Scott Horton Show - Just the Interviews - 12/21/23 Ibra A Taher on Building an Antiwar Coalition in Oregon

Episode Date: December 24, 2023

Scott is joined by Ibra Taher, a Republican who has co-founded an antiwar coalition called Antiwar Oregon. The coalition has members from all over the political spectrum and is working to remove Oregon politicians who have been bad on the wars. He and Scott talk about the strategy and identify some of the challenges the coalition has faced. They also discuss the potential of the Defend the Guard movement. Discussed on the show: Antiwar Oregon Ibra A Taher is an activist and congressional candidate from Oregon. He is a cofounder of Antiwar Oregon and the chairman of the Republicans Liberty Caucus of Oregon. Follow him on Twitter @Ibra_Taher. 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

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and the brand new enough already time to end the war on terrorism and i've recorded more the 5,500 interviews since 2003 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 next up on the show today is Ibra Teher from anti-war Oregon. How are you doing? Pretty good. How are you? I'm doing real good. I appreciate you joining us on the show today.

So I'm interested. What is this group of yours and what you've been up to? So when we think about anti-war movement in general, we look at people who would like to spread the truth about wars to educate the people. And we see people who would like to protest. And we were thinking here in Oregon, I mean, we've been seeing these things for a long time, and I don't think it's working. So we thought we're going to take it differently this time. We're going to be involved politically. And let me explain how. When we look at the elections and the ads and the financial support to candidates, we see a lot of groups supporting candidates and politicians who are pro-war, like Klebin's manufacturer,

the military industrial complex you can see all these traces of money and i was thinking why don't we have the same kind of influence this is why we formed what we have here in oregon a political action committee a pack that can run ads that can support candidates that can attack candidates and rally up people so this is one of the things that we are doing here in Oregon. This is the this coalition that we have until war Oregon has people from different parties on the board. I'm on the board. I'm with the Republicans. We have a libertarian guy. His name is Will Hobson. And we have another guy from the Green Party. His name is Dan Polio. And we have members from different really ideologies, even some communists, self-proclaimed

communist. So we have a wide range of people. And all of us agreed that we need to take actions differently. So this is one of the things that we're doing. Right now in the next election, we identified all of our Congress members here from Oregon. All of them bad on wars. So we have eight of them, two senators and six Congress people. But when we look at at the practically what we can do we have identified two congress members both of them are freshmen both of them won by a few thousand votes and we are planning to target them for the next election cycle so this is a huge thing i don't remember seeing ads uh like anti-war ads I see like a pro-life ads, pro-abortion live, pro-abortion ads, other type of ads.

But we had the anti-war movement, we did not really mobilize. This is a huge thing, which is running ads on social media platforms, for example, or maybe billboards. Well, maybe I'm going to take this back. I've seen like billboards just online, not in my state, definitely, saying we need to end wars, or something like that but they are just very rare what we want to do is to put the anti-war messaging the peace messaging just forward to the people to let them know that there's a movement going on here and they need to at least make take into account our presence here so this is one of them the second one which is the famous piece of

legislation, defend the guard. I know it has advanced in several states. I've watched your testimony in Texas, if I'm not mistaken. Am I correct? Yeah, I did Texas and a few others. Yeah. So a few others here. Oregon is a unique example, a unique state. It's largely peaceful, but it is a blue state, but the kind of a blue, the hippie blue. So usually they were like anti-war to some sort of degree until they lost it in Syria and Libya and now Ukraine. But there's sort of kind of peaceful tendencies here. And I think we can grow that into real anti-war movement

with Defend the Guard. and with the ads. So far, we don't have any sponsors for the Defender Guard. I mean, we just started, like, to be formally registered with the state just recently in the past two months. But we need that kind of now publicity with the people to know that we exist. There is a coalition that doesn't look at the differences that we have, but only at the peace issue and we are working on this kind of thing i mean it's new i don't see

a lot of organizations that try to do something similar like what we were trying to do right now so i'm hopeful that many people would get excited and join us in the next few months with the next session here in organ coming up in february All right. Do you have a specific member of Congress or a senator that you're targeting in the upcoming election to make an example out of first here? Yeah. So one of the congresswoman, I'm a Republican, but one of the congresswoman that I'm targeting is Lori Chavez-Dreamer. She's a freshman. And me and her, we know each other. We talked several times. After Matt Gates said last spring, after he introduced the Wars Powers Act regarding Syria, I called her before the vote, and she voted against it for sure. But when I went to an event, she was present at, and I told her, why did you vote that way?

And she said, yeah, it is the AOMF, and now we can use it. She doesn't know what is the AUMF. Probably, most likely, she doesn't know anything about anything. And she doesn't know that it's really strictly about Iraq. So she doesn't know that. But she used it as an argument to justify her vote. I told her if you're not going to really adhere to the principles of liberty, peace, and the Constitution, She's probably going to see a backlash, and this is what she's going to see.

And the other one is a Democrat, also a freshman here from Oregon, in a new district, actually, just like a new district. Her name is Andrea Salinas, and she's also bad on these issues, all of them. so we are going to target these people they know that they have weak positions they know that each party is trying to try to remove them from office to unseat them but that sometimes that would make an issue to us I was at the meeting two weeks ago with some lefties and when I told when I told them about what we're doing one them said he was really lefty. He said, yeah, we're going to support you with taking down the Republican one, but not the Democrat one. I don't appreciate these people at all. Would

they think about lives and human lives, the Constitution, if they care about the law, the partisan side of them would take over. It's not like a pure respect for human life. So I'd We are facing such people, but overall, I mean, we're hopeful that we can make people think about it, especially with the use of ads that we are definitely going to mobilize. So we're going to, after these two people, Laurie Chavez-Darimer from Congressional District 5, a Republican, and the other one is Andrea Salinas, a Democrat from Congressional District 6. Hopefully, we can't do something. Great. Yeah. I mean, if you have a couple of scalps, then you can come back in two years and be like,

see how good I am at this? I could be your friend or your enemy. Up to you guys and hopefully throw some weight around there. Yeah. So the issue is, well, if the difference is only a few thousand votes, door knocking, just door knocking, running a few ads might change the equation. And this is what they're afraid of. Each party is afraid that the other party would do the same thing. So if they see another organization getting involved in it, and it's not partisan, and we're talking about respecting the Constitution, which a lot of Republican respect, I mean, at least they say they respect and also the respect for human life if we do that with this message and maybe it's an attempt there's no guarantees we're we're just hoping that we can impact

but this is a new thing that people now are trying to unseat people because of their anti-war because of their pro-war positions yeah all right so Now, national politics is one thing, but then you mentioned Defend the Guard and state-level politics, too. Do you have any favorite politicians that you're working with on Defend the Guard there in Oregon yet? And are you working with the National Organization, Defend the Guard, and bring our troops home? So we don't have an official sponsor, but we have two people, conservatives, haven't that they are conservatives, that we are hoping that they are going to sponsor a bill, one of them in the Senate, one of them in the House,

one of them actually is a veteran, and they understand how the current administration is violating the Constitution, but they need to know it's like all the presidents, not just Biden. We're hopeful that these two people would sponsor the bill. And it is, again, it is fairly easy to, to convince some of the Democrats with the hippie culture here to sponsor the bill. I don't know what's going to happen. We are just in the first steps of trying to get people involved in it and adopting this legislation.

The next session would be next year in February here in Oregon. So we don't have anything at work and business now as term as lawmaking. But that would be in February. So we have some time to find more sponsors. We're hopeful. It's our first attempt. I know it's going to take a few attempts until we see results. But at least we're trying to do it.

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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. Searchlight Pictures presents The Roses, only in theaters August 29th. From the director of Meet the Parents and the writer of Poor Things comes The Roses, starring Academy Award winner Olivia Coleman, Academy Award nominee Benedict Cumberbatch, Andy Sandberg, Kate McKinnon, and Allison Janney.

A hilarious new comedy filled with drama, excitement, and a little bit of hatred, proving that marriage isn't always a bed of roses. See the Roses, only in theaters, August 29th. Get tickets now. Yeah, and now are you working with Dan and Diego and the guys from Defend the Guard.us? Yes, so I got to meet Diego, I mean, online, granted. And he actually walked us through many things

and offered his help. I just contacted him last week, telling him, hey, that we're moving forward with it. And he told us that he's willing to come down here to Oregon to organize things and see the success of this legislation, at least this attempt to pass it. So there's that kind of networking here. We hope to see more people getting involved. We definitely can need more people, more volunteers. but yeah

listen Iber I mean I can tell you I know I don't know what the numbers are but I know there are a lot of anti-war veterans that listen to this show and a 50th of them must live in Oregon so you know calling all you guys who've been to Iraq and Afghanistan and back or to North Africa and back and want to do something about this I just can't think of anything in America more important in terms of politics

than the Defender Guard movement because it's not just that it's anti-war, but it's led by Republicans and it's using that constitutional and federal process. The Virginia and Kentucky resolutions of Madison and Jefferson there to nullify and interpose to use the old law to protect the National Guardsmen that they don't have their lives wasted on these ridiculous, horrible no-win wars as has happened over this last generation. And so it's, you know, as the Discordians would say, right, Bob Dobbs and all those guys would talk about culture jamming, right? This is part of that only kind of from the other way. Right-wingers with arms cross, a lot of times veteran, I don't even mean right-wingers, but just conservatives and libertarians. Arms-crossed, sick and tired of this, sick and tired of lies, and not willing to go along with any more of these wars unless their own comments. are willing to put their name on the bottom line and stand by a real declaration of war as required by the U.S. Constitution.

I mean, what a great law plus parentheses, by the way, also PR stunt on behalf of non-interventionism and conservatism and libertarianism in America. It's just beautiful. And, you know, when I hear what you say, I mean, I could have finished that sentence for you. And then Diego said he'd come out here and do everything he can to help us get this thing together. And this is the hardest working guy in policy and politics in America is Diego Rivera from Defend the Guard. And, you know, it's like the one reason I wish I had ever joined the Army is so I could be part of this thing now. But I'm the greatest cheerleader for it because I think it's just the most important thing in the world. So calling all anti-war vets, especially in Oregon, but for that matter, calling all anti-war folks in Oregon, here's a group for you to join, for you to take part in something really important and possibly, you know, very successful and very important.

So can you tell us, Iber, about your website, how people can get in contact with you and, again, your short-term projects, the congressman you're targeting, and so forth. Yeah. So we have anti-warorgan.com. Just one word. This is our website. We have anti-war organ on Twitter. We have it on Instagram and we have it on Facebook. Just search anti-war organ. We're going to pop up there. These are social media for outreach. If people want to join us, we have a membership sign up so they can sign up and become members here. They want to support us financially. They can click, donate, and it will take them to that page. Other than that, our emails, all of our emails, the board members on our website, my email is Ebra, I-B-B-R-A, at anti-warorgan.com. What we are going to focus on this election cycle, 24, is to unseat two. two congresswoman, freshmen, one is Republican, one is Democrat, that tells you that we're not partisan and we can really care about peace issues, anti-war issues.

If you are interested in it, if you are interested at least to see one of them removed from office, we're going to take your support. That's fine if you are going to help us with that. really appreciate all of the support maybe just spread the world this is a really important thing if you cannot volunteer if you cannot donate to us maybe just tell people about us i'll go to social media our social media and just retweet repost whatever they call it uh this is very effective one thing i would like to add about defend the guard scott and many people when when they look at the legislation they really underestimate how much it can change the foreign policy that we have, the empire.

People think about Oregon, for example, just like a small state, a small national guard, but they don't know that many of our national guard actually in Somalia right now fighting the al-Shabaab, or maybe they were in Nigeria with the Bukharam or in Syria and Iraq. So they are getting really attacked from time to time. And now with the Israel thing, everything has intensified. And I don't know what's going to happen with the Yemen.

This is a new front for this conflict. So, and they used them in Afghanistan and Iraq before the National Guard without any declaration of war. It has the potential actually to end the empire wars, not the defensive wars that we don't have of them, but the empire building wars. It has that kind of potential. So this is really great.

And you can know how much effective this legislation is by looking at the opposition. All of these generals from the military coming down, testifying, all of the money would flow to lawmakers to oppose it. You'll see that. And you can just look at the states that has witnessed such behavior. from the state. So it is effective. It has the potential to end the wars, the empire building wars. So people need to pay attention to it and support it as much as they can. Yeah. Well, listen, I think this is great. And if I had a bunch of money, I would have done something like this or if I knew how to raise a bunch. So, you know, I sit behind my microphone and

interview mostly journalists, but some activists. And it's just great to see what you're doing with this. And I really hope that you have the best of success in fundraising and wielding that money effectively against bad candidates. And I think this ought to be a great model too for going forward about this coalition building. And we can never really agree with each other's agendas about what we want government to do. But so screw that. Let's just all agree what we want them to stop doing. All the worst things that they're doing. Let's all come together in on. opposition to all that first and we'll figure out this other stuff second and third and i think that um since we have the worst government in the world doing more horrible things than you can shake a

stick at now that we can all really agree on that and work together on uh you know saving the money that we would save if we would knock off first and foremost the overseas empire building as you say there and work on shoring up our own country here at home. That's the kind of sentiment that people across the political spectrum can agree with, especially now. So I think that's great. I wish you the best of luck. And I hope people will check out what you're doing and contribute and participate. That's anti-warorgan.com. And as the man said, his email address is Ebra at anti-warorgan.com. And that's I-B-R-A at anti-war Oregon.com. Thanks so much, man. Good luck to you, Ibra.

thank you so much for having me thank you scott 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