Sorry, I'm late.
I had to stop by the Wax Museum again and give the finger to FDR.
We know Al-Qaeda, Zawahiri, is supporting the opposition in Syria.
Are we supporting Al-Qaeda in Syria?
It's a proud day for America.
And by God, we've kicked Vietnam syndrome once and for all.
Thank you very, very much.
I say it, I say it again.
You've been hacked.
You've been took.
You've been hoodwinked.
These witnesses are trying to simply deny things that just about everybody else accepts as fact.
He came, he saw us, he died.
We ain't killing they army, but we killing them.
We be on CNN like Say Our Name been saying, say it three times.
The meeting of the largest armies in the history of the world.
Then there's going to be an invasion.
All right, you guys, introducing Ted Snyder.
He's written for Antiwar.com, Consortium News and other places.
This one is very importantly at Mondoweiss.net.
Netanyahu's latest corruption case could expose long hidden secrets about Israel's nuclear weapons program.
Israel has a nuclear weapons program?
Welcome to the show, Ted.
How are you doing?
I'm good, Scott.
Thanks for having me on the show again.
Very happy to have you here.
We all know they've had A-bombs at least since the 60s.
Reportedly, they have H-bombs as well, second strike capability, German-bought submarines, this kind of thing.
Everybody knows that even though supposedly it's a secret, even though American government employees could get in real trouble for admitting that it's true.
That's the first thing, Israel's got next.
And secondly, though, dare I get my hopes up that King Benjamin Netanyahu over there, the million term prime minister of Israel, could really actually possibly be headed out the door from the prime ministership?
I don't know if he will be or not.
He's in more trouble than he's been in for a while.
Both because his coalition is falling apart, but also importantly that there's been three charges against Netanyahu this year.
And in all three cases, the Israeli police have recommended indictments.
I don't know what will happen, but he faces the threat of indictment.
And some of those things, if indictments came up, if they dug, could reveal things in court that could have a bearing on some of those secrets you were talking about at the top of the show.
Right on.
Well, good.
I mean, it's always careful what you wish for when it comes to prime ministerships in Israel and that kind of thing.
I don't know if, I think it's probably pretty clear that Bennett would be worse, but maybe that would be better in the medium term, even to have him worse in the short term and go ahead and help to complete the divorce of liberals, Zionists in America from Zionism.
For some reason, Netanyahu ain't bad enough.
But I think Bennett just might be.
But anyway, that aside, I don't even know if Bennett is the most likely replacement or what.
But it is good to know, though, that in and of itself, all other things being equal, that Benjamin Netanyahu is in legal trouble here on charges, you say, of bribery and fraud.
Now, I have all different kind of examples of Netanyahu's frauds, but I think probably those aren't the ones he's being charged with.
So please do tell.
These are three very particular cases, and they're interesting not just because of Netanyahu, but they're interesting because of who else they involve.
The most recent charge is a charge of bribery and fraud where Netanyahu seemed to be willing to trade regulatory favors to a media outlet in exchange for positive coverage of Netanyahu.
And that's the second time he's been charged with that.
There was an earlier case where a newspaper that is known for not always giving positive coverage to Netanyahu was approached by him, and the trade was offered that he would limit the circulation of a competing newspaper.
That is, he would help them to do better if they would provide positive coverage for him.
That's interesting because the man that he used to approach the company, the middleman, is a guy named Arnon Milchan.
And that's interesting because the third charge against Netanyahu again involves Arnon Milchan.
And in this case, Netanyahu's been charged with accepting more than $280,000 worth of bribes from Milchan in exchange for giving him tax help, but more importantly for our story, in exchange for intervening with the U.S. to try to get him a long-term visa in the United States.
Netanyahu went so far to help Milchan get this long-term visa, it went to such high levels that he reportedly approached then-Secretary of State John Kerry three times to ask Kerry to intervene for Milchan.
So what's interesting for me in these charges against Netanyahu is that two of them involve this mysterious guy named Arnon Milchan.
And he's sort of the centerpiece of my story.
All right, well, I guess let me just say right here before I forget for later, it seems kind of strange, doesn't it, that Netanyahu would still be palling around with this guy and in fact even committing crimes with him when they ought to be pretending that they've never met and don't know each other for the rest of their lives because of exactly the stuff that you're talking about, this secret history buried here.
So let me tell you a little bit about Arnon Milchan because most people who are listening to the show, if they know Arnon Milchan, they know him as a Hollywood celebrity.
Arnon Milchan was or is an Israeli billionaire who's a Hollywood producer of more than like 150 movies and not like small, you know, you've never heard of this guy's movies.
Arnon Milchan was the producer of 12 Years a Slave, of Birdman, Brazil, Pretty Woman.
He produced big movies and he lived the life of a celebrity in the United States.
But in the shadows of this celebrity life, Milchan was living a very separate, secret life because he was an Israeli spy.
He was working for Israeli intelligence in America and what he was doing was setting up front companies that raised money to finance Israel's clandestine nuclear program.
And Milchan had always enjoyed these 10-year U.S. visas so he could stay resident in Hollywood and produce movies.
The reason he needed Netanyahu's help in staying in the States is because Milchan admitted that he was an Israeli spy on American soil and he'd lost his right to get these automatic renewals.
So he went to Netanyahu to plead for help to keep him in the U.S.
So Milchan's actually, behind the Hollywood producer, he considered himself a very James Bond-y character where he went around the world setting up front companies, raising money and financing this diamond of the secret Israeli nuclear program.
So that's the story behind Milchan.
This is the guy that worked as the middleman for Netanyahu in one case he's charged at and this is the guy that was involved in the Breiber case.
So two of the three cases involve Arnon Milchan.
That's what got me interested is when I first read this charge against Netanyahu and I saw it was Arnon Milchan and I remembered reading that name.
I knew Arnon Milchan and I went back and started digging into the history of Arnon Milchan and as I dug further and further into the story, the story got more and more crazily intriguing.
And do you want me to go on?
Do you have a particular question or do you want me to tell you how it starts getting intriguing?
Well, I did have one small question here which was what was the context of his admission of being an Israeli spy?
He was giving an interview and in the interview he just he came straight out and said it and then afterwards Shimon Peres who had been a prime minister I think at the time he was president when he said this Peres confirmed that he was the guy that recruited Milchan into Israeli intelligence way back in the 60s.
So Milchan admitted it.
When he admitted it he lost his right to visas.
Peres confirmed it.
Peres had hired Milchan in the 60s into this organization with the Hebrew acronym LAKAM.
This is so secret in Israel that they operate even in the shadows of Israeli intelligence.
They don't report to Israeli intelligence chiefs.
They report directly to the Minister of Defense.
LAKAM has two jobs.
Their job was to hide the true intention of the Dimona nuclear plant from U.S. intelligence.
So their job was to keep the Israeli program secret from America.
And their second job and this is where Milchan comes in was to go around the world stealing scientific intelligence from Israel's allies that Israel could then use in developing its nuclear program.
So this is admitted by Milchan, confirmed by Shimon Peres.
We know what he was doing.
We know everything.
When you just research this though it kind of stays there.
It's when you start looking for links between Milchan and Netanyahu that it gets interesting.
And the really crazy thing Scott is if you look up like Milchan Netanyahu like if you Google that or something nothing comes up.
There's nothing.
You have to dig and sort of sideways.
Not even my interviews of Grant Smith?
Pardon?
Not even my interviews of Grant Smith?
I guess it didn't necessarily make the show notes the proper name there.
I mean Grant Grant's one of the two researchers has done the most work on this.
And as I dug deeper and deeper I'm on this like crazy detective story.
And I'm going it's going oh and you know when I got to the end I realized there's actually a couple of guys that had already gotten there.
Grant Smith and Roger Mattson which was cool for me because I got to talk to both of them doing this article.
And I got to bounce it off and see what they thought.
See how far you could take it.
Where it really gets interesting Scott is in this case that came up in the 1980s where American Customs realized that there was a smuggling operation where these things called Krytans were being smuggled out of the States.
Krytans are high speed switches that can be used in medical equipment.
But here's where it gets interesting.
They're dual use.
They can also be used in a nuclear program.
They can be used for nuclear weapons.
And so you're not allowed to export Krytans out of the United States without a State Department munitions license.
You can't export them because they're nuclear equipment.
So what happened in the 1980s is that Israel needed Krytans for their nuclear program.
And this company operating out of California called Milco International which is owned and operated by this guy named Richard Kelly Smyth starts smuggling Krytans out of the States into Israel.
Richard Kelly Smyth is an American physicist.
He's a consultant for NATO.
He has high level security.
He knows about Krytans.
He knows where to get them.
And in the early 1980s his company Milco smuggles 15 separate orders with a total of over 800 Krytans out of the United States and delivers them to the Israeli Ministry of Defense.
So the US Customs catches on to this.
They charge Smyth.
Smyth disappears forever.
They finally find him in Spain I think it was.
And they charge him.
And in 2001 Smyth pleads guilty to violating Arms Export Controls Acts.
He gets sentenced to 40 years in jail.
Because later they consider him to be old and a health risk he actually only serves four of those years.
But he's found guilty.
And he sends him to prison.
And that's amazing to me.
When I read that in your piece I actually had to stop and go wait did I misread that?
The US Department of Justice prosecuted mercilessly prosecuted someone for violating the Export Arms Control Act in the case of providing nuclear equipment or nuclear technology to Israel.
I mean that is incredible.
Seems like politics would have intervened and prevented that from even getting to the grand jury.
And it seems like in other cases it did.
But in this one for whatever reason it didn't.
And what's really interesting and where the detective work gets cool is while they're going after Richard Kelly Smyth the FBI interrogates him.
And there's an extensive memorandum that Grant Smith the researcher you mentioned earlier managed to get through a Freedom of Information Act.
It's heavily redacted but it's completely clear from the text that it's an FBI interview with Richard Kelly Smyth.
And what's cool is that Smyth is smuggling these Krytrons out of the United States into Israel.
And what becomes clear from the memos is that his Israeli collaborator on the smuggling operation is a young Benjamin Netanyahu.
The FBI memorandum clearly says that Smyth and Netanyahu met frequently in restaurants in Tel Aviv.
They met in Netanyahu's home.
Netanyahu was a collaborator on this.
But that's interesting.
But what gets huger when you consider these Arnon Milchan cases is that the company Milko that Richard Kelly Smyth started up it's a front company.
It's not real.
Well it's real but it's not its independent company.
It's a front company started up by Arnon Milchan.
Arnon Milchan was a business associate of Smyth.
He pressured Smyth to start up this company.
And there's a profit sharing deal.
Milchan gets 60% of the Krytron sales and Smyth gets 40%.
So there's a 40-60 profit sharing.
And Milko, the company smuggling these Krytrons out of the U.S. is actually a front company for Milchan.
So when Netanyahu is dealing with Milko he's actually dealing with Milchan who he's now in court with.
But Scott it gets even worse for Netanyahu because the link is way more direct.
It's not just that Netanyahu was dealing with Smyth and Smyth happened to be working for Arnon Milchan.
What actually happened is that the Israeli Ministry of Defense had gone to this Israeli company called Heli Trading Company and the Israeli Ministry of Defense gave Heli, Ministry of Defense money and told them to use that money to get these nuclear parts, these Krytrons.
So Heli takes this Ministry of Defense money and they go to Milko company, Smyth's company and they tell Smyth's company to smuggle the Krytrons out.
But here's where it gets interesting.
At the time that Heli company is working with Milko Benjamin Netanyahu is an employee of Heli company.
So when Netanyahu is meeting with Richard Kelly Smyth he's meeting with him on behalf of Heli Corporation.
He's working on behalf of Heli Corporation to smuggle U.S. nuclear equipment illegally out of the United States into Israel for a secret nuclear program.
And as if that's not bad enough when you look at this FBI memorandum that Grant Smith got the FBI memorandum makes it clear that Heli company is actually Milchan.
That Milchan owns Heli company.
So when Netanyahu is meeting with Smyth to smuggle nuclear parts illegally into Israel he's working under the employ of Arnon Milchan.
So Netanyahu was actually working he was actually an employee of Milchan smuggling illegally parts of the United States into Israel's nuclear weapons program.
So Netanyahu was under-employed and that's what he was doing when he was meeting Milchan is he was doing this operation.
And now that he's been charged with with these dealings with Milchan and it comes to Israeli courts I think what's potentially dangerous about this isn't just that Netanyahu's government could be in trouble but if the courts probe this Netanyahu-Milchan link what could come out publicly in an Israeli court is not only a public court declaration that there actually is a nuclear weapons program in Israel but perhaps more dangerously for the states that the U.S. knew it all along and actually knew that that weapons program was partly built by stealing equipment from the states and smuggling it into Israel.
And that's I think the huge danger of this court case that no one's covering in the press.
I mean in the press they talk about the court case and you occasionally get mention of the Smythe-Netanyahu stuff but nobody talks about this guy that Netanyahu's being charged with this guy he's collaborating with he was actually collaborating with in the 80s to build an Israeli nuclear weapon a nuclear program by stealing equipment from the U.S. and smuggling it into Israel.
And I think that's the potential that's the potential explosiveness of these court cases.
Yeah well you know I don't know you know what the potential actually is I mean I don't guess you're really saying you know exactly what the potential is that this kind of thing could you know be developed further in court there it may not be directly germane to whatever they're fighting about I don't know why that it is and so they'll talk about it who knows I don't know but certainly it brings up just the fact that these men's names are being discussed together it means that you know Ynet, Jerusalem Post, Haaretz they should all be running articles about this this should be getting major international news this should be getting attention you know in Europe and you know of course there's going to be some kind of media concept or something you know it's good to see you writing this thing for Mondewise that's for sure yeah there's been I mean the press is covering the charges they're mentioning the name Arnon Milchan sometimes in the context you'll see something about this Krypton case come up but the link between that this link between Netanyahu and Arnon Milchan or any of these cases at all it's been completely hushed nobody talks about it you know it's a potentially huge story that's just being buried yeah well of course Grant wrote the book Divert about Pneumek and the Israeli theft of weapons grade uranium in the US during the Lyndon Johnson administration years so Grant wrote the book Pneumek and he's written an amazing book on the same thing he called it Stealing the Atom Bomb How Denial and Deception Armed Israel and both of them you know in Matson's book he talks about Arnon Milchan and he talks about the Krypton case it's really hard to get beyond that and find the Heli Company stuff and the link between Netanyahu and Milchan if you look up like Netanyahu and Milchan in the FBI memorandum that Netanyahu was an employee of Heli Company and then you start doing research on Netanyahu and Heli so if you do Netanyahu-Milchan it's really hard to find anything if you do Netanyahu-Heli then all of a sudden you start to find stuff but you've got to first realize that when Netanyahu was meeting with Smythe he was actually meeting with him in the capacity and you know that Netanyahu the Prime Minister of Israel in an earlier incarnation seems like he was a nuclear parts smuggler to steal from the states to start building up this illegal Israeli nuclear program it's an astonishing story it's an incredible story Hey guys, here's how to help support this show First of all, buy my book Fool's Errand Time to End the War in Afghanistan Everybody likes it It's got great reviews The EPUB is available at Barnes and Noble and everywhere else online as well Fool's Errand, Time to End the War in Afghanistan and also I take donations if you go to scotthorton.org slash donate you'll see the kickbacks you can get a lifetime subscription to listen and think audiobooks or a silver commodity disc for any donation of $100 and you get a signed copy of Fool's Errand for $50 so that ain't too bad go to paypal or patreon.com slash scotthorton show $5 or more per month and you'll get access to the private subreddit the new reddit group there at r slash scotthorton show and all new signers to patreon also get two free audiobooks as well and yes I take every kind of cryptocurrency most especially Horizon but also Bitcoin so check all that out at scotthorton.org slash donate and patreon.com slash scotthorton show thanks oh yeah and don't forget to shop amazon.com by way of my link at the bottom of my page at scotthorton.org you'll see it there well and of course one of the most interesting parts of all of this but we won't be the first to introduce them in the middle east where introduce is defined all the way down to the most literal context that they're not going to bring the nukes to dinner over at the Saudi king's house and introduce them but otherwise yeah they'll be the first to have them and make sure that everybody knows that they have them but and then that puts some you know u.s. aid to israel in violation of the law where if they have undeclared nuclear weapons and they're you know they're not declared and a member of the npt and all of that then they're not supposed to get any kind of cooperation from the u.s. until they're in compliance with all that right and under the nuclear non-proliferation treaty a nuclear power can't assist a non-nuclear power in developing a nuclear weapon so you know if it were to come to the point that the u.s.knew all along that israel was developing it and then and that in fact they were developing partly by stealing american equipment in this case or in the new met case which is I think a much bigger case actually stealing you know uranium to get a nuclear program going these are these have potentially large ramifications states I'm not saying any will come of it right but but what's what's interesting is that you know to read the media today you just see that net now who's been charged involved in a bribery case with this guy named arnon milchen and and the newspapers kind of leave it at that and it's not till you start digging that you realize that netanyahu and milchen have this long history and that the history includes you know the prime minister of israel was involved in illegally smuggling nuclear parts into israel to develop a clandestine nuclear weapons program and that should be all over the press when they link netanyahu to milchen and nobody's doing anything with in these cases with linking netanyahu to milchen so it would be really interesting if in the case that netanyahu used milchen as a as a middleman on the bribery case that you know in the past milchen had used netanyahu as a middleman in a nuclear case is a is a huge story that that i hope could could come from this and now when you say nobody you're including israeli media there too um you know i i i obviously haven't read everything um when when you look into the stories as they're covered in the bbc or the new york times or the guardian you look at any sort of the large it'd be interesting to see if there's anything at the jerusalem post or why net um the one with the ones that i've looked at you know in english i'm not seeing it i don't read hebrew i don't know what's in the i you know when you if you do a search for it um nothing comes up like if you if you do a search for netanyahu arnon milchen really little comes up when you when you go around it and you type something else in like netanyahu heli trading company then you start to get to stuff but the lynchpin in all of this is is the fbi memorandum that grant smith got released like if without that fbi memorandum that says two things it says it says three things really that netanyahu met with smith that netanyahu worked with heli and then it actually says that henny heli and milchen are the same company um when i ran that by grant smith he said they're not actually the same company but they're both run by they're both owned by netanyahu so it's a memorandum that makes the link between netanyahu and smith netanyahu and heli netanyahu and milchen without that fbi memorandum you'd have nothing like you can't find anything until you find that um it's it's it's a well-kept secret yeah it's amazing too isn't it about just the extent of media silence on something like this like out of all the newspaper editors of all the major papers in the u.s. which you know a solid dozen maybe even two dozen that would count you know throw in the toledo blade i don't know uh and none of them had the courage to publish this thing no you're not seeing much of this you're not seeing much at all and when when the um when the autobiography confidential came out the story of you know milchen where he in this interview he you know he said he was a spy um even when that book came out you know they didn't want anybody commenting on this like this this part of history is being deeply hushed um and it's being deeply hushed of course because when you scratch the story you get you get illegally stealing u.s. nuclear parts for a secret israeli program yeah and and if that comes out you know that explodes a lot of stuff right by the way uh speaking of monda weiss and really of the larger context here um there's a story that came out today adam boy but the mondo weiss guy is here at um this morning groundbreaking poll american support for one democratic state equal to support for two-state solution and then support for the status quo occupation or outright annexation and apartheid is extremely low uh eight and eleven percent respectively while thirty five and thirty six percent are split on whether equal rights for everyone under who are obviously de facto already annexed anyway um the palestinians living under the jurisdiction of the israeli government or go ahead and let them have independence but you know prevent it from being this way anymore and that to me is absolutely astounding considering you know the prevalent uh the prevalent media narratives about israel where whatever they're doing they're doing it for the benefit of the people and they are protecting themselves from or whatever kind of garbage and uh the fact that people see through that uh so well is and i guess it was the way their question was phrased too so the occupation's been going on since 67 so what are we going to do this or that so maybe that's a little bit rigged but no i mean they did leave the option of keep things the way they are so it's a it's a it's a it's a it's a it's a it's a it's a it's a it's a it's a it's a it's a can i walk it home and people rejected that soundly so um it's it's real progress and you know stories like this where people find out things like this and and can't really believe the depth of corruption here the depth of influence that a foreign country has over this one especially one the size of Maryland over usa number one superpower of all time you know yeah yup i mean i haven't read that story yet in mondowise but that that American American perceptions of what's going on in Israel has been shifting over the years I think is is clear and also that you know that American government policy doesn't match always What happens when you ask people in the States what they want is also, you know an old trend, too So I haven't read that story yet, but but it doesn't surprise me.
It fits the trend, right?
And then I guess I have to say just to you because this will be old news by the time anybody hears it probably on this show, but It looks like the Senate is about to pass this Yemen war resolution they've just rejected a Tom Cotton amendment that would make an exception for when the Houthis attack outside of Yemen then we have the right and apparently they saw right through that that that was a loophole for You know continuing to back the Saudi side of the war or Seen as a loophole maybe for providing a new authorization.
It was the kind of thing that was couched in a way To sound pretty acceptable and yet was pretty soundly defeated just now as an amendment to this thing.
So anyway And and I think we both know that this is not going to end the war itself the house You know, the Democrats are going along and five Democrats infamously Hope the Republicans kill it in the house yesterday But it you know, even if it's not everything even if it came down to him You know Trump vetoing the thing and then failing to override it or something like that Ultimately, it's the fact of the argument the fact that the Senate is doing it the fact that this pressure exists.
I think Quite possibly could force Trump's hand or you know, quote-unquote force Trump's hand to really end this thing I mean after all just about a month ago Pompeo and I guess Mattis both said yeah, let's give it about 30 days and wrap this thing up and it was because of this kind of pressure coming from the people and from the Senate and so Anyway, I'm trying to be optimistic about this thing because of course Yemen is the very worst thing that America's doing right now So yeah, yeah, it's unbelievable And all all in the in the the ridiculous idea that this is this is somehow You know part of the the keeping of Iran and check which is has been known from the beginning to be absolute nonsense Yeah, hey, you know what?
Let me ask you something You're such an astute observer of all of this stuff And I do hope that everyone will read your great archive at anti-war.com and wherever else but so I guess and you know I oversimplify things sometimes maybe for narrative sake but um I was talking with Andrew base of itch about this and he was saying he disagreed with me and said he thinks everything is much more chaotic and much more stupid essentially that Not the people but the plan that that nobody really in the foreign policy community.
They really don't know what they're doing They're playing whack-a-mole.
They're fighting last year's war.
They're lost there You know, they really don't think as hard about what to do as you and I do about what they do kind of idea, but so my kind of whole sort of Analysis of the last time is that Bush?really made what they all now consider a huge mistake in empowering the Shiite supermajority in Iraq and displacing the Sunni minority regime there and Ever since like 2006 or 7 still during the Bush years They did you know the famous Hirsch article the redirection where they put?
Elliot Abrams and others in charge of Kind of Realigning the policy to remind everyone that even though we just fought a war we're right in the middle of fighting a war for Iran that actually we hate them and we Wish we hadn't done that and we're tilting back toward the Saudi King as hard as we can and that's when they started backing John Dalla and Iran and Muslim Brotherhood groups in Syria Fatah all Islam At least for a little while there.
I don't know how long that lasted in Lebanon and I know you know that part of the story, but so I guess my idea is that Basically Bush screwed up and empowered this year and ever since then they've been trying to make up for that that that is the overriding You know grand strategy in the Middle East is they keep spiting themselves in the name of spiting Iran So for another example, we can't give Baghdad back to the Sunnis, but we at least take Damascus away from the Shia and the you know, the Alawites and the this regime that's allied with Iran As Obama said to Goldberg.
Yeah, this is a great way to take Iran down a peg is by getting rid of Assad I mean he said that in the Atlantic so and Then but of course by the end of the thing Iran has a more powerful foothold in Syria than ever before because of how necessary they were to come and help save the Syrian state from America's CIA al-qaeda terrorists, so Just like in Iraq They thought they were gonna have more power and more leverage over Iran and in fact it ended up the opposite and then they've repeated That same error in a sense in Syria and then with Iraq war three against Islamic State even more So so in other words, they're driving themselves into this crazed frustration that everything they do Makes Iran more and more powerful Iraq war two Iraq war three Syria and then in this case in Yemen as you said They launched the war in the name of stopping Iran And if anything Iran has you know scored a major victory here without even extending much effort Just because the Americans and the Saudis give them all the credit for everything that the Houthis do So they don't even have to really lift a finger and they get credit for winning this war that America's losing And Saudi is losing and so anyway, that's what I think but obviously it's a little bit oversimplified talking about, you know Decades at a time here, but what do you think?
I think that I think that the state's made a lot of moves without Understanding what was happening on the ground and and with Iran is the enemy Accidentally kept making Iran more and more powerful with Iran not actually doing anything or even seeking this I think that you know Iran in the case of Yemen They were only very tangentially related at all.
The Iranians didn't really have any influence over the Houthi in fact The Iranians asked the Houthis specifically not to go into the capital city and we saw how much influence they had because the Houthi did Anyway, but you know Iran never had much influence there that the the claim that Iran was Smuggling weapons into Yemen Gareth Porter has you know, really clearly shown that none of that was true So you take a country that's not involved in Yemen at all You walk out and you know, they have more influence same thing happens in in Syria and Iraq where where you know in Iraq you get a party who who who says that they'll give up their weapons If they can become a political party and you end up with political parties in charge that are more Allied to Iran in the first place.
Let's got the real thing for me like the thing that's tragic about this for me is that all of this is being done in the name of stopping Iran and and You know stopping Iran from what?
Because every intelligence community always knew that Iran wasn't developing a nuclear weapon that it's not Iran That's the country that's backing terrorism in the Middle East and so all of this is so Ridiculously avoidable because it's all in the name of stopping Iran from doing something that everybody in American intelligence knows that Iran was never doing In the first place.
Yeah, so it's it's just so ridiculously avoidable, you know I interviewed a State Department guy named Wayne white back It was at the beginning of o7 when everybody was afraid when they were launching the surge People were really worried that Bush and Cheney were gonna attack Iran right then they started the whole new propaganda campaign about the EFPs and blaming Iran for everything wrong in Iraq and I'm pretty sure it was Wayne white when I interviewed him at the time who said that You know, essentially there's this grudge.
Oh, in fact Mark Perry who I'm gonna interview later today I'm pretty sure has told me this too that Inside the government inside the State Department Especially but throughout the Pentagon and whatever that they just cannot and will not ever get over the hostage crisis I mean never mind what America's ever done to Iran that ain't got nothing to do with it They took those hostages and to the American Establishment that's like that time.
They got tortured in Abu Ghraib.
They want revenge and they'll never give it up after all these years They can't just say, you know, the old dead ayatollah died in 89 We've had the much nicer more deal with the bull ayatollah since then.
Give me a break, you know You know This is like I've written about this in other pieces where I've I've called this historical amnesia or history X knee Hello like history that comes from nowhere that that in in the American narrative the conflict with Iran starts with the hostage taking in 1979 and one of the great sort of tricks in history is where you start your story and sure if you start your story with the hostage taking 1979 then then you've got this this evil story But if you look at what led up to 1979 why they took the hostages, I'm not justifying hostage-taking, you know I'm a pacifist.
I'm not just like any kind of bonds at all but if you look at the history prior to 1979 from you know from the taking out of the Shaw and then when the when the sorry, the taking out of the of the Mosaddeq and the putting of the Shaw and then you know the fear in 1979 when when the Shaw was deposed and the Americans took him into the States again and this fear that oh, no You're gonna protect the Shaw and put him back in and a whole bunch of other stuff that was going on at the time Where they were really afraid that the Americans were gonna midwife another, you know another coup If you start the story in 53 or whatever it was with the the CIA coup They've admitted was a coup against Mosaddeq It changes everything but but yeah If you start in 79 if you arbitrarily start your history there, then you get this American obsession But that's not even the right place to start the history So it's not only that all this could be avoidable because Iran was never going after a nuclear weapon and Iran was never you know Being that the leading state sponsor terrorism even the state's own intelligence documents say Iran's not the leading state sponsor of terrorism And you go back before something on you start the story in the right place So you're fighting Iran over nothing and you're you're starting your narrative that justifies fighting Iran and totally the wrong place The slightest bit of careful history and so much of this horror like the horror in Yemen could just be totally avoided Yeah, it is really crazy and you know it's funny too that uh to me, it's just the biggest practical joke in the world on America that you have and In the world really but especially on us that you have right-wing Republican who's I guess emotional enough that and And from just a separate click enough, I guess of power that he's just not invested in the Bush Terror war era really who kind of detests it who has said You know not quite correctly, but you know greatly He said that Bush's decision to invade Iraq to invade the Middle East as he put it to start this whole project Was the worst mistake in American history any president has ever made which that goes show Ignorant he is of American history, but still he's right that it's that bad, right?
And so and yet at the same time This same guy I'm talking about this same president Is the biggest boob idiot in the world with no conviction no strength He's a bigger wimp than his predecessor Even when it comes to rolling over for the generals who say that this has to continue When he doesn't believe in it at all, just like his predecessor knows better and still does it?
Anyway, I think Obama could at least rationalize it in a way where Trump He only rationalized his own fortune is at stake That he can't he needs these generals to still tell Americans that he's alright, or he has no chance at re-election So that's it for him Yeah, and yeah I did a piece earlier for anti-war on on I sure was called when when all you have is bullying or something like that where where you know We're really Trump's foreign policy and it's really all of it just comes down to Bullying and and that the world is starting to adjust in the way that they with it the way that they deal with that Bullying but but you have a White House It seems to be all over the place and it's foreign policy that that there's in fighting a total lack of understanding And it really just comes down to the few things that that Bush real sorry that well, you know Trump really wants to happen and Go ahead.
Oh, I'm sorry.
You know what your your audio cut out for just sex.
I thought you stopped.
Go ahead.
I'm sorry No, no, it's okay Policy that's in total disarray that's just based on the few things that that Trump doesn't want to get pushed around on and digs in and Bullies other people against Wayne you've got a foreign policy that seems to be based much more on bullying than then a foreign policy that's based on even close to a sophistic on its Sophisticated understanding of history or what's happening in the world?
Well, you know I've had Trump fans say to me and you know what this is kind of Obama bought thinking no doubt But I'll still try it out on you That actually, you know what Trump ain't that dumb of a dummy and that really this is all deliberate that there's no real gentle way to Withdraw from NATO.
So the best thing to do is just go over there and insult the Europeans in every way call them Obviously, he's never really called for abolishing NATO or called for American withdrawal from NATO but they are now having serious discussions about creating a European army and So then the idea would be that he's playing it's just two-dimensional chess, but it's chess man He's trying to get everybody he wants the multipolar world.
That's coming.
He wants the decline of American Overextended hegemony that is just unaffordable from even a Fox News fans point of view Yeah, and that and he wants retrenchment, but he needs Reactions against him and his oafishness as the great catalyst for helping make all this happen did the Japanese really want to stake all their fortunes on an America run by a Donald Trump or might they prefer to figure out a way to go it alone and take care of themselves and That so therefore give the man a little bit of credit.
He does know what he's doing He's trying to push everyone away from America so that he has a better excuse to retrench Later or in effect in the next administration or something.
What do you think of that?
I think I think the fear with that, you know Use the metaphor of the chess game and I think the fear of that is that it's looking one move ahead and it's not looking Farther ahead in the game in the sense that if you that these things may work on particular policy But if you put them in the context of overall US foreign policy I think that the last piece I did for Antwerp was called and it was called rogue.
Hey, by the way, man I'm sorry.
I'm sorry to interrupt you can go back to this in just one second But breaking news it passed 58 to 41 so far.
Okay in the US Senate invoking the War Powers Act That's historical man.
I mean, that's a pretty big deal.
I didn't think that would ever happen Yeah as Bernie Sanders and Mike Lee the socialist and the libertarian type.
Yeah.
Yeah leading it to from the two parties I'm sorry, please go ahead with what you're saying.
I just think If you look at it, if you look at his individual policies that that that argument might hold some water but if you look at at American foreign policy post-world war two and you look at what's the sort of overarching goal of American foreign policy and I think in some ways it can be really simply put as Keep Europe away from Russia and keep Russia away from China like Kissinger said the worst thing that could ever happen is Russia and China unite and the whole sort of post NATO thing has been Keep Europe in NATO.
Don't let Europe go to Russia So if you look at American fault foreign policy, it's like it's a simplistic way of saying it but but I put it as Keep Europe from Russia.
Keep Russia from China But when Trump does this bullying what he's really doing is he's pushing Europe more and more to Russia He's pushing Europe to Russia on the whole Iran thing where Europe says, you know, we're gonna go around you We're gonna do with Iran So he's pushing Europe more and more to Russia and he's pushing Russia more and more to China the whole Shanghai cooperative This kind of bullying approach where he pushes everyone away might seem like Trump knows what he's doing But in the larger context of overall US foreign policy, he's completely blowing that the two overarching foreign policy goals which is pushing the NATO countries to Russia instead of to America and then pushing that group to China and building this massive block that Opposes America in the world.
So I Think you can look at Trump stuff individually and argue whether it's successful or not But I think if you look at it in the larger context of American foreign policy He's losing the game it's it's a it's a it's a long-term disaster I think and that's why that's why in my piece I talked about my other piece I was talking about the rogue one where you see America wants to be a hegemon but but what what had him what countries do when there are you know, when there are a Power like a hegemon is that they lead the world but Trump's not leading the world He's pushing the world away and going off on his own and that's causing the world to form Alliances that could be very threatening to any kind of American hegemony Later on but that's a that's a different article Yeah, well, you know me I'm off on a tangent these things happen But here's to the demise of and hey the imprisonment of Benjamin Netanyahu I won't hold my breath, but you know what right they do jail prime ministers over there and presidents, too so they have something that Some kind of accountability for politically powerful people.
That is unheard of in America, really Yeah, we'll see how it plays out.
But but the connections that this that this case is reveal are you know, historically?
Intriguing absolutely.
Okay.
Well interesting everyone, please go and read Ted you find that click more viewpoints It's a week or two old now or something.
Click more viewpoints on anti-war comm you'll find it there It's also and the link is to mondo Weiss net mondo Weiss net Netanyahu's latest corruption case could expose long hidden secrets about Israel's nuclear weapons program.
Thanks again, Ted Thanks.
God.
Appreciate it All right, y'all.
Thanks.
Find me at Libertarian Institute org at Scott Horton org anti-war.com and reddit.com Slash Scott Horton show.
Oh, yeah, and read my book fools errand timed and the war in Afghanistan at fools errand us
