Max Blumenthal on Assange, Manning, and Venezuela – April 19, 2019

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