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Radio War Nerd EP #179 — Max Blumenthal on "The Management Of Savagery" (Patreon)

Published:
2019-04-30 22:28:43
Edited:
2019-04-30 22:40:30
Imported:
2026-06
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Guest: Max Blumenthal, author, journalist, podcaster 

Recorded: April 26, 2019

Journalist Max Blumenthal (RWN EP 86, EP 54)  joins the War Nerd to talk about his controversial new book "The Management of Savagery: How America's National Security State Fueled the Rise of Al Qaeda, ISIS and Donald Trump" — about the US empire's cynical instrumentalization of jihadi extremists beginning in Afghanistan through Syria, and the political blowback from allying with and empowering jihadi extremists: rising Islamophobia, rising Nativism, and the destabilization of both targeted countries around the globe and destabilized democracies in the West. 

Buy Max Blumenthal's new book "The Management of Savagery". Read his investigative reporting at The Grayzone. Follow Max on Twitter. And check out Max & Ben Norton's podcast, Moderate Rebels. 

Total time: 2:26:28

Direct link to this episode's mp3 here 

Hey War Nerd fans! Buy the new audiobook version of John Dolan's comic novel, "Pleasant Hell"  - read by the author himself!

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Comments

ploob

Wow, gives some interesting context to recent reports of organized crime at Fort Bragg..

Michael P

This is the most important topic of our times. Please consider making this particular episode public.

Brian Harvey

The web is so complex, I just bought Max's book to learn more. Can't wait to read

mark

Excellent episode. Will definitely read the book. Hopefully it crossed your minds that the empire's backing of the secessionist YPG is not a far cry from what happened on other fronts with Islamist and other extremist elements. Think about it.

Avery

YPG is secessionist? When the Turks attacked them they appealed to Assad for help, right?

JoR

Thee hosts acknowledge this link constantly. There's a difference between taking US assistance and being a simple proxy.

zaabittimov

Mark is right about how most western media outlets completely bought any and every piece of pro-war propaganda served up to them. I remember hearing all kinds of stories about, for example how there was a massive dungeon under the Pristina stadium where Gestapo style tortures were occurring. That turned out not to be true, but on the other hand, there were certain anti-interventionists (not you guys) who completely bought the Serbian propaganda. The counter insurgency campaign that was happening before the NATO bombing was pretty brutal, although mostly localized to certain areas. In many ways it was not unlike the Turkish campaign against the Kurds which was going on in the 90s. However, it is a fact that the entire province was being ruled under a kind of apartheid system that systemically oppressed a majority of the population, a fact often ignored by those towing the pro-Serbian line. What isn’t often mentioned, is that the worst atrocities occurred only after the bombing had started. I have always found it hard to believe that NATO didn’t know that this kind of retaliatory violence was going to happen. A vast majority of the biggest massacres and mass sexual violence occurred then. That and the expulsion and displacement of nearly the entire Albanian population. That’s also when they started giving some of the paramilitaries who were active in Bosnia free reign to terrorize the locals. One former member of the “Jackals” unit talked about how their commander Mrtvi (The dead one) could walk around town and not have to answer to anyone from the real army. He also at one point described the unit as a “business”, which makes sense if you think about what happened to all of the stuff looted from people’s houses: cars, TVs, gold, livestock…. I guess what I’m trying to say is that Mark is right in that there were very few western journalists who had a good grasp on the situation and very many with very stupid ideas, both pro-war and against. It is possible to be against Milosevic, the KLA, and the NATO bombing, yet very few western journalists were interested in that kind of nuance. Let’s not forget about the journalists in Serbia (and Kosovo) that risked their lives to expose lies and atrocities during this war that got little to no recognition for it abroad.

Mark Ames

Agree with you. There was this tendency among a very few antiwar leftists & sort of libertarians to flip around the propaganda—if the US is lying and the US is wrong, then therefore Milosevic must be Hugo Chavez or Allende! I heard a lot of bullshit about how Milosevic was some sort of anti-IMF/World Bank hero, or anti-imperialism hero. He was a cynical opportunist. One thing I'd disagree with you on is the comparison to the Turkey's COIN against Kurds. Kosovo under Milosevic was a tightly controlled police state, but the violence was nowhere near the levels in what Turkey unleashed on Kurds. For one thing, the KLA were never anywhere near the force or threat that the PKK was. The possibility was always there, but far as I know levels of kinetic violence weren't even in the same ballpark pre-1999.

Animals in Motion

Maybe I have a hard time digesting a lot of this stuff because my partner who I have children with is a bosnian who fled Banja Luka. Wish I was a bit more hard nosed and could trudge through the details of that conflict to see which leftist at that time acquitted him or herself, and impugn people fairly. But I just can't, too much emotions invested. When I go to Bosnia during the summers and see graffiti with shit like "Bosna je Srbija" and hailing Milosevic, and knowing all the shit her family went through, losing their treasured family home in classic ottoman style and the garden they were so proud of. Just knowing that my daughter will get shit if she tries to claim bosnian citizenship and register there, because her name sounds vaguely muslim. It's just hard to know all that and take seriously anyone trying to claim that that conflict was "just about imposing the neoliberal order" or whatever the fuck, and I think a lot of people on the left just don't get conflicts when they do that. The analysis and understanding just becomes faulty. I still see Serbs using the old "Al Qaeda was in Bosnia" line (not saying it wasn't true, because it was) to sort of imply that they deserved what they got. I mean, if anybody has spent any time with bosnian muslims – they were probably in general the most loyal to Yugoslav secularism and socialism, at least in the cities, and hate all that salafi stuff. Not that more religious muslim would hve deserved Srebrenica either. But it's just a toxic fucking mix, and I hate when leftists who want to be anti-imperialists can't reckon with that complexity. I think Mark and John are probably the best at doing it, generally not buying propaganda from the side which is ostensibly against the empire.

zaabittimov

@Mark Yup. I remember going to an anti-war protest in DC at the Pentagon during the bombing, and the crowd was, well, an interesting mix….The Michael Parenti types who believe that Milosevic was some kind of genuine socialist tend to have very little idea of what Serbia was like during the 90s (hint, very far from socialism). He spent time with a lot of Wall Street big wigs in the 80s, and was generally seen as a team player until he got on the wrong side of certain people in Washington. I would agree that perhaps the level of violence might not have been quite on the level of Turkey, but I was thinking more broadly at the tactics used by the Serbian state. For example, there was a colonial type administration staffed by people brought in from Serbia proper, like judges, teachers, etc. This was also the case in Kurdistan, which is why the PKK caught a lot of flak for kidnapping teachers. You’re right that the KLA wasn’t as big of a threat as the PKK, but they did manage to break out of their base of operations in Drenica and threaten major towns like Pec. There was also a very large civil resistance movement in Kosovo which wasn’t as extreme as the KLA. But of course, the KLA ranks surged after the bombing and became a serious forces, especially with the help of Agim Ceku, who was an Albanian JNA trained officer who fought on the Croatian side of the 91-95 war. He got them whipped into shape. Importantly of course, nobody gave NATO member Turkey a hard time

zaabittimov

@Hampus I totally understand. I’m a belgrader, my partner is from sarajevo. The thing is that pretty much every westerner with a strong opinion on the Yugoslav conflict tends to be wrong and doesn’t get a lot of things. They like to choose a pet nationalism/side and root for it. A lot of people became “experts” over night. But there are of course westerners who know their shit, and let’s not forget that there are leftists in the former Yugoslavia with a lot to say about what happened! The al-qaeda in Bosnia thing was a facet of Serbian propaganda from day one, even though the real mujahideen only came into the war later. You’re right that there are a lot of Yugo-nostalgic Bosnian muslims (probably more than in other ex-yu nations), but it’s also important to note that there are also many who are not, and also not salafi. Bosniak nationalism is a real thing, and Alija Izetbegovic didn’t come from nowhere. Tito didn’t lock those guys up for nothing.

Mohamed Dalmar

Remember that picking a side in a civil war and actually supporting someone are 2 different things. Even Michael parenti said milosevic wasn’t a great guy, just that he wasn’t the bad guy in the civil war, and that there were worse actors. I feel the same about Syria, assad is terrible but I’m rooting for him against the jihadis sponsored by the empire.

Jed Hovey

I put a hold on this book at the local library. Looking forward to it.

Animals in Motion

I don't know, Milosevic wasn't very good in the war, the pretty much used nationalism to bury Tito when the whole socialism thing started to wear off. -- Zaabitimov, my views on this obviously heavily slanted by my gf's family. They're not very bosnian nationalist, her mother is clearly very pro the whole fraternity thing, having grown up in the 70's, and dated a serb. But her aunt is I guess what you would call a bosnian nationalist, has snide things to say about Yugoslavia and whining about how the commies took some of their land away. I mean her family had like a huge land by the river bank, and I don't really know the back story but it was probably expropriated. It's weird, even though one would think the bosniaks from BL would be very anti-serb, I find that they generally have much more in common with serb culture, in some ways. I'd get slapped for saying that, but it's clearly true. We visited Belgrade recently, it was the first time my gf had been there since having fled, and she was a bit angry at everything. But she got along great with everybody, really. She was much more annoyed by everybody in Croatia when we were there. They're really kind of racist against Croatia, lol. Her mother thinks their poetry is lousy and refuse to read Croatian translations of Yesenin. "The serbs at least know poetry!".

Adam Torok

When I see people being easily Manipulated and Propagandised by the Mass Propaganda and Disinformation campaigns, I always recommend them The Radio War Nerd and Moderate Rebels, two of my favourite podcasts that challenges every single lie of the Mainstream Narrative. Seeing this episode is also a sign of hope. I deeply hope many people will get to these great podcasts as possible. All the best guys !