Jon Schwarz gives us a brief history of America’s many betrayals of the Kurds since the end of World War I. In a recent article for The Intercept he describes at least eight separate times the U.S. government has used Kurdish fighters to its own advantage and then later allowed, or even encouraged, other countries to turn on them while America pulls its support. Although he thinks President Trump’s betrayal of our Kurdish allies this time around is bad, just like all the other times, he reminds us that this is a necessary consequence of running a world empire. We should direct our anger where it truly belongs—at American military hegemony itself.
Discussed on the show:
“Eight Times the U.S. Has Betrayed the Kurds” (The Intercept)“Red Dawn (1984)” (IMDb)“Rambo III (1988)” (IMDb)Foreign policy of the Ronald Reagan administration“The Redirection” (The New Yorker)Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran, and the United StatesA Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide“Three Kings (1999)” (IMDb)“Preparing the Battlefield” (The New Yorker)Necessary Illusions: Thought Control in Democratic Societies (CBC Massey Lecture)“Comprehensive Report of the Special Advisor to the DCI on Iraq’s WMD” (Central Intelligence Agency)“Democrats Still Can’t Level With Voters About the U.S. Empire” (The Intercept)
Jon Schwarz is a writer for The Intercept, and has written for the New Yorker, the New York Times, The Atlantic, the Wall Street Journal, “Saturday Night Live,” and many others. Find him on his blog, A Tiny Revolution, or on Twitter @schwarz.
This episode of the Scott Horton Show is sponsored by: NoDev NoOps NoIT, by Hussein Badakhchani; The War State, by Mike Swanson; WallStreetWindow.com; Tom Woods’ Liberty Classroom; ExpandDesigns.com/Scott; Washinton Babylon; Liberty Under Attack Publications; Listen and Think Audio; TheBumperSticker.com; and LibertyStickers.com.
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Scott Horton is director of the Libertarian Institute, editorial director of Antiwar.com, host of Antiwar Radio on Pacifica, 90.7 FM KPFK in Los Angeles, California and podcasts the Scott Horton Show from this website. He’s the author of the 2017 book, Fool’s Errand: Time to End the War in Afghanistan. Visit https://scotthorton.org