This is Jeff Deist and you're listening to the Human Action podcast Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back once again to the Human Action podcast the podcast where we read and examine and discuss books Current or otherwise and as most of my listeners know We usually focus on economics and try to do a deep dive into theoretical and conceptual stuff But this week we are taking a little bit of a departure from normal because there's a new book out. It's an important book it's a book all of you need to read and order and think about and Getting the hands of many of your friends and family and neighbors and that is by none other That's Scott Horton. It is called enough already time to end the war on terrorism. This is hot off the presses It's a 2021 release. It's available in physical form already via Amazon and as many of you know it is in in a sense a Follow-up to Scott's book fools Aaron which was in particular about the war in Afghanistan which came out back in 2017 and in a earlier iteration of the show, I had him on to discuss that book So all that said if any of my listenership is not familiar with Scott He is now basically the editor of anti-war comm in the sense that Justin Romando Once was he is also heading up the Libertarian Institute, which is the publisher of this new book enough already So with all that said hey Scott. How you doing? Thank you very much for having me Jeff great to talk to you And thanks for that nice introduction. Appreciate well Look, I got to ask you something open-ended for starters Okay, what motivated you to write this book because it's a pretty thankless task being an author well I I'll tell you what when I was writing fools Aaron. I swore I was never gonna do it again and And and honestly, I think a lot of your listeners may know if they're Tom wood show fans I've talked about this on his show that I had to throw out about a year's worth of work and start over Because I just I'm it's like a fractal. You know when I get into these footnotes I'm not trying to write a PhD thesis, but that's how it keeps turning out and so I just I Always did get bogged down in the details too much even doodling on the back of my homework in junior high I always do the Little Baroque part of the picture and ignore the larger thing So I had to start over and do it again The point of the book was supposed to be from the get-go fact I'll tell you story Tom woods called me one day in I don't know 2015 and said let's write a book together about the war on terrorism We'll keep it real short and sweet and it'll be kind of the The you know America's war on terrorism for dummies kind of a thing And so what do you think about that and I said absolutely and I I sent him an outline in like an hour And so here's what it'll say, you know ready to go and then So that kept getting the can kept getting kicked down the road there And then when I started writing it basically the deal was I was gonna as I wrote stuff I was gonna send it to him to have his way with eventually or whatever and fix up and rewrite and whatever And then what happened was chapter two turned into a book about Afghanistan was like I couldn't wrap it up I got bogged down in the quagmire. So This book enough already Is what that book was supposed to be in the first place before I got to sidetracked on Afghanistan and Turn that into a whole book. So this is of course, it did grow into 300 pages I really wanted it to be 150 pages easy-peasy for everybody and their uncle to read but You know that turned out to be impossible, but there's no footnotes in it There's plenty of sourcing in the text and plenty of direct quotations and you can double-check my Assertions all you want no problem, but It's meant to be a much easier read than fools there and and as you said in the introduction there I really want this to be not just a great libertarian book or a great book for the anti-war movement or for people who have heard My show before or something like that, but I really want this to be an American book I want this to get out there and I want it to move the margin as you economists say right to To have a difference in the conversation.  We don't have to do this anymore And and help you know the American people already believe that right? We just need to be galvanized We just need the American people need to somehow Get the idea that this is something that we could all do together How's this for national greatness Fred Barnes will end Fred Barnes's wars together the right and the left and town and country and black and white and north and south and everybody and And this is what we want is an end to these wars And this is something that we can all come together to agree about best kind of unity I could think of and the calendar proves the case. You don't even have to open the book Jeff Look at the calendar. It's 2021.  This is not what they sold Everybody's mom and dad back 20 years ago about what they were going to do with their writ to fight terrorism and So that's it. They're fired. We have to call it off now And so this is my part to try to do that get people to say, okay This is a thing that yeah, you're right about that at least, you know Well, Scott, you have the freedom to publish through the Libertarian Institute without censorship without having to Take any radicalism out of the book, but you're also a known quality I mean you have your book on Afghanistan. You had many many years of Pacifica radio, for example Did you consider shopping this with publishers? No, actually, I did have a publisher come to me from I won't say which but I'll say a division of McMillan a Guy came to me said he loved fool's errand. He knew I was writing this book. He must have heard me on Tom So talking about it. I think based on what he already knew about it And really nice guy and he tried to pitch it to the boss over the holidays And and he thought that he could quadruple my numbers and and that he would really make sure the marketing department did their part to Really get it out there and and really do it So I was I was pretty cool with the idea Although I knew I was risking some of that independence that you're talking about there But it turned out that you'll like this too.  Yeah, well, I mean in fact, there's not footnotes But it is just and I assail you with facts until you give in essentially It's it's a Bo Vardy and Chomsky. I book in that sense, right? So it's it's light on just you know, here's a bunch of feelings and emotions and one time I interviewed a guy and he you know, it's not written like that. It's written just things I remember or whatever and so they had just published I think Michael J. Fox's autobiography and a couple of things like that that were pretty big-time stuff But you could see how This is not exactly their cup of tea and in fact because this is the kind of book that usually would be written by a liberal professor And have a hundred thousand footnotes and no one would ever read it, right? So I'm trying to split that difference, right? I'm trying to say, you know I know the burden is on me to prove that I'm right when I'm saying every grown-up in America has been wrong for My entire lifetime. I got to prove the case but at the same time I'm trying to do it in a way where it's digestible enough To a much broader audience than just who might read a Chomsky book or something like that Well, it's interesting to me though You get some pretty big names to endorse and write blurbs for your work I mean you've had people like Stephen Walt and Daniel Ellsberg So you must have some relationships where people must know about your work You know in broader circles beyond our kind of austral libertarian circles Well, I kind of cheat there too, right? Because I interview all these guys So then I have their email address and I get to I don't you know They don't owe me a favor in terms of giving me a blurb any more than you do, right? But they're willing to look at my book because they know me from before in the same way as you really, right? So I would count you in that exact same list of the people who just mentioned by the way And your your name is in there and the blurbs right with theirs Well, the introduction of the book makes it clear that this you're your immediate focus is the last 20 years Since the attacks of 9-11 and the so-called war on terror declared by Bush Ashcroft you Etc in the wake of that but but really there's there's some history required here that goes back several decades to understand The broader picture. So it is this a history book in a part in part Yes, I mean and really just like with fool's errand in a way time to end the war on terrorism time to end the war in Afghanistan is A little bit misleading right there looks that's the that's the conclusion on the last page of the book What it really is just like with fool's errand is an alternative history or just You know a history of what's going on here. I guess from a point of view that you don't usually get to see But you know, I think Austrian school leaning Economist types and libertarians will pick up on the theme that's pretty obvious in here about the unintended Consequences of government intervention and how governments no matter what program we're talking about but especially with the military They always pretend that today's the first day in history None of this is their fault All they need to do is apply a little bit more power and a little bit more money and a little bit more finesse and everything Will work out and that if you go back to whatever economic consequences We're talking about even if you have to go back 50 paces on the chain It's always Congress's fault in the first place the US government intervening distorting normal patterns of life in places causing blowback and consequences and then using those Consequences as an excuse to just carry on to the next one And so in fact, you know, there's a lot of little details in here But at the same time, I think it's a history that should fit in with people's broad memory of this time, right? like in other words When I say Ronald Reagan helped back the Mujahideen in Afghanistan in the 1980s, that's not a big secret That's not a conspiracy theory. They made Rambo 3 about it Everybody knows that people give credit to Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter before him for helping bring down the Soviet Empire Because that was one of the straws that broke the camel's back and this is a widely understood phenomenon on and in culture and in history and so all I'm doing though is Explaining what that has to do with anything else, right? Everybody knows Saddam invaded Kuwait in 1990 and that we went to war in 1991 in order to reverse it But why'd that happen in the first place? And what were the consequences of that that led to the next problem is that's what my book is here to do Everybody is looking at pretty much the same general puzzle I'm just here to provide a lot of pieces to fill in the gaps to show how all of this makes sense as one big story of of course You know Government and competence and malevolence. I don't mean to sell that short But it's and of course as a libertarian I have a great advantage in being completely non-partisan about this I wasn't raised to favor Ronald Reagan and or Bill Clinton either, you know, I I And and in fact in recent history, so people get a taste of this my personal absolute vile Childish hatred for Bill Clinton and George W. Bush is Right about equal. I guess Bush a little more than Clinton But Obama and Trump even though I absolutely hate them on paper. I don't feel that way about them So it's not really a partisan thing as much as just the certain things that they did that just absolutely drove Me to madness like Bush's torture program, for example or Bill Clinton's butchery at Waco and all the rest of those things from the 1990s getting us into this mess in the first place You know if we took a maybe an average American off the street And you laid out your basic thesis to them I fear some of them would say well Scott, you know, so what? Biden's new and he needs to have real politic and you're giving me all this history from before and and I Sometimes I wonder if because we're so materially comfortable here be because it's been so long that we had any war You know within our domestic shores that Because are you know, we export war and we don't so much import it that that Americans sometimes just don't much care about all this history Yeah, I think that's true and a big part of it As we're talking about on my show earlier with David Swanson was that ever since they pulled the bulk of the infantry out of Iraq That then anything less than that seems like nothing we could wage drone wars forever I guess and people won't care and I kind of think that's not really right I mean if you look at the polls people are against the wars and if you said to them specifically After they said no, I don't support the wars.  Instead they I think they probably would say no to that too, although Obviously, hey, geez I guess if our guys aren't dying and you say it's really necessary That's you know easier for them to go along with but I think if people could actually Really grok my narrative then they ought to be able to just abandon all of that They ought to be able to understand that look our government got us into this mess there what they call fighting the terrorism that they created is at Best counterproductive Inefficient disastrous filled with collateral damage and consequences and blowback and at worst They're outright taking Al Qaeda's side all over the Middle East Especially of course in Libya Syria and in Yemen fighting literally on the side of our enemies Because our government and the Israelis and the Saudis hate Iran more than they hate the guys that knocked the towers down so You know whether Biden is brand new or not It's he's the same old permanent establishment He was Bush's handmaiden in the Senate that got us into Iraq war two when he was the chair of the foreign relations committee I mean he was really the whip. He was Bush and Cheney's whip in the Senate to force that war through the Senate The opposition party was in the majority could have stopped that war led by him But he was actively their guy and getting it done They say that he was less worse. I mean he was less worse on Afghanistan He still favored escalation just not quite as bad as Petraeus in them They say he was opposed to the war in Libya And I don't think they have an official position about what he ever said as vice president on Syria or Yemen We certainly didn't resign over them even if he did oppose them And then but his staff is also just a bunch of lunatics and crazies and monsters His national security adviser Jake Sullivan is the guy that wrote in the memo to Hillary Clinton He he a queue is on our side in Syria Meaning they are on Al Qaeda's side in Syria, but instead of saying boss I think we need to call a meeting and reevaluate our policy This is just like something to be considered ironic and funny and They continued pushing for that policy of putting arms directly into the hands of those terrorists for years after that well for the rest of That was at the beginning of her last year secretary of state and she pushed the rest of that year for more and more escalation of that exact same policy Then she and he was her right-hand man at state for four years. That's who Sullivan is Biden's right-hand national security adviser is was Hillary's and And then his right his old right hand Anthony Blinken who's now going to be the secretary of state has been a hawk on all of this stuff and openly Talks about how he disagreed with Biden on Libya He was for it when Biden was against it the one thing Biden got right hmm and and you know and I could go on But so it's the same old same old suspects of the humanitarian interventionist center left you know all a bunch of Hillary Clinton clones essentially right and And and and back to backtrack to that one point when they mean well So to speak on the grading on the curve when they're actually trying to kill real Al Qaeda guys Which was supposedly their mission? They still only make things worse They still only kill innocent people. They still it's like pouring blood on a garden of terrorists growing up there It doesn't work. They call it a surgical strike the drone is a scalpel But it's a 500 pound bomb that tears women and children apart and their men don't forget that They join up the fight just the same as anybody and any other time in place on this planet and so You know the war on terrorism even if Biden said no more regime change no more sanctions No more picking on the Ayatollah and the Shiites who really don't have anything to do with this if anything They're on our side in this But we're only gonna fight Al Qaeda from now on it still would be an absolute catastrophe and and the proof of that is the fact Of the last 20 years that Biden himself has been in on all along Well, as you point out, we need to understand a little bit of history and background to understand blowback But it looks like in this book. You also explain that to understand any particular Internal or regional conflict. Let's say Syria or Yemen. We have to understand this tendency towards proxy wars So give us your take what do you mean by proxy wars and what what do we not get about proxy wars? Well You know, I don't want to all of this is shades of grace So don't anybody get me too wrong on this But we do have a weird phenomenon in America where our client states especially Saudi Arabia and Israel have so much Influence in Washington, DC far more than the American people have and it's much more The case that they use us to fight their wars for them then we use them to fight our wars for us and and you know Especially you see that in the case of Iraq war two and America's really entire Cold War type relationship with Iran that we have That is based in Tel Aviv and Riyadh that in Washington, DC I mean Ronald Reagan was selling missiles to the Ayatollah a couple of years after Beirut Just a couple of years after the hostage crisis, right? So we could have gone along Bill Clinton could have normalized relations with Rafsin Johnny back in 1993 But the Israelis insisted no we have to have dual containment from bases in Saudi Arabia which provoked Ronald Reagan's Mujahideen into knocking our towers down and became the excuse for the rest of this stuff and So it's not just a pure case of the tailwags the dog just because that's a cliche But that is kind of part of it and the Americans. I mean, please don't misinterpret this as like acquitting them By calling them clueless, right doesn't make them innocent There's they're still so guilty for the things that they do and yet I think there's really not that that Hobgoblin of consistency in the mind anywhere of people especially in the Obama administration where He's trying to make peace with Iran by passing the nuclear deal to take the threat of war off the table over their fake weapons program That never existed anyway But to take the threat of war over their nuclear program their civilian program off the table there at the same time He's backing al-Qaeda suicide bomber head shopper terrorist crazies in Syria Just to spite Iran because Iran is friends with Assad and they're trying to take Assad away And at the same time they launch a war and listen man. I'm sorry big G word people get emotional I'm not trying to be hyperbolic here. It is what it is. It's a war of Genocide being waged against the people of Yemen and it's being waged Why in the words of the Obama team themselves? Well, we had to placate the Saudis Google that placate the Saudis. We knew the war would be long bloody and Indecisive indecisive Right, meaning they knew that there was no end game. There was no victory There was no plan for what this is supposed to look like to paraphrase Petraeus. Tell me how this ends Yeah, long bloody meaning innocent people will be blown limb from limb tortured to death God knows what and Indecisive, but we had to do it to placate the Saudis Because why the Saudis were upset that we were making peace with Iran And this is crazy It should not be like this and I'm not saying that America should hire Israel and Saudi Arabia to fight our wars for us either But why can't we just call this whole thing off? Well, sometimes I'm shocked by you call it a blunt instrument these machinations. I mean if we look at The factions just in Iraq for example And how deep-seated some of this history is there's a tremendous amount of hubris regardless of how many Diplomats or how many spooks we have on the ground somewhere. It's really really really hard to understand Another country and all the nuance I think that's absolutely true and especially when you're the one on the ground in your entire game is Justifying what you're doing and trying to do the job I mean if anybody could have told you the story of what was happening in Iraq war 2 it was people who hated it You couldn't find people who are hardcore pro-war War blogger hawks who are gonna sit here and tell you okay? This is who Abdul Aziz al-Hakim is and this is the significance of his Supreme Islamic Council And his Bada Brigade faction and what they're going to do to the Sunnis of the Ambar province And why that matters in the scheme of the war They didn't have any incentive to tell you the truth the truth made them look really bad So instead they just said oh yeah No, it's America and the Iraqi people versus the terrible terrorists who are trying to thwart democracy And then so you get some what that's like you get on a some Disneyland program or something That means nothing and had nothing to do with what was going on if you want to know what's going on You had to read and still curse him because he supported the war and the war in Libya But still Juan Cole from informed comment wrote great stuff explaining who was who and why it mattered on the ground at the time The great war reporter Darja male Robert Dreyfus from the nation magazine and back then wrote for Tom Payne and all that Old friend of mine just great because he had this you know real critics lens. Oh Forgive me for for omitting Patrick Coburn who is the greatest Western reporter in the Middle East forever bar none These guys could tell you Here's who's who and here's why it matters and and it was because they were in no way married to the policy Right, but you think that Paul Bremer staff is Going to has any incentive at all to write up a report about oh my god. Here's all the things were doing wrong Here's all the reasons why this is never gonna work all the reasons why men boss You made a really bad choice last Thursday. I mean that just doesn't take place. And so I've had Enumerable men come home from those wars and tell me oh now I get it You know they had to read the perspective from some skater kid who stayed home in Texas the whole time to understand What they were living through at the time? Well, I have to say I like the organization of the book in the sense that you have individual chapters on particular country So like most Americans for example, I don't know much about Mali and there's a chapter on that There's a chapter on Syria. There's a chapter on Yemen. There's a chapter on Pakistan and Somalia Was your desire to make these sort of digestible individual units so somebody could get up to speed pretty quickly on those particular issues Uh No, I mean, I think it just sort of fell that way honestly. I'm not that good of a writer Jeff I'm I'm good at names and dates I read other people sort of polemical things where they make smart guy points about stuff and I appreciate those things But I'm not really that kind of a Thinker, you know, I basically can just sort of marshal a bunch of evidence that I remember That just at some point is sort of inexorable that you must give in I'm right You're you got to give up because I know so much more about this than you Something like that, you know And and so like that's that's basically how I get my point across Is in that way and then essentially these wars are almost all just chronological one thing happened That's sort of the the story itself is how one one war caused the next war caused the next war Of course in chapter one causing problems. That's three or four wars right there That's the afghan war the iranian revolution the iran iraq war iraq war one and iraq war one and a half In the bill clinton years all of that is in chapter one again Roughly in chronological order right a little bit of overlapping order, but Going through and just explaining how one thing led to the other and then You know, it's a little bit of a juggling match trying to figure out I had to cut afghanistan's chapters in half because that war has gone on so long It wouldn't be right to bring it all the way through to 2020 and then take you back to 2003 when we get to iraq so You know little weird choices like that I had to figure out where to put somalia in pakistan really but somalia has got to go before pakistan because bush Really started the worst of that, you know six and so it's just most of it just sort of fell into place about where it should fit and then On molly. I'm glad you mentioned molly. So I think in the scheme of things when you read the libya chapter You're ready to move on to syria And then I have to say wait hold your horses right there We got to stop and talk about molly for a minute because what happened in molly is a terrible consequence for these people From the war in libya and it spread on from there And so I only give it I think two pages It's just enough to let you know that hey this happened. This matters. You ever heard of timbuk too. That's a real place It's in the western sahel. That's the strip of arid semi-desert land Just below the sahara And in the far western sahel is this land of molly this nation the size of texas Where the consequences of the war in libya came and ruined everything for everyone and and and the jihadis the obama's bin ladenites Tried to sack these ancient libraries and destroy all their ancient scrolls that go back, you know A thousand two thousand years and this kind of thing Maybe maybe further than that and these heroic you can read about in the national geographic these heroic librarians went and and grabbed all the scrolls and and and Spread them out to the families the trusted families of the town to protect the ancient scrolls and all this stuff This is all america's fault.  It is it's just disgusting jeff and then But I give it two pages because I know we're in a big hurry We got to get to syria and then at the end of the book we get back to the consequences For the the further spread of the terror war in africa But those are the kind of choices I try to make as an editor that I know that once we do libya You want to talk about syria? You want to know what I got to say about syria? it's the biggest deal in the whole wide world obviously how The war in syria grew into the islamic state and then the war against them and and all these further consequences there but At the same time You know, i'm really glad I had a chance to say The people of samalia and molly. They do deserve their own chapter. They always get omitted But the story of what's happened to the samalis is no less worse than what we've done to the yemenis You know, no less sickening than what's happened to the people of timbukh too Well, one of the recurring characters in this book. It appears that a thread is uh been lauding And what's interesting is it appears 20 years on now that he really has been the architect Of us foreign policy. He got his war of attrition Absolutely. I love this line. I'm ruining the best line of the book. It belongs to my old friend jeff huber died a few years ago now But uh, right after the navy seals finally got was it delta? Yes seals got uh been lauding there in uh, About abad pakistan in 2011, which he did die there that day by the way My wife is an investigative reporter and I know that is true. Um, but uh, Right after that happened about a month or so after that happened Jeff wrote this article called Been lauding dead and loving it And he says eat your heart out charlemagne et to julius caesare You know, so like uh, how about them apples? uh, alexander something uh, because osama bin laden Hiding in his attic I forgot this was my line or his even from his wife. He's hiding in the attic and yet He's commanding the world's greatest armies in all of history To move all about the earth disrupting and destabilizing and removing regimes that he disfavours He's doing all of this without an army of his own. He's doing all this, you know, basically by giving Especially first the bush team a crisis to exploit, right? He didn't fool them in a way that makes them innocent He fooled them in the sense that they were too clever by half Taking the advantage of the crisis that he created But that is in fact what he was betting on and you know, I remember right after september 11th You know, I didn't know if the cia did the whole thing or what but I was saying You know if these terrorists were doing this because they thought they were going to fight the new world order and make the american empire Go home and leave them alone. They're crazy. They just gave bush a giant kick in the pants They just gave him him and chaney the excuse to do whatever they want and then you know what happened Jeff was about six weeks later four weeks later Maybe I read william norman grig in the new american magazine and this this quote is in the book He quotes sololinsky the leftist radical from chicago Who points out and this is not talking specifically about terrorism, but essentially all asymmetric political activity Whether it's outright violence or not and that is that the action is in the reaction That yes, of course bin laden was giving bush a kick in the pants That's what he was trying to do.  Sorry audience who went along with this too I mean somebody does something crazy and violent like knock down some towers Obviously, you're gonna be emotional, but that means we all as a society By the hundreds of millions we just turn our brains off Let george bush's idiot son lie us into wars against people who didn't do it It you know, we should have all been better than that the entire right wing just said no way We're not buying that maybe if he was ronald reagan's son or something But george bush's son gets to shovel a load of dishonesty like this and we're supposed to swallow it come on But they did And I know you were there you were in the congress watching this thing first person at the time my god I should interview you for this book Well, let me ask this let's talk about the domestic impact of all this when w Comes into office at the beginning of 2001 there's about five trillion Of u.s. government debt now there's 20 whatever almost 30 How does war come home help help us understand Yeah, well and the first thing and and there's a section on this in the book is about war is bad for the economy and Unfortunately, it's still just as everyone in your audience knows this huge widespread myth I saw it on twitter just the other day that no dummy fdr like in biden's portrait on the wall He didn't save us from the great depression. It was world war two that did it and everybody knows that And except the people who've read robert higgs, right or whatever, you know few murray rothbard and a few other examples But otherwise that is sort of the received wisdom and even when the economy is bad You can hear people saying well war is good for the economy It's like but we've been a war this whole time Shouldn't we all be filthy stinking rich right now then if that was right? I mean not that that would make it worth it if all we have to do to be rich is murder innocent people by the millions in fact Drive 37 million people from their homes so we can have some money And that's crazy anyway But it's not true right all of this is at our expense whether right now In the taxes that come right out of our paycheck and the rest of that or whether in the near term consequences when the next bubble pops And everything goes bust from all their inflation to make the war seem free And then in the meantime just the price inflation on the shelves and in the cost of everything we buy I mean right now try to buy a house in austin texas where Where prices are going up five and ten percent every couple every quarter right now um You know a lot of this due to monetary inflation And a lot of that made to make the wars seem free if they just had to raise all our taxes Look everybody we're going to iraq you ready? Yeah, let's get them Okay, all we got to do is raise your taxes all of you buy four percent each five percent each And then we can go on to iraq you might have a whole different discussion on your hands But instead you know the the effects are delayed But look at the economic pain that the people are in now and look at the destabilization and all the resentments And all of the chaos that's come from that as the direct results of that the betrayal of the lies of the iraq war And then and thank god jet that it happened in september 08 before he got away on george w. Bush's watch and the whole economy can crashing down And destroyed all of these lives and people are still you know There's still not back on their feet from that before the lockdowns and and the recession of the last year And and all the consequences from that so people are really hurting and that is a huge part Because of the war and then of course you just have the entire all of the Wars the health of the state type effects of patriotism suspending people's thinking So you might remember in 2004 when the abu grabe scandal broke at first the republican right on talk radio said well We're not for that. I mean jeez that those national guard guys got out of control But then they found out that bush ordered it and then they said no we are torturers. That's what makes us americans That's what makes us patriots is that of course we would torture anybody to protect americans That's what it means to be a good conservative and it's just all these good church-going people cutting their own soul out In the name of partisanship so they can serve the interests of war criminals Who who never had their best interests at heart in the first place at all? And then there's all of the patriot act and the patriot act 1 2 3 4 5 and all the different guys's of it since then And on the state level to the 1033 program and the homeland security programs for militarizing Every police department in america every sheriff's department and city police department in america and all of our state police Training them all on military bases is you know paramilitary hit teams And just all of this is completely out of control, you know the minarchist argument I used to make Once upon a time was jeez if we could just stop government from doing all of this extraneous stuff And their only jobs was providing a fair court system for dispute settlements criminal and civil And night watchman state security services and stuff. Well, then maybe the democracy Could be effective at controlling that and making sure that that stayed fair and good, but It's so wild and so out of control. There's no check and balance from the people There's no referendum that can rein this in Right. Um, we are so far gone now. There's um, the great journalist william arkin Uh, who was then at the washington post wrote a whole book with dana priest called top secret america about how the entire military industrial complex that grew up from 1945 Through 2001 has a mirror image opposite domestic homeland security complex that's virtually as wealthy and powerful with hundreds of thousands of contractor Employees, you know collecting intelligence and including on americans. We have all the snowden revelations This is the one that gets me that no one ever talks about despite all the hacking of all the database and everything They save your location data They track your cell phone and they save it for at least five years that we know about So they can figure out which backseat of which car you ever rode in who you were associated with who you ever sat next to at a bus stop And we know from the way they murder people in afghanistan And pakistan and other places based on this link analysis stuff that when they launched this new domestic war On on right wing radicalism and this kind of thing that the first thing that they do is go with this ridiculous link analysis, which is just like asking your windows 10 machine to explain The world to you and and explain, you know to come up with conspiracy theories Basically to explain why certain people's cell phones have ever contacted each other before And if you're if the computer says that your phone number is on the list then You get the zap, you know in this case probably won't be drone strikes, but um You know, they they asked daily mccrystal. Jeez. Should we use your counter insurgency doctrines from afghanistan against american right wingers? He's like, yeah, we sure should here's how we'll start with my link analysis conspiracy theory machine You got john brennan on tv mister, you know First of all drone striker murder of innocent civilians there And and pro torturer But also the guy who back job at all those were al-qaeda in syria for years guilty of high treason and framed donald trump for treason with the kremlin in the russia gate thing This guy should have been buried under the supermax a long time ago And here he's on tv saying that they're gonna unleash they already are unleashing. He said present tense america's intelligence capacity against the american dissident right, which means Conservatives too, right? It means everything from the center all the way to the right Uh anybody is fair game to them and he made sure to include even libertarians and so these are the consequences for all of us and um And i'm only just scratching the surface really I mean if you look especially at the militarization of the police And what that's meant for what was already a lawless police state, right? Which was already especially for poor people and for blacks essentially a totalitarian state in the name of contraband enforcement Get this jeff. I don't know if you saw the statistic a clu 60 thousand SWAT raids a year 60 This is just like the navy seals, right? This is this is your local deputy sheriffs as special operations forces Kicking in people's doors and terrorizing them in the middle of the night In a way and this is all just they wouldn't even make the connection to the war on terrorism, but that's where they got all that junk Well scott one last question for you Before we wrap this up. Do you hear from vets pro or con regarding your work?  You better meet these army guys This one's a green beret. This one's a ranger and this one is you know afghan combat veteran I'm like, oh boy. I'm about to hear what I got wrong And then all they want to do is agree and shake my hand. I thought it was gonna be a bra I was actually really nervous for a second um But no everywhere I go and and and all the feedback that I get you know from email and twitter and whatever It's been years. I mean As far as I can remember, you know off the top of my head right now if I think hard, maybe there's some exceptions I can't think of any exceptions. It's been years since my job I don't think these letters even come in anymore But my job used to be answering the letters to anti war dot com and we would have soldiers who would write then and say You guys hate america.  Actually, you know what? I think that's right Now that you mentioned it. Yeah, that botter brigade. I think that is who we're embedded with here You know fighting their enemies not ours and What you say makes sense anti war boy, right? Like if I was saying peace and love and hippiness or whatever I probably wouldn't have gotten very far but I always know more about this stuff than the guys in the middle of it and so I can help them see And I'm pretty sure I won every single one of those arguments back then And I haven't heard a one in a very long time. In fact, I'll tell you a story. I hope this is okay to say I think so November before last we all did thanks to you inviting me sir We did the the wrong paul event there in lake jackson And I was selling my wrong paul book that I put out and a guy came up to me and said hey listen Um of all of tom woods's guests. You're the one. I had the hardest Time listening to and and and accepting and I kind of laughed and said well, you know I could understand that I rubbed people the wrong way a little sometimes whatever i'm not exactly from around here um And uh, he goes no no no that's not it. It's that I know that you're right about all of this stuff and it really sucks because It means that I was wrong my whole life and I hope i'm paraphrasing this guy right I don't remember his name reading but he was saying I I believe he said that You know himself his father his brother. They were reaganites They believed in all this stuff They hated the Arabs and the muslims and the enemies the commies and the whoever and that the government said That we should be killing and the democrats. What's wrong with them? They're weak. They won't do enough And that then no actually he just heard me lay out the here's how it went tom Did it did it did it down the line of cause and effect and as I was saying earlier about the puzzle piece, right? He's got a narrative. He remembers the history of jimmy carter through right now And he knows i'm right about this stuff when he hears me put the same history that he knows my way And now it makes more sense than it ever did And now it means that he was mistaken and it was like You know what I give the guy credit It also goes to show how hard it can be for people to admit I mean he told me this was really hard for him because I was essentially Without I didn't say this to him. I never say this to anybody I I sure didn't mean for anyone to take it this way But what he heard was me convincingly telling him he lived his life all wrong That he really had screwed up and it mattered, right? It wasn't just he'd been He decided that he liked the saints over the rams now or something, right? This is something consequential These were arguments he'd had with friends and co-workers his whole life long That they were right and he was wrong and it was he but he was man enough to say, you know what horton you got me You know, and I'm not sure if he was a veteran or not, but he was certainly a conservative hawk, you know and it was because tom To his great credit And and my sincere gratitude He essentially roughly paraphrasing introduces me on his show and says Listen up everybody. He's right about everything. Tell him scott, right? Like he vouches for me And that kicks the door open If tom wood says that this guy's right on I guess I gotta listen And then eventually those crossed arms Kind of start getting unfolded because yeah, I remember that Okay. Yeah, that makes sense then right and then once I fill in your puzzle for you You're looking at the same picture as me and it's not what you thought it was And now we can move on from here. I hope you know and actually Really make a change on this and you know what let me give credit to donald trump, too This is the only thing really I can think of off the top of my head to give him credit for There's a couple I guess But what he did for his own purposes he had to do it for political reasons was denounce bush's wars The republicans were never going to win again as long as they were mit romney running on double guantanamo Right and this kind of thing and trump got up there and said because he had to destroy jeb That hey jeb is george's brother and george is the guy that did all that horrible stuff in the wars And the right wing republican voters of america love trump so much that they said Yeah, that's right.  Did you I don't remember that Or if I did I don't care, but I like trump now and let's end these wars not that he did that But he helped to seed that sentiment on the american not just populist right, but overall the conservative and And everywhere on the conservative spectrum on the right wing spectrum in america People are more anti-war than ever before probably because of donald trump and his Statements because he's so total in everything he says he sounds like me when he denounces the wars. He's just You know black and white issue about it all absolute condemnation when he does and and when he did And so he has done a lot too in that very same tom wood sense to open the door For these kind of arguments for people who are willing to listen and to me I think that's the most important thing we need leftists to constantly keep up pressure on the liberal Democrats no question about that and there's some great ones doing that great work But what we need more than anything else is conservative and libertarian and especially combat veterans But even still just people who don't talk in left wing language To oppose these wars to really fight to educate people about these wars to show that These old cliches about jane fonda and even michael more and whatever these Old jannis joplin glasses and tie-dye and whatever doesn't have anything to do with this whatsoever You know go look at dan mcnight and the guys at bring our troops home dot us These guys are combat veterans with massive barrel chests who have been there and are telling you That this isn't right. We have to stop and they are they have not moved left They just got smart. They're still tough guys. They're still patriots And now they know better and they're setting such a good example and for anyone in your audience Who's a combat vet who's against these war or any kind of vet who's against these wars? I urge you to check these guys out. Bring our troops home dot us. They're really great and there's also Concerned veterans of america is another explicitly right leaning group not that libertarians are the right But you know what? I mean, we're not the left so the iraq veterans against the war and veterans for peace and those anti-war groups that lean left they do great work and they fit right in the In the discussion right where they belong and and doing that but these guys too this is how we get them is In attacking the right from the right undermining the last support for these wars among the american people So that nobody believes on them anymore outside of dc And I know that on almost any other issue that doesn't make a difference But I think on war it does if you don't have the american right In the in the broad numbers of the hundreds of millions out in the country to support your war then you can't have a war Well scott we got to wrap it up. I thank you I'd ask our audience to consider this very sobering story that we've just heard Obviously, we cannot separate foreign policy from domestic policy. We can't separate it neatly from economics And I mean more importantly, I think we can't separate it from our basic humanity Which is really being challenged by this story that scott tells find scott Horton on twitter find him at anti war dot com find him at the libertarian institute and find his book Enough already time to end the war on terrorism at amazon scott. Thanks a million for your time. Thank you sir The human action podcast is available on itunes soundcloud stitcher spotify google play and on mesas.org Subscribe to get new episodes every week and find more content like this on mesas.org


Hey everyone, I am Nathan and this is Prime News, but before we get into the news, I want to remind you to enter our Super Smash Bros. Ultimate Nintendo Switch Bundle giveaway through the Gleam.i link down in the description. It is a 50,000 subscriber giveaway, so when we hit 50k, we'll announce the winner of that giveaway. That being said, please enjoy this news, drop a like, and subscribe for more content. Yesterday we talked about how there was going to be a stream that would feature something from RuneFactory 5, but they did announce that RuneFactory 5 will indeed be landing in 2020, and there will be bonus content given to you if you happen to have RuneFactory 4 special save data on your Nintendo Switch. So basically, if you want everything you can possibly have in RuneFactory 5, you need to buy RuneFactory 4 special. You don't know what the content is, they didn't elaborate, so it was kind of a bit of a letdown after hyping up RuneFactory 5, but hey, at least we know it is for sure a 2020 title. Starlink Battle for Atlas was a game that released last year on multiple platforms but seemed to see its most success on Nintendo Switch. That being said, it's still underperformed. In fact, there will be no more toys releasing for the game, which I think is something most people who own Starlink Battle for Atlas expected, but there will be a lot more content. Starlink has released a big update on the official blog for Starlink Battle for Atlas and here is what it had to say. Pilots of the Starlink Initiative Thank you so much for the warm response to the new Starlink content announced during the February Nintendo Direct. With the announcement of new content arriving this April, we felt that it is important to provide an update on the topic of physical toys. Starlink Battle for Atlas has been a passion project for us from the start, and we are incredibly proud of the modular Starship technology we have developed and how well players have responded to it. Despite the immense and continuous support from our players, the sales for Starlink Battle for Atlas fell below expectations. Consequently, we recently made the decision to not release any additional physical toys for the spring update and in the future. As part of our effort to do right by our passion and dedicated community, we are currently hard at work on our biggest update to the game so far and are pleased to tell all of you that there will be new digital ships, pilots, and weapons to collect. Additionally, there will be a ton of free content to expand your games such as additional missions, challenges, and new activities to engage in throughout Atlas, including content that was inspired by community suggestions such as outlaw racing. We are very grateful for the support we have received from players around the world and can't wait for everyone to get their hands on the next big update launching this April. So yeah, there's a big update launching this April. It has that racing stuff. Now you guys remember when Star Fox Racing Rumor was kind of rolling around and then we saw this and then it turned around and it was like, oh, that's supposed to bend that Star Fox Racing Rumor. Actually this was inspired after the game came out. So at least that's what I got out of that outlaw racing was inspired by the community. It wasn't something they had been dreaming of before Starling came out. That being said, maybe that puts the Star Fox Racing Rumors back in the limelight. I'm not sure. All I know is I'm glad to see this update still coming. I'm glad to see that they haven't abandoned this game entirely despite the fact that the sales are what they once were. I am curious what the sales breakdown is because if the Switch version, as I suspect, was the leading sales getter, the future of this franchise may very well lay with Nintendo and Ubisoft deciding to make this an exclusive IP to Nintendo moving forward, especially if they're going to continue to have Star Fox melded into it. Again, I really like Starling Battle for Alice. I think it's one of the best games on Switch, really on any platform. But I think the Toys To Life thing was probably the biggest factor that sunk it because the Toys To Life stuff is kind of a relic of last gen. So it was really weird when they announced it with Toys To Life. Now it's not going to have it anymore. At least you can still get your R-Wings with Star Fox. It would have been cool to get the whole collection of Star Fox pilots. But hey, it's whatever. At least we're still getting free content updates. And they haven't abandoned the game entirely. And hopefully we will get a sequel at some point in the future to at least appease Nintendo fans like myself that really, really enjoyed Starling Battle for Alice. We're going to briefly talk about Pokemon Go. And if you know we're bringing up Pokemon Go, it means it must have just a new milestone, right? Well, yeah. Since its launch in 2017, Pokemon Go has had $2.5 billion in revenue. To put this in perspective, Pokemon Sun and Moon made about $650 million in revenue. Pokemon Ultra Sun Ultra Moon made about $350 million in revenue. And Let's Go Pikachu and Let's Go Eevee made about $600 million in revenue. If you do the math, that means those three titles over the same time spend that Pokemon Go was out made $1.6 billion. Pokemon Go, meanwhile, as a free-to-play mobile game, made $2.5 billion.   The community is still growing. They just announced three new Pokemon Go Fest for this year. It's a big deal, folks. Pokemon Go is not going anywhere. So buckle up and get ready. Because Pokemon Go in 2019 is actually better than Pokemon Go's ever been. It's quietly become a very good game that is starting to deliver on a lot of those initial promises that it didn't back in 2017. This next story is actually going to be our last story for today. Because I don't really want to talk about anything else after this one. Because this is an evolving story. But there are rampant claims that Microsoft and the Xbox Division in particular have rampant sexual harassment basically happening throughout the whole of the company. And forgive the language I'm about to use here.  So this is an ever-evolving story. And if you're wondering what happened, essentially there's been this giant email chain with HR that has gone public at a certain publication. We'll put a link down in the description for it if you want to check it out. And Microsoft hasn't commented publicly on this yet. It is known that Phil Spencer at least publicly did a huge speech, a big 45 minute speech not too long ago about how he hit him as the leader of Xbox trying to make a more inclusive team, trying to signal boost women within the company. So it's unknown if maybe Phil Spencer was above the fray and not aware of what was going on below him. Which believe it or not that can happen. What is clear in this email chain is that Microsoft is investigating this sexual harassment claims and the head of HR herself is actually taking this personally under her wing and having every female who has a complaint come to her personally so she could try to deal with this herself. She said she brought this attention to the upper brass at Microsoft, which would obviously include Phil Spencer. And according to her in the emails, they were appalled to find out about this. So it's unknown how far up the chain the sexual harassment awareness went. What is clear is that there were so lower level HR people that did kind of sweep it under the rug. In fact, some of the lower level HR people were actually present during some of the sexual harassment, which some of the claims in the email chain include having women during meetings with HR even sit on men's laps. There's also where a woman that was working in the tech specific field was suddenly being treated as if she wasn't assistant and only being allowed to schedule meetings and bring coffee for people. Stuff that, again, when you are a programmer isn't necessarily your job. Obviously, assistants and all of that are there to handle that kind of thing. But as a female programmer, there weren't any other male programmers being asked to do such things. So very interesting that this is happening. Obviously, we know about the grander me too movement going on, which is something we haven't talked about at this channel because we try to stay out of religion and politics and these kind of social movements. But again, this is happening at Microsoft, a company that Nintendo is more buddy buddy with and working closely with. And it is something I wanted to draw some attention to because we can't just let these things go because letting these things go is how it actually got to this point in the first place. And I'm sure Microsoft isn't the only company in the world suffering from these problems in the tech space. There's been a lot of people in the wake of this coming out wondering when the other shoe was going to fall in the tech world because the tech world was kind of risen above the me too movement as if there's no problems there. But apparently like rampant sexism is an issue, not just in video games, but in the tech world. And it was notable throughout this email chain that this wasn't an Xbox division exclusive thing. This is something that is kind of permeating all throughout Microsoft. So it's hard to know how the culture was formed and how it's been maintained without certain people finding out.  Sometimes the upper brass just isn't aware. Now, I'm not going to say Phil Spencer did not know, absolutely. But it's very curious how stuff like this occurs and not even the head of HR herself with people that work under her knew about it. So it is notable that Microsoft is aware of the situation. They are trying to deal with it. I'm sure some heads are going to be rolling at the end of all of this. But it's very interesting to see Microsoft kind of get exposed like this in the midst of them getting ready for E3 and whatever is going to come next. Who knows, knowing Phil Spencer, assuming he's not involved in any of this. Personally, he might address this publicly as he's addressed in the past at E3 or something like that about how he stands with female developers and all of that and doesn't believe in this. And if he ever hears about this with anyone underneath him again, they will probably have their heads rolled. Because it's not a good look for Microsoft. It's not a good look for human beings in general. So you guys don't need to think about that story. You can go read some of the email chain if you would like so yourself. Again, it's an ongoing developing story. I don't know how much more coverage we're going to do for Prime News. What I wanted to bring it up is kind of like the highlight story of the day. Because it is, man, it's kind of bothering me. I don't know how we get to this point of being this sexist. But again, these are allegations right now. And Microsoft is currently investigating to see how valid they are. Anyway, folks, I want to thank you for tuning into Prime News. It's been a great time outside of that final story. And hey, you know what? I don't have much else to say after a story like that except subscribe for more content. It's been interesting, actually, the last week or so. We've had some, quote unquote, real stories like this that I don't actually enjoy covering. I wish stuff like this didn't happen.   We're all people, female, male, non-gender specific, whatever community you abide to. We're all people, we should all be treated with respect, especially when we're all doing the same job. Thank you so much, folks. I'll catch you in the next one.


So like how many of the like how is how your assets are hosted like they are in the same domain as the So like how is it for is hosted on like the same domain or it's apart from the other domain like some CDN servers Okay, so there's a like the problem itself is like when you are when your code is hosted on Partly the CDN like something the domain or different protocol or different like sub domain So the problem is like when you try to catch exceptions The problem the browser doesn't allow to give doesn't give proper information of an exception and normally the exception catching in JavaScript works. There's a window dot on error listener Which is which give you all the information so with window on the only problem is like It's it's the as well as evolved like people are moving to minified code and Moving to CDNs to host their JavaScript and the static assets. So it's becoming the window dot on Like what the window that honor is like a waste like it's not good enough for Like knowing what's going wrong in the website on the JavaScript applications So the so here like the biggest problem is the digital security reasons browser doesn't Give you enough information. It gives you a script error if you some might might have like So like The three things are window on load on the game says line number the collect the column number and the file name So and there are message. So like If you are on if the if yours the code brakes is hosted on some other region the browser doesn't give the even the file name file name and it give the file name It doesn't give the error message and doesn't give the line number. So So the problem Let me So the problem is again the when you are working with hard or cross-origin scripts and the script that hosted on anything That's not the same as the current host or current origin. So In during that time you didn't get proper information. So how to get that information to your How to collect the proper information? So first So the first strategy you can use is are you the all the third-party scripts that all the cross-origin scripts You can fetch from your or you have hosted a proxy at your own server Or you copy paste that code in your own server and then fetch from your own same origin So you can easily get collect information This is a hack not a good way to do things and it probably doesn't work with third-party plugins or third-party scripts because sometimes these plugins also load much more code and It's it might not be good approaches for like you are you're trying to use jQuery from other domains Like Google hosting or other things. So this is a pretty tricky thing, but it might work for some people But it's not a good solution. So other good solution is wrap the whole if your code is your hosted on third-party CDN You have the right access to the code one thing you can do is wrap that code inside try catch the whole code inside try catch so when you're doing that the try catch thing is like Whenever anything breaks in that code so the the catch will the as it is wrapped inside the try catch thing It the catch loop will accept Handle the exception catch the exception even before the window error got it. So you have Location where you can extract information the exception catch by the try catch thing you can do anything you want with it It doesn't have to be the cross origin problem doesn't come there It's a one step before the window error got it so like you can extract all kind of information and use it to report to any way you want it to be and But the problem comes with this kind again is if you are working with jquery hosted on a CDN or some other Anything you don't have the right access to so this again the so here comes the third solution. So the third third solution is Try to wrap the objects like let's say you have a jquery object. We loaded it and now jquery has many APIs every API has every API I meant from a payment the function jquery dot Let's say CSS jquery dot any function. So what normally what happens is we have to interact We normally use these APIs API interfaces Make calls and get our data. So if you want to track exceptions in this files So mostly the interfaces lock install some try catching mechanism on the interfaces of these APIs So when you give a send a call to it if anything breaks you you can the interfaces having try catch installed in them You can easily get the whole you can catch the exception even cut off before the window or honor get it So that this is a simple thing. So for how to do that. So a simple try catch wrapper a simple so like The way we do it like this is an example. So let's say this is the human object It has some properties and some methods so and As you can see what there's this this is project or track human These are the this is the track API. I have implemented for my like for my product right now So this is nothing else it do it it follow all the functions and install all the APIs of that object It goes through all the APIs of that object and install a try catch on every function And so now with anything breaks someone call this API if anything breaks in that process it the catch that The oldest the all the exception is handle a catch at that place and reported immediately. So you don't have to like rewrite the code like this is a small line of code you add after your code You don't have to modify anything. It just had that just work like flawlessly with your existing code base without touching anything Is so in this way you can catch the exact problem You get the exact information like which line number even the stack trace you can all you can extract all all all sort of information That is available As same as your same origin browsers like same origin scripts. So this is this is the thing. I'm talking about this is this is all about like Tracking with the third-party scripts So even you see see the script error kind of a problem So you don't don't face if you are to use these three techniques like you will easily get away with the script error problem So that's all any questions like so it's useful stuff Yes So like the Like Most of the time it's adding a one more front-end like adding a more gateway kind of thing in front of every API So that anything before the API is called that gateway is called But when I see Like Yeah, exactly you can do that Yes, but when you are No, no, it's it's it works But when your users are using your code You like the debug it is not on and you how do you want to catch errors at that point of time? It's kind of a production environment. I'm talking about not the development environment. So actually I'm talking about the end interfaces most like Brady's even jQuery has 2030 interfaces something like that. So even as big like a very as jQuery doesn't have much interfaces like internal code You don't have to wrap only the Interfaces or even the system interfaces anything like the user is interacting with or the API is interacting with the like the DOM API is Or some browser API wrap those interfaces and you are good to go with most of the things Actually can Mostly the even handling part are done by some of the browser native Some people you set time out Intervals or even some other window ready. So you can easily wrap this functions Like it may not be a direct way using the crack a page that I mentioned But it's easy to wrap this functions or even someone using this API like even I did the wrapping around Setting the lens and time out with easy and most like you get most of the In that case you still need to know what obvious are being embedded by that So mostly if you're using the third party API right so they mostly have one or two global objects not more than that mostly All you have to do take an object browse through all the functions just a for loop through all the functions and install that Rapper on that all the functions that that are the immediate functions of that particular object So you don't have to know exactly what's going like is there? Simple follow through that and it's a one-time thing You're talking invasive right? It's a one-time thing it do install one time and that's done Like it's nothing happens after that only some exception broke out then then it will do something so it's it's a like a Small like it's not something memory intensive or something not not not not of that kind But it's useful enough to provide much more information that that's not This gives me a hint on Jastrp source maps if you have heard the source maps How is it different from the source map has nothing to do what I've just mentioned the source maps What exactly source map is all about if you have a minified code you can see that code That means I can we can be from the domain. Yes, exactly. Exactly. You can show us map is when you're developing right? You need a development environment that is where source maps coming I'm talking about specifically the production environment you code in code is in no one is going to open your console And no users are getting some other you clicks a button something breaks So how source map isn't help you there? So smash comes in the part like you get the exception you get the minified stack trace Now if you have you generating your source maps for your minified code You can use that source map to extract a renapped that whole Minified stack trace the original source files source maps comes later part not in the back scenario Yes, so the easy part there's a small hack like there's a you can Wrap everything the whole code inside the function and call that function inside right there that function is optimized So one function call is not not the whole code but just the yes, yes, just the part in text where it's written try cats that Yes, yes Thank you very much So last but not least He's going to introduce you guys to death mirror Okay