National Security: An Adult in the Room
To the Point
KCRW
4.4 • 583 Ratings
🗓️ 10 January 2019
⏱️ 60 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
America’s mainstream media are obsessed with President Trump’s off-hand policymaking in military and foreign affairs. But his mistakes don’t justify the unquestioned authority given the Pentagon, the CIA and the FBI. William Arkin is quitting NBC News with a scathing assessment. He says the national security state has created a condition of “perpetual war” without making America safer--and that the media are failing to report it. Later on our Climate Change Update segment: how the government shutdown is hurting American science.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello again, I'm Armin Alney. |
| 0:05.0 | Veteran military reporter William Arkin recently quit NBC with a message. |
| 0:11.0 | The mainstream media are hostages to the circus of Donald Trump. |
| 0:16.0 | They become apologists for the national security state, condoning what he calls the Pentagon's bumbling in the rest of the world. |
| 0:22.6 | He says they're lionizing the FBI and the CIA while ignoring their continuing failures. |
| 0:29.6 | The consequence is not greater security for the United States, but perpetual war |
| 0:35.6 | that creates terrorism rather than curbing it. |
| 0:39.3 | Arkin speaks from 40 years of experience starting inside the national security state, |
| 0:45.3 | evolving into a columnist and reporter for the Washington Post and the New York Times, |
| 0:50.3 | as well as a military expert increasingly frustrated at NBC. |
| 0:55.4 | He had so much to say that our conversation left him exhausted and left me wanting more. |
| 1:02.4 | Bill Arkin, great to hear your voice. |
| 1:04.4 | You have been with us so many times when To the Point was a radio program, now that it's a podcast, |
| 1:09.1 | it's great to have you back. |
| 1:10.2 | Thank you for having me. |
| 1:11.2 | You have written this long letter about your departure from NBC. |
| 1:15.6 | You don't denounce the people who are there. |
| 1:17.3 | You have good things to say about a lot of them. |
| 1:19.6 | But you're very critical of the way in which coverage is being conducted. |
| 1:25.7 | And I suspect it's not just by MSNBC, but by others as well. |
| 1:31.6 | And one of the phrases you use is, we do not report the failures. |
| 1:36.9 | Let's begin there. |
... |
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