11/20/13 – Sheldon Richman – The Scott Horton Show

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Alright y'all, welcome back to the show.
I'm Scott Horton.
Next up, oh first up, our guest today is Sheldon Richman.
He's vice president of the Future of Freedom Foundation and editor of their journal The Future of Freedom.
He keeps his own blog at SheldonRichman.com.
Free Association is the name of the blog.
Welcome back to the show Sheldon.
How are you doing?
I'm doing fine and I'm always happy to be here.
Well good times.
Great to have you back.
So listen, you've got a very important piece on Afghanistan today which we've got to talk about.
It's the U.S. isn't leaving Afghanistan.
But first I want to ask you just a little bit about the Iran talks and more specifically about Israel's policy of openly and blatantly trying to interfere and prevent an American peace deal and even going so far as to send Naftali Bennett to encourage American Jews to oppose this peace deal on behalf of a foreign power that most of them have absolutely no connection to whatsoever.
Have you ever seen such a sight in your life?
Well I really can't recall seeing such a scene.
It's pretty flagrant as you say and Netanyahu himself, the prime minister, has called on all the Jews of the world to oppose this negotiation and this deal, which although it has not, you know, even the tentative language hasn't been released, somehow I guess Netanyahu knew what was in it and was condemning it.
Is he a secret agent of neo-Nazis and he's trying to make Jews look bad or what?
Right, like every Nazi in America today is celebrating that.
See?
Just like we told you.
Fifth column.
Well, you know, as I said on Facebook, nobody can parody Netanyahu as well as Netanyahu.
Yeah, you got that right.
It's impossible to do it.
And is it working do you think or not?
Well, you know, I don't know.
It's putting pressure on members of Congress, Obama, while I have no confidence in Obama, I don't trust him at all, he at least is telling members of Congress to shut up about new sanctions I think he's just trying to, you know, burn the candle at both ends.
But whether it's working, I'm sure I'm sure the Israelis who are doing this are emboldening Graham and McCain and Menendez and the others that do not want to see any kind of agreement and who want to press even greater sanctions on Iran as a way to bring about a regime change and an end to the Islamic Republic.
That's what they want.
Yeah.
Now, here's my thing is treason is defining the Constitution as an overt act on behalf of a foreign enemy.
And as much as I dislike Israel, it's not an enemy state of America.
So I don't know if that means that Bob Corker and the rest of these guys are guilty of treason.
But what do you call it?
Because it's certainly criminal for them to be representing the interests of a foreign power against their own country like this and at a time like this, especially, isn't it?
Well, I'm not much interested in charges of treason because that can cut many, many different ways.
I think it's one of these guys have all sworn an oath.
So the Lysander Spooner principle of I don't owe you any allegiance doesn't apply to them.
I think it's just enough for us to spell out what it is they're doing.
It's in the American people's interest to have peace and a rapprochement with with Iran.
There's no reason why the American people and the Iranian people shouldn't be be friends and trade and all the rest.
And here is a group of Americans who are being aided by another people from a different country officials from the government of another country, namely Israel, pushing to make sure there is no rapprochement with Iran.
Let's just spell it out.
Let people see it for what it is.
There you go.
And you know what?
I don't have a computer or anything.
So I think I can still call it treason, even if it's not exactly, you know, the the legal definition of treason, it's certainly the old world definition of treason.
Well, they're acting contrary to the interests of the American people.
And I suppose, you know, you know, the theory is that as congressmen, members of Congress, they are acting on behalf of the American people.
But here they are acting, you know, in an adversarial, adversarial way toward the American people.
So I don't mind putting it that way.
Yeah.
All right.
Good.
Let's talk about Afghanistan.
Nobody wants to talk about Afghanistan at all anymore, really, but it's the most violent of all of America's foreign policies to this day.
And there's breaking news along these lines, Sheldon.
I don't think I want to hear it, but go ahead.
It's also the longest war, and it's going to be a lot longer than people have been led to believe, because Obama, the people in the Obama administration have have been suggesting it's going to end.
The U.S. presence will end at the end of next year, right, that the December 2014, the troops are supposed to come out.
But now it's come out, and it's not a secret because Kerry's now announcing that they have an agreement with the Karzai government in Afghanistan that the U.S. will remain.
And I like the way the draft agreement put it.
NBC got ahold of the draft agreement, put it up on its website, but you can also find that in my current article at FFF.org today, called The U.S. Isn't Leaving Afghanistan.
The draft agreement says that the U.S. troops will be there through 2024 and beyond.
I mean, it sounds a little like a fun way here, right?
Yeah.
Yeah, to infinity and beyond.
It reminds me of Toy Story.
So why do you bother to say 2024 if it's and beyond?
Just say we're there indefinitely.
Now, this agreement can be terminated by either side, but it requires two years' notice.
So at the soonest, it's 2026, right, because 2024 with two years' notice is 2026.
But that's assuming one party or the other wants to terminate it.
So the U.S. will be there.
We don't know how many troops the Afghan officials gave NBC one estimate, 10,000 to 15,000.
And the U.S., the government source, gave NBC a different estimate, I think, what is it, 6,000 to 8,000?
Who knows?
But it doesn't say in the paperwork, though.
That's up in the air?
No, it does not say, at least in the draft that's posted by NBC, it doesn't say.
But the U.S. will continue to be there, training, supporting, arming, and paying for the Afghan military and the United States will continue to be a guarantor of its sovereignty.
And if any war crimes are committed by U.S. personnel, civilian, or military, they will not be held liable under Afghan law or turned over to international tribunals, but will instead be turned over to American officials.
And the big thing is, as far as we know, certainly this was in a later draft that the New York Times wrote about, that Rod Nordland wrote about yesterday, that the U.S. will continue to do raids on Afghan homes.
This was something Karzai didn't want, because the Afghan people despise it, they despise America for conducting these raids, especially nighttime raids, breaking into people's homes.
Karzai, in order to not alienate the people, has condemned those raids over the years and said they should not be done by the U.S. forces.
But nevertheless, it looks like the U.S. is going to be able to continue to do it anyway under this extended agreement.
Man, well, okay, a few things here.
First of all, this Strategic Partnership Agreement, is that the same thing as the Status of Forces Agreement?
They just changed the term, or what?
I suppose it is, yeah.
I think the Status of Forces Agreement sounded like it was about the same thing, right?
Under what circumstances or terms can the U.S. maintain military troops there, yes.
But in other words, this is a treaty, only they just made up a new name for it so they don't have to deliver it before the U.S. Senate to ratify?
I believe that's right.
I don't believe they have to put this.
In fact, I saw another piece on NBC just today saying that a group of senators are trying to get Obama to have to come to Congress for permission to keep troops there.
This is a group of senators that include Wyden, Manchin, Rand Paul, and maybe others, that are drafting a, I mean, they are engaged now in an effort to compel, I suppose, require Obama to come to Congress or the Senate for permission to keep the troops there.
So that's a good sign, and who knows, it'll forget anywhere.
It's being led, apparently, by Senator Merkley of Oregon.
That is interesting.
I guess I'm especially surprised to hear Rand Paul in there because he's on the record for staying beyond 2024, or beyond 2014, for counterterrorism and training, as he called it, in the exact words of Obama.
Well, this is an amendment that's going to be attached to the annual defense spending bill, so this will be interesting because we'll see what happens.
We'll see whether Obama can get them to remove it or whether they're going to stick by it and push it.
All right, so did you see this thing in Rolling Stone about the A-team killings?
I did not.
Oh, okay, well, you've got to take a look at that.
But you've heard of this, where the translator is accused of carrying out most of the killings and tortures, but the Special Forces guys were there all along and knew all about it kind of thing.
The story broke early this year, I think, and anyway, they got a really good write-up for it.
In the Rolling Stone right now, one of the things in there is he talks about how as they withdraw the regular army, that leaves Special Forces behind.
So whatever numbers of thousands, fives or tens or whatever, which is, I think, what you're getting at when you talk about the permission in here to continue on with the night raids, that's the strategy of the Special Forces guys, is one at a time going to houses in the middle of the night like the Soviets and committing the acts that you referred to there, turn the entire population against us.
So you know what I'm wondering, though, is what about force protection?
Because it sounds like these guys are going to end up with a Dien Bien Phu kind of thing or Fall of Saigon kind of thing, where they're just completely surrounded and they don't have enough of themselves to protect themselves, you know?
Well, it doesn't sound good.
That's right.
And so, you know, maybe all these estimates we've heard are underestimates.
By the way, NATO apparently, according to the reporting, NATO will also have some presence there.
So that will be in addition to the however many thousands the U.S. put there.
I think one thing that's really funny that your listeners probably will get a kick out of it, when Jay Carney, the White House press secretary, was asked about this, he said, I think when it comes to this president keeping his word and ending the war in Iraq, winding down and ending the war in Afghanistan, the public knows he's keeping his commitment.
Winding down, you know.
I mean, look, you know, I know it's the job of a White House press secretary to be a liar.
I mean, it's his job.
He gets paid.
He's a professional liar.
I know Jay Carney came from the world of journalism, where maybe we shouldn't expect more from a former reporter.
But being a former reporter myself, I guess I do, it just seems pathetic that a guy can stand up in front of people, former colleagues of his, and make such a ridiculous statement.
We were told we were getting out at the end of 2014.
Now we're not going to get out until the end of 2026, if the agreement is terminated by one of the parties.
So in other words, we could be there forever.
And here's Carney saying, well, the president has kept his word.
Right.
Now, that's one of the benefits of tripling the number of troops in the country.
You can reduce it right back down to where you started and pretend like, you know, it's a big accomplishment that you're drawing down the forces that you tripled.
That's right.
People don't even remember that.
I actually was arguing with somebody, a friend of mine about Obama, said, well, you know, at least he hasn't done any real big land invasions.
Yeah.
Except for Afghanistan.
Right.
Yeah.
We all just overlooked that.
And let's just pretend that there was no surge, that that was just the drone war or some little old thing there.
Well, look, and his fans, and I count Rachel Maddow in that group, continued to say that he got us out of Iraq, although he tried his darndest to keep us in Iraq.
It's only that Maliki wouldn't take the deal and, you know, didn't want to do what Karzai was willing to do, namely, let U.S. personnel, when they commit war crimes, remain under the jurisdiction of the U.S. government.
Karzai wouldn't, I mean, Maliki wouldn't do that, and so Obama wouldn't keep troops there under other terms.
You know, what's funny about that, too, is they even talk about that in the regular newspapers now.
I mean, not just the facts, but even calling out the president's spin on it, that like, well, really, Bush signed that deal, and Maliki forced America to stick to it, basically.
The Americans couldn't say anything about it.
So here, when he does get his way, Obama, namely, we see that he's not going to take out the troops.
We are, for the foreseeable future, we, meaning, you know, the U.S. government, is the guarantor of the sovereignty and safety and security of Afghanistan.
So what?
So American taxpayers on the hook, the $17 trillion debt to be damned, that's the way things are.
That's how this president is treating the American people.
So people will continue to die, Americans will continue to kill and die, and Americans, you know, America will continue to be hated, because we're an imperialist aggressor.
So instead of being able to live normally with the rest of the world, we're going to be in this same mode.
And Mr. Obama, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, it's just fine with him.
Well, you know, unlike Obama, Karzai has to get this thing ratified by somebody, and they've got this loya jirga that they're supposed to vote on, and he says he'll go with their decision.
Makes me wonder, well, a couple things.
First of all, the Taliban suicide bombed the site of the loya jirga just the other day, making a statement about, we can reach you if we feel like it, kind of thing.
But then also, it makes me wonder whether Karzai is actually pulling the same stunt that Maliki pulled, which was to tell Obama, oh yeah, yeah, no, I know, I want you to stay too, as many bases as you want, yeah, whatever, whatever, wait right here and let me go talk to the guys and see if I can convince them, you know.
And then he played Bush like that throughout 2008 to get the sofa that he wanted, and then I think he played Obama that same way for the first three years, or first two years of the Obama administration, and certainly throughout 2011, up until the end, where, as you just said, he told them at the end, no deal, beat it.
But I wonder whether maybe that's the same game that Karzai is playing here.
He's gone pretty far down the road, but maybe the loya jirga is meant to fail, and I'm just desperate for one last route out of Afghanistan at this point, Sheldon, forgive me.
No, I share your frustration.
I don't, I mean, what will it take to have even Obama's fans see him for what he is?
It's just, they are revealing themselves to be this, you know, these slavish worshippers who will accept anything from this guy.
Yeah, well, the ones who are left respecting him anyway.
All right, let me ask you what I asked John Glazer the other day, Sheldon, it's funny how little this comes up on the show.
What the hell does the American government care about occupying Afghanistan anyway?
Yeah, I heard your interview with John, and John is usually right.
You know, I don't know for sure.
I think it's a lot of things, as he suggested.
You know, a lot of people want to jump to the, you know, economic or financial interests that some people have in the natural resources of Afghanistan.
I know there's talk about pipelines, but I'm not going to rule that out.
I think that sort of thing is always at work in foreign policy.
I'm also thinking now of your interview with Andrew Coburn, about how foreign policy is really just somebody's domestic policy.
But John also made the point that there's just sort of this vested interest in empire and reluctance to concede that this has been a failed mission, failed operation.
I mean, look, after 12 years, Afghanistan is very, very violent.
The president is hardly even the mayor of the capital, the real mayor of the capital.
And he's corrupt.
He's authoritarian.
If the U.S. is planning to stay so long, it's a confession of failure, because if the U.S. pulls out, the government will likely fall.
And al-Qaeda, which is supposedly the reason the U.S. really went in, has simply spawned affiliates which are now all over the place, including Africa, and Syria, and Iraq, and the Arabian Peninsula.
So by any standard, this 12-year war has been a dismal failure.
The U.S. has lost.
And it's as if Obama's saying, well, look, give us at least, you know, 10 more years and beyond to get it right, and I promise you we'll get it right.
That's what it sounds like this agreement's all about.
But they can't just confess, look, this is a mess, we never should have gotten into it.
We've lost.
We can't make it better.
We're getting out.
So I don't think we can discount that as a motive for this, along with the other thing.
Yeah.
Well, you know, I don't know, you point out in your article, too, that, well, they spread al-Qaeda all over the place, you know, if they're – see, that's the thing about it.
Their stated goal is, well, we've got to stop al-Qaeda.
Well, you already spread them all over the world and made millions of people at least agree with them in theory, if not on tactics, by, you know, proving them quote-unquote right.
You want empire, huh?
We'll show you evil empire.
And I don't know.
I mean, they say that they're there to keep the Taliban out, but like you're saying, the fact that they're saying they've got to stay is an admission of the fact that everybody knows that they haven't defeated the Taliban at all.
In fact, I asked Ann Jones on the show whether she thought if the Americans did leave, you know, theoretically, would the Taliban just come marching back into Kabul?
And she said, look, the Taliban are in Kabul now.
They're a big part of the Karzai government already.
And the U.S. military might be standing around all over the place.
They might be doing night raids or whatever, but they don't control the politics of Afghanistan.
Nobody does it.
So this whole thing is a total nightmare.
It's a coalition of warlords for now.
But you know, anyway, it just seems like they don't have any stated goals left to even claim to live up to.
Right.
They've backed off of all their stated goals, and now they just have, I don't know, don't want to go yet.
Security or something.
Drugs maybe.
Right.
Well, drugs too.
Just the prestige and just the vested interest is just not wanting to give it up.
I mean, they have bases, they have, you know, they have outposts and the military, the military industrial complex, you know, may be reluctant to give it up.
I think there can be a lot of reasons.
I wouldn't point to just one, one single reason.
But yeah, and of course, the complication with al Qaeda is, you know, the U.S. is against al Qaeda, depending on where it's standing, right?
So if it's, if it's in Afghanistan, the U.S. government's against it.
If it's in Iraq, the U.S. government's against it.
But if they cross over to Syria, suddenly the U.S. is on the same side.
Right.
You need a scorecard to keep the, you know, keep the player straight.
I know, man.
I'm reading about the war in Syria where they go, hey, look, Afghan Mujahideen helped in the al Qaeda in Syria.
Oh, man, really?
You got Afghans here?
You know what?
I'm sick and tired of fighting the Americans.
I'm going to fight for them.
It's easier.
Let's go to Syria.
You don't want to migrate in your house, right?
From the standpoint of, you know, American common sense, it doesn't make any sense.
If you begin to look at the various interests behind it, then it starts to make sense.
But certainly it's not in the interest of the American people in general.
They get nothing out of this.
It's costing them a lot.
People are getting, people are getting hurt.
Afghans are getting hurt, too.
And it's just, it's insane.
Well, I know at some point there's probably reasons that we could guess that but can't even see from here, right, where, you know, some deputy assistant secretary of something is related to a guy who's helping run the opium black market out of there or whatever.
So they're doing everything they can to keep us there in ways that we can't even see.
Right.
They have things set up the way they want the institutional interests that have been built up under the occupation this whole time, probably especially including, you know, opiate distribution networks and that kind of stuff.
All of those guys have their own levers that they can push and things that they can do.
And you and I can look at the outside and criticize the whole policy, try to take it on its face and criticize that.
And we can speculate about, you know, things going on in secret.
But I think we can bet that there are probably a lot of secret motives for even staying things that maybe aren't even government policies at all, but are just policies of certain people in government, if you know what I mean.
Yeah, this is sort of the Coburn analysis.
So we can go to higher, higher profile people than the kind of people you're talking about.
Maybe Obama and Curry and Samantha Power and Susan Rice don't want a withdrawal and what will follow on their watch.
So they're pushing it beyond 2016 or 20, you know, way past 2017.
And that way, when things fall apart in 2024, 25 or whatever, they're long gone.
They've written their memoirs, they're raking in their speaker fees.
No one's going to talk about them at that point.
Right.
And after all, if they stay for the rest of Obama's years, it's not like the American people are going to notice short of some catastrophe breaking out over there.
So a Diem Benfou type mask or something.
So why not?
Crap.
Now we're out of time.
Thanks, Sheldon.
My pleasure.
Any time.
That's Sheldon Richman, everybody.
FFF.org.
Hey, I'm Scott Horton here for The Future of Freedom, the monthly journal of the Future Freedom Foundation.
As you may already be aware, Jacob Hornberger, Sheldon Richman and James Bovard are awesome.
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