08/27/15 – Sam Husseini – The Scott Horton Show

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All right, you guys, welcome back to the show.
I'm Scott Horton.
It's my show, The Scott Horton Show.
And our guest today is Sam Hussaini.
He's got a new one running at consortiumnews.com, and we'll have it at antiwar.com for you tomorrow.
It's called Sanders Screwy Mid-East Strategy.
Welcome to the show.
How are you doing, Sam?
Good to be with you.
Good to finally talk to you after all this time.
I've read you and followed you on Twitter for quite a few years now.
And you've helped me out with a lot of guests with your morning email too, by the way, which I really appreciate.
Sure.
From accuracy.org.
Always a pleasure, Scott.
Yeah, yeah.
Absolutely.
All right.
So Sanders Screwy Mid-East Strategy, and this is particularly regarding what is to be done about the Islamic State in eastern Syria and western Iraq, or what used to be those places anyway.
Am I right?
Those places.
But yes.
Okay.
I mean, whenever the Mideast comes up, generally almost, and especially when ISIS comes up, Sanders has basically been saying that the Saudis need to get their hands dirty.
These are rich countries run by rich families, and the future of Islam is at stake, and the soul of Islam is at stake, and they have to get out there, and they have to solve this problem themselves.
That's almost a kind way of paraphrasing what he's been saying.
What's wrong with this is that he's basically calling for more Saudi intervention in the region.
Saudi Arabia is right now bombing Yemen.
It is devastating that country that borders it.
Saudi Arabia has been the haven for all of the ousted Arab dictators from Tunisia to Yemen after they got ousted.
Mubarak was about to go to Saudi Arabia.
They didn't want him to resign at all, and he finally did, and now he's sort of under pseudo-house arrest in Egypt, and now they're backing the military dictatorship in Egypt.
They've been sort of the most anti-democratic force in the Arab world here, and for decades now, they've backed the teachings of the Wahhabi sect of Islam, which has basically given rise to Al-Qaeda and ISIS.
So why do we have a presumed progressive like Sanders, who is so articulate on economic issues and other issues, saying that we should turn over a large part of our Mideast policy, which I have a lot of problems with, to the autocratic Saudi regime?
So back to Sanders in just a second, but just to elaborate your point one step further too, I think the most charitable explanation of the rise of the Islamic State and the Saudi role in that would be oops, and that their support for Ahrar al-Sham and other so-called mythical moderates and whatever this whole time in the civil war in their determination to oust Assad has led to this massive blowback in the form of the Islamic State, and that I think is the most charitable explanation when we have Michael Flynn's affirmation of the DIA report and its importance in explaining that this is exactly what's going to happen if America and its allies continue upon the path of creating, of supporting the rebels in Syria, the memo from August of 2012.
Yeah, it's either, you know, extreme bungling, oops as you say, or an insidious attempt in order to create veiled states in the secular republics of the Arabic world, like Syria was.
And to create an Islamic State in its place, in fact.
To either create an Islamic State in its place or a veiled state chaos, you know, which I think might be, you know, serviceable to some players in the region and outside the region as well.
And so you have this proxy war.
But now, so Sanders is saying the Saudi ought to send their American trained and armed army to go and fight the Islamic State that the U.S. and Saudi at least accidentally created.
Yes.
Yes.
And he tacitly concedes that our interventions in the Middle East helped create ISIS.
It's kind of a bizarre thing because he's willing to admit that much, but then his response is that we shouldn't do this.
Why should our boys from Vermont go over there to fight?
Why should we bankroll this?
Let the Saudis bankroll it.
Let the Saudis man it.
And in effect, he doesn't say this explicitly, we'll give diplomatic cover, maybe air cover and so on and so forth.
So it's sort of like trying to, you know, work out a scheme whereby we can continue the war machine without as much money and without any U.S. blood, you know, sort of let them kill each other kind of thing.
I'm sure you saw the Sony hack email where, you know, the head of Sony actually said, you know, let them all kill each other.
That was his analysis of the Middle East.
And this is sort of being echoed in a sense by Sanders here.
And, you know, part of, you know, what's insidious about this is that, you know, Sanders is now the most prominent progressive on the national stage.
So you know, if people want to give kudos to his campaign for raising issues of income inequality and so on, whether he wins or loses, he's putting those issues on the agenda.
Well, I think he's also doing damage here.
You know, he's been scant in his foreign policy pronouncements.
And this is the foreign policy pronouncement that he has been most passionate about.
You know, he's not out there really railing about even the military budget, even from a finance point of view, he's not railing about this.
And he certainly isn't, you know, being Martin Luther King and talking about the madness of militarism.
And he's certainly not being Jeremy Corbyn.
If you follow what Jeremy Corbyn, who's fighting for the leadership of the Labour Party in Britain right now, he's really going after the Saudis and British arming of the Saudis, which is tiny compared to the U.S. arming of the Saudis.
Yeah.
Well, and I mean, underlying all of this is he has to know better than this.
I mean, you don't have to they call it calculus or whatever, but this is basic arithmetic here.
The Saudis invade Iraqi Sunni stand.
And then what do the Iranians do?
Right.
I mean, this isn't there's nothing complicated, even, you know, pre-algebra here.
This is basic math.
You're talking about making the war worse.
Right.
Right.
And and, you know, sort of the you got the militarists on either side passively benefiting from that.
And, yeah, I mean, I mean, you know, are we asking what what Sanders is he is he is he doing an oops?
Is he being careless here or is he being insidious here?
I mean, what what struck me is part of part of his pronouncements here.
Some of his most viscerous pronouncements have been when he's gone on Wolf Blitzer show on on CNN and Wolf Blitzer, as people may know, is fairly long history of being not just pro U.S. military intervention, but specifically fairly pro Israeli.
And there is a tacit, not so tacit anymore, Israeli-Saudi alliance in the Middle East.
And so, you know, you in effect have, you know, Sanders using a platform in the U.S. media that that is quite pro-Israeli to push this line as a progressive line, that this is what progressive should call for.
This is very destructive in terms of what our movement thinking is going to be regarding the Middle East and what a possible meaningful dialogue can be between people in the United States and people in the Arab and Muslim world that the Saudis should run the show.
Hell no.
You know, Sanders is saying that the Saudis need to go out there and get their hands dirty.
I'm saying the Saudis hands are plenty dirty as it is.
Yeah, absolutely.
And have been.
All right.
Now, well, so I got a bunch more for you with Sam Husseini on the other side of this break.
You also stay tuned.
He's at the Institute for Public Accuracy.
And you can find this article at ConsortiumNews.com.
Sanders screwy Mideast strategy.
More in a minute.
Hey, I'll Scott Horton here.
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All right, you guys, welcome back.
It's my show, Scott Horton Show.
I'm here live on the Liberty Radio Network from noon to 2 Eastern Time, 11 to 1 Texas Time, LibertyRadioNetwork.com, et cetera.
I'm talking with Sam Husseini about his piece, Sanders screwy Mideast strategy, and it's about Bernie Sanders and how little he's had to say about foreign policy.
And then when he does talk, it's this madness about how the Saudis ought to invade Iraqi Sunni stand to get rid of our Islamic State problem, which makes no sense whatsoever.
You know, one thing, well, there's a lot of things, a lot of different directions to go here, but one thing about Rand Paul, about Jim Webb, about Bernie Sanders, all these guys right now who I think we all know no better than the stupid crap that they say about foreign policy.
They could all be doing really great right now.
They're all blowing a perfect opportunity.
You know, even by 2008, Giuliani's 9-11 schtick was already old.
I mean, they beat that thing completely to death.
And any Paul and any honest human who takes a look at America's Middle East policy can see just it's totally foobar.
The entire thing is contradictory and ridiculous.
And we're fighting for Iran in Iraq, but we're fighting for Al-Qaeda against Iran in Syria and for and against both in Yemen.
And people are dying in huge numbers and it's madness.
And stop it.
And how in the world can you justify it?
Lindsey Graham right now is at zero percent, because that's what even conservatives think about the empire in the Middle East right now.
And nobody will get out there and be Ron Paul about it and say, just come home, forget it.
Be Switzerland from now on.
Just blowing the opportunity.
I mean, Jim Webb, Bernie Sanders, any of these guys, if they would come out screaming and yelling about it and fight about the empire right now, they could, you know, I don't know if they could win over power, but they could win, you know, millions of of supporters among the population and win over more and more people to peace anyway.
Right.
And I think part of it is, you know, a feeling about and a knowledge about what deranged U.S. foreign policy has been.
And part of it is just simply looking for authenticity.
You know, people are now gravitating, I think, largely in desperation to Trump simply because he seems like he's somebody who's, you know, at least saying what he thinks, however twisted that might be.
Right.
And I think, I mean, the question in my mind is, to what extent are they blowing it or do they do they calculate that if they were to do that and even if it were to resonate among the public, that they'll get pounded by the dominant corporate media?
Whatever.
They're all going to lose anyway.
So what?
Yeah.
Well, I mean, well, they will.
They will.
They will.
They will.
They get the I mean, I I totally agree with you.
I think I think you're right.
And I would one up you in that, you know, if we want to look at, you know, electoral strategies, you know, going forward here, there's a lot of commonalities between the so-called left and the so-called right.
Sure.
And I mean, I set up a Web page a couple of election cycles ago that I try to take a crack at it.
I don't know if we've ever talked about this, Scott, VotePact.org, which encourages people to team up.
You know, I mean, you know, the thing that keeps, you know, disenchanted Republicans in shackles is saying, oh, I got to vote for the Republican because I can't stand the Democrat and Democrats in jail.
I can't stand the Republican.
I got to vote for the Democrat.
So pair up and siphon votes from from each of the establishment candidates in twos in pairs to an authentic, independent run that is based on, you know, reasonable principles of foreign policy, of restoring constitutional rights and so on and so forth.
I think that there's a real opening for that going forward, you know, in the general election.
But I mean, I wonder if, you know, if candidates are concerned that if they were to articulate that kind of thing, that they would just I mean, they wouldn't just lose the election.
They get drummed out of public life.
You know, it would just be nonstop ridicule.
I don't think so.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think I think that those fear.
I mean, basically, it's like this.
They got to appease power.
And so the masses of votes don't mean nothing if you can't afford to advertise to them anyway.
Yeah.
But so I mean, there is a substantial opening here.
I mean, it's restricted in many ways, but you have the Internet, you have independent media, you know, and you have the possibility of fundraising, like you said, Ron Paul.
I had some disagreements with Ron Paul, but I thought on a lot of foreign policy stuff on a lot of the, you know, the surveillance state and constitutional stuff, as well as trade.
I mean, there's a lot of issues of agreement between left and right.
He was great and he was able to raise money, you know, he was able to raise millions of dollars in money bombs and stuff like that, which Rand Paul hasn't been able to do nearly as effectively so far.
And I think, in part, it's exactly what you're saying, that he has not really taken the positions and he certainly hasn't been articulate about it in terms of stop the empire, restore constitutional rights and so on.
Yeah.
All right.
Now, so what is Bernie Sanders had to say?
I mean, he's been in the Senate a long time, and I admit, I just haven't watched him that much.
I mean, he's a Democratic senator to me, but can you tell us what's his record on, you know, the rest of Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Libya, Syria interventions?
Sure.
I know he was against Iraq in 2003.
He voted against Iraq in 2003.
He was for the Kosovo bombing in 1999, and one of his main staffers resigned as a result of that and put out a letter attacking it.
People can find that on the Web.
He was against the Libya bombing by Obama and NATO, and he did back the original invasion of Afghanistan.
And he hasn't, you know, he sort of hadn't thought about it, you know, Bush didn't do it right and so on, but he hasn't, you know, sort of recanted that part of it.
He's been...
On Afghanistan, has he expressed any concern that we're still there and that he would like to go ahead and call this thing off now?
Very much.
I haven't seen that.
I would sort of expect him to if asked, but I haven't seen that.
No, you're right.
I haven't seen him say that.
He, you know, he's been, you know, he signed off on the standard thing backing Israel's bombing of Gaza last year.
But he was the first senator to say that he wouldn't be there when Netanyahu addressed the Senate recently.
I don't know if he ended up being the only senator, but he was the first one to say, I'm out of here.
And he's endorsed the Iran deal, but is he really good on it, do you know?
On what?
On the Iran deal.
Has he made a big issue out of it?
Yes, he made a huge issue, but he's definitely for it.
I don't think that he's, you know, he's sort of challenged Hillary Clinton on the, you know, Keystone pipeline and a couple of other things.
I don't think he's gone to the mat on the Iran deal as yet, but he's definitely expressed support for it.
That's good on the pipeline.
I mean, that thing is a private property destroying monster right there.
That's crazy.
That's Trumpism right there.
So that's good that he's good on that.
That's a big one, too.
But it's not nothing.
Yeah.
Yeah.
He's been good on it.
And he sort of forced Clinton to at least sort of pose as being for it for the time being.
So, yeah.
All right.
And then so, yeah, that's good.
He's for the Iran nuclear deal.
And then on Israel-Palestine, I guess I read that he's for a two state solution.
But what do you think of President Sanders?
Would he, you know, make an issue, try to force it?
I mean, it's difficult to read the tea leaves.
I mean, I, you know, I'm always wary of saying somebody's for a two state solution.
Everybody says they're for it.
Yeah.
For a two state solution is not meaningful.
Well, and apparently Kerry really tried in good faith, but just wasn't didn't have the backing from the president and had completely, you know, obstinate Israelis.
And it would have taken real pressure from Obama to make them get out of Kerry's way.
And he didn't do it.
So.
Right.
Right.
And maybe that ends up being your position in a way, if you can't, you know, if you're in a position of power and you can't do it or you don't want to expend the political capital to do it, then it's not really a position.
It's a rhetorical.
Right.
A slogan.
Yeah.
Right.
So, yeah, but he did, you know, I mean, he had some mild criticism in terms of disproportionate and so on.
But he backed, he signed off on the resolution that virtually all members of Congress in such a circumstance sign off on when Israel was bombing Gaza for 50 some odd days last year.
He signed off on that as well as most of the rest of the established members of Congress.
So, you know, it's it's reading tea leaves right now.
I mean, you know, people have gone back and found statements from him that that were fairly critical of U.S. foreign policy, fairly critical of Israel.
Well, now he's touring around.
Is he not taking questions or nobody's asking?
Oh, no, he's he's taken he didn't take he didn't take my question when he was in D.C., but he's been taking some questions.
But I guess just I mean, from the media or from regular people and our regular people not pressing him on this stuff, you know, maybe it's more constrained than I'm than I'm seeing.
I mean, I'm not I'm not necessarily out there in Iowa and so on.
So I'm not sure how many questions he's taking, but I haven't seen a lot of people raised up now.
Now, look, I mean, when when the Black Lives Matters folks got into his face, he changed.
You know, he's making that part of his stump speech.
And I think that that's what that's what people got to do, you know, to raise issues of peace and justice, you know, and, you know, I mean, politicians are ultimately wind vane and it's ultimately up to movements to make them move in the way that that that they that they need to move.
So I think that's part of the dynamic that has to happen here.
And yeah, you know, like you're saying, there's a huge realignment just waiting to happen here.
We're not not the worst of the left and right getting together, like conservative Democrat Clinton or liberal Republican Bush, but the best of the left and the right in a Ron Paul Dennis Kucinich kind of way.
And I guess, you know, I liked last past tense to think that we could at least maybe have something like a watered down version of that, at least rhetorically between Rand Paul and Jim Webb and and and make the argument.
I mean, my way is, you know, we should have the Democratic Republicans should be the party of the people.
And then we should just have the war party of death and taxes for power, for the bankers and the arms dealers and all the special interests.
And then at least it'll be clear who's on whose side.
We want peace in our Bill of Rights and they want to take all our money and kill all the Arabs with it.
And now we know who's who.
And then that way.
And they could insist it might be funny if they did it right, that Jeb should just run as Hillary's running mate, because these guys are they are the centrist extremists.
And hey, we're the centrist moderates.
We're tired of all this extremism and want to get along.
Right.
Really realign.
And now, I mean, that's not like they get anywhere and win as a, you know, independent candidacy, but it sure could, you know, help people, I think, you know, confuse them and then straighten them right out about what priorities are most important to us and what we really agree on.
And and it's just especially now with the economy the way it is, Sam, it's such a shame to see, you know, like right wing militia guys and whatever, getting more and more racist and more and more angry at powerless minorities and left wingers getting more and more angry and scared of powerless right wingers when the problem is power.
That's who's the enemy.
And it should be really the ninety nine percent, not meaning the fringe of the left, but really the ninety nine percent versus the state and the private interests that own it and vice versa.
I mean, that's our enemy.
And it's it's it's a tragedy.
We continue on like this with regular people hating each other while they keep going to the bank with all our money.
Right.
And that's, you know, the Wall Street Bailouts was another great left left right issue.
Yeah.
And I mean, I usually call it, you know, they're the establishment center and there's an anti establishment center and, you know, we can't determine, you know, what what who Jeb Bush is running mate is, although what you're saying makes perfect sense.
But we can if we can get organized by the time of the election, try to get behind some buddy or buddies who can manifest that, who, you know, who an authentic conservative and an authentic leftist can both get behind and say, I'm not going to vote for the leftists.
I'm not going to vote for whoever the Democratic Party puts forward.
I got some place to go, you know, someplace meaningful to go.
And the real crisis is, is we don't I mean, the real crisis is the best we have would be Sanders and Rand.
And they suck.
And they do nothing but run toward that establishment center, seeking approval and pandering to them and betraying everybody else.
So who are we left with?
Nothing.
Ron's retired.
You know, Ron's retired.
But, you know, it's a big country with millions of people.
And I think that, you know, well, when we're talking about presidents, we need we have governors and senators running for president.
That's about it.
You know.
Right.
Right.
But, you know, you know, there there are you know, there are lots of retired senators.
There are lots of people who are, you know, you know, who have who have a public persona who could be brought into the public arena to be the face of such a movement.
So we'd like to see it.
Well, and I appreciate the the background knowledge for knowing better who to oppose and why that comes first.
Finding somebody to support comes later.
But hey, listen, thanks so much for coming on the show.
I've already kept you over time here.
I'll let you go.
But I sure appreciate it.
Great to be with you, Scott.
All right, Joe.
That's Sam Husseini.
He is at the Institute for Public Accuracy.
And this one is at Consortium News dot com.
Sanders screwy midi strategy.
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