Guests
- Jeremy Scahillco-founder of Drop Site News.
Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, one of the most prominent supporters of war in Washington, has died at the age of 71 after what his office called a “brief and sudden illness.” He was a vocal supporter of the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, a leading backer of the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran and a proponent of more U.S. military support for Ukraine. He also pushed for a permanent occupation of Afghanistan and once called for a preemptive attack on North Korea.
Graham “never met a war of aggression that he didn’t passionately back,” says Jeremy Scahill, co-founder of Drop Site News, who adds that the late senator also had a “slavish dedication to Israel over the interests of the United States and the rest of the world.”
Transcript
AMY GOODMAN: Jeremy, we also want to ask you about the sudden passing of Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who’s died at the age of 71 after what his office called a “brief and sudden illness.” Graham was one of the most prominent supporters of war, and especially the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran. He died just after returning from a visit in Ukraine with President Volodymyr Zelensky. During that trip, Graham pushed for increased U.S. military support for Ukraine.
MIKE HUCKABEE: United States not only recognizes Jerusalem as the eternal, indigenous and forever capital of the Jewish people, but also that the United States says that we’re going to do something about it, not just by recognizing it openly and verbally.
SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM: We have a magic moment in time here. In the coming months, if we do this right, increase Ukraine’s lethality, get people to help us with Putin, rather than propping him up, we can end this war.
AMY GOODMAN: The beginning of that SOT was Mike Huckabee talking about what we’re going to talk about in our next segment, but that last voice was that of Lindsey Graham, leading backer of the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, as well as a vocal supporter of the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, also pushed for a permanent occupation of Afghanistan and once called for a preemptive attack on North Korea. After Israel was accused of committing genocide in Gaza, Graham told the head of the International Criminal Court, quote, “this court is for Africa and thugs like Putin. It is not for democracies like Israel and the United States,” Graham said.
He became a close ally of President Trump, but during his unsuccessful presidential run in 2016, Graham had this to say about Trump.
SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM: He’s a race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot. He doesn’t represent my party. He doesn’t represent the values that the men and women who wear the uniform are fighting for. … And you know how you make America great again? Tell Donald Trump to go to hell.
AMY GOODMAN: So, South Carolina’s Republican governor will now pick a replacement to serve out the rest of Senator Graham’s term, which ends in January. Republicans will hold a special primary in August to pick a candidate to run in November. Jeremy, talk about the significance of this moment, the sudden death of South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham.
JEREMY SCAHILL: Well, the first thing I’ll say is that, you know, Lindsey Graham got his dying wish. He said he was going to be with Israel until his dying day, and he certainly was. He was one of the most passionate supporters of the most violent atrocities unleashed by the Israeli government on the people of Palestine, specifically during the Gaza genocide. He also was one of the major advocates of Donald Trump waging this war against Iran, said it was going to be some of the best money that America had ever spent, and that the United States was going to make so much money because of this war.
What I would say is that since 9/11, in particular, Lindsey Graham has emerged as a man who was never able to leave the Cold War behind. His worldview was very much shaped by this sort of public projection of the idea that there were communists hiding under, you know, every rock and stone and inside of every closet, waiting to pop out and destroy, you know, the American pie and American greatness. And in many ways, he sort of relegated him to a somewhat inconsequential footnote in history because he was so predictably and cartoonishly slavish to the agenda of America as an imperial force in the world. You know, he never met a war of aggression that he didn’t passionately back. You know, he was a judge advocate general, a military lawyer, and he often wielded that as though he was sort of the leading American expert in the U.S. Congress on military law, and yet he engaged in a legal analysis that was aimed at actually subverting the idea of any kind of democratic process when it comes to the justice system for, for instance, enemy combatants or people that were kidnapped as part of the CIA’s kidnap and torture program after 9/11. He was one of the most serious backers of the fraudulent narrative that led to the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq. And I say he’s an inconsequential footnote because you don’t need to know much about Lindsey Graham, the specifics of Lindsey Graham’s career, because they’re not notable for much of anything, except the fact that you could always rely on him to support the most destructive policies of a worldview that says that the entire world is filled with nails, and America’s hammer needs to run around the world finding all of those nails to hammer.
I would say that his legacy is that he has sent a message to the rest of the world because of his policies, his perspective, and those like him in the U.S. Congress and in American politics, that the United States will never learn from its mistakes, that imperial hubris is actually the brand of the United States. The fact that he ranted against Donald Trump when he was a candidate and then became one of the most loyal little poodles of Donald Trump’s agenda says everything you need to know about Lindsey Graham. But as I said, he got his dying wish. He went down with his slavish dedication to Israel over the interests of the United States and the rest of the world.
AMY GOODMAN: Jeremy Scahill, co-founder of Drop Site News.
Coming up, armed Israeli settlers carrying U.S.-made M4 rifles detained Congressmember Ro Khanna in the occupied West Bank on Wednesday. They also — another group attacked a CNN crew. We’ll speak to the renowned Palestinian American scholar Rashid Khalidi. Stay with us.
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AMY GOODMAN: “Stages” by Minneapolis jazz musician and songwriter Sophia Shorai.
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