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- [00:00]
Dave Smith
Foreign. What's up everybody? Welcome to a brand new episode of Part of the Problem. I am Dave Smith. I'm very excited for today's show. Real quick before we start it, tomorrow night, me and Robbie the Fire Bernstein will be in Chicago live standup show and a live Part of the Problem podcast at the Chicago Zanies. And then Friday and Saturday we will be at the Rosemont, the Zanies and Rosemont, which is like just outside of Chicago. Uh, come on out. There's still a few tickets available. Comic Dave Smith.com for the ticket links and. Yeah, okay, so with everything that's been going on in the world and everything that's been going on with me seemed like the perfect time to have the great Scott Horton on the show. There's really never a bad time to have Scott Horton on the show, but this seemed like a particularly good one. Scott is the the founder and the director of the Libertarian Institute. He's for many years been the managing editor over@antiwar.com and of course he is the author of three of the best, if not the best books written about US foreign policy over the last 30ish years. Fool's Errand was a phenomenal book about the war in Afghanistan. Enough Already is the best book that's ever been written on the terror wars. And of course his newest, his newest masterpiece is Provoked, which is really the entire history of from the collapse of the Soviet Union through the start of the war in Ukraine. Scott, how are you, buddy? Good to see you again.
- [01:34]
Scott Horton
Thank you. Very happy to be here, Dave. And it's actually goes all the way through the entire war in Ukraine through its current up to publication day in November of 24 there. But yeah, thanks very much. And by the way, it's five months today and this whole time, number one in war and peace on Amazon.com after five months accepting a couple weeks there where Jimmy Carter died and Dave Chappelle talked about his book Peace Not Apartheid on Saturday Night Live, which I don't mind because it's a good book from what I've read, from what I've read of the accusations against him for writing it. But also congratulations to you on being the center of attention of the entire Internet this week. Boy, are you the rocks that Douglas Murray broke neoconservatism on. That was beautiful to behold. And then also before we really get started, did you see my awesome, huge hilarious comedy jokes I opened for Robbie the Fire Bernstein at the Iowa Libertarian Party state convention and I killed in that room. I will have you know.
- [02:35]
Dave Smith
Did you see, I do. I, I apologize to you, my dear friend. I have not gotten a chance to watch it yet. I will watch it today.
- [02:41]
Scott Horton
I'm very, I always start with a Dave joke.
- [02:43]
Dave Smith
I know you do.
- [02:44]
Scott Horton
Spoil it for you bastard.
- [02:47]
Dave Smith
Yeah, listen, that is, it is really incredible how successful the, the book has been, particularly because it is, it's a big book and it's a, a dense read and that's the toughest thing to get people to read. You know, it's not like you wrote a romance novel or something. I mean this is, it's challenging work and it's, it really is a testament to how good the book is and how valuable the information is. I also, I think that was probably the best way I've heard anyone describe the Douglas Murray debate. Me just being the rock that he broke neoconservatism on. Well, it's been, it's been interesting and it is, you know, you, me and you were talking on the phone last night and you were telling me about the, the poll which I did after we spoke I went and looked up. But it is interesting the polling on support for Israel and particularly amongst the young generation, how it's kind of in a sense letting us know what we all kind of knew but that this is, it is. You can't overstate how profound the gap is between the way our parents generation viewed Israel and the way moving forward Israel will be viewed. It's just, you know, like this, this war really did change all of that and so it's a very interesting, very interesting time to be in the middle of all this action.
- [04:09]
Scott Horton
Yeah. You know, I always thought that Israel like their foreign policy and I guess, right. The, the, the Austrians would explain that all governments are like this and the more democratic, right, like the, the quicker the time the turnover rate in the people in power, the shorter their time preference. It seems like Israel, even with long serving Benjamin Netanyahu, it seems like they always have the highest type of a time preference, right? Where like for example, they'll say we need you to attack Iran for us because we think that's in our interest. Where they're not looking at what are the American people going to think and how are they going to feel about Israel lying them into another war, another major war in the Middle east that's for Israel's interests and absolutely against America's interests. And how do expect that to play out over the next few decades when their little nation state is wholly dependent on ours? Don't they care if we hate them or not? I Mean, I still got a chip on my shoulder over them lion us into Iraq War two. And of course it was the Israel lobby led by the neoconservatives that pushed for Obama's dirty war in Syria 10 years ago. Now they got us fighting again, more on the side of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula against the Houthis in Yemen, the guys that tried to blow up the plane over Detroit on Christmas Day 2009. And I mean hell, you got Jelani and Al Qaeda now taken over Syria. I don't think any of this is in America's interest, Dave. And it seems like, you know, and then what's their answer? To call me a vicious anti Semite and try to censor me? Right? You can't say that. You're not allowed to talk about that. You know, I read one this morning about, there's a lady, you have young kids, you might know her, her name's Ms. Rachel. And she like.
- [05:46]
Dave Smith
Yeah, I do know who she is. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [05:48]
Scott Horton
So she plays around Muppets and stuff and does like childhood education type things, you know, learning how to count to 10 and this kind of deal. And. But she did a little thing about how she feels bad for the people of the Gaza Strip. And the Stop Anti Semitism account on Twitter said, come on everybody, let's all mass report her to the Department of Justice for representing, for being an unregistered agent of a foreign power. And let's try to get the FBI to open an investigation on Ms. Rachel. And I'm saying, listen, you know, I think that might do you more harm than good acting that way against your greatest benefactors, the people of the United States of America. And you just. We're getting to the point where they, this claim that there's no daylight between our interests and their interests just could not be more absurd. There's nothing more important to our society than, for example, preserving our First Amendment. And everyone who threatens it better back off. And that includes nasty little nation states that don't do us any good. That, that, that balance their side of the ledger in, in no way to our benefit. You know, they're all cost and no gain. And I could see why they hate us because dependence breeds resentment. But resentment breeds resentment right back then too. You know, people don't like having their chain jerked all the time.
- [07:10]
Dave Smith
Yeah, it's, it's such a. By the way, my kids Both did watch Ms. Rachel a little bit. It's a, it's, it's a really good show for like babies. Like TV, isn't really good for like one and two year olds. But if you're gonna watch something, Ms. Rachel was like the best thing to watch. It's purely educational and it's actually based on like, like speech therapy. It does a lot of these things where like she points to her mouth and pronounces words and. Very good. Now I stopped watching it with my kids because she's a little too lefty for me. And like there's like a person in the show and they, she kind of like made a thing out of that. And I'm like, I don't really know if my 2 year old needs to be introduced to this yet, but it is wild that this is their objection to her that she had. Again, it is at least, at least how it started with Candace Owens was a very similar thing. She just, her crime was just having some humanity for the, the babies who are dying by having their bones crushed under rubble while they cry out for their moms and no one comes to save them. It's really just remarkable. You know, the other thing you mentioned there that I. So I was on Breaking Points yesterday with Sagar and, and Crystal Ball. Love both of them, love that show. And so I was on there and I was making the point as we got into like the, the stuff with attacking the Houthis and the calls for war with Iran and, and the thing that, you know, I said that kind of stuck out to me was like they, there's not even any propaganda anymore with these wars. Like, it's not even like you're not even handing the American people like, you know, Saddam Hussein has these nuclear weapons and he was in on planning 9, 11, and he's going to pass these nukes off to the terrorists and then they're going to nuke Kansas or whatever. Exactly. You know, like the, the 2002 propaganda was. Nobody's even saying that. Like, nobody's even claiming that like there's any conceivable way in which the Houthis are going to attack the United States of America. Because, I mean, it's just too ridiculous to even claim that. I guess even for them, it's too ridiculous. And nobody's like ser. Claiming that Iran is on the verge of attacking America. It's more like obviously all of these wars were on behalf of Israel, but it's just more blatant. Like it doesn't even seem like there's a propaganda apparatus to try to persuade you that this is actually in America's interest. And then, you know, to, to your point, there and this is something I probably should have done a better job of articulating in the debate with Douglas Murray. But you know, when he says to me, oh, you can't mention Paul Wolfowitz because, you know, you, you'll be concerned with what festers up underneath there or something like that, it's like, okay, even if that is the number one concern, which I don't think should be the number one concern when children are being slaughtered, but okay, if the concern is we don't want to see a rise in Jew hatred, it's like, well, what do you think getting in another war blatantly for Israel is going to result in? What do you think telling people they're not allowed to talk about Paul Wolfowitz is going to result in? And I feel like this is something. It's like the old Ron Paul, Giuliani moment. It's a through line through all of your work where it just seems so, you know, short sighted, high time preference, if you will, for people to not realize that these actually, like, if that is your concern, to not see a rise in, in Jew hatred, well, geez, we've seen a big spike in it over the last 18 months. I wonder what could account for that.
- [10:36]
Scott Horton
Yeah.
- [10:36]
Dave Smith
And what do you think is going to be the result of this next war?
- [10:39]
Scott Horton
Yeah, seriously, Hasbara isn't gonna do it. Oh, wait, hold that thought, Dave. Let me just spin you real quick and just tell you why it's okay and we got no choice and you gotta believe it's just not gonna work. Okay, fine, then you hate Jews then. Dave, that's not gonna work either. It's already not working. And I guess for some people, they say, okay, fine, I guess I do, or that kind of thing, which is a huge mistake. But overall, that doesn't play. I mean, the United States of America, there's no organized political force of anti Semitism anywhere. Give me a break. And, and leftists, maybe even the ones who are the most extreme toward the pal, you know, in favor of the Palestinians, they are still civil rightsy type people, right? So they're not, you know, if they pick on Jews, it's because of their whiteness, not because of their Jewishness, you know what I mean? So like, it just doesn't stick, these false accusations, you know what I mean? When, when, as, as everyone watching this knows, including the people I'm referring to, anyone who actually hates Jews on the Internet will tell you that that's exactly what they want. That's exactly what, how they feel and how they Want you to feel too. And so like, have you ever encountered like a secret anti Semite who like, pretended he wasn't for a long time and then finally he admitted it or something like, I don't know of anybody like that. You know what I mean? People. And when you're a libertarian, that makes you an individualist. And so that makes you immune from any kind of collectivist hatred of anybody. Anyway, so that's one of the major benefits of libertarianism, right, Is you make sure never to put your cart before your horse or any of that kind of stuff.
- [12:18]
Dave Smith
Yeah, no, that's, that's exactly right. And it does like, you know, again, there's a weird thing where, you know, it's not as if, like in, in a vacuum there is some, if I'm being charitable, like there's something to the point that Douglas Murray was making about how like, okay, now that the expert class has been discredited, you have all this kind of completely decentralized world of, you know, you know, people and, and putting ideas out there, and they could be turning over rocks that either are like, that's probably a dangerous one to overturn or they could be overturning something which me and you talk about, you know, I mean, Private talked about this before, where people are just going down conspiracy rabbit holes and you're kind of rolling your eyes at them like, guys, you just have not done your due diligence on this. And so, like, it's not that there's nothing to that. It's just that we don't live in a vacuum. Like we live in the world that we live in and in this. It is interesting to me, and I think this is like a useful framework to almost view these things through. Is that just going without jumping to wild conspiracies, just the conspiracies we know about. Okay, we were lied into war after war after war for 20 plus years. I mean, every single one of them, just like every Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, I mean, Somalia, I guess they didn't really even bother lying to us about. They just did it. There were some lies in there. You cover it in enough already. But like, there was certainly in, in Yemen there were lies that were told. So all of these wars, they're sold off lies at the same time. We all know. I think even Douglas Murray would have conceded this had I brought it up that the intelligence agencies framed the sitting President of the United States of America for treason for being a Russian spy in his last term. Oh, and also what was uncovered is there's A giant pedophile ring. We still can't know the truth about it because it must be redacted for national security purposes. So, like whatever your conspiracy there is, there is a pedophile ring that involved the top levels of American political and cultural, you know, figures that was very clearly connected to intelligence and not just our intelligence agencies. So like, knowing all of that in that moment, if all you have to say is to counter signal, you know, like where the people have gone too far in pointing out conspiracies, that you're, you're doing that in service of something like you're, you're in service of the regime now. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is paint your life. Mothers and father's day is, are both coming up. This is an unbelievable gift idea. I, I used this to give my wife a gift over the last holiday season. If you're looking for a meaningful, memorable gift, you will not find anything better than paint your life. Essentially what it is, is you can take any photograph that you can upload and they will paint a hand painted portrait out of it. It could be your favorite memory from a family vacation. You could put loved one into a moment that you had with your family. Anything your heart desires. And you can communicate directly with the artist you choose the medium you choose, whether it's oil or acrylic or watercolor, you, you can tell them what you'd like. If you're not 100% satisfied, you get a refund, guaranteed. It's really like the perfect thoughtful gift idea. Go check them out. And for a limited time, you can get a special offer. If you text the word problem to 87204, you text the single word problem to 87204, you get 20% off and free shipping. Message and data rates may apply. See term see terms for details. This is the best gift idea you're going to have for mothers and father's day. So go check them out. Text the word problem to 87204 for 20% off from paint your life. All right, let's get back into the show.
- [16:20]
Scott Horton
Yeah, you know Greenwald, the great Glenn Greenwald, he would always pick on these guys from the NBC truth squad where they would go and debunk like the lowest level. No one cares Conspiracy theory trash out on the Internet like, oh my God, setting the record straight about this thing that nobody even believes, that nobody cares. Certainly nobody with any power, influence, or you know what I mean? Like, not even, not even debunking QAnon, but like, debunking stuff that nobody's even paying attention to, meanwhile carrying water for the establishment that's lying about everything you left off. I know your favorite, which is the US Government paying for somebody to cook up this germ in a Chinese lab that then got leaked and killed millions of people and led to all these totalitarian measures and all of this stuff. And they absolutely lied about that, Censored everyone who wanted to talk about how it happened and all this stuff the whole time. And then. But then as far as, you know, anti Semitism and racism and conspiracy, like quackery. Well, all that happens is people turn like 24 and then they grow up a bit. You know what I mean? Like, give me a break, dude. The whole world, this country is lousy with former racists and former kooks. I was a new World Order, one world government kook, like in the mold of John Birch and all that stuff. Not the literal John Birch, but the John Birch Society stuff. The new American magazine circa 1990s, it turned out that wasn't right. And then, like, turned 24 and I was like, oh, yeah, I guess, you know, I was probably jumping to some conclusions there and this kind of thing. And, you know, there are plenty of people who got into politics because it space aliens or because of, you know, loose change, 911 crankery or whatever it is. And then they ended up being good on all kinds of stuff anyway, so, you know, I'm not too prejudiced against people being wrong. That was why, you know, I went on, no offense, your friend Gnome Dwarman's podcast thing there. And yeah, you have to take responsibility for that. For some reason, I'm not sure.
- [18:20]
Dave Smith
That doesn't seem to make sense.
- [18:21]
Scott Horton
Disavow him, Dave. Disavow. And that was. His whole thing was like, what do you mean that your job isn't denouncing every other person in alternative media who doesn't agree with you? Like, jeez. That's because my job is denouncing everybody in government who doesn't agree with me and actually has power and influence and does things. Two people with taxed dollars and guns and all of this stuff. You really think it's my job to police all the alternative media websites? Not to interview the guy that wrote the best article on their site, but right now, the guy that wrote the worst article on their site? That's funny. If you like this, yes, maybe call Abby Martin's little brother the hall monitor, and he'll go and take Care of that for you, dude. But I don't care about that. Give me a break.
- [19:07]
Dave Smith
Well, you know what? Here's the, the example almost I would use of this and see if you think this fits. But it reminds me of, like in when the pro Israeli guys will be saying they'll go, well, look at Hamas's genocidal intent. I mean, they did October 7th, and then they said they want to do a thousand more of them. And you're like, okay, cool. Like, we could, we could deal with the fact that Hamas wants the destruction of Israel right after we get to the fact that, that Israel is currently destroying Gaza. Like, if we could just do that one first, because you get, you get why I'd prioritize the one that's actually happening. But it reminds me of, you know, when the Democrats and they were saying this last year, Scott, if you, you know, pay attention to any of the mainstream media, which I know you're too smart for, I shouldn't call the mainstream media, whatever it is, the old guard, the old, yes, the former mainstream media, but all the Democrats and all of their, their corporate shills in the media, their talking point was if Trump gets in, he might weaponize the justice system. Them. And you could immediately, like, every Trump supporter immediately goes like, why, look, even if there is the possible concern that he could do that, why does that not resonate? Because you're doing it right now. And so first we're going to talk about that. Like, you don't get to talk about this other stuff until we first address the fact that you're doing the thing. So, like, I'm sorry, you know, like, there's just no way that you're gonna, you're gonna convince me that I should prioritize calling out powerless people with, you know, who, who often do have some goofy conspiracies, by the way, often have some good conspiracies that are correct. But, like, no, I'm not prioritizing that while all of these people who are still in power are destroying the world. Sorry.
- [20:52]
Scott Horton
Seriously. And by the way, just speaking of that example, too, is I saw. Was it the Attorney general or the governor? I think it was the Attorney General of New York is now being investigated by the just. And she's the one who had trumped up these charges against Trump. And I'm like, I hope they give her life. I don't even care.
- [21:09]
Dave Smith
I.
- [21:09]
Scott Horton
You know what? And I'm not even a Trump guy, but I so resent Joe Biden and the, and every single lawyer at justice who went along with plans to persecute and prosecute Donald Trump to try to prevent him from running for president again. And I told you before, this is as close as I ever got to voting for Trump was when Jack Smith filed new charges in the middle of October last year. I'm just like, again, this is not my Ron Paul, okay? This is Donald Trump. He's not my guy. I'm not in his corner. But man, that is so absolutely, unbelievably outrageous and just criminal. Regardless of exactly what the law says says criminal in the most basic sense that they would even think, and where is even their head at to think that they could get away with that? Now, I bet you they improved his margin of victory by at least two or three points because of their attempted, again, cheating against him and lawfare against him in this way just as much as they made him that much more deterred. I mean, pardon me, determined when they raided his place in, down there in Florida where he was like, oh, that's it, I'm coming back. There's no way you're gonna stop me now. You know what I mean? So, like, a lot of their interventions, it's all blowback and it never accomplishes their goals, you know?
- [22:27]
Dave Smith
Yeah, no, that's absolutely right. And, and I mean, you made the point about Israel. I, I think it also applies to the, to the American regime. And when I say that, I mean with, you know, Donald Trump being slightly outside of that, but still, I, I'm not referring just to the presidency, but to the kind of permanent government and the establishments of both the Democratic and Republican parties that it does. It's one of the scariest dynamics. We've talked about this a lot over the years, but it does seem like it's not just that, like they're the ruling class and they're corrupt. It's just like, man, they are so short sighted, it feels almost like the boat's going down. And they're like, well, let's loot all the treasure we can before this thing sinks. But like, again, to your point that Israel would not even like, think to themselves, like, well, actually, okay, look, let's say whatever it is, we want to ethnically cleanse the Gaza Strip, perhaps, you know, we want to. Ultimately, I think the major goal is they really want the West Bank. And so, you know, whatever, maybe they think this can help in that, but they're not going to go. But man, in the age of cell phones, for us to just be slaughtering poor people like this really might turn a Huge percentage of the population against us. Like, does that never even register? And, and it's, it's wild that it seemingly doesn't. I mean, I shouldn't say that because to be completely fair, there are voices inside Israel that are making these points, but they never seem to win the day.
- [24:02]
Scott Horton
Well, I mean, Netanyahu came to the United States to meet with Tim Pool, and I was really disappointed to see him. And Mariel Hemingway from the Federalist, who I really respect. She did a lot of really great stuff on Russiagate. And everybody else on there was a bunch of Dave Rubins. But you can see they are very worried. They're trying to collect all the Dave Rubens and give them their marching orders that, you know, if, just like, you know, you mentioned Wolfowitz, you know, for people, if you're sick of, of W. Bush and Paul Wolfowitz, well, here's Donald Trump and Elliot Abrams, you know, which Abrams was in the Bush years too. But you know what I mean, we're like, they go, you know, Donald Trump, he's two clicks to the right. He's a nationalist. He's not like that squishy W. Bush, the compassionate conservative, center rightist, you know, almost rhino, this guy. He's a real right winger. And, and he's like you. And he's different than that. And then it's just the same old thing. You just get a separate group. You got Continetti, who's like Bill Crystal's son in law, and. And Elliot Abrams, his brother in law instead of Bill Crystal, you know, which I guess Crystal didn't work for Bush, but anyway, you know what I mean, basically hates Trump and Trump hates Crystal back. But Trump's family's in his government, so, I mean, Crystal's, God dang it, in Trump's government. So they get what they want anyway, you know, they just change it up. And so if people are getting sick and tired of Fox News and more and more they're turned into podcasts, then they'll do whatever they can to turn the new podcast, you know, environment their way. And, you know, I don't know a lot about those others. I know that Tim Pool knows better, you know, for him to. And I liked him. He's had me on a show a couple of times and I appreciate it. And, you know, he's said over the years that, like, well, we should just not have anything to do with it. The US should just not pay for either side and we should stay out of it. Which is a bit of a cop out in the middle of America doing what they're doing, you know, but it's almost the same as saying we should stop doing what we're doing. But go ahead. Meeting with Netanyahu and saying, yeah, geez, we sure want to help you fight anti Semitism, which just is code for anti Israel sentiment in America. We got to do what we can to shore up the YouTube right wing audience for Zion. Here is. Yes, first of all, it's ridiculous. It's a losing strategy again, like you were saying before, you guys really want people to like your country, you should try being cool. Because all this stuff of just doing the wrong thing and then falsely accusing people of anti Semitism and censoring them and shaming them and all of this stuff, it's not going to work. Look at. It's the same thing as the NAFO trolls who were, you know, USAID paid all these people to just, you know, basically troll and hate on any Americans who are good on Ukraine. But all that did was piss us all off and make us all, you know, recommitted, you know, to, to arguing our side of the argument. It's not like they intimidated anyone off the Internet. They'd have done a hell of a lot better to say, oh, but my friend, don't you see my point of view? Instead of coming at everybody, you know, turned all the way up to 11. The way that they did, it just backfired on them. And with Israel, it's the same thing too. And, and like you're saying, it's wild.
- [27:25]
Dave Smith
Dude, it's such a good thing.
- [27:27]
Scott Horton
Cell phone footage, man, that's the thing of it. If you just type in Gaza on X and look at the pictures, you can see them every single day. The killing of innocent people. It wasn't like that in Iraq War two. It wasn't like that even in the Syria dirty war. I mean, there was a lot of pictures out of it, but it was nothing like what we get out of Gaza now, where it's just in real time. You see these people being killed, entire families being killed like this. It's just horrific.
- [27:52]
Dave Smith
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- [32:32]
Scott Horton
I think about what that means. What percentage of Americans have ever been to Israel, right? Like a tenth of a percent or less. Probably less than that. So all the rest of us we just have to shut up and let Israel use our country and our government and our weapons however they want. And I'm bummed I didn't get to make this point on Pierce Morgan today when I was arguing with Alan Dershowitz. But I like bringing this up. Not enough people know this, that Israel caused September 11th. And I don't think that they did it, and I'm not saying that, but they did cause it. And they caused it because when Bill Clinton came into power, he wanted to normalize relations with Iraq and Iran, but Israel insisted that, no, you can't normalize relations with either. You have to stay in Saudi Arabia to enforce what they call the dual containment policy that comes from Israel. The guy who insisted upon it was named, pardon me, Martin Indic. And Martin Indic had worked for Yitzhak Shamir, the Likud Party prime minister of Israel in the early 1990s.
- [33:32]
Dave Smith
And then he went, there's terrorists before that.
- [33:35]
Scott Horton
Yeah, and a terrorist before that. And then he went to work for Bill Clinton. Now he was the founder of what's called the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, which was officially financed and and spun off from AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. And then in 1993, he was pushing and pushing, but it wasn't until the Kuwaitis baked the ridiculous pretend hoax plot against Bush Senior in Kuwait in 1993, which people still believe to this day, that Saddam tried to kill Bush Senior. But it's totally a hoax and Seymour Hersh debunked it in the New Yorker. And in fact, if you Google my name and Bush Senior and stuff like that on on Twitter, I mean, on X, you'll see where I put screenshots of the entire New Yorker article that if you, like, copy the address of the pictures, you can zoom in on them and read the entire thing for free there, if you can find that. Anyway, it was just a whiskey smuggling ring that they spun into this truck bomb plot against Bush Senior, which was a lie. But then in response to that lie, Bill Clinton, and you might remember this from the Bill Hicks joke book, Bill Clinton bombed Baghdad and fired a bunch of cruise missiles at Baghdad. He killed this famous artist and a bunch of other innocent people. And at that time, that was when he decided to go ahead and inaugurate the dual containment policy. And that meant staying in Iraq in the name of enforcing the no fly zones over Iraq. Sorry, staying in Saudi in the name of forcing no fly zones over Iraq as though Saddam hadn't already successfully put down the insurrections in, in the Shiite south and the Kurdish north. It's not like he was trying to kill every last Shiite. He just put down the insurrection that was over by you know, the end of April of 2000 of 1991. So it's just a hoax of an excuse to stay there. But America, partially at Israeli encouragement, had beat up Saddam Hussein's army so bad he wasn't powerful enough to balance against Iran anymore. And so they needed America to stay, to balance against both. And so that was the primary cause of Al Qaeda, America, Britain and Saudis mercenary gang of Islamist killers from the Afghan and Bosnia wars and etc to turn against the United States. And then the secondary reason after that was support for Israel and their violence against the Palestinians and the Lebanese. And it was the Operation Grapes of Wrath by Shimon Perez in 1996 which included, I think on the second or third day of the invasion, Naftali Bennett, the former Israeli Prime Minister and probably will be again someday, right wing nationalist prime minister. He was the army officer who called in an artillery strike on a UN shelter and killed 106 women and children. Now when Shimon Peres launched Grapes of Wrath that day, Muhammad Atta and Ramsay bin Al Sheb filled out their last will and testament which was them symbolically joining the army, saying that one day they're going to figure out to get revenge against Israel for this. And then a few months later, Bin Laden put out his first declaration of war, the declaration of war against the Americans occupying the land of the two holy places it was called. And in there he starts out talking about the K massacre. It's now the first K massacre because they did it again in 2006. Sorry. But he goes on there and he says we'll never forget the severed heads and, and limbs of the little babies that were killed in K. Well this is what made Muhammad Atta and Ramsy Bin Alib decide join Al Qaeda. And that's according to Lawrence Wright in the Looming Tower. And that's according to Terry McDermott in Perfect Soldiers. And they said so here's Egyptian graduate students, upper middle class graduate students studying engineering in Hamburg, Germany decide to go and volunteer for a Saudi to get revenge on Americans for supporting Israel in Lebanon. And instead of explaining that to the American people, they said they hate us because we're free. They hate us because we're cool. They hate us because hey, 2001 is the first day of history all over again. And nothing that Bill Clinton did in the 90s could have anything to do with this. And so we kicked off a whole new generation of war Based on the September 11th attack that was revenge for the top two grievances by Al Qaeda against the United States were the dual containment policy from bases in Saudi and support for Israel and their violence against the Palestinians and the Lebanese. And that is quite literally what drove Muhammad Atta to drive Flight 11 into the north Tower. I got the planes and the towers right. I think I do. So in other words, supporting Israel is against America's national interest.
- [38:14]
Dave Smith
Yep, there you go. And that's not, and that's not even without touching all the wars that followed from that, you know, which is really what, you know, has really tremendously degraded the country. It's always, it's funny that people so like when I was in my, when I debated Josh Hammer at, at Princeton, and, you know, his big moment of the debate, I think the only moment that people claimed were like, he landed a blow, which is so ridiculous, is what he asked me who I trust more, Benjamin Netanyahu or Osama bin Laden. And it's so weird, but as you've always said, as I've, I've echoed many times that it's like, look, even if nobody here is really making the argument that like, like we can read Osama bin Laden's, Osama bin Laden's mind or that we can see into his heart and know what he really means, so even if you want to claim, which is not, like, not an unreasonable claim, that he didn't really mean any of that stuff, he's just using this, and, you know, he was a religious fanatic or whatever, it's like, okay, but why is he using this? Why is he using this? Because this is what will actually recruit people to be willing to blow themselves up. And I was trying to make this point in the Douglas Murray debate also when I, you know, I, I brought up the, the Stoltenberg, you know, mentioning that he had sent a draft treaty to NATO in late 2001 and saying, Listen, just put it in writing that you're not going to bring Ukraine into NATO and I won't invade the country. And they refused. And you're like, okay, so even if you're saying, if you want to say, which again, weirdly, they go, so you trust Vladimir Putin. And then he claims that Vladimir Putin has said that he wants to reconstitute the Soviet Union, which, by the way, is not true. There's nobody can point to a quote where he said that he has said things about how, like, how sad it was that the Soviet Union collapsed or something like that. But it, number one. So you're just trusting what he said a different time. But even if you want to say that that's his true motivation, like you can see into his soul and we can't and his true motivation is wanting to reconstitute the Soviet Union. It's like, so why not at least call his bluff then? Why not at least like put that into writing and then take away his major talking point, you know what I'm saying? Like, it just, even if what you're saying is correct, it still doesn't make any sense to give him this giant talking point where. And give him this plausible case for why he felt that way. Yeah, none of it makes any sense.
- [40:40]
Scott Horton
So I was just debating right before this show. I was debating with there's always too many people on. But I was up against Alan Dershowitz and we're talking about Mossad, but it kept getting diverted off onto Iran and their nuclear program and all this. And Dershowitz's point about Iran, of course, when he wasn't contradicting himself, is that they are implacable. They are an implacable enemy. There's nothing that you could ever do to reason with them. And this is the same thing that they said about Data a Koresh and the same thing they said about Saddam Hussein. The same thing they say about Vladimir Putin and, and against Osama bin Laden too. And the thing is like, well, KS never murdered anybody, but for the rest of them, I think it's a perfectly acceptable standard. I'm not sure like where I learned this, but I think I've, I like accepted this at boyhood when I was very young that like, yeah, if somebody's a murderer then that also means that their word is no good. Good. Like that's fair. You know what I mean? Like, yeah, I don't expect you to believe what a blood soaked killer says. It's not a matter of. But however, it's not a matter of believing them. It's a matter of, you know, analysis here he's, you know, Murray tried to pull this on you when you cited the former ambassador to Russia and then later, CIA director warning con ar don't offer NATO membership to Ukraine. It's going to cause Russia to react and oh, now you believe the head of the CIA like he was whispering secrets in your ear rather than this is a leaked document of him warning his superior why we should not do the foolhardy thing we're going to do. So it's not a matter of like what do the, what planet are the aliens really from? Mr. CIA Director? Tell me your secret. Right? This is like has nothing to do with that at all. So it's the same thing with Bin Laden, as you said. And this is absolutely the right answer. Here's the guy who killed 3,000American civilians, or almost all of them civilians, and then he says he has reasons, like screw him, I don't even want to hear it. I don't care what he says his reasons are. But I do care why. What reasons? He used to recruit 20 guys to hijack our planes and crash them into our targets. Because what matters there is what he said to them that was convincing. And that's where we go right back to what I was just telling you about Ramsay Ben Al Sheb and Muhammad Atta in Declaration of War he called us infidels and all of that stuff. Stuff. But it starts with the Khana massacre, right? Yeah, it starts with America helped Israel kill these babies. Calling all who seek vengeance. And that was.
- [43:10]
Dave Smith
That's right, that's right. And even the, his later letter to America that went super viral a little over a year ago on Tick Tock. Even in that one where there will point to like there's some Islamist stuff in there for sure. And he talks about like Sharia law and all these things. But the, but it opens with why do we attack you? Simple. Because you attack us. You can't get away from that. It's right there at the beginning. And the other point I would add to this too is that it is, you know, this, this question of like trust. First off the Murray thing, trying to get like, it's just so ridiculous. I mean libertarians have an advantage because we're just more clear headed on this stuff. But he's like, wait, so you're telling me you think the CIA should be abolished, but you're also telling me that it's important that the head of the CIA admitt that this was the real cause of the war. It's like yes, I am telling you both of those things. Those things are true. There's no contradiction between them.
- [44:07]
Scott Horton
Blown away, man.
- [44:08]
Dave Smith
Wow. But you know, with the, with this stuff with Bin Laden trusting Bin Laden versus Netanyahu, you know, your point is well taken. If you're a murderer, you're way past the point of being a liar. That being said, they don't like to count state murder. But Benjamin Netanyahu's actually killed a whole lot more people than Osama Bin Laden has. So he also loses credibility by that same Standard.
- [44:31]
Scott Horton
But the other that night, bombing tents, killing little babies.
- [44:35]
Dave Smith
Yes, that's, yeah, that's right. I was just reading about that this morning. But it's also like, you know, if, if I look out my window and I see, you know, like a blood soaked man with a butcher knife and he's screaming, I'm going to kill you and your entire family. I'm going to treat him as if those are his intentions. And you could say, oh, you trust a man with a butcher knife covered in blood? And you're like, well, he's really got no reason to lie to me. Right. And it sure does seem like he means that. And so like, when you're a fanatic like Osama bin Laden, dedicated to the destruction of America and Israel, you really have no incentive to lie about it. You've already made yourself most wanted man. You've already, you're going up against the empire. Whereas if you're a politician like Benjamin Netanyahu, who's coming to testify before our Congress and trying to move policy in the direction that you want, that's a kind of different thing, then you are incentivized to lie. So, like, yeah, I, like, it's not even a comment on like, who's a better person or who's a worse person. It's just like these two men occupy different positions right now. And yes, I do think that Osama bin Laden, like, my best guess is like, that he meant it when he said this. And my best guess is that Benjamin Netanyahu knew that Iran wasn't five years away from a nuke every single time he said it and was still coming out and saying it because he was trying to move America's war policy toward toppling the mullahs. I don't think there's anything about that that's unreasonable. And you know, like, shows like, oh, I, I prefer the enemies of America to its allies or something like that. It's like, no, I view both these men as enemies of America. I view both of them as mass murderers. Yet one is in a position where he's very incentivized to lie to me and the other one really isn't. I think that's reasonable. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is sheath underwear. As I broadcast this show to you, I am wearing a pair of sheath underwear because I'm always wearing sheath underwear. The only boxer briefs that I ever wear, the best pair of boxer briefs you will ever put on your body. Go do yourself a favor and get a pair right now. Support these guys if for nothing else because they've supported our show for years. And while you're at it, get yourself yourself a pair of the best box of briefs you will ever own. Get them all@sheath underwear.com make sure to use the promo code problem that will get you 20% off your entire order. One more time. Sheathunderwear.com promo code problem for 20% off. All right, let's get back into the show.
- [47:11]
Scott Horton
Yeah, and look, I mean, I'm sure Bin Laden, same with Putin and the rest of these guys, they a b test their propaganda to see what's affecting, you know what I mean? So, yeah, again, take their intent out of it and just look at what works. And you know Michael Scheuer, the former chief of the bin Laden unit, and he's great to cite on this because, man, he's the former chief of the bin Laden unit, he goes, oh, look, all through the 1990s it's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, there's some religious mumbo jumbo mixed in there. But the argument explicitly and repeatedly was America bombs Iraq, Iraq from bases in Saudi. And also the blockade starving the the civilian population with the embargo. They support Israel in their oppression of the Palestinians and the Lebanese. They support every dictator in the region, particularly King Abdullah and Hosni Mubarak in Saudi and Egypt who they wanted to overthrow the Al Qaeda guys. Pressure on those dictatorships ships to rig oil prices to subsidize America's economy at their expense. People say that's crazy, but just ask yourself, haven't you heard politicians? Every time it's a presidential election year, doesn't the president put pressure, open, open pressure on Saudi Arabia to increase production to lower the cost of fuel in the United States. Yeah, that's exactly what they're talking about. And then he also accused us of turning a blind eye toward Russia, China, India and Kazakhstan in the their wars against Muslims and saying, oh, human rights only count when it serves your interest in this place or that one. And as I show in my new book, all of America's efforts on behalf of the mujahideen in Afghanistan, in Bosnia, in Kosovo and Chechnya didn't buy us any goodwill from them at all. And bin Laden denounced us for after all those years of helping the mujahideen in Bosnia, then selling them short and, and screwing them over and denying them their final victory that they supposedly were going to win, win, I call them the ungrateful terrorists where if you look at the 911 hijackers. 11 of the 19 hijackers had fought on America's side, or America had fought on their side, supported their side in Bosnia and Chechnya. And these were the guys who then turned around and did the September 11th attack. And then even, I quote Ali Suan, the former FBI agent who said that the Chechens would say to bin Laden, hey, why? What do you have against America? They supported us in Bosnia, in Kosovo, and. Oh, pardon me, in Afghanistan and Bosnia and Kosovo and now in Chechnya. And you want to mess with them. And bin Laden, you know, answered that like, you guys just don't understand the broader vision. It's all about Israel. It's all about bombing Iraq from bases on the holy and Arabian peninsula, birthplace of Islam. And so, yeah, we're doing this. And then this is, of course, a big part of why the Americans didn't have their proper eye trained on their enemies is because their enemies were their assets working for their. Them. And these.
- [50:07]
Dave Smith
Yeah. And particularly it. Isn't it interesting that particularly as you. You cover in the book and provoked. There's a whole section on this, but the. On Chia, you know, it's like, so we're backing the Bin Lad Knights in Chechnya, and not only does that not work to win us any favor with the bin Laden knights, but it really damaged our relationship with Russia. And in fact, this is one of the first things. Things that Vladimir Putin brings up in his interview with Tucker once they start getting into it and you could imagine, you know, it's like. And like, I knew this fact and I guess I knew this, I think from you, I think from reading your book is like the first I learned about Chechnya. I think you had told me about it, you know, over the years, but I never really did a deep dive already about it.
- [50:53]
Scott Horton
But not.
- [50:53]
Dave Smith
Yeah, yeah, that's right. You mentioned. That's right. You mentioned it in enough already. But there's more in depth in. In profound. Revoked. But it wasn't until Vladimir Putin brought it up that you go like. Like, at least for me, that I really appreciated the weight of that. We were like, oh, yeah, here is the US who at the time, Right. Is saying these nice things publicly. Like, you know, people kind of forget this. But that it's like Vladimir Putin wasn't described as an imperialist enemy of the west up until really. It's really around Syria where it starts like the, the rhetoric starts really ra. Ramping up because, of course, he committed the ultimate crime, which is at least temporarily denying the US a regime change. He wasn't ultimately successful in that, but up until then, you know, there's, there's the, you know, the great reset button thing with Hillary Clinton. George W. Bush says he looked into his eyes and he saw his soul or whatever. It's like the rhetoric was much different around him. But while they're saying these nice things publicly about Russia, they're backing the most dangerous violent terrorist groups right in their neighborhood. And like, what an unbelievable, like we could forget all the other stuff, just that what a provocation that is. And so we, as a result, America gets the worst of all worlds. We still have these terrorists. We just now have more war hardened terrorists and we win no favor with them. And it comes with this small price tag of alienating the country with the biggest stockpile of nuclear weapons in the world. World.
- [52:26]
Scott Horton
Yep.
- [52:26]
Dave Smith
What a great foreign policy win. And yet I still have the nerve to question the experts somehow.
- [52:32]
Scott Horton
I dare you. Well, look, and, and this is an important story, I think, and it's kind of a, I hope, a touchstone for people that if people remember Colleen Rowley, she was Time magazine Person of the year in 2002 because she was the great whistleblower, an FBI lawyer from Minneapolis, Minnesota, and she was on the case of Zacharias Mowi. He was the guy, they called him the 20th hijacker for a while, but that wasn't really right. He was here for a later operation generation. It was. Katani was supposed to be the 20th hijacker. Anyway, Musawi, he wanted to learn how to fly a jumbo jet, but he wasn't interested in learning how to take off or land. And so the guy at the people might remember that, I hope the guy at the flight school, not even the bosses, but like one of the trainers at the flight school called the FBI on him. And they remember the World Trade center had already been hit in 93. And so one of the FBI agents at the office even speculated, you know, this guy says he wants to fly from Heathrow to New York York. I think maybe he wants to hit the World Trade Center. So the FBI agents, they were just on it, right? And he wasn't. That was based on, I guess maybe he knew about Bojinka or whatever the, the plot from 1995. And so they were speculating but on the right track. Then they went to get a FISA warrant, which has a much lower threshold than a regular probable cause search warrant. All they have to do is show the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that they have A reason to believe, believe that someone is an agent of a foreign power or a foreign terrorist group.
- [53:55]
Dave Smith
Yeah, it's like 99 plus percent of the warrants are granted by the FISA courts.
- [54:00]
Scott Horton
Yeah, yeah, like they've only turned down 4 or 5 in their entire history, something like that. So they already had intelligence from the French. This guy and his brother are both recruiters for Al Qaeda in Chechnya. And the bosses at the FBI headquarters refused to allow them to go and get a vice award it because they said, we like the terrorists in Chechnya, they're not Osama bin Ladenite terrorists, they're nationalist freedom fighters and we're on their side. And so that makes them not terrorists. And so that makes this guy Moawi not an agent of a foreign terrorist group then. And so no, you can't search his stuff. And they would. And this was like in the middle of August, a month before the attack, and then only on the day of the attack. They then went back and said, please, can we search him now? And they said, no, you still can't go get a ficer warrant. Until finally the Director of Central Intelligence, George Tenet said I wonder if this has anything to do with that Minneapolis thing. And then he went and asked and they said, okay, fine, of course he can go and get a warrant from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. And they searched this guy's papers and the papers that were in his pocket and at his, at his apartment led directly to Ramsey bin Al Sheb, the major 911 planner in Europe and his partner Muhammad Atta and, and his band of pilot hijackers down there in Florida. Florida. And so they absolutely could have wrapped up and the, the plot and prevented 9-11-If America, if Bill Clinton and then the newly inherited George W. Bush government were not up to their eyeballs in high treason, supporting head chopping, suicide bombing, bin Ladenite terrorists in Chechnya. And Basiev and Katab both were absolutely sworn blood oath loyal to Osama bin Laden, had met with him numerous times, had both been to Afghanistan to train. Katab wasn't even from Chechnya. He was a Saudi Osama bin Laden's agent there. BBC called him Osama bin Laden's junior partner in Chet. That's exactly who these guys were. And because the Americans were playing that double game, that was part of the reason that September 11 was able to succeed.
- [56:08]
Dave Smith
It really is just unbelievable. Yeah, I mean I, I know this because I've, you've, you've told me this before and we, I'VE read about it, but it really is like, as you say it, it's just unbelievable. All right, look, we're, we are coming up against the end of the show here, but I make sure switch gears a little bit because I want to ask you about this. So you're the guy who wrote the book on, on this war and the lead up to it. Obviously, Donald Trump campaigned on ending the war in a day. We are, I, I just checked. We are past that time limit and it hasn't been ended. Obviously, the, the path that Donald Trump is taking is a, is a big improvement movement over the path that Joe Biden took for the last two years of his presidency. What's the latest? Do you think there's, there's hope of this thing wrapping up? It doesn't seem like it's going quite as well as, as people may have hoped when, when Trump was campaigning on ending it in a day.
- [57:09]
Scott Horton
Yeah, well, look, I mean, I think Donald Trump is sincere in wanting to end it, which is, you know, obviously a major improvement movement. The problem is that they're already in the middle of a war and the American slash Ukrainian side is in a position of weakness on the ground. The Russians are ascendant in every way on the battlefield and including they kicked the Ukrainians out of Kursk, which was the small salient that they had created actually inside Russia at the end of last summer. They've been, that's all now officially canceled. Tulsi Gabbard, the Director of National Intelligence, put out the threat assessment in February. February, in late February. That for one, reiterated Iran ain't making nukes. Everybody double check that. But also reiterated that Russia is, you know, having their way essentially with Ukrainian army. Slow and steady progress. I don't know if they're directly comparing casualty rates in there. I don't think that they do. I never believe anybody's casualty claims because everybody always plays down their own and exaggerates the enemies. But even the, even it. If which they are on the offensive. So I guess it's within the realm of possibility. Even if the Russians are losing more guys than the Ukrainians are, which is doubtful because I think they're much better equipped. But even if that were the case, they still have a lot more men and they still have a much bigger economy and a much more militarized economy and a much more, a much greater ability to field an army in their neighboring country here, as they have done. And I'm sorry, I forget the number, but they've dropped thousands of these glide bombs where they took these old storehouses full of old Soviet dumb bombs and they attached fancy new glide kits on them with GPS or whatever equivalent, their guidance packages on these old dumb bombs left over from the 50s or wherever. And they just have thousands of these things and they can fire them, fire them from standoff ranges, in other words, inside Russia where the Ukrainians can't defend from them at all. And so, pardon me, I'm, I'm too much on that point. The, the, what I'm trying to get at is that Donald Trump doesn't really have any threats to make. He can say that he'll put in more weapons, but we already tried that. There's a, a new New York Times story that shows how they escalated and escalated, cross their own red lines over and over. Most of that was already admitted and already documented in my book. They said, oh, we're not going to do this. And then they did it anyway. With the more sophisticated and longer range weapon systems, that hasn't made the difference on the battlefield at all. And then we can threaten more sanctions, but at some point that just becomes completely counterproductive where we're threatening to put the whole world under blockade or, or forbid the whole world from trading with us if they trade with Russia at all. But so many countries are adjacent to Russia or nearby, and there's just so many, many more nations in Asia that all are close to Russia and have some kind of trading relationship with them that could just end up with us getting shut out. And then at that point, Donald Trump is out of cards to play, really. He's not sending in 82nd Airborne, that's for sure. And he has an uncooperative government in Kiev that for whatever reasons. Exactly. I'm not, you know, fully sure what is the calculation there, but they want to keep fighting even though they're still losing and they're having to, you know, impress men with impressment gangs going around conscripting people straight out of the bars and off of the streets. And, and they're steadily losing ground here. They're trying, I guess, to extort greater security guarantees from the Europeans, which, you know, it's just a matter of logic. Right. If Britain and France aren't willing to field an army in Ukraine right now to repel the Russians right now, then why would they be willing to do it in five years if they have peacekeepers there? If Russia comes back, they're just going to high tail it and run. They're not going to bring their whole army. They don't have field armies really capable of, of bringing into Ukraine to fight anyway. So the, the, the security guarantees, de facto NATO membership from our European allied countries and all that. They're not going to stick. They're not going to be able to probably even win those concessions in the first place. And I doubt that even if they were able to, that they'd be meaningful at all. If we really meant to protect Ukraine, they would have already gotten, got membership in NATO and Article 5 guarantee and we'd be at war with Russia right now. But nobody's doing that. Joe Biden on his worst day wasn't prepared to do that. And so what that means, then where's that leave us? Gay? I think it means that the Russians are going to continue fighting until they feel like quitting, which could be until they're done, you know, completely breaking the Ukrainian army and then walking around and taking whatever territory they want. Maybe they want to go all the way to the NER R River, you know, maybe in the south they want to go all the way and seize Odessa. That'd be a hell of a fight. But there are. I don't know what Putin thinks about this. I know he joked around like, yeah, Odessa's got nice weather there and stuff, but I know that there are people in Russian politics to his right who would be saying that, listen, we've come this far. We're not stopping. You better not stop short of Hare and short of Odessa. These are historically Russian cities and we're taking back. And of course there's that strip of land, remember Transnistria on the Moldovan Ukrainian border. So might as well keep going. Now it's occupied by Russian troops under Russian control. Might as well keep going now all the way from Crimea to Odessa and then all the way to Transnistria. And then that way you're going to have this rump state of right wing Ukraine, ethnic Ukrainian nationalists who hate your guts after the peace. Well, at least they'll be completely screwed because you'll take their job Giant, the, you know, the Pearl of the Black Sea, the shipping port city of Odessa away from them. So it makes some sense from the Russian point of view to do that. On the other hand, of course, Dave, if they do that, then they are making a chump out of President Trump and they're making his best effort to end the war completely fruitless and make him look, you know, humiliated and embarrassed. And then that would really suck because Gez, from the Russian point of view, they're never going to get a president, not because they own him or have him compromised. They're never going to get a president who is, as you know, willing to get along with Russia, who even wants reproachment with Russia, Ramon. And to get along with them, to normalize relations back with them. And they ought, you know, that's the countervailing incentive there is. If they want to fix things with the United States of America, they need to do this as quickly as they can before Trump is so humiliated that he finds ways to double down and then make things worse. So I sure hope that the Russians are willing to compromise. They haven't taken Hariv or Odessa yet. And I sure hope that they're willing to stop short in order to preserve what's left of America's relationship with Russia, because despite Trump's talk, he's not getting a third term. Right. And so what happens after this is going to depend very greatly. Not that I would favor that, but what happens next is going to depend very greatly on what Trump and Putin can work out right now. And, and the good news is, is Trump's guy Witkoff is talking with the Russians on a pretty consistent basis. But I don't know how much progress they're really making and I don't know what concessions the Russians might be prepared to give. I. After all, they've officially annexed all of Kuron and all of Zaposia, but they don't occupy them. They occupy about half of each. I think they occupy more than 3/4 of Doneesk, but not all of Done. Yes. So, you know, I don't know, man. I, it doesn't look good. And, and by the way, it's absolute horror show and people are just getting blown to bits over there. It's, yeah.
- [64:53]
Dave Smith
You would you pray, you, you'd pray and hope that, you know, Vladimir Putin does just say enough's enough and kind of override the right wingers who might be pushing for more. And it's, yeah, it is horrible. And he certainly has a lot of responsibility for this whole thing, as you point out in the book. Book. But it also, it's hard for me to not be left with the point that even Douglas Murray conceded in the debate. So here's something we all could agree with, right? But his point about the Libya model being such a disaster and being like, oh, the guy denuclearizes and then you kill him anyway. Well, now you just ruin this incentive. And it does. And again, if people haven't read the book yet, I highly recommend you do, because it does just give you this perspective on like, yeah, this is the problem with the incentive structure you create. Create when for so many years Russia was willing to deal and play ball and you slap them in the face every single time they extend their hand, you do kind of incentivize this thing like, well, no, what am I going to do? Trump's going to be out in a couple years, and then they're going to slap us in the face again anytime we try to be reasonable. All right, listen, I do. I got a wrap on this, Scott. Let people know where they can follow you and find your fantastic work.
- [66:03]
Scott Horton
Cool. Well, all my interviews are@scott Horton.org 6,000 of them going back 22 years there to 2003. And I'm the director of the Libertarian Institute at LibertarianInstitute.org and check out my YouTube channel, Scott Hortonshow. You can find all my interviews there as well. And then my substack is Scott hortonshow.com and there is where I am posting my interviews. Go up there. But also I'm posting the serialized podcast version of the audiobook of providing vote. So right now you can get, as of this recording, you can get all of H.W. bush and part one of Bill Clinton, but should be later today, I'll be posting the rest of the Bill Clinton chapter.
- [66:48]
Dave Smith
Awesome.
- [66:49]
Scott Horton
Got that finally. All edited for you. So everybody go To Scott Horton Show.com or patreon.com Scott Horton show to subscribe and get the audiobook of provoked.
- [67:01]
Dave Smith
All right? Absolutely. Always a pleasure talking to you, brother. Thank you for taking the time and we'll do it again real soon. Thank you to everybody for listening. See you tomorrow night in Chicago. Peace.