193. Scott Horton: Did Washington Provoke the War in Ukraine?

Scott Horton, author of Provoked: How Washington Started the New Cold War with Russia and the Catastrophe in Ukraine, joins Aaron Pete to discuss how U.S. foreign policy shaped the war in Ukraine. They break down NATO expansion, the 2014 coup, and media narratives, challenging the idea that Russia’s invasion was unprovoked. 

Send us a text

Support the show

www.biggerthanmepodcast.com

Episode Transcript

Aaron Pete (00:00):
Welcome back to another episode of the Bigger
Than Me podcast.
Here is your host, aaron P.
What is happening in Ukraine?
What does it mean to beanti-war?
I am speaking with the authorof Provoked how Washington
started the new Cold War withRussia and the catastrophe in
Ukraine.
We discuss 9-11, the war inUkraine, what resolutions look

(00:22):
like and how Canada fits intoall of this.
My guest today is Scott HortonScott.
I am so excited to be able tospeak with you today.
I have been able to watch youwith Dave Smith, piers Morgan.
I've been able to enjoy a lotof your independent talks and it
has just been a privilege tolearn from you and hear your

(00:42):
perspectives on important issues, and I thought your
interactions have been verythoughtful on the Pierce Morgan
Show and you do a very good jobof conducting yourself.
But first may I ask you tobriefly introduce yourself.

Scott Horton (00:53):
Well, thank you very much.
I appreciate that.
I'm Scott Horton.
I'm basically a Ron Paullibertarian type from Texas with
a focus on foreign policy.
I'm the director of theLibertarian Institute, the
editorial director of Antiwarcom.
I've done 6,000 interviewssince 2003, and I've written
three books Fool's Errand onAfghanistan, enough Already on
the War on Terrorism, and nowProvoked on the New Cold War

(01:16):
with Russia and the Ukraine War.

Aaron Pete (01:18):
Can I first ask about how your philosophy
developed.
I find you and individuals likeDave Smith, you have, like a
really well-grounded philosophythat I think so many people lack
.
Even if people don't agree withyour perspectives, you can't
disagree that you have a reallystrong foundation in which you
come to your conclusions, thatyou can kind of follow your

(01:39):
thinking all the way through.
And again, some people mightnot agree with you, but I think
that's very impressive andsomething that I find rare.
Where did that come from foryou?

Scott Horton (01:46):
Well, I just believe in freedom.
I mean, that's all it is.
Libertarianism is essentiallythe unified field theory of
human liberty, so lots of peoplebelieve in freedom, but the
libertarians are the ones who'vethought all of this stuff
through.
And so that goes from politicaland well, first of all, natural
rights theory for almost all ofus, but also political theory

(02:09):
and economic theory.
We're very closely tied to theAustrian school of economics
because they are focused on theindividual acting person, acting
in what they hope is their ownbest interest as the basis of
civilization, which is reallyright.

Aaron Pete (02:31):
So like did you just stumble across this in school?
Were you interacting with otherthinkers?

Scott Horton (02:39):
Well, I mean, first of all, I learned about
the difference between having arepublic and an empire from Star
Wars when I was a boy Right,and then I of all, I learned
about the difference betweenhaving a republic and an empire
from star wars when I was a boyright, and then, um, I I studied
a lot of the founding fathersstuff before I really got into
contemporary libertarianism.
Um, I had first been exposed tolibertarianism um directly

(03:00):
through harry brown, who was areally great candidate for
president in 1996.
But from what I knew then, um,from you know, tv and books and
newspapers and whatever seemedlike, the libertarians were just
kind of the reason magazinekind of went like, oh, wow, dude
, we're like atheists, isn'tthat edgy?

(03:21):
Or whatever you know.
So I would rather pal aroundwith the right wingers, because
at least they cared about thebranch.
Davidians and that was what Iwas interested in was like the
actual atrocities that thegovernment was committing and um
, and and really like what theshape of the 21st century was
going to be.
And so the right wingers, theanti-government right, were

(03:44):
better on that at the time Ididn't really find really
good—oh, and of course thenthere was Ron Paul, but he was a
Republican congressman but alibertarian and an Austrian
economist, and you knowabsolutely my hero, the very
best guy.
So I was following him allalong, of course, as well.
And then, once the terror warstarted, I started getting more

(04:04):
serious and got the internet,started reading antiwarcom all
the time, and that led me overto lourockwellcom and the Mises
Institute, which I should haveknown about the Mises Institute
because on the creature fromJekyll Island, which is G Edward
Griffin's book about thecentral bank, on the back
there's an endorsement from MarkDorton, who I just interviewed
the other day.

(04:25):
The great Austrian economist,for Mises had endorsed Jekyll
Island.
And it's funny because I evenremember seeing, oh, ludwig von
Mises Institute and justthinking well, whatever that is,
their one economist was socapitalist he decided to endorse
this book.
But they couldn't possiblyreally be that good or they
wouldn't even be a thing with afancy name like that.

(04:46):
And that was in like 95 orsomething.
I wish I had really gone aheadand looked into it.
That was probably even beforeRothbard died, when I read
Jekyll Island, but I didn't.
I found out about the MisesInstitute again really after
Rock War II or in the run-up toRock War II when I was reading
antiwarcom and lewrockwellcomall the time, and then that's

(05:07):
where I found there really is alibertarian movement of real
grown-ups and experts andeconomists with nice suits and
stuff who are really hardcoreanti-government extremists just
like me in the Lew Rockwell,just a Raimondo-type model which
is the Rothbard.
You know sort of right-wingpopulist libertarianism.

Aaron Pete (05:29):
Interesting and what has it been like like?
I feel like you are very goodat remembering information,
understanding kind of thelineage of how things have come
about.
How much studying do you feellike and reading and research do
you feel like you've had to doin order to start to be able to
present books like the bookProvoked?

Scott Horton (05:48):
That's a good question.
I mean, as I said, I've done6,000 interviews since 2003.
And I probably could havestarted writing books before I
did.
I wrote my first book in 2016and 17, came out in 17.
And I could have written thatbook sooner probably.
But, um, my education really wasreading antiwarcom uh, being an

(06:12):
assistant editor at that timeand later opinion editor of
antiwarcom.
So I, my job was not justreading all the news all the day
, but I'm thumbs up or thumbsdown on all the viewpoints and
so we're running all thesearticles and there's some really
great anti-war writers inAmerica over all these years
that it's our privilege tospotlight their work, but that
means I got to read all of itevery day, and so that was a

(06:35):
huge thing.
And then also, I mentionedJustin Raimondo.
He was the original editorialdirector of Antiwarcom and
co-founder with Eric Garris,editorial director of antiwarcom
and co-founder with eric garris, and he was our premier writer,
our head contributing writer,who wrote behind the headlines,
and he died back in 2019, butfor many years like I don't know
10 I was the my words, the linkmonkey.

(06:58):
My job was filling his articlewith hyperlinks proving that he
was right about everything andif he was wrong about anything,
I'd have to fix it and make surethat it was right, because I
just thought his articles werethe most important thing in the
world going on at that time.
So for me to be part of helpingto perfect those I thought was
more important than me evenwriting articles on my own.
And then what that amounted towas a three or four hour deep

(07:22):
dive, three nights a week, onall these subjects, and he was
right about everything, and sothere was no conflict there.
It wasn't difficult at all.
You know what I mean?
It was he, and and from thefirst time I read him that's
Justin Raimondo, again atantiwarcom the first time I read
him I thought man, how doesthis guy know all of this stuff?

(07:43):
It's sort of like the way youguys talk about me, because he
wasn't in Washington DC, butsomehow he just knew everything
about these neoconservatives andwho they were and what they
were up to and how they werelying us into war, and he had
been so good on the Balkan Warsbefore, that Um and um, and then
really I would say, at leastthrough the first Obama term, he

(08:08):
was the most important writerin America bar none.
Uh, so working for him and myjob being essentially, you know,
leaving no claim on sourced inhis articles was really a great
way to learn a lot of this stuffas well.
And then just piling around withGareth Porter I'm not sure if
you're familiar with him.
He's pretty old and he's beenwriting a book about the first

(08:35):
Cold War for the last few yearsnow.
So he's kind of been away, buthe was.
He's my favorite guy.
I've interviewed him more than500 times and he's just
absolutely the man on everythingabout Iraq, war II and
Afghanistan and see, I think hewas writing a book during Syria
but Iran and Iran's nuclearprogram.
He wrote the book on thatcalled Manufactured Crisis and
he is just the greatest debunkerof all things Petraeus and

(08:57):
every claim that they made aboutthe terror wars and all of that
, and he's another great mentorof mine.

Aaron Pete (09:04):
One, and it feels like an obvious question.
But to be anti-war, I don'tknow.
It seems a bit taboo right now.
Can you describe what it meansto be actually anti-war?

Scott Horton (09:15):
Well, look, I mean America's the world empire.
None of this is legitimate atall.
None of this is oh, we got togo stop the Wehrmacht because
they're taking over all ofWestern Europe or whatever.
There's nothing like that.
And they have to justabsolutely lie their ass off to
you all day long.
You know Dick Cheney.
In 2002, in August of 2002, DickCheney went to the Veterans of
Foreign Wars.

(09:36):
He told a giant crowd full ofguys who fought in World War II,
Korea and Vietnam and Iraq WarI give me your boys.
I need them Because SaddamHussein is going to give nuclear
weapons to Osama bin Laden.
See, that's how much the warparty respects you, Zero.

(09:57):
They'll lie right to yourgrandpa's face.
Okay, they think that you arethe scum of the earth, so you
should also consider them thatsame way.
That's absolutely how they talkabout.
You know, George Bush's mother,Barbara Bush, said people are
always asking me about thecasualties of the war.

(10:18):
Well, what was the exact quote?
I don't want to flub it.
I had a second to go.
It was oh, that's just notrelevant.
So why would I waste mybeautiful mind on something like
that?
Right, In other words, all ofus, the 350 million of us.
We're the help, Okay, we're thegardener at best.

(10:43):
They don't care about us at all.
We're the, not even the garbagemen to them and I revere
garbage men, but I'm saying, intheir eyes they don't give a
damn about us.
They lie from morning to nightto get what they want, and so
they'll portray anyone, fromdavid koresh to saddam hussein
to vladimir putin and claim thatthey're all adolf hitler and

(11:03):
they're all going to take overthe whole world if we don't stop
them.
Which again, think of howlittle respect for you they show
when they shovel S like that inyour face, Like how could you
take it?
How could anyone tolerate it?
And you looked at you know thebook is called Provoked, not
because I'm saying, oh, Russiahad no choice in the book.

(11:24):
You know the war is justifiedbecause that's not the title.
The title is Provoked becausewhat did they say?
The American War Party?
What did they say about the warin Ukraine?
Unprovoked attack, Unprovokedattack.
In fact, you're not allowed tocall it anything but an
unprovoked attack when you sayit.
So it's like when they murderedRandy Weaver they go, or sorry,
his wife and son.

(11:45):
They would say white separatistRandy Weaver, white separatist
Randy Weaver, or they foundSaddam Hussein hiding in a hole
in the ground.
They go he's in a spider hole,Saddam Hussein's spider hole.
He was hiding in a spider hole,spider hole, spider hole,
spider hole.
You have to call it that Anunprovoked attack.
Well, why are they so insistenton this public relations

(12:10):
terminology?
It's because they provoked it.
It's because they're guilty andthey don't want you asking
questions about why would Russiado such a thing.
You're supposed to receive thewisdom from them.
He did it because he's Hitler.
Yeah, he's been in power for 25years already, but anyway, he's
Hitler and he's decided to dothis because he woke up on the
wrong side of the bed thismorning, right, Condoleezza Rice

(12:33):
, who helped pick this fightwhen she was Secretary of State
for W Bush in the start of thewar in 22, or the start of the
worst part of the war in 22, shesaid this isn't the Vladimir
Putin, I know, but yes, ofcourse it is.
He's not mentally ill now.
He's not a megalomaniac now.
He's the same clerk that he'salways been.

(12:55):
What happened?
What happened was USA, in theform of Joe Biden, if that's not
believable enough to you pickedthis fight through, at the very
least, absolute diplomaticmalpractice.
They screwed up everything.
These are the masters of theuniverse.
You know it, your dad knows it,your next-door neighbor knows

(13:17):
it.
We're number one.
America is the superpower,which means that, at the very
least, their diplomacyabsolutely failed to prevent
this war Worse they caused it,Of course they did.
You know they caused September11th too.
Not that they did it, but theycaused it to happen.

(13:39):
They refused to protect us fromtheir own terrorist mercenaries
that then they turned againstus through their horrific Middle
East policies.
And then they walk away withtheir hands in their pockets,
whistling while our towers fullof civilians get knocked down
and their own damn Pentagon getshit.

Aaron Pete (13:55):
I think that's an important follow up.
Can you, for people who mightnot understand, what do you mean
when you say that they alsocontributed to what happened on
9-11?

Scott Horton (14:06):
Okay, so we'll get back to Ukraine, because that's
a fun one too.
Let's talk about the MiddleEast here.
Everybody knows this.
America backed the Mujahideenfreedom fighters in Afghanistan
against the Soviet Union, ussr,communists in the 1980s.
They even made Rambo 3 about it, where he goes over there and

(14:27):
he helps the brave warriors.
Okay, they were the freedomfighters.
That was mostly the Pashtunmilitias, but it also included
the international Islamicbrigades, in other words Muslims
, but especially Arabs.
But Muslims from all around theworld came to Afghanistan on

(14:49):
Saudi Arabia, america, britainand Pakistan's dime, with Saudi
and Pakistan doing most of theorganization, and they brought
in Muslims from all across theMiddle East, but including the
Philippines and the UnitedStates and Chechnya, and all
over the place to come and tofight against the godless
communists who had control ofKabul at that time.
That war ended in 1989 with ahumiliating Soviet withdrawal

(15:14):
and defeat, and then theMujahideen kept fighting and the
various warlords kept fightinguntil they hanged and killed the
commie dictator Najibullah in1991.
As soon as they were done fromthat they moved on to Bosnia,
where America supported theirside there as well.
They also helped supportAzerbaijan in their brief war

(15:36):
with Armenia in 1992 overNagorno-Karabakh, and they
supported them in Bosnia through1995.
They supported them in Kosovoin 1999.
And they supported them inChechnya from 1999 through about
1994 or 95, sorry, 1999 through2004 or 2005 at the earliest,

(15:58):
maybe even after that.
And so these are the binLadenites.
This is the internationalal-Qaeda terrorist network, the
same one that attacked theUnited States.
Now a lot of people, I think,oversimplify it and say, well,
yeah, they did 9-11 too.
But the thing about it is thisI think there's a lot of like
left hand, right hand notworking together, kinds of

(16:19):
things when it comes to thisgovernment, hand, right hand not
working together, kinds ofthings.
When it comes to thisgovernment and the American
policy was we like these guys,they do our dirty work in Bosnia
, kosovo, chechnya, afghanistan,before that, wherever we need
it.
And for some of the Mujahideen,their attitude was we like the
Americans, they help us inAfghanistan, bosnia, kosovo,
chechnya.
But some of them in theirleadership, especially bin Laden

(16:43):
and Zawahiri and the leaders ofthe group, they had a broader
vision which was much more oflike this Leninist global
revolutionary type of a thing,starting, of course, with the
Middle East, but importantlybecause, as I said, this was an
international movement of all ofthese terrorist mercenaries
from all around the Muslim worldwho were there to fight.
Well, when they kind of haddowntime and they're trying to

(17:06):
figure out what to do, there'sall this inertia for everybody
to split off and go fight theirlocal jihad in Egypt or Jordan
or Syria or wherever they're atright.
But bin Laden's trying to holdthe thing together.
So what he got everybody toagree about instead of we should
do what Jimmy wants or weshould do what Bobby wants it
was let's all do what I want,which is attack the United
States.
We'll all work together on thatgoal, because once we get the

(17:28):
United States to react andinvade Afghanistan, then we'll
be able to replicate our waragainst the Soviet Union.
Bog the Americans down, bleedthem to bankruptcy, force them
out the hard way, the same waywe did the Soviet Union, and
then their freedom of actionwill be limited in the future.

(17:48):
Then we can wage our localrevolutions in the Middle East
without Uncle Sam getting in theway.
And you see what happens whenand this was all Obama's fault,
we're too rushed for time butwhen America well, first W Bush
and especially Obama helped tobuild the caliphate for these
kooks back in 2013 and 14.
Remember Baghdadi and the ISIScaliphate?
Then they said, well, we can'ttolerate that.

(18:09):
So they bombed it right off theface of the earth again right.
Even though they had helped tocreate the thing, it was too
much, and so they proved theal-Qaeda theory right.
As long as America, the worldempire, is around to bomb our
revolutionary movements there,we can never win.
So what we need to do is justkeep fighting till we're done
with them, till they withdraw,and then we can have our way.

(18:34):
Now the thing that bin Ladendidn't anticipate is that Israel
hates the Shiites more, andthat means America hates the
Shiites more.
Even if it was bin Laden andthe radical edge of the Sunni
Wahhabi movement who hit ourtowers, Our government doesn't
care about that because Israelfirst.
So when they followed Israel'sinstructions and invaded Iraq,
that only backfired.

(18:54):
I don't think this is whatIsrael really wanted.
It was a complicated scheme andit didn't work out and they
ended up.
It was what they call in soccer, an own goal.
They ended up putting theirenemies or well, their regional
rivals, the Iranian Shiites,their best friends in power in
Baghdad.
That whole terrible war, iraqwar two of your childhood that
was all America fighting for theShiites.

(19:15):
They hate against the Sunnisbecause it was supposed to work
out and it didn't.
But then they realized theirerror and they've been working
on taking out the Alawites inDamascus ever since.
Because the Alawites inDamascus, even though it was a
Ba'ath party like Saddam Hussein, they were not Sunnis, or there
were a lot of Sunnis in it, butthe leadership was not Sunni.

(19:38):
They were Alawites.
And they're very closely tiedwith the Shiites and had an
alliance with Iran which theyused to help Iran back Hezbollah
in southern Lebanon, who aren'tour enemies, they're Israel's
enemies.
So, in other words, when theysay America's interests and
Israel's interests in the MiddleEast are the same, no, they're
not.
They're 100%, 180 degreescontrary to each other.

(20:01):
The Israelis hate the Shiites,the Iranians who and now Baghdad
, tehran, now Baghdad, up untilDecember Damascus and Hezbollah
in southern Lebanon.
That's their axis of evil,whereas the people who knocked
our towers down are the radicalSunni bin Ladenites from Egypt
and Saudi Arabia especially, andChechnya and all these other

(20:21):
places where there are radicalSunni bin Ladenites, from Egypt
and Saudi Arabia especially, andChechnya and all these other
places where there are radicalSunnis.
And so that's why, whenal-Qaeda.
Literally, al-qaeda in Syriatook over the government in
Damascus in December, which wasObama's dirty war from 10 years
ago finally played out.
They didn't just go east intowestern Iraq this time, they

(20:42):
went west and they sackedDamascus.
And Hezbollah was too weak andIran was too weak and Russia,
well, I don't know.
Iran just wasn't there andRussia was too weak to intervene
to help them, and so they lost.
And then that's what'shappening in the news right now
who's killing the Christians andthe Alawites in Syria?
It's the Bin Ladenites.
Why?
Because, thanks Obama.
That's why, because it wasAmerica's policy under Obama to

(21:06):
make up for W Bush's blunder inIraq.
We couldn't refight Iraq War IIand kick the Shiites out of
Baghdad and give it back to theSunnis.
That was too much.
But we could overthrow Assad inDamascus.
So, in other words, ronaldReagan intervened on behalf of

(21:26):
these kooks in order to fightthe Soviets.
Bill Clinton supported and HWBush, but especially Bill
Clinton, supported their effortsin Bosnia, kosovo and Chechnya
and Azerbaijan.
And then, after September 11th,w Bush used them as an excuse
to invade Iraq, which waspartially at Israel's behest,

(21:47):
and the neoconservatives, ofcourse, were working for
Israel's interest and pushingfor that war, but then that
empowered Iran and the Shiites.
So then that necessitated whatthey called the redirection and
America tilting back towardsal-Qaeda, because the Saudis
don't have an army excepttingback towards al-Qaeda, because
the Saudis don't have an armyexcept us, or al-Qaeda suicide
bombers and head choppers.
And so America's, in otherwords USA, has backed Osama bin

(22:12):
Laden's men this whole time,except for right after September
11th, when they fought them fora month and a half in
Afghanistan before letting themgo, and for a few years in Iraq
war two, where they fought onthe Shiite side against al-Qaeda
in Iraq, in Iraq War II.
All the rest of the time,america's on the side of Osama
bin Laden.
Wow, I know it really sucks,and I'll tell you what too.

(22:36):
The FBI has entrapped a lot ofkooks into a lot of fake plots
in this country.
But I'll tell you somethingelse too there's been some real
ones.
There is a guy who tried toblow up.
He was from Denver, tried toblow up the subway in New York.
There was a guy who there'svery few that really were
genuine that got busted, butthere are a few that got away

(23:00):
with it, like the guy in SanBernardino that shot up the city
council meeting, there was aguy who set off bombs on a
marathon route in New York andNew Jersey, which I think.
Luckily no one was hurt in thatone, but it was a legit attack
by these guys, of course, theBoston bombing of 2013.
Hell, go back to the CIA attackof 1993, where a guy blocked
the double left turn lane andgot an AK-47 out of the trunk of
his cab and shot up a bunch ofguys waiting to turn left into

(23:22):
Langley headquarters.
Go back to the First WorldTrade Center and all this.
There have been real attacks bythese guys.
Orlando was another one wherethis guy he had never been over
there, he was from here, but hesigned up to the ISIS agenda.
And then look at New Orleans.
It got all fuzzy because of theweird attack by the pro-Trump

(23:43):
guy, the soldier with the PTSDproblem, out in Las Vegas.
It muddied the whole water.
But what happened in NewOrleans on New Year's man?
It was an American soldier whois a Muslim convert, who's
obviously radicalized by therecent war in Palestine, who
went and ran down a bunch ofpeople on Bourbon Street

(24:04):
celebrating New Year's and herecorded himself complaining his
manifestos on the way downthere.
And they haven't released thoseyet.
We don't know for sure.
I'm only betting you, but I'mbetting you, what he was ranting
about in there was Israelkilling Palestinians on
America's dime, and then so whohad to pay?
A bunch of innocent party goersright in this terrorist attack.

(24:27):
And so, the more that ourgovernment, one, continues to
support these kooks, theseabsolute murderous monsters as
you've seen in the news just thepast couple days, what's
happening in Syria?
As much as they continue tosupport these guys, but while
still supporting Israel againstthe helpless Palestinians and
while still, you know, havingtroops occupying Saudi Arabia I

(24:50):
mean, pardon me, I don't know ifthey're still in Saudi but
occupying the Gulf states,kuwait, bahrain, qatar, which is
still wholly Arabian Peninsulaterritory to them.
Troops in Syria, troops in Iraqand supporting every Muslim
dictator over there.
Our government is just like the1990s still.
Our government supports theseterrorists.

(25:11):
They motivate them to attack us, the innocent civilian
population of the country, andthen they do nothing to protect
us from them.
And so it's a real danger.
I think it's a real danger.
I think it's a real danger.
I think New Orleans is, in asense, we got lucky compared to
what could happen if just thinkabout.
And he had a gun too.
But they just waxed him.
As soon as he got out of histruck.

(25:32):
There were just cops rightthere, blew his head off, like
luck of the draw.
That that was where he crashed.
That they were right there tokill him because he got out of
that truck with a rifle.
And just imagine what a team offive guys.
You saw him hijack a plane andcrash into a tower.
That was five guys, did that?
Imagine five guys with goodrifles and skills hitting what

(25:54):
name your soft target?
The damage that could be donein this country, and that's the
kind of fire our government isplaying with done in this
country?

Aaron Pete (26:04):
um, and that's the kind of fire our government is
playing with.
It's really heavy first to startto understand, like how much
you know about the topic and howsometimes arrogant I think
people are when they think theyunderstand these issues.
Like it's just humbling whenyou go through some of these
things, like that's a lot ofinformation to retain and so
there's there's probably only aselect few that actually
understand these issues, thehistory of them, how they've

(26:24):
come about and the playersactually involved in making some
of these decisions, where somany of us like I want to get
into your book Provoked, like mynormal person understanding
watching the news is that onFebruary 22nd 2022, russia
invaded a sovereign countrycalled Ukraine and it was the
first full-scale war in Europesince World War II.

(26:46):
That is my cursoryunderstanding of such an issue
and that's what we hear in thenews.
That's what we talk about Toyour point.
We hear that it was notprovoked, that Ukraine was just
minding their own business andall of a sudden, these people
start crossing their border andattacking.
Would you mind responding tothat?
Tertiary understanding.

Scott Horton (27:06):
Yeah, I mean the very bottom line is the issues.
The primary issues wereAmerica's continued sort of slow
motion integration of Ukraineinto the NATO military alliance,
giving them essentially defacto membership, but without
the full war guarantee, At thesame time continuing to support

(27:27):
Ukraine in the civil war in theeast of the country, which was
supposed to have been settled bya peace deal way back in 2015,
which Obama and the UN SecurityCouncil both rubber stamped and
was supposed to be the deal, andthat we know now, because they
boast and brag about it now,that they never meant to live up
to what was called Minsk II.
They never meant to implementit.
They were just biding theirtime to build up Ukraine's

(27:49):
military to fight more in thefuture, and it was a terrible
mistake.
The whole policy, essentiallyfrom the point of view of the
Ukrainian politicians who wentalong with America on this, is
they committed treason againsttheir own country because they
let America essentially get theminto a war that they can't
possibly win.
And so I'm not saying treasonlike they're selling themselves

(28:13):
out to the Russians.
I'm saying, by pimpingthemselves out to the Americans,
they've let America put them ina situation where they're just
being completely smashed andlosing not everything but so
much in a war that was anunnecessary and quite provoked

(28:33):
war.
And, as I say, the subtitle ofthe book is how Washington
started a new Cold War withRussia and the catastrophe in
Ukraine.
So Kiev played their role, butagain, America is the superpower
and Joe Biden was the worldemperor at the time.

Aaron Pete (28:48):
So my understanding, like the counterpoint that I
think I've heard people make toyou, is well, isn't this proof
that they needed to join NATO?
Isn't this evidence that theyshould have gone down this path?
And I've had the privilege ofwatching that one.
Is it Stephen Colbert interviewwhere he talks about how they
were?
We're trying to pull Ukraineover to our side, and I think

(29:10):
the only I'm in Canada and wehave a lot of Ukrainians in
Canada and I'm just curious withour relationship.
Like the thing that I hear inCanada is like those are like we
have a lot of families overthere.
We want to protect them.
We want them.
They want to be more like us inthe West.
They have relatives over here.
That's their relationship.
How do we kind of process thefact that within at least my

(29:32):
borders, we do have a lot offamily there.
So there may be a goal of kindof aligning our governments so
that they have the same mindset.

Scott Horton (29:41):
Yeah well, the problem is, they're 7,000 miles
from here and they're stuck nextdoor to Russia, so we can
figuratively move them west, butwe can't really move them west,
can we?
And so they are stuck next doorto a major power that's not
going to tolerate their.
They have, since the breakup ofthe Soviet Union, tolerated
their independence.
They're not going to toleratethem becoming essentially a

(30:04):
major outpost of an adversarialimperial power, which is the
United States.
As Putin put it, america made acolony out of Ukraine.
This wasn't a question ofwhether Ukraine was allowed to
be independent or not.
It was a question of whether,as you just said, referring to
that interview with Gideon Rose,who is the editor of Foreign
Affairs, the most importantforeign policy journal in
America, the Journal of theCouncil on Foreign Relations,

(30:27):
explaining to Stephen Colbertback in 2014, we're getting away
with it.
He, he, he.
We're breaking Ukraine andRussia up and we're taking
Ukraine off with us.
He says Russia is like a ghettoboyfriend and we're trying to
get Ukraine to trade up to anice yuppie, the European Union.
And he says and Colbert sayswell geez, how come we're not

(30:49):
spiking the football andcelebrating this.
And he says well, because we'retrying to get away with it,
while Putin's distracted withthe Sochi Olympics, we want to
just run off and get away withthe whole thing.
And Colbert says oh, I get it.
Hey you, hey, stupid, you'd bedistracted by all these shiny

(31:09):
gold medals.
We're just going to run offwith this country and you're not
going to notice.
And Gideon Rose says yeah,pretty much, pretty much.
Well, like the next day or twodays later, the Russians took
back the Crimean Peninsula, so Iguess he wasn't that distracted
with the Olympics after all.
And by the way, why did he justspend $40 billion on the

(31:30):
Olympics?
Because he was trying to kissyour rear end.
He's trying to suck up to theWest and trying to get along
with us and impress us as beinga member of our world order as
best as he could.
But that's not good enough.
You got to be either drunken,boris Yeltsin on your knees,
willing to do whatever he's toldand steal whatever he's told,

(31:52):
or you got to go.
And it's the same thing withthe Victoria Nuland phone call,
the infamous phone call whereshe's deciding who should be the
prime minister and she'sdeciding who ought to run the
country.
She's deciding who should bethe prime minister and she's
deciding who ought to run thecountry and clearly is the one
calling the shots in the leakedphone call with her and Jeffrey
Pyatt.
And they both say over and overwe got to glue it, we got to

(32:12):
stick it, we got to midwife it,we got to hurry up, we got to
make it sail before Putin canreact and torpedo it right.
So, in other words, just likeGideon Rose, well, stephen,
we're going to be really sneakyand get away with it, but they
don't get away with anything.
The whole thing is as blatantas it could possibly be Just
another color-coded revolutionsponsored by USAID and the NED

(32:35):
and the IRI and the NDI and allthe George Soros foundations.
And they come in there and theyspend all this money and
support all these people and gettheir way.
They've done it over and overagain, as I demonstrate in the
book.
They've done it over and overagain, going back to the Balkans
in the 1990s and really goingback to the struggle against the
communists in the old Cold War.

(32:55):
But in our era they've donethis thing over and over again,
and so they are clearly the oneswho picked the fight.
Now there is, of course, thecircular reasoning that you cite
, that well, that's why Ukrainehas to be in NATO and that's why
they should have been in thefirst place, and then Putin
would have never tried this.
But that's not true.
What it is is, if they had goneahead and given Ukraine a real

(33:15):
invitation to join NATO, russiawould have invaded then and they
would have broken Ukraine.
Then, before the ink could bedried, before the documents
could be signed or the ceremonycould be held, they were never
going to tolerate Ukrainianentry into NATO.
So no, it just would have beenan earlier war.
That's all and again.

(33:36):
See, this is actually what theycall begging the question.
It doesn't mean raising thequestion.
Raising the question is raisingthe question.
Begging the question is whenyou assume your conclusion right
, it's baked in to that argument.
You're supposed to alreadyaccept the unspoken premise,
which is that they did this forno good reason that any

(33:58):
reasonable gentleman couldunderstand.
It's not about that.
It's just about imperialism.
It's about rebuilding theSoviet Union, it's about
self-aggrandizement for theRussian dictator and all of
these things.
They're trying to preclude thediscussion that we're having,
which is what did Joe Biden dohis entire career long to make

(34:19):
this happen?
And the answer is he expandednato right up into their
business and, as his at bestham-handed attempt to dissuade
this intervention after it wasreally, I think the last straw,
was probably donald trump'sgovernment.
Whether he knew it or not, Idon't really know, but his
government tried to overthrowthe government of Belarus again

(34:41):
in 2020.
They had already done two timesbefore, and I know Lyle
Goldstein, the expert formerlyfrom the Naval War College.
He said that he thought thiswas the final straw, not just
for Putin, but for the entiredefense establishment in Moscow
that they just decided.
The Americans are relentless.
We have to draw a line.
We can't let the war in Ukrainego on.
We have to draw a line.
We can't let the war in Ukrainego on.

(35:02):
We have to intervene in Ukraine, and that was decided by them
after the failed coup in Belarus.
And then?
So what does Biden do?
Biden comes in and says youbetter not.
And, by the way, yes, I'mbringing Ukraine into NATO.
Yes, I'm expanding defense,interoperability and exercises
and training and weapon sales.
And so in Biden's past, for hismind, in the year 2021, now's

(35:29):
the time to be tough andthreaten the Russians that we're
only going to escalate.
We're only going to bringUkraine closer, we're only going
to build their military up andthat'll deter you from invading.
But that's why they wereinvading.
So all he was doing was makingthe emergency more dire from the
russians point of view and thenhe would threaten them.

(35:49):
You better not do it or I'mgonna back your enemies in
ukraine.
But he refused to negotiate ingood faith and the real,
horrible irony of this is thatthe stricture that ukraine
cannot join nato, and that's gotto be written into a treaty.
That was what join NATO andthat's got to be written into a
treaty.
That was what Russia wasdemanding.
That's got to be written into atreaty and it should be written
into the Ukrainian constitution.
That should have been fine.

(36:11):
Not just Biden.
Hold that thought on Biden.
The entire American foreignpolicy establishment knew for 30
years, even as they expandedNATO, that of course we're going
to have to make a specialexception for Ukraine.
We're going to have to give itsome kind of neutral status,
because a contest with Russiaover Ukraine is just going to
lead to a war and probably aRussian occupation of the east
of the country and this kind ofthing.

(36:31):
They all knew that all along.
Well, same for Joe Biden too,said I'm not bringing Ukraine
into NATO.
All I'm doing is I'm having myState Department issue statement
saying you're damn right, I'mbringing Ukraine into NATO.
But come on, don't be ridiculous.
You can't bring Ukraine intoNATO.
That would cause a war withRussia.

(36:52):
You can't bring Ukraine intoNATO.
Their democracy and theireconomic system are way too
corrupt to be brought in fullyinto the EU or NATO.
And so no, of course, we're notgoing to do that.
However, you despicable, dirtyRuskies, you can't say that we
can't bring Ukraine into NATO,and we'll be damned if one of

(37:16):
the reasons we're not going tobring Ukraine into NATO is
because that's what you said.
No third country can tell uswhat second country we can't
bring into our alliance, and weare willing to put Ukraine into
a war with you on that highprinciple.
Not that we're willing to fightit into a war with you on that

(37:36):
high principle, not that we'rewilling to fight it ourselves,
thank goodness.

Aaron Pete (37:39):
The big thing that stands out to me is that one.
It's very humbling to start totake two perspectives on so many
of these issues and I thinkthat's your normal lens of
viewing things through.
But I don't think that's normalpeoples.
I don't think we do a good jobof looking inward and and dave
smith talks a lot about this oflike, like, put yourself in

(38:02):
their shoes, like if work, ifI'm in canada and the united
states was being taken over byrussia or china or somebody else
, how would we like havingsomebody else on our borders?
Like just reverse thepsychology in your own head.
How would we respond to this?
Because now many people go well,now we have to get Ukraine into
NATO, like we have to becausethey're in the circumstance.

(38:23):
And it's like okay, but what'sthe outcome of that in five
years?
And like what's the response tothat going to look like?
And when you switch your shoes,you start to go oh well, we
wouldn't like that.
And and when we had thingsgoing on in Cuba with Russia,
historically the United Statesdid not like that, and for good
reason, because their viewpointsaren't aligned.

(38:44):
One piece that I just want toget your feedback on Hold that.

Scott Horton (38:48):
Are we out of time ?
Because I got a comment on that.
If you got a sec, no, we're not.

Aaron Pete (38:51):
We're not out of time.
We got time left.

Scott Horton (38:56):
Let me just say about that real quick.
Sure, first of all, you'recompletely right, and of course
I'm an American, so I've beentelling the story the other way,
and I think any Canadian canalso imagine this scenario too,
where the Russians intervene iny'all's elections over and over
again and even overthrow thegovernment in Ottawa because you
just won't vote right for thepro-Russian guy.
They install their own group inthere, then they declare war

(39:18):
against dissenters in BritishColumbia who refuse to agree to
the new ruling junta, and theythreaten to kick America out of
our naval bases in Alaska.
What do you think America woulddo in a situation like that?
It's a different question whenit's like what would Canada do?
What would America do if thiswas going on in Canada?
And the answer, of course, iswe would roll our tanks to

(39:38):
Ottawa and probably nuke Moscow.
Right, it would be.
War is what would happen.
And one more thing about that isthere's this great journalist
named Christopher Lane, who Ican't remember what auspices.
I think he was doing a storyabout something else or somebody
.
He was talking to all thesegenerals at the Pentagon, and he
was asking them about Mexicoand China.
Same scenario, but the way heset them up, though, was he

(40:02):
didn't set it up like it was thepremise to another question,
kind of thing.
He just asked them straightwhat would we do if the Chinese
started pouring all this moneyinto elections in Mexico or even
overthrew the government inMexico, and then the new regime,
the new pro-Chinese regime,started building military base,
starting allowing China to buildmilitary bases on our border?
And so what would we do?

(40:22):
And they all said the same thingOne threats, two sanctions,
three, invade four, nuke Beijing.
Right, there's no way in theworld we tolerate that.
And then he says to them how doyou think Russia feels about us
in ukraine?
And then they say to him whoadude, we like totally never
thought of that.
Huh geez, what do you think,jimmy?

(40:45):
Right, this is, you can readthis in harper's.
It's um christopher lane with ay in harper's, uh, wrote about
that.
The day went oh my god, totalfailure of imagination.
We never thought of it likethat.

Aaron Pete (40:58):
Yeah, I couldn't agree more.
And then so I see and Iinterview a lot of Canadian
journalists and do my best tointerview American journalists
as well on like the collapse ofjournalism while all of these
things are going on.
So we're not getting thehighest quality research, news,
information in regards to makinginformed decisions about how we
might respond to these issues.
The one piece that I have heard, and I think I think it's

(41:21):
low-hanging fruit, I think it'sincredibly disrespectful, but
people accuse you of usingrussian talking points when you
go on pierce morgan.
People accuse you of being arussian shill and sharing that
type of information.
How do you?
You talked about this, theolympics and how russia was
trying to build relationships,the US and trying to move
forward in a different way, andI do think that's sympathetic to

(41:41):
.
Perhaps—it might be true, butthat sounds sympathetic.
How do you grapple with thatand make sure that you're not
misunderstood on that front?

Scott Horton (41:49):
Well, look, I just tell the truth the way I see it
.
Depending on the circumstance,I'll give some disclaimer, just
so, I think, if people are goingto honestly misunderstand.
But as for what Eric Garrisfrom Antiwarcom calls aggressive
misunderstanding, I reallydon't care what people say.

(42:11):
I mean, the fact of the matteris I'm from Texas, so I barely
even give a damn aboutWashington DC.
I certainly don't care aboutMoscow.
What interest do I have incommon with Russia?
None, right.
So I don't care about that.
It's just that obviously, mygovernment is the worst and most
violent organization on theplanet.

(42:32):
It was perfectly PC to say sowhen Martin Luther King said so
in 1968, that my own governmentis the greatest purveyor of
violence on the face of theearth.
And they're certainly thegreatest purveyors of dishonesty
, other than maybe Israel.
But they're responsible for allthat too.
So you know, whatever, I'm notimpressed by any of that.

(42:55):
Anyone who reads my books Imean my, my other books are
explaining why al-qaeda did it.
So you might think I'm signingup with the salafis to go cut
people's heads off, right like Ijust spent all this time
warning you how dangerous thesepsychopathic murderers are and
how our government supports allthese psychopathic murderers and
turns these psychopathicmurderers against us and then

(43:15):
does nothing to protect us fromthese psychopathic murderers.
I guess I'm just carrying waterfor the psychopathic murderers.
No, what I'm doing is I'mtattletailing on the US
government.
To you, bill Clinton is atraitor.
Bill Clinton backed Osama binLaden and that's why George W
Bush's government didn't stop9-11, because we like these guys

(43:39):
Right.
You know the story.
Your audience probably has heardthe story of Zacharias
Moussaoui, who was the guy whowas arrested in Minneapolis,
minnesota.
You've heard this part.
He wanted to know how to fly ajumbo jet, but he wasn't
interested in learning how totake off or land.
Know how to fly a jumbo jet,but he wasn't interested in
learning how to take off or land.

(44:00):
So the guys at the flightschool went what's going on with
this guy?
And called the FBI on him.
This is in August of 01.
And so the local FBI inMinnesota called Washington and
said we want to search thisguy's things and they had called
intelligence in France.
And the French government saidthis guy and his brother are

(44:20):
both recruiters for al-Qaeda inChechnya.
Ding, there's your tie to aforeign power.
Now you can get a warrant tosearch, to go totally fishing on
this guy.
He's not an American citizenand we have a reasonable,
objective belief that he is anagent of a foreign terrorist
group.
So you don't need probablecause to find a specific

(44:40):
evidence of a specific crime.
You now have fishing expeditionlicense to take this guy upside
down by his ankles and shakehim and see what you can find.
And they were not allowed by theFBI office.
They were not allowed to go tothe FISA court to get the FISA
warrant to search the guy'sstuff.
Why?

(45:02):
Because we, like al-Qaeda inChechnya.
They're not terrorists, they'refreedom fighters, they're good
guys.
And so they were denied.
And then, on September 11th,even on September 11th, they
call Washington and said now canwe have our FISA warrant?
And they said no.
And it was only when thedirector of the CIA, george
Tenet, said I wonder if this hasanything to do with that guy in
Minnesota, let's get a warrantand search his stuff.

(45:24):
Only then were they allowed togo and get a warrant.
And then what'd they find?
Papers in his pocket and at hisapartment that tied him
directly to the terrorists inFlorida, directly to the lead
pilot hijackers.
In other words, if they'd beenallowed to do their job in
August, they would have stoppedthe September 11th attack.

(45:44):
They could have rolled up theentire September 11th attack,
except that they were up totheir eyeballs in high treason
supporting the bin Ladenites,even though the bin Ladenites
had already blown up our WorldTrade Center in 1993.
They'd already killed our guystraining our World Trade Center
in 1993.
They'd already killed our guystraining the Saudi National
Guard in 95.
They blew up our barracks fullof airmen in Khobar in Saudi in
1996.

(46:04):
They blew up our embassies andkilled hundreds of people in Dar
es Salaam, tanzania, andNairobi, kenya, in August 98.
They bombed our USS Cole atport in aid in Yemen in 2000.
And America, the government,was still backing these kooks

(46:26):
anyway.
So maybe I'm off on a tangent,but that's not support for
al-Qaeda.
That's telling you the truthabout how we got into the war on
terrorism in the first place.
It's the same thing here.
Why in the world would I careabout Russia in the first place?
It's the same thing here.
Why in the world would I careabout Russia?
And, honestly, where in theworld has any honest person ever
seen Russian talking points?

(46:51):
I wrote a thousand page book,477,000 words, think I cribbed
that from some Russian website Ican't read.
Give me a break.
And no one who reads my bookcan come away saying that the
only way they can say that is ifthey sent a copy to the Kremlin
and said man, you guys coulduse some talking points.
Horton's done the work for you.
This is the truth.
This is how America picked thisfight, and it's all George Bush
and Bill Clinton, and GeorgeBush and Barack Obama and, yes,

(47:12):
quite a bit Donald Trump,although not nearly as bad as
the others, and Joe Biden'sfault, and John McCain and
Victoria Newland, robert Kagan'sbig fat, disgusting wife.

Aaron Pete (47:24):
So I think it's really important to underline
your book is 678 pages and youhave 1,712 references, which is
really no, no, no no, no, no.

Scott Horton (47:33):
I got 7,900 citations, 6,000 footnotes,
7,900 citations and anyone cango to scotthortonorg slash
provoked, slash notes and therethey all are 400 pages worth of
footnotes for you there.

Aaron Pete (47:48):
Yeah, fair enough, there's way more research that
you've done on that, but I justwanted to say, yeah, that's just
like chapter one or chapter two, whatever number you said.

Scott Horton (47:54):
That's just like through Bill Clinton or
something.

Aaron Pete (47:56):
Exactly exactly.
So I wanted to acknowledge alot of people might be wondering
like why aren't I debating youon these points?
And I think that work is.
You can try.
I could try.
I would not succeed.
But you have already spoken toGeneral Wesley Clark and had
that conversation and been ableto have a really in-depth
discussion.
I've watched it three times,just blown away by the

(48:19):
interactions, by how respectfuland how well you know your stuff
and I could see Wesley Clark'sface going like this guy knows,
like he knows everything aboutwhat we're talking about.
Like there was not a footnote,a point that you didn't make,
where he wasn't like okay, likeI didn't know he was going to
raise that.
I didn't know he rememberedlike all of those pieces.
You can just see the look onhis face and I thought that was

(48:40):
so rewarding to watch.
It reminded me again of likeDave Smith when he's debating
Chris Cuomo, like he knew hisstuff and like the person was
not ready for that kind ofinteraction.
It was still super respectful.
But I highly recommend peoplego check that out because that's
a really thoughtful discussionon our path forward and I just
wanted to get your reflectionson that discussion because he

(49:00):
made a lot of points about hownow it does look like maybe
Russia's heading for the borderof Georgia and they're starting
to inch that forward.
What is your reaction to to thepoints that he was trying to
make, because you didn't get alot of time to respond, yeah,
yeah I don't think I did addressthat particular point and I
really don't know what he'stalking about that they're

(49:20):
getting closer to Georgia.

Scott Horton (49:22):
I mean, the big fight in Georgia now is that the
anti-American parties won andthere's nothing that they can do
about it, and they poured asmuch money as they could in
there, but it wasn't enough tomake the difference this time,
and they have overthrown thegovernment in Georgia before.
So I don't think that there'smuch to that, but like overall I

(49:43):
guess.
So here's the thing about whathappened with Wesley Clark is, I
was on the Morgan Show the weekbefore and with five heads in
boxes, and then they brought onClark and very quickly became
just me versus him.
But he got way more time than Idid and I didn't get a chance
to address a whole bunch ofpoints that he raised.
So then I says on Twitter Isays, hey, how about you guys go

(50:05):
ahead and have me and Clarkback on?
But just the two of us wassomething like equal time here
to talk about this.
So they said, all right, bet,how about Monday morning?
So I was like all right, thenlet's do it.
So I was in Nashville to do theCandace Owens show and they had
me sit in the back of a van inthe hotel parking lot and just
do the thing.
It was actually a pretty coollittle deal.
Nice guy too, the video van guy.

(50:27):
And so now I knew going into thething, you know I have my
problems with Clark and I quotehim in the book some things that
you'll be pretty shocked tohear him say and you'll
disapprove of him on a fewthings.
But I know going in there thatthe social psychology of the
situation is that he's afour-star general and a former
presidential candidate or not anominee, but a candidate for

(50:49):
president in 2004.
And he's the former SupremeAllied Commander of NATO forces
in Europe and helped run theSerbian war for Bill Clinton.
So I knew going in there thatwith Piers Morgan's audience,
essentially no one has everheard of me before.
1% of the audience or less evenhas any idea who I am.

(51:14):
So I can't come out and startaccusing him of things,
particularly when and I do Ihave some like more firsthand
journalism about this, likepeople who were there, who I
know, who I've talked to aboutit.
But essentially I can't reallyconfront him about the war in
Serbia other than why I read itin the newspaper, right, whereas
he was there and can say, no,that that's not right.
And then I don't have really aleg to stand on, so I don't

(51:35):
really have.
Um, I'm not in a position todirectly accuse him of things in
this debate, like if Iinterviewed him one day I could
ask him about those things, butI can't really confront him
about them like in this context,really Right.
And then so if I can't, then Ihave no actual like legitimate
cause to disrespect him in anyway, if legitimate cause to
disrespect him in any way, if Ican't back up why I don't

(51:55):
respect the guy.
You know what I mean.
So the whole social psychologyof the situation is I got to be
as professional as I can andjust politely disagree with the
gentleman, right, like what elseam I going to do?
But then the thing of it isjust like you said and this
comes up from time to time isthat the war party doesn't know
what they're talking about.
Or if they do, that's fine, butthey can't withstand the

(52:16):
scrutiny that comes from dealingwith the antiwarcom crowd.
We just know too much for them.
And the same would be trueabout Dan McAdams over at the
Ron Paul Institute or a lot ofother great libertarians who are
good on this stuff.
You mentioned Dave Smith, daveDeCamp, kyle Anzalone.
Any of us would have done thesame job against him.
And so then that was it.

(52:37):
I mean, the interview startedwith geez.
Al-qaeda overthrew Damascusover the weekend.
What's up with that, horton?
You go first.
So I just like laid it all outand then what's he going to do?
Argue with me?
Can't argue with me, so he goes.
Yeah, that's pretty much right.
He essentially concedes thewhole argument that like, yeah,
it's not good.

(52:58):
And then, when it came to thewar in Ukraine, you know he
insists but can't reallydemonstrate that.
Well, no, putin is just say soreally.
But I have all this argumentthat I can build, and did build,
about why it was a reaction towhat we were doing.

(53:19):
And just look at what the termsof the proposed treaty were.
Right, there was a wholediscussion going on here.
Couldn't really argue with thatother than to say no, no, no.
He's just looking for excusesto rebuild the empire, which is
again the same old kind ofquestion-begging stuff,
justifying his reaction as theinitial action when it's clearly

(53:39):
not.
And then when I said that look,ukraine's losing the war.
It's been all downhill sinceSeptember 29.
It's only getting worse.
For them, that was their lastbig win was at Kherson and
Kharkiv in September of 22.
And they've been doing nothingbut lose men and territory and

(53:59):
money since then, and theirpopulation fleeing elsewhere and
all the rest of this.
And so it's time that we admitthe truth about this, because
otherwise we're doing the samething that happened in Vietnam,
the same thing that happened inAfghanistan, where the losing
side just insists that if onlywe stay longer, it's going to
work at some point, but theydon't really have an argument as

(54:19):
to how or why, and they end uplosing anyway, but just with
more people killed and moreresources wasted.
And I was one of those who saidthat about Afghanistan all along
, from 2001, all the way through, and I was right the whole time
.
From 2001 all the way through,and I was right the whole time.
And I was still right whenDonald Trump finally called it

(54:40):
quits and made the peace dealwith the Taliban to get out of
there.
And then Trump the reason Imean, pardon me, not Trump Biden
the reason it all went to hellwas because Biden kicked the can
down the road.
If he had stuck by Trump's deal, we'd have been out by the 1st
of May 2021.
By the 1st of May 2021.
And so Biden, by delayingwithdrawal, he just stupidly,

(55:01):
like the Taliban, didn't delaytheir takeover of the country.
If we had been gone by May, theTaliban still would have taken
over Kabul in August, and thenwe'd have had that decent
interval where everybody canlook away, instead of having it
all happen while the Americansare standing there and getting
suicide bombed at the gate ofthe airport on the way out and
just the whole catastrophe ofthe way that they did that.

(55:22):
But anyway, same thing here.
You can sit here and insist,and every time I go on the
Pierce Morgan show, includingthe last time and whatever, when
we talk about this, generalClark said the same thing Well,
we just can't allow this.
Yeah, well, who are you todisallow it?
You're not in any position toun-cause it from happening.
It's already a done deal.

(56:03):
Look at how much territorythey've already taken.
They're only taking more andmore all the time.
So then Clark said to me okay,you're right, the likelihood of
full-scale thermonuclear war,full-scale combat between NATO
and the Russian Federation andH-bombs going off over cities,
over who controls the Donbass?
No, I don't think so.

(56:24):
Nobody's really proposing that.
The worst war hawks say wecan't allow this, but then they
don't say send in the 82ndAirborne.
So what do they say?
What is their solution?
They don't have one, none ofthem do.
And when I said Clark, come onnow you keep dodging the
question what if Ukraine can'twin?
This is actually had been askedby Cenk Younger on the original

(56:45):
show and he had dodged thequestion then you never answered
.
Cenk, answer me now If Ukrainecan't win, which they can't, now
what?
We got a deal.
It's only getting worse forthem.
Like, why Are we pretendinghere?
What are we doing?
And then he said to me okay,yes, but we shouldn't talk like
that Because that, you know,kind of undermines our position

(57:07):
for negotiations.
No-transcript Admitting thetruth of this is admitting why

(57:34):
we should negotiate.
Now You're saying if we admitthe truth, then that's going to
undermine our position innegotiations, because then the
Russians are going to find outthat right now they own a fifth
of what we used to call EasternUkraine and have now renamed it
Russia.
I think they know.
I mean they passed a law andPutin signed it, you know,
officially incorporating thesefour provinces into the Russian
Federation.
So what are we talking about?

(57:57):
And for a four-star general,that's his argument, that's the
best he's got, because we don'twant to admit the position of
weakness that we're in, becausethen the other side that's in
the position of strength willfind it out.
I mean, come on, and the ideathat we make foreign policy, you
know along those right, basedon on, uh like cheap public

(58:20):
relations instead of doing theright thing.
I mean, it's no wonder when youlook back at the war in vietnam
, like, how did this last?
Well, you had a bunch ofne'er-do-wells whose interest it
was in to keep it going, that'swhat.
And they didn't want to admitdefeat, because that would be
admitting defeat.
In fact, we have LBJ on tapesaying on the phone I can't be

(58:40):
the first president to lose awar.
So on that basis, we're goingto continue it and kill another
couple of million guys andanother few tens of thousands of
Americans Conscripts, becauseLBJ doesn't want to go down in
history as the first presidentto lose a war.
But then he did anyway.

Aaron Pete (59:00):
Yeah, that's probably the roughest thing is
that these are people's livesthat are having to fight in
these circumstances and that'sso easily lost when you get into
the abstraction of land and whogets what and how are we going
to divide this?
Is that people have to die,people have to be forced into
conscription and fight wars onother people's behalf over ego

(59:21):
and a sense of pride and a senseof national unity and these
pieces and people actually haveto pass away for that.
I apologize, I've kept youincredibly long, but I want to
ask one more question becauseit's topical, at least in my
country.
We're dealing right now.
Former Prime Minister Trudeaubasically came forward and said
he does think that PresidentTrump is interested in redrawing

(59:44):
boundaries, in working towardsa new negotiation on where our
boundaries are.
How do you, as an American,consume that information?

Scott Horton (59:52):
You mean as far as eastern Ukraine?

Aaron Pete (59:54):
No.
Within Canada, they want torewrite the Canadian borders.

Scott Horton (59:59):
I don't know about that.
You know Trump talks reallycrazy about a lot of things and
I can't imagine that he reallymeans to incorporate any part of
Canada into the United States.
I mean to what end?
I mean nothing but cost and nogain.
And you know, it's just, andeven like it's just, basic
Republican consultants wouldtell him, like by hook or crook

(01:00:23):
or anything you could possiblydo, you're just importing a
bunch of Democrats, right?
They're never going to beright-wing voters, the Canadians
, they're always going to be theliberals.
So it's just like addinganother organ to the union or
something.
Why would we do that?
It makes no sense to do that.
So you know, possibly he has inmind, you know, trying to

(01:00:44):
control as much of the Arctic ashe can.
That's clearly what's behindall his talk about Greenland and
the rest of that.
That's where the competition is, is for the Northwest Passage
with Russia and China.
But we can have all the basesin Canada we want, just by
asking or politely insisting.
We don't need to steal Canadato build a military base there.

(01:01:06):
We have bases in Greenlandalready, for example, and not
that Greenland's part of Canada.
But you see what I mean.
America's the world empire.
We can have our Canadian bases,just the same as we have
overflight rights for ournuclear bombers too.
You know what I mean, like youguys.
Sorry you're stuck between usand the Reds Well, the Russians
now but you know what I mean.

Aaron Pete (01:01:25):
So Scott, I really have to appreciate you.
I've been looking forward tothe opportunity to speak with
you for a very long time now.
I've been following your work,fascinated by your book and by
how you conduct yourself inthese very important interviews
that really enlighten peoplelike myself to think more
critically about where do mypositions stand?
How did I come to thesepositions?

(01:01:46):
And you make these points aboutunprovoked unprovoked, that's
what ran through my mind, that'swhat I've heard on all
television shows within Canada.
That's that's my understandingand I liked when Eric Weinstein
coined the term intellectualdark web.
You are a true example of that.
Again, people can disagree withyou.
I think they have a tough timedebating you on such a topic,

(01:02:07):
but you can't dispute that youcome to these conclusions and
this information based oncitations, references, a deep
understanding, a long time ofstudying this, and that gives us
all a pause to want to workharder and learn more about the
issues that we're going to havestrong positions on and be
humble as we walk towards adeeper understanding of these
issues.
And I just really appreciatethe opportunity to speak with

(01:02:29):
someone who has such a strongfoundation of a philosophy and
then comes to conclusions,because you can see where you
come from on them, and I thinkthere's a lot to learn about
that and not pretend tounderstand these issues and yell
louder than others.
You are a very admirableindividual and I appreciate you
for your time.

Scott Horton (01:02:47):
Well, thank you very much for having me, and I
would just remind your audiencethat the book is like one third
citations, so it looksintimidating, but it's really a
decent enough read and I reallyhope people get something out of
it.

Aaron Pete (01:02:58):
I couldn't agree more.
Keep up the great work.
How can people follow alongwith your work?

Scott Horton (01:03:02):
I'm at scotthortonorg
scotthortonshowcom,libertarianinstituteorg,
antiwarcom and amazoncom.

Aaron Pete (01:03:12):
Sounds good, perfect , all right, thanks a lot.
Thanks again.