 It's great to work with the Mises Institute because we have so much overlap in a way people say Mises as economics We do form policy a lot of people say oh Ron I love your economics, but I hate your foreign policy those on the progressive left might say I love your foreign policy Can't send your economics, but Jeff said it much better than I could they are intertwined the Fed Enables the wars that we fight and the wars that we fight enable the Fed So it's very important. I think that people understand the package that we have The Ron Paul Institute is in its fourth year. I'll be very brief about it People turn to us in times of crisis in in very large numbers, which is what we wanted to do when we started it Dr. Paul and I did a show on Wednesday on the Ron Paul Liberty report right after the news hit about the Syrian So-called chemical attack That show that we did immediately went viral With now well over 200,000 views of the show We put the show up on our Facebook page and a million people looked at it immediately So it's really incredible what you can do and we work hard into both the print media And we have a little studio down here in Lake Jackson where we can do our daily show and we can also do our media hits So it's it's it's Times of crisis like this that we're happy that people will turn to us for an alternative from what you've heard the mainstream Media's Chorus I'm gonna do something a little different just for a minute, and I think it's almost a sort of a poetry I'm going to just simply read the headlines from today's anti-war comm and just ponder and think of every one of them For a second as I read them hawkish Dems cheer Trump attack on Syria Tomahawk maker Raytheon fuels defense sector rally 45 times Trump said attacking Syria was a bad idea lawmakers say proof lacking lacking before Trump bombed Syria Lacking Syria plan us threatens more strikes Syria US missile attack killed nine civilians, huh? Is it solid to blame for the chemical weapons attack in Syria? Syrian rebels call for more US attacks US says Russia responsible for Syria gas attack Russia cuts military communications with us over Syria attack Russian Prime Minister US attacks in Syria one step away from Russia clashes ISIS kills dozens of civilians fleeing Mosul and Finally, US considers putting nukes in South Korea So that's just a random and it tells you where we are it tells you the mess we're in We all we've talked about this strikes the 59 Tomahawk strikes at a cost of a million and a half dollars each Fueling the defense sector rally in the markets But this was not the first US strike strike on Syria as a matter of fact it was the 7,899th airstrike on Syria from when President Obama started in late 2014 so this didn't begin yesterday circumstances around it made it more dramatic Did Assad gas the people in this village in the Homs area the other day? Well, we don't know that he did we don't know that he didn't If he did it would have to be one of the most reckless acts or an act of insanity Probably from any leader in history Judging on past behavior and this is certainly no praise for him. Does he act like a madman? He's been able to helm his country in a war against almost impossible odds where? Jihadist rebels that were back by Saudi Arabia and Turkey and other countries the US Were determined to overthrow him yet in a very cool and calculated way He developed alliances with Iran and with Russia and was able to beat them back Hardly seems the motion of a madman or someone very reckless He was on the verge of winning the war It was literally days before peace talks were supposed to begin for a political solution and less than a week After the White House said Assad can stay it's up to the Syrian people to choose their own president So in these circumstances, he was fighting al-Qaeda in the area in Idlib Would he launch a chemical attack and kill a few groups of civilians? It doesn't make sense Maybe he did we won't know probably but you have to ask yourself as in any crime who benefits Is there any way conceivable that Assad benefits from doing this? He risks risks alienating his two allies that have literally saved his bacon in Syria He could he risks risks being Gaddafi'd in the end. Is it good for him? I don't see how it is ISIS and al-Qaeda on the other on the other hand were on the ropes ready for defeat Did they benefit from this? Well, they certainly cheered it and immediately after the missiles hit They started moving on some villages in the area where the strikes were and took advantage of it A couple of other points I want to make before we get to our panel discussion I think the China factor is important and I think it was the David or perhaps it was representative Massey who mentioned The missile strikes were launched as President Trump was having dinner with Chinese Premier Ji They were sitting down to dinner as the missiles flew if that wasn't intended to send a message to both China and particularly North Korea, I don't know what was I think that may have been the real target And I think that might have been why we didn't see a lot of damage The Russian reaction this is probably what I worry about most today. The Russians have not backed down. They've stood by Assad They've said there's no evidence. We know the last time we thought it was Assad It turns out at least according to Carter del Ponte the UN inspector She concluded it was probably the rebels we almost went to war then believe it or not Obama was sane enough not to do it But I want to talk a little bit about the Russians I'm just going to quote very very briefly because Prime Minister Medvedev is not known as a fire breather He is Almost considered up to be too liberal. He's no Putin. Let's put it that way. This is what Medvedev very quiet man said Yesterday, that's it. The last remaining election fog is lifted Instead of an overworked statement about a joint fight against the biggest enemy ISIS the Trump administration proved They will fiercely fight the legitimate Syrian government in a tough contradiction with international law without you an approval in violation of its own procedures stipulating that Congress must first be notified of any military operation unrelated to aggression against the US on the verge of a military clash with Russia Nobody is overestimating the value of pre-election promises, but there must be limits of decency He seems to know our Constitution better than Trump does So what's next? We're back to the beginning. I think we are in big trouble right now. I think maybe we all feel the tension in the room I think we're on the potentially on the verge of something cataclysmic as I said Moscow said We are one step from war with the US and what did Trump say today quote? This is on drudge. I'd hit Assad again is what he said. So the idea that Assad did this because he's simply crazy. I'm starting to wonder if Trump did what he did because he's simply crazy So maybe the shoes on the other foot, but I want to announce our panel to take a little bit more of a look at this and First I have someone I have someone I know very well And I have someone that I know his work, but I we have not met in person yet and Phil Geraldi I've known for quite some time Phil as a regular contributor to our to our Institute's website It's one of my favorite writers. He writes from experience. He spent a couple of decades in the CIA and operations He knows the Middle East like the back of his hand And he's a terrific writer. He's always uncovering something and Phil. I think is such a Asset to our movement what we're trying to do someone who's been there and knows it Professor T hunt to Lee is the chairman of history a chairman of the history department at Austin College and his expertise Really is the Great War which is so appropriate Today, he's the author of the Great War Western Front and Home Front And I think it's it's excellent that the Mises Institute invited him because this sort of pulls the strings together So welcome panelists. Let's sit down and have a conversation. What we're going to do is Each panelist will present, you know five to seven minutes synopsis of what they are thinking about and Then we will open it up to a discussion and we would like to involve all of you in the discussion There are little microphones. I'm told that you can throw at each other and ask questions When the questions do come, please make sure they are phrased in the form of a succinct question So we can get as many people in this so we can answer specific questions. So let's let's get started Okay Dan and David Stockman between them stole virtually everything I was going to say So what I'll try to do is throw out a few comments, which I hope will be supplementary to what they've suggested and These won't be in any specific order or not necessarily connected, but hopefully they'll be useful the first thing I would ask people to to consider is That the premise for this conference is actually incorrect. I Would suggest that the United States actually doesn't have a foreign policy a Foreign policy virtually by definition is a coherent Plan essentially pulls together different elements in terms of how the United States Interacts with the rest of the world What we've been seeing ever since 9-11 is essentially something quite different We've been seeing a reaction To what is going on in the rest of the world and the original intention of a foreign policy to protect American interests and to protect Americans Traveling or in business has basically been abandoned. So I think that's something that people should consider We have we have really Walked away from what the principle was for having a foreign policy as seen by Jefferson and others Another thing that Occurred to me when I was listening to the previous speeches was that in my own history I voted for George W. Bush in 2000. I voted for Obama twice and I voted for Trump In every case the reasoning was exactly the same. These people represented to me the peace candidates In some cases only by virtue of who they were running against But the fact was they were people that were promising a change of direction in terms of the United States and how we conduct our policies In in terms of what I did and what they have done I would deduce that we've been betrayed that Basically the people in this country, which I think both from the right and left constitute a considerable Part of the electorate that really do want peace have been betrayed by both parties I think this is something to consider that the peace movement that David Stockin was talking about I think it's actually much bigger than we we see it because we generally come out of our own bubbles Politically speaking and from our own bubble We may not see that there are people that are politically on the other side that share a lot of our concerns The trick will be to bring all of this together Another another thing that David brought up was essentially that the investigations of what Happened in Syria just like a Russia gate will probably produce no result. I think that's an accurate assumption on this part But coming out of the intelligence community I would say the the sad thing about this is that the intelligence community and the US government know Exactly what happened in both cases, but whether this will ever come out or not is is doubtful I think what we really need is a whistleblower and I think in people in their Conversations with people who work for the government in national security should subtly hint to people that this might be a good idea Finally, I think It's important to assess just how serious What is going on today in Syria really is I consider this just as bad as the invasion of Iraq And there are two reasons for that for one thing ISIS was on the verge of destruction. It's gone the other way The other thing was the Russian relationship was improving that's gone the other way These are extremely serious issues and I think that they're going to be very destructive for the United States if Trump is not ranked in Thank you Is that on okay Well, I think this is a very good time to talk about peace and war from Historicals perspective, it's a good idea since 100 years ago this week We began the week at peace and we ended the week at war so We're talking today in part about prospects for peace today are there prospects and As a historian, I'm a little bit conflicted there because historians are are pretty good with the past and we're pretty bad with the future So I remember the day I told my or the two weeks I told my students at the Berlin wall, which I'd just been Seeing after a research trip to East Germany would not fall in my lifetime or theirs and two weeks later it fell So they were pretty pleased you can imagine so I have three I have three short points and Two are kind of historical and one is not quite as historical First of all this vilification of Russia that we see in the press the systematic cranking up of Of the steam and above all of Putin as the as yet one more face of evil I've been working a lot lately thinking about American intervention into the war in a in a course of a series of essays and I'm just put in mind of the whole run-up to World War two World War one and American intervention in particular the press was a pretty much British subventions but There were many many forces of the government that that really made it Made it appear that the Kaiser was the face of evil and that the Germans were the the root of all evil This was this was a technique that had been invented a while before by the British but But it was used in this big way to say okay focus people's people's ideas on this one face of evil a phrase by the way which Time magazine adopted beginning with many tyrants in our times Gaddafi and many others but Since then it has become much more sophisticated and we've got a We've got a virtual machinery of creating faces of evil in that same imperial city that that David Stockman mentioned and They can really crank them out on demand and and make Everybody that same sort of Time magazine face of evil so this has become the indispensable part of the the sort of propaganda for war I think and that's where we find ourselves today looking at Assad and we had we had to have at this point some kind of Terrible event with children involved the second point is that there were There were in the in the period of World War one of as I say I've been working on American intervention and It's a tragic but exciting material to study One aspect the heroic rearguard action by About 50 members of the house and six-rate senators Who who just fought like mad to keep that war from happening in spite of having the deck stacked against them and so forth They they filibustered an arm ships bill which fighting Bob La Follette said Would mean war if it passed and they filibustered that out of existence, but a few days later the the administration was able to conquer anyway and just Persuade everybody they vote was said 50 congressmen opposed and six senators La Follette and Norris and others opposed But I want to point out this and thinking about this. They they did all this without a coherent anti-war Anti-interventionist movement with a with a deep background of economic and a political philosophy behind it They did it without Ron Paul they did it without the Ron Paul Institute They did it without the Mises Institute So I say all honor to their names, but I do believe that puts us in a better situation today Finally just a very short point if peace is to have a chance I Let me give my opinion it won't come because of our of some individual politician who comes to power and makes peace It has to come from changing minds and perceptions Something that I suppose all of us in this room are engaged in and a part of Education at all levels is certainly the key and in this regard there is I think since 2003 and above all since 2008 and the election there is a huge growth in the understanding of the deep state and Therefore, I'm optimistic about the prospects for peace Thank you very much professor and thank you Phil for your comments I'm going to take the the right of the chair I guess and ask and ask a couple of questions one each of you Professor Julie, I'm fascinated by the media. I always have been I think it's such an important part of How it shapes our opinions and our views of the world and I think you made a very interesting comment at the time of World War One What a strong role the media played in the decision And one thing I noticed when the Syrian missiles flew and the stories came out of why It seemed like the media in the large sense was completely Bifurcated and I mean on the one hand the mainstream media was lockstep as David Stockard mentioned lockstep behind But in Jeff Dice's mentioned this we now can create our own media for better or for worse through social media and I went on to my Twitter and my Facebook and I looked at the people and the institutions that I follow and it was night and day They were questioning they were speculating in some cases. They were conspiracizing if that's a word So how what do you make of this idea that the media monopoly has been broken? Oh, I think that's I think that's really important. I think it's vital to Everything we're doing. I mean think of the multitude of sort of network connections that end up with with all of us being here together in this room Yeah, it's very it's a very crucial thing to our movement and and your your shows Ron Paul Institute and you know, I watch I Watch YouTube videos and get a great information from From all kinds of people. Yeah, I think this is crucial and as you say it just goes it's this kind of viral Quality, so that's wonderful And Phil I'll ask you a quick question, you know You spent decades in the intelligence community still know people there and have good contacts you mentioned that they know What happened was very different than what we've been told is happening if you could take a guess What do you think is going on in the intelligence community right now as we sit here? Well, I can't speak for the whole intelligence community But I certainly can speak for the circle of people that I know that are retirees and some of whom are still in fact Working on contract in for the US government There's a great deal of dissent going on in terms of what is happening This is has been generated by the fact that As I hinted at before there are people inside the system Who witnessed what happened two days ago and filmed it saw it happening live from a drone And they talked to their friends and they say look what we saw what we perceived was precisely Or was a lot closer to what the Russians are saying happened then what the White House is saying happened I was personally astonished when President Trump Immediately jumped on Syria There was no way in hell that he could have known what he seemed to think he knew at that point and dad made the Comment to me that basically he was getting his feed from what was going on in the mainstream media in other words He wasn't talking to his intelligence community, which could have given him possibly Some reason to pause Instead he was listening to what Fox News was saying So this is a very scary thing if we have a president who's driven more or less by by What is perceived or is perceivable as factual information and is more driven by Sentimental information that's being put out by the media Which is basically a commercial product trying to sell what it has and saying what it thinks will be most popular Do we have some questions out there from the audience? first hand went up in the back You got to catch this though, right the key if you don't it's a miss Okay Neat all right, so I can't anybody hear me Okay I have a question about the concept of extreme vetting in light of what is happening in Europe Is that a good thing to do extreme vetting or is this just a case of being xenophobic and paranoid? Extreme vetting again is is kind of a catchphrase if you're if you're opposed to it You you see it as an extremist act and if you're in favor of you see it as something justifiable I think the reality is that our immigration system Our refugee system our asylum system. They're all connected Is broken? How do you tell that someone who comes from a war zone who has no documents who he is what he's about what he's doing? So when when Donald Trump was raising these issues initially they made a lot of sense the problem is it then becomes Dogma it becomes doctrine and the doctrine punishes the innocent together with the guilty without fixing the system I would be in much in favor of them looking for ways to fix the system rather than to punish people who might get caught up in it Norman Conventional wisdom in DC on Thursday was that the Trump administration with the allegations of The Manufactured scandals of his connections to Putin and the failure to pass Obamacare repeal and replace was causing his administration to flounder Conventional wisdom on Friday morning was he was on the path to becoming the next Lincoln because he was killing a lot of children To what extent do you think that those political considerations may have may have contributed to a wag the dog type scenario? At least in the Oval Office and also what what does this mean between the reported conflict between Steve Brandt and the more? nationalist populist America first or restrained foreign policy and Rents previous and Trump's son-in-law who represent more of her traditional establishment tarry and Rule the world and invade the world and invite the world point of view. I agree Well And I basically do agree with the premise of your questions which which all were aimed at yeah, the things we've been talking about I May kick this back to that Phil if he wants to take that or you did well I was just gonna say you know there is a precedent when president Clinton got into trouble in a different sort of way and The Aspen family of factories in Sudan were taken out. So there certainly is a precedent for this sort of thing Is there any sense that? this in other words if if he was Just reading the news and not and not getting not resorting to intelligence. Is there is there any way that that was? Formulated rounded created that situation by the intelligence community I don't think it was created by the intelligence community was clear created by the White House is pretty clear I think it is a plausible hypothesis that Trump would allow this to happen or encourage this to happen as a way of getting back at the Russia gate attacks against him by saying look I'm doing something against the Russians I'm I'm attacking their ally and it makes a lot of sense that he did that and and there's other There are other elements of it that makes sense to to support that argument for example the Russians knew way in advance that this attack was coming The US had a hotline connected with Russian intelligence and told them an hour before the attack was coming The Russians were and the Syrians were able more or less clear out the air base So it seems to have been an attack that was intended to minimize actual damage as a way to mitigate the reaction of the Russians now that hasn't worked as Dan pointed out the Russians didn't buy into this they're They're very offended by what occurred and what the implications of it are So I think that you know this may have been a clever or as the English would put a too clever by a half move on The part of the administration to to deal with the Russia gate issue and and to look tough at the same time Unfortunately the result has been both to to strengthen the Isis and the other terrorist groups in Syria At the same time weak in the relationship with Russia maybe in a fatal way, so Almost sounds like a hundred million dollar temper tantrum green box You might have partially answered my question already, but my question is given all of the positive rhetoric between Trump Putin pre-election and given the strategic importance of the Negotiations with China and how the timing of the missiles coincided perfectly with China Do you think there was actually any kind of more backdoor like you previously mentioned with Russia where Trump is like Hey, you know if you kind of let me get away with a little missile strike to show demonstration of strength against China Maybe I'll scratch your back in the future. Obviously you gotta you have to Trash talk it in the media and you you have to you know do your things in your PR And then we have to do our PR, but ultimately let's not try to start World War three out of this You know, let me get a little demonstration of strength against China And maybe I'll just help you with Crimea or easing of sanctions down the road after this all kind of plays out We get our cake with China. What what's your thoughts on I guess all of that? Well, I think these I think that's a very possible scenario and of course you can't know we don't have any information on this right now But and of course the basic problem is that it's president who is Came out as being in a sense kind of anti interventionist but but never accepted the premise that I Suppose most of us in this room except that you just you shouldn't go looking for monsters so So I think that's what makes us have to ask all these Do all this specific speculation. It's like the old Sovietologists, you know stringers who sat outside of Red Square to see which lights were on in the Kremlin and things like that, you know It's just it's it's speculation, but I think it's that sounds highly Possible to me And my only problem with that is that the Kremlin all is just we're usually wrong So it's absolutely I worry about speculation on plausibilities And I think oftentimes there's two there's too much complexity put into the possibilities Of these kinds of relationships and I would add that it's it's a very subtle scenario and Trump doesn't do subtle very well Blue box Yeah, I have Two short questions one Phil mentioned that we needed more whistleblowers And I agree and I'm wondering There's that hasn't been much talked about the media about this, but I'm wondering is our contractors Treated differently with regard with results to the whistleblower statute and then also I was Real shortly I was just wondering why we can't seem to get any or why nobody in Congress in these intelligence communities seems to know anything about Or can't get any documentation about what Happened in various surveillance activities. It's like they're being stonewalled Yeah, well two questions there whistleblower There are fact there's federal legislation for whistleblowers who are government employees a whistleblower legislation is my understanding For people who are just employees of companies varies from state to state. I Think that's the reality So we'd have to depend on what the law was in the state where the whistleblowers company was located So it's it's not as easy for contractors. That's for sure This and and what was the second question? Oh, yeah, got it. Yeah, got it. Okay As this was as being debated on Thursday They're debating in the Senate a resolution condemning Syria and calling for action the It was my understanding that the senators were not receiving any background information from the intelligence community And the only reason I couldn't I couldn't I couldn't Possibly understand why that was the case was because the White House must have been blocking it And so yeah, this is this is an awful situation where our elected representatives are not allowed to see the information that the government has When they're being called upon basically to agree with a document that's calling for possible acts of war. It's incredible But I mean I wonder if they not getting any information because there isn't any information everyone says that The Putin hacked the election Russian hacked the hack the election Well, what did they do? You know and then when they're put into a corner they say they say something vague like somehow RT mesmerized America Mesmerized a middle America Factory worker into voting for Trump, you know when you pin them down they can't point to what what did the Russians do? Did they hack the ballot box? No, they didn't do that. We know they didn't do that What did they do did they hack the did they hack Podesta's emails? Well, his password was password So, you know, there wasn't a lot of geniuses and then there's the crowd-strike issue You know the the only organization that took the forensic evidence of the hacking Turns out to be founded by a guy who has very shady circumstances Very closely tied to the Atlantic Council, which is a pro let's go to war Russia outfit and also is on the payroll of the FBI Yeah, and the other the other thing I would point out when you talk about chains of evidence You know if a sophisticated intelligence service, which certainly the Russians had was setting out to do this hack to de demoralize our democracy to to get Donald Trump elected as all that has been alleged and basically bought completely by the mainstream media They would be able to hide their tracks and they would there Believe me there are a number of things that they could do to get this information and to make sure that nobody would be able to Pick up the trail as to where it finally went So I'm not saying the Russians did it, but I'm saying if they did it Well, it's a waste of time to do an investigation and that's why these investigations are such a frustrating thing They're gonna go on for months and months and months all they're basically gonna do is infeble the Trump administration Which after Thursday might be a good thing But they're not gonna accomplish anything Okay, let's go to green Yeah, a simple question Why do we believe the North Koreans have nukes all the tests so far have been well Well under critical mass if you don't have 15 kilotons. You don't have critical mass. You didn't have a nuke So why is it that we're believing these one kiloton tests which could just as easily be fertilizer bombs The fact is many people in the intelligence community don't believe that North Korea has a nuclear weapon They believe just as you are speculating that the the tests that the nuclear that the North Koreans have Have pointed to as evidence that they have these weapons were caused by conventional explosives or similar and There are people that have been saying that and believe that It's obviously in North Korea's interest to to allege that it has nuclear weapons as a deterrent So I think you have to pay your money and take your choice But the US government obviously has by and large bought into the theory that they do have nuclear weapons Think we have time for one more. I've got the blue in the corner Thanks for the panel guys. I'm a PhD student So my question is more about the role of academics and other pieces of the intelligentsia How do you view both normatively and positively so how you think it ought to be and how it just is right now? The role of academics and so-called the intellectual class with regard to the anti-war movement Thank you overwhelmingly still in in academe and especially in the disciplines with history and political science for relations sociology these kinds of disciplines People are financed by money that directs them in a certain way for generations the professors and the professoriate has been completely Indoctrinated by stages as they go through graduate school and So if you took the whole picture it would it would look pretty grim But but on the other hand most of these academics are pretty quiescent and You know, they're they're they're basically Investigating the the dress links of dolls in 18th century, New York or something, you know, that's that's not really that Striking so I think that there are that there are a few academics who are really Who are really effective and they We Some of them work in different kinds of institutions. Some of them are at High-profile research institutions and some are not but I think that for example, if you if you go to one of the Mises economics conferences, you'll you'll find that there are our fellow Travellers everywhere throughout the throughout the disciplines so That too, I mean, I think I think it's a big uphill battle to To think that you would ever convert that that kind of mass and those kinds of years and generations of of sort of indoctrination sort of the acceptance of social democracy sort of the acceptance of Marxism light and and all of these kinds of things but But again, I mean I see that in this case The glass is not at all half full but there's there's something there in the glass anyway, and I think that that's That's still very useful to have. I Would just add to that the Put in a plug for the Ron Paul Institute's academic board We have people like professor Klaus Ren who's dedicated his career To promoting a better foreign policy and a brilliant man and also professors Flint and Hillary Leveret Flint is the University of Pennsylvania and Hillary is that teaching an American they wrote a seminal work going to Tehran which argued that We need a Nixon to China moment to have an opening with Iran, which to his credit is something that President Obama did To the consternation of almost everyone in Washington So they get credit for that and I think we're going to have to close out the panel But thank you very much to the panelists Phil Geraldi professor Huntouli. Thank you so much for joining us