Scott Horton Show - Just the Interviews - 10/24/22 Ted Snider on America's Obligation to Stop the War in Ukraine

Episode Date: October 27, 2022

Scott talks with Ted Snider about some of his recent articles at Antiwar.com. Snider makes the argument that, by deliberately ignoring off-ramps, the U.S. bears just as much responsibility for the ongoing war as any other party. But beyond that, Scott and Snider examine the ways the U.S. and NATO sabotaged Russo-Ukrainian negotiations shortly after the invasion — which Snider argues gives the U.S. an obligation to stop the war before more blood is needlessly spilled.  Discussed on the show: “The Back Door to NATO” (Antiwar.com) “Choosing Sides in the New Cold War” (Antiwar.com) “Who Stopped the War in Ukraine?” (Antiwar.com) “Defense Secretary Tells Ukraine It Will Have ‘What It Needs to Defeat’ Russia” (Antiwar.com) Ted Snider has a graduate degree in philosophy and writes on analyzing patterns in U.S. foreign policy and history. He is a regular writer for Truthout, MondoWeiss and antiwar.com. 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. Get Scott’s interviews before anyone else! Subscribe to the Substack. 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

Scott Horton comedy. That's right, I'm doing an event with Robbie the Fire Bernstein here in Austin on the 5th of November as part of Robbie's porch tour. It's kind of an audition, actually. I'm trying to get the job to replace Dave Smith as Rob's sidekick. So show up and pretend to laugh at my awesome, hilarious comedy jokes. Robbie and another dude are also doing stand-up. Then Robbie and I are going to do a live podcast about libertarian themes and Star Wars and things. That's November the 5th.

Go to thefireticks.com to find out all about it. 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 2000. almost all on foreign policy and all available for you at scothorton.4 you can sign up the podcast feed there and the full interview archive is also available at youtube.com slash scott horton's show okay you guys on the line i've got ted snider again from antiwar dot com the backdoor to nato is his latest before that choosing sides in the new cold war and who stopped the war in Ukraine.

Let's start with that one. I wasn't aware that the war had been stopped, but I'm happy to slap whoever you tell me on the back for that. What's the deal? So I didn't mean who stopped the war in Ukraine as in someone stopped it. I meant that up to now, the really kind of controversial questions been who started the war in Ukraine. And I'm trying to make the point that after this much time

and this many missed opportunities of stopping it, an equally important now, an equally important question now is not just who started the war, but who stopped the war. In other words, we should start talking about who's responsible for the war not stopping. Up to now, Scott, it's been like this really controversial question, like, who started the war, the U.S. says it's an unprovoked war and blames it all in Russia. Russia says it's NATO encroachment and blames it all in NATO, and it's been, you know, really controversial talking about who started the war, who's responsible. well. And I'm arguing that at this point that it's still, of course, in a relevant question,

you can't escape responsibility for who started the war, but it's an equally important question now to look at responsibility for who has failed to stop the war. So that's why I call it who stopped the word, not because it's over and you didn't know it, because we need to start talking about who's responsible for not stopping war. That's an equally important question now. Yeah. All right. Well, so what's the answer to it? Well, it's a tough answer, you know, but what I try to do in this article is, try to look at some of the sort of major statements that have been made in the last few days. And I kind of start the article with Biden's metaphor about an off-ramp to the war.

And Biden said recently that we're still trying to figure out what Putin's off-ramp is. And my argument is that, using the metaphor of the off-ramp on the highway, although the person who drove the car onto the highway on the on ramp is responsible for driving on the highway at some point if you've driven past all kinds of off ramps then you also bear some responsibility for still being on the highway and my argument is that even if you know russia took the on ramp onto the highway the states has passed up so many off ramps that at this point you have to say you know even if russia put you on the highway the only reason you're still on the highway is because you keep passing up the off-ramps. So my contention is that the U.S. has had multiple opportunities to contribute to stopping the war,

has deliberately passed up those opportunities, and therefore, even if you want to argue, they don't bear responsibility for putting us into the war or onto the highway, they bear some responsibility now for keeping us in the war or keeping us on the highway. And at this point, as the war is escalating to more and more dangerous levels, to levels that we can't let it escalate to, you need to take some responsibility for still being there and get back to those off-ramps. And, you know, Biden shouldn't be saying

we're still trying to figure out the off-ramp. Biden knows there's been all kinds of off-ramps and he needs to reset and get back to those off-ramps and get off before those war escalates to, you know, levels that nobody ever thought it could escalate to. All right, well, I've got to presume a lot of people really don't know what you're referring to. This is all Russian aggression.

America's helping the Ukrainians defend themselves. That's what TV says. What are some of these off-ramps that you mentioned here? Describe them and describe how you know. Okay. So, Scott, in the article, the first-off-ramp I look at isn't looking at, you know, someone who published something on, you know, anti-war.com or someone who can say, you know, this is an alternative voice or a fringe voice.

Recently, the former chiefs of staff, Admiral Mike Mullin, this is a guy who, correct me if I'm wrong, I think he was, he's a chief of staff under Obama and under Trump, right? Yeah, so this is a mainstream, mainstream, you know, head of the U.S. military. And he said recently in an interview that we have to do everything we kind of stop the war and we have to stop it now. And then he added the really interesting line. And I'm quoting, this is Admiral Mike Mullen said, it's really up to Tony Blinken and the other diplomats to figure out a way to get both Zelensky and Putin to the table and the sooner the better. So here's here's the former head of the. U.S. military saying it's up to the U.S. diplomats to get Zelensky and Putin to the table.

It's up to the U.S. to do it. Why is it up to the U.S. to do it? Well, you know, he didn't say that, but you could argue a lot of reasons why it's up to the U.S. to do that. One is that, you know, Zelensky has signed a decree that he won't talk to Putin. So Russia and Ukraine aren't about to talk right now unless somebody makes them and who's got the leverage to make them. Well, the states does. But also, you know, also interestingly, you can look at other reasons why the U.S. has, I would argue, Scott, a legal and a moral obligation to be the ones to do what Mullen said, and that's to get Zelensky and Putin to the table. And the first one is because you could make, first of all, there's a legal argument. The U.N. charter says that you've got to explore all, you know,

negotiations, mediation, everything, if there's an opportunity to avoid a war. And I don't think it's hard to argue that there was an opportunity to avoid the war. In fact, I think you could argue there were a couple of opportunities to avoid the war. One was the Minsk to agreement, which was an agreement that dates back to 2014 that was negotiated by Germany and France and signed by Russia and the Ukraine and approved by the U.S. and the UN. The Minsk to agreement is long and it's complicated, but it boils down to the Ukraine would do two things. They would give autonomy to the Donbass, and they would promise not to join NATO. So that was an agreement that was signed. That was an agreement that was the best possible solution to the problem today. And if it had been

signed, we probably wouldn't have a war today. Well, Zelensky got elected on a promise to sign Minsk, too. He wanted to do that. He needed U.S. support to do that, because he faced a hostility from elements at home. He needed U.S. support to do that. He did not get the U.S. support. The U.S. let him down and abandoned him. So he didn't sign Minsk, too. And then when he didn't sign it, and there was opportunities for the U.S. and Europe to pressure him to get back and sign that and do the things that would be an off-ramp long before the war had started. The U.S. and the European Union did nothing to pressure him. So they passed up this. It's not even an off-ramp. You wouldn't have been on the highway.

wouldn't have been a war. So since the U.S. had an obligation to achieve their goals without a war before going to war and didn't do that, they have an obligation to that now. The second one came, you know, eight years later on the eve of the war when, and this is looking like December 2021, just before the war, when Putin presents the U.S. with a formal proposal on mutual security guarantees. He begs the U.S. for immediate negotiations. And the U.S. not only completely like brushes them off and dismisses it, they won't even, and we know this because senior U.S. officials have said this. They won't even discuss the core points like the idea of Ukraine not becoming a member of NATO. So this is the second opportunity that states had to use

negotiations to avoid the war. So having failed to prevent the war, there's a sort of moral obligation on the United States to attempt to return to exploring those pathways and end it now. The second reason, I think, the states has a moral obligation to fix it, and this is a bigger one, Scott, and it's gotten some attention. It's gotten a lot of attention, but I don't think it's gotten any like the kind of attention that deserves, especially in the mainstream. And that's the idea that early on in the war, Ukraine and Russia had really tentatively arrived at a way to end the war. I'm talking about talks that happened in April and Istanbul under Turkish mediation. And again, this has been revealed in the mainstream media that Russia and Ukraine had

come to a tentative agreement on the points that would lead to a ceasefire to the ending of the war. And what happened is a couple of things. Boris Johnson immediately runs off to Kiev and he tells Zelensky that he shouldn't be negotiating with Putin. He should be pressuring Putin and that even if Zelensky's ready to sign, the West isn't. And really, really interestingly, you know, months after the Istanbul talks,

the Turkish foreign minister who was there, who was involved in the mediation, you know, he went on the record and saying, you know, we really thought the war was almost over. We had really come to agreement. This thing could have ended and why didn't it end? And again, I'm quoting.

He said, because there are countries within NATO who want the war to continue. This was an opposite. So the states had two opportunities to prevent the war from happening. Then once the war happens, there's the opportunity for it to end. The states prevents it.

Why do they prevent it? Because the State Department said, and they've been saying this since the beginning of the war, that even if the Ukraine's willing to sign an agreement, the West isn't because, and again, I'm quoting, the war is bigger than the Ukraine, is bigger than Russia. Ned Price, the State Department's,

spokesman, when Zelensky was ready to negotiate with Russia, to end the war, said that there are core principles that are bigger than than Ukraine, bigger than Russia. So, Scott, in other words, what the state said is, we're not going to let the Ukraine settle this war on their terms. They need to go on fighting it to satisfy our terms, our foreign policy goals. So I think you could make an argument, and this may be, this may sound crazy, but I think you to make an argument that after Istanbul

in a way this really becomes America's war because Ukraine was willing to settle on the terms that satisfied their conditions and the states told them go on fighting until we can settle the terms on our conditions so the U.S. has an

obligation to pressure them back to the table, get off the ramp because the Ukraine was ready to settle on their terms. We're fighting for America's terms. So this is kind of of America's war now. So when Mike Mullen says, it's up to the U.S. to force a diplomat's back to the table, I think there's a real obligation for them to do that. And then the next step, and I'll let you get something in because I'm talking non-stop, the next step is now currently

at this moment, what possible off-ramps are there that the U.S. is just flying by, just driving by the off-ram. So that's the answer to why I think there's an obligation to do it and where it comes from. Do you want me just keep talking or do you want to do you want to interject the thing? You know what? Go ahead, man. Okay, I'll just keep talking. Um, okay, so now we get to today. Mullen has that we need to come to the table, okay? So, I'll tell you what, I'll chime in here for entertainment sake. Yeah, go go, go. I think it's important to note that Admiral Mike Mullen could have just as easy said, it's on Vladimir Putin to do the right thing, starting right now, and got on his moral high horse and just said a bunch of words, just like everybody else on TV is doing.

And so for the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of staff, to decide that I'm going to go on a Sunday morning TV show, and I'm going to say it's time for Blinken to go to Geneva, like Scott Horton always says on the Kennedy show, that's actually a big, damned deal. Okay, sorry, go back. No, no, no, you're right. You're right to interject that. That's what I was trying to say at the beginning. This isn't a French person. This is an admiral. This is a really big deal.

And he could have said that. You're right. He could have said Putin better do this or whatever, but he didn't. He said it's on Tony Blinken. It's on the American diplomats. But what happens is right after Mike Mullen says it's up to the U.S. to For Zelensky and Putin back to the table, the Washington Post reports in an article that the U.S. officials have ruled out the idea of, here's what they said,

U.S. officials have ruled out the idea of pushing or even nudging Ukraine to the table. So when Mullen says it's the U.S. responsible to get into the table, the American response is we are not going to push Ukraine to the table. It's a Ukrainian decision to make, they say, It's totally up to the Ukraine. It's not totally up to the Ukraine for the two reasons I just said, that the Americans do have a moral responsibility, leaving aside the fact that the only reason Ukraine can go on fighting this war

is because they're fighting with U.S. weapons. That gives the states a state to end it. So it's absurd because if what Mullen is saying is you have to explore every off-ramp, then to say that we're not even going to try to negotiate is hardly exploring an off-ramp. then what happens shortly after that scott is turkey comes forward again okay so turkeys played a leading role in trying by the way before we go too far on the timeline there i wanted to remind everyone that i believe it was april the fourth the washington post reported and they're paraphrasing i believe eastern european member governments here more than americans but more or less this is

the consensus view anyway was and this is i believe the post's words but still, we don't want to see the war end too early. In fact, no, that may have been just an anonymous source of theirs, that they're directly quoting. We don't want the war to end too early, even if it means Ukrainians continue fighting and dying, because ultimately, essentially, we want to weaken Russia on the Ukrainian battlefield before they think about moving on anyone else in Eastern Europe. So we're going to grind them down into the dirt there.

And they just said that in the Washington Post. Fighting and dying too early. Just Google it yourselves, everybody. That statement was made in two ways. One was Austin, the Secretary of Defense, who said we don't want it too early because we want to weaken Russia. And the other one is this constant insistence

that comes out of the State Department that we don't want this to end too early because we want to put Ukraine in the strongest possible position for negotiations. But of course, when you're fighting like that, that has to go on with negotiations. happening simultaneously because despite the U.S. saying that you don't talk

to Russia while they're bombing Ukraine, that's when you always talk to me when you're at war. You don't talk after the war. Negotiations always happen while you're bombing. It's absurd to say you wouldn't negotiate while you're bombing. And it's worse than just, you know, grinding on with you. I mean, you've got to remember

what's happening this war right now is I was just reading a huge thing on what a proxy war is. And, you know, this war is pushing proxy war to the limits before you can say it's an American war because what you've got is the U.S. You've got the U.S. arming Ukraine. They're repairing and maintaining the weapons remotely. They're training them how to use the weapons.

They're giving them intelligence on where to fire the weapons. They're even intervening now and doing the strategy. So they're arming, training, targeting, doing the strategy. They're doing all of this, except they're doing it with Ukrainian. recruits instead of with U.S. recruits. So while the U.S. says you may have satisfied your goals with Russia, but we haven't satisfied ours, so fight on. And America fights this war by using Ukrainian soldiers and letting Ukrainians die. And then to say we don't have a stake to push them and negotiate it's absurd and it's tragic and it's horrible that the U.S. is fighting

for its goals by letting Ukrainian soldiers die. Horrible. And currently, You do have these off-ramps. Even though the post was reporting, the U.S. officials saying that, you know, we won't nudge them, you know, Turkey has again suggested that they'd be willing to mediate talks between Russia and the West. And Turkey's one of the countries that are positioned to maybe do it. So Turkey suggests mediations. And Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, responds by saying, we'll talk to the states. We'll talk to Turkey in ways to – we'll talk to the states or we'll talk with Ukraine on ways to –

to end the war, no problem. So what happens? Again, the State Department comes forward, and Ned Price says that Lavrov's comments are just posturing, and we have no confidence that Russia's serious. Okay, fine, maybe it is posturing. Maybe Russia is not serious, but that's an off-ram to explore. You don't just say that. If Russia says we're willing to talk, you don't just say, ah, they're just posturing. If you need to end the war now, you explore that. India has come forward and said they'd be willing to negotiate. That's an interesting choice, you know, because India's not in the war.

They're a member of BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. In other words, they have relations with Russia. They have influence over Russia. They're also an ally of the states. They're in a good position they could meet him. Nobody's followed up. No one's explored that. There's an off-ramp or a possible off-ramp.

Nobody responds to that at all. Then you get the question on, the other day, October 11th, the idea comes up at a G20 summit, maybe Putin and Biden could talk on the sidelines. So they asked, again, Sergei Lavrov, what would, you know, could that happen? And he says, you know, if there was an offer made for Putin and Biden to talk, we'd review that, we'd consider it. So this is, I mean, talk about high level, that the Lavrov is saying that Putin would be willing to talk to Biden. And on the very same day, and again, like he said, you know, mainstream, it's Sunday morning, whatever, he's on CNN, I think it was. Biden just says, I don't see any reason to meet with Putin.

We mean no reason to meet with Putin, right? The Civil War is asking to always, I don't see any reason with Putin. And then he escalates it. And he doesn't just say, he doesn't just say that I have no intention with meeting with Biden. He says, he says no one's prepared to negotiate with Russia about this. So he's speaking now for, you know, all of NATO, all of Europe. So here's Russia saying we'd have a high-level meaning Putin and Biden, and Biden's saying, we're going to talk to them.

Sorry, hang on just one second. Hey, y'all, Scott Horton here for Tennessee Hot Sauce Company. Man, this stuff is so good. They get all different flavors. Garlic habanero, honey habanero, pineapple habanero, Poblano Halapeno, and the Blood Orange Ghost. They're all so good, I swear. And for a limited time, Tennessee hot sauce company is featuring official Scott Horton

hotter than the sun, Thermon, nuclear hot sauce. It's full of Carolina Reapers, Scorpion Peppers, Dr. Pepper, hydrogen isotopes, and all kinds of things that'll burn your tongue clean off. Seriously, it's really good. Get yourself a hot sauce subscription. Spend $40 or more and use promo code Scott to get a free bottle of hotter than the sun hot sauce. That's tnhot sauceco.com. Hey, y'all got to check out these awesome busts of our hero, the great Ron Paul. They're made by the renowned sculptor Rick Kassau. The 13 inches tall, hand-painted bronze resin based on Casale's brilliant original. You may have seen mine in the background on my bookshelf in some recent interviews.

The thing is unbelievable. Check out this incredible piece of art at Rick Casali.com slash Ron Paul, and you'll see what I mean. Use promo code Horton and you'll save 25 bucks, and this show will get a little kickback too. That's Rick Casale.com slash Ron Paul. Casali is C-A-S-A-L-R-C-C-C-Sali. slash Ron Paul. And there's free shipping, too. You got to admit to, Ted, that even if that wasn't their policy, which I think it is, that Biden is rightfully terrified to be in a room alone with Vladimir Putin because he knows that he's batty and senile and he's not going to be able to

handle his arguments and is not going to be able to keep it together. And so, I mean, imagine having a president who doesn't have the confidence to go meet with the Russian president at the time attention because he knows he's half baddie old lady at this point. You know, I think that Biden knows that Putin was willing to come for those security guarantees of the beginning and say you need to promise that NATO won't be in Ukraine and Ukraine won't be in NATO. And Biden knows and Zelensky knows and everyone knows NATO's not going to let Ukraine in. So he could have just said that.

He could have just stopped the war. How do you sit in a room with Putin now when you know you had this perfect chance to stop the war and you didn't? And Putin says, you promised us no eastward expansion of NATO. And here you are in Ukraine. And I need a promise that you're not going to come into Ukraine. And Biden won't give that promise. So that's an uncomfortable place to be in the room.

But Scott, if you look back over sort of the history of the, of sort of conflicts, you know, you look at the Cuban Missile Crisis, you look at all kinds of things, and any diplomat will tell you that you don't even need the two presidents sitting in the room. It starts with back channel talks. It talks with secret meetings. I mean, Kennedy and Khrushchev and the Cuban Missile Crisis could do what they did because it was a secret meeting. In fact, in fact, you know, they made Khrushchev, which ruined Khrushchev, but they made Khrushchev promise never to reveal that it had been a sort of quid pro quo. These things happen in secret.

But as far as I can tell right now, from the reading I'm doing and the people I'm talking to, I don't think anybody's talking about negotiating the war. To the extent that Russian and American low-level officials are meeting at all and having some communications, they're not negotiating end of the war. They've got no mandate from Biden to negotiate end of the war. In fact, it seems like the opposite that they're pushing Ukraine to continue the war. So even if Biden doesn't want to sit in the room with Putin, he could send people a thousand steps down the ladder to start

ladder to start the talking and they're not and yet here we have a situation in Ukraine where Russia has made it really really clear that if you threaten the territorial integrity of Russia if you attack Crimea maybe even if you attack Donbass you know we'd consider an attack on our territory and so we would use whatever means we need to this has been a bit exaggerated at times but we would use

you know whatever means but but this is this is going to happen because the state says Ukraine is Crimea, so they're greenlighting Ukraine to attack Crimea. Crimea blows up the, Ukraine blows up the bridge, you know, from Russia to Crimea. So this is a position that we face the risk of extreme escalation. And yet Biden's not sending even low-level officials to try to de-escalate that. Talk about missing off the all the off-ramps. Here's Putin saying, I'll talk to you.

Here's Lavrov saying, you know, we'd be willing to meet with Ukraine. We'd be willing to meet with the states. Here's Turkey saying, well, mediate. Here's India saying we'll mediate. Here's all these off-frems. And at each stage, the U.S. says, we're not going to talk to you. And they say we're not going to push Ukraine to talk to you. The truth is, as we know from Istanbul, it's not that we're going to push Ukraine to talk to you.

We're going to forbid Ukraine from talking to you. That's a boy, Johnson, did, when he went to Kiev. Before we run all the way out of time here, this would be the first time I quote Netanyahu who has an authoritative source on anything other than he means it when he says that there will never be an independent state in Palestine. But what it is, is he was interviewed by Fareed Zachariah, who is such as, oh, how come you're gay in love with Putin? Don't you regret all the time you spent with him? And Netanyahu's like, well, you got to understand I'm bombing Iran right next to Russian forces on the ground. So I got to get along with this guy in Syria, he means.

Which is a pretty business-like answer. And it was just funny. The way, Zachariah framed it like this is your bromance all this don't you regret it that you gave credibility and and appease this guy all this time like Jesus eh anyway sorry that's a tangent the net yahu says listen man there could be a nuclear war and i'm really concerned about it and i thought huh you know that's some interesting messaging from benjamin netting yahoo and uh you know i don't know of the guy as, you know, essentially sociopathic and not truly concerned about anything the way

normal humans are. But just because, you know, he's a politician. That's not supposed to be an ethnic or religious thing. It's concerning. He's a particularly cynical politician. That's all I meant. But anyway, he was happy to say that on CNN.

Hey, listen, I'm really concerned about nukes going off here, Farid. Why don't you snap out of your little narrative and pay attention to what's going here pal yeah it's it's it's like it's like it's unprecedented it's astonishing that you have this risk of a nuclear war and everyone's just kind of going on assuming what happened you know that the russian the russian policy on on first strikes is that they would only use a nuclear weapon if you know the existence of the country was threatened and people have been really critical this but the u.s.

has the same policy right it's written in the u.s. nuclear posture policy and and the u.s. when he doesn't say it has a response to nuclear weapon. The U.S. nuclear policy, as I understand, it says that even under the threat of conventional weapons, if the United States territory is threatened, the U.S. would use a nuclear weapon's a first response. So this isn't like anyone has a nuclear bomb is insane, right? But this isn't like insane Russian stuff. This is why countries have nuclear weapons. They shouldn't have nuclear weapons. This is why they have it. The Americans are the same policy. So Russia has a policy. They could use one. Will they use one? I don't know. I read all kinds of disagreement. I personally think that Russia has all kinds of conventional weapon states steps they

could take long before nuclear to wipe out Ukraine if they wanted to. But they could use a nuclear weapon. It's a serious thing. And although Netanyahu is talking about, you know, coordinating flights and stuff, and the media likes to talk about countries that aren't condemning Russia as being not condemning Russia because they can't because of trade or defense. But the fact is, you know, you've talked about with tons of people by now is that, is that lots of countries aren't lining up with Russia because a lot of the world doesn't see this the way the U.S. and NATO sees this.

And I don't know that the only reason countries are doing this is because they need to coordinate militarily. They're dependent militarily. They also don't like the idea that the United States as a sort of unipolar hegemon or hegemon or whatever can sort of move NATO and do it at once in the world. and they feel vulnerable to stuming. A lot of these countries have been victims of this, too.

So it's not, you know, it isn't just military coordination. A lot of people don't want to come down on this American side because they're not completely on American side. And I'm sorry, we don't have the time to go into that any further, man, because I'm about to have to go. But I keep bringing up nukes, but I want to make it clear to people that the reason I do is just because it's not that, oh, I believe everyone should be afraid

and buy my storable food brand or some kind of thing like that. It's just that, well, the second head, line on anti-war.com today. Sec death tells Ukraine it will have, quote, what it needs to defeat Russia. And this has been the American policy, is that whatever it takes, as long as it takes, those are Biden's words, we will send in as many weapons as we can to Ukraine, not just to keep them from being defeated, but to drive Russia all the way the hell out of Ukraine. And a lot of times, they specifically even include Crimea.

On the other side of that is Russia that will never... accept that level of defeat. And, you know, Peter Van Buren was on the show. I was like, I don't know, maybe they'll take, like, a little bit of the Donbass and just save enough face, claim that they did enough to hurt Ukraine's military, which is all they wanted to do. And they'll just settle for the city of Donetsk in Donetsk province or something. You know, I don't know.

On the other hand, they could, by force, you know, really mobilize and forcefully take all that they've claimed, probably, if they've found. blood enough hundreds of thousands or even millions of men in, then they can take, you know, all a curse on and supposia and the rest too. Maybe. So it's the irresistible force and the unmovable object is the problem here. And that's why I'm talking about nukes is not that I see any real reason for Russia to use them today or for America to then, you know, vaporize Moscow.

But just something's got to give here. And as you've been explaining for half an hour, Joe Biden's sitting here threatening Armageddon and refuses to admit, of course, that him and his people started this back eight years ago, for one, but two, that he has any role at all in actually seeking these so-called off-ramps that he claims he needs to find to provide to Putin to end the war somehow, short of unconditional surrender is what it sounds like there. So, you know, which is it? And if he's going to, if he wants to talk, he should just put Blinken on a plane to Geneva. Otherwise, the announced policy is, look, it's not we're going all the way to Moscow. So thank God, right? But it's still a level of defeat that we know that the Russians will not accept here. And I don't really know whose advantage is what, in terms of Russian manpower on one side and NATO technology and money.

and CIA planning and whatever on the other, whoever, you know. But it looks like the war could go on a long time. And that just seems to me like an absolutely untenable situation as it has been from the beginning. That there's fighting going on on Russia's Western border at all is intolerable. Everyone should be talking about everything except how to keep fighting. That's always been, should have been the position of all the mankind this entire time. And Scott, just like two quick points. I mean, the one tragic thing about the fighting going on and on and on is that in the end,

the settlement is probably going to look a lot like it would if it never started except all these Ukrainians have died and suffered. Yeah, and the other point... Bring Merkel back to sign the same deal we already had in 2015. And then just to bring it back to what we were

talking about, you know, originally the point you brought up about, you know, saying that we'll make sure that Ukraine has everything it needs to defeat Russia. Talk about a missed off-front because, again, that was never Ukraine's goal. At the very beginning, when they were willing to sign, you know, a negotiated agreement with Russia.

It was never about defeating Russia. It was about pursuing, you know, the goals of satisfied Ukraine. So this idea that we're going to arm you until you defeat Russia, that's an American hijacking of the agenda of the war. That's a mixed off ramp. They could step back from that off ramp, go back to the terms that were Ukraine's terms for ending the war. Stop trying to make an America's terms. Go back to that reset point.

Get off the off ramp and sign it with, you know, Ukraine's agenda, not America's agenda. So that's a huge missed off ramp, right? Yep. All right, listen, I'm so sorry that we're out of time because I could sit here and talk to you all afternoon. And, man, I'm really sorry that we didn't get to address this extremely important article. It's your latest.

It's, I believe, at the top of the page today. Yes, it's today's current article at anti-war.com. The backdoor to NATO. This is about the de facto NATO membership of Ukraine. And I'm certain this is the best article on this subject that anybody could find anywhere. So that's original dot anti-war.com, the backdoor to NATO. Thank you again, Ted.

Thanks so much, Scott. It was great talking to you. The Scott Horton show, Anti-War Radio, can be heard on KPFK, 90.7 FM in L.A. APSRadio.com, anti-war.com, Scotthorton.org, and Libertarian Institute.org.