Le Show; 2017-02-12

From deep inside your audio device of choice, I see I didn't start the show with ladies in gentlemen or with the word guys. I'm just no hooks now. I'm on my own. It's naked speech. I've noticed that a lot of people seem to want to hide away, get a break from this seemingly frantic flow of information. I think some so-called judges even have expressed that opinion. I've availed myself of that opportunity this week. When you're listening to this program, no matter how early on Sunday, I'm not there. I'm not here. I'm somewhere else hanging with some music people. So this Valentine's Day weekend, pre-Valentines Day weekend, this will be a show with music about love and some words about war. It's a neat little package. Hello, welcome to the show.

It's never where you thought it would be. I go to sleep at night when I hold you in my arms. I might sleep soundly, I might just wander at your charms. How it ever came that one day you would find me.

Love is a mystery and it's that's the way it's meant to be. Because who can know where you find the flame? No, heart gets hurt, but you try again. No, down that road till they come into you. The sea loves a mystery, it takes patience, it takes time. Today we might quarrel, but tomorrow will be fine. No, because you make me smile, bring out the best in the heat. No, love is a mystery and you're the mystery for me. No, love is a mystery and you're the mystery for me.

From London, this is Lysho. You may have noticed, I sure have, that the New York Times has started referring to Donald Trump, President Donald Trump, as a liar and the things he says occasionally frequently, all the time, as lies. This began interestingly enough, I think you'll find, right after he held his last news conference before this week, the one in the presidential campaign that was called to solve the problem once and for all of whether he thought President Obama was a natural born citizen. Remember that news conference? The venue was the soon-to-be-opened

Trump hotel in Washington. CNN went live for about 30 minutes of an empty podium before he arrived. New York Times covered it with probably 20 reporters. He comes in, does a 10-minute talk about what a great hotel it's going to be, reads a two-sentent statement saying, yeah, well, of course, he's a natural born citizen. I never said he wasn't and walks out without ever taking a question. It was after that that the New York Times and CNN started saying, liar, little, little, little bit of a burn, they felt, I guess, anyway, despite all that, the New York Times came up with an interesting piece of reporting last week, which sort of fell by the wayside, given all the rest of the noise. And it was simply a recounting by Trump's, sorry, President Trump's physician of the medications he's taking. He's taking a statin for his cholesterol. That, of course, cholesterol no longer indicated by the federal government

as dietary cholesterol, no longer related to blood cholesterol after 40 years of saying it was. A preparation to prevent rosacea, I guess, because he doesn't want to get red spots in the orange. And most interestingly, propitia medication to prevent hair loss. And with us today, after a long, too long an absence, I'm going to say, is Ralph's a talking computer? Ralph, welcome back. Thank you, Harry. It has been too long. And of course, I'm talking about the time since I've been here, not anyone's particular. You haven't lost that sense of humor, Ralph, nor have you found it. You're here today because I called you, right? That's right. You called me to do you a favor. And I said, I may run a little slowly with this older OS,

but I'm not crazy. Okay. Well, some, some compensation changed hands, but you're here because I thought that the audience should know exactly what the side effects are of the hair loss medication that the anti hair loss medication that the president, that the president takes. That's correct. Okay. No, the funds have cleared. Well, I'll be happy to read all of that for you. Thank you. And for your audience, because after all, it's all about the long. Wow. Is that artificial intelligence that makes you talk that way? You know, in the computer world, we save human intelligence as the artificial one. By the way, I brought my own background music this time. Okay. Well, if you're so smart, play it. Because today is your valentine show. This is love is blue. Oh, you will see why shortly. Okay. The most common persistent side effects of

propitia are loss of libido, erectile dysfunction, depression, suicidal ideation, anxiety, panic attacks, parony's disease, penile, traitage, dynacomestia, muscle atrophy, cognitive impairment, insomnia, severely dry skin, antinitis. These can last four years after stopping the drug. allergic reactions, including rash, itchy, hives, and swelling of the lips and face. Rest and large into tenderness, depression, throat will have an orgasm, abnormal ejaculation, swelling in your hands or feet, dizziness, weakness, feeling like tonight, pass out, headache, runny nose, skin rash, a testicular pain, male infertility or poor quality of semen, or quality, male breast cancer. No. In June 2011, the FDA released a safety

announcement warning that propitia may increase the risk for a serious form of prostate cancer. known as high grade prostate cancer, this is the most deadly kind. Arrani? By April 2012, there were propitia loss in second-sword, the maker of the drug, and the music states all related to persistent sexual dysfunction. Wow. Ralph the talking computer, timing out almost perfectly with your music. Very good. That's how we do. I would just say, you know, in putting myself in the president's mind for just a moment, it's probably worth it just for the swelling of the hand. I just have to point out that I read side effects a lot these days. Really? It's kind of my keeping the power through done good, but normally I go much faster. Yeah, normally I hear side effects much faster. Just give us a taste of what that would sound like.

Breast enlargement, tenderness, depression, trouble having an orgasm, abnormal ejaculation, swelling in your hands or feet, swelling, tenderness in your breasts, dizziness, weakness, feeling like you're my pet cell. All right. Now I feel like I've been told side effects. Ralph the talking computer, job well done. I would be all the best if I had breast. I guess you would. And thanks for joining me today. My pleasure, Harry. The show continues. I love you. I'll be going. Way to live. I'm always there in time.

I'm a man. But I use to win. You'll be there to bring me up to here. Let's go. No, no. Look and buy for us. We got love. Show love. Let's you know. You're all. You're all I need. To get by. Oh. Together. Yeah. Let's do. Like an ink of a dexistness. For you, I'll do my bags. Stand by. Like a tree. And then everybody to try. For me. Darling in you, I'm fine. Strang where I was told. I don't know what to do. But together, we can open it in those days Come on, don't inspire, you will hire I know you can't make a make Out of the soil and then I will go Of course we, we got the right foundation

And we're in love and need Time and nation up Oh, you're all out Won't stop for you and all your love Oh, you're all out Won't stop for you and all your love Oh, you're all out You're all out You're all out To get by Oh, baby Oh, baby I do it. Oh, I do. Oh, I do it, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh baby, Oh, I do it, you know what I do.

I do it. Yeah, I live, oh, I let those know it. Yeah, I love it. Oh, I love it. Oh, I do it. And a person might be excused watching what's been going on the last few years for thinking that we're trapped in a endlessly looping film regarding America's involvement in military adventures overseas. It seems if you've been paying attention for a while that the front end of these things sounds the same and the back end of these things sounds the same eerily so and so I've invited to be on my show today. A man who's been writing a series of books about the relationship of the American military to the American society and has just come out with one which attempts to chronicle in historical context. The last 40 or so years of this nation's adventures in the greater Middle East. He's professor Andrew base of itch formerly from Boston University and now of full-time

author and as I say America's War for the Greater Middle East is a military history is his latest book. In your new book you draw some fairly profound lines between how this all started and where we're where we've ended up and you talk about the initiative by Zbigniew-Berzynski president Carter's national security advisor. His his desire to draw these the Soviets into Afghanistan. What was all that about? Why was he trying to draw the Soviets into Afghanistan? Well if I could provide just a little bit more context in answering answering the question. So my new book uh reports to be a history albeit a very preliminary history a history of an event it's still unfolding. The history of a of a three plus long decades American war in the greater Middle East in the Islamic world.

When that war began and I dated from 1980 with the uh promulgation of the Carter Doctrine in January of that year when it began there was another war ongoing and that was the Cold War. Uh this is contest between the United States and the Soviet Union or the West and the Communist Block centered on Europe uh to see which of those two politically ideologically would emerge triumphant. In the context of that war uh in 1979 Brzynski then the national security advisor to President Carter. Brzynski and members of his staff came up with what they thought was a brilliant idea and the brilliant idea was to suck the Soviet Union into an Afghanistan intervention that Brzynski and his colleagues hoped would become the for the Soviets their equivalent of Vietnam uh and and indeed that occurred and and viewed in the context of the Cold War

the this Afghanistan war that we promoted uh was a great success because clearly in retrospect that was one of the things that ended up bringing the Soviet Union down the problem is that at that same time the war for the greater Middle East was beginning and the intervention in Afghanistan that we helped to promote and that we then fueled uh with billions of dollars of weapons turned out to be a catastrophe for all involved. How exactly did Brzynski propose to suck the Soviets into Afghanistan? What was the what was the tactic? To to to provide support uh I mean to get to the sort of the rubber where the rubber meets the road to provide weapons to Afghan militants who were opposed to the intrusion of the Soviet Union into Afghan affairs uh by by December of 1979 uh that resulted in this effort to lure in the Soviets December of 1979 the Soviets invaded

and occupied Afghanistan and then spent the next decade trying to pacify Afghanistan much as we have spent the last what is it now 17 years uh or 16 years trying trying to pacify Afghanistan so so we lured in the Soviets and and the Soviets paid dearly a a Cold War victory but in the context of the war for the greater Middle East really the beginning of a line of of great sorrows for which we must hold ourselves responsible. You quote Ronald Reagan as uh calling the insurgents in Afghanistan quote nobles savages in some sort of a state of uh purity fighting for an abstract idea of freedom. They weren't fighting for an abstract idea of freedom. They were fighting for precisely the same reason that the Taliban has been resisting the United States uh for low these many years and that is to get outsiders out so that Afghans can be responsible for running their own society the way they want to granted that the

way they want to run Afghan society is at very radically at odds with what what we would view as enlightened values. And I think many of us know that uh one of the people involved in mobilizing uh the Afghan insurgency was a gentleman by the name of Osama bin Laden who when the Soviets ultimately withdrew in 1989 came to the conclusion that waging jihad against outside so-called great powers could could end in victory. And so to some considerable extent uh the the jihadist success against the Soviets in Afghanistan persuaded them that they could enjoy success against other power. Now to quickly go to the next sort of phase of the story as it unfolds is it is it during the 1980s at the same time that we're supporting the Soviets excuse me opposing the Soviets in Afghanistan. We are supporting the dictator who governs Iraq. Guy named Saddam Hussein.

Heard of him. Americans have totally forgotten the fact that from 1980 to 1988 a an immense destructive murderous war between Iran and Iraq filled that decade. A war begun by Saddam Hussein as a war of aggression. And Americans might think well guys Saddam we've always known Saddam Hussein's a bad guy. Maybe so but the Reagan administration supported Saddam indirectly and directly to the point that we we we were engaged in what has yet another forgotten war a shooting war with Iran in the latter part of the 1980s. Well that war finally ends it ends with Saddam out of money uh but not out of ambition and virtually as soon as that as the Iran or Iraq war ends he decides to go invade Kuwait. It happens in August of 1990 we respond suddenly now Saddam is our enemy we liberate Kuwait but unfortunately that war what I call the second Gulf War the first one being

1980 to 1988 the second Gulf War seems to end in a decisive victory that turns out not to be decisive. It's not decisive because Saddam Hussein survives and so the United States then after 1991 nobody in the United States's paying attention begins to garrison on a permanent basis the the Persian Gulf to include specifically maintaining substantial U.S. forces in Saudi Arabia the land of the two holy places. So here we have from from bin Laden's perspective infidel's occupying this sacred space and and that presence of the United States aimed at containing Saddam now becomes one of the major sources of inspiring al-Qaeda and setting in train the sequence of events it of course leads to to 9-11. It's an immense amount of blundering caused by uh and caused by many things but caused in particular by an absence of clarity in the

part of U.S. policy makers about what they were trying to do and who they were up against. You draw this back to the beginning of the 1980s and the promulgation of the Carter doctrine that when the U.S. began garrisoning large amounts of military personnel and equipment in Saudi Arabia this this was the culmination of the Carter doctrine. What was the Carter doctrine? Well again just to give a little bit more historical context here. If we look at the post-war period the Cold War the U.S. has chosen for the first time in its history after 1945 to maintain on a permanent basis very substantial military power. We choose to become a military super power but in the 40s 50s 60s 70s the the focus of strategic attention is on the defense of western Europe and the defense of East Asia. Those are the two places that we're willing to fight.

During that entire period of time minimal minimal U.S. presence anywhere in the Islamic world because we don't care that much about the about the Persian Gulf uh uh central Asia and the like. That changes in 1979 as a result of two events. The first event is the overthrow of the Shah and the second event is the one I already alluded to which was the the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Those two put together that inspired Jimmy Carter who who in January of 1980 desperately hoping to win a second term but being viewed as a weak and ineffective president inspire him in January of 1980 to promigate the Carter doctrine which is a specific statement that now defines the Persian Gulf as a vital U.S. national security interest and what that means is that's a place we are willing to fight for just as we were then willing to fight for western Europe or fight for Korea and uh and Japan. So that statement then puts in motion what becomes a a a process of

militarizing U.S. policy step by step larger presence greater willingness to intervene in conflicts large and small uh brief and protracted leading us up to where we are today which I think in many people I think to find as in essence a state of of permanent war war has become a normal condition nobody expects that the war in which we are engaged whatever you want to call it if you don't want to call it the war for the greater Middle East nobody expects that that war is going to end anytime soon indeed I would argue that nobody in Washington has a clue about how to end that war Jimmy Carter didn't just put on a blindfold and and and poke at the Persian Gulf with a pin out of sheer randomness that had followed the the oil shock of the early 1970s right and this was a reported response to that it was and and one of one of the the tragic elements of this story

is that that Carter himself did not wish to embark upon this this military course of action uh as a very famous speech worth worth reading uh that he made in the summer of 1979 it's called his melee speech it's an utterly inappropriate name to stick to it but Carter goes on national TV and in the context of this of this real concern about the American way of life somehow being threatened because we no longer have guaranteed access to plentiful supplies supplies of oil he goes he goes on national television he says my fellow Americans maybe the problem here is not that we don't have enough oil maybe the problem here is that we have bought into what is a false understanding of freedom we've we've gone down the wrong path we've become selfish we've become materialistic we have forfeited the values that in his opinion uh initially made America great and so what what Carter was saying is let's take on this challenge of an energy shortage by changing the way we live let's

opt for virtue rather than for selfishness and materialism of course I mean that you this had no no appeal to the American people doesn't even sound good to me now well you're right you know here I got a good idea I want you to sacrifice now and Americans are not we don't look to our politicians to say call on us to sacrifice except in some certain circumstances like World War Two we want the politicians to say there is going to be more tomorrow and and so Carter's attempt to avoid going down this path was derided and I think basically the Carter doctrine speech of January 1980 was a concession of defeat on his part the only way he thought he might have a chance to beat Reagan in the upcoming election was to was to get tough uh and so without uh there's no doubt in my mind that Carter had zero understanding of exactly what was going to evolve over the following decades but he let loose the dogs of war uh just as a historical footnote uh the US

did have one moment when it took some interest in the Persian Gulf area prior to then because the CIA overthrew the democratically elected government of Iran in 1953 right fair enough fair enough I mean that that that when I overstated the point saying we didn't care yeah we didn't care enough to have that be a place that we were going to invest military power in doesn't mean that we were not involved in various sundry shenanigans and of course the episode you cite also ends up being an element in the in the narrative as it unfolds because the Iranian revolution of 1979 uh from the point of view of the Iranian revolutionaries was inspired in some respects by their uh not only their desire to get rid of of the Shah but their determination to get rid of the of the American presence in Iran and influence in Iran which they perceive whatever we think what they perceive to be utterly nefarious so yes that's also part of the story yeah and another

footnote of while the United States was supporting and you point this out in your book while the United States was supporting Saddam during the Iran Iraq war it somewhat incoherently was also selling arms to Iran well not not only somewhat incoherently utterly incoherently uh I mean the reason that's that's important to remember that I think is that is a prime illustration of of of of of of of the absence of any strategic clarity with regard to purpose I think one of the reasons I might have a hard time selling this idea of a war for the greater Middle East and it links a whole laundry list of military enterprises one of the reasons I'll have a hard time is because people have become accustomed to simply seeing every one of these episodes is kind of a a standalone proposition whether it's peacekeepers in Lebanon or or bombing Libya or humanitarian intervention in Somalia or going back time and again to Iraq if canistan where we we have become

conditioned to think of them as distinct episodes the key argument I'm trying to make in the book is that only when we acknowledge that they are part of a larger enterprise can we then assess the extent of our failure and when you cite things like the Iran Contra affair where where where Ronald Reagan is illegally providing weapons to the Iranians who what while they're calling us the great Satan at the same time that we're supporting Saddam Hussein against Iran that's a classic illustration of the absence of any clear thinking by the people in Washington or is it meternician balance of power taken to an ultimate extreme gosh if if you know if it were that even I mean I might say isn't it terribly cynical but I don't it they're they're thinking did not rise to the level of sophistication that invites a comparison with with meternician okay I was just floating that as a problem you sum up the the history of what you call the first Gulf War by saying it began with

a mix of cynicism and betrayal it ended with an atrocity can you just briefly fill us in on what those two incidents were the book ended the the Iran-Arrak war from the United States perspective well we began to support Saddam Hussein against Iran as soon as it became apparent that Saddam's expectations of a quick easy victory weren't gonna weren't gonna pan out and within the Reagan administration there was great fear that Iran indeed might emerge triumphant and therefore dominant in the Persian Gulf so we began tilt in favor of of Iraq in a variety of ways initially providing intelligence providing so-called dual use technologies turning a blind eye when said when Saddam went shopping for weapons throughout the west letting all that letting all that

happen but the the key episode that then begins to engage us directly military was when Saddam Hussein's military is Air Force attacked the USS Stark we had begun to have a larger naval presence in the Persian Gulf as the Iran war evolved but Saddam's Air Force hits a US warship with two exosat missiles kills a bunch of Americans wounds a bunch of Americans cripples the ship and within 24 hours the Reagan administration blames Iran for this this Iraqi attack and so the Iraqi attack on the Stark becomes the pretext for beginning a small but not insignificant maritime campaign against Iran basically the aim of the campaign was to make it difficult for Iran to interfere with shipping of oil in the Persian Gulf which would of course then benefit Iraq so that campaign is a tactical success I mean our Navy against the Iranian Navy not exactly much of a

contest but then it culminates in the second atrocity the second atrocity that US naval warship the USS Vintens Vincennes shoots down an Iranian Airbus killing all crew and passengers aboard civilians absolutely civilians this is this is a civilian commercial airliner on a planned civilian route with an approved flight plan the American authorities lie claiming that the that the airplane was descending in the direction of the warship when in fact it was gaining in altitude claiming that it had violated the flight plan and claiming also that the American warship was an international waters when in fact the warship was within Iranian territorial waters so that it was an atrocity we didn't apologize and of course we Americans have tended to forget

this episode which happened oh way back in the 1980s but from a point of view of understanding the historical evolution of evolution of this entire chapter maybe we had to recognize that the Iranians haven't forgot that the Iranians have grudges against us just as we have grudges against them for example with regard to the hostage crisis just to finish up with the 1980s there was the incident of the US Marines in Lebanon you alluded to a moment ago how did that fit into all of this well mine is a military narrative that is to say it's a military history it's a history of unfolding military events and the first such event really is the hostage rescue mission undertaken by Carter in April 1980 which of course ended in complete failure indeed the failure occurred even before the plan itself unfolded when when Reagan became president in the wake of an Israeli

invasion of Lebanon 1982 that utterly destabilized Lebanon the Reagan administration decided that the United States had an interest in trying to restore peace and stability and to do that they sent basically a reinforced battalion of Marines to be quote unquote peacekeepers with the initial notion that the American presence in and of itself would sufficiently diffuse things ensure the separation of Israeli and Lebanese and PLO forces that things would calm down that turned out not to be the case and indeed the longer the Marines stayed the more they were actually drawn into this was both a Lebanese civil war and an Israeli occupation were drawn into it as as combatants and that then created the circumstances which culminated in the October 1983 terrorist

attack on the Marine compound that killed I think was 214 Americans Reagan there after saying this time for us to get the hell out of Dodge the significance I think of that in the larger in the context of the larger story is once again what's the purpose how does what what are we trying to do there was no clear understanding of what we were trying to do that made any sense in in with regard to the specifics that existed on the ground and the second thing that matters is that whether Reagan supporters want to admit it or not in the in the aftermath of the bombing he cut and run and that sends a signal to our adversaries you know if you're going to go in and then at first time he take some serious losses you're going to say well I'm out of here whether you like it or not you're sending signals to people like Osama bin Laden or other militants that that suggests that the United States doesn't have real staying power in answer to the

question what the heck were you doing this for which could be asked about so many of these military ventures that we've been involved in the greater Middle East we go back to the Carter doctrine which was a reaction to the oil embargo and your analysis is that most of this stuff was at least in the in the instant designed to preserve access to the to the oil of the Middle East via the the free passage through the Persian Gulf well you know it was in in an immediate and concrete sense that is to say at the outset the war for the greater Middle East was a war for oil but my argument is that even from the outset if not clearly articulated it was about much more it was about affirming our self-image as the dominant power in the world not simply dominant in a military sense but but dominant in a in

an ideological sense there is a deep-seated this really an this isn't this is the part of American exceptionalism is a deep-seated conviction certainly widely held in our political establishment but also widely held among ordinary Americans that we define the future of humankind that our values our arrangements our institutions whether we can call it democracy using kind of a shorthand term but it's much more than that the American way of life determines the way the world is going and events in 1979 citing the Iranian revolution as a as a good example but a multitude of events since particularly in the Islamic world challenged that notion challenge that notion that we define the future and I think psychologically there's an enormous reluctance on the part of Americans and again I would emphasize particularly Americans in the political establishment to to

give up this claim to our specialness our chosenness is a great reluctance to take on board the possibility that while we certainly are a great power that maybe we are simply one nation among many in the long course of course of history and so many of the efforts under I think this is in spades true after after 9-11 George W. Bush is president and and and it immediately responds to the 9-11 attacks by by saying a national television look we have faced this kind of adversary before this this is the equivalent of the hateful ideologies of the 20th century this is Nazism this is this is communism and just as we destroyed those challenges we will destroy this one that is to say we will demonstrate through the use of military power that we define the future and I think at root that really has been one of the driving considerations in this in this

entire enterprise to to to affirm to validate American exceptionalism and unfortunately very few of the military outcomes that we have been able to achieve support that notion I mean at the present moment where where we look at Iraq I mean in my narrative we're now in the fourth Gulf War you know the first one was 80 to 88 the second Gulf War was going after Saddam with Desert Storm the third the third Gulf War was the war of 2003 to 2011 low and behold here we are again once again involved in another Gulf War that may or may not and and in success operationally but when you take those four Gulf Wars together it's sure the heck doesn't look like we're making a lot of progress in bringing harmony or democracy or even order to to that place which really is the the focal point or the nexus of the war for the greater Middle East going back to

1980 it seems that up till 9-11 the the the priority for the United States in addressing the greater Middle East was stability and then following 9-11 and the assumption of power by the people around George W Bush the idea became to transform this area that that there were speeches made in which Bush explicitly denounced the preservation of stability as a worthwhile goal yeah I mean I I think this is tremendously important I mean there are you know Bush is a very divisive figure in the eyes of of many Americans and I believe that there would be many of our fellow citizens who would dismiss Bush's freedom and democracy rhetoric he's so-called freedom agenda as completely totally cynical I don't I don't believe that's true I believe that Bush who who prior to 9-11 had advertised himself as a realist who is in favor of what he called a

humble foreign policy that that that he underwent that 9-11 was a was a transformative experience and as a genuinely religious person and we're getting here into like you know psychologist but as a genuinely religious person I think he turned back to matters of faith to help him understand what had occurred and what he should do next and and that found expression in Bush becoming a new Woodrow Wilson I mean somebody who now articulated and if you read his speeches I mean there in many respects they're quite quite eloquent United States as the agent to bring freedom to the oppressed United States has a country that would no longer give the Islamic world a pass on things like democratic practice and rights for women so he was persuaded that he that he was

called upon to take this undertake this transformative mission and unfortunately he and those around him people like Vice President Cheney Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld Deputy Secretary of Defense Woolfwoods they were also persuaded that American military supremacy was unchallengeable that that we possessed the military capability to bring about this kind of political ideological and cultural transformation and and that's what the third Gulf War the Gulf War of 2003 2011 was all about that was their attempt to to validate this what what American military supremacy properly employed could do they thought it was going to be an easy win they thought it was going to be quick they thought that that that that making Iraq into some kind of a functioning liberal democracy

was going to happen rather quickly and they were utterly totally and completely wrong so instead of a short victorious war we ended up with an immensely long costly war that created havoc in its wake following up on that there is still a lively debate in this country about the role of the surge and whether this I talked at the beginning about how we keep hearing these echoes and and at the end of the Vietnam War proponents of the war had a theory that we could have wanted if we hadn't been fighting with our hands one of our hands tied behind our back right and we hear it again about the surge won the war and then we withdrew and all the the place went to hell that's right Obama Obama gave away the victory is the is the argument right I think is utterly totally bogus so what was the surge and what was its effect but two two points about the surge

and the and the first one is to appreciate the extent to which when uh bush embarked upon the surge which he didn't remember he remember he fired rumsfeld he fired the architect but what was supposed to be the war of liberation and he replaced the then commander in Iraq general casey with with general patreas that those changes alone showed that bush was in effect abandoning the expectations that had informed the Iraq war in the first place that is to say the freedom agenda so-called freedom agenda was now defunct and that needs to be understood the second point about the surge is what it did was to and and and this is not a trivial achievement what it did was to very substantially reduce the level of violence which it did in part by the shrewd application of counterinsurgency methods did in part because the additional presence of

us forces who who undertook a exceedingly difficult task and did well probably most significant significant was a so-called Sunni awakening that is to say that we paid for Sunnis to put on their arms or even come down to our side because the Sunnis for their own reasons had decided that they did not wish to see al-Qaeda in Iraq prevail in their country so for all these reasons put together the the level of violence is reduced appreciably but and here's the here's the point to emphasize the insurgency had not been defeated the insurgency continued there was no conclusive victory and so once the withdrawal occurred and let us remember that bush himself had committed his administration to that withdrawal simply that Obama followed through once the U.S.

withdrew that created conditions for the insurgency then to erupt once again and put us on the path to where we are so the notion that you know the the surges some kind of a victory that should stand alongside Gettysburg or or Normandy is utterly absurd there's a moment where you point out what what is fairly well known now that 15 of the 19 hijackers 9-11 were Saudis and you say that the Bush administration treated that question as off limits it seems to me you're suggesting more than you say there well I don't I don't mean to be I mean I mean well maybe I maybe maybe I am but but well there are other people there are other people who would take that a lot farther let's put it that way okay the the I am suggesting that the rather lazy assumption that the Saudis are our friends that that these are allies these are this this this is a nation with

whom we share values in common is is misleading what about interests in common well let's crank back to 1980 yeah we got interest in common and the interest in common is they want to keep pumping oil and given our energy situation at that point the Americans keep one up importing that oil so we can put it in our our cars so the American way of life won't be compromised but now let's fast forward to 2016 well the energy situation has radically changed I mean many of us me included would certainly like to see us begin to move to a you know post carbon based fuels economy but we haven't in particular gone that far we still need oil we still all want our we still want our cars we still don't want to make any of the sacrifices Jimmy Carter called upon us to make but guess what we don't need Saudi oil anymore we we are for all practical purposes energy self-sufficient

relying on sources within the Western hemisphere so if there's a place worth fighting for there's a place where where we should be willing to send Americans to die on behalf of energy security then we should be sending them to Canada or to Venezuela we're probably we'd have better luck rather than maintain this notion that dates back to 1980 that somehow the American way of life is intimately tied to our access to Saudi oil now let me emphasize that doesn't mean that Saudi oil is globally unimportant it's it is globally important it's important to Europe it's important to the Japanese but quite frankly if it's important to the Europeans then let's let the Europeans start to pony up with a little bit of a larger commitment to maintaining security in the region rather than outsourcing it to the United States which as a practical matter what what what what but having now if I was if I was a European I'd be happy for the rules of the game as

they have evolved to to continue but I'm not a European and I think with many respects we're getting our pocket picked I don't think they're going to be such a thing as Europeans very much longer but that's just well that could be too going back to this as we as we come to near the end of this conversation the recurring themes through this whole adventure and you you keep pointing out at various junctures the degree to which American policymakers and decision makers and military decision makers seem to be oblivious to issues of faith and history in the area of the greater Middle East well I mean you know I could cite myself as as an example back in 1980 when this said I was an army officer at the time my world was defined by the by the Cold War militarily my focal point was on the possibility of a war with the Soviet Union

didn't think about unconventional wars certainly didn't think about the possibility of war in in the Islamic world and quite frankly didn't think about what that world was all about how how what we call the modern Middle East came into existence at the end of world war one as a function of your reckless European imperialist who thought they could carve up the Ottoman Empire to suit themselves my knowledge of Islam which today is not is not great was for all practical purposes not existent back in 1980 and I have to say that I doubt if my ignorance was that much less than the ignorance of people sitting around the National Security Council advising President Carter and then President Reagan and so on about about what we ought to do so that has been a huge historical blindside I mean I think it was Ambrose Beers I think who once said that the war is

what the United States uses as a vehicle to learn about the rest of the world and certainly as a consequence of the of the various military interventions large and small since 1980 we've now become to learn a lot about the geography about the people about the religion the culture the history and you know you you makes you want a weep that we didn't have that kind of a of an understanding of the region back when we began this enterprise but isn't this the the ultimate echo of Vietnam we learned during the Vietnam era when they we had these teachings where people who academics basically who were expert in the in Southeast Asian and its history pointed out that the version of Vietnam's role in the Cold War as being a pawn of China was at odds with the actual history of of the movement as a nationalist movement fighting against French colonialism

and that we were basically the inheritors of the French colonial's not of the not of the side of freedom and and we're equally or the policymakers you suggest are equally ignorant about our role in taking over the British colonial role in the Middle East there's no question about it uh no I've I've long thought that you know we we Americans continue to have this sentimental attitude with regard to great Britain that I think somehow is traceable to these ancient memories of Winston Churchill and Frank and Roosevelt standing arm and arm facing down the the Nazis uh but I think there's a great book to be written that really explains the contribution that Britain has made to creating such a gal dang mess in the world uh that is the direct a consequence both of British imperialism but also of of British decline you know when they when they had enough

of India they they they walked away from India uh when they had enough of the of the Palestine mandate they walked away from from that part of the world and uh and the and the consequences have not been pretty now I don't I don't I don't want to overstate that it's not like great Britain is Britain is responsible for all the world's uh ills but but but but there is a a a story that is complex and the the habit that many Americans have of wanting to see history as uh as a morally uplifting tale uh simply doesn't doesn't get us very far with regard to that part of the world I have the name for that book the Great Skidaddle yeah that is exactly right the Great Skidaddle uh Andrew base of it's uh author of America's War for the Greater Middle East military history and uh previously a breach of trust thank you so much for spending time

with me today oh thank you yeah and now we're of music about love and talking about war ladies and gentlemen that's this This edition of the show that comes to you, again next week at the same time over these

same stations, my thanks for engineering help on today's broadcast to Paul Kalo at WBUR Boston, where this program is not heard, and my Gilbert at Swelltown in New Orleans, which no longer exists, the interview you may recall was originally broadcast April of 2016. Just everything changes all the time except my underwear, ladies and gentlemen, the email address for this program, playlist of the music heard on this program, and your chance to get cars I talk t-shirts too late for Valentine's Day, but say Patrick's Day, what do you think? All at harryshure.com. And me, yes, I'll on Twitter, at the harryshure.

A typical a show shoppoat of the San Diego Pittsburgh Chicago in exile in Hawaii desks, thanks as always to Pam Haustead, and to Jenny Lawson at WWN on New Orleans for help with today's broadcast. This week, diving right back into the swirl, the flow, the live, the show comes to you from sensory or progress productions and originates through the facilities of WWN on New Orleans flagship station of the Change is easy radio network, so long from chilly London town. Bye!