1:28:50
Transcript
sorry I'm late I had to stop by the
whites Museum again get the finger that
FBR we know al-qaida Zawahiri is
supporting the Opposition in Syria are
we supporting al-qaeda in Syria it's a
proud day for America and I got we've
kicked Vietnam syndrome once and for all
thank you very
[Music]
these witnesses are trying to simply
deny things that just about everybody
else accept as fact the meaning of the
largest armies in the history of the
world then there's going to be an
invasion all right you guys this is not
a rerun from last week
it's another interview max Blumenthal
from the grace own project welcome back
to the show how you doing good to be
back Scott happy to have here all right
so you're the author of some things I
want to talk about here
Goliath Fear and Loathing in Greater
Israel man that thing is something else
than the 51 day war not about Waco it's
the anniversary today that was the fifth
thing one day siege this is the Gaza
massacre of 2014 and then there's
killing Gaza it's such an important
video cost you a couple of bucks to
watch on Vimeo it's produced with Dan
Cohen
it's just interviews of Gazans about how
they're living and then you guys have to
take a look at it you just have to it's
so important and then most importantly
now for you and what you're up to you
got this brand new book management of
savagery which we talked all about last
week but that means that we didn't get a
chance to talk about Venezuela where you
had been doing reporting from there
recently as well as reporting from here
about what's going on there and what's
going on here about what's going on
there lots to talk about there but first
even before we get into that I want to
give you a chance to talk about Julian
Assange and Bradley Manning pardon me
Chelsea Manning go ahead well right now
it looks like Amnesty International
still refusing to make Chelsea Manning a
prisoner of conscience Pete Buddha judge
or whatever his name is is aiming to be
the first openly gay president to throw
Chelsea Manning in a gulag since he's
called for her imprisonment really he
did huh can you elaborate about that
part a little bit yeah let me let me try
to pull up the quote the exact quote but
he actually did
make a statement about Chelsea Manning
and the need to troubled by Clement he
said he was troubled by clemency by
Obama's clemency for Chelsea Manning Wow
and actually uh you know for your fellow
libertarians reason just wrote up a
piece about that for God's sake you know
what Anthony Gregory said back in 2010
simple as this libertarian or socialist
or otherwise or anyone else if you're
bad on Bradley Manning you are a bad
person simple as that there is a bright
line between those who believe that the
people are free and allow the government
to be their security force and those who
lick the boots of the fascist state get
the hell out of here yeah yeah so
Chelsea Manning still apparently in
prison it's unclear why if you read the
statement her lawyers put out after the
Assange indictment was unsealed they
emphasized that there's nothing new that
Chelsea Manning could potentially offer
here and you know there's there's
nothing in the indictment that she
didn't already address in her trial and
so she's being held for purely kind of
sadistic and punitive purposes and the
government sang shil be held for as long
as the grand jury is impaneled which
means until Assange is extradited and
put on trial extradition is I would say
likely although there is precedent for
preventing extradition from the UK to
the US I forget the name there is some
female hacker whose name I forget who
did not get extradited but then there's
also the Abu Hamza the one eyed
extremist selleth Salafi cleric from
London who was brought to the US and now
is kind of rotting in a federal prison
and and so that's troubling we spoke at
my podcast moderate rebels Ben Norton
and I - the former foreign minister of
ecuador guillaume long who emphasized
the problems that Lenin Moreno is having
in
testifying stripping Assange of
Ecuadoran citizenship there's simply
nothing in the Constitution that allows
him to do that
I think the inter-american Commission on
Human Rights is going to issue a ruling
that could be problematic for Moreno
who's basically the you know the the the
the figure who came in after Correa and
sold out
Korea's progressive agenda and proceeded
to sell out Assange in exchange for 4.2
billion dollar IMF loan so there's also
a European Parliament debate on Assange
there are protests in Quito and across
Ecuador against Moreno's neoliberal
agenda and these protests are also
fueled by his betrayal of Assange and
they're being harshly repressed and of
course not really being discussed by the
you know human rights groups like Human
Rights Watch and Amnesty the same way
that anything in Venezuela is and
finally you know you just see this
massive I think wave of activism around
Assange across the west where you know
people are mobilizing even you know some
more mainstream elements or warning that
this is an attack on press freedom and I
think this really delineates the
boundary between those who simply use
press freedom to advance their own
partisan or imperialist agenda and those
who actually do believe in protecting a
Free Press because there's just simply
no question that this indictment was
crafted as an attack on anyone who seeks
to protect their source number one which
is you know why you know the the use of
secure drop is mentioned in the
indictment like every journalist uses
encrypted technology to communicate with
sources if they're doing investigative
work or most of them do and the
publishing of classified information
which many journalists do is being
targeted here
however the indictment is written in a
way that allows for Assange to be
brought to the US
and allows for national security state
propagandists to say well he's only
being put on trial for five years let's
not worry about you know it's not such a
big deal and then what prosecutors
always do is you know Scott is they tack
on as many additional charges as they
can and try to get their sort their
targets and perjury traps which is why
Chelsea Manning I think is is they're in
prison is to try to trap them into
various other charges that will
eventually lead to being charged with
espionage right now the charges
conspiracy so I think the key is to kind
of prevent extradition for all the
reasons I explained yeah well that is
really important and there are you know
activists doing hard work in the UK but
they need help anybody listen to new can
chime in and help provide it there to
stop the thing in his tracks at least as
far as it's already gotten yeah but you
know I think it's so important what you
said about how we already know they
already know the entire facts of the
case as far as possibly Assange I don't
think we even really know it was Assange
with someone at WikiLeaks saying hey let
me try to help you with that password
and then was unable to crack it anyway
and then we also know that that password
would not have granted Manning any
higher level access to the computer
network than she already had it was just
tradecraft
how to help disguise her identity but
right and it looked like someone else
did it this kind of thing right right so
and as you say they already know that
much and this is a person who has been
convicted and has you know done her
elocution and all this stuff back at the
time so there are no new facts to
uncover as you're saying they can try to
catch her in some kind of perjury trap
or something but there's not even really
a pretension is their max that they're
gonna get manning to say actually you
know what there is this whole other
story that you haven't heard yet about
how Assange helped me break a code or do
something that's not part of this yeah i
I'm not aware of there being anything
else and obviously you know Obama gave
clemency to Chelsea Manning they did a
pretty thorough
review and determine there was nothing
else there and this just wasn't worth it
and you know I want to mention here
because I think this is really important
to is so here's a person who's already
done her time been punished for the
whole thing which was a heroic
liberation of truth in the first place
anyway nothing truly criminal about it
just illegal right and who was held
under the most abusive conditions
possibly even torturous conditions
depending on how you define solitary
confinement in pretrial before
conviction and sentencing and who has I
believe this is where I really should
check this I keep repeating this but I
believe has tried to commit suicide
twice and it's threatened a couple more
times and apparently you know credibly
and and people intervened essentially so
this is someone who is kind of a fragile
person on the edge anyway who is being
extorted ultimately when the crimes
already been so called crime has already
been convicted and punished and finished
yeah and you know from the Trump
administration I mean it's just kind of
a just a classic kind of Mike Mike
Pompeo was the one who you know kind of
gave voice to the vindictiveness of the
national security state and it's about
you know just purely punishing those who
complicated business for the State
Department as it seeks to really meddle
in other countries affairs and then you
have the kind of partisan liberal MSNBC
hacks who want blood for the 2016
elections and so they want Assange back
because they think they're gonna learn
something that's gonna prove collusion
took took place and you had Joe Manchin
I mean he kind of tent often votes with
the Republicans the senator from West
Virginia basically saying we're gonna
beat it out of Assange he said he's our
property when in fact he's an Australian
citizen and he said that we need to get
him back here so he can find out what
happened in 2016 and it really just
doesn't sound like they're planning to
honor the 1988 UN Convention on torture
if they think they're gonna get
something out of a saw
about Russia gate that he already hasn't
said and you know they could have gotten
it out of him if Mueller had agreed to
interview him I mean that's the funniest
thing about the Mueller report was there
was no attempt to even speak to Julian
Assange when he said you know come talk
to me right well yeah they don't want to
know what he's got to say and actually
that's got me wondering what they think
they're doing here you know I read
Andrew McCarthy in the National Review I
admit but he was making the point that
you know there's a statute of
limitations in play here and even the
exception where you can get an extension
requires a terrorism charge and not even
a conspiracy but like the actual cyber
terrorism which is going to be a real
stretch here so I don't know what they
think they're even going to charge them
with and of course there's the New York
Times test if they really charge them
with XP Nagy and tack on a charge like
that they're throwing the entire First
Amendment you know American journalistic
system into jeopardy at that point so
yeah and we know they do not want Julian
Assange on that stand testifying his
side of any story at all god knows what
that guy knows and that's what they
think yeah no he I mean it would it
would just it would be multi-layered
political crisis to put him on trial in
the u.s. in a public court so I just
don't know how they're gonna go about
doing this it's weird to see Alan
Dershowitz defending him to by the way
but Dershowitz you know if he wants he
knows the law if he if he wants to if he
wants to argue the law Dershowitz can
know what he's talking about it all just
depends on the partisan situation away
exactly you know I don't quite
understand the partisan situation here
but he made some of the same arguments
that you just cited from McCarthy so
well in fact it was Barr the Attorney
General right now just said in his
remarks about the Mueller report
yesterday that if Assange is publishing
this stuff as long as he wasn't doing
the hack then that wouldn't be a
criminal act that's just journalism or
maybe that wasn't a reference to Assange
was a reference to somebody else in
there I screwed it up but but it's the
it's the well it's the it's it's the
propaganda about Assange
that's poisoning that atmosphere and
it's clear that he could never get a
fair trial in the u.s. given everything
that's been said about him what starting
with Lenin Moreno calling him a hacker I
mean he has been portrayed in the minds
of millions of Americans is a hacker and
he's done no such thing
at least not that we know of so so yeah
I mean and just you know as a working
journalist who kind of you know I don't
I don't have the best relationship with
mainstream reporters I decided I wasn't
gonna break into mainstream media I was
just gonna try to break it because I
just really concluded that it was in
fact an enemy of the people maybe for
different reasons than Trump I think it
you know I think that for the same
reason you probably do because of its
promotion of permanent war and just
constant deceptions
you know the the feeling is like who's
next who's next after Assange I
obviously I haven't done anything on the
level that he has but it just seems like
a precedent is being established to not
just prosecute other journalists but to
just kind of intimidate everyone make
you wonder am I allowed to do this am I
allowed to communicate with this source
on a secure encrypted platform and what
what am I allowed to do here I got one I
had a source for a story who then sent
me a name and password to log into some
government website and get some stuff
off of there yeah yeah just how badly
nailed to the wall am I gonna get if I
do this I don't I'm not really sure but
I'm definitely worried about it
yeah so you know even if Assange isn't
extradited it's something everyone's
gonna be thinking about and actually I'm
reading the New York Times you know
which relied so heavily on WikiLeaks in
2016 and before on so many stories they
now have to refer to everything that was
gathered through WikiLeaks as emails
stolen by you know stolen emails they
have to refer to it that way so it's
like all the information which could be
a diplomatic cable for example I wrote a
piece last year about a party in
Nicaragua that was established to frack
the sandanista movement and WikiLeaks
published all of these diplomatic cables
showing that the party was essentially
funded and advised by the US and its
soft power outfits you know for that to
come to light in any other pub in like
mainstream media they now say stolen
emails so it poisons the factual
information in the mind of the readers
and they think well I'm reading stolen
information it's probably not true and
it's fire that Russian hacker Julian
Assange had no right to know this stuff
yeah yeah I have no right to know this
is a stolen information my thoughts are
stolen I love it you gotta kind of love
it and and so that's really the thing
right to is the media where the line is
if you're some kind of alternative media
type on your own out here then you love
Manning and Assange a hundred percent
and won't Brooke opposition and then
there's everybody else and they're all
seem to be in a race to throw them under
the bus and say yeah well of course
that's the bad kind of publishing of
stuff but I would never do that
yeah I'm racing to the front of the
class for the teachers approval kind of
a situation is really something to see
in fact ya know I mean he actually is
the indictment hammers Assange for
failing to obtain this information
without a security clearance so pretty
much any reporter who goes along with
this indictment and says you know we
should we should have you know Assange
should be brought to justice they're
basically saying that every reporter has
to have a security clearance now before
they can even look at classified
information
yeah but beyond that actually you know
there's this encryption expert who moved
to Ecuador in 2013 to work in a tech
firm a lot of people moved to Ecuador
who were into you know Internet freedom
the same way they moved to Iceland ten
years prior
Coria was opening up a lot of new
frontiers and you know it just got it
attracted a lot of these types and his
name was Ola Binney he's from Sweden and
he's now been arrested by Lenin Moreno
security apparatus
in connection with WikiLeaks but there's
really no evidence that he did anything
and this is because Lenin Moreno is
facing a ándale that could possibly and
probably will bring him down I mean I I
think his days are numbered and it's
called the ena papers basically these
private communications were revealed in
Ecuadorian media showing that Moreno and
his inner circle were laundering tons of
money that they had siphoned off from
public resources in a I believe a in
Seychelles or Panama in an offshore
account and some of it had gone to by
Moreno and his family a luxury apartment
in Spain just all kinds of luxury goods
it's just classic corruption and
WikiLeaks had tweeted about it and this
is what kind of was the what Moreno
cited as the final straw he called it
meddling in internal politics and then
he started blaming now you know he's
kind of conveniently blaming WikiLeaks
in order to distract the public from
this scandal and they've arrested this
poor guy hola beanie and all over the
news on you know pro-government channels
they basically laid out his laptops and
computer equipment and hard drives on a
desk as if they had seized you know tons
of kilos of cocaine or automatic weapons
from some but there was really no
evidence that this had been used in
conjunction with any hacking and they're
essentially blaming him for the
revelation of the 'inna papers so you
know domestically in Ecuador
you have this corrupt president who sold
out to the u.s. using WikiLeaks to
basically try to save his own his own
ass and this guy that they've grabbed
now he's an American or worse he from
this is Swedish Oh Swedish citizen again
we're not hearing anything from Amnesty
International or any of the human rights
groups it's just pathetic Committee to
Protect Journalists they tweeted a few
days ago we are aware of Julian Assange
as detention and are monitoring it they
didn't even condemn it that's all they
you know you look at who funds them it's
just a who
two of corporate America that is so
funny I mean why even bother at that
point the Committee to Protect
Journalists that's gonna protect Empire
try looking up Serena shims name on
their website and you'll get a big
nothing yeah I bet so well by the way
you know there's something I never got
around to cover in either and I wish I
had and you really talk about that a bit
in your book real quick did you mention
that this American who was reporting for
Press TV yes Serena shim was an American
woman I think from Michigan who was
reporting for Press TV and was routinely
reporting accurate information on
Turkish arms shipments over the Turkish
border to al Qaeda and Isis and then you
know this dovetailed with a lot of the
reporting that's been confirmed that was
coming out of actually the Turkish
police themselves because it was heard
Awan was using his intelligence services
to ship the arms and the police actually
have connections to a lot of rival
factions in Turkey and police officers
were actually jailed after they
discovered some of these arms shipments
so Shem actually started telling her
family and her colleagues that she was
worried for her life after issuing some
of these dispatches and then she turns
up dead on a road and the official story
is that she had run into the back of a
truck and there was no investigation she
basically you know the whole thing was
wiped under the under the rug and now we
know that I mean we it wasn't really
accepted widely in US media that Turkey
did have this ratline to Isis and al
Qaeda and now it's just kind of
conventional wisdom but you know she's
totally forgotten and I think this is
one of the more frightening cases where
you know a journalist could have
potentially been iced for threatening
the the I wouldn't call it a national
security policy but for really exposing
Turkey's dirty laundry and this is the
country that this is the country has
jailed the most journalists in the world
currently and she's got no write-ups in
any major public
of any kind right I mean this is
completely black well she was reporting
for the Iranians right so that's all you
need to know is that it yeah and her
mother is just still campaigning to try
to seek some kind of closure on this but
there weren't any investigations
undertaken by major media and I think it
wasn't just her and the fact that she
was reporting for you know Press TV but
it was also the fact that what she was
reporting substance of course yeah
the substance you know really was
something that a lot of American
reporters were going to Turkey and they
were invested in seeing the Free Syrian
Army get weapons and they really
believed in this whole project that
whole crew of reporters that went into
into Syria in 2012 they were just there
to try to they were hoping to see
Damascus taken there they were there too
they were Marie Colvin was there for the
same reason she was in Libya just get
generate the CNN effect and see the u.s.
come in and bomb and then the dictator
leaves and everybody's happy or not and
they get open air slave camps but that's
that's why they were there and serena
shim was there for to do something
different and she's been totally
forgotten you know and you're right
about how well yeah everybody knows
about what was going on in Turkey and
those backing of this and that now but
back then it was you know supposed to be
at least a seat great it wasn't very
well kept I'll have to go back and check
the date but you know Phil geraldi was
on the show talking about being in I
forget if it was in car or Istanbul
where Isis guys were just raising money
on the streets and big-time to like more
effectively than any Harry Krishna's
you've ever seen out there getting work
done and this was obviously completely
you know officially tolerated no
question about it yeah you just look at
Aleppo as a good example I mean that's
what when I really turned on Syria and
said this is such a gigantic scandal and
you know you had these five
neighborhoods overtaken by Turkish and
cutlery and US proxy groups
RRL sham was the most numerous one and
it got most of its funding from Turkey
and you know the US public was sold on
this view that all of Aleppo
was under the control of the Revolution
and the dictator is coming to take it
from the people when it was you know
basically and then that 350,000 people
were going to die it was just a giant
lie it turned out there are maybe 30,000
people in these neighborhoods who are
mostly part is either too old to leave
or they were partisans of these
insurgent groups and the first thing
Turkey did when these this area was
taken was to ship out all of the
factories and strip them of everything
and basically bring them into Turkey
they just stole everything from the
factory owners and you know the same
thing took place with the Isis oil
fields they were just siphoning oil out
of Syria into Turkey using Isis as their
proxy this is I just don't I just don't
understand how you could be in the
Syrian government and not want some kind
of retribution against Turkey but the
fact is you know now they're starting to
normalize relations again because Turkey
lost and Aleppo was the real death blow
at the same time they have Eid lib it
lips the big Turkish card they control
the borders there's a great documentary
online called I think it's called inside
it live by a emirati station and a
journalist named Jenna and Musa and it
shows that you know Turkish textbooks
are actually being were at least when it
lived before it live was kind of like
rebranded when it was really under the
control of jabhat al-nusrah without any
attempt to conceal it
Turkish religious textbooks that advised
on how to hold women as slaves or how to
basically hold them as sex slaves were
brought in you know basically Turkey was
providing a lot of the institutional
apparatus for Al Qaeda's local affiliate
to set up a little fiefdom in
northeastern in North sorry in
northwestern Syria Souter I mean at
every step of the way Turkey has been
there in this catastrophe and I think
Serena Shem you know when we think of
her we should think about you know that
the the Turkish angle of this scandal
yeah
the loss of a journalist life and then
another than the erasure of her memory
well and how about the erasure of the
biggest story in the whole wide world
the good Islamic state the al Qaeda
State in Italy province that right sits
there to this day just waiting for I
don't know what all is gonna happen when
but somebody either you know I guess the
Syrian Arab army at some point is gonna
move back in there and those guys are
all gonna go home to Europe and set
stuff on fire and well not just Europe I
mean you had at a certain point it at
least 10,000 we Gore's from the you know
Turkmenistan Turkmenistan II Islamic
army or Islamic Front whatever they're
called
basically they were given passports
through and taken on the Turkish ratline
from Jinjiang province which you know
they consider East Turkmenistan and sent
in to Jazeera leg or in Enid Lib and
basically given property that was looted
from native Syrians and their their
their the Chinese don't want him to come
back actually the Chinese government
offered military assistance when it
appeared that the Syrian army and the
Russian military were going to go and
try to retake adlib because it's a major
national security threat for them right
I remember thinking what's the Chinese
interest in Syria oh the Uighur fighters
yeah and you know you had had several
insurgent factions
in it live actually signed on to at
least a ceasefire in order to avoid the
bloodshed that was gonna be inevitable
with retaking this whole province but it
was the Weger fighters from the
Turkmenistan in front that refused to
sign on because they are officially
aligned with Isis they've gone beyond
the al-qaeda fray I wrote I wrote a
piece at consortium news it's up now
about the whole Ilhan Omar outrage and I
made a I kind of highlighted the point
made by Tulsi Gabbard which is that
Donald Trump is protecting the province
which contains the largest franchise of
al-qaeda since 9/11 while he's blame
hah Nomar for 911 and just that the
hypocrisy of that is so extreme and you
know it also shows how important her
candidacy is that she's the only person
willing to point this out right and
what's actually you know what she really
should do there as long as we're talking
about it and maybe she'll hear it who
knows you're kind of a big shot is she
should really point out that Donald
Trump did the right thing at first by
calling off CIA support for these guys
and how she thought he was really on the
right track with that and that now the
failure to follow through in Italy
something along those lines so that it
actually makes more sense instead of
standing alone as just sort of a talking
point like what what does she mean he's
on the side of al-qaeda right without it
without it kind of a story to explain it
and and what a great start to the story
he came in and cancelled that terrible
program and now look at him still he
might as well have it go on you know
because he's you know preventing or
helping to prevent the syrian arab army
from taking the rest of that land yeah
yeah I mean she needs to follow up on
that for sure
and you know I've noticed she softened
her tone a little bit because she's on
the campaign trail and she's trying to
beat back the perception that she is
like Bashar al-assad's
you know American bride or however they
portray her have portrayed her in
Washington so she's been a little bit
muted but that was an important point
and that's mistake right art of the deal
they call you a traitor you're gonna
have to fight about it you're not gonna
be able to slink away from that you go
ahead and explain look Assad's bad guy
but he was fighting al-qaeda suicide
bombers okay so that's why I took the
position I took that's easy enough to
get across you know no it's Meghan
McCain who really launched the most
vitriolic attack tulsi gabbard on the
view and what she should have done is
held up the picture of John McCain with
Syrian insurgent kidnappers when he had
made his a legal trip in 2013 and said
you know how about your dad I think this
is far worse actually I think it would
be worse to have al Qaeda and control of
Damascus but that's what your father
wanted and that's what he did in Libya
when he met with Abdul Hakim bel Hajj
from the Libyan Islamic
fighting room and here's a photo of him
with Bell Hodge you know so let's talk
about your your family and your you
acting us like a proxy for your dead
father right now I mean she should have
just doubled down and done that it would
have been instead she kind of waited
till she was back home on Twitter and
then started hammering uh Megan McCain
in the view and it's like you got to be
ready for that stuff and she you know I
think she's doing them she's doing a
good job of presenting herself in a
different light but you know I think I
would like to see more of a
confrontational campaign well as long as
we're talking about Tulsi for a minute I
must say one more thing about it which
is and this goes for people who know or
need to communicate with her about this
too is that it isn't just the absolutely
insane bananas treasonous Obama Brennan
war for al-qaeda in Syria and and Obama
and Trump's war for al-qaeda in Yemen
which are both absolutely just out of
this world
crazy beyond any reason but it's the war
against al-qaeda and against the Islamic
state is also horrible how about the
drone wars going on in Somalia or all
the people killed in Pakistan or you
know for that matter rack war three and
a half going on in western Iraq right
now with American special operations
forces still embedded with the Iraqi
army and the Shiite militias hunting
down and killing Islamic state guys and
this kind of thing can go on forever and
it's always been only counterproductive
to so for her to be good on Obama and
Brennan back in al-qaeda that's great
but I want to hear a little bit more
sophisticated thing about how we need to
call this whole damn thing off this is
ridiculous as max Blumenthal writes in
his book this whole thing was Jimmy
Carter and Ronald Reagan and George Bush
and Bill Clinton's fault in the first
place there ain't no reason why we have
to continue carrying on like we're
defending ourselves from Islam or
something when we all know that's not
really what's going on here well yeah I
mean that it's the whole fake war on
terror which has just been a war of
terror you can ask anyone who was stuck
in Raqqa about that and how the u.s. you
know after there was follow-up in Aleppo
after the rush
the Russian military helped a Syrian
Arab army take it there was follow-up
they brought humanitarian assistance
they helped rebuild that part of the
city they helped rebuild the Citadel
they maintained this this positive
presence
whereas in Raqqa there's no follow-up
the u.s. just sent its Kurdish proxies
into an Arab city to hold everything you
know the Syrian Observatory on human
rights it's not exactly a objective
source its opposition source but they
reported today that former Isis members
are actually being rehabilitated as
traffic cops in Raqqa so the whole
thing's a disaster and there's been you
know very little rebuilding of you know
the parts of the city which comprise
really the inner core of the city that
were just obliterated and then you have
you know the domestic war on terror
complex that I write about in my book
with the FBI basically ginning up these
manufactured terror cases through these
so-called mosque crawlers and doing
demographic mapping of Muslim
communities they haven't made America
any safer they've basically just
intimidated and terrorized American
Muslims and violated their civil
liberties so you know I'd like to hear
Tulsi Gabbard talk about that more
because she unfairly gets branded as an
islamaphobe she is Hindu and she's
experienced religious discrimination
herself so it'd be a perfect way of
challenging right the whole war on
terror in a holistic way you know Mike
Ravel's candidacy is interesting since
we're talking about this because he's
been it's been basically run by a bunch
of students and they're I'm more
accessible to people like me and you
then Tull sees campaign has been I mean
I've been able to reach out to some
people peripherally connected to her
campaign but she isn't I don't know my
one criticism is she isn't as accessible
as she should be she should be she
should be going on your show she should
be hitting grassroots media and not just
kind of trying to focus on these what
did she just do an interview with Bret
Baier on Fox I mean that's fine but she
should be really hitting the grassroots
harder yeah well I'm holding my hope so
for the debates I think you know the
best thing about Gabbard here is in this
situation is that they think foreign
policy is her biggest weakness so
they'll have their knives out and think
they're gonna take her on when the
reason that she's special essentially
it's not so much as she's anti-war as it
is that she's experienced enough and
smart enough to know the difference
between al-qaeda and Hezbollah and she
understands why it matters and so these
people want to say Iran is the greatest
state sponsor of terrorism well she's a
veteran of the war in West Iraq and the
Anbar province against our Cowie skies
so she's saying actually you know what
let me be a little bit more detailed
about this for you guys and so that you
know in other words she has the
advantage if she uses it right she
should you know have her Giuliani you
know Ron Paul Giuliani moment's crack
some skulls and move up a few notches
fighting about this stuff you know yeah
I hope so and you know hopefully she
someone will fight with her about it but
I think the way they're gonna structure
the debates is you know two tiers or
even three tiers I mean they're putting
people in who have never liked Tim Ryan
who the hell is this guy they're putting
so many people into the democratic clown
car it scent it makes me get
conspiratorial and I think two things
one they're trying to isolate candidates
like her who actually do have an
important message and a dissenting
message and number two they're trying to
split the vote to the point where they
can get two super delegates on Bernie
and then just have the you know
corporate masters of the party vote to
end his candidacy it just makes no sense
why so many people I've never heard of
or who have absolutely no national
following or getting involved right well
I mean one thing is Trump really didn't
lower the barrier to entry it used to be
you know the idea that a House member
even like Tulsi Gabbard could run a
credible campaign forget about that was
one things that really hurt Ron Paul all
along he was just tonight House you got
to be a senator a governor or a vice
president them's the rules and Trump
certainly changed that now so you know
yeah yeah
saying though about the Democratic Party
establishment saying let's just blitz
everybody with so many characters and
stuff that they just you know zone out
essentially let us decide for them yeah
and what are one of the they all have to
have their own unique message so Tim
Ryan's message was Russia's dividing us
just this guy from the Rust Belt in Ohio
gets up and gives his first opening
speech his first stump speech and he
says the Russian trolls are dividing us
it's like who the cares about Russian
trolls in Ohio anyway these people are
crazy it'd be fun to be that crazy maybe
I don't know they they seem to like it
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hey um let's talk about Venezuela here
for me you got this great scoop a little
bird I guess tweeted in your ear a
document about
a bunch of people whose names and
positions are relevant meeting to
discuss the possibility of an American
military attack on Venezuela max
Blumenthal yeah actually I was past
check-in list from the Center for
Strategic and International Studies
which is one of the big militaristic
arms industry and corporate funded think
tanks in Washington on a meeting to
assess the use of military force in
Venezuela that it was miss dated April
20th and so I didn't realize it was a
check-in list for the day that I
received it until I started to actually
make calls to CSIS and they confirmed
that it had taken place already
I think they regretted confirming it
they wanted to keep it out of the eyes
and you know out of the public eye away
from the media it was never announced on
their site it was completely off the
record and it wasn't it was a roundtable
and invited to the roundtable was a
who's who of inside and outside Trump
advisors inside the US government and
outside as well as officials from
Colombia and Brazil including of
Colombian general who have been
conceiving Trump's policy on Venezuela
since Trump launched the coup against
the elected President Nicolas Maduro so
basically if you look at my article it's
kind of like I I just provided dossiers
on many of the key figures
Fernando cuts for example who was the
national security adviser who first
presented Trump with his options on the
coup and how to destabilize Venezuela
from the Cohen group he's now out of
government stuff or just saying I want
to go down the list I want to let you go
down the list but you just asked you
something for context here kind of a
thing real quick here
somebody John Bolton told Donald Trump
this is gonna be easy we're gonna
recognize this guy and then you know the
military and the government will
essentially change their allegiance over
to him and
to be easy and and you can trust us
because I mean probably in the planet
was supposed to work right but instead
it didn't work and the entire government
is still loyal to the guy who's paying
their paychecks ironically enough yeah
it's failed
it's completely failed okay so it's dead
so that's really sort of the context
here is their unwillingness to concede
that or at least they're really looking
at options for well geez since this
didn't work maybe we'll just have to
invade the country which just sounds
absolutely incredible to think that the
US Army and Marine Corps would be
responding to the White House that yeah
sure that sounds easy or anything like
that because it surely would not be yeah
no I'm glad you made that point to me
they're meeting reflected desperation
because everything they've tried has
failed and they have no concrete options
left beyond some kind of military
intervention
they're basically waging they meaning
the Trump administration's waging an
all-out economic war on Venezuela trying
to place its entire economy under
blockade while telling the media that
the sanctions only affect is inner
circle but the sanctions are starting to
bite and hurt the general public and
we're seeing even people like Ben Rhodes
who is Obama's - a deputy national
security adviser come out and say these
sanctions are a terrible idea they're
just targeting the whole public so you
know they just not and meanwhile the
Venezuelan government's been able to
find other options for selling its oil
in India China Turkey and elsewhere and
so that it's just not working so here
they are exploring military options in
secret and I got the scoop USAID was in
the meeting the United States a agency
for international development this is
the group that is supposed to be that
attempted the or helped oversee the
February 23rd attempt at ramming aid
trucks over the Colombian border and
into Venezuela to violate Venezuela
sovereignty and give a propaganda win to
Juan Guido and it failed and so it just
the presence of those officials three
USAID officials in this meeting made it
clear to me that they were thinking
about some other scheme to intervene
under the auspices of some kind of
humanitarian operation that it's not
just gonna be a straight-up
invasion and you know the Brazilian
government is also dead set against a
straight-up invasion because of the
instability it'll cause the Brazilian
military is even checking bolson ro as
more extreme impulses the Colombian
government it's not as right-wing as
they are as much as they act as kind of
the Israel of South America they don't
want to exacerbate a migration crisis on
their borders they don't have the
resources to take care of millions more
people and that's what this will cause
and you had figured from the
inter-american dialogue which is a
latin-american focused centrist think
tank in Washington at the meeting and I
you know found congressional testimony
by another staffer at that group
basically saying that invading Venezuela
will cause massive casualties it will be
bloody and it'll be a region-wide
disaster and a mess so I mean there's
kind of a consensus that this will be a
disaster but then you have people around
Juan Guido and his puppet shadow
government who were in the meeting and
these are the people that I think are
pushing the hardest for it including his
like new fake OAS ambassador and this is
such an embarrassment because in
Venezuela you know I was there for a few
weeks and you know you talk to people
who are going to opposition rallies they
don't want to be collateral damage they
do understand that a military invasion
would wreck their country and they don't
want Caracas to be bombed so Guido has
actually had to come out and say that
he's against military intervention and
it's the first time he's really made
this clear statement so you know in a
way he said before that it would maybe
would be okay and refused to commit to
saying that he would refuse it yeah he
invoked part of the Venezuelan
Constitution
it's really for like disaster relief
that allows for foreign intervention in
the country and he said that you know we
will refuse to take this on off the
table he said that at a rally it was
really disturbing now he's had to come
out and really take off the table and
invasion because you know his
credibility is at stake and so I think
you imagine Al Gore saying oh yeah well
I'm gonna get France and Britain to help
me straighten this out cuz George Bush
didn't really win Florida yeah anything
like that right like even if you believe
that this guy has a claim he's gonna
invoke the military power of the US
government to come in and I mean that's
just crazy
I can only assume he's despised
nationwide as a traitor by all factions
yeah III my my flight out of Venezuela I
was you know basically you know if you
can afford to fly from Venezuela to
Miami you're gonna be aligned with the
opposition that had like Jorge Ramos
from Univision was in first class and
the whole flight was like these upscale
Venezuelan people who just despised
Maduro and you know i was talking i was
talking to some of them on my way to
customs and you know i said you know
isn't it kind of just a like
indisputable fact that one who i know as
a traitor i mean he's basically calling
on foreign countries to come and topple
his government and they're like yeah but
we want it that's kind of like yeah
that's just their response to everything
and i'd say aren't the sanctions like
gonna really wreck the whole economy for
everyone including you guys and they're
like yeah but it's something we just
need to do so we can get what we want
that's okay can you imagine the chaos of
an actual invasion I mean if they think
that there's some chalabi plan to
parachute in five thousand guys and
they'll take care of it forget that the
Army and the Marines know if they're
gonna do something like this it's gonna
take this didn't Manuel Noriega Spano ma
you know this is a serious business they
about three hundred thousand man three
hundred fifty thousand man army I don't
know how many of those are actual
infantry but that's enough that you have
to really fight them to get anything
done there it's not like we're talking
about a Lucky Strike with a drone or
some kind of silly you know movie of the
week episode here so it's um it's
unfathomable the level of uh and as
you're saying here
every government in the region knows
that too no one's gonna sit here and say
yeah no it's gonna be flowering candies
and and finally we'll have stability in
Venezuela once the Americans invade
nobody's you know fallen for a storyline
like that not this time around it would
be the worst war in the Western
Hemisphere in history and possibly the
one of the worst wars since it would it
would be possibly worse than Vietnam the
u.s. Civil War was pretty bad I Western
Hemisphere but yeah I mean it would be
on that order though it would be a it
would be well that's what 600,000
casualties the u.s. I think the level of
casualties would be higher if the US be
it absolutely do this because you don't
just have the Venezuelan military which
is it good military it's you know they
have they have anti-aircraft batteries
that are on the same level as Syria they
have Russian advisers who are on the
ground now helping them use the
equipment that they've bought they also
have the colectivos which are committed
average citizens who have small arms and
I've visited some of the areas that
they're active in and they're basically
active in the war poor and working-class
Barrios across Caracas and across cities
around the whole country they're armed
and prepared to fight if it comes down
to it then you have you know the ELN in
Colombia I mean you have basically a
failed peace treaty Evon Duque is
basically take like kick the legs out
from under it and you have a
well-trained leftist paramilitary force
or guerrilla force that could activate
again you have just so many different
factors that aren't that that that you
would see region-wide crisis that could
reactivate the Colombian Civil War you
you know the caravan that we witnessed
on the border Trump wouldn't have to
build a wall this time I don't know he'd
have to have like several walls to stop
the caravan that would be triggered by
this region-wide catastrophe so it's
unbelievable to me that it would even be
considered
it makes me think they're trying to do
some crafty humanitarian intervention
again I don't know what was talked about
at the meeting I did get two sources on
the phone on the record who attended the
meeting and they were under instructions
not to tell me what happened and one
actually said I'm uncomfortable
discussing these things with you why are
you asking this
you know why are you how dare you ask
about this like why are you a journalist
so and then she hung up on me so anyway
the point is that there's a there's a
desperation in the Trump administration
on this and I think you know what and
you don't have to be an alarmist and
think that this is definitely do or you
know for the audience you don't have to
interpret what he's saying as a threat
that this is gonna break out next week
but then again it's a pretty high-level
meeting over there at the CSIs and it is
meaningful I mean I don't know have you
seen any reporting about say you know
the Marine Corps and what they think I
mean one thing that was really important
say at the end of the Bush years was
that the Marines and the special
operations forces they didn't want to
attack Iran because they were the ones
who are gonna have to do all the dying
right not the Air Force and Navy Flyers
it was gonna be them and yeah it was
gonna be just too much and so they were
saying things to Bush like don't make me
do this dude and things like that and
that's what I want to hear right is the
marine saying you know the days of
marching right into wherever down there
and it being easy enough are over and
this won't be easy enough and please
serve we're advising that we really
would not like this kind of deal
something cuz and you know what in that
funny cuz we've been like this in the
21st century time and time again where
we hope that the standing army can be a
check and balance on the passions of our
civilians who control the military
well 241 Marines didn't fare so well in
Lebanon and they would face a similar
situation in Venezuela where there would
be they would be involved in guerrilla
warfare the top US military official in
this meeting was Admiral Curt Ted kW Ted
I think
he was the former head of SOUTHCOM he
stepped down in 2018 and has been
replaced by another admiral who's
constantly calling on the Venezuelan
military to switch sides and obviously
those calls have fallen on deaf ears but
back to the Marines I mean I don't know
what what's the point of the Marines
anymore I just saw some article about
the Marines training for warfare in
megacities and as frightening as it was
it also seemed like a public relations
act of desperation just trying to
emphasize their relevance to the future
of war fighting right but I knew
advertising campaign actually is them
helicoptering into the middle of some
Arab city yeah nothing sees that house
yeah that'll work out well that's gonna
be great no one's gonna die there no no
no no secret coffins like we had during
the word that can't be photographed like
we had when Iraq started getting grisly
so yeah I just don't see what what the
US military can do here from just a
purely you know that just from a
conventional warfare standpoint so we
have to look at it in terms of hybrid
warfare and I think that's what's been
taking place it's kind of forbidden in
American media to talk about the
blackouts that have been hitting
Venezuela as a potential act of US
sabotage but you had on March 7th Marco
Rubio sit a basically chair a hearing at
the Senate Foreign Relations Committee
on Venezuela and call explicitly for
widespread unrest and then he said
Venezuela is about to enter a period of
suffering unlike any country in modern
history I mean he used those exact words
and then five hours later the
hydroelectric plant at the Gori dam
which supplies 80 to 90% of Venezuela's
electricity goes down seemed kind of
unusual and then Mike Pompeo jumps on
Twitter and celebrates the whole thing
and says yeah no lights next no Maduro
well you know I mean the thing is is
there is plausible deniability there to
that is perfectly reasonable to expect
that a government as unstable as this
one might have real problems keeping the
lights on but on the other hand it's
certainly not the realm of cookery to
speculate about this and we ran a piece
at anti-war calm by Ted Snyder a
Canadian writer who is really great on
this and he compiled you know ten
reasons to take this seriously as a
possibility essentially not not getting
out over his skis and making claims but
just saying this is possible and here
are real reasons why to believe so yeah
it's plausible it's also kind of like
well it's it's not just plausible but
it's pretty well established that there
has been sabotage of transmission lines
in these rural areas that actually there
have been burnings of actual
transmission lines and the Western press
has tried to come up with all these
different explanations of how that
happens the trees weren't cut back
sufficiently so the trees caught on fire
and then it didn't that didn't really
pan out and so they even haven't come up
with kind of a counter explanation for
any of this it just seems too perfect
but even if this wasn't sabotage the New
York Times somehow after ignoring the
effect of sanctions for years
acknowledged that backup fuel supplies
had been limited by sanctions and so it
was difficult to get the plant back
online and beyond that I mean what we
witness since 2007 at least and there
was a coup in 2002 but there's just an
open agenda on the part of the u.s. to
wage hybrid warfare on Venezuela that
means like trying to stir up a color
revolution Juan Y doe is himself a
weapon by the way now I said it really
isn't working right I mean it seems like
I at least read one poll or I was told
about one or something that said that
his approval rating maduras approval
rating had gone up 20 points since the
declaration by the United States that
they were recognizing guardo as the new
president which is to be expected right
just like the Ayatollah and Iran
blames all of his opposition on the CIA
and he's right at least half the time
and so it people it's believable and it
makes him look good in comparison to the
foreign interventionists there and yeah
I I haven't been able to find reliable
polling on maduras approval rating I
would love to see that I know that
palace that said that I'll have to ask
him well in October an opposition
polling firm called data analysis
reported that Juan Widow's party popular
will voluntad popular was polling at 7%
or know they had an approval rating of
7% I think their polling at 7% the
Nationalist Congress yeah yeah the
National Assembly which is what Juan
wydo represents has a disapproval rating
of something like 65% which is yes
similar to US Congress and so I'm sorry
well it's just that there there is no
popular consensus in support of this guy
and if you actually look as a whole at
the Venezuelan opposition which Western
media kind of avoids doing there are
powerful or you know sizeable factions
that would like to negotiate a way out
of this crisis specifically the
supporters of Henri Falcone who ran in
the 2018 election that we're always told
as this giant fraud and he was
threatened with US sanctions for running
in the election because the goal of the
US and guidos party which had been
discredited was to delegitimize the
democratic institutions of Venezuela
which makes sense but you're saying he's
trying to negotiate a solution now and
nobody wants to hear that
what about chief of staff of Falcone
actually came out and said that we don't
support Guido and what he's trying to do
we don't support regime change and you
know well but so is Maduro saying that
he would accept Falcone as a negotiator
with the other side they've been trying
as far as I know and one way out of this
that we could see is something similar
to 1990 in Nicaragua where under the
orders of Daniel Ortega the
leader of the Senden Easter front the
commander of the Sandinista front who
had come into power after winning this
civil war where the u.s. backed his
opposition he agreed to go to elections
and when he lost to Violeta Chamorro who
within the scope of Nicaraguan politics
is more moderate than the extreme right
he ordered the Sandinistas to demobilize
and they gave up their weapons and had a
peace deal and it was essentially a
concession in order to prevent many more
deaths and to get the u.s. out of there
and so Nicaragua was at peace and this
would be a possible way out for
Venezuela as well the thing is the
opposition is so divided I don't there's
no way they can win an election and you
have so much of the opposition wrapped
up in this regime change fantasy yeah
tied up with the Americans I mean that
just it ruins everything if you're on
their side that's the worst thing
they've got going for them is us more
completely and you know a common
Venezuelans see that then you have the
chavista movement which is you know not
it's been weakened a little bit you know
Venezuela's not as prosperous as it was
at the high point of chavismo you know
the price of oil has gone down a lot of
people who were into it because they
were getting paid well and it was just
it seemed like the future of Latin
America have turned their backs on it
but then you just have this people's
movement that has cultivated a political
consciousness over the last 20 years
that understands what imperialism is and
so when you go into the barrios and talk
to people they have a pretty
sophisticated analysis of what's being
done to them they understand and and
they're not gonna stand down right and
so it makes perfect sense no matter
where you are in the world that people
will put independence and dignity above
just basic dollars I mean this is what
we see right now with this deal of the
century in Palestine who believe she's
gonna be able to bribe the Palestinians
into not caring what's been done to them
here or
kind of thing and isn't that our highest
ideal in America independence our
highest ideal out you know at the
water's edge is bribing the world into
the complicity and if we can't do that
just Ram a barrel of a gun down their
throats and neither is possible in
Venezuela right now as I said you have
an anti-imperialist consciousness you
have an exhausted opposition and you're
actually starting to see the lima group
fracture the lima group is the
collection of kind of mostly
conservative leaning us vassal state
governments or governments that are
aligned with the US and they all run
around trying to act like Trump's
apprentice and see who can get hired and
there was an interesting exchange
between Secretary of State Mike Pompeo
and I think a reporter from The
Washington Post or the reporter yeah it
was a reporter from the Washington Post
actually one of the few good ones and he
asked Pompeyo
do you oppose Peru agreeing to negotiate
with the Venezuelan government and
pompay actually said you're not supposed
to ask that question you just said
you're not allowed to ask that you're
not allowed to talk about the fact that
the lima group is fracturing and so now
there's this new oh and also within the
lima group I think you have Mexico there
and I'm low there recently elected
president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador
is not going along with the u.s. he just
refuses to go along with this he's
maintaining neutrality and emphasizing
dialogue with Venezuela and it's been a
real problem for the u.s. no matter what
they do they can't dislodge his pledge
of neutrality so they're creating this
new kind of phony regional bloc to
replace unas order which was founded
during the heady days of the progressive
wave of Latin America and Ecuador's
going along with it but Ecuador as I
mentioned before and earlier in this
interview Lenin Moreno's facing massive
street protests now and this huge
corruption scandal
in the US and was really banking on him
it appears he's on his way out so I just
see that as much as Latin America is
really in a right-wing phase right now
and Venezuela has been kind of
surrounded as much as the economy is
going to suffer I don't see a way
forward for the u.s. short of something
really extreme everybody know it's a
great book the war state by my friend
Mike Swanson it's a great history the
rise of the military-industrial complex
after World War two the Truman
Eisenhower and Kennedy administration's
you'll learn so much and love it and
check out his great investment advice at
Wall Street window dot-com a very
successful hedge fund manager turned
market explainer to the masses check him
out great stuff Wall Street window calm
so I wonder you know I read this
interesting thing and you know I've not
been really reading a whole lot of stuff
about Venezuela but trying to keep up
here and I read a thing I think it was
by a Russian journalist that was
translated over the sacred log there and
he had some interesting takes you know
he talked about the currency problems
and this and that he got robbed by a cop
for his cell phone which he thought was
funny more than anything I think that's
her search term if you're looking for it
is a cop stole my cell phone something
like that anyway he's down there and he
goes look man I was there and it's a
Saturday and they were I don't know 10
or 20,000 people
we're having a pro-government protest on
this side of town they're about 10 or 20
thousand people yeah pretty good sized
rally having an anti-government protests
on the other side of town
and then yeah but the rest of the city
millions of people they were just going
about their Saturday and there are
economic problems here and there are
social problems here and there are
divisions and there are fights and
political arguments and and different
factions and what kind of things but I
guess essentially what he was saying is
on a scale of lake placid to Iran 1953
this place is nowhere near or maybe 79
this place is nowhere near revolution 53
s by the better
example there's nothing like the
instability that one would expect to be
taking place in a context where the CIA
and the any D and and whoever thought
that they u.s. eight thought that they
could get away with something like this
you know like that's supposed to be you
know pushing over a toddler something
but there are no circumstances really
for them to exploit here it doesn't
sound yeah really yeah I actually had to
kind of mentally prepare myself when I
was going into Venezuela to actually see
some level of the dystopia that was
constantly relayed back to us by Western
media by the New York Times or CNN and I
just had you know what if I'm I just had
to prepare myself what if I you know I'm
wrong here a little bit and I was
actually shocked at how stable the
situation seemed how people were just
going about their daily lives in a very
normal way and you know he just didn't
you didn't even see the same level of
homelessness and desperation that I see
where I live in Washington DC I'm
actually looking out my window right now
and there's a tent behind my house did a
homeless person is just set up you just
don't see that you the opposition
rallies were pretty weak compared to in
the past and there have been a lot of
reporters to go down and kind of convey
the the reality which stands in total
contrast to the reporting that we've
been getting from mainstream media good
reporter is John McAvoy for the canary
UK people have fled so I think you know
did you talk to anyone about did they
lift the price controls cuz I'm reading
that the the level of price inflation
and that's partly because of monetary
inflation was also partly because of the
American financial war against the
currency there that makes sense too but
that you know the real problem that
causes the shortages as destructive as
hyperinflation can be it's the price
controls that caused the system of
distribution to break down
and I think they certainly had
instituted price controls and that
certainly had caused a lot of chaos but
I wonder whether they had just they're
going ahead now and just letting hands
off and let the hyperinflation go ahead
and run cuz at least it's better than
trying to control it when you can't well
well it's talking written money it's
impossible to stop hyperinflation it's
kind of just it just multiplies like a
cancer well I mean they can stop they
can stop adding to the money supply but
it's also true that you know there's a
war to devalue their currency from the
outside which is a separate issue but
yes the price controls I think that
really caused the breakdown but I just
wonder if when you were there if anybody
had said something along those lines to
you that like yeah back during the price
controls it was worse but now it's a bit
better without him I don't even know the
state of him I just assume they must be
lifted if people are able to queue up at
the store and get food yeah I mean
people were complaining about price
controls they're complaining however
about that the price of food was too
high and that their salaries were too
low because currency had been devalued
through a myriad factor a myriad of
factors one being speculation from the
outside as well as you know deliberate
kind of war like kind of hybrid warfare
attempts to confuse people about the
value of the currency this website dole
out today that's based in Alabama and is
run by a former member of the Opposition
or a member of the Venezuelan opposition
basically tells people what the Bolivar
is worth compared to the dollar and it's
just done to wreak havoc on the economy
a lot of cash I mean that price is going
to be set by the willingness of the
customer to go along with those kinds of
things but it's a part of it is that the
government has over there they they
obligated themselves to spend more money
than they can take in when the price of
oil fell in half and they really have
you know increase the money supply by a
great extent has a lot to do with that I
think that's kind of almost common
knowledge
and you know I am NOT an economist so
it's difficult me either
I really want to know in fact I really
want to see a chart that says look
here's the date when the sanctions kick
in and here's what effect that had on
the value of the currency on that week
or whatever you know that kind of thing
I haven't seen anyone break that down
properly yet so well it was what it was
2014 I think when the price of oil
plummeted and there were a few articles
including an oil trade publications
petroleum trade publications about how
the oil had been strategically the price
of oil barrels had been strategically
lowered through a deal between Secretary
of State John Kerry and then King
Abdullah of Saudi Arabia to weaken
Russia and Iran nicolas maduro was
quoted possibly in The Wall Street
Journal I know he was quoted complaining
that this was done to harm Russia and
obviously he'd be collateral damage
right and that Kerry agreed to support
Saudi Arabia in Syria in exchange for
doing this for basically turning turning
on the tap and basically flooding the
market with Saudi oil because they have
the most strategic reserves I mean they
can just produce so much more oil than
everyone else
thanks to their infrastructure and so
forth so that was a huge factor and then
the following year Barack Obama declares
Venezuela a national security threat and
imposes the first real round of
sanctions and that does great damage to
the economy I mean just talking to
people who are in and out of government
or were in government at the time
including economists they say that that
made it difficult for them to
restructure their debt or to actually
you know compensate for the the fact
that their main source of income and
buying medicine and food because most
food is imported into Venezuela was was
harder and then Trump comes in and the
sanctions just escalate rapidly but but
you know I
you know you talked to an economist like
Mark Weisbrot who consulted for the
Venezuelan government and who still
defends the government's right to you
know sovereignty and you know respect
under the UN Charter who's now at the
Center for Economic and Policy Research
in Washington I mean he has been on the
record hammering their mistakes and
saying they made according to him ideal
City decisions that were more
ideological than objectively economic
and he points to some of them as say
mistakes that you're highlighting here
if you book it and you're right by the
way that there's no question of where
Mark Weisbrot royalties lie on these
questions I mean he says yeah a very
good leftist by your standard on all of
these questions you know I like the guy
I've interviewed yes I mean he's pretty
withering and Maduro actually
acknowledged he used the word mistake in
his inaugural address same thing with
Greg Palast to Greg Palast is a great
sympathizer with Hugo Chavez he's you
know definitely a progressive and an
economist as well as an investigative
reporter in his own right and he's more
than happy to point the finger at all of
maderos errors as severe wants to but
you know he made a great analogy he said
you know take Canada they have a stable
currency most of the time socialist
health care programs and what-have-you
notwithstanding and yet if the American
Treasury Department declared a financial
war against Canada against their oil
against you know kicking them out of
Swift in the Bank for International
Settlements and whatever it is these
kind of institutions what do you think
would happen to the value of the
Canadian dollar without any monetary
inflation at all it would still the
value would be going way down because of
this outside pressure so my people the
libertarians like to just say AHA see
socialism doesn't work which you know it
can get really expensive and that's
certainly part of this story but as with
everything we should always blame the US
government first we should always
certainly look for its role the most
powerful organization on the planet
role before we distribute the blame to
anyone else
after all we do libertarians listening
that's what we do when a bank fails when
Bear Stearns fails we go well those guys
are criminals but it's really all Alan
Greenspan's fault
which is true right but if we're gonna
give a break to a banker we'd better
give one to a poor little third-world
country our governments picking on -
yeah absolutely and you know there's an
elemental point to make here which is
that Venezuela uses its oil assets to
purchase food and medicine and that food
is distributed to the poorest of the
poor through a basically free food
program and the medicine as well they
have all of the food distribution they
have they have the mechanisms to provide
humanitarian aid to their people but if
they don't have the assets what the US
is doing with its sanctions is actually
blockading food and medicine and that is
just you know the ultimate hypocrisy
it's strangling Venezuelans with one
hand and then trying to waive in USAID
trucks with the other hand and that's
the strategy here yeah and again you
know no matter people have different
opinions about the nature of the
government over there and all that I
actually was reading a thing about how
this is one of the greatest cases the
resource curse ever where they actually
used to have a pretty diversified
economy but under socialist government
spending on these necessities as you're
talking about people became so even in
industry everybody became so dependent
on the government
they quit diversifying their economy and
in fact it got more and more to penalize
you said now they import most of their
food instead of having really invested
food industry at all all these things is
still the same answer at the end of the
day no matter what you think about all
of that it's none of the US government's
business to make decisions for these
people about how to run things and in
fact you know if you really have an anti
socialist bent and you want Maduro to
take the full rap for his responsibility
for his quote mistakes and the way he's
running his government the last thing
you want to do is intervene and make it
Uncle Sam's fault which is exactly what
they've done so Iran you have to be
against intervention here I've heard
this stuff about diversification
before and it just doesn't wash I mean
if you look at the previous governments
before it WA Chavez they were relying
entirely on oil entirely in Venezuela
had this giant oil boom in the 70s and
it wasn't distributed the pop the
general population didn't benefit from
it and this is what led to chavismo I
mean I could give more details to it but
you know in the 80s you just saw like
the pensions of Venezuelans get raided
in 1984 you saw basically the government
of the you know the government that was
in power in the late 80s basically spend
like a drunken sailor on all sorts of
programs that couldn't be paid down and
then you had giant riots because the
next government that came in under
Carlos Andres Perez who made all these
promises to help the poor had to raise
bus you know bus fares and they had to
raise taxes and they had to raise food
prices and you had wat rioting you had
the same level of speculation the
government had trouble keeping prices
under control under these previous
governments you know
Hugo Chavez inherited so many of the
problems of a Petro state that had been
that way since oil was discovered in
Venezuela so this whole thing of
diversification it doesn't really it's
it's it's not it's a historical and then
the and the fact is that right now
Maduro is doing everything he can to try
to encourage food production which is
understood as food sovereignty he's
trying to encourage people in the
colectivos which support the government
to move to the countryside and establish
cooperative farms and people generally
don't want to do it it's just the money
is in Caracas the money's in the cities
and so you just have a problem where
Nicaragua for example produces seventy
to eighty percent of its own food
because it's just a traditionally
agricultural society Venezuela just
hasn't been that way because of these
constant oil booms well another thing
that Paulo says is that the oil is all
on
and that's essentially just rock like
even Indians didn't live there it never
belong to anyone essentially except for
the national government which always
took that oil money and spent it on the
maybe 10% the few percent instead of the
rest and that all Hugo Chavez did you
know in practice red beret and
everything aside was instead of saying
socialism for 10% he said socialism for
everybody which is you know makes 10%
angry but obviously was a big help all
the stats show was a big help to
everybody else especially the
desperately poor in that country that
those kinds of things can certainly be
taken too far but anyway right yeah
right I mean you also have a problem
with you know Venezuelan oil is heavy
crude and so it needs to be mixed with
other oil and the US had provided those
facilities through Citgo and they're now
being I think next month they're gonna
be completely taken over there's an
attempt by the US to sanction an Indian
company that provides some of the
technology that allows the Venezuelan
government to mix its crude oil with
light crude and make it possible to
export it so there are all these
different you know it's just there's so
many layers of problems and yet the
government is managed I think last month
to export a million barrels which is you
know well below what they were doing in
the heady days of Chavez you know what
they're able to survive and you know
talking to friends in Caracas you know
they tell me life kind of continues as
normal to the great chagrin of Marco
Rubio and Elliott Abrams who is actually
going to appear at the Atlantic Council
on April 25th here and talk about
Venezuela after Maduro and you know it's
just ridiculous that they keep doing
this again and again and again the day
before on April 24th the Venezuelan
embassy expects to be essentially raided
by Juan Guido's Representatives under
Secret Service protection and they're
gonna try to take over the embassy and
they're expecting
to take place and it will be the only
consular institution that they control
but they won't be able to provide
consular services to Venezuelans because
they don't control the government so
it's just a joke what's going on here
yeah well I mean and back to the oil
crisis and the financial crisis over
there and all of these other things it
sounds crazy to imagine but what if we
had a policy just being friends and
trying to help them no matter how much
we disagreed with their bad economic
policies you know it sounds ridiculous
even to put it that way that's how far
down this road we already are or what if
we did yeah you know what we think you
could probably shape up and fly right
but in the meantime we're willing to
help you to maintain your facilities to
you know keep your people fed as best
you can and well they know something you
know killing with kindness I don't know
Bernie Sanders has made terrible
comments about Venezuela when he's asked
about it and I know there are people in
his campaign that don't agree with that
but he you know he's he tries to waver
between not supporting a regime change
operation and saying that then democracy
needs to be restored to Venezuela he
knows nothing about what took place
there in the election and he says it was
a fraud election yes sir he's used to
even comment about Assange and Manning -
right yeah they just has said nothing
about it
he doesn't know probably what to say but
you know he's got that Hillary itis
can't be too far to the left or they
just won't like me and so I wonder what
Robert Kagan thinks about what I said
today you know yeah I wouldn't call it
Hillary itis because Hillary really
believed that stuff Bernie does it you
know this Fox townhall he said you know
we need to stand up against the military
and but she also believed it was sound
strategy to always be a muscular hawk
so that Republicans know that because if
swing voters know that you're not a
wimpy tiger type you know yeah yeah soon
as she got in the Senate she wanted for
the Armed Services Committee that was
her whole strategy but then even after
she lost to Obama and watched him
trounce McCain - she didn't learn a
thing yeah but as a Secretary of State -
yeah I'm just making a point
about Bernie which is that you know he's
the front-runner and there was a lot of
pressure on him in 2016
even before 2015 to get him to take a
better position on Palestine and he
responded to it and I think that
Venezuela is the issue that should be
that Bernie should be hammered on he has
to take a strong position here that he
will do sanctions relief he'll he'll end
the sanctions which are a form of
warfare and that he will support
dialogue the Mexico and Uruguay tract of
dialogue to end this political crisis
and he needs to come out on the record
and say it I actually think there is a
chance he could be elected president and
there's a strong chance he could win in
the primary so he's more responsive to
grassroots pressure than Hillary was of
course or Joe Biden
so you're something right he's gone
further on Palestine lately than ever
before right yeah yeah he has and you
know he's done very well on Yemen and I
know that some of the people who worked
heavily on the Yemen bill in Congress to
invoke the AUMF to assert congressional
authority are on Bernie's campaign going
on his presidential campaign so I
wouldn't throw out the baby with the
bathwater just because he makes these
heinous comments because he doesn't know
what he's talking about like I think
there is an opportunity here well I sure
would like to see him run on the Yemen
war for the next year and a half that's
how to get me to vote for Bernie Sanders
well I would watch him his Fox townhall
he was asked by a Syrian American Bernie
are you gonna be just a another hog in
the war party will you get troops out of
Syria and will you oppose regime change
in Venezuela and he didn't answer the
question but he did shift to Yemen and
he talked about his role in stopping the
war in Yemen and I thought you know that
was fairly admirable trying to yeah I
mean the thing is - it's the same thing
with rand paul these guys have to
realize what a bully pulpit they have I
mean what if part of the narrative for
the next month was for God's sake for
some reason Bernie Sanders just won't
shut up about Yemen it's all he talks
about no matter what anybody asks him
and make a thing out of it
you know what I mean because obviously
TV isn't gonna make a thing out of it
unless you find a way to make them make
a thing out of it and and in his
position the Democrat Party frontrunner
as you said sponsor of the bill go ahead
and bring the hammer down now you know
this is a real crisis there's no greater
emergency on the face of this earth
right now than the war on Yemen and he's
got nothing to lose we have a piece up
at the gray zone by the way about a
protest against MSNBC where Joe
Scarborough was confronted about his and
his network's refusal to cover Yemen so
there is a lot of activity but yeah
check that out I I don't have any time
left to lose here so I got to jump off
right on good listen thanks for coming
on the show so great to talk to you
again max yeah thanks for as always for
having me Scott all right you guys
that's max Blumenthal he wrote the
management of savagery what a great
title for a book stolen from the al
Qaeda guys but yeah I like it
and it's a really great book please
check it out and check out the gray zone
calm for the gray zone project and again
killing Gaza you pay three bucks you sit
and watch it for an hour okay all right
thank you bye alright y'all thanks find
me at libertarian institute.org at Scott
Horton org anti-war calm and reddit.com
slash Scott Horton show oh yeah and read
my book fool's errand time to end the
war in Afghanistan at fool's errand dot
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