Joe Rogan podcast. Check it out.

>> The Joe Rogan Experience.

>> TRAIN BY DAY. JOE ROGAN PODCAST BY

NIGHT. All day.

>> Do I sound okay? Check. Check. [music]

Check. This is my normal complaint

volume. Right.

>> One of those one ear on, one ear off

guys.

>> Yeah. My right ear hurts a lot from

years of this and so I usually just

leave it off.

>> There's a volume adjuster thing, too. So

if it's too loud, you can turn it up or

turn it down.

>> You sound good. But no, it's just I have

a pain in my right ear, so I try not to

antagonize it.

>> And thank you very much for the gift,

ladies and gentlemen. Scott Horton gave

me a professorial pipe.

>> And like I was saying, Mezer uses a pipe

now because of you. Like he

>> I love that guy.

>> He's the best.

>> He's so funny, dude.

>> He's such a nut. When he

>> comes into the room, he just blows the

room away, dude. He's just a force in

there. It's incredible.

>> And he's a giant dude. So he like hovers

over you like, "Oh, you didn't know? You

don't know about this?" And then he just

hits you with 15 conspiracies in a row.

Rapid fire with

>> so good.

>> Yeah. With no breaks in between them.

>> So, uh, thanks for doing this, man.

>> Yeah. Thanks for having me.

>> We have a great mutual friend and Dave

Smith. He recommends you highly.

>> So, I'm glad we could finally do this.

>> I wish there was more going on in the

world right now we could talk about,

though. Just seems like

Vietnam or something, you know.

>> Yeah. Yeah. Some the old stuff back when

we didn't know any better. [laughter]

>> It's kind of a mess.

>> Yeah. Um, I've seen you argue on

television like a thousand times.

>> Do you enjoy like that Pierce Morgan

type

>> chaos? No.

>> Yeah.

>> Um,

in fact, I just got back from England. I

got invited to do the Oxford debate,

which I lost on Ukraine. Um, but then I

invited myself on Pierce Morgan Live as

long as I was in town.

>> When you say you lost a debate, is that

because the people voted that were in

the audience? All those people with

Ukraine flags?

Well, [laughter] they didn't have

Ukraine flags that time. I think someone

showed an old picture or something, but

yeah, same crowd.

>> So, what happened was, yeah, when they

leave, they either leave through the yes

door or the no door, and the yeses had

it, which was unbelievable to me, but uh

not that I did my very best job.

>> But on on Pierce Morgan, I was trying to

get myself just a interview so I could

just talk to him about some things. And

instead, they just prefer that format

where you got to mix it up with a guy,

which I can do that too, you know.

>> Yeah. [snorts] Uh the interview thing is

way better. The the thing that he does

though is really good for engagement.

He's very smart. Yeah. Like Pierce has

done he's mastered it. He's taken like

the Jerry Springer type format and

thrown it into the world of politics and

and any other social issue that's going

on.

>> Yeah. But it is too like um years ago

the guy from anti-war.com can't be on

TV,

>> but we can be on his show. He doesn't

care. He's cool with I mean, I guess

same thing here

>> where it's that is a big change from how

things used to be. We just had this

whole separate conversation going on

below

>> the higher one where he has reach, you

know, up and down the chain, I guess, is

a way to put it.

>> Is he on TV or is it just

>> No, but he just has massive massive

viewership. So, it counts, I guess.

>> TVv is actually a hindrance now cuz the

only way people watch TV is clips that

someone takes and puts on X or YouTube.

That's it.

>> Or they just see it accidentally. It's

just on. and it happens to be on when

they're in the room or whatever. But

>> what a [ __ ] dying market. Like

imagine if you're in broadcast

television right now and you're just

thinking like, where am I? What am I

doing?

>> Like this is a bad format. You have to

break for commercials every seven

minutes. No conversation could ever get

into depth. There's executives in your

ear telling you what to say and what not

to say. They'll edit out anything that

they think is like controversial that's

going to [ __ ] with their sponsors or

[ __ ] with the government or [ __ ] with

>> whatever their narrative is.

>> It's just everything's changed. When I

first started doing podcasting, it was

the archives of the interviews for my

radio show and it was so important to me

that I'm on the radio because that's

real legitimacy. That means somebody

hired you. Somebody thought you were

good enough to be there. Whereas

podcasting any jerk can do from his

basement and it just doesn't count. And

then that just became not true. And I

kind of clung on to my radio show. I

actually gave up my last radio show on

KPFK in Los Angeles last year [laughter]

after I mean where it didn't matter

anymore anyway. And podcasting has

completely changed the entire market,

you know.

>> Do you know how many people were

listening to you actually on the radio

before you quit?

>> I think it's like probably

high thousands but not 10,000. You know,

KPFK in LA.

It's the most powerful FM transmitter

west of the Mississippi River. It's

grandfathered in at 115,000 watts. But

it's But the thing is about it too, and

it's always been like this, the the

programming on there is so inconsistent

that you're listening to Latina lesbians

one hour and then you're listening to

Crystal Worship and then you're

listening to hard-hitting news and then

you're listening to like leftist union

organizing or then just whatever. You

know what I mean? But it's just there's

no like real rhyme or reason to us. It's

hard to follow. You know

>> what kind of a channel is it?

>> Oh, it's um you know left of the dial um

at 90.7 FM. So it's, you know,

comparable to like KUT type. It's not

actual public radio, but it's no

commercials, all donations and

>> Oh, wow.

>> Yeah. I mean, they were good.

>> A regular radio show that's no

commercials and it's not public.

>> Yeah,

>> that's interesting.

>> Yeah, it's like um I don't know if co-op

still exists here in Austin. Um co-op

radio.

>> You must have made a lot of money from

that. You must be so rich from doing

that. Like a leftist radio with no no

ads at all, just donations. Boy, you

must be raking it in.

>> No, they never did pay me. But I looked

at it [laughter] like they let me be on

there for 14 15 years or something. And

um you know, like even when I was uh

writing my book about the Russia Ukraine

stuff, I would do my radio show once a

week and I was able to still cover what

was going on in Palestine. And in a way

that I felt like,

you know, in a, you know, something

meaningful that I can do even though my

attention was completely diverted

elsewhere. I still got all my guys from

the libertarian institute and

anti-war.com and I can interview them

once a week. And and then when I left

KPFK, I got some response. They're like,

"Oh no, where are you going?" kind of

thing. So I mean, some people were

caring for it at the time.

>> Did you let them know, hey, I have a

podcast. You could see them all. All

these episodes will be archived.

>> Yeah, I kind of always let them know

that. You know, I've done 6,200

something interviews since 2003 on my

various shows. So, I always try to

remind people to go check the archives

if they want for the full dose of that

stuff.

>> Before we get into any of these

subjects, like how did you get into

this?

>> Um, well, you know, in the 90s I was,

you know, when I was younger, I was much

more of like a new world order uh truth

through type and um but then I basically

dropped all that. I grew out of that.

How do you define new world order truth

or type like?

>> Okay. Well, I mean the new world order

conspiracy was that American foreign

policy ultimately is about building a

one world federal government under the

United Nations that would ultimately

dominate the United States. The John

Burch Society sort of idea of how and

and I uh I really like those guys. Um

and I believed that for a long time

really through Clinton and even the into

the beginning of W. Bush. But then I

could I finally realized with the way

that the Iraq war was prosecuted that

this is not about building up the UN

security council. We got the National

Security Council and Cheney and his

neocons and they have their own separate

policy that just disproves the that sort

of new world order theory and the

American and and in fact so what HW Bush

meant by that was just the era of the

American empire with no one to stop us

this time was all it was never to build

up the UN as the world government. And

it was to build up Washington DC as the

world government. And of course they've

been failing and failing at trying to

establish that ever since.

>> Yeah. Um so the conspiracy was that the

United Nation would would be the

government of the entire earth and that

all other governments would somehow or

another give up their power to the

United Nations for what reason?

>> Um cuz they're all in on it together in

secret. Whatever. That's the point is it

ain't right. It's not true.

>> Well, my my question would be like

>> too many people would have to Exactly.

Too many people have to sacrifice the

power they do have

>> exactly

>> to somebody else when they don't have to

>> money. Yeah.

>> That's the other thing. I mean, as soon

as you lose power, then you lose access

to insane amounts of wealth.

>> Yeah. So we don't want, you know,

obviously it's the ultimate nightmare

would be that you would have some kind

of one world government and then some

kind of totalitarian regime take power

with a monopoly on nukes and a monopoly

on police power and you know but that's

just a nightmare for centuries from now.

I mean that's just not going to happen

anytime soon at all. That's not what

it's

>> You don't think there's any push towards

centralizing things in that regard? Like

wasn't the World Health Organization

trying to push for something where the

entire world would have to respond to

their pandemic rules?

>> Well, look, so yes, there there's

always, you know, the widening and

deepening of the international law as

much as they can. At the end of the day,

there is no actual world state to

enforce that law other than just the

United States of America. But there is

no one world army, one world police

force to enforce these things. It's all

about coercing and cajoling governments

to go along and right which goes to show

I mean this is the whole thing about

when they talk about

>> you know what HW Bush meant when he

talked about the new world order is the

same thing that Joe Biden meant when he

would say the liberal rules-based

international order of just doing what

America says right that's what it is you

know it's a pseudo empire it's not

exactly the ex the same kind of empires

and you know colonialism that we've had

in the past but it's sort of a neoc

colonialism where if we can overthrow

your government with some money, then

we'll do that. A little bit of CIA help,

we'll do that. And if we have if we have

to bomb your capital city, we'll go for

that if we think so.

>> Yeah.

>> And it does go back really to the

Wolfowitz doctrine, you know, of various

degrees. But this is a reference to

right after the first Gulf War. Paul

Wolfitz at that time was the deputy

secretary of defense for policy.

and him and a couple other neocons,

Scooter Libby and Zme Khalilzad, they

wrote up this document called the

defense plan and guidance and it was

saying this is going to be you know the

posture for the postcold war era and the

post first Iraq war Gulf War era. Um,

and what it said was, "We're going to be

the most dominant power on every

continent anywhere in the world. And

we're not even going to tolerate any

other nation or alliance or group of

nations anywhere to try to join together

to balance against us. We will be

dominant everywhere. And we'll never let

anyone get that far ahead or at least

we're going to try to construct an order

where our power is essentially permanent

and they don't even try it." And so

that's what they've been trying to do

with expanding our footprint in the

Middle East, expanding our footprint

into Eastern Europe, and of course, you

know,

working hard at least on building their

alliances and or tightening them and

arming their alliances in Eastern Asia.

And it's, you know, under the theory

that if it's not us, it'll be somebody

else and it'll be so much worse. So we

have to stay and dominate everything

forever. But of course, you can look at

the debt and just see, well, we can't

afford it, so I don't know how anybody

else can. We certainly cannot afford to

keep doing this,

>> right? And if you look at Wolawitz, if

you see popa image of Paul Wolawitz, he

looks exactly like the kind of guy you

would expect to make something like the

Wolfwitz doctrine,

>> right? And by the way, they did rewrite

it because it was a scandal. It was

leaked to the New York Times. And so

they went back and rewrote it and they

just said, "Well, we'll bring our

friends, you know, from the

international institutions along to

>> that picture right there where your

cursor is. Right below right there." No,

to the right of that. That one.

>> Yeah, there you go.

>> Look at that. That looks like that

completely looks like the type of guy

that would do something like

>> So, listen. There's a there's a book

about the neoconservatives by Jacob Hill

Brun called They Knew They Were Right,

>> which is of course, right? Like, yeah,

these guys who have no idea what they're

doing

>> really. You know,

>> that's hilarious. Let me try this.

Doesn't fit right on my little head.

>> Like I said, you can [ __ ] with the

volume on that little knob and turn it

up and down. So, um, this was a this one

of the things that, um, when Coleman

Hughes and, um, our buddy Dave Smith got

into it with was about whether you

remember when, um, they brought up this

seven countries thing

>> that, you know, and he was saying that

there was no real proof that that

exists, that he didn't actually read it.

He was told that we were going to go

into seven countries. But, you know, I

was talking to Dave about this the other

day. He's like, I if you just look at

the fact that we did everything on that

list except Iran, every single one of

them took place except Iran. Like he's

like, I really want to go and do that

debate again and I can't get Coleman to

sit down with me.

>> Yeah. You know, yes. For people who are

interested in this subject, you know,

long term,

>> uh, there's no mystery about the

connection between the neoonservatives

doctrines and then the activities that

the W administration engaged in. Yeah.

>> You know, subsequent. I mean, what

happened was

>> you have, you know, Andrew Coburn, the

great journalist Andrew Coburn says that

the neoconservatives are a cross between

the Israel lobby and the

military-industrial complex. The fighter

bomber salesman needed eggheheads to

justify their policies. And the

neoconservatives

wanted to support Israel, wanted to

support American hijgemony and so took

all the military-industrial complex

money to build their think tanks to

create their consensus to build their

policy. You know, their own kind of

thousand little council on foreign

relations is to get what they want. And

then when you know the seven countries

thing is

>> so what we're talking about just to

clarify is Wesley Clark was given well

was he was on some television show. I

forget what the show was. Do you

remember?

>> There's two different statements. One of

them I know was with Amy Goodman from

Democracy Now.

>> That's right. Democracy Now.

>> And basically what he's talking about is

um

you know he says that a general or I'm

sorry a military officer of some rank

told then retired but still with access

former general Wesley Clark who had been

the supreme allied commander of NATO

forces in Europe under Bill Clinton did

the Kosovo War. So very prominent

four-star general and he said the way he

told the story was he told him hey you

know we're they're planning for a war

with Iraq and he said Iraq why and the

guy said I don't know and then the

second part of the story was he came

back a week later or something and the

same guy said there's this memo that has

the seven countries and they say they

want to take them all in five years so

they meaning the office of the secretary

of defense so that's Donald Rumsfeld

who's not a neoonservative he's his own

separate thing here. He's the secretary

of defense, but all of his guys, all of

his most important guys are

neoconservatives. So the deputy

secretary of defense is Paul Wolawitz.

The deputy secretary of defense for

intelligence is Steven Kimone. The

deputy secretary of defense for policy

is Douglas Fe. And then under him is

Abram Scholsky and Bill Ludy and all of

these guys uh Michael Rubin and others

who were all working on this project to

get us into Iraq. And this is the

neoonservative network of power. We got

Scooter Libby and um David Worms would

travel around from state to defense to

the vice president's office. But you got

Scooter Libby and John Hannah in the

vice president's office. You got Zia

Khalil Zod and Elliot Abrams on the

National Security Council, Robert Joseph

and and Steven Hadley and and uh Eric

Edelman. All of these guys were already

the network of guys who agreed with this

policy going back through the 1990s. It

was what they had founded the project

for a new American century on. And so

what they're saying is we should not

tolerate any and remember the time in in

the they this was the stated doctrine.

We will not tolerate the existence of

any Middle Eastern regime that supports

terrorism and supports terrorism can

mean anything, right? Like Abu Nidal

died in Iraq before the war even started

and was a washed up old terrorist from a

previous day. But like that's good

enough. Got muja cult kami terrorists

who've worked for us ever since. But at

that time was a good enough excuse to

invade Iraq. They would invoke that. And

so they made up that doctrine.

>> The mujaheden were in Iraq as well as

Afghanistan.

>> Well, this is a particular sect of

Mujaheden Cougs who were Iranian

communist cultists who were had left

Iran and gone to work for Saddam Hussein

and then were you know he supported

them. They had nothing to do with

anti-American terrorism at that time

except you know uh I guess committing it

when they had worked for Iran previously

during the Iranian revolution. But by I

mean by the time we invaded Iraq, Donald

Rumsfeld inherited them and they've

worked for American Israel ever since

then. They have a base in Albania now.

But they in other words though this

wasn't al Qaeda. This was not any real

excuse. They would just invoke the

doctrine of fighting terrorism in order

to check off this list of all of these

governments that they didn't like. And

coincidentally and incidentally and very

importantly of course is this was really

in many cases Israel's list of enemies

where if it was say Colon Powell which

is what people thought they were voting

for in the year 2000 by the way well I

don't know about this W. Bush but at

least Coen Powell will be up there we

can trust him. They all said if it had

been up to him, we would have done a

two-state solution in Palestine and

solved that issue and then we would have

had probably the most limited of wars

against al-Qaeda and Afghanistan and

that would have been it. The rest of it

would have been police andor special

forces action. There would have been no

invasion of Iraq, which he did lie us

into that war and he's responsible for

that. But that was not his policy. That

was the policy that came out of the vice

president's office and this

neoonservative set. And it's really, as

Dave Smith correctly says, it's all

based on the clean break doctrine, which

David Wormser and Richard Pearl, oh, I I

neglected to mention Richard Pearl and

his friends on the Defense Policy Board,

but um Pearl and David Worms had written

up this policy paper called A Clean

Break in 1996, and they wrote it for

Netanyahu when he was first prime

minister, the first time back then. And

what it said was instead of going along

with the Oslo peace process and making a

deal with the Palestinians, we should

just forget all that and just we'll have

peace through a position of strength and

total dominance over our neighbors. And

so but the problem of course is we and

and of course meaning continue to devour

Palestine, what's left, the 22% of

what's left of historic Palestine in the

West Bank and Gaza. But the problem is

we have Hezbala on our northern border

and Hezbala is backed by Iran by way of

Syria. So if you just picture the Middle

East, you know, um if you want you can

throw up a map uh and just kind of show

there's this arc of power from Thran in

Iran through Syria and to Hezbala, this

Shiite militia in southern Lebanon. Now,

Saddam Hussein was the Sunni roadblock

in that arc of power. But these guys are

stupid, the neoconservatives. They're as

stupid as they are arrogant and certain

in their policy. And they believed in

this hairbrain scheme essentially that

the Jordanians and the Turks would be

dominant in the new Saddam Hussein less

Iraq. and that even though it's a

supermajority Shiite Arab country, those

Shiites, they just love being told what

to do by either their original plan was

the Hasheite king, the cousin of the

king of Jordan, and then they threw that

out. And it was the guy who sold them

this line that this was possible in the

first place, an Iraqi exile. You might

remember from that time, Ahmed Chalabi,

the head of the Iraqi National Congress.

They said, "Well, we'll just make him

the guy instead," which ended up not

happening. But that was their plan. And

they said the new Shiite dominated Iraq

will then the religious leaders in Iraq

will then force Hezbala to stop being

friends with Iran and start being

friends with Israel instead. And they'll

even build an oil pipeline to Hifa or

reopen the old British oil pipeline to

Hifa Israel. And they were sold this

bill of goods and they really believed

it. And so and you can find this on my

website scottorton.org. I have a clean

break, a new strategy for securing the

realm. And then the companion piece is

called Coping with Crumbling States, a

balance of power strategy for the

Levant. They're both by David Wormser,

signed off on by Richard Pearl. And then

they wrote a book where Worms wrote the

book and Richard Pearl wrote the

forward. It's called Tyranny's Ally.

America's failure to remove Saddam

Hussein. Get that? America's the ally of

Saddam just because we won't launch a

war to regime change him there right in

the title. and then based on the same

hairbrain scheme. And what's funny about

this is this guy David Wormser now tries

to defend himself and he did an

interview on a podcast not too long ago

with this uh born-again Christian about

September 11th and stuff and but he

talked about this and he's like yeah no

that's still right they'll do whatever

the hashemites tell them to do. Those

Shiites they just worship and revere

anyone who claims to have the blood of

the prophet. But if that was true, as

Dave Smith pointed out, well then how

come you can't just call the king of

Jordan right now and ask him to ask the

Ayatollah to knock it off? Call him and

ask have him ask Hezbala to stop being

friends with Iran? Why couldn't they

have just done that this whole time? Why

do you have to have a regime change in

Baghdad before you can make this magic

wish come true? And the whole thing is

completely stupid. And the Shiites do

revere some of the lineage of the family

of the prophet Muhammad. And but one,

it's not a magic spell of hypnosis and

total control over them. And two, that

has nothing to do with the Hashemites

who are Sunnis and a whole separate line

and are the British sock puppet kings of

Jordan who used to rule Iraq back 70

years ago or something, but have no

purchase there whatsoever. And of

course, what happened just real quick,

what happened then in the war was they

just empowered Iran. They didn't empower

Jordan and Turkey and America and Israel

over the Iraqis. They just gave Iran

even more power than they ever had

before. When it was all meant to screw

them over, it blew up in the American's

face.

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you think that that is because of total

incompetence and stupidity or do you

think that it was a scam and that they

were they kind of knew this was going to

happen in the first place, but what they

really wanted to do was sell a lot of

weapons, sell a lot of war, make a ton

of money. I mean, the amount of money

that was generated, how much money did

we spend on the Iraq war?

>> Oh, I mean, on Iraq alone, at least five

or seven trillion. I think it was

probably 10 trillion for the whole

terror war.

>> Let's stop and think about that. Five or

10 trillion. Let's just say five. Let's

be nice.

>> Yeah.

>> Where's that money going? How many

defense contractors were deeply enriched

by that? How many defense contractors

are involved in, you know, lobbyists,

policy, influencing change, influencing

certain actions? And why would they do

that? Why would they do that? Why would

they push a hairbrain scream? Is it

because of stupidity or is it because

they don't give a [ __ ] what the excuse

is? Let's get the party started.

>> I think

>> let's get some missiles. Let's get some

new planes.

>> Yeah. Okay. So,

>> boom boom. But, okay. So we can see

right in front of us right here where

Netanyahu convinced Trump this would be

easy and then it wasn't. And I think

that's the same thing here. Iraq was

supposed to be easy and it was easy

after all. Right? You send the Marines

to take Baghdad. They could take it. The

the the third infantry division and the

Marines were done regime changing the

place in what five weeks. But then it

was a matter of occupying the place and

the whole thing devolving into civil war

and all that. And I think well I'll put

it to you like this. in the clean break.

It might be in coping with crumbling

states, but it might even Yeah, I think

it's in coping with crumbling states,

which is the same thing.

>> Are we back?

>> Sorry about that. We had that stupid

glitch again.

>> Yeah, this is my

>> Did we Did we get a new computer?

>> I've done everything even. Yeah, I

talked to the company. They don't know

what's going on.

>> [ __ ]

>> Bummer.

>> Anyway,

>> I'm sorry. Let me uh

>> can I can I ask you this? Sure. So,

>> well, on the stupidity of the plan, I

think, look, plan A is it'll be fine,

and then plan B is, well, at least we

can make some money and and push this

thing on and let both sides fight and

weaken each other and these kinds of

attitudes for sure.

>> But that's the point. Like, did they

genuinely think that this plan would

work or was this plan just a feasible

excuse to talk them into getting the

party started? I I I have one good uh

argument in your favor there for sure,

which would be Senator Joe Biden at the

time insisted that we break Iraq into

three.

>> Our greatest president.

>> Yeah. Right there with the worst that

that that we draw these lines and

essentially enforce ethnic cleansing or

sectarian cleansing and create three

sort of many states within Iraq. And you

know, Anthony Blinkin was his right-hand

man then. And I mean that's who these

guys are is, you know, very very much I

mean uh Israel first, Israel instead

types.

>> Um there is something before the clean

break called the Od Yanan plan uh from I

believe 1981 which is a real riot to

read. It's this Israeli strategist

and the premise of the thing is that the

Soviet Union is certain to conquer the

entire planet. Talk about one world

government. We're about to have one

world communism, run out of Moscow, and

poor little Israel is going to be all

alone out here. So, we have no choice

but to smash every near Arab state into

as many waring tribal pieces as we

possibly can to weaken all of them

relative to us as this desperate

strategy. And of course, the Soviet

Union didn't exist anymore at all by the

end of the decade. But that was the

premise for the thing. And there's oh

and here's what I was going to say

before the glitch was there is a

statement in I think it's in coping with

crumbling states where he kind of says

yeah you know these states are pretty

artificial and without you know the

baist construct in Iraq and Syria you

would have these smaller tribal based

type units so then you know in other

words if you can't have a completely

compliant sock puppet there might as

well make them fight and and destroy

their countries. And that certainly

happened in the case of Iraq, certainly

happened in the case of Syria under

Obama as well where they just said,

"Look, if we can't get the al Qaeda guys

to sack Damascus and get rid of Assad,

at least we can just destroy the place."

>> Do you think there's a parallel in um

when we first went into Iraq like Desert

Storm? It was very easy, right?

Relatively,

minimal loss of American lives. And I

think everybody got a little cocky.

>> Oh, yeah. That absolutely was part of

that. Just like what we just saw with

Venezuela. It was so easy. And I mean,

people asked me right after Venezuela,

"What do you think this means for Iran?"

And I was like, "Bad news,

>> right?" Like, nobody thinks we're going

to go in there and kidnap the Ayatollah,

>> but if you can put eyeballs on them, you

can put a bomb on

>> they killed them. That's all you got to

do.

>> And that didn't even help.

>> Of course not.

>> It's like, and

>> is it true that whenever they've been

negotiating with someone, Israel kills

them?

>> I think that happened at least a couple

of times early in the war. Yeah. I mean,

that was what they said. In fact, was it

I forget if it was Vance or Trump who

said, "Well, we we can't say I think it

was Trump said, "We can't say who we're

negotiating with because they'll get

killed." And like, you're supposed to

think that what like hardliners in Iran

will kill them for trying to negotiate.

But no, this is the Israelis will kill

them. You know,

>> that is wild.

>> Yeah,

>> that's wild. It's wild that it's true.

Um,

one of the things that's not talked

about at all since Iran, I mean, rarely

talked about is Ukraine.

>> Yeah.

>> It's so strange how that kind of just

left people's consciousness.

>> It's like they now just concentrating

entirely on this Iran thing.

>> And the uh Ukraine thing is fascinating,

too, because it was one of the few wars

that I saw leftist support. It was very

interesting. It was like kind of right

after they put the masks and the

syringes down from their profiles. Then

it was Ukraine flags,

>> right? Mezer had a joke about that. Like

yeah, he starts out like hey invading

Ukraine is bad. Can't we all agree on

that? Like he really gives him like he

like leans on can't can't we all agree

that it's bad. He's like but it wasn't

cure for COVID. You got to admit, you

know. Um, and it was they just switched

from night to day on that. And then

yeah, the other thing and look, a big

part of that is Putin is a great standin

for Trump. If you're a angry liberal

something, you got to be angry at

something. And he represents now we're

the right

>> common turn and the Russians are the

more conservative Christian force. And

so like if not that Trump's a Christian,

but you know what I mean, and they're

anti-right everything that the Russians

are the right, not that the Ukrainians

are the left, but whatever. And Russia

is obviously the uh much larger country

and the one that invaded that crossed

the border first here and and and they

are the aggressor in the war. So, it's

as far as the narrative goes, it's easy

to justify sticking up for those, you

know, pluckucky defenders, which is, you

know, I was actually surprised,

but I shouldn't have been right when I

went to Oxford and lost that debate was

that was who was it wasn't not that they

were leftist, but they're liberals, you

know, or progressive type, you know,

college kids,

>> and they're just totally on the side of

Ukraine. And in fact, the question of

the debate was this house would rather

go to war with Russia than lose Ukraine.

And I thought that was just the most

ludicrous thing in the whole world.

That's not even debatable. They've got

Hbombs, 7,000 of them. We're not having

a war with Russia. I don't even know

what you're talking about this. And then

I should have made my case better

because they did not like me or my case

at all. They were so just staunchly for

Ukraine that they were willing to

support that that they think that

Britain should get into a war with

Russia over the Dawnbass, which is just

absurd. But I take responsibility for

not framing my argument well enough. I

just thought the question was so

ridiculous in the first place I would

barely have to make my case. I just

thought I'll just make a Hbomb joke and

that'll be the end of that. You know, I

said, "Haven't you ever seen Threads?

Have you ever seen Threads? It's like

the British version of The Day After

where Margaret Thatcher gets them nuked

in a war." It's like movie. Yeah.

remember the day after from 193 with

Steve Gutenberg and so this is the

Russians version from the same time

frame.

>> Oh,

>> and um

>> and I was like, "Haven't y'all seen

threads?" Which of course they haven't.

They're a bunch of little kids.

>> Well, they probably think it's that

social media app.

>> Yeah, right.

>> The Instagram one.

>> Yeah, exactly.

>> Um we should talk about like how this

whole thing got started in Ukraine

because most Americans don't even

realize that the United States kind of

overthrew the government there.

>> Yeah, absolutely. twice in 10 years.

>> Yeah.

>> In in the Orange Revolution of 2004 and

in uh 2014. And in fact, you know,

George Soros bragged that he had really

influenced the vote toward the

pro-Russian candidate in 1994. Um, you

know, back 10 years before that, he he

bragged about that in an interview with

um The New Yorker, Connie Brookke in the

New Yorker magazine. He said like real

estate investment trusts. I make it

happen with my investments, you know.

>> Um, and yeah,

>> and look, I mean, Russia and Ukraine

have a long and difficult history, but

the long and the short of it for our

purposes is that they wanted out at the

end of the Soviet Union. And in fact,

even embarrassingly for the Republicans,

George Bush Senior and his government

even intended the USSR to stay together.

They wanted not communism, but they

wanted Russia to be able to hang on to

Bellarus and Ukraine and at least some

of the stands. And but what happened was

really the Russians under Boris Yelen

overthrew the Soviet Union. The most

powerful member of the Soviet Union

overthrew what was left of it. And it

was actually in the aftermath of a

hardline commi coup in August of 1991

which failed. And so it was Boris

Yeltson who saved the day but then ended

up doing his own coup basically and just

destroying what was left of the USSR and

and kicking Mal Gorbachov out. So

>> So why did the United States um get

involved in Ukraine and why did they

stage a coup?

>> Yeah. Well, so it's been a contest for

dominance there ever since. Right. And

so back to the wolfawitz doctrine that

and and they talked about this in

rebuilding America's defenses the uh pac

strategy document from the 1990s 1998 I

guess um and I believe in in the defense

plan and guidance of that he wrote 1992

uh wolitz um that we got to expand NATO

into Eastern Europe and this is the

debate at the time was whether to

include Russia or not but but and in

fact in the 90s there were some people

expo who opposed expansion alto

together. But then there was another

school of thought that just said, "Well,

we'll expand, but we'll bring the

Russians in." But then they never did.

And so they ended up expanding the

military alliance up to Russia's border

in a threatening manner and in a way

that did not include them at all. And

they had alternatives like the

Partnership for Peace. And before that,

what we still have the OCE, the

Organization for Security or Yeah.

Security and Cooperation in Europe where

those had been brought up as

alternatives to NATO where NATO would be

more political. This is what James Baker

and uh under HWB Bush and Warren

Christopher under Bill Clinton had

promised the Russians that we're going

to make NATO a political organization

and we're going to have as a security

organization it'll be the OCE or the PFP

which will include you guys and which

was not true. They're basically you know

never really meant to live up to those

promises. So um it's not a perfect

analogy, but imagine if America had lost

the Cold War from all the spending in

the 1980s and then the Soviets had come

to dominate Western Europe and then they

started moving into the Caribbean and

then they started overthrowing the

government in Canada when they voted

wrong. And this is Ukraine is Russia's

Canada, right? Kazakhstan's their

Mexico. Ukraine's their Canada. It's

their most important neighboring state

other than maybe Barus, but same

difference here. And so, um,

>> that narrative gets lost here.

>> Yes, it does. And

>> it's weird because it's so obvious when

you lay it out like that and when you

look at the agreement that was made at

the fall of the Soviet Union that they

wouldn't push arms closer to the border

of Russia and yet they consistently did

that.

>> Absolutely. And by the way, so let's

talk about that for just a second

because people dispute that and say it's

not true, but it is true. And in fact,

HW Bush gave the first promise to

Gorbachev in Malta in December of 1989

that if you let the Eastern European

Warsaw packed states go, not the Soviet

republics, but the Warsaw packed states,

if you let them go, we promise not to

take advantage. Like full stop. That's

it. 100%. And then from there, and and I

cover all this in my book, Provoke. Um,

and I I it's even overkill on the

research because I wasn't sure where to

stop. So, it's all there for you where

it wasn't just on February the 9th. It

was all of these meetings over the

course of months where the Americans,

the British, and especially the Germans,

but with the Americans standing right

there in many cases too, affirmed to the

Russians, the Soviets, and then the

Russians over and over again that we are

not coming, we are not going to

integrate Poland, we're not going to

integrate Hungary, then Czechoslovakia,

which hadn't split apart yet. Um, and we

have no intention of doing that. And

that was, you know, came from Hans

Dietrich Genture, the foreign minister

of Great Britain, as well as Helmet

Cole, the chancellor, uh, Margaret

Thatcher, and John Major, the prime

ministers of England, and, um, Douglas

Herd, their foreign minister, and, um,

even Francois Midarand, the president of

France, and along with George Bush's

government over and over again promised

them that we're not going to do this.

And then they just went ahead anyway.

And the Clintons, uh, you know, went

along with it, too. And in fact in the

in the Clinton years one of the major

proponents of NATO expansion was a guy

named Strobe Talbot who originally

opposed it. And by the way so when all

of the anybody in that era whenever they

on on America's side or on the west side

whenever they opposed this it was always

for one reason. There was no like

variety of reasons. It was always one

reason. This is an unnecessary

provocation against the Russians. These

are our friends who just overthrew the

communists for us. So why would we pick

a fight with them? Why would we

disrespect them? We should be doing

everything we can to integrate them into

the west, into Europe, into everything.

And this is totally unnecessarily

antagonistic. That was the one and only

reason and it was brought up by a lot of

people including famously George Kennan

who had coined the containment policy

against the Soviet Union in the 1940s

and you know uh was had been ambassador

to Moscow and he was the one who said we

got to contain communism. Well, now he's

saying we should not be trying to

contain Russia when they didn't do

anything. And he said, in fact, in an

interview in the New York Times in 1998,

Kennan said, and he was the most highly

respected Russia expert out of all of

the old so-called foreign policy

graveyards, and he told Thomas Freeman

in the New York Times, he goes, "I'll

tell you exactly what's going to happen

here, okay? We're going to expand NATO

right up close to Russia, and we're

going to get a negative reaction from

the Russians. And then as soon as we do,

all of the people who are now telling us

that'll never happen. Don't worry about

it." Will then say, "Aha, see, that's

how the Russians are. That's why we have

to do this, which is exactly what they

say now. See, the Russians are coming.

That's why we need NATO more than ever

before when it was building up NATO more

than ever before was what created this

antagonistic relationship in the first

place. And then, you know, and I should

specify I am from Austin, Texas. I don't

have any connection to Russia

whatsoever. I don't give a damn about

Russia whatsoever. Has nothing to do

with favoring their side of the story or

whatever. This is like whatever. What

can I say? I reluctantly admit that and

I'm not saying this is a good enough

reason for war, but I'm saying that this

is true essentially in his declaration

of war when Putin said that basically we

tried independence. We tried letting

Ukraine be an independent country. But

it turns out that no, it just became a

colony of the United States of America.

It's totally controlled by America. So

well, but we're just not going to stand

for that, you know. So we're going to

intervene. We're going to do what we

have to do at least to mitigate that. If

America is still going to control Kiev,

then at the very least we're going to

control the Dawnbass and the south uh

southeastern coast here. And so I'm not

saying that's a good enough reason to do

what he did. But I'm saying that was

essentially true that America had, you

know, almost like it was a a British

colony, just had total sock puppets in

charge of that country. In fact, there's

a a clip that I quote extensively. It's

one of the only block quotes in my book

cuz I got rid of almost all of them for

space. But I I think I have the block

quote of Victoria Nuland testifying.

That's Robert Kagan's wife. Um very

important neoonservative worked in Dick

Cheny's office in the W. Bush years and

everything. Um helped you know cause all

this problem. And she goes on and on

describing the level of

what can you call that infiltration

essentially of the Ukrainian government

by the United States. That she says we

have our people, State Department people

and whoever working at every level of

the Ukrainian government throughout

their police services, throughout their

military, throughout their judicial

branch, throughout, you know, and and

out in the provinces and everywhere.

We're doing everything we can to control

everything that's going on in that

country. And you know the Wikileaks are

very uh beneficial on this story because

they show where the Americans understand

clearly by the Americans I mean

Washington, the State Department,

whatever these guys that um they know

good and well that Ukraine is deeply

divided especially politically on

questions like whether they should join

the NATO alliance or whether they rather

be closer to Russia, try to split the

difference and stay out of it or

anything like that. And so they say,

"Well, so we just have to push then.

We'll just have to spend tens of

millions of dollars on massive

propaganda campaigns and we'll just have

to make sure to support the candidates

that support us and our wishes." And

essentially it's America, you know, the

the book is called, sorry I keep

mentioning the book, but it's how

Washington provoked how Washington

started the new cold war with Russia and

the catastrophe in Ukraine. I'm not

blaming on Kiev. on blaming it on

essentially Bush Senior through Joe

Biden that they all of them had such a

ham-handed Russia policy that it led to

this. It's just fascinating that this

perspective is not being discussed or

wasn't being discussed when it was in

the news every day. When people were

talking about Russia and Ukraine, it was

always that Russia had done this

horrible thing and attacked Ukraine,

which was horrible,

>> of course,

>> but no one gave any background. No, no

one really talked about and make made

the comparison to imagine if the Soviet

Union or Russia rather took over Canada,

>> right?

>> You know, or was proxying Canada.

>> Yeah, exactly. Or if they went back at

all, they would go, well, you know, this

all started when Russia seized Crimea.

>> But of course, they seized Crimea as a

direct reaction to America overthrowing

the government and the so-called

revolution of dignity in February 2014.

And uh so then it's a complicated mess,

but Crimea happened after that. But they

just want to start history at places

where it's the most convenient for them.

>> And there's also the control of Ukraine

is also connected to resources, right? I

mean there's immense amounts of

minerals, natural gas, there's trillions

of dollars of that stuff there

>> that and this also connects Bisma to the

Biden administration, right?

>> Yes. So

like I would not buy anyone arguing that

these minerals or these resources are

somehow crucial for the United States of

America, for the American people, for

our betterment or anything like that.

only as Ross Perau called them the

special interests right Chevron wants

that oil and Cargill and Archer Daniels

Midland and Monsanto have investments in

those grains and so this is about them

but that isn't necessarily us you look

at you know whatever benefit they have

to our GMP or GDP is negligible

certainly not worth starting a war or

anything like that these are all the

free riders these are you know the

excuse makers for this kind of policy

but Essentially, I think what it really

is is just trying to keep Russia weak

and offbalance as much as possible. And

you know, like there's this um uh really

important Rand Corporation study that

was published in 2019. So the Rand

Corporation is a Pentagon sponsored

think tank, but it's out in Santa

Barbara. They put it in California so it

would be somehow a little bit less

political, a little insulated from East

Coast stuff and be able to come up with

their thing. But that's that's basically

who they are. So, of all the think

tanks, they're like the most directly

connected to the Pentagon itself. And

they came up with this thing. It's

called extending Russia. And by

extending Russia, they mean

overextending them. Mean, in other

words, how to provoke them into

overextending themselves

>> like during the Cold War.

>> Right. Exactly. So, what cause small

trouble for them in as many places as we

can just to bog them down with expenses

and commitments. So, we want to at that

time the the pipeline wasn't complete

yet. So we want to intervene with

sanctions whatever we can to disrupt the

Nordstream pipeline. They said maybe we

could try to overthrow the government of

Barus again which they actually did in

2020. Um they had done it before in 2005

and 2001 failed all three times. Um

which if they did that boy that might

lead right to a nuclear war right there.

You don't want to succeed in a

especially a bloody if it turned bloody

a coup in Barus. My god. Um but anyway

uh then they said we could increase uh

weapons to the jihadists in Syria. We

could try to overthrow the government of

Kazakhstan. We could increase support

for the uh Ukrainian military. And

what's interesting about this, so in

other words, see how they're saying do

all these things to essentially agitate

the Russians to keep them off balance,

to keep them bogged down, to keep them

spending money they can't afford to

spend, right? But then all throughout it

they have all these disclaimers where

they say, "Don't listen to us. If you do

this, it'd be terrible." Like if you

overthrow the government of Barus,

the Russians might just invade it

immediately and station nuclear weapons

there to make the point, right? if we

support the jihadists in Syria, they

could break out of the Idlib province

and sack Damascus and then we'd have an

al Qaeda government in Damascus, which

is of course exactly what happened at

the end of 24. They said we could

increase support for the what was then

the ongoing civil war that had broken

out after the revolution in 2014.

We could increase support for the

Ukrainian side of that or the Kiev side

of that war, but then that could provoke

the Russians into a full-scale invasion

of the country, which would of course be

terrible for Baroo, I mean for Ukraine

and terrible for the United States, a

massive expense for us, a humiliation

for as far as our international standing

and prestige and of course untold chaos

for the people of Ukraine. And so we

better be real careful about pursuing

these policies. And then I swear you

look at how Biden ran things and it was

like he got that memo just without any

of the disclaimers and they just went

ahead and did all of these things. And

in fact they were doing they were

messing around. It was actually the last

year of Trump that they uh tried to

overthrow Barus. Uh so that was

independent of of Biden's wishes that

was already going on. And then they were

messing around in Kazakhstan in January

of 22 right on the eve of war. right

when you might have hoped that the

entire, you know, pressure in Washington

was to try to figure out a way to avoid

war to prevent this from breaking out.

What kind of deal might we have to make

with Putin to try to prevent him from

invading Ukraine as they're threatening

to do? And we're building up their

forces in preparation for it. And then

what do they do? They support an armed

insurrection in Kazakhstan, which is

that's the big one right on Russia's

southern border there. Out of all the

stands, it's the most important one.

which is just madness. And it goes to

show that that's essentially what

they're up to when it comes to that is

just, you know, if we can't overthrow

Putin, we're going to still weaken him,

hem him in, surround him, agitate him,

and force him to make commitments. And

of course, this is what this is why the

war's been going on for four years.

America could tell Kiev under Biden or

under Trump that look, you guys are just

going to have to compromise here.

Obviously, you've lost, you know, all of

Luhansk and most of Donetsk and, you

know, at least half of Zaprosia and

Kursan. And so, just make a deal, figure

it out, and and we're not supporting you

anymore. Instead, what they say,

remember, they said over and over again,

we want to inflict a strategic defeat on

Russia. Russia might win the war or but

no, we promise they won't, but yeah, but

if it takes a long time, good. And in

fact, I have a collection of quotes in

the book where politicians and pundits

and all these people would say, and

maybe they still say this, "We're

getting such a good bang for our buck in

Ukraine." Because just think about it,

Russian soldiers are dying, but American

soldiers are not. So, all we got to do

is we just give them money and then they

go fight. And then sometimes they

wouldn't even make any reference to the

Ukrainian soldiers at all. Hundreds of

thousands of whom have been killed.

Hundreds of thousands who of whom have

been hor uh you know horrifically

maimed. Uh the a major part of this

country completely destroyed. Huge

segments of their population fleeing the

country as refugees many of whom to

never come home again. Right? A total

destabilization of their culture and

society in every way. And then but you

can tune in to Fox News or hell the

Democrats too talking about or maybe

worse that oh but we're getting such a

good bang for our buck because we're

killing Russians. We're sending them

home in body bags. We're sending them

home in coffins. We're even killing

their generals in the field. But none of

our guys are dying. He as though the

Ukrainians don't matter at all. And

that's the way they think of it. This is

inflicting costs on the Russians. Joe

Biden would say that over and over

again. It's almost like the underpants

gnomes thing with the first he steal the

underpants then question mark question

mark question mark and then profit not

really sure

>> I don't know what that is

>> oh and South Park the poor I think it's

butters the underpants gnomes are

stealing his underwear and they're

trying to explain how this is supposed

to work and they don't really have it

worked out what they're going to do with

the underpants but they're sure they're

going to make a lot of money in the end

and that's the same kind of thing here

where they skip the step about well is

this really weakening Russ uh Vladimir

Putin's regime or maybe it's

strengthening his regime is it, you

know, increasing American power and

influence in the region or in fact we're

shown as sort of a paper tiger ourselves

and we've done more than, you know, you

could have imagined to push Russia

towards China and toward the rest of

Eurasia. Um, you know, Joe Biden is

essentially deliberately trying to

prevent them from being part of European

civilization to and to emphasize their

turn to the east. That seems to me to be

a terrible mistake, you know, and I

think part of it is part of the longer

term cold war with China, too. And and

there you you hear them talk about this,

Joe. They'll say, you know, essentially

Russia's friends with China. So, there's

two things we can do there. And this is

what I think Trump would prefer to do

would be just make friends with Russia

and pull them away from China. Maybe

he's already decided it's too late for

that or he doesn't know how. Um, and

then the other side was no, lure Russia

into Eastern Europe. bog them down so

they're no use to China. Um, you know,

weaken their power, give inflict them on

them this strategic defeat in Ukraine so

that then they won't be as useful to

China in our cold war with them or

worse. And which I think is stupid and

didn't work. I think that was the the

choice that Joe Biden made and I think

it was totally wrong because it just

strengthened the relationship between

Russia and China. The Russians have a

huge new pipeline that they opened,

well, not that new, about 12 years ago

that they opened to China and they keep

adding to it. So, they're able to sell

all the hydrocarbons they want and the

Chinese will burn every hydrocarbon you

got. So, you know, they really don't

need Europe. You know, Joe Biden kicked

them out and basically solidified their

economic break with Europe uh totally

unnecessarily, but in a way that didn't

really hurt Russia. And the blowing up

of the Nordstream pipeline was a part of

this. This was the to disconnect their

oil supply or the natural gas supply to

Europe.

>> Yeah. In fact, more specifically, right,

it was to to make this break between to

solidify the break between Germany and

Russia. The previous German chancellor,

Angela Merkel, she had this project she

called Eurasian home. And and what she

was trying to do was balance American

and Russian interests in Europe. And

then they were closing down all their

nuclear stuff, all the green movement,

you know, environmental stuff. They

closed down all their nuclear in

Germany. And then the idea was, don't

worry, we're going to import all this

clean burning uh CH4 from the uh

Russians. And then but to the Americans,

this is the worst thing that could

happen would be an alliance or this

strengthening any any part of any

strengthening relationship or or budding

relationship between the Germans and the

Russians because with um you know German

manufacturing power and Russian raw

materials and both of their at least

potential military strength that if they

have an alliance and dominate Eastern

Europe, they can keep everybody else

out. And so I think that has always been

the British and the American fear there.

And you know there's um here in Austin

there's that sort of uh corporate CIA

Strat for run by this guy George

Freriedman.

>> What is it?

>> Strat for it stands for strategic

forecasting. They do dirty tricks. Yeah.

It's here in Austin. Oh no. They they do

some dirty tricks but I think

>> they mostly like do like you know pseudo

CIA briefings for corporations and

stuff. Let them know what's going on in

the world. That kind of thing. mostly

their emails got leaked on uh

wikileaks.org work uh years ago and you

know they're involved they're they're

close with some of these color-coded

revolutionaries and anyway I don't know

them or anything but their leader is a

guy named George Freriedman and I'll

give him credit I know he opposed Iraq

war I in 2003 because I heard him on the

radio back then but um I mean I'm not

vouching for the guy as like uh a good

guy or whatever but just to say he's

sort of like a realist school foreign

policy analyst type

>> um not too ideological or anything like

that and he gave a speech years ago

where he says and this is the key words

primordial fear. This is the primordial

fear of American you know imperial

policy planners is that you would have

an alliance between the Germans and the

Russians. And so anything that we can do

to prevent that we'll do. Now I don't

know exactly who blew up that pipeline

but I'm sure they had at least the

support of the United States. Seymour

Hirs has it that it was American

military guys who did it. Um which I

think I don't know. And then there's a

whole cover story about this yacht. And

then there's six different versions of

who rented this yacht and whether it was

used and whether it was robots or

whether it was divers or whatever. And

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>> The bottom line is nobody wants to know,

right? Seymour Hirsh, what did he say

happened?

>> He said that it was um miners based out

of Pensacola, Florida. Meaning not

pickaxe miners or children, but meaning

divers that go down and disable sea

mines.

>> That that was their expertise. Those

were the guys that they sent to do it.

>> And that was in I think he did that in

the London Review books or something

like that.

>> Is is that disputed?

>> Yeah. um and including by people who

blame the Ukrainians and people who

blame

um I don't know like Polish or I guess

Polish uh groups or whatever. They had

all these different investigations that

all led different directions. I know

Jeremy I think Jeremy Scill had one

version of it and then James Bamford who

I really respect. He's the guy that

wrote all the books about the National

Security Agency over the years. um and

he had it that it was the Ukrainians and

they used robots to do it and he's you

know sused that out through documents

and stuff and decided that that must

have been what had happened and you know

there so I don't know there's there's

six different versions of it and I have

I'm not choosing which is the favorite

here but I think it's clearly was in

America's interest and and of course Joe

Biden and Victoria Nuland have both sort

of cheekily said we're not going to let

this proceed and if they do we we will

do whatever it takes to stop it and so

Evidently they did

>> and you [clears throat] could see how

they would consider that to be, you

know, what they would be trying to

prevent would be this strengthened

relationship.

>> Gas going now. Is it just pouring right

into the ocean?

>> Well, eventually they capped it, but I

think it was the biggest release of

methane into the atmosphere ever. It was

a huge thing. It was a massive, if you

were a liberal, progressive, Democrat,

environmentalist type, that ought to be

like the most offensive thing you ever

heard of.

>> Yeah. That's way worse than cowbs.

>> Oh yeah.

>> Remember they were worried about cow

burps?

>> Yeah, that's centuries worth of cowbs,

man. Centuries worth.

>> Jesus. So the Kazakhstan Kazakhstan

thing I had never heard of. I I I hadn't

heard a peep about that. I had no idea

that we were meddling in Kaz Kazakhstan.

>> Yeah, it was one of those where much

like what just happened in Iran in

January where there's uh protest over

some economic policy. I think in that

case they had cut the gas ration or

something like that and and it's you

know it's a country that's divided by

ethnicity. Those borders are in all the

wrong places and whatever. So you have

sort of the ruling cast and the people

on the outs and whatever. So

>> you had a big protest movement and then

all of a sudden there's armed gangs of

guys killing cops, seizing police

stations, trying to seize airports and

and this kind of thing. And um and then

what happened was the Russians invaded.

They sent regular troops across. They

were asked by the government there to

come and intervene. And they sent

troops. They crushed the insurrection.

And then it was funny because Anthony

Blinken said, "Oh, there's a lesson.

When the Russians come, they don't ever

want to leave." And then the next day

they turned around and left. And then

they invaded Ukraine. They haven't left

there since. But um

>> so who were these insurrectionists?

>> I don't know. I mean, I think presumably

they worked for the CIA and probably the

Turks or something, you know? I don't

know.

>> Just smirks.

>> Yeah, them too.

>> Yeah. And so this whole thing was just

what you were saying earlier, just to

try to get Russia to be spread as thin

as possible, spend as much money as

possible, cause as many problems in as

many places as possible.

>> Yeah. And in fact, the same George

Freriedman from Stratfor I think it's in

that same speech or maybe a different uh

one where he says, "Yeah, when when Iran

is doing a little bit better, you hit

them. When Russia's doing better, you

hit them. when China's achieving a thing

or two, you hit them. You do whatever

you can to always be effing with

everybody all the time in order to, you

know, that's how to press your

advantage, which I think is totally just

short-sighted. It's high time

preference, you know, sort of government

thinking, right? That like, well, if we

can get away with this now, we should

without really thinking about the

long-term consequence. In fact, that was

one of the things that failed to impress

at Oxford that I brought up that that I

thought was crucial that is in my book

is Strobe Talbet, Bill Clinton's guy who

originally opposed NATO expansion and

then later championed it in 2018 when it

was the middle of the war, the the civil

war so-called with America supporting

Kiev and the Russians supporting the

so-called rebels on the other side. Um,

a New York Times reporter named Keith

Gesson went and interviewed Strobe

Talbot and

it just kind of went without saying that

like clearly what is going on here is

the project of NATO expansion has sort

of blown up and caused all these

problems. You know, what are we going to

do and and what do you think now pal? I

forgot exactly the way you phrase it but

it's sort of you know what do you have

to say for yourself strobe and so strobe

Thomas says well listen he goes when

you're in power you have one job and

that is to pursue your nation's national

interests and if you don't do that well

then you won't be in power very long so

that was what we had to do but then he

says now maybe should we have had a

higher wiser conception of our national

interest

maybe. In other words, at the time, what

they were thinking is we want Lockheed

dollars and we want Polish votes for

1996, Illinois's crucial swing state,

right? So, or was, I don't know if it

still is. Uh, so that's why we got to do

this because it's in America's national

interest that Bill Clinton get reelected

and we all get to keep our jobs. So,

we're going to we're going to make these

promises to these people and pursue this

policy for our narrow interests as

rulers of the empire. But then, if he

had had a higher, wiser conception of

America's national interest, he might

have thought, wow, are we scheduling a

military conflict with Russia for the

next century, maybe we shouldn't do

that. Maybe we should look at it like

actually nothing in the world is more

important than America continuing to get

along with the Russians. And again, when

the communists are long gone, so

whatever problem you have with these

guys, it ain't Stalinism and it ain't

evangelical Marxism at the point of a

rifle, right? I mean, this is just

whatever it is, we can deal with it. And

um and so no, they chose the lower

dumber conception of America's national

interest instead of the higher wiser one

and they blew it. You know,

>> is there anyone that's ever made the

argument to you like where you've had

these debates where you have a utopian

perspective on international relations

and that this libertarian ideology of

like staying out of people's business,

staying out of the what you'll do if you

don't [ __ ] with the Russians, you don't

keep them spending, you don't keep them

stretched out, they'll just amass more

and more power and then they'll start to

try to take over what was traditionally

the Soviet Union. What was it originally

the Soviet Union?

>> Yeah. You know, it it just so happens,

right, that America never leaves anybody

alone. So, we just don't have a

controlled experiment, right? We're

constantly provoking and everything that

we see them do is clearly a reaction.

And just like when we talk about

terrorism, again, I'm not in any way

justifying it, but I'm just saying we

have so much intervention preceding the

terrorism. You have to be able to

attribute that. Yes. But now, so how

would things be otherwise? For example,

if HW Bush had just said, "Okay, well,

we won the Cold War. Pat Buchanan's

right. Let's just come home and had

brought the empire home from Europe."

Then what would happen is the Germans

would have reunified and then they would

have joined into a new European Union

army with the British and the French and

probably the Poles. And then it would

have been on them to keep the peace

between each other, to police the

smaller countries in their region, and

hopefully strike a long-term security

partnership with the new red, white, and

blue Republican Russians. And you know,

if people want to say, but and in fact,

the other side in that debate at Oxford,

Daniel Frerieded said, "Yeah, but it was

Poland wanted to join our alliance. It's

not like we made them. They wanted to.

But the thing is, yeah, they might have

reason to fear Russia based on old

things, but the question is, why are we

obligated to be the guarantor of their

independence? It's it's too far from

here, and it's something that we're no

good at. We only cause problems and

something that

>> the other European states, who are all

Western Christian capitalist democracies

and friends of ours, that they can all

work together and solve on their own. I

mean when Germany reunified it's not

like the commies were taken over it was

the west that was dominant in the new

Germany right these are our pals there's

no reason a world that America should

have had to have well for example like a

big part part of the horrible war in the

Balkans was because of a contest for

power between America and Germany over

who's going to be dominant in the former

Yugoslavia. we should just let the

Germans have it or I mean not have it

and kill everybody or whatever, but God,

it could hardly have been worse than

what America helped to cause there by

trying to compete with the Germans for

dominance in a land that's quite

literally 6,000 miles from here.

>> But is the fear from the American side

that if you let other countries

consolidate power, if you let them grow

in influence without [ __ ] with them

and keeping them spread out like we're

doing with Russia,

>> Yeah. that they'll eventually get

stronger and then they'll become a real

problem and they keep them weak, keep

them distracted, keep them engaged in

this Ukraine conflict and Kazakhstan and

anything else you can cook up. Yeah.

>> And that keeps them down.

>> Well, it's like this. When it was the

Cold War against the comm Soviet Union,

I was a kid and it's I'm not an expert

on all of that history. I think there

were real questions about the dangers of

world communism at that time where at

least I'd be willing to hear you out.

But since the end of the cold war,

no, there's just no justification for it

because as Bill Hicks would say, right?

Like just spin the globe, man. There's

no countries out there, right? Every

power in Europe is our friend and no

threat to us and mean us no harm

whatsoever. There are no powers in in

Egypt, I mean, pardon me, in Africa that

count at all except for Egypt, which is

our friend. India will be a power in a

hundred years from now. Uh China is a

rising power but we've been their

friends for 50 years. Even when they

were still communists, Nixon went and

made friends with them in the early

1970s and then the Soviet Union. Yeah.

And then

>> but aren't they constantly infiltrating

our different universities and people

>> I ain't endorsing that. You can keep

them out. But

>> but Chinese infiltration is kind of

crazy like what they're what they're

doing in America. It's like if you're

saying they're our friends, you know,

the mayor of Arcadia just got busted.

>> She was a communist spy. She's a [ __ ]

mayor of a city in California.

>> I'm putting that on the FBI counter

intelligence division. That should have

never been allowed to happen in the

first place. Um, and no, I don't mean

that they're totally benign. But look, I

worst case scenario, China invades or

just surrounds and forcibly reintegrates

Taiwan. That doesn't mean they're going

to invade Korea. It doesn't mean they're

going to invade Japan or Australia or or

have the appetite to want to do that. I

think China is already a pretty

overextended empire and it's very poor

in many parts of it and they have

something is it 14 or 15 neighbors that

they got to deal with already. you know,

their their greatest ambition is to

build this um uh you know what, highway

and and and fiber optics and whatever

from Shanghai to Lisbon, right? This

what do they call it? The why am I

forgetting the name of the damn thing?

The the great uh the the great new

highway they're trying to build all the

way across Eurasia.