Scott Horton Show - Just the Interviews - 12/10/21 Dave DeCamp on Iran, Russia, China and Yemen

Episode Date: December 14, 2021

Dave DeCamp is back on the show for another rapid-fire episode of some of the biggest foreign policy news. He starts out with an update on the recently resumed indirect negotiations between the U.S. and Iran. Next, he discusses the developments between Russia and Ukraine where it appears the Biden Administration is backing down from early statements that hinted at a willingness to defend Ukraine against a Russian invasion. Next DeCamp and Scott talk about China and the prospects for tension over Taiwan. Lastly, DeCamp gives a quick update on Yemen where the battle for Marib continues to rage on Discussed on the show: “Biden Orders to Prepare for ‘Other Options’ If Iran Nuclear Talks Fail” (Antiwar.com) “Taiwan Is Not About China” (The American Conservative) “Taiwan Means War Only If We Want It To” (The American Conservative) news.antiwar.com   Dave DeCamp is the assistant news editor of Antiwar.com. Follow him on Twitter @decampdave. This episode of the Scott Horton Show is sponsored by: The War State and Why The Vietnam War?, by Mike Swanson; Tom Woods’ Liberty Classroom; ExpandDesigns.com/Scott; EasyShip; Free Range Feeder; Thc Hemp Spot; Green Mill Supercritical; Bug-A-Salt; Lorenzotti Coffee and Listen and Think Audio. 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

What did your ancestors really do all day? Beyond names, what were their lives like? With Ancestry's global historical records, you can discover incredible stories about how your ancestors lived and worked, and for a limited time, you can explore select occupation records for free. Imagine finding your great-grandfather's RCMP records or discovering your ancestors' name in the UK and Ireland Nursing Register. Don't miss out.

Free access ends August 24th. Visit Ancestry.ca for more details. Terms apply. 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 the 5,500 interviews since 2000. almost all on foreign policy and all available for you at scotthorton dot four you can sign up the podcast feed there and the full interview archive is also available at youtube.com slash scott horton's show all right guys on the line i've got dave de camp news editor at antiwar dot com welcome back how you doing dave

uh good scott thanks for having me all right well i don't want to be too broad here but what is the god dang deal no that's too broad how about this. Let's start with Iran. Give me everything up to date on the Iran talks and where we are in them and what is happening and what's going to happen. Well, so yeah, there's been a lot going on there with Iran. Last week, the indirect negotiations between the U.S. and Iran restarted in Vienna to revive the nuclear deal. The goal is to revive the JCPOA. There, The way that they're negotiating it, Iran sits in a room with an EU official and the remaining JCPOA participants, Russia, China, France, the UK and Germany, and they talk some stuff out. And then they send a diplomat over to the U.S. They're at like a different hotel down the street and then tell them what Iran is saying. And so that's how the negotiations are. Last week, the U.S. was a accusing Iran of not taking the negotiations seriously because the last rounds of negotiations, they wrapped up way back in June, about five, maybe even six months ago now, when Iran's

new president was elected, Abraham Raezy. And the U.S., in the last Iranian government, they reached a draft deal that lifted most sanctions on Iran because the U.S. doesn't want to lift all the sanctions that Trump put on, the Biden administration. They're refusing to do that. they reached a draft deal that would lift most major sanctions, but they, you know, kind of remained far apart, some pretty key details. And one of those details was the U.S. wanted to add kind of a line into the deal that said Iran agrees to discuss, negotiate further issues, you know, such as their ballistic missile program and what they call their destabilizing activity in the region or, you know, their

support for proxies in the Middle East. So Iran saw that as a way for the U.S. to back out of the deal. Again, if they rejoined, Iran wanted a guarantee that the U.S. isn't going to leave again, like Trump did in 2018. And I know you interviewed Trita Parsley about this. He had a huge story in responsible statecraft before the talk started that Biden rejected a way forward by refusing to guarantee that he would stay in the deal during his first term in office. He couldn't even guarantee that. so the negotiations come back Iran's new government puts in a few proposals from what I understand they're asking for more sanctions relief than the original deal and probably some

guarantees and this is just unacceptable to the U.S. and their Western partners in these negotiations and they're accusing like I said Iran of not taking it seriously when it's really they just wanted to go to that deal that draft deal and say okay yeah we agree but that's not going to happen. And in the meantime, I mean, the U.S. is imposing new sanctions on Iran. So the talks last week, they wrapped up Friday. And then this week, today's December 10th Friday, they restarted in Vienna yesterday on Thursday. And in between that period, the U.S. put new sanctions on Iran. Iran-Iranian like law enforcement agencies and some Iranian officials. And they've been talking to Israel about preparing to launch attacks on Iran.

openly, and Biden, the White House said yesterday that Biden, it's one of the top stories today on anti-war.com below the Assange story, is that Biden ordered his team to make preparations for other options if diplomacy fails and the deal isn't revived. So all these threats and sanctions and pressure, that shows to me and to Iran that the U.S. is not serious about reviving this deal. So I'm not really sure what's going to happen next. I don't know if this is just part of the U.S. trying to increase their leverage in the talks, or if they made a decision to kind of sabotage the process to make Israel happy. Because I also, I think a big part of what's happening here is that the U.S., you know, even though they're still very much engaged in

the region and supporting the Saudis war in Yemen and in Iraq and Syria and occasional drone strikes in Somalia, they kind of, the U.S. kind of wants to step back and focus on China, but they probably want to leave Israel and Saudi Arabia happy. So part of me thinks that maybe they are just going to scrap this deal and keep Iran under these major sanctions, you know, the way it has been for the past few years. Well, you know, in a sense, it does make sense because the high toll is not making nukes. As you reported, news.antywar.com, William Burns, the head of the CIA, confirm that, reaffirm that again. uh just this week and so really

unless they're really worried Dave that the Iatoll is going to pull out of the NPT and you know do like Kim Jong ill in 2003 and you know kick the inspectors out of the country and try to start making nukes which I don't think that and I sincerely doubt that they really think that that's a danger then eh maybe they can just keep it at the status quo um they have iran good and strangled in the name of this

weapons program that doesn't exist even as they reaffirmed that it doesn't exist and so they never really needed the jCPOA in the first place and so you know in a perverse way i mean at the time when they did it they needed it to really take the threat of war off the table um But, you know, I don't know. And I guess, like you're saying, they are threatening war, but there's nothing to go to war over. Just, you know, if Iran fails to get back in the treaty or, well, the deal. Or actually, they're the ones who are actually still part of the deal. We're the ones who aren't.

But they're not abiding by some of the restrictions and all that. But you could never gin just that up as an excuse to attack them. I don't even think the Israelis would. so yeah i don't know i think you're right that they're going to let the talks fail and then they're probably going to hope that good enough will stick and then i don't know what is the ayatoll is supposed to do start making nukes i don't think so but he doesn't really have many other choices many other cards to play it doesn't look like you know yeah no it's tough um another thing too is that there were some reports yesterday that there's a U.S. delegation going to the UAE

because the UAE recently sent one of their top officials to Iran and kind of a sign of like a reproachment that they might be easing, you know, warming ties. But the trip is all about making sure that they comply with U.S. sanctions because there's some UAE banks still doing business with Iran and the U.S. is going to go threatened to sanction them to type that up. And Israel is not happy that the UAE is talking to Iran either because they normalize with them back in 2020. And a big part of it was to kind of isolate Iran. And that's another thing too. So you said like, what is the Ayatollah going to do? One lifeline that he has had is oil sales to Asia to China. And the U.S. is also working on getting China to cut those off.

But with the way things are going with China now, I don't think they have, they're going to have any motive to stop trading with Iran. So, I mean, that's kind of going to be the option. As they do, the U.S. is going to push Iran closer with China and Russia and as they are dividing the world into these blocks. Yep. Well, you know, it's funny because there have been signals by the Saudis that, well, geez, if the Americans aren't, going to just, you know, absolutely jump at our beck and call. Biden was sending some signals that he didn't want to, that they said, boy, we better start talking to the Iranians.

And not just like through the Qataris or anything. In fact, they backed off the Qataris and they started, you know, going, attending talks in Baghdad. And as you're saying, now they're talking about bringing Iranians to the UAE. It's sort of the same thing, you know, all over the place, actually. Well, you know, what if we quit messing around? in East Asia at all. Maybe the Taiwanese and the Chinese government in Beijing would just make a deal.

And there wouldn't be any kind of violent conflict at all. Maybe same thing all over the place. Maybe the entire, you know, sectarian civil war in the Middle East as it's played out since 2003 really could come to an end if America would just butt the hell out for a change. Yeah. I mean, it's a good point. They've been talking a lot to Saudis and the Iranians. And, you know, that's another part of the reason why I think Biden is still backing the

Saudi so much in Yemen. And you see Congress is kind of abandoning any efforts to end that war. There was a bill introduced by Rand Paul and Bernie Sanders in the Senate to block a missile sale that Biden just approved to the Saudis. And it failed pretty, pretty, you know, in a pretty major way. It was about, I think, 67 voted against it and like 20-something senators voted in favor of it. And that's a big shift from just a few years ago when Trump was in, you know, these bills were passing. They, not by a wide margin. And Trump was able to veto them, but they were passing. And there was also an amendment on the NDAA from Rokane that explicitly called to end support for the war there.

You know, no loopholes, even though they probably could have figured out some loopholes. But it was a really good amendment. And that got gutted from the NDAA as it did. You know, all the good stuff always gets taken out in conference. But yeah, and there was a story recently that the Saudis, because the U.S. took some patriot batteries out of uh saudi arabia recently to put them over in asia and that apparently the saudis are begging pleading as they put it to sell them some to replenish their they're what they have their patriot batteries um so i see the biden you know that's probably the next

arm sale to the saudis yeah well i mean that's the whole thing right where um it it was a it was sort of symbolic anyway right air to air missiles i guess it could be used to help enforce the blockade, but it was mostly like just a sign of American congressional impatience with the Saudis or not. And then they voted to let them slide some more again. In fact, if you remember when the Senate did pass the war powers resolution in 2018, that was when the UAE pulled their main army out and, you know, left only their al-Qaeda integrated militia on the ground there and they're still involved. But that was when they pulled. their guys out and first sent their guys to start talking with the Iranians to put a guy right

on the plane to go to Tehran to talk as soon as the Senate said hey we're getting sick and tired of this even though as you said Trump vetoed it anyway but they were like wow we're you know treading on pretty thin ice here maybe we need to start backing off so now as you're describing the American Congress is telling them that don't worry about it you guys can do what you want that's on my i'm pretty sure solomani when he was you know killed by a u.s drone strike in bagdad that he was there uh he was supposed to meet um with some iraqi official who was giving him some messages from iran so you see what the u.s does when they talk yeah um all right so essentially uh i guess i read a thing that said well the iranians are saying that

that what the Americans are saying is unacceptable and it remains to be seen whether that's just their first kind of opening gambit or they really mean that that come on guys this is not going to go anywhere and i guess in that context this is just i guess presumed to be uh you know taken as the first round before the second round where they don't expect too much to happen at this point anyway, which is in the first round, right? This is like the fifth round, but I guess they're starting over. Yeah, you know, I'm not really, I don't think that they are really starting over because, you know, the headlines that you see are that Iran's taking the stance. They say the U.S. position is unacceptable. But if you actually, you know, really read into it, you see

Iran's negotiator, he said, we submitted these proposals. They're based on the earlier rounds of talks and the draft deal that they reached then but we added some stuff that needs to be negotiated and that's what we're doing here so they're signaling that they're open for negotiation and then the U.S. on the other hand is just saying this is they're not even you know they're not offering us anything that we can possibly accept because we don't it just comes down to the fact that they don't want to lift sanctions yeah All right. So how about the latest from Ukraine? I was cribbing from you when Dave Smith interviewed me last night, but I says it looks like the worst is over and Joe Biden and his government are back and down. Is that right? That's what it seems like. So yesterday, there was this article in the AP that said, you know, quoted State Department officials, I think, you know, unnamed sources that said,

they've conveyed to Ukraine that there's going to be no NATO membership for at least a decade, which means, you know, this is not something that's happening anytime soon. We're not even really thinking about it. Which is about like 95% of the way to what Putin said was, I want to guarantee that you're not going to bring Ukraine into NATO. Say it. And he twisted their arm behind their back and they said it. Okay. Good. Yeah. And right before all this in October, Lloyd Austin, Secretary of Defense, he went to Georgia and Ukraine. Georgia is another prospective member. In 2008, NATO said, yeah, you guys can join one day.

Austin went there and said, you know, the doors opened to a NATO membership. And this was actually right before this whole recent escalation happened. So, yeah, because, I mean, that is like kind of the major red line. And he's also been warning against NATO sending missiles to Ukraine that could target Russia. don't know if they really have any plans to do that. But they are arming Ukraine. I mean, that is very provocative. The UK in the fall, they signed a deal to give Ukraine more warships. They're helping them build a military base on the Black Sea. You know, the U.S. is still saying they just delivered some small arms to Ukraine as part of a weapons package that was, you know, signed off on the last NDAA.

or 2022. They're given 300 million in military aid to Ukraine. I'm not sure what weapons they're going to be sending. But, you know, there's been reports that the U.S. is considering sending them Stinger missiles and helicopters that were going to go to the Afghan government, the, you know, former U.S.-backed Afghan government. So there's been a lot of this stuff going on. or give it to our local sheriff's department right better they give them to the ukrainian nazis sorry yeah and and there's been you know a huge escalation in the u.s and nato presence in the black sea this year uh and that's a big part of of why russia how russia is reacting to all this um i read i double checked some stuff I wrote about earlier this year. In 2020, according to Stars and Stripes, the U.S. Navy had

55 sea days in the Black Sea. And I haven't been able to sit down and figure out how many sea days they've had this year. But my bet is that it's been a lot more than 55 days. It seems like they send a U.S. destroyer in there. The bomber flights too, right? Bomber flights, yeah. And I don't know the exact figures on that. Hopefully some people do some research on that, but in November, the Russian defense minister, well, the U.S., they held this big, I forget what it's called, but it's a big bomber exercise, and they did it in the Black Sea, and the Russian defense minister said, you know, several U.S. bombers flew within 12 points, about 12 miles of Russian territory.

It was probably Crimea would be my guess. So, yeah, I mean, this is a big part of. it and um the u.s you know uh i think it was latvia they say that they want you know all these countries eastern european countries the baltic states that border russia and poland other countries in the region they're like asking nato and the u.s they're kind of begging them to give us more weapons and send more troops um so all this is happening and oh another pretty major aspect of that AP report was that it said the U.S. Biden might, it didn't say that they are, it said they might push Ukraine to, how they put it was seed autonomy to the eastern

Donbass region. So since 2014, you know, after the U.S. back coup in Kiev in 2014, the eastern region there, the Dunesk and Luhansk Oblasts, they declared independence and there's been a war on and off. And in the Minks Protocol, that was agreed to in 2014 as the first attempt at a ceasefire that kind of failed, and then they eventually agreed to one in 2015 that has held relatively well.

There's been some big flare-ups, but it's been a stalemate, pretty much, since 2015. But in that Mink's protocol, you know, Ukraine agreed to give them some degree of autonomy. I don't know if it was clearly defined, but the fact that the U.S. is kind of, if they are, and I bet that they are because this is the State Department to AP. It's anonymous sources, but, you know, they wanted to get this message out there. You know, that would really serve to de-escalate in the region if Ukraine, you know, left them alone more in that region. Hey, y'all, check out our great stuff at Libertarian Institute.org slash books.

First of all, we've published No Quarter, the ravings of William Norman Grigg, our Institute's late and great co-founder. He was the very best one of us, our whole movement, I mean. And no quarter will leave his mark on you, no question. Which brings us to the works of our other co-founder, the legendary libertarian thinker and writer Sheldon Richmond. We've published two collections of his great essays, Coming to Palestine, and What Social Animals Owe owe to each other. Both are instant classics. I'm proud to say that coming to Palestine is surely the definitive libertarian take

on Israel's occupation of the Palestinians. And Social Animals certainly ranks with the very best writings on libertarian ethics, economics, and everything else. You'll absolutely love it. Then there's me. I've written two books. fools errand time to end the war in afghanistan and enough already time to end the war on terrorism and i've also published a collection of the transcripts of all of my interviews of the heroic dr ron paul

twenty nine of them plus a speech by me about how much i love the guy it's called the great ron paul you can find all of these at libertarian institute dot org slash books all right so boy this always happens sounds like the americans kind of provoked something of a crisis i mean the build up of russian forces i saw i think it was gilbert dr o's piece where he said boy are they climbing down from the numbers of russian troops who were even so-called massing there anyway maybe there was some equipment but apparently far fewer soldiers than they were claiming the washington post when they kicked all this off at the beginning of last month there um but that uh you know it looked like

Putin played that card you know a minimal card pretty well and Biden eventually after talking tough did the right thing here I mean these are pretty substantive concessions on his part here um you know when it comes to especially that last point maybe the part about about, well, no, first of all, promising that they won't bring Ukraine into NATO for 10 years. But then also, yeah, we're going to go ahead and lean on Kiev to live up to the Minsk Two deal and provide this strong federalism and autonomy for Donetsk and Luhansk. I mean, that's a pretty big concession. And I think you reported, too, that Biden, I guess, did a press conference and was asked specifically,

would you send troops there? And he said, no, I would not. So that's good. Oh, and then I don't know how political this is or whether it's just the plain truth or what. I would, you know, my bias says I never believed in the threat in the first place. So this just sounds right to me. But still maybe it was said for a political reason, as you reported here on the seventh, that William Burns, the CIA director, has essentially contradicted the story his men put in the post and said that now, we don't really even think they're going to invade at all now, or at least we have not concluded that we think that they're going to, or however they phrase it with their medium confidence or whatever it is. So that's all pretty big. It seems like maybe if they hadn't

held all those war games in the Black Sea, then we probably wouldn't have had this problem in the first place. Oh, and the Baltic and the Oshuck Sea and the rest. But, you know, all's well that ends well, Dave, at least. you know, thank goodness that Joe Biden is weak and, you know, not dumb enough to play tough guy here, you know, beyond the line. I mean, it's funny, isn't it, to see Anthony Blinken talking tough. It's just not very believable. Like, oh, yeah, well, I'm Joe Biden's guy. So that'll, you know, that'll inspire their fear in you. And people are just, yeah, no, not really. So good. Yeah. The last thing I want is Putin taking them seriously and starting to react in kind, you know, or any worse than he's done here. But I guess also it's the Ukrainian politicians who have really, you know, pushed this narrative from the beginning. So, wouldn't it you that told me the other day that when they started pushing this, the Americans at first denied it before they picked up the story and started pretending to believe it to?

No, actually, it was the other way around. Oh, it was the other way around. Oh, that's right. That's right. Yeah, the U.S. was the first to say, oh, there's a massive Russian buildup, and Ukraine said, no, there's not. And then a week later, they were like, oh, yeah, there is. Oh, yeah. Oh, the buildup. The buildup. Yeah, yeah. That's the same one we're worried about, too. Yeah. Yeah, good. Yeah. And that's another important thing is that, you know, they're not like amassed along the border looking into Ukraine. You know, they're at bases in the region. One of the bases, I forget, the name of the Russian town it's in, but it's closer, and this is based on, you know, the reports in Western media that are like, oh, satellite footage shows, all these extra troops at these bases. One of them is closer to Belarus than it is to Ukraine. And in the one in Crimea, it's on the Black Sea. It's not on the border. So it's just not what they've made it out to be, but there definitely was some sort of more Russian military assets in the region, you know, in this past month. Yeah.

All right. That is an important point. I forgot about that. That William Burns, the CIA chief kind of just contradicted all these reports. He said, no, he said we don't know if he's going to invade. And all the reports said U.S. intelligence has concluded they're invading in early 2022. too, and maybe even by January. So there was, like, at the beginning of the week,

blinking, too, because before this kind of de-escalation, or what appears to be a de-escalation happened, you know, the U.S., the line was, you know, there's going to be consequences. We support Ukraine's territorial integrity and, like, just vague comments that suggest maybe the U.S. would intervene. We stand with that.

Yeah, yeah, what? And then Blinken was the first to say, what would you do if they invade? Our, well, sanctions, we're going to, these sanctions, they're going to really hurt them. And that was kind of the first signal, like, okay, they're kind of stepping back here. Right. And now, look, this is a huge test for the Republican, you know, right now, whether they're going to go along with kind of the Ted Cruz narrative about, oh, Biden, is weak and not tough and we need someone tough and strong. In fact, Donald Trump, I saw somebody post on Twitter.

Donald Trump put out an email saying, yeah, Putin doesn't fear Biden like he fears me because I'm such a tough guy and Biden's so weak. Even from Trump himself, that's the narrative. So, you know, I'm sure you saw the Tucker Carlson bit where he took a great position on this the other day. And there are some more, I guess, Bannon also. complained about it but um yeah they're good on russia yeah um well and that's something but it's also i i guess it raises the question of i mean obviously there is a schism here

between you know a republican senator on fox saying we ought to you know at least threaten to use nukes and be ready for absolutely anything and and biden's weakness is this problem and what we need is real strength now versus the exact opposite take that question is like how much tension is going to be generated by this division though whether the people on the right who you know worthy america firsters are going to turn right back into george w bush conservatives again or whether this uh you know non-interventionism is going to stick and i mean hey carlson's got the biggest cable tv news show in the country the most influential one And he is, you know, he represents the thinking of a lot of people on the right nowadays.

So I don't want to sell them short. I want to see what happens. But I hope they fight about it. It should be, it's definitely something worth fighting about, for real. Yeah, I think the opposition to the Russia stuff is pretty strong on the right. The issue, I think, is that they're all pretty bad on China. You know, I hope that they can apply this logic to Taiwan when, you know, the next time that that stuff escalates, because, you know, that's where we're headed.

Go ahead and talk about that. What are all the latest developments out of Taiwan and China? Well, Taiwan, there hasn't been too much big developments in the news lately that I've been following. I mean, of course, there's been stuff going on. But with China, you know, the U.S. is doing this diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Olympics. and a few of their allies are following them. But on Thursday, our name of human rights, which is got to be the most ridiculous thing because of our next subject, Yemen.

I'm going to have to get a couple words from you on that. To have the Butchers of Sana' be the ones condemning China's human rights record right now is pretty rich. But anyway, I'm sorry, go ahead. Well, also, it's all the countries. It's the U.S., the UK, Australia, Canada, that followed the U.S. when they invaded Afghanistan and Iraq now, not going to Beijing because of some Muslims or something that aren't being treated.

What's the average human from country X supposed to think about this? Oh, yeah, well, the American sure stand for democracy and human rights. I try to say that without cracking a smile, you know? I don't believe that. Well, yeah, in Biden's Democracy Summit, it was today and yesterday. And this was also the day that we found out that Assange, you know, the U.K. judge approved the extradition of Assange for doing journalism. The U.S. is trying to put him away for almost 200 years for that. So the hypocrisy is very obvious there.

But I think kind of the most interesting thing this week with related to China is on Wednesday. the House passed a bill called like the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act or something and it's a pretty major piece of legislation because it would pretty much ban all imports from the Xinjiang region which is and there's a lot of American companies with interest there so it would create like a presumption

that every good in Xinjiang is made by forced labor and these companies would have to like appeal it and it would be this whole thing to keep doing business there. And it passed, it was something like 428 to 1 and the one was Thomas Massey. He's the only one that votes against these bills. He's voted against, you know, other legislation

that calls for sanctions on Chinese officials for Hong Kong or other stuff. He's always the only one that votes against it. So it shows kind of how it's very bipartisan this thing. But yeah, this bill would be, pretty pretty major if they cut off all imports from that region and it would probably hurt the Uyghur Muslims a lot more than the Chinese government you know that they're the ones involved in the industry there but um and all over a completely jinned up case i mean obviously there's

persecution of everyone who lives under the dictatorship in Beijing including them but oh look they passed out contraceptives that's genocide and these are the butchers of yemen saying this at the same time too taken completely credibly no proof required everybody knows saddam hussein has a giant human shredder in his basement that he uses to kill his dissidents yeah and the genocide narrative has just kind of been accepted by everybody now you know everybody just uses it like offhand, like China's committing a genocide. And interestingly, there was a recent article in AP that said that all the young Uighur men that were in the camps are not in them anymore.

You know, it made it seem like what was going on in Xinjiang is still very nefarious. And some level, I'm sure it is. I know it's a surveillance state there. But they, you know, even like Western media is saying that. the camps are close there you know they're closed now but the the genocide narrative is just out there for everybody to repeat yep well never again i guess we need to start a nuclear war in order to prevent the passing out of all this contraception um yeah all right um and now on the china thing it's funny man uh obviously there's so much hype about type

or whether China's going to invade it or not, you know, kind of a reflection of the same thing going on with Russia and Ukraine there. It's quite obvious to anybody, you know, somewhat critical of this stuff that, well, there are people with vested interests in America hyping this up because they're trying to make money, selling, you know, fear and or weapons, whatever it is. So that all makes sense or just, you know, studies to the think tank donors. Um, but so, uh, that'll make sense, but there is an argument. Um, you know, Lyle Goldstein says that he thinks China is going to invade Taiwan just because they've been building up the capability to do so.

And so, gee, some point seems like that's going on. Obviously, there's a lot more things to take into account. That's essentially his case there. Um, I read another great piece by Peter Van Buren, who I talked to on the show last week, two weeks ago, whatever about this. Um, he wrote another one for responsible state craft about how man they're not going to do it the americans are going to have to gin up a phony excuse for war with china if they want one because the chinese just have no incentive to do this and then you link to the most reasonable thing i've ever read in the new republic that said the same thing and um so i just wonder whether you know i know you're keeping a close eye on this is there any real indication oh i guess one more thing that new republic

piece said look the chinese stance is Taiwan better not declare in independence and you don't want to know what we might do if you do that but we're not building up an invasion force just to take the place we're building up enough to deter you from declaring independence so you don't make us do something we don't want to do if we understand each other kind of thing i mean it is a standoff right so uh but anyway all that to build up to the big question to you is what's going on in the world is there actually any you know substantive change in the politics between Taipei and Beijing right now

that would lend you to believe that there's something afoot here other than ship sales? Well, I think what changed is the U.S. position on it and how they view Taipei and Beijing now. Because since 1979, the U.S. recognized Beijing as China

kept informal relations with Taiwan and has armed them, and that's been the status quo. But if you look at the past few years, I mean, there's been like just a major increase in U.S. military activity in the area, spy planes. I mean, it almost doubled this, actually more than doubled in 2021 compared to 2020, you know, U.S. spy plane flights in the South China Sea and near China. And just the attitude towards Taiwan, one of the U.S. diplomats at the de facto embassy in Taipei. Said recently, in the past three years, the U.S. view on Taiwan has changed. They no longer view it as an issue, as a problem between U.S. and China relations.

Now it's viewed as an opportunity as a way to counter China. So they're taking steps to increase diplomatic ties. There's more congressional delegations going there, and they're going on military planes. They're encouraging other countries to boost ties with Taiwan, and they're sending a lot of warships through the Taiwan straight, selling them more weapons. The open secret that there's U.S. military trainers in Taiwan that's been an open secret for decades is now not a secret anymore. It's out in the open. Taiwan admitted that there's U.S. troops there. And this stuff, I would, you know, the diplomatic stuff and the relations,

that are forming, I think makes China angrier than the U.S. spy planes and warships in the region. It's a really sensitive area for them. I don't think that they have any plans to invade anytime soon. Maybe if they keep building up the capabilities in response to the U.S. arming Taiwan, it's possible. But I really think that if the U.S. was no longer involved in this conflict and stopped backing Taiwan the way it does, I think that China would never invade Taiwan. They would cut some deal for autonomy. And I think that's all they really want. You know, they might try to get more control there. But Taiwan is, everybody points to Hong Kong, but Taiwan is very different than Hong Kong. It's a big island. They have a military. They're

isolated enough. And another thing, a reason why China doesn't want to invade is the trade relationship, you know, they have a huge trade relationship. People travel between Taiwan and mainland China all the time. I'm not sure, you know, things might be different now with COVID, but it's not in Beijing's interest to invade Taiwan. But they're also not going to sit there and let the U.S. stoke, you know, start, you know, forming a real formal relationship with Taipei like you said the independence thing so it's just the u.s i in my view the u.s is the one stoking the tensions there all right now real quick uh tell me about what's going on in yemen i know there's a big battle going on for marib now uh yeah um so i mean the battle over marib has been you know

raging kind of all year uh and lately the saudi's they've been bombing um marib and sana and others you know that there's really been a surge in airstrikes um and uh jason wrote this up um there's a group called the yemen data project they track all of the uh saudi airstrikes in yemen they put out monthly reports and you know the month of november it saw a pretty big surge it said it was the highest monthly figure since mid 2020 um they estimated about 29 civilian casualties but But, and they also said about 28% of the airstrikes hit civilian targets. So, you know, what we were talking about earlier about how the Senate is kind of letting Biden and the Saudis just continue this with this loophole. Oh, defensive, quote unquote, weapons.

You know, there's been just a major surge in air strikes. I mean, this is, the war is just, you know, it shows no sign of slowing down. and nobody's really reporting on it. I'm sure that there's been similar airstrikes that have killed, you know, civilian, just targeted civilians, but we're just not hearing about them. And, yeah, like I said, the amendment is out of the NDAA, so I'm not really sure what's next. And they, you know, everybody's been focusing on the $650 million missile sale. It's air-to-air missiles

But the Biden administration also approved the $500 million deal To continue maintenance on Saudi helicopters They're still maintaining their planes And they're going to continue maintaining their helicopters Including attack helicopters that they can use in Yemen And that's the support That's what's really vital to keeping this war going on Because pretty much all experts agree

That if the U.S. stopped maintaining that air force they would have no choice but to negotiate something with the Houthis and stop bombing the hell out of the country. Yep. And really just a stern phone call, too. The president's on the line. He wants you to knock it off right now ought to be enough if he really meant it

and they knew he meant it. And, of course, you know, step one withholding all the support that they're providing. All right, well, I'll let you go. I know you got so much work to do as always, but everybody, please keep your eyes on news. war.com. Dave and Jason holding it all down for you there all day, every day. Appreciate it,

bud. Thanks, Scott. The Scott Horton Show, Anti-War Radio, can be heard on K-P-FK, 90.7 FM in L.A. APSRadio.com, anti-war.com, Scotthorton.org, and Libertarian Institute.org.