The Case Against War: US Foreign Policy, the Military-Industrial Complex, and the Wars on Terror with Scott Horton

This podcast episode features Scott Horton, an expert critic of US foreign policy, discussing the profound costs and systemic failures associated with the "wars on terror" and the military-industrial complex. Horton highlights staggering statistics from the Cost of War Project, including nearly a million direct deaths, 3.6-3.8 million indirect deaths, and an $8 trillion financial cost across Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Pakistan, and Yemen. He emphasizes the complete failure of these interventions to achieve their stated purposes, citing the dramatic increase in food insecurity, malnutrition, and poverty in Afghanistan, alongside the tragic toll of veteran suicides and the ironic "advancement" in prosthetic limbs as the only tangible societal benefit for the US.

Horton delves into the historical context, tracing the origins of US interventionism back to the Vietnam War era, Richard Nixon's efforts to bribe the military-industrial complex through arms sales to the Shah of Iran, and the CIA's role in the 1953 coup. He explains how a combination of incompetence and a "massive conspiracy of interests" drives foreign policy decisions. A key concept introduced is public choice theory, which posits that the "national interest" often becomes subsumed by the private interests and career aspirations of decision-makers. This leads to a bureaucratic environment where "our position" supersedes truth and reality, fostering an unwillingness to admit error or change course, exemplified by the military's self-perpetuating cycle, dubbed the "self-licking ice cream cone."

The discussion underscores the critical role of whistleblowers like Daniel Ellsberg, who exposed the Pentagon Papers, revealing decades of government deception regarding the Vietnam War. Ellsberg's work demonstrated that leaders knew the war was unwinnable and that the South Vietnamese government lacked popular consent, yet continued to lie to the public. Horton also recounts Ellsberg's insights into nuclear war planning and the dangers of a closed circle of classified information leading to a lack of humility and curiosity among intelligence analysts, citing the example of a CIA analyst unaware of Patrick Cockburn's expertise on Iraq.

Ultimately, the episode paints a grim picture of a foreign policy apparatus driven by self-preservation, short-term political gains, and a profound lack of courage and long-term vision. It highlights how the US deliberately baited the Soviet Union into Afghanistan to inflict a "Vietnam syndrome" on them, showcasing a cynical disregard for human life and regional stability. The broader implications include the continuous erosion of basic human freedoms, the moral bankruptcy of perpetual war, and the urgent need for transparency, accountability, and a fundamental re-evaluation of the mechanisms that perpetuate military interventionism and geopolitical destabilization.

I think one of the darkest and most disturbing chapters of modern American history is everything that happened around conducting the so-called wars on terror.

The post 911 wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Pakistan, and Yemen led to an estimated 900,000 to 940,000 direct deaths and 3.6 to 3.8 million indirect deaths. And the cost in terms of dollars was $8 trillion...

the only thing we did get out of it like literally was advancements in prosthetic limbs for amputees whether if they lost their limb in war or otherwise like if you want to boil it down what did anyone get out of this other than you know some people got a dividend check from Lockheed or that kind of thing but that's not to the benefit of the society whatsoever...

what becomes the national interest is the interest of the people in charge of making the decisions for the nation. And so they all ultimately are private choices, aren't they?

in government work there's our position and our position takes place on an entirely different plane than truth and falsity.

The worse they do the better off they are. This is why it was the soldiers in Vietnam called the military itself, the army itself the self-licking ice cream cone because it means that they cause chaos but then chaos is their job is to go and fix that.

when you have access to classified information then you don't pay any attention to anybody who doesn't because what do they know?

America invaded South Vietnam. That the government that was inviting us to stay was the government that we put in there or at least after we overthrew the one we didn't like, the one we put in there.

the United States of America was trying to bait the Soviet Union into invading Afghanistan.

Vietnam at that time, that word means some horrible, stupid, no wind quagmire thing that you shouldn't have done. you shot yourself in the foot and the leg and lost your friend Jimmy down the street and everything and for we don't want to do that.