Scott Horton Show - Just the Interviews - 1/27/23 Eric Margolis on the Rush to All Out War Over Ukraine

Episode Date: January 31, 2023

Eric Margolis returns to the show to talk about the war in Ukraine. Scott reflects on some of his early interviews with Margolis about Ukraine back in 2014. Just as he had said back then, Margolis sees some disturbing parallels between the modern tension in Eastern Europe and the build-up to World War One. Scott and Margolis talk about the mission creep happening with the West agreeing to send more and more provocative weapons while Russia claims sovereignty over territory it doesn’t even control. Notably, the two talk about how Crimea may be the big flashpoint. Margolis also points out that Washington is making all the same mistakes over Taiwan.  Discussed on the show: “Halt This Crazy Rush to All Out War” (EricMargolis.com) Scott’s early interviews with Margolis about Ukraine “America’s Pacific Century” (Foreign Policy) War at the Top of the World by Eric Margolis American Raj by Eric Margolis Scott’s debate with Bill Kristol Eric Margolis is a foreign affairs correspondent and author of War at the Top of the World and American Raj. Follow him on Twitter @EricMargolis and visit his website, ericmargolis.com. This episode of the Scott Horton Show is sponsored by: Tom Woods’ Liberty Classroom; 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 dot for you can sign up the podcast feed there and the full interview archive is also available at youtube.com slash scott horton's show hey you guys guess what i got eric margely's online well i guess you already saw the file name and everything uh war at the top of the world an american raj liberation or domination or

two books that he wrote. They're just brilliant, man. You really should read them and learn lots of stuff. And he writes at Eric Margulies.com. Now again, for I think the first time in a while. So happy to have you back in print and happy to have you back on the show. Eric, how are you, sir? Thank you, Scott. I'm happy to be back with you after a long hiatus. I've been out of commission. I was going to resume work on a book, but I haven't made that much progress. And I've been lollygagging. All right. Well, as long as you're doing all right, man.

But yeah, we've missed you. And I'm very happy to have you back and talk to you and to read you. And, of course, you know, like always, you're good on stuff. So this article is called, a halt, this crazy rush to all out war. And, you know, this is kind of my dilemma is, yeah, I'm worried about the worst case scenario. But I don't want to go around screaming about the worst case scenario all the time. because that seems crazy. But it is kind of crazy.

And in fact, a year ago, I was so reluctant to predict the worst that I didn't. And then I looked stupid for not predicting the worst when the worst came true. So you never know what's going to happen. And it seems like everybody in charge on all sides is really stupid and mean. And none of them, even if they meant well, would know what to do at this point. And so I don't know what to do. What do you think? Well, I think that this is a good view of how.

of how World War I began. These are small groups of officials changing policy and twisting things around to get their particular beliefs, whether it's war in Germany or war against Belgium or whatever. And we're at the mercy of the bureaucrats again. There is, to my mind, a very clear rush to war. It has all the scary making sense. of something, as you pointed out, which could be a nuclear war, that makes absolutely no sense,

but we've got sucked into it. And this is not good for Ukraine. It's not good for Russia. Yeah, man. So, now, I guess I'm interested to hear your perspective on all this. I know that we talked certainly around the time of the 2014, so-called. called revolution, but I think I'd interviewed you about Ukraine before that, possibly even going back to 2004 on the Orange Revolution. I think so, Scott. I think so. And in fact, I have, my friend did a big collection of notes of my show about Russia that

haven't even dared to break open and look at yet for the book that I'm writing about this stuff. So I'm pretty sure I am going to find that in there because we did, I know we covered the Orange Revolution at the time because we did for anti-war.com. doing the show then yes although that was pretty early on in the show so like i can't promise i had an interview or two about that but i sure might have but i know that i've seen a picture of you with julia timoshenko the gas princess from the what you call it party i forgot now i knew it a minute ago um and i know that you've spent a lot of time there and know a lot about it so i'm kind

of interested to hear just sort of your long-term perspective and you know give you a chance to to inform people about, you know, how you look at this and what you think they should know about it, you know? Well, I'm distant enough from the conflict to be able to see both sides. And I don't subscribe to the demonization of Russia or the vilification of Putin any more than I do vilifying George Bush for invading Iraq.

It's a horrible war. it has the end and the Russians are really warning us that their finger is getting close to the trigger for nuclear trigger. Yeah, they keep having

Yvedev talk about that. But so, I mean, tell us about Ukraine and like the time you spent there and what you learned. I know that you, you know, back then, at least in 2014, if not earlier, you talked about you know, I think after

2014, I remember you explaining why Russia didn't really want the Donbass then because of the economics of the situation. They would cost more than it would be any gain to Russia and this kind of thing. So I'm trying to crack your brain open here and get you to remember all the stuff that you knew back when you were there and would want us to know about it. Well, I was delving deep into the very tragic history of Ukraine and Russia and trying to understand, you know, all these Ukrainians who are running around today used to be Russians not very long ago. And Ukraine used to be the heartland of the Soviet Union. And we're getting a completely changed situation. We have Ukrainians who I admire and like them. They're fighting

for their independence. But for what end? Ukraine used to be one of the most corrupt. countries in Europe. It was just fraught with embezzlement and crime. And all of a sudden, it's become a sanctuary of Christian righteousness.

I don't take that view. The Ukrainians are just as self-serving as they used to be. And this war has become a big money-making industry for Ukraine. You know, the U.S. poured $100 billion of money

into Ukraine. That's a lot of money by anybody's account, even for the Saudis. So the whole thing is very unfortunate, as the Russians keep saying, it's extremely dangerous because we're seeing

mission creep, such as in Vietnam, going on here, where now we're sending tanks, and the tanks won't be enough. We'll have to send more tanks and more soldiers and so and fighter planes and so on and so forth. We're on the road to war.

It's a question of how quickly it will happen. Man, you know, now that we're talking about this, I remember you telling me in 2014 that you'd been paling around with some French diplomats over there, a very high society guy, Eric Margulies. And so you were over at some fancy pants party with these guys, and they were telling you

that they thought this was the most dangerous time since the Cuban Missile Crisis. And the war in the East was pretty bad at that time, but nothing like what's going on right now. No, no. So how much closer can you get to the brink of war before it spreads? Well, we're on the verge of it now. I mean, the war has been going on since 2014 in the industrial Donbass region, which is Russian-speaking, by the way. And so is, so are some other parts of Russia, Ukraine, for example, Odessa. These are areas that are very volatile, don't want to be part of Ukraine particularly.

And would prefer to be with Russia, I had originally said at time, the way to end this war is for Ukraine to make a deal with Russia. to hand over some of these parts of Ukraine that don't want to be re-Ukrainian and make a peace deal. Yeah. And, you know, I was talking with Ted Snyder about this earlier where Poroshenko, certainly Zelensky after him, but Poroshenko, too, they were really in a bind where if they really tried to make peace with the Dombas and live up to the peace deals, they had to worry about the threat of being overthrown by these Nazi militias,

right sector and C-14 and Azov Battalion, all of them that threatened that will kill you, dude. You're not going to do that. And even the New York Times said that, hey, that's a credible threat coming from these guys. Scott, I've been touched with these right-wing Ukrainian groups since the turn of the century. And I remember being visited by veterans of the first. Ukrainian division in World War II, rather, who fought with the Germans against the communist forces.

So this is a deep, rooted problem. And calling them Nazis isn't quite enough to describe the situation. It's very worrisome. And you also find it in other East European countries, too. yeah i mean the thing is there's always groups of skinheads and and nazi movements here and there but i don't think there's anywhere in the world where they have this much power and influence with the government and where the government doesn't dare cross them you know what i mean if it really came down to it in america the FBI would just round these guys all up you know what i mean

at the end of the day the u.s national government is going to win against some white supremacist groups in ukraine it's more like the national government's going well hope these guys don't kill us. That's right. That's right. Here's some guns and some money, guys. Go out there and make us proud. Well, this fragmented country, you know, bits and parts of it should be German or should be Polish. It's very complicated. And just trying to explain it to anybody as a brainbender. Yeah, seriously. Well, so what do you think is going to happen here? The Ukrainians don't seem to want to quit, America's got they're giving them all this

intelligence support and weapons and training and all of this and yet on the other side the Russians got a bigger country and a bigger army and a lot more tanks and whatever so I keep saying this I'm sorry because I know it's not very

inventive or clever whatever but it seems to me like the unstoppable force versus the immovable object. Ukraine can't force Russia out but Russia can't just take the four provinces they want either so now what it's true it could drag on for years and sort of partial guerrilla war and clashes but you know russia has shown uh this whole ukraine business has shown the russia's not as strong as we thought it was and there was a time i remember

vividly when we were quailing and peeing in our pants with fear that the 50 000 russian tanks We're going to break on Western Europe, and we're going to be in six days after launching. We're going to be in the port of Antwerp, cutting off NATO supply lines. Well, it turns out that Putin reduced the size of the Russian army some years back, way back, and said they would rely more on nuclear arms than on manpower. And the result is that we have a feeble Russian army now that is poor. poorly motivated and that's why the Russians are rattling their nuclear weapons because their ultimate uh resistance to to what it sees as western invasion are nukes right um you know i wonder

about that too because you know i hear a lot of conflicting reports about you know just how bad they might how badly they might need to resort to that i guess you know because they're so saying they, if the Ukrainians attack Crimea, then they might resort to nukes to protect it. But would they need to? And because I think they also admit that the Ukrainians don't have the capability to take back Crimea at this point. I mean, they just lost a major town in Donetsk province, you know, in the last few days here, you know, last week or so. So, but yeah, I mean, that is the risk, right? that, you know, the Russians, and not just Crimea now, the Russians have officially expanded

to these four provinces, not just Donetska-Lohansk, but also Suprosia and Kurson now. And they claim to own all of them, even the areas that they don't control. And so really, with a turn of phrase, you got territory that the Russians claim is sovereign Russian Federation territory, that the Ukrainians claim is not either. and they're still willing to fight for and really including Donetsk and Lojansk too. So,

you know, both sides have to climb way down from the positions that they're in now, right? Like, Kiev would have to say, fine, you can take Donetsk and Lohansk, but you've got to give back Zaprogia and Kurson. They're not going to say that,

and the Russians aren't going to say, okay, well, we un-annex Zaprogia and Kerson. and we'll just settle for Donetska long. Like, that's a hell of a compromise for them to make. I don't know, man. I don't see it. And Anthony Blinken's going to broker that thing?

If they attack, if the Ukrainians start attacking Crimea, it's going to be particularly a sensitive problem because Khrim, Sebastian, where I've been, is one of the hero cities of the Soviet Union. or was for its resistance in world war two and crime was a very intensive battleground over the entire range of it and uh they're not russians kind not going to be kicked out of that by some ukraine what they call ukrainian fascists uh and yet the ukrainians wanted back because they claim it's theirs well nikita khrushov who was a ukrainian uh got

drunk one night, as usual, and in a speech, waved his arms and gave Crimea, which was then Soviet Russian, back to Ukrainian. It was a historical oddity, and it has caused enormous trouble ever since. Ukrainians, I mean, the Russians have ruled that area since the 1700s. it's hard to think, as you just pointed out, that anybody making a reasonable deal over that. Yeah. Well, yeah, seriously.

I mean, the stakes are so high on both sides at this point that they just, boy, they could have just implemented Minsk, too. Now look at it. But so, hey, I want to go back to all them hoity-to-dy types in France that, you know. May we? Okay. Yeah, maybe. I don't know how to speak that crazy gibberish,

But maybe other countries in Europe, too, like, what is going on with this thing? I remember when the war first started, Colonel McGregor was like, well, pretty soon here the Germans are going to say enough and work out some kind of peace deal or whatever, because they're right here and they've got to deal with these consequences. They don't want to get dragged into this war. Now it's a year later, and they're giving tanks. They're getting dragged right into it. And the foreign minister of Germany, I swear to God, the foreign minister of Germany the other day said, we are at war with Russia. so what the hell man because it seems like i know that the people that run the american government are just as dumb as can be they're just scuder liby all of them but over in europe are they

no better than willing to march us all in armageddon like this it just seems so crazy man much better scott but they have a better understanding of them's germany's caught in the middle between the russia and the u u s and the germans the whole russia is the krexas the german's the whole rush was the He's done of German politicians, good relations with Russia. But Europeans show that they remain very much American vassals. They are under intense economic and political pressure from Washington to join this fight. Germans wanted no part of it. Germans' tanks weren't even working because they had female defense ministers who knew nothing

about maintenance but the Germans are doing a de minimis to send some of their excellent leopard tanks and they are rightfully fearful that they're going to be caught in the war and the majority of German voters

don't want to be in this war even though Washington does and the French feel the same way so good luck to them Yeah, sorry, hang on just one second. Hey, y'all, Scott Horton here for Tennessee Hot Sauce Company. Man, this stuff is so good.

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Seriously, it's really good. Get yourself a hot sauce subscription. Spend $40 or more and use promo code Scott to get a free bottle of hotter than the sun hot sauce. That's tnhot sauceco.com. Hey, y'all got to check out these awesome busts of our hero, the great Ron Paul. They're made by the renowned sculptor Rick Casale. They're 13 inches tall hand-painted bronze resin based on Casale's brilliant original.

You may have seen mine in the background on my bookshelf in some recent interviews. The thing is unbelievable. Check out this incredible piece of art at Rick Casale.com slash Ron Paul, and you'll see what I mean. Use promo code Horton, and you'll save 25 bucks, and this show will get a little kickback, too. That's Rick Casale.com slash Ron Paul. Casali is C-A-S-A-L-I, Rick Casali.com slash Ron Paul. And there's free shipping, too. man so now here's the thing and this is something that we've been complaining about for a long time is all these think tank weanies in dc they kind of really relish the idea of having a conventional war with russia that's sort of what they always were to like to have is somehow a tank war and maybe you know jet fighter dog fights and cool stuff like that but without nukes going off exactly and they just sort of ignore the nukes and just you know talk this way about well we did some

more games about what it would take to beat the Russians in Ukraine, for example, this kind of thing. And so, I don't know, man, it looks like they're, they must be, as you said on this, on this ladder of escalation here, that it really is just a matter of time before they'd put in troops. Because otherwise, it's just not going to cut it. Not that the American troops necessarily going to have their way, but, and I guess I just wonder like at what point is it where there's just no turning back from this where it ends up being a full scale war between NATO and Russia and including A-bombs and H-bombs?

Well, Scott, it'll probably come when you have American fighters F-15s, F-16s, clashing over Crimea with Russian fighters and naval clashes in the Black Sea. yeah that's it you know Joe Biden said yeah Joe Biden said man we're like this close to Armageddon and then nobody said yeah because of you what are you doing this thing is so crazy it's nuts it's like it's as reckless as W. Bush going to Iraq if Iraq really did have nukes you know what I mean

yes these are small-minded bureaucrats in Washington who are no less smart than small-minded bureaucrats in Bon or in Berlin and Moscow who are pushing this war. And it's a question of prestige and got to keep America on top because the Chinese are coming and scare off the Chinese. Show them what Uncle Sam can do. Yeah. Now, listen, I'm...

I'm glad you brought that up because this is something that, you know, know we do cover from time to time but it's just not my strong suit and i am so busy i got so many different jobs it's ridiculous and i'm trying to keep up with everything but china gets the short shrift and um so we don't really cover that enough but it seems like we have a real ukraine problem with taiwan here where there's a lot of you and him go fight and we do we may or may not have your back we do it's the chinese have lost all reasonable thought on the subject they i'm frightened to see the Chinese who are such an intelligent people

consumed by rabid nationalism. It's happening. And we are heading towards a war over Taiwan. The Chinese even put it by 2007. Yeah, well, you know,

I know at least a couple of experts who think that's true. Lyle Goldstein, he was kind of, I guess, ignoring the politics of it, or not ignoring them, but emphasizing just the naval buildup and saying, well, look, I mean, what they're doing is they're

building a naval invasion force. I mean, that's what this is. And so, at some point, they're going to pull the trigger on it. I think the Taiwanese will make a deal with the Chinese. Yeah, you know,

Peter Van Buren, Peter Van Buren thinks that China would not attack them, that it would have to be some major provocation by America or Taiwan to make them attack. Because he just says they have so much at stake. I agree. It would be enormously costly for China. But, you know, Mao used to comment about, you know, losing 100 million people more or less really wouldn't even be noticed.

So. Yeah. Yeah, well, and so look, And this goes back to what you're saying about kind of what Rubes the foreign policy establishment is here. I mean, it seems like we have everything comes from such a consensus about, oh, yeah, what we all agree we need to do, even though it's completely stupid, right? Like, if you go, like this all, I mean, there's more to it than this, but in terms of the real cocktail party set, it was Hillary Clinton's article in foreign policy. about the pivot to Asia, our Pacific century, that said we're doing all this.

And you have all these think tanks that work for the military industries who go, oh, yeah, rising Chinese threat. And then it seems like, I mean, it's almost inescapable that the Chinese threat rose in reaction to all of that because they're saying, hey, look, Hillary Clinton's coming. And so we better do, you know, do this buildup. And, of course, the Republicans only attack the Democrats for being too weak on China. Like, it's always Bill Clinton and James Riyadh, even though that was 30 years ago, you know.

And Joe Biden is worse than Trump on the naval buildup over there and everything. So the dynamics are really bad, you know? The Democrats are that bad, and the Republicans got to prove how much they hate the commies and all that. I agree with you entirely. And the Democrats, the right wing of the Democratic Party, has revealed itself to be as bloodthirsty as the right-wing Republicans. They're all ready to fight to the last American GI for over an obscure war that they couldn't even locate on a map. But there it is. That's big power politics.

Yeah. And it's just funny because it's what they've been. of evil or whatever. Like, come on, you guys don't have a master plan or anything. This is really just about arms sales. You just hire some goons to write some papers to justify after the fact of policy you've decided that's basically all just about making money first. How are we going to sell some ships to the Navy?

Well, let's pick a fight with China. Like, everybody can tell, the fleece wagging the dog. And that's it. It works. It works. I've been looking at my defense stocks that I own. which shouldn't be called defense stocks they should be called offensive stocks and uh they're going like gangbusters oh man you should sell those eric you don't want that money no i don't oh i thought you

said your defense stocks i was like oh man you heavy invested in rakeland i give them i give them money to my animal charities oh i got you let let the feet let the humans have their world war three But in any of that I really think that the Chinese are determined to retake Taiwan because they've made a big deal out of it, not that anybody China really cares about it. People are, you know, have gone obsessed with nationalism, and the government keeps beating the drums there, and it works. It's like, look how we were in the States when we evaded Iraq. it's the same kind of mentality small thinking

lots of noise all right so now what difference does it make do you think I mean in other words if you look at all the war games and you see how the Navy

knows that they're going to lose a bunch of ships and that fighting a war that far from home and that close to China is a huge task and probably not worth it do you think the Americans

might just let China of taking or you think that's guaranteed to lead to war or what well scott in my book war at the top of the world uh which was written 10 years ago i said talking about asia that the biggest challenge to american foreign policy is making a dignified withdrawal from the asian mainland uh and backing off and let the chinese have their sphere of influence there it's grown up politics Bismarck would have approved of that but instead we've got all these little tin pot

congressmen from nowhere places beating the war drums knowing that their sons will never have to go yeah yep seems like it and you know so you know I remember Andrew Bacevich was saying well we ought to withdraw from everywhere but not Asia

because we got a balance between Korea, Japan and China that's just too volatile over there but I wonder if you think we could withdraw and then I can put you in charge of the peace conference in Japan and China and Korea and for that matter of Vietnam and Thailand everybody around with important interests Australia

everybody could work out a pretty good trade agreement and be friends what do you think? Well it could happen but it's going to be difficult and there are a lot of people trying to throw a spanner in the works but you know So we're still maintain 100,000 troops in Europe against whom I don't know.

I guess the Russians have not been showing themselves very threatening of light. In Asia, you're right. We can't fight a war at the other side of the world. We did it in World War II. We got besotted with that mythology. But this time now against Japan. was a little weak Asian country

China's huge resources huge amounts of missiles and China can take any amount of punishment from the U.S. And the Chinese know it too. You know, very interesting points caught in the U.S. was ready to

nuclear bomb China during the Korean war. And Chinese know that and they feel themselves under threat today from the U.S. So they'd like to get over with this war and humble the U.S. and push it back into the Pacific.

You know, Rex Tillerson, who was Donald Trump's first secretary of state and had been the CEO of Exxon, he had told, you know, Bob Woodward, what are you going to do with the guy? But it, you know, purports to be firsthand interviews with these principles. So the quote supposedly comes directly from him, which is that, hey, look, you know, China threatens our domination of the Pacific. And so that's why we have to build up all of this stuff. You know, it's just business, but the entire Pacific Ocean is an American lake.

And they think that they're going to be dominant in the South China Sea. Well, we'll see about that. We're going to rename it South California Sea. Okay, I'm ad-libbing this part. But it's ours, not theirs. and you know they call the thudicity's trap the rising empire is going to challenge the older one but maybe the older one should just piss off and get out of the way since they got no right to intervene over there in the first place you know well that was my suggestion we're what a fertile

area for creative diplomacy to work our way back into the pacific because we're overstretched now we're running over a debt saddled country we can't we gave 100 million hundred billion dollars to Ukraine and yet we're borrowing a lot of it from a loan

so we have reached our imperial limit and we need to start consolidating our positions yeah man I'll tell you what I don't know how anybody could get it through to the people in charge

you know they're so stuck in their way I think, and it seems like they just don't second-guess themselves at all. I saw a clip of Mitt Romney today saying, look, you can't just let a country attack another country and get away with it or else who knows what they might do. We've had seven wars just in the last 20 years. And he doesn't know. He can't think of it that way. I remember John McCain saying the same thing.

He's like, in Iraq and we're going to stand up to Russia because you can't invade countries. And what is this? The 19th century? It is, it is. That's the thinking. Yeah. It's imperialist, imperialist thinking. You've got this, this Kagan character, the historian, so-called historian,

who come out beating the same drum, too. They want great power America. Yep. Well, and, you know, it's funny when I debated Bill Crystal, someone in the audience asked him well geez man after all of the failure of the Middle East wars and everything like what would have to happen for you to admit

that hegemony didn't really work out and he said well I guess if some nuke started going off then I would have to admit that maybe my policy wasn't really the right one so it's falsifiable but only if we all die and there's no one left to

shame him for it so that's a pretty good or the stock market collapses Yeah, well, I'd take that. America as a financial 9-11, it is possible. We're shaky. Yeah. Well, you know, I think that's always been the contest,

is that hopefully the total economic calamity will take the empire out before a nuclear war does, you know? Well, as I've written in the past, I wish we would stop reliving World War II. We are totally drunken by untriumphalist propaganda from that war, which we in part engineered, which was a great success for the United States. But it's no longer here, and we no longer have the Battle of Midway. We've got much more complex problems and much more dangerous enemies.

Yeah. You know, I read a thing. I can't remember who it was one time that talked about how, you know, that saving Private Ryan and Tom Brokaw's book, The Greatest Generation, and all that stuff came out right at the end of the 90s. And he had all these baby boomers feeling like, you know, they didn't get to have a big crusade. Iraq War I was too short or something. And they were kind of lost because they didn't get to kill people on that scale. And so then when September 11th happened, and the analogy to Pearl Harbor was perfect with the surprise attack in the morning and 3,000 dead and all that. And so then it was like on that now we get to pretend and reenact the World War II scenario in the terror war, you know, and turn this what should have been a tiny little special operations mission against a few hundred guys into, you know, this massive global crusade and all that.

just to essentially like take care of their emotions and stuff like that you know well it's true scots and it's still going on yeah i know uh that's true i mean they're bombing somalia all the time still got troops in iraq and syria and special operations forces trapes and all throughout north africa and they did at least one drone strike in afghanistan presumably for pakistan i guess yes looks like they may have missed him too they said they were killing zawahari but then now they put out a new podcast of him although they say that it's not clear in there when it was recorded so i don't know yeah there's a lot of lying that goes on here i don't know what don't believe anything i hear

yeah seriously all right well listen you know um i've said this before but i sure meant it then and it's true and i remember well that even though i've read your article for years, and they're always great. And I've interviewed you based on those articles, you know, so many times over the years. But that those books were at the top of the world than American Raj, which I read both when I was researching for writing my books about the Terror War. Man, those things are just masterpieces. Anybody wants to know about American foreign policy and the history of American Middle East

policy over the last couple of generations over there? You've got to read these books. They're just so good. and I really hope that people read them and sometimes I'll go somewhere and I'll see somewhere on the shelf somebody has American Raj and I'm like oh I get it, you get it.

See, yeah. Not everybody understands, but if you've read that book then you know what I'm saying. And I've read yours too so I salute you. Yeah, very good. All right, well listen, man,

I'll let you go and have a great Friday afternoon but I'm so glad that we got to talk again, Eric. Okay, Scott, thank you. Bye-bye. Eric Margar. everybody check them out at eric margolese.com spill it like margolus the scott horton show anti-war radio can be heard on kpfk 90.7 fm in l a psradyo dot com antiwar dot com scothorton.org and libertarian institute dot org