Alright, y'all welcome to the show, it's Anti-War Radio, I'm Scott Horton, thanks for tuning in to the show today.
Got Aaron Glantz on the line, the heroic Aaron Glantz, that's actually his first name, Aaron is his middle name.
But right before I bring up Aaron Glantz, I just want to say this, particularly in regards to Glenn Greenwald's article today about all the mass media people talking about how everyone thought that we had to invade Iraq, everyone thought he was going to nuke us in our jammies in the middle of the night, everybody thought it was going to be like the liberation of France and they were going to throw petals at our feet, and everybody thought everything was going to be wonderful.
And I just want to point out that not only did half the population of the country oppose the Iraq war before it started, or virtually half, but there were all kinds of people from all walks of life who not only weren't buying it, but were actively debunking it.
And for example, on my old show, on Chaos Radio Austin, for the entire year of 2002 and the beginning of 2003, the show was called The Way Shit Is, The Best I Can Tell, and it was me and Shauna and AJ and Ed and we sat there for a year plus months telling you why not to invade Iraq, why everything they said about Iraq was a lie, why there was going to be a disastrous urban warfare situation for our soldiers once the regime fell, why Iran would be empowered, why there's no reason to believe that maybe they have anything more than one apartment building full of some old mustard gas shells left over from somewhere and that the rest was a bunch of hype.
And the four of us, collectively, together, were nobody.
And we knew every bit of this was wrong, and we told you so on Chaos Radio.
And of course we knew better because we were reading antiwar.com, well, and other reasons too.
So now we go to our first guest, it's Aaron Glantz, and he wrote, he focuses now almost exclusively on veterans' issues, which is of course extremely important, but he spent the first couple of years of the war over there, and he wrote a book called How America Lost Iraq.
Welcome to the show, Aaron, how are you?
It's good, Scott, it's good to be with you.
And I remember when Colin Powell made that presentation to the UN, and you know the one that I'm talking about, where he showed these grainy photographs of trucks in, you know, Iraq, taken from satellites, and he said that this was proof that there were weapons of mass destruction.
I was in Amman, Jordan at the time, covering this war from, you know, not the front lines, but nearby, sitting in a room with a whole bunch of Jordanians watching this, and all of us looked at this presentation, and we said, Bush has got nothing, he's got absolutely nothing.
All they have is aerial photography of trucks, that's it, that's all they have, and yet then I started to get emails from my friends back in the States, saying the media here is going crazy, and saying Colin Powell made a very persuasive presentation, and the cell job that the media did for the Bush administration was incredible.
Yeah, well, I've got two things to say about that, and I've told this one before, so I'll just say it briefly.
I was painting a house.
Me and my friend Adam were, you know, the very lowest rung of all professional ranks of doing things for a living in the world.
I was literally caulking a rotten old house, preparing to paint it, and listening to Colin Powell's speech over the speakers on my truck from NPR, and I debunked every single bit of the speech in real time for my friend Adam, as we were sitting there caulking this house in South Austin.
So I mean, you're talking about nobody was able to completely demolish that thing, and since you brought it up, and we do have the time, I'm going to play 59 Seconds from War Made Easy by Norman Solomon.
This is the media going crazy and selling that Colin Powell speech, which did not sell itself.
Aaron, listen.
Did Colin Powell close the deal today, in your mind, for anyone who has yet, objectively, to make up their mind?
I think for anybody who analyzes the situation, he has closed the deal.
This irrefutable, undeniable, incontrovertible evidence today, Colin Powell brilliantly delivered that smoking gun today.
Colin Powell's outstanding today.
I mean, it was lockstep.
It was so compelling, I don't see how anybody at this point cannot support this effort.
He made a wonderful presentation.
I thought he made a great case for the purpose of disarmament.
It was devastating, I mean, and overwhelming, overwhelming abundance of the evidence.
Point after point after point, he just flooded the terrain with data.
It's the end of the argument phase.
America has made its case.
The Powell speech has moved the ball.
I think the case is closed, trust me, trust me.
So there you go, Aaron, and yeah, I think it is worth pointing out again, Glenn Greenwald is beating up on John Burns at the New York Times today over on his blog at Salon.com.
These people are really trying to tell us with a straight face, Aaron, that everybody was for this.
Anybody who wasn't for this was just some commie, hippie, weirdo who just hated Bush or had some weird ideological thing.
All serious people knew that this was the most wonderful and legitimate thing in the whole wide world.
You know, the reason that we're talking about this today, Scott, the day after President Obama, you know, kind of declared the war, I guess I want to say he declared it over.
He declared it winding down.
Yeah, an end to combat operations.
Yeah, but I mean, I would say this is real, you know, it's not the end of the war, but we do have to give Barack Obama some credit, and the credit that we have to give him is that he stuck to what he said he would do, and I didn't believe him.
I just have to be straight.
When he said that when he took office that in 18 months, you know, the number of US troops in Iraq would go way down, and that by the end of 2011, we would be all the way out, I figured something would happen.
You know, something would happen that would make him change course, and he would use it as cover, but here we are, you know, 18 months, and he did what he said he would do.
So the war isn't over, but we do have to give the man some credit for following through, and when he says that all the troops will be out by the end of next year, we have a reason to believe him, which is that he told the truth the first time about all the 50,000 being out by this date.
So I have to give that man some credit, but the reason you and I are still talking about 2002 and George Bush is that it's important now to talk about how we got into this mess.
Yeah, absolutely, and you know, here's one of the things, and I think hopefully we'll be talking with Stan Goff later in the show, but I went and saw the Pat Tillman movie yesterday, and of course you do all this work on veterans issues, things like that.
I just finished reading the book The Good Soldiers by David Finkel, which really puts you in the Humvee with these guys patrolling around Baghdad, that kind of thing, and here's my thing about it, massive betrayal, the worst betrayal ever.
I mean, here are these kids, especially reading that book, Aaron, The Good Soldiers, every one of these kids has his head full of slogans about defending his country and loving America and whatever.
The rest he leaves up to us, we're the adults in the democracy, and we're supposed to make sure that they're only used as soldiers when it's absolutely necessary, that we don't waste their lives over nonsense, and that's exactly what we're doing.
Not we, but the people, many millions of Americans pretending like it's going to be different this time.
Yeah, we all saw Vietnam veterans stand on the side of the road begging for money our whole lives long, but this time it's just going to be different.
This time everything's going to be wonderful.
George Bush, he really cares about the army, you know?
Well, you know, here again I have to give Obama some credit in that it's very similar to where he's doing in terms of ending the war, his way he's helping veterans.
Is it perfect?
No, you know, but he is doing what he said he would do.
He has increased the amount of money that's going to the VA.
He has, by decreasing the number of troops in Iraq, he is lessening the need for our soldiers and marines to do these multiple tours that burn them out.
So he is doing some good things, but on the other hand, we're having such a hard time because of the years of war that came before this, you know, and so the army has more suicides and other suspicious deaths in 2009, the first year of Obama's presidency, than it has deaths in combat.
It's a fact.
All right, we'll hold it right there, and we've got to go out and take this break, unfortunately.
They're built in here on a hard timer.
But we'll be right back with Aaron Glantz, he's the author of How America Lost Iraq, and then The Will to Resist is D.A.
R.S., right, I forgot, I'm sorry.
Listen to LRN.
FM on any phone, any time, 760-569-7753, that's 760-569-7753.
All right, y'all, welcome back to the show.
It's Anti-War Radio, I'm Scott Horton, I'm talking with Aaron Glantz, he's the author of How America Lost Iraq, and The War Comes Home, Washington's battle against America's veterans.
Sorry about screwing that up on the way out to the break there, Aaron.
Now, I actually really want to talk with you for the rest of this segment here about the veterans' issues, but I think I can't really let it go on without fighting with you a little bit about Barack Obama.
I mean, really what he's done is stick by the status of forces agreement that George Bush was forced to sign by Nouri al-Maliki, aka Muqtada al-Sadr and the Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.
They won the war, George Bush lost it, and all Barack Obama is doing is, you know, facing up to that fact and getting out of there, because he's got no choice but to get out of there, right?
Well, I don't disagree with you, but you said that Barack Obama is willing to face up to facts and reality.
I would say that that's a significant difference from our previous president.
Well, yeah, that's true.
He wouldn't have signed the SOFA other than it was November 08, and he was a lame duck as lame could be, and had to go, had to sign it.
And, you know, I don't know, maybe it's just me, maybe I'm just cynical, Scott, but I've seen enough politicians break their word, go back on their word, so, you know, I'm not – you know, I would have rather that we be all the way out of Iraq right now, but the fact that Barack Obama has kept his word, has not tried to alter this SOFA, has not tried to manufacture a crisis – I mean, how many crises did the previous administration manufacture just to cause us to be more and more deeply involved in war?
Well, there's been enough actual violence in Iraq this whole time, the last year and a half, that he could have cited any number of violent weeks or whatever and said that something's got to be done.
No, I agree with you.
In fact, this morning, right before we went on the air, right before I was calling you, I was reading through the speech from last night, and I was thinking, you know, as much as I hate this guy, it could be McCain.
It could be a hell of a lot worse, so...
We have a president right now.
You may not agree with everything he does on this war, or agree with everything he does with regard to treatment of our veterans, but the good news is, he is based in reality, you know?
And he is making his decisions based on real information, not whatever ghosts were whispering into the previous president's ear.
Richard Perle.
Yeah, not whatever John McCain, you know, he wants to refight the Vietnam War all over again.
We don't have to deal with that, you know, so it's not perfect, but it is kind of a blessing, and you know, if he is true to his word, and we're all the way out by 2011, I'll take it.
All right, now, so I want to get back to the betrayal of the troops here, but, you know, I'm curious, Aaron.
I know you saw some horrible things in your time spent in Iraq, watching America lose the Iraq War.
Are you okay?
You know, I'm much better than I was when I first got back, you know?
I got back in 2005, and then, I have to say that I'm doing much better now, but I went through a few rough years, and I was lucky because, you know, there are some people who believe in the kind of work I do, and I was able to get some pro bono counseling.
As a journalist, one of the things that I do is write, and so that is a kind of therapy, and that has really helped me fight through a lot of things that have brought down so many of our young men and women returning home from the war, but I know what they're going through somewhat because I saw some of the same stuff, but there's some key differences, you know, between a reporter experiencing a war and a soldier.
You know, the first is the betrayal, right?
I mean, you mentioned it earlier.
I was just, I was there as a disinterested party.
I don't feel any sense of betrayal that they lied about the war, but if you are a soldier, and you're on the front lines, and you killed someone in this war, or you watched your friend die in this war being killed by the quote-unquote enemy, then the sense of betrayal from the government is much higher, and I was just in Daly City, a suburb of San Francisco where I lived yesterday, talking to a family whose son committed suicide last year, five years after he came back from Iraq, you know, because this war has been going on for so gosh darn long now, and, you know, he signed up in 2000, before 9-11, and he had no particular opinion about the war in Iraq when it started, but when he got over there, I mean, he was a mortarman, so his job was to fire these huge mortars at buildings, at tanks, I mean, they don't have tanks on the other side, huge mortars at buildings, and a lot of civilian targets, frankly, you know, where there might be some insurgents there also, and, you know, is it worth it?
You know, you're thinking about the people you killed, you're asking yourself, is it worth it, and then you find out that the whole war is based on a bunch of baloney, that is incredibly difficult to deal with.
Yeah, well, and especially in a world where, you know, TV says that, and I'm sorry to keep harping on this for people who have heard me say it before, but I really just resent this, because I remember how stupid I was when I was 17 years old there, and on TV, they say the Marine Corps means you get to dress up real fancy and walk around with a neat sword all day, and just play, basically.
War is honor and valor and country and Jesus and all these things, and they never tell you about how dirty it is, how bad it stinks, how hard it is to get the replaying of the audio of people's dying screams out of your ears, or, you know, your best friend dying in your arms, and what that looked like out of your head, and like, you know, I saw this thing the other day, it was about dogs, how man created dogs, out of wolves, or whatever, on the Learning Channel, and one of the examples that they used was PTSD soldiers who come home and do all these tours, they come home and they're so traumatized, what they're doing is they're giving them labs, like seeing eye dogs, and the Labradors, of course, are so sensitive to human emotion and stuff, that when these guys start freezing up and freaking out on the subway, or wherever they are, they have their Labrador to help, you know, bring them back to it, and these guys are extremely traumatized the rest of their lives.
Well, you know, you mentioned the service dogs, I have a number of friends with these service dogs, and what it's about, Scott, is, you know, you lose the ability to trust other people when you've been through these experiences, sometimes, and also, you know, if you are screwed up, it can be difficult for you to relate to your family, to relate to your friends, to relate to your spouse, to relate to your children, and so the dog, you know, can provide the beginning of reestablishing that ability to relate to other people, and then you can work your way back into relating to the important people in your life.
Yeah.
See, that's what pissed me off the most.
The one line in Obama's speech that made me madder than any of the rest was about all the men who gave their lives.
They did not.
Each and every one of those guys wanted to come home in one piece, and were trying their very best.
Maybe some of them, in particular circumstances, gave their life to protect their friend in a particular firefight, or something like that, provide cover for their buddies to get out, or some kind of particular circumstances, but other than that, no, their lives were taken.
Their lives were wasted.
Yeah, but I think Scott, the man is the President of the United States.
He can't go up there and talk, even if he, he can't go up there and talk on television the way he might talk to his friend over a beer.
Well, he could have just left that line out, because that's such a dirty lie that they gave their lives.
They were betrayed and stabbed in the back and thrown away by the Republicans.
That's what happened to them.
Hey, Scott, I want to seize on something else that you said earlier, and elaborate a little bit, because you're talking about the TV, and how people watch TV, and the TV tells them that if you're a Marine, you get to go in a splashy uniform and get a sword, right?
How useful is a sword in Iraq, right?
But what I wanted to say is, you know, I've been working on this major journalism project about our American service members who have come home and killed themselves, and why they are doing that.
And as I mentioned before, we have more suicides than other suspicious deaths in 2009, the first year of Obama's presidency, than we do combat deaths.
And if we do leave Iraq, that trend is going to get even worse.
And I'll tell you, two of the people that I've talked to and met in the last month have the same story, which is that they signed up at 17 because they love first-person shooter games that were designed by the military, like America's Army, you know?
And they thought that war was going to be just like the first-person shooter game that they played at home in front of their television or their computer.
And no one, you know, when they went in to sign up, no one in the Army recruiting office said, hey, that's just a computer game.
You know, real war is different.
So they go out to the front, and they discover that, you know, hey, war isn't like a computer game.
You know, real people die.
The smells are there.
The sounds are there.
You know, and it might not be worth anything.
You might kill someone else, and it might affect you differently than killing an electronic being in a computer game.
And the reason I'm bringing this up, and you said, you know, how silly is that, right?
Everyone knows TV isn't real.
But we're talking about 17-year-olds here.
Right.
Everybody, that's Aaron Glantz.
Check out Aaron's books, The War Comes Home, America's Battle, Washington's Battle Against America's Veterans, and How America Lost Iraq.
And we've got more Iraq coverage coming up.
