How the West Provoked War in Ukraine: Scott Horton on U.S. Foreign Policy

Jacob Winograd [00:00:33]:
Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the Biblical Anarchy Podcast. I’m your host, Jacob Winograd. This is a bonus episode. I don’t do these very often. In fact, most of the time, anything that I would consider making a bonus episode, I will put up on the LCI Green Room audio feed, which you should check out because there’s a lot of really good interviews over there. This was an exception. I recently, on my YouTube channel, interviewed Scott Horton, who I’ve had on the show before. He just released a new book called Provoked, and the book goes into actually, let me grab it so I can read you the headline.

Jacob Winograd [00:01:16]:
Also, I apologize if you hear my kids playing in the background, recording this while they’re still awake. The full title is Provoked How Washington Started the New Cold War with Russia and the Catastrophe in Ukraine. And I invited Scott on because I wanted to promote this book. I wanted to have a conversation with him about the content within the book and sort of thematically where we are. I am of the firm belief that we are and, actually, as we talk about in our conversation, not just my belief, even those in our government agree that we are at the closest we’ve ever been to nuclear conflict on a global scale really since, the Cuban Missile Crisis and really since, you know, the end of the Cold War. And that doesn’t mean that, you know, if you were gonna make some sort of, breakdown of the probability that the probability like, it’s not over 50%, but the fact that it’s significantly over, you know, 0% or 1% by multiple factors is troubling. And as I talk a lot about on the show that we, as Christians, need to like, regardless of whether or not you, Christian, listening to this, are a libertarian like me, you should agree with the biblical principle of holding government leaders to account. You should agree with me that those in government exist to serve God and not and and, you know, if they are concerned more with their own financial or, power, their own financial positions or their own positions of power, or with wielding some sort of giant, hegemonic influence or, you know, essentially an empire or, primacy over the world and not in doing what is good, not enforcing what is just, then that’s a problem.

Jacob Winograd [00:03:21]:
These you know, government and we can we can squabble, again, as Christians over what form of government is the most Christian. I obviously have my biases. I think there’s a reasonable case to be made that libertarianism is the most compatible form of government with Christian principles. But even if I was wrong about that, or you think I’m wrong about that, you should at least be able to understand the extent to which that there is an issue when we simply allow these govern government leaders to go unchecked and to simply do whatever they want to do in the sort of, in light of their concerns being about their own legacy and their own kingdoms, and not Christ and his kingdom, and not the things that embody Christ and his kingdom, the virtues of of Christianity, the virtues of just what is good. And if we believe that these government leaders are supposed to be pursuing what is good, if we believe that they are supposed to pursue peace insofar as it depends on them, that that teaching in Romans 12 applies to all people, including and maybe especially to those wielding authority, then we need to hold them to account. But we can’t hold them to account if we don’t know what they’re doing. We can’t hold them to account. We can’t pray accurate prayers.

Jacob Winograd [00:04:52]:
We can’t pray specific prayers. We can’t be an effective prophetic voice in this world if we don’t know what’s going on. And so that is why I do a lot of commentary, a lot of episodes diving into current events. And this book is a very lengthy book. It’s almost 700 pages long. I will point out that a lot of it is footnotes, so the page number is a little bit misleading. If you took the footnotes out of it, maybe it’s only a 500 page book. It’s still long.

Jacob Winograd [00:05:27]:
But what I will say is this, that the path is narrow. Right? No one said it’s going to be easy to walk as a Christian and to live out our convictions, to live out these principles, but I think it’s necessary. And even if you can’t read an entire book, maybe you can at least listen to an hour and 20 minute podcast. Maybe you can at least, you know, listen to a synopsis about the book and get the key takeaways, and understand that as much as Russia and their government has some some blame to bear in this conflict, that our own government has, I would argue, just as much, perhaps even more blame to bear in what caused this conflict to start. And that I would ask that we apply a consistent standard, that if there is something that we know that the American government would do and feel justified in doing, that if you say that the American government would be justified in doing it but that the Russian government wouldn’t, you have you have not established a consistent standard. At the end of the day, even though I can’t and won’t suggest that you aren’t a Christian if you do not share my libertarian convictions, I will remind all Christians that God is not a respecter of any nation or any specific kingdom, or any specific politician, or any specific political party. And just like it says in Psalms 2, which, you know, it’s funny. I, I had been reading through the Psalms and gone through Psalm 2, and actually, just today, my associate pastor, preached from Psalm 2.

Jacob Winograd [00:07:19]:
And it it’s one of the many messianic Psalms that, exist. And it goes, why do the nations rage, and the peoples plot in vain, and the kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers, take counsel together against the lord and against his anointed, saying, let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us. He who sits in heaven laughs, and the lord holds them in derision. And then he goes on to talk about how Christ is the true king, how is the the the son of the Lord has begotten that if he asks that the nations will be his inheritance and that he will rule over all. And this is echoed so many times throughout the New Testament. At the end of the day, all of these kingdoms will fade away, but the kingdom of Christ is eternal. And if we believe that and we believe that these nations and that these earthly re rulers are ultimately not what matters, then we have to live like that even if we have some and I would argue that we do have to some extent a teaching to respect authority, those who are in authority and unjustly, I would make a distinction there. And there’s different layers to that, which I’ve talked about in previous episodes, and I don’t wanna necessarily bring that to bear here, but just to make the point that submission to authority never means to call what is evil good.

Jacob Winograd [00:09:00]:
You can even love your own nation. You can be patriotic. You can like the place you live and and and wanna protect certain aspects of the culture or the history that you find valuable. But they should all all of that should come second to those same, tendencies to preserve and to protect and to uphold what is good. If you’re gonna do that for your own nation, do it twice as much for Christ and his kingdom where your true citizenship lies. So I would ask that you listen to this conversation with an open mind wherever you’re coming from. If you’re a libertarian, then this isn’t gonna be a lot of new material for you. But if if you’re not a libertarian, you’re not someone who pays attention to to these things, where if you’ve only heard one side of the story, that Russia is just a bully.

Jacob Winograd [00:10:00]:
Right? Putin’s just this evil, despotic, evil person and invaded Ukraine unprovoked. Have you heard that so many times in the news? Unprovoked. Un you ever hear the saying, dost, thou dost protest too much? That’s kind of what I would argue has happened, is that the media ruling elites, our government officials, have had to, over and over again, repeat that this was unprovoked because they know it wasn’t. And in fact, this book goes through showing how going back through Bush senior, and Clinton, and Bush junior, how all the top officials knew the policies that they were pursuing were, in their own words, going to provoke Russia at some point. It’s a long and complicated history. This hour and 20 minutes does not get much past the tip of the iceberg. And I don’t I don’t even have a tenth of the knowledge that Scott and others have on this. But what I will say is this.

Jacob Winograd [00:11:06]:
What I do know and what we do talk about in this episode is narrative shattering, and it reminds us that these nations are fallen. It reminds us why we have passages like Psalms 2, which talk about earthly nations raging against God and conspiring, you know, with each other against the Lord. And that’s not always just explicitly in turning you know, in sort of mocking God or mocking his laws in in a in a, like, explicit way, like, you know, maybe you see in the Old Testament, or even you can think of examples today where people can be, you know, very hostile openly to Christianity, but that can even be just implicitly. Remember in I bring this up in the episode. Remember in Matthew 23, when Jesus is calling out the hypocrisy of the Pharisees, and saying that they cared about what was external and not what was internal, that they cared about the letter of the law and, you know, the, tithing of mint and dill and cumin, but then neglected the weightier matters of the law, justice and mercy and faithfulness, that they strained out a gnat and swallowed a camel, and they’re like whitewashed tombs. And I would argue that’s what our government does. I’d argue that the the United States government, no matter how good you think the constitution is, no matter how amazing or or how with with how much esteem you hold the American Revolution and the founding of this nation and the principles it was founded on, you might hold them in high esteem. I I would argue that I also hold them in high esteem, although I might have some nuances to bear that aren’t often talked about.

Jacob Winograd [00:13:04]:
But even with maybe some of the imperfections of of the founding of America that I could point to, it’s still a far cry from what we live under today, which really spits in the face and mocks. And it’s got brings us up in in, you know, near the near the end of our conversation, that this is the government that was created by James Madison and Thomas Jefferson and and and George Washington and all our founding fathers, that this is what they wanted. So by whatever basis you wanna judge, our government is not committed to liberty at home or abroad. Our government is not committed to justice at home or abroad. Our government has for decades through multiple administrations, both Democrat and Republican, pursued policies that have valued American hegemony, that have valued American control and American interest at the expense of long term peace, at the expense of millions of innocent lives killed, at the expense of millions more who have suffered in poverty because of American economic and military actions against these other nations, and that have propped up despotic, leaders and and and governments and organizations all for the pursuit and the building up of America, but not even our own people, just those at the top. So I have a lot more that I could say, but I think that I’ll leave that at that. This is a a bit of a longer intro for this kind of conversation. It’s because I really wanna set the stage.

Jacob Winograd [00:15:02]:
Because I know that a lot of what’s talked about here might seem like, you know, some of you might not be interested in it, or maybe you’re interested, but it it’s gonna be hard to listen to. Because, again, this is mostly for my Christian audience who aren’t steeped in, you know, maybe who who are really concerned about theology, but don’t pay as much attention to current events. And a lot of this is going to be, if you are newer to the show because I had to go on before, but that was a couple years ago. And I know there’s, you know, newer listeners who haven’t gone back and listened to every old episode of my podcast. I’ll have links in the show notes to my prior conversations with with Scott and others from the Libertarian Institute. And I’m I’m I’m really praying that you hear this with an open mind, and that you use this information not to just, like, become angry or saddened or anxious, but that you feel inspired and sort of spurred on to join me and many others, Christians and not Christians, who are united in calling for our government to repent to repent and to go back to what this nation was founded, you know, the the the beliefs we had about government, to go back to that, and, you know, the Christian to to go back and to to repent and to to put god first, to put Christ first, and not, you know, not empire, not money, not power, not these things first. To not, you know, to to to not seek American dominant at the sake of the least of these all over the world, to not identify externally to the nations of the world as a as a as a nation of predominantly Christians, and have the legacy of Christianity, the legacy of of of the gospel message be bombs dropped on people, people starving to death because of economic sanctions, and countries at war for really decades because of American interventions. So this is a this is a, a window into a world that some of you might not be familiar with, And you’ve maybe you heard some of that.

Jacob Winograd [00:17:30]:
Maybe you heard Elon Musk with Donald Trump talking to people like Ron Paul. Maybe you’ve been surprised at, you know, how it seemed like in the 2000 and 20 tens, how the Republicans seemed down with all these military interventions. But with Trump, there seemed to be sort of a backlash, and people will be being more skeptical, and embracing more of a non interventionist, or what’s called sometimes, as a pejorative, an isolationist, approach. The the the right is very divided on this, as is as is the left. You know, so it and it does get it gets into a lot. And honestly, I’m already going longer than I wanted to with this intro, and I’m gonna let you get to the conversation. But I think I will probably do a follow-up episode, about this, because this gets you know, for for those of you who are new to this, this blows open a whole other world beyond just the noninterventionist perspective, which gets into how we view history and mainstream history versus what some people call revisionist history, and that that can seem like a like a rabbit hole conspiracy theory thing, but I would just, you know, leave you with this. Just think about how much the news cycle today not like this you know, people are reporting on the same event and have 2 different takes and 2 different interpretations or sometimes more than 2 interpretations.

Jacob Winograd [00:19:00]:
Right? And you ever hear that saying that history is, you know, written by the winners, by the victors? Yeah. That Some things that we were taught in public school, some things that are part of our sort of, like, American mythos are things that we sort of accept because we were just told them. But when we go back and look, it doesn’t mean it was a 100% wrong, but it’s kinda like well, think about it like when you’re taught certain stories in Sunday school about the Bible, and then you grew up and read the actual text. And it’s like, oh, okay. They you know, and we we we kinda give people the white washed version of you know, kids the white washed version of of certain stories, and then because they’re not ready to handle the the the, you know, the the full text for what it says. That’s at least done with good intentions. A lot of times, the history we’re taught is, whitewashed, not necessarily for the best intentions. So anyway, that’s that’s gonna be probably a soon episode I’ll talk about in the future.

Jacob Winograd [00:19:59]:
But, that’s all I have. My 20 minute introduction for this hour and 20 minute interview. I really hope you listen to it, the entire thing, and, and do it with an open mind. I really like Scott. Scott’s not a Christian, but, I don’t know. I’m praying the Lord. Work’s in his heart. And by the end of the conversation we had, I I’m optimistic on that front.

Jacob Winograd [00:20:24]:
So alright. Well, you guys go ahead and listen to this, and I will then give you a closing thought on the other side. Well, hello, everyone, and welcome back to the LCI Green Room. I’m Jacob Buenograd. I’m the host of the Biblical Anarchy podcast here at the Libertarian Christian Institute, part of our Christians for Liberty network. I’m glad that you guys are with us tonight. Gonna have a pretty good show, I think. Wanted to take care of just, kind of, the the basic, you know, podcasting, plugging stuff here at the top.

Jacob Winograd [00:20:57]:
Just gotta let you guys know some stuff that’s, going on. It’s the end of the year, and so, you know, as always, we’re asking people to consider, supporting what we do here at the Libertarian Christian Institute. And so I just wanna put this up right now. As you see, we have a little thing going on. If you go over to libertarianchristans.com, we have someone who has, you know, we have a a generous grant that has been given to us so that all your pledges, from now to end of the year are matched. And I also just wanted to show you guys that we have some, cool new merch, which I’ll I’ll just show you right now. It’s actually as you see, we have these cool little rock tumblers and I have I’m gonna actually remove this now. I got one right here.

Jacob Winograd [00:21:45]:
Nice little biblical anarchy, rock tumbler. You can get those. Good holiday, presents. I got I got, it’s not real Jack. I have, it’s not like holiday Jack Daniels, so it’s okay still though. That’s all I have on hand right now. I have to replenish my, my liquor cabinet. It’s pretty it’s running pretty low, but I at least have a glass now for when I go and and, nice glass to drink out of when I do go replenish it.

Jacob Winograd [00:22:12]:
Everyone watching, make sure you give this video a thumbs up. Subscribe if you haven’t already. That way, more people can, see this conversation. With me tonight, I don’t think this man needs too much introduction, Scott Horton. He’s the director of the Libertarian Institute, editorial director of antiwar.com, host of the Scott Horton Show, author of many great books, including Fool’s Errand, Enough Already, and the book that we’re here to talk about tonight, this giant behemoth called Provoked, How the West Provoked War in Ukraine and the Catastrophe, that followed, you started the new cold war with yeah. I was reading off the wrong notes here. The new cold war with Russia and the catastrophe in Ukraine. So, Scott, thanks for being here tonight.

Scott Horton [00:22:55]:
I’m doing great. Thank you, Jacob. Great to be with you again.

Jacob Winograd [00:22:59]:
Yeah. Of course. You know, it’s funny. I I realized in my preparation for this that we were talking about like, I didn’t realize how long you’ve been working at this book, but I interviewed you back in 2,000, 22 when when you first started writing this book after the the stuff had had start the conflict had had, you know, already broken out and stuff, and the the length, the details, the footnotes of this book really shows. If you wanna just describe a little bit, like, what’s the process that went into this? Because you’ve written, you know, more than your your share of books, but this book definitely stands out, not just in terms of size, but just even the presentation. Like, what what what was your what were you hoping to produce with this book, and do you think you accomplished that?

Scott Horton [00:23:46]:
That’s a a good bunch of questions here. Let me think. I guess I would say that I already knew the story in my head. I gave a speech in 2020 called The New Cold War with Russia is all America’s fault, meaning Washington’s our government’s fault. Actually, it was in Seattle on the day that COVID broke out on leap day 2020. I gave a speech to the libertarian party up there. And then it’s funny because, I guess, I was I was still writing. When did enough already come out? I was still writing enough already then.

Scott Horton [00:24:26]:
I didn’t finish enough already until January 21 is when that came out. So another year of working on the Middle East book. And then I tried to get Will Porter and Karl Anzalone to write the Russia book. It’s like, I don’t wanna write the Russia book, but you boys know the story. You do it. I’ll publish it. You know? Yeah. Right.

Scott Horton [00:24:45]:
So they got jobs. They never got around to it. And then when the war broke out, I decide I’ll go ahead and take what I got and turn it into what’s supposed to be a short little monograph where I just mentioned a few things for you real quick. Oops. And then I got carried away. But I guess point being referring back to the speech is that I already had my accusations against Bush, Clinton, Bush, Obama, Trump, and Biden, and of course, McCain and Hillary and whoever. And, yes, there’s a giant asterisk next to Biden because they framed him for treason with Russia and really treated him like he was Putin, the foreign enemy that they were demonizing and obstructing and setting up for a coup in a way that makes that chapter more complicated. But still overall is the consensus of American foreign policy that got us into this mess.

Scott Horton [00:25:34]:
And, I could already tell that story. Right? I could I gave that speech, you know, I mean, I read it, but whatever. I I wrote that thing in in one night. The original version of it anyway. Right? 2 years later, I gave the double link version, but I wrote the original thing in one night because I already have my bullet points. I just turned all my bullet points into paragraphs, and I was already done. That’s why I thought I could get away with making in a monograph. But then once I really got started, it was like, oh, man.

Scott Horton [00:26:01]:
Turns out there’s really a lot to all of these subjects. And then it got to the got so large that it was like, well, now I can’t leave anything out. Like, there’s a Russian angle that could be explored on the Boston bombing, so they got a section. And you got all those alleged poisonings and accusations and all those kinds of things, assassinations. I mean, So I go into all of those and then, you know, all these different little scandals. And there’s missile defense and NATO expansion and, of course, economics and the color coded revolutions and all of these things, the the Balkan and Chechen wars. And, and it’s sort of, well, I look. I’ve learned a lot, and I just wanted to have it in one place for you guys, basically.

Scott Horton [00:26:47]:
Right? Like, I had to all of this stuff, man. I just want you to be able to read the one thing and you’ll you’ll have it nice and dialed. You know, the same thing with enough already. I’ve been at this for 20 years. That’s how I was able to sit down and write enough already. Same thing here. I’ve been, you know, working with antiwar.com for 20 years. We covered the orange revolution, the original big fake coup, pop you know, so called popular revolution in Ukraine back in 04.

Scott Horton [00:27:12]:
And everything ever since, we covered all of this stuff ever since. And so, I just have a comparative advantage in that basically, right, is that I didn’t change jobs. All those anti war people got new jobs at the end of the Bush years. And I’m like, no, man. I’m an antiwar.com lifer. The empire is not over. And I could see right through Barack Obama. Ain’t nothing but Bill Clinton under there, man.

Scott Horton [00:27:35]:
Give me a break, dude. I’m not we’re not done. He’s not done and we’re not done. And and, of course, we’ve been at war still ever since in in numerous places. So, so it’s just that’s it, basically. Right? It’s like if I work down at the factory, but I’ve been here for 20 years. I picked up a thing or 2, and then so now I’m hopefully putting it in one place for you guys.

Jacob Winograd [00:27:59]:
Yeah. You’ve done a really good job at that. I mean, I feel like from listening to you and the Libertarian Institute, antiwar.com, I already know probably more than the average Joe about a lot of the history, a lot of what’s going on currently. But this book’s a nice, not only like to help you understand the narrative, but you provide a plethora of the, the footnotes, which I saw you actually just published today. The, where people can go online and actually have easy access links to all those footnotes. They don’t have to go type it in manually, which I should what I’ll what I’ll do is when I’m when this is done, I’ll go put that in the description of this so people can also find it easily there as well. But on top of that, like, I think it’s easy, and you see this, like, in the debates you’ve done or debates they’ve done, and you can dispel a narrative by, you know, just just kinda offering a few arguments, but then people can still try to weasel their way out. And I think, like, with each section of this book as I and I haven’t finished reading it yet.

Jacob Winograd [00:28:57]:
Like, I got it last week, and I’ve I’ve I I kinda jumped around to get to the sections I was looking forward to reading, and then kinda went back and started reading through it. But, like, each section, it’s like, you you it I wanna make sure I say this correctly because it could come across as a criticism, but it’s not. Like, you get to halfway through a section and you think, okay. Wow. Yeah. I I see his point. It’s really driven at home. But then you kinda keep going and just keep laying it on, and it’s like, well, that’s it’s kind of necessary because people will keep on trying to find a way to cast reasonable doubt on the narrative we’re pushing because it’s not the mainstream narrative.

Jacob Winograd [00:29:33]:
And so I I feel like part of the reason this book had to be what it ended up being, the length of it and all the sources you provided is because of just the level of propaganda that we’re up against. Like, there’s that saying that, like, it’s it’s it’s easy to spew out BS, but it’s a lot harder to refute it. It don’t take much to to to to put out a lot of, you know, fake news about

Scott Horton [00:29:56]:
the scam. Story to take.

Jacob Winograd [00:29:57]:
But to actually

Scott Horton [00:29:58]:
That’s the abridged version, dude. Okay? That’s me summing it up and disregarding a lot of things and hoping that you’ll follow those footnotes to so much more. I mean, for just one example, this is the one that just comes to me right now. Is there’s this brilliant guy, I mean, I don’t even really know him. He was at antiwar.com and gone before I came back in, you know, 25 years ago even, like at the turn of the century when they’re doing the Balkan wars. I didn’t show up till, you know, w Bush years. His name is George Zamuli. Zamuli.

Scott Horton [00:30:32]:
And the guy is just brilliant, man. He wrote a book called Bombs for Peace, and it’s all about America’s Bosnia war. Well, and the Bosnian’s Bosnia war, but also America’s, you know, intervention in there. And my god, man. He’s just got, what, I don’t know, 150,000 claims. All of them and I I don’t mean claims. I mean assertions of fact. This is the deal everybody according to him, and my god does he have his act together, this guy.

Scott Horton [00:31:04]:
And that’s it’s just on Bosnia and it’s even as if not as many words as my book, it is as thorough a treatment as anyone could write on any subject. Now when I read that book, I can try to learn everything on every page that I possibly can retain, but I can only cite so much of it before I’m just plagiarizing the guy. I can only tell you so many things that he brings up that just cannot fit in the book. I don’t have space for this. This book isn’t about Bosnia. Bosnia is a section of a chapter in my book and I try to give it it’s, what would be a chapter in a normal sized book, I admit. But, like, it’s his is a whole book. Mine is just a chapter.

Scott Horton [00:31:56]:
And if I had license to just rip the guy off, then my Bosnia chapter would be a 450 page book like his book is. That thing is full of so much information that I could just never convey to you. I just can’t. But what I can do is I can cite him about 50 times or so, and you will know that you wanna read this book. This is your guy here, man. This and and I cite many authors on the same subject, but that’s just one example

Jacob Winograd [00:32:23]:
of of

Scott Horton [00:32:23]:
how I can only scratch the surface. I’m giving you a book report on a few books I read, but it’s nothing like I mean, in terms of Bosnia, but it’s nothing like a full treatment on that subject. And I don’t know if it’s how well it stands up on any one subject. I I hope it’s good enough. You know? But there are you know, like, on NATO expansion, there are whole books just about that. On the color coded revolutions, there’s whole books just about that. And so they have to by necessity, obviously, they all have gone into far greater detail than I can on all of these things. I’m only just barely, cherry picking the most important information for you to understand the situation as best as I can tell for you and then I have to move on to the next section.

Scott Horton [00:33:07]:
So in a way the book is a giant just research project where I show you everyone else’s work. You mentioned the footnotes. It’s 6,632 footnotes with 7,000 almost 7,900 citations.

Jacob Winograd [00:33:25]:
So Yeah. What’s what’s one of the benefits of the book also is that it it it, you know, we I think even someone who’s been in paying attention to this stuff for a while, I’m finding more people, authors, and sources that, like, oh, yeah. I should go check that out, you know, as I’m going and looking at the things that you’re citing. But you start I mean, right away, the the book I mean, like so you you start out with sort of, like, at the end of the cold war. Right? And what what what’s gonna how are they gonna negotiate the the, the reunification of Germany? And, you know, people often say, like, we we I think most people have heard, well, there were promises that they wouldn’t expand NATO past Germany at the end of the Cold War. And they go, yeah. Well, those were won’t won’t they they weren’t written down. And then I I knew that stuff, but I did not know the extent to which like, these weren’t just, like, a couple one off promises.

Jacob Winograd [00:34:18]:
I mean, that whole first section where you go through just the, like, the different actors who were engaged, with, the the former Soviet leaders and and Gorbachev and, all the different like, because, like, they were very wary about, like, you know, are you sure? Like, you know, like, I don’t know. We’re not comfortable with this, you know, you and and already kind of starting to see that maybe they were trying to change things. They’re like, no. No. No. Don’t worry. This is what we’re doing. This is what we’re gonna have.

Jacob Winograd [00:34:46]:
We’re gonna have this, you know, common European, you know, our architecture that we’re gonna live under, you know, the a common Europe and, you know, changing it changing the the terms once in a while. But there’s multiple people. There was, like, the the the leader of Germany involved. Like, I did not know all this till I read this section. And even, like, I think one of the, you know, cool things you brought up at the beginning, which maybe you can talk a little bit about, is that, like, this this wasn’t unprecedented. In fact, like, it’s actually very common between, leaders of different nations for a lot of agreements to be made, not and and not be written down. That’s actually more normal than people realize. Like, even you had at the beginning that, like, with the Cuban Missile, Crisis that Kennedy promised to remove, nuclear missiles from Turkey and, implicitly Italy too, and to never invade Cuba again in in exchange for the removal of US’s, ours nukes from Cuba, to to end that crisis.

Jacob Winograd [00:35:47]:
And it wasn’t like they wrote up this giant treaty and signed on the dotted line to do that. Those were, like, verbal agreement. And that’s just one such example that you go through. And I think that’s really a great way to start out by, like, saying that, like, you know, right away, these promises were made, and these promises should like, it was reasonable for the Russians to take those promises seriously.

Scott Horton [00:36:10]:
Yes. So there’s a few things there. I mean, first of all, they lied for years and said this never happened at all, and then all the notes were released that proved that it was all true. Oh, and on the Cuban Missile Crisis, I was gonna say, you know, not only was that not written down, but it was secret and deniable. The American people were told, Jacob, that Kennedy forced Khrushchev to back down because that’s the way it is around here, boy. That was what the American people were told. And it wasn’t for until, I guess, the late seventies or eighties or it might have even been at the, you know, after Gorbachev in the later eighties that it was revealed that Kennedy had promised it may have even been after the fall of the Soviet Union, that it was revealed that not only did they promise to remove the Jupiter missiles from Turkey, but then and this was really important, and I I linked to the source in there, that they didn’t even really talk about this, but implicitly also Italy. And so if you’re gonna it was a dual deployment to Italy and Turkey at the same time, and so it’ll be a dual removal.

Scott Horton [00:37:17]:
And the Americans hadn’t even promised that, and they did it anyway. And they could have lied and said that it’s not true. We never promised to do anything at any time. Now that the Soviets have taken their missiles back oh, and the other part, of course, was they promised not to invade Cuba ever again. That security guarantee has held ever since then based on Bobby Kennedy, the attorney general’s secret word to the Soviets, deniable agreement, but that was the agreement. They shook hands and it stuck. Why those stuck? More than, you know, whatever. It depends on just how bad they wanna do it, I guess.

Scott Horton [00:37:54]:
They did continue to try to murder, Castro after that anyway. But, also the agreement for how they treated West Berlin. I mean, this to me was a major revelation that the deal, okay, there are young people in the audience who have no idea. Let me explain to you. Germany was divided in half. The Soviet Union occupied the eastern half of it or the eastern third of it or so after the second world war. And the Americans and their British allies occupied the west. And so that was free, Germany, and then the others were commies.

Scott Horton [00:38:29]:
But the city of Berlin, the western part of it was still occupied and controlled by the Americans from the aftermath of the war. And so half of the city itself was free. A city wholly within communist East Germany. Half the western half of that city was an an analog to the western half of Germany, which was still miles away. So it’s a very unique situation for how we’re gonna handle this, and it led to various crises that coulda led to the 3rd World War. How we’re gonna handle West Berlin and America and their allies held on to it all through the cold war. Well, the agreement with the Soviets for how to handle West Berlin weren’t even regarding West Berlin. They were agreements regarding how to treat Vienna, Austria since they had agreed on a neutral status for Austria between the east and west in the cold war.

Scott Horton [00:39:28]:
And they had an agreement, you know, all the particulars, whatever, for who’s allowed access under what circumstances and what permissions and whatever, whatever regarding Vienna. And then Roosevelt just instructed his people that we’re just gonna carry on. Oh, and that deal was not in writing either. That deal was a handshake deal. And then they said, and we’re gonna apply that same no. No. No. I might have that wrong.

Scott Horton [00:39:53]:
But they said on a handshake, they said they’re gonna apply that same deal to Berlin. So the the entire arrangement between the Americans and the Soviets, over the status of West Berlin wasn’t written down. And and that status quo held then from I mean, they built the wall in 61, but the Soviet control over East Germany was from what at least 46. I’m not sure at which point they made their way to the west, you know, and and outflanked the Americans on the west there, but it would have been 46, 47 at the absolute latest, and that held. And then, I’m sorry. I I was about to say another major one off the top of my head that I forgot. Oh, yes. This is as crucial as any agreement ever reached.

Scott Horton [00:40:41]:
America’s agreement with Mao Zedong to break away from the Soviet Union and be friends with us instead. Richard Nixon made that deal with him. Henry Kissinger and Richard Nixon went over there in 73, 74, ended the cold war with China early and broke essentially made an alliance with China against the Soviet Union, and it wasn’t written down.

Jacob Winograd [00:41:05]:
That’s in the book too.

Scott Horton [00:41:06]:
It wasn’t written down. It was on a handshake deal. The Sino Soviet split. And be for whatever reasons, they couldn’t go that far politically, whatever, but it still stuck. And and then I quote all these scholars and experts saying, come on, man. This is how it works all day every day. I also quote Ted Snyder, the brilliant analyst from antiwar.com, saying, listen. And and also Mary Elise Sarat, the scholar, wrote about this as well, that Gorbachev’s decision to allow German reunification was based on these promises.

Scott Horton [00:41:39]:
So it wasn’t just a promise, it was an agreement and the Americans have broken it. And and this guy, I debated Niall Ferguson today, which is actually airing on 0 heads right now. Although, audience don’t turn away, you’ll have to watch the rerun later. But, you know, that was what he was trying to say, but just as a whole water. His side of the story doesn’t hold water. And and all he could do was say, oh, there was one discussion on one day on February 9th. And this is like, well, you’re lazy and stupid because that’s not true. There’s repeated assurances over the course of months in 1990.

Jacob Winograd [00:42:17]:
Yeah. No. I mean, I think everything you said there is spot on. 91. Like I said, that whole first section that that whole first section, it’s like you just read at every point whether he’s talking to the leader of Germany, whether it’s because there there’s different actors. There’s Gorbachev. There was the, the leader of the KGB that’s involved. And That’s right.

Jacob Winograd [00:42:34]:
Robert Yates. And and yeah.

Scott Horton [00:42:35]:
But yep.

Jacob Winograd [00:42:37]:
Yeah. And and so but but they’re but they’re all and yeah. I mean, some of them were lying through their teeth, but some of them were at least, like, yeah. Like, you know, okay. Well and and you can understand maybe some things being fluid. Right? Maybe some things being negotiable on the edges, but it’s one thing for there to be, like, okay. You know, we’ll agree to this, you know, this principle, and then how that maybe gets executed, gets hashed out in the aftermath, and that that can have a little bit of wiggle room. But it’s another thing just to completely renege it.

Jacob Winograd [00:43:06]:
And then, like you said, then act like it never happened. And then once it happened, it’d be like, yeah. But it doesn’t count. But like you said, this was basically, like, they this is what allowed the actual agreement to reunite Germany to Mhmm. To go off. Because their whole concern was, like, well, how do we know that this isn’t going to lead to an expansion of of NATO and and the military alliance. And then even when they started to, like, do some things that looked like that, they kept reassuring them, like, no. No.

Jacob Winograd [00:43:34]:
No. This is this isn’t a a military thing. This is just more of a, like, creating a common Europe, which, which which was crap. And then

Scott Horton [00:43:43]:
That’s totally

Jacob Winograd [00:43:44]:
right. So

Scott Horton [00:43:45]:
And that’s before Bill Clinton ever came to town. That’s when it’s still h w Bush.

Jacob Winograd [00:43:53]:
Right. Of course, Clinton then makes it Right. Much worse. I mean, the the I mean, I I didn’t know much about what happened during the Clinton era other than the the NATO expansion, but there were there there was, which is isn’t surprising because we do this to everybody, but there was basically economic warfare that that our government waged against, Russia, and then, surprise, interference in an election. It’s so funny how these, these war hawks and and, and neocons are so concerned. You know, Donald Trump’s a threat to democracy. You guys are a threat to democracy everywhere. There’s not an election in in history.

Jacob Winograd [00:44:34]:
Like, every country outside of, Western Europe and America, we’ve had a finger in at some point, it seems like, in in messing with their, with their election socialism here is

Scott Horton [00:44:46]:
which is short and simple. Who appointed Vladimir Putin? Bill Clinton’s guy, Boris Yeltsin. It’s the same guy we’re talking about now. It’s not like we’re talking about Vladimir Putin junior who inherited the kingdom after his father died. Same guy. Same guy. 25 years later, and they bitch and moan about him, but he’s their guy’s guy. And when he came to power, they all praised him and said he was great.

Scott Horton [00:45:13]:
We know him. He’s friends of gangsters of ours. It’s crazy. You’re so pro Putin. You’re so pro Putin. No. I’m accusing you of foisting him on those poor people. How does that make me an apologist for him? I’m the one accusing the Democrats of baking him in an oven, creating him.

Scott Horton [00:45:36]:
I don’t mean that like a holocaust reference. I mean, baking him like a recipe, like a cake. They he’s their creation that they made.

Jacob Winograd [00:45:46]:
Yeah. Yep. But I and I think you talk I forget where I heard you talk about this before I’d read the book, but I I did know a little bit about

Scott Horton [00:45:53]:
Oh, man. I’m sorry. You know, there’s a train running by, and and there’s clouds, so it’s loud. Let me let me slam the window on you here. I mean, not on

Jacob Winograd [00:46:00]:
you on there. Go ahead. While Scott’s doing that, everyone, make sure you give this video, a thumbs up if you haven’t already. I see more tuning in. Yeah. The way that they handled and I guess I I don’t know. Like, I wouldn’t presume to know the perfect way to transition from a communist state to try to make a state that’s I mean, not a perfect like, you know, America wasn’t a perfect free market at the time, but more based in free markets and and, you know, private ownership of of production. But the way that they went about doing it, in the USSR in the nineties, after it broke up, that seems to have been a major part of the disaster.

Jacob Winograd [00:46:42]:
I mean, it seems like the entire nineties, not only with the expansion of of of NATOs and and setting up what would happen then in the 2000, but just what we did to them economically, what we did to them politically. It’s just like, and it’s funny. Like, I had Kyle on last night, and he was talking about how, like, he brought up Terminator 2, and how there’s this quote from John Connor in Terminator 2 where he goes like, oh, I thought that, Russia was our friends now. And it’s like, you know, culturally, I guess that’s what we all thought. Right? Like, oh, Russian us are cool now. But, politically, it’s just like the the cold war ended, but we still viewed Russia as this, like, this bad guy that had to be you know, it’s like, well well, now that they’re weak, it’s the I guess it’s the the unipolar moment as they said. And and, gosh, I mean, again, for as much as they talk about, they they they label Trump as his dictator, and they they now listen. I’m not a fan of tariffs, but they talk about how Trump is gonna be an enemy to to free trade and whatnot because of tariffs.

Jacob Winograd [00:47:46]:
And I’m just like, do you guys not realize what giant hypocrites you are? Like, you are not really for free trade in, like, the actual libertarian sense. You’re for the let’s maximize America. Like, really, they actually believe in the same thing that Trump does, which is, you know, maximize trade relationships for American benefits. They just might disapprove of the exact method that Trump is gonna utilize to

Scott Horton [00:48:12]:
protect economic war against everybody else. I mean, I forgot the statistic, but it’s a high number of countries and a high percentage of countries in the world that are under sanctions by the United States right now.

Jacob Winograd [00:48:24]:
Yeah. Oh, shit. I mean, there’s the the there was the, the the famous sanctions back in, I forget which the the ones that led to the there’s that quote, like, 500,000 dead Iraqis.

Scott Horton [00:48:35]:
Oh, we think the price is worth it.

Jacob Winograd [00:48:37]:
The,

Scott Horton [00:48:37]:
Jacob, I’m sorry, buddy. You’re gonna have to entertain him without me for about 45 seconds here. I gotta take this dog out or or something bad

Jacob Winograd [00:48:45]:
happens here.

Scott Horton [00:48:46]:
Okay. Come on.

Jacob Winograd [00:48:49]:
Tell you what. While, while Scott’s doing that, I’m gonna bring up I have a clip. I’m gonna play it. If you guys haven’t seen this clip, it’s a it’s a good one. I’m gonna bring it up. He was on Piers Morgan’s show. I think it was last week or something. But, I have that up for when I don’t know if I’ll bring it up right away.

Jacob Winograd [00:49:08]:
Let me read some of the comments here. Yeah. Scott has been going all day. He he’s a he’s a happy warrior, man. I’m I am glad that Scott is on our side, and I’m glad he does, does what he does. Conrail said when the neoconservatives say they want to spread democracy around the world, they really mean destabilizing nations, continents, and societies. Yeah. I mean, I I guess that’s true.

Jacob Winograd [00:49:38]:
Democracy is not a stabilizing force, so, heck, make I I you could almost make the argument that that makes sense. Right? Alright. Scott Sorry about the got

Scott Horton [00:49:47]:
a lot of animals, man.

Jacob Winograd [00:49:51]:
Not a problem. Let’s talk a little bit about, what happened under Bush, senior then. I don’t know. The the, you know, expansion of NATO even further, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, which, you know, at that point now, the alliance is directly on, Russia’s borders, which, like, I I again and people go, well, what? Don’t countries have a right to self determination? And I’m like, yeah. Okay. I’m sure Mexico can join a military alliance with China or Russia, and our and our government would be completely fine with that as well as them building military bases.

Scott Horton [00:50:27]:
It’s such a good point. I mean,

Jacob Winograd [00:50:28]:
look at that wouldn’t cause you to be strong.

Scott Horton [00:50:30]:
I mean, Barack Obama and Donald Trump bombed Yemen for 8 years straight because the new regime was friends with Iran, and they weren’t even allies. And they weren’t anywhere near as close to Iran and say Hezbollah is in southern Lebanon. And and they bombed them. They killed, like, 300,000 people just because they were friends with Iran. And just earlier this year, the Solomon Islands said that maybe they would allow the Chinese to build a military base. And America said, oh, yeah. If you wanna get bombed, you will. And they said, oh, I thought we were a sovereign nation and we had the right to join any military alliance that we want.

Scott Horton [00:51:05]:
I guess that’s only when the United States says so. Right? Just like democracy means when the Democrats win and the CIA overthrows your leader, they get what they want.

Jacob Winograd [00:51:18]:
Yep. And then there was the, I guess, Bush withdrew from the anti ballistic missile treaty, installed missile defense systems in Poland and remain again, like, the whole, I guess, like, global order of peace that, like, we’re all taught growing up is, like, mutually assured destruction. Now, you know, you and I are non interventionists, and I think we would also be in favor of, you know, nuclear proliferation, and that that would be a better way for us to live as a society, as, like, independent nations that aren’t pointing nukes at each other all the time. But, like, okay. Like, if if the nukes are going to exist, then you have to and let’s say it wasn’t just Bush. Like, I’m not I don’t wanna jump too far ahead, but I know Trump also backed us out of treaties, which screwed all this up. But, like, you wanna have some assurances with these nations to be, like, hey. There is, like, a balance here.

Jacob Winograd [00:52:10]:
Right? Like and and if you start to make moves that aren’t, like, maybe, like, direct actions of war, but they can be easily perceived as you’re trying to tip the balance in your favor, How was this how was a government official? How was a how was a politician, you know, who who control the country? How are they supposed really, how how are the population like, the civilians themselves, if they if they know about this, how are they supposed to perceive that? It’s just like, you know, whatever. Like, you know, we’ll just trust that that they’re not gonna Take it. You know, capitalize on one day.

Scott Horton [00:52:42]:
Of Putin where he says, listen. I like George Bush. We’re friends. I trust you. You trust me. We’re great. Our countries are partners. That’s fine.

Scott Horton [00:52:49]:
However, national security can’t be based just on assurances. I have to take into account what you are actually doing. Right? It’s like Right. Cognition versus behavior or something. Right? Like, look, we’re smoking cigars. We’re bros, but, like, jeez, you keep getting more and more powerful closer and closer. So I have to also behave in ways. Right? Like, what do you expect me to do? Nothing? I can’t do nothing.

Scott Horton [00:53:17]:
And so when Bush tore up the anti ballistic missile tree, he launched a whole new project to make missiles and he warned over and over again. And then he said, listen, and I think this is in Munich speech in 07. Putin said, listen, When you guys expanded your missile defense systems and, you know, tore up the treaty, I had two choices. I could also try to create some extremely expensive and sophisticated missile defense system, or I just make more offensive missiles to overwhelm yours. And so I did that. So now I have a lot more ICBMs than before because George Bush tore up the ABM treaty, that helped to kill START 2. Well, START 2 would have banned multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles, MIRV, multiple warheads on one rocket. But that’s gone too.

Scott Horton [00:54:16]:
And so they they launched a brand new project to build brand new heavy missiles with multiple warheads on them. And we just saw I I only learned really great details from Danny Davis about this today. Their new hypersonic missile that they fired into Ukraine. And what happened there is it was just one missile. And apparently, Danny Davis told me and I’m sorry because I’m so behind on the very latest news on this myself, but I Danny Davis is a real expert, and I trust him. He said, it we know it was one missile that they fired that had MIRV technology and launched then 24 separate independently targeted warheads on Ukraine and hit them at Mach 10. And they could have been nukes, they weren’t. But there’s no way in the world to shoot down an incoming missile coming in at Mach 10 that America possesses.

Scott Horton [00:55:10]:
And, really, they can’t even shoot down ICBMs except on the the very, very best day where every single star aligns, and they have all the warning in the world and this kind of thing. They can’t really ICBMs come in at, like, Mach 8 anyway. So, anyway, yes. And then let me explain about missile defense because this is a complicated thing, but I like talking about it and you brought so he says we’re gonna expand what’s called Aegis Onshore. So you might know in the navy, they have Aegis radar. That’s the baddest ass radar around that the US Navy has. Well, this is Aegis Onshore. And it’s the same radar station and the same missile batteries only on land.

Scott Horton [00:55:52]:
Right? And it’s in Poland and Romania, and the radar is in the Czech Republic. And the problem is this. Putin says, hey, man. What are you doing? It looks like you’re trying to create a first strike capability against me here. Meaning, you’re bringing armor to a fist fight. You’re you’re creating the potential of the cancellation of mutually assured destruction and the achievement of a first strike capability. Now this is cut out of the book. I cut a chapter on nuclear war out of the book.

Scott Horton [00:56:26]:
You’ll be able to get online very soon. It’s just in less touches of editing here. Been very busy, but it will be online, the excise chapter nuclear war, where I talk a bit, more about this in detail. But, there was an article in foreign affairs in 2006 that said now is our chance to achieve first strike capability against the Russians, and then we can launch an aggressive thermonuclear war against them and kick their entire ass before they can fight back against us. And so wouldn’t that be great? And this caused a huge uproar for me. Boy, did I just breathe in a cat hair or something or what? It, it, it set off a huge controversy in Russia. Believe it or not, they read foreign affairs over there, Jacob. So Putin says, hey, w Bush.

Scott Horton [00:57:17]:
I think maybe that you’re trying to achieve first strike capability against me. What gives? And Bush says, no. No. No. Look, man. This is for Iran. What? Nobody takes this seriously. What do you mean Iran? Iran doesn’t have missiles that could reach Poland, and they’re not making nuclear weapons, and they got no beef with Poland, and this just doesn’t make any sense.

Scott Horton [00:57:37]:
Right? Like, what are you talking about? Are they gonna nuke you know, we’re protecting Germany and France and Britain from Iranian, you know, 3 stage nuclear missiles that they do not have and are not developing. Give me a break. I don’t believe you. Putin said, that this is for Iran. But then w Bush said, but, Putin, this isn’t enough, Sparrow, anti ballistic missile missiles to shoot down an incoming salvo from Russia? You can’t think that I think I’ve achieved first strike capability here. In in other words, the ability to shoot down I didn’t elaborate. I’m sorry. I I tangented, and I forgot to say.

Scott Horton [00:58:17]:
I mean to say. What that means is we think we can hit them so hard on the first round that they will not even be able to get off a retaliatory round of strikes against us. That’ll be it. Right? So Bush says, come on, man. You can’t think that I think that now I can shoot down all your missiles if you were to launch a full scale salvo of nuclear missiles at Europe. This could never in the world be enough to shoot all that down. And Putin said, actually, that makes sense. You have a good point there, w Bush.

Scott Horton [00:58:49]:
So I have to wonder then what are we doing then? Because I don’t believe you it’s about Iran. Nobody else does either. And and you’re right. It doesn’t make sense that this would be enough anti ballistic missile missiles to shoot down an incoming salvo from Europe. There’s one other obvious potential explanation, and that is that these are dual use missile launchers. They’re called the MK 41 or Mark 41 missile launchers, and you can read all about them and get the Lockheed PDF online and read all about them. They are made to fit not just Sparrow anti ballistic missile missiles, but they’re made to hold I mean, we are talking about this is Aegis onshore. Right? They’re made to hold Tomahawk cruise missiles as well.

Scott Horton [00:59:35]:
And Tomahawk cruise missiles can be tipped with hydrogen bombs. And so Yep. America was in violation of that. At the very least, the spirit of the intermediate nuclear forces treaty, which was Ronald Reagan’s great achievement of 1987 that banned, short range and medium range or pardon me, medium range and intermediate range missiles from Europe, Russian and Western missiles. So there are nuclear bombs in Europe at American bases in Germany, for example, we have gravity bombs, but from for planes, but we don’t have any missiles or missile launchers for nuclear missiles anywhere in Europe. And Ronald Reagan, you may be too young for this, but Ronald Reagan, challenged because the Soviets had built up I’m sorry. I forget the designation of their missiles, but the Soviets built up some intermediate missiles for Europe. And Ronald Reagan said, oh, yeah? Watch this boy.

Scott Horton [01:00:31]:
And he put in, I don’t know, 100 or 1000 or something. He started a massive buildup of what were called Pershing intermediate nuclear, missiles. But the whole game was he did that just so he could give them up. He did that to force the Soviets to back down and get rid of theirs, and then he got rid of his. Ronald Reagan, big tough Ronald Reagan was playing a severe bluff. Listen, everybody. We don’t really want mid range nuclear missiles in Europe, and I’ll show you. I’ll prove it to you.

Scott Horton [01:01:00]:
I’m gonna put a few 1,000 in there, whatever the number was. Forgive me. I forget. I’m gonna put so many damn mid range missiles in Europe that you’re gonna change your mind, and you’re gonna wanna get rid of yours too if I’ll get rid of mine. That was what Reagan did, and then he had the treaty signed and ratified by 1987. Okay? That was what he did. For within 4 years, he went from global brinkmanship nose to nose ready to fight to backing all the way down to ending the cold war and making a permanent peace, what should have been a permanent peace with Russia. And so George w Bush just absolutely destroyed that legacy, and it was his father’s legacy too because H.

Scott Horton [01:01:43]:
W. Bush inherited this nuclear weapons policy from Reagan. And I think they had already begun work on START 2, maybe during Reagan, but certainly during H W Bush, they were working on START 2. And that was his father’s treaty. And they had been negotiating it all through the Clinton years, and I believe the Russians had signed it but not ratified it. I I might have that wrong. I think that’s what it was. But certainly, Bush, if he dealt in good faith with the Russians from the beginning, if he had not torn up the anti ballistic missile treaty, if he had fired John Bolton and had worked to enhance nuclear weapons arms control with the Russians, then they would have signed start 2 and then you would have never had the MIRF crisis that we have now where you have their new Sarmat 2 missile, Jacob, can kill all of Texas, every city, every major city in Texas in one shot.

Scott Horton [01:02:40]:
One missile has enough warheads on it to hit El Paso, Dallas, Fort Worth, Waco, Austin, San Marcos, San Antonio, Corpus Christi, Houston, Galveston. Right? Destroy, erase Texan civilization from the face of the earth with one missile because of George w Bush just as much as Vladimir Putin and the men who obeyed his orders to pursue that technology. It did not have to be that way, and that’s on him like so many other horrible deadly sins are on him.

Jacob Winograd [01:03:17]:
Yeah. But don’t worry. I mean, there was just a a a a recent report just today from the US intelligence saying that Russia’s not likely to resort to nuclear weapons in response to our

Scott Horton [01:03:30]:
Which I agree with that. I I agree with that, Jake. Here’s the thing.

Jacob Winograd [01:03:33]:
But but it’s

Scott Horton [01:03:34]:
more likely than they were. That is unforgettable. Exactly. That alone.

Jacob Winograd [01:03:39]:
Well, like, you never wanna be you never wanna be in a position like listen. Listen. Yeah. We’re attacking them, but we don’t think. Like, it’s it’s probably not gonna happen that they’ll respond. You got

Scott Horton [01:03:49]:
phrases down like that. World leaders are these? You sound like a madman. Paraphrasing them. Like, what? It’s it is. Listen. And I I don’t know. This has been going on since the beginning of the war, and I’ve seen it more again lately that, you know, you know what, god? This may have been was this in the New York Times? Oh my goodness. I don’t know.

Scott Horton [01:04:14]:
I have a picture of my brain, but it might be wrong. But I read this in a prominent place recently, man. It may have been one of the big three papers. It may very well have been the post of times of the journal. I’m sorry. I think it may have been in the times that they said that, like, come on, man. Probably most Russian nukes are duds anyway. They don’t do good upkeep on any of their stuff, and their nukes probably don’t even work.

Scott Horton [01:04:39]:
Like, wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Now stop.

Scott Horton [01:04:41]:
Hold on now. What are you saying, man? You’re willing to bet my hometown that when their h bomb hits the proper altitude that the fuse is just gonna bust and the thing is gonna fall harmlessly into late Travis or something? Like, pardon me, but, no, I don’t think that we’re gonna base our policy on that, please. But, look, you can read this kind of thing at the, you know, from the Atlantic Council. Right? Like, you can get this from the top most influential think tanks. They say this kind of stuff to each other, Jacob. The consensus that they build, it’s you know, look, go back 20 years. So many of the liars about Iraq didn’t even know they were lying. They were in on the consensus.

Scott Horton [01:05:31]:
You know? No, Scott.

Jacob Winograd [01:05:32]:
Like, they lied about they lied about a they they lied about Iraq, and they lied about Afghanistan, and they they lied about, you know, Syria. Yeah. But but they wouldn’t lie about this.

Scott Horton [01:05:42]:
Even mean that. I’m not making excuses for them or saying that they’re innocent because I I mean, I’m saying these are lies, but I’m saying, look at how many people who are in on disseminating the lies and implementing policies based on the lies believe them themselves. Right? Like, on some level, I don’t know, Jake Sullivan knows what’s true and what’s not. But the people who watch well, never mind the people who watch. The people who are even lower down functionaries in the government, at the think tanks, in the media, most of them, they really don’t know a lot about anything. They know something about something. They’re like the head of you know, they got straight a’s in government school or whatever, but they’re not really expert enough to know. I mean, quite honestly.

Scott Horton [01:06:29]:
I mean, when and I’m sorry. I always go back to Iraq, but whatever. It matters. It’s always 2,002 to me. Okay? This is my problem. In 2002, everyone in my cab who had a real job was an absolute blithering idiot who believed nothing but lies, and they were willing to kill a 1000000 people for lies. Every dentist, every lawyer, every real estate agent, Everybody was with nice teeth and nice clothes. They were the dumbest SOBs who ever lived.

Scott Horton [01:07:07]:
They believed a pile of lies that would just blow your mind about the aggressive threat that Iraq poses to the USA? My god, man. No. But, yes. But but but every bum that I knew knew better. Every skateboarder knew better. Every bartender knew better. Every cab driver knew better. Every waitress, every regular schmuck who doesn’t have nice teeth and nice clothes, who might even have a little bit of a drinking problem.

Scott Horton [01:07:40]:
All those people knew better. And why? Is and and and look, by the way, not just they had a bias against w Bush because, oh, they’re just Liberals and I’m from Austin. Not just that. They knew about it. They could say things to you. They had compelling cases. They would say things like, look. I know I don’t know everything, but I knew I do know that Saddam Hussein is scared of a bunch of religious terrorists.

Scott Horton [01:08:07]:
He’s a secular general with a mustache, not a beard. He’s this kind of criminal. He’s a bot this, whatever that is, which is different than a bin Ladenite. And I don’t I think they’re lying about this stuff. Right? But the dentist in my cab and the real estate agent in my cab, they know all this stuff is true and they tell it to each other too. Right? And the reason why is because they believe it. And why do they believe it? Because that’s what everybody else they know believes. That’s what everyone in their social group believes.

Scott Horton [01:08:36]:
That’s what they know they are expected to also agree with. And so it doesn’t matter if it’s true, they don’t put themselves in charge of really investigating to find out if it’s true or not. If the consensus is that Iraq is an offensive threat to America that we have to preempt, well, then I guess it just is then. And so and look, that does go for that doesn’t go for Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Pearl and Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney and George Bush and and Connolly’s arise and then they knew they were lying. They knew they were lying. You know, colonel Larry Wilkerson who was Colin Powell’s right hand man, he’ll tell you, oh, yeah, we were lying alright. Okay? They knew they were lying. But I’m just saying all other things being equal, benefit of the doubt, virtually everyone below them believed it.

Scott Horton [01:09:31]:
The same people who were lying to us were believed what they were supposed to believe and then they repeated it like everybody knows that. And it’s the same kind of thing that we see happen over and over and over again. People who’ve never heard of the name of a single tribe in Afghanistan can tell you all about why we gotta stay in Afghanistan. You know, because like just for social psychological reasons. Because if you don’t think that then you’re a hippie and a commie and a homo and anti American and on the left. And so I don’t like you and I don’t believe the same as you so I say we have to stay. And it’s as simple as that. That is how it works, man, and it sucks.

Jacob Winograd [01:10:08]:
But, it’s it’s frustrating. And I think the reason I said what I said was because, like, yeah, I agree to people at the very top. You hope they know what they’re doing. Right? Like, when Bill when Bill and and your debate with Bill Kristol, where he was like, oh, well, I guess we were wrong about the the weapons of mass destruction. But imagine if we weren’t, it’s like, you didn’t okay. I just like, I don’t know how you had the self control. Like, you’re right next to him. I don’t know how you stayed quiet during that part.

Jacob Winograd [01:10:35]:
Because I’m I’m watching on my phone screaming. But, yeah. But, but yeah. I’m probably also screaming

Scott Horton [01:10:41]:
in a debate on the other channel right now, yelling at this guy.

Jacob Winograd [01:10:45]:
Right. But, but for everyone else, it’s like, okay. Come on. Like, don’t now that we know that they were wrong and lying about Iraq and everything else, it’s like, can’t you be a at least a little bit more skeptical, a little bit more open to people giving you information? But people still, double down in their ignorance, like, a different subject. But I remember on Twitter, someone was, like, refuting something I said about what’s going on in Israel and Gaza. I was like, it’s not even that many dead people, and they’re mostly combatants. And UN report corrected everything and said that it’s less than 5,000 civilians. And I’m like, no.

Jacob Winograd [01:11:24]:
That’s not true. They made a report where they were correcting how many confirmed there were. And I linked an article from antiwar.com that like, it wasn’t just, like, opinion. It was linking to, I don’t remember the actual sources, but mainstream, sources talking about what that UN correction was, which wasn’t actually changing what the reported death total were. And he he was like, there’s nothing in there that disagrees with what I said. And I’m just like, this is what we’re dealing with. People who even if I I don’t know if the guy even clicked on it. And if he did, it’s like people are just going in already, like, with this sort of, like I I I don’t know if they’re really bloodthirsty or if they’re just like, this is the problem.

Jacob Winograd [01:12:09]:
This is why I fell in with the left before I became a libertarian, because there’s something per and I understand people get concerned about the right still even with Trump is that there’s something about nationalism and not not true patriotism, but kinda like phony pay there’s, like, phony capitalism, like, crony capitalism, and there’s, like, phony patriotism where America’s the good guys and just everything we do, well, it’s just always right. Okay. Maybe the stuff we did 10 years ago was wrong, but right now it’s right. It’s like, we can only talk about things 10 years ago, and maybe 10, 20 years ago, we can say that was wrong. But in the moment, we’re always convinced we’re right. We’re always convinced that the bombs were dropping. The people were killing. The people were starving to death.

Jacob Winograd [01:12:53]:
That, well, we just gotta do it for America, for freedom, for democracy, for whatever.

Scott Horton [01:12:58]:
Right, but it’s funny because, like, punk rock is mainstream now. Right? Like, the counterculture won. The the old Reaganite, you know, conservative dominated protestant culture is in retreat. And as Dave Smith, I didn’t quite correctly says, they blew their last wad on Iraq, on lying us into Iraq. They bet everything on it. They said we have to do this, and they lost the last of their credibility then. They’re only this is the first time that the right wing has come back culturally in 20 years because of how bad the Iraq war was. I mean, they’re promising people you’re gonna get raptured up to heaven if only you support this war.

Scott Horton [01:13:38]:
I mean, it was insane the level of propaganda, at that time and I think people got really burned by that, and being mistreated in that way. But, yes, I mean, right wing collectivism is a thing And who counts as an American and who then is another? You know, I was taught by Democrats basically in government school, right, like everybody else. But the way even they even they teach it and conservative I say that because conservatives a lot of times can be far even worse. But the way that they taught it essentially, maybe even directly quoting, right, is that Americans have rights because we’re Americans. We’re the ones who invented rights. Nobody had rights before until we came around and we had this declaration of independence and constitution that says that we have these rights. And so we have rights and as Americans, we have these rights and that’s why we love America so much and that’s why the American government is so wonderful and we all love it so much. But very built into that then is it’s okay for the US government to kill other people in the world because they don’t have rights.

Scott Horton [01:14:44]:
They’re something else. Now that’s like the very childish interpretation of it. You won’t hear grown adults repeat it in quite so stupid of fashion most of the time, but that is essentially how we’re taught in 3rd and 4th and 9th grade civics class about, you know, how the world is. And so you just it’s taken for granted that it’s just not a sin to hurt other people if it’s your government that does it. I mean, I remember explicitly this conversation when I was a kid, that well, it says, thou shall not kill in the Bible. That’s a word of the creator of the whole universe and yet but you’re telling me it’s okay to join the army and fight in a war? And they somebody said to me, whoever it was, they’re like, well, yes, when you’re serving your country, that’s different. When you’re wearing green and you’re fighting I mean, think about Hitler. Wouldn’t you fight against the Wehrmacht in the open field in France somewhere? No, innocent life being sacrificed there and all that.

Scott Horton [01:15:43]:
It’s all fun and games blowing those boys away. And so wouldn’t you do that? You’re on the side of Jesus killing those people and everybody knows that. And and because and what a great example of a wicked enemy to fight, same for the imperial Japanese that make the world’s best poster boys for why we gotta be here because or else it would be people like this. And, and then, you know, it’s man, it’s a it’s a pretty big consensus to tear down. If You know?

Jacob Winograd [01:16:12]:
This is this is this is perfect. This segues into something I really wanted to do when I had you back on because you’re you’re you’re making the like, yeah, the argument is always, well, like, you know, if it weren’t for America, then we wouldn’t have defeated the Nazis. It’s like, yeah, it’s a good thing that we we wiped out all the Nazis. We definitely wouldn’t, you know, support any nation that was using Nazis in their government or or military at all or anything. Right? So I’m obviously alluding to Ukraine. And so I’m gonna play this clip here. Let me bring it up. This is from when I interviewed you 2 years ago.

Jacob Winograd [01:16:45]:
It’s like a minute clip, but it’ll set the stage for what I wanna show. Let me hit, play. Everyone, let me know if you can hear this.

Scott Horton [01:16:54]:
They have been able to to get away with this. And, you know, I have in my book a section where I go, yes, Nazis. Because, you know, the idea now is that, nuh-uh, that’s a Russian talking point and it’s not true. Well, my profession is beating dead horses. And and I’m telling you, I got every footnote in the world about these guys, you know, enough to where by the time that section is over, you’ll be like, fine, Scott. Leave me alone, please. I get it. It’s a proven truth that there is not again, not that the entire military force of Ukraine is the Wehrmacht and they’re they’re all Nazis.

Scott Horton [01:17:31]:
And not that their entire political leadership are not. But there are more Nazis in their government, in their military than anywhere else in the world, and it’s an accepted fact. And that over the last few years under Poroshenko and then now under Zelensky, when they try to seek peace, the Nazis say, I’ll kill you. And then they back down. And the New York Times, I got the quotes with the New York Times says these are not idle threats. These guys have overthrown the government there before.

Jacob Winograd [01:17:59]:
Right. So and true to your word, and this is, like, the first thing I looked up when I got this book was see if I can get in front of the camera. Yes. Nazis. And this is such an important part of the propaganda that needs debunked, because I think it helps to sort of, like again, we just talk about how it’s hard to get people to pay attention to stuff in real time. But this section, you do a really good job of tracking the history from the end of actually, really, before World War 2 and sort of where the sympathies for a lot of Ukrainians to to view Hitler and the Nazis as sort of a, you know, people that they wanted to a movement they wanted to be part of and decide with, and tracking that all the way to today with the ASOF battalion and the role that they’ve played, not just in the current conflict, but back in 2014 with the, the the the Maidan Revolution. And and even before that, they’ve had an active role. And it’s just funny because you hear America is this force for good because, like, look at what we did.

Jacob Winograd [01:18:59]:
It’s always World War 2 and the Nazis. Right? It’s like, okay. What do you have to say about the fact that we’re directly working with Nazis now? Right? And it it even today, it’s just like, nuh-uh. Like, no no. We don’t. These are not I’ve had people tell me, Scott. In fact, I I’ve actually it’s really sad. I lost a pretty close personal friend partly over this who was so and and listen.

Jacob Winograd [01:19:26]:
It’s I’m not gonna give his name, but, like, he he’s in a really bad place right now because he is a Jewish Ukrainian, and he’s just, like, having a hard time, not being kind of, I think, in his heartstrings pulled by, you know, identifying as as, like, a, you know, Jewish, what’s going on in Israel, and identifying with his Ukrainian heritage, what’s going on in Ukraine. But, like, he got so mad at the Nazi talking point, and he tried to convince me that the ASOS battalion and, like, the people in the in the Ukrainian government who are, you know, are are part of this coalition of, you know, right wing, you know, nationalist extremist in Ukraine, that, no. Actually, they’re communists. And I’m just anyway but I I think that if you if more people like, I hope people read this book. And when I recommend this book to people, I it’s like, listen. You can start at the beginning, or jump to page 281 and just try to fit that into like, how does that fit into the mainstream narrative? Like, it really doesn’t. Because it’s hard to say, like, we’re we’re we’re protecting democracy by and, again, it’s not that all I don’t wanna oversell it. It’s not like the entire Ukrainian government is is Nazis, but it’s got the most Nazis in their military and government of anywhere else in the world right now and really since the Nazis themselves.

Scott Horton [01:20:50]:
That’s absolutely true. And look, by the way and the reason I call that section, yes, Nazis, is because I want people to understand that I’m not using that as a smear. And in fact, I say I even rewrote this shortly before publication. I wanted this paragraph to be very clear here. I don’t want people to misunderstand me. In American political culture, the entire left will call anyone to the right of the center, sometimes anyone to the right of Bernie Sanders, a fascist. Like, you could be a center left liberal Democrat and they’ll call you a fascist. And then the liberal Democrats will call anybody to the right of them a fascist, and that’s stupid.

Scott Horton [01:21:34]:
I mean, in a way, as a pure Austrian school libertarian, yes, America has been a fascist dictatorship since Franklin Roosevelt, president for life Roosevelt, instituted the New Deal, which is nothing but a massive corporatist mixed economic system, that we still live with. Robert Higgs, the great historian calls it a participatory fascism. On the other hand, nobody’s confusing the American system with Nazism or with, you know, actual fascism as practiced in, Mussolini’s Italy, this cult of the state and its leader and all of this other stuff that comes built in to that definition. Right? It’s and and look what we’re when Republicans I mean, pardon me. When when liberals say that about other Americans, they’re not even talking about fascists. So if they were talking about fascists, then it wouldn’t be a pejorative. Right? Like, if you tell the area nations, you guys are National Socialists, they’ll be like, yeah, dude. That’s the point.

Scott Horton [01:22:30]:
Right? So it’s only a smear when you use it against people who are not fascists and are not National Socialists. And that goes for people, please hear me now. That goes for the entire population of the American right of conservatives and of populists and certainly of libertarians and constitutionalists of every stripe. You have to go all the way to avowed white supremacists to find avowed white supremacists in America. Okay? And you’ll know them by their swastikas and their stupid hoods and by the lack of respect that every single other solitary individual on the American right pays to them. It’s a lie when they say that about the American right, but that’s not what I’m doing here. I’m talking about real a word Nazis here, folks. Hitler loving, National socialist, white supremacists, exclusivist, fascist, dictator, murderer, war criminals.

Scott Horton [01:23:37]:
Okay? They are bad guys. They are the equivalent of Hitler’s SA. That’s exactly what they are. And they go around murdering people and torturing people and committing war crimes. They’re too smart to pick on what’s left of Ukrainian Jewry now. There are only probably 35,000 Jews left in the whole country now because these men’s grandfathers and what they did in helping the German Nazis to implement the holocaust in that country. And, you know, when I talked to you 2 years ago, man, forget it. I got a 100 times more research since then, on that same subject and connecting all the way through from World War 2 through CIA support for these guys and the stay behind operations in the cold war and for their, expatriate networks in Canada and the United States.

Scott Horton [01:24:27]:
And then their return to Ukraine as soon as Gorbachev in, begins perestroika in the 19 eighties. And and, certainly by the time of the revolution, they’re right back in there rewriting history, making all of Hitler’s collaborators international heroes, and all this stuff. And these are the men. It’s a direct line. I have their names in there. It’s a direct line from the leaders of the Galatian SS and OUNUPA to the who were the the Nazis in World War 2 to the people who did the Maidan coup, the putsch the street putsch of 2014. And that is exactly who they are, and they’ll tell you that when you ask them. And I have all the quotes in there.

Scott Horton [01:25:12]:
And as I said in that clip there too, I have all the quotes of the Nazis threatening to kill Poroshenko and then Zelensky if they were to dare make peace with the east. And I have the quote in the book from I forgot. I always it’s right on the tip of my tongue. I wanna say Adam Enthouse, but it’s not Adam Enthouse. It’s Adam somebody rather. And Adam, the bald headed New York Times reporter. God, it bothers me when I can’t remember a guy’s name. Said the New York Times reporter who said these are credible threats, man.

Scott Horton [01:25:44]:
These people have overthrown the government twice, and they promised that they will do it again. They promised there’s footage you can watch on YouTube of Andrew Beletsky laughing and saying that, oh, no. No. I’m sorry. This isn’t in in there’s not footage of this part of it. This is separate. But there’s a news article where you can read where the the the news reporter, the Ukrainian news reporter, quotes Andrew Beletsky saying that if Poroshenko, seeks, you know, to betray all the heroes and martyrs of the civil war, then he’ll hang from a tree on Krivsomak Street, whatever it is, the main drag in Kiev. I forgot how to say it.

Scott Horton [01:26:22]:
It starts with a k there. The main drag in Kiev. He’ll hang from a tree. He’ll be a dead man. And then the New York Times reporter says, hey. This is real, man. This isn’t like just some jackass saying that about the president of United States who’s, like, not gonna get near him. Well, in the case of Trump, they might not do their job.

Scott Horton [01:26:40]:
But the vast majority of the times, anybody threatens the American president. They’re getting rolled up. FBI or secret service are gonna be at their house and let them know that we are tapping you from now on, son, whatever, and intimidate people or arrest them if they have to. Here, the president does not have the power to arrest these guys. The best thing he can do is send them to war and hope they get killed. And then when they don’t, he has to give them a bronze star, you know, or not a bronze star. That’s an American thing, but he gives them medals and awards and promotes them. And Andrew Beletsky is still the leader of what’s called the 3rd separate infantry division right now.

Scott Horton [01:27:18]:
And there’s a national guard unit and a regular army unit that are both direct descendants of the Azov battalion and who will tell you up to and including just a couple of months ago that that’s right. We still represent the ideals of the original founders of the Azov battalion, and this is what those ideals represent. And and I have the quote, I had to cut some of it for space. I really originally intended to leave the entire Balitzky quote on there. People always quote Balitzky talking about it’s our job to lead the crusade against the, Semitic led Untermenschen, he says. Well, you can find if you look hard enough, you gotta maybe you gotta be made to do that. People can find it. You gotta look hard to find the archive of that old defunct website where that original quote comes from.

Scott Horton [01:28:05]:
And it has the whole thing. And it’s just total madness. It’s like if you took the dumbest Nazi and gave him a bunch of crank and said, what’s the ideology here, pal? And that’s what he’s talking about. And these guys are this is just cut and dry Nazism by the grandsons of the Nazis, the actual Nazis. That’s who they are.

Jacob Winograd [01:28:26]:
Yeah. And Belutsky’s and he’s still there. That’s right. I mean, he’s still

Scott Horton [01:28:30]:
I got the Google alert first name.

Jacob Winograd [01:28:32]:
I got the Google alert first name.

Scott Horton [01:28:33]:
I got the Google alert first name. He was in the news 3 days ago winning, you know, commenting on the battle for Kharkiv that they’re engaged in right now that he’s helping to lead right now.

Jacob Winograd [01:28:42]:
It’s crazy. The last thing I wanna get to I’m not gonna play the clip because I don’t have the time. But I think most people have seen it. I’ll I’ll I’ll link to it in the description afterwards. But there’s you were on the the Piers Morgan show, and you were engaging with, Jake Sullivan. And I forget who the other people, who were there. But but it it kinda went viral because you got real, I think, rightfully so, real snippy with Jake because he was, you know, like, grossly straw manning what you were saying. Because he was like, oh, according to this guy, democratic revolutions aren’t possible.

Jacob Winograd [01:29:16]:
And which wasn’t even the point of what you were saying, which is that and and it’s funny because it’s like, not only is this not a democratic revolution, and I think your book does a good job of showing how you really, the victims here other than, you know, us as the American, you know, taxpayer who, you know, are are being extorted, both through taxes and inflation to help fund this mass murder campaign. But the Ukrainian people, and to an extent to the Russian people as well, they’re they’re the real victims in all of this, the victims of this, you know, bloodthirsty American imperialism. But I I I guess the point I wanna make here is that they talk so you made that point about democratic revolution. It’s like, if we had more time to go back through all the history of, like, just even the history of Ukraine and Russia and, like, that surrounding region and all the US interventions there, all the different color coded revolutions. We have not supported democratic revolutions across

Scott Horton [01:30:16]:
That’s right.

Jacob Winograd [01:30:16]:
The world or in this region. We haven’t supported we didn’t support self determination for the I forget the name of it, but, you know, I’m sure you know. There was the, like, a breakaway province in Georgia back in South

Scott Horton [01:30:28]:
South South South

Jacob Winograd [01:30:29]:
2008, which right. Which led to the conflict there. It’s like though listen. Jake Sullivan, I’m sure in 2008 go wasn’t going, hold on. These people are having a democratic revolution. They have a right to self determination. They should be able to choose, you know, either to self govern or to be part of whatever government, you know, or arrangement they wanna have. Right? So it’s like these people are absolute liars.

Jacob Winograd [01:30:55]:
Right? Like, I I agree with you. I don’t think Jake Sullivan’s naive or stupid.

Scott Horton [01:30:58]:
I would

Jacob Winograd [01:30:59]:
think he’s intelligent. One

Scott Horton [01:31:00]:
thing I have to say here is I wish that was Jake Sullivan. I would have been way harder on him. That was just some loser.

Jacob Winograd [01:31:06]:
Oh, sorry.

Scott Horton [01:31:07]:
That was yeah. Jake Sullivan is the national security adviser right now. He would have got a beat down like you never seen before.

Jacob Winograd [01:31:14]:
No. I forget it. It’s just some red hair

Scott Horton [01:31:16]:
and just some idiot. And as you said, nothing that he said was coherent at all. He didn’t confront anything I said. And every time that he tried to paraphrase me to argue against something I said, he failed and ended up, you know, making absolutely ridiculous, you know, I go, look. This is the model was to replicate what they did to the Soviet Union and Afghanistan in the eighties by backing the mujahideen. He’s like, oh, you mean you love the Soviet Union and wish it was still around? Like, this is retarded. This is absolutely beneath me. Sorry.

Jacob Winograd [01:31:45]:
It was Jake Broey.

Scott Horton [01:31:46]:
Surprised that guy can eat food without choking himself to death, but he’s he’s nothing but scum. I don’t worry about that. Jake Sullivan is powerful, man. Jake Sullivan would’ve got a beat down like he never seen in your life for the sins the for the corpses on his hands. But yeah. Look. Yes. That guy was full of it.

Scott Horton [01:32:06]:
They all are. They got nothing, man. They’re lying. America look. Everyone listen to this. Even if you just don’t like me, a lot of people don’t. I learned in speech class in junior college when you walk into a room to give a speech in front of a bunch of people, a 5th of them don’t like you, and they’re not gonna like you, and that’s just how it is. So fine.

Scott Horton [01:32:24]:
Like, you might disagree, with the way that I like my mannerisms or my voice or my, attitude or my, my form of argument, but you can’t mess with nobody can fade the facts in my book. Nobody can can confront, you know, the reality of or even I’m sorry. This is what I was gonna say. They they can’t deny what they all already know, that they don’t have to be told by me at all, which is, Jacob, that we’re number 1. America is the superpower. That means we’re the world empire, and that means that everybody else isn’t. That’s what it means. Primacy, predominance, hegemony, these are all euphemisms for taking over the world, and we can’t afford it and it’s wrong.

Scott Horton [01:33:16]:
And we’re supposed to stop now. You know, they wanna just especially for conservatives, they just wanna appeal to the tough guy in you. Yeah. Well, of course, a bunch of feminine, weak hippies don’t and their girlfriends don’t wanna go fight. What good would they be in a fight anyway? Right? But all us tough guys with upper body strength and pickup trucks, we all know that sometimes you gotta be brave and strong and mean and hurt people for the to save the people and do the thing. What a bunch of crap. Nobody could believe in that now. Right? You could be as tough as nails.

Scott Horton [01:33:51]:
Just stop being stupid, please. Right? Like, some maybe there’s no war to fight in for your generation. Maybe you’re just gonna have to learn MMA and fight 1 on 1. Maybe we don’t need a standing army at all right now. Maybe you don’t have to believe anything that they tell you at all right now. Even if you’re a tough heroic right winger who only wants to serve and protect his fellow Americans who you know you’re stronger than and need your help and need your protection. Well, just make sure that there’s really something to protect them from. Otherwise, you’re participating in an imperial system that is, of course, the greatest enemy of our country and of the American people.

Scott Horton [01:34:30]:
It’s the world empire that’s got us. It’s a huge part of why we have a $36,000,000,000,000 debt right now. It’s a huge part of why we live in a authoritarian and increasingly totalitarian police state in this country. And under George Washington’s constitution? Under James Madison’s constitution? We’re living like this? That can’t be right. And the reason why is because of the world empire. It’s because after World War 2, they created a world empire. And after the cold war, they didn’t give it up. They just pushed it and pushed it and pushed it till the point where now, as everyone can agree, our government is blowing our country’s brains out.

Scott Horton [01:35:13]:
Right? And and they don’t even care about us at all because, you know, Jacob, as I learned in junior college psychology class, attitude follows behavior. So for when you go for 30 years absolutely neglecting the American people because all you care about is stealing their money and using it to face outward and launch wars intervening in other people’s countries, then you know what happens? You rationalize that to yourself and you go, you know why I neglect the American people? It’s because I hate them. That’s what they say. That’s what they tell each other. Look at how they treated the people when North Carolina got hit. They don’t care about the people of North Carolina. They don’t care about the people of North Carolina. They haven’t been made to.

Scott Horton [01:35:54]:
There’s a great article

Jacob Winograd [01:35:55]:
Do some of the stories there?

Scott Horton [01:35:57]:
Article a guy wrote about how, you know, North Carolina is one of the most heavily militarized states in the union. Fort Bragg is there. Fort this, that, and the other thing are there. Where are all the Blackhawks? The Blackhawks are on their way to the Middle East to reinforce Israel threatening Iran, and they don’t give a damn about you. They’ll quote the bible at you No. About why you’re supposed to put Israel before North Carolina. Give me a break. Your preacher tells you that, you tell him he’s a blasphemer.

Scott Horton [01:36:29]:
You tell him he’s

Jacob Winograd [01:36:30]:
Don’t hear

Scott Horton [01:36:30]:
what burning hell.

Jacob Winograd [01:36:32]:
I got something perfect for this, and then we’ll close-up. This is Matthew 23, which is a warning against hypocrisy, and it’s it’s titled the 7 woes on the teachers of the law and the Pharisees. I’m not gonna read all of them. I’m gonna read the most import like, the most brutal parts. Woe to you teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You shut the door of the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to. Woe to you.

Jacob Winograd [01:36:59]:
You travel over the land and the sea to win a single convert, and when you have succeeded, you make them twice as much a child of hell as you are. Woe to you teachers of the the law and Pharisees. You give a tenth of your spices, mint, dill, and cumin, but you have neglected the more important matters of the law, justice, mercy, and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter without neglecting the formal. You’re you blind former. You blind guides. You strain out a gnat, but swallow a camel. Woe to you teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites.

Jacob Winograd [01:37:30]:
You clean the outside of the cup of the dish, but inside they are full of greed and self indulgence. First, clean the inside of the cup of the dish, then the outside will also be clean. And then he this is at the end, but I’ll end on this. He says, you are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside, but inside are full of bones and of the dead and everything unclean. I can’t think I mean, first of all, that, plus many other examples, dispel this idea of this wimpy hippie Jesus who wasn’t willing to call out, injustice and corruption when he saw it, which is something that Christians need to get back to being doing, which is part of what I try to do here and what we do here at the Libertarian Christian Institute. And the other thing is if Jesus was walking the earth today, I think he’d walk right up to Washington DC and pretty much deliver the same speech to every one of our leaders, every one of our anyone everyone our intelligence department, everyone in our state department, everyone, in our defense department, all of the top officials. He’d be saying this to them because they act like they’re they they they have these great heroes and defenders of peace and freedom and liberty, but they’re whitewashed tombs. And there’s not they they make it look pretty on the outside, but on the inside, it is nothing but bones of the dead and everything else.

Scott Horton [01:38:50]:
If you make me wanna read that book, buddy. You know what? Now that my book is done, I just might.

Jacob Winograd [01:38:57]:
Well well, good. I think that’s a good note. Scott, because I I want people listen, I want you to read the Bible, but I also want people once they’re you know, listen, Do your daily bible study, and then immediately after that, may if you make sure you buy this and pick that up and read it as well. Scott, remind people where they can find you, everything you’re doing, and where they can find, Provoked and plug anything else you got coming up before we have a drop off. Sure.

Scott Horton [01:39:22]:
My show is at scottorton.org, and you can find the link to the book there as well. The editorial director of antiwar.com, which is the most important project on the Internet. And I am the director of the Libertarian Institute, which is the 2nd most important project on the Internet. And, we’ve published a lot of books, yes, including my latest, which you can find the link there, but it’s on Amazon and the Kindle is out as well. Working on the hardback, that’s gonna be a little bit longer. And I will, for people who stay out of Amazon business, I will, soon have the, Apple Books and the Google Play and all the different versions of epub, Kobo, and whatever epub stuff out there. And the audiobook will be first a substack subscription series. Look, the book is 500,000 words, so it’s gonna be like a 48 hour or longer podcast to try to make one audio book out of it.

Scott Horton [01:40:15]:
So eventually, it’ll be 1 audiobook. But in the meantime, it’s going to be a series on my substack, and that’s scotthortonshow.com. It’s not quite ready yet, but you can get ready for it there if you’re interested in the audio version.

Jacob Winograd [01:40:31]:
Thank you, Scott. Listen. I’m gonna, like, do something you’re not supposed to do as a podcaster. I know I started out the show by asking you guys to support the libertarian Christian Institute, which maybe I’ll say is the 3rd, mister Absolutely. Project. And yeah. But listen. I have Scott on because I think that what I agree with everything he just said.

Jacob Winograd [01:40:49]:
I think that this book couldn’t have come at a more important moment. And, listen. I think, just like the free market is spontaneous order. Right? And that’s better than central planning. I think at the same time, God works in his own ways, and I think that this book coming out at this point in time is the most important time. I I think that we need to be loudly in people’s faces. Not I mean, we should be loud and rude to those who the the warmongers at the top. But everyone else, we need to be getting them to join this coalition of people, and it’s not about make listen.

Jacob Winograd [01:41:24]:
Yeah. Obviously, we wanna make people libertarians. We wanna make them perfectly anti war. Just like I wanna evangelize people and make them Christian. But right now, the most important thing is just saying, you know what? Can we all just agree that what we’re doing right now is suicidal and it needs to stop for the sake of our children, for the sake of the Ukrainian children, for the sake of Russian children, for the sake of the world? We have to we know this can happen if, the American people can unite and say no. That puts enough we can put enough pressure on these politicians and these warmongers to back off.

Scott Horton [01:42:00]:
Well, so

Jacob Winograd [01:42:00]:
and so I think it’s very important. So, Scott, thank you again for coming on. Everyone, please make sure you go check out everything he, just plugged there, and I will also update, the description probably after we hop off with links to all that, including links to, for people who bought the book, so you’d know where to find it, the, link for all the footnotes so they’re easier to look up. That’s all I have for you guys, tonight. I don’t know if I have anything else scheduled this week. It’s Thanksgiving. So, everyone have a happy Thanksgiving. I’ll be back next week with more shows, so make sure you’re subscribed.

Jacob Winograd [01:42:36]:
If you aren’t subscribed already, give this video a thumbs up before you hop off. That way, more can watch it. And, with that, we are out of here. Alright. Well, that is all I have for you guys for this bonus episode. I really hope you enjoyed it. Yeah. Bit of a longer one on here in a while because I like I said, I usually do most of my more long form interviews now on the LCI green room side, which means, like, I’ll do them live on YouTube, Rumble, X, and then publish them on a different podcast feed, which is the LCI green room.

Jacob Winograd [01:43:26]:
But this one was really important. I wanted to make sure that everyone heard this one. And from time to time, I’ll do that, whether it’s a regular episode or might just be bonus episodes once in a while. But if you wanna hear all of the long form interviews, go subscribe to the green room, or you can go to my YouTube or or follow me on x, and you’ll usually see all them live or be able to watch the playback later there as well. And, yeah, I appreciate you guys listening. As always, on the audio side here, if you guys leave a 5 star review, that really, helps us out, boosts our ratings. And that way, Apple, Spotify, wherever you’re listening promote this podcast to more people. So that’s all I have for you guys, for this week.

Jacob Winograd [01:44:10]:
Be back next week with some some regular episodes. Until then, as I always say, live at peace, live for Christ. Take care.

Jacob Winograd [01:44:18]:
The Biblical Anarchy Podcast is a part of the Christians for Liberty Network, a project of the Libertarian Christian Institute. If you love this podcast, it helps us reach more with a message of freedom when you rate and review us on your favorite podcast apps and share with others. If you want to support the production of the biblical anarchy podcast, please consider donating to the libertarian Christian institute@biblicalanarchypodcast.com, where you can also sign up to receive special announcements and resources related to biblical anarchy. Thanks for tuning in.

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