democracynow--2020-01-08--Headlines for January  8, 2020

Headlines for January  8, 2020

Iranian forces fired 22 ballistic missiles at two Iraqi military bases that house U.S. and Iraqi troops early Wednesday morning , in what Iran described as revenge for the U.S. assassination of Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani at the Baghdad International Airport last week .
The missiles were launched from inside Iran .
Iraq says Iran warned them ahead of the attacks , which struck the Al Asad Airbase in the western province of Anbar and a base near Erbil in northern Iraq .
Senior Iraqi officials say there were no American or Iraqi casualties in the strikes .
This is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the missile attacks .
Javad Zarif : “ Well , we have said very clearly that if the United States takes any further action , Iran will respond accordingly , and we will respond in a very harsh way , but proportionately .
… Well , we did not start this process of escalation .
The United States waged an economic war against Iran .
The United States has to come to its senses.
” Only hours after the launch of the missiles , a Boeing 737 jet crashed shortly after takeoff from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to the Ukrainian capital Kiev .
The crash killed all 176 people on board , including 82 Iranians and 63 Canadians .
Iranian media reported the crash was due to technical difficulties .
The jet was a predecessor to Boeing ’ s flawed 737 MAX passenger jet , which has been grounded worldwide following two deadly crashes that killed 346 people .
Meanwhile , in Iraq , anti-government protesters are calling for demonstrations on January 10 to demand an end to political interference by the United States or Iran in Iraqi politics .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ attacked anti-government protesters in the southern city of Nasiriyah , opening fire and burning down tents at their protest encampment .
This all comes as the United States is deploying about 4,000 U.S. soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division based out of Fort Bragg , North Carolina , to Kuwait .
This is military spouse Katie Fernandez .
Katie Fernandez : “ So , the thought of my husband being on a plane to a war zone by the end of the day is — it ’ s shocking , even to us @ @ @ @ @ @ @ job .
Technically , this is not .
It ’ s not the job that we ’ re used to .
So , it is very sudden and unexpected and traumatic to the military families and the community here , because this is not something that we have seen , at least in the last 10 years or so.
” We ’ ll have more on the latest on the U.S. , Iraq and Iran after headlines .

Iranian forces fired 22 ballistic missiles at two Iraqi military bases that house U.S. and Iraqi troops early Wednesday morning, in what Iran described as revenge for the U.S. assassination of Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani at the Baghdad International Airport last week.
The missiles were launched from inside Iran. Iraq says Iran warned them ahead of the attacks, which struck the Al Asad Airbase in the western province of Anbar and a base near Erbil in northern Iraq. Senior Iraqi officials say there were no American or Iraqi casualties in the strikes.
This is Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif speaking after the missile attacks.
Javad Zarif: “Well, we have said very clearly that if the United States takes any further action, Iran will respond accordingly, and we will respond in a very harsh way, but proportionately. … Well, we did not start this process of escalation. The United States waged an economic war against Iran. The United States has to come to its senses.”
Only hours after the launch of the missiles, a Boeing 737 jet crashed shortly after takeoff from Tehran’s international airport, headed to the Ukrainian capital Kiev. The crash killed all 176 people on board, including 82 Iranians and 63 Canadians. Iranian media reported the crash was due to technical difficulties. The jet was a predecessor to Boeing’s flawed 737 MAX passenger jet, which has been grounded worldwide following two deadly crashes that killed 346 people.
Meanwhile, in Iraq, anti-government protesters are calling for demonstrations on January 10 to demand an end to political interference by the United States or Iran in Iraqi politics. Iraqi journalists are also reporting armed men attacked anti-government protesters in the southern city of Nasiriyah, opening fire and burning down tents at their protest encampment.
This all comes as the United States is deploying about 4,000 U.S. soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division based out of Fort Bragg, North Carolina, to Kuwait. This is military spouse Katie Fernandez.
Katie Fernandez: “So, the thought of my husband being on a plane to a war zone by the end of the day is — it’s shocking, even to us, even though it’s his job. Technically, this is not. It’s not the job that we’re used to. So, it is very sudden and unexpected and traumatic to the military families and the community here, because this is not something that we have seen, at least in the last 10 years or so.”
We’ll have more on the latest on the U.S., Iraq and Iran after headlines.


democracynow--2020-01-09--Uyghurs & Other Muslim Minorities Forced into Labor Programs to Work in Chinese Factories

This is a rush transcript .
Copy may not be in its final form .
AMY GOODMAN : This is Democracy Now !
I ’ m Amy Goodman , with Nermeen Shaikh .
NERMEEN SHAIKH : We turn now to China , where a shocking new exposé has revealed that Chinese authorities are systematically forcing Muslims — mostly Uyghurs and Kazakhs — into labor programs to supply Chinese factories with a cheap and compliant workforce .
The New York Times investigation , headlined “ Inside China ’ s Push to Turn Muslim Minorities into an Army of Workers , ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with leading experts and visits to the far-western region of Xinjiang , where about half of the population is Muslim .
What it reveals is a sweeping program to push poor farmers , villagers and small traders into sometimes months-long training courses before assigning them to low-wage factory work .
The programs work in tandem with indoctrination camps where an estimated 1 million adults from the Uyghur community are being imprisoned .
China claims its labor programs are designed to combat extremism and alleviate poverty .
Uyghur activists say they ’ re part @ @ @ @ @ @ @ strip them of their language and community and carry out nothing short of cultural genocide .
The New York Times obtained rare footage taken inside one of China ’ s labor programs .
For more , we go to Hong Kong , where we ’ re joined by Austin Ramzy , The New York Times reporter who co-authored the recent exposé .
And in Washington , D.C. , we ’ re joined by Nury Turkel , Uyghur-American attorney , board chair of the Uyghur Human Rights Project .
We welcome you both to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s begin with you .
Can you lay out the significance of these documents that you got ?
Explain where you got them from , hundreds of pages , and what they say .
AUSTIN RAMZY : We received hundreds of pages of documents from a member of the Chinese political elite that revealed the origin of the internment camps in Xinjiang and how the Chinese leadership , including Xi Jinping , beginning in 2014 , pushed for a solution to what he saw as extremism and terrorism and violence that needed to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Xinjiang .
And so he called for a tough solution .
And in the years that followed , we saw a beginning of small-level internment camps .
And then , beginning in — after 2016 , a new party secretary came into Xinjiang and began a large-scale internment operation that led to the — you know , as many as a million people who were put into these camps .
The documents also revealed that — you know , publicly , the Chinese government has described these camps as training centers to give @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ] that will steer them away from extremism .
But in the language of the documents themselves , it describes these as — these programs as punishment .
And it shows that the authorities are plainly aware of the suffering that is caused , not only to the people in the camps , but to their families and children , who are left without parents .
AMY GOODMAN : And can you explain what these camps are ?
You ’ ve got indoctrination camps , and you ’ ve got labor camps .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ document what you say is as many as a million people , Uyghur Muslims , Kazakh Muslims , in these camps .
AUSTIN RAMZY : Well , there are multiple programs happening .
There ’ s the internment program , which has as many as a million people in these camps .
The labor program is separate but related , and it involves taking people from — primarily from southern Xinjiang and sending them to northern Xinjiang , to other parts of China , to work in factories , to work , as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , to put them in more formal labor , as opposed , often , to the farm work that they did before .
It ’ s a separate system of control , not as extreme as the camps themselves , but from everything we ’ ve seen , there is coercion involved in forcing these people into this sort of work .
These people , some of them include family members of people in camps .
So there are connections , and it is related to the overall program of control .
But @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Xinjiang .
NERMEEN SHAIKH : Well , Austin , earlier you talked about the fact that , you know , some of these — when these Uyghurs are disappeared from their homes and they have children who return from study either in Hong Kong or other parts of China , they come back and they discover that their family members are gone .
What explanation are they given ?
There ’ s actually a document that ’ s distributed ?
AUSTIN RAMZY : That ’ s right .
That was one of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ we received .
And it outlines basically what local officials in Xinjiang should say to these young people who return home from other parts of China to learn that family members have been put into camps .
It was a document from 2017 , when the program really began ramping up .
And it told officials to tell these young people that their family members had — it uses almost pseudomedical language to say that they ’ ve been infected by a virus , and just as if you were infected with an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ period of treatment .
It must be closed treatment so that this won ’ t spread to other people .
And it describes these programs as being for their own benefit .
But at the same time , there ’ s messages to sort of warn these young people that they themselves should not complain , because only through their agreement will their family members eventually get out .
AMY GOODMAN : Austin Ramzy , can you talk about the impact of the forced labor on the global supply chain and the participation @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Walmart ?
AUSTIN RAMZY : Well , Xinjiang produces about 80 to 85 % of China ’ s cotton .
China is , of course , a huge clothing manufacturer .
And the government has been trying to increase the amount of clothing and textile production in Xinjiang , so some of these labor programs involve clothing and textile factories and are tied with the production of cotton in Xinjiang .
And so , Muji and Uniqlo have previously advertised Xinjiang cotton .
Muji did not respond to us , but they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hard to ensure that there ’ s no forced labor in their supply chain .
Uniqlo said that they do not work with partners in Xinjiang .
But the short answer is that the significance of China in production of all things and the significance of Xinjiang in terms of clothing and textile production means that it ’ s very risky for companies that have any production connected with Xinjiang , and requires really close investigation of their supply chains .
NERMEEN SHAIKH : Well , I ’ d like to bring in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ activist , board chair at the Uyghur Human Rights Project .
Could you , Nury , respond to the significance of this exposé ?
NURY TURKEL : These are what we lawyers call an evidence .
This is not a speculation .
This is not a report done by a third party or NGO .
This is a hard evidence , comes straight out from the Chinese government ’ s own archives .
What we have today is that in the past two-and-a-half years we ’ ve been relying on open-source information on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the camps , as well as the personal witness accounts , survivors ’ accounts , to come up with a close-to-reality figure .
But now we have evidence .
These evidence are so significant and so revealing .
Several things comes to mind .
One is that this is not a local government officials trying to impress the central government and formulated these policies .
This has come , apparently , directly coming from the Chinese Communist Party , General Secretary Xi Jinping , and his local entrusted officials , Chen Quanguo and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ been saying — these documents confirm — AMY GOODMAN : We have five seconds , Nury .
NURY TURKEL : These documents have confirmed what we have been telling the world in the last two-and-a-half years , but it ’ s incumbent upon the government officials , lawmakers , judges and prosecutors to look into this to see if this constitutes crimes against humanity .
AMY GOODMAN : We ’ re going to do Part 2 .
Thank you to Nury Turkel as well as to Austin Ramzy of The New York Times @

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now! I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: We turn now to China, where a shocking new exposé has revealed that Chinese authorities are systematically forcing Muslims — mostly Uyghurs and Kazakhs — into labor programs to supply Chinese factories with a cheap and compliant workforce.
The New York Times investigation, headlined “Inside China’s Push to Turn Muslim Minorities into an Army of Workers,” is based on official documents, interviews with leading experts and visits to the far-western region of Xinjiang, where about half of the population is Muslim.
What it reveals is a sweeping program to push poor farmers, villagers and small traders into sometimes months-long training courses before assigning them to low-wage factory work. The programs work in tandem with indoctrination camps where an estimated 1 million adults from the Uyghur community are being imprisoned.
China claims its labor programs are designed to combat extremism and alleviate poverty. Uyghur activists say they’re part of China’s ongoing campaign to strip them of their language and community and carry out nothing short of cultural genocide.
The New York Times obtained rare footage taken inside one of China’s labor programs.
NARRATOR: In a far corner of northwestern China, a car drives along a wall lined with barbed wire, heading towards what looks like a standard apartment complex. Access here is restricted, and the cameraperson is filming secretly.
PASSENGER: [translated] Filming is prohibited. Don’t film.
DRIVER: [translated] I’m not going to. I’m just going to follow you inside and take a look.
PASSENGER: [translated] Fine.
NARRATOR: Because this is no ordinary residence. It’s part of a contentious labor resettlement program run by the Chinese government to extend state control over Muslim minorities, mostly Uyghurs, by moving them from one part of China to work in another. This covert, low-quality footage, that we’ve adjusted to reveal some details and obscure others, gives us some rare insights into how people in this program live and are indoctrinated.
TEXT: [translated] “Love the Party. Love the Country. Love the family of the Chinese Nation.” “Anti-Separatism. Anti-Extremism. Anti-Violence.”
NARRATOR: Over the last few years, the mass incarceration of more than a million Uyghurs and Kazakhs by the Chinese government has led to international outrage. These labor programs are part of that larger story.
AMY GOODMAN: That, a New York Times exposé.
For more, we go to Hong Kong, where we’re joined by Austin Ramzy, The New York Times reporter who co-authored the recent exposé. And in Washington, D.C., we’re joined by Nury Turkel, Uyghur-American attorney, board chair of the Uyghur Human Rights Project.
We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Austin, let’s begin with you. Can you lay out the significance of these documents that you got? Explain where you got them from, hundreds of pages, and what they say.
AUSTIN RAMZY: We received hundreds of pages of documents from a member of the Chinese political elite that revealed the origin of the internment camps in Xinjiang and how the Chinese leadership, including Xi Jinping, beginning in 2014, pushed for a solution to what he saw as extremism and terrorism and violence that needed to be controlled, put under control in Xinjiang. And so he called for a tough solution.
And in the years that followed, we saw a beginning of small-level internment camps. And then, beginning in — after 2016, a new party secretary came into Xinjiang and began a large-scale internment operation that led to the — you know, as many as a million people who were put into these camps.
The documents also revealed that — you know, publicly, the Chinese government has described these camps as training centers to give people skills to help them [inaudible] that will steer them away from extremism. But in the language of the documents themselves, it describes these as — these programs as punishment. And it shows that the authorities are plainly aware of the suffering that is caused, not only to the people in the camps, but to their families and children, who are left without parents.
AMY GOODMAN: And can you explain what these camps are? You’ve got indoctrination camps, and you’ve got labor camps. And explain how you were able to document what you say is as many as a million people, Uyghur Muslims, Kazakh Muslims, in these camps.
AUSTIN RAMZY: Well, there are multiple programs happening. There’s the internment program, which has as many as a million people in these camps. The labor program is separate but related, and it involves taking people from — primarily from southern Xinjiang and sending them to northern Xinjiang, to other parts of China, to work in factories, to work, as the video showed, as street cleaners, to put them in more formal labor, as opposed, often, to the farm work that they did before. It’s a separate system of control, not as extreme as the camps themselves, but from everything we’ve seen, there is coercion involved in forcing these people into this sort of work. These people, some of them include family members of people in camps. So there are connections, and it is related to the overall program of control. But there are many different programs happening in Xinjiang.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, Austin, earlier you talked about the fact that, you know, some of these — when these Uyghurs are disappeared from their homes and they have children who return from study either in Hong Kong or other parts of China, they come back and they discover that their family members are gone. What explanation are they given? There’s actually a document that’s distributed?
AUSTIN RAMZY: That’s right. That was one of the most telling documents in the cache that we received. And it outlines basically what local officials in Xinjiang should say to these young people who return home from other parts of China to learn that family members have been put into camps. It was a document from 2017, when the program really began ramping up.
And it told officials to tell these young people that their family members had — it uses almost pseudomedical language to say that they’ve been infected by a virus, and just as if you were infected with an actual virus, you would want a period of treatment. It must be closed treatment so that this won’t spread to other people. And it describes these programs as being for their own benefit. But at the same time, there’s messages to sort of warn these young people that they themselves should not complain, because only through their agreement will their family members eventually get out.
AMY GOODMAN: Austin Ramzy, can you talk about the impact of the forced labor on the global supply chain and the participation by stores, including Muji, Uniqlo, Walmart?
AUSTIN RAMZY: Well, Xinjiang produces about 80 to 85% of China’s cotton. China is, of course, a huge clothing manufacturer. And the government has been trying to increase the amount of clothing and textile production in Xinjiang, so some of these labor programs involve clothing and textile factories and are tied with the production of cotton in Xinjiang.
And so, Muji and Uniqlo have previously advertised Xinjiang cotton. Muji did not respond to us, but they said last year that they work very hard to ensure that there’s no forced labor in their supply chain. Uniqlo said that they do not work with partners in Xinjiang.
But the short answer is that the significance of China in production of all things and the significance of Xinjiang in terms of clothing and textile production means that it’s very risky for companies that have any production connected with Xinjiang, and requires really close investigation of their supply chains.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, I’d like to bring in Nury Turkel, a Uyghur-American attorney and activist, board chair at the Uyghur Human Rights Project. Could you, Nury, respond to the significance of this exposé?
NURY TURKEL: These are what we lawyers call an evidence. This is not a speculation. This is not a report done by a third party or NGO. This is a hard evidence, comes straight out from the Chinese government’s own archives.
What we have today is that in the past two-and-a-half years we’ve been relying on open-source information on construction bids and the future expansion of the camps, as well as the personal witness accounts, survivors’ accounts, to come up with a close-to-reality figure. But now we have evidence. These evidence are so significant and so revealing.
Several things comes to mind. One is that this is not a local government officials trying to impress the central government and formulated these policies. This has come, apparently, directly coming from the Chinese Communist Party, General Secretary Xi Jinping, and his local entrusted officials, Chen Quanguo and others. So, we’ve been saying — these documents confirm —
AMY GOODMAN: We have five seconds, Nury.
NURY TURKEL: These documents have confirmed what we have been telling the world in the last two-and-a-half years, but it’s incumbent upon the government officials, lawmakers, judges and prosecutors to look into this to see if this constitutes crimes against humanity.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to do Part 2. Thank you to Nury Turkel as well as to Austin Ramzy of The New York Times.


democracynow--2020-01-09--Andrew Bacevich: The U.S. Needs to Abandon "Militarized Approach" to Middle East and Build Peace

This is a rush transcript .
Copy may not be in its final form .
AMY GOODMAN : This is Democracy Now !
, democracynow.org , The War and Peace Report .
I ’ m Amy Goodman , with Nermeen Shaikh .
On Monday , I spoke with another retired colonel .
That was U.S. Army Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson , who served as Secretary of State Colin Powell ’ s chief of staff from 2002 to 2005 .
Wilkerson talked about how the U.S. worked with the Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani , who Trump just had assassinated , how the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Taliban in Afghanistan .
AMY GOODMAN : So , that is a colonel who was deeply involved with this at the time , the chief of staff of Secretary of State Colin Powell , who gave that speech at the U.N. pushing for war , saying that there were weapons of mass destruction .
That was Lawrence Wilkerson .
He was responding to Pence tweeting out that Soleimani and his entourage were actually helping us in — he was saying that Pence ’ s words were laughable , that , you know , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ tweeted that Soleimani “ Assisted in the clandestine travel to Afghanistan of 10 of the 12 terrorists who carried out the September 11 terrorist attacks in the United States , ” trying to link Soleimani to the 9/11 attacks .
So , he says that he actively supported fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan .
And as even Trump admitted yesterday in his speech , the Iranians were also fighting against ISIS .
And if you can talk about that , that part of this , what is happening right now with this battleground @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a place you know very well , and taking out Soleimani , who was key in fighting ISIS ?
ANDREW BACEVICH : Was that directed at me ?
ANDREW BACEVICH : Yes .
I think Larry Wilkerson was making the key point .
And that is that Iran is a nation-state that pursues its own interests .
We tend to think — many Americans tend to think of Iran in ideological terms , that it ’ s a revolutionary state .
Now , there is a veneer of ideology .
There are these @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to America.
” It seems to me we would be wise to take all of that with a grain of salt — not to ignore it , but to not let that define our understanding of what to expect from Iran .
It would make far greater sense to assume that they were concerned with the security of their nation , the well-being of their people and the survival of the regime .
We have , for far too long — we , the United States , have , for far too long @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the world through a Manichaean lens , in which there are good guys and there are bad guys .
And we find ourselves in this peculiar situation where the Iranians are bad guys , and the kingdom of Saudi Arabia ends up being the good guys .
This is absurd .
That Manichaean perspective is one of the things I think that sustains the militarized approach to U.S. policy that we have been following in this region for decades now : the conviction that somehow the appropriate use of American military power is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the good guys to prevail .
That hasn ’ t happened .
It hasn ’ t worked .
It won ’ t work .
And I do believe that the only conceivable way for us to begin to extricate ourselves from this terrible mess in the region — the instability , the chaos , the violence , that we have helped to stoke — the only way for us to begin to resolve that is to abandon this militarized approach and to take a more balanced position with regard to the rivalries in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for good guys versus bad guys .
What we should be for is finding a way to end the instability and to create some semblance of peace .
And the further use of American military power , which multiple administrations have now undertaken , the reliance on American military power , has not advanced our purposes and will not .
And the beginning of wisdom lies in acknowledging that fact .
NERMEEN SHAIKH : Well , Professor Bacevich , I want to go back to 2017 , when , in fact , President @ @ @ @ @ @ @ entirely be the good guys , as you said .
This was just weeks after his inauguration in an interview with Fox host Bill O ’ Reilly .
He was asked about his relationship to Putin .
This is what he said .
NERMEEN SHAIKH : So , that ’ s President Trump , just newly inaugurated in February 2017 , speaking to Bill O ’ Reilly , who ’ s of course no longer at Fox News .
Your response , Professor Bacevich ?
ANDREW BACEVICH : So you ’ re backing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have to say something good about President Trump , because if he — who knows if he even knew what he was saying and whether — how serious he was in saying it ?
But there is great wisdom in acknowledging that we are not innocent .
We have not been innocent in the Middle East .
We have not been innocent in the entire history of our republic , since 1776 .
We have enjoyed enormous success in accumulating wealth and power .
But the process of accumulation has been one that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of it ’ s evil .
But I do believe that the president is absolutely right that if we are able to acknowledge that we are not innocent , then that is a point of departure for re-evaluating our role in the world at the present moment , because if we are not innocent , then that gives you a different perspective — for example , on this latest dust-up between the United States and Iran .
All of that said , one of the great difficulties with this president , that whatever @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s almost certain to contradict by Thursday or the next week , and he reverses course .
And so , it ’ s very , very difficult to — given all that he says , whether in speeches or in tweets , it ’ s very difficult to pull the threads of continuity out of his many remarks in order to ascertain what he really believes and what he really thinks , because he is such a contradictory figure .
AMY GOODMAN : Andrew Bacevich , President Clinton famously bombed Iraq when he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have the president , Trump , as he ’ s being impeached and going to a Senate impeachment trial , assassinating Soleimani .
You wrote , in an article last month , “ If Ukraine Is Impeachable , What ’ s Afghanistan ?
” and you talk about Afghanistan being the far greater crime .
If you can talk about what is happening in Washington right now ?
At the same time Trump is making his announcement yesterday about Iran , about Soleimani , about increased sanctions strangling Iran , on the same @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Senate majority leader , he ’ s meeting with Mitch McConnell , going through what this Senate impeachment trial will be .
ANDREW BACEVICH : Well , what I was referring to in the piece that you just referenced was the Afghanistan Papers , the documents that The Washington Post had revealed a couple weeks earlier , huge trove of documents , which demonstrated , beyond any doubt whatsoever , that the American people have been lied to about the Afghanistan War , the longest war in our country .
We were @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the end of the tunnel , when the people running the war understood that no progress was being made , when the people running the war themselves acknowledged that they had had no strategy , no understanding of the problem that they were dealing with .
And the point I was trying to make in that piece is , and I certainly look forward to the day when Trump is no longer in office , but if his — whatever we want to call it , his antics with regard to Ukraine , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by God , what are we to say of a war that is now in its 19th year , that we have been lied to repeatedly , that has led to the loss of thousands of American lives , tens of thousands of American wounded , I think more than 100,000 Afghans dead , couple trillion dollars of money expended ?
I mean , how does that compare ?
And my answer is that that is indeed a far greater crime .
Now , that ’ s not a crime that necessarily we @ @ @ @ @ @ @ But in terms of an issue that demands scrutiny by our politicians , by the American people , I think Afghanistan is a far greater crime .
And it saddens me greatly that here we are in the midst of the impeachment issue , now with the Iran crisis also having erupted — it saddens me greatly that the Afghanistan Papers have pretty much disappeared as an issue of any particular public interest .
And I think that ’ s a failure on the part of the media not to have stuck with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ revelations more deeply .
NERMEEN SHAIKH : Well , Professor Bacevich , before we conclude , I ’ d like to turn to your book , which , of course , explains , in part , how we got to where we are , especially the U.S. role in the Middle East , the broader Middle East .
The book is called The Age of Illusions : How America Squandered Its Cold War Victory .
Now , you begin the book with an epigraph from James Baldwin ’ s Notes of a Native @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , “ In America , though , life seems to move faster than anywhere else on the globe and each generation is promised more than it will get : which creates , in each generation , a furious , bewildered rage , the rage of people who can not find solid ground beneath their feet.
” That ’ s James Baldwin , whom you quote in this book , The Age of Illusions .
So , Professor Bacevich , explain why you chose that quote and your understanding of why the consensus that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ military establishment elites following the Cold War , you say , led to the election of Donald Trump in 2016 .
ANDREW BACEVICH : So , I believe that that quotation by James Baldwin captures where we were , where we came to be as a country by November 2016 and the election that installed Donald Trump in office .
That is to say that a people who were bewildered and enraged , who felt that they had no place to stand , turned the country over to someone who is manifestly ill-equipped @ @ @ @ @ @ @ were intent on repudiating the policy consensus that had existed during the post-Cold War period .
Now , that ’ s a phrase I use in the book to refer to the period , roughly quarter-century , between the end of the Cold War , fall of the Berlin Wall , 1989 , to the election of Donald Trump in 2016 .
1989 , a moment of enormous euphoria , we believed we had won , we had triumphed .
We believed , in the famous title of the essay by Francis Fukuyama @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” had arrived .
And I argue that a policy elite , from that moment on , set out to exploit what they believed as our great triumph .
And their exploitation took the form of some very specific notions .
One of them was globalization , the conviction that corporate capitalism on a global scale was going to create unprecedented wealth and , they believed , work to the benefit of everyone .
They also believed in a permanently supreme American military power that could keep order in the planet and bring @ @ @ @ @ @ @ American values .
And operationalizing those ideas , which is what the post-Cold War presidents — Clinton , Bush Jr. and Obama — did , led to results quite other than those expected .
Globalization did make some people really , really rich .
And it also created economic inequality that we have never seen in our nation , at least never seen since the end of the 19th century .
It left behind millions and millions of Americans .
And this notion of American military supremacy as enabling us to keep order @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , all it did was to plunge us into a series of wars , some of which we don ’ t have any idea how to end .
So , I think what happened — there are lots of explanations for how Trump got elected .
The earlier discussion of ads on Facebook , I ’ m sure , played a role .
But my argument would be that the central explanation for Trump ’ s victory , that the election was a repudiation .
It was Americans who were not served , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ post-Cold War consensus saying , “ No , we ’ re not going to put up with this anymore.
” Unfortunately , that led to the election of somebody who is utterly incapable of correcting the mistakes of the post-Cold War period , reuniting the country and putting us on a more sensible course , hence the continuation of this crisis , which will last throughout the Trump years and , in all likelihood , will last beyond the Trump years .
AMY GOODMAN : Andrew Bacevich , we want to thank you @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Vietnam War veteran , professor emeritus of international relations and history at Boston University , now president and co-founder of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft .
His book is now out , The Age of Illusions : How America Squandered Its Cold War Victory .
Andrew Bacevich lost his son in Iraq .
When we come back , inside China ’ s push to turn Muslim minorities into an army of workers .
Stay with us .

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh. On Monday, I spoke with another retired colonel. That was U.S. Army Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, who served as Secretary of State Colin Powell’s chief of staff from 2002 to 2005. Wilkerson talked about how the U.S. worked with the Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani, who Trump just had assassinated, how the U.S. worked with him to fight the Taliban in Afghanistan.
LAWRENCE WILKERSON: Soleimani and his entourage were actually helping us in Afghanistan in 2001, early 2002, to fight the Taliban. We got indispensable help from Iran in that regard.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you elaborate on what Soleimani did back when you were in the Bush administration? You were working with him.
LAWRENCE WILKERSON: Well, what we had in the first days of our reaction on Afghanistan was not really a military action. It was a CIA action. Donald Rumsfeld actually got furious with the Army because it couldn’t get into Afghanistan fast enough. If you look at a map, you will see why it couldn’t get into Afghanistan fast enough. Of course, we had to go over to Pakistan, Uzbekistan, and ask them for overflight rights and for logistics rights and so forth in order to even get into Afghanistan.
But what you had was you had essentially a war between the Taliban, Mullah Omar and his group, what was left of al-Qaeda, and the Northern Alliance, which the CIA had been supporting all along. They had killed Massoud, the “Lion of Panjshir,” the guy who was really leading the Northern Alliance, too. Al-Qaeda had killed him about the same time they did the 9/11 attacks. So it was really chaotic.
When we did get some special operators in, and we got a lot of aircraft in with, of course, precision-guided munitions, then we began to turn the tide. And we began to get to a situation where — I can tell you, we were almost apoplectic at the time — we didn’t know who was going to invest Kabul. We didn’t know that we hadn’t just turned Kabul over to the Northern Alliance, and thus to a continuation of the last 30 years of warfare. So, we were very anxious to make sure everything worked the way we wanted it to after that so-called victory.
And one of the people — one of the groups that helped us the most, as you might imagine, were the Iranians, because the Iranians looked at the Taliban as their enemy, too. You may recall that the Taliban had killed some Iranian diplomats and others in the months prior. So the Iranians were all for our eliminating the Taliban as the legitimate government of Afghanistan, and so pitched in to help.
As I said, once President Bush had given his speech about the “axis of evil” and included Iran in that, their desire to help was not quite as ardent as it was before. But they, nonetheless, realizing, as Iran almost always does — I hate these people who say they’re irrational. They’re far more rational than we are. Let me say that again: The leadership in Tehran is far more rational than the leadership in Washington. So, they decided they would continue to help us, because, after all, the enemy of my enemy — you know, all that old, good business about the enemy of my enemy is my friend. And they did in fact continue to help us, all the way through the Bonn conference. And Soleimani was part of that at the time.
AMY GOODMAN: So, that is a colonel who was deeply involved with this at the time, the chief of staff of Secretary of State Colin Powell, who gave that speech at the U.N. pushing for war, saying that there were weapons of mass destruction. That was Lawrence Wilkerson. He was responding to Pence tweeting out that Soleimani and his entourage were actually helping us in — he was saying that Pence’s words were laughable, that, you know, Pence had just recently — had just tweeted that Soleimani “Assisted in the clandestine travel to Afghanistan of 10 of the 12 terrorists who carried out the September 11 terrorist attacks in the United States,” trying to link Soleimani to the 9/11 attacks. So, he says that he actively supported fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan. And as even Trump admitted yesterday in his speech, the Iranians were also fighting against ISIS. And if you can talk about that, that part of this, what is happening right now with this battleground, now going back to Iraq, a place you know very well, and taking out Soleimani, who was key in fighting ISIS?
ANDREW BACEVICH: Was that directed at me?
AMY GOODMAN: Yes, Andrew Bacevich.
ANDREW BACEVICH: Yes. I think Larry Wilkerson was making the key point. And that is that Iran is a nation-state that pursues its own interests. We tend to think — many Americans tend to think of Iran in ideological terms, that it’s a revolutionary state. Now, there is a veneer of ideology. There are these demonstrations in which people chant “Death to America.” It seems to me we would be wise to take all of that with a grain of salt — not to ignore it, but to not let that define our understanding of what to expect from Iran.
It would make far greater sense to assume that they were concerned with the security of their nation, the well-being of their people and the survival of the regime. We have, for far too long — we, the United States, have, for far too long, tended to view this part of the world through a Manichaean lens, in which there are good guys and there are bad guys. And we find ourselves in this peculiar situation where the Iranians are bad guys, and the kingdom of Saudi Arabia ends up being the good guys. This is absurd. That Manichaean perspective is one of the things I think that sustains the militarized approach to U.S. policy that we have been following in this region for decades now: the conviction that somehow the appropriate use of American military power is going to destroy the evildoers and enable the good guys to prevail. That hasn’t happened. It hasn’t worked. It won’t work.
And I do believe that the only conceivable way for us to begin to extricate ourselves from this terrible mess in the region — the instability, the chaos, the violence, that we have helped to stoke — the only way for us to begin to resolve that is to abandon this militarized approach and to take a more balanced position with regard to the rivalries in the region. We’re not for good guys versus bad guys. What we should be for is finding a way to end the instability and to create some semblance of peace. And the further use of American military power, which multiple administrations have now undertaken, the reliance on American military power, has not advanced our purposes and will not. And the beginning of wisdom lies in acknowledging that fact.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, Professor Bacevich, I want to go back to 2017, when, in fact, President Trump indicated that the U.S. might not entirely be the good guys, as you said. This was just weeks after his inauguration in an interview with Fox host Bill O’Reilly. He was asked about his relationship to Putin. This is what he said.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I say it’s better to get along with Russia than not. And if Russia helps us in the fight against ISIS, which is a major fight, and Islamic terrorism all over the world —
BILL O’REILLY: Right.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: — major fight, that’s a good thing. Will I get along with him? I have no idea. It’s very possible I won’t.
BILL O’REILLY: He’s a killer, though. Putin’s a killer.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: There are a lot of killers. We’ve got a lot of killers. What? You think our country’s so innocent? Do you think our country’s so innocent?
BILL O’REILLY: I don’t know of any government leaders that are killers in America.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Well, take a look at what we’ve done, too. We’ve made a lot of mistakes. I’ve been against the war in Iraq from the beginning.
BILL O’REILLY: Yeah, mistakes are different than —
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: There have been a lot of mistakes. OK, but a lot of people were killed. So —
BILL O’REILLY: All right.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: — a lot of killers around, believe me.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, that’s President Trump, just newly inaugurated in February 2017, speaking to Bill O’Reilly, who’s of course no longer at Fox News. Your response, Professor Bacevich?
ANDREW BACEVICH: So you’re backing me into a corner, where I have to say something good about President Trump, because if he — who knows if he even knew what he was saying and whether — how serious he was in saying it?
But there is great wisdom in acknowledging that we are not innocent. We have not been innocent in the Middle East. We have not been innocent in the entire history of our republic, since 1776. We have enjoyed enormous success in accumulating wealth and power. But the process of accumulation has been one that involved doing evil things. Not all of it’s evil.
But I do believe that the president is absolutely right that if we are able to acknowledge that we are not innocent, then that is a point of departure for re-evaluating our role in the world at the present moment, because if we are not innocent, then that gives you a different perspective — for example, on this latest dust-up between the United States and Iran.
All of that said, one of the great difficulties with this president, that whatever he said on Tuesday, he’s almost certain to contradict by Thursday or the next week, and he reverses course. And so, it’s very, very difficult to — given all that he says, whether in speeches or in tweets, it’s very difficult to pull the threads of continuity out of his many remarks in order to ascertain what he really believes and what he really thinks, because he is such a contradictory figure.
AMY GOODMAN: Andrew Bacevich, President Clinton famously bombed Iraq when he was being impeached. And then you have the president, Trump, as he’s being impeached and going to a Senate impeachment trial, assassinating Soleimani. You wrote, in an article last month, “If Ukraine Is Impeachable, What’s Afghanistan?” and you talk about Afghanistan being the far greater crime. If you can talk about what is happening in Washington right now? At the same time Trump is making his announcement yesterday about Iran, about Soleimani, about increased sanctions strangling Iran, on the same day, he’s meeting with the Senate majority leader, he’s meeting with Mitch McConnell, going through what this Senate impeachment trial will be.
ANDREW BACEVICH: Well, what I was referring to in the piece that you just referenced was the Afghanistan Papers, the documents that The Washington Post had revealed a couple weeks earlier, huge trove of documents, which demonstrated, beyond any doubt whatsoever, that the American people have been lied to about the Afghanistan War, the longest war in our country. We were constantly told that there was light at the end of the tunnel, when the people running the war understood that no progress was being made, when the people running the war themselves acknowledged that they had had no strategy, no understanding of the problem that they were dealing with.
And the point I was trying to make in that piece is, and I certainly look forward to the day when Trump is no longer in office, but if his — whatever we want to call it, his antics with regard to Ukraine, are worthy of impeachment, then, by God, what are we to say of a war that is now in its 19th year, that we have been lied to repeatedly, that has led to the loss of thousands of American lives, tens of thousands of American wounded, I think more than 100,000 Afghans dead, couple trillion dollars of money expended? I mean, how does that compare?
And my answer is that that is indeed a far greater crime. Now, that’s not a crime that necessarily we can pin on one particular individual. But in terms of an issue that demands scrutiny by our politicians, by the American people, I think Afghanistan is a far greater crime. And it saddens me greatly that here we are in the midst of the impeachment issue, now with the Iran crisis also having erupted — it saddens me greatly that the Afghanistan Papers have pretty much disappeared as an issue of any particular public interest. And I think that’s a failure on the part of the media not to have stuck with that and pursue the Afghanistan Papers’ revelations more deeply.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, Professor Bacevich, before we conclude, I’d like to turn to your book, which, of course, explains, in part, how we got to where we are, especially the U.S. role in the Middle East, the broader Middle East. The book is called The Age of Illusions: How America Squandered Its Cold War Victory. Now, you begin the book with an epigraph from James Baldwin’s Notes of a Native Son. The epigraph reads, quote, “In America, though, life seems to move faster than anywhere else on the globe and each generation is promised more than it will get: which creates, in each generation, a furious, bewildered rage, the rage of people who cannot find solid ground beneath their feet.” That’s James Baldwin, whom you quote in this book, The Age of Illusions. So, Professor Bacevich, explain why you chose that quote and your understanding of why the consensus that was reached by the foreign policy and military establishment elites following the Cold War, you say, led to the election of Donald Trump in 2016.
ANDREW BACEVICH: So, I believe that that quotation by James Baldwin captures where we were, where we came to be as a country by November 2016 and the election that installed Donald Trump in office. That is to say that a people who were bewildered and enraged, who felt that they had no place to stand, turned the country over to someone who is manifestly ill-equipped to serve as president, because they were intent on repudiating the policy consensus that had existed during the post-Cold War period. Now, that’s a phrase I use in the book to refer to the period, roughly quarter-century, between the end of the Cold War, fall of the Berlin Wall, 1989, to the election of Donald Trump in 2016.
1989, a moment of enormous euphoria, we believed we had won, we had triumphed. We believed, in the famous title of the essay by Francis Fukuyama, that “the end of history” had arrived. And I argue that a policy elite, from that moment on, set out to exploit what they believed as our great triumph.
And their exploitation took the form of some very specific notions. One of them was globalization, the conviction that corporate capitalism on a global scale was going to create unprecedented wealth and, they believed, work to the benefit of everyone. They also believed in a permanently supreme American military power that could keep order in the planet and bring about the further advance or export of American values.
And operationalizing those ideas, which is what the post-Cold War presidents — Clinton, Bush Jr. and Obama — did, led to results quite other than those expected. Globalization did make some people really, really rich. And it also created economic inequality that we have never seen in our nation, at least never seen since the end of the 19th century. It left behind millions and millions of Americans. And this notion of American military supremacy as enabling us to keep order and to export our values, well, all it did was to plunge us into a series of wars, some of which we don’t have any idea how to end.
So, I think what happened — there are lots of explanations for how Trump got elected. The earlier discussion of ads on Facebook, I’m sure, played a role. But my argument would be that the central explanation for Trump’s victory, that the election was a repudiation. It was Americans who were not served, and indeed were hurt, by the post-Cold War consensus saying, “No, we’re not going to put up with this anymore.”
Unfortunately, that led to the election of somebody who is utterly incapable of correcting the mistakes of the post-Cold War period, reuniting the country and putting us on a more sensible course, hence the continuation of this crisis, which will last throughout the Trump years and, in all likelihood, will last beyond the Trump years.
AMY GOODMAN: Andrew Bacevich, we want to thank you for being with us, retired colonel, Vietnam War veteran, professor emeritus of international relations and history at Boston University, now president and co-founder of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. His book is now out, The Age of Illusions: How America Squandered Its Cold War Victory. Andrew Bacevich lost his son in Iraq.
When we come back, inside China’s push to turn Muslim minorities into an army of workers. Stay with us.


democracynow--2020-01-09--Andrew Bacevich: Trump Sparked "Unnecessary Crisis" by Killing Soleimani, Barely Avoiding War

This is a rush transcript .
Copy may not be in its final form .
NERMEEN SHAIKH : President Trump vowed on Wednesday to hit Iran with new sanctions but appeared to pull back from taking any new military action .
Tension between the two countries soared after the U.S. assassinated Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani at the Baghdad International Airport last week .
Early on Wednesday , Iran retaliated by firing 22 ballistic missiles at military bases in Iraq housing U.S. forces , but no one was injured in the attack .
[ Iran ] had warned the Iraqi government @ @ @ @ @ @ @ small rockets later hit the Green Zone near the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad , but no group has claimed responsibility .
AMY GOODMAN : The two sides have reportedly been exchanging messages through a Swiss diplomatic channel .
During a televised address Wednesday , Trump urged NATO to become more involved in the Middle East , and called for countries to pull away from the Iran nuclear deal .
NERMEEN SHAIKH : China rejected Trump ’ s proposal .
Earlier today , a spokesperson for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Trump @ @ @ @ @ @ @ nuclear deal is the root cause of the current crisis .
NERMEEN SHAIKH : In Washington , the House of Representatives is scheduled to vote today on a measure aiming to limit Trump ’ s authority to take unilateral actions against Iran without congressional authorization .
A coalition of progressive groups are staging antiwar rallies across the country today .
According to MoveOn.org , more than 350 events are scheduled to take place .
AMY GOODMAN : Joining us now in Washington , D.C. , is Andrew Bacevich , retired colonel , Vietnam @ @ @ @ @ @ @ out , The Age of Illusions : How America Squandered Its Cold War Victory .
Andrew Bacevich is president and co-founder of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft .
His latest piece for the Los Angeles Times is headlined “ Trump ’ s Suleimani strike is more of the same old losing U.S. game plan in the Mideast.
” His previous books include Twilight of the American Century and America ’ s War for the Greater Middle East .
Welcome to Democracy Now !
, Professor Bacevich .
First , respond to , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ — the assassination of Soleimani , the Iranian response yesterday , and then what you see happening now .
ANDREW BACEVICH : Well , the assassination was an act of great recklessness .
I mean , in some respects , it was typical of this president ’ s decision-making .
It appears that he acted very much on impulse .
There ’ s no evidence that he had thought through the consequences of assassinating Soleimani .
You know , what would be step two , step three ?
And so , this reckless @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , that , thankfully , both the administration and the government in Tehran found a way to back away from .
So we ’ ve avoided war , I think .
That said , I think it would be a mistake on our part , everybody ’ s part , to sort of breathe a sigh of relief and say , “ OK , everything is fine now.
” NERMEEN SHAIKH : And why do you say that , Professor Bacevich ?
And also , just with respect to what you said about @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and a step three that Trump considered , I mean , he said , “ We have sent a powerful message to terrorists ” by killing Soleimani : “ If you value your own life , you will not threaten the lives of [ our ] people.
” And then he said the U.S. would impose more punitive sanctions on Iran , and also said that the U.S. is willing to pursue peace .
ANDREW BACEVICH : Yes .
So there are about six contradictions in what you just said , accurately reflecting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , if you ’ re trying to figure out what the policy is , there is no policy .
It seems to me that , for example , the president ’ s claiming victory and now insisting that he ’ s going to impose additional sanctions on Iran .
Well , I thought that the theme of U.S. policy had been that we were already putting maximum pressure on Iran through sanctions .
So , you know , what any additional sanctions could possibly involve remains to be seen .
That ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ point is , it seems to me there ’ s very little evidence that economic sanctions are going to coerce the Iranian government into complying with American demands .
It is not an approach that seems likely to produce success , as far as I can tell .
AMY GOODMAN : That was Iran ’ s money , Andrew Bacevich .
Can you talk about President Trump ’ s obsession with President Obama , his — more about the significance of him pulling out of the Iran nuclear deal and what that has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ?
ANDREW BACEVICH : Yeah , it pains me deeply to have to say that that official from the People ’ s Republic of China , who stated that the beginning of the problem here was our pulling out of the Iran deal , that his depiction is actually far more accurate than anything we just heard in that clip from our president .
I would only disagree with that notion , that the root of the problem is the Americans pulling out of the JCPOA , in this sense : that the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ administration , the Obama administration , in many respects goes back to the 1950s .
I don ’ t think we want to rehearse all of the history here .
If I were going to cite one particular moment as creating the — as the root of the crisis that we ’ re in right now , I would say it was the aftermath of 9/11 , the terrorist attack on the United States that did not involve Iran or Iranians in any way , and yet the George W. Bush administration responded @ @ @ @ @ @ @ evil ” and claiming that Iran was therefore part of the problem , part of the axis that the war on terrorism was going to destroy , I mean , as a demonstration of hostility to the Iranian regime .
And then , of course , the Bush administration follows up on that by invading and occupying Iran ’ s neighbor , Iraq , in what was patently an illegal and highly foolish war , and almost inevitably was going to induce a response from Iran , which had every reason in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Iraq as a threat to its own national security .
So , the president ’ s got his little narrative that makes it sound like the United States is an innocent party here .
We ’ re not an innocent party .
But what I would emphasize is that the problem goes back much farther than either what — Trump ’ s own folly , farther back than the JCPOA , which I personally support and believe offered an opportunity , the possibility of moving U.S.-Iranian relations to a more positive track .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ by this president .
NERMEEN SHAIKH : Professor Bacevich , I want to go to an issue that you ’ ve raised with respect to what you ’ re talking about now , namely what restraints exist — constraints exist on the exercise of presidential power when it comes to the decision to wage war .
NERMEEN SHAIKH : In an L.A. Times opinion piece headlined “ Trump ’ s Suleimani strike is more of the same old losing U.S. game plan in the Mideast ” — you published this just last month @ @ @ @ @ @ @ you wrote , quote , “ The Democratic members of the Senate and House who whine about not having been consulted or at least notified in advance of the drone attack that took out the Quds commander deserve not a respectful hearing but contempt .
Their behavior over the past decade and more in giving presidents a free hand to wage war however they see fit can not be described as anything but cowardly .
It was , after all , President Obama who pioneered the role of assassin-in-chief to which Trump has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ you said , Professor Bacevich .
Could you elaborate on that ?
ANDREW BACEVICH : Well , so , one of the stories unfolding right now , if I understand it , is that members of Congress — mostly Democrats , but some Republicans — want to pass a resolution that will put some kind of constraints on President Trump with regard to the possibility of further hostilities with Iran .
I endorse that 100 % .
But it seems to me that the issue here is not simply finding ways — what @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not simply finding ways to constrain President Trump with regard to the use of force ; what we need to be concerned about is constraining the commander-in-chief , regardless of who that may be , with regard to using force .
So , the Congress has , for decades now , forfeited its constitutional responsibility with regard to war .
You can make an argument that during the Cold War there was some kind of rationale for doing that , for empowering the president to make war on his own whim , because @ @ @ @ @ @ @ worried about was a surprise nuclear attack by the Soviet Union .
But since the end of the Cold War , that possibility has virtually disappeared .
And since the Cold War , what we find is presidents , of both parties , exercising this authority that they now have claimed to make war wherever and whenever they feel moved to do so .
So , the effort to constrain Trump , which may or may not achieve success , really ought to be expanded to rethink the prerogatives of the commander-in-chief in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I don ’ t see any evidence that the Congress is going to take up that issue .
And they ought to .
AMY GOODMAN : We ’ re going to go to break , then come back to retired Colonel Andrew Bacevich , a Vietnam War veteran .
His book is just out , The Age of Illusions : How America Squandered Its Cold War Victory .
He ’ s president and co-founder of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft .
This is Democracy Now !
Back with him in a minute @

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: President Trump vowed on Wednesday to hit Iran with new sanctions but appeared to pull back from taking any new military action. Tension between the two countries soared after the U.S. assassinated Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani at the Baghdad International Airport last week. Early on Wednesday, Iran retaliated by firing 22 ballistic missiles at military bases in Iraq housing U.S. forces, but no one was injured in the attack. [Iran] had warned the Iraqi government about the strike in advance. Two small rockets later hit the Green Zone near the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, but no group has claimed responsibility.
AMY GOODMAN: The two sides have reportedly been exchanging messages through a Swiss diplomatic channel. During a televised address Wednesday, Trump urged NATO to become more involved in the Middle East, and called for countries to pull away from the Iran nuclear deal.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: They’re very defective. JCPOA expires shortly anyway and gives Iran a clear and quick path to nuclear breakout. Iran must abandon its nuclear ambitions and end its support for terrorism. The time has come for the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Russia and China to recognize this reality. They must now break away from the remnants of the Iran deal, or JCPOA. And we must all work together toward making a deal with Iran that makes the world a safer and more peaceful place.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: China rejected Trump’s proposal. Earlier today, a spokesperson for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Trump’s unilateral withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal is the root cause of the current crisis.
GENG SHUANG: [translated] Tensions in the Middle East are escalating, and the Iran nuclear issue is facing grave challenges. The United States’ unilateral withdrawal from the JCPOA, turning a blind eye to international law and international obligations, imposing maximum pressure against Iran and obstructing other parties’ implementation of the JCPOA are the root causes of the Iran nuclear tensions and should be the basic starting point for all parties to deal with the issues in an objective and fair manner.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: In Washington, the House of Representatives is scheduled to vote today on a measure aiming to limit Trump’s authority to take unilateral actions against Iran without congressional authorization. A coalition of progressive groups are staging antiwar rallies across the country today. According to MoveOn.org, more than 350 events are scheduled to take place.
AMY GOODMAN: Joining us now in Washington, D.C., is Andrew Bacevich, retired colonel, Vietnam War veteran. His book is just out, The Age of Illusions: How America Squandered Its Cold War Victory. Andrew Bacevich is president and co-founder of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. His latest piece for the Los Angeles Times is headlined “Trump’s Suleimani strike is more of the same old losing U.S. game plan in the Mideast.” His previous books include Twilight of the American Century and America’s War for the Greater Middle East.
Welcome to Democracy Now!, Professor Bacevich. First, respond to, well, President Trump’s assassinating — the assassination of Soleimani, the Iranian response yesterday, and then what you see happening now.
ANDREW BACEVICH: Well, the assassination was an act of great recklessness. I mean, in some respects, it was typical of this president’s decision-making. It appears that he acted very much on impulse. There’s no evidence that he had thought through the consequences of assassinating Soleimani. You know, what would be step two, step three?
And so, this reckless act plunged us into an unnecessary crisis, that, thankfully, both the administration and the government in Tehran found a way to back away from. So we’ve avoided war, I think. That said, I think it would be a mistake on our part, everybody’s part, to sort of breathe a sigh of relief and say, “OK, everything is fine now.”
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And why do you say that, Professor Bacevich? And also, just with respect to what you said about whether there’s a step two and a step three that Trump considered, I mean, he said, “We have sent a powerful message to terrorists” by killing Soleimani: “If you value your own life, you will not threaten the lives of [our] people.” And then he said the U.S. would impose more punitive sanctions on Iran, and also said that the U.S. is willing to pursue peace.
ANDREW BACEVICH: Yes. So there are about six contradictions in what you just said, accurately reflecting what the president said. And so, if you’re trying to figure out what the policy is, there is no policy.
It seems to me that, for example, the president’s claiming victory and now insisting that he’s going to impose additional sanctions on Iran. Well, I thought that the theme of U.S. policy had been that we were already putting maximum pressure on Iran through sanctions. So, you know, what any additional sanctions could possibly involve remains to be seen. That’s the first point.
And the second point is, it seems to me there’s very little evidence that economic sanctions are going to coerce the Iranian government into complying with American demands. It is not an approach that seems likely to produce success, as far as I can tell.
AMY GOODMAN: Let’s go back to President Trump speaking Wednesday.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Iran’s hostility substantially increased after the foolish Iran nuclear deal was signed in 2013. And they were given $150 billion, not to mention $1.8 billion in cash. Instead of saying “Thank you” to the United States, they chanted “Death to America.” In fact, they chanted “Death to America” the day the agreement was signed. Then Iran went on a terror spree, funded by the money from the deal, and created hell in Yemen, Syria, Lebanon, Afghanistan and Iraq. The missiles fired last night at us and our allies were paid for with the funds made available by the last administration.
AMY GOODMAN: That was Iran’s money, Andrew Bacevich. Can you talk about President Trump’s obsession with President Obama, his — more about the significance of him pulling out of the Iran nuclear deal and what that has led to every step of the way?
ANDREW BACEVICH: Yeah, it pains me deeply to have to say that that official from the People’s Republic of China, who stated that the beginning of the problem here was our pulling out of the Iran deal, that his depiction is actually far more accurate than anything we just heard in that clip from our president.
I would only disagree with that notion, that the root of the problem is the Americans pulling out of the JCPOA, in this sense: that the poisoning of U.S.-Iranian relations certainly predates this administration, the Obama administration, in many respects goes back to the 1950s. I don’t think we want to rehearse all of the history here.
If I were going to cite one particular moment as creating the — as the root of the crisis that we’re in right now, I would say it was the aftermath of 9/11, the terrorist attack on the United States that did not involve Iran or Iranians in any way, and yet the George W. Bush administration responded by creating this fictional “axis of evil” and claiming that Iran was therefore part of the problem, part of the axis that the war on terrorism was going to destroy, I mean, as a demonstration of hostility to the Iranian regime. And then, of course, the Bush administration follows up on that by invading and occupying Iran’s neighbor, Iraq, in what was patently an illegal and highly foolish war, and almost inevitably was going to induce a response from Iran, which had every reason in the world to view the American occupation of Iraq as a threat to its own national security.
So, the president’s got his little narrative that makes it sound like the United States is an innocent party here. We’re not an innocent party. But what I would emphasize is that the problem goes back much farther than either what — Trump’s own folly, farther back than the JCPOA, which I personally support and believe offered an opportunity, the possibility of moving U.S.-Iranian relations to a more positive track. That possibility has now been completely discarded by this president.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Professor Bacevich, I want to go to an issue that you’ve raised with respect to what you’re talking about now, namely what restraints exist — constraints exist on the exercise of presidential power when it comes to the decision to wage war.
ANDREW BACEVICH: Right.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: In an L.A. Times opinion piece headlined “Trump’s Suleimani strike is more of the same old losing U.S. game plan in the Mideast” — you published this just last month — sorry, earlier this month — you wrote, quote, “The Democratic members of the Senate and House who whine about not having been consulted or at least notified in advance of the drone attack that took out the Quds commander deserve not a respectful hearing but contempt. Their behavior over the past decade and more in giving presidents a free hand to wage war however they see fit cannot be described as anything but cowardly. It was, after all, President Obama who pioneered the role of assassin-in-chief to which Trump has now laid claim.” This is what you said, Professor Bacevich. Could you elaborate on that?
ANDREW BACEVICH: Well, so, one of the stories unfolding right now, if I understand it, is that members of Congress — mostly Democrats, but some Republicans — want to pass a resolution that will put some kind of constraints on President Trump with regard to the possibility of further hostilities with Iran. I endorse that 100%.
But it seems to me that the issue here is not simply finding ways — what we ought to be concerned about is not simply finding ways to constrain President Trump with regard to the use of force; what we need to be concerned about is constraining the commander-in-chief, regardless of who that may be, with regard to using force.
So, the Congress has, for decades now, forfeited its constitutional responsibility with regard to war. You can make an argument that during the Cold War there was some kind of rationale for doing that, for empowering the president to make war on his own whim, because we were — the contingency we were worried about was a surprise nuclear attack by the Soviet Union. But since the end of the Cold War, that possibility has virtually disappeared. And since the Cold War, what we find is presidents, of both parties, exercising this authority that they now have claimed to make war wherever and whenever they feel moved to do so.
So, the effort to constrain Trump, which may or may not achieve success, really ought to be expanded to rethink the prerogatives of the commander-in-chief in this new post-Cold War era. And I don’t see any evidence that the Congress is going to take up that issue. And they ought to.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to go to break, then come back to retired Colonel Andrew Bacevich, a Vietnam War veteran. His book is just out, The Age of Illusions: How America Squandered Its Cold War Victory. He’s president and co-founder of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. This is Democracy Now! Back with him in a minute.


democracynow--2020-01-09--Headlines for January  9, 2020

Headlines for January  9, 2020

President Trump vowed on Wednesday to hit Iran with new sanctions but appeared to pull back from taking any new military action .
Tension between the two countries soared after the U.S. assassinated Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani at the Baghdad International Airport last week .
Iran retaliated by firing 22 ballistic missiles at military bases in Iraq housing U.S. forces , but no one was injured in the attack .
Iran had warned the Iraqi government about the strike in advance .
On Wednesday afternoon , two small rockets also later landed near Baghdad ’ s Green Zone .
They @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to coalition facilities , and no group has claimed responsibility .
The House is slated to vote today on a war powers resolution aiming to limit President Trump ’ s ability to take future military action against Iran without congressional authorization .
A number of Republicans say they will support the resolution , after lawmakers attended a closed-door briefing on Iran on Wednesday with Defense Secretary Mark Esper , Secretary of State Mike Pompeo , CIA Director Gina Haspel and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair General Mark Milley .
This is Utah Republican @ @ @ @ @ @ @ briefing .
Sen. Mike Lee : “ What I found so distressing about that briefing was that one of the messages we received from the briefers was : Do not debate , do not discuss the issue of the appropriateness of further military intervention against Iran , and that if you do , you ’ ll be emboldening Iran — the implication being that we would somehow be making America less safe by having a debate or a discussion about the appropriateness of further military involvement against the government of Iran .
Now @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
… I don ’ t care whether they ’ re with the CIA , with the Department of Defense or otherwise .
To come in and tell us that we can ’ t debate and discuss the appropriateness of military intervention against Iran , it ’ s un-American , it ’ s unconstitutional , and it ’ s wrong.
” We ’ ll have more on the tensions between the U.S. and Iran after headlines .

President Trump vowed on Wednesday to hit Iran with new sanctions but appeared to pull back from taking any new military action. Tension between the two countries soared after the U.S. assassinated Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani at the Baghdad International Airport last week. Iran retaliated by firing 22 ballistic missiles at military bases in Iraq housing U.S. forces, but no one was injured in the attack. Iran had warned the Iraqi government about the strike in advance. On Wednesday afternoon, two small rockets also later landed near Baghdad’s Green Zone. They did not cause any casualties or damage to coalition facilities, and no group has claimed responsibility.
The House is slated to vote today on a war powers resolution aiming to limit President Trump’s ability to take future military action against Iran without congressional authorization. A number of Republicans say they will support the resolution, after lawmakers attended a closed-door briefing on Iran on Wednesday with Defense Secretary Mark Esper, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, CIA Director Gina Haspel and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair General Mark Milley. This is Utah Republican Senator Mike Lee, speaking after the briefing.
Sen. Mike Lee: “What I found so distressing about that briefing was that one of the messages we received from the briefers was: Do not debate, do not discuss the issue of the appropriateness of further military intervention against Iran, and that if you do, you’ll be emboldening Iran — the implication being that we would somehow be making America less safe by having a debate or a discussion about the appropriateness of further military involvement against the government of Iran. Now, I find this insulting and demeaning. … I don’t care whether they’re with the CIA, with the Department of Defense or otherwise. To come in and tell us that we can’t debate and discuss the appropriateness of military intervention against Iran, it’s un-American, it’s unconstitutional, and it’s wrong.”
We’ll have more on the tensions between the U.S. and Iran after headlines.