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The U.S. is not defending democracy in the Ukraine. The insistence on NATO expansion is to keep Russia out of European markets and maintain U.S. dominance. Larry Wilkerson joins Paul Jay on theAnalysis.news.

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Why is Biden Pushing Putin on Ukraine? – Larry Wilkerson



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The Threat of War (Nuclear) With China – Col. Lawrence Wilkerson



Is NATO for Security or Aggression? – Wilkerson & Engler



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Liz Cheney & GOP: A Split Between the Hard Right & Far Right



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US Bombing in Syria Illegal; Biden Should Rejoin Iran Agreement Now – Bennis/Wilkerson



Is Protecting the Murderous Crown Prince in the National Interest? – Phyllis Bennis and Larry Wilkerson



Where is Biden’s Foreign Policy Headed? – Phyllis Bennis and Larry Wilkerson



Did Trump Walk Into a Trap? – Wilkerson and Jay



[NEW UPLOAD] No Evidence of Massive Russian Hack – Larry Wilkerson



No Evidence of Massive Russian Hack – Larry Wilkerson



Trump’s Moves at Defense and Biden’s Picks for Cabinet – Larry Wilkerson



A Judicial Coup Unlikely, but Far Right Far From Gone – Larry Wilkerson



A Desperate Trump Will Do Desperate Things – Larry Wilkerson

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The Danger of War With China is Real and Insane – Larry Wilkerson

What if Trump Won’t Go? – Col. Lawrence Wilkerson

Col. Lawrence Wilkerson on Biden’s China Ad and Nuclear War

TRANSCRIPT

Paul Jay

Hi, I’m Paul Jay. Welcome to theAnalysis.news. Be back in just a few seconds with Larry Wilkerson. We’re going to continue our discussion about what’s going on in Ukraine. Please don’t forget the donate button there. Come over to the website. We can’t do this without you. Subscribe and, most importantly, get on the email list and share the stories. I’ll be back in just a few seconds with Larry Wilkerson.

So we’re back with Larry. He’s going to join us now. Larry was the Chief of Staff for Colin Powell when he was Secretary of State. Thanks for joining us again, Larry.

Larry Wilkerson

Good to be with you, Paul.

Paul Jay

So when I look at what the Americans are doing and saying. And then look at what the Russians are doing and saying, let me start with the Americans. This all seems to be certainly from the American side, all about, quote-unquote “American prestige,” American supposed strategic positioning. How could you ever say some country can’t join NATO [North Atlantic Treaty Organization]?

The thing is, there’s no way that Europe and even the U.S. probably, but certainly they’re never going to get consensus amongst NATO countries for the Ukraine to join NATO. So it’s actually in the American’s interest right now, and the British, all the Saber rattling and all the rhetoric, they must be thanking their lucky stars Ukraine is not in NATO, as they have made clear. They don’t want to send troops into the Ukraine to defend Ukrainian sovereignty. The whole thing is nuts.

But when I look at it from the other side, for the Russians, what difference does it make? Even if the Americans put nuclear weapons in Ukraine, is it actually more of a threat than the nuclear weapons that are already pointed at Moscow from other Eastern European and Western European countries and American ICBMs? Russia has deterrence not just their missiles, but more importantly, their submarines.

A lot of this seems more about whether it’s domestic public opinion, stoking nationalism, making money for military-industrial complexes. First and foremost, the Americans they’re getting $200 million to go to Ukraine to arm the Ukrainians to defend themselves. Of course, who gets that $200 million but American arms manufacturers?

I was telling somebody I got interviewed the other day by somebody about my wrestling film that Wrestling with Shadows film. And I said wrestling is all theatre but sometimes, like when [Bill] Goldberg dropped kicked Bret Hart, he’s supposed to barely touch the guy’s chin. But Goldberg made a mistake and actually knocked Brett in the head because, in spite of it being theatre, accidents happen. And Brett was really knocked out, and then he had a stroke. So in the context of this crazy bravado and theatre and pissing match, shit really can happen. And then, of course, it gets very dangerous. Am I reading this wrong?

Larry Wilkerson

Not at all. I think you’re right, and your metaphor is a good one. The history of warfare for the last 5000 years would indicate that often what you just described is the case. Let’s look at some of your initial comments. I think this is the most nonsensical illogical alliance palaver I’ve ever heard in my life, and I’ve lived quite a while.

Let’s just look at what we’re talking about. The essence of NATO, it’s very raison d’être. It’s difference. Its reason for being the most successful political and military alliance arguably in history is article five. An attack on one is an attack on all. That was unprecedented when it was done. It made people in the Congress, especially the Senate. It made people like Dean Acheson and others stand up on their Hind legs and tiptoes because no one had ever done anything like that.

Look at what we’ve done. We’ve gone to war with NATO, in Afghanistan, in Syria, in Libya. Where was article five? Well, I’ll tell you, it was nonexistent. The NATO alliance is defunct, and we are desperately; we being principally Washington, trying to resurrect it, and we’re trying to resurrect it on out of area operations and, more importantly, on expansion. The more members, the more it seems relevant.

This is ludicrous, and I, for one, can’t understand why Joe Biden can’t understand that and do something about it. What I would do about it is I would rein it in now and begin to Peel it back with the aspiration that some president in the future will get rid of it because it is nothing but this. What it is today, a bone to pick between two really relevant powers in the world, Russia and the United States. And that’s not a bone we want to pick.

Paul Jay

Maybe after World War II, maybe a lot of people of goodwill, in a sense. And I had these long conversations with Daniel Ellsberg now, and I’m kind of thinking of him, but I don’t think he was the only one. Who really believed after World War II the Soviet Union represented the same kind of global threat to the world as [Adolph] Hitler and Germany did. I get how people of goodwill believe that?

Larry Wilkerson

Well, I think with Joseph Stalin, I take your point, and I know where you’re going with Joe Stalin. They were close to the truth.

Paul Jay

Well, not for Ellsberg. Ellsberg doesn’t diminish what Stalin did internally, but Ellsberg in terms of nuclear policy and else wise, I think there’s lots of documentation on this now. The Soviet Union never had any plans for any kind of first strike. They were always in a defensive position in terms of nuclear.

There was never any serious planning for invading Western Europe. The Soviet Union wasn’t a military threat if it was any kind of threat at all, and there’s some quote from [Dwight D.] Eisenhower in this direction. The real threat was the national liberation movements, all gravitating towards socialism and some backing an alliance from the Soviet Union, which wasn’t even that serious. But the Soviet Union did something to support national liberation movements.

Larry Wilkerson

Let me just intercede here. You can’t have your cake and eat it here, too, in this instance.

Paul Jay

Well, I’ve never understood that phrase because I never understood having a cake without eating. What is the point?

Larry Wilkerson

I’m just using the stupid statement.

Paul Jay

Yeah, go ahead.

Larry Wilkerson

As long as they had 30,000 nuclear weapons, they were a military threat.

Paul Jay

Well, I just quoting Ellsberg here, which is that when the Soviet Union had the possibility of actually having more ICBMs than United States did, and when the Air Force and Kennedy were being told and Kennedy repeating, and he knew better. That saying the Soviet Union had 1000 ICBMs, and then they found out they actually only had four. For Ellsberg, that meant they weren’t planning an aggressive nuclear strategy and that it was all based on a defensive approach, and they never had serious plans of marching into Western Europe.

So NATO was really based on a kind of big lie that there was this potential existential threat to Western Europe. The United States is there to defend democracy and so on. Now move ahead now to quote —

Larry Wilkerson

Let me interject again, reality. You’re looking at 300 Russian divisions that had just mauled 200 Vermont divisions, the best divisions on the face of the Earth, no question about it. They had just mauled them. They had mauled them principally by putting human Fodder in front of them. They weren’t better than they. They didn’t have better tanks. They didn’t have better airplanes. The T-34 was a decent tank, but it couldn’t stand up to the average German tank unless it swarmed on it and was willing to lose eight hundred to there, two.

They beat the best army in the world, but they did it on two million-plus dead. And to look at that war machine and look at what they were doing in Berlin, in particular, raping every German woman they came across. Helmut Cole actually told [George] H.W. Bush that probably a third to a half of people born in ’45 and ’46 were Russian at least halfway. You couldn’t do anything but fear that.

Paul Jay

Okay, well, I acknowledge that I can get it coming out of World War II. It was not unreasonable to believe that the Soviet Union might have been a threat to Western Europe. But I think even more threat than the Soviet Union was that there were very powerful socialist and Communist movements in all of Western Europe.

Larry Wilkerson

I agree.

Paul Jay

In Greece, the Americans helped install fascist dictators.

Larry Wilkerson

Even Harry Truman. He put the CIA in Italy. He put them in Greece.

Paul Jay

They supported [Francisco] Franco in Spain, a fascist in Portugal. But again, I’m going through the eyes of Ellsberg primarily here, but there’s other documentation here I just saw yesterday. I’ll have to send this to you, a document that shows that most of the estimation of the Soviet military strength, I don’t know, I’m exaggerating, I know about most. I think the quote was an important part actually came from the defence industry giving information to the Pentagon. And there’s some studies that were generated by the defence industry to exaggerate Soviet strength.

But at any rate.

Larry Wilkerson

A lot of the equipment was ours. A lot of their equipment was ours. The bombers in Iran that landed for the Tehran conference that brought Stalin to the conference, they were U.S. bombers with Soviet insignia.

Paul Jay

But when you start getting into the ’60s, the ’70s, the ’80s, it is clear the Soviet Union is not a military threat to Western Europe or the United States. Now once the Soviet Union collapses and now to Gore Videl, I said this in this other interview, but I’ll say it. Vidal says the whole point of NATO was to fight these godless Communists.

Well, Jesus is back in Moscow, [Vladimir] Putin’s very close to the Russian Orthodox Church. What is the point of a NATO now? Russia is a midsize power.

Larry Wilkerson

You’re preaching to the choir.

Paul Jay

Okay, but there is a point. The point is, and I think this was the point almost from early on because again, to quote Ellsberg, he says the Cold War, he finally came to the conclusion was essentially a commercial subsidy the Aero Space Industry.

NATO is a way to enforce American military arms sales and keep Europe under the umbrella of American arms manufacturers. And that’s really the point of NATO, and even the fight of Eastern Europe and Ukraine is to maintain those countries as part of the American sphere of market influence. Primarily not only, but primarily for arms dealing.

Larry Wilkerson

Well, we used to say in the military as early as my memory serves me right 1996-1970 when we were talking about Western Europe. That the purpose of NATO and this sort of slid off every soldier’s tongue was to keep the Russians out, the Germans divided, and the U.S. in. Well, that in was for all the things you’re talking about, in addition to perhaps some people who thought it was security. It was for all the things you’re saying.

It was for domination of Europe to the extent we could. And how better to do that than be the prime member in the NATO alliance that included them all and to ensure that the Soviets couldn’t get in any further than they already were. And to keep Germany divided because they’d caused the last one and the one before that, and that’s all gone. What are we doing?

Paul Jay

And now, if you’re German or, frankly, any of these countries, you look at what’s going on in the United States, And you could be looking at a President Trump again in 2024 or utter chaos. And you require your energy from Russia. Jesus, why wouldn’t you actually not want to be part of this?

Larry Wilkerson

Look at the Germans right now. I had a call from Berlin today wanting to know if I do an interview with this particular, it’s a small kind of niche newspaper, but it’s a very good one. And I said sure. And we talked for a few minutes, and she was a little bit surprised. I think because I said I agree with Germany’s position, I agree 100% with Germany’s position. I hope you hold it.

Now that might be a worked-out diplomatic ploy, too, to give Putin a feeling that he’s got a refuge somewhere or he’s got a partner somewhere. I think he was looking for [Mitch] McConnell

for that. But to have Germany is even better. So I don’t know if it’s a dip. My problem with this interpretation of diplomacy that I’m sort of giving you a little shot at is I don’t think we’re that good.

I think we’ve lost the ability to do what I call exquisite diplomacy. So that’s my big doubt in all of this. When I hear these kinds of reverberations that we’re really doing this and we’re talking, and we’re each seeking leverage over the other and so forth, but we’re ultimately going to resolve this with talks. I love that. I pray for that, but I don’t think we have the skill.

Paul Jay

So then flip it to the other side. And I mentioned a bit of this in the beginning. Why is Putin doing what he’s doing? And I have to say I think it’s not unjustified. Of course, it’s justified to say Ukraine should stay out of NATO. They should roll back troops in some of the other former Soviet republics. There’s no way any country that has any ability to keep troops off its border wouldn’t do it, especially a major regional power. It’s entirely reasonable.

On the other hand, what are they going to do if Ukraine is in NATO? They can’t do anything to Russia. Even if Ukraine was in NATO, there’s still the area of Eastern Ukraine that essentially has autonomy. They had The Minsk-2 agreement. I guess it was 2014. Where the Ukrainian government actually agreed to creating this area as an autonomous area. And over time, it’s going to get closer and closer into the integration with the Soviet the Russian economy.

There’s nothing anyone’s going to do about that in NATO or not out of NATO. That’s happening. So what’s the point of playing this game unless the game is to see if you can Peel Germany off and see what happens to this.

Larry Wilkerson

I take your point. I think you have to go up a little bit higher and say, what are this very clever chess master like KGB [Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti], FSB [Federal Security Service], NKVB [People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs], GRU [Glavnoye Razvedyvatelnoye Upravlenie] imbued man’s objectives strategically speaking.

I think there are threefold. One is to sever the transatlantic link. He does not like the influence the United States has, not just on his near abroad, but on Europe in general. Second, to dismember NATO, doing a very good job of accomplishing both of those objectives, by the way. Trump almost handed him the first one.

George W. Bush started it by in the Oval Office, saying if you see [Gerhard] K. Schröder, the German Chancellor at the time. And the only reason that relationship survived, I’m serious, was Colin Powell and Joschka Fischer, the German Foreign Minister because they swore they would keep it together despite Bush and with Fischer, despite Shrouder, because Schröder hated Bush’s guts. So the relationship was praying even then.

Nord Stream Two, the pipeline and its completion has made the relationship fray even more now. So Putin wants to sever that. Principally because of Germany, but all of Europe in general. He doesn’t care about Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. He doesn’t care about Montenegro. He cares about Germany, the power of Europe. And so he wants to do that.

And then the third objective is to make the EU feckless. And he’s got a lot of help there because politically speaking, they’re making themselves feckless, and the economic and financial aspects of that just follow on naturally. I think so. He’s doing right well. He’s doing right well.

So one thing I would be saying to him right now, if I were on Mars looking down, advising these people, playing checkers on the one side and chess on the other, I’d say, hey, Mr. Chess Master, don’t go too far. And don’t, for any reason whatsoever, start a war.

Same thing I’d say to Xi Jinping, but I think Xi Jinping Ping understands this. You’re winning. So don’t start a war because a war will cause you all to lose, perhaps hugely, if you go nuclear. And there’s always the potential for that when you’re going up against nuclear powers like Russia and China. That’s my advice. You’re winning. Don’t start a war.

Paul Jay

Yeah, there was a quote, I think, a political from some Russian expert who was brought up in Russia. She said something like, the almost war is dividing NATO. Actual war would unite NATO.

Larry Wilkerson

Yes, exactly.

Paul Jay

Much better position leaving it. But I think it’s really important to make another point. The way the press is playing this, the way the Biden administration, the Republicans, all the Western foreign policy establishment, this is all because Putin hates democracy. It’s such bullshit. This has nothing to do. He couldn’t care less how governments get changed.

Larry Wilkerson

Hates the United States.

Paul Jay

First of all, the Putin’s government, the State, just like the American government and State, represents the Russian oligarchy just as much as the American government represents the American oligarchy. And the American oligarchy have created this whole zone of American influence in Europe, and they take measures to keep the Russians out of it as much as they possibly can.

Larry Wilkerson

And it’s not just Europe. You know that. It’s South America. It’s Africa. It’s the Middle East. It’s our Dominion.

Paul Jay

This is a fight between oligarchies of which the American has been the dominant global Empire. Somebody critiqued me in one interview I gave. I said I don’t want to exaggerate calling this U.S. Empire if other countries aren’t part of global capitalism. They don’t all have their own interests. They’re just small. Jesus, if Canada could be the global superpower, Canada would jump at it in a microsecond. It’s the nature of the system. But Canada is what it is. It has to be a junior partner, and that’s life.

But regionally, Russia has the size and clout of a mid-sized power to be far more influential in all of Europe, and the Americans don’t want it. And the oligarchs are fighting each other over market share the same way Coke and Pepsi fight each other over market share.

Larry Wilkerson

I don’t disagree with you. I think the fear on our part should be more in the deterioration of our economic power than in the mounting power of Moscow because Moscow’s economic situation and its financial situation alongside that is fragile, far more fragile than, say, Xi Jinping’s is, though there are some cracks showing up in that now, too.

Our problem is we’re doing it to ourselves. Our problem is we are destroying our own economic power. We’re destroying our own reach with that economic power because we can’t seem to get our act together in terms of what it is we want to do and how we want to do it over the next generation and certainly over the next 70 years. And one of the biggest aspects of that is the climate crisis.

The rest of the world can sit around and watch us disappear literally if they want to because we’re doing it to ourselves like most empires in history have done it to themselves. We’re cutting our own throat slowly but surely. We’re bleeding all over the place. We’re bleeding in the Middle East. We’re bleeding in South America, bleeding all over from Venezuela and what we did there.

Now virtually the entire subcontinent hates our guts. We’re bleeding over little Cuba. Cuba wouldn’t even be thinking about the Russians possibly coming back in. Putin even couldn’t threaten that. The Cubans hate the Russians. One of the things I discovered from 2009 to 2014 or so when I was in Havana year after year, they hate the Russians.

The reason they’re even opening up to anything like Putin suggested that he might put missiles in Cuba or whatever is that they pulled out, Biden pulled out. Trump pulled out of the Rapprochement that [Barrack] Obama had created, and they’re furious with us and rightfully so. And we’ve still got the blockade on it. It’s even tightened. Trump tightened it majorly. So we’re creating our own Imperial demise even as I speak.

Paul Jay

The United States has a budget that began under Obama, continued with Trump, continues with Biden. Over, maybe it’s now, I think, a trillion and a half dollars to quote-unquote “modernize the nuclear weapons Arsenal.” The Russians are doing the same thing, apparently also a trillion dollars.

Now the Chinese, because of the Russian and American, the Chinese had been much more modest in terms of their investment in nuclear weapons. Now there’s a lot of talk that Chinese are feeling such pressure by the extent of the advancements of nuclear weapons, including tactical, quote-unquote “tactical,” what do they call it dial-a-yield where you can actually start having supposedly serious conversations about using nuclear weapons in the context of a supposed conventional war.

Larry Wilkerson

And they’re having those conversations again now, both in Russia and in the United States.

Paul Jay

I mean, the insanity of this whole thing, it takes me back to the stories of Lyndon Johnson during the Vietnam War, when they knew they were going to lose, and they knew it was pointless, and they knew there wasn’t really going to be any big domino effect. And Johnson says, according to the stories, and tell me if I’m wrong because you probably know the story better than me. He pulls his pants down and shows his dick, and says, look how big it is, and that’s what this is about.

Larry Wilkerson

I don’t know if that’s true.

Paul Jay

Apparently, that’s a real story.

Larry Wilkerson

There are similar things to that. I mean, he’s sitting there in front of McGeorge Bundy, Walt Rostow, and I think [Robert] McNamara, and they’re telling him about this colossal bombing campaign which turns out to drop more iron bombs on North Vietnam than we dropped in World War II. And we killed tens of thousands of Vietnamese civilians.

And Johnson says in his old style, he says, Oho, meaning Ho Chi Minh, ain’t going to be moved by no bombs. Showing that LBJ knew that the bombing campaign was not going to do squat with regard to this country. That was what it was. It didn’t have industry to bomb. It didn’t have factories to bomb. What it had was young men and women who are willing to die for their country in South Vietnam or wherever.

And the LPJ knew that. But what did he do right after he said, Oho, who ain’t going to be moved by no bombs? He approved Rolling Thunder, the bombing campaign, and he approved up to 500,000 troops in Vietnam. I mean, come on.

Paul Jay

And I’ll go back to this wrestling analogy in the context of all of this posturing and huffing and puffing and pissing match, which is so at the heart and soul not only of the American military-industrial complex and the Pentagon but also the Russians and others. The whole psyche is you have to show how strong and tough you are. The best defence is to show you have the offence.

Larry Wilkerson

Dean Acheson called it prestige. And then, he defined prestige as the shadow of power. Well, what Bundy, Rostow, McNamara, and Johnson do is they define prestige as, well, if we lose in Vietnam, even if we cut and run from Vietnam and our allies. Principally the NATO allies here we are back to NATO again, recognize that we’re cutting and running, we’ll lose prestige, we’ll lose that shadow of power.

Paul Jay

Last I interviewed Ellsberg, which will be in this documentary I’m doing with him. He pulled out a document which is a 1964 study, much of which is still classified, and he decided to read it to us anyway. In fact, he warned us and said, if you even listen to this, you could be charged the same way I could. He asked us if we wanted to keep filming. We said, yeah.

And it’s the minutes of the 1958 meeting of the Joint Chiefs of Staff where they discuss the fact that Eisenhower had authorized the use of nuclear weapons against China if the Chinese decided to use military means to retake Taiwan.

Larry Wilkerson

That was when they were over the island, Quemoy and Matsu.

Paul Jay

Exactly and the conversation is one of the generals says, what happens if we use nuclear weapons even if it’s just small amounts, right on the coast where the Mao Zedong’s Army is firing from? And one of the generals says, well, if we do use nukes there, won’t the Soviets nuke something? And one general says, well, they’ll probably nuke Chiang Kai-shek. They’ll probably drop a bomb on Chiang Kai-shek’s head.

Well, if they do that, says the other general, well, that means we have to retaliate against the Soviet Union. And then another one says, doesn’t that mean all our war? And the first general says, yeah, but the alternative is worse. What was the alternative? Losing prestige? This is an insanity.

Larry Wilkerson

Some students of war, some historians will tell you that that is more often a cause of conflict than any other single factor. People worried about what is the equivalent at the time of their prestige.

Paul Jay

And the Democratic Party’s foreign policy establishment is every bit is imbued with all of this.

Larry Wilkerson

You bet.

Paul Jay

And because that’s where the money is. It’s part of their identity, and it’s part of where their flow of cash comes from.

Larry Wilkerson

Which is why you had people like Jack Reed from Rhode Island voting over and over for that NDAA [National Defense Authorization Act]. And it’s just so much polluting money. It’s pitiful and taking money out of the mouths of babies, literally. I’m not using that just because I want to be impactful.

It is taking money out of all manner of domestic programs that we desperately need to feed this machine, this war machine. Which, incidentally, hasn’t won a war since the first Gulf War, and that only since World War II.

Paul Jay

No, you’re forgetting the other very significant, Granada.

Larry Wilkerson

I don’t call that a war. Panama.

Paul Jay

I think that’s really important. Part of this thing is that every major, this whole massive military machine has accomplished next to nothing. Anyway, that’s another story.

Maybe one of the things that was the most disgusting thing I heard in the last week was an American member of the Senate Armed Services Committee and then not American, a Democrat member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and then a Republican, both on these talk shows saying the same thing, which was we have to send lots of small arms to the Ukrainians, so they can wage guerrilla war against the Russians.

The Ukrainian’s are supposed to have their country turned into another Syria and have factions fighting for the Russians against the Russians and destroy their entire society because the Americans don’t want to say Ukraine won’t be part of NATO.

Larry Wilkerson

It’s a nightmare. It truly is a nightmare. And as you’ve posited earlier, it’s a nightmare based on I’m not there, I’m not going to bleed, but I’m going to make money. That’s what it’s based on.

Paul Jay

All right, well, I’m not sure what else you say after that because it’s the case. And the problem is that the identity on all sides of this, but most importantly on the American side, is they’re so afraid of looking weak in the world right now. And especially Biden because he’s so weak domestically, politically now to look weak in the face of Putin, it makes it even more dangerous. Is that going to inspire a kind of rash act we might not see otherwise?

Larry Wilkerson

There’s a movie out there now called Munich on the Edge of War. I watched it the night before last. It’s an incredibly good movie, and it revisits the situation of [Neville] Chamberlain, which good historians are already doing. What Chamberlain essentially did was sacrifice his prime ministership and, in many ways, his political place in history to gain another year.

They thought they might gain two, for Britain to rearm and for [Winston] Churchill to come in and fight the war they knew was coming with that rearmed Britain. And Churchill and Chamberlain had an agreement, and they knew that Chamberlain was truly an honourable man, a Brit who fell on his sword for his country.

I say that simply to remind people that there is a possibility of high ethics, high morality, if you will, in political leadership. We are utterly devoid of it. And one of the things that has made us so is this incredible pollution of money, money generated by the national security state. Money passed from the national security state to its political leadership — money, money, money.

And that’s not atypical of empires collapsing when that sort of thing happens. And I’m not just talking about Britain. I’m not just talking about recent Empire. The Third Reich, for example, [Albert] Speer and Hitler and all those guys who were making money hand over foot. The Swedes were making money hand over foot. Even some of our people were off of World War II and off the travesties that occurred in that war. That’s what it’s all about. It’s about money. We need to back away from that, or we’re going the same way they went.

Paul Jay

The banality of evil. I remember interviewing you a long time ago when you really realize how much the Iraq war was just about oil. That is so goddamn banal. In older times and maybe even in the 1800s, but certainly, before at least, people believe there were higher ideals than just grabbing shit. I don’t think there ever really was about the higher ideals even then, but a lot of people kind of believed it.

Larry Wilkerson

[Ulysses S.] Grant Said about people like [Jay] Gould and others who tried to corner the gold market and tried to get the railroads in their back pocket and everything else. There are some bad people in this country.

Larry Wilkerson

People accuse Grant of having the most corrupt administration in American history, at least until that point. And my study of Grant is he did everything he possibly could to thwart the people who were around him, but it was growing so big after the civil war sort of made the federal government the fountain of all money. Even he couldn’t do anything about it. Two terms, and he did do more about it than people give him credit for, but he realized that we were turning into what we are now, full-fleshed.

Paul Jay

I usually and am going to continue to end my interviews these days with this. Find people who are doing on the ground organizing amongst ordinary people in communities all over the country but particularly in communities that tend to vote either for corporate Democrats and particularly for Trump.

There’s people doing really good organizing in these areas and trying to support candidates who are against both parties’ military agenda and for a real climate agenda. So I’m going to do more and more interviews on theAnalysis.news with people who are doing that kind of work because as dim, as terrifying as many of our conversations end up being, there is some hope, and the real hope is amongst these people that are doing this kind of organizing.

Larry Wilkerson

Especially the young ones. The young ones are very impressive, and they’re mad, they’re angry, and they’re working, and I keep telling them, you’re the hope. You’re the saviour. You got to keep it up.

Paul Jay

All right, thanks a lot, Larry.

Larry Wilkerson

Sure, take care.

Paul Jay

Thank you for joining us on theAnalysis.news. Again, please, there’s a donate button, subscribe, share and see again soon.

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