Scott Horton Show - Just the Interviews - 10/10/22 Dave DeCamp on Today’s Russian Missile Barrage

Episode Date: October 10, 2022

Scott sits down with Antiwar.com news editor Dave DeCamp to discuss the Russian air strikes that hit targets across Ukraine earlier today. The two give some context to the strikes by examining the ser...ies of events that may have led to this escalation — including the Ukrainian bombing of a vital Crimean bridge and the assignment of a new Russian general to run the air campaign in Ukraine. Both agree that this attack represents a new phase in the war and reflect on how earlier negotiations would have resulted in fewer losses for Ukraine in territory, resources and lives.  Discussed on the show: “Biden calls the ‘prospect of Armageddon’ the highest since the Cuban missile crisis” (New York Times) “The CIA Thought Putin Would Quickly Conquer Ukraine. Why Did They Get It So Wrong?” (The Intercept) Zelensky’s “I am not some loser” moment “Zelensky Calls for NATO to Launch Preemptive Strike on Russia” (Antiwar.com) antiwar.com/donate  Dave DeCamp is the news editor of Antiwar.com and the host of Antiwar News with Dave DeCamp. Follow him on Twitter @decampdave This episode of the Scott Horton Show is sponsored by: The War State and Why The Vietnam War?, by Mike Swanson; Tom Woods’ Liberty Classroom; ExpandDesigns.com/Scott; and Thc Hemp Spot. Shop Libertarian Institute merch or donate to the show through Patreon, PayPal or Bitcoin: 1DZBZNJrxUhQhEzgDh7k8JXHXRjYu5tZiG. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 All right, y'all, welcome to the Scott Horton Show. I'm the director of the Libertarian Institute, editorial director of anti-war.com, author of the book, Fool's Aaron, Time to End the War in Afghanistan, and The Brand New, Enough Already, Time to End the War on Terrorism. And I've recorded more than 5,500 interviews since 2004. almost all on foreign policy and all available for you at scott horton dot four you can sign up the podcast feed there and the full interview archive is also available at youtube.com slash scott horton's show all right you guys on the line i got dave de camp news editor at antiwar dot com news dot antiwar dot com hey bud welcome back hey scott thanks for having me back
Starting point is 00:00:55 uh man happy to have you here a bad news to discuss my friend darrell cooper is in town my co-author of our upcoming book on the ukraine war provoked nobody steal that title provoked america's role in the rush ukraine war um and he was saying to me about how they just put this new general in charge and he's the guy who was in charge of the air war in syria and he is you know now the combined commander of all forces replacing whoever the guy and uh then he was saying so you know in the war the russians he said in our wars the first thing we do is we send our planes in to take out all their electricity and not only that like their water and everything make sure to leave them you know essentially
Starting point is 00:01:52 blind as we come for them and the russians have not done that here the ukraines have been on the internet the whole time and they've waged this war for whatever reasons seemingly for some sort of public relations reasons or i don't know exactly what but then he was warning that of course they could change that at any time and they could just unleash whatever they want and and then this is i wake up in the morning and this is apparently exactly what's happened now a massive missile barrage on kiev and many other parts of ukraine So I guess I'll let you take it from there and give us the latest. But yeah, just from the reports that I read this morning, it looks like Russian strikes have hit cities just all across Ukraine, I mean, almost about 20 cities.
Starting point is 00:02:40 And there's reports of electricity outages and internet outages and water being cut off because of all these strikes. So it looks like Russia has, you know, entered that phase of the war. And there were times where it seemed like they were going in that direction, like after, you know, Ukraine made, had that counteroffensive in Kharkiv back in September. We saw some Russian strikes against power infrastructure in that region, but nothing like this yet. And, you know, it's a good point. The U.S. calls what they're doing, a strategic bombing campaign, which is a, make something
Starting point is 00:03:16 that's pretty barbaric sound sophisticated because what they're doing is just the idea is to take out civilian infrastructure, not just electricity and stuff like that, but also transportation and railways, and Putin has actually, from what I understand, inside Russia, has been under pressure to escalate this war, especially as Russia has faced some losses, not just in Kharkiv. There's been more in the southern Kursan region, which is just north of Crimea. So now, of course, this happens after over the weekend, the Crimean Bridge was blown up, also known as the Kurch Bridge.
Starting point is 00:03:54 It goes over the Kerch Strait, and it connects Crimea to mainland Russia. And it looks like there was a truck bombing, and it killed a few people, three people, and it, you know, it's a civilian bridge. It's not clear right now if the truck bomb, if the guy driving the truck was aware that the bomb was in there, if it was a suicide bomber, or if it was just somebody that an unlucky person driving this truck that had an explosive in it. But, you know, as soon as that happened, you saw Ukrainian officials celebrating it. Many hawks in the U.S., just posting pictures of the bridge on fire, having all these, you know, nice things to say about it. So then this seems to be Putin's response, although he has been gearing up for an escalation. As Russia has been retreating from some areas along the front line in eastern Ukraine, they have been sending reinforcements. And after this mobilization, Putin ordered 300,000 fresh troops to be called up.
Starting point is 00:04:57 So there's been tanks and all sorts of stuff going into Ukraine from Russia. So they've been preparing for some kind of escalation. So this could have been in the works for a long time and that the timing of it just came after the Crimean Bridge explosion or was a direct response to that. It's not exactly clear. But it looks like we've entered a new phase of this war and it's going to get really brutal. especially as we'll probably now see some more fighting on the ground because it's kind of been over the weekend it was kind of at a standstill there was some fighting but Ukraine was also
Starting point is 00:05:32 reinforcing all of its positions but it looks like there might be a big push from the Russian side now and you know I mean this is just what what also has happened is Russia annexing the Kursons, Zaporosia and the Dombas, the territories that it controlled. and now they've really up the ante because they're saying that they will consider attacks on these territories as attacks on Russian territory. Yeah, well, that's obviously a massive escalation just with a turn of phrase, essentially the stroke of a pen by Putin to say, oh, by the way, this is all now Russian territory, and I'll defend it like you were attacking across Russian lines, where before the Americans, for example, wouldn't give the Ukrainians artillery with enough range or missiles with enough range to reach into uh into russia but now they moved russia's border forward by a few hundred miles holy crap um it's a massive escalation on putin's part right there and then of course
Starting point is 00:06:44 after losing you know northern la hansk around archive on the 10th and 11th and all that and then with this massive offensive in Curse on. I think Pat Buchanan said he's raising the ante with a losing hand. And now, so then Joe Biden, the president of the United States of America, pronounced him a speech on what Friday night, that he said, we are closer to nuclear Armageddon than any time since 1962 in the Cuban Missile Crisis. now that is extremely alarming especially because essentially the argument is yeah because of that other guy
Starting point is 00:07:29 without you know really the kind of introspection we would like to see on behalf of the guy who helped do the coo of 2014 that led to all this but and his team Sullivan and Newland who we know we're in on it um but so i can't believe i'm saying this but it's true i'm repeating myself from the last interview with medea benjamin but hey this david sanger article in the new york times dave is the most hopeful thing i've read about this war this whole time since it started which i think which was that biden used the term off ramp in that same speech And the reason he brought up Armageddon was, I think, reading between the lines here is he was trying to justify to these Democrat donors that, look, man, we're going to have to find a compromise here and not just push them to total defeat. They need a way out of this where they can save some face, saves, you know, some protection of their interests.
Starting point is 00:08:43 and, in fact, Medea Benjamin, I said that to her, and she read the Jack Kennedy quote, that you cannot give a nuclear weapon state no option between other than humiliating total defeat or use of nuclear weapons, because they'll choose to use nuclear weapons. That's the danger we're dealing with. So, you know, Biden in his most pale imitation of Kennedy here, I guess, is starting. to think maybe we do need a back-channel discussion. Maybe. I mean, this is the most hopeful thing I've seen about this the whole time, I guess.
Starting point is 00:09:21 Because he could just put Blinking on a plane to Geneva. But since he ain't doing that, is he, is somebody on the telephone? Has he got Henry Kissinger. Wouldn't that be funny if it was Henry Kissinger, who was the one who was making peace here? He wins another Nobel Peace Prize at the end. I don't know. But, and it's great, too, that it's a David Singer. article because he's the single worst human at the times uh but anyway point being that you know
Starting point is 00:09:50 maybe maybe the white house is finally as alarmed as you and i are about where they've helped to take this crisis and really are looking for a way out you know what i mean it's their off ramp too if they can build one for the russians right so i don't know well yeah i mean that's kind of how I took it when I saw Biden say that, that we're closer to nuclear Armageddon than at any time since the Cuban missile crisis. You know, I mean, if he really thinks that, that has to mean that he's doing something to kind of de-escalator ease tensions. So hopefully there's back channel talks, you know, just because we are just bombarded with bad news. I kind of tried to take him saying that as maybe some good news here that they're rethinking it. And like you mentioned, you know, what Putin did by annexing these territories and saying that they're going to be Russian forever is that he's saying it's, you know, it's absolutely unacceptable for them to lose those territories and that they'll do anything to defend them.
Starting point is 00:10:54 As he said, to defend what he called their territorial integrity. And then other Russian officials have made clear that, yeah, that means nuclear weapons. and maybe Biden is realizing that and I wonder if he knows the mistake that he made in funding this war because if you look at the potential peace deals that were on the table before Russia invaded if the Minsk Accords were enforced and Ukraine gave some autonomy to the Donbass they would have lost, finally given up claim to Crimea eventually as well. but now Ukraine is looking at losing all this other territory.
Starting point is 00:11:37 And as it continues, as these strikes across Ukraine are showing us, they're going to lose a lot more if this war keeps going. And Russian officials like Lavrov, the foreign minister, has said basically, like, we're going to keep pushing as far as we have to to, like, eliminate the threat from Kiev. And that could mean after they consolidate, right now, I think they're going to focus on taking the rest of Donetsk and, to really just have complete control over the Dombas region.
Starting point is 00:12:05 But then after that, maybe they'll go towards Odessa, and then who knows if they could just keep pushing further into Ukraine. So hopefully there is some people coming to their senses in the White House. But again, I mean, they just passed this new, about $16 billion, new aid for Ukraine, which brings the spending for the war up to $67 billion, which is more than Russia's entire military. budget was last year. It was, it's just an incredible amount of money that they're spending on this war. So at the same time, it's hard to believe that they'll just kind of turn that off. And also, I mean, they're not just sending weapons. I mean, they're really providing Ukraine with a lot of intelligence. Well, and the training to use those weapons, too, and enough time has passed that, uh, I guess enough, you know, well, I don't know how much of this is just
Starting point is 00:12:56 propaganda or, you know, representative of the actual front. But I've seen. seen a lot of footage of Ukrainians using high Mars and these other weapons and quite pleased. They're like, man, we used to have this Soviet built crappy military. Now we're firing NATO's best at these bastards. Take that.
Starting point is 00:13:15 And so that seems to have been decisive in some places or, you know, the margin of victory, as they say. Yeah, I think it's definitely helping them. I mean, they've, you know, the war's been going on for over six months now.
Starting point is 00:13:31 And they've been training, I know the U.S. has been training Ukrainians in Germany. Over in the U.K., they've been training thousands of Ukrainian troops on how to use weapons like this and stuff. So, you know, and you hear the rhetoric from NATO and from Lloyd Austin, the Secretary of Defense, they're saying they want to turn Ukraine basically into a NATO, you know, you could argue that it's already a de facto NATO member. But what they're saying is they want the Ukrainian armed forces to just be using all NATO. equipment. They want to phase out all the old Russian stuff. So they have plans to be supporting this war for years and years. And Austin keeps saying that they're going to support Ukraine for the long haul. So that's another reason why, you know, maybe they're not actually thinking about de-escalating here because they just have these great plans for Ukraine and for other countries
Starting point is 00:14:23 in the region, all the former Soviet republics and stuff there. They're trying to phase out all their Russian equipment. So the U.S. weapons makers are going to just be making a killing on all of this. But yeah, I mean, but besides just sending weapons and training, they're also providing intelligence. They say that they don't help them pick targets, but they're, you know, providing them with targeting intelligence from how I understand it. And there's also CIA on the ground, according to the New York Times. And recently, just the other day, the intercepts reported. And I usually, you know, I wouldn't use the intercept, especially because it came from James Risen, who's a big rushigator. But buried in this story that he wrote about how the
Starting point is 00:15:07 CIA predicted the war wrong. It said that there are U.S. Special Operations Forces on the ground. And there weren't many details about it. But I mean, it's not really a surprise, but that that seemed to be the first confirmation that I saw that it was U.S. Special Operations Forces there. I knew that there are forces from Britain and other NATO countries, but the U.S. is very, you know, who knows what they're doing in the country? How involved are they really with the war? They're helping Ukraine war game. They're counteroffensives. So it's just the U.S. is so involved. And right now, really, Russia has, you know, this idea, kind of a lot of the accusations against Russia that they did the Nord Stream pipeline bombing, which I think doesn't hold up because Russia doesn't have an interest in bombing its own pipeline. But if you hear what people on CNN are saying is that, like, oh, they need a false flag to justify an escalation in the war. But they don't need that. They have all the pretext they need. You know, when when Putin did invade on February 24th, that was when, you know, he stopped caring what the West was going to do. Well, and he outlined in that speech a case
Starting point is 00:16:17 for invading and conquering the entire country at that point. I don't think that was necessarily his intention, but that was certainly as far as his argument went. His argument went as far as Romania and Moldova. In Poland, I saw it. Yeah. So yeah, you're right about that. And of course, because they just can't admit that, of course, it was the Americans and their allies who did it. Why would the Russians do it? If the Russians wanted to jerk the Germans chain with the gas, then it would be better to leave the pipeline intact. They can turn it on and turn it off and all this. Supposedly, that's the whole point, is to extort the Germans. So they can blow up their own pipeline
Starting point is 00:16:55 so that they can no longer extort the Germans? Okay. Anyway. Yeah, really. They're dumb, but they're not stupid, right? Yeah. But still, it's just amazing how much they've tried to blame Russia like in the media and stuff,
Starting point is 00:17:09 even though it's just so obvious. Hey, look, all the same sources that told us that Hunter Biden's laptop was somehow manufactured in Moscow and then planted at this repair shop. up in Delaware they're all real sure so yeah they all tell us off the record that they all agree with each other about this and that's pretty good well and look I mean you know we got 300,000 reserves called up and then a massive conscription going on on the Russian side here and I know somebody who was conscripted out of jail where that well I don't know this I know of this person
Starting point is 00:17:47 is that what I said I want to be clear I know of a person who was conscripted out of jail where this person was sitting for being at an anti-war protest in the first place and then conscripted right into the army. So, I mean, when Putin is so bold as to annex these four massive oblasts, either he has a plan for backing that up or he doesn't. And sure, hope, it ain't atom bombs. That would be the shortcut, presumably, although more likely the shortcut to all of us dying and it being a moot point anyway.
Starting point is 00:18:22 But the other, you know, the, in fact, never even mind that. I mean, if he's going to actually, if he's not just, well, look, I mean, once he's annexed these areas and signed into law, like, he's not negotiating that away either, right? Just the progestia might as well be Crimea at this point, as far as from the Russians' point of view. And they should have negotiated back in April, man. And this thing is going on. But so now what does that mean?
Starting point is 00:18:47 It means he has to occupy that land with hundreds. of thousands of men until and win until he has a treaty signed that says that these are the new borders and I mean there ain't no back and down from that talk about throwing your hat over the fence
Starting point is 00:19:03 and this guy is just launched this massive escalation with a stroke of a pen here to back that up is going to mean yeah full scale invasion they say it's only a partial mobilization now I don't know
Starting point is 00:19:17 and and I I guess it does depend on what this new guy does with the air power. You know, maybe he can just destroy the Ukrainian army on the ground. You know, they haven't been hitting, even the new weapons pouring in across the borders and stuff. They haven't been destroying the railways that the new weapons are being transported on and all these things. So the Russians could really escalate just with missiles and bombs to a great degree, seemingly. But also, you need infantry standing on street corners. or you do not own that territory.
Starting point is 00:19:52 You know what I mean? That's what comes down to. Yeah. And this means, I mean, by him ordering the partial mobilization, it means that there's, he's saying that there's room to escalate further. But, you know, if you're just looking back at all these reports, and I'm sure you remember a lot of them, you know, we've just been getting like a flood of reports from, you know,
Starting point is 00:20:12 anonymous U.S. officials saying that Russia is running out of missiles and that saying that they can't get air dominance in Ukraine. because Ukraine's air defenses are too good, and that's why they haven't been bombing, you know, across the country. But I think this shows that that was all, you know, nonsense and that they have been holding back. Well, they were claiming in the news today, I don't know if you saw,
Starting point is 00:20:33 but they were claiming that they had shot down double digits. I forgot what it was, but like, we shot down 45 out of 80 cruise missiles or some kind of thing like that, you know? Obviously couldn't possibly be true. Yeah. Yeah. But I mean, this is all just played into all. It's just such a big propaganda campaign, this idea that we could, the U.S. could support Ukraine enough to drive them out of these territories and that they could actually have a victory here. I mean, not to mention just the idea that at that point, Russia wouldn't use nuclear weapons or some of its bigger missiles just to not lose all that territory in Ukraine. So, I mean, just it's really infected a lot of people this idea that, no, we have to support Ukraine until they can drive
Starting point is 00:21:22 Russia out. And then anybody that's been calling for peace talks, they just call all sorts of names and everything. But if peace was negotiated earlier, Ukraine would have lost a lot less and a lot less Ukrainians and Russians would be dead right now. So this was just always going to be the result of the U.S. policy of shipping tens of billions of dollars worth of weapons into Ukraine, giving them all sorts of support and just discouraging peace talks at every turn. Look, I mean, I covered it at the time. I think this was before the Saudis bombed that school bus
Starting point is 00:21:54 and you got involved, but that Angola Merkel came to D.C. With Holland in tow on the end of her leash and informed Obama, Mr. President, we are going to go and negotiate with Putin and make a peace deal right now. And Obama said, yes, Frau Merkel, and then she went.
Starting point is 00:22:15 and did her thing, and that was it. She didn't come to ask his permission. She paid him the respect of coming all the way to D.C. to let him know. But then she went and made a deal. And Obama then put the USA's rubber stamp handshake signature agreement on the bottom line, too. And so did the U.N. So that makes it not just America's allies deal. That's Obama's essentially a deal that he agreed to as well,
Starting point is 00:22:44 Minsk too, which was supposed to bring an end of the fighting and essentially statehood, strong autonomy for the Dombas and La Hansk and Nazaprocia and Kursan, right? Just the two eastern oblasts, and even then it was debatable about whether we're talking about the territory already controlled by the separatists or the traditional boundaries of those oblasts, whatever. But all that was supposed to be negotiated in peace. And the Americans refused. to play their part, and that goes for the Obama government and the Biden government. Refuse to play their part
Starting point is 00:23:20 in saying, hey, we have to negotiate here. Hey, guys, anybody who signs up to listen to this show by way of Patreon will be invited to join the Reddit group. And I'm going to start posting stuff over there more. That's patreon.com slash Scott Horton's show. Thanks.
Starting point is 00:23:36 Hey, y'all, Libertasbella.com is where you get Scott Horton's show and Libertarian Institute, shirts, sweatshirts, mugs, and stickers and things. including the great top lobstas designs as well. See, that way it says on your shirt, why you're so smart. Libertas Bella, from the same great folks who bring you ammo.com for all your ammunition needs, too. That's Libertasbella.com.
Starting point is 00:23:59 You guys check it out. This is so cool. The great Mike Swanson's new book is finally out. He's been working on this thing for years. And I admit, I haven't read it yet. I'm going to get to it as soon as I can. But I know you guys are going to want to beat me to it. It's called Why the Vietnam War? Nuclear bombs and nation building in Southeast Asia, 1945 through 61. And as he explains on the back here, all of our popular culture and our retellings and our history and our movies are all about the height of the American war there in, say, 1964 through 1974.
Starting point is 00:24:36 But how do we get there? Why is this all Harry Truman's fault? find out in why the Vietnam War by the great Mike Swanson available now. Stephen Cohen had made this point back then that, listen, Kiev needs our help to quell these extremely right-wing militias, these Nazi militias, in order that they can pursue negotiations and peace. But right now, they have these guys who are essentially rabid dogs who aren't even on a chain and that the president can't really do anything about. And so, and we see that footage of Zelensky complaining to C-14, the Nazis,
Starting point is 00:25:17 telling them, I need you guys to pull back to that town back over there instead of here because I'm trying to negotiate this thing. And they tell them to go to hell. And everyone can find this. The quote is Zelensky, and then he says, I am not a loser. I am 41 years old. And he's essentially, I think he even stomps his foot like a kid. You have to listen to me.
Starting point is 00:25:38 I am the president of this country. And these guys are just 20-something-year-old militia guys. They're not anybody's officer or anything. And they just tell them, forget you. And so Stephen Cohen's point was he could have cracked down on them with America's help, or even if America had encouraged the Germans to help him do it or something, that could have been solved. And they could have implemented Minsk.
Starting point is 00:26:04 But because the Americans didn't want it implemented, it wasn't you know and that goes for you know all three of these administrations yeah yeah yeah no he he always said that uh because Zelensky you know ran on ending the war and the dombas but I remember Stephen Cohen saying that the Trump administration has to uh you know back him up on that if that's ever going to happen but unfortunately it it clearly didn't yeah so yeah i mean that's the reality is you could even say in a in a sense because you know the hawks on this side the war party always said that russia had already invaded over and over again all these last eight years the fact that they had special operations forces there that was their narrative
Starting point is 00:26:49 and it does kind of make sense in a way it was deniable clandestine forces but they were there and so then maybe the war just started in 2014 and what happened in february was a massive escalation by the Russians in a war that had been going on all along. It's kind of hard to have two starts to the same war. Although, obviously, that doesn't mean that what he did was not aggression in the sense of the disproportionality
Starting point is 00:27:22 of the violence involved. You know what I mean? If somebody punches you, you can't shoot them. Yeah, well, it's definitely important. You know, a lot of times what I'm talking about, the war. I say the current war in Ukraine, even though it is a continuation in a sense of the war that was going on in the Dombas. But, you know, there was a war going on. Over 10,000 people killed in that war as a result that was sparked by the U.S.-backed coup. And civilian, lots of
Starting point is 00:27:50 civilians were killed in Ukraine. The Kiev government was bombing civilian residential areas and stuff for years. I mean, it was out of stalemate most of the time, but there were still flare-ups a lot. there have been living, you know, in a war zone for years and years. So from the Russian point of view, they're saying that they're finishing that war. So people just, it's good for people to understand that that's how they view it. And that for the people, you know, when you saw these referendums, I mean, you can't say that the ones in Zaporosia and Kurson are legitimate because you have to assume all the pro-Kieff people probably left. But in the Dombas, I mean, people there have been asking to join Russia since 2014,
Starting point is 00:28:38 and Putin said no. So it's not just totally black and white like Russia is the aggressor. They definitely are, in a sense, but there's just a lot more to the story. And they try to erase this history. History starts at February 24th for the U.S. media. That's why they call it an unprovoked war. Yeah, man, they sure do. And it's funny, of course, they have to insist that it's unprovoked because then you might ask, well, what provoked it?
Starting point is 00:29:12 I guess that works. I guess people won't. Well, even if you think about the word provoked, like, it's not like, I mean, some murders are provoked. You know, it doesn't mean that they're right. Yeah, it's just like just about everything is provoked unless somebody's like a serial killer, like a total sociopath or something. but no man if you if you're a murder detective and you're seeking the motive of a crime that makes you an apologize for the murderer exactly that's why you win into detective work in the first place so you could excuse away the murders that you solve yeah so it's it's really um just Orwellian in
Starting point is 00:29:45 a sense and uh I know I've seen Noam Chomsky talk about this um just how how they're trying to control the language like that I mean you just see it everywhere unprovoked unprovoked And in all the U.S. government statements, I mean, they just sound like childish in a way that they can't talk about this war without adding all these adjectives. It's like the unprovoked murderous, irrational, like invasion of Ukraine. I mean, yeah, even in the news writing, you know, this was a New York Times piece that Taibi was highlighting last week was his illegal annexation of this and his, you know, totally bogus election that he was. held and it's like come on obviously the election that he held the referendum was bogus dude you don't have to beat me over the head to tell me that that's not a legitimate vote in the middle of a war in occupation like this uh invasion um you know what i mean but they got to you know load all these
Starting point is 00:30:49 you know uh opinion piece terms into their hard news reporting otherwise it's disinformation or something. Yeah, it's really crazy the way everything is right now. It's just crazy. So, yeah, speaking of crazy, the last part of this that I wanted to ask you about was Zelensky's deputy minister guy
Starting point is 00:31:11 was demanding that America launch a preemptive nuclear strike last week. And then there was this new video, which I'm not sure, you know, I should always have my wife check the translations of these things. I know there was an edit, and I don't know if it was,
Starting point is 00:31:26 legit, but it seemed there was at least some video of Zelensky saying that there should be some kind of preemptive strike on Russia. Did you ever nail that down? Yeah, so it looks like he did say that, you know, called for NATO to launch a sort of preemptive or preventative, depending on the translation that you saw strike on Russia to make sure that they don't use a nuclear weapon. And he didn't call for a nuclear strike. I think that was kind of the mistranslation that was put out, is that he said that they should be hit with a nuclear weapon first.
Starting point is 00:32:04 And then one of his advisors, or it was his press secretary, later said, oh, he was talking about sanctions. Those are the kind of preventative strikes he was talking about. But from my understanding, he did say, you know, preemptive strike on Russia. Well, I mean, I appreciate them backing down. I don't care if it's nonsense or what matters is they're backing down
Starting point is 00:32:25 is the context there so good. But yeah, yeah. I mean, it's, you know, he said it's some think tank. And now look, and then they signed it
Starting point is 00:32:32 and he decreed a decree that they will never negotiate with Russia until Putin is going. Is that right? Yeah, that was his response to the annexation. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:32:43 I mean, listen, the lesson there for all of us is just look at Afghanistan. Bush and Obama agreed that Kabul has to be involved in any negotiation. with the Taliban. Of course, they don't want a negotiation. They want America to stay and protect
Starting point is 00:32:56 them. Same thing here. So America's just going to have to make a deal without them then. Yeah. That's right. Same thing in Vietnam. You know, this is how Nixon and Kissinger scotch earlier end to the war when Johnson was negotiating in 1968. They sent Anna Schenal to rat to the South Vietnamese regime that the Americans were secretly negotiating with the North behind their back. And then that blew it up. and cause the war to continue. It's treason. In fact, I don't know if you know about this.
Starting point is 00:33:28 There's someone can find it somewhere, I'm sure. There's audio of Johnson on the phone with a Republican senator friend of his. And he says, well, that's treason. They ought not to be doing that. He's talking about Nixon and Kissinger, ruining his peace talks. Anyway, point is,
Starting point is 00:33:47 hey, if the regime in Kiev doesn't want to cooperate, well, whatever. I think also we could throw Anthony Blinken overboard and find the Deputy Assistant Secretary State for something not Victoria Newland, somebody somewhere there who cares about the future of this country at all to go and negotiate with Sergei Lavrov now. You know, Blinken can go and resign
Starting point is 00:34:10 and wash dishes with Charlie Savage at Pizza Hut. Yeah, I mean, I really hope we see some kind of backing down from the U.S. here, but... I really think the best thing, I mentioned this a lot, I probably said it the last time I was on here, but kind of the best thing we could hope for is the Germans and the French and the European governments to stop going along with this. And I think we might see a lot of unrest, you know, as the winter comes and energy prices are just so high. And people are going to be fed up with the fact that their government is sending all this money to Ukraine. and these sanctions have just totally backfired on Europe.
Starting point is 00:34:51 Dave, Dave, Dave. Don't worry. We'll just print more money, man. It'll be fine. Yeah, they'll put price caps on everything. Yeah, that's right. But I mean, and the option, you know, you talk about the Nord Stream pipeline. I mean, that was always an option for Germany to, was to turn that back on.
Starting point is 00:35:08 But that option seems to be gone. Although Gasprom did say that one line of the Nord Stream 2 looks like it could be operational. and they said so the Nord Stream 2 it has two different lines and only one was damaged in the blast so it appears right now we don't really know for sure but Gas Prom said just say the word we'll start shipping gas to Germany you know through this line what the hell kind of lousy sabotage is that yeah that must be the Americans this sounds like such a half-ass job and the Nord Stream 1 they got both lines there but I can hear Sherry Bobbin singing her song right now I'm not going to replicate it, but I'm just telling you it's in my head.
Starting point is 00:35:51 All right, real quick, before we go, Dave, tell us about the fun drive at anti-war.com going on right now. Yeah, so it's that time of year again where we have to ask our readers to pitch in and donate. That's how we get by. We are entirely reader funded. And we've been getting some pretty serious endorsements from people. We had a letter from Noam Chomsky saying that, you know, we dropped them a line and asked if you would write a letter for us.
Starting point is 00:36:15 and he wrote an amazing letter, basically saying that he relies on anti-war.com as a news source. He called us an unflinching source of truth. So that was very cool. He mentioned some specific things that I've covered in my writing. So it's just very cool to know that, you know, Chomsky is reading us. Hell yeah. And now today we have, if you look at the top of the page, Colonel Douglas McGregor gave us a great endorsement. You could read that.
Starting point is 00:36:42 And we got more people coming. we've been reaching out to people that we know that read us and appreciate us to give us a good word just because it's been getting it's been hard for everybody so it's been getting harder to raise money but that's what we need to get by and also besides all the work I do writing in the news section I also just started a podcast where I go over my news stories every day and you can listen to the audio version wherever you listen to podcasts you could watch on YouTube or Odyssey I do a little video so that's just another way I'm trying to to get this information out there. So if you appreciate what we do, not to mention all the great writers in the viewpoint section and all the help we've been getting from you from Kyle Anzalone,
Starting point is 00:37:23 who's our opinion editor, but also a writer at the Libertarian Institute and Connor Freeman and Will Porter. We've been using a lot of their stuff. So we just have a ton of content and people should donate. Absolutely right. Antiwar.com slash donate.
Starting point is 00:37:37 Thank you, Dave. Thanks, Scott. All right, you guys. And I think you already know that Dave is the one single. best and most important reason to donate to antiwar.com. What he's done with the news section there at news.antiwar.com has just been absolutely fantastic.
Starting point is 00:37:54 He's written thousands and thousands of articles, writes sometimes 10 a day, something like that, explaining not just the news. Hey, everybody, here's what the Washington Post is saying, but here's how you could understand that if you remember what they said last week kind of thing. And then you can get, yeah, it's biased and filtered. But it's by my man, your man, that you can trust to, you know, explain what the post and the times really mean when they claim what they claim. And so I know I rely on them. I know you rely on them.
Starting point is 00:38:30 News.antiwar.com for Dave DeKamp and antiwar.com slash donate to keep him at work. Thank you. The Scott Horton Show, Anti-War Radio, can be heard on KPFK, 90.7. fm in l a psradyo dot com antiwar dot com scot horton dot org and libertarian institute dot org

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