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- [00:00]
Dave Smith
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- [00:31]
Scott Horton
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- [01:21]
Dave Smith
Today's show is brought to you by yocratum.com home of the sixty dollar kilo. Long time sponsors of this show and we are very grateful to them for being such solid sponsors and supporters of our show. If you are over the age of 21 and you enjoy Kratom, make sure to get your kratom from yom.com it's lab tested so you know the stuff is quality, it's delivered right to your door and it is the best price you will find anywhere. $60 for a kilo only@yom.com all right, let's start the show. All right, what's up everybody? Welcome to a brand new episode of Part of the Problem. I Dave Smith. Very excited for today's episode. Okay, a couple quick things. Let me get him out of the way and then we'll get right into it. Number one, tomorrow I'm headed up to Buffalo, New York. I'll be there with Robbie the Fire Bernstein. Or no, I'm sorry, Friday and Saturday. No, no. Thursday and Friday in Buffalo and then Saturday night in St. Catherine's two shows up there. The first one is already sold out. The second one is going to sell out. If you want to come grab Tickets now, comicdavesmith.com and then the other and you get all the ticket links for the my calendar for the rest year there. Then the other thing is, of course, remember, I am returning to the soho Forum in May debating Alex Nor West. I still don't know how to say his last name. From the Cato Institute will be debating immigration. Tickets for that are moving quickly. So if you are in the New York City area and you want to come out, go to the Soho forum.org to get tickets there. And also if you're in the New York City area, go check out one of Gene Epstein's debate series there. It's so forum.org is a great, great organization, great debate series. Gene Epstein is one of our best guys and I always enjoy everything he does. Okay, we got back on today's show, the Legend, Scott Horton, Antiwar.com, the Libertarian Institute, and of course, the author of this phenomenal book, provoked, which is really the it's really the book you need to read to understand the build up to the current catastrophe in Ukraine and really a whole history of US Russia, post Soviet relations. And it's really a wild story. And it's, I'm sure it's kind of been cool for you, Scott, that, you know, so, okay, so you wrote this phenomenal book years ago called Fool's Errand, and it was about the war in Afghanistan. And then you wrote Enough, Enough already, which was about the all of the terror wars. But it did feel like those books, it was a recent history. I mean, okay, Afghanistan, I think was still going on as you wrote the book, but it was, it had totally been accepted that, like, yes, this war was a disaster. It was kind of everyone had agreed, you know, the same with the terror wars, too. This thing is like your book is coming out, you're still in the middle of your book tour and it's become like the biggest issue that everybody's talking about. So that right away has got to be kind of interesting from your perspective.
- [04:34]
Robbie Bernstein
Yeah. And I'm getting almost universally good feedback from it. I've had very little substantive criticism, a lot of Russian asset and Russian talking point type garbage. But on a substantive basis, they seem to have not read the thing because they'll accuse me of never addressing stuff that has a whole section of its own and whatever in there, you know, I don't know. So but look, it's, it did get up to the top 300 on all of Amazon. It's now still in the top 1,000. It's, I believe, in the top 700 something or 600? No, I think 700 something on Amazon. It's still number one in war and Peace and still in the top top 40 in all history on Amazon. So. And that's three and a half months. And if it wasn't for Jimmy Carter dying and Dave Chappelle recommending his book Peace Not Apartheid on Saturday Night Live, then I'd have been number one in War and Peace the whole time. But Jimmy Carter kind of, he snaked my title for a minute there, but I got it back.
- [05:42]
Dave Smith
People were reading that book. It's not a bad book for people to read. I've never read it, but I. Familiar with the, the thesis of.
- [05:48]
Robbie Bernstein
I know what trouble he got in for writing it, so it must.
- [05:53]
Dave Smith
Right, Exactly. Okay, so let's, let's jump right into this. This the latest. Because this really is. And it's, you know, we've been living through such a crazy few years in this country, and I, as someone who does a show, I talk about this a lot. But when you do a show about the news, it's almost like there's something crazy every single day to talk about. And there's always like a new thing. And it's, it's. Sometimes it's a challenge to kind of like, zoom out and see things from, you know, like a transcendent position and like 10,000ft above looking down. This, this meeting with Zelensky and Trump in the Oval Office was one of those things where it's like, this is. This was really, truly remarkable. I've never seen anything quite like it in my life. And it's just, I was, I want to get your thoughts on it and then we could get into the kind of what's come after. But I, you know, I, my first thought on it was just that this was. It's got to be like the greatest political strategic blunder I've ever seen. And I don't, you know, I've, I've read a lot about this conflict. I don't necessarily have like, a good understanding of who Zelinsky is, but I don't know, like, what your thoughts on that. Like, who was in his ear? Why did he think this would be a good move? And what, when you're in a position where you're totally dependent on Donald Trump, the idea that you would come in and try to, like, out alpha him on live television and in a language that you don't really speak. And to think that was going to go well for you. I mean, like, what were you thinking when you first saw it?
- [07:47]
Robbie Bernstein
Well, I mean, yeah, I was a bit just in disbelief back. The second time I watched it, I finally found the clip of the whole deal, the 40 minute long discussion leading up to it and everything. And, you know, I was impressed the first time, but the second time I watched, I was like, wow. I really had not remembered just how bad it was, the him attempting to shout down Trump and talk over Trump in that way. That's pretty remarkable, I think. Well, we got two choices, right? One is he just couldn't stand anymore and he had to blurt something stupid out and he's like kicking himself now. Which I think is the less likely explanation, or that this was, you know, a planned political move that he made. Because essentially what was happening was Trump was saying, we're going to call this ceasefire. That's what we're going to do. We're going to, we want to deal where the fighting stops. Implying, of course, then that everyone accepts that the lines are where they're drawn now.
- [08:49]
Dave Smith
Right.
- [08:50]
Robbie Bernstein
And potentially maybe in negotiations they would even grow. Right. Because as it stands now, Russia still doesn't control 100% of Donetsk, nor of Zaprozia or Kherson, although they do control, I believe, virtually all of Luhansk and some of our Keev. But, so this is. Zelensky, I think, had already decided that Trump was throwing him overboard and wasn't going to keep supporting him in war anyway. And that, I don't know what the deal, the minerals is, is hardly worth anything. And we can talk a little bit more about that, but that's basically a red herring for the most part.
- [09:33]
Dave Smith
But.
- [09:38]
Robbie Bernstein
So I think his decision was that instead of cut and running from the war, he just wanted to cut and run from the United States and say, fine, because, of course, if America stops backing him, we can't really make a deal with Russia to end the war. If Ukraine's not willing to end the war and we can call off all support and then they will be, you know, in a much tougher situation. But it won't just be like the Taliban walking right into cabal or anything like that. The Russians will still have a fight on their hands, at least for a time. And so Zelensky apparently is betting then that he can just turn to the Europeans and essentially bet on their center left, you know, last status quo position, you know, the, the common, call it whatever you want, the, the woke standard of the Biden administration and that they will, you know, distance themselves from Trump, who is, you know, oh, he's the rogue and the, the right wing nationalist. And so they are left, they're calling, you know, Keir Starmer, how you pronounce it, they're calling him the leader of the free world now because Donald Trump is the isolationist, turning his back on Europe and all this, which is, you know, vast hyperbole on both counts. But you do have it. It's kind of funny to see, right, The British, the French and the Germans are talking about, well, and I think the polls as well, we're not going to sell you out. We're going to continue to back you no matter what. Ukraine. And with the British prime minister even promising with boots and planes, he said, and I would be worried about that, except that I just don't believe him. I think Europeans have already all admitted that without the United States to guarantee their guarantees, they have nothing to offer. Really, the British can't fight a war on the continent. And I don't think the Germans really are coming and, and willing to risk that level of war over Eastern Ukraine and without support from the United States and knowing that they don't have it. So, you know, I agree with you that it was ultimately a strategic blunder. I think it was deliberate, but I think it was a huge mistake because just like the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of stuff, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, and the then current Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mark Milley, had said back in September of or October of 2002, I guess even still in September, they said this is as good as it's going to get for you. Quit now while you're only this far behind. It's time to come to the table and negotiate. And you know, we already knew what happened. But it, there's a profile of Antony Blinken, the outgoing Secretary of State here in the New York Times where they call him Secretary of War and they talk about how, of course, it was he and the State Department weenies that won over Biden and won the argument in the government that, no, we need to extend the war. And remember then they were going to launch the winter offensive, which became the spring offensive, which finally when they launched it was the summer offensive and got nowhere and just got a whole bunch of people killed for nothing. And this was the big gamble that Blinkin had made to continue the war when the four stars were saying it's all downhill from here. So you got a good. And they did, by the way, you know, the, the occasion at the time, Dave was at, on a weekend of September 11, the Ukrainians had done this great faint and had made major gains in Har province and, or, you know, oblast and also down in Kon, where they had essentially forced the Russians back to the southern and eastern side of the river there. And so that was, you know, to their credit, but then that was all they were going to get. And all the, you know, the actual reasonable pundits on this knew it at the time too. Everybody wise, who you would turn to for any opinion on this kind of thing at all that you could find, all said the same thing, which was, even Mark Milley is saying quit now. Which that should have been all you need to know.
- [13:53]
Dave Smith
Yeah, really, I mean it's, it's wild to think about and I guess this is just, I'm like, I don't know, I'm, I guess I'm old enough now that I've lived through like nine wars or you know, whatever it's, it's been. And it is amazing how they just all follow this pattern where it's like, okay, you, first of all, everybody hyperventilates about this imagined worst case scenario. There never really seems to be an onus on you to, to demonstrate that it's a likelihood or anything like that. But you know, whatever Saddam Hussein's about to give the weapons he doesn't have off to the terrorists that he's not friends with and then Kansas gets nuked. And you know, with this war, it's been constantly, you know, Vladimir Putin's going to reconstitute the Soviet Union, he's going to move on Poland, he's going to do all these things. Then there's just lie after lie after lie. You know, from, in, in this war there was, I mean, the ghosts of Kiev and you know, Vladimir Putin blew up the Nordstream pipeline and just all these things that serious people in suits and ties say into cameras that are just all completely wrong.
- [14:59]
Robbie Bernstein
Yeah, time is on Ukraine's side. That was right.
- [15:03]
Dave Smith
Ukraine is winning. Ukraine is winning, was constant being said. And then throughout the whole thing that Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden and Blinket all in this said that even Crimea has to be retaken by the Ukrainians, as if that was like it, even a kind of achievable goal. And then as the dust starts to settle, you start to look back at the thing. You know, I, I don't know, I've seen different estimates of the numbers of dead, but it seems to be consensus that it's in the high hundreds of thousands at this point at least. Well, I Guess we'll find out more over the years. And then you look back and you think about how Straitenberg, I always butcher that name. But the head of NATO said himself that in late 21, Vladimir Putin actually sent a draft to NATO to just be like, listen, here is a deal. I will not invade. If you just put in writing that you won't bring Ukraine into NATO. And to think about that, that, that like how much better that deal would have been for Zelensky than what he's like, NATO's already off the table. He's not, they're not getting in NATO anyway. And to think that literally they could have kept everything except Crimea or they weren't getting Crimea back at that point, but whatever, they would have lost Crimea, kept the integrity of the rest of Ukraine, just agreed to not join NATO. And all these people, I mean, the country wouldn't have had to be destroyed. All these conscripted troops on both sides wouldn't have had to die. It's just, it really is like maddening when you, when you look at it in totality. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Tax Network usa. If you owe back taxes or your tax returns are still unfiled, maybe you missed the deadline to file for an extension, the IRS may be ramping up enforcement. You could face wage garnishment, frozen bank accounts, even property seizures if you haven't taken action yet. But there's still hope. Tax Network USA has helped the taxpayer save over a billion dollars in tax debt and has filed over 10,000 tax returns. They specialize in helping people like you reduce their tax burdens. And they can help you, too. Don't wait any longer. Visit them today@tnusa.com Smith or you can give them a call at 18009581000 for a free consultation. They're exper will walk you through a few simple questions to see how much you can save. Act now before the IRS takes more aggressive steps. Take control today. Visit tnusa.comsmith or call them at 1-800-958-1. All right, let's get back into the show.
- [17:44]
Robbie Bernstein
Yeah, well, in, I mean, the medium term future here at minimum just completely sucks for everybody as well because, you know, no matter exactly how the war finally comes to an end, Russia's not losing that territory. They have essentially, you know, absorbed the, the most pro Russian population of Ukraine into Russia just by expanding the line around them. And, but what that means is they move them out of Ukraine and So now nobody in Ukraine is pro Russia anymore or, you know, the ones who, who, you know are even sympathetic at all are going to be far more marginal in Russian politics now, which is going to be even more heavily dominated by the, you know, nationalists from far out west who absolutely hate Russia. And I don't know if they're going to be allowed, I don't think they ever will be allowed to join NATO, but they may still join the EU and they still will be, you know, anti matter force stuck right there sharing a border with matter in the form of Russia from now on. And so I expect there to continue to be problems, you know, kind of ongoing even after the civil war or the, the major war comes to an end and including what could be a Nazi based insurgency led by the likes of Andrew Beletsky and Dimitri Arash and these others who, you know, it is after all a massive country and the Russians still only control like the eastern and southern fifth of it.
- [19:17]
Dave Smith
Right.
- [19:18]
Robbie Bernstein
I mean, it's the size of Texas, which there's a reason the size of Texas is a cliche. It's because it's huge, same as Afghanistan. So now a lot of it is barren step and not very conducive to insurgency, but they do have some forests and some swamp land and some other places where they could be based out of. And so there, I'm sure there are those who would want to continue to fight over the long term. I don't know whether the national, you know, central state would be able to stop them or not. I think, I don't know that this is what Zelensky is thinking, but he has reason to fear that these guys would kill him if he makes peace. They've said that they would over and over again. Even before the war. When he first took power in 2019, they threatened to kill him over all the guys who died in the war so far. So you want to talk about, you know, a sunk cost fallacy after all that they have sacrificed, he's going to sell them out now like he has reason to flee home to the Brookings Institution after that, man, they could have his ass. So that may be part of his calculation here is there are some in Ukraine and it's, I think far from the majority, but there are some who would rather never give in and keep fighting to the death, no matter what. And so that may be part of his calculation. Maybe not. But I think, well, I'll be very interested to see after, especially yesterday, where he said the war is going to continue for a very Long time. And then Trump denounced him for talking like that even. And all this, the, the break is getting solidified and things can change quickly. There's so much at stake that people can say sorry and shake hands and do different things and, and, and maybe try to get back on the same page. But, you know, as we're recording this, essentially his stance is, we're going to keep fighting without you and you can't make peace without us. And so who holds the cards now?
- [21:12]
Dave Smith
Well, I guess we will see what happens. I mean, I gotta say, I was, I was really blown away by the level of disrespect that Zelensky showed Trump and Vance. And I, you know, I was, I was talking about this today on the, I was recording with Tom earlier today and I think I mentioned this on the last podcast as well. But there is like, look, I'm not, you know, I'm not like a, A conservative. You know, I'm a, I'm a right wing liberal like Murray Rothbard or something like that, but I'm not like a conservative. There are things that. Do you remember, like, I remember Pat Buchanan, who I have, you know, tremendous respect for, but I remember. Do you remember there was something where Obama, I think he took a picture in the Oval Office with like his suit jacket off and he just had like a shirt and tie. And I remember Pat Buchanan being furious about this. It was like, it's disrespectful to the Oval Office or something like that. You know, like, I'm not that, you know, I don't really care. I'm not a suit and tie guy. I never wear a suit and tie. Almost, almost never. Um, but I gotta say.
- [22:22]
Robbie Bernstein
It was.
- [22:22]
Dave Smith
Very strange to me that he comes dressed like that. Like, you don't put on a suit and tie when. And you know, Trump cares about that. That's the type of thing Trump really cares about, like looking TV ready or whatever. But I was, I was blown away that he referred to the vice president as J.D. yeah, like, that to me was like, you know, when Rogan floated out the idea of, of having the podcast with me and Trump and Joe Rogan, which, you know, probably won't happen, but would be cool if it ever did. But like, in that, like, I would refer to him as Mr. President, I would never, I would never sit there and say, Donald. The thing is that, you know what I mean? Like, that just seems crazy to me.
- [22:59]
Robbie Bernstein
That could have been a translation mistake type of a thing, too.
- [23:03]
Dave Smith
Possible.
- [23:04]
Robbie Bernstein
Yeah. So don't fight with the president. And Vice President, when you don't speak the language properly, right, as you already said that, like, are you sure you're fluent enough to get in this crap right now in this situation? And so that was a huge error to do, right? To say, look JD and but then importantly, what was the statement he was disregarding what he said? Like, listen, you're talking about negotiating with Putin, but you can't negotiate with Putin. You're essentially a fool to say that you can negotiate with this guy. He must be made to lose the war first and then you have to give me a war guarantee. And so that was when Vance said, not, hey, how dare you call me JD But I can't believe he actually said like actually astonished. Wow, I can't believe you want to litigate this right here in public with us because guess what, you're going to lose the argument now. You might have had a chance backstage, I think was the implication there. But dude, you're going to come at me like this and, but the thing is too, they should have already agreed. You know, everybody talks about the deal, the deal, the deal. Well, which deal? You're talking about a ceasefire and Russia stays where they are, or you're just talking about this mineral deal and then who knows what's going to happen in peace negotiations later, et cetera, et cetera, right? Most of the actual minerals are not rare earth minerals, but there are other minerals in the country, but they're all under Russian control in the Donbass. So now I think there, there must be some east of the river there. But mostly it's wheat fields and those have already been gangsterized by Cargill and Archer Daniels Midland and Monsanto company back in the Obama years. So I don't know if they're still there now. They might be biding their time until the war ends to go back in and, and monopolize all that grain, but, or triapolize it I guess. But it used to be illegal for foreign multinational corporations come in and buy up all that Ukrainian grain. But America just overthrows the government when the wrong guys win over there. So they changed the law to make it okay. So that's a huge part of, you know, I don't know exactly their role in lobbying for the war, but it's a huge part of American based multinational corporations interests in Ukraine is all that grain, not just the potential natural gas resources and coal and iron and whatever in the East.
- [25:23]
Dave Smith
So it seems to me that coming out of, of this, you know, this altercation in the Oval Office, well, I mean, look, the big. Donald Trump did announce he's halting all weapons sales to Ukraine. It does seem like. And why don't we. You kind of alluded to. Maybe we could talk about this again. Yeah, well, that's. I mean, it really is something. I mean, it is. There is nothing, there's nothing more dangerous you can do in D.C. than end a war. I mean, that is a grave crime to them. So this. That really is high crimes and misdemeanors. I mean, that's the worst crime you can commit is ending a war. So you might have to get impeached.
- [26:05]
Robbie Bernstein
And they really mean it. I mean, even when I say this, I know it sounds silly, like if somebody was too young or not paying attention at the time or just on vacation or something. If I tell you, I know it sounds nuts to say, but it's really true. The third time ever that the Congress impeached the President of the United States of America, it was Donald Trump for temporarily holding up an arms shipment to Ukraine, which Ukrainians all agreed they didn't even notice was late. What. What late shipment? I don't even know what you're talking about. We didn't. We weren't even due another crate for another six weeks or whatever it was. Nothing happened at all in the name of an extortion that did not take place. The whole thing was completely phony. It's unbelievable.
- [26:47]
Dave Smith
Well, they'd all. They all called it a quid pro quo, but it wasn't. There was nothing. It was in a. An attempted quid pro quo. That wasn't even clearly.
- [26:59]
Robbie Bernstein
Like, even.
- [27:00]
Dave Smith
Yeah, well, it's. Because the truth is that for Donald Trump, like, if Donald Trump had asked them to manipulate evidence or had asked them to frame Joe Biden, then you'd have a real, you know, like, you'd have something there. You'd have, like, a case on your hands. But to ask them to investigate behavior that is questionably criminal is just like. And then he never got the investigation and they got the weapons. I mean, that was. I remember arguing about this at the time. I go, here's where your case really falls apart. Okay? None of this ever happened. And so, like, what are you really arguing?
- [27:37]
Robbie Bernstein
It's the biggest asterisk in the whole world, too, which is that the FBI had Hunter Biden's laptop for three months leading up to the impeachment. It. Which was in January of 20. And so on that laptop, anyone can now read emails back and forth between Hunter Biden and the leaders of Barisma, promising them that he's going to intervene in American politics to protect them from prosecution. It's all right there. And then what do they do? Not only did they not leak that this is the FBI, the land of 10,000 leaks against Donald Trump, they got the biggest leak in the world that would spare him in the middle of being impeached. And they keep that all buried under wraps and behind a grand jury and whatever it is. And then what do they do with it in the, in the months in the lead up to the election when they know that Giuliani also has the laptop? And this is going to be the Republicans big October surprise. They go to all the social media companies and the major media companies and tell them beware of incoming Russian disinformation, accusing Hunter Biden of doing something wrong with this gas company Burisma. And so then when it comes out, they're able to censor the entire thing. You're talking about rigging the election. And it was the FBI and the CIA that did it. His own 100 did it to him.
- [28:54]
Dave Smith
And then.
- [28:54]
Robbie Bernstein
Unbelievable.
- [28:56]
Dave Smith
And literally, I mean, we, this is like, I mean, you have every piece of evidence. I mean, because it sounds crazy to say this, but this is really what they did. And that even when Rogan asked Zuckerberg about the Hunter Biden story, his first response was, well, the FBI came and told us that this big Russian dump was coming. And so that was obviously that. And then they came out and said that was the Russian disinformation. Right. When they signed that famous infamous letter.
- [29:24]
Robbie Bernstein
And we know that, we know that the New York Times, Scott Shane was at the tabletop exercise where they warned him about all of this. And then when all the censorship regime came out with the laptop, he didn't say nothing about it. Same for Noah Shockman at Rolling Stone, who is otherwise most famous for being. For helping to cover up the most disgusting, unspeakable crimes of his buddy James Gordon Meek from ABC News.
- [29:49]
Dave Smith
Yeah, well, so it seems to me, let's, let's get in a little bit too like this. I mean, you touched a little bit on, on the mineral stuff and the mineral deal. But I think it seems to me that possibly the best thing to come out of, of this fiasco in the Oval Office is that maybe Donald Trump does just walk away from this silly idea. And, you know, there is, you know, as you know, me and you have talked about this a lot over the years, and I will, like, you know, I'll, I'll kind of preface this by saying that I Am. I'm quite happy with some of the things coming out of this administration. I mean, it's been a mixed bag. There's been some really positives and there's been some negative, but that already, from our perspective, is like, oh, my God, we never get positives. Like, this is amazing. At least something's happening. I love that. The. Even. Just the way that Elon Musk and Donald Trump have kind of mainstreamed the idea of how corrupt and wasteful the government is with our money is great. And this stuff on Ukraine really has been the best part probably, of all of it there. The problem with Donald Trump seems to be that. And I. I know I'm repeating myself from the last show, but I want to get your thoughts on this. But it's like, everything good about Donald Trump is always instinctual. It's always like, his gut tells him, you know, this. This doesn't make sense. Ah, 20 years of war and we're spending $8 trillion, and what do we have to show for that's bad business? You know, but none of it ever comes from, like, a philosophical grounding or a deep knowledge of the story of the history. And so he's very susceptible to getting distracted by shiny objects. You know, it's very like, this war is bad business. It doesn't make any sense. And somebody's like, we could take the oil. He goes, well, now we're talking business, you know, and, like, you could get this. And it does seem to me that he constantly was. He was going back and forth for the whole. The whole campaign for 24. He would go back and forth between saying, like, perfect stuff and then saying, like, Europe should pay more. You know, like, as if, like, oh, okay, it would be okay to keep the war going as long as Europe was paying more. But then sometimes he'd say, like, the right. And it does seem to me that he was. At least the way he was presenting it publicly, was that he was selling this to Zielinski as, like, look, this is kind of the best security guarantee that you can get from us. Like, if we're in business together, then if Putin comes and messes with you, he's kind of messing with us, too. But it just. It can't be stated enough. That that's the whole point is that we don't want to do that. And that's what this whole war started over to begin with. And. And, you know, I know it's like, it's easy to get. Look, like, you're. You wrote a very big book on this Subject, there's a lot of very interesting like details in there. And I know people argue about all of this stuff and but it's almost like to zoom out and just look at how insane this policy is that even when the Soviet Union existed, when there actually was the Soviet Union, we only gave the security guarantees to Western Europe. Not even the eastern part of Germany had a security guarantee. And now we're like, what are we talking about a security guarantee for Luhansk? Like what is going on? That we would think that it's just such madness. And to even. It's like Donald Trump, while he's correct in wanting to end the thing, it's. He just doesn't even get that part of it that the whole lesson here should be like, no, the last thing we want. I mean it was to me it was appalling to have Zelensky demanding security guarantees from us. Like what you're entitled to us? I mean, what is the security guarantee? You're saying we have to be ready to fight a war on behalf of your country. Sorry, like screw you. No, we don't. All right guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Monetary Metals. I love this company. They truly revolutionizing the precious metal space and just great people who run the company as well as many of you know, gold prices have been breaking all time highs in 2024. But now because of Monetary Metals, you can get your gold to work for you, generating interest income every month paid in additional ounces of physical gold. You can earn up to 5% on your gold and silver in their lease offerings. And accredited investors can even earn double digit returns in their bond offerings. Again, all the interest is paid in ounces which are stored for free on your behalf. So if you're tired of your gold and silver collecting dust at home or worse, racking up fees, having your metal professionally stored, check out monetary-metals.com to learn how you can start putting your metal to work today. That's monetary-metals.com. all right, let's get back into the show.
- [34:43]
Robbie Bernstein
Yeah, you know, Colin has a Great show on YouTube and he had clips of, of these congressmen talking about, you know, yeah, it'll have to be like the Korean model where we'll stay forever. This is how John McCain talked about Iraq, right, 20 years ago that like, oh yeah, no, we can never come home from there. And that just makes no sense at all if you, you're not willing to fight for them now you're willing to fight for Them then after they've already lost, what's the point of that? The whole thing is crazy. And then having some workers there as a, as a security guarantee, some miners that essentially they'll serve as a tripwire for war, that Russia would always think, not just twice but even three times about invading because American miners could get caught up in it and they don't want trouble with us. Well if you're gonna do that, then it would make more logical sense to put combat, combat forces there who could actually be a deterrent of some kind. Not that I'm recommending that, but I'm just saying it makes no sense to have, you know, like we have in Korea. Our soldiers are not there to really, they're, they're not enough of them there to deter an attacker to defeat an attack from North Korea probably, but they are a tripwire. That means if North Korea ever attacks South Korea, our guys will be caught up in it and that'll mean the rest of the USA is also coming. And so yeah, it just makes no sense whatsoever to this whole damn war. Dave has been fought for the principle that Ukraine can too join NATO right day in the long term future from now, which we're absolutely not willing to let them in now, which might have been a deterrent, although I think it would have caused the war sooner. But we're not willing to give them a word guarantee, but we're willing to help them fight, get into and lose a three year war on the principle that no one else can say that they can't join. And so, and you know, back to, as I say in the book, over and over again I cite all of these hawks, not the opponents of NATO expansion and which included not just our heroes like Pat Buchanan and Ron Paul, but and take Galen Carpenter and other of our guys, but including vast parts of the foreign policy establishment were against this. But then even the expanders like Richard Holbrook, Sabini Brzezinski and Henry Kissinger and others, they all said, well of course we have to make a special exception for Ukraine. Of course they have to have some kind of. They all said the same thing like Austria or Finland during the last Cold War where they don't have troops occupying their country from either side, they're not in NATO and they're not in the Warsaw Pact and they're just neutral and will do the same kind of thing for Ukraine. Forgive me if I'm being redundant, I forgot what I said on your show last time. But there's a guy named Ken Pollock who was sort of the liberal hawk who told all the liberal Democrats it was a good idea to support W. Bush's war in 2003. He was like best buddies and writing partners with a guy named O'Hanlon, Michael O'Hanlon, who's maybe a little bit more prominent. But they're sort of alter egos, these guys. Anyway, so they're like, you know, Brookings Institution guys, right? Like, very center left, liberal Democrat Warhawks. And he wrote a monograph that came out in 2018 saying we gotta, you know, have a new treaty that guarantees no further NATO expansion and neutrality for Ukraine and this permanent arrangement, security structure. And he had war guarantees built into it and the rest too. But still, like, it was important that he was recognizing that we have gone too far in trying to take Ukraine away from Russia. And of course, they're reacting just like everybody knew that they would. And so we should, you know, call it off here before a real war breaks out, before it gets so much worse than this at that time, low level civil war under, you know, the partially implemented Minsk 2 deal, let's say. And so, so they all knew better. They all knew this was. The consensus was that we shouldn't do this, that it makes no sense to bring them into NATO and give them an article 5. If, if Russia knew that was happening, they would invade before the ceremony and the ink was dry on the page, or they would, you know, immediately test the. The alliance by moving right in there. As Putin said back in 2014, although, you know, a little bit optimistic. He said, I could be in Kiev in two weeks. In fact, he did. His guys did get almost to Kiev before what they stopped because they were in the middle of negotiating a peace deal, one that America and Britain ruined. This is after the war had already begun, the Istanbul deal, which would be the basis of a deal that they're trying to get right now. And at the time, of course, the two major issues was NATO expansion and the ongoing civil war. And they were willing to accept the Donbas, Luhansk and Donetsk, both staying in Ukraine under a strong federalism type situation, but still as part of Ukraine, not completely independent and not part of the Russian Federation, if they could have got the deal. And, you know, you quoted Jens Stoltenberg earlier, you almost had it right, you just added an R. But, but Stoltenberg, you're right, he had, he had cited that treaty, that Russia proposed a treaty to NATO and the United States just signed this very simple deal and this won't happen. And they basically just ignored that. And And I'm sorry, I was going to make one more point there.
- [40:31]
Dave Smith
Stoltenberg was bragging about it and he was bragging that, like, see, and now Vladimir Putin just got more NATO expansion. So, haha, look at that. You know, so like, but the thing that he gave away, which is on.
- [40:44]
Robbie Bernstein
Top of him was, was Zelensky himself gave that statement to CNN where he said, they told me behind the scenes, look, we're not going to bring you into NATO, but in public we're going to pretend like we're going to someday and we want you to continue to act like that's going to happen. And all this. And he explained all this in frustration on CNN that they had him in this weird bind where they were promising that, you know, someday we'll protect you, but not now, even though we know promising to someday protect you now is going to get you into a war now. And he's saying, what the hell kind of a situation is this for you to put me in? And then. But he continued to go along.
- [41:22]
Dave Smith
Yeah, you know, it is, you know, like as John Mearsheimer's now famous line back in 2014 was that the US is leading Ukraine down, down the primrose path. And it is, I mean, it's one of the great ironies of all of this is that all of the people who like changed their flags to their, their Twitter bios to Ukrainian flags and all the hawks on this, it's like they're the worst enemies of the Ukrainian people. And it certainly seems that Solinsky, you know, another lie, or at least quasi lie that was told, you know, throughout this whole thing is how much the Ukrainians just want to fight and they just want to fight and want to fight, except like, then you start seeing the stories of how like violently conscripted this army is. I think there were over a hundred thousand people were charged with desertion or something like that. It's like, oh, it doesn't sound like those people wanted to fight that much. I'm sure there are some others who did. But it is, you know, it's obviously the best thing for the Ukrainian people would be to end this conflict. And you know, I, I guess one of the things that people will come back at us with, as you hear on like, you know, on the Piers Morgan show or something like that, when we're debating some of these guys, they'll, they'll say like, well, look, you know, it's not right that Vladimir Putin gets to invade this country and then keep parts of their territory. And it's just like it, you know, that can't be rewarded or something like that. But as you pointed out, which is, I didn't watch the, the full of your episode, but I did see one of the clips on, on Twitter of your latest appearance where you at one point ask, and I'm guessing no one gave you a good answer on this, but you asked like, okay, so what's the plan here, guys? Like, what do you want to do about it? You know, the way I put it, as I, I've put this, I've used this example like, several times because I, I think there is this kind of like, empire mentality that Americans are plagued with. But when you say things like that, I think to a lot of Americans, that does kind of ring like, yeah, can't just let people do that, you know, and, well, if they do that, then China is going to go take Taiwan, which is the. Another assertion of what will happen. It's without much evidence to like, demonstrate that it's going to. But I said this on Pierce Morgan the other day, and no, it seemed, it seemed to hit home with some of the panel. But I was like, look, let's just say we decided we were going to take Mexico City, like, for whatever reason. Let's just say that the American people wanted to do it, the political class wanted to do it. We had the political will. We're going to take Mexico City. What could Russia do about that? What could China do about that? Should they allow us? Isn't it just an absurd question already? Because you go as soon as you go, should China allow us? You go.
- [44:10]
Robbie Bernstein
Allow?
- [44:12]
Dave Smith
What do you mean, allow? You have no say in this. And so, like, it is, I guess, a little bit of a weird, like, thing for libertarians like us to be saying. It's not our ideal scenario in the world. It's just accepting the world as it is. But like, yeah, I guess it kind of sucks to be a little state next to a big more powerful state. You know, just as Kamala Harris explained, Russia's a great big country, Ukraine's a small country. But, like, that is kind of the way of the world. And the idea that we can just undo that is not living in reality.
- [44:44]
Robbie Bernstein
Especially when we're the ones doing it. I mean, this is the whole thing. You know the famous Henry Kissinger quote where he says, to be America, to be America's enemy is dangerous. To be America's enemy, friend is fatal. What he was talking about was building up groups and then stabbing them in the back, leaving them high and dry. And I forget exactly. I think he's talking about the Kurds then which he betrayed the Kurds at least twice himself. I think it may have been a reference to the Hmong tribesmen of Laos and, and kind of North, I think northwestern Vietnam, that the CIA backed them to take on the North Vietnamese. And then it was like, okay, well we're leaving. Good luck to you guys. After we just, you know, encourage you to turn yourselves into the avowed deadly enemies of these people who have so much more power than you do. So bye. And didn't even help them get out of there. You know, they do the same thing to the Kurds over and over again. I don't know, the Iraqi Kurds are in a pretty good spot with America now, but they've been stabbed in the back by America at least twice in the 1980s and then again after the end of the first Iraq war. And then the, the Syrian Kurds in, in Turkey and pardon me, in northeastern Syria. Yeah, claim we love them. And then built up the Islamist caliphate that became the, their absolute deadly enemy when it conquered, you know, all of that land in eastern Syria and western Iraq. We had to go in there and fight another war for them. And we're still there protecting them now. Otherwise what they'll be overrun by other, our other allies, the Turks and their again agents on the move. Al Qaeda that now rules Damascus and the rest of western Syria and this kind of thing happens over and over again. And so here, I mean, what could be a worse thing than to get your friend into a fight that you know he can't win and then to keep pushing him out there, Stay out there. Lindsay Graham, quote, unquote, how dare you not lower your draft age to 18. Right now it's 25. But they try to send the older men to the front and leave the, the younger men behind to do, you know, equipment and, and logistics and whatever the background stuff because their population is decimated and they're terrified of losing all their reproductive age males. And so they're sending all middle aged guys to go and get ground up. And then Lindsey Graham won't stand for it and stops his foot and says the draft age should be 18 and those boys should be at the front. How in the hell are you ever going to win this war if you don't send your 18 year olds to the front? Which is, I'm sorry, but just none of his damn business to be insisting that another nation do to sacrifice for his what his goals for them are his goals for America's geopolitical contest with Russia where they, you know, there's a clip of. Was it Kissinger or. I confused these absolute idiot Russiagate Democrats from the House day from that era, I think it was Kissinger was saying just yesterday there was a clip going around on X of him saying that, look, we're killing Russians and no American soldiers are dying. It's the best bang for a buck we've ever spent. And I have a whole section of quotations like that in the book where over and over again these pundits and writers and politicians in America say this. And in numerous cases they don't even mention the Ukrainian deaths at all. They'll say Russian soldiers are dying and American soldiers are being preserved. It's great. So the Russian soldiers have lives to be degraded and our soldiers have, their lives have value to be degraded and our soldiers lives have value to be preserved. The Ukrainians aren't even worth mentioning at all.
- [48:32]
Dave Smith
Do you remember, was it a.
- [48:33]
Robbie Bernstein
Over there?
- [48:35]
Dave Smith
Do you, do you remember? I'm sure you'll remember because you're Scott Horton. Do you remember? I think it was Wolf Blitzer who asked round Paul a few years back about Yemen and he seemed kind of confused and he went like, so, so to you this is a moral issue. He was like, because what I'm hearing is like, this is really good for business. But like, so you're saying you have a moral problem with backing a genocide? You know, like, it.
- [49:00]
Robbie Bernstein
Yeah, I think he even said like, this could really cost the American arms firms that are selling these weapons. And Rand Paul is as flabbergasted as Wolf Blitzer. Like, what did you just say, dude? I'm as you are. Wolf, what in the world, man?
- [49:14]
Dave Smith
I had my, I had my version of this moment when I was debating Josh Hammer at Princeton a few weeks ago and he turned to me at one of, at one of his questions to me was he, he was like, so, so do you make moral considerations when considering foreign policy? And I was like, almost taken back by the question. I was like, well, like, yeah, yeah, that's a big, that's a big part of it, sure. And it, I, I just say that just to make the point that like, you kind of can't overstate how evil these goddamn people's like, worldview is, like, where they, they can totally just accept the idea that it's like, yeah, like this is pushing a policy that will lead to slaughter. But I think that all things being considered, you know, it's Madeline Albright just like, yeah, that price Is worth it. Was it 500000 dead kids? Okay. Worth it. Like it's. That's the mentality.
- [50:08]
Robbie Bernstein
This is my fourth grade education in government school, man. Is that, you know, when they teach about war and stuff that yeah, civilians in the other country, they die. But that's their problem. That's not our problem to consider. And there may be, you know, they might allude to the Geneva Conventions and some rules of war, but it's no sin to. For your government to kill people in another country. That's between them and their government. Not between us certainly. And then they'll turn it around and they'll say no. See, the evil amoralist realist strategists, they only care about balance of power politics. They don't care about morality at all. We want a morality based foreign policy. That's why we have to invade Iraq to stop Saddam Hussein. Don't you know, he throws people in a giant human shredder and whatever nonsense they make up to invoke your emotions and say yes, this is the morality based foreign policy. America can do no wrong in stopping evil around the world. So those are your two choices. Either Henry Kissinger or Paul Wolf with.
- [51:14]
Dave Smith
Yep. Do you remember it was like, I guess a couple. Oh well it must have been. It was the 20th anniversary of the, the war in Iraq. So two years ago. So that Brett Stevens wrote a piece in the New York times called like 20 years later why I was still right. So it's like the la. It's like the last guy defending the Iraq war. Like I think it's him and.
- [51:41]
Robbie Bernstein
John Bolton. They're the last three.
- [51:43]
Dave Smith
Those are the last. Like, it's like even John McCain, you know, admitted on his deathbed that it was bad. You know, it's. But there's. So he writes this piece about like 20 years later. I was right to cheerlead the war in Iraq. You know, I think he was writing for an Israeli. I think he was writing for the Jerusalem Post at the time. Isn't that, isn't that convenient? See how that works? But so any, any rights. This whole piece and there was not one mention of the deaths from the war. It was just like a piece like hey, Saddam Hussein was a brutal dictator and you know, now they're having some elections and they're an imperfect democracy, but they're coming up. That's definitely better than it was back then. And so as if you could take a snapshot of like forget even the argument. Which I think there's a pretty strong argument that for the average Iraqi, life was actually better under Saddam Hussein. But regardless of that, the idea that, like, you could take a snapshot of Iraq under Saddam Hussein and then take a snapshot of Iraq today, and if today is better than Saddam Hussein, then policy justified. But, like, you're missing the part where you killed a million people in the middle of that. Like, I don't know, life ain't better for them. It's over for them.
- [52:50]
Robbie Bernstein
I remember when Bill Clinton left office, he goes, well, at the end of the day, I like to think that we did a little bit more good than harm. Yeah, like, that's the.
- [53:01]
Dave Smith
Yeah, but there is. And it's almost like, you know, this is. It is some, like, collective, like, sociopathy. Like, there's something about when you, when you get. When you have a mentality that, like, people can be crushed and that, you know what I mean, people are essentially pawns on a chessboard. And as long as you're moving in the right direction, then that it doesn't. That's like an irrelevant factor. It is unbelievable the levels of evil that that can lead to. And then you end up supporting something like, you know, all these people getting slaughtered in Ukraine for nothing. All for nothing.
- [53:40]
Robbie Bernstein
Yep. And look, just like on the Piers Morgan show yesterday, and anybody can log on to X and see it all day. The Hawks, they only talk in these vague analogies and they only talking glittering generalities, and they say, oh, we're turning our back and stabbing our friends in the back and all these things. They never say, what's the solution to the problem? Well, what we need to do is send in the 82nd Airborne in the U.S. navy. And that would solve the problem. Right. Like if we put. If we did like George W. Bush in Iraq and sent the 3rd Infantry Division and the Marine Corps and everybody in there to break things as much as possible, then, yeah, potentially they could drive the Russians out of Ukraine's south and east. They could also potentially start a hydrogen bomb war, which Joe Biden was not willing to risk to that degree. Right. He has some special operations forces there serving as advisors and stuff like that. But I don't. I've never seen that. Our guys are on there. I'm fighting there. They're picking targets pretty close to fighting, but they weren't willing to risk that. Nobody's willing to really risk that. So this is the same thing that Obama said to Jeffrey Goldberg back in 2014, that ultimately Ukraine is not really a vital American interest. It is a vital Russian one. And it's going to always mean more to them than us. And if we're not really, as he put it, if people watch him want to say that we should go to war for the Donbass and let them say that. I don't hear anybody saying that. So if you're not willing to say that, then I don't know why we should sort of half ass it essentially.
- [55:11]
Dave Smith
Well, it's because, well, essentially because it was his fault.
- [55:14]
Robbie Bernstein
He overthrew the government and he was responsible for lots of Crimea, as he admits in there. It was a reaction to our transition of the government there, he said, which was completely correct, but he was also right. But now what are we going to do? We're going to double down? We're going to fight a war in the Donbass? No, we're not going to.
- [55:30]
Dave Smith
Well, it's, it's, it's an important point to make because you're essentially calling their bluff. And you know, it's like I, I made this point a lot just during, during the last eight years of Donald Trump being the biggest political figure where it's like, and it was really never more apparent than when he got shot. And really, I think this is a huge part of what won him the election, is that it immediately just called all of their bluffs because, like, you can't, you can't wish Hitler a speedy recovery, man. Like, if you do, then you didn't really believe he was Hitler like one or the, you know what I'm saying? Like, it's like, if you're gonna, if you're gonna talk the way MSNBC talks every day, then stay consistent, celebrate when a dude takes a shot at him, man, it's a shame he missed, right? I mean, if you're really telling me that a Hitlerian figure has, has risen and is, is the end of our democracy, then why exactly shouldn't I be rooting for that guy to get shot? And in a similar sense, you know, all these guys, they're making the argument that we don't have to be worried about nuclear war. Putin's bluffing. He would never actually do that, but he is reconstituting the Soviet Union and it's the most important fight for democracy ever that we maintain. Ukrainian, you know, I don't know what was Ukraine a democracy for five minutes? I mean, like, I don't know, like, I guess in 2014, they overthrew the democratically elected leader and then I guess they had a couple elections in between there. And then they suspended elections. Right, right. They suspended a Portion of the right.
- [57:02]
Robbie Bernstein
George Soros bragged to the New Yorker in 1995 that he rigged the election of 1994. Then you had America over overthrow and intervene in the election of 2004 in the Orange Revolution. Then they had a legit election, 2010. They overthrew that guy in 2013. 14. So. So, yeah, it's not much of a democracy. And that's why, you know, even George Soros's Transparency International ranks them with the lowest kleptocracies on the planet. The most corrupt countries in the world. Their. Their political and economic system are just nothing but cronyism from top to bottom, and everybody knows it, and nobody can even lie about it with a straight face. That was part of Biden's, like, somewhat convincing excuse for going after the prosecutor. There was. The prosecutor wasn't going after everybody enough. Now, he really ran up against the laugh test when he said he was mad that they weren't prosecuting his son's company. Wait a minute. But, but, boy, is there a lot of corruption for him to go after there if he was picking the right sides, you know?
- [58:06]
Dave Smith
Yeah, no, that's exactly right. And it's always been corrupt under every. Under the Yanukovych government, Pa's government, Zelensky's government. There's always just been like, rampant corruption in. In Ukraine. He's got. But what was it? Yakovic's son, I think, was like the fifth richest man in Ukraine, and he was like a dentist. Like, it just didn't even make sense at all. You're like, what? How? Yeah, yeah, it's like some crazy stat like that. Look, I know you. You had a. An out. That was five minutes ago. So let me let you go get to your next show. Oh, the. The Libertarian Institute has their fun drive going on. Let's mention that before we get out of here.
- [58:42]
Robbie Bernstein
Yeah. Thank you for remembering. I forgot that. Yes, I am the director of the Libertarian Institute. I got about 25 of the best writers and authors and podcasters. We're constantly putting out great new books and everything like that. And we've got 25, 000 worth of matching funds right now. So anything that you donate to the institute gets doubled. You write it off on your taxes and you get. Then we have all kinds of great kickbacks, including books and stuff like that. So that's all@libertarianinstitute.org donate and thank you very much.
- [59:09]
Dave Smith
Absolutely could not, could not recommend it higher. There's no better organization to donate to. So thank you for taking the time, Scott. We'll talk again soon, and I'm sure there's going to be a lot more in the coming weeks and months of developments to talk about. Thank you very much, everybody, for listening. Catch you next time. Peace.