Scott Horton Show - Just the Interviews - 8/5/22 Dan McKnight on Defend the Guard’s Momentum and the Death of Zawahiri

Episode Date: August 12, 2022

Dan McKnight of Bring Our Troops Home is back to give an update on the movement to pass Defend the Guard Legislation. Defend the Guard aims to prohibit the Federal Government from deploying National Guard troops to foreign combat operations without a formal declaration of war. The movement backing these bills is led by veterans of the Terror Wars who just want lawmakers to respect the oath they all swore to the Constitution. McKnight gives an update on the effort and explains how you can help out. They then discuss the drone strike in Kabul two weeks ago that allegedly killed Al Qaeda leader Ayman Al-Zawahiri. If true, McKnight says the last genuine justification for a War on Terror is gone.  Discussed on the show: Defend the Guard Bring Our Troops Home Ten Seven Club Leadership Class Kill Bin Laden by Dalton Fury (Thomas Greer) “This Air Force commando called in 688,000 pounds of bombs in one battle” (Task & Purpose) Pat McGeehan for House of Delegates  Dan McKnight is the founder and Chairman of Idahoans to Bring Our Troops Home. He served in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserves, three years active duty with the U.S. Army and ten years with the Idaho Army National Guard, including a one-year deployment to Afghanistan in 2006. 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; and Thc Hemp Spot. 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 show hey guys on the line i've got dan mcnight he is the founder and the director of bring our troops home dot us and of course he's spearheading the defend the guard effort at defend the guard dot us and

many making headway a lot. All I get is emails from you talking about how much great success you are having around the country and especially pushing defend the guard, but making all kinds of headway and all kinds of areas. So welcome back to the show, Dan. How are you doing? Good, Scott. It's good to be here. Yeah.

So like I was saying, it's a quantitative fact that you're doing good. Tell us about some of the recent stuff that's going on here. Oh, man, we are, so I guess our big push is the, like you said, the defendants. the Guard legislation and some of the hard nuts to crack some states that we haven't been able to get into. We've found sponsors in and some freshman legislators that are excited about the process of reclaiming state control over their National Guard from the federal government. And we were just down at the Alec Convention in Atlanta, Georgia last weekend. What's that? Alick is the American Legislative Exchange Council. It's a group of state legislators from all over the country that come

together to talk about state-based legislation, 10th Amendment, fixing all the real problems in the world without the federal government, doing it at the state level. And so if I had to say these are my kind of people, this would be the place. Great. Now, listen, earlier today, I was having a talk with a friend of mine. He says, by the way, I'm about to win a state house seat as a Republican. Oh, really? Okay. He's way ahead in the polls. It's essentially a done deal. I says, well, you can push defend the guard legislation as soon as you get in there. He says, well, they killed it in committee last time. Let me see what I can do.

Say, hey, I know some army guys who got your back. Yes, sir. We can set this up. So this is just great. I mean, you know, this one guy, I mean, it's a miracle he's going to win this seat anyway, however that happened. And it's a miracle

we got him, but then, you know, just him versus the rest of the house, that's not going to do very well, you know, up against the leadership's wishes and whatever but then again if he can put on a hell of a show and really make them think twice I've seen it with my own eyes a couple of times

especially as I've told you before we've talked about before but it's worth bringing up here in Texas you were very impressive sir on the overhead TV screens and they were looking up at you and the one guy was like all right let's talk about the legalities and all this stuff he was the most interested one that guy

But then, after you, I believe, we had, I don't know, a captain, lieutenant, something like that, who got up there to testify a guy named Brian Sharp, really great guy, and he was from West Point. And when he told that committee that he was from West Point, I mean, it was better than saying he had three Purple Hearts or something like that. You know what I mean? It was like he was George Washington himself up there standing in front of him. And they're like, wow, West Point. like the West Point from TV? Whoa, you know?

They were just blown away. It was huge. And you're behind this thing? The level of legitimacy that he was bestowing upon the effort that you guys are behind. You might have some army guys who are interested in this and that, but wow, we, a guy from West Point. And then it's just in the quantity. And it's the quality of all of you guys. I mean, you and Diego and Jeff.

and, you know, the leaders of the group and all this, but plus with a guy like Brian Sharp and all the people you guys are bringing on, I think, you know, obviously there's a lot of pressure from above against passing legislation like this. But I think you're going to have success in one or two of these states here pretty soon. You're going to have a governor, you're going to have a lieutenant governor who say, you know what? I think we should get ahead of this parade instead of getting run over by it. I think you're right. And, you know, the tides of change, they're definitely upon us in the massive growth and success, even though we don't have one that we can pit on the wall as past. Just the growth and the success in the last three years, it's not common. You know, good bills like even constitutional carry, you know, in some states have taken 20 years. And we're here in our third year and we're sweeping the country with sponsors in over 40 states now. And we've had. great hearings in committees where we've blown the doors off the committees with facts

and testimony from veterans and constitutional scholars and great thinkers like yourself, people are noticing us, and we know they're noticing because they keep sending these guys to testify against us that look like Colonel Nathan R. Jessup from a few good men with a chest full of medals and stars on his collar. And you know you're getting attention when they call it the big guns and it's it we know we're on the right track yeah absolutely it's the most exciting thing and of course look it just so happens to coincide with some of the best traditions of constitutional type governance here where for example we have these lower houses of congress and and upper ones too but we have these houses on the state and on the national level that you know if the people

show up they really can have a hell of a lot of influence over and even on the national level I mean it's 435 little house districts and so if people are really organized and can you know find the pressure points and push them carefully there's a way for us to really have an effect here

and you guys are showing it and then of course by invoking nullification and interposition at least implicitly and saying you know essentially us guys are a lot of on you are state legislatures to protect us from being misused and abused and that kind of thing. It's just the perfect narrative.

It's true. It's not like it's some kind of put on. It's, you know, all based, you know, led by you guys, all of you guys at the leadership level here, at least combat veterans of the 21st century wars. And, you know, as we're discussing Republican and libertarian, leaning guys, which is not anything necessarily against the left. but just seems like you guys bring a little bit more kind of gravitas. I need a better word for that. I don't like that word. Too Bill Clinton, right?

Yeah, I don't like that crap. But you bring a certain level of credibility to this argument that has been very difficult for others to really be able to put forward here. And then your process for going about what you're going about, it self inspires more confidence, that this is just absolutely the right way to invoke the constitutional order against the American Empire. Well, I appreciate that, Scott. I agree.

It's really, really tough for some, I wouldn't say ignorant, but let's call them naive and maybe uninformed politician to tow that company line. You're with us or you're against us. We fight them there or we fight them here. It's hard for them to be that guy when they went to college. They had a career. They went into the legislature, and they never served.

someone like myself or Diego or any or or sharp or any of the other guys that testify show up with visible wounds and stories from the battlefront and carrying poles from our brothers and sisters in uniform that were over 70% of them have said this is a waste we shouldn't be in Afghanistan and Iraq it's hard to tell the people that are pulling the trigger um to go back and pull it again if they're not even willing to put their name on the line and declare the war it's It's a tough fight for them to fight, and they look like elitists when they take up that pro-war, all-war, any war, any day, any time position like Crenshaw or Mitch McConnell or Lindsey Graham or Tom Cotton. Yeah. And starting with Pat McGeehan and then with the legislation that you guys are pushing here, and I've seen you handle these different state legislators too when they ask you about all the details here, you are being perfectly reasonable. you're not saying that no the army can't train our troops no we won't go anywhere at any time and this you know hell no we won't go type deal it's just no we this legislation is very specific no overseas combat without a declaration of war not trying to just sit there and you know like I'm not saying this would be bad but I'm just saying this is not what you're doing laying down on the railroad tracks bringing the war machine to a halt like in this sort of you're

you know, kind of outlaw civil disobedience kind of a way. You're just saying, this should be the law anyway. It should have been all along, right? I mean, what's even to argue about here? No, you're right. And we believe that it is the law right now, but it needs clarification. You know, the militia clause, Article 1, Section 8, Clause 15, says that the militia or the National Guard can be called into federal service for only three purposes, right,

to repel an invasion, to put down an insurrection and to enforce the laws of the union. overseas foreign combat in wars of choice is not one of the reasons but a declaration of war a declaration of war becomes the law of the union and that gives the authority for the national guard to go fight and so if congress will simply put their name on the line after debating and discussing it and hold themselves accountable they should be able to take all assets all assets to go fight and win a war and then come home and so anybody that's been to war is going to be a little bit anti-war they should be we've seen it we've lived it we understand the value of human in life. But I don't want to ever be confused with an anti-war movement. We are not an anti-war

movement. We are a pro-constitution movement that simply says if we're going to be a society of rules and laws, then we should follow our own being rules and laws. And so it's a tough, it's a tough needle to thread, but I think we've got our message down where we'll go fight any war that you think is necessary in the defense of America if you're willing to put your name on the line first. And you is Congress, not the president. Yeah. That's great. And after all, I mean, look, they won't do it. I'm old enough, Sonny. And I can tell you, I sat there and watched probably live on C-SPAN. Definitely I've seen the footage a bunch of times. I think I saw it live where, well, 20 years ago, right around, Ron Paul introduced in the Foreign Affairs Committee a declaration of war against Iraq. And then he said in his statement, I will vote against this, and I urge you all to vote against it. But if you support this war and you, you you're going to vote for an authorization to start this war, then you should vote for this declaration of war. Put your money and put your name where your mouth is, like in your

constitutional oath. And I mean, I learned this in at least junior high school, maybe even elementary school, but certainly in junior high school, that there was a reason that George Washington and the rest of them all agreed that Congress would be the ones who got to decide whether to get into a war or not while the president would be in charge of enforcing it. And it was blatant and they said it out loud. Maybe it would have been impolite

that you can't trust the guy in charge of fighting it with deciding whether to fight it or not. You can't trust him to decide. It has to be up to the representatives of the people to declare war, to start a war. And no one

questions if the British invade from Canada that the president would have the right to organize troops in immediate defense of the country. But we're talking about starting a war, which America's often want to do, you might have noticed. Just a couple, Taiwan, Ukraine. I mean, we're just looking at a couple of minor ones right now. At any time. Yeah, somebody convinced me to start watching the show Veep.

So I'm doing a little binge watching that thing. And at one point, Elaine from Seinfeld says to the guy, she goes, what is it? Are we at war? because this is America, we're always at war. But anyway, it was about whatever the crisis is, is something else entirely. Right. But of course, that goes without saying that we're a war.

Don't be silly. All right, now, so tell me about Senior Freedom Fest, and then you went to this Alec Convention. Tell me about the people you meet and the conversations you have and what difference it makes. You have a couple here, as you mentioned there. You got some state delegates

and Congress people pledging to introduce your or, you know, at least co-sign your legislation next time, this kind of thing. Talk to me about the success you're having with people, Dan. Sure, absolutely. So I'll tell you a quick story about one conversation in particular that is really stuck out from the Allen Convention. We met, and I don't want to say his name or where he's from yet, but I'll give you some background. He was a two-star general in the State National Guard, and he's now serving the legislature in his state. And he was a strong, opponent of Defend the Guard when it was first brought. And he stopped by the booth and he goes, I know you guys. I know who you are. And I could tell it was going to be a contentious

conversation. And so I just engaged him. We talked and I asked him what his primary objection was to the bill. And he said, it's unconstitutional. We're going to lose money. We're going to, and just gave the whole laundry list, all this, all the things. And I just had a conversation with him and kind of addressed each one one by one. And I would ask him questions about his thought and where he, um, what he thought on the Constitution, what he thought on enumerated powers and on federalism and on the 10th Amendment. At the end of the conversation, he hands me his business card and he says, I think I may have misunderstood your bill. He goes, call me. We need to talk. And that's the education process that bring our troops home is engaged in. We know we're not going to go out there and be able to force our way through any committee, force our way through any house or force a vote anywhere.

We're going to have to educate people using real principles, using facts, and using the Constitution itself as our textbook. And so whether I swung his vote or not and whether he's going to support it or not, it doesn't matter. It just shows you that people, once you open their eyes and the veil is lifted, and they understand that this is not a radical effort. This is a, this is pretty sound and pretty based, and it's hard for them to debate against it. So that was one. And then your Freedom Fest in Las Vegas is a different crowd, right? It's not state legislators. It's more fanatics of freedom.

You were there. You know the people. And we know that we're making inroads when we're able to walk through the convention floor, walk into the big conference rooms or stand at our booth, and people come up and they're like, I know you. You're the defend the guard guys. You're the bring our troops home guys. You're the guy who called your governor from the top of a mountain in Afghanistan.

Oh, my God, I can't believe you're here. And people taking pictures with it. We're not trying to be celebrities. I'm just a guy, right? I'm not even an attractive guy. I'm just a guy. And people know the effort and they love the effort and they recognize it. Or they'll say, hey, I heard you on Horton's show or I heard you on Lines of Liberty or I heard you on this show or that show.

So we know that the message is spreading and the repetitive nature of the message is starting to catch hold. And you know that all good messaging requires duplication and repetition. And we feel like we're really hitting that stride right now. And then the last conversation we'll talk about is a freshman legislator that stopped by the booth that we talked to. Never heard of it. He was a member of the Air National Guard. And he'd said, well, tell me what you guys do. Who are you?

What do you do? And we gave him the 30 second elevator speech, you know, that we proposed legislation that would keep the National Guard from deploying to overseas combat. And he stopped me right there. He goes, without a declaration of war? Question mark? And I said, yes. He goes, I'm in. I'm in.

dying to do something like this. I could never square the circle. I didn't know where to go. I didn't know how to do it. But the concept was alive in him because he understood principles. He understood constitutional freedom and constitutional republic. He understood the concept. He just didn't have a mechanism. He didn't have a vehicle. And now we're going to give him the vehicle and the institutional support, which is something we're building right now to get it done. Yeah. And the growth is it's organic, it's natural, and it's easy to spread when you're, when you're, there's no, there's no, uh, deception. There's no ulterior motive when the message is pure. Yep, totally right. And look, man, everywhere I go, I meet veterans and obviously it ain't a scientific poll or nothing. It's

libertarian party groups and mostly speaking to and that kind of thing. It's people who show up to see me speak. But I meet a lot of veterans. And all I ever hear is at a boys and a long, those lines and nobody ever says you don't know what you're talking about fight me or whatever it just doesn't happen at all um and i get a lot of uh well you know a lot of people bring you guys up to me and i think you know look not in a cynical way just it is what it is man it's a social psychology thing if anti-war means janus joplin and day glow bubble letters and whatever kind of some old cliche from some previous time, then we're sunk.

But if it's people like you who are leading the move against foreign interventionism like this and in this manner, then it's just an entirely different animal. It's a whole different approach. And it's one that, you know, as you can see, it's like in a jujitsu kind of a way. It just gets around all of the defenses of all the cliches left over from Vietnam. and that kind of thing. It just defeats all that. In the same way that Ron Paul did,

in the same way that Donald Trump did, for that matter, when he declared numerous times that American intervention in the Middle East was the worst thing America had ever done. The worst mistake any president had ever made. The dumbest policy anyone ever decided on. I mean, wow, thanks, Donald. He didn't really implement the withdrawal. I don't like the scene.

But, boy, did he implement the idea that right-wingers don't have to pretend to believe in this. stuff anymore, not at all. It's just not believable. And so, you know, I think what you guys are spearheading here is just, you know, it's a cultural phenomenon, you know, even, you know, much more than it is a push for any one piece of legislation here. And so, and I know, too, from, you know, talking to vets, it's nice for them to have somewhere to go, you know, bring our troops home.us, and defend the guard.us. And join up with a group of guys who, you know, you know, also been there and understand and where they're not, you know, kind of a fish out of water and a group full of just different kind of people they can't relate to or whatever

like that. And it's, especially for ones who've changed their mind about the wars who want something to do about it. And here's something where you're really pushing on levers of power and really doing something where, and just think about everybody, you know, Dan and Diego and the boys up there testifying. And then how many soldiers do they have? standing behind them? Five, ten, fifteen? How about standing room only in the auditorium as they're testifying? And it's all guys who've been to the wars impact, of which there are millions in this country now who've been to the terror wars of just the 21st century here. What if when Dan testifies up there, he's got 75, 100, or three or 500 people standing behind him, saying, yeah, that's what we think too.

And it's on the name, a spare in the boys who were just turning 18. It's all in the name of stopping what's wrong here, which makes sense, right? And the way that you guys say it, it makes so much sense. So that's a call for everybody else out there. Absolutely. Sign up, man. You used to have that job. This is your new job.

Exactly. So you talk about that having the people behind you. It is a very comforting position to have that army standing behind you. And that's one of our biggest efforts right now, Scott, is we are trying to train that army. and we've developed this leadership training school and our first one's kicking off next weekend in Kentucky and then we've got one in Arizona, one in New Jersey. We're taking the show on the road.

We are going to build an army in any state that has a legitimate sponsor that's willing to stand up and lead the charge. We're going to put an army of veterans and their family members and those that are affected by these nonstop deployments. We're going to put an army of well-trained, well-educated, tactical army behind you.

We're going to pack the hearing room. We're going to light up the phones when it's time to start making phone calls. We're going to knock the doors. And ultimately, we're going to start taking some people out of office, which we just did in Idaho this last primary election. We defeated the biggest opponent of the bill here in Idaho and replaced him with a strong supporter of Defend the Guard. Great.

And so we're building this army. Words are nothing. Words have to have action. And we've developed this leadership school. that Diego has really kind of taken the lead on. He is the master of field work. That guy understands the field like nobody. And his battlefield is no longer in Iraq or Afghanistan.

His battlefield is going to be in the suburbs of Lexington, Kentucky, in Austin, Texas, in Boise, Idaho. And he's going to build an army that's well-trained, and his tactical, it is smart, and can maneuver quickly. And we're excited about it. I think Diego's school that we're going to doing is going to be the, it's going to be the thing that puts us across the finish line in one of these states this year.

All right. So how do people, you know, other than just bring our troops home. Dot U.S., defend the guard.U.S., they just click on the email list button there, or how's that work? Bring our troops home.com. And then I think there's a new tab at the top that says leadership school. It does leadership class. And if you click on that, it'll give you a little bit of background about it and about who we are and if you want to start your own class. And then you can click there to either sponsor a class or fill out the form if you want to attend a class. And we're trying to find people that are willing to help us hope. these schools where all you have to do is help us find a room big enough for us to pack and then put some bodies in it we'll we'll get on the road we'll be there so bring

our troops home dot us click on the leadership class that's the best way to find out about the school to start getting the newsletters just sign up at the bottom of the home page where you can put your email address in and if you want to become a supporter if you want to become one of the the the inner circle people that are really helping us push this mission go to the 107 club.com that's 10 P-E-N-7, S-E-V-E-N-Club.com, and sign up for $10 a month. It's a reoccurring donation. You'll be entered to win all kinds of cool prizes.

That $10 a month, multiplied by the number of people across the country that support us, keeps us going. It keeps the mission going. We are all private donation run. We don't give any matching funds from government agencies or corporations. It's all small donors. And that's how I'd ask people to be involved. And please, join us.

Become a member. this is a safe place for veterans who believe in the Constitution. We all raised our hand and swore an oath to defend the Constitution. Now let's hold those knuckleheads in Washington accountable to their oath before they send us and our children off to fight again in a war that they refused to participate in. Yeah. Hey, guys, anybody who signs up to listen to this show by way of Patreon will be invited to join the Reddit group.

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And listen, this is something I think we talked about before about how you guys, you take this oath to the Constitution. It means so much to you because you could get your guts blown out over it. where the rest of these guys, it's just a rubber-stamp thing. It's just a box that you check when you get a job working for the federal government, you know what I mean, or whatever branch of government. It's just a little ceremony where you guys are out there putting it on the line. And that's your reason in vote.

It's like, got to protect that constitution and that kind of thing, right? So I guess see where that could, you know, if it's well understood, that could really come back to bite them the way that they use and abuse. you guys in this way in the name of the Constitution. I think it just might spur some of you guys into reading the thing and figuring out what it is that, you know, who's been violating it and what should be done about that. So, you know, I've always, you know, kind of noticed the difference in how seriously soldiers take that oath compared to civilian government employees, you know. Yeah, when your life is on the line, the oath means a whole lot more

because you have to have something to hold on to to justify your why. Why am I fighting a person I've never met my life? Why am I willing to take their life? Why? Our why is because of that document. Yeah. Like, even in the most absolute, generic basic sense, like the

Constitution, I've heard of that. That was why Ron Paul got attention when he talked about it from the military in a way that, you know, the Civil Service. They didn't go, wow, Ron Paul talks about the Constitution. We really like They were like, oh, no, he's going to abolish the fourth branch of government.

We can't have that, you know? But the military guys were like, hey, this guy's speaking my language, you know, just like on the basic sense. And, of course, when you sign up to defend the Constitution, it's got to defend right in it. Not really signing up to attack Iraq based on the whim of some jerk, you know? Right. So. Yep. And it was funny you mentioned that because Ron Paul, when he ran for president, he ran against, he ran against.

against John McCain, right? And I think there was Fred Thompson, I think was in that race too. Do I remember who some of the other people were? And he, Ron Paul got more donations from members of the military than all the other candidates combined. And it's because he was speaking the language that resonates to our core principles.

And just yesterday on the Ron Paul Liberty Institute, he had one of our sponsors, Bill sponsors, there's Anthony Sabatini on there who talked about defend the guard. Oh, yeah? And what he's going to do when he gets to Washington, D.C., when he wins his congressional race. And, you know, Dr. Paul, the great Dr. Paul, is 100% behind our efforts on this. Yeah, I'm sure. That's really great to hear.

And so how many states do you get introduced? And I know that the legislative sessions don't all line up and this kind of thing. But just year by year, how's it going? Yeah, so we are, I guess I have kind of an amoebic definition of this. So we have bill sponsors in over 40 states. That doesn't mean that the bill has been sponsored and submitted and proposed yet because sometimes sponsors aren't good sponsors. Sometimes they horse trade bills that they're holding in their pocket before they submit them.

So over 40 states have a good sponsor. We're hoping to have it introduced and actually in document form where you can read it, find it, click on it online on state legislature websites in all 50 states starting January 1st through the next cycle. So that's the goal. And right now, there's only about seven states where we don't have a real good sponsor that's willing to get it printed. And that's the big push right now. Yeah.

All right. So how do people sign up to get on the email list that comes from chairman at bring our troops home. Dot net? You've been sending out some really great emails daily or every other day here. You know, and they all have great calls to action in them. Yeah, yeah, two way, any, any website you go to where you put your email address in, defend the guard, us, bring our troops home.us, or 107club.com. Any of the three, if you put your email address in there, you're going to be on our list. And I don't know if you got it today, though, but today's

email that came out from my desk about the assassination of Zawahiri. I did see it. Fire. It might be one of the best pieces that we put out. I was just about to ask you. Tell us about that. Look, none of us condone the drone wars, right? It might be one of the most evil things that the United States has ever participated in. You know, faceless killing from a faceless machine from somebody sitting in a video game studio in Florida. But we proved a couple things. We killed Zawahiri. He was the last piece of the 9-11 attacks, right? Him and bin Laden and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed were the three masterminds. And if you'll remember, the AUMF that was passed to send us to Afghanistan, not the Declaration of the AUMF, it called for the capture or killing of everybody who attacked.

us, well, they all died. It called for the killing or capture of everybody that planned the attack, and it called for the destruction of the terror training camps. All of that was done, right? The only thing that was left was this Zawahiri guy, and nobody really cared about him because we'd already cut the head of the snake off, we'd destroyed everything else. Now that Zawahiri is gone, what, what reasoning can Congress possibly have for keeping that AUMF open and active? There is no reason. So this, we're going to celebrate the assassination of this man because he was evil. I don't like the drone wars.

I don't agree with him. But now that he's dead, let's close this authorization of use of military force that's now 21 years old and let's give back to a constitutional principle. And lastly, we proved all of the military talking heads wrong.

We proved Liz Cheney wrong. We do not need a massive force of military equipment and soldiers stationed in the Middle East to kill enemies of America. We proved it right here, one single American had their boots on the ground when this happened. It was done by a drone in the sky with good intelligence. And again, I don't condone those, but we prove that we don't need

a massive force. We don't need an army, an entire division or multiple divisions stationed in some third world country in the Middle East. We should add the caveat that we don't really know what happened there, whether they got them or not or what, but that's at least what they're claiming so far. Right. Right. And by the way, like on this particular guy, they've claimed to kill al-Qaeda's number three guy a million times, but they've not claimed to kill Zawahiri repeatedly. They've tried and they killed a bunch of innocent civilians.

I believe it was 73 women and children one time trying to kill him in Pakistan before. And, you know, there were rumors that he was already dead, although they weren't credible rumors at the time. I didn't think, and I still don't. It seems like,

I don't know, my gut tells me that, yeah, maybe they did know who they were killing and it was him. But, you know, I was just talking with Lori Calhoun, and she was saying that, well, the reports out of Afghanistan is that there was an empty house, and there was nobody there at all when they bombed it. So who really knows? But I sure like the spirit of the thing, too, like you're saying, the AUMF doesn't say, oh, Associated Forces Forever and Ever and Ever, including Al-Shabaab in Somalia and whatever you got. It doesn't say that. It says, get them what done it. And that was the law. And so.

And we can always have a conversation another day about why Zawahiri was an enemy to a America in the first place. That's a different conversation, but it comes from really, really bad U.S. foreign policy. We took a doctor whose mission in life was to cure and heal people and turn them into one of the biggest enemies our country's ever had. And that's what happens when America puts our nose in somebody else's business. And I make the case in both books, and I guess even better in the second one than the first, because I had read the Delta Force guy's book in between the two about uh you know kill bin laden dalton fury uh thomas greer's book and i think it's just clear as day that they deliberately decided to let him go and i don't know if you and i ever discussed

this dan but i like bringing it up all the time because it's such a great fascinating little thing that you know in both books i can see that hey they did call in a lot of air power at torpora under the direction of the delta force there and they could have killed them that way you know So you can't say that they just did nothing to get them. It's just they refused to put in the ground forces, the Rangers and Marines and even Green Berets that they had available on the ground to seal the border to Pakistan. But then I read this thing right around the time of the fall of the American regime in Kabul

around a year ago. They had a thing in task and purpose about how it was a profile of the one Air Force special operations controller embedded with the Delta Force whose job it was to control all air traffic around Torabora at that time and call in all the airstrikes and everything else and they talked about how

there had been a Fernley fire bombing somewhere else in the country and so all air strikes were temporarily called off for like a week while the Air Force straightened out their chain of command or whatever and so in the meantime this one air controller at Toribora had command over every American and British plane

over Afghanistan during the first week of December 2001. But then that's the joke. And it's just an aside in the article. They called them out of there and they called off all airstrikes on December the 8th.

Wow. After the first week. And then that was it. And then, you know, it was widely believed by the CIA and the military. guys on the ground at the time that bin Laden escaped on the 17th. So there's a huge caveat to my caveat that, well, they did bomb them.

Yeah, then they called off the bombing of them before it got out of hand. So, God dang, man. But anyways, I'm with you. Let's call off the terror war. It's long overdue. And listen, man, I can't tell you how much I appreciate the work that you guys are doing. And I think basically, I don't know exactly how to measure it's the most important phenomenon in the country, man. You and your team and what you guys are doing here and all hail Pat McGeehan for coming up with the idea in the first place.

And you and all of your guys for doing this work. This is what's going to end the empire if it ain't the dollar breaking. You know, it's a race, right? Can the Federal Reserve destroy our currency before Dan McKnight and his boys? can get the empire roll back voluntarily, you know? You just put a lot of pressure on us right there. That's it, man. Hey, speaking of Pat McGeehan, he's facing a tough reelection up in West Virginia.

He stood tall on some very principled issues. He's never had a real challenger, and he's got one this time. And so if anybody within the sound of our voices hears this and believes in what we do, look Pat McGeehan up on social media and figure out how to throw that guy a couple of bucks. He needs some help. I can't advocate for his reelection. It's not in my IRS status, but I can tell you, I can educate you on what he's done for the cause. And he may be one of the greatest philosophers of our generation. He's such a great guy. And yeah, I urge everybody to look him up. And he is the guy who came up with this idea in the first place. And it's one of the most

important innovations in constitutional law, in practice in our lifetime. So, hell yeah. And thank you and all your guys again, Dan. You're great. You bet, Scott. Thanks for having something again. Appreciate it. All right, you guys, that's Stan McKnight.

Bring our troops home.us.com. Defend theguard.us. Oh, and 107club.com to give them your money. And guys, make sure to check out Diego's leadership school at Bring Our Troopshome.us, too. By the way, so I'm doing an event with you guys in New Jersey on October the 15th.

And then on the 16th, we're doing some of this training with Diego, right, Dan? Right. Yeah, I think it's the LP in New Jersey's hosting a big event. And we're going to speak at it on Friday night or Saturday night, and then the training is on Sunday. And I'm excited to have you there. In fact, I'm going to put you on the stage in training class and make you tell a story that and I'm not going to give you a heads up of what it is, but I've heard you tell it. So be prepared to be a

contributor. Okay, great, man. I'm down for whatever you say. And yeah, I'm really looking forward to that. And I know I'm flying into Newark. Is that where the event is? I have no idea where the venue is the event. Well, we'll have to figure all that out. Everybody, figure it out. We'll see you on October the 15th there. Thanks, Dan.

The Scott Horton show, Anti-War Radio, can be heard on K-PFK, 90.7 FM in L.A. APSRadio.com. anti-war.com, scothorton.org, and libertarian institute.org.