Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr.: Vietnam and the Intellectuals

Conversation with Noam Chompsky

Andrew Bacevich, “The Age of Illusions”

Andrew Bacevich discusses his book, “The Age of Illusions”, at Politics and Prose.

With books including The Limits of Power, America’s War for the Greater Middle East, and Twilight of the American Century, Bacevich, professor emeritus of history and international relations at Boston University, has proven one of our most incisive foreign policy analysts. In his new book he charts the remarkable period since the end of the Cold War, showing that while the West’s victory seemed to validate American-style liberal democratic values, the nation’s engagement in several wars and expanded globalization led not to world peace and prosperity but to inequality, divisiveness, and Trump.

https://www.politics-prose.com/book/9781250175083.

Andrew J. Bacevich is professor emeritus of history and international relations at Boston University. A graduate of both the U.S. Military Academy and Princeton University, he served in the U.S. Army for twenty-three years. His recent books include The Limits of Power, America’s War for the Greater Middle East, and Twilight of the American Century. His writings have appeared in the New York Times, the London Review of Books, and the American Conservative, among other publications.

Chomsky: America’s Culture of Fear

01:09
there is a very class conscious
01:13
unusually class conscious very powerful
01:16
business community always fighting a
01:19
bitter class war never relentless and
01:22
unusually powerful that’s one of the
01:25
reasons for the difference between the
01:27
United States and Europe and you just
01:29
can’t study the United States without
01:31
paying attention to that they have
01:33
overwhelming power over the political
01:35
system they basically Shrek frame what
01:38
happens in the media without just even
01:44
introducing that factor you’re just not
01:46
discussing the country so doesn’t matter
01:49
what the abstract theories say and there
are other things like that there other
things about the United States which
really have to be considered seriously
it’s a very frightened country and
always has been back to colonial days
and some good scholarship on this but
there’s a reason why people didn’t laugh
when Reagan
strapped on his cowboy boots and said
we’re under threat from Nicaragua from
Grenada you know so I’m saying whoever
it’s a frightened country and always has
been and you’ve got to pay attention to
that you know there’s a cultural effect
and there are other basic things that
have to be considered if you want to
talk seriously about the country and and
roll’s it it just wasn’t his interest

Trump’s Cracked Afghan History

His falsehoods about allies and the Soviets reach a new low.

President Trump’s remarks on Afghanistan at his Cabinet meeting Wednesday were a notable event. They will be criticized heavily, and deservedly so. The full text is available on the White House website.

Mr. Trump ridiculed other nations’ commitment of troops to fight alongside America’s in Afghanistan. He said, “They tell me a hundred times, ‘Oh, we sent you soldiers. We sent you soldiers.’”

This mockery is a slander against every ally that has supported the U.S. effort in Afghanistan with troops who fought and often died. The United Kingdom has had more than 450 killed fighting in Afghanistan.

As reprehensible was Mr. Trump’s utterly false narrative of the Soviet Union’s involvement there in the 1980s. He said: “The reason Russia was in Afghanistan was because terrorists were going into Russia. They were right to be there.”

Right to be there? We cannot recall a more absurd misstatement of history by an American President. The Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan with three divisions in December 1979 to prop up a fellow communist government.

The invasion was condemned throughout the non-communist world. The Soviets justified the invasion as an extension of the Brezhnev Doctrine, asserting their right to prevent countries from leaving the communist sphere. They stayed until 1989.

The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was a defining event in the Cold War, making clear to all serious people the reality of the communist Kremlin’s threat. Mr. Trump’s cracked history can’t alter that reality.