PRESS RELEASE
Ambassador Chas Freeman on the Future Under Trump
Nov. 17, 2016 (EIRNS)—Ambassador Chas Freeman, who spoke at the Schiller Institute conference in Berlin on June 25-26 this year, was interviewed today on the Ron Paul Liberty Report, presenting a hopeful and targeted presentation on the implications of Donald Trump’s election around the world.
Amb. Freeman warned that the civilian control of the military was breaking down. Donald Trump, he said, is absolutely right to set the priority in Syria on working with Russia to crush the terrorist networks, and ending the regime change policy, which is the only way to "clean up the mess we created in Syria."
He ridiculed all the press reports about who Trump will choose for his government, suggeting that most of the reports were issued by the wannabe’s themselves—"draft me" leaks to the press. He said of Trump that "he should be mindful that he basically led a revolution—he led a bunch of people who Hillary Clinton called deplorable to come out to the polls and register their objection to business as usual in Washington, to the frankly degenerate atmosphere in our political culture."
He advised Trump that if he takes on the neocons that he will be repudiated by the people who put him in power.
On China (about which Freeman is one of the world’s leading experts), he said that "China is basically building its capacity to defend itself against navies that are lurking off its coast, and threatening it, as we are." He said that after World War II there was a vacuum in Asia, and the U.S. forces maintained the peace, but that is no longer true. China, Japan, India, even Vietnam have significant militaries which can protect the region. "It is crazy, frankly," he said, "for the U.S. to pretend we can enjoy absolute primacy in the seas off China indefinitely." He noted that all the talk about "freedom of navigation" was ridiculous in light of the fact that at least two thirds of the $5 trillion of trade in the region was with China, so that they were the nation most concerned about freedom of navigation.
Asked about the fact that both candidates and the Congress all back increases in defense spending, Amb. Freeman said:
"Ask first, what are the threats? Is Mexico going to invade to take back the land we stole from them? We don’t have a Department of Defense, but a Department of Offense,"
pointing to the perpetual warfare around the world against nations that are not a threat to the United States. The defense budget is treated as a jobs bill, and it is "never audited—never," he said. No one knows how much is wasted or lost. "Eisenhower was right to hit at the military-industrial-congressional complex. His staff edited out the word ‘congressional,’ but that was a mistake."
