August, 2020 Part II
BILL SIMPICH: I wanted to ask where Arms and Drugs, Peter, at this point fit in to your analysis?
DAVID TALBOT: Oh, yeah.
BILL SIMPICH: Because Drugs is like half of the economy, I think I quoted you, at one time. And Arms sales is a whole other sector that is really hard to quantify but is an enormous part of the economy.
PETER DALE SCOTT: Yes. Let me explore in terms of the foreign commerce of the United States, the big three are Oil, Arms, they’re very closely related, and the third one that we can’t quantify because it’s mostly illicit, is Drugs. And, it too, you know, Drugs travelled, traditionally, on oil tankers; now they travel on military airplanes. I don’t know how the heroin or the opiates from Afghanistan get to the opiate crisis in America because I haven’t studied that latest phase, but it’s deeply obvious that when we were involved in South East Asia our heroin came from South East Asia. We got deeply involved in Central Asia, well, what they call the Golden Crescent, the Pakistani/Afghan border; and when Brzezinski got us involved there in 1980, ’79, by U.S. statistics, the Golden Crescent accounted for zero percent of the heroin in this country and one year later, by U.S. government statistics, it accounted for 60%. So, you can see the very strong relation between U.S. involvement in the area; this was all covert involvement – CIA involvement — it involved planes, it involved personnel, it involved…
DAVID TALBOT: And, of course during the Reagan period in the 80s you had cocaine financing [CROSSTALK] in Central America.
PETER DALE SCOTT: The next chapter, yes. We had… it was Bush Sr. with his Andes Plan, and I predicted, in 1989 I predicted that if we go ahead with his plan the cocaine flow will increase; well, it tripled; It increased more than I thought it was going to.
So, I just wanted to say one last thing about the 1980s. It’s very relevant that we built up a clandestine force there in Afghanistan that morphed into Al Qaeda; the heads of it were Al Qaeda, and Bin Laden was not a Freedom Fighter, he was a rich Saudi who went into the part of the support office in Peshawar and we were supporting those people. And we were giving money that went directly to the largest drug traffickers in Afghanistan, one of whom, Hechnichar (Sp?), was briefly the heroin king of the world. So, there is a very intimate relationship between what the CIA has been doing in foreign countries; it was even more intimate than southeast Asia but it’s a bit late to be talking about that now. That’s the American economy, unfortunately; We’re not… We’re good – I guess we’re good at making masks now, COVID masks, but you’re not going to support a nation of 330 million people on COVID masks.
BILL SIMPICH: [Laughs]
DAVID TALBOT: So, we talked about some of the fallout from the COG mentality overseas, which is endless war, this massive global drug-trade and so on, a black market… As an element within the American ruling class has become increasingly hardline, rigid, militaristic, repressive, oligarchic, what do you think the fallout for American democracy has been.
PETER DALE SCOTT: Well, first I wouldn’t quite say it’s endless war; what is key to what the planners want is domination of the oil producing areas, cause if America can dominate… and, by the way, OPEC, which was always described in the press as an enemy was actually very useful to the Americans. The Americans couldn’t… they wanted stable markets, price-set; whereas most people don’t realize about OPEC oil is it is part of ORBEK and this was arranged separately with Saudi Arabia that OPEC oil is always denominated in dollars. So, if you have a country in Africa that needs oil but doesn’t have any oil reserves, they have to buy the oil; they have to buy the dollars to buy the oil and so the dollar… we can go on printing it and printing it in a way which you learn in economics text books should lead to massive inflation – this time it may lead to massive inflation – but, for decades it survived because America controlled the world and the global petroleum economy. That is the real key, and the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq; there was a pipeline involved in Afghanistan but that wasn’t the central part: The key thing was to have armies there so that if Russia says to Almati, that was the capital of Kazakhstan, “You’re going to have to stop; you’re going to have to nationalize Chevron,” or something like that, U.S. trained troops in Uzbekistan, backed by U.S. forces in Afghanistan can go in and stop Almati from doing that.
That’s the kind of geopolitics; Brzezinski wrote a book about this, you know, about the importance of Central Asia and the need to dominate. He said in that book whoever controls Central Asia will control the world. I’m not sure that was literally true, but I am sure that’s what Cheney believed at that time. And now everything’s up for grabs; Trump, I think, Trump is not all bad in my mind because, being an outside and wanting to be re-elected, he has got troops out of Afghanistan; I think that’s a good thing. Am I allowed to say something good about Trump?
BILL SIMPICH: Of course, you are. I think the question I wanted to ask was, why do you at this time it’s important to bring the COG discussion to the forefront?
PETER DALE SCOTT: Ah, yeah. That is because we have a president who from the very beginning thought he could run America like a private corporation, and directed his ambassador to get England to move the golf championship to his private golf course, and redirected U.S. refueling planes to the airport for his Turnberry golf course in Scotland. And now he’s got to do something that isn’t usually a problem in a corporation: he has to be reelected; and it’s he himself who has raised the possibility that maybe we should postpone the election!
Well, a lot of people have said, don’t worry; he can’t postpone the election because that’s by the Constitution and that’s allotted to Congress. Well, the trouble is that back on 9/11 COG, continuity of government, was implemented and these are a whole lot of rules that we don’t really know except that way back, the best article ever written about them by a man called Alonzo Charlie for the Miami Herald, said that it involves – he’s not alone, but this is the best-informed article – said that it involves suspension of the Constitution, and I think that is very possibly true and that Trump may at this moment, without staging a coup, simply using powers that were given him, given the presidency on 9/11 by COG, would be able to, on his own authority, suspend the Constitution by postponing the date for the election. We don’t know that this is the case, but we shouldn’t allow that risk, and Congress is required by law – I’m not saying they ought to do something as a desirable – it is an actual legal requirement that if a state of emergency is declared, there’s two of them; not one, but two, were declared right after 9/11, then Congress is required to review them and Congress never has so far as we know…
DAVID TALBOT: Peter, let me interrupt you there and say, do both houses of Congress have to then pass legislation to review?
PETER DALE SCOTT: Each House shall separately… Bill has the text there; he can read it again…
BILL SIMPICH: That’s what we’re proposing, but right now how do we get out of the COG?
PETER DALE SCOTT: Well, I don’t care, frankly, I don’t care what the Senate does; I don’t expect them to do anything good; they haven’t done anything good in three years. But I care very much that the House debate it because I want the people to know. But ultimately whom I’m counting on are the American people, and the only way people will really know about this is if Congress… all they have to do is hold hearings, for David or Dan, I’m a Canadian, I’m not the one; but somebody should go there and just educate the American people, and I’m sure while Fox News may not carry it but, by golly, MSNBC and CNN will. And I would think that the democratic Congress would be very motivated to make sure that there was no emergency. An emergency declared to deal with Osama bin Laden who’s now dead; ISIS is in retreat; ISIS which is by the way fallout from the Iraq War which should never have been fought. The democrats in Congress have every motive to be as interested in this as we are.
BILL SIMPICH: But what about the AUMF? They won’t move on the AUMF, the Authorization to Use Military Force. They’ve dodged that for 20 years as well. It’s kind of the same problem, isn’t it?
DAVID TALBOT: Also, defunding the Pentagon. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren’s 10% cut couldn’t even get to…
BILL SIMPICH: Couldn’t get a hundred votes in the House.
PETER DALE SCOTT: No. I want to make a distinction. We still have the war machine; I’m not saying this is going to stop the war machine. This is going to stop the rogue president from messing up the internal politics of this country because of powers which were given to deal with other issues of which he could appropriate to his own purposes.
DAVID TALBOT: Let me respond to that then, Peter. I think what you’re raising is crucial. And I think that we as intellectuals and writers should call for this to happen. I suspect, though, given all the other kinds of urgent matters before Congress now, like passing an unemployment extension and so on, that it’s not going to get any traction until the election. I share your concern about how Trump will respond to an election, particularly if the vote is close but, fortunately, all the polls now indicate that he’s in freefall and that he’s going to lose by, I think, Goldwater proportions and a landslide; and so, I don’t think he can defy the will of the people in November; and I think he will, if it has to be, escorted out of the White House by the secret service and the military.
But, I do fear something else, and I’ve told you this; in the future, if the COG legislation stays on the books, and a future president who’s much shrewder than Donald Trump who is, I think, a buffoon and a clown, has alienated what could have been wider support if he had acted more shrewdly as a leader — all he had to do was wear a mask, for God’s sake, and say nice things about Dr. Fauci…
BILL SIMPICH: That’s all he had to do.
DAVID TALBOT: …then he could have been reelected, but he’s such a psychopath and narcissist that he’s digging his own grave. So, I think he’s gone. But I am very concerned about how effectual, or how ineffectual, the Biden presidency will be.
BILL SIMPICH: Yes.
DAVID TALBOT: … limitations built in; I mean, some of the same billionaires are jumping on the bandwagon now. He’s a captive of the national security state, has been his whole life; he’s a captive of the corporate class; he’s now making noises about going to the left because the party at the grass roots seems to be fleeing to the left. I mean, in the recent primaries are very encouraging, all these progressive activists who are winning and knocking over establishment democrats; so, you know, it will be interesting to see who Biden picks as his VP; it will be more interesting to see what kind of presidency he leads, but my worst fear is that he’ll turn out to be a Weimar-type regime and that the right-wing will become even more emboldened, and they’ll learn from the Trump experience that you can’t put up a clown or a reality tv host as your leader, it’s got to be someone who represents more of an authoritative figure. And at that point, if we have a republican comeback, I’m very much afraid that that republican could become even more of an authoritarian or even a fascist using some of the COG legislation that you’re concerned about.
So, the bottom line is I think we should start raising this as an issue right now. The good news is I think we will have more squad AOC type democrats in Congress next year, and we should certainly be talking to them about COG as a major threat.
PETER DALE SCOTT: I agree with you about the long-term problem. As you heard me say some months ago. From a very auspicious beginning we dealt with the problem of slavery in the Civil War; we dealt with many problems, but now the problems are getting bigger than the government ca… The long-term future, there are many difficult things to solve.
You seem to sound as if Trump is alone there in the White House and he’s not a problem; I think he is a problem because you didn’t mention how he has mobilized, through the Department of Homeland Security, a kind of new private army which is going into places like Portland and many others, and stirring up trouble; and believe me, if these people continue to do in October what they’ve been doing in the last few weeks I don’t think it’s going to be an open and shut case that he’s going to go down to defeat in November. He’s willing to destroy this country in order to “save” it.
DAVID TALBOT: I share your concern, Peter, about ICE and about his paramilitary; he’s now weaponized a significant section of America’s security forces; he’s created a private army. It’s a very dangerous development, I agree.
PETER DALE SCOTT: And now with the election, we don’t know what the situation is going to be in November.
DAVID TALBOT: Again, I think he is now such a weakened president, really, I think, condemned by history for the way he’s handled the pandemic. And I think now even large sectors of his base are going to vote against him. That’s what I’m reading in the press now. Fortunately, I think the blowback over Lafayette Square and the blowback from Portland was so severe from the media and the rest of the military, frankly. I saw major military figures, some retired, on TV denouncing what he was doing. And having these paramilitary thugs wearing military camouflage uniforms; they were outraged by that, they thought that was an insult to the military. So, I think that’s still a fringe development; he may try to utilize them, mobilize them if he loses in November, but I think they’ll be quickly swept aside. But my fears in the long-term, because I think that group actually represents a fascistic element in American life. I think they’re a Brownshirt mentality, and I think a more effective leader than Trump in the future could mobilize those Brownshirts forces the way Hitler did in Germany, frankly, to fortify a take-over in the US. So, my fear is beyond Trump.
PETER DALE SCOTT: Well, my fear is… you’re voicing fears that I’ve had for thirty or forty years. Every time there’s a new president I’m just – I don’t want to say terrified – I’m just really concerned. And now I’m going to say, the other side of me is then, you know, Reagan came in and he broke the Air Controllers strike at the beginning and we realized this was a war on Labor, and you get all kinds of things that I thought were terrible; and then he got reelected, which I couldn’t believe! Now when I look back on it, I’m going to shock you again, that Reagan did a lot of bad things but, you know, he was good for the country in the sense that we were practically in a Civil War mentality during Vietnam, and in eight years of boring Reagandom, by the end of that time, America was… I think you wrote a book about this actually, you know, that America was interested in Baseball and Football, and…
DAVID TALBOT: John [garbled] agrees with you on that, right? He’s a liberal professor, he wrote a book sort of praising Reagan.
BILL SIMPICH: But what about the military intelligence angle in the 80s, Peter? I’ve heard it said that Ed Meese and his military intelligence buddies played a big role in shifting power during that era in ways largely unseen.
DAVID TALBOT: William Casey.
PETER DALE SCOTT: Well, the powers acts to me are very alarming and the best way to take a first step on that, whether it’s for the short run or the long run, is to get rid of the State of Emergency and then we can go to work on the Patriot Act and some other things. At least we agree on that.
And, I’m just going to say because, you know, I’m now 91, I think I’ve really learned to not be as concerned as I used to be; to be concerned enough to want to act, and I want to act now on this, but America surprises us. There’s so much going on in this country and so many new forces are coming up, and Youth is so much more clued in and more global in its thinking than previous generations of youth.
I don’t want to close this on a message of gloom about America; just a message of concern. We have a problem here; we’ve defined the problem and let’s deal with that problem.
DAVID TALBOT: Yeah, well look, just to endorse what you said, look at where the insurgent democrats, these younger activists, you know, African-American, Arab-American, are winning. They’re winning in St. Louis; they’re winning in Detroit; they’re winning in Illinois, in the heartland, not just in New York City and the Bay area. So that’s very heartening to me. I agree there’s a new wave of democrats coming into office.
My concern again is about the future because I don’t think a Biden victory is obviously going to be sufficient. Because, what we saw under Obama is that the left went to sleep, and a lot of these problems that you’re talking about got ratified, or not challenged, or became even worse under Obama. I think there were more prosecutions of whistle-blowers, and I’m sorry Dan Ellsberg’s not here, but more prosecutions under Obama than there had been under Bush. So, in some ways, Obama was kind of a silent stalker, you know, during this period. Certainly, he’s not someone we should romanticize. And Biden was, of course, his Vice President and was even more embedded in the Washington swamp than Obama was.
PETER DALE SCOTT: You can sum it up by saying that America’s problems are far too big; we should not have the illusion that a president, a new president, even if it’s the president we devotedly hoped for, and I don’t think Biden was really the hope of anybody in this room; these are problems that are going to take a long time to solve, or perhaps the word is diminish rather than solve. But I think America will be around here for a long time to work on the national problems, and so, let’s do our little bit without being carried away with how much we can actually achieve by what we’re doing.
BILL SIMPICH: What’s our strategy? The question I want to ask is, how do we get the COG message out to a wider audience? What format?
PETER DALE SCOTT: David said we should use it through the media and I agree, but I think we should go to Congress directly. I think two degrees of separation, I’m sure each of us knows somebody who knows a Congressman, and we should just put this directly to the democrats. This is, you know, your future is at stake in this: You’ve got to get rid of COG. That’s what the task is to be done and if we can support it by getting a Mother Jones or Salon or some of these places to pick up the call then, that’s good! Do it by any means necessary, but keep it legal and keep it non-violent.
BILL SIMPICH: [Laughs]
DAVID TALBOT: I would agree with that and I would add on addendum to that:
I think the COG thing is big enough to focus upon right away and I think we should do that. But I think the long-range goal should be to dismantle the repressive machinery that this country has built up since the Cold War and COG is part of it but there’s a lot of other aspects to it. And, I think it’s got to be part of a broader truth and reconciliation process. And, of course, Bill and Dan and you, Peter, we all signed the statement of the Truth and Reconciliation Committee demanding more inquiry into the assassinations of the 1960s: the Kennedy brothers, Martin Luther King, and Malcolm X, and the profound effect they had on American history. None of those assassinations have as yet, I think, been fully investigated.
So, I think, you know, when you don’t confront your history, of course, as the saying goes, you are doomed to repeat it. I think America is in this terrible tragic loop because we are prevented from owning our own history. And I don’t think even a change of government; I think very few, probably, of the American people even know about that and know about the legislation that was passed after 9/11. So, I think it’s got to be a part of a broader education process for America to know its own country.
PETER DALE SCOTT: Amen. But can I just say, as I wrote in The War Conspiracy, 2008 edition, COG is the top of a can of worms, and if you open that can, if you look at COG and how it got to be implemented, and you’re going to, I believe, find yourself going back to what happened in 1963 in Dallas. I believe that is all one continuous process. So my sort of Canadian tentative way is to begin with the immediate and smaller problem but, I do sincerely believe that in dealing with that one issue you’re opening the door to dealing with the long-range issues that you were talking about and, in particular, the assassination of John F. Kennedy which I think can be correlated with 9/11 in very specific ways which I have tried to spell out; I’ve given about 15 of them. So, you’re doing the right thing for both goals if you start with the immediate goal first.
DAVID TALBOT: I think you’re right; I think that’s a good starting place, Peter.
Well look, we should probably wrap up, don’t you think? We have a good over view, I think of the issue.
BILL SIMPICH: I think so too. I can tell you on my end that the Truth and Reconciliation Committee is still focused on trying to get before Congress or do some kind of inquest in the year or two ahead, and I’ve personally taken it upon myself to do a campaign to get all the documents scanned in the National Archives. If we can get them scanned in the next couple of years it will open up thousands of interviews, et cetera, that we’ve never had before on that era on that piece of history. I think it does flow naturally from the COG to an examination of how to renew…
DAVID TALBOT: Well, Bill, maybe you should put the COG thing on the Truth and Reconciliation Committee’s agenda.
BILL SIMPICH: Oh, I could certainly do that.
DAVID TALBOT: Yeah.
BILL SIMPICH: We’re not ready to move though until after November. I know Peter would like to get something in the press before November.
DAVID TALBOT: Well, Peter, I will actually write about this today on my Facebook page, such as that is. But my plan, long-range, is to take my page off of Facebook and start my own independent blog after I’m done with my book.
PETER DALE SCOTT: Amen to that. Amen to that, David.
DAVID TALBOT: Yeah. I don’t want to [garbled] for Zuckerberg any more, it’s a terrible model. So, I’m going to secede from Facebook and use it only as an advertising tool to point people to my own blog. And so, I hope it has some effect within the chattering class, at least, and so I’ll begin to talk about this issue, Peter.
PETER DALE SCOTT: By the way, I just read an email from Jonathan; he’s not with us because he’s on another Zoom call.
[All laugh]
DAVID TALBOT: Thank you, Peter. Thank you, Bill. That was great.
[End]