Scott Horton: The Case Against War and the Military Industrial Complex | Lex Fridman Podcast #478

The following is a conversation with

Scott Horton. He's the director of the

Libertarian Institute, editorial

director of anti-war.com,

co-host of Provoked, and host of the

Scott Horton Show on which he has done

over 6,000 interviews since 2003.

He's the author of Provoked, Enough

Already, and other books and articles

that have over the past three decades

criticized US foreign policy, especially

in regard to military interventionism

and the military-industrial complex.

This is the Lex Frman podcast. To

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sponsors in the description. And now,

dear friends, here's Scott Horton.

I think one of the darkest and most

disturbing chapters of modern American

history is everything that happened

around conducting the so-called wars on

terror. I think to me it was a wakeup

call. I think it was a wakeup call to a

lot of Americans in understanding and

seeing the military-industrial complex

and seeing what the government's

capacity is to mislead us into war and

to continuously erode basic human

freedoms. Uh if I can allow me to list

some of the estimates from the cost of

war project from Brown University just

so we understand the cost of these wars.

The post 911 wars in Afghanistan, Iraq,

Syria, Pakistan, and Yemen led to an

estimated 900,000 to 940,000 direct

deaths and 3.6 to 3.8 million indirect

deaths. And the cost in terms of dollars

was $8 trillion with 2.2 two trillion on

Afghanistan and 2.9 trillion on Iraq and

uh Syria and the result on every front

as we'll talk about I think it's fair to

say that did not accomplish its purpose

and in fact if we even just look at the

human toll of the people of Afghanistan

I was also looking at the the numbers

before the war and after the war percent

of Afghans facing food insecurity went

from 62% to 92% of children under five

experiencing acute malnutrition went

from 9% to 50% of Afghans living in

poverty went from 80% to 97%. So it was

extremely costly for Americans and it

was extremely costly for Afghans as you

do in your book enough already. Uh can

you lay out how the full history the

full context of how it is that the

American people were misled into this

war on terror that was so costly in so

many ways?

>> Yeah. First of all, thank you for having

me again. It's great to be with you on

the show. One important statistic uh

that you could have mentioned from the

cost of war project as well is 37

million people displaced from their

homes, right? And the same group um it

was Lex, I'm telling you was at least 5

years ago. God, it's the future now.

This maybe 7 8 years ago that they did a

study that determined that 30,000

American servicemen had blown their own

brains out since then. Well, one way or

the other, deliberately crashing their

motorcycle or whatever it is. So, talk

about the cost of war. That's far

beyond, you know, the actual deaths in

the war. We had about 4,500 in Iraq and

about 2500 in Afghanistan of just

official airmen, marines, and soldiers

on the ground killed, plus contractors

and all that. So, that's speaking not

just to the things that could be

measured, but you can just imagine the

the scale of suffering that's going on

in the veterans minds.

>> Yeah. And you know what too, like you

would have guessed this probably, right?

You probably know more about this

subject than me. It was a New York Times

headline, I think yesterday, was, "Oh my

god, look at or maybe it was the Wall

Street Journal. Look at this insane list

of the kinds of drugs that all these

depressed soldiers get put on. Here's 15

different psychoactive drugs, all to

temper the side effects of the others

and whatever where

you know, and then they say that this

could lead to suicide because of course

we know that, right? They even have to

say that on TV sometimes that some of

these drugs cause suicidal or homicidal

obsessions and this kind of thing that

we know that's one of the side effects.

So some percentage of these guys might

have made it if the government health

care system hadn't helped them in the

end is another bitter irony. You know um

the whole thing is just you know you

said we got nothing out of it. I I said

half inest but it is serious but it's

also it shows by relief what a disaster

this is that the only thing we did get

out of it like literally was

advancements in prosthetic limbs for

amputees

whether if they lost their limb in war

or otherwise like if you want to boil it

down what did anyone get out of this

other than you know some people got a

dividend check from Lockheed or that

kind of thing but that's not to the

benefit of the society whatsoever so

that does not count you I'm talking

about what society got out of it, what

America got out of it. We have better

Luke Skywalker hands than before. That's

it.

>> I don't think there's any more clear

illustrations of the complete failure of

the military-industrial complex. How did

this begin? How do we get into this?

>> Yeah. Well, so I'll try to tell the

somewhat fast version. Although, Lex,

that's a kiss of death every time I say

that.

>> Please,

>> we'll go through.

>> Please go the slow version.

>> Okay. So, the slow version is

we'll start with the end of Vietnam.

Okay. So one major aspect of the end of

Vietnam was that Richard Nixon felt like

he had to bribe the military-industrial

complex some other way. And so one of

the things that he did was he turned to

the sha resopi in Iran and asked him to

increase arm sales. Now I guess I could

go back. I think everybody knows that

the CIA uh helped with the coup of 1953

to reinstall the sha who was the son of

the last dictator and had already been

in for a while and they put him back in.

And so now this is uh and that was in

53. So now this is in the early 70s, 20

years later. And Nixon saying, "Hey, you

know, really help me would be if you

would buy a bunch of fighter jets." So I

think it's kind of notorious, right,

that Iran still has F4s and F-14s.

That's where they got him from was the

Nixon and Ford administration in this

push to do that. And the Shaw was

apparently pretty obsessed with looking

very first world with his very fancy

first world army that he couldn't really

afford. And it helped to destabilize his

regime somewhat. And then I don't know

the full extent of America turning on

him before the revolution, but I know

that by the time of the revolution in

1979, he was sick with cancer and very

sick. And the Americans secretly knew

that. CIA knew that, you know, but it

was not public knowledge that it was

whatever stage 4 or whatever. He was

doomed. And so they knew the revolution

was coming and they were trying to

figure out how to handle it. And there

was the revolution was coming anyway.

And it wasn't just there's going to be a

change of leadership. When we say

revolution here, we mean mobs in the

street demanding an end to the old

regime in huge numbers, right? A very

large-scale popular revolution. And

they're trying to figure out how to get

the handle on it. Some of Carter's

critics said what he should have had

done was had the military just massacer

all those people. That'll shut him up.

Or like, you know what I mean? They're

trying to figure out what to do. Well,

the CIA and the State Department told

Jimmy Carter, listen, this Ayatollah

Kmeni, he's not so bad. We know this

guy. He was part of a group of Shiite

clergy who helped to agitate against

Mosedc in 1953. And so we have at least

some contact and we think that we can