Scott Horton Show - Just the Interviews - 4/27/23 Kyle Anzalone on the Week’s Top Foreign Policy Stories

Episode Date: April 29, 2023

Kyle Anzalone returns to the show to run through some of the top stories from the Libertarian Institute and Antiwar.com. They touch on Ukraine, China, Assange and more.   Discussed on the show: “Democrats Attack Ukraine Audit Resolution as “Divisive and Ill-advised’” (Libertarian Institute) “US Ambassador Blasts Hungary’s Call for Ceasefire in Ukraine as ‘Cynical’” (Libertarian Institute) “Zelensky Holds ‘Meaningful’ Call With China’s Xi Jinping” (Antiwar.com) “Republicans Push Biden to Send Cluster Bombs to Ukraine” (Libertarian Institute) “Time for Biden to come clean on Ukraine” (Responsible Statecraft) “Biden’s Atrocious Assange Prosecution” (Future of Freedom Foundation) “New Defence Review Further Enslaves Australia To US War Agendas” (CaitlinJohnstone.com) “Bombing Journalistic Integrity” (The American Conservative) Kyle Anzalone is news editor of the Libertarian Institute, opinion editor of Antiwar.com and co-host of Conflicts of Interest with Will Porter and Connor Freeman. Follow him on Twitter @KyleAnzalone_ 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

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 Samburg, Kate McKinnon, and Alison 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. All right, y'all, welcome to the Scott Horton Show. I'm the director of the Libertarian Institute, editorial director of antire war.com, author of the book, Fools 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 2000. almost all on foreign policy and all available for you at scothorton.4 you can sign up the podcast feed there

and the full interview archive is also available at youtube.com slash scott horton's show all right you guys introducing kyle ann's alone news editor at the libertarian institute and opinion editor at antiwar dot com welcome back to the show sir how are you doing great scott Thanks for having me back. Absolutely happy to have you here. So, man, you've got a lot of news that you've been covering lately at Libertarian Institute.org slash news, the top of the pile here. Democrats attack Ukraine audit resolution as divisive and ill-advised.

And this goes to Matt Gates, who as we speak, actually, is preparing to introduce, and I guess he's already introduced. They're going to debate and vote on a Somalia withdrawal war powers resolution today. I wish we'd had a little bit more notice about that. But anyway, same guy, making some America First anti-war positions part of his main kind of political brand now. And so I guess first of all, tell us about his audit resolution and then these ridiculous Democrats trying to stop him. Yeah, so this, the bill number is H. Res. 300. And this is similar to something that Gates introduced in the last Congress. But, you know, this is something really great that Representative Gates has been doing. He's introduced a lot of legislation in the Congress. And he's used some legislative tools. And this particular piece of legislation is privileged. And so apparently that means it's going to get a vote. And at least in the committee. And I believe that's going to happen on Friday. If the debate on Wednesday is any

indication, it looks like it's going to pass Scott. They passed out a committee at least. There was a voice vote in the committee. And it passed with all Republicans for it and the Democrats against it. No way. Huh. Okay. Yeah. So Darrell Issa and Corey Mills, who, you know, Representative Mills is a Republican from Florida who I have an article that I wrote at the libertarianist, how this guy is terrible on Yemen, but he is pretty solid on some foreign policy issues, and particularly the war in Ukraine. He brought up the fact that there could be mission creep going on with the amount of activity the U.S. troops are doing in Ukraine and that the White House isn't providing enough information to Congress for them to decide if, you know, the White

House has really gone to war or not. And he even used the phrase mission creep and said that he had been a part of mission creep when he was a soldier. He named a couple African countries and then Afghanistan as well. So he was supportive of it. Issa was supportive of it. The Democrats were against it, particularly representative Kathy Manning, who went on a tirade about this bill, calling it divisive and ill-advised. She said it was a partisan political ploy and the height of legislative irresponsibility that jeopardizes the national security of the United States, our European allies, and partners as well as the courageous. your Ukrainian people.

Now, one other interesting thing is that she mentions that the reason that this is so problematic is because it could divide the congressional consensus that support for Ukraine must be unwavering and indefinite. And she said measures like this put bipartisanship in jeopardy. And so, you know, they really don't want to have any debate about this, Scott. And that's essentially what they're worried about. And another thing that Democrats brought up. up is that they're worried that this intelligence is going to get out, which is laughable

considering that a whole bunch of, you know, highly classified documents just leaked out in the White House as, you know, they're taking the leak seriously, but they've downplayed the importance of the information that has come out through the leads. And also, Issa pointed out that this information is only going to go to the House Select Intelligence Committee and is not going to be released to the general public. And so that kind of, you know, goes against the arguments made by the Democrats in this committee hearing. Yeah. All right. Now, I think it's funny. I have to note that the irresponsibility part, this is the height of legislation, not just irresponsibility, but legislative irresponsibility to try to count where the money is going. Yes. And we also

had uh, Representative, uh, Gerald Conley say that, you know, we, we need to have oversight, Scott, but this is not the appropriate time

from oversight. And of course, you know, we've heard testimony of, uh, in Congress even from the special investigative general for Afghan reconstruction, John Sopco,

who's basically said, if you don't have oversight now, you're never going to be able to have it. And you don't know where the weapons are ending up. And further, there was, um, someone from a pretty mainstream thing,

tank who recently went to Ukraine and said that the problem isn't that the weapons aren't arriving in the country. It's that Ukraine can't get them from, you know, the arms depots to where they actually need them on the battlefield. It's just logistical problems. Well, oh, I didn't really realize that. I thought, in fact, part of the story was it was surprising how little Russia had done to bomb bridges and so forth throughout Ukraine to prevent the transfer of those weapons. What's the holdup? I imagine it's communication. It's, you know, everybody's probably asking for the weapons and then actually figuring out where they're needed in the battle and getting them to those soldiers.

And also, you know, things getting siphoned off along the way as well. I'm sure there's a lot of commanders taking in arms and then selling them and things like that. I've also read reports that essentially there's a ghost soldier problem in Ukraine right now where, you know, commanders are collecting paychets for soldiers that aren't actually fighting or there. Uh-huh. That was funny. I was just talking with Danny Davis and I said to him, yeah, I knew for sure in Afghanistan that they had these ghost soldiers that didn't even exist and all this and that. And I know less about what's going on in Ukraine. So it's interesting to note that they're pulling the same scam here. Just incredible. And of course, as Seymour Hershey's reporting, the CIA director went over there and told Zelensky, hey, man, you better cool it on some of this stuff. And he said that was what was behind the Roundup, the anti-corruption, you know,

persecutions of all of his, you know, best guys a few months ago, which is believable, I guess. It didn't seem like he was really going after his enemy. Somebody was making him clean house. That makes sense. And it must have been a superior outside force like the director of Central Intelligence. Boy, you know you're corrupt when the CIA director is telling you to cool it. Oh, man. All right.

Now, I like this headline, too. This is really important. U.S. Ambassador blasts Hungary's call for ceasefire in Ukraine as cynical. So, first of all, what was it that the terrible, terrible NATO ally, Victor Orban, said? Yeah, so this was said last month, Victor Orban tweeted out a video. then a couple quotes from it. And one of the quotes on Twitter is, Russia cannot win because the entire Western world has lined up behind Ukraine.

At the same time, Russia is a nuclear power, and nuclear powers cannot be cornered because they may trigger a nuclear war. We need to put ceasefire in peace talks the sooner the better. And then it continued. Ukraine is fighting violently, and they have our full sympathy, but the only thing that can save the lives in the Ukraine war is a ceasefire. And then it's the U.S. ambassador to Hungary, David Pressman, who said that that call was, is cynical to call for a

ceasefire when it's not your country that is almost 20% occupied by a foreign invading army. The United States wants peace. One thing is just and lasting, and that is precisely why we are standing shoulder to shoulder with the victims with Ukraine. And so, you know, we hear from Pressman, essentially the same thing that we've, you know, really gotten from the White House since the start of this war, Scott, is that the, They wanted to keep going, and they're making impossible demands for it to end. Yeah.

I mean, this is what I was just talking with Daniel Davis about is how this is what's revealed in the leaks, is that they've been lying. They keep saying that there is a Ukrainian army that could ever possibly take back all of its land, and including Crimea, which, just as Orban is saying here, a total victory on Ukraine's side, if it could be achieved. could lead to a nuclear war. So there has to be, and he's right too, that all of NATO is behind Ukraine's side. So, I mean, Davis thinks that, you know, maybe they can hold some territory, but that they're in no position to launch an offensive right now. Now it would be a good time to try to call a ceasefire,

leave the lines where they are instead of getting further and further behind. But meanwhile, they're telling us, just like they told us, just like they told us for 20 years. No, we're building a strong and functional Afghan National Army and state to support it, which they have a state there already. But they can just tell us whatever they want. It doesn't really matter if it's true, I guess. And I guess we'll see when this spring or early summer or whatever it is now offensive finally does come if it does.

And, you know, Dave DeCamp had a great article this way. You point out the White House is seeming to starting. to prepare that that offensive might not plan out and it might not go the way they want, which is obvious from the 50-plus documents that we've now seen that Jad Tesher elite or allegedly lead onto Discord, where, you know, these show that Ukraine doesn't have very much air defenses, that their military sizes and what they thought it be, and there's a lot of problems going on in the Ukrainian military that strongly suggests that this offensive is not going to work out for Ukraine.

And, yeah, you know, kind of like what Orban says, Scott, is, you know, if you have an offensive that's going to fail, the way to save the lives of the Ukrainian people is to call ceasefire now because all they're going to do is lose more territory if they can't take any back. Yeah. All right. So, Selensky finally took a call from Xi Jinping. So what happened there?

Yeah. So I guess, so Dave DeKam covered this for us at anti-war.com. And, I mean, it looks somewhat promising here. Zelensky called the call meaningful. He said, I had long and meaningful phone call with President Xi. I believe that this call, as well as the appointment of Ukraine's ambassador to China, will give powerful impetus for the development of our bilateral relations. I think Russia didn't respond particularly favorably to the idea that there's going to be

some kind negotiated settlement, even with, you know, China's involvement here. But at the same time, you know, Zelensky, even suggesting the idea that peace could be achieved, I think is a good thing. Yeah, for sure. All right, so I want to talk with you about, well, actually, I'm put that up for a second. Yeah, well, yeah, I guess let's talk about the cluster bombs as long as we're committing atrocities here. What's this? So we have had calls in the past last, or I think at the end of February, we had the four leaders. of the, you know, more foreign policy committees of the House and the Senate, a Republican.

So that is Representative Mike Rogers and then Jim Inhoff, Michael McCall, and Roger Wickers, all calling for Biden to transfer these cluster bombs to Ukraine. And, of course, cluster bombs are weapons that drop sub like bomblets, like little subunitions. And a lot of times these don't explode. And so, you know, looking back at Lebanon from 2000. and sits or the Vietnam War, there's millions of these bomblets that still haven't been found and tens of thousands of people have been injured by them in Laos and in Vietnam, and particularly children are susceptible to them with, I think, like 40% of all injuries caused by these bomblets

occur to children. So thousands of children have been injured just from the legacy of the Vietnam War after the war ended. Tens of thousands of children in those countries have been yeah, you know, maimed and killed by these bombs. And so, uh, the U.S. has three million of them according to, uh, representative Rogers. And he wants those sent to Ukraine because if not, the U.S. is going to have to destroy them at, uh, you know, our own expense. So he's like, oh, the best thing to do with them is just to send them to Ukraine, which is some pretty terrifying logic. Uh, if we're just going to dump our weapons there that we don't want anymore. Yeah. Well, you know, I mean, I'm almost certain this is in American Holocaust

where the guy testifies to Congress, the officer testifies to Congress, the congressman's like, why are you bombing in Laos like this? You just keep bombing them, bombing him, bombing him. And he goes, well, they keep sending me bombs. So I have to use them or they'll pile up on the tarmac, you know? So it's nothing about there are targets, and tactically and operationally they're part of our strategy. nope just well geez congressman i got this inventory and i got to get rid of it what am i going to do send it back to

dc yeah um so there you go that's how uh lay oceans got bombed so yeah um we got to do something with them we got to kill somebody with them or they're just going to go to waste kyle um all right now yeah it's going to cost us might to destroy him so we got to spend a whole bunch of money he gained them to Ukraine. Yeah, exactly. And then from there, the costs are on others. So who cares? All right.

Now, let's talk about your viewpoint section at anti-war.com here, because you got some really important ones. First of all, the George Beebe article I read this morning, time for Biden to come clean on Ukraine. What'd you like about that article so much that you decided to run it? Yeah, so this is a little bit like what we were talking about before. Scott, where the Biden administration has put forward a, you know, fake narrative about the war in Ukraine, how it's going to the American public, suggesting that, you know, this war could be one that, you know, Ukraine was going to have a spring offensive that would be successful. You know, they talked about breaking the land bridge between Russia proper and the Crimean Peninsula,

so the Zafritia and Kershan Oblast in southern Ukraine, taking those back and then entering into negotiations. Well, it really appears, Scott, and what we've learned from the Tachar elites, that that's not what this is, that that's not going to happen, that the offensive isn't going to be successful. And so, you know, the Biden administration should come to clean to the American people and let us know how poorly this war is going for Ukraine, especially, you know, we should look on the horizon here, Scott. The aid is probably going to run out that Congress approved in December that I think it was about $40 billion or $30-something billion in aid, they said the White House could send to Ukraine.

That's, I think, going to be depleted in the next couple of months. And so, you know, debate's going to come out again. And hopefully the Biden administration is honest with the American people by then or else we could really escalate this war that Ukraine is continuing to lose. Yeah. Hey, guys, Scott here for Leo Hamill find jewelers out of San Diego at Jewelry Store S. dot com. They do business nationwide. They sell jewelry and watches, specializing in engagement rings. You know, in case you're in love with somebody. They also specialize in one-of-a-kind

vintage and antique jewelry, fully serviced pre-owned fine watches such as Rolex, Petec, Philippe, Cartier, and any high-end brand. Leos also services high-end watches faster and cheaper than going to a factory service center. Leos takes all the stress out of shopping for jewelry and engagement rings, and always at the right price. They deal nationwide over the phone at 619-299-1500. That's Leo Hamill find jewelers out of San Diego. Go to Jewelry StoreSD.com to check out their fine selection and to find out more. Hey, y'all, you should sign up for my substack.

It's Scott Horton's show.substack.com, and if you do that, you'll get the interviews a day before everybody else, but not only that, they'll be free of commercials. How do you like that? Pretty good, huh? Scott Horton's show.substack.com. Hey, y'all, libertasbella.com is where you get Scott Horton Show and Libertarian Institute shirts, sweatshirts, mugs, and stickers and things, including the great top lobstas designs as well. See, that way it says on your shirt, why you're so smart. Libertas Bella, from the same great folks who bring you ammo.com for all your ammunition needs, too.

That's libretasbella.com. Well, that's just cynical to say that we should stop supporting a war that can't be one, that if it could, could lead to a nuclear war. I mean, geez, what's your problem? But anyway, that's, you know, I guess I could move to D.C. now that I got my talking point straight. All right. Well, who's this Bovard character?

And what's he right about here? Yeah, so James Bovart is with us at the Libertarian Institute. This particular article is at the Future of Freedom Foundation. and he's going over the Assange prosecution and particularly the Biden administration's responsibility in that obviously it's Trump that, you know, during his administration that he first gets arrested, but the Biden administration has gone along with it. And Bovart is breaking that down and talking about, of course, why Julian Assange is a hero. Oh, yeah, that's great.

All right. Now, listen, I confess that I am not. doing a good enough job keeping up with all the china stuff but i'm glad that you and patrick and dave and everybody else over there at antirewar dot com the institute are so you're kind of picking up my slack i just get to claim credit for what you guys are doing um a little but that doesn't mean i'm learning everything that you guys are learning because i'm busy writing a history book about this other stuff on the other side of the planet so um why don't you tell me about this piece by kately johnstone and their role in American China policy over there.

Yeah, so this is a really great article by Caitlin Johnstone, and she's an Australian, of course, and she's just going over how with the U.S. military buildup towards China, one of the things they're really trying to do is rope all of the countries that generally surround China, although Australia is still pretty far away from mainland China, but still, you know, the India, Australia, Japan, the Philippines, South Korea, all these countries, the U.S. is really trying to rally to be more confrontational

towards China. And Australia has agreed to do a major military overhaul to get there. There's going to be American military officers embedded in that process. And at the very end of the article, she has this fantastic line about, you know, the U.S. Empire should just annets Australia as a 51st state already. That way we get a pretend vote in America's elections. Yeah, there you go. Yeah, there was a joke about the Israelis making them the 51st state. Then they would only have two senators. And that wouldn't be a good deal for them.

But anyway, senator jokes. All right, so what's the latest out of there? You know, I didn't get a chance to ask Danny Davis. I ran out of time, but he had written about all these war games and things. And it just seems like there's real escalation on. all sides or not in particular there there's this new committee in congress who's looking at the china threat and it's led by representative i believe his first name is mike galliger and uh represented galliger recently participated in some war games uh that were led by c nass and of course scott

the war games scared the pants off all the congressmen and now they say we need to arm uh taiwan to the teeth and you know they're they're talking about massive military buildups in the region So, you know, I think this is probably something that's going to happen more because it seems like it was fairly successful where they're going to start involving more Congress in these war games to make them feel really afraid and like they really have to do something about China. Now, did you look into those war games in detail? Because I believe that Danny Davis wrote that, you know, they did it a few different times at this think tank, CSIS. I guess, ran one. And they're the Hawks, too. And we lost two aircraft carriers.

In each time that they did it, they said, we won. We lost hundreds, like 700 planes. And, you know, the two carriers were the only ones that he mentioned there, but presumably that meant we lost a bunch of destroyers and whatever else, too, out there. And I wonder, because I can see how if you're a hawk at a, you know, know, Raytheon funded think tank, and your job is to scare Congress into giving Raytheon more money to build more weapons to take on China, then that's fine. But it seems like they might scare them too much. And, you know, by doing a realistic war game and showing these people

that, look, what are you going to do about their missile barrage, man? They got hypersonic missiles. They can sink your carriers. So you still willing to really lose care? barriers that you have no defense for, you know, it seems like, you know, maybe that could end up working in our favor a little bit, although it doesn't sound like it is. But that seems to be how bad it is, right, in those war games. So I would guess, Scott, that there's probably a minority of congressmen who do look at that. And, you know, maybe he's somebody like represented Corey Mills might be a good example because he was in the military and say, you know, geez, that is a lot of sailors and this is a real problem to overcome. And, you know,

You know, maybe the solution here is to look at a diplomat settlement. But I don't think most congressmen think that far about it. And look, if the war games came out, Scott, and, you know, they're like, oh, America could suddenly defeat China and a war, then why would you increase defense spending? Why would you increase military and war spending then? You know, you're not going to do it. And so, you know, my guess is that not only is a part of the congressional education here about the war games, you know, they're holding the war games for them.

But then I'm sure at the end, they say, so if we want to change the end of, you know, how this plays out, we have to do, you know, buy and develop these new weapons platforms that could do A, B, C, and D. And Congress state's marching order, Scott, they don't, they don't think deeply. Well, yeah, you got that right. All right. Well, so one of the bad news you want to talk about today. So there is a really good article that we have as the spotlight. at anti-war.com today by Ted Galen Carpenter, who is now with us at anti-war.com and the Libertarian Institute. So that's really awesome because as I think I mentioned on your show a couple of times,

Scott, I think Ted Galen Carpenter, along with Ted Snyder, had maybe been the most important American writers over the past two years as America has moved towards war with Russia and, you know, is now in the full-on proxy war. But Ted goes through here and just points out how the The mainstream media has absolutely failed the American people. You know, we talked about the George Beebe article, how the Biden administration needs to come clean with the American people. Well, as Ted points out, we really now had the documents, you know, they're highly classified or whatever, but we know that this, you know, war is not going to plan. And the mainstream media could inform the American people about it. And they're simply choosing not to.

And, you know, we've had some other developments in the recent weeds like a congresswoman, threatening Matt Taibi over information that he didn't even get wrong, you know, things like this going on, the suppression of the Seymour Hersh reporting on Facebook. They were simply blocking people from sharing the story altogether. Of course, I couldn't check that out for myself because I am banned from Facebook. So, you know, there's just so much crat down and so much control over the narrative. People know nothing. Remind us, which story was it that got you kicked off of there?

So I believe they never told me for sure. I believe it was my coverage of the Shereen Abu Ackle murder where the Israeli soldiers shot her in the face last year as she was trying to cover one in their raids. I guess that was maybe two years ago now, actually, as she was trying to cover one in the raids. So that was a terrible story. And I covered a lot of that, including the Israelis showing up at her funeral and trying to like take the cough and beat the pallbearers and things like that. man that was crazy um and it's funny because i know you and anybody listening whoever uh watches your show or reads your stuff or listens to your show or reads your stuff we all know that you'd have never broken the terms of service by saying anything inflammatory or that kind of thing you're just covering

an inflammatory story was all and yeah i i feel like i'm pretty reserved on social media most of the time. Don't go anywhere near as far as you do by taking on these terrible people online and giving them the treatment they deserve. And I still end up getting banned. Yeah. Well, lucky for me, I just quit Facebook. As soon as they change the algorithm to try to force me to pay to have my things seen by anyone, I just quit. Screw you guys. I'm going home. I don't need any of this. I mean, I still have a page that friends run for me. But I haven't even logged into it in forever um goodbye but yeah and then what's a huge one right is they're suppressing the seymour hir's story and you know i mean if you suppressed a david sanger story i'd probably

still be a little bit upset and i hate david sanger you know but seymour hirsch not only is he a legendary investigative reporter but he used to work for the new york times you know what i mean it's not like he's even in other words even if you accepted the censorship regime against alternative media on some basis that only mainstream media tells the truth does that sound right uh well he's mainstream enough you know he's the probably the most accomplished investigative journalist in american history and they're just going to say yeah yeah we don't like his story about the pipeline and they're going to have Facebook censor the thing? This is why Julian Assange is in jail right now. So he can't receive the leak from inside Facebook explaining what the hell is going on

with that, huh? Well, you know, not only that, Scott, but they just, you know, smear Seymour Hirsch, if they bring it up at all. You know, they'll say something like the once legendary reporter who repeated conspiracy theories about Syria, which what they're talking about there is him getting right what happened at Conchay Coon, right? That's one of the most important things because Donald Trump used a fake chemical weapons attack

to launch airstriots against Syria, the government of Syria, which in my view could have been the thing that the Democrats could have impeached him for, but rather they go with the narrative that allows Trump to bomb Syria and then they smear Seymour Hers for gaining it right.

Yeah, that's so funny. Conspiracy theories. Yeah, really That's funny Because we got multiple sources From intelligence And military sources That said that

The Russians had called them On the deconfliction line And told them Two weeks before We're gonna bomb this place You guys should know We know that's true They're lying

They always lie And yeah You know what As Hirsch pointed out On my show When I talked to him I think he said it on my show. It might have been one of these other interviews.

But he said, yeah, no, when I came out with a torture story, they said it was a conspiracy theory. But General Taguba wrote a report, so, oops, I say his name right. Yeah, not much of a conspiracy theory when you got a two-star in charge of investigating it. But anyway, you know, that's what they always do. um all right well uh i don't know i'm starving man i'm gonna go have a lunch thanks for doing the show today you're great absolutely scott have a good man you too the scott horton show anti-war radio can be heard on kpfk 90.7 fm in l a psradyo dot com antiwar dot com scott horton dot org and libertarian institute dot org