Scott Horton Show - Just the Interviews - 2/1/24 Dave Decamp on the Jordan Rocket Attacks and the Coming US Response

Episode Date: February 2, 2024

Dave Decamp was on Antiwar Radio this week to discuss what we know about Biden’s plan to respond to the rocket attack that killed three American soldiers. They talk about the broader geopolitical ramifications, the humanitarian situation in Gaza and the likely effects of the ICJ’s ruling against Israel. Discussed on the show: “US Plans Weeks-Long Bombing Campaign Against Iranian Targets” (Antiwar.com) “Iraq War IV?” (Antiwar.com) Scott’s interview with Suadad al-Salhy “US Troops Put on Standby for Potential US Ground Involvement in Gaza” (Antiwar.com) “How war destroyed Gaza’s neighbourhoods – visual investigation” (The Guardian) Dave DeCamp is the news editor of Antiwar.com and the host of Antiwar News with Dave DeCamp. Follow him on Twitter @decampdave 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

For Pacifica Radio, February 1st, 2024, I'm Scott Horton. This is Anti-War Radio. All right, y'all, it is Anti-War Radio. I'm your host, Scott Horton. I'm the editorial director of Anti-War.com, and I'm the author of Enough already. Time to end the war on terrorism. You find my full interview archive, more than 6,000 of them now, going back to 2003 at Scott Horton.org and at YouTube.com slash Scott Horton Show and all the different video sites slash Scott Horton Show. And you follow me on Twitter, if you dare, at Scott Horton Show. All right, introducing this week's guest. It's Dave DeCamp,

news editor at anti-war.com. Welcome back to the show. How you doing? I'm good, Scott. Thanks for having me. Did I mention that you're the host of a great podcast called Anti-War News with Dave DeKamp? No, you didn't, but yes, I am. My daily news show. People should definitely check it out. Okay, great. They should do that. It's on all your favorite podcatchers right next to this show. Top story on anti-war.com today, Dave. I don't like it. I'm blaming you. U.S. plans weeks-long bombing on Iranian targets. How dare you? report this terrible news to me.

Yes, so things are not looking good. I mean, there's even worse news that I just saw this morning, if you want to hear about it. Go awesome. So this is the response, you know, the U.S. is planning the response to this drone attack that happened in Jordan, you know, very close to the Syrian border at this secretive base called Tower 22, that killed three U.S. troops. And the U.S. is blaming Iran, basically just because it funds and arms the, you know, Shia militias that the U.S. believes was responsible for this attack. No evidence beyond that

that Iran was involved. The Pentagon has admitted it does not have evidence that Iran was directly involved in this attack. U.S. officials told the New York Times that they don't know if Iran has been calling the shots. And they're not just talking about this one attack. There's been over 160 attacks on U.S. bases in Iraq and Syria since mid-October in response to the U.S. support for the Israeli massacre that's happening. in Gaza. And they're saying that they've been saying all along, the Pentagon officials, intelligence officials, that they don't know if Iran is directing these attacks. And there's a lot of signs right now that Iran wants to de-escalate the situation. Ketheb Hezbollah, which is one of

the main Shia militias in Iraq, has announced that it's suspending attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria. There is an announcement from the Iraqi government that said they negotiated this deal. And Iran helped And even Keteb Hezbo, when they made the announcement, they said, oh, Iran has told us for a while now that they don't want us to escalate. And that might, people might say, oh, that's just, you know, Iranian propaganda. But I saw Trita Parsy say, or it was somebody he retweeted that noticed that that statement, that part of the statement, was not included in the Iranian media. So it seems like there is a little rift. And there has been rifts before between Iran and these militias. I mean, you could even have read that part of the statement as a little.

bit of a swipe at Iran. And like, well, the Islamic Republic wishes for us to back down now. Right. Like they're kind of claiming courage and making it the Ayatollah's fault that they're going to stop. That is kind of how I read it. And I remember going back to the Trump, the last few months of the Trump administration, there was a lot going on then. But one thing was, it seemed like Israel was trying to provoke something with Iran, you know, get their last chance with Trump. And if you remember, in November 2020, they assassinated an Iranian scientist, Mosin Fakhra Zerde, inside Iran, you know, hugely provocative. Israel was stepping up airstrikes in Syria. And at this time, the Shia militias started targeting U.S. bases again.

And Iran was telling, like urging them basically to stop because they were hoping Biden would come in and ease tensions, get back in the Iran nuclear deal. But, you know, we're so far from that now. So it's important for people. Well, in nine months before that day, this was what had. led to the assassination of the Quds Force commander, Soleimani, General Soleimani in Iraq, was a tit-for-tat begun by Israel. I was just rereading my article the other day. You're ready for Iraq War IV that I wrote in January of 20? And it was about, you know, the lead-up,

the tit-for-tat in the lead-up to the assassination of Soleimani. And it ends with me saying, boy, I hope the Ayatollah just lets Trump get the last word, and then which is what happened. or no, I'm sorry, this is the other way around. Trump let the Ayatollah get the last word and bomb the empty corner of an American base in Iraq and said, okay, and left it at that and the tip for tap. But it was, just like in the case you're referring to, it was the Israelis and their assassinations, and including, I believe, inside Iraq, that had led to those attacks on the Americans there. Yeah, that's really important.

That's something I figured out. I mean, if you wrote about it back then, then I must have missed it, because I figured that out, like, way after the whole Soleimani thing that Iraq started launching these airstrikes in Iraq in like August 20, what was it, 2019, around that time. And then that's when attacks on the U.S. basis started. That's a very, you know, important context there. And to get to what's happening now, and also, it's also worth pointing out that Israel has killed a few Iranian IRGC guys in C. Syria in recent months, including, like, basically their top intelligence official that was there, officer that was there. So all this stuff is going on. And by the way, for that footnote, if anyone wants to look at that, it's at anti-war.com. It's just called Iraq War IV, you know, Roman numerals. Iraq War IV, which is not a very good title, but it's January 6th, 2020.

And if you just put anti-war.com slash Scott, it'll take you there. Yeah, so to get up to what's happening now. And also, just another point, the logic here, okay, so Iraq. Iran is responsible because they arm and equip and fund these Shia militias, by that logic, that means the U.S. is a legitimate target for, you know, Hamas or even you could say Iran because Israel, which is funded and armed by the U.S., has been killing Iranians. But anyway. Well, and also America backs the same government in Iraq that Iran does.

These shite militias are just as backed by the USA as they are backed by Iran. So then that means the Americans got the right to blow their own brains out then, too. Yeah, I mean, that's another important point here, that Keteb Hezbollah is part of the PMF, the popular mobilization forces, which is part of Iraq's security forces, and they were formed in 2014 to fight ISIS. Right. And look, for everyone, sorry, Dave, but for everyone, if there's one thing you learned about the last 20 years, it's that George Bush and the Ayatollah built a joint condominium government in Iraq. That's who's ruled Iraq since 2003 is who Bush and the Ayatollah, and later, of course, Obama and the rest of them, and the Ayatollah agreed on. That's why the leader right now, his name is Shia al-Sudani, and he's a member of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution. You might say Bush's puppets. I might say he was theirs, but here we are in 2024.

Yeah, so it's a very, I mean, it's just like an encapsulation of what a mess, U.S. intervention in the region has been is the situation in Iraq today. And so to get to the plans now, so that was yesterday that U.S. officials told NBC News the plan was to launch a weeks-long bombing campaign that would probably target Iranian personnel in Iraq and Syria. I've seen other reports saying the U.S. is considering targeting the Iranian Navy this morning. And so that report said that's probably what they're going to do. And there's other reports that said that as well. This morning, CBS reports, U.S. officials confirm the plans have been approved to strike Iranian personnel in Iraq and Syria. Also, there's

these reports saying that Iran is pulling the IRGC out of Syria. Yeah, so that. So that's been contradicted, though, by a report in Al-Maadine, which is kind of a Hezbollah-aligned Lebanese media outlet. So who knows exactly what the situation is there. But I think Iran, is sending signals that they want to really they don't want any they have no interest in in a direct fight with the u.s right well and the americans are sending signals too that they don't want to fight persia they just want to fight their proxies and hope to get away with that but that does mean another major bombing campaign what like they're going to really call in massive air sorties against iraq's militaries militias aligned militias there from the pmf

They're going to, you know, not just a strike here, a strike there. They're going to do a stain campaign against Shiite, Iraq, and then who are they going to bomb in Syria? I mean, in fact, as long as I'm off on that tangent, could you work in as part of your answer, what do you know about any real Shiite militias in Syria the way that they keep claiming? Is it just really Iraqi militias attacking over the line there? That's how I understand it, is that it is the Iraqi militias. and they have a presence in some of the border areas. And that, but they launch, as far as I understand, the recent attacks that most of them are launched from Iraq.

And again, that one that happened in Jordan. I mean, that was right on the Syrian border, right near Iraq, you know, it was in this same area. So, I mean, I think the big concern is if the U.S. really kills some Iranians here, you know, not just, because they've been killing members of the Shiite militias. there's been several rounds of U.S. airstrikes in Iraq and Syria since October and they've, you know, killed, I would say at this point, probably a dozen or so or more. Well, not to spin for the empire here, Dave, but if they kept it within Syria, I mean, don't the Israelis kill Iranians in air strikes, like constantly every few weeks or so for the last decade and nobody does anything? The Ayatollah just takes it on the chin, right?

Mm-hmm. They don't kill them every few weeks. I mean, Israel bombs Syria every few weeks. but it's more rare that they actually kill Iranian IRGC guys but it does happen I remember it happened last spring and then it's happened a few times now because they've really ramped up the airstrikes in Syria so I think that is part of the thinking you know

and I think really the best case part of the thinking is we can get away with it we can hit Iranian proxies in Syria and Iraq and the Ayatollah will just sit there and maybe do something symbolic so in other words Biden is going to do something symbolic

so that Tom Cotton and Lindsey Graham feel better or something like that for domestic political concerns that he can say that he did something without actually doing anything. Oh, well, without actually achieving anything, who knows what the consequences could really be? You know what I mean? Seems like if they really do extensive airstrikes in Iraq, it's going to cause a severe rift with the Iraqi government. And do we even have force protection? in Iraqi Kurdistan to protect our guys in the event that the Shiite-led government and militias

all turn on them in large numbers, you know? I think that's doubtful. Yeah, and that's a good possibility. I mean, if they, that's, that's the thing, that's the question now is like, how big is this going to be? Because we saw this report that it's going to be a week's long bombing campaign. And we've seen Blinken has said, oh, it could be a sustained response. So it sounds like they are preparing for something kind of long term. But on the other hand, maybe these are threats that they're putting out. Because right now, I mean, if you're Biden, there has to be some sense. So the attacks on U.S. troops have stopped basically just in the past day or two, but they were almost a daily occurrence. And not all of them, you know, some drones and missiles were fired,

that rockets were fired that didn't even come near the bases that I don't know if we're counted in that 160 attacks that the Pentagon has said. So there's, I mean, basically, Basically, you know, my hope is that these are kind of threats that they're putting out to Iran and if tensions really do cool down and the attacks stop and they see that they've stopped, you know, they might do something more symbolic. But there's so many wild cars, there's so many different factors here considering everything that's happening. And it's like, it doesn't take Keteb Hezbollah's leader to say, okay, let's attack the U.S. again. It could take just a couple guys in one of these other militias that have drones and rockets and can go out and shoot them. towards the U.S., and there's also people that have an interest in provoking a war between the U.S. and the Shiites, namely ISIS. And just everything that's happening, I mean, there's just so many factors that could explode into a major war, I think. And looking at what Biden is doing in Yemen shows he's not worried about escalation, really. And he just keeps bombing

Yemen. I mean, yesterday they launched two rounds of airstrikes in Yemen. And that hasn't stopped the Red Sea. That's all escalated. So, you know, if we're relying on Biden's restraint. We're not in a good position. Hey, guys, I've had a lot of great webmasters over the years, but the team at expanddesigns.com have by far been the most competent and reliable. Harley Abbott and his team have made great sites for the show and the institute, and they keep them running well, suggesting and making improvements all along. Make a deal with expanddesigns.com for your new business or news site. They will take care of you. Use the promo code Scott and save $500.

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Scott Horton.org. It's anti-war radio. I'm Scott Horton talking with Dave DeCamp, news editor at anti-war.com and a host of anti-war news. And I want to go back to what you said about the possibility of ISIS intervention here. There were a lot of people on Twitter

who said, oh, it must be an Israeli false flag attack against the American base in Iraq there. Well, and that's because you guys aren't reading Dave DeCamp. at anti-war.com because if you were, you would know that the Shiite militias have been attacking American forces in Iraq and Syria for months. And, you know, you told us the story here on the show about, and there's a Wall Street Journal report about how they flew a drone right in the window

of a barracks in Iraqi Kurdistan and the dang thing was a dud. If you believe in miracles, it was a miracle because it could have killed 15 of our guys, but it didn't go off. And that was a couple of months ago. And there had been, you know, I know you and Kyle know the number, but I know it's dozens of attacks. And this one finally came true, just like we had warned. One of these days, they're going to kill one of our guys out there. And then Biden is going to be forced to escalate. And as they even warn in the New York Times that we think will be forced to hit Iran then, if one of our guys gets killed. And instead of getting them out of the way, they left them there to be a tripwire for war. And meanwhile, go back four years ago, right around the time of Trump's assassination

of Soleimani in this same kind of tit for tat. And there was a great article by a young lady reporter. I'm sorry, I forget her name, but it's in the archives that people just check from January of 2020. You can find it at Scott Horton.org, where she said, hey, look, any kook with a pickup truck could fire some Katusha rockets at an American base. And I forget now the part of the province that they were in and where they were. But she said it is not an exclusively Shiite area at all. And essentially anyone can come and go around here. They found a pickup truck with some empty katusha tubes.

And that doesn't prove that Khatib Hasblah did it at all. And she wasn't accusing ISIS of doing it and saying it was a false flag. She was just being a journalist and saying when these people say that they know that it was Khadib Hezbollah that did it, either they have secret intelligence that we don't know about, like in the cliche, or they're just making that up because that's who they want to accuse. So if any Islamic state guys out there remaining what's left of al-Qaeda in Iraq and Western Iraq, if they're thinking at all, launching attacks against American forces in Kurdistan, if they can reach them, they know that it's almost certain that Shiites will be. blame and they can escalate this conflict between their two bitter enemies, the Americans and the Shiites. And so why wouldn't they do that if they thought that they could, which they must know that they can? So, and while at the same time, I think it's also plausible that it is Khatib Hasbullah, whoever their leadership is, who've decided that they think this is great, this Iraqi militia,

who they've decided to do this for their own parochial interests. Maybe they're trying to build up their credibility versus Sata or something. But, and I just think that's an important point to, they say, oh, we're here for ISIS. Well, are you? And maybe ISIS is here for you too, you know? Yeah. And I know Israel does have assets in northern Iraq, in Iraqi Kurdistan. So I think it is possible. Maybe they could, they could do something. But because there's certainly the motive. I mean, it seems pretty clear that Netanyahu is trying to provoke a bigger war. And we've had U.S. officials say that. They think he might view a war in Lebanon as key to his political survival, because there's going to be this political reckoning once what's happening in Gaza ends, which who knows when that will be.

And another thing that's really concerning here is, I don't know if you saw this, but the intercept reported the other day that U.S. personnel, Air Force personnel in Iraq got a memo that said be on standby for potential U.S. ground operations in Gaza. So what does that mean? And this memo was sent in January. You know, when I saw that headline, I was pretty worried about it. And I guess I didn't read the memo. But when I read the article more carefully, I thought, you know, you know me, I'm always Mr. Sunshine and optimism and everything.

But that seemed like possibly just sort of a bureaucratic standby thing that wasn't really calculating the political potential of that. Right. That was my reading of it because, man, putting American troops on the ground, it does look like they had some Delta Force operators there before, as Biden posted on his Instagram or his interns did. And that's already bad enough, but something like a real deployment of American combat forces in Palestine. Holy blowback, man. There's no way to calculate the consequences of that. And so, Whether the generals are thinking about that or not, the guys in the suits on the NSC have got to be. That has to be the absolute last resort. But I'm just making that up and speculating that like, geez, they wouldn't do that, would they, Dave? Say they wouldn't, man. Tell me they wouldn't do that. Well, that was my first instinct.

Like, even when I read the headline, I'm like, no. And I read the thing. I'm like, yeah, maybe, you know, I was kind of thinking that way. But the more I thought about it, I mean, this is what I think might be the way. worst case scenario is that it's because they have to be planning for the possibility of war with Iran, even though that might not be what they want is like a full-blown war, but they got to be making some plans for it. So I was thinking maybe if that does happen like full-blown major war, then they're going to say, okay, well, we have to make sure Israel wins in Gaza because

they're not doing very well against Hamas. Hamas is already kind of reasserting itself in northern Gaza, which was completely obliterated. So maybe that's part of the thinking, like, okay, things really escalate, war with Iran, war in Lebanon. We got to help the Israelis make sure they could at least secure Gaza and just they can make it part of this new war against Iran. But again, that's, you know, my worst case thinking. Yeah. And look, usually the worst case is not what happens. The point here is how irresponsible American leadership is that they've even got it to this point at all. Sometimes the worst case plays out, but usually not. And we do have the fact that the current Ayatollah clearly doesn't want to fight.

Now, I like to emphasize we at anti-war.com like to emphasize the costs for the United States of America if we got into a real war with Iran, it would not be some kind of push over war. and the cost to our military and, you know, economic assets in the region would be incalculable. Certainly thousands of troops could be killed almost instantaneously in an initial missile barrage. But the Ayatollah's got to be looking at it from the point of view that he knows America can blast the hell out of his country from over the horizon and that there's nothing he can do about it. And he just doesn't want that. What good is there in it for him? It's not like his regime's about to fall and he needs a war in order to strengthen it or something like that.

He'd be crazy to let this thing go any further. And clearly Nasrallah in Lebanon is sticking with tit for tat, but he has not launched phase to some massive operation of the regional Shiite war against Israel and their friends or anything like that, right? So they could have done that months ago, and they're not doing that. So it might be different if we had some raving loon Ayatollah. I'm not saying he isn't a dictator, but I'm saying he's not a raving loon. And so, and by the way, the headline in the Jerusalem Post is that the Americans say that the hostage deal that they're working on is strong. And they have this ceasefire pause. And I know Netanyahu said over his dead body, but then again, he lies about everything.

everything. So maybe that's just cover for the fact that they truly are working on a truce in recognition of what you just said, Dave DeCamp from antivore.com, that it's not working. It killed all these people and Hamas's already back in the north, never mind the south when Israel's only halfway to the south. And Hamas is already back. So, and isn't it the case that Blinken said, there's no military solution to this? We all know that. Yeah. And I mean, the White House basically said that too. You had Austin and Brown, the new chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, both say, you know, Hamas is just going to, you know, be able to recruit. You know, you kill all these civilians. They're going to be able to recruit more fighters. It's really

unbelievable that you have them saying those things and still funding this war, like to the hilt. I shouldn't call it a war, you know, just a mass law. So there's a thing in the Guardian, and we have this highlighted in the top news stories at anti-war.com today, how war destroyed Gaza's neighborhoods, a visual investigation. And I might add that the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal have also done stories very much along these lines in the New York Times as well, where they pour over satellite pictures to survey the damage in Gaza so far. And I bring up the Wall Street Journal because everybody knows that that's as official establishment center right very closely connected to the national security establishment as you could get and they are saying to themselves my god man this is like hamburg and dresden in world war two but that was the nazis well at least german civilians under the third rike german nazi empire whereas this is a ghetto prison camp by the sea here these people are just being absolutely

slaughtered. So, but now the Wall Street Journal, when they did theirs, Dave, that was a month ago or more. And so, what do we learn from this update in The Guardian here? I mean, it really shows how they have pummeled the South, because at that point, the Wall Street Journal was focusing more on the north. And this basically says it's almost 60% of all the buildings in Gaza have been destroyed or damaged. And if you look at the map that they have the red that shows the damage across the Gaza Strip. I mean, it's unbelievable. They're just humbling this place. And they're not just doing it from air and, you know, artillery and tanks now. They're also like meticulously demolishing houses and buildings along the border area and basically openly saying that they're creating a buffer zone. That is what they're calling it. But they're just turning it into a wasteland that nobody can live in about one mile.

within Gaza. And this is just all part of the plan. I think it's very clear that they're trying to conquer, you know, take over the strip. And there's also, we have a report from Heretz up there on the page today, too, that shows Israeli soldiers are burning down houses and buildings. And, you know, they've done that to hundreds of buildings so far. They go in, they kind of occupy them for a little while, and then they burn them down. So it's just showing that this is the plan, destroy this place, and make it completely unenhabited.

all right so i wonder if maybe those are two different questions dave i thought possibly not to take their side or anything but that possibly because of the international court of justice ruling that they are going from plan a which is cleanse the whole strip to plan b we're not going to be able to get away with that so instead we're going to do this big buffer area another interpretation would be the buffer area is simply a slight of hand hey look everybody we're going to do a buffer area while what they're really doing is what you're saying is completing the cleansing of the place. It could also be, though, that if their orders are, well, we're not going to get to keep it, just destroy it out of spite that they would still do that anyway.

But... Yeah, I think that's definitely a possibility. I know that Trita Parsi had noted that at least the tempo of calls for the complete cleansing and recolonization of the strip had been lowered after the court ruling. although the Israeli government officials keep saying extremely crazy stuff at the same time, too. They went to a big party about it. Did you see that conference that? Ben-Gavir and Smotrich and other members, I believe, what was it, 12 ministers in the Israeli government,

including, you know, Lakud party members, went to this resettled Gaza conference, and they were all calling for settlements and the expulsion of the Palestinians, and they were all dancing and having a good time. Yeah, it's, so there's been good of that. But when it comes to kind of the stuff that they've been putting out, like the night before the ICJ hearing started, just the first hearing, Netanyahu came out and said, oh, we're not going to, you know, expel the Palestinians. That's not our plan, you know. But, yeah, they could have changed their strategy with the ICJ stuff. But this buffer zone thing, according to the Wall Street Journal, that started in November, the plan for that. I see.

And they were, you know, and they're demolishing not just buildings. They're destroying the agricultural land that was near the border in northern Gaza and demolishing greenhouses and things like that. They've done that in previous of these grass mowing campaigns, as they call them, steadily shrinking the Gaza Strip at its border, moving the fence area further and further in. So look, I just want to recommend to people. You can find this link at anti-war.com today. It's the picture story as well.

Nice and easy to find there at anti-war.com. It's a guardian piece, how war destroyed Gaza's neighborhoods. And they show with high-resolution satellite pictures the absolute devastation of these people's land. And it is really something to see. And to know that the U.S. government is aiding and abetting every bit of it. So I highly urge people to check that out. And that link is available right at the top of anti-war.com today.

as well and with that we're out of time but i want to thank you very much for your time again day appreciate you all your work yeah thanks for having me back scott all right you guys that is dave de camp he's our news editor at antiwar dot com news dot antiwar dot com and that's it for antiwar radio for today i'm your host scott horton i'm the editorial director at antiret com and you'll find all my six thousand-something interviews over at scott horton dot org and all your favorite podcatchers and things and you follow me on Twitter, if you dare. At Scott Horton's show. I'm here every Thursday from 23 to 3 on KPFK 90.7 FM in L.A. See you next week.