whatever, it seems like the American people have finally now come to Ron Paul's position just a few years too late is all.
Well, sure.
I mean, if you look at recent polls about how people feel about intervening in Ukraine and how people feel about the U.S. empire, the numbers are striking that people are so opposed to it, especially when you consider the mainstream media, how it shoves it down their throat constantly.
You know, somebody's got a splinter in Sri Lanka and we have to send in the military.
Right.
Well, and, you know, I think back on that and I just think, man, it's so sad that the bubble didn't pop in September of 2007 instead of 2008, right after Ron finally stepped down out of the primaries and and let the chieftains battle it out and all that right after it was too late.
The bubble finally popped and proved that his warnings had been right about the economy all the time.
But can you just imagine if starting from about, you know, just a few months after Giuliani made him famous, the bubble had popped then and he was able to explain why from the entire presidential campaign as his bully pulpit.
Oh, my God.
He'd be the president right now and there'd be a lot more peace in the world.
I'll tell you what.
Yeah, well, it's fun to think about that.
But, you know, witnessing the blatant stealing of votes that experience he experienced in the 2012 campaign.
Yeah.
The cynic in me says there's no way they would let him win anyway.
I mean, it was just so obvious how they were stealing the votes away from him.
Right.
I actually got the book on that, but like the rest is sitting in a pile.
I haven't gotten to it yet.
I remember in real time as it happened, there were people blogging and counting the states and it was, I don't know, a dozen, two dozen, maybe more, where the dirty tricks were just unreal.
Yeah.
It's hard to get too excited about voting when that is that is something that happens all the time.
Right.
Oh, well, at least he got the chance to be the best parliamentarian in the history of humanity.
So that's pretty good, dude.
That's not bad.
All right.
So now let's talk about the horror show that is Ukraine.
You can tell I'm stalling, man.
I'm so burnt out.
It's Friday and I'm sick of all the killing this week.
Tell me about what's going on in East Ukraine.
What's the state of the battle for Donetsk and what's the state of the proposed ceasefires and negotiations?
Let me have it.
You know, it's funny.
I'm getting ready to try to write something today, you know, and the thought that keeps crossing my mind is how strange it is that nobody's really talking about.
Obviously, Gaza is first in a lot of people's minds because it's it's so right out there in front of us.
But it's interesting how the U.S. government seems to have just dropped Ukraine.
You know, it had this first feeble attempt to release these very grainy and inconclusive satellite photos.
Who knows what they showed?
And then that's it.
It's it's strange.
Well, you know, actually, I got one exception to that, Dan, which was Barbara Starr, the Pentagon spokesperson, posing as a CNN reporter, saying accusing the Ukrainian government, the Kiev government of using what they were, you know, classifying as out of bounds, medium range ballistic missiles with thousand pound warheads on them and saying, hey, these can't help but cause indiscriminate casualties.
And this was a scandalous thing, as reported by the Pentagon on CNN.
I was kind of surprised about that.
Yeah, that is interesting.
And it obviously, you know, it's funny because the U.S. mantra is de-escalation, de-escalation.
But you know, that's only for one side.
But this is an enormous escalation, as you point out, half ton payloads that these bombs can carry.
And I think they can go around up to 600 miles.
These are massive, massive bombs that are so indiscriminate.
If that's not escalation, I don't know what is.
But you know, I know you like to read this blog and I do, too.
The Moon of Alabama blog pointed out that if they were able to detect these launches over Ukraine, them meaning the Pentagon and the spooks, then certainly they would have had the ability, they would have had a satellite that was looking over Ukraine 24-7, they would have had the capability.
They would have the evidence about this book launch against the aircraft, the MH-17 aircraft.
So it's interesting that on one hand they say we're detecting these launches of these medium range missiles, but when it comes to the other, they're simply providing nothing.
Right.
In fact, well, you know, we got a couple of minutes before the break here and let's talk more about the war on the other side of the break and let's stick with the plane here for a second.
I think I told you before, Dan, the Occam's Razor was that the rebels must have shot it down accidentally.
They'd been being bombed by Kiev from the air and it makes sense that they screwed up.
Maybe they can fire a missile.
But boy, that case has really fallen apart and it really is starting to, I'll be honest and say, feel to me, seem to me like really maybe the more likely explanation is that the Kiev government shot the plane down and even on purpose.
Is that what you think?
You know, I'm feeling that way too.
I was like you at first thinking, gosh, you know, it sounds like at the least it's a terrible accident whoever did it and this sort of thing.
So many things that keep hitting me in the head that caused me to have doubts about this.
What's interesting is, you know, the first OSCE inspector to reach the site is a Ukrainian Canadian, Michael Bocherku.
And he did an amazing interview on Canadian television, CBC, where he said, they said, you know, what were the first things you saw when you arrived?
And he said there were two or three pieces of fuselage that were pockmarked.
He said it almost looks like machine gun fire, very strong machine gun fire.
And then the interviewer said, well, did you find any examples of missile?
He said, we're asked if we find any examples of any missiles.
And he said, no, we haven't.
So it's it is interesting.
And then you see other evidence that certainly people are claiming and the Russians pointed this out too in their in their briefing that there was a Ukrainian Sukhoi fighter jet that had been trailing the plane and that this was somewhat common practice for them to hide behind these passenger jets.
So it's very it's very interesting to think about all these different theories that seem to be cropping up.
And in the meantime, the U.S. is saying nothing.
Yeah.
Well, and all importantly here, there is that huge climb down that they did where they call.
This was last week, of course, where they called all the different pool reporters together.
I guess the intelligence beat reporters and climbed down on, you know, all of their major assertions and just said, we don't know.
It's also interesting, too, and I don't have it in front of me, but I did note with some interest that the initial headlines out of places like the I want to say AP and Reuters were basically what had happened, but the U.S. intelligence didn't have anything.
And then they changed the headlines very quickly to much more ambiguous and nuanced position shortly thereafter.
All right.
Hold it right there.
We got to take this stupid break.
We'll be right back with the great Dan McAdams from the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity.
Hey, I'll Scott Horton here.
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All right, so welcome back to the show.
I'm Scott Horton.
This is my show, The Scott Horton Show.
I'm talking with Dan McAdams.
He's the director of the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity.
Yeah, those things have to go together.
You get it.
All right.
Yeah.
We're talking about what's going on in East Ukraine.
It's hard always.
It's like Star Wars, you know.
You're always starting in the middle of a story and never really find out about the battle that took place right before they got the plans to the Death Star, you know.
So here we are.
Never mind last fall and never mind last February and never mind anything else.
Now we're at the beginning of August 2014.
And so now what we really need to know is what is the state of the battle for Donetsk in the east, which has declared itself not quite completely independent, but at least autonomous and outside the rule of Kiev for the time being.
And there's been a pretty big fight going on there.
What can you tell us about the state of the battle and of the proposed ceasefire?
Because the American politicians, of course, at least have been talking about winding this thing down.
Maybe, Dan?
Well, they've been talking about it, and so has the Ukrainian government.
But what they say when they come over here to the U.S. and what they do when they get back home are often very different things.
You know, there was a press conference between Kerry and the foreign minister of Ukraine a couple of days ago.
And it was very interesting what Foreign Minister Klimkin said, which just I mean, it just doesn't comport with reality.
He says, the Russians are firing over the border at us all the time.
Their helicopters are in our airspace.
But we have never fired back, of course, in order not to provoke the situation.
And first, because we're committed to international law.
We never fired back.
You know, and so I guess the Russians must have shelled their own border crossings.
You know, what's interesting is for all of the U.S. claims, you know, beyond the airplane, the U.S., the big thing is sort of the big let's change the subject for the U.S. last week when they trotted out Marie Harf, their spokesman, was, well, Russia is just getting ready to send over a bunch of heavy weaponry over to Ukraine.
We know it's going to happen.
And of course, the great reporter Matt Lee from AP said, well, how do you know?
And she said, well, can't tell you, social media.
But then the U.N., the U.N., Nari Pillay was just said yesterday that the U.N. has no hard evidence of Russian transfer of any weapons over to Ukraine.
So they you're right.
They made a story out of what was about to happen, though, didn't they?
Yeah, they did.
They made a good story and they captured the headline.
Yes.
You know, one of the one of the wonderful things about being down here in Texas, Scott, is that I'm right next door to Dr. Paul Studio.
And during the break, he popped his head into the office and we were talking a little bit about what you and I are talking about now.
And he said, he said, you know, with these sanctions, it's really funny.
They all the justification for the new round of sanctions all goes back to the early claims that Russia shot down the airplane.
And nobody nobody thinks about it now because they just assume that Russia did it because that's what the media pounded in those first few days.
But all the new sanctions we're seeing now are all based on something that, as you said earlier, is really flimsy, if not falling apart.
And that, yeah, that they've even climbed down from and said, you know, we really should have been more specific before.
Yeah.
But have some sanctions anyway.
Right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's a good point.
And so but now the Germans are saying here, let's try again.
Here's another, you know, ideal.
Jason Ditz had a good article about this.
We talked with him yesterday about they really had tried to take everybody's objections into account on this thing.
You could tell it was a real good faith effort of the Germans to put this thing to bed.
You think?
And I guess Wolf Blitzer is claiming now.
So maybe that's how we know it's not true.
I don't know.
But well, Blitzer saying that Obama and Putin just got off the phone.
So, yeah, I saw the Kremlin read out of the call and it said they both they both agreed that the situation is in neither of countries interests as it stands now.
But of course, that doesn't really tell us much about the specifics, you know.
But the German plan, I think, is it isn't yet another indication that the Europeans are nervous.
I think they're they're they're they're bullied by the U.S. into following blindly this sort of crazed State Department that I just it just doesn't seem real to me.
But I think they are nervous and you're saying, can you imagine the city of London, how it feels if it will be all of a sudden it'll be cut off from from doing business with with with with Russia?
I mean, it's it's just insane.
So I think they're trying to do these things without the U.S. involvement.
And one can only speculate that the U.S. comes back and is furious and tells them to stop doing it.
Right.
Yeah.
That's the maddening thing.
You know, the same thing happened with what, June 30th or whatever, where the Germans try to make peace and the Americans told Kiev, don't listen to them.
Keep pushing.
Yeah, and they've gone they've gone along.
But guess what?
You know, their economies are not in very good shape.
Ours are getting rapidly in worse shape.
If you look at if you look at the debt and if you look at the, you know, the expansion of military, the U.S. has now announced that it's sending, I think, was it eight million more dollars to help the Ukrainian border guards and these sorts of things.
So reality is is biting hard, I think.
Yeah.
All right.
Now, yeah, I guess Jason was saying that one of the American was the Americans had a competing plan before, but it required the Russians leaving Crimea.
Yeah.
Right.
That's not even a poison pill.
That's just, you know, stick a dynamite tape to the damn deal.
Give me a break.
Yeah.
It's yeah, it's a way to say that we've tried to do so.
It's sort of like Poroshenko saying that we want to cease fire.
We want to cease fire.
Meanwhile, here have this ballistic missile.
Yeah.
I mean, it's it's you know, it's very, very telling that the that the that the government of Ukraine launched a massive offensive in the area of the plane crash immediately after that.
I mean, I think the plane was barely on the ground when it launched this massive offensive and many people were killed.
And these things don't just launch overnight.
So it had to have been planned.
I would guess a major military offensive would have had to have been planned quite a bit in advance.
Yet it started immediately after the plane crashed.
Huh.
Well, I don't know.
It could be a could be a coincidence, I guess, back to the plane crash there.
And it seems like, again, you said TV changed the subject.
So that's good.
But, you know, for the excuse that they were using it for, I guess it already served its purpose.
But, you know, I guess it does make sense.
Again, this is not my first assumption as far from, I guess, a solid conclusion or anything.
But it does make sense that they that the Kiev government would either shoot it down with a fighter jet or might might fly a fighter fighter bomb or something in order to bait the rebels into taking a shot, but actually tricking them into hitting some civilians for PR purposes.
Governments do these things.
Sure.
Time to time.
Sure.
And there's I mean, it does.
It's shown itself that it's not the government in Kiev is not hesitant to take civilian lives.
You know, we've seen horrific footage of bombing of old age homes, bombing of schools, just people in the middle of the town square blown up.
So they're not they're not concerned about civilian lives.
So what's what makes it any different if the life is up in the air or on the ground?
You know, it's but as you say, I mean, they lie their ass off from the beginning to about the plane being there and about all the audio and YouTube footage that they leaked and all that stuff.
They're caught out lying three or four times completely.
But they're saying what the U.S. wants them to say as well.
So they have a partner in crime.
It's hard not to.
It's hard not to think about, you know, it's hard not to think about the things that we've been talking about because what they say just doesn't add up.
And at least at least the Russians have said, we don't know.
Here's what we have.
We don't know.
Show us what you have so we can compare notes, you know, and that's that seems fair enough to me.
Right.
Well, and of course, the real truth of it is we're never going to know because there's never going to be any kind of impartial investigation.
You've got different factions running off with different pieces of the damn plane and who knows what going on over there.
So.
But of course, of course, even us just saying this, Scott, means that we're devotees of Putin and we're over here worshiping at the Statue of Putin.
You know, this is the the level of insanity of people that even even among even unfortunately libertarian circles, you know, stop defending Putin.
You know, it's it's absurd.
The day that you and I will defend any politician, except maybe a former politician that we both know is is is a rare day, you know?
Yeah.
Yeah.
No, I mean, Putin, to me, is the worst kind of Republican.
And you know, and I'm from here.
So, yeah, that does not put me on his side whatsoever.
Yeah.
I mean, but we know what the drumbeat to war sounds like.
We've seen this movie before and we have to struggle to fight the propaganda that leads to war.
It's not enough to be anti-war.
You have to be anti the propaganda that leads to war.
You know, it's funny because they lie to us.
They lie us into war so much.
You would think that everybody would just say, OK, lesson learned.
Whatever Gulf of Tonkin scenario you're selling me, I'm not buying it.
But instead, I even find myself, Dan, thinking, well, you know, in this case, it's not like they can really lie about, you know, a dozen Cossus Belli in a row.
I mean, they've got to be telling the truth about something at some point.
But no, really.
No, they're always lying.
It's never true.
Exactly.
It's incredible.
You know, that's how I deal with my own cognitive dissonance.
I try to cut even Obama slack and then now he's a liar.
Him and John Kerry, the worst.
Well, thanks so much for your time, Dan.
It's great to talk to you again.
Thank you, Scott.
All right.
That's Dan McAdams.
Everybody's got a great stable of writers over there at the Ron Paul Institute dot org.
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