6/8/23 Ben Freeman on the Think Tanks Helping Weapons Companies Make Sales

Scott Horton Show - Just the Interviews

Scott Horton

News, Politics

4.8 • 902 Ratings

🗓️ 13 June 2023

⏱️ 32 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Ben Freeman of the Quincy Institute joins the show to discuss his latest research on cronyism in American foreign policy. Freeman examined the top Think Tanks working to influence lawmakers in Washington and American public opinion through media. He found a lot of undisclosed funding coming from weapons companies. On top of that, many experts at these organizations were publicly for the purchase of the explicit weapons that their funders produced. Freeman lays out what he found and names some of the top organizations and companies taking part in this racket. Discussed on the show: “How weapons firms influence the Ukraine debate” (Responsible Statecraft) “Lockheed Stock and Two Smoking Barrels” (Corpwatch.com [formerly published at Playboy]) Ben Freeman is a Research Fellow at the Quincy Institute. He previously served as Director of the Foreign Influence Transparency Initiative with the Center for International Policy. Read his work at Antiwar.com and Responsible Statecraft. Follow him on Twitter @BenFreemanDC. This episode of the Scott Horton Show is sponsored by: Tom Woods’ Liberty Classroom; ExpandDesigns.com/Scott. Get Scott’s interviews before anyone else! Subscribe to the Substack. Shop Libertarian Institute merch or donate to the show through Patreon, PayPal or Bitcoin: 1DZBZNJrxUhQhEzgDh7k8JXHXRjY Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	All right, y'all welcome to the Scott Horton's show.
0:02.0	I'm the director of the Libertarian Institute.
0:09.0	I'm the director of the Libertarian Institute,
0:14.8	editorial director of anti-war.com.
0:17.6	Author of the book, Pools Arren,
0:19.6	time to end the war in Afghanistan,
0:21.6	and the brand new enough already. Time to end the war in Afghanistan and the brand new enough already time to end the war on
0:24.8	terrorism and I've recorded more than 5,500 interviews since 2003 almost all on
0:31.3	foreign policy and all available for you at
0:34.3	Scott Horton.org you can sign up the podcast feed there and the full interview
0:39.1	archive is also available at YouTube. YouTube. responsible state craft is the name of their website responsible
0:54.3	statecraft.org where he writes great things welcome back how you doing Ben?
0:58.9	I'm doing great Scott always a pleasure to be talking with you.
1:02.3	Great happy to have you here what a great great,
1:03.4	happy to have you here. What a great piece you wrote.
1:05.4	How weapons firms influenced the Ukraine debate.
1:09.4	Well, come on.
1:11.0	Aren't they bound by some sort of honor system to stay out of the argument about whether we should be,
1:17.7	you know, shopping for their wares?
1:20.3	Yeah, right, yeah. Scouts on honor or the defense contractors are always going to do the right thing, right?
1:27.0	Yeah.
1:28.0	No, but so you're telling me they would be so cynical as to finance the think tanks that recommend that the US government
	...

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