Know Your Enemy
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Twenty Years of Terror (w/ Spencer Ackerman)
🕑 Added 2021-09-15 19:06:11 +0000 UTCIt's impossible to comprehend the state of conservative politics — or American politics in general — without looking closely at the wars we've been waging for the past two decades. The story we've been telling about American conservatism has been incomplete without a deep-dive on the so-called Global War on Terror. Luckily, Spencer Ackerman has written the perfect book to occasion such a dialogue. In Reign of Terror: How the 9/11 Era Destabilized America and Produced Trump, Ackerman provides a richly detailed (and acutely frustrating) account of the perversions of justice, liberalism, humanity, and the constitution wrought by the forever wars. Our discussion with Ackerman goes from the Oklahoma City Bombing to the cancellation of Susan Sontag to the battles among neocons and paleocons to define the post-9/11 era. We also touch on the CIA's torture program, nation-building in Afghanistan, and the hypocrisies of the Trump-era Resistance. In typical KYE fashion, it's a complex and wide-ranging conversation you won't find elsewhere.
Further Reading:
Susan Sontag et al. "Tuesday, and After: New Yorker writers respond to 9/11." The New Yorker, Sept 16, 2001.
Bernard Lewis, "The Revolt of Islam," The New Yorker, Nov 11, 2001.
Jake Tapper, "Pat Buchanan: America First," Salon, Dec 4, 2001.
Spencer Ackerman, "The CIA’s Outsourced Torture Is Lost To History," Forever Wars, Aug 6, 2021.
Sam Adler-Bell, "How the War on Terror Fuels Trump," Jacobin, Aug 13, 2016.
Comments
Lou Guberti Ng
Please please please put Spencer and Pat Blanchfield in conversation on a future ep
Brian Margolis
I enjoyed the conversation, thank you. Many excellent points. Two comments: 1) I believe the point was made that Trump's support of violence abroad was ironically of a lesser degree than the Bush record. Does not his egregious lack of support for reprisals against MBS (an American ally) after the Khashoggi murder argue against this? It is classic Trump to encourage/enable violence without overtly declaring support. 2) is the violence abroad committed during the Reign of Terror from Bush going forward really a step change from earlier periods? The CIA and public foreign policy interventions of the JFK/Johnson/Nixon years show a litany of American sponsored violence. The Reign of Terror takes on a different form but I dont see much difference in substance
edward ripple
Most excellent Ackerman interview. Thank you. It seems to me after Soviet Union collapsed, the R tribe is determined to oppose any consensus on foreign policy except their own destructive ones, and Dems too disorganized to counter them. And alas the Press stands by abetting the worst of it all.
Chad Bailey
Another masterwork.
Mark K
Excellent work! This one deserves a few listens, it’s very insightful. Chomsky’s critique post-9/11 was along the lines of “we didn’t attack Boston for harboring and funding IRA terrorists, so why attack Afghanistan?” He got similar criticism to Sontag. I don’t think the American response could have been “let’s leave this to the covert ops specialists.” National pride was wounded and something had to be done in a big way. But the paleocon grievances /neocon plans were probably the worst way possible to salve that pride. “The very strength of the British Empire consists in the English lack of cerebration, in their total inability to see the other man’s point of view, and in their strong conviction that the English way is the only right way,” (Lin Yutang) and I feel this is also true of the American Empire. Asking Americans to connect 9/11 to other history soon after the event was a bridge too far. But I am grateful for Mr. Ackerman’s work so that looking back we can appreciate how the whole thing happened.
Ben Gialenios
I genuinely appreciate that you guys are making the podcast more often.
