Title: Sanctions & US Efforts in Eurasia
Show: Caleb Maupin
Date: 2021-03-13
URL: https://youtu.be/DKbHPuKfF2k
Duration: 26:00

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[00:12] welcome back to the backstory i'm former cia officer john kiriakou in our last half hour we are happy to welcome journalist and political analyst caleb maupin caleb is one of the best informed people out there and we have a lot to talk about caleb welcome back to the show sure glad to be here as always well we're glad to have you there's so much that i want to ask you but but the first thing i want to ask is uh is something that's kind of funny so um i googled you the other day

[00:42] i just was curious to see what you were working on and i was amused to see you identified as a radical are you a radical what does that mean well i think the roots of the term radical it simply means that you want to get to the root of the problem right so i guess in that sense that i see the roots of the problem in the world today as being our global capitalist system the rule of the world by a few big multinational corporations who continue to try and keep the world poor and make the

[01:14] world poorer in order to secure their profits and make themselves wealthier um i guess if i see that overall systemic problem as behind many of the individual situations that we discussed in radio interviews i guess in that sense i'm radical um but it's interesting that i'm identified that way i've been called many things uh in my life uh i guess radical is certainly one of them and of all the labels i've been given it's not one i'm anxious to disown there you go there you go i like that well let's start off with uh with international affairs i

[01:45] want to ask you about about something coming out of sanctions i was watching one of the sunday morning talk shows this past weekend and the guest was talking about uh sanctions as a soft power weapon that rather than rather than using hard power and going to war over every little issue that sanctions were very valuable as as a tool in foreign policy i disagree strongly with that with that position um i think sanctions do nothing but but

[02:17] hurt uh average citizens that sanctions invariably invariably hit food supplies medicine clean water everything that people need to just survive on a day-to-day basis but but this guy was saying that sanctions against iran against russia against china were working and that what we've seen is these three countries essentially pull together in order to

[02:48] counter sanctions give me your thoughts if you don't mind on sanctions and on the role of sanctions in u.s foreign policy and then i want to ask you specifically about some of these countries well sanctions should be called what they really are which is economic warfare um it is an attempt to attack a country by using economic means rather than using bombs and tanks and drones and direct military strikes and often people think of sanctions as being are we cut into the profit margins of some of the elite businessmen in the country or other of

[03:20] those who you know do business in the state sector etc but they do hit ordinary people in pretty horrendous ways uh when i was in iran uh i was served tea as i was waiting to give a tv interview by an airline pilot uh and this airline pilot had completed uh he'd gotten his you know airline pilot's license but because of these sanctions on iran iran is able unable to get airplane parts and uh their travel and iran is very restricted and so even though his dream was to become an airline pilot even though he had his license and was ready to become

[03:51] an airline pilot he was stuck serving tea to guys like me waiting to do tv interviews uh because of the sanction however when i went to ecuador for the world festival of youth and students back in uh 2013 i i met a disabled young man um you know who is confined to a wheelchair um because of the genetic condition he has and if it were not for the sanctions on cuba that prevents cuba from getting uh the the medical supplies it needs uh if if those medical supplies were

[04:21] available he would be cured of this ailment and he would not be able to not be forced to be in a wheelchair and that was definitely heartbreaking to me i mean sanctions kill people uh the most blatant example is the sanctions on iraq during the 1990s uh during the 1990s uh the united nations and the world health organization said that the sanctions uh you know many people resigned there were a number of world health organization officials who resigned the sanctions on iraq resulted in an estimate of 1.2 million deaths half of them children under 12. the word

[04:53] genocide was used by officials who resigned what the united states did by preventing iraq from getting chlorine to treat their water and preventing iraq from importing medicine it resulted in in a humanitarian catastrophe that claimed lots of lives so sanctions are not a laughing matter people call them soft power but it effectively it directly affects people's lives you know people talk about the economic impact of the lockdown here in the united states well you know now i mean think about how the lockdown has affected people think about the results of the lockdown

[05:23] uh you know you can understand how economic warfare and economic moves can directly impact people's lives and that's what that's what economic sanctions are yeah and and they're meant to destroy societies uh you you raise cuba i think that's a prime example we've had sanctions on cuba for for almost 60 years now or maybe it is 60 years now uh look at iran we've had sanctions on iran since 1979. the iranians could be utterly self-sufficient if it weren't for for sanctions they can certainly grow

[05:54] their own food uh they have uh they have vast oil reserves but we don't allow them to do anything so tell us a little bit about about this this reporting that iran russia and china are working together now after sanctions we've got sanctions on all three of these countries which seems counterproductive and silly to me uh but what are they doing to work together well it's quite interesting the countries all three of them they kind of are an odd match made in heaven you would think they are completely

[06:24] different right so china that's the communist party chinese communist party has been in power since 1949 uh they drastically reshifted their their foreign policies starting in the 70s and started aligning with the united states and their domestic economic policies drastically shifted in the late 70s with the reform and opening up but their ideology is very much marxism leninism uh you know they are a you know a communist government they you know have essentially planned economy five-year economic plans state-owned industries and they're a

[06:55] manufacturing country largely they make half the world steel uh they have the world's largest telecommunications manufacturer they make the majority of the world's copper the majority of the world's solar panels russia on the other hand you know at one point yes you had the soviet union in the 90s you had the fall of the soviet union which was an economic catastrophe but you know starting in 1999 you had the rise of vladimir putin and a kind of restructuring of russia's economy to once again be centered around the state um at this point russia is an energy producing country gazprom and rosneft two state-controlled energy corporations

[07:27] uh basically hold up the russian economy the economy is centered around state control over natural resources and the export of energy um and it's an energy exporting country i mean they have a lot of manufacturing there a lot of steel they have titanium manufacturing et cetera but it's largely an economy centered around energy iran on the other hand is also uh an oil-based economy and again you know uh you know definitely not a marxist country by any means uh you know it's a country where in 1979 you had a religious revolution and the ayatollahs took power they

[07:58] overthrew the the old monarchy that was backed by the united states the slogan was not capitalism but islam neither east nor west a war of poverty against wealth and you have a state apparatus that is you know the islamic revolutionary guard corps which is the biggest economic entity in the country and they control the natural resources namely petroleum there's a number of other state industries state car manufacturing state steel manufacturing you have a very big state that kind of provides for the population and has kind of a hostile relationship

[08:28] with business and in a way all of these countries while they have different ideologies and different perspectives you know russia is now very much you know nationalistic and christian orthodox christian and their outlook china is still espoused as marxism iran espouses and islamic uh you know theology shia islam all of them kind of have this same overall setup where you have the state kind of controlling the economy you have a market sector but a state basically a state-run economy um and raising people out of poverty using state-controlled economic entities to

[08:59] stimulate other sections of the economy and uh and they would all like to get along with the west i mean they would all love to get along with the united states they don't have you know i mean in iran in the early years yes they were saying death to america and such but at this point iran iran is not seeking you know a hostile relationship with the united states neither is china neither is russia but because of that because these countries are not wall street's playground they've been targeted so as they're being targeted uh they're starting to do business with each other and and they're becoming more dependent on each other because the sanctions from the united states uh

[09:30] cut them off and cut off their ability to do business with other forces and you know china as its state-controlled apparatus of industrial production expands they need lots of oil and they need lots of natural gas well just so happens russia uh as their you know as their economy grows and their state-controlled energy resources expand they need to sell lots of oil and lots of natural gas right what are their basis of economy so russia and china kind of go together very very well um you know iran also needs to sell oil right oil is the basis of its economy china needs to buy oil um

[10:02] you know iran needs more cell phones right well china at this point has the world's largest telecommunications manufacturer the countries they kind of all go together it makes you think about zvignu brzezinski and his book the uh the grand chess board where he talked about the struggle to control eurasia and the eurasian hemisphere being kind of uh kind of the battle to control the world i think the nazis made a similar argument they called it the heartland um and when hitler invaded russia it was about trying to seize control of eurasia but eurasia you know the eurasian world island or whatever you want to call it that is kind of a basis for dominating

[10:34] the world and russia and china and iran have kicked the united states and the u.s you know monopolies and big corporations out of a big section of the eurasian hemisphere um and it has asserted its independence and it's a geopolitical uh game changer and it's something that the big bankers and monopolists that dominate our economy would like to see reverse they would like to be in control of eurasia we've got about uh two minutes before we have to take a break but i want to ask you and there may not even be enough time to to answer this question

[11:05] but can you see a situation where the united states becomes so dependent on on sanctions as a foreign policy tool that we're left behind that these other countries like russia china uh iran and and others go around us and do business with each other in spite of uh our sanctions where they just ignore them and then we're left in the dust absolutely i mean there's there are huge breakthroughs going on in china in terms of computers vladimir putin has called for an

[11:36] international combined effort around the issue of fusion energy um and uh yeah i mean i can definitely see the united states getting locked out i mean look china is already in you know trying to basically build up its response to hollywood uh you know and and make their own movies um you know and and you know and so yeah there's a lot of developments that we are definitely getting locked out of by trying to lock the other countries out of okay let's take a break we'll take a short one we'll come right back and uh let's talk about afghanistan when we come back you're listening to the backstory stay

[12:08] tuned we have a lot more coming up [Music] welcome back to the back story i'm john kiriakou we're having a nice conversation with caleb maupin

[12:39] he is a political consultant and journalist uh specializing in uh in foreign policy foreign affairs and i want to ask you caleb about this situation in afghanistan it seems that uh that something embarrassing was leaked over the last couple of days and this was a letter written by the u.s government which means the state department in this case um urging the taliban and the the afghan government to cooperate uh what's this all about and why is it

[13:09] embarrassing well i mean as the letter stated uh the usa is kind of pushing the afghan government to enter a power sharing agreement with the taliban you'll remember 20 years ago well over 20 years ago when the united states invaded afghanistan it did it for the purpose of deposing the taliban but now it appears that anthony blinken is pushing the afghan government to sign a deal where the taliban would get 50 control over key executive bodies the taliban's military would be absorbed

[13:39] into the afghan security forces um and that's got to be embarrassing for the united states to you know to you know have invaded and occupied afghanistan for over 20 years for the purpose of fighting the taliban to just then you know take an agreement of handing the country back to the taliban i think that's that's what the issue there is yeah i think this is embarrassing actually i mean i i was all for the the peace process i said most americans were all for the peace process um that was taking place in doha during the the trump administration but it just

[14:11] seems to me that the biden administration is giving up at least that's what i that's what i read in this uh in this letter power sharing is great but there have to be guarantees guarantees like rights for women guarantees like uh right for education for girls guarantees like voting rights for citizens what we don't want to see is another coup by the taliban or a taking of power by

[14:41] force by the taliban like we saw in the in the 1990s whereby you either get with the program or you're beheaded that's not what uh what we've been fighting for for the last 20 years well i have long main things that i feel like the united states doesn't really want a stable afghanistan for the very reasons that we discussed in our previous segment before the commercial break top three geopolitical rivals the united states iran russia and china look at a map where is

[15:11] afghanistan it is right there in the middle of all three of them right uh you've got russia to the north you've got china to the west uh and you've got or to the east uh and then and you've then got iran on you know to the south of them and that all three of those countries have suffered from a big problem of of terrorist groups operating based in afghanistan going over their borders and spreading chaos of drug gangs and heroin dealers uh you know operating in afghanistan going in over their borders

[15:42] and that keeping afghanistan is kind of a strategic epicenter of chaos with you know iran russia and china having to deal with all the problems you know flowing over their borders from an unstable afghanistan has been a way to to you know covertly kind of you know harass these three eurasian rivals of american power and to have afghanistan you know right there in central asia as you know now afghanistan is the center of the global heroin trade at least 50 percent of the world's heroin comes from afghanistan right i mean it's copy fields everywhere

[16:14] uh you know all kinds of terrorist groups are operating there um all kinds of weapons are flowing out of afghanistan from terrorist groups into the hands of terrorist groups throughout the region afghanistan and its instability um and it's poverty really i mean it's a very very impoverished country um has caused lots of problems for the countries that border it and three of those countries happen to be major rivals of the united states now this power sharing agreement uh if it is implemented it may result uh in further further instability in afghanistan and that would be you know in the

[16:44] long-term interest of trying to destabilize iran russia and china so it's not particularly shocking to me what i do think is interesting is that uh the taliban uh you know you talk about their history they're emerging kind of as a faction among the folks who fought against the soviet union in the 1980s uh you know then in the 90s you have a coup and you know they take power and then they're eradicating drugs and there's the whole issue where they wouldn't go along with the pipeline that the united states wanted and you know the taliban you know their geopolitical loyalties seem to drift in

[17:15] the wind they will do business with whoever they think will give them the best deal um at the end of the day and i think that that is something the united states is very aware of that the taliban is in business for itself it is a religious entity uh fanatical but it's not you know it's not particularly loyal to the united states it's not particularly loyal to russia or china or the us's geopolitical rivals the taliban works for the taliban and they'll make a deal with anybody based on what they think is in their short-term interest i think that's right and you know i think that the afghan government is kowtowing to the taliban right now

[17:47] because they see the writing on the wall just this morning for example the the afghan ministry of education uh announced a new um ban on girls over the age of 12 singing in public so if you are a girl over the age of 12 you are no longer allowed to sing in public and if you're caught singing you will be jailed we should expect to see things like that but with that said i agree with you that the taliban is loyal to nobody

[18:17] and if you look historically they never have been the taliban leadership was shocked for example in 2001 when we began attacking them because they made clear that osama bin laden aside they had no beef with the united states right that they were compelled by their culture to provide shelter for for al qaeda because al qaeda had asked for it and their culture compelled them to provide aid to an outsider a foreigner

[18:49] who requested that aid it's just the way it's been for thousands of years and so they argued that they had no problem with the united states they had not raised arms against the united states and they couldn't understand why we wanted to overthrow them and fight them that if we wanted to fight al qaeda on their soil that was perfectly fine and good but there was no reason for us to overthrow them and then overthrow them we did i agree with you though and it's not just it's not just the taliban in that region

[19:19] when i was serving in in pakistan there were billboards all over the place in in lahore in islamabad in peshawar that were lauding this new bridge called the peace and friendship bridge that connected northernmost pakistan with western china there's this little teeny tiny strip of land that constitutes the chinese pakistan border it's barely noticeable on a map and they built a bridge connecting the two the two countries over a river and i

[19:51] said to this general who was my regular point of contact you guys sure are making a big deal about this peace and friendship bridge and very pointedly he said to me yes he said the chinese are the only friends we have in the world who have never turned on us and then he looked at me because god knows we've turned on the pakistanis over the years so it's not just afghanistan it's pakistan it's india to a certain respect respect it's tajikistan and uzbekistan you know they'll work with us now but

[20:21] they don't necessarily trust us and they certainly don't think we'll be there for them over the long term indeed look the best time in afghan history for women was the period when afghanistan starting from 1978 up until i think 1993. absolutely we had the the people's democratic republic of afghanistan um and the people's democratic party took power and they started teaching women to read um they you know had literacy campaigns in the countryside they started reforesting the country uh because the british empire had cut down a lot of their trees and

[20:51] they started you know reforesting parts of the country that had just been you know devastated by the british you know taking all their lumber and you know they had they had a lot of you know efforts to try and industrialize the country now unfortunately the people's democratic party was a marxist-leninist communist soviet-aligned party and there was a faction in the people's democratic party that was i think you would call them ultra left or ultra radical um and they were very hostile to the peasantry the peasantry of afghanistan the rural folks uh anyone who's been there will tell you how deeply deeply conservative

[21:23] those folks are i mean i mean islam religion is the center of their lives and obviously you know the marxist leninist party was an atheist party it had an anti-religious viewpoint it viewed religion as primitive and superstitious and while one faction of the people's democratic party was trying to be more sensitive to islam uh the more radical faction uh you know uh continued to be very hostile to the religious folks in the countryside and that created an opening you know for osama bin laden and you know the united

[21:54] states aligning with you know wahhabi forces muslims around the world you know going to afghanistan to fight the soviet union and uh and that's kind of the situation there um i would say that you know that bridge that you talked about is very important because at the end of the day the only way you're really going to get stability in afghanistan is with economic development as long as people are impoverished and starving and desperate you're going to have drug gangs you're going to have terrorist groups when people have real economic opportunity uh when you you know if you could bring railway through afghanistan you could have some some factories in afghanistan that could export products

[22:26] that could then you know get to the ocean through through railway transportation or some highways um if you look at some of the plans that have been drawn up you know with you know iran or china with the belton road initiative economic development would bring a stable afghanistan that's really the only way you can do it i mean it's an economic problem fundamentally this is a part of the world that has been left behind from industrialization i mean i mean there's massive literacy in afghanistan so i mean i mean lots of people without running water without electricity i couldn't agree more we've got about three and a half minutes left and i want to turn to haiti

[22:58] um haiti is in the throes of what may be a revolution right now and it's getting almost zero coverage in the american press tell us a little bit about what's happening in haiti and why it's so important well haiti is economically just a basket case i mean the country has just been devastated i mean it's a deeply poor country and the current president of the country is taking some unconstitutional measures to try and stay in office um and the population isn't thrilled about that uh and

[23:29] partially they're not thrilled about it because they feel he's doing this to continue his economic austerity right i mean the living standards in haiti are already very low i mean people eat you know eat dirt mixed with oil i mean i mean the malnutrition lack of access to health care it's a deeply impoverished country you know all kinds of free trade and and western capitalism has left the country just underdeveloped and now we have you know the president taking an autocratic move and trying to stay in power to continue very unpopular economic

[23:59] policies you know aaron deed was the leader at one point and was kind of a precursor of hugo chavez and bolivarian socialism he was removed by the united states there was a u.s military intervention to remove him the country has had you know pro-us kind of leaders for a long time the economy has gotten worse so now the population is in rebellion against this president who's viewed as kind of an austerity dictator and that's the situation and us media is of course you know blocking it out doesn't want you to know what's happening um i interviewed reporter danny shaw he was there he wasn't even able to live stream

[24:30] on facebook facebook continues blocking his streams of the protests that are happening oh my gosh um so yeah it's worth paying attention to the situation there because it's again a population that was already economically suffering now you know the pandemic has just wrecked the place the people are ready to fight they're in the streets uh and wall street is very afraid that you know we could see the rise in haiti of a new kind of socialist government like we have in nicaragua or in cuba or in venezuela we have only a minute and a half left but when i was with the senate foreign relations committee staff i did

[25:01] a study on on the haitian economy and one of the things that i was surprised to learn was that the seven largest merchant families the merchant families that run the entire haitian economy are white i i was fascinated by that yeah i mean i mean it is particularly shocking but uh you know the country that you know was the first slave revolution uh that you know became a country essentially because the slaves broke their chains was the first black government basically on the on the western hemisphere

[25:32] uh the fact that uh that yeah the wealth is dominated by people of white skin really shows you how blatant uh the the neocolonialism is i mean the fact that they were paying reparations to france for hundreds of years for hundreds of years they were paying reparations to france for having dared you know win their freedom and rise up against slavery uh you know the way haiti has just been punished for their anti-colonial cast is pretty horrendous it's pretty horrendous and it's like we never learn our lessons uh especially in our own hemisphere you know there are

[26:02] so many ways we could have helped the haitian people and uh instead we decided to take advantage of them uh it's not an accident that haiti is the poorest country in the in the western hemisphere and it's no wonder that that so many haitians are trying to get out of their country to try to save themselves but we will leave it there we were happy to be joined today by michelle witty the co-host of political misfits and by journalist and political analyst caleb maupin thanks to both of them for coming onto the show today and thank you for listening join us

[26:33] again tomorrow this is the back story [Music] you
