All right, y'all, welcome to the Scott Horton Show.
I am the Director of the Libertarian Institute, Editorial Director of Antiwar.com, author of the book Fool's Errand, Time to End the War in Afghanistan, and I've recorded more than 5,000 interviews going back to 2003, all of which are available at scotthorton.org.
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All right, you guys, on the line, I've got Andrew Bacevich, retired U.S. Army colonel and academic historian, and author of the brand new book, The Age of Illusions, How America Squandered Its Cold War Victory, and a great many other books besides that.
But I definitely have to mention the book, America's War for the Greater Middle East, which is the much better and earlier version of the book that I am perpetually writing and failing to finish here on my own end.
But when people ask me, hey man, where do I start?
How do I learn this stuff?
That's the book for you, right there, America's War for the Greater Middle East.
And again, the brand new one is The Age of Illusions.
Welcome back to the show, sir.
How are you?
Oh, glad to be with you.
Oh, and I forgot to mention, founding partner of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.
Just talked to your buddy Eli Clifton a moment ago.
I almost said Lake, but that ain't right.
Just talked with Eli Clifton.
Very happy to have you here and writing for TomDispatch.com, Judgment Day for the National Security State.
This virus really does change everything, doesn't it, or should?
Well, I don't know if it will.
I actually have a feeling that it won't, because we Americans tend to be pretty stubborn when it comes to learning.
But I do think that this is a great learning opportunity.
And I think one of the things that we ought to examine in the midst of this pandemic is, I guess what I'm going to say, the performance of the National Security State.
All these agencies that have been created to keep us safe, all the billions that we spend on an annual basis to ensure that we can exercise our freedoms, would appear to have come up short, because we sure the heck aren't safe.
And I'm sitting here isolated in my little house.
You know, I'm denied freedom of assembly, freedom of worship, and even freedom to go to a cafe and get a cup of coffee.
So I think that this is an opportunity to examine whether or not the National Security State does what it's supposed to do.
Well, so let's go back, then, to the end of the Cold War and the refusal to cash that peace dividend, right?
The people decided that they would rather go ahead and let Bill Clinton continue to expand the American world empire that had originally been created — well, I don't want to exclude Bush Sr. here — the American world empire that had been created in the name of protecting America and the free world from the dangers of Soviet Communism that had ceased to exist on its very last death row, Christmas Day, 1991.
Yeah, I mean, I've written about this issue to some degree.
It's pretty clear that nothing that I write, or frankly, anybody else's writing on this subject, has made a difference.
Because the determination of the National Security State to preserve its status and its prerogatives is quite fierce, and it's something to behold.
So you're right.
The mission-accomplished moment — the fall of the Berlin Wall, collapse of the Soviet Empire — led not to any serious reevaluation of our security requirements, but rather led to the National Security State simply redefining its own mission, its own purpose, in a way that would enable it to maintain its budgetary claims and its prerogatives.
So the Army, Navy, Air Force, intelligence community that we created to prevent World War III now turned almost immediately, by the early 1990s, to the task of going abroad in search of monsters to destroy, as John Quincy Adams put it.
And we end up with, beginning with the elder Bush, followed by Clinton, but then followed certainly by the younger Bush, and even Obama, with a pattern of interventionism that unfolds over nearly three decades, producing very little good for the American people, while consuming enormous quantities of taxpayer dollars.
And you sort of say, what do we get out of all that?
Well, what we get out of all that is the fact that we're all told to stay home and keep our doors locked while we wait out this pandemic.
Mm-hmm.
Well, even going back, way back, you mentioned here, I'm so glad that you do mention in this piece, the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993, which was just one month and one week after Bill Clinton was sworn in.
And according to the lead bomb maker in that plot, was a direct retaliation for America's Iraq War I and decision to stay in Saudi Arabia, to continue to bomb and blockade Iraq from those bases after that war.
And thankfully, only six people were killed, but that was also a problem, too, right?
And then, of course, Waco, the Waco crisis broke out the very next day and completely overshadowed what had happened in New York, but they just barely missed.
They almost succeeded in knocking one tower over into the other, breaking it at the bottom, which could have killed 20, 30, 50,000 people in an instant.
And because of the failure of imagination and the failure to understand what was behind that, people just, and the low casualty number there, under 10, made people just say, well, in deaths anyway, it just became kind of ignored.
And then the rest of the Al-Qaeda terrorist attacks against the United States throughout the 1990s all took place overseas somewhere.
It was mostly Africans who died in the embassy attacks of 98, for example.
The Khobar Towers attack, they blamed on Iran instead of Osama, even though he took credit for it.
And so, the American people were really blinded to the very real blowback that we were already suffering just a month after George Bush had left power.
I think this is a persistent phenomenon, and it's something I really don't understand.
And that is to say that when danger appears, we collectively are unwilling to say, well, where did this come from?
Where are the root causes?
What are the origins?
And quite frankly, that's true.
Whether you're examining the Pearl Harbor attack of December 1941, or the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962, or indeed the 9-11 attacks, we, I think as a nation, but more particularly members of the national security apparatus, choose to treat these events as if they came out of the blue, rather than asking any painful questions about whether or not our own activities, policies, may actually have contributed to the danger that we then find ourselves facing.
And this plays into the hands of the national security state.
As I mentioned in this piece that you're referring to, the time dispatch piece, after 9-11, nobody gets fired.
There's no accountability.
As I mentioned in that piece, I find it striking that the likely Democratic nominee for the presidency, this go-around, is going to be someone who voted in favor of the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
The Democrats nominated somebody in 2016 who voted for the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
And you sort of say, how can it be, this greatest foreign policy error of our time, how can it be that a major political party continues to sort of blow off the fact that senior members of that party voted in favor of that?
There's this unwillingness to learn that it's just so appalling.
Yeah.
Well, and in fact, going back to 2002, John Kerry and Hillary Clinton and other prominent members of the Democratic Party in the U.S. Senate supported the war, but Joe Biden was a ring leader.
He was the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee and proudly sat next to George W.
Bush at his cabinet meetings and all this, cheering for him all along, and really helped to provide that bipartisan consensus that this really must be done at the time.
And in fact, in the recent debate Sunday before last, his opponent Bernie Sanders brought up the Iraq vote and summed it up as just a vote, unfortunately, he didn't elaborate.
But then himself said, yeah, but you know what, that was a long time ago, forget about that.
And even though, no, it wasn't a long time ago, and we've been at war in Iraq every day since then, with a slight exception in 2012, but even then we're flying drones the whole time.
Yeah.
No, it's appalling and it's inexplicable.
I mean, it's not inexplicable from the point of view of those who are part of, or feed off of, the national security state.
They want this apparatus to continue.
They would like to see that apparatus increase its budgetary claims, preserve its prerogatives.
And so there is in effect a silent conspiracy in Washington that there won't be accountability.
And so, yeah, we find ourselves in 2020 when there are senior politicians who say of the Iraq war, oh, well, that was so long ago.
When in many respects, if you want to understand the predicament in which we find ourselves, and I'm not referring to the coronavirus pandemic, but the larger predicament, we find ourselves having forfeited so much of our good reputation, wasted so many dollars and lives.
That decision to go to war in 2003 is really the root of all evil.
Why can't politicians say that out loud?
I mean, politicians apart from, let's say, Tulsi Gabbard, because it needs to be said.
Hold on just one second.
Be right back.
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Again, that's right there in the margin at ScottHorton.org.
Hey, y'all, check it out.
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Well, so let's go back to Iraq War One then for a minute, if we can, and the end of the Cold War, George H.W. Bush was in power.
In fact, the actual war took place when the Soviet Union was still standing for, had another year to go before its complete abolition there, complete dissolution at that point.
And the argument was necessity.
We can't let so damn insane take over Kuwait and Saudi Arabia too, which he's sure to go for next if we let him, and then dominate all of Middle Eastern oil and energy supplies for the planet.
And so something absolutely had to be done, Colonel.
What do you say about that?
Well, I mean, I think that we do confront into some of the complexities of history here.
I would agree with the elder Bush.
The invasion of Kuwait was an intolerable act.
We were at a moment when the rules of conduct in the post-Cold War era were being established, and I think it was quite legitimate to say that in that world, the United States is not going to stand by and allow one nation to extinguish the life of another.
So it was legitimate and necessary to act to turn back Saddam's aggression.
But then here's where it gets complicated.
We achieved that mission, but we achieved it with all kinds of loose ends.
The most significant loose end, of course, was the fact that Saddam survived.
And this led, then, agencies of the national security state to seize upon Saddam's survival as a reason now to give itself a new mission in the Persian Gulf, a new mission that would require maintaining U.S. forces permanently in the Persian Gulf.
This policy of dual containment, in which presumably the presence of U.S. forces was going to serve to keep both Iraq and Iran in a box.
And that decision, which was perfectly logical from the point of view of members of the national security state, but that decision is the one that then inflamed anti-American attitudes in the region, and that Osama bin Laden exploited, seized upon in order to really seduce us into this war that we used to call the global war on terrorism.
We have no idea what to call it now, but a war that simply continues and continues its aimless way.
I don't blame all those consequences on George Herbert Walker Bush, but I do think that as much as Americans like to remember the first Gulf War as a victory, the truth is it was only kind of a victory, because it was a victory that did leave those loose ends that then led to policy makers making a bunch of bad decisions that led to even worse consequences.
Well, even on that one, though, with the April Glassby negotiations giving Hussein the impression that he had at least a flashing yellow light to invade- I don't think we should blame all this on her.
The fact of the matter is that we had collaborated with Saddam Hussein for most of the prior decade.
That seems to me was the flashing yellow, which gave him the impression that he could do what he wanted to, not what April Glassby happened to say in a conversation.
Well, there were also other statements by officials before Congress and so forth that we would not intervene.
And then there's also the fact that between August of 1990 and January 1991, that Bush refused to accept Hussein's legitimate offers to negotiate an exit from Kuwait, which after all, I mean, as far as nation states go, Kuwait was essentially just a joke, right?
It was a British, you know, they broke it off from Iraq simply to steal fuel and to prop up this monarchy that we wouldn't recognize as legitimate in any other sense.
I just wonder if maybe they had either really tried to negotiate with Hussein in good faith, or if they had just written off Kuwait and said, who cares, whether that would have really been that bad.
Well, I don't think, at the latter point, I would not agree with you at all.
The former point, though, I think is interesting.
We can only speculate about it, but you know, could there have been ways to induce Saddam Hussein to exit Kuwait with some kind of promises of good behavior afterwards?
In other words, that we therefore could have avoided the conflict which resulted in those loose ends that I mentioned a minute ago?
It's impossible for us to know.
But certainly, we have to recognize that that was a possibility.
And had it worked, we could have thereby avoided an enormous amount of evil that followed, and which sadly, the United States has been implicated in.
And you know, I remember at the time, I was just in ninth grade, but I was paying very close attention.
And they sure talked a lot about saving Kuwait.
But they talked none about restoring the king to his rightful throne, which the American people would not have accepted as a legitimate goal of a war, to install some king.
Well, that may well have been the case.
But I mean, I do think that the larger justification was the unacceptability of naked aggression, and the fact that it occurred in a place, in a region, where at that time, access to oil seemed to be a vital U.S. national security interest.
Again, another sort of irony, and therefore a source of miscalculation, is that it turns out Persian Gulf oil is not a U.S. vital interest.
But if you want to know why we, I mean, the underlying source of motivation for the militarization of U.S. policy in and around the Persian Gulf, you know, the answer is oil.
Well, and under the UN Charter, as you say, it's illegal for one state to invade another.
But if I may channel Pat Buchanan for a moment, he likes to ask rhetorically, what if China rolls into Outer Mongolia?
We have to go to war, or threaten them?
Well, obviously not.
I mean, there have to be prudential decisions made, and you know, this was not China invading Mongolia.
Yeah.
Well, I mean, but anyway, depends where you draw that line.
These principles are not so sacrosanct, it turns out.
It does depend on interests.
I don't think in foreign policy there are any principles that are sacrosanct, in the sense that they always apply in every circumstance, regardless of conditions.
It seems to me that it makes far more sense to say that there are certain principles that we believe in, and now let's see how those principles apply or do not apply in a particular situation.
All right, so now back to our current dilemma here, we've got, you know, our military forces spread throughout the world in the midst of this coronavirus, but what difference does that make?
Well, that's exactly right.
I mean, the argument I try to make in my essays is a slightly broader one, and I guess makes two major points.
The first point is that the national security apparatus, the armed forces, the intelligence community exist.
The premise for their existence is that the greatest threat to the American people are out there, you know, are in the Middle East, are in Asia, and that the proper way to respond to those threats is by acquiring and preparing to use, and indeed using, hard power, putting those armed forces to work.
That's what we've been trying to do, particularly since the end of the Cold War.
I think the situation that we face right now tells us loud and clear that those instruments of hard power are not particularly useful in relation to the things that actually threaten us.
The pandemic is an example.
I think there have been any number of other examples in recent years.
You know, there are hurricanes, there are brush fires that destroy American property, that take American lives, while the Army, the Navy, the Air Force, and the CIA basically sit on their hands.
And so what the moment calls for, I think, is a wide-ranging conversation about what are the needs of American security?
What is it that threatens us?
What is it that threatens you and threatens me, and what are the proper responses to those actually existing threats, which are here, where we live?
And I think that an honest conversation along those lines would get us to realize that the existing national security state costs a whole heck of a lot, but really doesn't do much good for us, and that that then could lead to a radical reconsideration of what U.S. national security policy is supposed to do, and what would be the instruments to achieve those purposes.
Yeah, so in other words, never mind actually using the Army in any particular circumstance here, but just, boy, that $6 trillion that the government blew in the sands of Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan, that could have all been either invested by private owners of capital into expanded health care services, or even if the government had kept it all themselves, boy, you could come up with a really great counter-pandemic plan for probably $1 trillion, five less than six.
I'm guessing you're right.
I'm guessing you're right.
Is there something criminal about the fact that the richest country in the world cannot provide for, in a timely way, cannot provide the means to keep Americans safe, at the same time where we have, you know, the USS Theodore Roosevelt tied up somewhere, what is it, Guam?
Can't go anywhere because the crew is being infected with coronavirus.
At least 23 of them, they say now.
Yeah, that's not getting us much for our money.
Nope.
And then, now the National Guard, I don't think any of us want to see these guys actually helping to enforce the law or anything like that, but they could set up MASH hospitals and things like that.
They could be doing some things that we would all approve of, just as we would expect them to do in a flood or something like that, right?
Right, yep.
But they're not here.
They're off, even to this day, they're off deployed overseas.
Well, and they're also not resourced in the same way that, you know, the regular Army and the Air Force, et cetera, are resourced.
Right.
Famously, the Louisiana National Guard was in Iraq during Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
Yeah.
Perfect example of misplaced resources.
Yeah.
And, by the way, the people who join up the Guard, they don't think that they're going to deploy overseas, right?
This is two weekends a month, so you can help your local community in a crisis, is why people join the Guard, right?
Well, that's the way it used to be.
I'm not prepared to comment on the motivation for people today, but that's the way it used to be, yeah.
Yeah, certainly when I was of that age, that was the line, that you will stack sandbags for your community if they need you, right?
That was the idea.
Yep.
Yeah.
So, now, and I want to mention, as long as we're on this, there's this great project, I'm sure you're aware of, bringourtroopshome.us, and they had actually just put out a new ad about how the National Guard should be at home serving their people and not overseas, you know, fighting Somalis and Afghans and whoever else over there.
It's absolutely intolerable that that situation remains in the middle of this crisis, halfway through 2020 now.
It's almost funny to even talk about it, that we're still talking about it at this point.
It's absurd.
And again, I think it's very telling that it doesn't get talked about.
Yeah.
I think it'd be at the centerpiece of political discussion, but it's out there in the margins.
You know, I think that this will probably be our first big chance in a long time to change that.
You know, following your lead, and those of the rest of the anti-war movement here, that the obvious proof that you've been right all along is just in front of all of our faces here.
I mean, ask any American what we might have spent $6 trillion on instead, and I think they're going to all agree that it should not have had to be this way.
Yep.
I'm with you.
I think we are indeed facing a great opportunity.
But remember that there's an establishment in Washington that wants to make sure that that opportunity gets killed, you know, immediately.
That's right.
Well, we'll have to do everything we can to fight against them.
Now is our moment.
And I gotta tell you, I'm so appreciative of you guys over at the Quincy Institute, and especially all your writings, your great books, and all your great efforts toward peace.
It matters so much, especially coming from a guy like you, who has the experience in the Army, who comes from a conservative background, who is a patriot, and you make your point so well and so clear for everyone, and in a way that's accessible, should be accessible to everyone, anywhere on the political spectrum, and so forth.
It's so important, Andrew.
Well, I appreciate that very much.
All right, you guys.
That is Andrew Bacevich.
He is the president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, and the author of the new book, The Age of Illusions, How America Squandered Its Cold War Victory.
