12/16/15 – Eric Schuler – The Scott Horton Show

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Just occurred to me, everybody, I should have got the soundbite of Trump explaining that the power of nuclear devastation is very important to me here.
Wasn't that what he said?
Something like that.
Oh, yes, the devastation of the nuclear destruction.
Anyway, lots of fun.
Okay, on the line, I got Eric Schuller.
Oh, I hope I'm saying your last name right there.
I meant to ask you in the break there.
Welcome to the show, Eric.
Hi, how are you doing?
I'm doing good.
Did I say it right?
Yep.
Yep, you're all right.
Good.
Well, sometimes I screw up people's names.
So Eric has written a few articles for AntiWar.com, and he's got this great blog.
I think you'll like his writing and his point of view here.
It's called The Daily Face Palm, quite appropriate for following the news we follow around here.
And this one is a Republican debate summary, a win for non-intervention, and you put a question mark on there.
So I'll let you go ahead and score the thing however you like.
Yeah.
So I mean, I think one of the things that is important to keep in mind is you're always going to hear a lot of the same terrible things in these debates.
And so what was unique about this one, though, is that you actually had somebody pushing back.
And it wasn't even just Rand Paul.
I mean, you actually had a diversity of opinion, which you just don't get on foreign policy in these debates.
And so you had the standard kind of cruise line of call it radical Islam, and you had Fiorina talking about how great it is to help out the NSA.
But after you got done with that, you had legitimate debate on whether regime change is a good idea and whether it actually is helpful.
And so I think that's kind of the thing I took away from it, is you had all the bad like normal, but for once, you actually had somebody saying something intelligent on the other side.
Well, and, you know, I think a big part of the setup here, and it's funny, and I know I got a chip on my shoulder and whatever, but I don't care.
I give him credit anyway.
But I think Rand is kind of playing catch up to Trump here.
It's like in the second debate when Trump says, hey, Carson, high five that we were both smarter and knew that the Iraq war was a bad idea back then.
And and Rand was left going, yeah, but me too.
I also was against it.
And he had done so such a good job of playing that down that then there he was having to play catch up.
Ron Paul's son having to play catch up and say, I also am antiwar.
And Trump is amazing to me.
But Trump has been able to say, oh, yeah, no, if you support the Iraq war, you're stupid.
Which he doesn't say that about his voters, but he says that about the Bush's and about Hillary Clinton and and they don't mind.
The Republican.
I don't mind.
They now apparently are ready to accept that.
OK, Iraq War two really was stupid.
Not that I'm sorry about all my neighbors I called traitor or anything.
But OK, I guess you're right now, as long as it's Trump saying it.
And then the rest of them are playing catch up, you know, and Cruz has decided apparently to that if he would if he points his finger and says Rubio is going to try to get us into trouble we don't need.
And I'm more shrewd than that, that that's good politics here, not being the worst warmonger of all, not saying who can out Giuliani each other up there, but people moving closer and closer to Ron Paul, at least rhetorically.
Yeah.
Well, and I thought it was interesting to Trump got a question at one point that was something to the effect of, you know, would the would America be safer if dictators were running the Middle East bill?
And he basically like he said, you know, we wasted a lot of money and it's not like we had a victory.
And, you know, basically said we should have been spending that money at home, like almost I mean, he didn't frame it this way, but almost like a reference to the peace dividend concept, which is just not something you expect to hear out of a Republican front runner.
And so that was pretty interesting.
And I also thought, you know, Rand Paul, his opening statement, you know, because, you know, that's the thing they're preparing.
So off the cuff, you know, you know, that's something else.
But the opening statement, I mean, he really went hard after Trump on, you know, closing down the Internet and even defending the Bill of Rights.
I mean, you know, applauding the Bill of Rights and not just the Second Amendment part like that's that's kind of new, too.
You know, and that's it almost seems to me like maybe that could signify a shift in in kind of his strategy, because that's you know, that's how he was positioning himself for the debate.
And I don't know.
That seems to bode well from my perspective.
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, I hope he noticed that last night was his best night.
And I in fact, I think he did, because I saw that his people put out a tweet that was a compilation of tweets of all different Republican, you know, WAGs, Laura Ingram and Steve Deese and some Fox News people.
And I don't know the whole list, but it was, you know, conservative thought leaders, if there's such a thing.
Right.
And they liked it and they thought it was his best performance ever.
And they didn't say, boy, I really like how anti-war he was finally.
But again, they sure didn't seem to mind it.
Exactly.
Well, and, you know, of course, he's not really staking out the, you know, the full on non interventionist position.
I mean, he's still, you know, kind of made a reference to Arab boots on the ground, not U.S. boots on the ground.
So it's not, you know, it's not necessarily the position that you or I might take on it, but it's still compared to, you know, everybody else on the stage.
It's just leagues different.
Well, and that's the thing.
He absolutely is in favor of regime change in Raqqa and Mosul, Fallujah, Ramadi, no doubt about that.
Right.
I mean, at this point, I think I'm, you know, I'll take what we can get right now.
I'm not so sure.
I mean, I think that if we encourage the best in him and encourage him to go ahead and abandon all this stupid pandering, that he can make a much better case for just non intervention at this point.
You know what?
Tough guy.
You guys want to send in the whole Marine Corps or some imaginary Saudi army or whoever to sack Mosul.
Then what?
Well, and go ahead and fight with them about it.
You know?
Yeah.
Well, and I think he could.
He could really.
I mean, I don't I disagree with his stance on immigration.
But since he's trying to take the very, like, intense border security stance, it seems like it's a very, you know, it'd be easy to parlay that into saying, well, you know, we're just going to defend the borders here.
So we don't need to be there.
And so, like, it seems like he's kind of setting himself up for that if he wants to.
His point about the regime change thing, he can link the two back and forth again.
We're supposed to be all concerned about who now about veterans of the Syrian war that we've been supporting their side this whole time, blowing back against us, just like I told you not to do it.
And he did actually say that a couple of times last night.
I thought it was funny, actually, where the CNN lady was like, no, go back to the Iraq thing and whatever.
She's really trying to push him to answer more.
He was kind of taking the change in the subject a little bit to his practiced answer about border security or whatever.
And she's like, no, go back to the Syria thing.
I thought that was good, at least that, you know, they kept that up for a little while and I actually missed a bit of the Syria discussion because I was talking Star Wars with the wife.
But then when I faced back in, Eric, it was the part where Kasich was saying, but we can't back down now.
And the Saudis promised that they're going to build a brand new moderate government there.
That's what we have to do.
And they're backed by Iran and Russia.
So obviously we can't we can't leave.
And that was interesting because, you know, Rubio basically took that position in case it took that position.
But one of the but, you know, you had Cruz, you know, even pushing back on that.
And, yeah, he just wants to, you know, basically carpet bomb the parts that are under control of ISIS.
But he's, you know, basically staking out a position of not doing regime change in Damascus now.
And that's, you know, so you have the two basically leading candidates that are anti regime change in the Republican Party.
You know, Cruz and Trump.
So that's what's significant here is nobody should should think that either of us believe or would have them believe that what these people say is true or anything like that.
The point is, they're all trying to manipulate you so that you will give them power over you.
So what is it that they think that they need to say to win you over?
And finally, the it seems at least for now until the next thing explodes or is shot or whatever, that the crest of the wave has tipped and that conservatives would rather keep the son they have left than send him off to get killed, too.
Right.
Well, and I think it was also significant that they true Trump, Cruz and Paul all actually finally brought up Libya in like a real way and saying, you know, look, look what came out of this.
And that's you know, that's been something that hasn't come up in a meaningful way in the Democratic debates or in the Republican debates so far.
And it's like, you know, that I saw that was like finally somebody, you know, somebody who's been reading something on antiwar.com or something.
I don't know.
Right.
But but then so a good question that they didn't ask him was, so what do you do about it now that there are guys flying the black flag of Baghdadi over Tripoli, dude?
Yeah.
And don't give me some problem about, well, I don't know.
We'll make the Algerians do it or, you know, right.
Oh, man, I'm sorry.
Now that now the music's playing, we got to take this break.
Then we'll be back.
It's Eric Schuller.
Check out his great blog.
It's Eric Scott Schuller dot blogspot dot com.
The Daily Facepalm.
And you can find a couple of his articles up at antiwar dot com as well.
Hey, I'll Scott Horton here.
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I miss it.
A chat room.
Guys, did they say what they're doing with the interest rate yet?
Probably nothing.
That's my guess.
All right.
Eric Schuller is on the line.
Author of the Daily Facepalm.
Boy, am I feeling it.
I'll tell you what.
We're talking about the Republican debate last night.
And I'm sorry, I forget at which point I interrupted you for the break here.
Eric, you were going to say, oh, we were we were talking about, you know, they didn't really ask, like, OK, so what do we do now?
And I was going to say, I mean, in some ways, I'm kind of glad they didn't, because I'm afraid what anyone would say.
But, you know, the fact that it didn't get emphasized, like, I'm all right with that.
Yeah.
You know, that's kind of been my thing about Libya all along is, you know, people complain sometimes and say, yeah, nobody pays any attention to what a disaster Libya is.
And I'm saying, you know what?
That's could be worse.
And once they start paying attention to it, then the next step from there is proposed solutions.
And I don't think any of us want to hear them.
I know what's good for us anyway.
All right.
Now, so here's the thing that you really start your article with this, too.
Well, second place or something here is the avowed support for war crimes among Ted Cruz, Donald Trump, Jeb Bush and Ben Carson.
Carson and Cruz's war crimes were more or less the same.
Jeb was not as specific.
Trump had his own unique kind of war crimes.
And hey, well, it's just a matter of debate, just a policy preference, I think, Eric.
Yeah.
Well, and Rand Paul, to his credit on that point, you know, he brought back, you know, Trump's plan.
Trump doubled down on his plan to go after the families.
And Rand Paul, you know, instead of making like a humanitarian appeal, he said, you know, like, we're going to have to withdraw from the Geneva Conventions, which probably, you know, most of the base isn't too concerned about.
But he also said, like, do you still believe in the Constitution, which if you're going to attack, you know, Trump on that issue, framing it in terms of like the Constitution says this is wrong is probably the best way you're, you know, best way for him to frame it.
So I thought that was, you know, worth noting, too.
And he actually kind of referred to the difficulty of the logistics of getting the First Amendment repealed.
That could take a long time.
He's like, so are we just going to go away?
Yeah, that was an interesting approach.
And I also maybe I missed this, but I actually thought that, you know, Bush, you know, compared to Trump, he actually seemed to outline a slightly less, you know, awful position on, you know, banning all Muslims and the family piece because, you know, he said that this isn't going to this isn't how we win people over to our side, which, you know, I mean, it's kind of beside the point that that's actually a real debate.
But, you know, at least pretty much no one would seem to be signing on for Trump's position on that from from what I took away for it.
It was amazing the way he doubled down on that and didn't say, well, you know, we would have the cops investigate and figure out whether they know something or not or, you know, something.
But no, he didn't back down whatsoever, just doubled down on that really was amazing there.
The way you did that, of course, Jeb, in his refutation of Trump on that, in his in that same answer said, well, you know, a big, big part of the problem, they all did this.
Anytime they're asked about tax here, they change the subject to let's attack over there.
And he says, big problem is the damn lawyers are hamstringing the people fighting the war against the Islamic State over there.
We need to set them free.
That was like the first half of the sentence before he pivoted to.
And boy, you shouldn't be mean to Muslims.
That makes us look bad.
We're trying to suck up to these people.
It is a it is a very odd disconnect that, you know, I think half the stage is outlining political correctness as really the as really the big problem in our in our war.
It's not the war itself.
It's it's definitely that we're not killing enough civilians.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
And to be the not just the PR man, but the lawyers, the damn lawyers say that we can only bomb if we don't think we're going to kill some kids.
And then, you know, we want to, though.
And then that was Carson's thing.
And the Hugh Hewitt.
Hey, Carson, you're brain surgeon.
You're not a politician.
You're new at this.
Are you really ready to kill a bunch of children?
Wow.
And he says, yeah.
Yeah, but he did object to, you know, he had enough PR sense in him, like I object to the word ruthless, tough and resolute, not ruthless.
But yeah, there's people still going to die.
But let's frame it a little different.
Come on now.
Yeah, it's not the end.
It's the means to the end.
Hugh.
And then and Hugh, you know, likened ISIS to Hitler as like the same level of threat to make it, you know, sound a little more OK.
Yeah, exactly.
Are you going to do like Churchill did what was necessary to bring down the Third Reich?
Because I think he must have caught himself as way.
We we probably shouldn't say that in isolation.
That's going to be taken out of context pretty easily.
Yeah.
Well, the whole damn thing's kind of taken out.
I don't think so.
Oh, go ahead.
No, no, no.
You please.
I thought was interesting is Cruz.
Actually, at first I thought it was a gap, but I was, you know, rewriting kind of transcript on it.
And he actually said twice that Iran has declared war on the United States.
Do you catch that?
No, I'd miss that.
It was funny as I watch it and I see the tweets go by.
I go, they said that.
I mean, I just really can't listen to these clowns.
I tried.
Yeah.
No, I mean, you have to tap out and take a break midway through or something.
But no, I mean, twice, you know, and I guess it's, you know, part of his line of radical Islam.
So you can't distinguish between, you know, different parts of it, even if they're fighting each other.
But yeah, he said, you know, ISIS and Iran are at war with the United States.
And it's so funny, too, because in a, you know, not in a good way, you know, but he at one point, you know, he's basically saying we shouldn't do regime change against Syria because it'll backfire.
But at one point he just kind of mentions offhand, like, well, you know, regime change in Iran, that that's something I could support.
But didn't you just hear your last five sentences?
Yeah.
Yeah.
He's saying, yeah, enough of this utopian nation building and spreading democracy and all of this.
What we need to just do is protect our national interests and fight our enemy, Iran and their enemy, the Islamic State.
Just wow.
Really?
All just in one breath like that.
Yeah.
You got to take out both sides of the civil war to win the civil war.
That's how it goes.
Yeah, exactly.
You know, the other thing that I found, you know, kind of interesting is, I mean, you know, Christie's not really a, you know, not a real player at this point, it doesn't seem like.
But, you know, Rand actually had a pretty good line on him, too, of, you know, I think his quote was something like, well, if you if you if you're in favor of World War Three, I think you found your candidate.
And it's like, you know, and just framing the issue starkly and, you know, not trying to mince words, which he seemed to do a lot better than that.
I mean.
Just, you know, I want to see the next debate and hope that they can keep the momentum going of just, you know, people actually talking about this, because I think at this point, I mean, the Republican Party is almost less terrible on foreign policy, at least leadership than the Democrats would be, which is, you know, would make for a much more interesting, you know, post post debate.
Yeah, no, I mean, I think the Republican hawks and particularly the neocons, I try to follow some neocons on Twitter.
I actually can't take most of it.
I follow Max Booth and a few of these other guys and, you know, their frustration at the whole Trumpian movement is, you know, really kind of fun to watch, you know, their panic.
I mean, it's as bad as mine.
I'm not saying I like him, but I just like seeing how upset they are that, you know, the wins are just not with them.
The people don't don't really know who the neocons are, but they know that now that there are such a thing.
There is such a thing as the neocons and they're the ones who always are the most pro war.
And I don't think maybe we should be listening to them.
And the fact that that is kind of look, it's 2015, but hey, that's finally kind of soaking in and getting through to, you know, Republican masses out there.
That's pretty powerful and pretty good.
Just the fact that all the front runners continue to sound somewhat a little bit anti war themes.
You know, I assure you, I'm really tough and everything, but I think we should be doing less.
And they they have focus group that enough.
They know that that's what people are demanding to hear at this point.
Right.
So well, and it was interesting, too, even when, you know, Trump got a question on the nuclear triad and he kind of he basically didn't answer it.
But I mean, I definitely expected like, oh, yeah, we need a you know, the standard answer you would expect, which was pretty much given by Rubio was, you know, we got to double down, we got to modernize and, you know, it's the greatest deterrent in the world.
And ISIS isn't apparently paying attention to it.
But, you know, it's still the greatest deterrent in the world against somebody.
And, you know, we need to spend as much money as possible to him.
And, you know, that was just not that was not the like coined response from everybody.
You know, it's just.
You know, obviously, Trump's no dove, but it's like it's nice that he doesn't have to say horrible things about literally every foreign policy issue.
Well, and I think the the triad thing just confused him because he didn't know what the hell that meant.
Right.
And so he's like, well, I don't know.
I'm just going to bluster for a few minutes here and hope to get away with it.
You know.
Right.
But at least he didn't say, like, well, yeah, nuclear weapons are the best thing that's ever happened.
Yeah.
And in fact, even his thing where he's like the power of the nuclear devastation is very important to me.
All he was really trying to say was, no, I take that very seriously.
You know, he just right kook about it the way it came out.
But yeah, that's what he meant, really.
Anyway.
So listen, man, I really appreciate your little write up here and I appreciate your time on the show talking about this today.
It's much better than just hearing me talk.
That's for sure.
We're just sick and tired of that around here.
Eric Schuller, everybody.
Check him out.
Eric Scott Schuller dot blogspot dot com.
The Daily Face Palm.
See you all tomorrow.
Thanks again, man.
Thanks, Scott.
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