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Ep. 13 The philosophy of Donald Rumsfeld, the Unknown Unknown, WMDs, and the Iraq War — Transcript

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0:01[Music]
0:04[Applause]
0:06[Music]
0:08welcome to
0:09mind crime liberty show with me sweden
0:12dobson
0:13and him tim patton today we're going to
0:16discuss
0:17donald rumsfeld's uh justification from
0:20the iraq war
0:22in his famous no knowns known
0:25unknowns and unknown unknowns speech so
0:30tim what was the philosophy of donald
0:33rumsfeld during this speech
0:35and is the rumsfeld speech true
0:38is it profound or is it just silly or
0:41something else
0:43so i think it's to a certain extent all
0:45of the above but nonetheless i think
0:47it's
0:47i think it is profound or true or true
0:49enough
0:51uh let's get some background in the lead
0:53up to the iraq war
0:54because 9 11 happens in 2001 of course
0:57and we have the afghanistan war and then
0:59we get the discussion of weapons of mass
1:01destruction
1:02in iraq and the link between baghdad and
1:06iraq
1:07and this donald rumsfeld senior member
1:10of the bush administration at that
1:12point um gets involved in a series of
1:14press conferences
1:16um he certainly said becomes the
1:18official spokesperson for it in some
1:20ways
1:22and as far as rum salt himself i
1:25actually like the guy
1:26you may not like what he did or he may
1:29not like the iraq war
1:31but you know as far as interesting
1:32people to talk to i think rumsfeld
1:34is um intelligible um he you know he
1:38would not be caught with the same you
1:39know the
1:39kind of these sort of late-night
1:41bush-isms that sort of existed
1:43ramen spell is enough of an intellectual
1:46um
1:46that you know if you saw him teaching a
1:48a college course
1:50you could see rumsfeld teaching a course
1:52on something like this
1:53so when rumshall makes this little
1:55speech
1:56i think it's quite interesting because a
1:58journalist asks
2:00there's no known link between baghdad
2:04which is iraq saddam hussein and weapons
2:07of
2:07mass destruction and rumsfeld responds
2:10with this speech
2:11which sort of goes into a philosophy
2:13lecture i think
2:15i think the philosophy of the speech is
2:17basically true
2:19you have three maybe four categories of
2:22knowledge
2:23now salvo zizek has some commentaries he
2:25says that he misses the fourth category
2:28um i actually think that is basically
2:30untrue something that is
2:32something that other people know that
2:33you don't know that would that would be
2:35um
2:37that would be that would be in
2:38rumsfeld's third category
2:41um now aero morris in his documentary
2:45um states that you know a a non a less
2:48rhetorically
2:49cool sounding way it's just say absence
2:51of evidence evident
2:53is not evidence of absence but then
2:56again i think i think this claim
2:58is is is true and i think i think
3:00rumsfeld does provide a fairly strong
3:03justification for a preventative war you
3:06can dispute
3:07whether or not we should be engaged in
3:08preventive wars you can dispute whether
3:10or not
3:12the united states should be involved in
3:13any regime change wars or
3:15international policemen or whether or
3:17not these matters
3:19but as far as the thing itself is
3:20concerned
3:22i think i think it's basically true
3:24there's the three categories
3:26of of knowledge that are put in this
3:28speech
3:29um and it also goes back to the question
3:32of what is evidence
3:33um you know if you're looking for
3:35something that is purposely covert
3:38which if any state that's somewhat rogue
3:41quote-unquote
3:42um again we can get discussions of this
3:44later in the episode
3:46uh uh the the job that you were asking
3:50of ram shows provide evidence that
3:51baghdad
3:52had weapons of mass destruction um
3:56and and and i think i think rumsfeld's
3:58answer is actually
3:59is true enough you know you're asking a
4:03very hard question there's not going to
4:04be a smoking gun
4:07to be fair to rumsfeld so i've always
4:09liked the speech because
4:10a it's a philosophy lecture and b um
4:14you know i have this i i have this
4:15problem in other domains too
4:17i think people use this in other domains
4:19as well
4:20uh in science in decision theory
4:24as well and you pace with dilemmas
4:26there's plenty of dilemmas where
4:28you're not going to get a slam dunk case
4:29but people still act i
4:31noticed recently with the chronovirus if
4:34you
4:34if you give the same standard that arrow
4:36morris and um
4:38the guy who asked from sold the question
4:40in the interview you would come
4:42to the conclusion that we shouldn't have
4:43done the lockdown for example i mean
4:45you know there's no evidence that links
4:48um
4:49there's no evidence that links
4:52chronovirus lockdown to saving lives
4:54or saving that many lives if you extend
4:57the time frame
4:58so in other decision theory realms
5:00people have a less
5:01lower standard of evidence and some
5:03varies higher standard evidence
5:05so swifton what did you make of this
5:07speech
5:08um do you think it's silly or do you
5:10think it's profound
5:11i think uh on the surface it was a very
5:14clever piece of rhetoric to avoid
5:16a direct question um
5:20that said i do think that sort of
5:23distinction of um of knowledge as it
5:26were is true there are no
5:28knowns things we know that we know there
5:30are things that we know
5:31we don't know and there's things that we
5:33just don't know we don't know
5:35i mean the unknown unknown for example
5:37is the way i
5:38explain the the difference between sort
5:40of risk and uncertainty
5:42when i'm doing some things in sort of
5:44economics and business
5:47so i i do think that is in general
5:49correct but interestingly
5:51i think i remember hans hopper uh
5:54criticized the concept of the
5:56um of the known unknown
5:59in um one of his papers on hayek
6:02i can't quote that directly but i'm
6:04pretty sure he makes
6:06a criticism there but i think in general
6:08yeah there are things that you know that
6:09you don't know i mean that's perfectly
6:11reasonable
6:12and i think you're correct um the
6:14question really
6:15here is um by what standard of evidence
6:20are we going to engage in war uh
6:24that's really um the question
6:27and how much uncertainty can
6:31can we hold um well we don't know
6:35that he's not doing it well
6:40you know do we think he might be well
6:43maybe
6:44um so it depends on how great a threat
6:48you think
6:49um i suppose it would be this suppose he
6:52was doing it
6:54how much threat would that be to the u.s
6:57or other parties what would be the cost
6:59of engaging in it
7:00and what would be the cost of not doing
7:03so
7:04and then attempting to put some form of
7:07uh probability qualifier on it but
7:10obviously the point is
7:11you can't do a probability qualifier
7:13because you don't know that you don't
7:15know things
7:16um but
7:19i think i think you're right as well
7:21with um the lockdown and coronavirus so
7:24i was reading
7:24an article by jeffrey tucker this is
7:26good jeffrey tucker by the way
7:28um saying that uh the idea of the
7:30lockdown
7:31came in as an outgrowth of the high
7:34school science project
7:35and her dad being a computer modeler
7:40and um
7:43that's how it came in and then what uh
7:46some scientists did afterwards it's like
7:48they criticized saying well there's no
7:49real evidence historically that
7:51these master quarantines would work to
7:54do anything with the virus in actual
7:55empirical historical data
7:57and actually be loads of additional
7:59costs so it's kind of a bad idea but the
8:01computer modelers ran out uh also one
8:04out sorry in this situation so
8:06it seems that bad maths uh not only
8:09messed up
8:10uh sort of government policy as well as
8:11economics
8:13uh in general so um
8:16i think uh rumsfeld's argument is
8:19broadly correct
8:20uh i think though if you look to
8:24cost-benefit analysis
8:25war is very expensive anyway and even if
8:28he was doing what they said he was doing
8:30how bad that would have been i think
8:32is less than clear
8:35um any any other thoughts on this issue
8:39in particular or should we move on to
8:40the next question
8:43oh you can move on to the next question
8:46that's
8:46fine okay so next question
8:50um so what exactly was one looking for
8:53when engaging in a preventative war so
8:55rumsfeld basically
8:57is arguing oh yeah well there is
8:59justification for a preventative
9:01war or a preemptory strike
9:05what would you say you would be looking
9:06for in this situation
9:08um like you you said before you know if
9:10the evidence is covert now
9:12what exactly are you going to try and um
9:15look for here
9:18um this this to me is the central
9:20dilemma um that i think the intelligence
9:23agency is
9:24tasked with um now again it could be
9:26anarchists and the reject the state
9:28reject the military
9:29as well or maybe just reject large
9:32militaries you know small as beautiful
9:34have small states um but i i do think
9:37this is the security dilemma
9:39of the thing this is sort of a security
9:43dilemma in itself a thing in itself
9:46um you know we're we're trying to figure
9:48out whether or not a state
9:49has something which on the surface
9:53you know from my understanding saddam
9:56christopher hitchens in debate with
9:57peter hitchens said the only thing that
9:59saddam
10:00were saying this is what saddam was
10:01saying the only thing he regretted was
10:03um not developing the bomb before he
10:05invaded kuwait
10:06um so so saddam has projected that he
10:09did it now he didn't later deny it
10:11and of course scott horton knows ten
10:13thousand more stuff than i do
10:15um but to a certain extent um we can get
10:18into sort of paralysis and that by
10:19analysis here as well
10:21so what we're looking for is something
10:23hidden um
10:24um this this reminds me of the um the
10:26christians who um
10:28want to defend the doctrine and divine
10:29hiddenness
10:31we're looking for we're looking for
10:32something that you know we're looking
10:34for something that's covert we have to
10:35explain that there's no link between
10:37something
10:38the state itself has every reason to
10:41hide
10:42as well um now so so
10:46now now should the united states be
10:48intervening
10:49in my view not necessarily no
10:53um or it's rather complicated and of
10:55course the cost-benefit analysis there
10:58but it's worth putting out like a kid in
11:00michigan once produced a nuclear reactor
11:02of some kind
11:03um south africa produced nuclear weapons
11:06israel has produced nuclear weapons
11:09um north koreans which is one of the
11:11poorest places in the earth currently
11:12and iraq was no iraq was no f
11:17whether or not iraq was a wealthy state
11:19is of some question i don't think that
11:21iraq was not a um
11:25bottom breeder state um
11:29of any variety so could they have
11:31developed nuclear weapons i i don't
11:32really see
11:33why not um we see libya developing
11:37them um so so so i think we have to
11:40separate the argument
11:42here is and i think one of the things i
11:44think the anti-war people and people
11:46against the iraq war
11:47have to be clear about is separate
11:49rumsfeld's arguments
11:51which i think are broadly
11:52philosophically true or true enough um
11:56and the actual degrees of which when we
11:58should engage in preventive war
12:01i don't think the iraq i don't think
12:04in this regard i'm a burkhian i think um
12:07i think the iraq war
12:09in the long run has made us less secure
12:12i think it was more secure under saddam
12:14saddam was
12:15um but but that's a very complicated
12:17like
12:19paleocon berkian argument um
12:22um regarding this um as far as
12:24preventive war
12:25do you differ anyway um now again you
12:27could just be an anarchist or a pacifist
12:29and just reject this stuff to a certain
12:31extent
12:31but if we're gonna play the game of that
12:33states exist
12:35do you think this there is a scale of
12:36evidence that needs to be met
12:38um for a preventive war or would you
12:40have said even if they had
12:41evidence that was a slam dunk case we
12:44had a
12:44picture of a nuclear reactor or nuclear
12:47weapon on the ground you know
12:48he could show the picture do you think
12:51it was okay to evade like it was just
12:53in just one hour this would happen
12:55they'd have a nuclear weapon an hour
12:56would you
12:57would you think this would be grounds
12:59for it if it met the journalists
13:01standard which he asked ramfeld um
13:05well it's in iraq
13:08i mean unless he had any ways of
13:11delivering it to the us
13:12or in my case the uk was so was
13:15i mean was he likely to use it i mean so
13:18given the fact of where he was unless
13:20you're going to claim oh no american
13:22base is a sovereign territory
13:23of the us so yeah he's kind of near the
13:26us bases he might nuke him so we could
13:28you know we can't stop him for that
13:30reason a more interesting scenario might
13:32be if the mexicans got nuclear weapons
13:34so would i be concerned if there's an
13:37american about the mexicans having
13:38nuclear weapons well
13:41no i don't think so um well for one
13:44thing
13:44there's only one country that's ever
13:46used nuclear weapons
13:48and they used them twice it was the u.s
13:52so i i don't see a huge amount of
13:55evidence of people actually using them
13:57and um even if
14:02conventional weapons can do a lot of
14:04damage
14:05in comparison even with nuclear ones so
14:08um i had a bit of a look around
14:10apparently the biggest
14:12uh conventional bomb ever is the mother
14:16of all bombs which was dropped
14:18um i don't actually yes yes it was
14:21dropped
14:21in iraq on the isis in 2017
14:25and that has a blast yield which i don't
14:27know what that means of 11 tons of tnt
14:29which is pretty darn close to the
14:32minimum estimated 12
14:34uh for um the one dropped on the
14:37hiroshima
14:39so like conventional weapons
14:43can get pretty close to nuclear ones now
14:46to be fair
14:47subsequently there's been tests of
14:48significantly more
14:50uh powerful weapons um
14:53going up to like um
14:5615 000 so i mean you can go
15:00significantly higher but if you kind of
15:03think hiroshima was kind of a pretty big
15:05weapon like you can get conventional
15:07ones
15:08i think it's more of a case of it's not
15:10what you've got it's what
15:12it's whether you're likely to use it or
15:14not
15:15and they simply don't see and i depend
15:18and that could be any weapon i don't
15:20think it matters this nuclear or
15:21chemical
15:21i i there's some sort of fetishization
15:24of chemical and nuclear weapons which i
15:26think is entirely unjustified
15:28i mean if it kills people and they want
15:31to use it to kill
15:32your people that's kind of bad doesn't
15:34matter what we're going to use
15:36um so i would say i would if
15:39if i was to engage in a preventative
15:41strike
15:42i would want strong evidence that they
15:45had
15:45the capability of significant harm
15:49to the country and they were highly
15:52likely to be engaging in it
15:54or well more precisely i have evidence
15:56that they were conspiring to do so
15:59at which point yeah maybe
16:03but um apart from that
16:06i just don't i'm not a pacifist
16:10i just think for wars are expensive and
16:14they go
16:15wrong and what you want out of them you
16:17don't necessarily get
16:21so you know war is a bit of a
16:25is an unknown unknown in israel where
16:27you don't know what you
16:28not you don't know what you don't know
16:31what
16:31what's going to turn out i mean who
16:33would have thought at the start of the
16:34second world war we would have got uh
16:36the warsaw pact controlling most of
16:38eastern europe
16:40well some people may have done but i'm
16:42not aware of them
16:43um so i i would always have a a high bar
16:47and i think
16:48a relatively uh small top fry
16:52uh country somehow getting
16:55what is basically early to mid 20th
16:59century technology
17:00um isn't really the basis on which you
17:03go yeah
17:04yeah let's attack him um
17:07so do you think with nuclear weapons
17:09over the right would ever have developed
17:10them or do you think it was a
17:12hoax or um
17:16what do you what what's your kind of
17:17feeling on that
17:19sorry um this is a million dollar
17:21question here whether or not they would
17:22have developed
17:23nuclear weapons um um
17:26it's worth pointing out that
17:30most advanced states have acquired
17:32either the
17:34technology to create nuclear power and
17:36from my understanding that the going for
17:38the jump from nuclear power to
17:40weaponized material
17:41is not isn't is difficult but not
17:44impossible
17:46and as we see with poorer states like
17:48north korea
17:50they could do it as well and south
17:52africa under heavy sanctions
17:55managed to pull it off so so i don't
17:57think it's without the realm of
17:58possibility that they could do it
18:00um um so so in some ways i now
18:03whether or not the whether or not
18:05there's a link between
18:06and this is the christopher hitchens
18:08argument from my understanding as well
18:10is that they would give them to people
18:12like terrorist organizations who would
18:14use them
18:15so saddam might not have used him but he
18:17would have funneled them to terrorist
18:18organizations
18:21and the ability to figure this out is
18:23rather
18:24elusive you know one of the things that
18:27christopher hitchens
18:28said in his uh you know christopher
18:30hitchens and most def had a funny
18:32somewhat funny um interchange in bill
18:34maher once about nuclear weapons and and
18:37one of the things salmon and russian
18:38hitchens were saying is that hamas would
18:40have
18:40mushroom clouds all right so would would
18:44would would iraq ever have done that who
18:46knows
18:47um who knows this again to circle back
18:51to the coronavirus this also reminds me
18:53i mean these are like people who say
18:54well
18:55a hundred million people would have died
18:56if there wasn't a lockdown
18:59um it's like that that that's in theory
19:03in epistemologically plausible
19:06um um you know if you assume that but
19:09who knows i mean who knows
19:11we can look at we can look at societies
19:13that haven't had lockdowns and say uh
19:16maybe somewhat more people died maybe
19:18the same number but but
19:20so so this is sort of like
19:21counterfactual history now territory if
19:24if
19:24you know if we ran the history a little
19:26different you know you know how
19:28different would it be
19:29um i'm not sure uh i'm not sure and
19:32actually nasim talib
19:34criticized in one of his books i believe
19:36um
19:38rumshall for not taking this principle
19:40far enough he should have known
19:42um that something what else would occur
19:44i mean it seemed terrible sort of
19:45entailing his burkian
19:47precautionary principle here you say
19:49look saddam's bad but it could be worse
19:51you could get
19:52some other group that is actually worse
19:55in iraq
19:56um so yes i think they would have
19:59developed their
20:00weapons um but i'm going to move into
20:03the next
20:03question here um and i think this is
20:05this is the this is where i
20:07to a certain extent disagree and agree
20:10with the anti-war
20:11it many of the critics of the iraq war
20:14uh and that relates to the central
20:15foreign policy question
20:18of the last well to a certain extent
20:21since world war one but definitely since
20:23world war ii with the advent of nuclear
20:24weapons
20:25um i do disagree with i do not think the
20:28hysteria over nuclear weapons
20:30is unwarranted maybe over atom bum but
20:33not
20:34over hydrant bombs um you know if you
20:36look at some of the detonations of
20:37bikini and
20:38tall and some of the soviet definitions
20:42these are quite large these are quite
20:44large i think they destroyed all the
20:46soil
20:47poisoned all the soil there's an island
20:49in the south pacific that they poisoned
20:50all the soil
20:52um um so hiroshima to certain extent was
20:56very small
20:57compared to the tsar bomba or
21:00the um uh or when the united states blew
21:03up an island in alaska once
21:05as well um so so these are these are
21:08humongous weapons that are very
21:09dangerous now
21:10go back to the technology would they
21:12have been able to develop that
21:14maybe yes maybe no so they are large
21:16they are large
21:18um if you look at sort of fallout maps
21:20you could detonate one over
21:21new york or or or berlin you could
21:24imagine it going
21:26you know destroying a lot of people so
21:27so i don't think the hysteria is
21:29unwarranted but but this goes back to
21:31the central foreign policy question
21:32since nuclear weapons
21:34is you know and this is what most deaths
21:36said to christopher hitchens and this is
21:38the sort of standard argument and i
21:39actually agree with the argument that
21:41he made is the nuclear club um is just
21:44the victors of world war
21:46ii the five the non-proliferation treaty
21:49which comes to a certain extent from
21:51wilson and actually rumsfeld himself has
21:53a book called wilson's
21:54i think he has a book called wilson's
21:56ghost um
21:58the nuclear weapons club the u.n the
22:00non-proliferation treaty
22:02um it's just the victors of world war ii
22:05france uk u.s
22:10china uh and russia soviet union
22:14um so so it's just it's just a power
22:17club i mean i mean it it'd be sort of
22:19like um
22:20um the you know some the victors of the
22:2230 years war
22:23well maybe a little further back i think
22:24they had cannons at the point uh or
22:26banning something like treby's
22:28trebuchets or
22:29or something like that um so i do in
22:31principle view the non-proliferation
22:33treaty
22:34as to a certain extent like global gun
22:38control um
22:42but but but this is this is where the
22:44argument to me gets really
22:46tricky and technical um
22:50considering what many people on the left
22:52who are anti-war
22:53including chomsky himself chomsky has
22:55sort of sympathy toward the united
22:57nations
22:58most kantian people do as well um
23:01you know because kant had this sort of
23:03dream of is the
23:04peace triangle international
23:06organizations
23:07so so there is this sort of idea that
23:09all the nations in the world can get
23:10together and will all agree to ban
23:12nuclear weapons well i would argue
23:14that's utopian
23:17um so then so then why not have all
23:19states have them
23:20um well this is this is where this is
23:23where this is where i think
23:25christopher hitchens and rumsfeld start
23:27at least making some points
23:29you know you know even even in
23:31domestically for example
23:33you know you'll even hear keith preston
23:35say well you can't have
23:37you can't give a bazooka to to a child
23:40or to someone who's
23:41who's declared insane they could always
23:43ask the question who's insane
23:45you know you know it's they excused him
23:47of course the united states killed a lot
23:49of people
23:50um as well uh so and this becomes a sort
23:53of
23:53technical question to me over which
23:56states
23:57are viewed as you know the the big boy
24:00states the
24:01states that are permitted to have the
24:02dangerous toys and which states aren't
24:05um um i would actually sound
24:09i would actually end up being quite
24:11paleokin in this and say well
24:13you know gaddafi gave them up and what
24:16do we do to gaddafi
24:17well hillary clinton did a regime change
24:20while we came we saw we conquered
24:22um um so so this one one actually
24:25the leader of north korea actually said
24:28the very same line
24:30um why he wanted i think
24:33gave didn't want to look like gaddafi um
24:36so i agree that states should have it
24:38the trouble to me is uh most of the
24:41anti-war people end up
24:43end up in other areas um so so when it
24:46comes to question nuclear weapons
24:48they're not going away they're not going
24:51away you know we're not going to forget
24:53how to make them
24:54maybe we get some global catalyst from
24:56where we lose all the knowledge
24:58okay in that scenario yes the knowledge
25:00is going to go away
25:01but ceteris paribus they're here to stay
25:04so what do we do about them
25:06um i'm not really sure um do you have
25:09any comments on what i just said
25:10swithan yeah um
25:14your point about the bazooka going to a
25:16child is an interesting one
25:17um in general on legal theory i would
25:20say
25:21you know the default position is an
25:22adult whatever you want to define an
25:24adult as
25:26you know if they want to own weaponry
25:27then fine um
25:31i in principle i don't really have an
25:33objection to anybody owning a fighter
25:34plane if they want one
25:36um now of course if someone in the area
25:40is kind of like yeah he's a bit mental
25:42do you think we should try and stop him
25:43from getting the fighter plane and the
25:44bomber
25:45yeah maybe that's kind of reasonable so
25:47if you're in seattle
25:48and kind of chas get you know some
25:52bombers
25:52or some nukes i'm like yeah should we
25:54kind of take chaz out
25:56maybe that that that that that kind of
25:58might seem reasonable
26:00um but again
26:05you're going to have to what is
26:08kind of proximity i mean the question is
26:10why is america feel threatened by
26:12a country which is thousands upon
26:14thousands of miles away
26:16um i think that's that's that's kind of
26:19the broader question uh because if they
26:22weren't there they probably wouldn't be
26:24threatened to begin with now
26:25if i was in sort of like the iraqi area
26:28and saddam found some autonomous
26:33uh isis state which somehow arose under
26:36his control
26:37and let's suppose he wanted to recognize
26:39him
26:40you know but they were developing
26:42nuclear weapons but it might be worth
26:43going in because they think they might
26:44use them
26:46[Music]
26:48maybe um
26:52i don't think it that likely that the
26:54islamic
26:56on them psychologies like islamic groups
26:58i think they they want to control the
26:59world they don't want to blow it up
27:02so i i don't really see them doing that
27:06massively and with right quote unquote
27:09rogue states
27:10i mean is kim jong-un going to engage in
27:12nuclear wealth america
27:13no he simply knows his interest to do so
27:17he uses it as some posturing bargaining
27:19chip but is he really going to do that
27:21no because
27:22my general view is most people are
27:24especially get to that level
27:26they might be evil but they're not
27:28stupid
27:30uh and i think that's probably going to
27:32be the same as any isis leader i suspect
27:34any isis leader probably isn't that
27:35stupid
27:37um so yeah of course they're not going
27:39to go away and i think
27:41in general in the same way like handguns
27:44more people have them the better
27:46in general pretty much um other some
27:48people want to avoid having them
27:50yes but you want to sort of consider the
27:53situation as
27:54well why might these people be a threat
27:56to you if they have them
27:58is it anything that you might have done
27:59which might have made the situation
28:01worse
28:01yes we'll avoid that as well um
28:06so i think the anti-proliferate nuclear
28:09proliferation treaty
28:10for one thing i think is without teeth
28:12to heart and just posturing
28:14and yeah he's he's just world war two
28:16victor's um
28:18sort of going out just as they see it to
28:20everybody else
28:22um any other comments on this uh area
28:26tim or should we go to
28:30i want to bring up one more point it's
28:31also worth pointing out that some
28:32libertarians
28:34um since this is a more libertarian
28:35podcast um
28:37have said that owning nuclear weapons is
28:39sort of it might be an act of aggression
28:42um you know there's no defensive use of
28:44it now again it's worth pointing out
28:46that united states and britain
28:47the chief architects of the war well
28:51britain who knows what britain's role in
28:52the iraq war was or it was not
28:54but unless the united states has nuclear
28:56weapons themselves
28:58as we discussed has behaved aggressively
29:01as well
29:03um but nonetheless they're not going
29:06away um and it is
29:09a rogue thing but
29:12to me the interesting thing remains is
29:15interesting
29:16remains is the idea of just
29:19getting together and banning them um
29:22i do agree that more states should have
29:25them i i'm not i'm actually not in
29:27disagreement over that
29:28um if chaz or some autonomous community
29:31gets nuclear weapons
29:33they're functionally sovereign um um
29:36i mean i mean this the one the one thing
29:39empirical finding i think basically
29:41answers all the questions
29:42of like why hasn't great powers engaged
29:44in direct ward of war since
29:47great powers engaged in panda
29:50you know actual war between each of them
29:53since 1945
29:54it's nuclear weapons um um that that's a
29:58very illiberal
30:00theory to explain the piece now um
30:04you know you get into the minutiae of
30:05stephen pinker versus naseem telev and
30:07stephen pinker versus the kantians over
30:10to try to explain the long piece you
30:12could say well there's been a lot of
30:13proxy wars yes but the proxy wars
30:15are proxies they're wars between either
30:19independent or non-independent
30:22uh vassal states of the empires they're
30:25not
30:25they're not you know they're not direct
30:28fights we haven't had
30:30trench warfare between russia and
30:31germany russia united states
30:33china and russia we've had skirmishes
30:36of course but no no no direct wars so
30:39this relates back to the nuclear weapons
30:41question
30:42i would i think they should peripherally
30:44i think i think they're the mark of
30:45sovereignty to
30:46to a large extent um um
30:50and and to a large extent i think
30:53people actually israel that was one of
30:55the prime goals for israel to get
30:57nuclear weapons well
30:58de gaulle same thing they wanted nuclear
31:01weapons
31:02um because they knew this was this is
31:04what separated the big boys from the not
31:06so big boys
31:07um um um from my understanding one of
31:11the reasons in the 1973 yom kippur war
31:14why the united states sent in an airlift
31:16was
31:17you know that israel said if if they
31:19start sending tanks toward jerusalem
31:22we're going nuclear um that could not
31:24have happened if they hadn't built
31:25nuclear weapons so the airlift which
31:27kicked off
31:28i think the oil embargo um so i think
31:31nixon sent a big airlift that year so
31:34nuclear weapons do
31:35get the um um airplanes
31:38get you know you know it's it's it's
31:40like the you know the clint eastwood
31:42movie about you know there's two kinds
31:44of people those who dig and those who
31:45don't
31:46so so so a lot of these sort of anti-war
31:48people in particular the anti-war left
31:50people
31:50to me are somewhat distracted when it
31:53comes to nuclear weapons
31:55um the incoherence so but yeah those are
31:58my
31:59comments on that swifton i'm not sure
32:02about
32:02whether nuclear weapons necessarily
32:04explain
32:06uh the piece i'm always a little dubious
32:08of that
32:09because certainly at least since the
32:111950s 60s
32:13the probability the likelihood of any of
32:16the nuclear powers actually using them
32:17especially the western power seems to be
32:18pretty small
32:20um i don't see
32:24um like uh
32:27gerald four oh nixon may have done
32:30i already see gerald ford or jimmy
32:32carter sanctioning the use of them
32:35um unlikely reagan
32:38etc now i could be wrong and you know
32:41the military industrial complex could
32:43call the shots in that regard so they
32:44could do it
32:46but i that's what explains the piece i'd
32:49have to think more
32:49i i think a lot of it is to do with well
32:51we had two such horrendous wars we kind
32:54of
32:54trying to want to avoid it um i think
32:57explains it to a large extent
32:59because they were particularly
33:00disruptive that the first and second
33:02world war for the western powers
33:04um on to whether sort of i say i want
33:07nuclear weapons to proliferate
33:09would i actually advocate a country to
33:11develop them well
33:13maybe not on the basis that they're
33:15incredibly expensive i mean
33:17um the uk's uh trident system
33:20is hugely expensive billions upon
33:22billions of pounds
33:24uh which are probably better put into
33:26conventional weapons
33:27and troops because they're a little bit
33:29more flexible
33:31um so whilst i i don't particularly care
33:35that nuclear weapons are going around to
33:36a large extent i think in a way they're
33:38a waste of money
33:40um although it does depend on which
33:42country you are and
33:43i suppose if you are one that's dealing
33:45with threatened by much larger force
33:47yeah i suppose it's the big porcupine
33:50move that you can make um
33:53but for more developed countries
33:56i see them as a waste of money primarily
34:02any of the thoughts tim or should we go
34:03on to
34:05saddam himself you can go under saddam
34:09himself
34:11so saddam was he a good guy
34:14um i mean you could claim that
34:17you know blair and burst are kind of bad
34:19guys because they can have
34:21sanctioned waterboarding but
34:24you know is saddam like worse than them
34:28and do you think that the anti-war
34:31uh left and right are guilty of
34:34whitewashing figures such as saddam in
34:37their anti-war
34:40uh stances um you could make a similar
34:42claim for say someone like gaddafi
34:46or i suppose to some extent of it hasn't
34:48had the iran war this time hasn't
34:50happened yet
34:51uh the ayatollah whichever one he is at
34:53the moment
34:54i think this is an old this is this is
34:56an old problem
34:58um and the newest example is saddam
35:01hussein well not the newest example
35:03anymore the newest example is assad
35:05or nurse iran of course um we see
35:08we see this sort of lead up to world war
35:11one in the united states you know the
35:13german
35:14you know the the you know the german
35:15menace um you know you know we
35:18go after german settle german settlers
35:21in the united states as well so
35:22we we see we see similar things of
35:24making
35:26um making them look bad
35:29um but but i think this is the central
35:31weakness of the ante
35:33one of the central weaknesses of the
35:34anti-war case
35:36um and i think i think to a certain
35:37extent getting around this
35:39um needs to be done um if you want to
35:43make a successful anti-war case or or a
35:45non-intervention case you not
35:46necessarily have to be a pacifist you
35:48don't necessarily have to be a pacifist
35:49but if you want to say well the iraq war
35:51is bad you know and one of the things
35:53rumsfeld will always say right after the
35:55airstrike started was a brutal dictator
35:59um just got you know you know liberating
36:02iraq
36:04um that was one of the things rumfelt
36:05said um
36:07um i think and this is where i think
36:09christopher hitchens starts making much
36:11more
36:12sense you know whether or not saddam
36:15actually used poison gas on these
36:17attacks
36:18in various areas and persecuted people
36:21and whether or not
36:22you know you know you know whether or
36:24not americans also you know what about
36:26slavery what about killing native
36:28americans you know what about
36:29british colonialism you know you know
36:31these line of what about them
36:33it doesn't change the fact that you know
36:36saddam is not also
36:37not a nice person now maybe he's not
36:39maybe to certainly said this was maybe a
36:41manufactured thing
36:43scott horton might have more to say on
36:44that um
36:46but nonetheless i think there's enough
36:48evidence to convict saddam hussein
36:51of a fair amount of you know what we
36:54call quote unquote you know crimes
36:57against humanity
36:58whether or not you can convict all the
37:00american presidents of that
37:02you probably could you probably could
37:04but nonetheless it doesn't change
37:06it doesn't change that and this is where
37:08this is
37:09one of the reasons i think the anti-war
37:10case oftentimes falls apart
37:13um um because i think a lot of anti-war
37:16people are domestically
37:18or social democratic interventionists um
37:22so the idea that we can go over
37:26intervene and create a jeffersonian
37:28republic there which is what i think
37:29christopher hitchens dream
37:32was is not is not something that
37:37there is a sort of wilsonian element in
37:39this um
37:40hillary clinton had a similar um thing
37:43um
37:44um the neoconservatives have the same
37:46view as well
37:47you know you know you know sending
37:49democracy abroad
37:51um you know uh sending liberal democracy
37:54elsewhere
37:55uh and again to get back into the weeds
37:59of this debate
38:00um it's worth pointing out we sort of
38:02did it in south korea we sort of did it
38:04in taiwan we as in the united states but
38:06you know britain played a
38:08fairly large role in both case and hong
38:11kong was a functioning
38:13semi-independent semi-autonomous
38:16free place up until the british left
38:19um recently um now you can get in
38:22debates whether
38:23the ccp is uh maybe more
38:26the pfs had an interesting lecture there
38:28a while back but nonetheless
38:30um the interventionist instincts that
38:33many people on the left
38:34have and they represent probably half
38:37the anti-work
38:38coalition the paleocon right represents
38:42in the english-speaking world the other
38:45half of the anti-war
38:47um anti-war movement
38:51the paleocon right have their own
38:53reasons for opposing the war
38:55um they will say well a worse regime
38:57could come
38:58and actually what we see is a worse
39:00regime forming a regime that might be
39:02more dangerous in some ways
39:03although then this goes back to the
39:05question of which regime is more
39:06dangerous isis
39:08or saddam again you can you can you can
39:11always be a passive she'd always be a
39:13non-interventionist she'd always be an
39:14anarchist and just reject the state
39:16but she certainly said states exist what
39:18do you do about them
39:19um um so
39:23again i don't think the united states
39:24should invent into iraq
39:26but i actually see christopher's
39:28history's argument again
39:29of saying why not set up a demo you know
39:32explain to me why we can't set up a
39:33democratic republic there
39:35there are very politically incorrect
39:37answers that can be given
39:39but other than those i don't see i don't
39:42see the project
39:43for most people to be necessarily
39:45utopian swifton
39:47you have any comments um
39:50going and trying to set up a a liberal
39:53democracy
39:54in a region in which
39:58it's still heavily tribal and
40:01uh has not developed this kind of
40:04general outlook on
40:05as as a former society organization
40:07simply would never work
40:10the i suppose i'm going into somewhat
40:12politically incorrect answers
40:13but they have developed to survive and
40:16flourish as
40:17much as they can in particular ecologies
40:20and simply liberal democracy hasn't
40:24arrived in uh the middle east
40:27and i simply don't see it arriving
40:28anytime soon
40:30um the only way that really the
40:33americans
40:34um could have really conducted this war
40:37and made iraq a better place
40:39is to go straight up this is an imperial
40:41war
40:42we are going to they're an enemy uh
40:45and we can't leave malone to do their
40:48own thing
40:49uh afterwards because they'll still be a
40:50threat so it's better that we um just
40:53set it up as an imperial outpost
40:56we'll set a governor and then you you
40:59you get some
41:00tim pot represented representative
41:03as a king or something of iraq
41:07who does what you say and you take the
41:10resources
41:10and you keep them under your thumb and
41:14you you kind of let it run be run like a
41:17classic sort of middle eastern
41:19despot but you've got the overall
41:22americans
41:23in there and the troops are maybe there
41:25just to make sure it doesn't go rogue
41:28that would clearly be the the obvious
41:30solution
41:32because just by going towards saying oh
41:34we is like an ideological war this is
41:36the problem with ideological wars you
41:37can't win them
41:39because there's always a probable
41:40possibility that oh they'll change their
41:42minds
41:44and that's all we've got to go in again
41:45it's like if it's not for like
41:48this is where territorial wars are much
41:50easier it's like i'll fly over this
41:51piece of land oh we won okay
41:53we can stop now we've got what we want
41:55ideological ones are very
41:57much more difficult to um
42:00to kind of win there's no sort of ending
42:02point which is probably the reason why
42:05they were created so that the american
42:07military would never get any defending
42:09um i i remember reading a persuasive
42:12argument one of the reasons for vietnam
42:14was that uh the military decided they
42:17needed another
42:18uh enemy after the korean war because it
42:21was they were threatened with defunding
42:23to some extent so they had to find
42:24another threat and so they found vietnam
42:27um but on to the idea of saddam this is
42:30a nice guy
42:31no probably saddam is not a nice guy
42:33that said
42:35um apparently the uh the guys who
42:38who his captors in iraq were a bit sad
42:40when he got executed because he was
42:42playing cards with them and stuff and
42:43seemed an all right guy
42:45um so on a personal level he was
42:48probably reasonably affable which
42:50interestingly keith preston says the
42:52same of
42:53kim jong-un he says he knows a guy who
42:55went to school with him
42:57in switzerland and said king john was an
42:58alright guy
43:00which is interesting is he is he as a
43:03leader you know i say
43:04no but is any leader a nice guy probably
43:07not was he worse than the western ones
43:09yeah but again i think it's true that
43:12some of the anti-war
43:14left and right do sort of minimize the
43:16bad that they do
43:18i think that's probably true but
43:21even if you take a sober assessment of
43:24say
43:24um saddam or gaddafi i think probably
43:28even better
43:29i mean relative to what was likely to
43:32come out
43:32in his absence on a cost-benefit
43:35analysis it's probably better to stay
43:36there
43:37and so when you're talking about a
43:38foreign force where you're not sort of
43:40have control over the judiciary or
43:42whatever like this is a foreign policy
43:44dispute and the way you deal with
43:46external issues are different from how
43:48you do with internal ones
43:50and that's just a case of you know just
43:51kind of leave them alone
43:53so that would be my sort of general
43:56approach to that
43:58any other comments on this issue tim um
44:00it's worth pointing out that one of the
44:01um
44:02in era morris's documentary on the known
44:04unknown
44:06uh rumsell said that one of his defining
44:08moments was the um
44:10the fall of saigon he was in the oval
44:12office
44:13in the uh ford administration
44:16um and he said that you know you know
44:18this this goes back into the um
44:21you know nothing people like more you
44:23know you know
44:24the fascination of refugees um you know
44:27here's rough runs saying you know
44:29you know all the uh the vac you know all
44:31the boat people people they're getting
44:32you know getting
44:33helicoptered onto us aircraft carriers
44:35and stuff like that
44:36and that was one of the defining moments
44:39for rumsfeld
44:40um now again you know this goes back
44:44you know if there's one problem i have
44:47with the most
44:48left-wing anti-war people um is
44:52in a strange way they're not if they're
44:54humanists they're not humanist
44:56enough um um um
44:59so so which goes back to my opening
45:01comments
45:02insofar as rumfeld the person i think
45:04rumsfeld like
45:05saddam he's an okay guy
45:09um um um i mean i i actually say that
45:12most people
45:13in the end are okay guy uh okay guys
45:16well um and and this goes back to when
45:19the recent episodes with assad
45:22um um one of the reasons why i'm a trump
45:25sympathizer was that
45:27trump has not done a regime change war
45:29in syria
45:30um and they'll you know whether or not
45:32the hell the attack
45:34in the gas attack in syria actually
45:36happened there's
45:37good evidence peter hitchens document it
45:38hasn't happened it was a total
45:40setup but unless i saw a similar thing
45:42done to assad
45:44um um and i saw recently tulsi gabbard i
45:47think
45:48i think i think hillary clinton called
45:50her an agent of the russians and said
45:51that putin assad
45:53um um so so so we see we see this with
45:56the um
45:58the pro-war left i mean they clearly
46:00have their
46:01their enemies um they clearly have their
46:03enemies
46:04um you know assad putin um
46:08um um so so this goes back
46:12are these people nice guys no but will
46:15will sending a foreign
46:17intervention force to overthrow them
46:19make them a better place
46:21uh who knows i would say this in the end
46:24is the sort of rumsfeldian
46:25question of the the third category we
46:28don't know
46:29um we don't know but if you want to move
46:31on to the next question or have any
46:33further comments with him
46:35oh just as a side comment um i think i'd
46:38rather have a sad round for
46:39the dinner than judith butler um
46:43so are you familiar with judith butler
46:46uh no could no could you explain oh
46:48she's an utter crazed um
46:51sort of um feminist leftist um
46:57she's the one who he's all into social
46:59constructivism
47:00etc etc um i i suspect she would be a
47:04particularly dull and obnoxious
47:06individual or a dinner party
47:08or as a sad would probably be reasonable
47:10um
47:11because this is one of the things i
47:12think the reason why i don't dislike
47:14these dictator figures usually
47:16well i i do in a way is there
47:18pragmatists
47:20you know they're not crazed ideologues
47:23um and so on that basis they they they
47:26could probably get on with them
47:26reasonably well
47:28um whereas some form of crazed ideologue
47:31i probably wouldn't um
47:35so uh are they good people no they're
47:38clearly not
47:39but it's again what you're comparing
47:42them with
47:43but okay let's let's go to the the last
47:45section now
47:46um which is um
47:50would things have been better in iraq if
47:52the war hadn't happened would it better
47:54in the world
47:55or uh or just in the region so errol
47:58morris says you know
47:59you know clearly was a bad idea um
48:02obama sort of postured towards anti-war
48:05policies but then
48:06continued pretty much all the bush era
48:08policies
48:09and then of course engaged in libya
48:14um you know the patriarch still there
48:15quentin i'm pretty sure i remember
48:17the bomb saying is going to end
48:18guantanamo bay and it's still alive and
48:21well with indefinite detention
48:23so is this uh justification
48:27for iraq and the sort of post bush
48:30of security measures is it uh
48:34just an example of the strength of the
48:35military industrial complex
48:37uh is the stuff around iraq as bad as
48:40sort of the anti-war left and right
48:42claim
48:42what's your take so i'm gonna go i'm
48:45gonna say what
48:46um ramsar said in the era mars a
48:49documentary and also bring up what aaron
48:51moser himself said
48:52in the interview had nick gillepsy eric
48:55errol morris asked rumsfeld wouldn't be
48:57better if the war didn't happen
48:59and this is what romfeld said i guess
49:01time will tell
49:03um barack obama when he campaigned
49:05before he became president
49:07opposed most of the structures george w
49:09bush put in place
49:11i'm quoting brumsel verbatim here
49:13guantanamo bay
49:14the concept of indefinite detention the
49:17patriarch
49:18military commissions and here we are
49:21years later and they are still there
49:23i think that has to to some extent
49:26validate them as the decisions made by
49:29myself
49:30and george w bush um rumsfeld
49:33in a later interview on the libya thing
49:36said one of the things he commented on
49:38the obama hillary administration i think
49:40he was on
49:40msnbc or fox news he's on one of the or
49:43maybe cnn i forget
49:44um and he said he said um
49:47what's interesting is the obama and the
49:50clinton administration before they got
49:51the power
49:52were very critical of it but now they
49:55have the power
49:56they have no trouble with guantanamo bay
49:58kill lists
49:59um and the whole uh caboodle so
50:03so it is to a certain extent
50:06um strange that
50:09you know that's one of my reasons why i
50:11became a
50:12more of a libertarian um you know you
50:15know i thought
50:15i thought that people like stephen
50:17colbert would i was much younger at the
50:19time
50:20i thought these people would continue
50:21opposing the iraq war but no we got
50:23silence
50:24you know now we read now we read peons
50:26to hillary clinton
50:27and stuff like that um i mean you know
50:30forget the bush is a nazi
50:31claim no blood no blood oil for war
50:35something like that so so so i do
50:39and that to certain is a wrong running
50:41um theme in my
50:43analysis events um is one of the first
50:46things i like to point out is
50:47for any for any progressive who hates
50:50thing x or y
50:51i can generally find a historical
50:53progressive who supported it or didn't
50:55do anything about it
50:56um um so as far as regime changed wars
51:00and these concepts
51:00a lot of these originate in the wilson
51:02and fdr administrations which
51:04you know heck i think gnome chomsky
51:06supports world war ii
51:08um so so again you know
51:11you know it becomes rather difficult
51:15to answer these questions um um
51:19and i do see a lot of special pleading
51:21engage and era morris himself
51:24when nick gillepsi asks aaron morris he
51:26basically restates what i just stated in
51:28so far as
51:30look more droning policy another regime
51:33change war
51:34um you know are you going to do a
51:36documentary on obama
51:37um you know i get sierra no no
51:40nick jobs didn't ask that question but
51:43actually i would like to see
51:44a documentary done by aaron morris
51:47with in a similar trick way that he did
51:50the one
51:51on on on um on
51:54mcnamara he morris has done two other
51:56ones he also did one on cops as well i
51:58would like to see one done on
51:59clinton or obama on this um um
52:03because to a certain extent if they
52:06continue doing the policy
52:08does it validate it um now i'm not a
52:11hillary clinton
52:12supporter um i might be a christopher
52:15hitchens supporter
52:16in so far as i at least think they're
52:18rational i'm
52:19i probably if i have any questions on
52:22foreign policy
52:23i'm paleo but again i have a sort of
52:25sober view
52:27you know i don't think i don't think um
52:29i don't think germany was a threat to
52:30the united states in 1939 either
52:33i don't really think germany was a
52:35threat to britain in 1939 either it was
52:37a threat to russia
52:39but that's a very politically incorrect
52:40thing to say um
52:43that's whether or not that question is
52:44actually is that true or false empirical
52:46question
52:48um we'll never know uh but i
52:51do i the fact that so many people went
52:54silent about all these things afterwards
52:56not everyone
52:57not everyone um to some extent makes
53:01you know i guess we all have a i guess i
53:03guess more people have
53:05rumsfeld's instincts um than we thought
53:09um now again would have would rock be
53:11better
53:12my guess is it would be better under um
53:14saddam hussein
53:16probably is there a scenario in which it
53:18is worse
53:19yeah there's a few scenarios which it
53:21might be worse um in the same way there
53:23is a scenario in which we didn't do a
53:25lockdown 100 million people would have
53:27died
53:28um but that's a fairly low likelihood
53:30scenario
53:31um and and then this is where actually
53:34we're just going looking for
53:35you know the ruinous black swan that's
53:38gonna
53:38you know go kill us all and we're
53:40missing the thing that's right in front
53:42of our nose
53:43what's gonna replace saddam um what's
53:46gonna
53:46and you know the answer was isis
53:50and you know so so so i would say
53:53it would be better if the war didn't
53:55happen but
53:56you know aaron morris apologizes for
53:58obama instead he just inherited from the
54:00bush administration
54:02but then again you could you you go you
54:04trace this cat
54:05back further and further you start you
54:07start you start getting into a game of
54:09well
54:10you know why is the us over there well
54:12the french british
54:13and russians and americans signed some
54:15treaty this
54:16back in the settlement of world war one
54:19dividing up the ottoman empire
54:21um um and then and then this and then
54:23then you know we have
54:25the whole period afterwards
54:28um so you know this this this is a no
54:31this is the third category of knowledge
54:34as rumsfeld said
54:35his philosophy swifton any comments
54:38um i the american left
54:42in the mainstream american left has not
54:44been anti-war
54:46really since vietnam all the anti-war
54:50is just simply posturing it's basically
54:53they don't like republican wars but
54:55democratic wars are fine or democrat
54:58wars are
54:58absolutely fine um so i don't think it's
55:02a surprise that um
55:05that uh obama continued bush's policies
55:08at all
55:09i think that's you know not entirely
55:11surprising at all
55:12i mean uh who becomes president in the
55:15most
55:16times who becomes presidents are are
55:18pragmatists
55:20they say what people want to hear
55:22because they don't like the idea of
55:24being president
55:25i mean a good example of this actually
55:27is boris johnson boris johnson's sole
55:30concept is things would be better if he
55:31ran it
55:33how would he run it well he doesn't
55:34really know but you know he should be
55:35there
55:37um i simply
55:41i i don't just completely disbelieve i i
55:43think obama's entirely disingenuous
55:46uh with that and um
55:50the spin then of all these human rights
55:53abusive things
55:54are just the ways of justifying wars to
55:55their
55:57their leftist um support base you might
56:00think
56:01at least on the ground would be sort of
56:02somewhat um
56:04anti-war or at least have been
56:07more so than have sort of the the ground
56:10support for the republican party
56:14keith preston uh i think once said that
56:16um he he thought that if
56:18ron paul had become president he would
56:20have been assassinated
56:21which i think is probably right uh i
56:24don't think the military industrial
56:25complex would have allowed
56:27well they would have done as best they
56:29could to try and stop him from getting
56:30as
56:31high as possible and if they did um he
56:34would have been disappeared somehow
56:36i i think that quite likely well would
56:39they have pulled
56:39off i certainly think there might have
56:40been an attempt um
56:43to do so because he is a mortal threat
56:45to their financial interests
56:47uh to so this is the problem as it were
56:50when you start wars everyone gets a
56:51financial interest in maintaining them
56:53lockheed martin military contractors etc
56:56and so
56:58they're kind of difficult to get rid of
57:00and if you're a pragmatist
57:01like uh obama who just likes the idea of
57:05being president
57:06and doing lots of nice um
57:09social signaling uh domestic policy then
57:13you continue them uh so i i don't see
57:16obama
57:17considering the the uh policies as a
57:20particular
57:21um particular
57:24reason to suspect that they're a good
57:26thing uh
57:28whenever you create new departments like
57:30homeland security whatever there's
57:31always
57:32just people who have a an incentive to
57:34maintain the
57:35existence of the organization uh
57:38because um they have a financial
57:41interest in doing so so they'll
57:43they just gravitate towards information
57:44which justifies their position it may
57:46not be
57:47uh conscious or malicious it's just
57:50well you've just got an innate
57:52preference for information
57:54it might justify the continuation of
57:55your job
57:57um so on to iraq would iraq be better
58:01without the intervention i think
58:02likely uh that would have been the case
58:05uh isis is highly unlikely to have taken
58:07existed are the things that would have
58:10been better than saddam
58:11yes i mean it seems pretty clear from
58:14iraq that iraq should really be three
58:15countries and i mean this is one of the
58:17problems of the legacies of starving of
58:19the ottoman empire and to some extent
58:20the problems in africa i mean
58:23the countries just make no sense uh but
58:26then there's
58:27lots of conflicts over trying to control
58:29the reigns of power in a large area
58:31i mean africa was like 50 countries
58:34like uh i mean my general disposition
58:38would at least carve it up one country
58:40per
58:40uh tribal group as best you can and i'm
58:43pretty sure you're gonna double that
58:45uh and i think a lot of the conflicts in
58:47africa etc would be would be low and i
58:49think the same thing would take place
58:51uh in in the middle east although i
58:53suppose you could then say the iranians
58:55will come in because it's divided iraq
58:57which i suppose is possible um
59:00but that obama continued the policy et
59:04cetera
59:04it doesn't justify the war in any way
59:07shape or form
59:09um i do think it would
59:12probably be better uh i mean a good
59:15example of this is
59:16is egypt they get rid of um
59:19i can't remember his name because he was
59:21corrupt so despotically
59:24yeah yeah yeah and then all have
59:27elections
59:27oh what's this the islamic brotherhood
59:29of one uh
59:31uh military ah excellent solution
59:34so i'm pretty sure they're still in the
59:35military rule in egypt
59:37because this is what happens when you
59:38get democracies in the middle east
59:41which is why they're a bad idea um
59:45so given the countries that are set up
59:48as they are it seems to be
59:50at least from a foreign policy
59:51perspective the least best option is the
59:52strong man leader
59:55um
59:58right you well for better for worse that
59:59seems to be the best situation
1:00:01do i think things might be better if you
1:00:02could have more decentralization in
1:00:04these areas yeah probably
1:00:06um but that doesn't seem to be on the
1:00:08cards
1:00:10so that would be my my general take too
1:00:12many concluding thoughts
1:00:14um my my concluding thoughts here is
1:00:18um is i think rumsfeld's philosophy that
1:00:21he stated is
1:00:22is true whether he it was a clever trick
1:00:25to get
1:00:26out of it and just rhetoric well well
1:00:28who knows
1:00:29who knows um i think the argument about
1:00:31the iraq war should not lie
1:00:34at the uh um
1:00:38this um i think it's actually good
1:00:39justification but i think if you're
1:00:41going to go after it
1:00:42i think the speech is the um wrong place
1:00:44you have to go after you know you have
1:00:45to explain
1:00:46why you need to say yes rumsfeld we do
1:00:49know about this
1:00:49um what we should do is but don't we
1:00:52know that if the saddam
1:00:53goes something worse will take his place
1:00:55from my understanding john gray
1:00:58a sort of agnostic agnostic
1:01:02he wrote a history on hayek um
1:01:05he's not a libertarian unless that was
1:01:08his argument
1:01:09um for why you shouldn't invade which
1:01:11you know i i basically stand behind
1:01:13but that goes back to the sort of rather
1:01:15illiberal character and the ottoman
1:01:17empire
1:01:18um same with the aztec empire as well
1:01:22um you know we're going to get back to
1:01:24this game of witchkey who
1:01:26you know which which boogeyman is worse
1:01:28you know the british empire the belgian
1:01:30empire the ottoman empire
1:01:31uh you know you could say they all suck
1:01:34um
1:01:34um but again the this is why i think
1:01:38i don't i don't think that i think the
1:01:40anti-left i think i don't think the
1:01:42anti-war left here
1:01:44um the anti-war right has been right
1:01:46basically from the start
1:01:48uh peter hitchens uh lou rockwell.com
1:01:51these people have been right since the
1:01:53start and they they haven't really
1:01:55changed their argument much
1:01:57um but the anti-war left to me they're
1:02:00in
1:02:00they have interventionist instincts they
1:02:02think we can improve things
1:02:04um and they think their own institutions
1:02:07can
1:02:08improve them they think if we can
1:02:10transport
1:02:11whatever system to some place they could
1:02:14be better
1:02:16whether that's empirically correct or
1:02:17not is of some question um
1:02:20it's also worth pointing out like
1:02:21recently with the kurds
1:02:23i mean you know of course we have you
1:02:25know chomsky
1:02:27can play u.s is leaving now again the us
1:02:29is not actually leaving the region
1:02:31it's only slightly withdrawing but
1:02:33nonetheless
1:02:34here's another example where you know
1:02:37are they really that critical of
1:02:38rumsfeld
1:02:40or the whole the whole kit and caboodle
1:02:44um not necessarily not necessarily
1:02:48they seem supportive of it um
1:02:51the paleo kind right anti-war right has
1:02:54basically
1:02:55stuck to the same script i mean peter
1:02:58hitchens back in 2008 was opposing it
1:03:02from my understanding most um right
1:03:04libertarians were
1:03:05as well what they were known as right
1:03:07libertarians as well
1:03:09um but the interventionist impulse
1:03:13um exists i don't really see
1:03:17and as far as the evidence is concerned
1:03:20i'm gonna bring up another controversial
1:03:22topic related to the philosophy
1:03:24um is that that there's so many other
1:03:27issues
1:03:28in in science analysis as well
1:03:31or this similar methodology where people
1:03:32have very thin standards
1:03:35over what we should do um what we should
1:03:38do
1:03:38um and they actually have very thin
1:03:40evidence standards
1:03:41um so that's another reason why i like
1:03:44the speech
1:03:45as well um but my trouble with rumsfeld
1:03:47he didn't take it far enough
1:03:49swifton any further comments
1:03:52um no not not particularly
1:03:56um i'd just like to thank everybody for
1:03:58listening and if they've enjoyed this
1:04:00show please share it with their friends
1:04:01and family and please subscribe to us on
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1:04:09about it that'd be great and
1:04:11if you would like to contact us with
1:04:13ideas about the show
1:04:15or anything we can improve uh we would
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1:04:18uh please email us at
1:04:20mindcrimelibertyshow
1:04:21gmail.com that's mind crime liberty show
1:04:24at gmail.com
1:04:42you

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