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I hope to expand the show even more than it

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already has. Thank you so much. I want to welcome

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everyone back to the Pekanana Show. Thomas, how have you been?

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I'm right, let's uh, let's finish this up talking about

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Russia and Syria and I think, uh, I think I

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know where you're gonna go with this one, so just

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let loose.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, sure thing. Yeah, obviously we're coming up to in

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the in the University of the Ramadan War. You're there,

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the Yan Kapoor War is wait, which interestingly doesn't get

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it doesn't appear a lot in media these days. Some

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of the fill have made the point in our discussions

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that you know, historical events don't really occur anymore. I

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mean that, like you know, like Zazec makes that point

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a lot, and so some of these other guys who

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are kind of trying to salvage what remains a condo philosophy.

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I mean, there's something that that's a deeply psychological mechanism,

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you know, and there's like sociological locations to it too,

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but in more kind of prosaic terms. That that's an

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important point because I'm always emphasizing to the fellas who

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don't remember because they weren't born yet, that media narratives

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like however corrupt they were corrupted. They were a by

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ideology and by conceptual biases. They did in fact build

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on a continuing foundation of historical time, you know. I

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make the point even really up until two thousand, kind

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of like the last instance of this in this in

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the spring or no it was like summer or fall

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of two And I remember this vividly because I made

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my dad really upset and he went in this local

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radio show to talk about it, the show Beyond the

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Beltway that used to be like based here in Chicago,

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and me and like my then girlfriend, we went down

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to the studio to meet him, like in the Loop

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and the subject that my dad was on this panel

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with this like foreign Navy seal guy and this kind

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of crusty older dude was a civilian but he'd been

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on William Odom's staff in some capacity. But Peter Arnett

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and this is one of the things that kind of

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crushed his career. I mean, he was getting old up

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there in years anyway, but he broke this story where

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this guy claimed that First of all, guy claimed that

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he was a deserter in the Vietnam War, and he

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claimed he ended up in Laos, Okay, and he said

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there was this village like full of like you know,

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like young white men who were like married to Indigenous women.

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And he's like, what's happening here, And they're like, Oh,

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we're all deserters. This is like our commune where we're

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like escaping the war. And if any anybody who knows

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the history of the conflict, that's preposterous on its own terms. Okay,

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there's no way that happened, but he was or not

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was taking what this guy said is fact. So our

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nets like, well, like what happened, there's no record of

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this place. So this guy's like, well, you know, he's

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like Army special Forces arrived one day after they bombarded

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us with nerve gas and everybody died. But I was

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out in the fields that day or the rice patties,

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so I escaped. And he's like it was called Operation Tailwind,

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you know, And my Dad's like, this is outrageous. This

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is outrageous is being reported as news, And how dare

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this guy like defame these Special Forces operators? But did

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it takes that real? Seriously? You know, he was a civilian,

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but he got to know a lot of these guys

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very well, you know, and he takes the honor of

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such people seriously, you know. And I mean for me,

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I mean, it was just the I mean, aside from that,

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it was like, I mean, our net was just like lying,

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like it's if you're a serious journalist, this guy's story

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was preposterous, you know. Like I said, I was, I

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was like twenty four to twenty five years old, and

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I was just kind of like a student of the

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Vietnam War, and I'm like, there's no way that happened.

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And of course it broke that this guy with some

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crazy liars, that our net kind of disappeared. But it

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was a big deal, man, because you know, even twenty

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five years after Saigon went to put, you know, Vietnam

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was still on people's minds man. You know, in conceptual terms,

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it was one of their main kind of like pole

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stars of historical events. So that it doesn't really that's

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it's just like not the case anymore. And part of

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its deliberate, it's like a deliberate sort of like whitewashing

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of the collective memory. They're not so much it just

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kind of like erasing the collective memory of historical time.

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But it's also these narratives increasingly are just kind of

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generated out of enough thing, you know, they're they draw

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upon these kinds of like endure this kind of like

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enduring phraseology that regime information or propaganda. Oh, let's disseminate,

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you know, So they there's a certain structure to it,

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there's a certain conceptual structure, but it's very much like

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kind of like every every aspect of it's just kind

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of like autonomously situated in psychological term, that's really weird.

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But in any event, even uh, even to the late nineties,

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they when when there was when when when an kind

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of crisis was emergent between like Israel and its and

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its enemies, they there there'd be conceptual references to the

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Ramanan War, which they called the yan Kapur War, and

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the nineteen sixty seven Six Day War, which was Israel's

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greatest victory. That's not just cap that Israel had. They

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were unusually larded with military talent at operational level for

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various reasons. And I mean that was so that was

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a big deal. And that's kind of what the myth

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of Israeli military supremacy like was emergent, because in sixty

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seven it wasn't a myth. I mean, on the one hand,

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like modern combat resolves rapidly. That's why I'm trying to

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side the people. You know, they people get a corrupted

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view of this because pretty much like the only like

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the only wars in living memory involve these kinds of

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nonsensical paradigms. Were like you know, some Pentagon guy or

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some State Department spokesman or woman is suggesting, well, we're

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making incremental progress, you know, like the these kind of

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like endless deployments that don't resolve anything. Like people think

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that that's normal, Like they don't understand that even on condition,

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even under conditions are relative parody, you know, like modern

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combined arms war, it's battles are usually massively one sided.

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It's usually at it usually resolves like within days, you know,

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but just the same. Uh, the IDEAS performance in sixty

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seven was unusually strong, but all of that, all that

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basically came to an end in the seventy three war.

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And it's significant to US. I mean, even people who

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aren't particularly invested in Israel Palestine. I don't think that's

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a correct disposition because if you know, within the current paradigm,

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you you can't just kind of like selectively choose what

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you quote care about. It's not wasn't caring about it either,

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Like everything is impactful. You know anywhere that anywhere that

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the US forces are deployed under roscas in NATO or

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the IDEF has deployed you know, with the full with

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the full faith and blessing and operational integration with and

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the United States. You know that this has this has

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implications for everything that occurs in a political name. Sure,

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but you know, in seventy three, I I believe that

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that was a more dangerous crisis h modality than the

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Cuban missile crisis, like the cumanical prizes, the way it

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was unfolding in real time, and the way these Soviet

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naval vessels were approaching Cuba, and there was a question

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like will they run the black hate or not? Or

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like how will this resolve? Like and as like the

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days and hours were ticking away in Kennedy's war room.

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You know, people got the perception that this wasn't especially

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critical and it was don't get me wrong, However, there

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was nothing approaching strategic parody. Then in nineteen seventy three,

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there absolutely was, like the Soviets didn't officially accomplish like

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strategic parody in terms of forces in being, you know

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that were in fact deployed until seventy six to seventy seven.

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By seventy three, that they they had the capability to

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absolutely devastate watching Europe and the conne of the United States,

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you know, and uh owing to command and control duances

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and the shrinking of the window where human decision makers

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are capable of reacting. You know, that window of opportunity

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to render decision had had shrunk dramatically from a decade previous,

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you know, And so I maintaining that nineteen seventy three

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when America went to deaf Con three and that it's

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the only time that's ever happened, you know. And for context,

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it's not like during the early years that War on

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Terror with those like goofy like color coded alerts like

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today you look the terror thread as purple, so like

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Scholvin drubel up your ass or whatever, like you're supposed

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to do. It wasn't like that, Like, it was quite serious.

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And at def Con three, you know, basically that means

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America shifted to a war footing and missileers in their silos.

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They strapped into their siege to prepare for deep impact

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and awaited launch orders and like the little doors like

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atop the silo went like you know, which is kind

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of horrifying. But and Brezhnev he mobilized the Soviet Union operationally.

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In some ways they mirrored the native order of battle,

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but in other ways they were totally different. But they

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had you know, America's kind of America's kind of rapid

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reaction force during the Cold War was uh, it was

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the eighty second Airbroune Division. The Soviets mirrored that like

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the Soviet airborne troops and at that point were like

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an air assault element. They they went on high alert

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and they were preparing to deploy to the Middle East

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to relieve the Egyptian Army. You know, so this was

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this was really really bad. But that it's interesting that

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that's been conspicuously absent. I mean, it's to somebody in

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my age, the absence is conspicuous. I haven't read one

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reference to it. And since the IDF assaulted that Russian target,

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which don't get me wrong, It's happened many times before, okay,

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but it does constitute, if only in the court of

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public opinion, and public opinion in wartime takes on and

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outside significance, it does represent a kind of escalation that

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you know, the idea is flagrantly assaulting Russian targets. And

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it was one thing to do that during the Serian

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Civil Wars. Nothing to do that now. But I would

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think that any newsman or lady would uh, you know,

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kind of like invoke the seventy three war as the

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direct precedent to contextualize what's happening, you know, and they're

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not doing that at all. So that's just something that

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sort of jumped out of me. But like moving on

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to you know, the topic of the day. You know,

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once again, I as I indicated, I don't want to

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sound like some crazy old person. But if I'm repeating myself,

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let me know, because I do forget sometimes where we

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left off, and I try to refresh my recollection from

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the last episode, but it I don't always have time

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to like totally go through it. So I'm not going

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to be offended if if you stop me and say, like,

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we already covered that. But I think where we ended

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we were talking about, you know, the Russian Federation in

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Syria and how one of the major, one of the

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major foreign policy moves, even even in the yelts in

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air was to absolutely you know, guarantee that you know,

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the Soviet Mediterranean Fleet could still base in Syria, and

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the Syrians were still obviously very much amenable to that.

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But you know, despite even even Jelson's either you know,

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apathy or gross in confidence or combination of both on

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paraplitical matters, you know, it wasn't just him obviously either.

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It was you know, the the the equivalent of the

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General Staff of the Enforced Russian Federation and and and

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the Foreign Ministry and other things. But they even when

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they were not at all in a position to, you know,

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be pursuing a true kind of world velt politique strategy,

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you know, they made sure they locked in a continuation

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of of good offices with Syria, you know. And this

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is the nineteen seventy one Naval Treaty that was signed

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with Halfes al Asad. It granted the Soviet Union he

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basically gonterstricted their access to the naval basic artists that

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it had built, and it they continue to this day,

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you know. And the treaty runs for twenty years and

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there's automatic five year extensions and it's one of the

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parties ops Eternity agreement. But it but it's it's a

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rubber stamp sort of thing, you know. And the UH,

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the Syrian state. Asad, who passed away in two thousand,

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he was one of the first UH heads of state

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to recognize the Russian Federation, you know, basically immediately as

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a Soviet Union became the Russian Federation, he recognized it

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and made clear that the Syrian government was going to

238
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abide any and any military agreements and specifically the the

239
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naval treaty regards tartsts. But you know, and the uh

240
00:16:03,879 --> 00:16:05,200
I can remeb we got into this or not. We

241
00:16:05,240 --> 00:16:09,120
were talking about the Continuity War between sixty seven and

242
00:16:09,120 --> 00:16:13,000
seventy three and how the the Israeli Air Force, you know,

243
00:16:13,039 --> 00:16:16,360
they fought this pitch it this pitched air battle, you know,

244
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between the Israeli Air Force and and and Soviet megs.

245
00:16:22,679 --> 00:16:26,600
But during the during the the Ramanan War, Jogapor War itself.

246
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Uh you know, there's thousands of Soviet advisors on the

247
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ground as well as you know, direct action military elements,

248
00:16:34,080 --> 00:16:39,159
you know, technicians know, a veritable battalion and technicians to

249
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assist the Syrian Arab army and and and you know,

250
00:16:42,639 --> 00:16:47,879
to maintain the their equipment and their armored playet forms,

251
00:16:47,879 --> 00:16:53,399
their aircraft all of that. And twenty at least twenty

252
00:16:53,399 --> 00:16:56,000
of them died the Russian SOVI least twenty k I

253
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A and probably more. I mean, that's just what the

254
00:16:58,720 --> 00:17:03,440
Kremline acknowledged. But there was during the war, there was

255
00:17:04,119 --> 00:17:08,839
over thirty seven hundred tons of aid airlifted to the

256
00:17:08,880 --> 00:17:13,359
battlespace by the end of October, I mean seventy three

257
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by sea. The Soviet Union that transported sixty three thousand

258
00:17:20,240 --> 00:17:25,759
tons to Steea or replace its military and infrastructural losses.

259
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That's a massive commitment in relative and absolute terms. I'm

260
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not sure people recognize that, because you know, America throws

261
00:17:35,240 --> 00:17:40,000
money around like water, and it's constantly just like dumping

262
00:17:41,039 --> 00:17:44,079
these like aid packages and secondary theaters. That this was

263
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a big deal. Okay, I think I got into the

264
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fact that there was some tension in seventy six seventy

265
00:17:53,920 --> 00:17:59,000
seven between Damascus and Moscow. The Syrian Arab Army deployed

266
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to the Lebanese battle space, which put them directly opposite

267
00:18:03,640 --> 00:18:06,880
the PLO, and you know the PLO the Popular Front

268
00:18:06,960 --> 00:18:11,000
and the Popular Front delivery of Palestine. They were very

269
00:18:11,319 --> 00:18:13,960
warsaw packed adjacent. There's a big concern in the Soviet

270
00:18:14,039 --> 00:18:18,160
camp that this would upset the kind of delicate balance

271
00:18:18,440 --> 00:18:21,799
that was in place in the Arab Cold War as

272
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it's called. This was remedied basically one hundred and ten

273
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percent when the when the Soviet twents were in Afghanistan.

274
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Because I can't remember if I mentioned this or not

275
00:18:33,480 --> 00:18:38,240
either like a side immediately like declared like solidarity with

276
00:18:38,319 --> 00:18:41,880
the Soviet Union in the war from in Afghanistan. And

277
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obviously that put him at odds with basically every other

278
00:18:45,559 --> 00:18:49,960
Arab government, you know, and that that and that's huge.

279
00:18:50,279 --> 00:18:54,240
That and it's also it's significant too, I mean because

280
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the there's obvious and inherent tensions between the Soviet between

281
00:19:00,400 --> 00:19:02,480
there were between the Soviet Union and I Ran and

282
00:19:02,480 --> 00:19:05,160
thereut a day between the Russian Federation and Iran. Some

283
00:19:05,200 --> 00:19:08,839
of the is a sectarian and religious theological. Some of

284
00:19:08,839 --> 00:19:12,079
these are ethnic. You know, I that the persons in

285
00:19:12,079 --> 00:19:15,880
the Russians aren't aren't particularly cozy, but there's there's a

286
00:19:16,000 --> 00:19:20,240
very large Azeri minority in Iran, you know, Amadina jobs

287
00:19:20,240 --> 00:19:25,920
and ethnic Azeri. There's there, there's there's some bad blood there,

288
00:19:27,039 --> 00:19:30,119
you know. Aside from the the intrinsic value with Syria

289
00:19:30,880 --> 00:19:34,920
in absolute geo strategic terms to the Russian Federation, it's

290
00:19:34,920 --> 00:19:37,559
it's also very much like a con it represents kind

291
00:19:37,599 --> 00:19:42,599
of like it faciliates concord between the Russians and and

292
00:19:42,599 --> 00:19:53,759
and Tehran in a real way. You know. The uh,

293
00:19:54,240 --> 00:20:02,119
I'm sorry one second, oh and it's in uh in

294
00:20:02,200 --> 00:20:04,400
April of seventy seven, like it has this kind of

295
00:20:04,480 --> 00:20:12,519
Lebanon situation was developing as he traveled the Moscow and

296
00:20:12,559 --> 00:20:16,559
there's some interesting sort of like cool footage that the

297
00:20:16,640 --> 00:20:20,960
Russians shot and there was there's also some there's also

298
00:20:21,000 --> 00:20:24,599
some British media guy in the ground. The British were

299
00:20:24,960 --> 00:20:28,160
very well, very well indexed with the Soviet Union and

300
00:20:28,240 --> 00:20:31,559
in terms of media for whatever reason. So a lot

301
00:20:31,559 --> 00:20:34,319
of this, but there's this this footage of Hafesi Sad

302
00:20:34,720 --> 00:20:38,680
arriving in Moscow and receiving you know, like great honors.

303
00:20:39,079 --> 00:20:43,119
You know, it's really it's really interesting, and especially for

304
00:20:43,160 --> 00:20:47,960
a small country. You know, it's Syria has a very

305
00:20:48,000 --> 00:20:56,599
outsized relevance for this reason. But it's uh he he

306
00:20:56,880 --> 00:20:59,880
got a sod gotten, not just an audience with bresd

307
00:21:00,039 --> 00:21:08,960
and but uh with Alexei Kasigan, who uh was uh he.

308
00:21:09,119 --> 00:21:10,519
The way to think of him is he was kind

309
00:21:10,519 --> 00:21:13,200
of in the role that Lavrov is today. You know,

310
00:21:13,240 --> 00:21:18,200
it's an imperfect analogy, but for foreign policy purposes and

311
00:21:18,279 --> 00:21:21,160
war and peace terms, especially like the he's of via

312
00:21:21,160 --> 00:21:26,160
the Arab world, it tracks and you know, it's not

313
00:21:26,440 --> 00:21:29,839
that's that's no small thing, and it's not you know,

314
00:21:29,880 --> 00:21:31,799
that's why when people when people talk about the Assad

315
00:21:31,920 --> 00:21:35,119
family like they're like they're like, you know, like like

316
00:21:35,359 --> 00:21:37,960
they're like Saddam and his clan, they're they're not at all,

317
00:21:38,839 --> 00:21:42,480
you know, they're there, sad was anything. But there's some

318
00:21:42,599 --> 00:21:47,599
like tinpot dictator, you know. I mean I I I

319
00:21:47,640 --> 00:21:51,279
think they're I think the Syrians are a noble people generally,

320
00:21:52,440 --> 00:21:55,319
and I find the Assad is particularly impressive. But that

321
00:21:55,440 --> 00:22:00,279
that's not that's not just that, that's not just cap

322
00:22:00,319 --> 00:22:05,119
I mean a conceptual bias or something, you know. Fas

323
00:22:05,119 --> 00:22:09,839
Aside visited at Moscow again in early spring eighty seven

324
00:22:10,240 --> 00:22:17,279
April nineteen eighty seven, and he traveled there with the

325
00:22:17,279 --> 00:22:24,039
then serving Defense Minister Mustafa Class and he has to

326
00:22:24,079 --> 00:22:31,559
require the this advanced service, the air missile system it

327
00:22:31,799 --> 00:22:37,119
UH and Gorbachev denied him, which is really interesting. And

328
00:22:37,920 --> 00:22:41,559
this was during a time when it's a critical period

329
00:22:41,559 --> 00:22:46,160
when when when avionics were becoming hyper advanced. You know,

330
00:22:48,960 --> 00:22:53,799
obviously the stealth like the beefy stealth armber it was

331
00:22:53,839 --> 00:22:55,680
a very differ kind of plant for him than those

332
00:22:55,759 --> 00:23:01,599
that the these missile systems that the Syrian to acquire

333
00:23:01,599 --> 00:23:06,200
were tailored the as a counter measure for but that

334
00:23:06,200 --> 00:23:11,319
that entire sort of like skunk Works series of projects

335
00:23:11,720 --> 00:23:14,799
that was the emergent from this this kind of culture

336
00:23:14,839 --> 00:23:19,400
of high tech avionics. Okay, so you know the Syrians

337
00:23:19,400 --> 00:23:22,519
were asking, were requesting this for a reason, you know,

338
00:23:22,599 --> 00:23:30,759
they they need they desperately needed countermeasures because Israel, uh Israel,

339
00:23:30,880 --> 00:23:34,839
and in Western Germany you're in the Cold War. They

340
00:23:35,039 --> 00:23:37,440
were getting America's best equipment. I mean, the Germans in

341
00:23:37,440 --> 00:23:39,880
their own right, I think the I think the Leopard

342
00:23:39,880 --> 00:23:43,000
tank is the best like modern bail tank, like hands down,

343
00:23:43,559 --> 00:23:49,720
but the but they the West Germans in Israel, I

344
00:23:49,759 --> 00:23:51,680
mean in the in the in the former case and

345
00:23:51,720 --> 00:23:54,880
you know, obviously cold residencies, the latter was ideological and

346
00:23:54,960 --> 00:23:57,160
the ladder obviously still this is the case in terms

347
00:23:57,200 --> 00:24:00,200
of what they received, but they weren't getting like, they

348
00:24:00,200 --> 00:24:04,920
weren't getting like knockoff versions of of American aircraft. They're

349
00:24:04,920 --> 00:24:10,599
getting the real thing, you know. And this obviously decides

350
00:24:10,640 --> 00:24:14,200
to give the series pause because even before even before

351
00:24:14,359 --> 00:24:19,920
UH stealth technology became the norm, you know, long before

352
00:24:20,119 --> 00:24:24,839
it advanced, Divionyx were making it increasingly difficult really to

353
00:24:25,839 --> 00:24:28,200
but he developed any counter any counter versions at all.

354
00:24:28,359 --> 00:24:32,720
And the Soviets, uh. One of the things the Worshaw

355
00:24:32,839 --> 00:24:37,920
packed did very very well was hir aircraft countermeasures, okay,

356
00:24:38,440 --> 00:24:41,519
particularly serviced their missiles, like you know the old the

357
00:24:41,599 --> 00:24:44,079
old book and film Flag of the Intruder. It's it's

358
00:24:44,119 --> 00:24:46,759
a dumb movie, but it's a pretty good book. If

359
00:24:46,799 --> 00:24:48,039
you're in a sit in the air where I read.

360
00:24:48,160 --> 00:24:50,359
I read the book and saw the movie. Yeah, the

361
00:24:50,359 --> 00:24:53,799
book is a lot better. Yeah, but it's And Stephen

362
00:24:53,880 --> 00:24:56,119
koons Is is kind of a he's kind of a

363
00:24:56,119 --> 00:25:00,200
strange guy, but he he flew ay sixes over Vietnam

364
00:25:00,880 --> 00:25:07,279
and the part where the the the kind of the

365
00:25:07,519 --> 00:25:11,279
kind of John Wayne type aviator Jake Rafton, you know,

366
00:25:11,319 --> 00:25:15,480
his new his new UH Radar intercept Officer, his new

367
00:25:15,599 --> 00:25:19,200
RAO is is this kind of like wild guy. But

368
00:25:20,000 --> 00:25:24,279
even he like fu sorties were downtown Hanoi is like

369
00:25:24,319 --> 00:25:27,920
a terrifying prospect for American aviators because other other than Moscow,

370
00:25:28,119 --> 00:25:30,079
like it was like the most hardened like target on

371
00:25:30,119 --> 00:25:33,759
this planet. Like that that's not that wasn't creative license.

372
00:25:33,799 --> 00:25:36,799
That was including the book or something, and that owed

373
00:25:37,200 --> 00:25:39,279
the fact that, I mean, the Soviets built it up

374
00:25:39,319 --> 00:25:42,160
to make it that way. You know, it wasn't it.

375
00:25:43,160 --> 00:25:45,759
Obviously there was you know, they the Vietnamese are an

376
00:25:45,759 --> 00:25:49,480
industrious people, but they they had nothing approaching that kind

377
00:25:49,480 --> 00:25:54,119
of technology, and you know, they the Soviets knew that.

378
00:25:54,599 --> 00:25:57,559
I mean that was before the sound of Soviets split.

379
00:25:59,279 --> 00:26:01,839
But you know, the like like the Chinese had nothing

380
00:26:01,880 --> 00:26:05,440
remotely honorable, you know, like the check on equivalent was junk.

381
00:26:06,400 --> 00:26:10,480
But in any event, so this was, uh, that was

382
00:26:10,559 --> 00:26:14,359
kind of a turning point obviously in eighty seven when

383
00:26:14,359 --> 00:26:21,640
Garbashcheff refused basically the kind of honor the good offices

384
00:26:21,680 --> 00:26:24,119
that had been sustained with serious really since day one

385
00:26:24,160 --> 00:26:28,160
at least, you know, in as regards military necessities and exigencies.

386
00:26:28,200 --> 00:26:34,039
But you know, that was the what what Garbage was

387
00:26:34,119 --> 00:26:37,839
attempting to accomplish. I was writing something about this the

388
00:26:37,880 --> 00:26:41,279
other day, but that's kind of a subject for another episode.

389
00:26:41,279 --> 00:26:42,960
I know, if if we go off on that tangent,

390
00:26:43,039 --> 00:26:47,319
like we'll be here all night. But it is, uh

391
00:26:47,960 --> 00:26:50,440
that that that was definitely like a nominalist though, you know,

392
00:26:50,480 --> 00:26:55,079
like I said it, even even even under Yelson's tenure,

393
00:26:55,160 --> 00:26:59,359
the you know, the Moscow never made any indication that

394
00:26:59,640 --> 00:27:05,839
they any intention of abandoning Syria. But moving forward, what's

395
00:27:06,960 --> 00:27:09,480
I mean, obviously it was most relevant to the present

396
00:27:09,680 --> 00:27:12,160
is you know, the Syrian Civil War, you know, and

397
00:27:12,240 --> 00:27:18,240
I it's it's hard to dominate really what's what people

398
00:27:18,279 --> 00:27:21,880
are thinking in in Washington because you don't have a

399
00:27:21,920 --> 00:27:24,920
serious foreign policy establishment and you haven't since you know,

400
00:27:25,000 --> 00:27:29,279
nineteen ninety two. But when Obama's people, when they were

401
00:27:29,319 --> 00:27:34,000
saying that Damascus is imminately going to fall, that that

402
00:27:34,000 --> 00:27:39,039
that was that was in fact accurate at the outset

403
00:27:39,079 --> 00:27:42,519
of the intervention, the Russian intervention, and there's another case

404
00:27:42,519 --> 00:27:45,079
of pot putin waited far too long intervene. I mean

405
00:27:45,079 --> 00:27:48,720
it it's a credit to the Syrian people, you know,

406
00:27:48,720 --> 00:27:51,480
those loyal to Asade and the Hezebla and those Russian

407
00:27:52,839 --> 00:27:57,640
forces who were deployed that they won. But it was

408
00:27:57,680 --> 00:28:03,240
becoming critical, you know, the the Syrian government they officially

409
00:28:03,359 --> 00:28:06,559
only controlled about a quarter of the country. You know,

410
00:28:07,079 --> 00:28:09,440
the statistics that read is like twenty six percent of

411
00:28:09,480 --> 00:28:12,759
overall like territory. And how how much that territory you

412
00:28:12,799 --> 00:28:15,480
can deploy in depth or defend it. I mean, they

413
00:28:15,519 --> 00:28:20,119
had they they had the built up areas buying large

414
00:28:20,160 --> 00:28:23,440
but you know they were they were essentially there was

415
00:28:23,440 --> 00:28:26,160
this there's this garrison Damascus who was like becoming a

416
00:28:26,160 --> 00:28:32,039
frontline city, you know. And assad uh Asad sends his

417
00:28:32,079 --> 00:28:37,119
wife away, and he sent his sister bus Assad away,

418
00:28:37,599 --> 00:28:42,839
and you know he I developed huge respect for Bashar

419
00:28:43,440 --> 00:28:46,599
the Son because he said, I'm not leaving Damascus if

420
00:28:46,599 --> 00:28:49,359
I have to well die here. And that's you know,

421
00:28:49,359 --> 00:28:50,880
I'm like, Okay, this guy's a real man, and he's

422
00:28:50,880 --> 00:28:53,079
a real president. You know, he's he's a real leader

423
00:28:53,119 --> 00:28:57,880
of he's a real warlord now, you know, because that's

424
00:28:57,880 --> 00:29:02,319
the way it has to be. You know, when the

425
00:29:02,400 --> 00:29:07,920
Russians did arrive, you know, they rapidly integrated with you know,

426
00:29:07,960 --> 00:29:12,960
a lot of the Syrian Arab army defected. You know,

427
00:29:13,000 --> 00:29:16,039
I think a lot of that the degree to which

428
00:29:16,079 --> 00:29:20,000
that Sunny Bath elements and the Iraqi Bath and the

429
00:29:20,279 --> 00:29:23,279
Syrian Bath party are very different animals, but there is

430
00:29:23,319 --> 00:29:27,079
like a common ideological core and there's and there's a

431
00:29:27,079 --> 00:29:32,440
common sociological rationale like the men who were in our

432
00:29:32,480 --> 00:29:36,279
heavily index with the party, and you know, a bunch

433
00:29:36,319 --> 00:29:41,519
of Saddam's officers who were you know, part of the

434
00:29:41,559 --> 00:29:44,279
Sunni minority in Iraq, like they clipped they clipped up

435
00:29:44,279 --> 00:29:46,680
with ISIS basically immediately, not all of them, but a

436
00:29:46,720 --> 00:29:49,240
lot of them did. And they were accepted by these guys,

437
00:29:49,319 --> 00:29:53,079
which is really interesting. And some of the same thing

438
00:29:53,200 --> 00:30:01,279
happened in Syria, you know, and the uh, the Syrian

439
00:30:01,359 --> 00:30:05,240
bath party even like at the top is more ecumenical

440
00:30:05,319 --> 00:30:09,000
than they're credited, but it still is. I mean, it's

441
00:30:09,000 --> 00:30:11,720
it's basically, you know, like an an alley like minority

442
00:30:12,559 --> 00:30:19,319
rule situation. But and it's it's interesting. And in May

443
00:30:19,359 --> 00:30:24,000
twenty ten, like before the formal on set of hostilities,

444
00:30:24,279 --> 00:30:32,200
Medyedev had visited Syria and that mid Medviedev's like brief

445
00:30:33,759 --> 00:30:38,759
tenure as the president is interesting, man, And it's interesting

446
00:30:38,920 --> 00:30:42,759
how we became it was like out bad with Putin subsequently.

447
00:30:43,559 --> 00:30:52,400
But it's pretty obvious that NATO, Israel and I'm sure

448
00:30:52,440 --> 00:30:56,400
their proxies in these ISIS types as well, because those

449
00:30:56,400 --> 00:31:00,880
guys weren't stupid. They realize, you know, look, the time

450
00:31:00,920 --> 00:31:04,119
to move, you know, the time to truly escalate is

451
00:31:04,160 --> 00:31:06,319
when the Russians are are even some kind of crisis

452
00:31:06,319 --> 00:31:10,359
of leadership, you know, or if not not, if not

453
00:31:10,359 --> 00:31:12,319
so much a crisis and a literal like you know,

454
00:31:12,839 --> 00:31:15,079
war in the Kremlin like happened after a drop off.

455
00:31:16,119 --> 00:31:20,799
You know, you when the civilian executive is kind of headless,

456
00:31:23,160 --> 00:31:27,920
that that causes problems, you know, it causes problems in

457
00:31:28,000 --> 00:31:31,000
terms of like grand schemes, peated decision making, it all

458
00:31:31,000 --> 00:31:33,720
the way down to the operational level. That's that's one

459
00:31:33,720 --> 00:31:37,400
of the reasons why that YAHOO was secure. Unfortunately, because

460
00:31:37,799 --> 00:31:41,920
even people who despise them, you know, they're playing musical

461
00:31:42,000 --> 00:31:44,839
chairs with with the civilian executive. Is not what you

462
00:31:44,880 --> 00:31:51,640
want to do at war, but because it may. When

463
00:31:51,640 --> 00:31:56,000
the Russians did deploy, they immediately integrated, you know, with

464
00:31:56,039 --> 00:31:58,960
HESGLO and the syen Arab army and commanding control capacities,

465
00:31:59,319 --> 00:32:03,839
you know, like like deeply and this how this you know,

466
00:32:03,839 --> 00:32:06,680
there were the Russians no like wartime diplomacy, man, I

467
00:32:06,759 --> 00:32:10,680
mean that during the Cold War, I'd say the key ways,

468
00:32:11,599 --> 00:32:13,519
I mean NATO had them beat in all kinds of

469
00:32:13,599 --> 00:32:18,440
capacities like material, political and otherwise. But you know what

470
00:32:18,480 --> 00:32:21,640
the Russians had was I mean they had firepower. Obviously,

471
00:32:22,559 --> 00:32:25,559
they had a very tough in game population in the

472
00:32:25,640 --> 00:32:29,599
Russian people, but they were very they weren't are very

473
00:32:29,640 --> 00:32:36,559
adept at like war and peace politics and that that

474
00:32:36,559 --> 00:32:38,400
that that's how they were able to accomplish that, you know,

475
00:32:38,400 --> 00:32:44,359
because like I I mean obviously especially considering the the

476
00:32:44,400 --> 00:32:47,319
tactical situation on the ground in Syria. I mean, his

477
00:32:47,519 --> 00:32:49,920
blah wasn't about to say like we won't index with

478
00:32:49,960 --> 00:32:54,480
the Russian or the Russian Federation. But there's always tensions

479
00:32:54,599 --> 00:32:58,039
in trying to integrate a command and control structure, you know.

480
00:32:58,799 --> 00:33:04,680
And this was accomplished seamlessly essentially. But the well, you know,

481
00:33:04,720 --> 00:33:09,640
the Russians, they the Russians brought in like real firepower

482
00:33:09,720 --> 00:33:13,160
to bear. You know, the Russians can't do high tech

483
00:33:13,240 --> 00:33:17,079
like America can. But the war tech as during the

484
00:33:17,079 --> 00:33:21,480
Cold War is now was good enough. And the Syrian

485
00:33:21,519 --> 00:33:25,359
intervention and the way they you know, they they pursued

486
00:33:25,359 --> 00:33:28,920
it truly scorched earth policy in the in the in

487
00:33:28,960 --> 00:33:32,599
the battle space like against their against four and it

488
00:33:32,720 --> 00:33:37,519
paid off, you know, the and and putin declared and

489
00:33:37,599 --> 00:33:41,880
knowing certain terms that you know, the the like the

490
00:33:41,880 --> 00:33:43,920
Asad government is not going to be allowed to fall

491
00:33:45,000 --> 00:33:51,680
there is some momentum behind Syria two in the quart

492
00:33:51,680 --> 00:33:55,119
of world opinion. It's like we talked about I'm not

493
00:33:55,200 --> 00:33:58,160
successful to propaganda, and I mean I am not some

494
00:33:58,359 --> 00:34:03,000
young naive person. I was legitimately horrified by those scenes

495
00:34:03,039 --> 00:34:04,960
from you know, like the subbers of a Lepo over

496
00:34:05,039 --> 00:34:10,360
these these isis barbarians. You know, we're beheading people and

497
00:34:10,440 --> 00:34:14,400
putting heads on steaks. You know, like I said, I

498
00:34:14,400 --> 00:34:16,519
saw the video of them. You know, they were doing

499
00:34:17,079 --> 00:34:20,159
their afternoon prayers and their prayer mats and uh, there's

500
00:34:20,199 --> 00:34:22,920
like a forest of hits. You know, it's it's like

501
00:34:22,960 --> 00:34:27,880
a horror movie. But you know people were seeing that

502
00:34:28,079 --> 00:34:32,480
kind of thing. And I remember a Bath Party spokeswoman

503
00:34:32,880 --> 00:34:37,519
and knowing certain terms, telling some European media type like, look,

504
00:34:37,559 --> 00:34:40,960
we're not we do not negotiate with people who we

505
00:34:41,000 --> 00:34:42,719
will not negotiate with. We're not going to change our

506
00:34:42,760 --> 00:34:45,920
government because terrorists are are are bombing us and killing

507
00:34:45,960 --> 00:34:50,159
people and beheading people. Like what that's you can't ever

508
00:34:50,199 --> 00:34:53,960
allow that you know this is and you know this

509
00:34:54,079 --> 00:34:56,320
was also too when the War on Terror was still on.

510
00:34:56,480 --> 00:35:00,840
It's like, so you America is telling us in telling

511
00:35:00,880 --> 00:35:03,440
the world like you know, we're waging the war on terror,

512
00:35:03,519 --> 00:35:07,480
yet you're you're trying to bring down a secularist eye

513
00:35:07,519 --> 00:35:11,159
doctor who uh it's got like a pretty wife who

514
00:35:11,239 --> 00:35:13,800
looks kind of like any white woman in the United States,

515
00:35:14,360 --> 00:35:16,559
and you're saying that like isis are the good guys?

516
00:35:16,599 --> 00:35:20,039
Like that's that's really when America lost all credibility, you know,

517
00:35:20,119 --> 00:35:22,920
like even more so I think than the Iraq fiasco,

518
00:35:23,519 --> 00:35:25,920
because that was just like laid bare. You know, it's

519
00:35:25,920 --> 00:35:31,119
like we we will burn down civilization and handed to barbarians.

520
00:35:31,480 --> 00:35:34,679
You know, that basically accounts what we want, and that's

521
00:35:34,679 --> 00:35:39,079
the opposite of civilization, you know, the same nothing of

522
00:35:39,119 --> 00:35:44,079
the fact that that's I mean, nine eleven should never happen,

523
00:35:44,800 --> 00:35:48,239
but it did happen. And it's like okay, so ook

524
00:35:48,239 --> 00:35:51,719
at decades, you know, a mere decade subsequent, like now

525
00:35:52,719 --> 00:35:54,679
now now you're willing to like accept that as you know,

526
00:35:54,760 --> 00:35:57,360
just kind of like the verbal costs of doing business.

527
00:35:57,519 --> 00:36:04,159
It's like that's that's unconstable. The scoresesque, but you know,

528
00:36:04,199 --> 00:36:08,320
and then putin clarified in twenty fifteen. It's really interesting too.

529
00:36:08,360 --> 00:36:12,800
It was when speaking of the Medvita situation for three

530
00:36:12,920 --> 00:36:18,960
four years when when Putin, you know, he's kind of

531
00:36:18,960 --> 00:36:23,599
like second uh permanent tenure as President of Russian Federation.

532
00:36:24,960 --> 00:36:27,239
There's this kind of window where he was speaking very candidly.

533
00:36:27,280 --> 00:36:30,039
I think I think Putin quotes himself pretty well generally,

534
00:36:30,559 --> 00:36:32,920
but he plays so close to the chest and kind

535
00:36:32,920 --> 00:36:36,480
of issues he's like non answers the policy questions. There

536
00:36:36,519 --> 00:36:38,639
was like this brief period of a few years where

537
00:36:38,639 --> 00:36:40,440
he was he was kind of trying to like humanize

538
00:36:40,440 --> 00:36:44,280
his image. I think I remember in October twenty fifteen. Yeah,

539
00:36:44,320 --> 00:36:46,719
it was like it was like October November twenty fifteen.

540
00:36:47,239 --> 00:36:49,840
He gives us an interview and he's like, look, he's

541
00:36:49,840 --> 00:36:52,760
like this. He's like, you know, our the Syrian intervention

542
00:36:52,880 --> 00:36:55,599
is prepared well in advance. Despite the way made have appeared,

543
00:36:56,039 --> 00:36:58,559
we weren't just responding with an emergency situation on the ground.

544
00:36:58,559 --> 00:37:00,440
We knew that America and Israel one had to bring

545
00:37:00,519 --> 00:37:04,639
down the bath regime. We consider this unacceptable. We still do.

546
00:37:05,079 --> 00:37:07,599
It was really interestings like he never he doesn't. He

547
00:37:07,679 --> 00:37:10,079
just doesn't talk that way anymore, you know. And one

548
00:37:10,079 --> 00:37:13,079
of the things people criticize him for is is this

549
00:37:13,239 --> 00:37:16,960
kind of like ambiguous language about Ukraine. You know, oh no,

550
00:37:17,039 --> 00:37:19,599
this this is a special military operation, and you know,

551
00:37:20,440 --> 00:37:24,119
not not being clear about objectives and things. It's it's

552
00:37:24,199 --> 00:37:29,079
very different. But I think it's relevant, you know it,

553
00:37:31,239 --> 00:37:37,320
I know it is, but uh, the uh in Putin's terms,

554
00:37:37,360 --> 00:37:43,079
and Russian speakers I'm sure will suggest and suggest correctly.

555
00:37:43,800 --> 00:37:51,000
This is an imprecise, imprecise translation, but it's the most

556
00:37:51,119 --> 00:37:54,199
coherent when I found, like in the same interview he said,

557
00:37:54,400 --> 00:37:59,480
quote that that the objective wasn't remains quote stabilizing the

558
00:37:59,559 --> 00:38:03,639
legitimate power in Syria and creating conditions for political compromise.

559
00:38:04,840 --> 00:38:09,599
And that's very much a Putinism. His Putin's always resorting to,

560
00:38:10,199 --> 00:38:15,400
you know, the rules based international order that purportedly exists,

561
00:38:15,639 --> 00:38:17,760
and like, I understand why he does that, but I

562
00:38:18,079 --> 00:38:21,559
think the time has passed for that those sorts of appeals.

563
00:38:22,119 --> 00:38:26,599
But it's just it's just interesting, the uh and if

564
00:38:26,639 --> 00:38:28,920
I can't remember, we dropped the brass tax, like the

565
00:38:29,360 --> 00:38:33,960
like the literal numbers of what this operation constituted in Syria.

566
00:38:36,159 --> 00:38:39,760
In some ways, especially considering a lot of the discussion

567
00:38:39,880 --> 00:38:43,280
about the deterioration of Russian capabilities, in some ways, this

568
00:38:43,440 --> 00:38:48,119
was as much a coup in world opinion terms, as

569
00:38:48,960 --> 00:38:53,280
as the UK's UH effort in the falk Ones, you know,

570
00:38:53,400 --> 00:38:58,000
because people were I mean, Washington's always suggesting that the

571
00:38:58,039 --> 00:39:05,519
Russians can't do anything right in military terms, but even

572
00:39:06,159 --> 00:39:10,480
relatively serious people were prone to talking that way. But

573
00:39:12,039 --> 00:39:16,280
the Russian Air Force, it carried out over nineteen thousand sorties,

574
00:39:17,280 --> 00:39:20,440
seventy one thousand direct strikes on what they call the

575
00:39:20,519 --> 00:39:25,840
quote infrastructure of terrorists. You know, I interpret that in

576
00:39:25,880 --> 00:39:30,519
like real human language, not military language, as a combination

577
00:39:30,679 --> 00:39:35,880
of you know, ground support, attack missions, you know, as

578
00:39:35,880 --> 00:39:41,760
well as you know, as well as bonding of any

579
00:39:41,800 --> 00:39:50,000
positions and things. But I close air support and direct

580
00:39:50,039 --> 00:39:54,960
support of ground element forces is what really carried the day.

581
00:39:55,519 --> 00:40:00,599
And again the Russians, they've always viewed warfare as it's

582
00:40:00,679 --> 00:40:03,039
kind of the advance of fire. You know, they're very

583
00:40:03,039 --> 00:40:05,280
clouds of witsy end and they're like literally clouds of

584
00:40:05,320 --> 00:40:08,719
whitsy end in their perspectives. You know, that's who train

585
00:40:08,800 --> 00:40:11,400
them to fight modern war. You know, it was UH

586
00:40:11,760 --> 00:40:17,760
clouds with himself and Prosian officers and there are for

587
00:40:17,920 --> 00:40:20,840
the Russian Federation on parade. They still you know, perform

588
00:40:20,920 --> 00:40:25,119
the goose step. This, you know, not a coincidence or

589
00:40:25,159 --> 00:40:28,480
because they they think it looks really sharp, which it does,

590
00:40:28,679 --> 00:40:34,039
but it's because that's how they learned drill, you know.

591
00:40:34,119 --> 00:40:38,599
And that's this This solidified Russia as a as a

592
00:40:38,679 --> 00:40:43,079
real military power on the world stage once again, you know.

593
00:40:43,159 --> 00:40:48,159
And that's why it's there's it's not as like a

594
00:40:48,800 --> 00:40:52,159
conceptual bias or like a categorical ignorance, and it's both

595
00:40:52,199 --> 00:40:54,920
those things too. What you know, like the Honesset of

596
00:40:54,960 --> 00:40:58,199
hoscilities in Ukraine, like however mismanaged that war has been,

597
00:40:58,320 --> 00:41:00,079
and it's kind of like gross and mismanaged on on

598
00:41:00,119 --> 00:41:04,119
the Russian side. Okay, but this idea that like Russia

599
00:41:04,280 --> 00:41:07,760
lacks the capability to deploy its scale, it's like, what

600
00:41:07,960 --> 00:41:10,320
are you talking about? I mean that that's that's at

601
00:41:10,360 --> 00:41:16,320
odds of reality, you know. And if you're gonna if

602
00:41:16,320 --> 00:41:19,119
you're gonna fight the uh, you're gonna fight the arm

603
00:41:19,119 --> 00:41:22,000
force of the Russian Federation like literally on their own frontier,

604
00:41:23,679 --> 00:41:27,119
you know. The the direct precedent, the constant bears well

605
00:41:27,159 --> 00:41:31,000
what happened in Syria. You know, I not make a mistake.

606
00:41:31,119 --> 00:41:35,000
I there is no like military objective on you know

607
00:41:35,079 --> 00:41:38,119
that that Ukraine is pursuing because there's no there's no

608
00:41:38,199 --> 00:41:41,280
path in victory in military terms. And it's but if

609
00:41:41,280 --> 00:41:45,559
you accept that, you know, US, NATO, Israel their only

610
00:41:45,599 --> 00:41:50,199
interest is you know, and it is a creating attrition.

611
00:41:51,280 --> 00:41:54,480
You know it, Uh, it makes perfect sense. But this

612
00:41:54,639 --> 00:41:58,719
idea that these these it's not as these fools like

613
00:41:58,760 --> 00:42:03,360
blink in either, like is you know there's this people.

614
00:42:03,360 --> 00:42:04,880
I don't think there's any serious people in the foreign

615
00:42:04,920 --> 00:42:07,840
policies stay as men, but even people less kind of

616
00:42:08,599 --> 00:42:10,960
you know, out of it than he is. You know,

617
00:42:10,960 --> 00:42:13,400
they were talking like, well, yeah, you know, the the

618
00:42:13,440 --> 00:42:15,679
Russian mainline resistance is just going to collapse. You know

619
00:42:15,719 --> 00:42:20,280
the moment basically we start popping off combined arms and

620
00:42:20,639 --> 00:42:23,599
you know from a borough communitions or whatever, and and

621
00:42:23,639 --> 00:42:25,760
then like the you know, the the United Russia is

622
00:42:25,800 --> 00:42:28,599
just going to collapse. It's like what's like, are you

623
00:42:28,639 --> 00:42:32,360
smoking crack? Like that's you know. The one thing, the

624
00:42:32,679 --> 00:42:37,199
one thing the Russians have going for them again is

625
00:42:37,719 --> 00:42:41,599
the fact that they can bring firepower to bear. They've

626
00:42:41,639 --> 00:42:46,679
got a very game population, and I as long as

627
00:42:47,320 --> 00:42:49,800
as long as Putin is alive and relatively healthy, like

628
00:42:49,920 --> 00:42:53,199
United Russia is like never been stronger, Like they're Their

629
00:42:53,280 --> 00:42:58,280
problem is that apparently they can't achieve consensus on who

630
00:42:58,440 --> 00:43:02,360
on a man to take his place. But this idea

631
00:43:02,400 --> 00:43:05,400
that but some of the Russians literally took twenty five

632
00:43:05,400 --> 00:43:08,880
million dead. You know, if you lose one in seven

633
00:43:08,920 --> 00:43:13,800
of your population to the Wehrmacht in four years, and

634
00:43:13,880 --> 00:43:18,679
not only do you not fall apart, you you can

635
00:43:18,719 --> 00:43:23,599
reconstitute into a superpower, albeit a crippled one, immediately subsequent.

636
00:43:24,239 --> 00:43:27,199
There's nothing sort of incredible, and I think I think

637
00:43:27,199 --> 00:43:31,039
it's basically unprecedented, you know, like some some sort of

638
00:43:31,079 --> 00:43:37,400
comparable scenario or a state endoors that level of devastation

639
00:43:38,639 --> 00:43:43,400
and is able to you know, it's not profit from

640
00:43:43,400 --> 00:43:49,480
it to uh, you know, immediately reconstitute and project power

641
00:43:49,760 --> 00:43:56,159
in a way theretofore unthinkable even prior to the onset

642
00:43:56,199 --> 00:44:03,800
of hostilities. But you know, the uh, that's one of

643
00:44:03,840 --> 00:44:08,800
the reasons why I mean the the You've gotta understand

644
00:44:08,840 --> 00:44:12,880
the Ukraine War as as literally like another a secondary front,

645
00:44:13,320 --> 00:44:17,639
a secondary theater of the same conflict as was underway

646
00:44:17,679 --> 00:44:23,280
in Syria. And one of the things facility Russian facilitated

647
00:44:23,440 --> 00:44:26,920
by Russian victory there was not just cloud in the

648
00:44:26,920 --> 00:44:31,039
international stage, but UH it basically guaranteed them access to

649
00:44:31,039 --> 00:44:35,119
the Eastern Mediterranean, you know, and UH from there you

650
00:44:35,159 --> 00:44:40,480
can stage you can stage combat operations like fear wide basically,

651
00:44:41,519 --> 00:44:46,480
you know, including in places like Libya that for reasons,

652
00:44:46,559 --> 00:44:50,400
some of which are within the bound rationality of AH

653
00:44:51,199 --> 00:44:55,039
you know, NATO decision making, and for some reasons they

654
00:44:55,079 --> 00:44:57,400
have it Libya. That makes sense, there's some that don't.

655
00:44:58,079 --> 00:45:02,519
But like point being, Russia absolutely can deploy their in

656
00:45:02,599 --> 00:45:05,400
depth if they're not tied down in their own frontier

657
00:45:06,159 --> 00:45:08,840
because of Ukraine. And that's really the key to understanding

658
00:45:08,880 --> 00:45:13,360
what is underway there in in in in like hard

659
00:45:13,559 --> 00:45:23,159
material terms, I mean, but the uh Asad himself apparently

660
00:45:24,480 --> 00:45:34,679
on the UH on the eve of Russian intervention, he

661
00:45:34,920 --> 00:45:38,559
I assume this came from his general staff. And I

662
00:45:38,679 --> 00:45:41,400
the Syenniray of Army. I know, people claim that they're

663
00:45:41,440 --> 00:45:44,639
ship like the Egyptian Army or something. I don't accept that.

664
00:45:44,760 --> 00:45:47,039
I don't accept that because the nineteen seventy three war,

665
00:45:47,679 --> 00:45:49,519
and like I said, the issue with the Syrian Airy

666
00:45:49,519 --> 00:45:52,880
of Army, it wasn't that like they were getting mauled

667
00:45:52,920 --> 00:45:57,800
in this field. It's that basically like this soon, he said,

668
00:45:57,880 --> 00:46:03,360
like we're not gonna fight this war, you know, but

669
00:46:05,320 --> 00:46:10,239
asad again, I'm certain through like his general staff ors equivalent,

670
00:46:11,599 --> 00:46:15,599
they issued this series of reports to Moscow saying like

671
00:46:16,239 --> 00:46:19,440
this is the this is the tactical situation, this is

672
00:46:19,440 --> 00:46:22,119
what we absolutely need, this is what needs to be

673
00:46:22,159 --> 00:46:25,320
brought to bear. You know. They basically like identified and

674
00:46:25,400 --> 00:46:28,199
characterized op for and like how it was hurting them,

675
00:46:29,599 --> 00:46:33,199
and in a very concise and clear headed way said

676
00:46:33,480 --> 00:46:36,199
like this is why we're going to lose this war

677
00:46:37,400 --> 00:46:40,000
unless you're able to deploy and guarantee A B and C,

678
00:46:41,320 --> 00:46:44,280
you know, and that that eventce is like a remarkable

679
00:46:44,360 --> 00:46:47,639
level of trust because like among other things, if you

680
00:46:48,320 --> 00:46:51,719
invite a great power and in very reduced terms, Russia

681
00:46:51,760 --> 00:46:54,119
still is a great power in relative terms, although like

682
00:46:54,159 --> 00:46:57,199
nothing you know, like a superpower. You know, you invite

683
00:46:57,199 --> 00:46:59,880
the Russians to deploy in depth and in hand your

684
00:47:00,039 --> 00:47:03,320
command and control mechanism over to them, they maybe will

685
00:47:03,440 --> 00:47:05,519
just decide that like now serious part of Russia for

686
00:47:05,559 --> 00:47:07,960
all practical purposes like that that's not just cap like

687
00:47:07,960 --> 00:47:10,559
when people like you know, who's gonna attack all one

688
00:47:11,400 --> 00:47:13,639
like it's it's no small measure inviting like five or

689
00:47:13,639 --> 00:47:16,719
eight thousand like armed Russians and their commed air craft

690
00:47:17,079 --> 00:47:19,920
and guys in their general staff like into your country

691
00:47:19,960 --> 00:47:21,920
and saying like okay, fellas, like you know, do do

692
00:47:22,000 --> 00:47:27,840
what you do best, the implement like death at scale

693
00:47:27,880 --> 00:47:30,000
among like those people, but then like kind of politely

694
00:47:30,079 --> 00:47:33,320
bow out when it's done. I mean, it's it's a

695
00:47:33,400 --> 00:47:36,960
rare case of like real kind of like respect and

696
00:47:37,000 --> 00:47:43,320
reciprocity at like cultural level as well as practical levels.

697
00:47:44,280 --> 00:47:47,800
But yeah, and that's why, uh, you know, like I said,

698
00:47:47,840 --> 00:47:52,920
if I could, if I can meet the when I

699
00:47:53,039 --> 00:47:55,119
go head to state, like I find a little interesting

700
00:47:55,119 --> 00:48:00,440
as Bashar al Assade, like you know, he's uh, he's

701
00:48:00,440 --> 00:48:09,280
a fascinating dude, and I find out highly relatable. But yeah,

702
00:48:09,360 --> 00:48:17,280
the I think that's uh yeah, I was gonna get

703
00:48:19,239 --> 00:48:21,679
at some point. And we covered some of this earlier,

704
00:48:22,320 --> 00:48:26,280
I mean in like a different series. I mean we

705
00:48:26,320 --> 00:48:31,360
were talking about, you know, the the Jackson Vanic Amendment

706
00:48:31,559 --> 00:48:33,840
and what prompted it, which was in a large measure,

707
00:48:35,920 --> 00:48:39,199
you know, the the public bro and the Supreme Soviet

708
00:48:39,320 --> 00:48:42,719
moving moving to literally like outlaws of Zionism, like it

709
00:48:42,800 --> 00:48:47,039
became it became a political crime against the state to

710
00:48:47,079 --> 00:48:50,880
you know, like advocate for Zionism, you know. And there

711
00:48:50,920 --> 00:48:56,480
was a party official in in April eighty three there

712
00:48:56,800 --> 00:49:02,920
like this full page this full page ad titled quote

713
00:49:02,960 --> 00:49:10,199
from the Soviet leadership laying out the case against Desionism

714
00:49:10,320 --> 00:49:15,559
as as as viewed from Moscow, which is fascinating, you know,

715
00:49:15,800 --> 00:49:20,960
and this, and then subsequently, you know, that's when you

716
00:49:21,039 --> 00:49:24,559
started hearing in media this narrative like, okay, Soviet Jews

717
00:49:24,559 --> 00:49:27,360
the r at risk of annihilation, you know, the Soviet

718
00:49:27,400 --> 00:49:30,360
Union is this you know, anti Semitic country. I mean,

719
00:49:30,360 --> 00:49:35,280
they've been at war for decades already, but it's it, uh,

720
00:49:36,159 --> 00:49:41,119
it took on like an overt the you know and

721
00:49:41,239 --> 00:49:48,239
above board like character, you know, and this, uh, the

722
00:49:48,480 --> 00:49:51,400
the you know, the purported plight of Soviet jewelry. It

723
00:49:51,639 --> 00:49:56,519
it was something that was endlessly bandied about by not

724
00:49:56,639 --> 00:50:01,199
just NGOs and sympathetic media people, by the Reagan administration.

725
00:50:01,440 --> 00:50:05,679
Like it's really it's really wild. And you know, speaking

726
00:50:05,719 --> 00:50:09,119
of Cold war movies or cold War theme movies, the

727
00:50:09,199 --> 00:50:13,840
movie Firefox is a really good movie. This if you can,

728
00:50:13,920 --> 00:50:15,480
I mean, you've got a lot like the propaganda. But

729
00:50:15,599 --> 00:50:17,360
when I was like a little kid, my mom and dad,

730
00:50:17,360 --> 00:50:18,639
I want to see it with them, and it like

731
00:50:18,679 --> 00:50:21,800
blew my mind. But uh, you know, one of the

732
00:50:21,840 --> 00:50:25,480
subtexts of it is that you know that Clint Eastwood

733
00:50:25,599 --> 00:50:30,719
is like the Russo American like non era comic pilot.

734
00:50:30,840 --> 00:50:33,360
You know, he uh he goes his mission is like

735
00:50:33,400 --> 00:50:38,320
steal what the then fictional mid thirty one, Like there

736
00:50:38,400 --> 00:50:41,000
is an actual mid thirty one. It's it's call signs

737
00:50:41,159 --> 00:50:44,480
is Fox Bad, but it didn't exist when Firebox came out.

738
00:50:44,519 --> 00:50:48,159
But the the meg thirty one Firefox is like the

739
00:50:48,280 --> 00:50:54,480
super plane and it directly interfaces with the pilot's brain waves.

740
00:50:55,000 --> 00:50:58,360
So like if you so you think commands to the

741
00:50:58,400 --> 00:51:03,280
central processing unit and then it responds. And because Eastwood

742
00:51:03,320 --> 00:51:06,000
in the film, his character is this Russian guy, Russian.

743
00:51:06,039 --> 00:51:09,840
He he speaks Russian, you know, so it's so he

744
00:51:10,079 --> 00:51:14,880
can think in Russian to manipulate the avionics. But any event,

745
00:51:15,519 --> 00:51:21,360
like a subplot is there's this Jewish avionics engineer and

746
00:51:21,440 --> 00:51:24,440
the Soviets are basically they're like threatening to like waste

747
00:51:24,440 --> 00:51:29,199
his family if he doesn't build the Firefox, and like

748
00:51:29,440 --> 00:51:33,159
uh at one point, like Queen Easwood's character makes cotted

749
00:51:33,239 --> 00:51:36,159
with him, and he's like, yeah, you know, like the

750
00:51:36,159 --> 00:51:38,800
the Soviets are you know, they're they're as bad as

751
00:51:38,840 --> 00:51:41,480
like the German Reich. And it's kind of like obvious

752
00:51:41,480 --> 00:51:45,880
propaganda insinuated, you know. But that he like he even

753
00:51:46,000 --> 00:51:48,639
that wasn't just like Hollywood stuff like that's that was

754
00:51:48,679 --> 00:51:54,159
the narrative being presented, but that that's kind of a

755
00:51:54,719 --> 00:51:59,559
tangential when it's a long topic. But yeah, I think

756
00:51:59,679 --> 00:52:04,679
uh uh, I think we're coming up in the hour. Yeah. No,

757
00:52:04,840 --> 00:52:08,639
that's uh, That's about all I got for this series.

758
00:52:08,719 --> 00:52:14,480
I don't I don't want to break off another like subtopic. Man,

759
00:52:15,360 --> 00:52:18,000
and forgive me if I repeated myself, but uh yeah,

760
00:52:18,039 --> 00:52:23,719
I think uh unless uh and unless I'm I got

761
00:52:23,760 --> 00:52:26,280
a real gap and uh my recollection, I think we

762
00:52:26,440 --> 00:52:30,119
I think we covered quite a bit of the of

763
00:52:30,239 --> 00:52:34,119
uh what's relevant you know over these past few sessions.

764
00:52:35,119 --> 00:52:38,400
Speaker 1: Can I hit you with one question from current events? Yeah,

765
00:52:38,440 --> 00:52:41,880
what was your what was your take on the the

766
00:52:41,920 --> 00:52:46,400
Iranian UH missile offensive?

767
00:52:47,880 --> 00:52:50,519
Speaker 2: The Iranians had to do something? I mean, yes, like

768
00:52:50,760 --> 00:52:53,480
his blase is for all practical purposes, you know, like

769
00:52:53,519 --> 00:52:57,760
the foreign the Iranian foreign lesion. But there's a plausible

770
00:52:57,760 --> 00:53:02,239
deniability that the Iranians a great sort of jealously guard there,

771
00:53:02,679 --> 00:53:06,079
but also just in in terms of in terms of

772
00:53:06,119 --> 00:53:09,039
parapolitical terms as well as for domestic consumption as well

773
00:53:09,119 --> 00:53:11,960
as in the court of world opinion. Like I Ran

774
00:53:12,039 --> 00:53:15,320
had to respond somehow, and this is this is basically identical.

775
00:53:15,760 --> 00:53:19,599
It's basically a redux of when when Solomoni was ordered,

776
00:53:20,000 --> 00:53:21,360
you know, it the same thing. It was just like

777
00:53:21,719 --> 00:53:25,239
it was just like very very controlled response. You know,

778
00:53:25,880 --> 00:53:30,280
the target the areas targeted really exclusively counter value. You know,

779
00:53:31,360 --> 00:53:34,360
it was announced that this was going to happen. So

780
00:53:34,599 --> 00:53:36,960
that's the way I read it. And it's more for

781
00:53:37,000 --> 00:53:40,760
the benefit of like it ran in regime desplay, the

782
00:53:40,800 --> 00:53:43,840
tabout media says this, it's not like the Taliban or something.

783
00:53:44,719 --> 00:53:48,360
And it's it's also like it's very they actually hold

784
00:53:48,400 --> 00:53:52,719
election as I ran all the time, and like the

785
00:53:52,760 --> 00:53:55,559
regime does have like certain credibility problems. But like I'm

786
00:53:55,559 --> 00:53:59,320
a Dana Jodd. You know he was not only in

787
00:53:59,320 --> 00:54:01,000
a ZERI, but the reason why he's were that like

788
00:54:01,000 --> 00:54:03,360
members only jacket. I remember, like media people that make

789
00:54:03,400 --> 00:54:05,840
fun of him. But it's like the dude work he

790
00:54:05,920 --> 00:54:07,840
was like he was he was he was like an

791
00:54:07,880 --> 00:54:10,280
oil rig worker or like a pipeline like a like

792
00:54:10,320 --> 00:54:13,719
a foreman, and like that's why he was trying to

793
00:54:13,719 --> 00:54:15,679
look the part of like you know, mister like AZERI

794
00:54:15,800 --> 00:54:18,760
working man. He was like this big like socialist kind

795
00:54:18,760 --> 00:54:21,800
of like labor leader, like rabble rouser. And like the

796
00:54:21,840 --> 00:54:25,519
religious authorities didn't like him at all, like they basically

797
00:54:25,559 --> 00:54:29,400
allowed him they into the top job because they had to,

798
00:54:30,159 --> 00:54:32,880
you know. And so talking about some Islamist it's like

799
00:54:32,920 --> 00:54:35,320
that's most like you like smoking crack if you think that.

800
00:54:36,280 --> 00:54:41,199
But point being I RAN's it gets it's a complicated

801
00:54:41,239 --> 00:54:46,840
situation domestically and the regime there, they do have to

802
00:54:47,639 --> 00:54:51,199
cater to public opinion more than people acknowledge in the West,

803
00:54:52,000 --> 00:54:55,519
and especially if it looks like I mean, even if

804
00:54:55,559 --> 00:54:59,119
even if these like retaliatory strikes like don't mean anything,

805
00:54:59,119 --> 00:55:02,920
it doesn't matter. It's for domestic consumption anyway, you know,

806
00:55:03,119 --> 00:55:07,920
Like Iran's Iran's ground element in real terms, as Hesbela.

807
00:55:09,719 --> 00:55:10,639
That's my interversation.

808
00:55:11,960 --> 00:55:15,800
Speaker 1: Yeah, And it seems like with some of the incursions

809
00:55:15,800 --> 00:55:18,599
that I've been monitoring over the past twenty four to

810
00:55:18,639 --> 00:55:22,119
thirty six hours, he was doing a pretty damn good

811
00:55:22,239 --> 00:55:24,960
job on the ground there. Yeah, there, it seems like

812
00:55:25,400 --> 00:55:28,880
it seems like Israel they're only they can only do

813
00:55:28,920 --> 00:55:30,119
anything from the air right now.

814
00:55:30,880 --> 00:55:32,599
Speaker 2: Yeah, they don't want Well, it's also too what are

815
00:55:32,599 --> 00:55:35,320
they gonna do? Are they gonna assault Lebanon Like it's

816
00:55:36,159 --> 00:55:38,840
the eighties early nineties, you were in two thousand and

817
00:55:38,920 --> 00:55:41,199
six and they tried that. You're not You're not gonna

818
00:55:41,480 --> 00:55:43,360
they don't have the forces, they don't have the force

819
00:55:43,480 --> 00:55:47,360
structure or the political will to assault Beirut and try

820
00:55:47,400 --> 00:55:51,400
and like route Hezbla from the Shia urban heartland. You're

821
00:55:51,400 --> 00:55:53,599
gonna fight house to house against Hesbla off for the

822
00:55:53,639 --> 00:55:57,559
next five years and you know, and take like twenty

823
00:55:57,639 --> 00:55:59,639
thousand dead in a few months. Like, no, you're not

824
00:55:59,639 --> 00:56:03,480
gonna do that. No, his was They're they're no joke, man,

825
00:56:03,519 --> 00:56:08,239
They're they're definitely the most capable ground element other than

826
00:56:08,280 --> 00:56:09,519
I d F in the region.

827
00:56:12,719 --> 00:56:15,960
Speaker 1: Cool, well, do your plugs. We'll get out of here,

828
00:56:16,000 --> 00:56:18,400
and I guess the next uh, next time we get together,

829
00:56:18,440 --> 00:56:21,039
we'll finish up the Gladiol and then move on to

830
00:56:21,079 --> 00:56:21,920
something after.

831
00:56:21,760 --> 00:56:27,480
Speaker 2: That that's great. Yeah, yeah, yeah man. You can find

832
00:56:27,519 --> 00:56:31,480
me on substec. It's real Thomas seven seven seven of

833
00:56:31,639 --> 00:56:35,360
substack dot com. That's where the pot is at, and

834
00:56:36,559 --> 00:56:38,519
as well as like longer form stuff and just like

835
00:56:38,840 --> 00:56:44,920
various things. I uh, I'm a social media at Capital

836
00:56:45,159 --> 00:56:49,800
R E A L underscore number seven h O M

837
00:56:49,920 --> 00:56:53,760
A S seven seven seven. I'm on Instagram, I'm on

838
00:56:53,880 --> 00:56:57,239
t Gram. I got my own website. It's Thomas seven

839
00:56:57,320 --> 00:57:00,519
seven seven dot com number seven each O M E

840
00:57:00,719 --> 00:57:07,679
S seven seven seven and I got uh, I got

841
00:57:07,760 --> 00:57:12,000
like morse that I sell because owing to popular demand.

842
00:57:12,039 --> 00:57:14,199
I'm not trying to be corny, like that's literally why

843
00:57:14,400 --> 00:57:19,440
like I started doing it with my friend and partner

844
00:57:19,480 --> 00:57:22,639
in crime, Hair Cree. But if you would include a

845
00:57:22,679 --> 00:57:25,159
link to that in the description, that would be a

846
00:57:25,199 --> 00:57:27,360
great help so people can find it.

847
00:57:28,800 --> 00:57:32,320
Speaker 1: Yep, last time it'll be it'll be there this time.

848
00:57:32,480 --> 00:57:32,920
Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you.

849
00:57:33,119 --> 00:57:35,559
Speaker 1: I appreciate it, Thomas. It's all the next time. Thankwise.

850
00:57:57,760 --> 00:57:57,800
Speaker 2: H