Scott Horton Show - Just the Interviews - 3/10/23 Daniel McAdams on the Uprisings in Georgia

Episode Date: March 12, 2023

Daniel McAdams joins Scott to discuss the recent uprisings in one of Russia’s southern neighbors, the country of Georgia. Scott and McAdams discuss what is happening, how it began and what role outside governments appear to have.  Discussed on the show: “Georgia: The Color of Foreign Influence” (The Wayward Rabbler) “Extending Russia” (RAND) Daniel McAdams is the executive director of the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity and the co-host of the Ron Paul Liberty Report. Follow him on Twitter @DanielLMcAdams and read all of his work over at Antiwar.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 scott horton dot for you can sign up the podcast feed there and the full interview archive is also available at youtube dot com slash scott horton's show you guys when there's a color-coded revolution you know what i do i call dan mcadams because he's the expert welcome back to the show dan how you doing great scott

thanks for having me back appreciate it happy to have you here of course you guys know is the director of the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity and co-host of the Liberty Report with the great Ron Paul, the heroic and great Ron Paul every day over there on Rumble. Now, man, you guys do so much great work. I almost don't know where to begin here, but I guess I definitely want to start with the goings-on in Georgia. Now, it's not, if I understand it right, Dan, exactly a color-coded. revolution because they got the lady they want in the presidency, but the parliament, I guess, had picked a fight with USA and got themselves in some pretty hot water here in the past few days,

huh? Yeah, I mean, the president has less power. There was some reform not long ago where the parliament actually ascended. And they had enough votes with this law, which I'm sure we'll talk about, to overthrow the president's veto. But they decided as these protests were heating up, as people were smashing things and breaking in a la early Maidan, that they were going to back down and pull the law back rather than push it through. I don't know if it was a right move or wrong move, and it's not for me to say, but definitely there were the votes in the parliament, in the Georgian parliament to pass this, which is essentially the same conduct. It was modeled on our Foreign Agents Registration Act, although it's been passed off by the U.S. government as a pro-Russia bill, which it is not. So that's the beginnings of it.

Yeah. Yeah, so this is funny. There's a few funny things about the way that this has been covered so far. But one of them is this mantra, Russian-style law, Russian-style law, which it is true that Vladimir Putin did have a law pass and even expanded on it in 2011. and 12 to limit the power of foreign NGOs intervening over there. But he was just copying America too, because we've had this law all along the foreign intelligence, or pardon me, the foreign agents registration. Can you talk a little bit about how the system works in America as we can understand the background of that? Well, it's, it's again like the hypocrisy of the U.S. The U.S. forced RT and R.T.

America to register as foreign agents under their own act. And they're simply a news outlet that's indirectly funded by the Russian government. So the U.S. uses it willy-nilly whatever it wants to to silence people who challenge the U.S. foreign policy narrative. But if any other country dares, and in fact, many, many countries around the world have the same sort of transparency laws, which is that if you are an entity, a nonprofit entity, be a university or an NGO, what have you, and you're funded to a certain percentage by a foreign government, then you simply have to disclose that funding. I think it's a very good lot. I think transparency is a good thing.

The U.S. pretends that it's in favor of transparency until that transparency threatens what the U.S. is actually being doing in Georgia for 30 years, which is financing their entire nonprofit sector, you know, to the complete limit and the EU as well, by the way. But financing the whole sector, they don't want the cat to be out of the bag to show the degree to which the U.S. government really is Georgia, and that's a fact. Yeah. I mean, imagine the United States of America not having a law like that or any other country not having a law that says that there are limits on what foreign national governments can do to intervene in your politics inside your borders. Are you kidding me? Of course, everybody has to have something like that. The scandal in America is they don't enforce it. And everybody inside the Beltway is a foreign agent on the take of the UAE or the Saudis or I don't know. the German Marshall Fund or whoever is bribing them, you know? Yeah, it's selectively...

The Israelis. I mean, the UAE funds, I think, Brookings and several of the think tanks in town. So there's plenty of that. Probably the Saudis won't be funding much anymore because they've just made an historic deal with the Iran, thanks to China's brokering, but that's a different story. But yeah, there's tons of it. It's okay as long as they push the line that Washington has wanted, but that's all falling part. You know, Scott, the whole thing about what's happening in Georgia is very simple. You know,

in early December, Iraqi Grabashvili, who is the prime minister, said, we are not going to take part of the proxy war with Russia. Now, they're not pro-Russia. There is no pro-Russia party. There hasn't been a pro-Russia party in Georgia, I would say. And I'm not an expert. I've been to Georgia, and I've been in the prisons in Georgia where the political prisoners are kept. But I would say not since Gamsakuria has there been a pro-Ros. But they said, we don't want to arm Kiev. We don't want to send weapons. We don't want to get involved. And that's not good enough. Non-intervention is not good when the U.S. wants you to intervene. And so right after that, think about this, the timeline, early December, now all of a sudden, springs coming around, and they are activating all their troops on the street to try to storm parliament, try to overthrow the government. And they're literally calling to say, we need to dissolve this government and have a new government, you know, the handful of protesters that are on the streets. And look, I think it's really important what you say about this is not some pro-Russia party. It never was. And that, in fact, as I understand it, the president was elected with the support of this majority party. And that I think they had been the loyal opposition during Shakashvili, who she used to be an ally with, who, of course, America had done the coup in 2003 to install and power there. So in other words, this is not. a president or even a parliament made up of people that the Americans were determined to

overthrow at any time up until, as you're saying, they dissented on Ukraine and then tried to pass this law limiting. And talk about, go ahead, because it was hyperbolic, but I think you're right, that essentially these NGOs have so much power to influence inside Georgia in determining their politics and their policies. And even in the media, they go, look, this is all about the independence of Georgia and then in the next breath sometimes even in the same sentence sometimes with or without a comma and they're in our strategic interest in bringing them into NATO and the European Union and all of these things they say right there but but help us understand the amount of money and the amount of influence and some of the recent history of the

intervention in that country there and by the way I'm sorry I'm sorry this sounds silly but it's not exactly silly we should really specify here in case somebody's tuning in late I don't know. We're talking about former Soviet Georgia between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea. And there have been times like, you know, someone had told me a story about in 2008 when the Russians, well, when the Georgians attacked South Ossetia and the Russians attack them back, that there were people who were really afraid that Russia was attacking Georgia, our Georgia. And that, but they were like, because they don't know, you know. What do you mean? Oh my God, the Russians are invading Georgia? And people are really afraid.

And so, yeah, we're talking about, and look, the reason you don't know about former Soviet Georgia is because it doesn't matter to us, only to our government for weird reasons that most Americans would never understand, you know? Sorry, go ahead, please. Yeah, no, no, you're absolutely right. Well, the president, Salome Zorovichvili, it's a tough one to pronounce, but she was not only allied with Saakashvili, she was his foreign minister, right? And she's not, she's not Georgian. I mean, she only became a Georgian citizen in 2004 so that she could become his foreign minister. She is a French diplomat. She spent her entire career in the service of the French foreign ministry, right?

So she actually, ironically, is a foreign agent. Was her family at least from you from Georgia? Well, her background. Her background is Georgian, of course, but she's not a Georgian citizen. She's not a Georgian citizen. She served the French government all this time, and she only became a citizen to serve the U.S. up at Saakashvili, who ironically was brought into power by the U.S. government in the name of expanding European standards in Georgia, which ironically was the same talking points used

by the same people to overthrow the first president of Georgia Shavard Nazi. When he was overthrown before Saakashvili, it was in the name of European values. They brought Saakashvili in. and he brought him this foreign agent to run his foreign policy. She's been in the pocket. But, you know, just at, you know, in a way, she's very much a Zelensky character. Because just like Zelensky, now go back and look at some of the old speeches of Zelensky. He talks about, I'm a Jewish-Russian speaker. I believe that people in Ukraine should be allowed to speak Russian.

They shouldn't be bothered in the East. We shouldn't be going after these people. I'm one of them, et cetera, et cetera. This is what got him elected. He was elected as a peace candidate. The same thing happened with Zorabashvili. She was the same lines. She was mouthing the same lines.

And until it came the time to activate her. And then she was activated. She stood up on this bill saying that she would veto it. And that's what started this whole thing off. So if anyone out there thinks that the U.S. and the EU doesn't place, and I would say the U.S. mostly, doesn't place people like this in power in these positions to activate them when necessary. Well, guess what? You're naive. Yeah. Well, it's just incredible to see the way. And frankly, I'm jealous, man. I don't know. We got so many problems in America, but everybody just hates

each other so much. Nobody wants to pour out into the street. We need, like, Ross Perrault's son to give us a billion dollars so that we can astroturf some effort to stop this kind of crazy intervention in the world. But George Soros, or, you know, whoever, I forgot the guy's name that you know, followed Carl Gershman over at the NED. They just snapped their fingers and pour some dollars in, and they got people by the thousands willing to betray their country to come out on the street and serve foreign interests. All I want America is to do is go out and help protect America for foreign interests.

And we can't get anybody interested. But these guys, it's just, they got some really great PR firms, you know, with their slogans and their stickers and their spray paint and their color-coded activities, Dan? Well, these people have been nurtured by the U.S. government for 30 years. Don't forget that. All of these NGOs have been financed. It's very funny because there's the claim that, oh, if they're forced to register as foreign agents, it will destroy the vibrant NGO culture in Georgia. Well, if it's so vibrant, why does it have to be underwritten by the U.S.? by a foreign entity, you know, but here's a tidbit that's interesting. Todd Robinson,

I don't know if you know about this. He's the assistant secretary of state. He arrived in Tbilisi the day before the riots erupted. And he was there to address a woman in policing event. But immediately, immediately, he started talking about politics in Georgia. And he said, this is a law based on Russia's interests, not Georgia's interests. We think it's in Georgia's interest to work more closely towards its Euro-Atlantic integration. This law does not do that. Of course, even though it's modeled after Arla, well, who is Robinson? Huh. He was acting ambassador in Venezuela won the U.S. through the coup against Maduro. This guy is a regime change agent that travels around, just like, and I forget his name, the U.S. ambassador in Serbia at the time in

2000. They go from country to country, and they bring this system with him and they know how to do it. it's all it's all you know it's all sort of organized it sounds conspiratorial but everywhere you go you'll see these people move around and robinson was there the day before he jinned up the protest he got things going and that's where we are it's amazing i mean they're really not very shy about it at all they really haven't been in any of these major ones these color-coded revolutions and um man i wish i had the quote because there's this great quote from the BBC about how um i tell you about this where they say listen you got to understand in Georgian and in Russian the word agent has this negative connotation of like a foreign spy or traitor and so when they say that somebody is a

foreign agent it sounds really bad instead of the obvious reality that these are just good people trying to make a better society and that's in the news story right that wasn't a that wasn't an op-ed I don't know if the BBC does op-eds that was in the news reporting it's incredible

they're just fighting for their independence to be financed by Americans yeah they're fighting the Russian influence of which there is little to none and I think the Russians have probably learned after the attempted coup in Belarus, they're probably making a mistake by not trying to be more involved in these places because it's like the old, it's like the old line during the Soviet

Union. Well, I'm not interested in politics. Yes, but is politics interested in you? Right. That's the case. But, you know, I'm getting ready to republish a very interesting piece by this fellow called Brad Pierce. I don't know if you're familiar with him. But he has a great piece on this, where he traces down to the person all of the leaders that are pushing these protests. And he goes through all these different tweets. And every single person, like the first person, Ostop Yarish, you look down in his saying, oh, he works for VOA news. You look at the next one, Ito Obosyashvili. Oh, she works for Atlantic Council. The next one, Katie Shoshvili. Oh, she works for transparency international, which is 60% funded by governments, including the U.S. and

other governments. And on and on, he goes down the line. He brings the receipts for all of these people that are leading this. They're all in the pay directly or indirectly of the United States government. They're all agents to use a word that just has a nice connotation, as you say. Yeah. It's just incredible. It really is. At the Libertarian Institute, we publish books, real good ones. So far, we've got Will Griggs's No Quarter, Sheldon Richmond's coming to Palestine, and what social animals owe to each other, and four of mine, fools Aaron, enough already, the great Ron Paul, and my brand new one,

hotter than the sun, time to abolish nuclear weapons. And I'm happy to announce that we've just published our managing editor Keith Knight's first one, The Voluntarius Handbook, an excellent collection of essays by the world's greatest libertarian thinkers and writers, including me. Check them all out at Libertarian Institute.org slash books. And for a limited time, signed copies of enough already and hotter than the sun are available at Scott Horton.org slash books. Hey guys, I had some wasps in my house. So I shot them to death with my trusty bug assault 3.0 model with the improved salt reservoir and bar safety. I don't have a deal with

them, but the show does earn a kickback every time you get a bug assault or anything else you buy from Amazon.com by way of the link in the right-hand margin on the front page at Scott Horton.org. So keep that in mind. And don't worry about the mess. Your wife will clean it up. 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. So I found the quote here. Historically, the term agent in Russia and Georgia has the meaning of spy and traitor, giving a negative connotation to the work done by civil society. It suggests that they are acting in the interests of foreign forces, rather than, doing good for the country and society. That's the BBC the other day. And so... And that's probably... Go ahead.

No, I'm just going to say the person who gave that little tidbit to them probably works for VOA or RFE or the Atlantic Council, et cetera. That's where all of their sources are in these places. You know, they are the sources. And that's how journalism works

to support the state. Well, and the BBC is no different from radio-free Europe. Anyway, you know, it's all the government program. Yeah, absolutely. Well, there's Kit Clarenberg. I know you know him. I have a lot of respect for him. He has a good tweet out saying, I'm sure it's just a giant spooky coincidence that all the groups at the forefront of the unrest in Georgia receive national endowment for democracy funding. And are waving NATO flags. And U.S. flags. Thanks, guys. And who's handing out those flags? Come on, you know, these are being handed out by these people.

I mean, this is actually some of the most blatant, old-style color revolutions that I've seen. And I avoided looking into it because it just seemed like a nightmare. But now that I did, I mean, all the gang has come home for another giant U.S. tour. It's like some aging band, right? But what worries me, Scott, to be more serious is we know what happened in Maidan. And this looks a lot like Maidan. because so many concessions were made by Yanukovych and every time he made a concession they ratcheted up the demands until at the very end how did they finally kick this thing off with the snipers with massive random murderous violence that's what it finally took after months remember this started in at the end of 2013 like October or November they didn't they weren't able to get full launch until until February so it took a while and they had to to have this massive violence. And I, God, I hope it doesn't happen in Georgia.

Man, I remember in November of 2013, you tweeting me, hey, Scott, look, revolution, color code of revolution breaking out in Ukraine right now. And it was the webcam view of the May Don and the first bit of protesters showing up there. I was like, oh, no. And then I remember seeing liberal types going, yeah, that's what real revolution looks like. And I'm like, oh, no, dude. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, we've seen this before. In that, in that same, spot. We've seen this before. Yeah, exactly. No, this time it's real. This time it's organic. Come on. They're just, they're demonstrating for freedom. Yeah. Yeah. All right. So in this case now, the, the parliament said, okay, okay, okay, you know, uncle, we don't want to be overthrown.

But then they, so far, they're keeping the protests up. As you said, I don't know if they're really still ratcheting it up. So far, what I read was they said, we want it to know for sure that it's all the way dead because under the rules they think it might still be alive somehow in the Congress and in Parliament there and once it's all the way dead then they'll go home they claim so we'll see what happens with that but so far they haven't gone home based on the parliament announcing the ruling party announcing that they were dropping it so yeah I mean my money is on there waiting for their marching orders from the US embassy yeah you know and it's going to be ratcheted up well the president announced it from America she was here and

said you better not do that on u.s soil not only did she denounce it on u.s soil she encouraged the protesters in the street as they were breaking the square up as they were as they were breaking up the entrance to parliament and attempting to inter parliament she encouraged them as she was in the u.s and the u.s said don't you dare move against these protesters or you're going to face sanctions so i mean obviously they're just relentless yeah you know and they can turn it and off. You'd have to be from here to not be able to see it. But even if you're from here, you ought to be able to say like, geez, these guys, you know, going for Kazakhstan right in the run-up to the Ukraine war breaking out, going for Belarus, you know, two, three times. Come on,

guys. You know? Absolutely. Absolutely. And they are slapped down on both of those, in both of those cases. but ironically despite what is claimed Russian does have a lot did have a lot more influence in Belarus certainly because of 2020 and I mean you could almost

well I don't want to get too far into the weeds but you could almost argue that if I were the Russians I would have been the one trying to do the regime change because what it did is it drove Lukashenko into the arms of Putin where he wasn't he was always flirting with the West he always wanted to be in the cool kids club

and it was only the supposed U.S. color code in 2020 that finally forced him to divorce this idea that he was going to be on good terms with the U.S. So it would be ironic if the Russians were behind that, but I don't think so because we know how hamfisted U.S. foreign policy. It's the same thing happened, as you say, in Kazakhstan. It was like, nope. The Russians said, we know what's happening. It's not going to happen. Ironically, the Russians don't have the kind of influence in Georgia that they've had in those two countries. They just don't have those ties. And it's been a long time ago, but I was, as I mentioned, I've been in Georgia.

I've spoken to, you know, at the time, all of the different parties. And the one thing that they do hold in common now that the Qamsakurians, the Zviotis are gone, is that there are no pro-Russian parties. There are the parties that are in the back pocket of NATO and the EU and the U.S. And then there are those that are seeking more of an independent path. Yep. Well, that's as good as Soviet, man. You know, you're not allowed to do that.

So, and I wanted to throw in here about Lyle Goldstein, formerly of the Defense Department, Naval War College, a scholar there, and now in defense priorities, he told me, I asked him, you know, why Putin, he had all these reasons to not absorb the Dombas, and he finally did. And so, but what really changed? And he said, well, it was the coup in Belarus in 2020, that it wasn't just Putin. It was all of Moscow. the entire national security establishment there said that's it you know what we have to draw a line now enough of this already which is completely understandable and probably was the reason for it right

is to provoke that reaction just like in the ran study yeah you know ironically i mean Putin may have faced a coup because of that because his opposition isn't hey we want to go toward the u.s his oppositions why didn't you blow the hell out of ukraine completely and totally in 2014 you moron. So that's the opposition in Russia. Yeah. People too, it is scary, right. You know, for sure. Yeah. Yeah. And left. I mean, the communists are the number one opposition party and they're very, very aggressive on this. So it's not, yeah. So, but you mentioned the RAND study and it really is important. It was published in April of 2019. And, you know, this is the competing from the advantageous

ground, extending Russia. Right. And if you read, I mean, if you'll indulge me, Scott, I know, your viewers. I know you know it very well, but for the sake of your listeners. These are the, these are the chat. This is chapter four, and these are the measures to destroy Russia. One, provide lethal aid to Ukraine. This is 2019. Two, increase support for Syrian rebels. Three, promote regime change in Belarus. Four, exploit tensions in the South Caucasus. Yeah. Five, reduce Russian influence in Central Asia. Kazakhstan. Six, challenge Russian presence in Moldova. And we're seeing that happen as well. So literally everything on this

this is a shopping list. And they talk about regime change in Russia. They don't talk about bombing the Nord Stream pipeline, but they do talk about we should do everything we can diplomatically to prevent it from getting done by pressuring the Germans to not go for it. And all of the rest of that, too, is in there. Yeah. I mean, they lay it out completely.

They're not hiding this. Man, it's a hell of a thing. And I'm sorry that we're out of time because there's so much more to this. well you know what what the hell who's next oh she can wait one minute I want to point out this thing from Radio Liberty I think this just says it

all Dan where this is US government media and they say critics say that this mirrors Russian legislation this NGO law and has restricted the work of independent journalists and democratic institutions there so it's the US government

saying that the independence of these institutions are threatened if they have to admit that they're financed by foreign powers. But like, let's just say, rhetorically speaking, for the sake of argument kind of thing, that the law actually banned NGOs that were financed by foreign powers if it went that far. Well, so then, and then this is supposed to mean that this absolutely would throw everything into Russia's arms and agenda. But, I mean, it doesn't sound like that's in evidence at all. That, That, you know, I don't know if the Russians bother even trying to finance an NGO or two in Georgia,

but it doesn't sound like they would be immediately under the sway of the Russians, even if the Americans were excluded. It's just they would be out from under American domination is really all. I mean, isn't it funny that quote unquote, independent media equals media funded by the United States government? How in any definition, I mean, that's what Samantha Power did when she went to Budapest. And that's what she's wanting as a regime change there, because they're also resisting going all in on war with Russia. She went over in an unannounced, as a senior diplomat in the U.S. government, senior member of the administration, she went over in an unannounced trip and said, we're going to start funding opposition media against the current government, even though there are ally NATO member. Yeah.

But we'll call it independent. Can you imagine? I mean, we had a national mental breakdown over a couple of balloons that someone said we're Chinese. Can you imagine if it turns out that the, you know, Washington Post, New York Times or whatever, were all funded by the Chikoms. America would lose its crap completely. Yeah, look, I mean, they said that Donald Trump's election was an act of war. And they compare it to Crystal Knot and Pearl Harbor in September 11th. Yeah. All in one.

it's that the inability for them to see themselves is probably the most remarkable thing about all this other than the heat of the age bombs when they finally go off dan yeah absolutely it's just remarkable to see really um well all we can hope is that it doesn't go further it doesn't go into violets you know that's all i hope yeah well and look as you pointed out the russians were able to thwart belarus and Kazakhstan and hopefully the hungarian security forces have their act together enough to prevent a coup d'etat. There's fewer, fewer reasons all the time for anyone to take America seriously if you ask me. So, you know, hopefully things will be winding down from here on out. Absolutely. All right. Well, thank you so much for your time again on the show. Really appreciate it.

Thanks, Scott. Love to talk to you. Bye-bye. All right, you guys. That's the great Dan McAdams. He's Ron Paul's right-hand man over there at the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity. And at the Liberty Report. The Scott Horton show, Anti-War Radio, can be heard on KPFK 90.7 FM in L.A. APSRadio.com, anti-war.com, Scotthorton.org, and Libertarian Institute.org.