Loading summary
Transcript105 lines
- [00:01]
A
1, 2, 3, 4.
- [00:02]
B
Let's go.
- [00:02]
C
This is a union time. Donating your car or boat is an excellent way to help KPFK stay alive and on air. All you have to do is call 877-Kpfkauto. That's 877-KpfKauto. And we'll take care of everything.
- [00:20]
A
You're listening to fiercely independent KPFK, 90.7 FM, Los Angeles, and on the web@kpfk.org.
- [00:29]
C
This is Ben Cohen, the ice cream guy, and you're listening to my hero.
- [00:34]
D
Ralph Nader, the Ralph Nader Radio Hour.
- [00:37]
A
Stand up.
- [00:38]
C
Stand up.
- [00:39]
E
You've been sitting way too long.
- [00:45]
B
Welcome to the Ralph Nader Radio Hour. My name is Steve Scrovan, along with my co host, David Feldman. Hello, David.
- [00:52]
D
Hello, Steve.
- [00:54]
B
Nice to see you. Happy New Year. And our producer, Hannah Feldman. Happy New Year to you too, Hannah.
- [01:00]
F
Happy New Year to you too, Steve.
- [01:03]
B
Always delightful and the man of the hour, Ralph Nader. Hello, Ralph.
- [01:07]
A
Hello, everybody. As usual, but much more urgent is what we're requesting you to do as citizens. And nobody can stop you. And it's a lot easier than you think to hold that Congress accountable, which is the only institution that can hold Donald Trump to account.
- [01:25]
B
Well, the new year started off with a bang, a literal bang, when Donald Trump ordered the bombing of Caracas and what they termed the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. I don't know how you capture someone who wasn't running away. Kidnap, strikes me, is the more accurate term. Maduro was spirited to New York City, where he apparently will stand trial for narco trafficking, theft. Have they even decided yet? So, first up, to give us a diplomat's perspective on this international incident, we welcome back Ambassador Chaz Freeman. Ambassador Freeman is a retired career diplomat who has negotiated on behalf of the United states with over 100 foreign governments in east and South Asia, Africa, Latin America, the Middle east, and both Western and Eastern Europe. So let's just say everywhere. Then we'll get the legal perspective on all this from our resident constitutional law expert, Bruce Fine. What comes next for President Maduro in a United States courtroom? What kind of case does the Trump administration think they have against the head of a sovereign state? And is any of this even legal? As always, somewhere in the middle, we'll check in with our indomitable corporate crime reporter, Russell Mokhyber. But first, have we traded the rule of law for might makes right? David?
- [02:42]
D
Ambassador Chas Freeman is a retired career diplomat who has negotiated on behalf of the United States with more than 100 foreign governments in east and South Asia, Africa, Latin America, the Middle east, and both Western and Eastern Europe. Ambassador Freeman served as U.S. assistant Secretary of Defense, U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Acting Assistant Secretary of State for African affairs, and Deputy Chief of Mission and Charge d' Affaires in the American embassies at both Bangkok and Beijing. He was Director for Chinese affairs at the U.S. department of State from 1979 through 1981. Welcome back to the Ralph Nader Radio Hour, Chaz Freeman.
- [03:27]
F
Glad to be here.
- [03:28]
A
With that level of experience over the years. Chaz, the American people desperately need the sense of history, the sense of reckoning, the sense of perspective that you bring to these public debates. So I'll start with the question, you know, what's happened to the motorboats in the Caribbean, the oil tankers and the bombing of Venezuela put this in the context of what the American people should know and what they should do in the coming weeks.
- [03:59]
F
Well, you're very kind. I would sum up my view by saying that this is the end of, of the Westphalian order that was established in 1648 and the three century long effort to establish a rule, regulated international order. We're back to might makes right and the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must. We have been engaged in murder on the high seas, people who are suspected on flimsy grounds of carrying narcotics. If they are carrying narcotics, it is not to the United States between Venezuela and Trinidad from which the drugs go to Western Europe and West Africa. We have been guilty of acts of piracy, seizing vessels on the high seas on the basis of no authority and very dangerously. We have seized a Russian flagged tanker that is escorted by a Russian submarine. One wonders what sort of communications are taking place between the captain of that submarine and Moscow at the moment. And we are risking a war with a nuclear armed superpower over an issue that is peripheral to Venezuela. We have abducted, kidnapped the chief of state and government of a foreign government. We have invaded that government's territory. The first time, by the way, in 250 years that we've actually done that in South America as opposed to Central America and the Caribbean. And we have basically challenged the world to answer the question, are you going to let the United States act as a tyrant in the Western Hemisphere and do whatever it wants to do without regard to international law or the decent respect for the opinion in mankind, or are you going to act to stop this? Because if it is not stopped, the world that we have worked so hard to establish since our independence as a nation is Vanishing. I think he's weakening and isolating the United States on a level that is almost unimaginable. He ran on a platform of opposing forever wars and nation building. He is starting forever wars and he is engaged in nation building. He campaigned against foreign assistance, and yet he wrote a $20 billion check to Milei of Argentina while he was denying aid to people in Africa who depended on vaccinations and food supplies, which we provided under the earlier legislation. Very small part of the budget, no great savings and much suffering as a result of the cancellation of those programs. Domestically, we have a constitutional crisis. We are the most powerful country on the planet, and our domestic constitutional crisis has turned out to be contagious to the international system. And so, as I said, we're seeing the disappearance of well established norms of human behavior, interactions between states. It will not be easy to resurrect those. The precedents we've just set could come home to trouble us. If we can go into Venezuela and kidnap the chief of state and government because we don't like his policies, then what's to stop another country that is powerful at some point from coming in and abducting our president?
- [07:18]
A
That raises the question of retaliation. Chad, I want to talk with you about the CIA and NSA and others have studied blowback for many years in great detail. Various scenarios of lone wolf explosives or all kinds of drone attacks or whatever. And we've been very lucky as a nation that this has not happened other than 9, 11, who we blew apart Iraq and led to the deaths of a million or more Iraqis, left the country destitute, homeless, full of refugees, and there was no retaliation back home. How would you talk about retaliation that will bring it home to the American people? Because that will be a tremendous blow to the stability of the economy because we tend to overreact when anything remotely like that happens. And the business community, even though it's getting tax reductions and deregulation and the stock market is at record levels, they know it could turn around very quickly. They like stability, not chaos, predictability, not speculation of what the madman in the White House is going to do next. So I think the business community, especially small business, they've not been treated well by Trump, and that's starting to crack. There are all kinds of renewable energy contracts in the south, tens of billions of dollars that are being canceled or suspended, upsetting tens of thousands of businesses and suppliers. So what's your read about? Should we have a public debate now on retaliation, which nobody seems to want to talk about?
- [08:52]
F
Nobody ever wants to talk about it. 911 was a reprisal for our policies in West Asia and in Israel and Palestine, that fact was buried. We never had a discussion of the reasons that we were attacked. It was simply asserted that they hate us because we're Americans and we're free. There was no discussion of the resentments and the anger that drove terrorism, which is basically an act that those with no legal or diplomatic remedy feel themselves driven to enact. Terrorism is basically an act by someone with a grudge and no air force. In the case of 9 11, the perpetrators reinvented cruise missiles by turning passenger planes into them. And so we should be very, very much aware of blowback and the likelihood of reprisals. And I think, you know, when you look at the history, recent history in this administration, but earlier in the Biden administration, the refusal to conduct any kind of diplomatic dialogue with Russia, throughout the entire Biden administration, the refusal to address the offers that the now incarcerated president of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro, made in his last days to cooperate with us. His vice president, now the acting president. Venezuela apparently has a constitutional system and succession process that is in, that is operating, has made similar offers of cooperation and expressed hope for a good relationship with the United States and the American people. But we did not engage. We preferred to murder the Cuban bodyguard of the Venezuelan president and kill about 80 people in Venezuela in a quick raid which has now ended up with the a foreign sovereign in the southern district of New York facing an indictment which if you read it is full of utter nonsense and most likely going to produce an interesting discussion of all the fictional narratives and disinformation that led up to this action. So yes, we should be very concerned. If there is no remedy for people other than violence, they will turn to violence.
- [11:03]
A
Let's talk about a subject we've devoted a considerable degree of attention on this program. The vast death undercount of Palestinians in Gaza. The Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza has it about 70,000 named deaths. They have the names of the deceased. But there have been a lot of much higher estimates by academics, by international humanitarian groups, the U.N. i can refer you to an explosive expert, Professor Rogers, at a English university, he's emeritus. And he said in April that the equivalent TNT tonnage dropped on this tiny enclave, the geographical size of Philadelphia with 2.3 million people, was the equivalent to six Hiroshima bombs. And even worse because the missiles were more targeted and that was in April. So it's likely seven or eight Hiroshima bombs. And so the estimates that we have looked at and extrapolated for example in Lancet, the Medical Journal and other estimates have ranged between 350,000 to over 600,000, which would make it far more than Hirohito and Hitler killed in terms of U.S. soldiers and sailors in World War II, which was 405,000. Now, just recently, Francesca Albanese at the UN, she is the UN special rapporteur on Occupied Palestinian territory and she's banned from the US by Trump. She made the following statement by Zoom quote, regarding the absolute horror that the people in Gaza have endured. 65,000 is the number of Palestinians are certain killed, including over of which 75% are women and children. In fact, we will start thinking of 680,000 because this is the number that some scholars and scientists claim being the real death toll in Gaza. It would be hard to be able to prove or dispute this number, especially if investigators and others remain banned from entering the Occupied Palestine Territory and particularly the Gaza Strip. But if this number, that is 680,000 is confirmed, 380,000 are infants under 5 years in age, end quote. What's your reaction about this deliberate undercount, which is not applied to the death toll estimated under Assad or the death toll in the Sudan or the Ukraine, somehow fits the narrative that Netanyahu wants?
- [13:47]
F
Well, there has been an unholy conspiracy in effect between Hamas and the Netanyahu government, neither of which wants to reveal the full death toll. In the case of Hamas, the death toll illustrates the penalties that their breakout from the concentration camp of Gaza has generated for Palestinians. In the case of Netanyahu, he's in denial that there is genocide, which every responsible international organization, both governmental and private looking into this, has confirmed there is. So I think it's pretty clear there were 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza, as you mentioned, when this genocide began. They now appear to be something less than 1.8 million. So something happened to hundreds of thousands of people and I think Francesca Albinese, who in my view should have received the Nobel Peace prize, rather than Ms. Machado, the CIA sponsored opposition leader in Venezuela, whom Trump has now cast aside in favor of sort of Mafioso like manipulation of the current authority in Venezuela. On the one hand, if you do what I say, I'll give you a lot of money. And if you don't do what I say, you'll really regret it. You'll find a dead horse head in your bed or something. So I think you're absolutely right. This is a scandal and history is not going to absolve us of the COVID up. That has taken place with very little challenge. I think the mainstream media have completely failed the American public and their own professional duties by essentially becoming scribes for the established narrative, the government sponsored truth. And that government sponsored truth, I suspect if the trial in the Southern District of New York of Mr. Maduro is conducted fairly is going to be shredded because it has very little resemblance to reality. But the American people are apparently Fairly gullible, as P.T. barnum once remarked.
- [15:51]
A
Well, you know, this has been called the other antisemitism against Palestinian Semites, written up and lectured to Israeli University by Jim Zogby, the founder of the Arab American Institute in the United States. No other ethnic group has had its dead so disrespected as to be massively undercounted and most of them children, because babies have been targeted by the snipers. I mean the vicious racism that's going to come out by Israeli human rights groups and brave Israeli journalists when this is over is going to haunt the perpetrators of this genocide from Tel Aviv to Washington D.C. because the U.S. is a CO belligerent under Biden and Trump. But there is a little hope here and that's why I raised as the Syrian example, when Obama was considering invading Syria, he threw it up before Congress, which in turn threw it up publicly. And they were swarmed with with don't do that by hundreds of thousands of calls and emails from left right citizens around the country. They wanted no part of another war, whether they were conservatives or liberals. Doesn't that give you some hope if we can go to the people on this in a variety of ways?
- [17:08]
F
Well, I think that is of course what we must do. But I wouldn't underestimate the difficulties. For example, a great deal of the raw footage of what has been going on in Gaza and in the west bank, which is now not quite as tormented as Gaza, but is approaching it. The same techniques are being applied by Israel to the erasure of the Palestinian presence. There was TikTok and TikTok has now been bought by people who have a clearly stated intention of imposing changes in the algorithm that will ban any unfavorable comment on Israeli policy or behavior. So I'm not sure that things are moving in the right direction in terms of public information. I would say on this subject that there's a terrible irony here. That is the very fabric of international law which was developed to ensure that the holocaust of European Jews was never repeated either for Jews or anyone else, is exactly what Israel and the United States have conspired systematically to undo Every law from the Genocide Convention to the Geneva Conventions to the protections of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations or Chiefs of State and Government, the ban on assassinations, the ban on the use of starvation as a weapon of war, all these things have been systematically undone.
- [18:35]
A
Six federal statutes, I might add.
- [18:38]
F
Well, yes, of course. So we're seeing, and this I go back to my original comment, what we're seeing is the end of the rule of law domestically and internationally and the return of the law of the jungle. And this is not an accident, but it is terribly ironic that the very people in whose name these norms were established should be established so actively engaged in destroying them. And that the United States, which deserves great credit for having spent much of the last century trying to produce a rules regulated order internationally, should be the one to trash that which is what we are doing. Ask poor Prime Minister Frederickson of Greenland. You know, if I were she, I would tell the United States that if Greenland is invaded, Denmark will invoke Article 5 of the NATO North Atlantic Treaty and against whoever does the invasion, which of course means us. That would not produce a concerted action by all of NATO because there must be unanimity in NATO to take action. But it would put very clearly before the American people the consequences of the lawless actions that we have taken or are threatening to take. So, you know, I can't even justify the Venezuelan operation in terms of a gas station stick up, which is how it's being described, really. Somebody comes in with a gun and takes what's in the cash register and all the gas in the pumps. And that is because Venezuela, as a result of 25 years of bad government and ferocious American sanctions, has a very dilapidated oil production capability which people estimate will take five to seven years to reconstitute. There are arguments. Israel and the United States are clearly preparing another round of attacks on Iran. And there is an argument being made that in order to protect against the loss of oil through the Strait of Hormuz, we have to take Venezuelan oil. But there isn't any Venezuelan oil to take. And it will take five to seven years to reconstitute it. The skilled workforce that sustained pdvsa, the Venezuelan state oil company, has fled Venezuela for greener pastures. The oil majors in the United States rightly are very concerned about going into Venezuela for several reasons. First, one is profitability. Venezuelan oil is very heavy. It is very expensive and difficult to refine. And the price of oil at the moment is quite low. It is not profitable to deal with Venezuelan oil, which is why Cuba now gets most of its oil from Mexico, not from Venezuela, despite the public narrative. Second, any oil company that goes in there must expect sabotage from Venezuelan nationalist resistance forces and probably attacks on its personnel. This is not an attractive situation, and therefore President Trump has begun to muse about providing subsidies to ExxonMobil and others to entice them back into Venezuela. We're Talking about probably $100 billion in capital expense, minimal in the near future. That kind of money isn't just laying around. And so I think this is a total mess. It's a violation of every constitutional principle and international law that exists. But more than that, it's just plain stupid.
- [22:07]
A
Before we go to Steve Chadz Freeman, is there anything you've written recently elaborating your views that our listeners can access?
- [22:15]
F
As far as the Venezuela issue is concerned, there are many things on YouTube. I appear regularly on Judge Napolitano's Judging Freedom. I appear on Neutrality Studies, talking about the collapse of international law that is run by Pascal Lottas out of Tokyo. I appear on Dialogue Works, which is run by Neem Al Khorshid out of Brazil. He's currently in Iran. He's an Iranian immigrant to Brazil, a very capable engineer who has taken up podcasts precisely out of the sort of outrage that you and I feel about the unaccountability of our leaders and the mistakes that they make which are not challenged. So I think there are, there's video material. I have not been writing things on the subject.
- [23:02]
A
There you have it, listeners. Let's go to Steve.
- [23:05]
B
Thanks, Ralph. Ambassador Freeman, as a diplomat, talk about the role of the Secretary of State in this Venezuela operation, Marco Rubio, I consider Trump sort of a collection of impulses. I have to think if there is any form of strategic mission in this, it had to come from Rubio. And maybe that's Cuba's one of the other dominoes. He's looking to fall. But talk about Marco Rubio's role in this, what you think his role is?
- [23:35]
F
Well, Marco Rubio has multiple jobs. He is the Secretary of State. He is the national archivist. He is the director of what remains, what pitiful remnants there are of US Agency for International Development. He is the national security advisor. He is not doing any of these jobs effectively. And on the other hand, it's very clear that the drive to tyrannize the Western Hemisphere, which is rutward basically trying to do to achieve unaccountable dominance of the hemisphere and force every country in the region to bow to our own presumed interests, hence we've just told Venezuela you have to break relations with China, Russia and Iran. So much for the respect for sovereignty and independence of that country. Marco Rubio has driven this policy. I think you're quite correct to imply that the ultimate target is his parents homeland, Cuba. They emigrated from Cuba during the Batista era, not the Castro era. And Marco Rubio has prospered as a politician in South Florida, which is very heavily influenced, if not dominated by the Cuban American presence. I don't think that this is going to bring down the Cuban regime, although the Cuban regime seems to be doing everything it can to bring itself down by sheer ineptitude. There is no Deng Xiao ping in the wings to tell Cuba that it needs to reform its political economy to provide a liftoff from poverty for the large number of Cubans who are in a state of poverty. And we are totally isolated on this issue. By the way, internationally, you look at votes in the United Nations General assembly and you'll find the United States and Israel pretty much the only countries that support the American embargo against Cuba. Everybody else is willing to deal with Cuba as a normal country in the very correct belief that the way you influence people who are doing stupid or bad things is to engage with them. If you stand on the other side of the Florida Strait and give the Cuban government the finger, that does not endear you to the Cuban government or make it more likely to listen to whatever viewpoint you think they should consider. So Cuba is a mess. It was a mess before all this. It'll probably be a bit worse of a mess as a result of this. But we're not going to solve the Cuban problem this way. Let me make one final point, and that is there's a fallacy that if you remove the leader of a regime, the regime falls. That is not correct, Syria notwithstanding. And we're just seeing that in Venezuela, the regime is intact. The ministers of defense and interior, who are the main violators of human rights in Venezuela are still very much in charge. Dulcio Rodriguez, who's the acting president, is walking a fine line between extolling Venezuelan nationalism, independence and sovereignty on the one hand, and on the other hand making eyes at Trump. I'm willing to be your friend and work with you and so forth. And as I said, she's being subject to the Godfather treatment by Washington. So I think you're right that Cuba is the domino that Marco Rubio wants to have fall. And in order to make it fall, he's willing to tyrannize the entire hemisphere.
- [26:53]
D
David, let me ask you about what you just said, that you remove Maduro, you just have a different name but the same type of leadership. What happens if we impeach and remove Donald Trump? Is the threat gone, or does J.D. vance or Marco Rubio, do they step right in and fill the vacuum with the same impunity?
- [27:17]
F
I think they do follow essentially the same line, but unlike Trump, they have a degree of constancy and purposefulness about what they do. Donald Trump has an ego the size of a hot air balloon, and it's equally guided. It just drifts all over the place. And you never know from one hour to the next what he's going to say or what he's going to believe. I don't believe that is true of either. Marco Rubio, who is very purposive and has been quite successful in imposing what I consider to be a disastrous policy on the United States in the western hemisphere, and J.D. vance, who has done more than any other individual in this government to alienate the Europeans. So I don't think we would have a fundamental change. What we would lose is the cult following, the sort of intimidation of that cult that leads Speaker Johnson to say the idiotic things he says about Congress not needing to be informed about a war with Venezuela and just entrusting the president to do what he thinks is right without any congressional review. That kind of thing, I think might abate, and it might encourage some of the opposition to policy that Ralph has very persistently advocated.
- [28:33]
A
David, you should know that Trump revealed recently that he notified the oil companies that he was going to strike Venezuela, but he didn't notify the Congress. Under the Constitution, he has no right to declare any war of any kind. Only Congress has it. But imagine notifying the oil companies. That's another extension of the corporate state that dominates this country.
- [28:58]
E
Hannah, my question is about diplomacy.
- [29:00]
A
What's the global diplomatic community doing about.
- [29:03]
E
The US Spiriting away a president of another sovereign state? And what if we don't know what they are doing?
- [29:11]
A
What should the diplomatic community be doing?
- [29:13]
F
Well, they're doing far too little, of course. The Europeans are the worst. In order to continue to ingratiate themselves with the Trump administration, you get statements like that of Keir Starmer in Britain. Well, we'll look into this and decide later what we should do. You get a statement from Emmanuel Macron in France saying, well, we just hope that democracy is restored in Venezuela. You get Kayakalas, the spokesperson for the European Union, saying, well, of course we have to have rules and nobody doing anything not even Meta Frederiksen, the beleaguered Prime Minister of Denmark, given with her concern about Trump's apparent focus on annexing Greenland. Whatever people in Greenland may think about that, or people in our Danish allies may think about it, so they're not doing very much in Europe. Asia has been a very different example. There have been very strong comments from Singapore, from Malaysia, from Indonesia, a somewhat more guarded statement, but still a condemnation from Vietnam. Japan has been relatively silent given its dependence on the United States. Korea, the same. South Korea, the same. We've had vigorous denunciations of this from both Beijing and Moscow. Brazil, South America is divided. Argentina and Ecuador appear to side with Trump. La and naval in Ecuador. The other countries are very strong in their condemnation. And of course, to go back to something I said earlier, if there's no legal or diplomatic remedy for a problem, people resort to force. I expect an explosion of new business for arms exporters in the South American region. Very good for the Chinese, who are now competitive in that area, to arm themselves against a possible intervention by the United States. As I mentioned earlier, we have a long history of intervention in the Caribbean and North America, Central America, Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean, but we have none in South America. We've never done this. We had one covert action, notorious covert action, overthrow of the government in Chile under Salvador Allende. But we've never used the military in this manner there. And I think we have scared everybody around the world. If there is no protection from international law, people will arm themselves as heavily as they can to defend themselves. So diplomacy is not prospering in this environment. And I would just conclude by saying that the Trump administration has more than decimated our diplomatic service. About one third of the diplomatic service has left or is in the process of leaving public service, the government. So they join scientists and engineers in trying to bail out from what they consider to be an increasingly intolerable situation. Not a. Not a happy picture.
- [31:58]
A
Well, let me leave the people with this Note, which is 500 signatures, clearly written with their occupation, can get a member of the House to your town meeting, and a thousand signatures can get a senator. They very rarely get such activity back home. When you confront them, you know what to say, you know what to demand, and you know how to send them back to Washington with your instructions that without the rule of law, without constitutional government, without a free press, what's left of our republic. Thank you very much, Chaz Freeman, ambassador, scholar, advocate extraordinaire.
- [32:38]
F
Thank you, Ralph.
- [32:39]
B
We've been speaking with Ambassador Chaz Freeman. We will link to his work@ralphnaderradiohour.com up next, what kind of case does the Trump administration think they have against Nicolas Maduro? But first, let's check in with our corporate crime reporter Russell Mokhyber.
- [32:55]
G
From the National Press building in Washington, D.C. this is your corporate crime reporter Morning minute for Friday, January 9th, 2026. I'm Russell Mulcaiber. Congresswoman Maxine Waters and Congressman Jamie Raskin sent a letter last week to Attorney General Pam Bondi demanding answers about the Trump administration's latest maneuver to cripple the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau through the wholesale transfer of the bureau's active enforcement cases to the Department of Justice. Reports indicate that the CFPB is transferring all of its active litigation, no fewer than 13 cases, to the Department of Justice as part of Acting Director Russell Vogt's ongoing effort to shut down the agency. The members of Congress wrote that transfer raises urgent questions about whether the department intends to continue these cases at all or simply intends to dismiss them, leaving defrauded consumers in the cold and letting law breaking financial institutions off the hook, they wrote. For the corporate corporation Crime Reporter, I'm Russell Mulcyrer.
- [33:56]
B
Thank you, Russell. Welcome back to the Ralph Nader Radio Hour. I'm Steve Scrovan along with David Feldman, Hannah and Ralph. Donald Trump has been forcibly removing as many Venezuelans as he can all year. But the other day there was one Venezuelan he very eagerly, let's say, imported. David.
- [34:16]
D
Bruce Fine is a constitutional scholar and an expert on International Law. Mr. Fine was associate deputy attorney general under Ronald Reagan and is the author of Constitutional Peril, the Life and Death Struggle for Our Constitution and Democracy and American Empire before the Fall. Welcome back to the Ralph Nader Radio Hour.
- [34:36]
C
Bruce Fine, thank you.
- [34:38]
A
Thank you, Bruce. Let's turn to Venezuela. The US Navy just took control of another oil tanker on the Caribbean, hijacking it. They, of course, bombed Caracas. What is your take on that? What do you think should be done and what do you think Trump's going to do in the next few weeks on that?
- [34:58]
C
Well, what should be done there should be impeachment and removal from office immediately because you can't look at this, Ralph, in isolation. We know that there's been mass murder, well over 100 by Trump and the military in the last weeks in the Caribbean and the eastern Pacific. And it's going to continue. It may move from slaughtering in the ocean into the land. Remember, Trump has also stated just in the last days he's willing to go into Bogota Colombia and remove that president, go into Cuba, take over Greenland as well, who's part of NATO as being a subunit of Denmark. He's already bombed Nigeria, he's already bombed Syria. He's locked and ready to go into Iran. So the guy is clearly able and voiced his intent to, to go anywhere in the world. He wants partly probably to deflect attention from the Epstein files that were on the front pages in the last week, but now it's all on Maduro and Venezuela and then what comes next? So I think that, you know what ought to happen. This guy ought to be impeached and removed from office asap. Now people say, well, you just get end up with J.D. vance. So there's no real change because he'll be the vice president. But I can guarantee you J.D. vance, if he knows he's going to be impeached, removed from office, will not emulate Donald J. Trump. He cares more about power than, than emulating Mr. Trump. And if he didn't shape up, he could impeach and remove him as well until they honor their oath under Article 2 to faithfully defend and preserve the Constitution of the United States. But I do think in the longer run, Ralph, this is going to unleash, I think, at least a decade, if not more of turbulence like Napoleonic wars in Europe from 1800 to 1815.
- [36:32]
A
He's certainly telegraphing that, that's for sure. And what we're seeing here, listeners, is the gap between you, the citizenry back home and the Congress. And I've written many articles to the Capitol Citizen on how people can take control of Congress. It's a lot easier than you think. Less than 1% in the congressional districts organized, reflecting public opinion and knowing what they're talking about, as Bruce said. And focusing on two senators and representative in each district can turn the tide. If you want to learn more about how to influence Congress, go to capitolcitizen.com and get these issues. I have a page one story in the current issue on how people can take control of Congress away from the corporations, for example. Bruce, let's project here in the next few weeks. It's like Trump has gone berserk. He's bombing Nigeria, he's threatening all kinds of other countries to drop in, like Netanyahu and kill their leaders. It's as if he's emulating Netanyahu right down to the language Netanyahu said months ago as he was rampaging in Gaza, the West bank, the Middle east, quote, nobody can stop me, end quote. And that's exactly What Trump said a few days ago, nobody can stop me. Who can stop him other than impeachment, which takes a while.
- [37:56]
C
In the short run, I don't know whether there is anybody who could stop Napoleon. You know, in the short run. Ultimately he had his Waterloo, but, you know, he went to Moscow and created havoc for 15 years or so throughout all of Europe. So we have the biggest military by far in the world. So it's not going to be any international organization that's going to do it. I believe this is going to embolden Mr. Putin and Russia to be a little more aggressive. Ukraine and maybe into some of the former eastern and central European satellite states of the Soviet Union. I do believe that it's going to encourage President Xi in China to be a little more aggressive, maybe even invade Taiwan, South China Sea, takeover with the Philippine Islands.
- [38:38]
A
What about this? There's a lot of dissent in the military because they're being forced to obey unlawful orders by Hexis and Trump. That's number one. They're retired very high level generals and admirals who despise Trump. Some of them who worked in the first term. What if they got together and made a proclamation, we're not going to obey any more unlawful orders. That would stop them, wouldn't it?
- [39:03]
C
It surely would. If you could find one who would actually do that. I don't know whether we have the military made of that kind of stuff anymore. I don't even understand why they would have been obeying other orders that Mr. Trump gave, including killing civilians in the Caribbean who are defenseless. They are not carrying AK47s. We go and slaughter them all. Over 100 right now. But we haven't had anyone stand up at that point and say, no, I'm not going to commit a war crime. So I would hope that there are some generals who would do that. But I think again, we have to do our role as citizens. And the legal way to do this that has the least turmoil and tumult is through impeachment, education. No, this is impeachable offense.
- [39:44]
A
You're gone before we conclude. You know, all empires think that there's never going to be retaliation. And when there is retaliation, they go crazy with massive violence. Now, Trump would thrive and impose a police state martial law. If there was a retaliatory attack in the United States, a drone attack and 9, 11 type attack, whatever, he would actually thrive on that. What do you think the likelihood of retaliation? You can't keep killing thousands of people around the world blowing up this and that Threatening that, toppling leaders, hijacking ships, killing people in motorboats without evidence. And not to mention what's going on in the slaughter in Gaza. Whole families wiped out, hundreds of thousands of people using US Weapons. And backed by Trump, who does anything Netanyahu wants, it seems. Now what do you think the prospect of retaliation and what would happen if there was a lone wolf attack or Some sort of 9 11, how would Trump react and how would the country react?
- [40:51]
C
No, we have a dress rehearsal when he had two National Guardsmen who were shot in Washington D.C. you know, deployed, you know, to have military enforced civilian law here. And so immediately, you know, Trump, Kaiser blame everything on immigrants and shut down the immigration system. I do think that blowback is inevitable and I don't know whether it's going to be at the magnitude of 9 11, but it's surely coming. But at this stage, I think that unlike 9 11, I think what Trump is doing in so blatantly killing and slaughtering everything in sight, that the public reaction he may be less effective than trying to brainwash the American people into thinking, oh, we were innocent as lambs and suddenly were being taken over.
- [41:36]
A
Well, the CIA and the NSA have been studying blowback for years, so they know right up to date what the likelihood may be. But of course they're not speaking out at all. But the country turns into somersaults. It's frozen for even small levels of blowback like the Boston Marathon attack. Unlike other countries who suffer massive casualties from US Imperialism, this country can't take it. So it's not just over there, listeners. There are many knowledgeable people to say it's going to come back here to haunt us. You wrote a book on empire. You want to describe it in a couple sentences? Because I think it's still very current, especially coming from a conservative like you, Bruce Fine.
- [42:22]
C
Yeah, I mean, I wrote this book called American Empire before the fall. I don't want to boast, but everything I forecast it was published more than 10 years ago, has come true. And basically the gist of it is we decided to make a Faustian bargain years and years ago to cast aside liberty, due process, wisdom and benevolence for power. For the sake of power. We're going to rule the world like Caesar bestriding the globe, and when that comes, the law is silent. And I said, don't worry. This was before we'd gotten into many, many different wars with regard to Libya and with regard to Syria and as co belligerence in Gaza and Ukraine and in all these Other countries that we bomb, Somalia being another one. And I said, there's only one way that this can stop, and that is we have to readjust our understanding of the United States as its conception. We are about giving equal dignity to everyone because they have unalienable rights. The goal of government is not to go abroad in search of monsters, to destroy the goal of government. Everyone gets to march to their own drummer. We keep people with dignity, equality in the eyes of the law. And that needs to be our greatness right now. You know, we cast that aside. No, our greatness is to be the world leader and tell everybody how to live their lives, you know, and the result has been a disaster.
- [43:44]
A
Trump has telegraphed the next crisis. He wants the next Greenland. He sent a special envoy who said that's the purpose. If he does that. He's taking an area twice the size of Texas away from Denmark that is a member of NATO. That, of course, is going to trigger a huge reaction in our NATO alliance. You want to characterize.
- [44:05]
C
Yeah. I mean, the fact is, if you read the NATO in Article 5, that means, I think right now we've got 32 members of NATO, 31 countries would be obliged to take up war and arms against the United States. That's an invasion. We're telling. It's every bit as much an invasion of Hitler going into the Sudetenland, you know, after Munich. And everybody knows this isn't going to be a voluntary secession. If it isn't by military conquest, it'll be by coercion, by threats. So we may be at war with all the other NATO members. I say that's why I liken this to the Napoleonic era, when France and Napoleon were against all of Europe, was against him. He had no allies anymore. And I think we will have no allies either, because we're so arrogant. But I don't know whether it's going to be Greenland, Ralph, if I'm a betting man, I think it may be in Colombia. Also, the same argument with regard to Venezuela. It produces and transships cocaine and illegal drugs. We don't like the current president there, and who knows what's after. I don't think anybody can go to bed anymore at night and not be apprehensive that when they wake in the morning and open the newspaper, we've bombed another country, could be anywhere in the world, because there's no strategy behind this, no rhyme or reason. Why do we pick Venezuela? Existential threat. Again, the absurdity of saying that drug trafficking was at all the motivation when we pardoned the former president of Honduras with 400 tons of cocaine smuggled in the United States. And the words of this former Honduran president to force them and stick the cocaine up the noses of the gringos and Trump pardons the individual. And you're telling me that they care about drugs? No, this is just about power for the sake of power. So what empires do when they have nothing more, they have no philosophical understanding or depth. They don't care anything more other than.
- [45:49]
A
Being a bully on a playground and no congressional hearings. One last question, Bruce. As a matter of international law, since we illegally attacked Venezuela under international law, not that they have the capability, but if they then attacked us in the United States, we would that be legal under international law?
- [46:09]
C
Yeah, it's called self defense. Right, exactly. It would be as legal when after Pearl Harbor. Yeah, we can go after the Japanese, you know, they attacked us. So. Sure. That's entitlement to self defense. Every nation has and that's enshrined in the United Nations Charter.
- [46:25]
B
Bruce, Francesco tells us you are on the defense team or you're associated with the defense team.
- [46:29]
C
Yeah, well, I filed the notice of appearance. You can imagine things are rather chaotic right now. I was at the courtroom and then went to the metropolitan detention facility. But he does, you know, Maduro doesn't speak fluent English. So anyway, it's a big mess right now. But I filed ProAct VJ admission and notice of appearance. So I may get up there in the next day or two to try to visit him in person. But you know, they had screening. Yeah. Anyway, it's. You could imagine it was pretty chaotic as all the protests. I mean, the one thing I do believe, that one theory, you know, head of state immunity is one issue that we don't know whether they're subject to judicial review. Historically, the courts have said the President gets to decide who is the legitimate ruler of another country. But you know, there's a Trump exception to everything. Since Trump is deranged, you don't know what kind of deference would be given on that score. But typically, you know, there's no head of state immunity when you're before an international body, for example, international criminal court. But here the immunity attaches because it's thought that on the international landscape all nations are equal. One is not more equal than other. So one nation can't sit in judgment on another nation, you know, an international body can. So that's among many other issues.
- [47:46]
B
Here's my question, or maybe it's even an assessment, is I can't see that they have a case. You have you and you have Julia Saunders, lawyer. I think I could try this case because it seems so obviously bogus that the strategy must have been get him out of the country just long enough so we can change the facts on the ground because the legal process will take time. And even if we lose, which we probably will, because we don't really have a case, we've won because we've changed what's going on in Venezuela.
- [48:22]
C
Well, number one, they haven't changed what's going on in Venezuela. The political prisoners are there. There's no free speech or whatever. They have no clue what they're doing. I mean, Trump says today the oil is mine already, basically. What does it mean when he says we're in control? Does that mean we control all the ownership of all assets there? Who owns anything? Do titles to land mean anything there? Or can Trump steal your property whenever he feels like it? He said Venezuelan oil is our oil. How about Aramco in Saudi Arabia? Do we own all of Saudi oil too? We're going to steal their trillion dollar sovereign wealth fund? I mean, this clearly is, insofar as there's any rationality at all to this, this is lawlessness taken to a new degree.
- [49:02]
B
Bruce, I am not going to sit here and have you tell me that Donald Trump didn't go in without a plan.
- [49:08]
C
No, he didn't. He had no plan. Nothing other than just do it for the sake of doing it.
- [49:14]
D
Bruce, we've heard that due process applies to undocumented immigrants. What about the Fourth Amendment? Does it apply to Maduro and what is the Fourth?
- [49:25]
C
Well, I mean, we don't. I mean, the Fourth Amendment prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures. Its question is, first of all, the Supreme Court now has watered it down that says that only knowing bad faith violations of the Fourth Amendment trigger the exclusionary rule as opposed to something else. The law is probably not favorable to Maduro with regard to the fact that no matter how illegal the seizure was, that doesn't necessarily void the trial. And unless it was bad faith in the law here, you know, you could say we didn't know that it's wrong. I'm not sure what evidence that they recovered when they seized him that they didn't already have because the indictment was issued before they did anything, that is, and that the indictment resting on whatever facts they'd even been assembled before they actually went in and kidnapped him and his wife. So this is going to be, in my judgment, trying to prove, you know, guilt by association. Some of the so called entities that were named in the initial indictment, when they had the superseding indictment, they said no, they really aren't even organizations. It's like saying, you know, antifa is an organization, you join it like the aclu, which is a figment of the imagination. So I think that be a real challenge in trying to associate Maduro. He's on the ground, he's actually the one who's orchestrating this as opposed to just being the head of state. But obviously, you know, you got to get the Brady material and see what evidence they have. But I would agree that at this stage, no one really believes that this is an effort to dent drug trafficking. Mr. Trump just pardoned the former president of Honduras who smuggled in 400 tons tons of cocaine, was serving a 45 year prison term from the same court that Maduro's being. And you're telling me you give them a complete pardon and you're against drug trafficking? We weren't born yesterday.
- [51:11]
D
Let me ask you about the eighth Amendment. The eighth Amendment, I believe, prohibits cruel and unusual punishment.
- [51:16]
C
Yes.
- [51:17]
D
He's in solitary confinement right now in the Brooklyn Detention Center. It's being described as one of the roughest, toughest jails in America. People never complain about the conditions of our prisons until they spend some time inside. Are you alarmed if you're going to that detention center and you see the condition?
- [51:41]
C
I've been at the detention center before.
- [51:43]
D
Are you alarmed by the conditions in there?
- [51:45]
C
I mean, I don't see. I mean, listen, I went there. It doesn't look to me like it's a dungeon. You enter and you talk to people, they're civilized. I visited somebody before not, you know, in the last few days, but I don't believe that anything that would approach cruel and unusual punishment and torture would escape detection.
- [52:02]
D
What about solitary confinement? If they're putting Maduro in solitary confinement.
- [52:07]
C
Isn'T that they do. Well, lot, a lot of people, they do that at least for a period of time.
- [52:11]
D
I don't think that cruel and unusual.
- [52:13]
C
No, there's no way they had a reason because they thought he could communicate. Pablo Escobar, he could talk to other people with regard to 1, 2, 3, 4, and who knows, maybe they're doing that because, and I don't know, maybe Epstein was, you know, he committed suicide, was in solitary confinement. But the Supreme Court once said, we don't have a one person, one cell rule that makes it cruel. Obviously there's circumstances where it might be the case if he wasn't given adequate Medical care. He's not in perfect fitness. It could, but at least as we speak right now, I don't believe that we're approaching an Eighth Amendment.
- [52:49]
B
Francesco, do you want to weigh in?
- [52:51]
E
I mean, my questions have more to do with, like, do you think there's going to be serious international repercussions? Do you think that the US Is going to be satisfied with Del C in charge of the country long term? I know there's a lot of pressure on the administration from defense, exile community and the exile leadership like Machado to continue putting pressure on the country and to remove the remnants of the Chavista regime. But more than that, there's talk about similar military operations in Colombia and Cuba and Mexico. Do you think that those are likely?
- [53:31]
C
I think that at least at present, I don't think anything is impossible. Not only Colombia, Cuba, you've missed Greenland, Panama, Nigeria, Syria, Iran, locked and ready to go. I think Trump is capable of anything, including dropping a bomb in Istanbul or any other place. He felt like he wanted to flex his muscles. I think what drives him is the need to feel an adrenaline high from playing a bully on a playground. I truly believe he has no clue what he's doing. He said now he's going to decide who owns the oil in Venezuela and maybe he'll do that in Saudi Arabia and steal the trillion dollar sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia. So I think we're in a unique situation. We just can't expect know what, what this guy would do. I do think that the larger consequence, I believe, is that he is now given explicit, formal endorsement of the strong do what they can, the weak suffer what they must. Do whatever you want, as if you can get away with it, it's okay with me. There are no restraints or limitations on anything. I think what we will encounter is at least 10, 15 years of international turbulence, like the Napoleonic Wars. Remember Napoleon was fighting all over Europe saying everybody had to get rid of their kingships or queenships and become democrats, as he was an emperor. And the whole Europe was in turmoil, including the United States, during that war of 1812, until Waterloo came. And I think we're headed for something similar. I think we can see that Russia will become more aggressive, maybe trying to kidnap and maybe not have to kidnap Zelensky and push back and push more authoritatively on their borders.
- [55:16]
A
Well, we're out of time. Thank you very much, Bruce vine, for all your work, your courage, your education of Congress and the citizenry. And let's hope some law professors step forward, like Larry Tribe. Of Harvard, Ackerman of Yale, Una Hathaway of Yale. They all have the qualifications. And the law schools must step forward. The bar associations must step forward. We can't rely on the legal profession to be the first responders to massive criminal illegality. Day after day, the country is in sorry shape. What did Aristotle say about courage? And we'll conclude it's the summit of.
- [55:58]
C
All virtues, because without courage, no other virtue is possible. That's Aristotle.
- [56:03]
A
Think of that wisdom, listeners. It applies to everybody. Thank you very much, Bruce Fine.
- [56:08]
C
Thanks so much, Ralph.
- [56:10]
B
We've been speaking with Bruce Fine. We will link to his work@ralphnaderradiohour.com I want to thank our guests again, Ambassador Chaz Freeman and Bruce Fine. For those of you listening on the radio, that's our show for you podcast listeners, stay tuned for some bonus material we call the Wrap Up. We'll have a fair amount of that. And the Wrap up also features Francesco de Santis with in case you haven't heard in a transcript of this program will appear on the Ralph Nader Radio Hour substack site soon after the episode is posted.
- [56:40]
D
Subscribe to us on our Ralph Nader Radio Hour YouTube channel and for Ralph's weekly column. It's free@nader.org for more from Russell Mo Khyber, it's at corporate crime reporter.com the.
- [56:53]
B
American Museum of Tort Law has gone virtual. You can visit tortmuseum.org to explore the exhibits, take a virtual tour tour and learn about iconic tort cases from history.
- [57:03]
D
To order your copy of the Capitol Hill Citizen Democracy Dies in Broad Daylight. It's at Capitol HillCitizen.com and remember to.
- [57:13]
B
Continue the conversation after each program. You can go to the comments section@ralphnaderradio hour.com and post a comment or question on this week's episode.
- [57:21]
D
The producers of the Ralph Nader Radio Hour are Jimmy Lee Wirt, Hannah Feldman and Matthew Marin. Our executive producer is Alan Minsky.
- [57:31]
B
Our theme music, stand Up, Rise up, was written and performed by Kemp Harris. Our proofreader is Elizabeth Solomon.
- [57:38]
D
Join us next week on the Ralph Nader Radio Hour. Thank you, Ralph.
- [57:42]
A
Thank you. You can always join our substack. You can always ask your local radio station to carry the program and you could always ask access Free. My Weekly column@nader.org.
- [58:02]
H
This is John Crumshow with a special.
- [58:04]
F
Politics or pedagogy education report.
- [58:06]
H
On the line is Dr. Tom Radzio. He works with the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance. Welcome to Politics or Pedagogy Hi, John.
- [58:14]
I
It's great to be here.
- [58:15]
H
Great to talk with you. I never thought that we'd still be talking about tortoises, but there's so much to say about them. What I'd like to ask you today is how do you find those nests? We talked about giving a tortoise a head start, but first you have to find the nest. How do you go about doing that?
- [58:32]
A
Sure.
- [58:33]
I
Well, we used to X ray the tortoises and then bring them to a facility to lay their eggs. But that can cause a little bit of stress to the animals, and also it doesn't give us a chance to study the nests in nature. So what we did was we turned to an Italian company that makes something called an accelerometer that's hooked up with a gps, a small data logger. And what the data logger does is it rides on the animal and it senses how the animal is moving. And what really makes all this work is when these tortoises nest, they move in a very particular way. They wobble back and forth, back and forth for an hour, a very particular way to dig that nest hole. And the little data logger records that pattern and we match it up with the GPS signal, and that's how we find the burrow in which the nests are laid.
- [59:22]
H
So here you're using high technology to find what these animals are doing. Once you have that information, where do you go from there?
- [59:30]
I
Oh, it's fantastic. So we find the nest in the burrow and we place a miniature temperature data logger in the nest so that we know the temperatures and humidities the eggs experience. This helps us quite a bit to form predictions about how climate change may influence the production of male and females in the population, because warm nests produce females and cooler nests tend to produce males. But understand how close we are to the threshold and whether the tortoises may change their behavior in the future to be.