Glenn Greenwald and Tucker Carlson

Glenn Greenwald: People Who Feel Inadequate In Life Get Purpose And Strength By Calling For War

Posted By Ian Schwartz
On Date June 22, 2019

Glenn Greenwald: People Who Feel Inadequate In Life Get Purpose And Strength By Calling For War

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Glenn Greenwald called out journalists and columnists pushing for a war with Iran and lamented that people who have been continually wrong are often hailed as the voice of authority and reason in an interview with FNC's Tucker Carlson on Friday. Greenwald specifically took aim at Jeffrey Goldberg of 'The Atlantic' who he said got a promotion for being wrong about the war in Iraq.

"Jeffrey Goldberg's articles won a national magazine award for creating a grotesque conspiracy that resulted in the death of hundreds of thousands of people," Greenwald said.

"Not only should he not be in journalism, he should be out of decent society," he continued. "And yet, when it came time to compete for whether he was going to stay at "The New Yorker" or go to "The Atlantic," the owner of "The Atlantic" gave him and his children, rare exotic horses to lure him away from "The New Yorker," and he now runs one of the most important magazines in the world."

"You turn on MSNBC, there's Bill Kristol. You open up 'The New York Times,' there's Brett Stevens, Marc Thiessen in 'The Washington Post' and they're all embedded in Washington culture, the think tanks especially, and they only become important and enlivened when the U.S. is at war. They get all kinds of psychological, economic and political benefits from it at everybody else's expense," Greenwald said.

TUCKER CARLSON, FOX NEWS: Glenn Greenwald cofounded "The Intercept." He joins us tonight. So Glenn, the reaction to the President not going to war last night has been really striking, very little celebration about it in certain quarters, outright attacks. You saw -- we just played tape of CNN's National Security analyst attacking the President for it.

Liz Cheney, Congresswoman from Wyoming attacked the President. Others did, too. What about Washington makes war the first resort for both parties every time?

GLENN GREENWALD, COFOUNDER, THE INTERCEPT: Well, first of all, there's an obvious answer, which is it is exciting, so it drives media ratings, it makes people buy newspapers.

Adam Smith, in "The Wealth of Nations" in 1776, wrote about how when a country becomes an empire, the people in the capital never get any risk for more.

So Liz Cheney and Bill Kristol and David Frum and the people who cheer war are never put at risk, but they get excitement and purpose from it. They get kind of a feeling of power.

Ben Shapiro on Twitter today said, "Let's show Iran that we can match them." That's something that people say when they go through life feeling inadequate, and without any kind of purpose or strength, so it gives people strength.

And then there's also this much deeper issue that after the Iraq War, almost nobody other than Judy Miller, the single scapegoat, there was no accountability for the people who lied to the country into the war.

So you look at someone like Jeffrey Goldberg, who for "The New Yorker" was writing award-winning articles, claiming that Saddam Hussein was in an alliance with Al Qaeda making people believe that Iraq did 9/11, is he out of journalism because of that? No, he has been promoted. He's the editor- in-chief of "The Atlantic."

You turn on MSNBC, there's Bill Kristol. You open up "The New York Times," there's Brett Stevens, Marc Thiessen in "The Washington Post" and they're all embedded in Washington culture, the think tanks especially, and they only become important and enlivened when the U.S. is at war. They get all kinds of psychological, economic and political benefits from it at everybody else's expense.

CARLSON: If you claim that there was a direct connection between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda, 9/11 and Saddam, it is clearly untrue. How in the world could you stay in journalism? I mean, do you know -- how could Jeff Goldberg go on to run one of the most famous magazines in English?

GREENWALD: The amazing thing is, Tucker, the more you promote war, even if you get it wrong, the more you're going to prosper. That is the sickness, the pathology of the DC media and political class.

Jeffrey Goldberg's articles won a national magazine award for creating a grotesque conspiracy that resulted in the death of hundreds of thousands of people.

Not only should he not be in journalism, he should be out of decent society. And yet, when it came time to compete for whether he was going to stay at "The New Yorker" or go to "The Atlantic," the owner of "The Atlantic" gave him and his children, rare exotic horses to lure him away from "The New Yorker," and he now runs one of the most important magazines in the world.

You see that all throughout the media, the same people who not just lied about Iraq, but who cheered all kinds of wars in Muslim countries, prosper from it, they get promoted, they continually get treated as the voices of authority and that's why this continuously goes on.

CARLSON: It is so mind bogglingly corrupt, it's hard to believe it happens in our city and in our business. Glenn Greenwald, thank you very much for that perspective. I appreciate it.

GREENWALD: Thanks, Tucker.

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