Ep. 122 - Hey, Remember The Middle East? ft. Maj. Scott Huesing
We’ve been talking a lot about China and of course about Russia. What about the Middle East, that place we've fought the longest war in U.S. history for the entirety of this century? We’ll be joined by Major Scott Huesing, a retired U.S. Marine infantry officer and author of “Echo in Ramadi: The Firsthand Story of U.S. Marines in Iraq’s Deadliest City.” He'll explain why he’s glad Tillerson is fired and more broadly America’s future in that God-forsaken sandbox between Europe and Asia. Then, the Mailbag!
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We've been talking a lot about China and, of course, Russia, you know, which is controlling all of America and probably all of the world.
But President Trump has just fired his Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson.
Whatever happened to the Middle East?
What?
Why aren't we talking about the Middle East?
You know, the place that we have been fighting the longest war in U.S. history for the entirety of this century.
Today, we will be joined by Major Scott Husing, a retired U.S. Marine infantry officer and author of Echo and Ramadi, the firsthand story of U.S. Marines in Iraq's deadliest city.
Major Husing has served 24 years of honorable service, both enlisted and commissioned, and his career has spanned 10 deployments in over 60 countries.
Scott will explain why he's glad Tillerson is fired, and more broadly, America's role in that godforsaken sandbox between Europe and Asia Then, the mailbag.
I'm Michael Knowles and this is the Michael Knowles Show.
Beware, beware the Ides of March, Mr.
Tillerson.
Those Ides of March took him down, unfortunately, I guess a few days early.
But we are going to bring on Major Tillerson.
Major Tillerson.
No, he's fired Tillerson.
Fired Secretary of State Tillerson, Major Husing.
But before we do that, we have got to talk about sleep.
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Okay, let's bring on Major Husing.
Scott, thank you so much for being here.
It's my pleasure to be on the program, Michael.
So, to begin, you wrote an op-ed a few weeks ago criticizing Rex Tillerson's plan to give $3 billion of American aid to Iraq.
The semi-sovereign nation of Iraq, as you write in your book, is requesting $80 billion in handouts to rebuild the country.
Tillerson wanted to allocate $3 billion of U.S. taxpayer money.
You say it's not a very good idea.
Why is that?
Well, having spent the majority of my adult life not sleeping, but fighting in Iraq and other places in the world, you know, when I read that piece, it just galled me a little bit.
And my book, Echo Intermati, is not political.
It doesn't take one side or the other.
It's a story about, you know, the Marines and the soldiers and the families that supported us.
But, you know, you can't help but look back.
And when you see something like that in mainstream media and that's coming up in the news, I'm still very connected to the Marine Corps as I sit here On Marine Corps Base, Camp Pendleton, you know, doing an interview with some of my Marines today.
You know, it strikes at the heart of everything we did.
And oftentimes I get asked the question, you know, hey, did you win in Ramadi?
Did you win in Iraq?
And, you know, we never had a bumper sticker, Michael, that said, do this and you'll win.
Obviously, killing more bad guys was an effective way to win and, you know, a metric of success.
But the true metric was...
Bringing as many Marines home alive as possible.
And when I see our diplomatic corps, our current administration willing to write checks blindly to rebuild a country that has such a poor track record of one, embracing change, and two, being good stewards of the money that they're given and the unwillingness to move forward.
It really bothers me because a lot of people will say thank you for your service and they look at service members and they say, oh yeah, my money is paying your salary.
Well, service members pay taxes too.
So it's everybody's money that's being invested.
When those people say that, do you get to just punch them in the face?
That is outrageous.
Well, we should do it for you.
No, but you're doing a great job because great programs like you guys allow people that have served to provide an understanding to the general American people about, one, what it means to sacrifice, and two, what it means to serve your country.
And those that are serving, they're not only getting the worst salaries of most Americans, but they're paying taxes too.
So, you know, for someone that spent 24 years in the Marine Corps and that still pays his fair share of taxes, more than most as a Californian, You know, I do take exception when we don't have the right people in the right job for the right reason.
And I will never applaud one side or the other like, hey, I never like to see anyone lose their job or get fired.
And, you know, make it a President Trump cliche from his apprentice days of you're fired.
But I think we do need the right type of leadership in those positions, not only at Department of State, but also at Department of Defense.
This synergy between all of those government organizations that are making the right decisions for our troops and for all Americans that are in the best interest.
You know, the book is really good.
I was reading it this morning when I was sipping my covfefe and preparing for the interview.
And it's really, really good.
And you write in the book that you had two objectives in Ramadi, which is to bring your guys home and to kill the bad guys.
And sometimes you just want to focus on bringing your guys home.
But obviously those two things go together.
And as a matter of it not being partisan and not being political, the Iraq war remains uncomfortable for Democrats and for Republicans.
It's so varied.
The invasion was a spectacular success.
The occupation seemed mismanaged out of Washington.
The 2007 troop surge was opposed by just about everybody other than George W. Bush.
Then it was later supported by just about everybody, including Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.
And then Barack Obama decided to lose a war that we'd already won.
First of all, how does that summary hold up?
But more broadly, as somebody who has experienced so much of it firsthand, how do you think about the Iraq war now 15 years after the invasion?
I think the summary is absolutely correct.
You articulated it and summarized it very well.
And as a member of the surge strategy, as Echo Intermati has written, we were part of that in 2006 and 2007 to flood the battle space with additional troops to bring peace and stability to that country.
And we did that.
That's why I always say to veterans who question themselves, you know, did we win or lose again?
We won.
We absolutely won.
And where we failed was we took off the iron fist way too soon to slip on that velvet glove proverbial.
And, you know, we handed it back over to the Iraqis.
And I'll use what I know best.
My battalion fought in 2004 in the first battle of Ramadi.
And then two years later, the battalion was back again.
And it's because we handed it back over to a country That wasn't established.
They didn't have security.
They didn't have stability.
And there was no continuity within this government to truly and effectively take care of the problems of not only diplomacy, but infrastructure and support that are really required to make it happen.
And that's not an indictment on the Iraqi people.
But if we're going to continue to give them money, if we're going to continue to provide troops and support and service, which we are, Michael, And that's something your listeners and all Americans need to know is that there are currently Marines and soldiers fighting in Iraq today and Afghanistan and the Horn of Africa.
And if we continue to do this without a solid plan to rebuild those countries and be good students of the lessons we learned in history in the Pacific theater and in the European theater after World War II, we're going to continue to be tripping on our own shoes.
You know, you were a lance corporal in Desert Storm, as you write in the book.
You've had a long career in the military.
How has the culture of the military, the management of the military, civilians' perceptions of the military changed over your quarter century of service and maybe even a longer period, as you say, as a student of history?
Well, I think it's changed for the better.
I didn't see any of the negative effects like our Vietnam-era veterans did and To any Vietnam vets watching or listening to the program, I say welcome home.
We love you guys.
And for the latter generations, even as a young enlisted guy back in Desert Storm through my time as a major when I retired in 2013, the American perception is great.
They love to support their vets.
But I say it's not just a bumper sticker.
You really got to put some skin in the game.
You need to reach out.
You need to support...
With your services or connect to a great nonprofit and really help because it's not just a bumper.
You can't just throw that bumper sticker on your car and say, I support vets.
Well, what does that mean?
Because without some ability to measure that, I really can't understand what their intent is.
But at the end of the day, every American that walks up to me or any other veteran says, thank you for your service.
It means a lot to me.
It means a lot to every veteran.
In the absence of not knowing what to do, just start there.
It's a great way to start.
It's a good place to start.
So, Major Husing, we have a few more questions for you, but before I get to them, I just noticed the time on my movement watch, so I have to talk about movement watches because they help us keep the lights on here, and they are so sleek, and they are so cool.
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All right, back to you, Major Husing.
During World War II, 12% of Americans served in the armed forces.
Today, that number has dropped to 0.4%.
In 1975, 70% of congressmen had served in the military.
Today, that number is down to 20%.
7.3% of Americans alive today have served in the military at some point in their lives, and just a little over 5% have served during wartime.
Is there too great a division between Americans and the people who fight to protect our freedom?
Would it benefit the U.S. to mandate some sort of military or civil service, and would that even be politically possible these days?
I don't think that's necessarily the answer, because with our all-volunteer service, we absolutely have the best service members, we have the best equipment And yeah, there's room for improvements with some of our programs and a lot of the large surface vessels and aircraft.
But these young men and women get the best training.
They have the best leadership that they have to offer.
And they come from families in America that raise these people who are willing to raise their hand and make a sacrifice and serve their country.
It is.
It's less than one half of one percent of 330 million people So, making it mandatory?
No, I don't think that's the answer.
Do I think there's a divide between the generations who are serving in Congress or elected officials?
Absolutely.
And I'd love to be back on your program to talk about an op-ed I got coming out next week about our millennial generation.
I'm here to tell you I'm a fan, and I think you probably may fall into that group.
I sort of like them because I'm part of them.
I think you might be the only guy in the country, though, who likes the millennials.
They get so maligned in the press.
Well, I'll let you read the article and hear my opinion on it, but I think that there's a big disconnect and a lot of underestimation by every elder generation that doesn't understand Each generation has its own form of greatness, and I never diminish that because I've heard that throughout the years, through my 24 years in the Marine Corps.
I'm sure the Vietnam vet said that about us before we went into Iraq.
Guess what?
We proved them wrong.
And we will continue to do that.
So I want them to understand, your listeners and to those serving, have faith.
Because they will prove you wrong, ultimately, because we're Americans and we do a lot of things great.
And our nation's military is an extreme example of the greatness of this country because it takes a lot to do what these young men and women do.
That is such a good point because we frequently think of these millennials ordering avocado toast for $37 and changing their gender every third Tuesday of the month.
And it gets a little bit much and we kind of malign them.
But these are extremes that you see on the news headlines.
And there are still great people.
There is still greatness in the country.
On the kind of difficult side of this, you write a lot in the book about post-traumatic stress.
I know a lot of veterans commit suicide or they attempt suicide after leaving the service.
I had a viewer write in to me to say that he and other veterans he knew.
He and other veterans had attempted suicide just to be admitted to the VA mental ward where they could find some regimentation and three hots and a cot.
Is there any public policy?
That you can imagine that Congress could pass or that maybe the civil society and the non-governmental organizations could put forward that would alleviate PTSD among veterans?
Well, I think, you know, I was talking to a good friend of mine and fellow author, Robert Ver, about this, driving back from L.A. and seeing a couple of those matches on Sepulveda.
But...
You know, you first have to frame the problem.
Is suicide the problem or the result of a problem?
Is the problem isolation or a feeling of hopelessness?
And all of those things, those series of traumatic events that these young men and women experience during combat or whatever their trauma is, I don't say my trauma is any worse than your trauma or better, but those traumatic events lead to a sense of hopelessness.
And how do you cure hopelessness?
And through my writing and through my connection with veterans organizations and being the executive director of Save the Brave, one of the ways we do that is through connecting veterans and connecting people who are feeling hopeless before they get to that complete isolation where they think, this is my only solution, is taking my own life.
And sometimes even that's not enough because there's a lot of times we've lost guys and women That you just never see it coming.
And all you can do is really try and help.
But to say that privatization of the VA system or the VA healthcare system is the only answer, I think there's probably a hybrid somewhere in there that is the answer.
But again, it's not some bumper sticker, Michael.
It's not some 22 push-up challenge on Facebook.
These are real people.
These are my brothers.
They're sons and daughters of Americans that they're taking their own lives.
And if you can see over my right shoulder, those are the names of the brothers and sisters and soldiers and Marines that we lost in this long war, as I sit here at our memorial at Camp Pendleton.
But there's no memorial, no granite pillars for the almost 50,000 Veterans that take their own lives from the effects of post-traumatic stress in this country.
And those numbers may be even higher because the only numbers we see are the ones that are reported from active duty service members through the DOD. And that's a staggering fact.
So there's a lot of ways to help.
Absolutely.
As a fan of less government, you know, you know, being conservative, I absolutely think there's other things they could be doing.
But individuals can help and there's there's ways to help.
That's why A portion of the proceeds of sales of my book, Echo and Ramadi, go to Save the Brave to help veterans with post-traumatic stress.
Because for me, it's all about helping each other.
And we continue to stay connected even to this day, long after we left the battlefield.
And that's what's important to me.
That's such an important point because we can say we need to reform the VA. Of course we need to reform the VA. We can say there need to be non-profit organizations that can help and you should go out and help.
And that, of course, is true.
But post-traumatic stress is nothing new.
Shell shock has been around for a very long time.
And you're dealing with people.
You're dealing with a complex group of people and unfortunately, evil does breed these awful events in the world and there isn't some utopian solution.
There's no bumper sticker that's going to end it.
You really need some compassion and some empathy and to live with people.
On the final point, this is the main point I want to talk to you about because we've talked so much on this program and in the news about China and Russia.
As you know, Donald Trump is secretly Boris from Rocky and Bullwinkle, and apparently the whole time we've known him for 40 years as a celebrity and a business tycoon, he was really a Manchurian candidate for Moscow.
Of course, you know, this has been reported widely.
What should the U.S. role in the Middle East be moving forward?
Not China, not Russia, the Middle East.
Well...
Again, I get asked that question a lot.
And it goes back to the original point.
Did we win?
And they say, do you feel that your sacrifices and the Marines and sailors you lost over there were off or not?
And I say no.
Because Marines don't fight policy.
They don't fight politics.
We fight the enemy.
And that's what my guys did day in and day out, fighting five, six, seven times a day, day in, day out.
They fought and killed the enemy.
So they won.
But do I think we should, again, have been better stewards and established a firm presence in the Middle East so we didn't have to look into our crystal ball and say, you know what, I bet we're going to be back here in 10 years.
And in May of 2015, history proved us right.
And I'm no gypsy, Michael, but ISIS took hold in the Middle East in 2015.
And where did they take hold?
Ramadi.
Because it's the capital of Al-Anbar Province.
It was key terrain then, just as it is key terrain now.
And I don't think anybody needs to be a political scientist.
But for those of us that fought and bled and lost our brothers and sisters on the battlefield, we knew that if we didn't have A firm presence in the Middle East, we'd ultimately be back there because we're the guys that have to show them what right looks like.
Until we step up and until our political system and our industrial and economic leaders in this country step up and show them what right looks like, they're going to continue to wallow in how they think it should be done to establish whatever form of democracy they want.
And I'm not trying to impose the American system on them.
But they should come up with their own so we don't continually have to go back there and try and fix their problem.
And clean it up.
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah, absolutely.
But at the end of the day, Marines will always do what Marines do best, and that's taking care of those that can't help themselves.
And if those are the orders of any president of the United States, the Marines will respond.
That's such a good point.
We frequently hear, oh, let's just get out of there.
We've been there too long.
We've been there long enough.
But the lesson of the previous presidential administration is you're going to have to go back and clean it up again if you don't do it right, if you don't have the courage to do it right.
Major Scott Husing, first, thank you for your service.
Second, thank you for your book.
The book is very good.
I recommend everybody to get it.
Echo and Ramadi, the first-hand story of U.S. Marines in Iraq's deadliest city.
It's a really gripping account, and it's An account that the 99.5% of Americans who are not currently in the military all ought to read.
Major Husing, thank you for being here.
We're going to have to have you back to talk about your next op-ed.
Hey, I'd love it.
Anytime you want me on the program, I'd love to be back.
Thanks, Michael.
All right.
Thank you, Scott.
You're telling me I have such a good mailbag today, and you're telling me I have to say goodbye.
You are sick monsters and sadists, all of you.
We have to say goodbye.
If you're on YouTube, no you're not, but if you're on Facebook, you've got to go to dailywire.com.
Go to Daily Wire right now.
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It's $10 a month or $100 for an annual membership.
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Yeah, yeah.
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
The Leftist Tears Tumblr.
Look at the Leftist Tears Tumblr.
There is so much going on.
There has been so much rending of garments on Twitter these days.
I don't know if you've been paying attention to the gun control debate.
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They said there was going to be that trade war.
It's going to destroy the global economy.
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It didn't happen, did it?
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We will be right back with the mailbag.
We're low on time, so we're gonna fly through these today.
These are going to be all of the important questions.
We're going to fly right through them.
From Ivan.
Dear Michael, why did you decide to attend Yale and what other universities and colleges did you apply to?
I decided to attend Yale because I... I'm an actor and I've always really liked politics.
And at Yale, they do both.
And they've got a lot of people who have done very well in both.
I also get a kick out of being a conservative at a very lefty place.
You know, Yale produced Buckley and the Bushes.
And there's this kind of much maligned conservative movement that keeps coming out of Yale.
I actually didn't really apply to other colleges.
I applied early, and then I started applications at a couple of other places.
I received an email.
I started my Harvard application.
I got an email from the admissions office with a typo in it.
They used a comma wrong, and I took that as a sign from God that I shouldn't go there.
I pulled my application and my interviewer there told me that I was making the stupidest decision of my life and yelled at me and everything.
But I'm very glad I did.
It's really sad to see Yale fall into a total pit of despair right now.
But as a broader point to people who are going to college and looking at colleges for themselves or their kids, I highly recommend going to a left-wing school.
It will make you smarter.
It will make you know what you think.
It will make you think through what you think.
Iron sharpens iron, or whatever they say, you know.
You really do want to be around very smart lefties.
You will have the intellectual advantage over them, because you'll constantly have to defend your ideas, and you will just figure yourself out more.
Figure out what ideas you have are right, figure out which ones are wrong, and disregard those, and get a deeper education.
I do really recommend it, even though it's kind of counterintuitive.
From Andy.
Hey, Michael, you answered a question about one of my classes last week, and I've got another one.
I just got assigned a group project where I have to perform a nonviolent act in support of a social justice issue.
Seeing as pretty much all of the social justice issues we have discussed are garbage, I think I will join a group that is doing gun control.
I know that I'm the only conservative in the entire class and have managed to keep my opinions to myself so far.
I just can't bring myself to perform an act that goes against my beliefs.
How do I work with people that I know want nothing less than gun confiscation and even repeal of the Second Amendment?
Thanks, Andy.
That's awful, man.
You should do a real social justice project, which would be to increase access to firearms and to protect your constitutionally protected civil right to keep and bear arms.
Or to defend the unborn.
You could do an anti-abortion project.
That would be real civil rights.
you'd save a million babies a year.
That term really comes out of Catholics, the social justice teachings of the 19th century.
But it's not what it means today.
When it started, social justice meant to do the common good.
It was a response to industrialization, said we should do the common good.
This is what Aristotle talks about this.
This is a longstanding trend in the West.
The trouble is when they divorced, when the social justice warriors, when the SJWs and the secular progressives decided to divorce social justice from the thing that made it social justice.
So they divorced it from God and a teleological vision of man, like the classical moral framework that Aristotle is working in.
then you just have this lefty nonsense.
And it's this...
Always it's the same thing with the left.
They want the form of the thing, the appearance of the thing, but not that which animates it, not the essence of the thing itself.
So now it just means not justice.
We talk about that at the Daily Wire all the time.
Politically correct means not correct.
Social justice means not justice.
I don't know.
I've always spoken out on my politics from middle school onward.
Maybe it's hurt me in some ways.
I'm always glad that I did it.
So I'd go there and say, I want to do a project on pro-life.
I want to do a project to protect the unborn and to make sure that once those unborn babies are not killed and they become adults, we can make sure they all have guns, regardless of their gender, their creed, the color of their skin or whatever.
Make sure they all have guns because that is a civil right.
From Jeremy.
Dear Andrew Klavan, no wait.
Dear Ben Shapiro, sorry, one more time.
Dear Alicia Krause, well, whoever you are, random guy who works in the broom closet and gets nothing in return for his work at the Daily Wire, except for the occasional freebie from sponsors like Bolin Branch or Movement.
I was drinking my covefe this morning and realized that my Leftist Tears Tumblr...
A hot or cold is defective.
It is not filling itself with leftist tears as advertised.
And I would like to speak to your manager, soccer mom style.
What I had to do to fill up my Tumblr with leftist tears was to go into the bathroom, look in the mirror, and say covfefe three times.
Then the unholy spirit of a leftist who died because of Trump's new tax plan started crying and my Tumblr was filled within seconds.
This thing should really come with instructions.
This was an informational guide for the new subscribers.
Thanks, Michael.
Love the book.
keep at it.
Jeremy P.S.
Tell Jeremy boring.
I said, hi, great first name.
I'm going to let that one speak for itself.
That's an excellent question.
Really good stuff.
I really like that question because it's not a question.
From Justin.
Dear Mr.
Knowles, why do you think that people choose to be or purport to be pagans in modern times?
There's a relatively large pagan community on YouTube, and they all seem to have a rather negative view of Christianity, to say the least.
Sincerely, Justin.
Yes, this is happening.
This is a strange thing.
Paganism is skyrocketing.
Some people are saying it's the fastest growing religion in the world.
Certainly the fastest growing religion in Europe or in the West.
According to religious studies scholar Michael Strunyska, He's got too many consonants in his name.
It is, quote, a deliberate act of defiance against traditional marriage.
He goes on to write that it is against traditional Christian-dominated society, and it allows the people who hold these views to use it as a source of pride and power.
Neo-pagan, the phrase neo-pagan was first used in the 19th century by romantic and nationalist writers in Europe.
This is when they were referring to that classical revivalism, that Hellenic revivalism.
In part, right now I think people are becoming pagan or calling themselves pagan as a response to globalization because paganism is blood and soil.
I've traveled to a number of pagan countries and seen pagan religions.
A lot of it has to do with race.
A lot of it has to do with folk traditions.
This is why, by the way, the alt-right is obsessed with paganism.
This is why the alt-right is wrong, too.
The alt-right defends Western Christendom, but they don't I believe in Christianity.
And a number of leaders of the alt-right or prominent people there have told me they kind of like paganism.
There's something kind of cool about paganism.
This is just like the Nazis of the past.
This is just like other fascists.
They had this obsession with paganism, things that predate Christianity.
They say Christianity is too effeminate.
It's too universalist.
That Jesus, he saves everybody who believes in him.
That's no good.
It's got to only be for one people, some folk tradition.
The alt-right Mac Daddy, Alain de Benoit, criticizes Christianity and exalts paganism in his work, Manifesto de la Nouvelle Droite, the New Right Manifesto.
He observes desacralization.
He blames Christianity for that.
And also, you obviously see it on the right with those crazy colored...
Crazy color haired ladies, you know, the purple hair and like they're cooking up goats or something in a cauldron and flying on broomsticks in the middle of the night.
That's the natural state of humanity.
Paganism is the natural state.
You see it in all of the ancient texts.
You see it in the Bible.
It's I think that is where we go to, this kind of pantheistic, paganistic superstition.
Atheists mock Christians for being superstitious.
Christians are the least superstitious people on earth.
It's the absence of Christianity that causes superstition.
And right now we're seeing a decline in Christianity in so many places in the West.
We're seeing the triumph of this boring, tawdry, shallow materialism.
And so it's unsurprising that we're reverting to our brutish, pre-civilized state of paganism.
But hopefully we can come out of that.
Hopefully we can get another revival sometime soon.
We still have a little bit more time.
Janine.
Supreme...
Oh, whatever.
Hey, Michael.
If my son graduates high school, I would like to present him a nice glass of scotch and cigar.
Is there a good scotch and good cigar for beginners?
I don't know.
Is there a bad scotch and cigar for beginners?
Hey, you're pretty good on whatever you want.
My first cigar was a cheap Cuban cigar called a Guantanamera.
It's machine-made, so it's not considered very nice, but the tobacco is very good.
So that, I think, starting with a good cigar...
Made me really like cigars.
Some people I know who were smoking, you know, some cheap gas station cigar in the back lot of the gymnasium or something, they didn't like cigars because their cigars tasted like trash.
I recommend McAllen 12 or Johnny Black as a good kind of starter scotch that people like, and I still love both of those cigars.
And a cigar which is called the Avo No.
9.
If you can't get your hands on a Cuban, Avo No.
9 is a wonderful cigar.
in the Davidoff family, and it's a little bit lighter, but very complex.
It hopefully won't turn your son green in the face, as happens sometimes, but a really nice cigar, and you can get it at a reasonable price.
From Ben.
Hi, Michael.
I have Gasp, a Catholic question.
My mother is Catholic, and my father is Greek Orthodox.
They made the decision to have my brother and me baptized Orthodox, though nowadays we do attend Catholic Mass with our mother.
As I've seen now, how both cultures and churches approach the worship of God, that is how they differ in terms of religious practice, I've become more curious about what the actual differences are between the Orthodox and Catholic groups in terms of belief.
You commented on this a few weeks ago, but I was hoping you could explain it further.
Thank you.
Love the show.
Yeah, there are very few differences, and there is not a lot that separates those two churches.
After the collapse of the Roman Empire in 476, the eastern half of the empire continued as the Byzantine Empire, centered around Constantinople, and that had the patriarch of that city with jurisdiction over the churches in Alexandria and Antioch and Jerusalem, and that patriarch served under the emperor.
The patriarch was legally separate from the emperor, but the emperors exerted a lot of control, as you might imagine.
So, practically speaking, the patriarch served at the leisure of the emperor.
Some of the emperors of Byzantium claimed equal authority to the Twelve Apostles, and therefore the power to appoint the patriarch.
There was always that struggle between the political and...
The emperor's muscle flexing also is what frequently caused trouble with Rome.
So Emperor Constantius appointed an Arian heretic as patriarch in the 4th century.
So, of course, Pope Julian, being a good pope, excommunicated that heretical patriarch in 343.
Constantinople remained in schism for about 50 years until St.
John Chrysostom became the patriarch in the East in 398.
Then, fast forward a few hundred years, in the 8th century, the iconoclastic heresy sought to eliminate all sacred images.
Ironically, it was the Pope and the Western bishops who fought to preserve the veneration of icons and images.
But even though today now that veneration of icons is far more prominent in the Eastern liturgy, so the Eastern Orthodox can thank the Pope for that.
In 1054, this is what's called the Great Schism, but it really wasn't.
The East and West started moving politically apart after the Norman conquest of Southern Italy.
It wasn't really the Great Schism, though we refer to it that way.
The Catholic Normans took over the Byzantine Rite Greek outposts in southern Italy, and they forced all the Greek communities to start using the Latin Rite custom of eating unleavened bread for the Eucharist instead of leavened bread.
This was the great disagreement.
Do we want flat bread or thick bread for this Eucharist?
But it really ticked a lot of people off, so Patriarch And Serularius retaliated by ordering all Latin Rite communities in Constantinople to use leavened bread.
So he said, all right, you're going to make my guys eat unleavened bread.
I'm going to make your guys eat, like, focaccia or something.
Latins refused to do that, so Serularius closed their churches and sent an angry letter to Pope Leo IX. The Pope then sent three guys, led by Cardinal Humbert, to patch things up, and this was a very terrible idea, because both Humbert and Serularius were mercurial personalities.
They were kind of jerks.
They left, and so Humbert then laid a bull of excommunication against Serularius on the altar of the Hagia Sophia.
Serularius then retaliated by anathemizing Humbert, though he didn't anathemize the Roman and Western Church itself.
The thing is here, that bull that excommunicated Serularius was probably not legit, and the reason we think this is because Pope Leo IX was dead by the time that Humbert laid it.
The timing doesn't quite work out.
Byzantium also never attacked the Pope or the Latin Church itself.
So, people say there was this great schism in 1054.
It didn't really happen.
Only in 1453, centuries later, four centuries later approximately, when Muslim invaders finally sacked Byzantium, did the Eastern Church repudiate their relationship with Rome.
That actual schism only happened because the Muslim invaders pressured them to do it.
Also interesting is that the schism...
The actual schism only predates the Protestant Revolution by about six decades.
So that timing was pretty close.
The only real theological disagreement between the East and the West is the filioque.
And obviously there are some issues with deferring to the Pope.
That's always been a political struggle.
But the filioque is that the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son.
Spanish Catholic bishops added that to the Nicene Creed in the 6th century.
The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son.
The Eastern Orthodox say two things on this matter.
They say either that the Spirit proceeds only from the Father through the Son, or that it proceeds from the Father and the Son, but the Pope had no right to clarify this in the 6th century.
Are you asleep yet?
Me too.
Early as church fathers do imply that the Spirit proceeds from the Father as well as the Son, but this is mostly a distinction without a difference.
Again, this alleged dispute that we're talking about, this big theological dispute, only arose after Muslims forced the Eastern Orthodox to repudiate Rome.
So I don't really buy it.
Plus, everything the son has comes from the father, as we know.
So the two statements are, they're basically complimentary.
I, I, and, and through it's, they're complimentary statements.
Not much of a difference.
One hopes for reconciliation.
I've heard it described as the East and West being the lungs of the church, the two lungs of the church.
The East has generally a better liturgy these days.
They don't have any of those damn acoustic guitars and Eagles wings and you know, all the seventies nonsense.
The West obviously has far more authority.
And the West beat back the Muslim hordes from Europe on at least three separate occasions, rather than giving in to them, like the East.
So, pick your church.
I picked mine.
I'm really not disparaging the Eastern Orthodox.
They have such a beautiful liturgy.
But, you know, one of them has the authority, man.
Come on.
And one of them, you know, has maintained Christendom for 2,000 years.
So, you know, just saying.
From Benjamin.
Pope Knowles.
Thank you, finally, for using my title.
I'm like the anti-pope for something.
There was the Avignon Papacy.
Maybe I'm the L.A. one.
Is there a real distinction in Catholicism between sins of weakness, such as premarital fornication, and sins of malice, such as deliberately hurting somebody?
I was having a discussion with a non-denominational friend of mine the other day and he put any sin willfully committed on the same plane.
Would having relations with my fiancé, knowing it was wrong, carry the same weight as, say, making fun of someone who's disabled?
Please note that I'm not trying to justify my own behaviors.
Yeah, sure, buddy.
And these scenarios are hypothetical.
Uh-huh, whatever helps you sleep at night.
Well, at least the latter one, mostly the former.
Thanks, Ben.
Yeah, of course there are gradations of sin.
Of course that's true.
There are mortal and venial sins.
This is best illustrated in Dante, where Dante goes down the circles of hell, and at the top are the virtuous pagans like, you know, Virgil and all those guys who are pretty good guys.
They just didn't have hope.
They didn't believe in Jesus.
And at the bottom are the deceivers, Brutus and Cassius and like the worst people that ever lived.
Lots of Protestants who deny this point to James who says, whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it.
This is sort of ironic because the Protestants don't really like James that much, broadly speaking.
Luther didn't like James at all, but you know, they like...
So, we do know from 1 John 5, 17, who tells us, all wrongdoing is sin, but there is sin which is not mortal, right?
So, yeah, they'll...
Luther and his acolytes didn't have a lot of respect for James.
Seems a little like picking and choosing to me.
But as James says, we all stumble in many ways.
Christ himself describes these gradations.
He says,"...the servant who knows the master's will and does not get ready or does not do what the master wants will be beaten with many blows.
But the one who does not know and does things deserving punishment will be beaten with few blows." We also see this in Matthew.
This is throughout scripture.
James is writing, of course, he's right in that he's saying, someone who breaks one law becomes a criminal.
So, if you have broken the law, you have broken the law as a whole.
But this comes from the Sermon of the Mount, right?
You say, do not commit adultery, but if you look at a woman with lust, you've committed adultery in your heart.
So, if one has even broken the least law, he has broken the law, and therefore he needs forgiveness and mercy and to be merciful as well.
We shouldn't take verbal wizardry into the forbidden land of the sophists.
To say that this repudiates the vision of Dante or John or Christ himself in describing the varying gradations of sin, which we all know to be true.
From Bud.
Dear Father Knowles, I've been demoted.
I went from Pope, now I'm Father.
Dear Father Knowles, I recently had a discussion with an atheist.
We're going to have to end it on this one, I think.
His contention is that an omniscient God who is good would never create the earth and human beings knowing that there would be such pain and suffering throughout the ages.
Basically, why would God ever create mankind in the first place?
I told him I would consult my spiritual advisor and get back to him.
Oh man, that's a lot.
That's a lot of burden.
I usually just sit here and sip covfefe and drink, but I'll try to take this on.
Also, what are your thoughts on the traditional Latin mass?
Thanks, David.
Well, I'll take the last one first because it's a little clearer.
I love it.
I attend it often.
I recommend everybody attend it often, too.
It's really lovely, and it's much better than the acoustic guitars.
To your first question, how would you describe the greatest possible world?
Would the greatest possible world be perfect?
Then, if the greatest possible world is perfect, it would have to be a world without freedom.
And we've seen worlds without freedom, and those worlds look a lot like hell.
Freedom can be pretty awful.
We see this in Romans 5.12.
Adam is free.
He has freedom.
And he sins.
He disobeys.
And that brings sin and death into the world, and that brings sin and death to all of mankind.
Freedom can be pretty tough, man.
It's possible that the greatest world is one of freedom and misery rather than unconscious perfection.
I could sort of see that.
You say, well, if we were just all robots who weren't conscious, how would that be a perfect world?
There wouldn't be humans in any way that we could think about humans.
So you could say, well, even with total misery, even with eventual misery, the world of freedom might still be the best possible world, but it's still a miserable world, right?
What about a world of incarnation and atonement?
What if God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believes in him might not perish but might have everlasting life?
What if that son became incarnate of the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, and became man?
And what if he fulfilled all of the law and the prophets in perfect humility and was murdered perfectly to atone for his fellow man?
For no greater love has a man than to die for his friends.
And what if his perfect death, even death on a cross, conquered death itself, freed man from his infinite debt, redeemed an irredeemable debt, resolved a financial problem of debt incurred by the finite against the infinite, which therefore can only be paid by the infinite creditor-creator himself, and gave man for the first and final time a reason to hope and joy in abundance.
That sounds like the greatest possible world to me.
Alright, that's our show.
I'm Michael Knowles.
This is The Michael Knowles Show.
If you want even more joy on your weekend, listen to Another Kingdom.
That should be fun as you're in the darkness of the Daily Wire.
and I will see you on Monday.
The Michael Knowles Show is a Daily Wire forward publishing production.
