Alright y'all welcome back to the show It's anti-war radio I'm Scott Horton and our first guest on the show today is John Glazer assistant editor at anti-war.com.
How's it going, John?
Pretty good.
Good to talk to you.
Yeah, good to have you here And thanks for getting me all pissed off before my cup of coffee this morning Yeah, yeah, I know how you are Everybody wants to provoke Scott Horton.
I'll tell you what.
So anyway in the email everybody I got this morning this clip Is this from this morning's morning Joe?
Yeah from this morning's morning, Joe the whole crew at set pat up there grilling supposedly anyway this Iranian diplomat Lara Johnny and And led by Richard Haass who I forget if he's still the president the Council on foreign relations or not Colin Powell's old lick spittle From the State Department in the first Bush jr.
Administration who was supposedly a realist who left over the Iraq War And you know was not down with the you know, Richard Perl set in the vice president's office but boy, he sounded like Benjamin Netanyahu Like that's where he got his talking points this morning And and you know, I was a little bit distracted preparing for the show John, but I was wondering did you notice?
Anything that Richard Haass said in this morning's episode of morning Joe that contained any actual detailed Accusations or or was it all simply as I heard?
Well a bunch of member states of the UN say so Yeah, no, no evidence whatsoever.
What he does is take it for granted so What what many people do?
Especially when they want to believe some thing about politics is that they make the conclusion before Being convinced or forced to that conclusion by the evidence And the Iranian diplomat was pretty clear and pretty calm and what he said he said That the IEA did not prove that we're on the verge of nuclear weapons.
In fact, it even admitted that That they continue to confirm the non-diversion of fissile material which without without which the Iranians cannot even be capable of starting a nuclear weapons program and he was very calm and the sort of I Don't have another word for him.
So I'll just say it the idiots in the MSNBC crew Were were irate they started provoking him and saying, you know around just a bad country and and all this other stuff It was despicable at one point.
I think they resorted to root to accusing the Iranian government of supporting terrorism around the world biggest supporter of terrorism in the world They said and the Iranian diplomat came back and said America is the biggest supporter of terrorism in the world and they all stopped and they said whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, that's absurd That's crazy, you know, you're allowed to say that in America because we have a free country, but everyone knows that that's that's absurd Well, that's what makes it absurd, right?the fact that He has the right to say that for a minute before being shouted down on MSNBC is proof that America does not support Jandala and the Mojahedini caulk and PJ and Fatah al-islam before they got eradicated by Hezbollah, whoever it was who whooped their ass Didn't help the Israelis, you know arm Hamas in the Gaza Strip and it's a sad It's a sad illustration of how even the people that are on national television are supposed to be, you know Handing down all this knowledge to the American people who?
Watch this show.
They don't even understand the most basic tenets of for example US foreign policy during the Cold War Well, Mika Brzezinski whose name is Brzezinski because she's the daughter of Zbigniew Brzezinski Who is out of all of these people pretty damn good on Iran issues?
She actually came back at one point and said him so you're denying that Iran has a nuclear program Like dude, are you even paying attention at all?
It's Incredible.
It's incredible.
But yeah, but you know The probably the longest history that I know of a state sponsored of terrorism I mean if we just take right now currently, let's think about it the United States just waged a war against tyrant that they used to support in support of rebel factions of basically tribal thugs who one day after the Murder the extrajudicial execution of Muammar Qaddafi human rights found 53 bodies which had their hands tied behind their back and They were shot in the head all executed by these rebels who America supports.
That was not the first or the last Instance of widespread human rights abuses on the part of our supposed allies They're basically just rebel factions of terrorists another example.
We can go to Afghanistan right now The Afghan local police are a band of again rebel terrorists.
Basically, they have committed torture extrajudicial assassinations They go into Afghan homes and and and beat people up and steal their belongings They have been reported to have abducted one 13 year old boy and brought him back to the commander of the Afghan local Police's house and gang raped him another boy They punished for some, you know social faux pas by hammering nails into the bottom of his feet If this if there's another word for this other than terrorism, I'm not sure You know, I think I need to go have a vocabulary lesson But the people in MSNBC just don't understand that the American political system Especially post-world War two is essentially all about supporting terrorist proxy forces.
We did it with the Iranian Contras Sorry, that's a that's a slip for you the Contras in Nicaragua Which the United States Congress tried to prevent the executive branch from funding because there had such Terrorist backgrounds and widespread human rights abuses.
So the so the executive branch Circumvented Congress in violation of law sold the Iranians weapons and used the profits to continue supporting that terrorism I mean, it's just a basic knowledge.
It's a baseline of knowledge about US foreign policy that nobody on national television Understand and that's how I was thinking this morning when I was watching that was if I've been sitting at that table I would have said well does America selling a bunch of weapons to Iran to fight the Iraqis who were also arming in the 1980s count as supporting their terrorism What not to mention the terrorism that's going on right now the United States currently and he can't just blew up some this week Mek but also using in collusion with the Israelis to assassinate nuclear weapon nuclear scientists in Iran who have Committed no crimes present no threat to us.
One of those scientists were shot in the neck Outside of his child's kindergarten These are targeted assassinations that our covert forces are engaged in inside of Iran Not to mention the cyber warfare, which the US has said is terrorism Except of course when they engage in it with the Stuxnet virus and so on and so forth We are currently are engaged in terrorism inside Iran and he still doesn't understand the fact that America supports terrorism Yeah, it's incredible.
Well, and you know as far as Iran's nuclear program I think if it's a big new Brzezinski or Pat Buchanan who were two regulars on that show I don't know why Pat is Pat not a regular on that show anymore I don't watch anymore But he used to always be there with barnacle and the rest of them and Pat I know for a fact because I read his article Two days ago could have absolutely shredded Richard Haas and this war propaganda on the spot Yeah, I couldn't stand Richard Haas On that show I just couldn't stand that's why I had to send it to you because I was getting irate and I figured I'm Gonna push some of this this anger and frustration on Scott so it can take some line Yeah, well, thanks a lot.
I Tell you I was sitting here going where's old squinty man.
I want Right now.
Give me squinty because he would have just thrashed him because it's in his article, you know he knows Doc Prather and And he's just channeling Doc Prather in his article.
Look what's important in this IAEA report They don't have any fissile material anything they can make a bomb out of They can't make a bomb out of their uranium is only enriched to three point six percent and it's all Accounted for so forget it one other thing that I was Consistently and naively crossing my fingers that somebody on that show would bring up in this segment was the fact that since 1979 First 40 some-odd years the United States has been predicting that Iran is on the verge of nuclear weapons That's reason enough to be skeptical of the current accusation Yeah, anybody wants a great article on that look at why to sleep in America Nima Shirazi's blog He's got a piece called the phantom menace About these Iranian nukes that are about to be invented any day now for the last 40 years 30 35 All right, hold it there.
We'll be right back with John Glazer everybody You All right, y'all welcome back to the show It's anti-war radio I'm Scott Horton, and I'm talking with John Glazer assistant editor at anti-war calm His websites are news dot anti-war calm anti-war calm/blog and anti-war calm donate Once a quarter we come to you with hat in hand asking you to help us continue existing as anti-war calm and if you're anything like me You'd pay your share just for the work John Glazer's doing at the blog now if the whole damn site became just blog at least we'd have that man I'll tell you what ain't nothing and You can go to anti-war comm/donate and you can find a thousand different ways to pay every Way that anybody ever invented for you to pay online All of those options are available You can sign up for a capital one credit card where we get a cut not out of your share, but out of their share You sign up for monthly donations you can donate cars or Your old house that you don't want anymore because you're upside down on it or whatever you want No, I don't know if we'll take upside down houses.
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Thank you very much for considering it There is no billionaire named Randolph Bourne behind this thing It's people like you who donate a little bit a lot of you who?
Keep it going for us here.
Alright, so tell me John.
What are you reading and writing about today?
I Just I came across a Reuters article.
I just posted this in the blog Which some reporters some Reuters reporter went and went into an Iraqi barbershop?to ask Iraqis if if America gave them democracy and They reluctantly began to admit that Yes, we have democracy.
We can vote and we can say things in public without fear of being tortured for them But really I think that doesn't quite do it justice and I think that the Iraqis are Using the word Democracy, but that's too loaded a word in the u.s.
For that to be fairly inserted into the conversation.
Yeah, they mean in the most minimal sense Precisely synonyms in the u.s.
For the word democracy are for example flawless paradise or you know Divine heavenly providence and things like this Yeah, and the fourth and the fifth amendments yeah, the truth of it is as the 2010 Transparency International index Put it that out of a hundred and seventy-eight countries that they that they Indexed for corruption Iraq came in a hundred and seventy-five with one being the least corrupt It is right rife with corruption It's one of the most corrupt states on the planet Neuro Nuri al-maliki the prime minister has in numerous places circumvented Parliament Consolidated illegitimate power Harshly cracked down on peaceful protests which occurred at the outset of the Arab Spring He's harassed and even attacked and some people say he has killed Journalists that were critical of his regime He has been accused of torturing prisoners in secret Iraqi jails And then I know you you had talked about this in the past, but I wrote a blog post a while back based on a WikiLeaks Document which which had Ryan Krocker the former US envoy there Describing maliki's turned towards centralized rule as in the US interest And now that now that the United States is leaving militarily from Iraq We have the leadership in America talking about how when we have a new normal relationship with Iraq By normal that what they mean is that they're referring to the kind of relationship that generalizes throughout the Middle East mainly one characterized by you know large packages of economic military aid to abusive governments and armies in Exchange for conformity to US interest and typically this goes directly contrary to the interest of the right for the people And I think it's a it's one of the biggest pity in the current state of American politics that the leadership and the media continuously referred to Iraq as a democracy That the United States bestowed upon the Iraqis I think that's a great pity for and in a sad legacy for you know The greatest crime of the era to have snagged Well, and you know even with the Iraqis saying, okay.
Yeah sure democracy we can vote and all that I don't know about the part about even we can talk freely with no fear Not if you believe and I sure do Bradley Manning's statement to the rat Adrian Lamo that the reason That he finally got fed up and decided he was going to liberate all this information Was because he was ordered to help the Iraqi police You know basically book and jail people for exactly that, you know writing an essay Which at least in America is indistinguishable from talking in a barbershop And it was not an essay urging the overthrow of the government or anything like that Which also would be legal here in America at least used to be But it was just an article questioning Maliki's corruption that you talked about And saying where did the money go?
But anyway when as these as the reporter stands there taking notes apparently the people in the barbershop here I guess in Baghdad had quite a bit to say about.
Oh, yeah.
Sure.
We have democracy, but why don't you tell them about that?
Yeah, I should be clearer about The quotes that the that the Reuters report actually has because they're certainly not Pleasant I mean One of the guys that was reluctantly admitted that they have a democracy He said and I'm quoting but why don't you ask about the other side of the story of the u.s.
Presidents in Iraq?
Why don't you ask about their crimes atrocities the pain and anguish that we suffered because of the military presence here?
Another's one said Americans by democracy or democracy to Iraq, but our leaders undermine it they exploit it for their own personal benefit Another pointed to a checkpoint outside the barbershop and said do you see this soldier at this checkpoint?
He can do whatever he wants to me right now, and I can't say a word is this democracy one other guy said what democracy?
Are you asking me about when my basic rights as a human being are being stolen?
This is what Americans mean by democracy.
Let it be damned end quote So that's actually the type of stuff that they said so it was much harsher than I initially let on yeah Well, and I like the the one more.
I don't know if it's the same guy talking here put the question to the Reuters reporter Can you tell me who won the vote and who formed the government answer my question before you ask me to answer yours?
Is this democracy and you know what he doesn't say I guess at least in the part you block quota whether he knew the answer To that I can guarantee you the Republicans don't know the first thing about the Iraqi National Alliance I never heard of it the American media and all the time they did spend in Iraq reporting on Iraq They never explained who was who the only place you could go find out who was who was Garrett Porter and Robert Dreyfus?
Patrick Coburn Yeah, I like that did he say in the rest of the piece at all whether he had an answer to who the government even Was no no it wasn't like an op-ed.
There wasn't a narrative to it.
Yeah, I guess reporting So no he did he there was no response But actually the other big story that I kind of Would like to talk about it's okay because it's on my purview, and I think it's it's more important than people are giving it credit The United States yesterday Obama announced that we would begin to station up to 2,500 US Marines in Australia mm-hmm in addition to sending additional warships to Peruse the the ports of Australia's military bases and stuff this is pretty Important the for a long time now the United States has been Increasing its presence and influence military influence in Asia Pacific And the reason is that China has been expanding militarily and economically And in the announcement Obama said it's important for China to play by the rules of the road We will send a clear message to them That we think they may need to be on track in terms of accepting the rules and responsibilities of being a world power Now he he's right traditionally the rules and responsibilities of being a world power is That people have countries have to make sure that they act in a way that's subservient to US power That's the rules and and and responsibilities of being a power on the world stage and Obama doesn't want He's as much of an imperialist as anyone else despite the change and hope that we heard about He wants to expand the military What would what possible military justification do we have for placing thousands of US troops in Australia?
Hey, let me ask you this is there a backlash Do you know inside Australia because I got a figure that the people of that country who have resisted an American military Presence of any substance in their country all this time.
Anyway, even as part of the British Commonwealth That I mean obviously they're just being made a target by this is there any backlash from them yet, do you know And I'll bet that I read that was published in Australia actually did in fact The right wing is kind of opposed to this.
They think it's intentionally China and they're they're opposed Yeah for their for kind of nationalist reasons old right sort of reasons, huh?
Precisely.
Yeah, I can send it to you if you like.
Yeah.
Yeah, please do it's yeah, absolutely incredible that this is going on that It's incredible that the politicians in power there now Can believe live in a world where they can believe that they're gonna get away with this.
Maybe they can maybe they can't I don't know the strength of Australian democracy and and Sentiment on issues like this and maybe the fact that Obama's a Democrat even has something to do with it, etc Like that, but if if we live in a world where the Australian government can after all this time say, okay yeah, go ahead and Make us a target for some future war with China is absolutely astonishing to me and and you know It's interesting what prompted this what prompted it is that China has a bigger military and economy So that's that's an interesting little clue into imperial grand strategy And that's the way it's always been just a couple months ago before Defense Secretary Gates retired.
He was at an International Institute for Strategic Studies meeting in in Singapore and he said that quote sustaining a robust US military presence in Asia Is important?
For overcoming anti-access in area denial scenarios, namely when people don't want our military on their land He said that it's important to have military presence there in order to deter Potential adversaries and this is in line with with US imperial grand strategy going back to World War two And then it was reiterated of course in did the Bush administration's national security strategy When they said that our forces should be strong enough to dissuade potential adversaries from pursuing a military buildup in the hopes of surpassing Or equaling the power of the United States, right?
No near-peer competitors straight out of Paul Wolfowitz and the project for a new American century.
That's correct We're just you know it also reminds me of what Quigley Carol Quigley warned about that you can either be a Republic or an empire and when you Completely embrace Empire you're on the path to self-destruction Of course the worse you overdo it the worse you overdo it because it's sort of like a childish Temper tantrum lashing out and so as we saw just the other week last week, I guess it was Leon Panetta said, okay Yeah, we are leaving Iraq, but we're building up in the Pacific though And it's just the kind of thing like, you know Hitler embarrassed me at Munich And so now I'm gonna give a war guarantee to Poland or whatever like no, no, no, calm down You know They do these ridiculous things and you can imagine a war with China means hydrogen bombs going off It means millions and millions of people dying.
You can't have a war with China They don't they don't know how to How to control themselves they need to expand the military empire or else, you know They go home without jobs and you know what?
It's actually interesting You mentioned war but I actually have a have a tendency to think that this is less about the military buildup in China and more of their expansion of Their economy, I mean well, so I mean that's what the wars in Africa are all about and all that too But the thing is if you're bluffing with somebody like yeah, I could fight you I could fight you all the time They might knock your block off.
You know what I mean?
This is the kind of thing that can actually could cause real trouble and I'm sorry, dude We're way over time and I got to get my next guest on the phone But I really appreciate everything you write and all your time on the show as always John.
All right.
Thanks.
Thanks very much John Glazer everybody news dot anti-war comm and anti-war comm/blog and we'll be right back after this
