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All right, you guys on the line.
I've got the great Eli Clifton.
He is one of the co-founders of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.
And of course, their blog, their I don't want to call it a blog.
Their collection of articles is to be found at Responsible Statecraft dot org, including this most important piece, Weapons Biz Bankrolls Experts Pushing to Extend Afghan War.
Yeah, you don't say.
Welcome back, Eli.
How are you doing, buddy?
I'm doing well.
Thanks for having me, Scott.
Very good to talk to you again here.
And I'm writing in my notes a dull son for later in the conversation here.
The Afghanistan Study Group, what's that and why am I sighing about it?
Well, it is a blue ribbon group commissioned by Congress to research and provide recommendations about the U.S. war in Afghanistan, which is in its second decade.
And what they're what they are comprised of are for large, I'm sort of generalizing here, but there are there are 15 members and they are most of them are either former political appointees who worked at either DOD or State Department or the intelligence services or senior generals, military officers who commanded troops in Afghanistan.
And what they're supposed to be is sort of this brain trust of people who can offer sensible advice about what the path forward should be for the U.S. involvement in the war in Afghanistan.
There are also a group of expert advisors who are a bit more diverse in their backgrounds, a lot of that sort of regional expertise.
Many of them are have spent even more time really focused on the region than the members of this 15 member group who who really comprise the core membership.
And were there any famous dissidents like Matthew Ho or Daniel Davis or anybody like that included at all?
No, no, there there were not.
However, in talking with a number of the expert advisors, I certainly got the impression that they brought a pretty good diversity of viewpoints about about what the U.S. role in Afghanistan should be, as well as they actually the outside advisors raised serious concerns about abrogating from the U.S.-Taliban agreement, which would have a withdrawal on May 1st of U.S. troops.
All right.
So it's it's interesting the way they have that the the board, the principals is kind of like the officers in the enlisted here, right?
The the grunts have their advice, but the the officers are free to ignore it and write whatever they want anyway.
Yeah, I mean, I would even go a little further and say that it's not just like it's it's it's this dichotomy.
It actually is that what appeared is that is that the members are actually pretty they have they have pretty consistent CVs amongst them.
When you look at each of their respective backgrounds, they share a lot in common in that they were in one form or another, all involved in the policymaking processes over the past 20 years that have really defined the war in Afghanistan, whereas the advisors really were from a far more diverse set of backgrounds.
You wouldn't even say that they were just enlisted.
They were certainly I would say that I think some of them certainly had military backgrounds, not most of them do not.
They really were a very diverse group.
What I ended up focusing on was the members and the recommendations of the of their report.
And the report recommended essentially that the U.S. find a way one way or another to most likely to extend the withdrawal deadline past May 1st.
And in doing so, as several of the expert advisors I spoke to warned, that's well may be an abrogation of the agreement with the Taliban, unless the Taliban were for whatever reasons.
And nobody could provide me a clear answer for why they would agree to this.
But if they agreed to to that extension, and so it was a mutually negotiated agreement.
Now, the report didn't say that's the way it has to be.
They essentially said that maybe the time isn't right for a withdrawal and we should extend it to a later date, not saying what that date is, not saying how they would actually negotiate that extension beyond.
They certainly were open to the possibility that that decision might be unilateral.
Now, the thing that I that I took issue with and that I tried to flag in the article I wrote for Responsible Statecraft, and it was published by the Daily Beast, was the fact that 12 out of the 15 of these folks that I was talking about actually have current or recent financial ties to major weapons manufacturers.
And that, you know, this seems like a potential conflict of interest that was not really flagged or disclosed in the report that, hey, a lot of the people who are making this recommendation that pretty much everyone would agree is likely to, if it's followed, would extend the U.S.
War in Afghanistan in an indefinite manner, have financial ties or have recent financial ties to an industry which also would happen to benefit financially from an ongoing U.S. presence in Afghanistan.
That seems problematic.
It says a lot about not just I don't want to just cast blame on the members of this group.
I think it's probably a structural problem in Washington, D.C., that if you're trying to put together a blue ribbon panel of folks that have policy experience on, let's say, Afghanistan, you're going to be hard pressed to find people who don't have ties to the built to the military industrial complex, as it's frequently called, because there is a revolving door for people with senior political and military experience.
And I think that they are probably actively recruited, I'm speculating here, by weapons manufacturers to come and work for them.
So I think that what we're looking at here is this is this isn't just an isolated instance.
This is probably part of a bigger problem.
And how do we bring in more diverse perspectives and views when the folks that actually do have the most on the ground experience and sort of the elite political and elite military levels are a lot of them?
Most of them, certainly the vast majority in this case, in this case study, have direct financial ties to the weapons business.
Right.
You know, what's funny about this, right, is that anybody who's experienced in American politics at all knows that, of course, this is how it works.
And there's no surprise here.
But on the other hand, if you just imagine, remember that Arnold Schwarzenegger movie with Danny DeVito, Twins, where he's raised on an isolated island out in the middle of nowhere and he comes to America as a full grown adult.
Like if you explain to him, yeah, the way it works is all the top guys in the Pentagon, then they go work for the companies that make the weapons and then they sit on the study group that advises we keep buying the weapons to go to the war.
He would have been shocked that that's the way it works.
Really, that's not illegal.
Right, right.
Or even if it's not illegal, like why doesn't anybody look at this and say, well, why isn't this more of an issue?
Why aren't we talking about this as a real problem?
And when we talk about like, you know, industry capture, regulatory industries and stuff, or regulatory agencies, it's very rare that we end up talking about the impact on U.S. foreign policy and war.
And I would say that probably it goes on there just as much as in other spaces.
It's just not something we pay attention to as much because it doesn't directly seem to impact us as much.
But you know what?
It really does.
When you look at the defense budget of seven hundred and forty billion dollars, over half of that goes to defense contractors.
That is the largest item in the federal budget.
So it's a very large part of the taxes that you and I pay.
And a lot of that, actually, probably the majority of that money that's going into the defense budget is actually going to defense contractors, the biggest of which were actually employing or putting people on boards who were members of this Afghanistan study group.
Yeah, I mean, that's the thing, too, right?
Like these guys all almost all many of them anyway, I guess, Kelly Ayotte, her only experience here is helping, you know, replace Joe Lieberman in the Senate and help John McCain and Lindsey Graham take all the most hawkish positions that she could in her time there.
I don't know what else, what other experience she has.
But a lot of these other guys served on the board of BAE Systems.
Oh, yeah.
Well, there's the conflict.
But I'm going for like the experience and actually implement a war here.
I mean, there's so many people who are actually responsible for losing the war.
You talk about Margaret O'Sullivan, a.k.a.
Megan O'Sullivan, the same lady who worked for George W.
Bush, ruining everything in Iraq and in Afghanistan.
And and, of course, Dunford himself played, what, three or four different major roles in losing this thing.
And so I don't forget Stephen Hadley, who is the national security adviser under George W.
Bush.
You should see when I was reading this, I'm like, Hadley, what?
Yeah.
Hadley offered his resignation for his part in in allowing the faulty intelligence about about about Iraq's pursuit of WMDs.
I think it's WMD material from Niger to be included in.
And after W.
Bush got bored, I mean, he really played the major role in running those wars.
Him and Douglas Lute, the war czar, that those two and Megan O'Sullivan, they were the ones who ran the wars for W.
Bush.
Right.
And then Hadley got, you know, again, there's this revolving door.
He turned around.
He joined Raytheon's board in 2010 and he's received nearly two point six million dollars in cash in stock over the following years since that he's been that he was on the board.
Man, not a bad golden parachute.
No, not at all.
Yeah.
And the money, it's hard.
I mean, the money is so important, too, but it's always just the reputation, too, right?
Like if these guys, for whatever reason, had to get real jobs, they would still say, well, we can't leave.
Dunford said the other day the quote, it was just some simple quote that we cannot just hand a victory to the Taliban.
Well, they already took their victory.
All we have left is the Bagram Air Base and and a little, you know, highly militarized base in the capital city that could go up in a roof of the Saigon embassy moment at any time.
They already won the war.
What's he even talking about?
As long as we stay at Bagram, then we ain't lost, he says, as he crosses his arms and stamps his feet.
You know, I'm really glad you raised that, Scott, because because that's something that, you know, in what I in my reporting, it's sort of hard to bring out that nuance, which is that, you know what, these people probably would have said these things and they believe it.
And it probably wasn't the money that persuaded them to take these positions.
The money may have gone to them because they continued to because they did hold these positions.
But you really I think the really important thing you're pointing out here is that, you know what, this is always what these people have thought.
They've been involved in decisions that have continually extended this war.
And it seems like maybe not the best or at least not the most interesting to put them all on a blue ribbon panel together where they get to repeat these same things they've been saying for the past two decades.
Maybe we do need some fresh thinking.
Maybe we should recognize this war has gone on too long.
They did have some people who were fresh thinkers and did have dissenting views from what has become sort of the establishment positions of the so-called blob to maintain this sort of this war until the conditions on the ground are right for a withdrawal, which sort of is an indefinite target.
But those people's views don't seem to have been incorporated into the report itself.
Again, a pretty good reflection in many ways of how the foreign policy establishment in Washington often does sort of become this self-reinforcing entity, despite outside evidence that these policies and these initiatives often have not been successful.
Hey, y'all, Scott here.
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I like how, I mean, I don't know.
It's almost like a practical joke reading this thing.
Hey, Steven Hadley and Michelle Flournoy, the deputy secretary defense for policy in charge of implementing the failed surge of 2009 through 12.
How could she possibly even show her face, much less be on the steering committee of this thing?
Yeah, I mean, I think it's again, it's getting these folks who have definitely taken heat outside the beltway.
And I think it's really important to to contextualize this, that, you know, when you or I look at this, we say, hey, this seems kind of problematic.
You have a bunch of people who, frankly, kind of seem to think very much alike.
I'm sure they disagree on some things, but, you know, they generally kind of all agree with the same, come to this with the same perspective, view and experiences.
And some of them have kind of questionable track records in terms of the policies and the initiatives they've been involved in.
And we would say, hey, you know, why would you load the panel, load the membership with people like that when inside the beltway and with the policymakers?
I think that's actually seen in many ways as an asset, not a liability.
These are people that they know.
These are people who who who have given, you know, who have been consistent in the advice that they've given, you know, which, you know, again, we would probably say, well, but can't you look critically at what occurred and say, hey, maybe some of the positions I took weren't so smart or maybe maybe this war is just is is sort of never ending in the way that it's it's it's the definition of winning in this is being defined.
But but that's not how it works in the beltway.
Those are things that that I think are often rewarded more often than punished.
Whereas outside, for those of us, when we do choose to pay attention to the foreign policy making process, which I don't think is very many of us and people, the media certainly doesn't spend a lot of time on this.
You know, we we look at this and say, as you said, it reads a bit like parody.
But the question is, why doesn't that matter more?
Right.
Yeah, I love this to Lisa Monaco.
I'm not too familiar with her, but she's also a principal at West Exec Associates here with Flournoy and the new secretary of state, Blinken.
That's right.
And just this really is like if you were writing a novel where you were exaggerating the hell out of how all of this works, it would read just like this article.
It's great.
This very hard news, straight, straight reporting article that you've done here.
Yeah.
And again, not to focus on the money too much.
But again, West Exec had Boeing as a client.
They may still have Boeing as a client.
This was disclosed when Blinken was coming up for confirmation.
So, you know, again, there's just this consistent trend of, you know, I don't I actually agree with you and I and I am concerned that people draw the conclusion that, oh, well, the money changed these people's minds.
I don't think that's the case.
I think that the defense weapons manufacturers wanted these people working for them because they knew what they thought.
They knew what policy policymaking they had experience in and they knew these were people who are likely to go back into policymaking roles.
Right.
And that is probably a real asset to these weapons manufacturers.
And that's why they were willing to pay, in many cases, these people quite a lot of money.
Well, and the same thing goes for when we're talking about who's bankrolling which nonprofit pushing which agenda out here in the world, too, that it doesn't necessarily mean that one group or another is taking marching orders directly from Koch or directly from Soros.
Just there's a reason that Koch or Soros like you.
It might be a good reason.
It might be a bad one.
But, you know, they decided to cut your check.
It's something and I'm not picking.
It's funny.
I wasn't even thinking about you.
I was thinking about my libertarian movement and a bunch of liberals out there.
And I realize I'm talking to Eli from Quincy Institute that famously got Soros and Koch money to do the right thing here.
I swear to God, I wasn't even talking about you when I said that.
I was thinking about like my boys at Cato and stuff.
Go ahead.
It's just a full disclosure here.
Like, I need to say it out.
Hey, you know, the Quincy Institute.
I swear to God, I didn't even.
I wasn't even thinking of you guys when I said that.
The Charles Koch Institute and Soros' philanthropic group as our funders.
And, you know, since I do write on these types of issues, I have to say, hey, you know what, if those people come up, it's my responsibility to say, hey, you know, they happen to be our funders.
Take of that what you will.
I don't think that they certainly haven't interfered in our work that I'm aware of.
And but I think I think it's our responsibility to be open to that conversation about that.
Absolutely.
And in fact, in this case, we know that Charles Koch is anti-war.
He started out.
He used to be a lot more libertarian than he is now, but he's bankrolled some of the best anti-war guys at the Cato Institute for generations over there.
Ted Carpenter and Doug Bondo and all of these heroes over there.
And, you know, we know that that's how he's felt.
He probably would have financed Antiwar.com if it wasn't for Justin's personality all those years.
So and and then on Soros, too, I don't know exactly what all he's up to, but I think obviously the reason that he is supporting you guys here is for the right reasons, not to infiltrate and ruin the anti-war movement or anything like that.
It's to give the staff of Jim Loeb's blog a higher profile because you guys deserve it.
That's what it is, obviously.
Well, I certainly hope that's the case.
And, you know, but I think that there's something bigger that we should recognize here, which is that, you know, this conversation that you and I are having where, you know, hey, I'm not shying away from we can talk about our my funders.
I'm not you know, I can't speculate.
I don't happen to know Charles Coopers.
I don't know George Soros personally.
So I can't I can't offer you, you know, speculation about what drives them individually.
But I'm willing to talk about what I do know and that willingness to talk about, hey, you know, I'm not going to lie to you and say that we don't have funders.
Whereas I think very often when you deal with with with institutions, think tanks, consultants, lobbyists inside the Beltway, there is this notion that like, you know, that's just not cricket to talk about your to talk about who funds them, to talk about who they work for, to talk about what boards they serve on, to suggest that there might be a potential, just a potential conflict of interest when the interests of the people who pay them intersect with the policy advice or analysis that they are providing.
It's the media, especially that you're talking about.
Right.
When when Andrea Mitchell interviews any of these people, she never says now, in fairness, you are paid millions of dollars by Raytheon.
Right.
That never comes up.
And and if she did do it, the response would be, you know, sort of shocked and to say, well, that's really just not fair.
You're suggesting that I'm somehow my views are being manipulated by the people who pay me.
It's this notion that that you can't talk about it unless you could actually show that that that the funder had undue influence.
Right.
And that's not a reasonable that's not a reasonable level of of disclosure to require.
Right.
It's like overcharging to it's like overcharging a cop to let him go.
You know what I mean?
As you just said, no, no, it's they're paying you because of your opinions, not they're paying you to change your opinions.
So, you know, and and that you should be proactive in disclosing if there is, again, a potential conflict of interest.
Right.
I think that's really, really important.
And, you know, we try to do that at Quincy.
We certainly are.
We certainly don't push away people who want to talk about who our funders are and what their interests might be.
Again, we can't speculate about what they individually want or think.
What we can say is, yeah, here are the terms of why they funded us, which I'll tell you, it's pretty broad.
And and I think that having those sorts of open conversations, it needs to be normalized.
And the idea that that's just not polite.
Right.
You know, it's like it's like the old thing.
You're supposed to talk about politics at the dinner table.
The only thing that the equivalent of that inside the beltway is talking about who pays your bills.
Right.
Yeah, I think that's totally right.
And it should be all just above board.
And then so speaking of which, what difference does it make that Sheldon Adelson is dead?
That's a quick pivot onto it.
Well, it's a related topic.
You know, certainly it's money and politics and U.S. foreign policy.
You know, I wrote a piece shortly after, shortly after his death.
Oh, did you?
I'm sorry, man.
I did not see that.
I can't wait to know.
I'll make sure you make sure you see it.
It's my my my obit of battles.
And, you know, the conclusion I draw is that, you know, I don't think a lot is going to change.
And the reason for that is something that I think we all I think if you were paying very close attention to Sheldon and Miriam Adelson's political activities, you could identify that while Sheldon Adelson gets all the attention, Miriam Adelson was a very active partner.
And I would speculate that she even I think there's strong evidence to suggest that she actually was taking, in many respects, a leadership role in their philanthropy and in their political giving.
And she continues, obviously, to be worth an enormous amount of money, billions of dollars.
She is obviously a kingmaker in the Republican Party.
I would be shocked if they do not continue to be one of the top, if the Adelson family does not continue to be one of the top campaign contributors to the Republican Party, if not the top contributor, as they have been in the past several cycles.
Yeah, that's just too bad for us.
All right.
Listen, I'm sorry I'm out of time.
Thank you so much for your time.
It's great to talk to you again, Eli.
And I always love your perspective.
Oh, and by the way, I meant to say I swear I got what Biden's got.
I can never remember a thing.
I was going to chime in there that as a scientific measure of the awesomeness of the Quincy Institute, the myself and our opinion editor, Kyle Anzalone at Antiwar.com, we have together approved and run.
I forgot what exactly the number was, but I think the last time I checked, it was almost 300 articles by you guys since you were founded there.
And we have very high standards.
We'll throw an article out and put a no on an article over anything.
Wow.
And we have just hundreds and hundreds of y'all's articles because, well, it is Jim Loeb's blog all grown up.
It's it's wonderful the work you guys are.
I mean, I mean that, of course, in the very highest sense of praise.
It is excellent work that you guys are doing there.
And we value it so much, Eli.
I really appreciate that, Scott, that's that's just awesome feedback and the type of thing that that makes us want to get up and do it again the next day.
Cool.
Right on.
And I see your article here, Sheldon Adelson's Legacy of Underwriting American Militarism.
That's at Responsible Statecraft.
And so is weapons biz bankrolls experts pushing to extend Afghan war.
Thank you so much.
Take it easy.
Thank you.
The Scott Horton Show and Antiwar Radio can be heard on KPFK 90.7 FM in L.A.
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