And David Petraeus is way too friendly with him. I do wonder if we flipped him.
Well, Dave, you know, we go back a year or so ago at the UN General Assembly last year and Betraeus interviews him at some That’s right. And Betraeus is saying to him, “Your success is our success.” And he’s talking to him like he’s a proud father talks to his son.
Oh, absolutely. No, that that that that relationship there uh between the Oh, it’s deep. Oh, it goes back I mean it go I mean you go back of course into the 1970s with it. uh maybe even further. People probably know us better than I do, but certainly you know some of the uh uh uh u uh Hegmater uh Gulin Hecmar in Afghanistan. The United States is involved with him as early as like 1973. Yeah.
Right. I mean when he when they were throwing acid and stuff in the faces of uncovered women in Kbble these types that’s who the Americans are getting in bed with in the early 70s in Afghanistan because that is juxtaposed against the Soviets, right? So Soviets are all about women going to school, women being allowed to wear whatever they want. So if that’s what the Soviets are about, then let’s get in line with the guys who are against that.
Well, and that was Carter. That was also Jimmy Carter. I I because for my book on Iran, I was I was researching, you know, when Carter took over, there’s a lot of recently uncovered stuff that he was telling his advisers. For instance, something Carter told Big New Bjinski was look uh with the with the Ayatollah uh the Grand Ayatollah. He was like, “I I’m a Baptist. I’m a big believer in God. He’s not a Baptist, but he’s a big believer in God, and together we could form a union to fight godless communism.” And that was Carter, you know, Mr., you know, peck and he’s talking like he’s, you know, a zealot. You know what I mean? I mean it’s it’s there’s something wrong with US foreign policy here.
Well, there was well it’s based upon a righteousness, right? You know, a faux righteousness.
A faux right. But it is there’s manifest destiny turns into American exceptionalism. Um there is straight up genocide often.
Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, and you had uh uh the you know, you had a whole class of people that again um you know, come to power within the American Empire believing these stories, believing these narratives, again, thinking, you know, thinking they hit a triple when they were born on third base, which is what happens with the United States. Look, we we we we we have a vast continent and all we got to do is kill off a several hundred thousand couple million Native Americans and it’s ours, right? I mean like all we have to do we we we build this country on enslaved labor, right? I mean like and then when literally it’s it’s 1891 was wounded knee, 1893 the American Marines are overthrowing the kingdom of Hawaii, right? I mean, so it’s like that as soon as we take this continent, we’re moving.
And then, of course, 1898 is SpanishAmerican War. On and on and on, you know, I mean, so this idea that we were ever not an empire is ludicrous.
And then, of course, as we were saying earlier, World War II comes and everyone else is burnt to the ground with the exception of us, Canada and Australia. That’s it. Everyone else is burnt to the ground. Yeah.
Well, yeah. and Canada and Australia had their own problems and we were able to uh you know it’s it is astonishing and you see these patterns replicate now in the Middle East. Uh it’s not North America though. I mean this is a very different very far away place and the locals clearly have a little bit more leverage than we realize. Um, and um, you know, I’m again I come back to the Houthies and I’m just wondering, wouldn’t it just be easier to cut a deal with these guys? Like wouldn’t it just be easier to just what are we doing? Like what? Like this this is insane. And you look at these people and and I say I don’t mean it like these people, but you look at, you know, you look at them and you go, well, they’re clearly not just fighting for materialistic purposes. This is a group that clearly believes in their cause the same way other insurgents have. And we have a terrible track record against insurgencies like this. And yet nobody in DC is sitting down talking. I I was told by one of our guests today that the Houthis are still classified as a foreign terrorist organization.
I think they are. Yeah, I think they are.
What have they done to other than being partnered with Iran? And I’m genuinely asking because I don’t know enough about the Houthies to be able to say like what have they done to earn that distinction, you know, right? I mean, yeah, you get you get fluxed over it, right? And so, of course, you have this al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula that in Barack early in Barack Obama’s term, people were saying those are the guys you got to watch out for. HQAP is is very dangerous. On and on and on. And so, we get involved there and we start mucking around. Mhm.
And then in order to muck around there, who are we going to lie with? We going to lie with these insurgents that, you know, in with 2014 they take the capital, kick out the government. We’re going to lie with them. They’re Shia. That means they’re Iranian. Or are we going to lie with our buddies, right? Our good time buddies, smoke some cigars and hot tubs with the Amiradis and the Saudis. Who are we going to go with? Right? I mean, and so a lot of this just comes back to United States’s fixation on um uh divide and conquer, right? Um, you know, there’s a whole uh but also then too the the uh ensuring that we’re always against the Shia and you know and that means as well then supporting the Saudis and the Amiradis and AQAP uh because honestly a lot of the Houthies have been fighting al-Qaeda and al-Qaeda has been aligned with the government in Yemen and al-Qaeda has been aligned with the Saudis. Oh, big shock on that in Yemen, right? And so we have found ourselves on the same side of al-Qaeda once again. You know, we did it same side in uh uh Syria, same side in Libya. Uh oh, guess what? We we created them in Afghanistan. [laughter] I mean, so like, you know, there’s aspects of American foreign policy, this willingness to engage with the worst because the ends justify the means. I remember when I was a kid, I used to hear that about the Soviet Union that the Soviet Union practiced had this practice of the ends justify as utilitarianism. Yeah.
Yeah. Right. And then I come, you know, of age and like I’m looking at what my country does and our alignment with them or our alignment with the drug lords throughout the world, right? I mean, what we align with with the the the the uh mafioso uh throughout the Mediterranean and in Cuba and then in Cuba and then of course the history of our relationship uh with the drug trade in Southeast Asia. Anyone who’s not familiar with that, uh Google Alfred McCoy and buy his book uh you know, but also too then you have the 80s come and what are we doing in Central America, right? We’re running drugs on behalf of the Contros. Same thing in Afghanistan, by the way.
In Afghanistan as well. And I mean, I saw it firsthand in a sense of of literally we gave drug lords, we made them generals in the Afghan army, and then we gave them planes and helicopters. And what do you think they did? I mean, I’ve got all kinds of great stories about, you know, our relationship with those drug lords in Afghanistan, uh, you know, throughout our occupation. Uh, you know, literally paying them to rub out their competition. I mean, it was absolutely incredible stuff. Um, and you know, but that was that’s who we’ve allied ourselves with. We ally ourselves with these drug lords, with these with these gangs. We ally ourselves with these uh reactionary religious fanatics, right? I mean, because for us the ends justify the means or because we have some sculpted image of who our adversaries are and so we think that we have to support the exact opposite of them. So take Afghanistan the 70s. If the Soviets are on the side of modernization and allowing women to go to school and wear what they want, then we got to be on the other side of that, right? Um yeah, it’s funny. I I know a couple of former old-timers uh who live in the United States now, but they’re former Soviet officers. They that’s what they did. And one of them told me, we were at an event and uh speaking event and we were out and and he told me, he said, ‘You know, the only reason my country invaded Afghanistan is because we were worried about the spread of Islamic fundamentalism that you in America triggered in Iran and we were worried it was going to go right up to our border with Afghanistan. Now, I don’t know if that’s true.
Well, that was that was Brzinsk’s strategy. So, Right. So if people aren’t familiar with this, the United States starts uh sending assistance to the mujaheden to the Afghan rebels fighting the communist government in Afghanistan 6 months before the Soviet Union invades. And Bzinsk’s plan in his own words wrote this uh Gates wrote about this as well was the idea was to give was to to to force the Soviet Union to bait the Soviet Union into Afghanistan, get them trapped there and give them their own Vietnam. Bzinsk’s idea was that if people recall 7879 you have Iran of course but you also had Saudi Arabia the seizure of the grand mosque there you had also uh uh Pakistan as well right the the the attacks in Islamabad I mean you had major upheavalss in these uh countries and Brzinski’s idea is what if we take these jihadists I don’t know if they use that term back and we put them into an army and use them for our purposes and then we can use them against a Soviet Unionist way, bait them into evading. And so, exactly. Now, what’s also interesting too though is that if you read the Polar Bureau discussions on uh Afghanistan in 79 and into early 80, one of the things that they’re saying is we have to go into Afghanistan because the Americans got kicked out of Iran.
And if we don’t go into Afghanistan, the Americans will because the Americans have to replace their bases in in Central Asia someplace. So now if they’re out of Iran, they’re probably going to go into Afghanistan. And that is a serious line of argument. Yes.
Within the polit bureau, right, in 79 as to invade. And of course, Americans, we had never had any plans of doing that. But the Soviets believe that, right? Um I mean so but but yeah no this idea of then using this force for our purposes to uh in Brazinski’s words to light the soft underbelly of the Soviet Union on fire by spreading Islamic revolution throughout those Muslim republics in Central Asia that belong to the Soviet Union. That was the idea. That was the plan. Yeah.
And uh yeah and you know his big uh his book the grand chessboard in 96. I mean, I take it to task in my upcoming book, Fortress Americas. Um, I think that book did more damage to US Grand Strategy.
Yes.
Than probably any other book I can think of with the exception of maybe Fukuyama’s book. But that wasn’t really a grand strategy book as much of a political philosophy book. But in terms of like somebody offering here’s how we should go forward now that the Soviets are gone. I think big new Bjensky was one of was probably the most damaging individual in the post war.
I think he he had uh people became acolytes of his.
I know some people from CFR who and the same with Kissinger. Kissinger has this as well. Although I think in terms of lasting effect exactly I think still I mean you still have this idea. Have you ever seen the show The Diplomat on Netflix?
Yeah. With uh Carrie Russell from Yeah. Yeah. Great show. Great show. But at the end of one of the seasons, the American vice president comes in. She pulls out a map and she gives us whole explanation.
I’ve seen this why they need to be West.
Yes. Yes. Yeah. Alison, she’s a terrifying.
Terrific actress. She’s wonderful. And that’s a terrific show. Great show. Really fun. And uh for people who are wary about it being pro-America, it’s not. You know, it it it it really takes the task. The Iraq war really shines a light on American foreign policy as well as American politics in general. But, you know, in this scene, the American vice president’s at the map and she’s like showing this is why we need to be in Iceland because of this and that and if this happens and this will happens. It’s essentially, you know, elucidating Brzinsk’s grand chessboard, right? And it is it was infectious. And I agree with you on on on uh Francis Fukuyama’s The End of History. I think that did as well. And I would say uh Sam Huntington’s Clash of Civilizations. Um I actually think though his was probably the least of the three that were bad. I I thought his Oh, yeah. I thought his analysis in terms of how the world was going to divide along cultural and political lines, I thought that was very apt. And but I agree. Yes. the the the those Yes. Definitely though. Fukuyama and definitely is big. Yeah.
Oh man, that and and you know, you look at the what’s going on and I don’t mean to go on a tangent here, but you you look at what’s going on in Ukraine. This is straight out as big new Brazinski. In fact, there was um I quoted in my book on Ukraine. There was a uh Robert O. Wade maybe was the professor. He wrote at the London School of Economics blog right when the war in Ukraine happened. He said this is a purposeful strategy by the West. They want to they think they’re going to trigger the Russians to go in and then the Russians will get bogged down just like Afghanistan in the 80s. And then and I think he’s right. I think on some level that was the strate. It was a replication of what Big was saying to do in Afghanistan.
I well Hillary Clinton believed it as well. you know, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton still in all those circles. Don’t, you know, don’t don’t uh pash what I’m saying in the comments about Clinton. Like, whatever you think of her, she is still very important. And and she’s praising Trump’s foreign policy now.
She is. She is. And she just this weekend said that uh her vote for the Iraq war was meant as a vote to put pressure on Saddam Hussein, not actually authorized the war. So even, you know, 25 years later, she still can’t own up to it, you know, or whatever. But of course not. She uh but but no, I mean that that she said that she said that end of February or early March of 2022 that this is what we want. Don’t we want this the Soviet the Russians, excuse me, to you know, and give them an Afghanistan, which is just incredible for anyone that’s paid because of what had just happened to us in Afghanistan. Right.
I can confirm, I’ve said this and I wrote about it in my book in right when the war started, like month three or four of that war, I was asked to go to a West Coast Air Force facility and and I participated like I usually do in a panel discussion after I gave a talk and you know all the panelists were you know we’re got to go in there, nz and I was the only one who was expressing doubt and concern and the the twostar it’s always a two star. The twostar lit me up in the audience. He was like the base commander or whatever. And he goes, “You know, Brandon,” he goes, “you don’t seem to understand.” He goes, “We’re breaking the Russian army in the field for free.” Right? And I was like, “It doesn’t seem like it’s for free.” Like, you know, like, [laughter] you know, ask the Now, mind you, I had just helped my wife’s colleague, my now my wife, her she she works at the hospital here. her colleague was from Ukraine from Kkefe and she had flown the week before the war began. Her sister was dying of cancer in KKE and she got stuck in the Russian advance and so I had to call a buddy of mine at State Department and they basically navigated her out to safety now. So I’m like it’s not for free, General There are people who are being annihilated and ruined by this war that we clearly triggered and wanted.
Oh, it’s uh it’s heartbreaking. It’s heartbreaking, you know, on on both sides, the hundreds of thousands of families that have been ruined. Uh and then you talk about the millions of people who’ve been displaced. Uh you talk about the environmental damage to this war. Uh Ukraine is wrecked for generations to come. Uh for what? Rebuilt. What’s that?
I don’t think it’ll ever be rebuilt. I think I mean, well, Black Rockck’s got the contract, right? So, I’m sure it’s all going to turn out. Yeah, they’ll they’ll import a bunch of people from around the world and it it won’t be Ukraine anymore though. The Ukrainians don’t have a home anymore.
But none of the money will get the I mean, you know, with and and then as you said, for free if you want to get literal with that with the cost, you know, I I American American in was about what 175 billion or something like that. You know, all of our interceptors between that just the money we put in this uh how much of that actually made it to where it was supposed to go? You would have had better luck putting that cash uh unbundled, right? Ripped out of its packaging [clears throat] loose in the back of open trucks and driving it from Odessa to Kev hoping it’s going to get where it’s going to going than actually in the process that we have for it. I mean that money so much of that money was stolen. Uh well, it was institutionalized. There’s a reason. Look, I know everybody is, you know, turning and I say this all the time, too. Whatever corruption the Biden family was involved in in Ukraine, the Trumps have just made that look like nothing. But I will say there is a reason the former president’s son was on the board of the largest or one of the largest Ukrainian gas companies with Jay Kofer Black who was the former counterterrorism center director at CIA. That was not a coincidence. That was purposeful. They wanted an institutionalized system set up to pill for our money. that was going through Ukraine.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and so you know that war um as it continues and I don’t see an end of that war either. I think that goes past this presidency. I mean the money, man. That’s how they do it.
I have heard that from both Russians and Ukrainians that this is, you know, and my friend in Russia, she was saying this the other day. This is a big problem because the war has become the business. The war is what’s driving industry. The war provides money to people who never had money before as well as makes the rich even richer. How do you stop that? How do you stop it? There’s no reason to stop the war. It’s going so well, you know, for many communities, many industries.
Also in Russia, I mean, you look at the defense manufacturers in Russia, 40% of their economy or something like that is now geared toward the war. now understandably because they are in a major war but I mean I’m sure on some level some of those guys are also saying hey this is good for business that’s absolutely right that’s absolutely right I mean and you know say yeah and Russia has done very well preparing for this war as we’re talking about Iran did and one of the things that they really excelled at was ensuring that their industry their economy in general was going to be able to be elastic enough to survive the attempted isolation by the west by all the sanctions, the seizure of assets, all these things. And the Russians have not just weathered it, they’ve actually improved their economy in many ways, either by finding new markets to their south or to their east, or by creating industries in country to make sure that their shelves aren’t going barren, but it’s still a wartime economy. You still have real issues with inflation. You still have real issues with interest rates. I mean, you still have a drag on the economy and you were putting, as you said, your focus into the war. And so maybe the first year or two or three where you’re not prioritizing everything else, you get by. But then in years four and five and six, it starts to show that you’re not investing in your country. You’re only investing in the war. And I’m not saying that’s going to cause Russia to collapse or the people are going to burn the Kremlin down. No, not at all. Absolutely not. I don’t believe that either. This is a war that Russia can’t win. I mean, excuse me. Russia can’t lose. Ukraine can’t win. I mean, that’s basically the this the setup here, you know, but it is it’s one of those things in the Ukraine, of course, um the amount of money being made there and the political class that’s benefiting from it. Uh disgusting.
It is. And if that political class was to fall for some reason, who replaces them? It’s going to be the far right. You know, nationalists, right? Yeah. And they’re not going to end the war. So I don’t see how this war ends, you know. Um and all everyone who said, “Well, Ukraine’s military going to collapse.” You can’t. So you’re telling me Russia is going to occupy the entire country and the West is just going to say, “Oh, okay. That’s fair enough. You won.” No. I mean, Jesus, you talk about the the wet dreams that Langley and the MI6 have about an insurgency and you’ve been dreaming about this for 80 some odd years. They tried it for what a dozen or so years after World War II. an insurgency in Ukraine. They are so excited about this.
And again, it gets back to the idea of like that was the idea is get Russia to invade Ukraine and then we’ll give them another Vietnam or or this way we’ll get Afghanistan right on the second try. You know, God help us.
It it is so well I and and by the way, I I also I couldn’t confirm it for my book. I did include it in my book, but I made it clear that, you know, this was still a rumor. I was convinced, you know, the the Pentagon found, what was it? Seven billion dollars they found through accounting errors. Oh, yeah. Remember that? Well, then 48 hours later, 24 hours later, who goes trucking into Russia is Pragosian, the world’s greatest mercenary. And I always thought, man, there’s there’s got to be something there. There’s got to be something there. We paid because we were desperate at the time because the Russians were holding everybody off. So we maybe we paid off pragosian, you know, and he goes running into Russia because he’s a mercenary and hey, maybe he gets lucky and he’s pissed off at Putin anyway. Doesn’t go well. Then he makes a deal with Putin and now the CIA’s left holding the bag.
Very possible. Very possible. I I I never put those two things together like that, but I’m not going to tell you no. I’m not going to tell you no. You know who told me no? You know who told me no? I got I got a real nasty letter from a friend of mine who’s very senior um in the intelligence community saying that I have become a Russian disinformation.
[snorts] Come on. Yeah. Normally when I get letters like that it means I must be overt target. Um I mean that mean the the American uh commentar Apple and uh Mike McFall. I mean these guys must be by the way they were wetting their pants in the summer of 23 when Pgoan made that run on Moscow. They were wetting their pants when was that June or July or whenever it was I mean they were oh they were so excited and you know political was was bursting cheering on progosion I’ve so excited about this you know and then you know right but then also too as you said I remember people don’t recall us look it up they had they were running low on their money for Ukraine the Biden administration and all of a sudden they found oh actually these weapons didn’t cost as much as we thought they cost. We’ve got $7 billion more.
That’s right. [laughter] And they did it on a f I remember they did it on a Friday on an afternoon, so nobody was listening. And it was like, oh yeah, this is how it goes. And I was just like, “Oh my god, they’re they’re doing it again. They found a way to wash the money.” And by the way, today is the anniversary when Rumsfeld said, “Uh, we’re missing $2.3 trillion from the defense budget.” Well, that’s right. The day before September, Right. Exactly. So very fortunate for him.
There’s nothing there. I’m sure I’m sure I’m being a conspiracy theorist again. And we’re going to have tomorrow Dr. Michael Shyer on with us for the 91 anniversary. And I’m going to ask, he’s a buddy of mine. Um, and you know, he’s he’s got some very interesting theories about what was really going on. One of the things he told me once, I’m going to ask him about it again, uh, is he was he became convinced that as he was running the CIA Bin Laden unit to kill Bin Laden, he was convinced that Brennan and some of these other guys had created a counter CIA bin Laden unit to help Bin Laden because he was saying there he had four or five times where he had bin Laden in his crosshairs, literally minutes he could have killed him and at the last minute somebody above him said, “No, no, no. We’re not going to do it.
Do it. Well, I mean, there are those stories certainly. There there was uh he was like on a hunting expedition in southern Afghanistan. That’s right. This is one of those times. Yeah. And that was that was one of the ones and and I I think there were a couple other times. I mean, you got to remember this man was our ally. This man was our success story and we continue helping al-Qaeda after he dies.
And in General David Petraeus’s words, your success is our success. you know, and I read Shrier’s books in uh Oh, they were great. And man, they were they were I thought they were extreme though in his understanding of of uh the the reach of al-Qaeda and even with I mean because my understanding too of al-Qaeda in Iraq, al-Qaeda in Iraq that fought the foreign fighters that came here which was such a tiny part of the insurgency was that they were not were following religious conviction. And it was more coming to defend, right, against a foreigner, to help their neighbors kind of thing. Um, and then the Islamic State came around though and man, no, maybe maybe Shore was off by a few years, but I’m going to talk to him about this because I do Islamic State fits what he was talking about. Yep. Absolutely.
Let me ask you, I know we’re running out of time. I know I know I’m sorry to keep you. Let me just ask you one last question here. Um, you and I are very critical of American foreign policy. I I I think it’s because we both mean you had much more experience than I did with it, but we both kind of lived on the policy side at least and we saw what really happens and it’s ugly and it’s stupid at times, right? Um and we were just criticizing sort of what the general sort of disposition of the US is in foreign policy. What do you think would be a good or healthy grand strategy or foreign policy for the US to adhere to where we avoid what we’ve been doing but we don’t also sort of give up the ship if you will? You know, what is the best way forward where we still preserve our our our power but you know we we’re not we’re not doing what we’ve been doing. Feel free to go anyway with that if you want.
Yeah. I mean I mean my one I would you know try and return to international institutions and international law. Uh that’s the only thing we’ve got right. I mean what they came to at the end of the second world war the creation of United Nations however flawed it is however much you know it was uh you know however flawed it was uh whether in its construction or in its operations over decades I understand but what else do we have kind of thing. Uh but for the United States specifically essentially come home America. You know this idea of you know true national strength comes from our people. It comes from our economy. It comes from our infrastructure. It come right I mean we are putting everything we have now on this bet that we are going to win the AI race. This is absolutely insane. uh our most of our growth in our economy is coming from this speculation on AI you know and this just inability over the decades to invest in ourselves to make sure we have worldclass infrastructure worldass education exactly health care right I mean what do you need for a strong economy uh uh educated and healthy workers you know I mean you read these things that are now they don’t even ask this question anymore more uh you know this idea of like could you produce iPhones in the United States you know and decade or so ago Tim Cook is saying no we can’t we couldn’t get the workforce here you know we don’t have we don’t have an educated enough workforce for it you know I mean so that would be my thing Brandon we want to succeed in the world come home you know pull these kind of what the Chinese did yeah exactly what the Chinese did I conquering except accept the limits of our power you know you can have a realist mindset on this. I’m not saying we’re all going to get in a circle and smoke pot and sing Kumbaya. I mean, I’d like that. I would enjoy that. I’d take part in that. But I mean, I also can like, you know, I mean, you could talk to a guy like John Mirshimer or, you know, I mean, Steven Walt and I think they have the same ideas here. This idea of like a realist policy would be something that actually works in the real world. Not adhering to the fantasy of our empire, not adhering to what we once were, not adhering to a 20th century military in the 21st century as being able to achieve. We couldn’t even do that in the 20 20th century with it, right? We couldn’t, right? I mean, so why we’re going to do I mean the whole but but essentially this idea of investing ourselves and accepting the world as it is. So accepting the multipolar world. I don’t know if that means saying okay uh if you want to get real uh real uh uh focused on interests here okay then we’ll have sphere of influences and we’ll take the right I mean like if you want to go down that path I don’t agree with that but I understand that’s the path I I favor because I understand where the path is coming. I’m not I don’t I don’t believe in uh owning the western hemisphere. I think that is well through trade. I want to do trade. That’s exact trade. Exactly. that sense. But you know, spears of influence certainly, you know, that that’s certain that’s something that’s very uh that could be articulated quite reasonably uh can be argued for uh and keeps uh the powers out of each other’s business. Uh because that’s that’s a big thing for me is like I if we see how we’re reacting now, but the other thing too is you look at the success of China over these these two decades and god, you go back go back to 2001 and look where China was. Look at Shanghai 2001, the skyline, and look at it today. Yeah, exactly. Look at Shenzhen. Yeah, Shenzhen’s even more impressive that story, right? You know, and and then, you know, I mean, look at like GDP. It’s incredible. Or, you know, this is a big thing going back to the beginning of the year, you know, one of the reasons for the Venezuela operation. Uh, you know, who’s the biggest trading partner of every country in the Western Hemisphere except for North America, right? it is the Chinese. You I mean like and the idea of like my god, how did we allow that to happen? I’m sympathetic to that. Like not in a sense that we should now go kidnap presidents and you know [laughter] all that type of stuff, but I understand like there’s a middle ground there. There’s a middle ground somewhere like the frustration like how the heck did this happen? How did we let this happen? How do we focus on this militarism and everything that comes with it and running them around the world like an upset giant toddler destroying countries and meanwhile in our sphere of influence our western hemisphere our backyard and again I don’t really subscribe to that but I can understand that phrasing um China has won every economy you know if you ask Google put me up a map of the western hemisphere and show me which countries are you know have their biggest trading partners, China. It’s all of them. Yeah. And how did that happen? We let that happen. We let that happen. It wasn’t because the Chinese tricked us or they don’t play by the rules. No, because we were f focusing on building F-35s and hanging out in the Middle East.
Exactly. I had a friend of mine, Brandon, who went to China uh in 2010 or so, and he he went and spoke with folks in the Chinese Foreign Ministry, and he asked them, he said, “What would you like to see American policy to be?” And they say, “We want to see the Americans stuck in unending wars in the Middle East. We want to see you continue that.” Sounds about right.
Right. I mean, exactly. You see, like, okay, great. That’s what we did. And we burned trillions of dollars and we burned our focus and we burned uh all of our prioritization. If people don’t think prioritization and focus don’t matter in terms of, you know, our leadership in DC as well as our corporate leadership, well, they’ll follow the money. But the the political leadership only has so many hours in a day after spending all their days focused on either this war or a coming war or what have you, particularly wars like Iraq and Afghanistan or, you know, proxy wars, Syria and Libya. How are we going to succeed anywhere else? That’s right.
You know, and you I I agree. And and this is the basis of my next book that’s coming out in November. Uh now I’m more of a sphere of influence guy, but I I I make it clear the the the impetus is geoeconomics. It can no longer be at the barrel of a gun because that’s not it’s not how anybody does it anymore. The really successful countries, you want to acquire power, you want to acquire influence, you trade, you do trade, you do business.
How many how many meetings and briefings did Barack Obama sit through about Afghanistan, right? And how many did he sit through about healthcare or about education or about our infrastructure? How many briefings did he had on our rail system? How many times did somebody sit down with Barack Obama and say, you know, Mr. President, this is the condition of our ports. This is this is the reality of it. Like we are way behind, you know? I mean, yeah.
And now they’re having the briefings and it’s in an emergency setting. It’s uh Yeah. Everything’s falling apart. Yeah. We can’t We can’t maintain the carriers. We can’t maintain the destroyers. Yeah.
It’s uh [sighs] Yeah. You know, it’s a what’s the line? It’s a It’s a fickle thickle world out there and we’ve been very fickle and uh you know, now we’re in a pickle. Um well, I thank you again. I know we went a little long on this one like we did last time. I always love talking to you though. It’s uh it’s always so interesting. Um, yeah, there’s a lot to think about there. And, uh, also I’ll just add, I think it was one of the veterans who was killed in the recent war with I or in the war with Iran. It might have been even Kleiner, but one of them had plans to leave the service and go be uh, high school football and history teacher. And you and you start thinking how many how many of these guys and gals could have come back and actually built community and built up the next generation. How many holes are now being created for the next generation that no one can fill? You know, I think about that a lot. Um it’s it’s really sad because you know these are young people that are being deployed away from their families and yes they I know they volunteered but ultimately the point of the military colon pal had it right and I know Maline Albbright yelled at him about this but Colon Pal didn’t want to use the military and he wanted to hold it back for an actual crisis and it was Maline Albbright in the 90s who said for God’s sakes Colin we have this big military why don’t we ever use it yeah you know she did she Yeah.
He um Yeah, I mean I have plenty of uh friends and those I knew who were killed in the wars, you know. I think about them, you know, I think about Michael or JD or Train or Joe or, you know, and these are all really good men, really capable, really smart. You think about their families, about their children, about their wives who’ve lived these years without them, right? So that future that was once promised is was gone, was destroyed for what? But then you also think about too uh what they could have done. That’s right. What they could have done for their communities, what they could have done.
I I had this experience. I was in Columbus, Ohio back in April and um the KC 135 that crashed. I guess that that Kleiner or Kleiner was aboard. Yeah. And um uh one of the one of the the crewmen was being buried that day. And so I’m driving down through Columbus, whatever the main highway that goes up in the middle of Columbus, and I’m driving and the road is empty next to me. And I’m f and I see there’s state troopers blocking the uh on-ramps. And then finally, it comes this giant funeral procession. I’ve never seen a funeral procession like this before in my life. It must have been it was miles long. And it was for this uh airman, this air national guardsman, this Ohio National Guardsman who was killed in the skies of Iraq during this war. And I just, you know, what he could have done, right, for his community, what he might have become. This is what EB Sledge says in in uh uh um his his book with the old breed, which was one of the great books about World War II. You know, Sledge throughout that book, and Sledge fought on Paleu in Okinawa, and Sledge said, you know, it haunted him. He became a doctor after the war to make good with what he from what he saw in the war, what he took part in. But this idea of what a waste, you read that book and that’s how he ends paragraph after paragraph, chapter after with that phrase, what a waste, you know, this idea that these young men were and what could they have become. That’s right. Right. And you see that, you know, and it’s the same. So it’s the same. We we’ve killed 4,500 Iranians. We’ve killed the Israelis have killed 10,000 Lebanese since 2023. Uh they’ve killed 80,000 Palestinians. I mean, like just the idea of all this stuff. But then we just saw I saw a sailor was killed off of the coast of Dubai on a ship that was hit by either us or by the Iranians. You know, what’s happening to his family? What could it have become when he got home? And now he’s got children who grow up without a father. I mean, like what an absolute waste. And for what, you know, no one can answer this, right? No one can give me an answer, you know, but what a waste. Yeah. What a waste.
That’s right. And uh it’s it’s got to end. It’s because we do need to come home. Yeah, we we’ve got a lot of problems here and we need those men and women here. Um, not to be military police, but to contribute, right?
Yeah. I mean, my my we just put together a a policy my organization media network just put together a policy statement on nuclear weapons. And one of the things is, you know, reducing it down to just basically the term force of submarines. And if you feel you need to have air launch munitions as well, okay, well, keep some keep a squadron or two in the reserves or the guard or something. But all we needs are ballistic missile subs for deterrence. And uh the idea of of taking apart this uh leviathan, this nuclear leviathan. But the reality is is that you have thousands, tens of thousands of engineers, scientists, just incredibly well-trained and educated people who could do anything. And so you can imagine if you took this whole class of people, the thousands or tens of thousands who work on our nuclear weapons, whether designing them and building them, maintaining them, operating them, safeguarding them, whatever, uh what those people could do for our country, right?
Right. You know, but we’ve got them sitting in missile silos or out in a hanger, you know, in Missouri someplace. Yeah.
And there’s still the the possibility based on what the limited things I’ve done for the again I don’t have a clearance so I don’t they don’t read me into all this stuff but uh when I go out there uh you know Edwards Air Force Base they they could be playing with a lot of stuff and they’re not sharing it with the you know that’s another thing is that they’re locked away and all this technology clean energy could be there.
I mean, there’s so much that’s locked away because of our national security state. Anyway, yeah, it’s a uh it’s it’s a it’s a tragedy. We need to do some very serious changes. We need to come home and change and get better at home. Um, thank you, Matthew, as always. He is Matthew Hoe, uh, Eisenhower Media Network, former State Department official, former US Marine, and I am Brandon Warder at WeWe the Brandon, Twitter X, and I’ll see you tomorrow.
All right, thanks Brandon. Bye, buddy.
QUESTIONS:
How many Americans would support terrorists on the theory that they share a belief in God?
Were you aware of Brzinsk’s strategy of baiting the Soviets in Afghanistan? What do you think of it?
Had you heard that on the eve of September 11, 2023, Donald Rumsfeld announced that the government was missing $2.3 trillion from the defense budget.