Scott talks to Andrew Bacevich about the ways U.S. military spending over the last few decades has indebted our country and will continue to impoverish future generations. The mistakes go back to America’s squandering of its Cold War peace dividend in the early 1990s, drastically expanding its empire in Europe and Asia instead of shrinking the military and focusing on prosperity at home. This problem escalated under Presidents Clinton, Bush, and Obama with more spending, more wars in more countries, and more dead American soldiers. All of this has cost the American people trillions of dollars and is likely to lead to worse problems than the ones we initially tried to solve. Bacevich hopes that a crisis like coronavirus, which exposes the fragility of our economy and our society, might finally force people to recognize how untenable the entire empire project is.
Discussed on the show:
- “Tomgram: Andrew Bacevich, America Terrorized” (TomDispatch)
- 1993 World Trade Center bombing
- U.S. embassies in East Africa bombed
- Khobar Towers bombing
- BringOurTroopsHome.us
Andrew Bacevich is a Professor Emeritus of International Relations and History at Boston University. He is the author of a number of books including America’s War for the Greater Middle East: A Military History and The Age of Illusions: How America Squandered Its Cold War Victory. He is a regular contributor at The American Conservative and TomDispatch.com.
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; 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