Scott Horton Show - Just the Interviews - 6/27/22 Dave Decamp on Ukraine, NATO and Antiwar.com

Episode Date: June 28, 2022

Scott interviews Antiwar.com News Editor Dave Decamp about the recent developments in Eastern Europe. First, they examine Lithuania closing the easement into Russia’s Kaliningrad territory. The move is a dramatic escalation that Scott and Decamp say points to the dangers of war guarantees. Next, they turn to the recent report in the New York Times about the CIA’s presence on the ground in Ukraine. Decamp echoes the Daniel McAdams argument that, by talking with the Times, CIA officials are likely attempting to pressure policymakers into changing Langley’s role in the war. They then touch on the latest developments in Finland and Sweden’s bid to join NATO. Lastly, they discuss the great work being done at Antiwar.com and how you can help support what Scott calls “the most important project on the internet”. Discussed on the show: news.antiwar.com  Churchill, Hitler, and "The Unnecessary War" by Pat Buchanan “Commando Network Coordinates Flow of Weapons in Ukraine, Officials Say” (New York Times) Liberty Report on the CIA in Ukraine Scott’s most recent interview with Douglas Macgregor “NATO to Approve ‘Biggest Overhaul’ Of Defense Since Cold War, Leader Says” (Defense One) antiwar.com/donate  The first Justin Raimondo articles  Dave DeCamp is the news editor of Antiwar.com. Follow him on Twitter @decampdave This episode of the Scott Horton Show is sponsored by: The War State and Why The Vietnam War?, by Mike Swanson; Tom Woods’ Liberty Classroom; ExpandDesigns.com/Scott; EasyShip; Free Range Feeder; Thc Hemp Spot; Green Mill Supercritical; Bug-A-Salt and Listen and Think Audio. Shop Libertarian Institute merch or donate to the show through Patreon, PayPal or Bitcoin: 1DZBZNJrxUhQhEzgDh7k8JXHXRjYu5tZiG. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

All right, y'all, welcome to the Scott Horton Show. I'm the director of the Libertarian Institute, editorial director of anti-war.com, author of the book, Fool's Aaron, Time to End the War in Afghanistan, and The Brand New, Enough Already, Time to End the War on Terrorism. And I've recorded more than 5,500 interviews since 2004. almost all on foreign policy and all available for you at scothorton dot for you can sign up the podcast feed there and the full interview archive is also available at youtube.com slash scott horton's show dave de camp i've been traveling around the country for a week i don't know what the hell is going on you tell me please welcome the show uh everybody's dave de camp he's our news editor at antiwar dot com he's our news editor at antiwar dot com he's our written 3,000 articles about what's going on. So that's why I'm asking him. Catch me up to date

on Ukraine and Russia, if you could. Maybe let's start with Lithuania, closing the corridor to Danzig, I mean, to Kaliningrad there. Yeah, well, thanks for having me on, Scott. I mean, this is a pretty big escalation. Lithuania decided to enforce EU sanctions on goods that travel to Kaliningrad, which is a Russian enclave on the Baltic Sea there, that's between Lithuania and Poland. And goods get, you know, it's Russian territory. It's like Alaska is the United States. So goods get there by rail through, they go through Belarus and then through Lithuania into

Klinengrad and also by ship through the Baltic Sea. And Klinnagrad, they said, you know, they're enforcing EU sanctions on the territory now. And it's basically an embargo of what officials, Gleningrad officials say, is about 50% of the goods that come in on rail is under sanctions, which right now includes coal, things like types of food, goods, alcohol, caviar, steel, too, which is a big one. And, you know, it's set to expand as the EU is planning more sanctions on Russia. So, you know, this kind of embargo is expected to... I'm sorry to interrupt, Dave, but what does that look like in practice?

they're searching trains for contraband of these kinds of goods and saying, well, let trains through carrying this, but not that? Or do you have, like, reporting from there of how they're enforcing this? I haven't seen that yet, but from what I understand is that they are going to do inspections of the trains and stuff, you know, similar to what they're doing with ships. And this is kind of an important point because all these sanctions that the U.S. and the EU have put on Russia, they technically have exemptions. for things like grain fertilizer but because every ship has to be stopped and inspected before going into or leaving a EU port you know it slows everything down so that's kind of a big one of Russia's you know big gripes here is that yeah there's the exemptions it's only applying to the goods under use sanctions but it's going to really slow everything down

and you know Russia has threatened retaliation um but um Lithuans it doesn't it they're they're trying to resolve it diplomatically is what russia is saying the klinograd governor sounds kind of optimistic that they're going to get an exemption for klinnigrad and that things won't be interrupted i don't know if it's really been enforced yet as of today but um yeah and the retaliation that russia might do um the president of lithuania says i don't think it's going to be military because you know we're we're members of nato so we don't have to worry about that. I know. I saw that in the New York Times. It's just unbelievable. And by the way, you know, for people who, I'm sorry, I really should have explained better what

the hell we're talking about here. Now that we're three and a half minutes into the interview, I'm going to tell people, Glenningrad is this little strip land on the Baltic Sea between Lithuania and Poland and landlock behind them away from Russia, even though it's sovereign Russian territory, this enclave, by what, three or four or five hundred miles or something? Do you know how long it is? How far it is? Not exactly, no. That's somewhere over 300 miles. And it's from Belarus.

It doesn't even border. It would be from Belarus, not Russia. But of course, Belarus is friends with Russia. But so, yeah, now, by the way, going back to 1999, Pat Buchanan said that if we bring the Baltic states into NATO, then that means that Kaliningrad, from Russia's point of view, is stuck behind NATO lines, as you would say, if you're talking about military engagements, right? The lines.

And here they have, we have not just our friends, but our military allies now that we have added this alliance in a way that has left this little piece of Russian territory on the Black Sea subject to exactly this kind of a threat. and then as you were saying there when I interrupted you the New York Times quotes the defense it's not the I don't think the defense minister but deputy defense minister or somebody like that saying

oh yeah no we would never do this if we weren't members of NATO or in fact Russia won't do anything about it because we're members of NATO hey if we weren't they might which is just you know that's what economists call a moral hazard

it's the kind of one that could get us all into a nuclear war. Yeah, and I mean, that's what the U.S. is signing up for when they grant countries NATO membership is that, you know, we're going to come to their defense if they're attacked. And this is kind of just the result of that. And it is really interesting. I mean, Kalingrad, it always has the risk of being a big flashpoint because of its location. And I mean, it sounds kind of silly, but.

Picture Canada, you know, cutting off the U.S. from Alaska, shipments of goods to Alaska. You know, it's a huge provocation, the matter how you look at it. And, you know, Lithuania explains what I say? Oh, we're just enforcing EU sanctions. We're not, it's not a blockade, as Russia calls it. But, again, it's going to really slow things down. And by the way, so the Russians are already retaliating with these cyber attacks,

at least allegedly, huh? Yeah, yeah, I saw that there's this, like, group that they say is Russian, I forget their name. Don't tell me it's the fancy bear. No, it's not fancy bear. But it's like Kilnett or something. It sounds a little ridiculous. But apparently they took credit for a cyber attack on Lithuania. But with the cyber stuff, it's really hard to know what's what.

Because it's not like, from what I've read about this group, they just started these attacks since. Russia invaded Ukraine and they take credit for everything, but Russia hasn't said anything about them, I don't think. I don't know if they've denied it. So I'm not really too sure what's going on with that group. But one thing they could do is Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia, the Baltic states that they're still on a power grid that's controlled by Russia, you know, left over from the Soviet Union days. And Russia could cut them off of that, which would be kind of a big deal, although they have an alternative. set up to get hooked up to the EU's power grid, and they're trying to get on that by 2025 anyway. They have a plan to get off the Russian power grid. But, I mean, that would still definitely, you know, interrupt a lot of things in the Baltics if Russia did kick them off that power grid. Yeah. Well, you know, I don't know how many people have read Pat Buchanan's book, but in Churchill, Hitler

in the unnecessary war, he says the cardinal sin here of Neville Chamberlain was not appeasing Hitler at Munich, where he didn't have, you know, the British didn't have any opportunity whatsoever to liberate Czechoslovakia for crying out loud, or, you know, to stand in the way of Hitler moving into that part of Europe. But it was the emotional overreaction when Hitler betrayed Chamberlain that he then handed this war guarantee to Poland. And I don't know if the polls would have negotiated a corridor, this easement to the former German city of Danzig there, or whether maybe they still would not have negotiated that. But once the British handed them a war guarantee, then they told Hitler,

screw you, man, the British have our back now, and so you can't have your corridor to your city. And I'm not saying that that would have been the magic solution to the Hitler problem or anything, But what I am saying is that that's what caused the war because he went ahead and invaded all of Poland or half of it to get to Danzig instead of just taking that corridor and then Britain and France declared war. And, you know, the whole thing, in fact, he went west before he got around to fight in the communists, which he ended up turned around doing anyway. So these kinds of decisions, you know, they seem to be made. In fact, at the time, he says the foreign minister, Lord Gray, said that Chamberlain should have been locked in an insane asylum. He said, how could you have done this? What the hell are you doing?

You know, imagine Joe Biden gives a war guarantee to whoever next. Maybe he adds to Ukraine to NATO right now, and his own secretary state is going, you can't do that. You know what I mean? Something that outrageous, that, you know, obviously mistaken in policy. Politicians will make choices like that. And it sounds like, you know, where, for example, our Lord Gray, Anthony Blinken, ought to be telling the Lithuanians to back down and don't do that. He's seemingly not. You know, he's probably the one encouraging them to do all this in the first place.

And these Democrats, boy, they're proving what tough guys they are, but they sure are threatening the rest of us, it seems like. Yeah, and, you know, the Baltic states in Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, and also Poland, you know they've been incredibly hawkish during this whole war and uh really ramped up their military i mean especially poland they sent them like over 200 uh tanks to ukraine um and they don't want negotiations they want you know russia to be defeated is what they're saying um and these are all people that we you know gave a war guarantee to so yeah in fact isn't it right day the the april fifth quote in the washington post where they said they don't want the war to end quickly, they were really referring to Eastern European NATO member states saying that, right?

Yeah. So it said for some in NATO and the sum are most Eastern European states there. And the UK and the United States are the most hawkish and it's a little split. We have France and Germany are we're kind of calling more for negotiations than it's. seems like they've kind of backed off on that lately and that everybody seems full steam ahead again. You had Draghi, the Italian prime minister, and Schultz, the German chancellor, and Macron, the French president, they recently visited Kiev and, you know, told Zelensky, all of them said, oh, yeah, we won't pressure Ukraine to negotiate or anything. They kind of like went there to kiss the ring and said, pledged more weapons and stuff. Hopefully behind the scenes, they're still

pushing for negotiations. But, you know, it seems like they came under a lot of pressure to do that. Yeah. All right. Now, can you tell me about this thing from the New York Times about the CIA and the extent of, as you put it on Twitter this morning, the extent of the admission, I think we all knew. I'm not sure if you and I talked about this on the show or not, but of course the CIA is there. It's obvious that, you know, maybe they would have pulled out when the war first started, but once it was clear the Russians were not marching immediately all the way to Moldova or something like that, then obviously they've been in the West coordinating the arms and whatever else. And they're, you know, the Yahoo News stories and others where they're bragging about, you know,

the extent of their role on the ground since 2015, or 14. Yeah. So, but so what is it that they told the New York Times? Because I haven't had a chance to read it yet. Yeah, well, so. Again, this wasn't really a surprise, according to this report, citing U.S. and European officials, CIA personnel have, it said that some have continued to operate in the country. You mentioned that Yahoo News report that detailed how the U.S. had CIA personnel deployed in eastern Ukraine since 2014,

helping train Ukrainian forces fighting the separatists and Dinesk and Luhansk. That report said that they left right before the invasion. But this suggests that they might have just went, you know, to Western Ukraine and waited it out for a bit. It says that they're mostly in Kiev and that they're directing what they call a vast amount of intelligence that the U.S. is sharing with Ukrainian forces. So we know that they've been providing them with, you know, satellite imagery and stuff to target Russian forces. You know, they've been bragging about it to the media that they've helped them kill Russian generals and sink Russian ships. We don't know how true all these claims are. but again it's kind of like what they're putting this out there for a reason and this also says

that a few dozen commandos from britain france canada and lithuania you know special operations forces uh have also been working in ukraine and and they're kind of coordinating the weapons shipments and stuff and i'm sure the cia is involved in that too it says the u.s special operations forces that were in ukraine you know they were pulled out and they're mostly in Germany and France right now, but also, you know, they're training Ukrainian troops and stuff and coordinating the deliveries. So, yeah, it's not a surprise, but there's a reason why they put this story in the New York Times. And if you go lower in the article, you see it starts to quote former officials that say, it's not really doing much to help pretty much is what

they're saying, is that the Ukraine, they need artillery training, and that did CIA personnel aren't really doing that. And I watched the Liberty Report earlier today with Ron Paul and Dan McAdams. And Dan McAdams, his analysis of it was that they are saying that, you know, we're doing all this to help Ukraine, but it's not really working because it, as the article opens, is that Russia is still making gains in the war in the East. And, you know, his analysis was that they want to change in policy, which is that. is why they put this in here.

But it's tough to say. I mean, also this does contradict other... Just so I understand you're right. He's saying that they put this in here because essentially they're saying we've gone too far, and so now we're publicly admitting it, so now we have a reason that we need to scale back our effort here

because we've kind of painted ourselves into this corner. Yeah, yeah. Either that or they need to escalate in another way. That's what they're hinting at here. Right. And it also contradicted, I think it was, maybe it was this month. There was another New York Times report that said that the U.S. didn't have a good picture of what was going on in the ground in Ukraine, that Ukraine wasn't sharing them with their operational plan.

And there was the story, too, about Biden contradicting Blinken and Austin telling them to chill out on all their threats about how they're trying to hurt Russia and all that stuff, which is obviously not true, but it raised the question of why do they put that story out? out there. Yeah. Seems like they're like preparing the ground for a little bit of backpedaling here. Yeah. And that seemed like the one, the earlier report that said that they didn't have a picture of Ukraine and that Ukraine wasn't sharing information might have kind of been an excuse to set up for when this all fails and Russia wins the war in the Dombas. They could, you know, they're going to try to blame it on Ukraine probably on Zelensky. So yeah. And I mean, this report also says that Russia understands the CIA is there, which I'm sure that they do. So it's not like they're going to find out from this report, but it's also, you know, it's

kind of rubbing their noses in it. And it, with like a lot of these things, it's really, you know, how far are we going to keep pushing them? You know, over the weekend, we saw a bunch of airstrikes in Kiev and other areas of Ukraine that haven't really been getting hit. And, you know, Russia said that they would do that in response to the U.S. sending these new rocket systems, the high mobility artillery rocket system that the U.S. just started sending them. And they arrived in Ukraine the other day and, you know, Russia launched a bunch of airstrikes across the country.

So, you know, they're not going to help. They might help a little bit. I'm not really sure. I'm not enough of a military analyst to say. So far, the U.S. has sent for these systems. Ukrainian says they need like 300 to win the war. So, you know, they still have to train them. According to the Pentagon, they've only trained 60 Ukrainian soldiers how to use these things.

I mean, it's not, it could have an impact in the long run. But right now, with the fighting in the East, it's not going to have much of an impact. Yeah. So, you know, I don't know if you heard my last interview with Doug McGregor, where I asked him, I think it was in response to my question, well, geez, you know, Russians took Kharkiv and then they backed off. And so it was like a major loss for them and the Ukrainians are on the march right. And he says, no. And you misunderstand what's going on here. What's going on here is they're destroying the Ukrainian military, not necessarily just battling

for land. And once it's good and destroyed, then they'll take whichever land they feel like they need to take to secure the independence of the Donbass and whatever is the extent of their goal. he thinks that they're doing well enough that they're expanding their goals I mean the Americans just seem to make up their own timetables for what the Russians are doing and how they're so far behind schedule but I don't know

McGregor seems to think that eventually they'll go all the way to Moldova and you know reintegrate the trends to an Easter there they always change how you're supposed to say it I don't know you used to have a D in it damn it but um

Transnistria, I guess, they call it now, right, or something? I don't know. Yeah, that's what I hear. I mean, these are all, it's always anglicizing these other culture's words anyway, so who cares? The point is, that little strip of land between Moldova and Ukraine that belongs to Russia, which is pretty damned inconvenient. So, or I don't know, it's not like, it's not exactly like Kaliningra where they outright own it, but it's a breakaway province that swears its loyalty to Russia, kind of a thing.

so anyway i don't know uh you know how much difference these you know new shipments of arms the americans are sending is going to make if the ukrainians are just running out of guys uh seems like at the end of the day there's always going to be more russians you know um but uh so let me ask is there any kind of developments important developments in diplomacy at least with the europeans i know blinkin still ain't been to geneva but um you know for a while there the french president was trying to talk to Putin sometimes and this kind of thing. Is there anything going on at all? Not really.

Macron and Schultz. They both talked to Putin a couple weeks ago. But they've been making a call to him every few weeks or every month or so, it seems like. But there hasn't been any progress. I don't think in the diplomacy side, you know, the U.S. has shown no interest in resuming arms control talks because Russian officials have been saying that they should they should start talking about a replacement of New Start, which is the last nuclear arms

control treaty between the U.S. and Russia, but the U.S. is showing no signs of kind of separating that from the war in Ukraine and having negotiations there. And then when it comes to the war in Ukraine, I mean, they've put virtually no effort into negotiation with Russia. Blinken still hasn't talked to Lavrov since February, and Biden has no plans to speak with Putin that I've seen so you know and as you mentioned

McGregor and Russia's goals kind of expanding and I mean that's you know what I think we're going to see now because of that

initial period in the war where there was real talks going on and Russia Russia's demands was independence for the Donbass

which you know is kind of de facto annexation and Ukraine dropping its claim to Crimea well now you know months later

you got Zelensky is still saying he's going to drive Russia out of Crimea and out of the Donbass but Russia controls a lot more territory and not just in the Donbass they also control Kurson which is just north of Crimea I would guess by looking at the map

it's about 70% that Russia controls and Zaporizia which is the Oblast to the east of Kersan and then that connects to Dhenzsk and Luhansk so they have they control all this territory now and the military administrations that they've put in power in Kersan and Zaporizia, they're saying, we're going to have a referendum for annexation.

Now, it's in their interests to be annexed, the people that they put in charge of this Russian occupied territory, because if Ukraine comes back in there, they're going to have to flee. But, you know, that's just what we're looking at now. Now, instead of just the Dombas and just Crimea, you know, Russia has all, holds all these other cards and with the Ukrainian side not showing any interest in negotiating, why would they stop now? You know, it just seems like they have every interest to keep going and it's a really brutal war. You know, I mean, the death toll is really high, it seems like, because it's just basically an artillery battle on the ground. And so it seems like it's going to keep going on for a long

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of getting started with backyard chickens. That's freerangefeeder.com slash Scott. Yeah. All right. Now, talk about the politics going on with Sweden and Finland joining NATO and the Turks intervention there. I know there's a bunch of angles on this, but I just have to say this, man,

that I don't know what was going on with Putin. and sorry if I'm repeating myself from an earlier show. Seemed like maybe he was on muscle relaxers or something. I was just reading it. I don't know. I don't speak Russian. I didn't see the video. But the statement was like, yeah, no, I don't even care at all.

If Sweden and Finland joined NATO. We don't have any problems with them whatsoever. We never will again either or something. We got a 900-mile border with Finland, and we like them, and we have zero problems at all. And so why the hell not? And I thought, is that a real quote? Are you kidding me?

In the middle of this war, he said that. I don't know if he's really sick like they say, but I think he was high that day. But anyway, I don't know. I guess he meant that. Or do you know, did Lavrov walk that back like they do with Joe Biden? He didn't mean that, that kind of thing. Or how did that play out? Do you know?

From that, I think that quote, I think in the same sentence or maybe in the same answer or speech or whatever whenever he said that he said that they'll respond what they're worried about is an expansion of NATO military infrastructure and that they'll respond to that

I see that. Yeah, that's an important clarification by the way, yeah. And we saw what happened when Bill Clinton promised in 1997 that we'll never move the equipment into the east.

We're just asking them into the alliance. And then when Putin brings up 1997, everyone's like 1997, what is that freak talking about? you know yeah um but that's the thing i've seen that kind of talking point from other russian officials uh you know at first when they were talking about finland and sweden joining nato they

were given all these these really strong warnings but i saw uh demetri medvediev who the former president who's on the he's the deputy head of the security council now you know he said finland and sweden and nato it means you know we're going to put more troops on finland's border uh you know He hinted at possible nuclear deployments in the Baltics, which is, you know, hints at Klanningrad. But he also said, you know, we don't look at Finland and Sweden joining NATO as the same threat as Ukraine because we don't have territorial disputes with them. So it's not the same. So it's not as much of a threat. But we will respond by, you know, positioning more military assets in the region.

So I think that is kind of their stance. now they would definitely rather them not join NATO and now we can get into the Turkey's objection because it seems like they're really threw a wrench into the works there because before when they were deciding to join I mean you had Stoltenberg the head of NATO and blink in all these Western officials just saying oh yeah if they're going to you know they're going to apply we're going to let them in it's going to be quick and it's going to be great and then when they formally applied, Turkey blocked. They were going to hold talks on it as an alliance to kind of fast-track it, and Turkey blocked it.

And they've, they object to their membership over Sweden and Finland's kind of ties to Kurdish groups. You know, they say that they have ties with the PKK, which I'm not too sure. The PKK is a, it's a Kurdish militant group in Turkey that Turkey, Turkey, that Turkey, as well as the EU and the U.S. consider to be a terrorist organization, and then they have their affiliates in northeast Syria that the U.S. backs.

So I'm not sure exactly what these ties are between the government and the PKK, what Turkey exactly alleges. But there is support for these Kurds that Turkey fights in northeast Syria, Sweden and Finland put sanctions on Turkey in 2019 when they launched the establishment. assault against the Kurds in northeast Syria.

So Turkey wants that lifted and they want them to amend their laws because apparently these Kurdish groups affiliated with the PKK have like rallies and stuff in Sweden and Finland, I think more so Sweden and they want, you know, laws to change. They want them to strengthen their counterterrorism laws so that that can't happen. I know that's one aspect of it. And then this was all pretty, this was complicated in. Sweden, earlier this month, the Swedish government, to survive a no-confidence vote, they needed the support of a Kurdish MP in the Swedish government.

She's Swedish, but she's of Kurdish-Iranian heritage. They needed her vote to survive, the social Democrats that make up the ruling government in Sweden. and this Kurdish MP wanted a guarantee that they wouldn't give in to Turkey's demands to join NATO and also wanted them to express their support for a PKK affiliate in Syria, the Democratic Union Party and they're associated with the US-backed SDF in northeast Syria. So that kind of really is complicated Sweden's efforts to do. join if their their government it really is reliant on this one Kurdish MP to kind of survive now

but you know things can change quick the government can change but it definitely uh you know it's not um Stoltenberg is still kind of trying to say that oh we're going to get they're going to figure this out but it seems like it's it's much more complicated than they let on initially yeah by the way i don't know if you saw this from defense one NATO to approve biggest overhaul of defense since the cold war Stoltenberg says the rapid response force is to grow from 40,000 to 300,000 troops yeah i was just reading that before we uh before you called me

um yeah and uh they're saying that they're going to increase uh forces in the in the Baltic states to a brigade size, which is about 5,000 troops. Now, this rapid response force, they said that they, they haven't, I think it was formed in 2002, and it hasn't been activated until recently when Russia invaded. And by activating it, it's basically just putting these troops on standby. And some of them were deployed to Europe as the U.S. and NATO allies kind of reinforced what they call their eastern flank there in Poland and Baltics and Romania and stuff. So increasing that force to over 300,000, I mean, I guess that means that NATO has a huge force that they can deploy, you know, at any time.

So it's definitely not a good sign. I mean, this is what, you know, you read all these reports and they say, oh, I read this in New York Times today. They said, before Russia invaded Ukraine, many asked if NATO still should exist. Well, now it's clear that they should exist. Yeah. Something like that. Of course. It's perfect, isn't it?

That's why they call it a self-licking ice cream cone. Hey, look, we made a mess. Now we got a job cleaning up the mess we made. It's great. And we don't have to get real jobs. That's implicit in all of this. You know what I mean? Nobody wants to really work for it.

and they can get away with it. Well, be a bureaucrat. You make a ton of money, especially when you retire and go sit on the board of directors of a defense firm. And, you know, I quote in Fools Aaron, they talked openly about

how the war in Afghanistan was a team building exercise for NATO. You know, they go out of area or out of business, as they said in the 90s. And so this is something

that we can do together. Dave, see? Just like at my Twitter feed this morning, I'm telling everybody opposing the war in Yemen. This is something we can all do together. Come on, you know, that's how they feel about it, about waging a war in Yemen, or in Libya, or in Afghanistan, or in Eastern Europe. This is what makes us who we are that we do these things together, wage these wars. And, you know, the relative danger, I don't even think they're considering. you know the the threat of war breaking out full scale across europe or even including nuclear war i don't think they're thinking about that it's all just you know more parochial incentives at play yeah yeah it doesn't seem like anybody any of them are thinking about the threat of nuclear war

because if they were then they uh would be taking a very different approach but they don't say word about it right there's just it just goes without saying that that could never happen so shut up, you sound like a kook, dude. You don't want to sound like a koot do you? Exactly. And now with NATO, they're supposed to announce that big increase at the summit this week in Madrid. And they're also going to release a new strategic concept, they call it, that they release about every 10 years. And this one's going to name China as a threat to the alliance. So the North Atlantic Alliance is looking at moving into the Asia Pacific. You know, and we've seen them, they've put out statements on China over the past couple years, starting really in 2020. And they want to increase cooperation with

Japan and Australia and South Korea. And it looks like they're eyeing a similar buildup, at least the U.S. definitely is, in that area, in Southeast Asia, to surround China, as they did with Russia. We saw how that ended up. Yeah. Listen, we've got to talk about anti-war.com, speaking of team building. We're running out of money. We need more money. And we've got a really great team. You know, we got Dave and Jason holding down the news section.

But, of course, Kyle and Will Porter and Connor Freeman, who are, you know, working at the Institute. We're kind of trading employees and people around trying to keep everybody working here, reprinting your stuff there and reprinting our stuff there. this and that anyway uh point is we got uh dave and we got jason and we got call anzalone our great opinion editor who's doing my job better than i ever did and although i was really good at it but he's great man and uh of course eric and angela and the whole crew that runs the place and uh margaret griffis for you know all our great of rack coverage and uh help me out because i'm probably leaving out of course you know all our great writers um are our in-house

columnist and all that, but who's on the staff that I didn't say, dude? Kick me. Brandon and Mike and the guys that run the website. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, I think you covered everybody there, Margaret and Angela. Angela Keaton, she's a real big help because she does a lot of the fundraising, which is, to me, like the hardest part of working for ANIWR.com is every quarter about we have to, you know, do this big fundraiser because that's the only way we can. could really keep the independent line that we have and give people the news and opinions from this non-interventionist point of view. You know, there's not much money in what we do in our editorial line. So we rely on our readers and supporters to get by. And you mentioned the staff,

and then we've had a pretty serious lineup of column this lately. We've got Doug Bandow, Ted Snyder, Ramsey Baroud, who you just interviewed. And we have Daniel Harrison, a new edition. Ray McGovern has been writing a ton of stuff for us. Ted Carpenter. So it's a pretty stocked lineup. Yeah. And I'm really

excited about having Doug and Ted here because, well, and Ted Snyder, of course, too, is great. Our Canadian friend, but Ted Sni- I mean, Ted Carpenter, Ted Galen Carpenter, and Doug Bando are the two best guys at Cato and have been for a very, very long time.

And so for people on the outside of the movement, they don't know, but this is a very nice thing for the old libertarian civil wars to fizzle out and smooth over and be cool in this new era that we're all getting along so well. And, you know, our former staffer, John Glazer, works at Cato and in their foreign policy department. And we got their two best guys writing for us. So, and I just absolutely worship both of those guys. they're both so great and you know dugs i don't know about ted i know doug's been around the world ten times or whatever he's been in north korea it's wise it's been all over asia and africa and the middle east in europe and wherever else what i leave out i'm sure he's at least been on vacation in australia it's been everywhere man like johnny katt yeah um and and yeah as you said ramsie

brood our brilliant Palestinian uh refugee and intellectual and author and scholar and brilliant guy and wonderful guy and all of our great right i mean the whole thing um it's the best it's the most important project on the internet it's why i've been part of it since about 2004 whatever it is as soon as i started the show in spring 2003 first person i interviewed was alan bock author of the eye on the empire column for antiwar dot com back then who sadly died in i'm going to say 2012 or 13 um but who was a wonderful man and um and so yeah Yeah, man, I had no problem whatsoever, hitching my wagon right to what Eric Garrison and Justin Romano were doing back then. And I'm proud that I'm on the editorial director now and get to play a role in this thing.

And people should know that your dollars are being spent very wisely here. None of us are making a fat salary or a 401k program or a chauffeur-driven limousine around town or any of these things like a lot of these nonprofit organizations in your imagination. And when I first heard of the Randolph-Borne Institute, he sounded like some billionaire, right? Oh, wow, some rich guy gave some libertarians a bunch of money to have an anti-war website. Yeah, no, he was an anarchist who died penniless of the Woodrow Wilson flu back in 2000, I mean, 1916, or 18, and did not bequeathed us a nickel. He's just, you know, a guiding light because he wrote the great essay, the state, the unfinished essay, the state, and the most important part of which is the war, yeah, it would be nice if I said it right, war is the health of the state, which of course

is our slogan and kind of our guiding principle here as anti-war libertarians. So, yeah, man, I don't know. Everywhere I go, people tell me how much they appreciate me, which actually I only go where people appreciate me, so I don't know. but um for those of you who think that anti-war dot com is important for those of you who like me can't do without jason ditts and um dave de camp and the right you know kyle and the rest of the group there then you know how it is it's the funniest thing in it a bunch of libertarian capitalists we all run non-profit organizations we can't charge prices at the door we run off donations

it's a weird kind of funny sort of paradox but that's because of our tax system in america it is what it is so that's what we do we run off the donations and uh and we're not making bank so you can um feel like you're helping people just barely get by to do this important work the way there should be frankly um and and that is exactly what it is you know paying the light bill and and staying alive and doing okay and that's it so um and and a lot of times not even that and I'm pretty sure I'm about to get laid off. But I'm the editorial director, so I'm just going to do that for free anyway

because what the hell do I care? I'll figure it out. But even if I do get laid off, we still, that's not going to cover it. We got a budget deficit, man. We need y'all to dig deep and support anti-war.com. And I'm sorry, Justin's not here. Oh, in fact, today's today.

It's the third anniversary of Justin dropping dead. I'm sorry. Rest in peace. Wow, it's today, huh? Told Justin Ramondo, and everybody who ain't never read him, go and read everything he ever wrote. Start in 99 and work forward from there.

He was our founding editorial director and head writer for 20 years. And from 99 through 19. And Murray Rothbard's air in non-interventionist foreign policy. And so that's the legacy that we're trying to continue here. I think we're doing a pretty damn good job. I'm very proud of your work. Man, I saw your tweet the other day. He done 3,000 interviews.

And, you know, round of applause, sound effect here. you really deserve it man and i sure appreciate it thanks man i appreciate it i mean you help me out when i first started writing uh frana war dot com you spent a lot of time on the phone with me helping me out make it better so i have a i have to thank you and you know just to say eric garris who runs the site a lot of people uh don't realize that he you know he's the one that's really uh running everything right i mean he the amount of hours that he puts into this site his site. You know, he's founded with Justin, him and Justin were best friends. You know, he's got tons of great stories about his activism when he used to be involved in politics

with the LP and the Republican Party and all these stories about Murray Rothbard. And, you know, he's somebody that, you know, a little more people just understand that he's the kind of driving force behind all this. And I have to thank him for giving me this job. And so we have to work to, you know, earn money for it and keep it going. And like I said, that's the hardest part. You know, writing the articles, like you mentioned, I've written over 3,000 since I started full-time in September 2020. So I think that's pretty good.

They're short news articles, but that still shows how much work we put into this. And, yeah, I think I've told you before, I took about, when I took this job, I took about a $40,000 pay cut from my old career. So that shows that's how kind of passionate we are. We're not in it to make money because if we were, we'd be doing something else. Yeah, seriously.

I could think of a few other jobs. I'd rather have in other circumstances, but it is what it is. And, you know, for those of us with the X-ray eyes, as I was taught, we kind owe it to everybody else to help them understand what

the hell is going on around here. You're doing a great job of that. That's the purpose of the site. If you appreciate it, it's anti-war.com slash donate. There's a phone number there if you need to call Angela Keaton and talk about financial arrangements, whatever it is, details. And then, of course, we take all your cryptocurrencies and all those wonderful things. So thank you, everybody. Appreciate it. And thank you, Dave, for your time on the show again. Thanks, Scott. The Scott Horton Show, Anti-War Radio, can be heard on KPFK, 90.7 FM in L.A. APSRadio.com, anti-war.com,

Scott Horton.org, and libertarian institute.org.