Speaker 1: Everybody, Welcome to another episode of Eyes on Geopolitics. I'm
Speaker 1: here with the full crew, Andy Milburn, Mick Molroy, Jason Lyons,
Speaker 1: and myself Dmitrika Takos. Uh live happening per usual, never
Speaker 1: not never not something happening. I want to kick off
Speaker 1: today with well, happy Memorial Day to everybody out there,
Speaker 1: first and foremost and uh yeah, back to the news. Uh,
Speaker 1: Russia yesterday launched a pretty massive, one of the biggest
Speaker 1: attacks of the war on Kiev and other places across Ukraine.
Speaker 1: A ton of Shahi edrones, ton of ballistic missiles. It
Speaker 1: looked pretty bad from like what I saw on Twitter
Speaker 1: and stuff like that. Doesn't really seem, as we've talked
Speaker 1: about multiple times, that Russia really wants to make a
Speaker 1: make a deal for a ceasefire or lasting piece of
Speaker 1: any sort. I mean, let's kick it off there. Andy,
Speaker 1: you go first. You tell me what you're tracking, what
Speaker 1: you're thinking about that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so friends in friends of mine in Kiev says
Speaker 2: say that from the perspective being on the ground, it
Speaker 2: was one of the worst, one of the worst raids.
Speaker 2: It's an old fashioned term, and one of the worst
Speaker 2: series of strikes in Kiev since the war started, certainly
Speaker 2: signaling that Russia has no intention really of of doing
Speaker 2: anything but continue what they're doing, targeting civilian areas. And
Speaker 2: you know, again this is not this isn't propaganda. That's
Speaker 2: exactly what they are doing. I think, you know, there's
Speaker 2: nothing particularly shocking here. What is shocking is United States
Speaker 2: lack of response.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: I mean, we simply refuse to call Putin on doing
Speaker 2: what he's doing, which is escalating the war.
Speaker 4: So this of course happened at a time when they
Speaker 4: were doing this. I think it was the largest prisoner
Speaker 4: exchange they've done. It's like the sixty fourth time they've
Speaker 4: done prisoner exchanges. So although it's a good thing, of
Speaker 4: course to get your prisoners back, from Ukraine's perspective, I
Speaker 4: don't think it indicates that they're getting anywhere closer to
Speaker 4: some kind of ceasefire. I think it's in their interest,
Speaker 4: so they do it. They also ask for all these
Speaker 4: buffer zones, which are obviously self serving as well. It's
Speaker 4: time for the United States, I believe, to first pass
Speaker 4: the Sanctioning Russia Act. That's the act that's being sponsored
Speaker 4: by Lindsey Graham and Senator Blumenthal, so Senator Graham and
Speaker 4: Senator Blumenthal. It apparently has eighty senators already signed on
Speaker 4: to it, which in this day and time is almost
Speaker 4: unheard of as far as bipartisan support. What it would
Speaker 4: do any country that purchases Russian oil and gas would
Speaker 4: then immediately have a five hundred percent tariff put on
Speaker 4: their goods coming into the United States. So even if
Speaker 4: this trade work were to go away, basically a five
Speaker 4: hundred percent tariff basically is an embargo.
Speaker 5: You might as just call it an embargo.
Speaker 4: That would have consequences to India, for example, China, who
Speaker 4: all not only purchase Russian energy but keep Russian the
Speaker 4: Russian war machine going. So and there's apparently a parallel
Speaker 4: bill in the House of Representatives.
Speaker 5: So all good things.
Speaker 4: If they if they if they push it, and I
Speaker 4: and these are veto proofs, so not that they would
Speaker 4: that I know of, But if they can't, the White
Speaker 4: House can't even veto it, it'll it'll pass and it'll
Speaker 4: be signed into law. Actually, the way tariffs should be
Speaker 4: done is congressional, so that that could happen right now.
Speaker 4: Other areas that I think people are going to start
Speaker 4: focusing on is. I've only seen a few outlets talk
Speaker 4: about it, but if they're correct, it looks like there's
Speaker 4: going to be a substantial Russian push into Kharkiv. It's
Speaker 4: around fifty thousand troops massing on the border, to include
Speaker 4: some of their more elite forces. Kharkiev and Andy can
Speaker 4: tell you even more details about the significance, but it's
Speaker 4: the second largest city. This be something that should trigger
Speaker 4: all the things that we've been talking about to happen,
Speaker 4: which includes substantial increase in security, absistence assistance from Europe,
Speaker 4: the United States, the releasing of troches of funds of
Speaker 4: Russian frozen assets, This sectioning of Russia acts should be passed,
Speaker 4: and we should start preparing for an even further involvement
Speaker 4: of NATO countries into the conflict. But that's something I
Speaker 4: think everybody's going to start looking at because it, at
Speaker 4: least from the reporting, appears to.
Speaker 2: Be somewhat Yeah, the the fighting in Dombas has intensified,
Speaker 2: and you know, I haven't had first an experience there
Speaker 2: for a period of time, but just hearing that term
Speaker 2: that it intensified has intensified there is you know, conjures
Speaker 2: up some some unimaginable images. Put it that way, I
Speaker 2: mean from the first from the beginning of the war,
Speaker 2: at least from mid twenty twenty two, it looked like
Speaker 2: scenes from the First World War. And the towns have
Speaker 2: been absolutely well, even back then, absolutely annihilated. And now
Speaker 2: the threat of drones, some of the use of drones
Speaker 2: on both sides, has become so ubiquitous that there's a
Speaker 2: personal aspect to these bombardaments, with drones actually seeking out people,
Speaker 2: locking onto them and killing them. Just a I don't think.
Speaker 2: I don't think many people can just imagine what to
Speaker 2: what the environment there is like and people here, you know,
Speaker 2: as we approach Memorial Day and we get the usual
Speaker 2: tranch of retirees who want to post pictures themselves in
Speaker 2: uniform and on social media, and you know, the ubiquitous
Speaker 2: of the term use of the term here combat veteran.
Speaker 2: I don't think really anyone can understand what modern warfare
Speaker 2: looks like as it's been waged in Ukraine, and not
Speaker 2: just on the front line but against some of the
Speaker 2: major cities there. But there are there are, you know,
Speaker 2: mentioned Kharkiv. The thing about it, though, is that although
Speaker 2: the Ukrainians have are certainly having manpower problems. They are
Speaker 2: they are more than holding their own on the front line.
Speaker 2: And you know, we've talked here about the offset. The
Speaker 2: disproportionate number of casualties have been inflected on both sides.
Speaker 2: The Russians are taking way more casualties, yes they can
Speaker 2: afford to. But on the other hand, the you know,
Speaker 2: there has to there's going to be. There's going to
Speaker 2: be at some point, I think, a point of pain
Speaker 2: beyond which, you know, the Russian population just says no mass.
Speaker 2: You know, I've said that before that it's hard to
Speaker 2: tell when that's going to happen, and it's but it
Speaker 2: sooner or later. It is likely to happen after what
Speaker 2: happened in Afghanistan with far fewer casualties, only fifteen thousand dead.
Speaker 2: I say, only fifteen thousand in Afghanistan. And I think
Speaker 2: numbers vary in this war, but as high as one
Speaker 2: hundred thousand Russian soldiers dead. They're losing a thousand every day.
Speaker 2: And now whether you look at the Ministry of Defense
Speaker 2: British Ministry of Defense figures, which are probably the most reliable,
Speaker 2: or other figures that go even higher. You know that
Speaker 2: subwords to a thousand killed every day. That's just unimaginable,
Speaker 2: isn't it. I mean, sorry, hundred casualties, one hundred thousand
Speaker 2: casualties every day, it's almost unimaginable. And the Ukrainians have
Speaker 2: some advantages. They're using fiber optic drones now, which means
Speaker 2: a couple of things that they're much I mean, they're
Speaker 2: impossible to jam using EW by fiber optic means they
Speaker 2: are literally drones literally attached to the controller by a
Speaker 2: fiber optic keyboard. It's like a fishing line. And so
Speaker 2: you've got the Yeah, you've got the fact that they
Speaker 2: can't be jammed, which is one of the biggest problems
Speaker 2: on the front. The Russians are very good with EW.
Speaker 2: But the other thing is you're getting crystal clear imagery
Speaker 2: on these things, and the Ukrainians are churning these out,
Speaker 2: you know, the rate of hundreds to one thousand every day.
Speaker 2: And so it's again the kind of the face of warfare.
Speaker 2: And I'm always bouncing around between whether the character on
Speaker 2: the nature of warfare has changed, and you know, people
Speaker 2: who teach at war colleges get very offended if you
Speaker 2: use the wrong term. But certainly the face of war
Speaker 2: has changed hugely there, and it is changing generally in
Speaker 2: the Ukrainians favor. So this feeling that Ukraine is on
Speaker 2: the ropes and we'll give in soon, I think it's mistaken.
Speaker 2: On the other hand, on the other hand, the problem
Speaker 2: is that it's hard to envision right now either side
Speaker 2: making a major breakthrough. I did. The Russians just don't
Speaker 2: have enough. They don't have enough gas in the tank,
Speaker 2: I think to seize the rest of Donbass. I mean
Speaker 2: they've been trying to capture pock rossk now for I
Speaker 2: mean for about a year. And shithole of a town
Speaker 2: that it is. I just say that because there's one
Speaker 2: particular viewer who gets outraged when I say that, because
Speaker 2: he lives now or used to live there. But it's
Speaker 2: we all hope pop Ross does not fall. But it
Speaker 2: is a shithole of a town. But I mean, my
Speaker 2: point is the Russians are not They They are in places,
Speaker 2: making very very slow, incremental moves on the front line,
Speaker 2: but at great, great cost. And it's certainly not you know,
Speaker 2: at Dundale to say that they're going to own all
Speaker 2: of Donbass. So and and if I guess what I'm
Speaker 2: heading on. This is the US. The US really can
Speaker 2: put its thumb on the scale and I you know,
Speaker 2: on on either side and make a big difference in
Speaker 2: this conflict. If we went all in, all in on
Speaker 2: absolutely enforcing sanctions on Russia, on flooding the battlefield with
Speaker 2: with with long range precision strike weapons, for instance, then
Speaker 2: I think we could raise the pain level against Russia.
Speaker 2: And who knows. I mean, the war is already considered
Speaker 2: Putin's war. He's already already facing considerable opposition. This is
Speaker 2: an interesting point when he talks about freezing the front line.
Speaker 2: So when the US talks about freezing the front lines
Speaker 2: as they are now, which is Russia holding two thirds
Speaker 2: of Donbas, surprisingly there is considerable opposition to that within
Speaker 2: the Russian army. And the reason is because they have
Speaker 2: seen these horrendous casualties over the course of three years,
Speaker 2: and they're saying, what, we've lost all of this just
Speaker 2: to take two thirds of don Bass, you know, not
Speaker 2: even a fifth of the country of Ukraine. Come on,
Speaker 2: you must beginning. So the point is that Putince can
Speaker 2: be holding on by his fingernails if he agrees even
Speaker 2: you know, as far as being able to betray the
Speaker 2: war as a victory to his own people, even if
Speaker 2: the front lights were frozen the way they are. If
Speaker 2: the war continues and the Russian casualties ramp up, as
Speaker 2: they certainly will, if the US throats its way behind Ukraine,
Speaker 2: then I think you're going to see that he's on
Speaker 2: the ropes and agreeing to far more agreeable terms. But
Speaker 2: right now, my point is, right now, we the US
Speaker 2: are playing to him, and he is sidestepping, and he
Speaker 2: talk of a ceasefire, and so again it gets back
Speaker 2: to the fact the only thing he understands, sadly, is pain,
Speaker 2: and that we can certainly bring that to him, but
Speaker 2: we seem reluctant to do so. On mixed point about
Speaker 2: prisoner exchanges. Very interestingly, we've seen this throughout the war
Speaker 2: between the Ukrainians and the Russians. There is a tremendous
Speaker 2: amount of hatred and bitterness because it is, in a
Speaker 2: sense a civil war. And when you talk about ethnically culturally,
Speaker 2: Russians and Ukrainians of course have been closely affiliated, to
Speaker 2: say the least throughout the centuries, and many Ukrainians have
Speaker 2: relatives in Russia vice versa. But there is also at
Speaker 2: the same time I've seen that brigade level, battalion level,
Speaker 2: and element of humanity And just one quick anecdote from
Speaker 2: my own experience, and we are in a place called
Speaker 2: solid Or, We're in the Mozart group. We're trying to
Speaker 2: get through to evacuate civilians and take out some the
Speaker 2: Ukrainian military casualties. And we were contacted by the commander.
Speaker 2: Ukrainian brigade commander said, don't even try. We are you know,
Speaker 2: we're cut off, and the the intensity of the fire
Speaker 2: is such that I don't think anything's going to get through.
Speaker 2: Certainly we weren't going to win soft skinned vehicles. Well,
Speaker 2: the very next day we got a call and we're told, hey,
Speaker 2: the road is clear, just drive in, all right, you
Speaker 2: can come in and evacuate civilians. And the first thing
Speaker 2: we noticed was the silence. Never you never hear things
Speaker 2: as quiet at that in Dombas, at least you happened
Speaker 2: in the last three years. And what had happened is overnight.
Speaker 2: I don't know who initiated, but either Russian or the
Speaker 2: Ukrainian brigade commander had called the other on a cell
Speaker 2: phone and said, you know, hey, Ivan greg Or Igor,
Speaker 2: let's do this, all right. You've got a bunch of
Speaker 2: casualties that you need to be evacuated, you can't get
Speaker 2: them out, But you've also got a ton of our prisoners.
Speaker 2: Why don't we do this. You turn our prisoners over
Speaker 2: and we'll let you evacuate your casualties. And that's what
Speaker 2: the Russians and Ukrainians agreed to, And there was a
Speaker 2: twenty four hour ceasefire. Not only that, but the two
Speaker 2: brigade commanders met and everyone has forbidden from taking photographs
Speaker 2: of this because it wasn't something that was I think,
Speaker 2: I don't know, but it wasn't something that was advertised
Speaker 2: up either side's chain of command. So these events have
Speaker 2: been taking place at tactical level, it's unusual to see
Speaker 2: them take place higher, but it doesn't necessarily auger the
Speaker 2: imminence of a longer term ceasefire.
Speaker 3: I mean, Andy's crushing it.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, So I guess I'm gonna go back to you.
Speaker 3: Andy.
Speaker 6: You mentioned the verbial thumb on the scale on the
Speaker 6: Russian side of it. How much do you think that
Speaker 6: us putting our thumb firm more firmly on the scale,
Speaker 6: as in calling them out and and making good on
Speaker 6: any repercussions that we you know, of the few that
Speaker 6: we've presented to them, would that make a difference, because
Speaker 6: it seems like right now our lack of any kind
Speaker 6: of consistency is emboldening them. So do you think that
Speaker 6: us enacting those things, calling them out, you know, as
Speaker 6: in the President calling out Putin, could have a huge
Speaker 6: effect or you know?
Speaker 7: Or not?
Speaker 2: I you know, I it's a great question. I can't
Speaker 2: answer it. I can't say whether it will have an effect.
Speaker 2: But I'll tell you what won't have an effect what
Speaker 2: we're doing now, which is just ignoring what Putin's doing again.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think recent history has shown that Putin
Speaker 2: reacts to fear he you know, go back to the example,
Speaker 2: or he reacts to painting inflicted on the Russian military
Speaker 2: and possible repercussions towards him. If you go back to
Speaker 2: twenty fifteen and when there was a lot of saber
Speaker 2: rattling between Russia and Turkey over the front line in Syria,
Speaker 2: and the Russians were flying planes of Turkish lines and
Speaker 2: Erdawan said, hey, if you do that again, we're going
Speaker 2: to shoot your planes down. And sure enough, the Turks
Speaker 2: did well. The Russians didn't escalate to go to war.
Speaker 2: They'd learned that lesson and they backed off the same
Speaker 2: thing when the US killed a bunch of Russian contractors,
Speaker 2: when was that twenty seventeen or twenty eighteen in the
Speaker 2: Middle Euphrates Valley, the same thing. I mean, the Russians
Speaker 2: didn't threaten us with war. They backed off and they
Speaker 2: pulled back down lions. Again, we don't seem to we
Speaker 2: learned from this. We went through this whole period of escalaitis.
Speaker 2: We were just terrified that he was going to do something,
Speaker 2: but history shown that he doesn't. He reacts to things
Speaker 2: being done against him that inflict pain. Oh and you
Speaker 2: know the other example you could use. I know progosion
Speaker 2: came to a sticky end in the end, but remember
Speaker 2: when almost said the Mozart group, Remember when the Partner
Speaker 2: group was rebelling and advancing on Moscow, I mean Putin.
Speaker 2: Putin went quiet right, and there was very little done,
Speaker 2: and in fact, the army looked as though it was
Speaker 2: collaborating with pregosion. I think that must have terrified Putin.
Speaker 2: And and yes he got he got revenge, but he
Speaker 2: didn't he didn't reach out and try and crush and
Speaker 2: I don't know if he was even able to do that.
Speaker 2: He didn't try and crush the rebellion while it was happening.
Speaker 2: That was amos quote from Lettin. I'll paraphrase when probing
Speaker 2: with Baydets. If you find mush push, if you find
Speaker 2: steel withdraw, right.
Speaker 4: So we need to be more of a front that
Speaker 4: promotes the idea of steel right because right now, until
Speaker 4: he sees consequences, he doesn't care about compliments or any
Speaker 4: of that stuff. It's not going to He's not going
Speaker 4: to be talked into doing something that he doesn't think
Speaker 4: is in his interest at all. He doesn't care what
Speaker 4: the world thinks about him. So he has to see
Speaker 4: the consequences on the battlefield and he has to see
Speaker 4: that his Uh, he's I think it's already a strategic failure, clearly.
Speaker 4: But if he doesn't see it's going to be a
Speaker 4: strategic disaster.
Speaker 5: He's not going to react. So we have to.
Speaker 4: We have to support them every way we can, or
Speaker 4: if he does somehow pull this off, he's not going
Speaker 4: to stop there. Right, He's already he he has found
Speaker 4: a mush push. So that's something we need to change
Speaker 4: when it comes to his perspective on this.
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Speaker 2: So it's really it's really, you know, just a I know,
Speaker 2: I keep returning to the tacticle, but I find it
Speaker 2: fascinating the tact extent are evolving into beast.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 2: You know when I always had that the Russians were
Speaker 2: starting to use quad bikes and motive cycles to probe
Speaker 2: Ukrainian lines. Well, now in the fighting around constant Constantinivka,
Speaker 2: I'm going to get criticized in the way to pronounced
Speaker 2: that Constantinivka, which is a it's a town south southwest
Speaker 2: of Barmud, which and northeast of my favorite place, Pokrovsk,
Speaker 2: so it's kind of like midway between the two towns.
Speaker 2: Very I'm very familiar with the place. But the Russians
Speaker 2: apparently launched an attack this last week using with about
Speaker 2: an estimated who knows about a company sized attack entirely
Speaker 2: on motorcycles, just just riding at the Ukrainian lines, and
Speaker 2: Ukrainians mowed them down and drove them back. But it's
Speaker 2: it's not easy, you know. It's it's no longer these
Speaker 2: attacks and lumbering armored vehicles with infantry fighting vehicles or
Speaker 2: EPs covered by a few tanks, because with drones and
Speaker 2: at gms that the Ukrainians were having an easy task
Speaker 2: of just carving them up. But when you have like
Speaker 2: a hundred motorcycles riding at you, you know, on your
Speaker 2: flanks and everywhere, there's a chance that a good bunch
Speaker 2: of them are going to be able to outflank you.
Speaker 2: You know, it's a very interesting change in tactics. And
Speaker 2: if and even if you it doesn't matter, I mean,
Speaker 2: you just don't aren't going to have enough drones to
Speaker 2: be able to stop them all. So you know, what's
Speaker 2: what's evolved here is rather than combining a bunch of
Speaker 2: guys in an infantry finding vehicle an APC where they
Speaker 2: can be incinerated with one shot. The Russians have learned
Speaker 2: to spread them in you know, across across smaller platforms,
Speaker 2: faster moving and it's kind of the same lesson that
Speaker 2: for instance, US Marine Corps has been learning in twenty
Speaker 2: nine Palms and their peer on peer exercise is called
Speaker 2: Magtif war fighting exercises. Not so much in the attack,
Speaker 2: although they should have learned these lessons in the attack,
Speaker 2: but the Marine Corps just didn't have that many motorcycles.
Speaker 2: But they've learned it. As far as in logistics resupply
Speaker 2: that it's no longer it's it's suicidal now to to
Speaker 2: try and resupply forces using the traditional way that we
Speaker 2: used to in Iraq in Afghanistan with these big convoys,
Speaker 2: and the best way to do it is on razors
Speaker 2: or quad bikes with little petty packets of logistics resupply.
Speaker 4: So, how does the fiber optic drone? Does it actually
Speaker 4: drag the fiber optic with it or how does it
Speaker 4: keep from.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's you know, that's a that's a really good question.
Speaker 2: I'm not I'm not sure. And the other thing is,
Speaker 2: and the Ukraine have been using this for this method
Speaker 2: for about a year. The other thing I'm not sure
Speaker 2: how this works is now what I had. What I
Speaker 2: do know is that there's a fail sate, so the
Speaker 2: fiber optic cable gets separated. The drone can still operate
Speaker 2: using other means, so you can still pick up using
Speaker 2: you know, the ground control system. So the fiber optic
Speaker 2: cable just enables it to fly. It's primary means of
Speaker 2: connection with the ground control station. Uh. But the but
Speaker 2: I don't know how they avoid snagging. And I don't
Speaker 2: know what the range is on these things.
Speaker 4: And those are you know, those are good good questions.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm sure there are. You know, we've got a
Speaker 2: very highly educated audience.
Speaker 6: Well, I understand it's kind of like the uh, I
Speaker 6: don't even know if they use them anymore, the toe
Speaker 6: anti tank missile where it's wire guided, and it's if
Speaker 6: that's the case, then it's probably got to be at
Speaker 6: least somewhat line of sight, because I know what the toes,
Speaker 6: you know, you had to had to have line of
Speaker 6: sight of the target.
Speaker 2: So I don't know, you know, when when we talk
Speaker 2: about when we talk about again, it gets back to
Speaker 2: the fact that only the Ukrainians and Russians can enforce
Speaker 2: the ceasefire. When we talk about just the environment there,
Speaker 2: and we talk about the fact that these guys, both
Speaker 2: Russians and Ukrainians, have been fighting in this environment now
Speaker 2: for three years, and you've got soldiers who have fought
Speaker 2: and survived that long in this kind of environment. We
Speaker 2: just no Western army has soldiers that equal that level
Speaker 2: of the experience. I mean, these are very very experienced,
Speaker 2: combat experienced, hardened soldiers, and if they are determined to
Speaker 2: keep on fighting, no peacekeeping army that we or any
Speaker 2: European nation fields can prevent them from doing so. And
Speaker 2: I'm thinking when I talk about there somethings particularly about
Speaker 2: the Russians, of course, but you know the point is
Speaker 2: that the Russians really have to be frightened into wanting
Speaker 2: this peace. It's not going to be a piece enforced
Speaker 2: by any security force in that area.
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess it's just how much can you
Speaker 1: make putin squirming? Yeah, Like what I know, Like they
Speaker 1: have the three hundred and twenty five billion sitting that
Speaker 1: we've been talking about it almost every week. I don't
Speaker 1: know why they haven't started using that to start giving
Speaker 1: paying for arms to Ukraine. Let them know that we're
Speaker 1: serious like that. The EU, I mean, the EU compared
Speaker 1: to the United States, obviously clearly over the last few months,
Speaker 1: is way more serious about this to their backyard.
Speaker 3: Obviously we touched I don't know if we touched.
Speaker 1: On this since, but they had Putin and Trump had
Speaker 1: a phone call that lasted two hours. People were making
Speaker 1: a big deal of it, and when it was over,
Speaker 1: nothing really came of it. It was kind of more
Speaker 1: stalling on Putin's side and stuff like that. You know,
Speaker 1: an agreement to have an agreement about it made possible
Speaker 1: talk about a ceasefire agreement. It's like just it's just nonsense.
Speaker 1: It's just like spinning, you know, going around ins and
Speaker 1: going nowhere. Meanwhile, people are in the wood chipper like
Speaker 1: literally people are just getting killed every day, both Russian
Speaker 1: and Ukrainians, right, Like.
Speaker 4: I don't know, there's no reason why we wouldn't. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 4: so we've put we've put tariffs.
Speaker 3: And the EU too. He just he just announced fifty.
Speaker 4: But the country they decided to invade, a democratic country,
Speaker 4: had taken upon himself to destroy the international rules base
Speaker 4: order out the window, and we won't and we're hesitant
Speaker 4: on Yeah, so I hope, I hope, Lindsay Graham and
Speaker 4: in Bluementhal get this thing going.
Speaker 5: Let's let's vote on it. Eighty senators want to see
Speaker 5: it happen. Let's go.
Speaker 2: It's interesting. I'm just gonna message pop upon's signal, okay
Speaker 2: range fiber optic short range fifteen to twenty kilometers. And
Speaker 2: they do, and they get tangled entries. They can't get
Speaker 2: tangled entry. The cable can get tangled in trees. And
Speaker 2: the other downside is it glints and sunlight.
Speaker 1: Who was that the fiber optic cable that's connected to
Speaker 1: the drones.
Speaker 3: Drones it glintses, Yeah.
Speaker 6: It makes sense. Sunlight glinting off of it will allow
Speaker 6: you to try.
Speaker 2: Yeah, still smart audience. But the other thing ten thousand,
Speaker 2: so I said, hundreds of thousands every oh so, one
Speaker 2: factory in Kiev producing six hundred of these drones a month,
Speaker 2: expected to be ten thousand by the end of the summer.
Speaker 2: Ten thousand a month from one factory. I mean, this
Speaker 2: scale of production is incredible, you know. That's what I
Speaker 2: mean about the US defense industrial defense complex being so
Speaker 2: slow moving that it just cannot keep pace with the
Speaker 2: It cannot keep up with the pace modern warfare, right,
Speaker 2: I mean, shit, how many how many mq nins we
Speaker 2: had shot down at over Yemen? Yeah, twenty yeah, at
Speaker 2: thirty million bucks a pop, right, I mean it's and
Speaker 2: yet we still haven't learned. I know we talked about
Speaker 2: it and there, but we still haven't learned to mass
Speaker 2: produce expendable but fairly sophisticated drones. We're not learning as
Speaker 2: fast as we should from this war.
Speaker 3: It's interesting.
Speaker 1: I mean, how slow the industrial defense in tous Show
Speaker 1: base really is here. It's like, we need to get
Speaker 1: procurement first. There needs to be a test. They needs
Speaker 1: to do this. They need like there's so many hoops
Speaker 1: to jump through. And I understand we're not at war,
Speaker 1: so like the we don't think that we need it fast.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I remember I heard something in twenty eighteen
Speaker 1: that we were running low on health fire missiles because
Speaker 1: of what was going on in Afghanistan. I don't know
Speaker 1: if that's true or if you guys have any insight
Speaker 1: into that, but that was like supposedly the word on
Speaker 1: the street in twenty eighteen when we stepped up the
Speaker 1: drone program in Afghanistan to bring the Taliban to the table.
Speaker 3: That our health fire stock was very low.
Speaker 5: Remember I remember that?
Speaker 2: Yeah, we I mean I come for like a peace.
Speaker 4: Peace based weapons and munitions manufacturing capability. I don't know,
Speaker 4: it'd be something I'm sure the Pentagon has looked at.
Speaker 4: Is to Andy's point, could we go on a wartime
Speaker 4: footing and actually keep up with deminitions and weapons systems
Speaker 4: that we would need to be successful. I don't know
Speaker 4: that's the case.
Speaker 2: Well, the war in Ukraine took the United States by
Speaker 2: surprise as far as expenditure of artiri rounds.
Speaker 5: Artillery five fives is like the yeah.
Speaker 2: Because we we just couldn't even if it. The US
Speaker 2: could not keep pace at all. And I forget the numbers,
Speaker 2: but even Ukraine, and Ukraine was firing about one sixth
Speaker 2: the at any given time, one six to one tenth
Speaker 2: the number of rounds that that Russia is firing. And
Speaker 2: the US couldn't even keep pace with with resupplying Ukraine
Speaker 2: in one five to five rounds.
Speaker 3: That's right, what's the hold up?
Speaker 5: Just Marions providing them?
Speaker 1: Yeah, why can't Why couldn't they keep it up? I
Speaker 1: know they've built another factory I think at Texas as
Speaker 1: well as a script in PA. But why can't the
Speaker 1: US when they see a problem step up there. I mean,
Speaker 1: we don't have manufacturing much anymore here in peacetime.
Speaker 2: In peacetime, it just didn't. I mean there's you know,
Speaker 2: I'm speculating here, but I'm guessing part of it is
Speaker 2: in peacetime there wasn't the financial incentive to set up
Speaker 2: these factories to do that because it doesn't provide enough pork,
Speaker 2: right for the I mean, you take something like the
Speaker 2: F thirty five. I know it's infamous that you know,
Speaker 2: the F thirty five is built across the entire country.
Speaker 2: I mean it's almost like one component built in every state.
Speaker 2: But there's a lot of money in that because you
Speaker 2: keep manufacturing. You keep manufacturing, well one five five rounds
Speaker 2: when you're not having a war that's using them up.
Speaker 2: You're going to you're going to build a factory to
Speaker 2: build one five five rounds. But at some point you're
Speaker 2: going to reach a point where the prominent offence just
Speaker 2: goes no mass, we don't need anymore. Right Whereas if
Speaker 2: you have an aircraft or something, you're always going to
Speaker 2: have to keep building those parts because you have maintenance issues,
Speaker 2: you have replacement and a fleet of aircraft is going
Speaker 2: to be projected to be you know, in operation for
Speaker 2: at least thirty years, so you had there's a future
Speaker 2: to it. I mean, I'm guessing that's that's partly it.
Speaker 4: There has been discussions with you know, part of it,
Speaker 4: I think is, you know, if you talk about making
Speaker 4: an iPhone here, where in China did they pay people
Speaker 4: five hundred dollars a month to make iPhones for example?
Speaker 5: Here?
Speaker 4: Obviously nobody's going to be working for that. There was
Speaker 4: discussions on putting some of our key munitions manufacturing capabilities
Speaker 4: in countries that are allied with the United States, whose
Speaker 4: cost would go way down, right, because to try to
Speaker 4: make those here they're going to be almost you know,
Speaker 4: it's too cost costly. If we had like Indonesia or
Speaker 4: Philippines or someplace like that, where not only is the
Speaker 4: cost go way down because the cost to make them
Speaker 4: go way down, but they're also ford, right, so then
Speaker 4: you don't have to you have to worry about getting
Speaker 4: them from Texas to you know, if you fight China
Speaker 4: over you know, Taiwan or something like that. So that's
Speaker 4: another thing I know the United States has been looking at,
Speaker 4: and it would be a beneficial to the country that's
Speaker 4: we partnered with. Obviously they'd get more jobs making these
Speaker 4: and we get them for deployed and at less cost.
Speaker 4: Because that's one of the problems with North Korea, for example,
Speaker 4: the totalitarian state. They can simply tell people they're making
Speaker 4: one to five five for the rest of their lives.
Speaker 4: That's their job period, and they're going to pay them
Speaker 4: enough to survive. It's hard to keep up with that
Speaker 4: in the current the current way we do business.
Speaker 1: Other news are I think the Danes have just transferred
Speaker 1: or are going to transfer the final sixteen F sixteen's
Speaker 1: over the Ukrainian Air Force in the next couple of days.
Speaker 5: I think good for them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is I mean, one cool thing is look
Speaker 2: at the way I mean Germany. Germany has been leading
Speaker 2: the charge well, has been forefront in providing Ukraine with
Speaker 2: high end shit to include air defense systems and offensive
Speaker 2: weapons now, which is a first and so again and
Speaker 2: we talked about this before that there's been positive aspects
Speaker 2: of this. The Baltic nations have all stepped up to
Speaker 2: the plate. Poland is spending four percent or more of
Speaker 2: GDP on its defense and has modernized upgraded its entire
Speaker 2: military is now kind of a leading nation within NATO.
Speaker 2: And then of course we talked about Finland and Sweden
Speaker 2: who have joined NATO despite or perhaps because of, partly
Speaker 2: US apparent lack of resolve in reinforcing well backing the
Speaker 2: security of Europe. A lot of European nations are are
Speaker 2: indeed stepping out the plate and NATO is and NATO
Speaker 2: is more alive than it has been in a while.
Speaker 9: Right, yeah, yeah, moving on to fifth round of Iranian
Speaker 9: nuclear talks have concluded.
Speaker 1: They were a few days back, right, a couple of
Speaker 1: days ago. It was a couple hours I think two
Speaker 1: or three hours the meeting went for. No one ran
Speaker 1: out upset and started yapping and leaking to the media.
Speaker 1: So I guess it's a good thing that they're still talking.
Speaker 1: At the same time. That mixes in a little bit.
Speaker 1: CNN reported last week that Israel is preparing an attack
Speaker 1: on Iranian nuclear sites if these nuclear talks go nowhere
Speaker 1: and break down, that they're ready to hit them as
Speaker 1: soon as possible.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, are there new sticking points?
Speaker 1: It's just like, are they talking around the same issue
Speaker 1: over and over again? After like the five talks like
Speaker 1: what happens when these talks go on. I feel like
Speaker 1: you can get to the issue relatively quickly, and it
Speaker 1: seems to like just be a lot of beating around
Speaker 1: the you know edges.
Speaker 4: It does look like the main issue. And this was
Speaker 4: stated by the Iranian Foreign Minister and his way to
Speaker 4: room to have these.
Speaker 5: Uh pretty clearly.
Speaker 4: He said, if if the agreement is Ron doesn't get
Speaker 4: a nuclear weapon, we have an agreement. If the agreement
Speaker 4: is or the offer is that Iran can in rich uranium,
Speaker 4: we will not have an agreement. So if we believe
Speaker 4: that's the case, that's the sticking point. So and to
Speaker 4: your point, the nobody ran out, but actually Special Envoy
Speaker 4: Wikoff left early saying he had to catch a plane.
Speaker 4: But you know, as immediately pointed out by people, as
Speaker 4: he owns the plane that he flies around on. So
Speaker 4: he probably should have came up with a better excuse than.
Speaker 3: That I missed my flight.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he has a state issue.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well you know that happens to guys at certain age.
Speaker 4: But I do think obviously it would be better for
Speaker 4: us to get to a diplomatic resolution to this because
Speaker 4: the military option, which I do think We've talked about
Speaker 4: this several times. Should be an option, but it's not
Speaker 4: a complete fixing of the situation. It might just push
Speaker 4: it down the road several months. So we should all
Speaker 4: want that to happen. Obviously, Iran should want Their economy
Speaker 4: is doing horribly, inflation is way up, the regime is
Speaker 4: super unpopular. They should want to see these sanctions, which
Speaker 4: could increase because there's potential for snapback sanctions under the
Speaker 4: original twenty fifteen JCPOA to happen because Europe is now
Speaker 4: talking about that, so that would increase the sanctions on
Speaker 4: Iran and make it even more I think beneficial to
Speaker 4: them to reach an agreement. So the question is will
Speaker 4: they or I guess one of the potential answers is
Speaker 4: will they go with something like the UA did, which
Speaker 4: is a regional consortium of enriched uranium that's imported into
Speaker 4: the country in this case are on. They can use
Speaker 4: it for civilian nuclear power, but they don't have the
Speaker 4: capacity to do it themselves. But there is an uninterrupted,
Speaker 4: agreed upon supply of this. I think that's what the
Speaker 4: US is going to ask for. Whether the Iranians will
Speaker 4: agree with it, I don't know if they don't think.
Speaker 4: I don't think Israel is bluffing. I think they are
Speaker 4: always going to be ready to take the strike, even
Speaker 4: if they do it unilaterally. They have the capacity, you know,
Speaker 4: as we've seen with their strikes and new data and
Speaker 4: to get there. The question then becomes, do they have
Speaker 4: the munitions necessary to actually destroy or significantly degrade all
Speaker 4: these facilities at for now and Aton's and is Stefan
Speaker 4: and I can't remember last one, but there's several. So
Speaker 4: if they did that, it would end probably the discussions
Speaker 4: that are ongoing. But there's going to be a time
Speaker 4: when the US and Israel are going to determine whether
Speaker 4: you know, they're on the tenth, twelve fourteenth meeting and
Speaker 4: it's not going anywhere, and they're still stuck. As your point,
Speaker 4: it's still stuck on the same issues. Whether it's just
Speaker 4: Iran trying to drag this out and then make they
Speaker 4: make their own determination on the strikes. If there is strikes,
Speaker 4: whether it's bilateral with the US and Israel or Israel
Speaker 4: by itself, the consequences, of course, are what Iran does
Speaker 4: in retaliation, and that could be substantial and it could
Speaker 4: really not only disrupt what's going on in the region,
Speaker 4: but it could disrupt international energy markets considerably.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, you got to make a deal. I mean,
Speaker 1: because I kind of understand Iran's point of view, honestly,
Speaker 1: if they want to continue to be able to enrich
Speaker 1: it because they made a deal ten years ago and
Speaker 1: three four years in that deal was gone, right, So you're.
Speaker 5: Correct members are still part of it.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So I mean I understand why they would want
Speaker 1: to continue to enrich I mean also, at the same time,
Speaker 1: you know what happens, even if we join Israel and
Speaker 1: bomb them and we set their program back three to
Speaker 1: six months, we're not going to be probably not going
Speaker 1: to be able to stop them from getting a bomb eventually,
Speaker 1: and that won't that harden their efforts in doing so.
Speaker 3: If I'm them, I would Yeah.
Speaker 4: I mean, they're looking at the difference between you know,
Speaker 4: momar CUTOFFI and Kim John Moon, Right, so one is
Speaker 4: getting love letters from the President of the United States,
Speaker 4: the other ones was killed in a ditch.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 4: So what I mean, and what I'm referring to is
Speaker 4: nuclear weapons are regime security. So if and they I've
Speaker 4: been on with you know, Iranian officials on foreign media.
Speaker 4: They say clearly like if we get bombed, then it's
Speaker 4: going to be one hundred percent effort to try to
Speaker 4: get to a nuclear weapon.
Speaker 5: So I mean that's a threat.
Speaker 4: So I wouldn't say that that means we don't do
Speaker 4: them strike, but we've got to be prepared for the
Speaker 4: mining of the straits of horror moves, the attacking of
Speaker 4: US military facilities, oil facilities in Saudi Arabia, the racing
Speaker 4: toward a nuclear weapon. Potentially Russian helps them. Russia helps
Speaker 4: them with that, or in North Korea then we have
Speaker 4: a nuclear arm pissed off or on. So I mean,
Speaker 4: there's no easy answers on this. But you know, you
Speaker 4: hear some senators like, well just blow them up. It's like, ah, yeah.
Speaker 1: We were trying to do that with the Huthis for
Speaker 1: almost two months and it didn't do a great job.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it should be an option. But if you think
Speaker 4: it's the magic bullet, it's not.
Speaker 2: It's all of these things a milli. I mean, you
Speaker 2: look at everything that's been tried, stuck Snet, the attacks
Speaker 2: on the Iranian scientists. If bombing, if you know we're
Speaker 2: keeping this open source, if bombing would have worked, then
Speaker 2: it probably would have taken I mean, if there was
Speaker 2: if people were convinced people, you know, US ISRAELI convinced
Speaker 2: that bombing could be a one off.
Speaker 3: Thing, and it was set back fifteen years.
Speaker 2: Yeah, then I think it would have been done. You know,
Speaker 2: I mean, you get you get experts within the US
Speaker 2: who I know to be experts saying publicly the most
Speaker 2: we can do is set them back a period of time.
Speaker 2: And so yes, I mean I agree with Meke one
Speaker 2: hundred percent. And you know, frankly, I would be more
Speaker 2: worried about Iran being a responsible actor, a regional responsible actor,
Speaker 2: and I'm more and so perhaps shaping sanctions and shaping
Speaker 2: the way that these negotiations are taking place to prevent
Speaker 2: remove incentives and impose disincentives for Iran back making regional
Speaker 2: proxies that are closing disruption throughout the throughout the region.
Speaker 2: That is that to me, would be a priority, right
Speaker 2: because we may or may not be able to stop them.
Speaker 2: That that's the sad fact. We may or may not
Speaker 2: be able to stop them generating a UK weapon. I'm
Speaker 2: not saying I'm not saying that's okay, I'm just saying
Speaker 2: that's reality.
Speaker 1: There any talks maybe baby even back channel talks about
Speaker 1: the proxy stuff, or that's not even on the table
Speaker 1: with these nuclear talks.
Speaker 5: I don't know.
Speaker 4: But I mean, Aman is normally the route, and they're
Speaker 4: involved in these negotiations, right, even the ones in Rome.
Speaker 4: It's normally the back channel route for the United States.
Speaker 4: But to Andy's point, I mean, I mean, we're going
Speaker 4: to talk about Gaza after this. It's it all comes
Speaker 4: back to the heel to the doorstep of a rock, right,
Speaker 4: They're causing all the ads. They provided AMOS with ninety
Speaker 4: of their military capability. I don't think they would have
Speaker 4: done this without direct coordination. I don't care what the
Speaker 4: Intel says of with Iran, at least their knowledge. And
Speaker 4: either way, if you're providing the terrorist organization, you know,
Speaker 4: all its military capacity, you're responsible for their actions. It's
Speaker 4: pretty simple to me. And then of course hesblad chimed
Speaker 4: in UH and then the Huthis. So this is this
Speaker 4: is the regional instability in the Middle East is the
Speaker 4: result of Iran, and I think we should be crystal
Speaker 4: clear about that. So that's gonna have to be addressed.
Speaker 4: Even if we do get to an agreement, which I
Speaker 4: hope we do, of course on the nuclear front.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: Moving on to Gaza. A couple of days ago on Horetz,
Speaker 1: a former Israeli prime minister, I'm gonna fuck up his name.
Speaker 1: Give me one second, dude, Olmert hope I did that right,
Speaker 1: for he was a prime minister from two thousand and
Speaker 1: six to two thousand and nine or not been in
Speaker 1: Horets Haretz is are relatively critical, I would say, publication
Speaker 1: against like the Net and Yahoo government. He said in
Speaker 1: his op beed essentially that the idea f in Israel
Speaker 1: is potentially waging war of annihilation, premeditatively adopting a policy
Speaker 1: of starvation, massacring civilians. And uh, he declared it a genocide.
Speaker 1: He said the word genocide in his op ed. And
Speaker 1: for a former Israeli prime minister to do this, whether
Speaker 1: he's liberal or whatever, I mean, we had a liberal
Speaker 1: member of parliament from the you know, from the Kanesset,
Speaker 1: and you know they still are hardcore in terms of
Speaker 1: security and security of Israel and all that. So for
Speaker 1: him to come out, it's I feel like that's relative.
Speaker 1: That's pretty scathing of a of an op ed about
Speaker 1: what's going on in Gaza, and I happen to agree
Speaker 1: with him. So I don't know what, what do you
Speaker 1: I mean, I have no question here, It's just I
Speaker 1: wanted to throw your thoughts everybody, whoever, you get pictures,
Speaker 1: figure out who goes first.
Speaker 4: So right now we're looking at what they're calling Operation
Speaker 4: Gideon's Chariots. Right, so it's a substantial increase. I think
Speaker 4: everybody was hoping they get to a ceasefire, largely because
Speaker 4: some ausquin except the offers that were proposed by the
Speaker 4: United States and Israel, and it looks like an all
Speaker 4: out effort to completely occupy Gaza by the Israeli defense
Speaker 4: For such, I think they're about seventy percent there, seventy
Speaker 4: seven is what the least they're saying.
Speaker 5: And they're basically blown up rubble.
Speaker 4: I mean, there's I think it was only like five
Speaker 4: to ten percent of dwellings that were still standing before
Speaker 4: this offensive. So and there's an effort, I think to
Speaker 4: push a lot of the population into the south. The
Speaker 4: humanitarian conditions are extraordinarily dire my group, for people that
Speaker 4: know we do humanitarian stuff all over the world, We're
Speaker 4: not involved in it at all, but the conditions are
Speaker 4: to the point where almost the entire population is in
Speaker 4: what's called IPC Phase four, which is acute shortages of food.
Speaker 4: About five hundred thousand are in IPC Phase five, which
Speaker 4: is catastrophic levels of food insecurity, with sixty six thousand
Speaker 4: kids on the verge of starvation, children infants if nothing's done.
Speaker 4: So there's two parts to that. There's multiple parts of this.
Speaker 4: This needs to come to a stop. That's clearly with
Speaker 4: the United States and Europe wants Hamas needs to let out,
Speaker 4: let go of all the hostages, and there needs to
Speaker 4: be a path that not only brings in humanitarian aid
Speaker 4: at scale, because the food stores are about out completely,
Speaker 4: so the bakeries are shutting down. There's nothing to even
Speaker 4: make the food of excuse me, the water is now
Speaker 4: ninety five percent of the ability to clean water because
Speaker 4: there's no fuel coming in is gone, so everybody's drinking
Speaker 4: contaminated water, which is exasperating the crisis itself. And there's
Speaker 4: of course very little hospital still standing. So that needs
Speaker 4: to change immediately, and I think the US is going
Speaker 4: to push for that and should, But there also needs to.
Speaker 5: Be a plan.
Speaker 4: International Communities has a plan to secure Gaza that takes
Speaker 4: into account Israel's national security concerns, which are substantial, right
Speaker 4: we also what happened to October seventh. There has to
Speaker 4: be an interim between where we are now with the IDF,
Speaker 4: which I don't think wants supermanently occupy Gaza if you
Speaker 4: ask any of them, especially.
Speaker 5: The reservists that are being called up for the fourth time.
Speaker 4: And also has security for the people that live there,
Speaker 4: and that's going to be a trained, I think, Palestinian force,
Speaker 4: but they're far from doing it. So there needs to
Speaker 4: be an effort I think on that front, in addition
Speaker 4: to demanding the increase in humanitarian aid, because this needs
Speaker 4: to come to an end with something that is consistent
Speaker 4: with Israeli security concerns as well. So there's a lot
Speaker 4: of tweets and.
Speaker 5: A lot of talk.
Speaker 4: There needs to be a lot more substance coming out
Speaker 4: of these meetings like they just had one in Bagdad
Speaker 4: where everybody condemn the war. Okay, that's that's fine, but
Speaker 4: there needs to be a plan. And then, of course
Speaker 4: the reconstruction of Gaza, which is gonna take tens of
Speaker 4: billions of dollars and it's gonna take the international community
Speaker 4: to come together.
Speaker 1: And Israel should probably put uh pull out the check
Speaker 1: book as well. I feel like, because they decimated it,
Speaker 1: I think that's only fair. I mean, I'm not saying
Speaker 1: pay for the whole thing, but be part of the
Speaker 1: conversation at least and give me that give me that
Speaker 1: account number, you know, the Ah send it over. I
Speaker 1: don't know. I mean, I know, I'm gonna be honest.
Speaker 1: I am not a fan of what the fuck Israel's
Speaker 1: doing whatsoever. It's insane. I know, you want to be
Speaker 1: secure and stuff like that, but the fact is they
Speaker 1: dropped the ball on October seventh, and it was horrific
Speaker 1: what went down, absolutely horrific. Twelve hundred people, like you know,
Speaker 1: citizens don't deserve to die at a music festival. They're
Speaker 1: like hippies and kaboots is They do not deserve to
Speaker 1: fucking get slaughtered the way they did. But the reaction
Speaker 1: by Israel is a complete, in my opinion, a complete
Speaker 1: and utter overreaction and starving kids. Sorry, guy, I can't.
Speaker 1: I cannot fuck with that whatsoever. Their kids, what do
Speaker 1: they do? They were just born in a place they
Speaker 1: couldn't They didn't control it.
Speaker 3: You ask me.
Speaker 1: It's Frankly, it's fucking disgusting, even the a plan that's
Speaker 1: going on right now, where it's like essentially like they're
Speaker 1: just like doing what they just enough what they need
Speaker 1: to do so they can have plausible deniability to not
Speaker 1: be called war criminals, which is what they are. Bib Nanya,
Speaker 1: who's great cabinet and his work cabinet. Sorry, the leadership
Speaker 1: in Israel is a fucking disaster and it's a nightmare,
Speaker 1: and it's a bummer. It's a real bummer because they
Speaker 1: do deserve to be secure. Israel definitely deserves to be secure,
Speaker 1: and they do have one of the best militaries, one
Speaker 1: of the best intelligence services. They dropped the ball on
Speaker 1: October seventh, and they could have done what they're very
Speaker 1: good at, which is like strategic You saw the pagers,
Speaker 1: You saw what they did with Israala. They can really
Speaker 1: cut the head off the beast relatively easy what they
Speaker 1: did and Iran with hamas leadership during the funeral and
Speaker 1: stuff like that. They are extremely capable, and it's just
Speaker 1: I feel like they've overreacted by ten x that's my opinion,
Speaker 1: and I think people should get fed.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I.
Speaker 6: Agree that it's just going too far, I think right now,
Speaker 6: at this point, anybody who is okay with what's going
Speaker 6: on as a hardcore apologist or they're just being willfully ignorant.
Speaker 6: I again, will hardly agree that Israel should be secure.
Speaker 6: I just don't agree with the point that we are
Speaker 6: that they are at, with what they're calling securing their borders.
Speaker 6: I just can't agree with it.
Speaker 5: But yeah, I agree.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's tough, you know.
Speaker 1: I mean, in a perfect world, there would be a
Speaker 1: two state solution and it would be fixed and stuff
Speaker 1: like that. But I can't even see that happening for
Speaker 1: like another generation.
Speaker 5: Yeah, we're far away from that now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, just I just try to imagine. I'll try to
Speaker 1: tell my friends, Like, imagine somebody trying. There's two point
Speaker 1: seven million people in Brooklyn, right and let's say the
Speaker 1: rest of the four boroughs wanted to come and rolled
Speaker 1: up and we're doing what Israel's doing. You gotta pick
Speaker 1: up on ak and fight. How you know, you see
Speaker 1: your mom, your dad, your sister, your brother either being
Speaker 1: starved or being killed. At some point, you either you know,
Speaker 1: you get going or you don't. Like I just don't.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's really hard, Like I just try and
Speaker 1: to ask people to put themselves in other people's positions
Speaker 1: and see where they're coming from and have and tell
Speaker 1: you ask yourself how you would react. Right, Like, imagine
Speaker 1: somebody invaded the United States. You know, we're fucking shoot.
Speaker 1: You know, we all have guns. I don't. I don't
Speaker 1: have a gun. I mean I do have a gun,
Speaker 1: but you know we're gonna.
Speaker 2: Get you do what you don't doing its license too,
Speaker 2: So yeah, I kind of a gun.
Speaker 1: Anyway, So you know you're gonna defend your where you live,
Speaker 1: your homeland and stuff like that.
Speaker 4: So like can look at the United States, right, we
Speaker 4: got attacked on nine to eleven, and we invaded two
Speaker 4: countries and took them over and one of them didn't have.
Speaker 3: Anything to do on a eleven, correct, Yeah, So.
Speaker 4: That's I think. I guess the moral of the story is,
Speaker 4: don't attack another country.
Speaker 5: Yeah, women and children.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, at the same time, like the US,
Speaker 1: we could have done better in terms of the guy
Speaker 1: and stuff like that. Of course, we could have been
Speaker 1: more strategic at it and stuff like you know. I mean,
Speaker 1: then the idea of nation building is a is a
Speaker 1: fantasy land. Unless we have one hundred and fifty years.
Speaker 1: The interesting part is like Israel and Gaza are right
Speaker 1: next to each other. So if counterinsurgency was ever gonna
Speaker 1: have a chance to work, because you'll be there for generations,
Speaker 1: you would think it would work there instead of sending
Speaker 1: some kids from Brooklyn or Nebraska or Alabama over Iraq
Speaker 1: and stuff like that and try be they were going
Speaker 1: to be there for twenty four months, they'll have their
Speaker 1: own elections and they'll be a great country.
Speaker 2: The IDF doesn't train for counter counterinsurgency. They don't have
Speaker 2: a counterinsurgency manual. They have a couple of articles written
Speaker 2: about counterinsurgency, but they don't train to it. It's not
Speaker 2: part of their doctrine. And that's you know, but that's
Speaker 2: that is a symptom. It's not the cause. I think
Speaker 2: the symptom is this. If you want to look at
Speaker 2: the cause, you have to go way back to the
Speaker 2: assassination of Yitzak Rabin in nineteen ninety five, and he
Speaker 2: was probably the last glimmer of hope for a two
Speaker 2: state solution. And no one can accuse him of being
Speaker 2: an Israeli trader. He was a patriot, had risked his
Speaker 2: life many times and was considered actually to be more
Speaker 2: on the right wing until he started to negotiate with
Speaker 2: the PLO, which led to his assassination. But what you've
Speaker 2: seen then since then is a steady shift to the
Speaker 2: right within Israeli politics, the rise of Netnya Who and
Speaker 2: the rise of those who support Netta Who and their
Speaker 2: dominance within you know, kind of the the Israeli political environment.
Speaker 2: And then of course the events of seven October solidified
Speaker 2: that and put it arguably put an end to hopes
Speaker 2: for a two state solutions because even those on the
Speaker 2: left in Israel couldn't imagine living side by side with
Speaker 2: a possible repetition of that threat. What is sad and
Speaker 2: I think mix is that as part of this and
Speaker 2: mixed figures really tell the story. I mean, sixty thousand
Speaker 2: kids facing starvation that should never happen, regardless regardless of
Speaker 2: what the cause was or what the intent is. Sixty
Speaker 2: thousand kids starving a civilian population is not in accordance
Speaker 2: with the law of conflict. That is period, black and white. Okay,
Speaker 2: how do we get here? Well, as I've said, you know,
Speaker 2: I think within Israel that you've seen that shift to
Speaker 2: the right. But you know, having visited Israel about half
Speaker 2: a dozen times since seven October. There's something else that
Speaker 2: I find disturbing in discussions about Palestinians. It's a very
Speaker 2: dispassionate discussion. It's almost as though they're not referred to
Speaker 2: as human beings but as a problem to be solved.
Speaker 2: And I think a lot of Israelis, even very Israelis
Speaker 2: who would consider themselves compassionate humanitarian people, refer to Palestinians
Speaker 2: in those terms. And once you start disassociating your enemy
Speaker 2: from or disassociating, yes, your enemy, because all of Palestinians,
Speaker 2: all of Guards are lumped in as their enemy. You've
Speaker 2: heard this talk about that there are two million supporters
Speaker 2: of her Mass within Guards. That you hear that time
Speaker 2: and again. We've heard it from one of our guests
Speaker 2: on this show. They just cannot differentiate between the civilian
Speaker 2: population and her mask. Now there's undoubtedly her Mass had
Speaker 2: widespread support within Gaza, but you know, as we all
Speaker 2: know in former military, you've got to there's a difference
Speaker 2: between widespread support and actually being a fighter, and you
Speaker 2: cannot punish the civilian population. You cannot ethically punish the
Speaker 2: civilian population for what the you know, the minority, and
Speaker 2: they are a minority, are doing of armed insurgents. So
Speaker 2: Olmert's Olmert speaking out I see as positive, but you
Speaker 2: also see that he is very quickly He's not he's
Speaker 2: already sidelined and he's going to be attacked vehemently as
Speaker 2: being a trader. There is a very low level of
Speaker 2: torrance within Israel for dissent against what is happening in Gaza,
Speaker 2: and in the international community. There is no major actor
Speaker 2: who is really speaking out and doing anything. And I
Speaker 2: think that is yeah, certainly of certainly of concern for
Speaker 2: anyone who cares about humankind.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean we saw it here in America too, right,
Speaker 1: like when an eleven then we went into Iraq.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I absolutely I get it. As being
Speaker 2: part of the invading force in Iraq. I yes, a
Speaker 2: huge mistake, of course, of course, But you know what,
Speaker 2: there was never a case where we surrounded a place
Speaker 2: and staff the population, all right. I mean, you know,
Speaker 2: having gone through the Battle of Fallujah, we made every
Speaker 2: effort to bring the civilian population out at risk to ourselves.
Speaker 2: We invested the city, all right, and we before we
Speaker 2: I mean we we signaled that we were going to
Speaker 2: invade Fallujah. When we did in November, we were signaling.
Speaker 2: We were on television saying, hey, we're going to come
Speaker 2: in and evade. If you are a civilian, leave all right,
Speaker 2: And we gave them free passage, and we dropped leaflets
Speaker 2: and we broadcast to them. We made every effort to
Speaker 2: bring them out. And when we went in, we were
Speaker 2: under strict, believe it or not, strict rules of engagement.
Speaker 2: We weren't allowed to use We couldn't just blast away
Speaker 2: at buildings unless we were taking fire. At least those
Speaker 2: were the roel under It might have been the battalion
Speaker 2: I was attached to, And that's why we went in
Speaker 2: and cleared all those fucking buildings, right, We didn't we
Speaker 2: didn't flatten them. We didn't even we didn't have drones
Speaker 2: to send in. But that's why you got dudes kicking
Speaker 2: open doors in the twenty first century, going down dark
Speaker 2: hallways and fighting toe to toe with a mooge, partly
Speaker 2: out of concern for civilian casualties. So yeah, I mean,
Speaker 2: we made a lot of mistakes, and I saw a
Speaker 2: lot of dead civilians in Iraq who didn't need to die.
Speaker 2: But we also overall, we US military did our best
Speaker 2: revent that from happening.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I was just talking about the US populace
Speaker 1: in terms of like support for the Iraq War at
Speaker 1: that time, right like it was in the sixties, it
Speaker 1: was like every you know, you know, in terms of
Speaker 1: political that's like, you can't get better than that, really.
Speaker 2: But remember we thought, I mean, we genuinely thought it
Speaker 2: were liberating the Iraqi people from a tyrant. And and
Speaker 2: you know that wasn't that narrative was not far off
Speaker 2: the truth, you know, I mean, I was one of
Speaker 2: the first first US soldiers in the Baghdad in April
Speaker 2: to that We were greeted by cheering crowds. They were
Speaker 2: so happy. Now, the reason why that turned into insurgency,
Speaker 2: there's a number of reasons, and some of them are complex.
Speaker 2: Some of them are pretty fucking simple, like disbanding the
Speaker 2: Iraqi army. And but but there was you know, yes,
Speaker 2: the connections with with the ninety eleven, the connections with
Speaker 2: weapons semess destruction were notoriously wrong. But at the end
Speaker 2: of the day, many Iraqis at the time did think
Speaker 2: of US as liberators. Let's not forget that.
Speaker 4: Ask you guys, they did because I was I wasn't
Speaker 4: the group that came down from the north right, So
Speaker 4: we were supposed to have a whole division with us,
Speaker 4: But it's.
Speaker 5: Just upp being CEE. I guys mostly in.
Speaker 4: Tenth Group Test Special Forces Group, and I had a
Speaker 4: lot of pesh Murger.
Speaker 5: So I agree with.
Speaker 3: You're supposed to have an American division with you.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the Turks went let them through. They did jump
Speaker 4: in for Yeah, the fourth Infantry Division was supposed to
Speaker 4: come in and the Turks would let him through. Another story.
Speaker 4: But to the to Andy's point, we were and I
Speaker 4: think we did liberate a country from a tyrant. I mean,
Speaker 4: Saddam was a butcher, a tyrant. He tried to kill
Speaker 4: the curds up in the north with these chemical weapons,
Speaker 4: and he was just a horrible person. So I think
Speaker 4: we could be proud of that, but I don't think
Speaker 4: it had the nexus to the nine to eleven that
Speaker 4: we claimed it did, or Nandy already addressed the chemical weapons.
Speaker 4: I do think we've learned our lesson there, and I
Speaker 4: don't think it will happen again.
Speaker 5: I hope. I think there'll be a lot of people
Speaker 5: that will look back on you.
Speaker 4: Know, whether it's nation building excuse me, as you said,
Speaker 4: d as not being away forward for the United States
Speaker 4: ever again and being stuck in these endless conflicts that
Speaker 4: go on for decades. I think that's going to be
Speaker 4: another there's gonna be another view of that by the
Speaker 4: American population.
Speaker 2: But I would like to add something else to you know,
Speaker 2: And it's not just because we're coming up a Memorial
Speaker 2: Day and I'm feeling a little sappy about having served
Speaker 2: in uniform. And I've seen, trust me, I've seen the worst.
Speaker 2: I've seen the worst of our behavior in places, you know,
Speaker 2: to include mgat issue in Iraq, Afghanistan. As I've said,
Speaker 2: I've seen I've seen civilians killed who shouldn't have died.
Speaker 2: It didn't need to die. But again, overall down to
Speaker 2: the individual and soldier and marine, I saw a great
Speaker 2: deal more humanity in their dealings with the local populace.
Speaker 2: And we you know, with a few, with a few exceptions,
Speaker 2: we we treated them like human beings and you know
Speaker 2: a lot of cases. Working as an advisor with the
Speaker 2: Iraqi and Afghan armies and special forces and police, I
Speaker 2: saw very strong relationships formed between them and their American advisors,
Speaker 2: you know, even at a time when distrust was being
Speaker 2: when when we were taking some blue and Blue casualties
Speaker 2: from said Afghan soldiers. So I mean I've seen, I
Speaker 2: saw more to be proud of in the US military
Speaker 2: than I did to be ashamed of. Yes, I'm ashamed
Speaker 2: of US foreign policy, of course, I mean it was
Speaker 2: I ashamed is probably the wrong word. Disappointed is probably
Speaker 2: the wrong word. Disgusted perhaps, but yes, certainly. But as
Speaker 2: far as the behavior of Americans in uniform, I mean, overall,
Speaker 2: I'm just very you know, I've been proud of being
Speaker 2: proud to be part of that organization. Even if we
Speaker 2: pursued a cause that was doomed from the start, the
Speaker 2: way it was carried out was not, and the way
Speaker 2: it was carried out was yes, tactically and strategically flawed.
Speaker 2: But from the point of view of how we behaved
Speaker 2: on the ground, I don't think we have anything to
Speaker 2: be ashamed of.
Speaker 4: A great America can be proud of their men and
Speaker 4: women and the armed forces and how they had performed
Speaker 4: over the last well hundreds of years, but certainly the last.
Speaker 2: Twenty except fighting the British that was a mistake.
Speaker 1: We got you the Yeah, I got a question. So
Speaker 1: you guys were in theater when it all went down,
Speaker 1: So when what's the guy's name?
Speaker 3: Bremer comes with the boots.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, it comes out and does like the press
Speaker 1: conference to say that they're disbanding the Iraqi Army and
Speaker 1: then the Bathist Party. You guys are on the ground.
Speaker 1: You got what's your reaction to that?
Speaker 5: Internally, everybody it was a bad idea. Everybody knew it
Speaker 5: was a bad idea.
Speaker 4: It wasn't even debated, at least from the CIA and
Speaker 4: the people I was with. And I was a junior guy,
Speaker 4: so I wasn't involving these discussions. But I mean essentially,
Speaker 4: if you wanted to do anything in a rock you
Speaker 4: had to be part of the Bathrost Party. If you
Speaker 4: wanted to be an elementary school teacher, you had to
Speaker 4: be part of the Bathroist Party. So by basically alienated
Speaker 4: them from society, you cut everybody out that had any
Speaker 4: skill at all.
Speaker 5: So that was terrible.
Speaker 4: And then of course if you fire everybody that knows
Speaker 4: how to fight, you're gonna fuel the insurgency.
Speaker 5: Right, they don't have a job, they're not getting paid,
Speaker 5: and they have an AKA.
Speaker 4: They were ak and then how to use it because
Speaker 4: there was a modern army, right, it wasn't it wasn't
Speaker 4: a malicious These are modern armies, uh, And we created
Speaker 4: our own insurgency or at least contributed to it substantially. So,
Speaker 4: I mean there's a lot that goes into the decisions
Speaker 4: that we made that didn't work out for us in
Speaker 4: I rock, But those are two of the big ones
Speaker 4: that certainly Field.
Speaker 5: Field what was to come Well.
Speaker 3: I mean that's thing.
Speaker 2: I think we should have sent them more emails just
Speaker 2: asking them to name five things that they had done
Speaker 2: for coalition forces, only five them if they if they
Speaker 2: could answer. But yeah, the cool thing is there were
Speaker 2: commanders willing to disobey orders and for and you know
Speaker 2: as so, I mean, I agree, yeah, we we we
Speaker 2: made unemployed overnight, literally tens of thousands, actually a couple
Speaker 2: of hundred armed trained soldiers, many of whom had seen
Speaker 2: their friends killed by Americans, you know, at a time
Speaker 2: when we didn't necessarily need to do that. And so
Speaker 2: when I say commanders dissipate orders, subsequently by recruiting a
Speaker 2: number of these guys, it was in small groups, you know,
Speaker 2: like the Iraqi intervention, brigade. But there's no doubt about
Speaker 2: it that on the side of the mooge were a
Speaker 2: number of these guys who had been made unemployed. And
Speaker 2: I know that personally because when they came back as
Speaker 2: an advisor and we I was within an Iraqi for
Speaker 2: the Iraqi Intervention Brigade, a lot of guys who form
Speaker 2: a Saddam Republican Guard or special forces, they would call
Speaker 2: their bodies on the other side in the mooge to
Speaker 2: have discussions.
Speaker 5: You know, And so.
Speaker 2: We at the time we were trying to the mooge
Speaker 2: was a term that just kind of rose because we
Speaker 2: didn't know what to call the enemy, so we called them.
Speaker 2: Do you remember anti Iraqi forces or something, some ridiculous term.
Speaker 2: But they were nationalists. They weren't pro Southern, they weren't
Speaker 2: pro pro Alcada. They were nationalists who had been who
Speaker 2: had been emasculated basically by having their weapons and their
Speaker 2: jobs taken from them by an invader, and they wanted
Speaker 2: to fight back, and we created that nationalism against ourselves.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, that sounds like the antithesis of a counterinsurgency,
Speaker 1: but I'm not an expert whatsoever. Right that is that
Speaker 1: when David Portray started writing is the Systeah?
Speaker 2: Well, well, the cool thing is we created the insurgency,
Speaker 2: so then we had to come up with counterinsurgency. So
Speaker 2: I mean we we could have written the doctrine on
Speaker 2: how to create an insurgency too, And so you had
Speaker 2: both sides of the defense. Americans, we can go anywhere
Speaker 2: and make anything out of nothing, whole cloth.
Speaker 3: Well, I mean, I got nothing else. This was a
Speaker 3: great side the that's super interesting.
Speaker 1: I want to tell everybody Happy Memorial Day and remember
Speaker 1: everybody who's you know, been lost Andy Milburn currently Andy Milburn.
Speaker 1: I'm so I apologize. His book, When the Tempest Gathers.
Speaker 1: The link is in the description. You can hear all
Speaker 1: about his h his experiences.
Speaker 3: It's an incredible book. Check it out.
Speaker 1: Mick mulroy, Lobo fog Bo doing great stuff, trying to
Speaker 1: get humanitarian across the across the world. His publications as well,
Speaker 1: all down in the description if you want to see
Speaker 1: him what he writes on Twitter or Blue Sky or
Speaker 1: LinkedIn Lincoln in the description.
Speaker 3: Jason Lyons. Links are in the description.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, I've got to go and find a photo of
Speaker 2: myself looking much younger in uniform to post on Facebook.
Speaker 1: Find me, send me it, I'll post it for you.
Speaker 1: I'll post it online. Thanks guys, this is great.
Speaker 2: Thanks Jan.
Speaker 3: Thanks right, everyone, have a good weekend.
Speaker 7: Hey guys, it's Jack.
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