Scott Horton Show - Just the Interviews - 1/18/24 Gareth Porter on the War in Gaza

Episode Date: January 21, 2024

Gareth Porter returns to the show to mark episode 6,000. They start with a short discussion of Porter’s next book on the Cold War before diving into what’s happening in Gaza. They talk about Netanyahu’s propaganda strategy after October 7, the risk of a wider war, whether the word genocide is merited and more. Discussed on the show: 6/14/19 Interview #5,000: The Life and Times of Gareth Porter “Who Really Started the Korean War?” (Antiwar.com) “244 US cargo planes, 20 ships deliver over 10,000 tons of military equipment to Israel — report” (Times of Israel) Joe Biden saying the bombing of Yemen will continue, despite not working “I didn't suggest we kill Palestinians” (Jerusalem Post) Gareth Porter is an investigative historian and journalist on the national security state. He is the author of Manufactured Crisis: The Untold Story of the Iran Nuclear Scare and, with John Kiriakou, The CIA Insider’s Guide to the Iran Crisis. Follow him on Twitter @GarethPorter and listen to Gareth’s previous appearances on the Scott Horton Show. This episode of the Scott Horton Show is sponsored by: Moon Does Artisan Coffee; Roberts and Robers Brokerage Incorporated; Tom Woods’ Liberty Classroom; Libertas Bella; ExpandDesigns.com/Scott. 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: 1DZBZNJrxUhQhEzgDh7k8JXHXRjY Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 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 all right you guys episode 6,000 of the show finally gareth porter the great author of manufacture crisis and the perils of dominance and an upcoming book about the old Cold War before the new Cold War that we're all

waiting with baited breath for that all rhymed you got to admit it welcome back gareth how you doing sir i'm fine thanks scott and i'm glad to be on your 6,000th show i'm very honored to say the least well you know what everybody go back and check number 5,000 we did the life and times of gareth porter which was really great you guys know i always just go by the article but this time we did an interview of the man about the man and was a lot of fun i just did

something a bit like that with uh glen greenwald not so much about his life but about uh his point of view on politics and things um a bit more because but we're catching up after a long time but anyway uh and it was great that uh episode uh 5 000 of the life and times of gareth porter i want to go back and listen to that now that i mention it but anyway i'm so happy to have you on and um i want to talk to you about lots of things i guess first of all i should tell you people really care about you and i get emails and i get dms on the twitter there and things and people say where is gareth porter is he safe is he all right and i always tell them no he's just fine he's writing a book about the old cold war and it's tough being an author man trust me it sucks

everybody I'm vouching for my man here he's I've got too many jobs to get mine done he's got few enough that I think he's actually making progress on his can you tell us about the book does it have a title and can you give away everything except everything in it sure for for you and your listeners I'll be glad to do that um it's it's going to be called the Cold War as a deception and it is a new very much revisionist and even beyond revisionism history of the Cold War, specifically of U.S. policy in the Cold War. And it's going to document the fact that the reality that the U.S. government systematically lied to the American public and

key national security officials lied to the president of the United States to deceive the President of the United States on numerous occasions during the period of the Cold War from 1950 to 19, well, the end of the Cold War, 1990 or 1991. And then I choose that part of the Cold War. It's actually all except for the early Cold War from 1946 to 49, but I choose to focus on that because what I discovered in my research is that it was the push for rearmament by the U.S. military and its political allies that generated the first round of deceptions of the President of the United States and, you know, in turn of the U.S. public. And that that really set the stage for this pattern of systematic deceptions that characterized major U.S. policy decisions from that time on until the end of the Cold War. So that in a nutshell is really the thesis that I am developing in the book.

But so is that another way of saying kind of, geez, it wasn't Harry Truman and I, Eisenhower's fault that they went along with this? They didn't really know? Well, I mean, because, you know, they say about W. Bush, they go, well, it was bad intelligence. You know? Yeah, yeah, I have to distinguish between or among various presidents. Okay. And not only that, I also distinguish between those instances in which some presidents were victims of deception and other instances in which the same president was guilty of carrying out a deception of the American public.

So it's a much more complicated pattern that you see. But it all traces back to this requirement. to deceive the American public or the president or both in order for the national security state to achieve its own goals or its own interests. Well, look, in essence, we're not talking about Stalin's attitude. We're talking about his military capability and what our government pretended to believe it was, essentially. Is that correct?

That's where it started. That's right. Exactly. And that was the key to pushing through the, well, it was the first effort. Let me put it this way. It was the first effort to push through a rearmament program. And it was the Secretary of State of the time who was Truman's closest ally or closest advice. Kaiser, who was the key to that aspect, that element of the deception. But very quickly then, it was the entrance of the United States into the Korean War, which provided the opportunity or the necessity, if you will, for the key national security officials to pull a massive deception on Truman, first of all, to get him to enter the war, and secondly, to get him to agree for a massive rearmament program in the very first six months of the Korean War. On the grounds, supposedly, that the Chinese counteroffensive against U.S. troops who had carried out this stupid effort by MacArthur to come up right up to the Yalu River,

the Chinese border. They counterattacked and basically it was a huge defeat for MacArthur. And Truman was so convinced by Acheson and the Joint Chiefs of Staff that this was the beginning of a Soviet worldwide military offensive that he agreed to their demand for this complete rearmament program. And that's how it all started, really. Wow. So, well, I want to keep asking you questions, but I'll wait. The other thing on my mind is... The book, by the way, is all finished except for a conclusion. And that would be done by now except for the fact that the Israelis began this horrible mass atrocity. Yeah.

My book has also been put on a terrible delay here because of current events, of course, as well. But, yeah, the other thing is I keep thinking, if I could ever get my book finished and then edited way, way down to a reasonable length, I sure would be interested in what you thought of it. I couldn't ask you to read it now, Gareth. You never forgive me. Well, if it's still going on when I'm finished with my book, which won't be very long in the future, and if this war somehow can be ended, then I'll promise to read it.

Well, it's almost 1,200 pages now, and I know I've got to cut it in half. I'm going to, I don't know what the hell I'm going to do. And then, like you say, I got the same problem here with current events, taking up all my attention. It's very difficult to get back to writing a history book about how much I hate Bill Clinton, you know what I mean?

But it's got to be in there. I'm sure you knew this, but I just, I can't help, but I hope I'm not giving away or whatever. I just think this is bananas. Maybe a lot of people know this or I don't know who does, but to me, it blows me away. That before the ATF even raided the Branch Tivians, just like two weeks into Bill Clinton's presidency, he'd already ruined a peace deal in Bosnia. And not only that, this really pisses me off, Gareth, is, and must have pissed them off, too. Because it was Cyrus Vance's peace deal.

Cyrus Vance had been, of course, Prasinski's rival, the Secretary of State in the Carter administration. But the incoming Secretary of State was Warren Christopher. And Warren Christopher had been Vance's deputy during Carter and, like, his protege. You know what I mean? not just his, a guy that worked under him, but like, he was his guy, right? So then Vance cuts this deal, and then Warren Christopher comes in and helps Bill Clinton destroy it. And this is just the beginning of 93. There's two and a half more years of kill and left to go in Bosnia by then.

The worst of it hadn't even begun yet. And so this is not just he ruined a peace deal, but this would be like if you struck a peace deal and then I ruined it. You know what I mean? Right. Like, these guys are such monsters. I just hate them so goddamn much. This is a huge story. Absolutely. Absolutely.

It stands up after all these years as a major event with taking seriously. Yeah. All these guys. And it's like Korea. It's one of the obscure ones. The Forgotten War. America messing around in Bosnia, messing around Korea. There's a great Ramondo article, by the way, about how America started that war.

I'm sure you already know everything about it. but people can find that at anti-war.com, and it was about how the South had been attacking targets across the border with American help for a long time, deliberately provoke in the North Korean attack, you know, the other way. Who would have thought? The South definitely did want, the military wanted to go to war, no doubt about that, and so did Singh-Munree.

Yeah, no question about that. It was by no means a matter of an attack on an innocent, a bunch of officials in South Korea, that's for sure. Yeah. Okay, well, listen, we should talk about the current events that's got us all diverted from our Cold War books that we're writing. Right. So, well, you've got a couple different articles here.

I want to figure out which one I want to talk about first. I guess let's talk about the war propaganda. I'll tell you this much. I already talked to Max Blumenthal today about the war propaganda, how embellished it was, and also about some of the real truth of the friendly fire. And he's very careful. I mean, the guy's got a chip on his shoulder clearly, but he doesn't embellish as far as how much friendly fire or anything like that, as some critic might want to presume or anything like that. He does a very good job. So for that sake, let's just say, we got that.

part of it on the record for today's show already. So, Gareth, talk about what you really mentioned here in the headline is how Israel leverages genocide with Hamas massacres. What are you talking about here? Right. I mean, this is, I think, one of the more important stories, one of the most important story of recent months with regard to the Israel-Palestine issue, which is that although, you know, I don't argue obviously that Netanyahu and his advisors somehow, you know, faked an attack by Hamas. I mean, clearly Hamas did take the initiative on October 7. There's no question about that. But But what I think is equally clear is that Netanyahu immediately saw this as an opportunity to basically ensure that they would be able to carry out the kind of attack that we have seen, the genocidal offensive against the population of Gaza that we have seen over the last three months. and that he could get the United States to support it.

And he would do that by portraying this as a kind of genocidal, intended genocidal attack by Hamas against innocent civilians in the kibbutzis near the border with Gaza. He had three days, really, between October 7th and the first public statement that he made to come up with his strategy for how to do this. And I think the strategy clearly envisioned that he would be able to persuade Biden through Blinken, having traveled immediately. you know, running straight to Netanyahu to get his point of view about what happened and then getting Blinken to take that point of view back to Biden, he would ensure that they would go along with this offensive, which, you know, in any normal, under any normal consideration by a U.S. administration would be viewed with alarm and with great determination to say, wait a minute, you know, this is this is something that you can't go ahead and do without carefully

working out, you know, what the costs and, you know, consequences are both to the population, and to the region. And that, of course, was the opposite of what Netanyahu did. He basically pulled this very clever political trick on the Biden administration, basically using Blinken, who, as everyone, I think, all of your listeners know, is a very long-time Zionist, a very deep, deeply convinced supporter of Israeli Zionism, and was going to come back with whatever, you know,

the Netanyahu told him and get Biden to go along with it. So that was the essence of what I think Netanyahu had in mind from the very beginning. And what he did, of course, was to put out the theme that this was the same, you know, that Hamas was doing what the people who the U.S. military fought against across the Middle East did by killing massive numbers of civilians and were simply were mass killers. So this was a very clever strategy. He basically had his military spokesman ready when the press first went to Kaffar Azah, which was the first kibbutz where the press was allowed to.

come in and talk to be briefed by the military and even possibly to talk to civilians who were there. And it was handled such a way that the military spokesman essentially put out this story about horrible atrocities against civilians, beheaded babies being the lead story that was being put out. And, you know, burned, people being burned alive deliberately by Hamas and bodies desecrated, parents being executed in front of their children and children being executed in front of their parents. This was the story that was given out. And it created this bow wave of stories in the media. CNN led the

They were the most enthusiastic and the first to put out a story based on the briefing they were getting in Kafaraza. But it was so horribly bad, so obviously wrong that they had to correct the story about beheaded babies when they tried to get someone in the military headquarters to confirm it. and the military couldn't confirm it, they couldn't offer any confirming evidence. So CNN had to back down on that. But nevertheless, the story was out by October 10th that all these horrible atrocities had taken place. And that really set the tone for the entire corpus of mainstream media coverage of the post-October 7th conflict. Yeah. And then we do see, you know, Hamas is ISIS. And for people who, you know, that's the slogan. There's always a cutesy little focus group tested slogan with the Israelis, of course. And for people who are not too familiar, but ISIS is just al-Qaeda in Iraq from George W. Bush's Iraq War II. And then worsened by Obama's filthy, disgusting, dirty war in Syria from 2011 through really the end of his presidency.

which blew into the Islamic State Caliphate under Baghdadi, which took over all of Western Iraq in 2014 in what was an insane. As Blumenthal put it comparing here, Texas chainsaw masker style, just ultra-violence. That is what happened in Western Iraq in 2014 when ISIS came. Patrick Coburn, who is the most important Western reporter in the Middle East, said then these guys are like the Islamist Kamir Rouge right they are bananas they come into a town and they did butcher people they did throw alleged homosexuals off rooftops and uh you know machine gun innocent people as well as prisoners of war and all kinds of um you know uh nightmarish

you know biblical level um and that they were caught up even in that stuff right right, this is all the Bible coming true. We're fighting the new Rome and all that's there. But that's not Hamas. But what Netanyahu's doing is saying, remember how bad ISIS was in Western Iraq a few years ago? Well, that's what we're dealing with here. And remember how you dealt with Mosul and Ramadi and Raqa? Well, that's what we're doing here.

And so, and then can you talk about this, too? And this is, according to Biden, which I don't know what you can believe, because Biden's the same guy who claimed that he saw the pictures of the beheaded babies, which is an outright lie. But he also said that Netanyahu told him. He had to take that statement back. Wait, wait, one second, and then I'll shut up, I swear. But he also told, he also said that Netanyahu told him, this is just like when you guys firebomb Germany and Japan and even used the nukes in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. If you guys can firebomb Dresden and Hamburg and Tokyo and New Hiroshima Nagasaki, then I can do what I'm doing in Gaza based, again, on this Hamas is ISIS-level ultra-violence here.

Right. It was a brilliant strategy for assuring that there would be no questioning, no serious questioning of what Netanyahu was about and what the IDF was about. in Gaza. And his slogan was that Hamas is ISIS. And that was, you know, the shortest and pithiest way he could possibly have stated it and got the message across to Americans and particularly to the administration. Yeah. Well, and so there's a quote I saw just a couple days ago. I'm sorry I didn't have time to Google it up real quick, but there was an Israeli brigadier general who said, every plane we're flying, every bomb we're dropping, everything we're doing is with the United States backing us up and with their equipment on every level. And without them, we could not do

what we're doing now. And I think he was just being grateful. But that really is true, isn't it? He didn't intend to start a new propaganda offensive, I don't think, because that probably would not have been a good idea. Yeah. What's the reality? Is that exactly true? Of course it's true. Yes, absolutely. I mean, you know, the Israelis could not carry out any serious offensive militarily in Gaza. I mean, in terms of bombing without the United States being fully supportive and agreeing essentially to cover it in advance, telling the, yeah, go ahead, you've got a free hand. And then midway through it, or not midway, but farther into it, again, and repeating that, you know, we support what you're doing. We have certain questions about whether you're giving sufficient protection to, you know, the civilian population, but we're behind you and you can have just about as many more bombs as you please. And that's what they did in November. In November, they replenish the bomb supply. And basically, a lot of

allowed the Israelis to do whatever they wanted, despite the fact that they were telling the American public that, you know, they're trying to assure the American public, yes, we are doing our best to make sure that the Israelis give sufficient attention to protection of the civilian population. I read the other day that it was 10,000 tons of bombs we've given them so far in this thing, just since October. I'm not sure that sounds reasonable. I haven't specifically checked on what the latest total would have been. But I think it's not so much the total tonnage dropped that is the really shocking reality underlying this offensive. It's the way in which they have used the most horrible anti-population bombs, which have a radius of destruction that goes, if I remember correctly, 400 yards in each direction. 400 yards in each direction. I mean, you know, and these are bombs that inflict extreme harm to anyone who is in the path of the bombs in all directions. And so, you know, this means that you are going to have children losing heads, arms, legs daily. That is what has been happening.

Yeah. Hey, y'all, I got a new coffee sponsor, Moondose Artisan Coffee at Moondoseartisan Coffee.com. When I wake up in the morning, I feel like my brain is all dried out. I need to pour a hot mug of rich, tasty coffee all over it to get it back working again, like 10W30 for the Noggin. Though not necessary, it helps if the coffee tastes good. Well, Moondos Artisan Coffee does taste good. They get the best beans from all around the world, and they don't burn them.

Support the show and support your brain at Moondoseartisancoffee.com. Just click the link at the right margin at Scott Horton.org. Hey, guys, I had some wasps in my house, so I shot them to death with my trusty bug assault 3.0 model with the improved salt reservoir and bar safety. I don't have a deal with them, but the show does earn a kickback every time you get a bug assault or anything else you buy from Amazon.com by way of the link in the right-hand margin on the front page at Scott Horton.org, so keep that in mind. And don't worry about the mess. Your wife will clean it up. Well, folks, sad to say, they lied us into war. All of them. World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq War I, Serbia, Afghanistan, Iraq War II, Libya, Syria, Yemen, all of them.

But now you can get the e-book All the War Lies by me for free. Just sign up the email list at the bottom of the page at Scott Horton.org or go to Scotthorton.org slash subscribe. Get all the war lies by me for free. And then you'll never have to believe them again. Listen, so the article here is people can find at the times of Israel, 244 U.S. cargo planes, 20 ships deliver over 10,000 tons of military equipment to Israel. And they are citing Channel 12 in Israel for that report. And, you know, military sources. for that. And now, you know, we've got to talk about this. It keeps coming up on this show, but not too many other places. But this is exactly what caused September 11th. And I know that Al-Qaeda is

sort of kind of upfront for Saudi and American intelligence at different times. America backed the Arab Afghan brigades in the 80s. Bill Clinton Shorosel backed him in Bosnia, Kosovo, and Chechnya. and we all know that in the aftermath of Iraq War II, Barack Obama backed them in Libya, Syria, and Yemen, although varying degrees of directly, I mean, he is certainly fighting wars to their benefit and knowing it, using them against really Israel's enemies, the Shiites, which America, I guess, also hates. But I think Israel's the real reason America hates the Shiites as much as the bin Ladenites, even though it wasn't Hezbollah that knocked the damn towers down, Gareth, as you might remember. It was the other guys.

But a point being that if you read the biographies of the 9-11 hijackers, they were pissed off about Israel and about American support for Israel. And if you read Bin Laden's 1996 Declaration of War, he says, well, never forget the severed arms and heads of the babies at Kana, referring to the first Kana masker because they did it again 10 years later. But the first Conomasker of 1996 where the Israelis bombed the UN shelter. Hey, you know what? I only found this out recently.

Hat tipped to Jonathan Schwartz. Did you know Naphtali Bennett was the guy that did it? He was the guy that called in the strike on the UN shelter that killed 106 Palestinian women and children hiding there, which is what? I didn't know that he was the man. No, I didn't know that. And then which that was what, and you could find it in Israeli press. They talk all about it. It's totally true. And they're very proud of it, I'm sure.

I'm absolutely proud. Oh, yeah, he doesn't care. And then, but this is what was the primary motivation for that Operation Grapes of Wrath. And then especially that Kahnemasker was the motivation for these German engineering students studying in Hamburg to want to join Al-Qaeda and fight against the United States. And including successfully, these are the guys who killed 3,000 Americans. Right. And so, you know, I was kind of rambling to the judge earlier. I think I made him mad, but you forgive me.

I love you, Gareth. I'm very happy that bin Laden is dead. And I think that I don't know if Zawahri is dead or not, but even Zawahri didn't really have the charisma and the Hutzpah and the whatever you call it. I don't know that gave him sort of this unofficial command authority and loyalty of so many international jihadis from all around the world. and all around the Middle East, if he said, look, what we want to do is this, they really followed that. To such a great degree, and I don't know, I guess I really need to start paying attention to Bill Rogio again.

I don't know of, like, who is really in charge of Al-Qaeda now, how independent from Saudi intelligence they are at this point, whether they are determined to attack the far enemy of the United States. but it's so easy to see how history could repeat itself here. And, of course, with all the, you know, the FBI had to frame up a lot of cooks. But after a while, we started having real ones, you know what I mean? And you could have a lone wolf with just a gun who hijacks a fuel truck or a guy who gets a hold of, you know, a pretty good rifle and a nice, soft target and does some terrible thing.

Like, I feel like we're just on the verge of this. And I know whatever false flag this and that, to me is regardless. You know what I mean? You could have some kook, kill a bunch of innocent people, and then what's here in America in a terrorist attack, and then what's Joe Biden going to do then? They're going to blame it on freedom and radical Islam? They're going to blame it on the Shiites this time?

Or I don't know what, who's even in charge to decide? Jake Sullivan? Tell me something, Gareth. It seems like a real problem going. forward here, man, after, because this is what, this is the Kana massacre every day for three months. This is like the Waco massacre every day, sometimes three or four or five Waco massacres a day, every day for months and months and months is what's happening these people right now. Absolutely.

And I mean, I can't say that I, you know, would rule out what you're suggesting as a possibility. certainly it is. But at the same time, I mean, you know, we should not lose sight of the present reality that has been created by this atrocity that we're talking or we're just discussing now of the Israeli attack on Gaza, which is really seriously to be considered in terms of genocide. And, you know, that is something that has clearly not just upset people around the Middle East, but has forced or has induced governments in the Middle East to take action that, you know, is posing the serious threat of an enlargement of the war. And this is a direct cost, risk and cost of the policy that the United States has chosen to pursue in response to this atrocity by Israel.

Yeah. So, and this does get right to the irony of the thing. I don't know if I can ever really state it right, but again, the point being that the American government and the Israeli government's enemy in the region is a right. and all their friends, which thanks to America includes Baghdad now and Damascus more than ever before and Sana'a down in Yemen more than ever before under the control of the Houthis. And so our government and Israel's government are in agreement that that's their enemy, as I mentioned there, even to the degree that during Obama years they're willing to outright back the bin Ladenites. in their horrible war in Syria

and to such a terrible degree that it ended up blowing up into the damn caliphate of 14 through 17 there. It's just incredible. It's almost unbelievable, except I remember it. But anyway,

so they have us now, Gareth, as you're talking about, at risk of expanding the war. What you mean is expanding the war to the rest of the Shiite alliance, to Hezbollah, to Syria, to Iraq, to Yemen and maybe even to Iran itself, which is, you know, I don't know exactly what is the Iraqi

government's role other than they don't really know what to do, but these militias that grew up to fight ISIS, Obama's fault, they are, there's PMU militias, they are attacking American forces in Iraq, and that could lead to Iraq War IV right there. And I don't know how, how concerned are you about how out of control this is going to get? And for that matter, as long as I'm asking you that, what about the possibility that the government in Egypt, or Jordan, et cetera, could fall, that you would have, or even Saudi, that you would have Sunni states

actually acting under the will of their populations and siding with the Shiites against the Americans and the Israelis? Well, I, you know, I'm no expert on the various political situations around the Middle East, believe me. But I do think that there is the greatest risk at this point is the enlargement of the war into Lebanon. And that's for good historical, I mean, sound historical reasons in the sense that both Hezbollah on the Lebanese side of the border and Israel have been trying each other for years and years, have unfinished business with each other, and the Israelis in particular have been weighing, can we get away with attacking across the border, what would be the

cost to us? And, you know, I think that there is a not tiny and not inconsiderable chance that the Israelis would, in fact, choose to enlarge the war into Lebanon. I think that would be the most likely scenario for one of the most serious consequences that could occur because of this atrocity of Israeli attack on Gaza. And that, I mean, you know, Lebanon really has only Hezbollah to protect it. And Hezbollah does not want to have a war. It's clear that's their policy at this point. But at the same time, if the Israelis were to take steps that they could easily,

I can easily imagine they could take because they feel that it would be in their interest, then we would have another major war in the Middle East with terrible consequences, and I'm very worried about that. Well, I don't know if you saw this clip, but somebody asked Joe Biden, are the strikes against the Houthi's working? And he says, what, working in the sense of accomplishing something?

No. Are they going to continue? Yes. I think that was what he said, accomplishing something. I may have misperaphrase, but it's very close. That was very close to the exact word. So, and that's the thing, We already know that the Houthis and their poor population can take a beating, and that regime is not going anywhere.

Saudi and UAE and al-Qaeda, backed by the United States, just failed to dislodge them from power after a war that lasted for, was it eight or nine years. Yeah, with heavy bombing by the Saudis and the UAE. An unbelievable campaign against them, air campaign, especially against them. And so, and the American, they're not putting troops up inside a province or whatever. They'd be insane. The chiefs have got to be telling Biden that that's not a choice. I mean, I'm just making that up. Oh, I guarantee you they are.

Yeah, they're not going to do that. They're not going to willingly. But look, what about them having a problem with the Skiri government in Baghdad? I mean, how close are they to Iran compared to America? This guy, al-Sudani, is from Skiri, right? The current prime minister? I think that's right. I'm not following

Iraqi politics closely for sure I'm way behind on it myself I admit but I'm interested I need to get back into it man because you know I think Iran has always had more influence over the Supreme Islamic Council guys

than America and certainly at this point and they tried to kick us out I don't know if the parliament voted but the president said or the prime minister said beat it And the Americans said, well, we got all your gold. So we can just destroy your currency and just blackmail them. But at some point, you know, perils of dominance, just because we can hurt them,

doesn't mean they're not willing to take it in order to declare independence at the point that they feel like they absolutely have to, you know. Yeah, I'm really happy, in fact, that you've invoked the title of my earlier book on Vietnam, Perils of Dominance, because it is so relevant. to the present situation. And I summed it up right. Isn't that the point that just because you're so big and tough doesn't really mean that everybody's going to do what you say.

And so be careful how deeply you commit yourself to applying coercion to these threats you shouldn't have made, right? Yeah. And furthermore, I mean, just to extend that a bit further to where I think it really cuts more even more dramatically. You know, the United States does, in fact, have the military capability, which is many times greater than any other player in the region, and it could use it. And it's always going to be tempting for a president to imagine that he could use it. But the fact is, as you've said, that we are simply exposing ourselves, our own interests and the interests of the region, of the population.

of the region and of world peace to the threat of a war which is not going to be in anybody's interests and is inevitably going to harm the interests of the American people. Yeah. Well, now, so far, it looks like the Ayatollah doesn't want to fight. And Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, doesn't want to fight. Right. Right. Again, at some point, they've got their line where they're willing to. Absolutely. Absolutely. And you know, I mean, this issue that we've just been talking about between Israel and Hezbollah and Lebanon, the larger Lebanon, is made much more dangerous because the Israelis are making territorial claims on the other side of the present. truce line. Shaba Farms is a place where the Israelis are saying, well, we really think that's our, that belongs to us. That's on the Golan Heights, right? That's really Syrian territory

that they have occupied since 67? Right, right. And so this is, this is the most dangerous element in the situation that the Israelis have that in the back of their minds or not even in the back of their minds, in the forefront of their minds. And, and, and, and, and, and, And that easily could become part of or the primary thrust of a set of interactions that would result in that war that I've just been talking about. Yeah, man, you know, I have a friend of mine who's an old army guy who said to me, he's so worried about the draft, he wants to start organizing against it. And I'm telling them, yeah, yeah, yeah. Come on, man, our army does not want a conscript army. And our population of 18-year-olds is not really fit to be conscripted anyway.

And they would rather rely on high-tech and, quote-unquote, volunteers. They're very well-paid. But anyway, you know, a non-slave army is what they mean by that, at least. So, but then I'm thinking, you know, this Biden kook has gone us really threatening. war in Europe and in Asia. I just talked with Tim Shoreock today about brinksmanship with the North Koreans leading us toward, boy, talk about a black pit there, possible atomic war with those guys, picking a fight with Iran and the whole regional Shiite alliance there that Bush and Obama built and all of this. I don't know. If they're really committed, if they're

He's playing with fire, but I think that the point that we need to keep focusing on, he really doesn't want to have a war. I mean, there's no question of my mind that he wants to avoid it, particularly in a run-up to a general election. I mean, that would not be the best move for him to make politically, to say the least. But, you know, the problem is that he is, as we've been discussing earlier, he's wedded himself to the interests of Israel in a way that makes it much more difficult, if not impossible, for him to really prevent the kinds of behavior that is so dangerous in this situation by the Israeli. Right.

I mean, it's become this ridiculous ritual where Blinking goes and says, geez, we'd wish you guys would tone it down just a little bit. He just does that over and over again, and it means nothing, although, in fact, I should ask you about this. The Wall Street Journal claims that, well, they are backing down and they pulled a lot of troops out. I think they said hundreds. Yeah, here, Israel, under pressure to scale back intensity of war pulls thousands of troops

from Gaza, which, of course, that could just mean a higher intensity air campaign coming up, or I don't know exactly what. At the same time, they're saying this is going to last through the rest of the years. here somewhat they're saying, and this is, if you want, we can change the subject to South Africa here. In fact, yeah, let's do that. They're talking about, they deny it sometimes. Netanyahu himself, I should say, the prime minister denies it sometimes, but he also has said.

He's looking for the rest of the world to, quote, absorb the population of the Gaza Strip and means to get rid of them. And in practice, it sure looks like they're trying to push everybody south and eventually, as they have talked about, into the Sinai Peninsula or elsewhere in Egypt and on from there. Unbelievably, as long as I'm citing things, the Times of Israel reported that they were in talks with Congo to send the poor Palestinians to go and, I guess, toil in Israeli-owned cobalt mines as slaves until they're dead. Is it? Are they kidding me with this shit? I mean, how far? But then, okay, here's the other thing is I got that off my chest, but let me sit you up here. And I mean this quite sincerely. The G word is a big one. And the Americans throw it around all that time when they're trying to start a war. Like they'll go, oh, Sabrinitsa, that was a genocide. So now we get to bomb you. This kind of thing. I said Bernice was pretty bad, but it doesn't seem like much of a genocide. And I'm not sure is, look, obviously, ethnic cleansing. is a horrible euphemism. But is it a horrible euphemism for genocide? Because, you know, as my friend

Derek Cooper was saying on the Twitter the other day, look, man, if everything is genocide, then we need a new word for what happened to the Armenians. Okay? And he wasn't talking about the recent cleansing of Nagorno-Karabakh. He was talking about the bad one at the hands of the Turks before, after World War I. Right? And so now I know that Obviously, the ultimate example is the Holocaust, and then Israeli public relations would say that nothing short of a full Holocaust already accomplished counts, which serves their interest. On the other hand, people tossing around keywords in order to get what they want is supposed to not be very impressive either. And so clearly what's happening to the Palestinians is absolutely horrible. but I wonder, oh, and I meant to say, sorry, the Rome statute, I think is so particular.

You could even have a situation where people are forced-marched, like, say, Nagorno-Karabakh last September, October, where the Azerbaijani's forced-marched them out, and evidently no one was killed or single digits or something were killed, but they completely kicked the Armenians out of there. I mean, Nagorno-Karabok is no longer art sock. I mean, it is over. So does that count as genocide? And then, At that point, now we're just throwing around the G word everywhere. I don't know. On the other hand, I read much of, and I watched the three-hour presentation of the South Africans case to the International Court of Justice, which is not asking for prosecutions of war criminals and accusing that, but they're asking essentially for an injunction, some kind of measures to get the court of justice to ask Israel politely to stop, I guess, because there isn't a real-world government to enforce it, except America.

America's on Israel's side. But anyway, they presented one hell of a case there and including a lot of statements by Israeli officials, citing the Old Testament and worse, talking about how guilty every last Gaza is and why it's okay to kill them all or remove them all. So that's a handful of topics I brought up for you to grapple with there, but I know that you read the thing very carefully and wrote about it. So can you first of all start with the use of the word genocide and how appropriate it is or isn't in whichever circumstances in your point of view and how you think it applies here? Well, first of all, I think you're undoubtedly right that it has been overused in the past. It has been sort of a political, you know,

a political weapon, if you will, in various circumstances by the United States. But on the other hand, there are, there is a lot of evidence to really believe that the Israelis have intended to eliminate the population of, the Palestinian population of Gaza, and that they intended to do it in such a way as to physically remove, not remove, to physically kill or severely injure a very large percentage of the population, or to make them believe that they faced such a horrible fate. And that these policy intentions reflected a broad view within the Israeli civilian population representing essentially the right wing politically in the country. And to try to estimate precisely what percentage of the population that includes would be difficult,

but it's somewhere between 30% and 45%. It's not small. It's a very significant percentage of the population of Israel who truly believe that the Palestinian population needs to be ended, removed, killed, slaughtered. I mean, they do have. have a genocidal attitude and it is expressed in many, many places. It's universal within that segment of the population. They make no bones about it. And that to me weighs heavily

in the consideration of this question of whether Israel intends to carry out genocide. that that does not certainly does not mean that every israeli believes in that or necessarily that a majority of Israelis believes in that but that does happen to be the viewpoint of the most powerful segment of the present Israeli government yeah and so you know i would think that any judge who was trying to make a decision about the intent of the Israeli government would have to take that set of facts into account very seriously. And so that's really the essence of my take on this question of whether the Israeli government intends to carry out a genocide against the Palestinians. They're doing a very good job of it. In a very short time,

in a very few months, the Israelis have already killed between 1 and 2% of the Palestinian population. It may be higher than that because there's so many bodies under the rubble that have not been identified and are not known. And so the accurate count of the deaths is really yet to be made. Yeah. Hey, you guys. Did you know that I don't just write books? I publish them. Well, the Institute does, and I'm the director, so yeah.

13 of them now, including my four. We published five more in 2023. Lori Calhoun and Tom Woods books about the COVID regime. Joe Solis Mullin on the fake China threat. Jim Bovard's latest last rights. And our managing editor, Keith Knight's, domestic imperialism. And we've got more great titles coming in 2024. Check them out at Libertarian National.

Institute.org slash books and help support our anti-government efforts at Libertarian Institute.org slash donate. And thank you. Hey, y'all, Scott here. Let me tell you about Roberts and Roberts Brokerage, Inc. Who knew? Artificial bank credit expansion leads to price inflation and terribly distorted markets. If you've got any savings left at all, you need to protect them. You need to put some at least into precious metals. Well, Roberts and Roberts can set you up with the best deals on silver, gold, platinum, and palladium, and they've been doing this since 1977. Hey, if you just need some sound advice about sound money, they're there for you, too. Call Tim Fry and the guys at 800-874-97760.

That's 800-874-9760, or check them out at r-rbi.co. That's rrbi.com. You'll be glad you did. I mean, this is the thing, and I can understand so well how just, if you're just ignorant and you just know America's friends with the Israelis, then you just assume that they're fighting more or less within American rules of war, which are, you know, I don't know, debatable, but I don't know. But then, like, I don't know, no. What if England and France went to war and the English just started absolutely mass murdering the French population? And we have to admit at some point, hey, we like the British and everything, but what the hell? They're way out of line here, right? What is going on?

So I forget the social psychology of whose side you're on and everything. Like, is it possible that you could really, really like Israel and also go, holy crap, this is not, and I know this from talking with veterans, including on this show. This is not how America fought Iraq War II or even in Iraq War III. and you compare it to the war against the Islamic State in Mosul. That'd be a comparable comparison to bring up, and in fact these rules of engagement are far worse than what America did there. And that's according to the Wall Street Journal and a hell of a lot of Iraq veterans, et cetera. Let me make one more point that I neglected to make, which is really a violent.

highly important. And that is that the number of people, the percentage of the population that have been killed by bombing is undoubtedly going to be smaller and perhaps very much smaller than the percentage of the population that dies because of the enforced starvation and disease that the Israeli government is now imposing on that population, intentionally. They know exactly what they're doing. Can you talk a little bit more about the details of the humanitarian crisis there? I mean, I know people are going hungry, but can you elaborate, please? Yeah.

I mean, basically, the degree of starvation at this point is that most, you know, most, people in the population of Gaza already are at the point of starvation, at the beginning point of starvation. And as much as a quarter of that total population are already in the most serious stage of that problem of starvation. And so, I mean, that is the beginning point. And And, you know, the Israelis are deliberately manipulating, preventing more than a trickle of aid, food, and medicine, and water to go into Gaza, knowingly because they intend to use that to force the population, either to leave the country or to give up. the government, not the government, but to force Hamas to somehow surrender. So this is a, is both a genocidal policy and a weapon of war. It's, it has this rather indistinct status somewhere in between the two things.

Yeah. facing both ways. Now, you know, that starvation is part of it. And of course, because of the lack of food, because of the lack of sanitation, because of the lack of any place to sleep for, you know, huge percentage of the population in Gaza, the degree of disease is spreading every day. UN agencies are alarmed about this. And they expect that in very, this is already started, that an epidemic will begin or has already begun in Gaza, which will, which they believe is going to cause far more deaths than than have been caused by the bombing, a multiple of the deaths caused by the bombing.

Yeah, because it is, you know, you mentioned before the people buried alive or buried dead, but I think that should be mentioned every time. You know, none of these people live in a little single family home where if it blows up, whatever, at least you know they're dead. Here, the Israelis, in a lot of cases, are hitting

five and seven-story concrete buildings with a small bomb at the bottom, enough to make the thing collapse, but then you got, who knows how many people just trapped in there in the void spaces, but then nobody's coming.

There's no fire engine with a ladder, and there's no, you know, heavy machinery, you know, giant claws from some big yellow truck that can pick up these giant slabs of concrete. So these people are just buried alive in there. And you can see if you look, just type in buried alive in your search in Twitter. I don't know about TikTok and the rest of them, Instagram and whatever, but on Twitter you will see people's hands sticking out, women's hands sticking out. And they're screaming in Arabic for the love of God, somebody get me the hell out of here. And you know that nobody's coming. They're dying in there, which means, you know, they survive more or less intact, the original strike. And now they're going to die over seven days of dehydration and hunger.

In the dark alone, in the worst fate, worse than death that you could possibly do to somebody. And they're doing that to people by the thousands and thousands and thousands. burying them alive like in the tales from the crypt it's horrible but again i want to emphasize that it is clear at this point that the the threat of not just a threat but the reality of starvation and disease it is going to be far worse in terms of the numbers of of palestin oh yeah because that's what i was going to say was yeah now come the rat And the rats are going to come and eat those corpses when the Israelis don't bulldoze the whole place first. And that's what's going to spread the disease.

That's what you're implying there, right? And this is a deliberate strategy by Israel. I mean, it's discussed. I mean, I'm going to publish an article. I was working on it yesterday, but I've had to travel, so I haven't finished it. I'm going to publish an article about a general, IDF General retired who published a piece two months ago, I'm sorry, not two months ago, a month and a half ago, who talks about a strategy of using starvation as a weapon of war.

And that's exactly what they're practicing. It's completely like a panace. And that's its own phenomenon in this war is official statements from the Netanyahu regime, but then you can see the clear parallel to Rumsfeld's generals where they have these retired officials who are very clearly close to the defense establishment and close to the Lekud Party, who then say some of the more wilder trial balloon type things out there in the press. But they are clearly speaking for the defense establishment or at least the Lekud party there, huh? Seems like. You know, I think that this was undoubtedly somebody who has not just

the couped party contacts, but who is very close to the heads of IDF, the Israeli Defense Force. Yeah. Which is, I think, even more important because the IDF has a great deal of power now to, you know, take

the initiative and to convince the government, this is what we need to do. Yeah. Now, did you get that thing I censored? Did you already know about this? this interview with Arnon Soffer from the Jerusalem Post for 2004? Yes, I've seen that before, but I hadn't seen it for years. Yeah.

So I'll just sum this up for people real quick because it seems real relevant to our discussion. I'll try to get a good segue here. This is 2004, a year before the so-called disengagement, the unilateral disengagement of 2005, two years before Bush forces them to hold an election where Hamas wins a, plurality, which makes it three years before the failed coup of 2007, which led to Hamas taking over the entire Gaza Strip and then the instituting of the siege and then very quickly war broke out after that, you know, if it, you know, rockets here and bombings there on the regular mowing the grass campaigns and all that. So this interview comes one year before all that. And the guy is

take it's the jerusalem post and i just republished it on my website because they don't have it at the jerusalem post anymore but they do have two different articles by the same author and interviewer where she refers to it and quotes from it so it is legit and you can find it republished elsewhere on the internet and although i haven't been able somebody can find for me the original link that i could put in the wayback machine or something like that i would appreciate that i would much prefer to have the original original source but i know certainly even the most controversial quotes out of this are verified on the Jerusalem Post site in articles by the author and so anyway the point being is this guy's taking credit for the disengagement strategy

and he's saying of course he's opposed to as some American liberal Zionists might support the two state solution let the Palestinians go meaning East Jerusalem the West Bank and the Gaza Strip Let them have independence so that we're going to be rid of them So that they can keep an 80-20 super duper Jewish majority in Israel And they won't have the contradiction of occupying these people forever like this This would have been the Ben-Gurrian Advice from the 67 war after the 67 war Get out of there let these people go so we're not burdened with them

Right well this is a more cynical take on that This is a Lakud party take on that which is hell no we don't want to give them a state We don't want to be fair to them, but we do want rid of them. And even though they're not talking about pure transfer in here, what they are talking about, Gareth, is essentially virtual transfer. That by, at the cost of pulling the Israeli Jewish settlers out of the Gaza Strip, yes, that's taking one on the chin because we like stealing that land, but anyway, and the cost of that, we get to sort of pretend that Gaza is not occupied territory. anymore. So this 5 million Palestinians that we have prisoner, now it's only 3 million. So now you can mess with us about occupying 3 million in the West Bank, but at least it's not a 50-50 split or even a minority ruling a majority. We'll have like somehow washed our hands of the people of Gaza,

because after all, it's Judea and Samaria, the West Bank that they really want. Gaza is sort of an afterthought. But the problem is, as Sauffer says in this interview, there are just too many Palestinian babies being made and being born. And so because of this demographic threat, we got to somehow kick them out of here, again, even if only virtually. But then if we're not given them a mistake, what does that mean? It means that they're going to be put in a cage. And then the interviewer says, yeah, but then what? And he says, well, under especially how much Mas' leadership, Islamist leadership, they're going to go nuts. He says they're going to

turn into animals, and they're going to fight us. They'll shoot rockets at us, and then we will have only one choice he says, to kill and kill and kill. And they'll just have to learn that whenever they resist, that essentially they are beaten. And whenever they resist, if they shoot

one rocket at us, we're going to kill the whole family and everybody on the block of the guy who shot the rocket, and at some point they'll just give up. He says, and then he says, the only worry is the poor Israeli soldiers who have to do all the killing and their broken heart you know just as which is straight out

of the Gestapo propaganda right our poor heroes who have to do the dirty deed of machine gunning the villagers in the town square you know um so anyway that's and this guy's like yeah I'm the architect of the disengagement

strategy that's the whole point of this and and then but this is what it's led to and Netanyahu is the inheritor of Sharon's strategy there and in the propping up Hamas to continually de-legitimize the people of the Gaza strip so that they don't have to deal

with them. Now it's come to the point where they're clearly, I guess, would you say clearly? I mean, it seems like the only counterpoint is their propaganda with their claim. Half of what they claim and everything they do sure does

seem to be indicating that hell or high water, they are not going to let these people come back. Blinken can blather on about a two-state solution. They just said that today. No two-state solution. We don't care what you say. We're not doing that.

We will control the Gaza Strip. And then it seems like they mean to, without the Palestinian people ever being allowed to come back under the control of anybody, they have to go somewhere. If not the Congo, then at least the Sinai Peninsula or somewhere. Or how convinced are you that that is definitely the strategy? Or do you think that the Americans, even if so, if you're certain, that that's certainly their strategy. Do you think that Biden and Blinken want to turn that around and will turn that around? Because they do seem to be saying things about how they don't approve of a full replacement campaign here.

Two very different questions. I mean, on the first question, I do think that the Israelis have reached a point where their solution is a combination of this genocide, genocidal approach, militarily, and this rather stupid and I think a non-starter that says, yeah, we'll help arrange for them to go to other countries where they'll be happier, right? And so, and what percentage of the population they anticipate being able to do that with is an open question. But on the American side, look, I mean, this approaching election is going to have something to say about what the Biden administration's policy, how that sort of evolves in the coming months, because it's a very serious political problem for Biden in terms of his Democratic party base.

and that you saw, you know, the election night, not the election night, the, the night in Iowa where they were all casting their choices for the Republican nominee. The very democratic, pro-democratic spokespeople were talking very clearly. about the need for Biden to do something to alleviate the problems that he's having with large parts of his base, who do not like his policy toward Israel and Palestine at all, Israel and Gaza. Yeah. Well, and it is such a split between the donor class and the voters in the party on this one, which is a really kind of fun experiment.

I don't know if you remember, was it 08 or 12? where they had the convention out in L.A. And they had a resolution, which was a pro-Israel resolution. And the nays had it by 300% or something. You know, they go, can we get the yays? And they were like, yay. And then can we get the nays?

And it was like in a basketball stadium or something in L.A. I forget exactly. And the place just boomed with base under all the hell knows. And then the chair was the mayor of L.A. at the time. And he goes, yeah, the eyes have it. And everybody's like, what? And the whole place went up in a roar. And they still are like, what are you going to do, man?

I think somebody even walked up and whispered in the guy's ear that like, you better say yes. And we could see a repeat of that at the Democratic convention. Yeah, I mean, it may be much worse. But there's a real crackup coming. And by the way, too, there's a crack up on the right about this, too. There are a lot of conservatives who feel very burned. for very good reasons after supporting George W. Bush's terror wars

and who want no part of this and when people say America first they understand what that means. That doesn't mean be a selfish jerk. That means defend America first. Leave the world the hell alone is what that means. And they believe that

and they take that seriously. That's not just some stupid campaign slogan next to MAGA or something. They really mean it. And then all of a sudden they're supposed to forget all that when it comes to Ukraine. All of a sudden, they're supposed to forget all that when it comes to Israel and Palestine, and especially when they're burying women and children alive like this in front of everybody, this most horrific fashion.

Why in the world are they supposed to forget what they believed yesterday? And how are they supposed to get over being commanded that they have to? It just doesn't seem right. Does it? It doesn't feel right. And there's a whole bunch of people, new leaders on the right, who are not going for it, Gareth. in fact the polls consistently say

half of Republicans want a ceasefire and that's going on more than a month now maybe six weeks now half of Republicans there was even a poll that said 56% I don't know but there's quite a few consistently say half of Republicans

want a permanent ceasefire right now not kill them all and let Allah sort them out not let Dick Cheney go in there and murder them all with a chainsaw but stop this right now half of Republican voters, according to the polls. Well, I think this situation is only going to get more tight for Biden in the coming months.

I mean, I think that he is going to be under such terrific pressure that it very well could make a difference in the coming weeks. That's my hope, certainly. Which is you extrapolate from there, too. That's just going to make Trump ten times worse on it than he already is, right, because then he's going to be. like, oh, the liberals, they hate Israel so much, but I'm Netanyahu's man, blah, blah, blah. I suppose, yeah, he might try to pull that. I don't know how he's going to handle it for sure. He has a very pro-licude record to brag about recognizing the seizure of Golan and moving the embassy and all the bogus Abraham Accords that led right to October 7th that he's committed to. I mean,

this is the Netanyahu Trump doctrine. Oh, we'll give him the deal of a century, and they can just accept permanent occupation and dispossession. And he may not have people whispering in his ear, hey, this is not such a great idea politically for you. I don't know. We'll see how it goes. You know, and this is the same with civil liberties issues. It's the same with foreign policy all over the place,

not just in Israel, Palestine, but the left half of America and the right half of America are each about half good on things a lot of the time. But unfortunately, the leaders are all agreed on what's horrible. and so the people are kind of left out in the cult where the people overall are the right and left they would prefer to keep the bill of rights for example you know

well said well said well said yeah all right well listen man thank you so much for doing the show your episode 6,000 and just like you're episode 5,000 and you're my very favorite I've interviewed you I don't know how many hundred times there's 300 and something times now

and everybody go check the archives at scotthorton.org slash archives and listen to all of my Gareth Porter interviews they're so great because he's so great you're so great thank you my good friend for doing the show i would be i would be more uh florid about it but i know you have to go yeah no it's cool love you man appreciate you talk to you soon bye the scott horton show anti-war radio can be heard on kpfk 90.7 fm in l a psradyo dot com antiwar dot com scott horton dot org and libertarian institute dot org