Speaker 1: You.
Speaker 2: Chilly Effect is sponsored by Wallstreet, Window dot Com and listeners.
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Speaker 4: Twenty eighth day of April twenty twenty six, and where
Speaker 4: did the month of April go? Allegedly according to that
Speaker 4: thing we call a calendar, This the Ocelli Effect, Wednesday,
Speaker 4: hump day, middle of the week, Wolden's Day, whatever you
Speaker 4: want to call it.
Speaker 5: Here we are and we're live.
Speaker 4: But most of you, and I do mean the overwhelming
Speaker 4: majority of you, will likely catch the podcast at a
Speaker 4: later time, so I'm just noting for you when the
Speaker 4: recording was done. Anyway, you're not gonna hear a lot
Speaker 4: out of me tonight because I am happy, of course
Speaker 4: to have Larry Hancock with us once again, the author
Speaker 4: of many books.
Speaker 5: I'm not going to.
Speaker 4: Give you the full list, because you could go to
Speaker 4: one of the hyperlinks in the show notes tonight and
Speaker 4: go and look at all of Larry's work, which is online. Oh,
Speaker 4: by the way, the Oswald Puzzle, the paperback, the updated
Speaker 4: version is available, I believe, and we'll be available for
Speaker 4: Kendall sometime soon. But either way, the actual physical book
Speaker 4: is what I recommend.
Speaker 5: And oh, by the way.
Speaker 4: All of Larry Hancock's books that you see listed on
Speaker 4: Amazon or on many other fine sites out there. Guess what,
Speaker 4: I have them all on my shelf, and not just
Speaker 4: because Larry's a friend of mine, but because I highly
Speaker 4: recommend all of them. His co authors are excellent as well.
Speaker 4: Never forget them. Of course. We recently had David Boylin
Speaker 4: on and that was great, as we did the discussion
Speaker 4: about the updated Oswald Puzzle, and I think that was
Speaker 4: an interesting interview for sure, and we got to hear
Speaker 4: from David a bit, which is always great. Not like
Speaker 4: I don't like hearing from Larry, though, because if I
Speaker 4: didn't like hearing from Larry, I think we would have
Speaker 4: stopped doing this couple of years ago.
Speaker 5: But Larry's been on.
Speaker 4: Here fairly regularly for god, how many years now, Larry,
Speaker 4: how many years have you been on the show with
Speaker 4: me here?
Speaker 3: I would, I would say regularly at least five, and
Speaker 3: then probably another three or more before.
Speaker 6: That, So it although it was probably close to ten.
Speaker 3: Years, yeah, conservatively as tunning as that seems right.
Speaker 4: Because I'm thinking your first appearance on here might have
Speaker 4: been in twenty fourteen, and then, like you said, you know,
Speaker 4: here and there, a new book came out. I wanted
Speaker 4: Larry on stuff like that, and then of course we
Speaker 4: did the entire collection of Larry's work at that time
Speaker 4: and did book by book, you know, a discussion about
Speaker 4: each one, you know, from someone would have talked all
Speaker 4: the way to unidentified. You know that's about UAP's they
Speaker 4: call him now, and I didn't say UFO that time.
Speaker 4: You know, the discussion of the National security state and
Speaker 4: its reactions to many other things like the assassination of
Speaker 4: doctor King. We've obviously had discussions about the assassination of
Speaker 4: OURFK Senior let's call him at this point, since Junior
Speaker 4: is out there doing something else aside from what his
Speaker 4: father's political legacy was, for sure, but anyway, opinions aside RFK, MLK,
Speaker 4: JFK certainly lancer discussions throughout the years, Larry a bunch
Speaker 4: of different things and and a bit of history, some
Speaker 4: of it in real time, some of it from the past,
Speaker 4: and sometimes mix and match, including various discussions on one
Speaker 4: of your best books. Absolutely and best is saying something
Speaker 4: considering Like I said, unlike most authors, I recommend.
Speaker 5: All of your work.
Speaker 4: But you know, books like Creating chaos, surprise attack, shadow warfare. Wow,
Speaker 4: those weren't about assassinations particularly, but.
Speaker 5: They did include assassinations.
Speaker 4: I think the unidentified didn't include assassination in a technical sense,
Speaker 4: but most.
Speaker 6: You would be the only one, I think.
Speaker 5: Right, I mean off the top of my head, you know.
Speaker 4: And who knows, maybe one of these days we're going
Speaker 4: to get a book on horticulture or you know, ham radio,
Speaker 4: but or some other kind of broadcast medium.
Speaker 5: You know, Larry might surprise.
Speaker 4: Us and tell us all about the history of I
Speaker 4: don't know, shortwave and AM radio, but if he does,
Speaker 4: it'll be a solid piece of work because history and
Speaker 4: historiography are definitely strengths. And oh wow, that word that
Speaker 4: we always hear from Larry, which I love is context
Speaker 4: regarding historical events and characters in history. You get all
Speaker 4: of that with Larry Hancock's writing. But tonight's focus is
Speaker 4: actually on something that has come up, continues to come up,
Speaker 4: and especially has been out there in the zeitgeist in
Speaker 4: my opinion, at least post nine eleven reality. Well, why
Speaker 4: would that be Even though it's you know, relevant previous
Speaker 4: to nine elevens, it has become more relevant in my opinion,
Speaker 4: since nine to eleven and the administration.
Speaker 5: Of George W. Bush.
Speaker 4: When it comes to America's oh, should we call it
Speaker 4: war footing, military posturing, the dynamics of high end, low
Speaker 4: speed woe diplomacy. You know, there's a lot of ways
Speaker 4: we could phrase this. I'm sure Larry will do it better.
Speaker 4: But the war powers act right, and the president, you know,
Speaker 4: engaging in military actions in a limited sense, et cetera,
Speaker 4: et cetera. But you know, I'm not the guy to
Speaker 4: do the presentation on this, though. I may have a
Speaker 4: couple of questions, Larry, given the circumstance in the engagement
Speaker 4: with Iran at this point, and the nature of it,
Speaker 4: with the allies being declared and rhetoric be wrung soundly
Speaker 4: around the world, and of course the limitations and expansions
Speaker 4: of news media and various nations.
Speaker 5: Where should we begin to suss out?
Speaker 4: I don't know a sober reality about what it is
Speaker 4: we're facing in real time and the dynamics of what
Speaker 4: history might wind up recording regarding this current see I
Speaker 4: keep stopping myself from saying war with Iran, but.
Speaker 5: We have something happening.
Speaker 4: There is a military action, and it does involve the
Speaker 4: military on some levels. It does involve intelligence on some levels.
Speaker 4: And I don't mean intelligence as in are they smart
Speaker 4: or not? And I know smart is not intelligent. But
Speaker 4: point is, that's not the point. What is happening here?
Speaker 4: And what about the.
Speaker 5: War Powers Act?
Speaker 4: And although Trump does what he does and heg Seth
Speaker 4: does what he does, and they make lots of declarations,
Speaker 4: how about the reality of what we're seeing unfold and
Speaker 4: what that means regarding the War Powers Act? But maybe
Speaker 4: you have a better starting point, Larry, Where should we begin?
Speaker 5: Well?
Speaker 3: I think that the fundamental question that brings us back to,
Speaker 3: and this is a question that has come up over
Speaker 3: the decades, is to what extent is does the American
Speaker 3: public through Congress have control over the actions of the
Speaker 3: president and obviously some activities that can affect the general public,
Speaker 3: which takes you directly to when does Congress become involved
Speaker 3: in When the United States conducts military actions of different levels?
Speaker 3: And there there certainly are different levels between uh, you know,
Speaker 3: deployments and quite frankly even intimidation and support of diplomacy
Speaker 3: or geopolitics down to outright you know, combat engagements.
Speaker 6: There are there are levels of all those.
Speaker 3: Things that The interesting thing is that there are legal
Speaker 3: boundaries to our military forces uh uh titles, bodies of
Speaker 3: law that that control what they can do in a
Speaker 3: civilian domain or in a military domain. Uh, but the
Speaker 3: law is much much less structured in terms of the
Speaker 3: the president making decisions on when to put them into
Speaker 3: a combat domain. So they're actually the military has a
Speaker 3: lot more uh legal guidance, legal boundaries uh, set out
Speaker 3: for it than the president does. And those the ones
Speaker 3: that drive the president have only come up out of
Speaker 3: very radical situations. You know, congressional legislation following our years
Speaker 3: long engagement in Vietnam, which is you know, the War
Speaker 3: Powers Act that that that's not embodied in any fundamental
Speaker 3: legal code in the Constitution, you know, the the Authorization
Speaker 3: for the Use of Military Force. Again, a congressional action
Speaker 3: that they don't they don't put this stuff in place
Speaker 3: in a structured that that just happens after we get
Speaker 3: in our overhead someplace and then it's set up and
Speaker 3: it's it's always not to detail, which means the next
Speaker 3: time around the president can find a loophole.
Speaker 5: Okay, so just really okay, sorry, just pause right there
Speaker 5: for a second.
Speaker 4: Lary because here here comes the problem, right in a
Speaker 4: general in a common sense, or the Vietnam War was
Speaker 4: not technically a war because in order for it to
Speaker 4: be a war, the Congress must declare it a war.
Speaker 5: Okay, but action was.
Speaker 4: Taken clearly, it was you know, in a realistic descriptive
Speaker 4: and you know, adjective only since it was a war.
Speaker 5: And we've had other actions that have gone down like this.
Speaker 4: But the president, through various you know, things like the
Speaker 4: Gulf of Tonkin resolution going through the Congress and things
Speaker 4: like that, we have, you know, mixed actions that result
Speaker 4: in something that in all other aspects but by name,
Speaker 4: you know, arose by any other name, is still a
Speaker 4: war kind of thing. And that's what happened with Vietnam.
Speaker 4: We also have the War on Terror, and this was
Speaker 4: thought to be so dynamic in its ever changing kinetic
Speaker 4: reactions and actions. And I did put him in that
Speaker 4: order for a reason. You know, the president required wider
Speaker 4: latitude regarding his powers, et cetera, in order to conduct
Speaker 4: that effectively. All Right, now, that has become a greater debate.
Speaker 4: As I said at the beginning of the show post
Speaker 4: nine to eleven. So let's make it very simple. There
Speaker 4: is a difference between a declared war technicality legally et
Speaker 4: cetera right, and an action which does resemble in always
Speaker 4: possible a war, except without that legal declaration, you know.
Speaker 4: And some people would say, what is the difference and
Speaker 4: why does it matter?
Speaker 5: Well, it does kind of.
Speaker 4: And now that we have this engagement with Iran, which
Speaker 4: I don't know exactly how to label, is it, you know,
Speaker 4: as Putin said about his moves on Ukraine, is it
Speaker 4: a special military operation?
Speaker 5: You know? What is the circumstance? You know? And also
Speaker 5: we are acting in concert.
Speaker 4: With the ally there, which is Israel, right, and we
Speaker 4: don't have a technical legal agreement. You and I talked
Speaker 4: about this just before going to air and we were
Speaker 4: going over it and I said, you know, unlike what
Speaker 4: they have with Russia, you know, and I do mean.
Speaker 5: Iran has with Russia.
Speaker 4: Let me be very clear, unlike what Iran has with Russia,
Speaker 4: where there is an agreement of mutual protection. In other words,
Speaker 4: if either nation is attacked, they should be able to
Speaker 4: call upon this special ally they have an agreement with
Speaker 4: in order to assist in the protection of their nation
Speaker 4: because they're under attack, you know, sort of like what
Speaker 4: an ally should do, whether it's a bar fight or
Speaker 4: you're slugging it out with you know, millions of dollars
Speaker 4: worth of military hardware or billions excuse me, dollar's worth
Speaker 4: of military hardware. You know, here's your backup guy, because
Speaker 4: you have an agreement in writing. We don't have that
Speaker 4: with Israel, but it's clearly understood in a rhetorical sense,
Speaker 4: in a general sense, in a direct action sense. So
Speaker 4: you know, how do we suss this out? Regarding the
Speaker 4: War Powers Act, which again are the powers that allow
Speaker 4: a lot of things to happen, much like it is
Speaker 4: a war already, but without that legal declaration. I guess
Speaker 4: what is the difference between a war and what we
Speaker 4: see going on? And why does it matter? I guess
Speaker 4: would be the fair thing to insert here? Or do
Speaker 4: you disagree?
Speaker 6: Well?
Speaker 3: I think if you go back, the bottom line is
Speaker 3: the United States, its founders, in the very beginning, did
Speaker 3: not see us involved in foreign wars.
Speaker 6: They really didn't. You didn't.
Speaker 3: The thought that we now have a Department of War
Speaker 3: would probably astound them. The thought that we go overseas
Speaker 3: to find wars to fight in would astound them. They
Speaker 3: viewed war as a defensive action. You know, the War
Speaker 3: of eighteen twelve, even the Mexican American War was a
Speaker 3: defensive action in response to incursions in New Mexico and Arizona,
Speaker 3: a cross bordering. It's like, okay, we will go off
Speaker 3: to fight and we will declare war when somebody attacks us.
Speaker 6: That that was that was the definition of war. Wars wars.
Speaker 3: When somebody defines attacks us, we declare war. And then
Speaker 3: there are you know, there are rules of engagements that
Speaker 3: we you know, legally fight under when we go to war.
Speaker 3: You know, what kind of troops can we deploy, what
Speaker 3: kind of can we do, mobilizations, all the things that
Speaker 3: you do if you're going to get engaged and you
Speaker 3: know a longer term you know, mobilization, uh, defense, arms production,
Speaker 3: all those things, if you're really going to settle in
Speaker 3: and go to war having been attacked.
Speaker 6: Now that that's where it started. Right now. The point
Speaker 6: is after that.
Speaker 3: During the especially during the Cold War era, we made
Speaker 3: a lot of defensive mutual defense packs with Europe in
Speaker 3: Southeast Asia, and we did sign mutual defense agreements that
Speaker 3: said if our allies were attacked, you know, we would
Speaker 3: go to war to help defend them. Didn't say we
Speaker 3: would go to war with them to attack somebody else.
Speaker 3: This is a defensive agreement, Okay, As you said.
Speaker 6: We don't have that with Israel.
Speaker 3: We're acting as if we did, but we don't have
Speaker 3: that formal legal agreement.
Speaker 6: But we made those agreement with.
Speaker 3: Lots of countries, you know, right, I mean with East Asia,
Speaker 3: Treaty Organization, NATO. But it's still always in terms of defense, right,
Speaker 3: I will go to war.
Speaker 6: With you if you're attacked.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Sorry, I was going to bring up but you beat
Speaker 4: me to it that. You know, the the broadest example
Speaker 4: of this would be NATO, where indeed, you know that
Speaker 4: that agreement is supposed to be if you're a nation,
Speaker 4: a NATO country under attack, all of the others, and
Speaker 4: this is a phrase that has been mentioned many times,
Speaker 4: are supposed to react as if they were also attacked. Right,
Speaker 4: that's part of the language in that agreement that says,
Speaker 4: you know, treat an attack on one of us as
Speaker 4: an attack on all of us. It's gang mentality. Okay,
Speaker 4: but I mean, I'm sorry I take things to that level.
Speaker 4: But true, you know it's the gang mentality. But nation states,
Speaker 4: you attack one of us, you attack all of us, right,
Speaker 4: and this is one of the things that we did
Speaker 4: as a matter of you know, marshaling things post World
Speaker 4: War two for sure, but it's not unheard of or
Speaker 4: brand new at that time. It's just a matter of
Speaker 4: that was one of the things that was a key
Speaker 4: part of the Cold War, so to speak, when it
Speaker 4: comes to diplomacy and defense, and you know kind of
Speaker 4: like you know, you know, going in what the circumstance
Speaker 4: could be, and that in and of itself was meant
Speaker 4: to act as a defense mechanism. You don't want to
Speaker 4: attack one of the NATO nations because you could wake
Speaker 4: up all of the NATO nations to turn on you.
Speaker 4: That was kind of the thing, like you don't pick
Speaker 4: on the one gangbanger, the one Hell's angel, the one
Speaker 4: because you'll have all of them to contend with if
Speaker 4: you do. I'm not trying to reduce it to that level,
Speaker 4: but I'm just trying to make it relatable here, Okay.
Speaker 5: So that is the intensity of that agreement or am
Speaker 5: I misrepresenting this?
Speaker 6: No, it's a defensive pack.
Speaker 3: And of course, in regard to NATO, it was primarily
Speaker 3: the fact, especially the fact that Europe was considered to
Speaker 3: be a valuable asset to the United States.
Speaker 6: This is not all self interest. You know.
Speaker 3: They are all sorts of linkages, commercial linkages, same thing
Speaker 3: to southeast age. So in a sense, helping protect them
Speaker 3: from being overrun by the Soviet army, which outnumbered all
Speaker 3: of them by fifty to one, is in your vested interest,
Speaker 3: not just being a good bye.
Speaker 6: You know that.
Speaker 3: There's a vested interest in all of this. Strangely we
Speaker 3: seem to be forgetting that. But the whole concept of
Speaker 3: those defensive alliances was, you know, there were economic and
Speaker 3: social and political relationships with those countries that were to
Speaker 3: our benefit, and the best way to keep that was
Speaker 3: to make sure that they didn't get evaded and taken
Speaker 3: away from us, especially in Europe. So now that's that's
Speaker 3: the self interest was always part of it. So we
Speaker 3: have to be honest about that. And and there were
Speaker 3: other areas where we didn't have actual legal alliances, where
Speaker 3: we were perfectly willing to project power to protect American
Speaker 3: corporate investments. You know, Latin America is the case of that.
Speaker 3: We we were perfectly willing to project military power, not
Speaker 3: good a war, but project power. We did uh blockades
Speaker 3: of Guatemala because we felt it was going communist and
Speaker 3: just was a political threat we did. You know, it's
Speaker 3: not like that. We have not projected power where we
Speaker 3: didn't have mutual alliances. But that's far different than actually
Speaker 3: going into combat, sending your troops into combat, keeping your
Speaker 3: forces out there for months at a time, calling up
Speaker 3: your reserves.
Speaker 6: Again, it always.
Speaker 3: Stuns me that the founding fathers would probably just would
Speaker 3: not understand how we can send national Guard troops overseas
Speaker 3: for deployments of a year at a time. No, that's
Speaker 3: not what the National Guard was created. It's a national guard, Okay,
Speaker 3: it's here you're guarding the nation you're not in, you know,
Speaker 3: Syria or Afghanistan.
Speaker 6: That would it's just a new way that.
Speaker 3: We've decided to project force because we didn't want to
Speaker 3: spend the money to keep a standing army that was
Speaker 3: large enough to do the same thing.
Speaker 4: Well, right, and there are many nuances here, right, But Larry,
Speaker 4: there are many nuances here too.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 4: For instance, you mentioned blockades and you know, quarantines and
Speaker 4: things like this. Right, in a technical in a legal sense,
Speaker 4: a blockade or a quarantine is an active war, even
Speaker 4: if you're not shooting, so you know, it doesn't always
Speaker 4: involve shooting, okay, in order to have an active war,
Speaker 4: so you got to be careful between the things that
Speaker 4: seem obvious to be war and things that maybe in
Speaker 4: a legal technical sense or not necessarily. I don't mean
Speaker 4: you have to be careful, Larry. I'm talking obviously to
Speaker 4: the third person here in the room, which is the listener.
Speaker 4: And the point is that there are a great many
Speaker 4: nuances involved throughout all of this, and I'm pretty sure
Speaker 4: it still stands that a blockade is an active war, right,
Speaker 4: I mean, even though again it isn't involved shooting or
Speaker 4: death or anything which most people would think were absolutely
Speaker 4: necessary to declare something a piece of war in any way,
Speaker 4: an active war an action that is war. But a
Speaker 4: blockade in and of itself is an act of war.
Speaker 4: And as a matter of fact, if you blockade people
Speaker 4: and you know, keep them separated from certain essential resources
Speaker 4: and such, you can be committing a war crime without
Speaker 4: firing a shot. So there are many nuances along the way.
Speaker 4: Would this not be an accurate thing to also add
Speaker 4: for context here?
Speaker 3: Yeah, And it depends on like who who is the
Speaker 3: authority for saying something is or is not. You know,
Speaker 3: we have lots of treaty agreements with other countries that
Speaker 3: we don't honor. There are many agreements relating to warfare
Speaker 3: that we're not a party to, and if we didn't
Speaker 3: sign up to that, then it's we've left ourselves out
Speaker 3: of it, like land mines something like that. So you
Speaker 3: get into that level of detail. I mean, theoretically, a
Speaker 3: quarantine is much different than a blockade. If I stop
Speaker 3: all vessels going towards a certain country and let some
Speaker 3: pass that are you know, economically viable. If let's say
Speaker 3: I'm just stopping the oil, Okay, that's not it's quarantine.
Speaker 3: Kennedy did a quarantine, a qubic just for Russian missiles, right,
Speaker 3: he didn't stop. It wasn't really that kind of blockade.
Speaker 3: When I talked about Guatemala, that was just really a
Speaker 3: quarantine for shipments of Soviet weapons.
Speaker 6: It wasn't a total blockade.
Speaker 3: So what we're what we're talking about, certainly in Iran
Speaker 3: right now, comes much closer to being quote unquote economic warfare.
Speaker 3: In other words, war that's targeting the civilian population, not
Speaker 3: the military. That takes you much closer when you start
Speaker 3: different between going to war with an enemy nation's combatants
Speaker 3: and to their civilian population. Lines can be drawn there. Certainly,
Speaker 3: once you declare war, then it's everything's off the board.
Speaker 3: But the strange thing, of course, is we haven't done that.
Speaker 3: We've reached a position of saying, oh, we're going to
Speaker 3: go to war against a civilian population, or we're going
Speaker 3: to go into combat against a civilian population economic warfare,
Speaker 3: but we.
Speaker 6: Won't call it war. All right.
Speaker 3: You know, we're playing with word games at that point
Speaker 3: in time. But the point I was trying to get
Speaker 3: across is, you know, it's Congress and our own rules
Speaker 3: are what really can you know? They're the only constraint.
Speaker 3: International treaties mean nothing if we don't choose to honor them,
Speaker 3: if nothing if we don't choose to sign up to them.
Speaker 3: The only restraint in place our military action is the
Speaker 3: personal restraint of the president and the legal restraints that
Speaker 3: Congress can impose. And as we started talking about this
Speaker 3: whole thing, Congress has never stepped back and imposed a
Speaker 3: series of legal restraints on the president in the same
Speaker 3: fashion they have the military.
Speaker 6: There is no title quote, you know, title.
Speaker 3: Number, number number related to the president like there are
Speaker 3: titles of legal acts relating to the military. So we've
Speaker 3: made it it's a pickup game. You know, Congress can
Speaker 3: either act or not act. Act after the fact, and
Speaker 3: you brought it up earlier. What was what was so
Speaker 3: dangerous with the the you know, the authorization for military
Speaker 3: force after the terror attacks of nine to eleven was
Speaker 3: that any president can declare anyone a terrorist threat and
Speaker 3: use that as a justify cation. Congress intended it to
Speaker 3: only be related to al Qaeda and al Qaeda factions,
Speaker 3: but they didn't tie it down in the language, so
Speaker 3: the president can apply it any where he wants to,
Speaker 3: and that that literally leaves the president. There's an argument
Speaker 3: to be made that you know, President Trump can literally
Speaker 3: say Iran is an imminent threat because they could have
Speaker 3: an atomic bomb. Well that kind of doesn't make them
Speaker 3: an imminent threat, but declare that he is acting against
Speaker 3: an imminent threat of Iranian terrorism against the US. In
Speaker 3: some fashion, saying it's against Israel doesn't really count legally.
Speaker 3: But you know, there's a big difference between the au
Speaker 3: m F and the War Powers Act in that regard.
Speaker 3: The with the au m F never envisioned, there's nothing
Speaker 3: in there that envision and long term deployments, a call
Speaker 3: up of military reserves, deployments, you know, new weapons productions.
Speaker 6: That's it was supposed to be.
Speaker 3: Authorizing special forces units to go out and take take
Speaker 3: out al Qaeda or ISIS terror cells with individual strikes,
Speaker 3: not deploying multiple carriers off the coast of.
Speaker 4: Iran, right, And that was meant to untie the hands
Speaker 4: of the president so that he could take action on
Speaker 4: things that were eminent required, you know, swift action and
Speaker 4: things like this. And one of the examples that is
Speaker 4: easy to point out where you know, the normal rules
Speaker 4: don't apply anymore, would be anwar Alaalaki. And the fact
Speaker 4: is that the guy was a US citizen on foreign soil.
Speaker 4: Obama authorized an action which led to his assassination or
Speaker 4: elimination or whatever. And in a direct sense, the president
Speaker 4: authorized the killing of an American citizen because he was
Speaker 4: an enemy combatant and a terrorist as declared by the administration.
Speaker 4: Uh Now, as for whether that was valid or not,
Speaker 4: I'm not debating it. I'm not discussing it. I'm just
Speaker 4: saying this was the end result. Because this unties the
Speaker 4: hands of the president, allows him to.
Speaker 5: Take actions like that. Am I reading this wrong or.
Speaker 3: No, No, that's right. And the point is basically the
Speaker 3: au m F was drawn up and directed towards individuals,
Speaker 3: whether it's a single terrorist, a group of terrorists, it's
Speaker 3: in't you know, you know who they are, you identify
Speaker 3: where they are, and you take them out. That that
Speaker 3: was the whole point, and that was the response to
Speaker 3: nine eleven, and that's why it wasn't.
Speaker 5: That's why I brought up that example, a.
Speaker 6: Large individuals, not countries.
Speaker 5: Yeah, as trying to say it would be the difference. Yeah,
Speaker 5: I'm sorry, I didn't mean interrupt.
Speaker 4: I just all I was trying to say is that's
Speaker 4: why I brought up that particular example because that fits.
Speaker 4: That was he authorized it to get rid of the
Speaker 4: guy who was the leader of what they called what
Speaker 4: excuse me al Qaeda in Iraq, right, so the Iraqi
Speaker 4: al Qaeda faction, and he was the leader.
Speaker 5: So happens he was a US citizen.
Speaker 4: Normally, if it's not a terrorist and an enemy combatant,
Speaker 4: you send people, go arrest and bring him back, put
Speaker 4: him on trial. But in this circumstance, because of the
Speaker 4: reaction to nine to eleven, and because of the way
Speaker 4: this thing was structured that allowed the president to say, nope,
Speaker 4: we eliminate him, that's it, and Obama did so.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and we've been using that same justification to strike
Speaker 3: you know, Iranian National Guard members operating in Syria or
Speaker 3: I mean when we took out one of them on
Speaker 3: the airport in the capital of Iran, of ira you know,
Speaker 3: that was the justification. He's a terrorist, then he's there
Speaker 3: and we kill him.
Speaker 6: You know. So we've declared that.
Speaker 3: We have the right to strike individuals who we deem
Speaker 3: as an imminent terror threat.
Speaker 6: To the US.
Speaker 3: By the way, to the US or US forces. Uh,
Speaker 3: that's a lot different than Iran as a nation.
Speaker 6: Right, that's a different thing.
Speaker 4: So now we turn back to the current events. Okay,
Speaker 4: just so that we got all that context out of
Speaker 4: the way. Uh, and what do we see happening here?
Speaker 4: Because you know, you and I discussed before starting to record, Uh,
Speaker 4: the idea that the one thing that concerns me is
Speaker 4: what happens when because this mutual agreement with Russia and Iran,
Speaker 4: the mutual defense agreement, you know, could potentially lead to
Speaker 4: what Russian soldiers who are you know involved in this,
Speaker 4: and we could wind up killing them, they wind up
Speaker 4: killing us.
Speaker 5: That's a literal.
Speaker 4: Direct engagement, and that becomes a political nightmare. Though I
Speaker 4: don't imagine, and neither do you, I think imagine the
Speaker 4: Trump administration making a great stink about it if indeed
Speaker 4: it is Russian military assets that are responsible for eliminating
Speaker 4: or taking off the board, let's say US military assets
Speaker 4: or people.
Speaker 5: But the potential exists.
Speaker 4: And we have Iran being bombed not just at you know,
Speaker 4: some far away allegedly nuclear facility, but we also have
Speaker 4: you know, bombings that have occurred within the capital city
Speaker 4: in other locations. We have Iran launching missiles, not just
Speaker 4: at Israel.
Speaker 5: So we have you know, more going on.
Speaker 4: Here than is being reported on as per usual, but
Speaker 4: also an understanding of all this and the dynamic what
Speaker 4: do we do with it?
Speaker 3: Larry Well, I think the big problem that we have
Speaker 3: going on is that there's been no definition of what
Speaker 3: we're doing. Even under the War Powers Act, you would
Speaker 3: you would have to identify a direct threat to the
Speaker 3: United States physically United States forces, but but normally it
Speaker 3: would be towards the United States or towards an ally,
Speaker 3: and Congress would would essentially authorize our implementing all of
Speaker 3: the actions that are available to US in in combat.
Speaker 3: I mean, whether it's long term deployments or uh whatever,
Speaker 3: whatever it is. Essentially, that's what that's what we did
Speaker 3: in Vietnam. We didn't we didn't declare war, but Congress
Speaker 3: passed a resolutions essentially saying you're you're allowed to fight
Speaker 3: one We we actually just don't want to declare it
Speaker 3: because that would that would maybe force the other side,
Speaker 3: you know, if we declare war against the one guy,
Speaker 3: their allies can come into this battle overtly, you know, publicly,
Speaker 3: because they've signed mutual defense pacts. Historically, Russia and China
Speaker 3: both have covertly supported warfare against the US in Korea
Speaker 3: and Vietnam. Russia operator fighter craft. Russian pilots flew against
Speaker 3: American pilots in Vietnam. There was some of that. The
Speaker 3: Chinese were a major factor in the Vietnamese War, which
Speaker 3: we never acknowledged because if we acknowledge it, it takes
Speaker 3: it up to, oh, well, then you're in a war,
Speaker 3: and you're in a war with their allies and them both.
Speaker 3: So we never acknowledged those things. Didn't They never acknowledge
Speaker 3: it either, But I think again, what we're facing with
Speaker 3: the the War Powers Act here is that it's so
Speaker 3: nebulous that Congress will be able to duck the responsibility.
Speaker 3: And the interesting thing is if at the moment they
Speaker 3: appear to be very much into ducking responsibilities, but you
Speaker 3: would if they were really behind it, and if the
Speaker 3: administration had designed a clear threat to the United States,
Speaker 3: an imminent threat, which is, you know, one thing, then
Speaker 3: they you'd expect Congress to actually do what it did
Speaker 3: in Vietnam, pass a resolution talk and golf resolution, pass
Speaker 3: the straight of Hormono's resolution, and Congress actively, not just
Speaker 3: on political shows, actively passed laws that said, okay, we
Speaker 3: believe you or behind you. We accepted your testimony, and
Speaker 3: now Congress is legally behind what you're doing, and we've
Speaker 3: passed a resolution maybe put into clear war, but we
Speaker 3: passed a resolution. In this case, we don't even Congress
Speaker 3: doesn't even have to have the nerve to go either direction,
Speaker 3: to constrain the president or to support the president, which
Speaker 3: is a pretty amazing thing. And I'm not sure that
Speaker 3: we've ever seen that before.
Speaker 4: Right so publicly, like you said, they're willing to go
Speaker 4: on TV shows to support them but they don't take
Speaker 4: any solid or you know, on paper action that supports them.
Speaker 4: At the same time, so it appears to the public
Speaker 4: as though the Congress is fully on board with them,
Speaker 4: but they haven't actually memorialized any of that in a
Speaker 4: resolution or I mean as far as I know, I mean,
Speaker 4: maybe I missed something, but there's no resolution.
Speaker 3: Yeah, good, No, there's no resolution. And the other big
Speaker 3: thing that goes along it is they've not funded it.
Speaker 3: And again that's why a Secretary of the poor Defense
Speaker 3: whichever you want to choose, that's still defense to me,
Speaker 3: is before Congress today explaining how tremendously expensive this is.
Speaker 3: Because Congress is going to have to wrestle with how
Speaker 3: do you fund this enormous expense that was in the
Speaker 3: budget and do you hide it within a new version
Speaker 3: of the budget or do you spend fund a special
Speaker 3: funding resolution? And it's not in this case, it's not
Speaker 3: just to sustain operations.
Speaker 6: I mean, we got a lot.
Speaker 3: Of resources in the area of Iran carrier groups. We've
Speaker 3: had had aircraft air Force units deployed overseas now for weeks,
Speaker 3: massive resources and we've depleted. Estimates are between forty and
Speaker 3: sixty percent across a variety of our most advanced weapons
Speaker 3: going to be very expensive to rebuild that. Now, if
Speaker 3: Congress was on board with this, they should have passed
Speaker 3: a resolution not only supporting the action, but somehow funding it.
Speaker 3: All Right, American people, we're going to do war bonds.
Speaker 3: You know that was this earliest stuff. We're going to
Speaker 3: do war bonds, We're going to whatever. But it looks
Speaker 3: like they're going to bye not engaging with the subject.
Speaker 3: They're going to try to hide it within the other
Speaker 3: portions of the military budget. And then the battle that's
Speaker 3: going to come up. Is this going to increase the depth?
Speaker 3: Is it even further? Are you going to look for
Speaker 3: offsets by cutting other programs? They're really ducking this quite frankly.
Speaker 3: They're talking about it, but they're not engaging with it
Speaker 3: at this point in time. I think they're hoping it
Speaker 3: will go away, but they're not engaging with it, either
Speaker 3: legally or financially.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 4: Interesting side note too, just you know, because you said, okay,
Speaker 4: the Secretary of War, the Secretary of Defense, it's still
Speaker 4: defense to you. Well, it's still defense officially, by the way,
Speaker 4: because it would require an Act of Congress to change
Speaker 4: the Department of Defense to the Department of War. That's
Speaker 4: one of the essential elements to literally change that entire
Speaker 4: you know, government agency's name. Okay, So even though they
Speaker 4: have declared it by name the Department of War, and
Speaker 4: it was at one time the Department of War, technically speaking,
Speaker 4: right now as we speak, it is still the Department
Speaker 4: of Defense, regardless.
Speaker 5: Of what the rhetoric and political.
Speaker 4: Statements are and et cetera, et cetera, and what pe
Speaker 4: Haig Seth says, truth is, it's still the Department of
Speaker 4: Defense technically as far as I know.
Speaker 5: You know about that, Larry as well, Sure.
Speaker 3: It absolutely is, and it's only it's it's the the
Speaker 3: executive order allowing it to be called the Department of
Speaker 3: War is just simply political positioning. In all honesty, again
Speaker 3: being objective about it, the administration has changed its style
Speaker 3: of geopolitics. We've really moved into using war right and
Speaker 3: military operations as as a tool of geopolitics of uh
Speaker 3: international economy. I mean, the one thing you can say
Speaker 3: for it is it's it's being right up front about it,
Speaker 3: like we're we're no longer looking for alliances, We're no
Speaker 3: look looking for negotiations we're looking.
Speaker 6: It's like.
Speaker 3: We're where if nothing else, we're into intimidation.
Speaker 6: You know, like it or don't.
Speaker 3: It's it's hard to it's hard to duck the implications
Speaker 3: of changing from defense to war. It's like, okay, what
Speaker 3: we're here for?
Speaker 4: War?
Speaker 3: Is it?
Speaker 6: Okay?
Speaker 4: Get used to it, right And in a direct sense,
Speaker 4: it may be a more accurate moniker for the uh,
Speaker 4: you know, for that office at this point anyway. But
Speaker 4: truth is truth, in fact is fact. It is still
Speaker 4: officially the Department of Defense.
Speaker 5: Anyway. I just I just want to point that out. Okay.
Speaker 4: Uh So as we move forward, though, you know, what,
Speaker 4: what does this tell us all together? I mean, somebody
Speaker 4: might say, okay, this is.
Speaker 5: Great, guys.
Speaker 4: You provided us with a lot of information, and yes,
Speaker 4: there is a way to looking at this. There's the legal,
Speaker 4: there's the technical, and then there's the reality, and they
Speaker 4: may all meet somewhere. But point is, what does this
Speaker 4: all mean for us as we watch it now? Of course,
Speaker 4: we the implications that you have an unpaid for war
Speaker 4: or you know, whatever you want to call this action.
Speaker 4: The money's going to come from somewhere. Yes, indeed, they
Speaker 4: are assets that are available to be utilized for anything,
Speaker 4: and they just need to be you know, directed at this.
Speaker 4: But there will be expenses. Now, is that part of
Speaker 4: the budget. I don't remember it being in the National
Speaker 4: Defense Authorization Act for this year, so maybe I'm wrong
Speaker 4: about that, but I don't think it was in there.
Speaker 3: And yeah, that's why the Secretary is asking for like
Speaker 3: ninety billion. That's one of the reasons he was with
Speaker 3: Congress today is asking for a huge supplemental funding package.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 6: Definitely he was not in the budget.
Speaker 4: Yeah, because the military, like every other aspect of our government,
Speaker 4: works on a budget and they get it, you know,
Speaker 4: allocated based on what the Congress, you know, deems necessary
Speaker 4: through their process, et cetera. I mean that's where the
Speaker 4: purse strings lie, you know. I've always heard that, and
Speaker 4: by lie, I mean lay. But nonetheless, this is the
Speaker 4: circumstance and why the Secretary of War is up there saying, hey,
Speaker 4: I need some more money, because he does, you know.
Speaker 4: I mean they can shuffle things and take you know,
Speaker 4: existing resources and direct it, but that will leave other
Speaker 4: departments hurting and that might be a temporary situation until
Speaker 4: this is funded.
Speaker 5: So okay, that's one aspect of it.
Speaker 4: But what else do we have happening that maybe is
Speaker 4: not being reported very clearly or concisely by others that
Speaker 4: you can think of here, Larry.
Speaker 3: Well, I think a couple of things have not it's
Speaker 3: very clear have it been reported across the United States.
Speaker 3: Is one is the degree of damage and effective damage
Speaker 3: that Aron carried out against its Gulf neighbors, both in
Speaker 3: physical military attacks against their infrastructure and economically. The fact
Speaker 3: that you today had the UAE pull out of OPEC,
Speaker 3: and not just OPEK, but the extended Russia OPEK, which
Speaker 3: you know, effectively the US have taken Venezuela and oil away.
Speaker 3: Now UAE is going to produce as much as it
Speaker 3: can pump and it doesn't want any more restrictions. There
Speaker 3: are terrific global impacts about this. If anybody thinks this
Speaker 3: is just about preventing from having a nuclear weapon, certainly
Speaker 3: it's not about that. It's there far more reaching than that.
Speaker 3: So I think what's not being discussed are the the
Speaker 3: what okay, what is not being characterized? Before whenever the
Speaker 3: US was asked to go to war and Congress committed
Speaker 3: to war, it was made very clear to the American
Speaker 3: public what the trade off was going to be, here's
Speaker 3: why we're doing it, and we're going to ask you
Speaker 3: to bear some hardships. We're going to ask you to
Speaker 3: work longer, pay more taxes for you know, for go gasoline.
Speaker 3: You've already got a Republican congress person saying, you know,
Speaker 3: give up driving. But we're going to ask you to
Speaker 3: do all of these things because it's worth it. And
Speaker 3: you know, if it takes us, you know, we think
Speaker 3: it's takes us six months, it takes us six years. Here,
Speaker 3: here's the case for it. Congress is signed off for it,
Speaker 3: and here's then you start a campaign, you know, so
Speaker 3: that you've got the public on your side because you're
Speaker 3: asking it to bear some serious burdens.
Speaker 4: Now about that burden, though, that's right now. About that burden. No,
Speaker 4: we're not actually carrying it yet fully for sure. But
Speaker 4: about that burden, Larry, I don't think that they realistically look,
Speaker 4: regardless of what the rhetoric says, I don't think it's about,
Speaker 4: you know, take the hit for the team at the
Speaker 4: pump and stop driving. I don't believe that for a second,
Speaker 4: even from the mouths of those who say it with
Speaker 4: a straight face. What I think the actual purpose there is,
Speaker 4: and maybe it's just me and my suspicious thought patterns,
Speaker 4: but you know, I think really what that is is
Speaker 4: so that people don't start to complain when it does
Speaker 4: cost an outrageous amount extra at the pump, when the
Speaker 4: price of goods that have to travel by truck, etc.
Speaker 4: Are now rising in price even more, during a time
Speaker 4: when we are all feeling the economic burden already just
Speaker 4: from the pre Well conflict, let's call it circumstances. We
Speaker 4: were already feeling the burden, if you will, of an
Speaker 4: economy where costs were going to be up. I think
Speaker 4: this is a way to say no, it's like your
Speaker 4: patriotic duty now to be charged more and more money
Speaker 4: and for us to justify price increases in a general sense.
Speaker 4: I think that's the real purpose of it, not you know, hey,
Speaker 4: give up driving or for go gasoline again.
Speaker 5: That's my opinion.
Speaker 4: Maybe you have a different view on this, Larry, but
Speaker 4: I think that's the true purpose of it.
Speaker 6: Go ahead, well we see that.
Speaker 3: I mean the model has been going on, that's Putin's
Speaker 3: special military operation in Ukraine is the model for that.
Speaker 3: You know, something that was supposed to be over in
Speaker 3: a week, lasting years beginning to slowly year by year
Speaker 3: crush the Russian economy, but constant appeals to Russian patriotism,
Speaker 3: imminent threat, as if anybody really thought Ukraine had been
Speaker 3: about to invade Russia. Somehow, that's the model we see it.
Speaker 3: It's easy to look at and we're just we're just
Speaker 3: approaching it in that same way. Now, if this is
Speaker 3: if this had been over in a week, you know,
Speaker 3: I think it's kind of like Russia again, nobody would
Speaker 3: have flinched, but I can't. The messaging is still it's
Speaker 3: it's easy to carry off that messaging in Russia because
Speaker 3: Putin has total total control of internal messaging now that
Speaker 3: is even shut down most of their social media. Whether
Speaker 3: you can maintain that level of control in the US
Speaker 3: is another question, but I'm continually today again you're starting
Speaker 3: to see administration talk of maintaining the blockade for months,
Speaker 3: you know, and you knows, as you're saying, is this
Speaker 3: just a matter of easiness into the into the budgetary impact,
Speaker 3: you know, because our call is going to come up
Speaker 3: with that with the elections that are coming up. You know, Uh,
Speaker 3: we really still do have free elections. The Russians do not.
Speaker 3: You know, so you're going to have to deal with
Speaker 3: our social welfare program is going to go away to
Speaker 3: support Is that going to be the offset? That's one
Speaker 3: thing that's been proposed already, cut medicares, cut social cut
Speaker 3: whatever to support the new military funding. Where's the offset
Speaker 3: going to come? All of that will be has to
Speaker 3: be part of the campaign. I hope it's part of
Speaker 3: the game campaign. If it's not, then we have moved
Speaker 3: far closer to Russia than I would ever have seen,
Speaker 3: and we've moved into a state where we American citizens
Speaker 3: ignore what is happening to them for some strange reason.
Speaker 3: That's that would that would be not on our normal history.
Speaker 6: But what's normal now?
Speaker 3: But yeah, Chuck, I think it's at this stage it's
Speaker 3: warm up. And I thought, well, yeah you could. But
Speaker 3: as long as the straight or Foremo's stays closed to
Speaker 3: most oil shipping, uh, you know the economic consequences, You
Speaker 3: don't have to be at open war as long as.
Speaker 6: That that stay. We've been lucky up to date.
Speaker 3: All the prices we see now are the result of
Speaker 3: oil was that was already at sea, it was already
Speaker 3: in delivery mode. We have yet to feel the real
Speaker 3: price impacts, the consumer price impacts of that stuff, and
Speaker 3: I don't understand it because I don't yet see I
Speaker 3: don't see the messaging that says what the end game is,
Speaker 3: or even the message for how to get to the endgame.
Speaker 3: But that one D game could have been to get
Speaker 3: back to our subject. One D game could have been
Speaker 3: war powers and a new resolution either to sustain okay,
Speaker 3: I mean, Congress could have stepped up and said, we
Speaker 3: really really need to do this, and by the way,
Speaker 3: we're going to increase taxes because it's worth it.
Speaker 6: They're not going to do that.
Speaker 3: So if Congress doesn't move either direction, the only immediate
Speaker 3: place for resolution is Congress, and that means it's not
Speaker 3: going to happen.
Speaker 4: Right, I mean, Or you know, a special fuel tax
Speaker 4: that they say will be temporary if they put a
Speaker 4: dollar on it per.
Speaker 5: Gallon, you know, something like that.
Speaker 4: That could be done across the board, because there are
Speaker 4: federal fuel taxes that are applied automatically and are part
Speaker 4: of your gas price. I mean, that could be another
Speaker 4: way to go. But of course, if they add a
Speaker 4: dollar to the cost, potentially based on the way the
Speaker 4: dynamic is moving, you could see the relevant cost double
Speaker 4: at the pump, say from what it was a few
Speaker 4: days ago or a few weeks ago. And remember this,
Speaker 4: you know, as I said, working for Exxon Mobile, I
Speaker 4: learned how that you know functions, and it still prevails
Speaker 4: to this day that the true impact of your price
Speaker 4: takes sixty days for it to actually affect the fuel price.
Speaker 4: It's two months the cycle, okay, and it's still that
Speaker 4: way as it was in the late nineties, early two thousands.
Speaker 5: It takes sixty days.
Speaker 4: So when you see the price affected, that's them preparing
Speaker 4: for the price to change and not the actual price change,
Speaker 4: you know. So that's something to keep in mind here
Speaker 4: as we see, Yeah, if there's a change in the supply,
Speaker 4: the price will start to jump immediately when they know
Speaker 4: it's coming, before it even actually is the supply that's
Speaker 4: in hand, right, It's like futures. But you can see
Speaker 4: it at the gas pump, and it's.
Speaker 3: And everybody, everybody is seen the price of gas at
Speaker 3: the gas pump, and most of the average consumer is
Speaker 3: not thinking about the price of diesel, which is where
Speaker 3: the real impact is going to hit because diesel is
Speaker 3: so much more expensive and so much more part of
Speaker 3: our transport infrastructure. That's that's not even been part of
Speaker 3: most of the dialogues. It's we're tracking car gasoline prices,
Speaker 3: we're not really tracking diesel prices, and nobody's calculating the
Speaker 3: impact on that other than the people that decided, you know,
Speaker 3: to keeping the debt rate flat today because obviously they
Speaker 3: can see what's coming, no matter how much they would
Speaker 3: have liked to have lowered it.
Speaker 4: No, all true, and and that's and that's the circumstance
Speaker 4: we find ourselves in, right, Uh okay, So how would
Speaker 4: we sort of tie bow.
Speaker 5: On this one?
Speaker 4: Because I don't want to take up too much of
Speaker 4: your time tonight, Larry, but I think we've effectively gone
Speaker 4: through it and really clarified a bunch of the information
Speaker 4: that we see out there outside of the cheerleading, so
Speaker 4: to speak, right the the the political points trying to
Speaker 4: be scored on.
Speaker 5: All sides of the aisle. Let's say, whether you're objecting
Speaker 5: to the good.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I think tying of bow on it is
Speaker 3: really just truly understanding the difference between a War Powers Act,
Speaker 3: you know, resolutions in Congress, the au m F as
Speaker 3: being different things, having different purposes and different constraints and
Speaker 3: kine of bow on it really to me means understand
Speaker 3: it enough, understand it, understanding enough to evaluate what Congress
Speaker 3: is doing, and the consequences of Congress choosing the not
Speaker 3: to act at all at that point, at this point
Speaker 3: in time, that applies to almost everything, since Congress is
Speaker 3: choosing to act on virtually nothing. But that's I think
Speaker 3: that kind of ties a bow on it because a
Speaker 3: lot of people don't really understand, you know that they
Speaker 3: assume we keep using the term that this is a war.
Speaker 3: Clearly it's not a war. It's not even a special
Speaker 3: military action. And the longer that it lacks definition, the
Speaker 3: more out of control is likely to get. How can
Speaker 3: we say that, Well, those of us who went through
Speaker 3: the Vietnam experience, you know, it was all good year
Speaker 3: by year, month by month.
Speaker 6: You know, it's like until it wasn't.
Speaker 5: Well.
Speaker 4: And that's the circumstance we find ourselves in, and in
Speaker 4: recent history. Is any sort of barometer for the forecast
Speaker 4: that we can post here?
Speaker 5: You know, the.
Speaker 4: Congress does not seem all that enthusiastic about taking any
Speaker 4: particular action one way or another. And I don't mean
Speaker 4: just in this particular arena of debate, discussion and formatting
Speaker 4: for what's going to go forward. But I mean, I
Speaker 4: take the most recent congresses, the past couple, quite frankly,
Speaker 4: to be groups that don't want to take any decisive
Speaker 4: action kind of just you know, the president. A lot
Speaker 4: of people would note the president just does whatever he wants.
Speaker 4: The Congress just sort of doesn't even bother to sign
Speaker 4: off on it. They just take zero action against it.
Speaker 4: Or there's a few symbolic gestures by the minority, and
Speaker 4: you know, the new cycle changes the end of story.
Speaker 4: That's one way to look at it. And if we
Speaker 4: get that at this particular point in juncture regarding these events,
Speaker 4: what does that actually mean moving forward, except that you
Speaker 4: have something that is not you know, defined rather clearly,
Speaker 4: but still in motion and still something that is happening.
Speaker 4: They are going to need a budget at some point
Speaker 4: in order to conduct this thing and to even deal
Speaker 4: with what has already been spent on it. So I
Speaker 4: don't know what the financial, you know, fallout is. I
Speaker 4: don't know what the consequences are. As per always, I
Speaker 4: hope that we don't see a lot of US servicemen
Speaker 4: return to.
Speaker 5: US in boxes. But you know, and obviously I don't
Speaker 5: want to see a lot of human beings end up
Speaker 5: in boxes. But either way, you know, that would be
Speaker 5: the only time I.
Speaker 4: Would see the public really reacting outside of the reflexes
Speaker 4: and the the general sort of you know, root for
Speaker 4: your team, whichever team that is mentality that we've seen
Speaker 4: among the public. So I don't see a strong anti
Speaker 4: war faction really gaining traction. The pro war people are
Speaker 4: just fine with what's happening, it seems like. And and
Speaker 4: here we are with the Congress that you know, for
Speaker 4: lack of a better phrase, here.
Speaker 5: Is in a do nothing mode.
Speaker 4: Either way, Do you think I am misrepresenting something or
Speaker 4: seeing something that you're not, or whatever means we get
Speaker 4: ready to close this out.
Speaker 5: Do you think that that's where we are at? Yeah? Good?
Speaker 3: The only thing I would two things I would add.
Speaker 3: One is as former military, I will say.
Speaker 6: The thought of.
Speaker 3: People returning in boxes is one thing, But you can
Speaker 3: destroy a lot of lies, a lot of marriages, a
Speaker 3: lot of careers. To the extent that we have taken
Speaker 3: so many of our National Guard personnel and deployed them
Speaker 3: for months at a time away from their families, their jobs.
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, did they get.
Speaker 3: Paid sure, but there is a price to pay for
Speaker 3: this sort of thing. There's a price to pay for
Speaker 3: keeping your surface people destroyed and inactive and constantly under stress.
Speaker 3: There's a price to be paid by keeping your weapon
Speaker 3: systems deployed and not going through normal maintenance and retrofit.
Speaker 3: There's a price to be paid by using up your
Speaker 3: ammunition so much faster than you can potentially rebuild it.
Speaker 3: But I would make a point for the military service personnel.
Speaker 3: You can do a lot of damage with an ongoing
Speaker 3: battle that they're not really fighting, and you're making it
Speaker 3: look you know, life is different, and when you force
Speaker 3: them to be away and in constant deployment overseas, and
Speaker 3: we have done that to our National guards particular for
Speaker 3: years now, and it really isn't fair.
Speaker 6: So I'm going to make a point on that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they signed up, they volunteered, but you know, the
Speaker 3: deployment ratios are not anywhere where they should be saying
Speaker 3: with the number of an extension of deployments. The other
Speaker 3: thing that I would say when you're talking about Congress,
Speaker 3: this is more amusing than that was. But I'm seeing
Speaker 3: a lot of political ads here in Oklahoma where candidates
Speaker 3: are running simply on a platform of standing with the president.
Speaker 3: And it's like, what is standing with the president mean?
Speaker 3: Does it mean photo ops? Are you guys actually going
Speaker 3: to do something? Or do standing mean you're just not
Speaker 3: going to do anything at all? If that's true, it's
Speaker 3: like I'm I elect you to go to Congress so
Speaker 3: you can do nothing so that the president can just
Speaker 3: do what he wants. You should come out and say
Speaker 3: that we've talked about this before. Congress people need to
Speaker 3: just get off the soap box and start are you
Speaker 3: there to do something one way or the other and
Speaker 3: take a stand?
Speaker 1: Uh?
Speaker 6: And that just does that mean photo hops?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 4: And not a popular you know action at this point
Speaker 4: in time. As I said before, they're they're pretty much
Speaker 4: you know, you might as well send the same people
Speaker 4: back to Congress then that they're already there because they're
Speaker 4: effectively doing nothing one way or another. Uh, and just
Speaker 4: sort of well the president wants it, go ahead, you know,
Speaker 4: I agree with them.
Speaker 5: I'm gonna make public statements. I'll have a press.
Speaker 6: Conference money right there, I'll go.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that way, you don't have to, you know, have
Speaker 4: people move or anything else. Hey, you'll save some guess
Speaker 4: that way nobody's got to move in or out of DC.
Speaker 5: Uh, you know, and these guys can continue.
Speaker 6: To lost the connection.
Speaker 4: Oh sorry, we can we we didn't lose the connection.
Speaker 5: I was muted to you.
Speaker 4: Sorry, okay, I was just saying, we can save money.
Speaker 5: Yeah, we could save money.
Speaker 4: Well, we could see by not having anybody move in
Speaker 4: or out of DC. See, you save fuel, you save money.
Speaker 4: And you know what, you can tell these guys to
Speaker 4: stop wasting money on political ads that tell you that
Speaker 4: they're going to stand with the president, whatever that actually means,
Speaker 4: and maybe they will get some photo ops out of it.
Speaker 5: Why not go ahead?
Speaker 4: Good for the office wall, not really good for us though,
Speaker 4: you know, the people you're supposed to serve and represent
Speaker 4: allegedly and anyway, so Larry, yeah, that about does it
Speaker 4: for this. And I would say, you know, look, this
Speaker 4: is a unique discussion in that it was very clear
Speaker 4: and concise and it's not just a matter of political
Speaker 4: cheerleading or what you get on the Sunday shows. Does
Speaker 4: anybody even watch the Sunday shows anymore?
Speaker 5: I'm not sure.
Speaker 4: They just probably watched the clips, right, But either way,
Speaker 4: we don't even need it, because you got everything you
Speaker 4: need right here, and the reality of what's happening regarding
Speaker 4: the Eagle circumstance, the mutual protection agreements, and what the
Speaker 4: president is actually doing. I mean, geez, all they got
Speaker 4: to do really now is just fund it, Larry, And
Speaker 4: you know it's a rose by any other name is.
Speaker 5: A war still. I'll stick with that.
Speaker 4: So anyway, go to the links in the show description,
Speaker 4: go ahead and follow up. Larry Hancock's blog is well
Speaker 4: well underpriced for the admission, and it's free over there.
Speaker 5: You can read that. But I would definitely highly recommend.
Speaker 4: That you get all of Larry's books as well, and
Speaker 4: the Oswald Puzzle is now out in an updated version
Speaker 4: the paperback. I have one, and you should have one
Speaker 4: on your shelf too, as I have every one of
Speaker 4: Larry Hancock's books on my shelf.
Speaker 5: Right now as we speak. Actually, no, the Oswald Puzzle
Speaker 5: is not. I lied.
Speaker 4: The Oswald Puzzle is out here because I was reading
Speaker 4: over it recently before I talk to you and David.
Speaker 5: Anyway, with that, Larry, any final.
Speaker 6: Word, no, I think that'll do it for me.
Speaker 4: There you go, So once again, the great Larry Hancock
Speaker 4: on the show, and I appreciate you guys for listening.
Speaker 4: And you know, any contribution at Ochelly dot com this
Speaker 4: week will definitely get you an executive producer credit in
Speaker 4: the next week or so. Because here we are at
Speaker 4: the beginning of the month and we did survive all
Speaker 4: those other things. But I'm going to go to the
Speaker 4: flea market again, try and get that rolling. See what
Speaker 4: else we can do. But if you have the ability
Speaker 4: to be the effect, do it because I can use
Speaker 4: your help anyway. With all that in mind and all
Speaker 4: that said, no matter who you are, where you are,
Speaker 4: when you are, Yes, indeed I am here leo'celly, you
Speaker 4: are the effect, and I hope.
Speaker 5: That you are.
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Speaker 8: knew that there were short range missiles on the island
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