Radio War Nerd EP #372 — Iraq War 20th Anniversary, pt. 3: The Forever Warmongers

McFaul being a fellow at the Hoover institute might be the most poetic example of failing upwards.

Christopher Price

As monumentally stupid as our masters are, most of their critics are magnitudes more idiotic.

Biden doesn't get any positive credit for anything ever. He's spent fifty years being a lying, corrupt shine boy for the worst people on earth and he has not changed in the slightest. He's the Democratic John McCain.

I cannot stand McFaul’s incompetent, milk-toast, pseudo-moralist politics. The fact this phony is still sucking away at a Stanford job and any sort of international credibility makes me incredibly cynical.

very funny. Enjoyed thoroughly

I don't know how much to trust this show, but I remember watching this years ago: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CSx3RYM_E7w

Eric Snow

It's true that America's imperialist actions are a double-edged sword, but it's always going to cut our victims worse than it cuts us. As long as there's no viable alternative to the empire, it just doesn't matter if the U.S. embarrasses itself or wastes a ton of resources on disastrous misadventures. The system is totalized. There's nothing else and no other way to be. There's nowhere for anyone to go, and no way to defy the empire that doesn't ultimately redound to its benefit.

a clash of purple

John mentioned his readings on Northern Ireland in the last episode. Any suggestions on good books covering both the tactics/strategies of the insurgency/counterinsurgency, and the overall political strategies?

Remember that time the US occupied Afghanistan for 20 years, reluctantly retreated, and then continued kicking rocks in Syria and Iraq despite the requests of each of those soveriegn nations, all while China avoiding pissing anyone down there off and brokered a peace with the Iranians and Saudis? These imperialist clowns are dogmatically committed to their own imbecility, and when it all blows up in all of our faces (because the blowback is just getting started friends) they'll be the first to blame everyone else for the shit results of their shitheaded 'suck on this' arrogance.

A Guy

Looking at how easily we've gotten our European vassals to self-immolate for us, it's hard to sell the idea that we're yet in a decline of external exploitation.

Great episode, thanks guys

Greg

Yes. While their ability to suck wealth from the rest of the world is steadily declining, there is so much internal exploitation still available.

Lyudmila Pavlichenko does talk about how much Russians fucking hated Churchill in her autobiography, but she doesn't go deep in detail.

Doug Cartel

This is so good!

Ellen Harold

The people who claim we're living through the fall of the American empire are like Roman citizens proclaiming the fall of the Empire in, like, 240CE at the height of the crisis of the Third Century. It's far more likely that this is just the inflection point where a Diocletian comes around and patches up the empire, streamlining into a more efficient, lightweight instrument for inflicting cruelty. The experience of being an actual citizen will degrade dramatically at the same time, becoming virtual slavery for anyone except a top 1% as the last remnants of imperial perks are stripped away in the streamlining. Hell you could argue the 00s were the beginning of this process. Basically if you think this is the nadir of how far an empire can fall you ain't seen nuthin yet

I think Craig Murray has some writing on it

Cory

David Kelly was almost certainly "suicided" by the security services. - it's almost unheard of for a male his age to commit the act of suicide with cuts to the wrists - the cut itself was unlikely to cause sufficient blood loss, having barely severed the ulnar artery, and there was very little blood at the scene - the knife found at the scene had been wiped clean of fingerprints - he had not taken anything close to a fatal overdose of the opioid painkillers found with his body, and the blister pack had also been wiped clean of fingerprints

Jon