Scott Horton 0:10
All right shall welcome Scott Horton show. I am the director of the libertarian Institute editorial director of anti war.com, author of the book fool’s errand, time to end the war in Afghanistan. And I’ve recorded more than 5000 interviews going back to 2003, all of which are available at scotthorton.org dot org. You can also sign up to the podcast feed full archive is also available@youtube.com. Slash Scott Horton show. Archie guys on the line I’ve got Dave de Kamp again, he is assistant news editor at anti war calm that’s news dot anti war.com. And also at original dynamic Werner comm find his opinion pieces in the right hand margin there. Welcome back. How you doing, Dave?

Dave DeCamp 0:58
I’m good Scott. Thanks for having me back.

Scott Horton 1:00
Very happy to have you here. Important things to talk about starting with the single most important thing in the world. And that’s not opinion. It’s a scientific fact, presuming the importance of the continued existence of humanity at all to you. Seems like a probably commonly accepted premise. America and Russia are in the midst of nuclear arms talks in Vienna, Austria. Tell me every single thing you know and have to say about it, please, sir.

Dave DeCamp 1:30
Well, okay, so the so US and Russia they met for talks this week, Monday and Tuesday, in Vienna, as the New START treaty. The Strategic Arms reduction treaty is set to expire in February 2021. And that’s the last major arms control agreement between the United States and Russia. And that limits the amount of nuclear warheads that they can have deployed and also, importantly, It includes verification regime, which allows up to 18 on site inspections per year meaning the US can go inspect Russia’s nukes and the rock and Russia can go inspect the the US and Russia has offered to extend this treaty because it could it could be extended for five years if both sides agree. And the Trump administration has rejected that saying that they want China to be involved. So they keep inviting China to these talks. And now, you got to look at the nuclear arsenals all these countries so the stockpile for Russia in the United States, it’s around 6000 for each and that’s including old warheads that are set to be like dismantled their stockpiles of active warheads. Right now the US has about 3800 Russia has about I think 4300 somewhere around there. Now China current estimates put their stockpile at 320 which is, you know, significantly smaller so that China has no interest in participating in these Talks, and they’ve said it over and over again. So when the talk started on Monday, Marshall Billingsley, he’s Trump’s envoy for arms control, he posted a photo on Twitter kind of like a cheap stunt of empty chairs, like Chinese flags around saying, oh, China’s a no show and and that, you know, they’re still secretly building nukes. And but, like, China told Billingsley in the United States that there was nothing, everybody knew that they weren’t gonna show up. They have no interest in in participating in these talks. But the US still is keeping the conversation about China and Russia. Is th

Scott Horton 3:42
re anything honest about that? They’re really trying to strong arm the Chinese into joining the talks are they really just this is the most obvious charade as a poison pill sort of an excuse to screw up the talks with the Russians has nothing to do with China at a

Dave DeCamp 3:55
l. That’s what it looks like to me because like I said, I mean, just the difference. In the amount of nukes that they have, and it’s expected that China can double their arsenal within the next 10 years, which would put their stockpile at 600 something. And right now the New START treaty limits the amount of warheads that they could have deployed at, like 1500 and 50. Which even if China doubles their arsenal, it doesn’t even come close to that. I mean, you know, when Russia has said it’s unrealistic, they they’re kind of they kind of seem annoyed by this whole stunt by the US because they their argument is okay, well, let’s get France and fall because France is 300 warheads. Let’s get Britain involved. They the UK is about just over 200 I think. So. Yeah, I really just think it’s just the charade. And I mean, this, it makes sense to get if you want to get talk to China about nuclear arms control, but I mean, the US would have to make a real big statement and really start dismantling their stockpile if they want if they want to. work on it with China where, you know, reducing, reducing their stockpile, but it doesn’t seem like there’s anything honest about it to me. talks are are over for now. They only lasted two days, not many details have come out. US is still saying they want China involved. Russia’s you know, saying it’s unrealistic and they’re supposed to start again at the end of July. And they established what they call like working groups. So it is they want to replace the new start with something else. But I just don’t. I just don’t see it happeni

Scott Horton 5:30
g. Yeah, well, no. Was there any discussion? Do you know about the intermediate nuclear forces treaty or the open skies treaty, both of which have now been abandon

Dave DeCamp 5:41
d? Yeah. Now in these new talks, not that I heard. But yeah, that’s a good thing to bring up the open skies Treaty, which the Trump administration just announced they’re withdrawing from which allows surveillance over this signatories countries which is US and Russia and many other countries, a lot of NATO countries have signed on. It and INF Treaty which prohibited the development of nuclear and ballistic missiles, you know, medium range nuclear and ballistic missiles, which the Trump administration pulled out of, you know, they always cite Russian violation, but it doesn’t look like they ever tried to really negotiate. Because I mean, the Pentagon was developing those missiles that were banned under the INF like, the next week. They’re testing them. And now they’re actually trying to put them around China. So, yeah, it’s becoming much more dangerous word.

Scott Horton 6:34
Yeah. And you know, of course, if it’s true, and apparently it is I guess no best information is maybe there really is something to the idea that the Russians were violating the treaty by creating these medium range missiles, but they were deploying them along their frontier with China, not introduce them into Eastern Europe at all. I mean, obviously, that could change. But it didn’t seem like it was just a loophole. For them to invent medium range missiles to get around their treaty with the US. It was because I mean, they don’t need long range missiles for China. They share frontier there, you know? Yeah. And so but then the Americans, it was quite clear. In fact, Chas Freeman, who’s authoritative on this issue, who was with Nixon when they shook hands with mouse a tongue and opened up China? He was saying that, yeah, no. Yes, it’s right that the Americans wanted out of the INF Treaty, so that they too could confront China with these intermediate range nuclear missiles, which, you know, I’m no nuclear war strategist, but I don’t see what difference that makes compared to America’s pre existing ability to nuke China with submarines or long range missiles or bombers, whatever they want anyway. But so they’re willing to to risk reintroducing intermediate range missiles into Europe and escalating the nuclear arms race with Russia in Europe, because both America and Russia want these nukes for confronting China is completely bananas. Yeah. And a few hundred million people in Europe who might dispute that. That’s worth it, you know? Yeah.

Dave DeCamp 8:29
And then But back to this Marshall Billings, the guy who’s heading these talks, you know, he’s not sending the best signals to Russia. Before the talks he he said that if a new nuclear arms race starts that the US is prepared to spend Russia and China into oblivion was the quote. So he doesn’t seem too interested in actually making a deal here. And another thing that happened Earlier this month, it was revealed last week was the the Senate Armed Services Committee. They put aside $10 million in their version of the NDA, to yearly Pentagon spending bill to resume live nuclear testing. Which is alarming. Because there was a story in the Washington Post in May that that the Trump administration was disgusting, doing live tests. Some people dismissed it because like the preparation to actually go into that is is a lot. But this is a little This was Tom Cotton’s idea, which is no surprise. So this is the senate version of the NDA. It might end in the Senate and the House, you know, they have to negotiate their version. What goes to Trump’s desk. This might have some pushback in the house to the money for the for the live test, but yeah, it’s definitely alarming. It looks like we’re gearing up for a new nuclear arms race here.

Scott Horton 10:00
Yeah, I love that whole thing about spin them into oblivion. Is that a thing? A country can be spent into oblivion Hmm. And we’ve seen that before. Is that right? And yeah, we know that that can’t happen here because wat goes Way? Anyway, yeah, me and my bad grammar. Hey man, you guys are gonna love No dev no ops no ID by Hussein bodek Johnny. It’s a fun and interesting read all about how to run your high tech company. Like a good libertarian should forget all the junk. Read no dev no Ops, no it by Hussein bodek. Johnny, find it in the margin. It’s Scott horton.org. Hey, y’all, here’s the thing. Donate $100 to the Scott Horton show, and you can get a QR code commodity disk. As my gift to you. It’s a one ounce silver disc With a QR code on the back, you take a picture of with your phone, and it gives you the instant spot price. And lets you know what that silver that ounces silver is worth on the market and Federal Reserve Notes in real time. It’s the future of currency in the past to commodity discs.com. Or just go to Scott Horton. org slash donate. Hey guys, Scott Horton here for expand designs calm. Harley Abbott and his crew do an outstanding job designing building and maintaining my sites. And they’ll do great work for you need a new website? Go to expand designs comm slash Scott and say 500 bucks. All right, let’s talk about one of our many wars in the Middle East, this time Yemen and in fact this is the sub War Within the Yemen war. This is the split between the southern separatists the southern Transitional Council as it’s called, and their us He allies who had an alliance previously with the Saudi and American back, Totti government, but then they’ve had some troubles and back again, can you fill us in there?

Dave DeCamp 12:15
Yeah, um, there’s been a lot of fighting between the STC and how these government the biggest battle looks like, was the island of kotra. If I’m saying that, right. They, this DC took it from the hottie government. And you know, they raised their flag of South Yemen, the former country that was disbanded in 1991, North and South turned into the Yemen, the borders that we know today. And then they it seemed like the Saudis brokered a ceasefire, because they don’t want to have to deal with these guys in the south while they’re having so much trouble with the Houthis. But Jason just wrote a story yesterday on Thursday that it looks like that ceasefire did not last long enough. I think at least 54 fighters were killed in the in the southern province of Yon, which is where the STC are. So yeah, so it looks like they still have a big headache in the south there the Saudis and the Saudi government that they’re fighting to reinstate the war is not going well for them.

Scott Horton 13:20
And then I mean, when we say the Hadi government, is there actually land that they control anywhere?

Dave DeCamp 13:28
Yeah, there is. There is land that they control. They technically control Aden, the port city of Aden. I mean, when

Scott Horton 13:37
they have an alliance with STC they

Dave DeCamp 13:39
do that’s true. Yeah. Yeah. No, it’s real. It is complicat

Scott Horton 13:43
d. They occupy the Radisson in Riya

Dave DeCamp 13:46
h. Yeah, yeah. Well, it does. Yeah. Yeah,

Scott Horton 13:54
the rebels have ruled the capital city for five and a half years now but they’re still rebels. The guy hiding in a hotel in another country is the government there.

Dave DeCamp 14:05
Yeah. And you all know that it’s important to know that the area under Houthi control, that’s where 70% of the population is. And there’s been a lot of aid cuts lately. The World Food Program, USA D. and the UN cut a lot of programs. And I know it might seem kind of silly. It’s like the United States is the country that is causing the crisis there and also giving them aid. But when you have a population, I mean, it’s like 80% of them are reliant on this aid. There’s no blockade on the country like they need it, or people are gonna really I mean, people are dying people are starving. But these aid cuts are, are, are no good when you have such a big population relying on it.

Scott Horton 14:50
Yeah. All right. So let’s talk about the annexation of the West Bank, which is imminent now. was the 26th. We’re talking here. And they say on the first of July, they’re going to outright annex how much of the West Bank day.

Dave DeCamp 15:11
Well, so the Trump peace plan out the amount of land allocated to Israel in the Trump peace plan. So he’s paint peace in quotes. There was the parts of the Jordan Valley and the settlements, most of the settlements, the Jewish settlements in the West Bank, which it made about 30% of the West Bank. And now Netanyahu, he wants to do the whole thing, you know, unilateral annexation of those areas. But he’s having trouble with Benny ganz who’s the defense minister and they brokered a power sharing deal after the there’s like three back to back elections and and that putting either one in power, so ganz is set to take Over next year, and for the United US officials have said for Netanyahu to get the green light he needs to work out with ganz and ganz is a little more cautious. Yeah, he’s not. He wants the same areas to be under, you know, Israeli sovereignty. He wants to annex the same areas, but he wants to do more cautiously. He’s worried about the King Abdullah in Jordan and peace treaties with Egypt and kind of inflaming the region because, you know, that’s, I mean, that’s gonna happen if Israel takes all that land, it’s gonna be a lot of violence is gonna erupt. And then there is meetings this week between you know, Kushner and Friedman and all the US officials involved in this Pompei. I think Trump was involved. And it looks like nothing publicly really came out. They’re supposed to make a decision that apparently they did it, but I mean, mondo, I was reading on Mondo Weiss that it looks like Like they did come to a decision yet some sources. Were saying that it looks like they’re going to start with just two settlement blocks for now. So it’s going to be kind of a gradual thing, which was a big, which was under consideration that the whole time. That’s kind of what Kant’s was saying, like a process of annexation.

Scott Horton 17:21
Yeah, establishing facts on the ground, they call it so. But I mean, that would make a bit of difference. If you know, public relations wise, I guess if they slow it down and do it in smaller steps here. I read just a headline. So I won’t characterize the article too bad because I don’t know exactly what it said. But it’s known as the headline, I think, at the Washington Post, you know, opinion page where they were saying that, you know, if this happens, then the Palestinians The danger is that they will be deprived of hope. And then of course, you know, I don’t know how cynical the actual piece was. But the reality of that is, of course, the word false should be in brackets right there before hope. And the point being that the Palestinians might be driven to absolute despair at this point where now they no longer by the propaganda campaign, that some day, if they just hold their horses, they’ll get their Palestinian state. And now that they’ll know that they will never have independence, then they’ll have nothing to lose and things will get worse for Israel. You know, that’s, of course, the way it’s all framed. But yeah, seems like there’s a real danger that right, like, why not have another Intifada at that point?

Dave DeCamp 18:40
Yeah, no, you’re right. I mean, they will have nothing to lose at that point. And and that does seem to be the concern, because some democrats are speaking out about annexation, but it’s all about how it’s gonna affect Israel. It’s not that they really care about the Palestinians.

Scott Horton 18:53
It goes to show how cynical the entire Oslo process has been and the remnants of it and the different so called You know, peace process campaigns under clinton, Bush and Obama and all the way through right now. It’s all hoax.

Dave DeCamp 19:08
Yeah. And it’s there’s so many. There’s so many things that play to like a lot of the settlers, the settler like leaders. They don’t think Trump’s plan is enough, because they don’t want to be in like what they call enclaves. They don’t want to be in Israeli territory surrounded by Palestinian territory. And that, you know, they don’t want a Palestinian state at all. And then Yahoo has said if he goes through the full annexation, no Palestinians are going to become Israeli citizens. And there will be no desert like state and he won’t and one of the concessions Israel’s supposed to make under the plan was a settlement freeze for like four years. And he says there’s gonna be no settlement freeze. So I mean, then then Yahoo just just wants to land and wants to just continue to creep into the rest of the territory in the West Bank. And I mean, he what the Palestinians are desperate, I mean, This plan is just ridiculous. If you ever if you look at the map, the there’s like Israeli only roads going through the West Bank and it’s just it really just like makes apartheid rule official, you know?

Scott Horton 20:15
Right, which is a major, you know, rhetorical change anyway, I mean life, I don’t know how much it’s really going to change for the people in Palestine. But you know, it’s not just the Palestinians who’ve been put off by this narrative of the two state solution. It’s, you know, the governments of Western Europe have at least hid behind it, of course, and American liberal Zionist Jews who support the State of Israel, but who don’t support the subjugation of the Palestinians have been able to have it both ways. For now 30 years since or more What? Yes, 30 years almost since Oslo saying that Well, yeah, no, look, what’s happening is wrong. But we could fix it if only we just didn’t have Sharon or didn’t have Netanyahu or whoever the problem is this or that particular point. But someday, once they have independence, and it’ll be fine, and we can have our Israel or the Israelis can have their Israel and the Palestinians can have their Palestine. But now they can’t really hide behind believing that anymore, because now No, no. Well, as you just said, it’s cranking up the official status of the apartheid system there. What do you do when Israel takes all the land and they take all the people to I mean, they’re essentially kidnapped and what the hell is going on here? And how is anybody supposed to rationalize it now that they can’t hide behind the Oslo process that really broke down back in 1995. And which wasn’t really going to grant them a Palestinian state anyway, if you look closely at it, but still, I mean, so now, the game is up as far as that goes, and so what effect that has liberal Zionists and liberal Zionism in America, I think we’re only going to just be at the start of seeing what happens with that. But it should matter a lot to design this consensus inside the United States, certainly, according to what they’ve been saying all this time. You know, not not the right wing Hawks. But the the liberal, the more liberal Zionist organizations. In fact, even APEC has officially supported a two state solution all along. So I guess it’ll be interesting to see.

Dave DeCamp 22:34
Yeah, yeah, definitely. And then there’s another thing at play here is uh, so that is that there’s a possibility that net Yahoo might call for new elections, because there’s some polls that show if there was a new election is his block in the Knesset would get enough seats for him to form a government without GaNS? There’s some there’s a story Look food sources told like the Jerusalem Post that, you know, they were kindof there that they would take the

Scott Horton 23:06
absolutely nuts to do that again, right? Yeah. Oh my god, they would all know what a circus right and what a better way to get out of that trial again to you know?

Dave DeCamp 23:16
Yeah, yeah. And also like Netanyahu if he doesn’t pull off the annexation he can blame it on the GaNSes blue and white party. If he does pull it, like, pull it off, you’ll probably get a lot more support. So like that’s all at play to hear. Because I know like the Likud party they want. They wanted to spend that coalition government according to, you know, the sources that speaking to Israeli media, like they don’t want anything to do with that coalition government, apparently. I don’t know, man. I mean, he’s already by election. Yeah, it’s true.

Scott Horton 23:50
It’d be crazy for him to do that. And, as you were saying before, ganz has complained enough. It’s not like he’s some kind of hero for power. Standing independence or anything here?

Dave DeCamp 24:02
No, he, he said the other day. Palestinians are taking too long to lke subjugated were’t Yeah, yeah, they weren’t just complaining how they weren’t coming to the negotiating table. And he said something like Palestinians are Indian. And I don’t want any part of it so he’s definitely not a hero for the Palestinias.

Scott Horton 24:23
In his first election ads bragged about reducing Gaza quote to the Stone Age.

Dave DeCamp 24:29
Yeah

Scott Horton 24:30
helpless, defenseless, imprisoned Ga

Dave DeCamp 24:34
Yep. Yeah, that’s the kind of guy he is. He’s just a little smarter.

Scott Horton 24:38
He’s a moderate. See he’s a moderate. He’s a moderate lead

Dave DeCamp 24:43
He’s more diplomatic than that. Yeah, that’s it

Scott Horton 24:46
Don’t make me dig up. Ariel Sharon. Yes, the threat right. Gotta settle. Good for these guys. All right now and speaking of Israel and Israel In the United States, let’s talk about these crushing new sanctions on Syria.

Dave DeCamp 25:06
Oh, yeah.

Scott Horton 25:08
Well, by the way, I think you picked up on the narrative here that Dave has stories on all these stories@news.antiwar.com. Go ahead.

Dave DeCamp 25:20
So these new sanctions under the Caesar act, we’ve ran a lot of stories on at anti war calm, a lot of good people writing about it. So right now, before these new sanctions took effect, our US sanctions, blocked the assets of Syrians in Syria trying to rebuild the country. And these new sanctions can target anybody, regardless of nationality, who’s investing in the country for the what they call the corrupt reconstruction effort. So it’s dangerous and it’s driven a lot of investors out of Syria. It’s really Having to put a squeeze on Lebanon. It’s it’s discouraging the regional neighbors like Lebanon and Jordan and Iraq to help the reconstruction effort after the almost, you know, nine year war that ripped apart that country. And it’s just and it’s like specifically targeting construction and energy sectors. It’s like for the purpose of not letting Assad rebuild the first round of saying of these new sanctions. I’m not I forget exactly who they went against. I know one of them was on Assad’s wife. But yeah, it’s just really brutal. And after all those years of war now, the United States is gonna do anything they can to not let them rebuild the country. And it’s just a shame and and including keeping troops in eastern Syria. They’re stealing their oil

Scott Horton 26:55
and where’s that oil going? By the way the Americans are funneling it off to Turkey. What are they? They’re just sitting on or wh

Dave DeCamp 27:02
t? I don’t know. Actually, I I’m not sure certainly

Scott Horton 27:05
keeping it out of the hands of Damascus.

Dave DeCamp 27:07
Yeah, we’re definitely not making any money on it. But yet we’ve there’s been a lot of good stuff written about it. Daniel garrison at the American Conservative wrote a good story. People want to look for more detail, but it hurts, you know, I mean, there was some story that we ran. There’s Syrian Americans protesting in Allentown Pennsylvania the the sanctions because they can’t send money home they’re not gonna be able to send money home now.

Scott Horton 27:34
Yeah, to their family, which is just, it’s just cruel. You know, theres, I guess I got to find the time to read this stupid thing, man, this john bolton book. I got the PDF of it but I did read one news story about it. Where they talked about this conflict. I like it when they talk about in stark terms because it’s very rare. You can read a piece in the times of the post where they really frank about this where, look, we have a real split between, for example, General Mattis, who is the Secretary of Defense, the Marine Corps General, he wanted to kill Islamic State guys. And he’s an Iran Hawk. Nobody ever confused him for not being one. He got fired for being too much of an Iran Hawk in the Obama years. Alright, but his thing was, let’s kill ISIS guys. And there’s this giant push by Bolton and others and pompeyo and the others in the administration that knows when we’re in Syria, essentially, this is the part they don’t say out loud. We’re on ISIS aside the enemy is Iran. And, you know, they’re friends, in Hezbollah in the Syrian government, and that’s who ought to be the target there. But it’s not just the biggest bait and switch in the world from one thing to another, but it’s from one thing to its opposite, where it’s again, you know, essentially helping to accomplish the goals of the bin Laden Knights by fighting against their worst enemies when not outright perfect. Writing direct aid to them, which is part of the story too, of course, but always, you know, essentially taking their side in that thing. And this is great because you know, TV, usually with TV, I’ll never explain it and the post in the times very rarely explain that. Okay, here are the sides. And, ironically, here’s whose side we’re on or anything like that, you know, but that a bit of that is coming out in the Bolton book.

Dave DeCamp 29:27
Yeah. And it’s tough to know what’s true and what’s not true. But I think there’s a story in the national interest about that stuff.

Scott Horton 29:34
Yeah. Well, like you said schemas are our troops are right now they’re not fighting these llama state at all. They’re they’re keeping the oil out of the hands of the Assad government

Dave DeCamp 29:42
Yeah. And James, Jeffery, the US envoy to Syria, recently said that his goal is to make a quagmire for Russia in Syria.

Scott Horton 29:50
So Oh, he said that again? Who said that? Oh, James, Jeffrey saw Yeah, recently. Do you see that?

Dave DeCamp 29:55
Oh, that was a few months ago.

Scott Horton 29:58
oh, hang on. I gotta write that down. Make sure And find that.

Dave DeCamp 30:01
Yeah, because he’s I mean, you know, the, the stated goal for the US is to prolong the war and not let the country rebuild.

Scott Horton 30:10
You know, they started talking like that as soon as Russia intervene in 2015. They’re like, haha, it’ll be just like Afghanistan for them. And like, it’d be just like what? Yeah, it’d be just like Afghanistan, the place where we’ve been bogged down in the quagmire for 20 years now. It’d be just like that. Well, at that point, 15 years. I, these people, you know, we’re still in Afghanistan. They’re going yeah, we’re gonna bog them down and give them a quagmire like we did in Afghanistan in the 80s like we’re doing to ourselves in Afghanistan right now. Still would not hire these people to run my national government. Dave, you picking up the note here? No, they’re not good at it, not by my lights.

Dave DeCamp 30:55
Now, there was a recent us airstrike in in like Northwest Syria. It lib province against the al Qaeda guy. And it’s like that’s kind of a perfect encapsulation of US foreign policy like we’re backing. We’re working, you know, supporting Turkey to support those rebels in England to fight Russia in Syria, but also drone bombing some of them,

Scott Horton 31:20
like picking off just one guy that we kind of don’t like, he’s not so moderate. Let’s get him but the rest are cool. Joe Lonnie, still okay, nobody seems to be too bothered by, in fact, the entire presence of what’s a mini Islamic State there in the invalid province. You know, when ISIS declare their Caliphate, that was the biggest deal in the world. It lib province or major portions of it are still just al Qaeda, Stan, and that’s been the status quo for what three years or something now?

Dave DeCamp 31:52
Yeah. And that’s even turkeys preventing,

Scott Horton 31:54
you know, Russia and the Syrian government from ending that situation. Of course. Mm

Dave DeCamp 32:03
mm and that’s been like even in the mainstream press now like they call them al Qaeda yeah it’s not even a secret anymore like the Associated Press I read a lot they always call you know al Qaeda linked groups

Scott Horton 32:13
that’s hired to rear all Shazam which is which is Al Jelani, which is al-zawahiri the butcher in New York City. Yeah, you know, I’m not saying that America should carpet bomb or anything like that, but for us to be on their side, yet now that seem to be, you know, counterproductive for Americas.

Dave DeCamp 32:36
Yeah.

Scott Horton 32:38
All right. Listen, I’m sorry, man. I’m late and I gotta go. But thank you so much for coming back on the show. Dave. Great stuff.

Dave DeCamp 32:44
Yes, Scott, thanks for having me. All right, see

Scott Horton 32:47
e. The Scott Horton show anti war radio can be heard on kpfk 90.7 FM in LA. APSradio.com antiwar.com. ScottHorton.org. libertarianinstitute.org

Scott Horton 0:00
For Pacifica radio, June 21 2020. I’m Scott Horton. This is anti war radio.

All right, y’all welcome it’s Scott Horton Show. I am the director of the Libertarian Institute editorial director of antiwar.com, author of the book Fool’s Errand: Time to End the War in Afghanistan. And I’ve recorded more than 5000 interviews going back to 2003, all of which are available at ScottHorton.org. You can also sign up to the podcast feed. The full archive is also available at youtube.com/ScottHortonShow. Introducing Bas Spliet. He has written quite a few articles for us now at antiwar.com dot com, including this extremely important one from last week in Yemen. Western foreign policy is empowering al Qaeda. Welcome back. The show Bas, how are you doing, sir?

Bas Spliet 1:02
Very good, sir. That’s

Scott Horton 1:06
great. Very happy to have you here. And it is such an important story. It’s sort of the Forgotten War in real time, America’s war in Yemen. We’re leading from behind as the Obama is put it, in the war in Libya. Same kind of thing here. The Obama government started it with the Saudis in 2015. Trump has continued it, of course, throughout his presidency. And even though if you just asked a man on the street, you know, who do you think were fighting in Yemen? They might guess well, Al Qaeda, right. Maybe the guys that bomb Nicole tried to blow up the plane over Detroit, and I think they would be shocked to find out that Actually, no, we’re fighting a war for Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, against their local enemies. But how could that be that sounds crazy Bas, please take us through it here.

Bas Spliet 1:58
Yeah, definitely. Sounds crazy. And it’s probably results of the fact that they make the war seem very complex. And they give very little information about it, and they don’t really tell people about it. So people just go along with this. But let me just see where I started seeing investigation in late April, after reports came out on the American news sites. alternative media sites, means press news, concerning some very disturbing revelations that a Yemeni journalist had uncovered. That in the fights between the Hootie forces recharged Shiite insurgents that took over the government in 215, and have held the Capitol ever since they took over two desert villages on the front line in the war against the forces of doublemint. So heady, which is the deposed president, which saw you that coalition is trying to reinstall and which are our allies. Which as we’ve said, We are leading from behind. And from these reports, he was clear that there were video shares, spontaneous videos that we made. After the Moody’s took over these villages. And videos clearly showed that in the underground bunkers of these forces, they found documents with the official logo of al Qaeda with the face of I’m sorry, on its, as well as graffiti sprayed flags of the Islamic State on the wall, which clearly revealed seem to reveal the true allegiances of the forces, which are our allies, basically. And yeah, there is some information about this relationship and I read, we I read something like left and right about this relationship, but I wants to find out how is this more of a superficial thing? Is this an exception? Or is there a more deeper relationship from which we can say that’s the There is two, can we actually say like, as that title claims that Western foreign policy is directly aiding and abetting al Qaeda or suppose number one enemy, at least in the Middle East. So that’s what I set out to do. I looked at all the evidence I could find, also with the help of someone you’ve interviewed, it’s quite a few times. So yeah, internist, by the name of NASA IRB. And it’s probably impossible to go into all the details, but I think we can summarize findings in four layers, if you will, that peel the onion. So if you allow me I’ll do just that.

Scott Horton 4:37
Yes, do please go ahead.

Bas Spliet 4:38
First of all, on the most basic level, finding what’s revealed by a new investigation by the Associated Press in 2018, which found that the coalition claimed in 2018 that was advancing on Al Qaeda, which had some actual territory on the front But they claimed that they had made some real advances. And they took over certain villages and strategic points from Al Qaeda. But as the investigation of the Associated Press reveals, actually, there was no real fighting. But they were the result of secret deals made between al Qaeda and Saudi coalition and the heavy government’s in which actually the al Qaeda militants were were allowed to retrieve from the cities and areas they controlled with their stolen goods, which included stolen money, and weapons, and this kind of stuff. And the Associated Press also said that key participants in this deals, told them that’s the US was often part of this deal. And they agreed to stop their drone bombing while the deal was happening. So the US was involved in this in this deal. So that’s the first layer if you will But it still gives the ID that there is some clear distinction between to delineate its parties in the conflicts on the one hand, the head of government in exile, and its forces and on the one hand and other hands up kinda. But if we deeper, we actually found if you look at the weapons that are produced in the West in the United States in several European countries, which include my country, Belgium, where they end up in the conflicts, we find that actually, a lot of the Western produce weapons have ended up in the hands of al Qaeda and ISIS as well. And we know this from from from the research of Egyptian journalists, which was published on among other places on CNN, and it’s revealed that Yeah, you if you actually look at material The videos of this if this jihadists that are online, so in the in the open, open source, there was an open source investigation, you can see that Western produced weapons ended up all the time in in Al Qaeda hands. And this is part of the Bonanza, of course, in which us and its allies, they produce weapons and they sell them to the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia and they give them on to war Lords part of the Saudi led coalition and part of the head of governments and they appear to have relationship relationships with cozy relationships with with al Qaeda forces in the doing, just give through the weapons. So there is a clear chain of custody in which we are empowering our number one enemy there. A third layer is something that was also discovered by the Associated Press, but in the meantime, it has also been backed up by Emirati officials which is revealed that actually it even goes further. Sometimes, oftentimes, as also, as I said, in the beginning, it looked like in these desert villages, the Qaeda militants were fighting alongside the howdy governments. This is a pattern that is discovered in several cases in which Academy religions are recruited into the fight against the Houthis. And this, yeah, they do this because supposedly, the Houthis are the bigger evil, if you will, because Gulf propaganda depicts them as even worse than al Qaeda. They won’t say that, but they suggest that and thus, even though Iran is not really involved very deeply in this conflict and the Houthis are forced in their own rights, which are not puppets of Iran. They literally recruit all kinds of balances into the fights. And finally, it’s very clear. That’s it Some of the people that are literally on the United States official lists by the Treasury Department’s of global designated terrorists in Yemen. There are several people that are just very connected to the head of governments. I’ll just give two examples. Maybe the most illustrative one is Abdul Wahab McCarney, he’s kind of Salafi preacher turned politician. He looks pretty modern. I saw photos. So it might appeal to extremist Islamic elements. And after the previous president present, not the post heavy present, but the guy before that ruled him and for 33 years, saw that when he was the posting 2012 there were a lot of conferences, power transition conferences, sponsored by the Gulf monarchies, and he participated in that and through some in some reports, he’s They say these, these are very prominent participants in these conferences, but still at the United States in 2013, the end of 2013. They designated him as a terrorist, and they put him on their terrorist list. And because and this is almost literal quote, he does business for arcada. He travels throughout the Arabian Peninsula freely Saudi Arabia, mainly and, and Yemen, and he conducts business for Al Qaeda. I funnels weapons and all kinds of stuff and money. So pretty startling, you would think. But still, this was students routine. In 2015, he participated in a conference sponsored by the UN in Geneva, Switzerland, where he participates in the capacity of delegation of the head of government. So you can literally find that is actually part of the heavy government’s going to be stocks at the same time that he’s on. The US terrorists list. And you can even find photos of him shaking banky moon the Secretary General of the UN, the boss of the world’s if you will. Yeah, pretty startling. Yeah. Did you start? Maybe a last one that I can mention mention is up to mosquitoes in Danny, who was also preacher and was involved with, with the Muslim Brotherhood. I think he even set up, founded the Yemeni branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. And it’s also a leading member of the Islamic party which is affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood and as far back as students for United States doesn’t need him as a global terrorist. They put him on his list they sanction him because according to the press statements, he is a loyalist of some bin Laden, and he even they even say that he is one of the spiritual leaders have some villain, but even then in 2011, and we’re alive Lucky which is a US citizen that when radicalized and went to Yemen and he ended up dying in a drone strike by the United States he was extra judicially kills, which should be mentioned he like according to an Egyptian newspaper he sheltered at the house have as in them. But still in 2018, this guy, this, Abdul Majeed as in Danny a terrorist, according to the United States, he met our president in Yemen heading and he talked and he appears to advise them on some on some issues. So in these are just two examples. There are at least six people and you can refer to that are on the United States terror terrorists list of Yemen and this is not a list of hundred people or something. It’s just maybe 20 people or something on this list and several one several of these people are directly to tied back to the heavy governance.

Scott Horton 13:02
Yeah. Well, it really is something else. And I don’t mind bragging a little bit that you heard that here first on this show years ago from Nasr. rb, that go and look at the terrorist list. These are the very same men that we’re talking about, that the State Department has designated as enemies of the American people are the very same people that are allies in this war against the Houthis, in Yemen, and for, you know, the general public in the audience who might not understand how that could possibly be right? You have to remember that the reason that al Qaeda hates us is because and always has, is because we’re too close of allies with their governments that they want to overthrow. And so they’re not from Iran, Iraq and Syria. They’re from Saudi and Egypt, mostly countries that are friendly with the United States. And so when it comes to our overall strategic position in the region, America’s on the Sunni side. And that means that the al Qaeda guys are our strategic allies if they blew up the coal and tried to blow up a plane over Detroit, and if they help coordinate the September 11 attack, and if they harbored Anwar Al aulaqi, who inspired the Fort Hood attack, and all of this stuff, well, oh, well, don’t you know that the Houthis are rumored to be backed by Iran to some slight degree. And so therefore, the enemy of the American people who are the enemy of America’s strategic rival in the region, are our friends.

Bas Spliet 14:37
Maybe that’s most clear, if you look at the records of the Yemeni governments, we have supported the Sunni one not even Sunni but like the the governments that were previously in power in Yemen, solid was overthrown in the Arab Spring, go look at his records in fighting al Qaeda like on the one hand, he’s allowing the United States to to once in a while While performing drone strike that kills some al Qaeda neither, but on the other hands, according to the Yemeni government, at some point, there were two masterminds of the cold bombing in of 2000s. And they were convicted and put on the death sentence. But before they were put to death, they miraculously escape order. They’re their deals. There’s one guy by the name of Oh, by the way, one of the two, he escaped two different maximum security facilities, one in Samoa and one in the island. And then he was captured a third time, but then he made a deal with the governments in which he agreed that he would help find other senior more senior al Qaeda members if but he was supposedly the mastermind of one of the most deadly terrorist attack in that country. So it’s just a total farce. And it’s true that like, and they’re also very recently there are drone bombings that killed senior kind of people, but I use the phrase I don’t think it’s just Very common phrase in the United States, mopping up the floor without turning off the faucets. So on the one hand, they’re doing their war on terror, which in their United States bombing bombing al Qaeda caters and when they do that will receive a lot of media attention, but on the other hands to a very greater degree. They are literally supporting a car in all kinds of way over there. So it’s important and it doesn’t make any sense and it’s one of the many reasons we should just get out.

Scott Horton 16:35
[ADS]

Now I want to talk about something that you highlight in this piece again called in Yemen Western foreign policy. Empowering al Qaeda at anti war calm by Bas Spliet. And you talk here about General Michael Vickers and his statement about America working with the Houthis when they first took over the capital city at the end of 2014, beginning of 2015, that CENTCOM said, Great, we can use these guys to hunt down and murder al Qaeda guys. And then it was just two months later, that Barack Obama turned around and took al Qaeda side against them. And that, to me, is really something else.

Bas Spliet 18:34
Yeah. They quite understandably, saw the cooties, whatever they thought of them. I don’t think there were Iranian puppets at the time, running through 915 after they had overthrown present that was clearly very unpopular. And as I just mentioned, like the records of the Yemeni government in fighting al Qaeda is dubious at best, very bad at the worst. And they looked at these routines come to power. And you have this is a pretty, pretty senior guy within the Defense Department who admitted that they had an ongoing intelligence relationship with the Hutus because they figured that these guys will probably be way better in finding out guy that because not only are they supposed to sue nice, but they might have better records because they fighting corruption already easily saving they would. But then that was I think, in January 2015. Just author had he had resides under the pressure of the hoodies, of course, he fled to the south, but the hoodies advanced on the south, and then he fled. Second time, but this this time to Riyadh to Saudi Arabia. He was he was still young, but then also young. Hamad bin Salman would just come onto the scene political scene in Saudi Arabia. He set up a coalition and said I will reinstate this guy. He, he got 10 Sunni countries together and he started waging the war on them. And Saudi Arabia is our allies. So the United States said, well, we’ll go along, and then also the Saudis and their allies start saying, Yeah, this Iranians to justify the war, these these royalties, rather, they are puppets of Iran. And this of course, if you say this, Washington, Warhawks will be like, oh, we’ll drill down for death because they hate Iran to the core, of course. And then they indeed just turned around and it should be noticed that it was this was under Obama Pepsi, and now, Trump is in office of coke. So it’s the same thing there. The President changes but the policy doesn’t. And that’s, that’s very sexy indeed.

Scott Horton 20:46
Yep. And now, you mentioned Michael Horton there, no relation to me. He’s a real expert on Yemen. And when this were started back in March of 2015, he talked to mark Perry, the great Pentagon reporter, Mark Perry, and he was at that time quoting john mccain and said, well, john mccain’s complaining. Well, this is during the Iraq War Three, right the war against the Islamic State. And john mccain’s complaining that we’re flying as Iran’s Air Force in Iraq, which is, of course all McCain’s fault. But anyway, but we’re flying as Al Qaeda is Air Force now in Yemen. That was how he put it right, then as soon as the war started. It’s not like this was hard for anyone to understand if they were taking a critical look at it, that we are fighting against al Qaeda, his worst enemies, at the very least, we are de facto siding with them by helping accomplish their same goals. That was just the very beginning. Of course, as you talked about, since then, we’d have almost direct aid and comfort in the sense of American supplies going to al Qaeda through the United Arab Emirates. and so forth.

Bas Spliet 22:01
Yeah, but it bears repeating. I talked about ways in which restaurant foreign policy is directly strengthen al Qaeda, but it’s also on the face of it. It’s also just very easy to see that by instigating the war, which could never happen without our sports, the Saudis have created a power vacuum, they’ve created instability. And in this instability in this power vacuum, are kind of seized on that and that’s why they took control in the first place in the first few years of the war, and then they were supposedly pushing them back, but they were making the deals that were recruiting them. So on a very prima facia level, but also on a very deep level. We’re involved in so many ways, and it’s, it’s I really had to dig deep for some of these things. You know, the Associated Press investigation and CNN reports. These ones are available online and people refer to them but the facts Like the very easy to verify fact that several people on the designated global terrorist list of terrorists in Yemen these same people are in bed with arella it’s just insane if you think about it, and I really had to go to I had to step up my Arabic and re to arabic news reports to verify these kind of things. It’s really not reported them and the moments this would be reported for and whites then people would really clearly see that they would they wouldn’t have to they will need a complicated explanation how we’re backing Okay, if you’re interesting from perspective of the US government, these are terrorists and at the same time, they are in bed with our allies, so we should switch allies maybe

Scott Horton 23:48
or just have none. And And listen, I’m sorry, cuz this is slightly off topic, but it’s the most important point for people to understand here is that this is absolutely the worst thing happens. anything in the world right now? Is America and Saudis war against the people of Yemen. It’s very deliberately designed to be a campaign against the civilian population there. And there’s no question at least the UN has admitted, it’s almost certain that the number is higher. That UN has finally admitted that a quarter of a million people have been killed in the last five years, they’re in this war. And then again, this is not the war against aq AP, but the war for them. And so this war is genocide and treason and goes again, as you’re talking about, they’re almost completely unremarked upon, it’s absolutely as bad as Iraq War Two, and yet goes without notice. It’s it’s almost unbelievable, but it is what it is. But um, I just wanted to throw that in. I know that’s not the focus of your piece here, but I wanted to Make sure that we mentioned that, that civilians are suffering. Of course, it’s children under five who are dropping dead of starvation in this thing. It’s just an absolute atrocity. But I wanted to ask you finally here as we wrap up about the overall strength of aq, AP, because, you know, if you talk about the USS Cole, or you know, their participation in helping to arrange the September 11 attack, back then you think of a pretty small group of guys, even in the days of the war against aq AP, Obama’s drone war from 2009 through 2015 still seem like we’re in and of course, that war only grew them, they only got more and more powerful in response to that drone war, but still, it seemed like we’re talking about what at most a few hundred guys or something like that tops. But so I wonder if there’s a real good study of just how much strength al Qaeda and or the Islamic State groups in Yemen have gained here. As the result of this war, are we talking about 10s of thousands of guys in their militias now or what? Exactly?

Bas Spliet 26:07
Fortunately, I there’s no way to answer that question just because the information is so low, and the lines are so blurred, that same Michael Horton that the Yemeni experts mentions, in response to dissociate the press piece, it’s very easy for a guy to insert itself into the mix. And there there are so many parts of the conflicts and people change sides all the time, militants will maybe fights for whoever pays the best, you know, so maybe the one point it’s the heavy government’s and another point is all Qaeda. So in fighting power, it’s not easy to see, but maybe ideologically. First of all, maybe you should just get out like if you draw away all the funds coming from Saudi Arabia and these very wealthy Gulf monarchies that clearly like they have a lot of people rich people that funds, these kind of groups return into what kind of ISIS? If they weren’t pumping the money in it’s the interest in joining these groups would want to be decreased, firstly, and secondarily, that just bombing country turns people against the country that is bombing them. So that’s probably another very satisfactory answer. But it’s difficult to say, but it’s easy to diminish their numbers, I think in a very simple policy, and that is wrong. Yeah. Well, and

Scott Horton 27:34
if you look at the examples from Syria and Iraq, you know, most of the guys who would fight and been last night groups are really just militia men, rather than international terrorist types. But at the core, they’re still the overall the watery eyed mission of the war against us, the far enemy. And so if the numbers grow from a core group of 20 to a quarter group of 100 that’s still a lot you know, when it only takes a few to carry out spectacular taxes we saw with Charlie Hebdo and so many others by these guys,

Bas Spliet 28:11
let me just mentioned that like back into runs and turn a CIA and other counter terrorist officials, they start to say that actually the al Qaeda branch in Yemen is now the biggest branch of archives after we destroyed one in Afghanistan. So, yeah, then the war starting to run 15 and like until 2015, you have some terrorist attacks, which are Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula is involved and with with the Shan the mo tech, of course, Interim 15 January, and then they had to assume they had to turn their attention towards the conflict, but the what is the whatever the conflict ends with all their with the ideology, upon which the breeding grounds upon which they can foster the new weapons that come from our country. The battleground experience all these things I, it would be hard to imagine if they are not more strong than they were. They were before the war. That’s that’s what I can tell you. Yeah.

Scott Horton 29:10
Yeah. Aren’t you guys that is Bas Spliet. He is a master’s student at the University of Ghent, Belgium. And is has now been writing for us regularly at antiwar.com. This one is called in Yemen. Western foreign policy is empowering al Qaeda. Thank you again very much for your time, Bas.

Bas Spliet 29:34
You will, anytime.

Scott Horton 29:36
Aren’t you guys and that has been anti war radio for this morning. I’m your host, Scott Horton on the author of the book fool’s errand time to end the war in Afghanistan and editorial director of anti war calm. The Scott Horton show, Antiwar Radio can be heard on kpfk 90.7 FM in LA, APSradio.com antiwar.com ScottHorton.org and libertarianinstitute.org

Scott Horton 0:00
For Pacifica radio, June 7 2020. I’m Scott Horton. This is anti war radio.

All right show welcome. The show is anti war radio. I’m your host, Scott Horton. I’m the editorial director of antiwar.com and the author of the book fool’s errand time to end the war in Afghanistan. You can find my full interview archive more than 5000 of them now going back to 2003. At Scotthorton.org and youtube.com/ScottHortonShow. All right, you guys introducing Kelly Vlahos, from the American Conservative magazine. She’s got two important pieces for you here before COVID strong. Navarro was big wars man in the White House. And then the follow up. Turns out Saudi arms deals one Add a million jobs to the US economy. Oh, you don’t say. Welcome back to the show. Kelly, how are you?

Kelley Vlahos 1:06
Oh, great. It’s awesome talking to you again. Yeah. Great

Scott Horton 1:10
to have you here. So I guess first of all, with the first one here, this was your reaction to what was is the New York Times piece right? All About Raytheon, and their role in lobbying for the continuation of America’s genocidal campaign against the civilians, of Yemen. So first of all, tell us all about what we learned in that piece.

Kelley Vlahos 1:35
Well, well, we learned is, you know, I don’t think many people are very familiar with Peter Navarro. So up until COVID, he’s sort of been behind the scenes as Trump’s chief trade adviser. He you know, and he’d come out during COVID as a sort of primary spokesman for you know, redirecting our manufacturing Back from China, particularly pharmaceuticals, and I feel like you know, so he had gotten a lot of props from people who had looked at China as sort of like, you know, dominating the manufacturing space and people who have wanted to see particularly in crisis for jobs, manufacturing, and also pharmaceuticals and emergency equipment coming back to US companies. But aside from that, the New York Times had published a piece that you brought up, that it talked about his advocacy, very strong advocacy for the defense industry inside the White House from the get go since he was since he was hired. So you know, the idea that you know, he is a predominant spokesperson for you know, made in America, America first trade policy. This is doesn’t begin and end with, you know, the stuff that we would like to see happen like, you know, being able to manufacture penicillins and, and vitamin C, but also to export in munitions in arms to countries that are currently involved in bombing civilians, like in Yemen. So that’s what I had written about. And I had written about his fierce advocacy, which had included lobbying on behalf of Raytheon inside the White House. And as you know, Raytheon has, you know, this huge footprint in this administration, including, you know, the Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, who is you know, who is a former Raytheon, executive and lobbyists so and you see that throughout the the Defense Department, you have a number of people who have bounced back and forth From the private industry, but Esper obviously is the top dog. So aside from their small army of lobbyists that they have in Washington right now, now they have their hooks into actual White House officials, and Pentagon, top Pentagon, senior officials, and it’s very disturbing because it like I pointed out in the piece that Navarro was able to floor an effort by Senator Mike Lee republican constitutionalist who had attempted to stop the sales of weapons to Saudi Arabia, because of their human rights abuses because of the things that are happening in Yemen don’t want to be a party to the civilian the 10s of thousands of civilian deaths there, and Navarro was able able to whisper in the ears of Jared Kushner and Trump himself and to thwart any attempt to stop those sales. And they have gone through. You know, there was later on there was a bill that was passed by both the House and Senate after Jamal Khashoggi had been killed and dismembered by by Saudis to stop these arms sales and President Trump vetoed that bill. And so the sales go on.

Scott Horton 5:29
Now. I mean, there was just a little sub scandal here, what a week or so ago about Trump firing the Inspector General at the State Department on Palm pails recommendation, then it turned out that inspector general, it sounds like the limited hangout was he was investigating pompeyo having staff walk his dog when the berry raid was actually regarding this that pompeyo had intervened and invoked, apparently illegally invoked some emergency measure To continue the arms sales, even against the will of Congress. So, but I guess I’m confused if Trump vetoed it, which will of Congress? Was it that he was in violation of Do you know?

Kelley Vlahos 6:13
I think I think what happened was, what happened was that there was a constant battle over this $8 billion that had been set to $8 billion worth of arms that had been set to be sold to Saudi Arabia. So Mike Lee made an early effort. That’s the word it the you know, the sale. Navarro steps in there is then later on, there’s a bill and then it’s vetoed. But apparently, in order to get this, this this $8 billion push through that, you know, the Congress tried to stop Secretary pompeyo and invoke this emergency declaration saying that it was an emergency for the safety of our allies against Iran, that these these weapons needed to be sold. And this was this is obviously controversial, and the IGP was looking into it. Now, we don’t know if that’s why the IGP was ultimately, you know, canned by palm pail, but it’s one of the reasons that has been raised, you know, in this weird abrupt firing, you know, other than what you had stated where there’s the weird, him having his staff walk his dog and pick up dry cleaning. There’s other issues regarding these dinners that he’s he’s held these Madison dinners in which donors and other corporate types have been sort of like immediate brought in and it kind of just smacks of, you know, he’s campaigning for 2024. But yeah, this emergency deputy ration, which is a bunch of hoo ha, really, ultimately grease the skids for this this arms deal. And Trump was able to get what he wanted and Congress looks, you know, a bit mask elated by it all.

Scott Horton 8:17
Yeah. Well, you know, one of the things about Donald Trump, you know, he really kind of just takes the veneer off of this thing.

Kelley Vlahos 8:25
Well, it also take away all of the the fake laws that they have governing, you know, lobbying, you know, that the controls, they supposedly have these grace periods where, you know, people who left the military and higher office in the Pentagon have a grace period where they cannot lobby for such and such time. And then they find other ways of lobbying and they call it consulting. And so this these loopholes are riddled like Swiss cheese all through the Pentagon, all through the State Department, all through every major You know, industry, you know, where it looks like yay, we’re paying attention to ethics. And we really don’t want, you know, lobbyists coming back. We don’t want people who have worked for staff members on the hill, or for the Secretary of Defense coming back a year later representing Raytheon, or Lockheed and Northrop Grumman. So we’ve passed these these measures, these agencies have passed these message measures to control that, and then they that it’s blatantly violated. So, you know, American people think well, there, there are controls there. You wouldn’t possibly have somebody, you know, who had just left the Secretary of Defense office coming back and representing Lockheed Martin, but it happens all the time. And then those guys you know, and then or they come from Lockheed and start, there are pointed to major major influence It’s influencing positions, like Secretary of Defense, like Secretary of the Navy, like Secretary of the Army, when they had just left places like Lockheed and Boeing. I mean, it’s it’s amazing. Pat Shanahan was our last Secretary of Defense, and he came directly from Boeing, as a major top executive. yet so this happens all the time in there. There’s a lot of trappings of democracy and rules and ethics. But if you strip it all the way, people that are really in charge, and the people who have a major influence on Capitol Hill and in the halls of the Pentagon are representing major corporations, not interest groups, like the project for government oversight, or you know, when without war, or all, all these groups that are advocating to get out of Yemen, they have no presence, no presence at all.

Scott Horton 10:58
Yeah, and that’s the other thing right? Is They can just spend a pittance as the smallest fraction of the taxpayer money that they’re receiving on lobbying Congress, you by Congressman for 1000 bucks if you’re already in their position Anyway, you know, as Ben Freeman has shown, quite specifically, here’s a lawyer for a lobbyist donate some money to a senator and his vote changes from against genocide to four genocide in a day for $1,000. Yeah,

Kelley Vlahos 11:29
yeah. It’s so much for their character of these members of Congress. That’s for sure.

Scott Horton 11:37
Oh, by the way, so listen, I’m making some wild accusations with the big g word there. And so maybe people don’t know that. Yes. In fact, when America is American companies, the American government is all working together to sell all these weapons to the Saudis. Unlike the old days, where they all just collected dust in their warehouses, or maybe were used by National Guard forces to you know, oppress their own people. Right now they’re being used in a war of extermination of civilian life in Yemen for the last five years, where the entire strategy and this is a proven fact, this strategy has been to target the civilian infrastructure, to starve and destroy and murder the civilian population of the country in a way to try to make them so miserable, that they’ll overthrow the government in the capital city, which is of course ludicrous and has not worked.

Kelley Vlahos 12:33
Right. It’s not working. But you know, our reporter at the American conservative.com Barbara Boland did a piece last year, where she emphasized that munitions by Lockheed Martin, Boeing, General Dynamics, and Raytheon were all identified at the site of over two dozen attacks that had killed civilians in Yemen open to that time. When she, you know, produced this report, so you know, these bombs are showing up in you know that that terrible carnage of those children on the school bus. I don’t know if you remember that that was an American laser guided bomb. Raytheon’s technology she reports killed 22 people attending a wedding in 2018. So we can actually trace these these companies munitions to civilian Carnage in Yemen. And yet Congress was unable even pointing all this out, was unable to stop it was unable to stop the sale the weapons and it was also unable to stop our assistance to the Saudis.

Scott Horton 13:47
And because he says Kelly, we’re making $400 billion off the Saudis and so therefore, the part on said but pretty explicit, is if we got to kill every last year For the money, then that’d be worth it. $400 billion. What about that?

Kelley Vlahos 14:05
Right? Well, I think there’s two things going on here. We have the idea that we are making money and Donald Trump likes. He’s the art of the deal, man, he likes to make money. He’s getting lots of pressure, as we’ve just spoken about on the inside, to continue these deals. He has Peter Navarro in there, lobbying him personally saying these exports are not only going to make money for the American economy, but jobs as well. He’s got pressure from corporations. These are his friends and CEOs who are representing themselves and their shareholders. But he also has the pressure of Iran and the anti Iranian narrative within the US government. And as long as there are people within the administration who make this about Iran There’s always the pressure to stay in and continue to assist the Gulf states because somehow this is a prop. They’ve made this out to be a proxy war. So I think that you have these two different two distinct tensions that are playing on Trump right now. But getting back to the jobs, his hundred billion dollar deal was a piece of paper, they’ve managed to push through $8 billion of sales since that big announcement was made. And we’re finding now that it’s resulted in maybe at the very most 40,000 jobs a year, you know, based on William hard tongs, very thorough investigation of arms sales, not just Saudi, but all foreign arms sales. So the idea that, that our sales of weapons to the Saudis is going to result in a million jobs for America. has not been worn out. It sounds good, but it’s it’s not been worn out. We don’t really know how many jobs and how many of those jobs are actually manufacturing jobs that would help the working class that is always implied when we talk about jobs for Americans. We don’t think of them as consulting, lobbying executive jobs, we think we need to sell arms so we can put more guys to work in a factory. You know, we don’t know how many. And I tried to find out personally through the you know, the trade organizations or the aerospace industry trade organization that tracks us and they haven’t made any of their numbers for defense jobs public. I wonder why I tried. So, you know, I feel like it’s it’s it’s a bill of goods that we’ve been sold, and it sounds great, especially at a time when Well, right now we have 40 million people out of work to say that we have to keep selling these weapons to foreign countries, whether they misuse them or not, because we have to keep Americans working. I don’t like that.

Scott Horton 17:06
Yeah, I mean, even if you took the fantasy of the half a trillion dollars in sales over 10 years or whatever, that Donald Trump or mercenary in chief says is the reason why we continue this policy? That’s a pittance. Right? Oh, yeah. Thank goodness in Fort Worth, we’re still turning out f 16. Because our whole economy would collapse. Without that, or without, you know, a couple of shipbuilders in New Jersey cashing in making aircraft carriers. That’s completely ridiculous. We could abolish that entire industry out of America, and all be the better for it.

Kelley Vlahos 17:42
Right? Well, I mean, this is the thing. I mean, do we want to be a country that depends, you know, our economy depends on exporting weapons of war, so that countries like Saudi Arabia, can turn other countries like Yemen into a smoking crater and result in levels of cholera not seen since the 1940s. is I think that bears some sort of conversation. And and aside from that moral justifications that have been used to send these weapons over, but the fact that on his and on the other side of his mouth. President Trump has talked about getting out of needless wars in the Middle East. That’s he won in part on that promise. How does he think we are ever going to extricate ourselves from these entanglements from these wars, these endless wars if we are supplying countries to continue them and are directly linked to violence in the Middle East, it’s not going to get us out of these wars. So it’s just this self licking ice cream cone. And I feel that if if he could threaten Saudi Arabia like he did in the last few months when they would refuse to decrease their oil production, and he said you watch outside Arabia I have leverage over you. I we have security we have we’ve been sending you troops to protect you from ostensibly from Iran. You know, we’ll pull those if you don’t play play nice with us over there’s oil. And he did. He actually pulled the Patriot missiles out of there. He started pulling troops out of there, who were put in to the area into Saudi Arabia last year, when they were getting there when their oil facilities were being attacked. And he never came out. Nobody ever came out and directly linked the two things. But he gave a speech the next day after the Pentagon announced it was pulling these assets out. And he says we’re tired of these wealthy nations taking stuff from us and getting nothing in return. But I’m not talking about Saudi Arabia there. He was talking about Saudi Arabia. So it’s very sad that he was able to follow through on a threat when it looked like our oil industry was being affected by the actions of Saudi Arabia. But the Senate had tried to send him a bill cutting off weapons of destruction because people, people were dying, not just 1000 we’re talking 10s of thousands of people, and he vetoed it. That wasn’t enough. So it’s a matter of priorities. I get that. But it would be nice if he extended, you know, his interest and putting some leverage on this country to Saudi Arabia in that regard. Human Rights.

Scott Horton 20:46
And you know, I know that there was a some kind of bureaucratic sort of snafu the way they did the resolutions. Were one is the concurrent resolution and the other is resolution. And I forget which one it was they passed, but they they passed the kind you can veto instead of the kind you had. And so Trump just vetoed it. But still Congress twice. The house in the Senate, working together with the exact same language for the first time in history invoked the 1973 War Powers Resolution to try to force Trump to stop this war, or that Obama had no authorization whatsoever to start when he started. I mean, under the IMF, he was bombing al Qaeda, but this is the war for Al Qaeda against the Houthis. And yet, you know, they hide behind. Oh, well, it’s the Saudi lives. coalition, even though again, it’s entirely dependent on American has been it’s leading from behind as the Obama is called it. That’s exactly what it is leading still. So America is the world’s superpower. There’s no question about that. And right, and there’s no authorization for it in the first place. Then Congress says, you have to stop it. And Trump just vetoes it and keeps going anyway. Sounds like there’s grounds for impeachment, right? They’re not just for war crimes, because you know, he’s committing more crimes in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, but at least, just like we saw in the bush years, we have a memo that says we could do that. But there’s nothing that says they can do what they’re doing in Yemen at all. It’s completely illegal. And so, you know, too bad that they wasted three years, accusing him of being a Russian spy, and literally, impeaching him for holding up an arms deal to a bunch of Ukrainian Nazis. But anyway, now here we go. He’s still he’s five years into Obama or sorry, four years into Obama’s war in Yemen, continuing it. And, and where’s the outcry about that? The worst thing that’s happening in the whole world today, American Saudis war against Yemen, makes what’s happening in America pale in comparison. And in fact, for the audience, for people who don’t know anything about this, just put in Yemen child in your Google Image return and know that it’s brock obama and Donald Trump that did that.

Kelley Vlahos 24:33
Yeah. Well, you know, going back to the Congress for a second, I feel like and I know you have there are critics out there. Winslow Wheeler comes to mind because every time one of these 1973 war power act stories come up, he he has a meltdown because the way that they have done it, like you said, sets them up for the veto. Second of all, they have another opportunity. Bye Just not funding, and the Congress has not been able and not been willing to just shut off the spigot. And it sounds like the nuclear option, but come on, they know these bills are going to be vetoed. It puts them on record is making a stand. That’s really nice. And I’m glad I’m with you. I’m happy to see that, that they were able to come together twice for this and get something passed. But for me, I’m thinking you have the power of the purse string, and they never use it because to them that’s going nuclear. That’s actually that’s putting them on record for making a stand that could have some serious repercussions with their constituencies who might be defense contracting job, you know, companies who have jobs in their district is taking it to another level. I think that these weaselly Congress persons do not want to do. I think there are plenty of guys out there who would do it and gals, I just think that it’s harder for them to get support for really going nuclear, because so many are just so skittish about campaign contributions, and primaries. And that all goes back to the way the system is set up, that they’re constantly running for office. And they’re getting money from members from these PACs and from the companies and their, their employees. And they get opponents who say How dare you want to eliminate the jobs that our district is getting for the F 35. Because we know these jobs, they’re spread out all over the states purposefully, so that they can they can get the foothold in and pull these kinds of stunts during election time. Yeah, so I agree. I just I think that at some point. If these members really care, then they got to, they actually have to step up to the plate and stop with these resolutions

Scott Horton 27:09
right now. I’m sorry, because I’m over time. But I gotta let you make this last point about the US funding out Qaeda, its enemy, the only real enemy of the American people in the world which of course, our government made for us in the first place. But here we are, and backing them again, in Yemen, just like in Libya, and in Syria, by way of the UAE, which we’re still on right and funding to in this work.

Kelley Vlahos 27:32
Absolutely. And I know we don’t have enough time, but this cnn actually did a really good investigation last year where they found that weapons that we had been sending to UAE, were ending up in the hands of these al Qaeda linked groups in Yemen, which obviously is just a nightmare. The government that said we’ll do our own investigation, apparently the Pentagon did an investigation and the State Department did an investigation. Last week, CNN reported that they had sources inside saying that they finished their investigations and they found that there were no nefarious handover of our weapons to al Qaeda linked groups and that they are going to be continuing these arms sales ua was cleared. And so any hold that has been put on arms sales to the UAE in that time has been lifted. This is in the middle of Coronavirus is in the middle of all sorts of crises that are going on in this country. But let’s get those let’s get those arms sales to the UAE running. And let’s just put out besides the Yemen. I mean, besides the al Qaeda linked issues, we know that both of these countries are violating people’s rights. And that is supposed to be a precursor or an obstacle for us to sell them weapons under State Department rules, right? We just overlook that.

Scott Horton 28:58
Aren’t you guys. That’s Kelly Vlahos. From the American Conservative magazine, her latest is turns out Saudi arms deals won’t add a million jobs to the US economy. Thank you so much, Kelly.

Kelley Vlahos 29:09
Thanks, Scott.

Scott Horton 0:10
All right, shall welcome it’s Scott Horton shelf. I am the director of the libertarian Institute editorial director of antiwar.com dot com, author of the book fool’s errand, time to end the war in Afghanistan. And I’ve recorded more than 5000 interviews going back to 2003, all of which are available at scotthorton.org dot org. You can also sign up to the podcast feed full archive is also available@youtube.com. Slash Scott Horton show. All right, you guys introducing boss split. He is a master’s student in history and Arabic Studies at the University of Ghent, Belgium, where he researches the anti nuclear weapons movement in Europe of the early 1980s. That’s interesting. He is proficient in Arabic, traveled to Syria in 2018. And lived in Cairo, Egypt in 2019. And aspires to become an investigative journalist after graduation. Well, we sure as hell writes a great piece about Yemen, I can tell you that we’re running this one on anti war calm today. After another coup in Aden, which government in Yemen is legitimate. Welcome to the show, boss. How are you doing?

Bas Spliet 1:22
I’m doing very fine, Scott. Thanks for having me. I’m a fan of the show. So it’s an honor to be on.

Scott Horton 1:28
Oh, cool. Well, happy to hear that. And it was great to read this piece. I can tell. You’re really on the story here. So you know, I guess the the context is, obviously the conflict over who controls the port city of Aden down there in the south of Yemen. But you also give great context to the whole war. So I guess first of all, we’ll go ahead and take us back as you do to the fall of the Solid regime and the rise of the Houthis and the Hadi government, because you kind of have to set us up to understand the divisions in the south between the Hadi government, and the southern Transitional Council and so forth. So, go ahead and rewind and start wherever you think people need to hear.

Bas Spliet 2:24
Yes, we touch up on important points. And that is a complex conflict, but it’s not that difficult to unwind. So let’s try to do that. Basically, I will just from the start, say that I have listened to your conversations with NASA IV. And so you know, where I got maybe where I got the original idea of writing this article from, but I think what happens very recently, the coup in Aden really provides a window into that larger picture which we can spell out. And that is what basically what happened very recently was I think right now it’s a little over a week ago, the southern Transitional Council, which are separatists that are funded and supported by the United Arab Emirates, they did a coup in the port city of Aden as you as you mentioned, but it should be noted that this is not an isolated instance ever. for about the last two years. They have put to the test the unity of the Saudi led coalition as it is called, by sometimes taking over government institutions. And this is culminated especially last summer, there was heavy fighting between UAE support its forces and solid forces. There was an agreement to reality agreement and but now, this has somewhat been terminated because of the latest Who and there was some? Well, they have they have several things for now. But basically, there were there was nothing much reporting about it. It looks like the southern prejudiced no council still supports Aiden. And this is very ironic, because a them although it is not the capital center is it is an important city, which is supposed to serve as a temporary capital of the governments of Abu Abu Mansour, howdy. Who and now we’re about to wind Beck, who had been vice president of Yemen for 18 years ever since 1994, if I’m not mistaken, but when his presidents Adi under the sun was deposed in the Arab Spring, basically, the Gulf countries they came together and they broke its transition deal that puts the former vice president of documents with heavy in power and made him the new presidents. And it’s true like a couple of months later in the beginning of 2012. There was an election. I’m not sure if you can call it that because it was there was only one candidate on the on on the ballot box. And if you look go back at reports you and you see the picture, the ballot, the ballot is basically a picture of hair D and a circle very supposed to mark mark a finger. Yes notes. Only by explicitly writing no Derek, could you vote no. So it’s not really a democratic election. But and this is very important. America Secretary of State’s back then Hillary Clinton sets that, quote, it was an important step in Yemen’s brighter democratic future. And Victoria Nuland, another State Department official elaborated Under said there will be free and fair elections very soon. But basically that Sham election gave haddie a temporary, sorry international mandates for in two years time engaged in a transition towards democracy and after two years he should there should be free elections that obviously did not happen. And he became the new dictator. And as a result of that, because he was he was not there was there was no evidence that he was moving towards democracy. This is the reason why the hoodies in 2015 January 2015, they stormed the Capitol somehow, they kicked out. They kicked out howdy howdy fled to the south to Aden. And a couple of months later in March, he fled to Saudi Arabia. And once in Saudi Arabia, have been someone who was then the defense minister, later became the Crown Prince, as we all know. He set up a coalition of 10 Sunni Arab countries that would vow to re install Hattie in his rightful place because after all, he was the the legitimates ruler of the country as in their discourse At any rate, and ever since then, there has been a relentless, relentless, despicable war, as we all know, waged by that solid that coalition on the people of Yemen against the Hootie forces. But even though they have like installed blockades, they have reached a relentless bombing campaign and all sorts of other stuff. The Houthis this After five years of war, they still control the Capitol, five years. And they didn’t even come close to, to losing that control of the Capitol. At the same time that that President had he, he resides most of the time in Saudi Arabia. He isn’t even in Yemen most of the time. And, and even then, like, he has basically no control of the situation on the ground in Yemen, because you have the southern Transitional Council, the UAE, a back separatists, you have forces in his pay, but you also have all kind of ISIS running around to all sorts of people in the south that fight for power. At the same time in the north, there has been a relatively stable situation. Of course, there’s been much fighting but the Houthis have retains control for the capital and, more importantly, a control over 70 to 80% of the population for five Yours Yes, contrary to any reason Saudi Arabia and the Houthis are still called rebels, and and this is where like, I think they’re like in this now I will make my points and if you like in university, we can of course debate about that whether we agree or not, but the basic definition of what is estates according to Max Weber and this is like term socialists and socialists, history, sociologists of the 19th century, like who is revered today, like the basic definition of a function state, if you can, if you can control a monopoly of violence, I think it’s clear that the WHO DOES have done that for the last 555 years at least, under like over a vast amount of the population, the majority of the population were haddie the supposedly internationally recognized and legitimate ruler of Yemen has not. So I think we should change that this could be if we if we recognize that and starts calling the who these governments and recognize that haddie is not in control of the situation on the grounds, we can start to move towards an end of this Congress.

Scott Horton 10:27
Yeah, you know, it seems kind of ridiculous. Um, I even know a reporter who’s really good on this stuff, who I argued with back and forth about this, who said, Yeah, but the Houthis were never elected to anything. So yeah, but neither was Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Neither was Abdulla Sala who America back for 30 years there. And truly neither was hottie. I mean, you call that an election? Of course not. And we’re agreed about that. For some reason. You know, and and honestly, in, in all of my research about this, I don’t know of anything good to say about the Houthis. It’s not a matter of like sticking up for their side of the fight or anything like that. It’s just that, in fact, they seize the capital city five years ago, five and a half almost. And no one’s been able to take it from them since then. They took over all the government departments and are trying to administer it. They’re ruling over the super majority of the population of the country, as you said, and what it really is, is a test of the public relations capabilities of the Western governments, right that can we make people continue to call this government, the rebels and call the people who have been nowhere near actual power for five and a half years, the legitimate government of the country, even after it’s been clear, really This whole time that hottie will never be the president of Yemen again, there’s zero chance that he will be reinstalled in power there no matter what happens. And yet still, he’s legitimate because he’s recognized his government is recognized by Saudi and America especially.

Bas Spliet 12:19
So yeah, and we don’t have to look at alternative media to make that claim that like howdy will never become the real presence anymore. I think even before this cool like the center Center for Strategic Studies, I think they’re called which is more or less than infinity tank as far as I can tell. They’re not basically pro Western pro Sadia, nor are they pro Hootie? Totally. They have come they have constructed five scholars with an expert knowledge of the conflicts and Yemen in general and they all said like, this guy’s not really in power. They Even a successor if he if it would be the same posture will definitely not with the will not have the same will it will be the same, like there needs to be some real change before Yemenis will generally recognize another ruler, just basically they don’t want Saudi Western imperialism anymore.

Scott Horton 13:24
yeah. And you know, the Houthis might be from the north, but they’re humanity’s. It’s not like they’re foreign invaders. And as Nasir Irby put it to me on the show years ago, years ago now was how long this thing has been going on. That, you know, essentially, well, so they’re in charge of the government now, it’s no different than really then a Texan being elected to the White House and then replaced by a Californian or whatever, in our country, that, you know, we’re all Houthis. Now, as long as they’re in power, and they’re being bombed by a foreign In country so the the population doesn’t have to convert to Zaidi Shiism to feel like they are being represented by this faction that is in charge of their government now.

Bas Spliet 14:20
I think that is a very good point and in touch upon a very large issue that is prevalent in basically all conflicts in the Middle East, right. I don’t know the percentage but like the majority of the country is Sunni Yes indeed, the Shias it’s not the Shia that they empower like it happens to be now she’s in that is provides the answer to foreign meddling so it’s it’s it’s enhances the popularity of the hoodies because they have like even the Brookings Institute or something will recognize that the Houthis have like, defied like one of their main political points is fighting corruption and fighting foreign meddling, and this makes them popular Right. And if you look at other conflicts like, based upon like philosophy of the political philosophy of of Bernard Lewis assemble hunting town and the clash of civilizations, like neoconservatives, neoconservatives pundits, but also liberal commentators basically, they will always say that they will always try to extrapolate, like the sectarian foundations of conflicts in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, wherever else. But if you look at the conflict, like not totally, but like, for the most parts, she has attorneys and Jews and Israelis and Sunnis and Kurdish and they have, they definitely have their problems and there is our conflict and there is conflict. Nobody’s denying that. But like the culminating of that conflict into major wars never happen. never happens. Ever. Since foreign intervention, and I think this shows that that is not religion, but politics that underlies most of these conflicts, and an interesting comparison could be my country because I live in Belgium I guess not a lot of people in your audience know, details about Belgian politics Neither do I basically because I’m not interested in it’s too complex. But more or less half of people in Flanders, which is the upper part that speech speaks Dutch like me. And they want independence, for flowers for for the health of the country, the people that speak Dutch from the whole country, which is imports, Dutch import French speaking. And this has been an issue for so many years for decades and like gradually, but surely there is more and more independence for the North. But there is no armed conflict here and seeing the difference between Belgium and Yemen Is that foreign meddling, we are in Belgium, for instance, would have been in the in the position and the economic and, and and geopolitical position that Yemen is if it would be in a third world place, and there would be interests of powerful interests that want sports, flounders, and powerful interest that would sports vilonia and, and Belgium, it might erupt into a civil war. But if people are left to themselves, and think that is also true for Yemen, like if there wouldn’t be colonialism, if there won’t be post colonial there wouldn’t be imperialism. It would have been all of this is basically since the 1960s. There has been some sort of proxy wars, dividing the Yemeni people, there still will be different religious difference there certainly political difference, but it wouldn’t necessarily descend into the chaos that we see today. I think that is a large points that is true for the whole Middle East.

Scott Horton 18:00
Then you guys are gonna love No dev no ops no ID by Hussein badhak Johnny it’s a fun and interesting read all about how to run your high tech company. Like a good libertarian should forget all the junk. Read no dev no ops no it by Hussein Barack Johnny find it in the margin at Scott horton.org Hey y’all, here’s the thing, donate $100 to the Scott Horton show, and you can get a QR code commodity disc as my gift to you. It’s a one ounce silver disc with a QR code on the back you take a picture of with your phone, and it gives you the instant spot price. And lets you know what that silver that ounces silver is worth on the market and Federal Reserve Notes in real time. It’s the future of currency in the past to commodity discs.com or just go to Scott Horton. org slash donate. Hey guys, Scott Horton here for expand designs. dot com. Harley Abbott and his crew do an outstanding job designing, building and maintaining my sites. And they’ll do great work for you need a new website, go to expand designs comm slash Scott and say 500 bucks back to the southern Transitional Council here. You know, I never could find this again. But there was this footage of a guy on horseback with his ak 47 going Viva Hugo Chavez. I just thought it was funny because, you know, so much of the of the discussion of this war is about the fight between the Houthis and the Saudis. And the Saudis, I guess backing the Al Islam Muslim Brotherhood faction that they tend to hate everywhere else nowadays, while the UAE is focused on backing out Qaeda and the Islamic State, but they don’t like the Muslim Brotherhood, for whatever reason, okay, it is fine, but the Muslim Brotherhood no way and so on. And then they have their different proxies and militias and and conscripts and mercenaries and whoever on the ground there that they’re fighting against the Houthis with in the capital and in the north, but then in the south, you have this Southern Transitional Council, which I don’t know everything about them, but one of their animating principles is socialism. And I guess another is secession. They don’t want a deal with the capital city, whoever rules it, they would rather go ahead and split the country back into North and South Yemen. Is that right?

Bas Spliet 21:21
Yeah, and I also have to admit that I don’t know all the details, neither Academy because they’re just very limited information. But true. Like it should be noted that though, like the the movement has resurfaced and has become prominence since 2018. But in fact, it was founded in 2007 before the Civil War and harks back indeed to the desire of some people in the south to stablish, an independent country in the south, which is which should be independent from, from the north. And I guess also, what should be another ultimate irony is that, that when that that that’s independent country existed between 1967 and 1990, when Yemen was united again, it was a calm. It was basically a Marxist regime and it was supported by the Soviet Union and the people who should have been like our erstwhile enemies a couple of decades ago. I guess some of their descendants, I guess there’s no the perfect line. There are other ideologies and people change and, and they’re like it’s another generation, but it is like their sons and daughters, maybe I’m not sure because I don’t have all information. Meanwhile, Before 1967, there were there was a couple of years that there existed a pan Arab, Arab Nationalist government in the north. No, no, no, in the in the whole country actually for a couple of years, which was, which was backed by Gamal after the master, dictator of of Egypt. back then. And, again, the ultimate irony is that both the Saudis and Israel and I’m not I’m not taking this from alternative media, it is acknowledged by the Brookings Institute again, they support it’s the the fathers and grandfathers of the hoodie, the royalists of the of the design effect as a defeat. Isn’t that ironic?

Scott Horton 22:49
Yeah, shocking, but not surprising.

Bas Spliet 22:54
Yeah. Again, it’s it basically goes to show that we don’t like people. Again, this like this neoconservative ideologues will try to whitewash conflicts in the Middle East as going back to religious roots, but they just aren’t. It’s, it’s another issue.

Scott Horton 23:15
You know, I’m almost certain it was Michael Horton, no relation to me, the Yemen expert, who am actually I’m not sure about my footnote there. Anyway. I’m sure I could find it if I tried hard. The quote was about the Houthi slogan that you cite in here to have debt to America and all of this stuff, and how I think you have them explained, we don’t really mean that there’s just a complaint against foreign intervention, which is understandable enough, but the thing I had read had said that they came up with that slogan back during the Obama years when the US was backing or was really you know, waging this CIA drone more there and backing the solid government. And then solid was using the money and weapons America was giving them as bribe to let us fight out Qaeda in order to attack the Houthis. And they made up a slogan then, just to embarrass Sala because everybody knew that he was working so closely with the Americans. So they were, you know, essentially carving out this position of being very nationalist as opposed to their leader at the time. That was really just politics. But meanwhile, the Houthis have certainly never attacked or threatened the United States in any way whatsoever. It goes without saying when we talk about this, yes, America is complicit in this genocide in Yemen for the last five years here, but Oh, yeah, by the way, they never did anything to us. Or the only ones who ever did were al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, and we’re fighting on their side in this one, so that doesn’t count.

Bas Spliet 25:41
Yeah, that’s it’s true. Um, And it should be noted that like, this war is emboldened in Qaeda and an ISIS, which are the ones we’re supposed to fight, right? Yep. Yeah. Yeah. You have also like side of this and I guess numerous times, but it’s true. You can go back to 2015. January 2015. To monitor like, they pressed like it’s a it’s a it’s an publication pretty mainstream that is that is focused on on the Middle East and hence the Oh in a monitor. And they they sites State Department. No, it’s a Defense Department official. I think name’s Michael Vickers saying that right, admitting that they have an ongoing intelligence relationship with the Houthis to find out Okay, then. And even more interesting if you read the whole article. He expressed about who his hoodies are is like back then nobody really knew him. Right? And he’s is he points to a speech by saying, I’m the mother cootie is the leader then I think, to point out that the hoodies are fighting corruption and fighting foreign meddling, I don’t remember the exact quote. So basically saying like, these are it is understandable that they have some support. This is January 2015. And then the Saudi Saudi led coalition was suddenly found, and we we start to dance to the tunes of the of the Saudis, and we start to backtrack on that position, unfortunately, and as a result, we, the West has supported through its arms sales and and limited support as has basically legitimize genocide, the war and the people.

Scott Horton 26:58
Yeah, I mean, this is the thing I mentioned this in every Yemen interview, and I can’t get over it and nobody should, that there it is. And I’ll monitor, as you say, the Barbara Slaven article, where she citing General Michael Vickers, the Deputy Secretary of Defense for intelligence at the time. And then there’s the piece in The Wall Street Journal, both of them from January of 2015, saying that central command is working closely with the Houthis passing them intelligence to us against al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. It’s just two months later, in March of 2015, that Barack Obama stabs them in the back and takes al Qaeda side against them.

Bas Spliet 27:35
Yeah, like and people might scorn at it. They’re like, Whoa, are we in bed with al Qaeda, but I don’t know. Have you? If you have seen like a recent article on benchpress news couple of days ago by another Yemeni journalist based in a center I think names, AbdulKarim or something. And he went with the Houthi fighters to region in the desert that was taken over by booties in the last couple of days. And they found they found, okay, the flags and ISIS documents and all sorts of stuff that implicates that there was deep involvement of al Qaeda. But if you go go look at a map, these are like there were like very small villages. But but they sites he cites the region in which is this if you go look at the map, these are hundreds of miles. I don’t know the exact distance hundreds of miles away from supposedly the al Qaeda and ISIS pockets. These are supposed to be under the control of the heavy government. So I guess there is indeed like mounting evidence that there is a very significant overlap between that whole Saudi let’s UAE backed coalition and what’s are supposed to be our enemies?

Scott Horton 28:57
Yeah. Well, it’s really just incredible. I mean, When you look at the danger that was coming out of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula before, when, you know they had done the Charlie Hebdo attack and tried to blow up a plane over Detroit on Christmas Day 2009 there was the failed printer cartridge bomb plot to vote to blow up a plane I’m not sure over the US or over Europe, there and of course, you know, pretty sure it’s honey Honda one of the September 11 hijackers from the San Diego sell the flight 77 hijackers. His father in law ran the switchboard house there where they help to coordinate the September 11 attack. And so these are real SL Qaeda guys who have a history of attacking and attempting to attack the United States. And America’s intervention on their side here and our allies intervention on their side here has increased their power by whatever hundreds or thousands of percentage points. And when this part of the war winds down, we’re going to be left with that You know, the all new and improved al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula with years of Battlefield experience, and all the weapons they could steal from the various military bases, they’ve sacked, and God knows what this whole time that they’ve, you know, been able to improve their capabilities with America’s help.

Bas Spliet 30:19
We don’t have to as, as the shows, we don’t have to support the war on terror. Well, not to the segment that is abroad, like in the wars in the Middle East to to see that. Because it is exactly this war on terror, supposedly, that’s morphs into some sort of war off there. We’re in like instability that the West is complicit in creating makes them makes aka emboldens a guy that and this is true in Syria, in Iraq, in Yemen, in Libya, and all sorts of other places. I guess the larger point is just like, I guess The philosophy that we share is just non interventionism if we do not engage militarily or supports other governments in aggressive foreign policies and wars in the Middle East, then as I don’t, it’s difficult to pronounce his name. It’s the guy who is now at the Quincy Institute did a party or something as roads recently in, in foreign policy, they’re in the middle of the Middle East is safer is the if the United States just stays away, and also the threat of of terrorism will decrease.

Scott Horton 31:38
Yeah, well, no doubt about it. And we sure to keep switching sides back and forth there, depending on the battlefield. Certainly the American people thought that the writ was if they’re going to support the war on terrorism at all, it would be the war against bin Laden I groups, not the war against secular allies of Iran. Like for the war in Syria, for example, or these religious friends of Iran, probably not even really allies of Iran, like we have here in Yemen, and in both cases, directly on the side of the Ballade Knights against them. It’s not like just supporting Saddam Hussein’s secular tyranny against Iran. And there she had friends, but it’s supporting bin Laden Knights against them, which is treason, which is, you know, Iran might be our government’s adversary in the region, but they’ve been loud Knights are the actual enemies of American civilians, whose blood they’ve shed, you know, by the thousands. So it’s just an absolutely unforgivable policy. The only reason they get away with it is because they don’t ever have to explain it because nobody’s ever asking. And so it all just kind of flies under the radar. If they talk about at all, it’s the Saudi led code. Listen, what does that have to do with us at all anyway? But so let me ask you this to wrap up then If I had my way and somehow I could make the Saudis come to terms with the Houthi regime and just back off and the UAE in the US too, and go ahead and withdraw their forces and stop the bombing and come to some kind of peace. Do you think that? I mean, obviously, the Houthi regime in in the capital is going to last? But do you think that they would be able to form some kind of coalition government with the southern Transitional Council down there in Aden? I mean, obviously Hadi is virtually him and his faction are going to be almost non issue without the foreigners there to back them. But I wonder if you think that this will be the end of Yemen and it’s going to split back apart like it was in the 90s

Bas Spliet 34:54
going to go ahead and admit that I’m not sure about that, because I’m not that much of an expert. But we don’t have a glass bowl and we we don’t have to dislike, it could splits, there could be a settlement in which there is a power sharing agreement or it could split. But basically, to put it very frank, who who cares, like let them see for themselves, sell themselves and see how it’s going to evolve, like just how it should be done. It’s not through violence. And I think if the foreign intervention goes away, it would be preposterous to say that all the violence will go away, but they will definitely diminish. And we can let the Yemenis for see for themselves. And I think, like I’m just as like, I guess I’ll throw this into the real real quick, like when I came back from Syria, and I had my criticism of The moderate rebels and all of that there were some people including Syrian refugees, that’s, that’s that’s criticize me for saying like, Yeah, but you you, you are not the one that should say how who Syrians should support and who not. I think that was a very valid criticism. And it is true we it is not up to us to see how the situation who should be in control of Yemen, and we just should go Go ahead. And let’s Yemenis see for themselves only. The only thing that is important is that it should be recognized and people in the restroom, realize that our supports to the sorry, that coalition is the reason that there is war, as long as we show that there’s international opposition, which has been happening the last two years saw this and the moralities are going to start to retreat. The more we do that to stopping arm sales, recognizing starting diplomatic relations. keeps the government’s just showing disgust like the bills that have been passed in Americans, Congress and Senate. The more the faster basically this, this war will be over. So even the New York Times has acknowledged.

Scott Horton 36:19
Yep. And just goes to show too, that Donald Trump just like Barack Obama before he could turn this thing off with just a spoken word. He doesn’t even need to lift a pin. Just say out loud to the Chief of Staff. Let the defense secretary know to let the Saudis know that we’re done. That’s all good.

Bas Spliet 36:39
A study vetoed the bill passed, I think by both Congress and Senate, I think last year. Unfortunately, it’s not. It’s not an anti imperialist present as someone having pretty as Yemen Iran shows.

Scott Horton 36:57
Yep. All right. Well, listen, I really appreciate this article. Cool, I hope everyone will go and read this thing. It’s really great. It’s an it’s a good one to pass around and show to people who aren’t familiar with this war. It’s got a great history of how we got to where we are now and the rest of it. It’s an anti war calm right now, after another coup in Aden. Which government in Yemen is legitimate by boss split. Thank you very much for your time, sir. Appreciate it. The Scott Horton show, Antiwar Radio can be heard on kpfk 90.7 FM in LA, APSradio.com antiwar.com ScottHorton.org and libertarianinstitute.org