Provoked with Darryl Cooper and Scott Horton
EP:8 Hidden Price of Empire – Endless War Is Changing Who We Are
August 16, 2025

Overview

In this episode, Darryl Cooper and Scott Horton dive deep into the psychological and societal consequences of endless war and empire. They explore how foreign policy decisions—and the financial and cultural mechanisms that prop up permanent conflict—come to shape and often corrode the character of American society. They blend analysis of historical precedents, contemporary politics, economics, and first-hand experience, ultimately posing the question: what is the true cost, both material and spiritual, of America’s imperial ambitions?

Key Discussion Points and Insights

The Obsessiveness of Research and Teaching

• Both hosts discuss their drive to create comprehensive history and foreign policy content, including massive projects and online classes.
  • Scott is launching the Scott Horton Academy, featuring large, in-depth courses on foreign policy and historical topics.
  • Darryl remarks on the “all in” nature required to complete serious intellectual projects.
• Quote [01:51]:
  • Darryl: “I have to push everything aside and just get laser focused and let it become my whole world for a while. …That’s the mode I’m in now.”

Teaching as Deep Learning

• Scott reflects on the process of teaching and interviewing as a way to reinforce and refine his understanding.
• Darryl draws an analogy to jiu-jitsu: teaching basics forces careful reflection and improvement, whether in martial arts or foreign policy analysis.
• Quote [07:38]:
  • Darryl: “Even having to show them even the most basic stuff makes you realize like, oh, you know what, I’m actually kind of sloppy about this. …Because I’m teaching it. So I have to clean that up.”

The Empire vs. the Republic: A Right-Wing Antiwar Critique

• Scott previews his upcoming book, “America First: The Right’s Turn to Peace,” co-authored with Hunter Durantis, focusing on the anti-empire tradition on the American right.
• The core argument: empire and constitutional republicanism are incompatible.
• Massive government debt and centralized power are symptoms of world policing.
  • Quote [12:58]:
    • Scott: “You cannot have George Washington’s Constitution and a world empire. And just look at us, imagine somehow having a global empire, centralized in Washington, D.C. but not having a domestic empire. …It’s impossible.”
• The financial cost of empire (debt, unfunded liabilities, militarism) is unsustainable and distorts the domestic economy.

The Boom–Bust Cycle: How Imperial Policy and the Federal Reserve Harm Americans

• Scott explains the Austrian school theory: artificial credit expansion by the Fed creates booms and busts, leading to widespread impoverishment and economic instability.
  • Government war-spending is made to look cheap through money-printing rather than overt taxation, causing hidden damage to ordinary Americans’ livelihoods.
• Quote [19:32]:
  • Scott: “When you’re sitting in the unemployment line… that’s your cost of killing all those Yemenis. That’s you later paying the price in your wasted life for the sins that the government previously committed on your credit card.”
• Darryl highlights how this cycle consolidates economic power, harms pensions, and pushes ordinary people into risky stock market speculation.

The Psychology of Prolonged War: Brutalization and Desensitization

• Darryl outlines the “brutalization thesis” (George Mosse): trauma and violence of war (from WWI to today) fundamentally warp societies—turning ordinary people into instruments and, later, victims of violence.
  • Modern wars rely on specialized, isolated volunteer forces, rather than entire societies, but widespread media and indirect complicity still numb and corrode public sensibilities.
• Quote [24:08]:
  • Darryl: “There’s something corrupting to our souls…of living in a society at a time when you’re at war. When a war starts, you’re kind of on a countdown because… your soul starts getting eaten away a little bit.”
• Scott notes how the bar for outrage has shifted: atrocities like Abu Ghraib, once shocking, now seem normalized amidst a steady stream of distant, constant violence.
• Quote [31:27]:
  • Scott: “Look at what it took for them to lie us into Iraq, and by 2011, Obama was like, yeah, Libya, some lie, whatever. And then launched a war in Libya. Nobody even cared.”

The Erosion of Accountability and Moral Outrage

• Darryl laments contemporary indifference to war crimes and suffering—contrasting the brief, intense public outrage over Abu Ghraib with today’s muted response to civilian casualties in Gaza, Yemen, or elsewhere.
• The cycle of quick normalization through political leadership’s framing is dissected, with the public rapidly shifting from outrage (“this is not who we are!”) to rationalization (“well, I guess we do torture after all”).
• Quote [33:55]:
  • Scott: “I remember…outrage on conservative talk radio…‘This is not who we are.’…And then Darryl, that was over by Friday.”

Whistleblowers and the Systemic Nature of Atrocity

• The narrative that abuses are isolated to a few “bad apples” is debunked—abuses are seen as systematically condoned or instigated by higher-ups (CIA, officers setting the tone).
• Elevation of whistleblowers and moral dissenters as essential:
  • Quote [38:01]:
    • Scott: “Sam Provance refused to participate and blew the whistle and told the truth…and that was what his mama taught him was right.”
  • Scott lists examples (Ian Fishback, Matthew Alexander, etc.) who resisted official pressure and exposed torture.

Spiritual and Psychological Cost: What Endless War Has Done to America

• Darryl sees the greatest harm not in economic or even human material terms, but in the decay of the national spirit and moral climate.
  • He calls for the right to recognize that inurement to suffering and atrocity is not strength, but a loss—akin to the way exposure to vice is a loss in other areas.
• Quote [42:17]:
  • Darryl: “A society…are better when we see something like Abu Ghraib…when we are horrified by it than if we’re not. …Once you’re inured to that kind of thing…and it’s not an improvement.”

Veteran Disillusionment, “Mowing the Lawn,” and the Absurd Rationalizations of Perpetual War

• “Mowing the lawn” is used as a metaphor for endless cycles of violence (borrowed from Israeli defense parlance).
• Scott and Darryl roll their eyes at arguments that war’s main utility is to keep the military sharp—a justification devoid of public interest and a sign of deep decay.
• Quote [45:51]:
  • Darryl: “Keeping Afghanistan, keeping that war going was a good thing simply because it kept our military sharp…I wanted to bang my head against a wall.”

The Gaza Catastrophe and Changing American Attitudes Toward Israel

• Ongoing Gaza war described as deliberate, systematic ethnic cleansing supported by U.S. arms and diplomacy.
• Shifts in American public opinion—particularly generational—regarding Israel.
• The importance of alternative media (Antiwar.com, the Libertarian Institute) to document and inform.
• Quote [50:03]:
  • Scott: “It's the U.S.-Israeli war against…I mean, you can't call it a war at all, as Bill Hicks said, a war is when two armies are fighting. It's just a canned hunt. It's a turkey shoot, man, fish in a barrel. Just a deliberate ethnic cleansing campaign.”

The Rush to Genocide – Open Plans and Historical Parallels

• Israeli leaders’ public statements about Gaza are compared with the archival hunt for “smoking gun” genocide evidence from earlier 20th-century atrocities.
• Quote [55:02]:
  • Darryl: “It’s hard to imagine any other scenario where you’ve got…the entire cabinet of a government just openly announcing their plans as they’re doing it.”
• The “race against time” logic: get the “Greater Israel” project done before shifting public opinion in the U.S. closes the political window.

Changing Minds, Moving On, and the Value of Redemption

• The value of welcoming, rather than shaming, latecomers to a more honest position on these issues.
  • Quote [59:09]:
    • Scott: “Give him a beer and let everybody else know. You are also welcome to change your mind. We're not going to shame you…Come on over.”

Russiagate Revelations and the Mechanics of Manufactured Scandals

• Scott and Darryl update on new Russiagate revelations (from Matt Taibbi’s reporting and declassified documents):
  • The inter-agency “consensus” on Russian interference was politically manufactured, not analytically genuine.
  • NSA was pressured to suppress dissent and present a unified front.
  • The Obama administration’s intelligence leadership and the Clinton campaign are identified as originating the push to “frame” Trump.
• Quote [62:46]:
  • Scott: “Orders directly from the DNI that NSA—enough of you and your dissents. Now we are going with this thing.”
• Both express frustration at the lack of accountability, the ease with which leadership manipulated the process, and the media’s role in selling an evidence-free narrative.

Nuclear Ethics: The Bombing of Hiroshima and Changing the Narrative

• Scott recounts his documentation (“Who Opposed Nuking Japan?”), noting that nearly every American senior commander opposed the atomic bombings—contrary to the entrenched popular myth.
• Argument: Unconditional surrender was an arbitrary and inhumane demand, not a necessity.
  • Quote [87:35]:
    • Darryl: “All of the necessity arguments are all based on the idea that it's obvious that we had to demand an unconditional surrender…That’s not been the European way of war for centuries.”

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments with Timestamps

• “I have to push everything aside and just get laser focused and let it become my whole world for a while.” – Darryl [01:51]
• “You cannot have George Washington’s Constitution and a world empire… It’s impossible.” – Scott [12:58]
• “When you’re sitting in the unemployment line…that’s your cost of killing all those Yemenis.” – Scott [19:32]
• “There’s something corrupting to our souls…of living in a society at a time when you’re at war.” – Darryl [24:08]
• “Look at what it took for them to lie us into Iraq…by 2011, Obama was like, yeah, Libya, some lie, whatever. …Nobody even cared.” – Scott [31:27]
• “All the Pacific theater commanders said we didn’t have to do this…They all agreed it was completely unnecessary to use the atom bombs.” – Scott [82:13]
• “Once you’re inured to that kind of thing…and it’s not an improvement.” – Darryl [42:17]

Timeline / Timestamps for Major Segments

• [01:11] – Discussing research/writing process and obsession with projects
• [12:26] – Outlining the “America First”/right-wing antiwar critique of empire
• [19:00] – Monetary policy, Federal Reserve, and the hidden domestic costs of imperial war
• [23:45] – The psychological consequences of sustained conflict; “brutalization thesis” and the home front
• [31:00] – Abu Ghraib, shifting lines of American outrage, normalization of war crimes
• [42:00] – Cultural and psychological rot: why numbness to atrocity is itself a form of loss
• [50:00] – Gaza, mainstreaming ethnic cleansing, and U.S. complicity—why this moment may be a historical turning point
• [62:46] – Russiagate: From inter-agency email leaks to the mechanics of a manufactured political scandal
• [82:13] – Revisiting the atomic bombing of Japan: myth vs. historical consensus

Conclusion

The “hidden price of empire” goes far, far beyond statistics: it is paid in fractured societies, dislocated economies, corrupted institutions, and a spiritual malaise that settles when violence and deception become routine. Cooper and Horton urge listeners to resist the normalization of atrocity, remain committed to truth—no matter how uncomfortable—and above all, recognize that change, even in oneself, is not only possible but urgently necessary.

Further Resources Mentioned:

• Antiwar.com, LibertarianInstitute.org
• Scott Horton’s books: Enough Already, Provoked
• William Van Wagenen: Creative Chaos
• Matt Taibbi’s Racket News, Aaron Maté at The Grayzone
• Recommended reading on Hiroshima: Scott’s “Who Opposed Nuking Japan?” essay

For those seeking clarity on America’s wars and their corrosive effects, this episode offers both unflinching reality and a call to honest reckoning.