Transcription
I am joined now by Chris Hedges. He is a Pulitzer Prizewinning journalist and he served as Middle East bureau chief for the New York Times. He's also a prolific author. Chris, welcome back to the show.
>> Thank you.
>> Before uh we get into the more than 200 years of American military interventions around the world, American belligerance around the world. I want to talk about what's happening right now. The United States has again attacked Iran. Iran has attacked American military installations in the Persian Gulf. That ceasefire agreement that they signed not so long ago, the memorandum of understanding, as it's known, seems to be very, very fragile. It's being tested all the time. What is your assessment of what's happening right now?
Well, Iran because it can close the straight of Hormuz and inflict tremendous pain on the global economy uh kind of has America by the throat. Uh there is heavy pressure from Israel and from neocons in the United States to resume the bombing of Iran. Um but of course the global uh economy will be thrown if there's any sustained conflict or the the reemergence of a sustained conflict into a global depression. Supply chains are already uh weakened and crippled. You've seen effects in especially countries like India, the Philippines, etc. So, um, the United States and of course, unfortunately, Donald Trump, uh, who's, uh, very impulsive and not very well informed, uh, is kind of lurching forward and lurching back. I mean, he talks one day about, uh, that he's going to have an agreement and everything and the next day they're scum and he's going to bomb them back to the stone age was a quote that he had a few weeks ago. So, uh, it it the United States has stumbled into a quagmire it doesn't know how to get out of is basically what's happened.
>> Well, let's look at, uh, how the United States has behaved over the past 250 years. The US recently celebrated its 250th anniversary. Now, for most of that history, uh, it has engaged in hundreds of military in invasions. I mean, that stretches from Asia through Latin America to the Middle East as well. Um, to what extent has this militarism been a central part of American foreign policy and what's been driving it?
Well, the United States was uh essentially created through a genocidal campaign, a military campaign to uh steal the land from the indigenous peoples and of course uh slaughter huge numbers of them uh and then by roughly 1890 forcing the remnants into they call them by the way P camps. They the term reservation came later. So that's from the inception uh of the creation of the United States. Uh but I think what what we really have to uh if we put a date on it uh the birth of American imperialism was the end of the 19th century roughly 1898. Uh that's when the United States began to go abroad to the Philippines to Cuba. Uh then they were all over Latin America, Haiti and the Caribbean etc. uh and that was the decision on the part of the United States to become a global empire. That's when it began. And then of course you're right there have been all sorts of um not just military interventions but uh coup d'eta I mean for instance in 1954 and Guatemala with arbens 53 in Iran with Mosed etc etc. So um really that that inception of uh the American empire created be beyond the borders of the United States triggered uh you know a pattern of intervening uh often very ruthlessly in the affairs of other countries to bend them to our will.
>> Right? Right. And if we look at the end of the 19th century, which is the point at which you point out was when the Americans adopted their imperialist policies and you get into the early 20th century and you look at this hemisphere, the western hemisphere, we had the Monroe Doctrine and the United States uh in Latin America and the Caribbean region. Uh it's invaded and attacked countries time and time again. We look at those countries, Mexico, Cuba, Panama, Haiti, Grenada, Venezuela, and many more. You know, this is a region that the United States derisively refers to as its own backyard. I mean, how would you describe this kind of foreign policy in the Western Hemisphere? The kind of militarism that we have seen uh so many times towards America's Latin American neighbors going back, as I mentioned, to the 19th century.
>> Yeah. Well, it's classic imperialism. And you bring up the issue of Mexico, which is a good point because uh the seizure of California used to be Mexican territory. The seizure of uh Mexican territory took place on the eve of the civil war. So even then you if you uh you know for the consolidation of the United States uh from you know stretching from the eastern seabboard all the way to the Pacific required a manufactured war against Mexico. Um no, the United States functions as any imperial power functions uh and that is that it uses its uh you know preponderance of military force to essentially dictate uh the policies of various countries in particular in Latin America. Uh we in 1973 with the overthrow of Salvador Yende. Why? Well, for the same reason that Arbenz was overthrown in Guatemala, uh, or most of the day in Iran for that matter, and that they wanted to control their own resources. In the case of, uh, Chile, it was copper. In the case of Iran, it was, of course, oil. And in the case of Guatemala, it was United Fruit. So uh the these uh imperial projects often are run uh to essentially cater to the demands of Wall Street and large American multinationals that are uh stealing resources and uh suppressing all sorts of labor movements so that they retain cheap labor. um that you this is this is why uh the United States uh carries out these policies uh and uh in the name of course of national security but really like any empire like the British and India or anywhere else it's about exploitation.
>> And if we look more recently at what's been taking place in the Western Hemisphere in January uh the United States forcibly seized the Venezuelan President Nicholas Maduro and his life and brought them over to the United States to face trial over here. And now we've listened to President Trump for the last few months threatening Cuba. Let's listen to some of what he had to say and the manner in which he talks about Cuba. Let's watch.
>> I do believe I'll be the honor of having the honor of taking Cuba. That'd be good. That's a big honor.
>> Taking Cuba.
>> Taking Cuba in some form. Yeah. Taking Cuba. whether I free it, take it, think I could do anything I want with it.
>> Now, Chris, as we all are aware, the United States has imposed a crippling economic embargo on Cuba for more than 60 years, and now it's going even further, trying to strangle the small country's uh economy by blockading its uh oil and other energy shipments. I mean, when you hear the kind of comments that President Trump made there, what he was saying, the tone that he used, the manner in which he said that, what does it tell you about how Washington regards these countries and Washington's respect for the sovereignty of its neighbors?
>> Well, in many ways, Trump has, you know, ripped the mask off of US imperialism, which, and I should be clear, I spent six years as a reporter in Latin America and then another seven in the Middle East. So uh you know the the viciousness, the cruelty, the violence of these imperial projects is well known to uh those who are on the receiving end of it. Uh uh but but Trump speaks with a kind of crudity and vulgarity. Uh he doesn't dress it up as uh you know wanting to implant democracy or this kind of stuff. uh but in fact the the machinery of imperialism doesn't change. It never has changed. It's the way it's packaged. And I think that's how we have to look at the difference between Trump and previous administrations.
Right now, if we turn to another part of the world, Asia, uh if we look at the history of United States military interventions in Asia, of course, you had the Korean War and the 1950s and the Vietnam War, which lasted from the 1960s to the mid 1970s. I mean, how much of that was driven by the cold war that was taking place at the time and the kind of virulent anti-communist sentiment that we heard in Washington at that time?
>> Yeah. I mean, well, this was part of the cold war. So, the cold war was fought sometimes with hot wars in the case of Vietnam and then proxy wars all over the globe. Uh, and it was to prevent the reach of the Soviet Union. Uh, sometimes that was fictitious. I mean, I covered the war in Nicaragua, the Contra War. Uh, Nicaragua only at the time had three million people. Um but you know they saw uh that was the whole domino theory that you know once for instance Vietnam becomes communist then every other country around it would become communist turn it turns out that that domino theory was completely incorrect. Um I I think we also have to note that after World War II uh the United States uh unlike after World War I uh did not reconfigure its industry to go back to a peaceime economy but continue to build weapons at this point is about the only thing the United States uh produces. Uh and so they need a market for those weapons. uh after uh the war in Afghanistan, we we were defeated in Afghanistan, of course, after we had to flee Afghanistan after 20 years. Uh the stock prices of Rathon and these big uh Boeing etc. these big weapons manufacturers went down uh and then came back to where they were with the conflict in Ukraine. Uh so uh you know the US economy depends on the war industry and uh in many ways this is a self-perpetuating narrative uh by turning people who are or mischaracterizing resistance movements or turning people who are not our enemies into our enemies. I mean certainly look after the fall of the Soviet Union Gorbachov wanted to join NATO. Uh, but if you couldn't demonize Russia, you couldn't justify the expansion of NATO up to Russia's borders, and more importantly, you couldn't justify the sale of billions of dollars of weaponry to reconfigure former Soviet packed countries so that they would become compatible uh with uh NATO uh military hardware. So, um that's also a huge driving factor, the uh the profits made from the war industry.
Right. That domino theory that you talk about, Chris, it was used so often by the United States to uh invade so many countries in the world to get proxy forces to stage wars in many parts of the world. We look at the wars that took place in Africa. As you point out, the Cold War was in many ways a hot war for many of these countries. We look at Vietnam that was devastating. There was relentless bombing uh of Vietnam. They used chemicals known as Agent Orange. When you add up all those casualties and the death and destruction in Laos, Cambodia, uh I mean the death toll is estimated to be around 3 to 5 million. Uh how what what kind of uh legacy did that leave not just for those countries but here in the United States as well?
Well, I would say there was a difference in that, you know, the Vietnam War became highly unpopular >> and it really forced the United States in immediately after the war into a period of self-reflection. Um, that was all uh jettisoned with uh the first Gulf War. uh you know Bush talked about this is uh you know uh Herbert Walker Bush talked about uh removing the crippling legacy of Vietnam etc etc but what we've seen with the military adventurism of the United States in countries like Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya etc and now Iran is that there's no self-reflection. There's no self-criticism. That's the difference. Uh so the people who push the empire into these fiascos uh are are not only not held accountable but they remain in positions of influence and power. So the same voices that uh called for war with Iran were the voices that called for the disastrous uh war and occupation in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, etc. And that's the difference. There's no self-corrective policy now within the United States which is why we are just stumbling from one military fiasco and I would include Iran a country I covered into the next.
>> Right and we look at the wars in the uh uh last few decades I mean since the beginning of 2000 we had the uh invasion of Iraq uh you had the invasion of Afghanistan as well of course that was the second invasion of Iraq as well and then we heard a new rationale for these wars, nation building. Uh I mean, how do you view the idea that the United States can impose its type of government, its values on others?
>> Well, historically, it it never works. Uh but let's be clear, the United States has no interest in creating a democracy. Iraq, 60% of Iraq is Shia. Uh and now, of course, they have allied quite closely with Iran. Uh but the United States wants a client regime. Uh they thought they were going to get one in Libya. They thought with Carzi they were going to get one in Afghanistan, Maliki and Iraq. And it all blew up in their face. Uh because they uh when you eviscerate your diplomatic service, which we have done and Rubio has accelerated that uh you you really can't read other countries and uh that's vital. So uh the the the war in Iran, the war in Iraq, the war in they were they were based on terrible terrible mis interpretations, miscalculations uh because they thought the prepundonderance of military force was enough. Uh and it wasn't and it isn't and we're watching it in real time in Iran. It isn't. uh the asymmetrical warfare that took place in Afghanistan under the Taliban or uh in Iraq or uh now with Iran was quite effective at crippling uh the reach and and goals of empire. But I would say that a lot of this and again having spent seven years in the Middle East is just an inability to read our adversaries and an inability to read our friends, our allies. So the the the Gulf allies, the uh European allies were not consulted about the attacks in Iran and then when things went bad for the United States, wanted nothing to do with a war that they had no part in initiating. Uh and that just is again an example of the decay of empire and the ability of uh institutions which maintain empire to essentially read the world around them.
And Chris, if we look at the wars that the United States has been involved in, most recently, we look at the Israeli assault on Gaza, what it's done there, what a UN legal panel called a genocide. We had the Israeli prime minister who uh came here to Washington to the United States to persuade uh President Trump that it was in the interests of the United States to join Israel in attacking uh Iran as well. Um to what extent has Israel influenced US policy, especially its more uh militarist components?
>> Well, quite heavily. I mean, remember, Israel lobbyed quite heavily for the uh war, the second war in Iran. The the first war, the the first Bush administration, I I was covered that war was with the US Marine Corps. Uh they did not occupy Iraq uh for all the reasons we now know. So, uh, Israel lobbyed quite hard for that war, uh, and they lobbyed for the war in Iran on false pretenses. I think what's interesting is that it's not new. Israel has been lobbying the United States to carry out a saturation bombing campaign against Iran for almost two decades. But the American intelligence services and the military, American military uh be- because they understood that Iran would strut shut down the straight of Hormuz. They also understand that Iran is not in Lebanon. Iran is 90 million people. It's the size of Western Europe and it has spent years uh especially with its ballistic missile system setting up sophisticated systems of uh defense much of which is underground and really unaccessible to uh Israeli and American bombing which is why uh Iran still retains significant missile capabilities. So uh but you know Trump fell for it um and he got played by Netanyahu in a way that past administrations did not.
>> Chris Hedges we have to leave it there. Thanks so much for being with us.
>> Thank you.