Scott Horton Show - Just the Interviews - 4/11/24 Dave Decamp on the Threat of Escalation in the Middle East

Episode Date: April 13, 2024

Dave Decamp was back on Antiwar Radio this week to talk about the escalating violence in the Middle East. He talks with Scott about the Israeli strike on the Iranian consulate building in Syria and the expected Iranian response. They also discuss the violence in southern Lebanon, the odds of a ceasefire occurring in the near future and more. Discussed on the show: “US Thinks Iranian Retaliation Against Israel Is Imminent” (Antiwar.com) “Biden Walks Back Call for Israel to Declare a Ceasefire in Gaza” (Antiwar.com) “Biden Says He’s Considering Dropping Charges Against Julian Assange” (Antiwar.com) 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: 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, April 11th, 2024, I'm Scott Horton. This is Anti-War Radio. I'm your host, Scott Horton. I'm editorial director of anti-war.com and author of the book, Enough Already. time to end the war on terrorism, among others. And you can find my full interview archive, more than 6,000 of them now, going back to 2003 at Scott Wharton.org

and at YouTube.com slash Scott Horton's show. All right, and our first guest on the show today is Dave DeCamp. He's our news editor at anti-war.com. That's news.com. And also, he hosts the great podcast, Anti-War News. Now, to be confused with Anti-War Radio, where he's a regular guest.

Welcome back to the show. How are you doing, Dave? I'm good, Scott. Thanks for having me back on. Very happy to have you here. So let's talk about the bad news from sadist land over there, Israel, Palestine. And in fact, let's start with the international war. As we covered last week, the Israelis bombed the Iranian consulate, or was it actually the embassy in Syria?

and all the breathless headlines are predicting Iranian retaliation any day now. So what do you know about all that? Yeah, so this is what we're seeing from, you know, U.S. and Israeli intelligence sources speaking to the media. We've just seen reports all over the place. Basically, the U.S. is expecting Iran to retaliate against Israel for bombing the consulate building in Damascus and that they're expecting a direct attack missile or possibly drone attack on. Israeli territory. And it's important for people to know.

I'm sure people who listen to this show or read anti-war.com understand that Israel has a long history of killing Iranians in the region, both in Syria, in air strikes in Syria, and in covert attacks inside Iran. But this really was a huge escalation and very brazen. I mean, they bombed, it's a consulate building that was part of the embassy compound in Damascus. They bombed an Iranian diplomatic facility in the middle of the day. And these IRGC officers who were there thought, you know, they were getting targeted by Israel a lot more since October 7th, but they thought they would be safe in the diplomatic compound. But no, in the middle of the day, Israel bombed it. So Iran is usually very restrained in their responses to Israel, if they respond at all. So we, you know, we have to keep that in mind that the Iranians are probably calculating that Israel's trying to provoke a major war here. I mean, that's, that seems to be their goal. is to get the U.S. to directly intervene. So now we have the U.S. and Israel saying that they're preparing a direct attack, and the U.S. is essentially saying that if that happens, that they're

going to directly, you know, they'll probably try to intercept some missiles or drones to help Israel, and then they might be involved in any sort of Israeli counterattack. Israel saying that they're going to bomb Iran directly if Iran attacks them. And if Israel really wants to carry out airstrikes in Iran, they're going to need U.S. support for that. So there's just this risk of a all-out war here between Israel, Iran, and the U.S. would, of course, get involved. So really the question is, what is Iran going to do? Again, they know what Israel is trying to do here. They've said it, you know, they've called this Netanyahu's trap publicly, you know, in a warning to the U.S. to stay out of it. So, you know, it's kind of everybody's on edge here,

I guess, to see what the next move is. Yeah. Well, look, I think the reason they do this is because they know that the Ayatollah will let them get away with it, because what's he going to do? He doesn't have a land army to field. He can shoot some missiles at them, but then the war only escalates from there, you know? Usually when this happens, they bomb Americans in Iraq with the deniable, you know, militia proxy or something. I don't know if they're going to do that this time, but I don't know. I'm not predicting that the Ayatoll is about to shoot all those missiles over Iraq and Jordan to try to hit Israel with them and get most of them shot down anyway probably yeah I mean like I said that that's what they're

predicting but I would be surprised if that if that's what Iran does here but we'll see I mean there have been reports really this was just one report unconfirmed in Arab media that said Iran is telling the US get a ceasefire in Gaza and we won't retaliate which might be possible you know I think it's clear that if there is a ceasefire in Gaza that everything's gonna calm down in the region and that's that's why Netanyahu who doesn't want one. So, you know, I wouldn't be surprised if that's a message that Iran has sent.

It's anti-war radio talking with Dave DeKamp from anti-war.com. And did I read you right here that the Israelis also bombed the Syrian Arab Army as well as Iranian targets there? Yeah. They bombed them the other day. This week, they launched some more airstrikes in Syria against the serial. And I'm only half kidding when I ask, was that indirect air support for us? al-Qaeda forces on the ground there or not this time? Not this time as far as I'm aware, but yeah, you mentioned there were recent times where

Israel is bombing Syria and then you see the attacks from al-Qaeda against the Syrian military like at the same time. But yeah, this is something I cover all the time. Israel's been bombing Syria for years. They bombed the Syrian military all the time. So that's not really anything new. But again, this thing with Iran. And they killed a senior Quds Force commander who they say was the highest level of rank.

general to be killed since the U.S. killed Soleimani back in 2020. So again, it is a big deal. And, you know, I don't want to downplay the potential for escalation here because, you know, at some point Iran's Israel is going to go too far and, you know, we'll see Iran do something. But, you know, and another thing to keep in mind is the fact that Israel has nukes. And if we see what Israel is doing in Gaza, all the atrocities that they're committing there, they're a complete, you know, rogue state. That is, you know, armed with nuclear weapons. So that's also in the calculations for the Iranians as well. So, but tell us about the escalation between Israel and Hezbollah or de-escalation, as it may be there.

Yeah, I mean, so it's been pretty steady. Almost every day we see Israeli airstrikes against Hezbollah and, you know, rocket fire across the border. So that hasn't de-escalated. I mean, there were some instances where Israel really launched some air strikes deep. inside Lebanon that thought, you know, could have led to a bigger escalation. But it has still hasn't really gone beyond that, the kind of trading fire across the border. A lot more people have been killed on the, on the Lebanon side, over 300 people. And I know a lot of civilians as well. So that's always a risk. And that's something, and we see all these threats from, you

know, Galant, the Israeli defense minister, all the Israeli officials, basically threatening full-blown war in Lebanon. And it looks like Mossad just took out. someone in Lebanon the other day who was accused of being a Hamas financer and an assassination. So it's just, you know, always something that could explode. But again, Hezbollah is not showing any sign that they're interested in a big war. So, but there's still always that risk. Hey, you guys. Did you know that I don't just write books?

I publish them. Well, the Institute does, and I'm the director. So, yeah. 13 of them now, including my four. We published five more in 2023. Lori Calhoun and Tom Woods books about the COVID regime, Joe Solis Mullin on the fake China threat, Jim Bovard's latest, last rights,

and our managing editor Keith Knight's domestic imperialism. And we've got more great titles coming in 2024. Check them out at Libertarian Institute.org slash books and help support our anti-government efforts at Libertarian Institute.org slash donate. And thank you. Hey, y'all, Scott here. Let me tell you about Roberts and Roberts, Brokerage, Inc.

Who knew? Artificial bank credit expansion leads to price inflation and terribly distorted markets. If you've got any savings left at all, you need to protect them. You need to put some at least into precious metals. Well, Roberts and Roberts can set you up with the best deals on silver, gold, platinum, and palladium. And they've been doing this since 1977. Hey, if you just need some sound advice about sound money, they're there for you too. Call Tim Fry and the guys at 800-874-97760. That's 800-874-9760, or check them out at r-rbi.co. That's r-rbi.co. You'll be glad you did.

All right, so I love the headline as you could frame it. Biden walks back, call for Israel to declare a ceasefire. Yeah, you know, the thing is, is I kind of, I fell for it, I guess, because there was this interview of Biden that aired on Tuesday that it was actually recorded last week. And he said, Israel needs to call for a six to eight weeks ceasefire basically right now. They have to get all this aid in. And he wasn't linking it to any kind of hostage deal. So it did seem like kind of a change. And I had a story on that. But then after that interview came out, the White House walked it back. And then Biden said yesterday that it's up to

Hamas, you know, it's all linked to this hostage deal that he's not saying that Israel should call for a ceasefire. So it was stupid of me to think that he had a, at a chain, you know, because I'm looking at things. I see more and more Democrats coming out saying to cut off Israel, especially after they killed those World Central Kitchen aid workers. And so I thought maybe, okay, maybe this pressure is happening. You have all these protest votes in the Democratic primaries, but still, he's not budging. So there was the Israeli withdrawal from the south. They still have troops there, but they pulled them out of, you know, the areas around Con Unis and everything. So the tempo has kind of slowed down a bit. We're still seeing airstrikes and it looks like a few dozen people

just in the past few days have been killed each day. And you have Israel threatening, you know, saying that they're preparing to invade Rafa from the city in the south. So, you know, who knows exactly how things are going to go from here? And it's tough to know what the ceasefire negotiations, they're still happening. There was reports that said William Burns, a CIA director, actually met directly with some Hamas officials in Egypt. But it's just tough to really gauge it. I mean, you see all these reports. There's progress. There's no progress. There's, you know, it seems like Hamas is still calling for a permanent ceasefire and Israeli withdrawal. One thing that I think got overlooked by a lot of people, Heretz reported a couple weeks

ago that Israel thinks only between 60 and 70 of the Israeli hostages are still alive. out of the 130 or so who are there. So Hamas might not have that many hostages to release, and that also said it could be less than that. And I know the deal that's on the table that they've been discussing is releasing 40 hostages for like a six-week ceasefire, but if Hamas does that,

their leverage, any kind of leverage that they have if they give up all the hostages is gone. So it's tough to imagine that any kind of deal is going to happen. And Netanyahu clearly does not want a ceasefire. even if he's just going to keep this thing going at kind of a low tempo. If he stops, it's going to be much harder for him to restart everything. Has there been an improvement since the attack on the aid workers there, the amount of aid trucks allowed in and that kind of thing?

Is there been any real change there or just a little bit of rhetorical change? Yeah, well, so it's hard to gauge. So Israel said that they led a bunch more aid trucks in. They claimed over 400 A trucks went in, you know, a couple days in a row, and that was the highest number since October 7th. But then the U.N. is saying that they're inflating the numbers because what they do is they require all of the trucks to be inspected when they're only half full. So that's when Israel counts the trucks, and then they repack everything. So they're saying that the real total is like, you know, half of that, like around 200 something. but there has been it does seem like there's been a bit of an increase at least i know someone who

has family in northern gaza who said they they got chicken for the you know they got like real meat for the first time but overall i don't think it's it's just a drop in the bucket it seems like when it comes to the people who are really starving in gaza and israel said that they were going to open the northern border crossing the eras border crossing into northern gaza where where you know it's the worst situation for the people are the most food deprived there They still haven't done that, as far as I'm aware. And that was a week ago that they said they would do it. They still haven't done that.

And, you know, he's see Biden. What about the mixed signals about the attack on Rafa? You have a story where the defense ministry says, no, we're not. But the prime minister says, yeah, just give me a minute or something. Yeah. Yeah, so Netanyahu said he said a date. He said, you know, it's all planned out. We have a date set.

So he said that publicly. And then apparently, Gallant, the defense minister told the U.S., no, no, no, we don't have a date. So it's tough to know. I mean, you know, why is Netanyahu threatening that? I saw some reports in Heretz, other Israeli media, you know, quoting U.S. Israeli officials who think Netanyahu is trying to sabotage hostage negotiations by basically saying, you know, any ceasefire is temporary. We're going to invade Rafa.

So it could be part of that strategy. So it's tough to really know what their next plan is. But Galant also said the same defense minister who said there's no date set. He also said when they announced the withdrawal that they were doing it to rest and prepare for the invasion of Rafa. So they're all saying that they're going to do it. Yeah, I mean, that's what makes sense for them to slow down on what they were doing was to prepare for the next stage.

It was, in other words, a tactical change, not a strategic one. All right, now give us just real quick here. I don't even know what it's worth. seems like going out pretty far on a limb the president let it be known that he's considering pardoning Julian Assange yeah so you know again this is Biden saying

something so take it for what it's worth but still I mean any moment yeah he didn't mean that never mind that I don't know if I saw the video I don't know if it was when he was with Kashita but it's when he's hosting the Japanese Prime Minister and he was just walking along like with his head down and a

journalist asked him like are you considering you know ask them about Australia request to drop the charges against Assange. They asked a few times, then he finally stuck his head up, and he's like, I'm considering it. And then he, you know, went on his way. Oh, okay. So it was no prepared statement in the first place or anything. He was just trying to get her to leave him alone. But still, I think it's significant in that, you know, the president said he's considering dropping the charges. So it's a good time to kind of get it in the news and increase the pressure. I know WikiLeaks is asking Americans, you know, the way that

Americans can put the pressure on the U.S. government is by contacting their representatives in the House. There's a bill, the bipartisan bill that was introduced by Paul Gosar, who's a Republican, and it calls on Biden, the president, to drop the charges against the sign. So you could call your representative, tell them to become a co-sponsor of that bill, get them thinking about it, bother them about it. You could send emails and make phone calls and stuff. It's a good opportunity to do that. And there was this report about a plea deal. that they're thinking about. So there are signs that they're thinking of changing course. So I think it also depends on what the London High Court rules. They basically gave Assange the chance for a

limited appeal on certain grounds, but the U.S. has the chance of, they said that the U.S. can give them assurances, and that can basically mean that there will be no appeal. So we'll see what happens with all that. That's going to happen, the deadline for the U.S. I forget the exact day, but I think it's sometime this month. All right you guys, that is Dave DeCamp. He's our news editor at anti-war.com and the host of the great podcast, Anti-Wore News as well. Thanks very much, Dave. Thanks, Scott.

And that's it for Anti-War Radio for today. I'm your host, Scott Horton. I'm here every Thursday from 2.30 to 3 on KPFK, 90.7 FM in L.A. See you next week. I'm going to be able to be.