Speaker 1: I want to welcome everyone back to the Pekanana Show.
Thomas is right back. Two episodes in a row with Thomas.
We are blessed. How you doing, Thomas, I'm doing well,
Thank you.
Speaker 2: I'm glad. I'm glad people aren't suffering. Thomas Ordals I guess,
but yeah.
Speaker 1: I don't think that's possible. All right. So the last
time we recorded, you had mentioned what we were talking
about Russia. You had mentioned Russian Syrian relations and I'm
just obsessed with Syria, have been for a while now.
Speaker 2: Been.
Speaker 1: I got kicked off of podcast ones for saying that
Asad was probably one of the best leaders in the
world right now. And when you look at the post
the post Nuremberg order, these are two countries that you're
supposed to hate. So I have great interest in them,
and you have information on their relations since this sense
disorder kicked off, and I want to hear about that,
So start anywhere you want.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean there's two there's two variables that even
people who are generally dissident adjacent don't fully grasp regarding
the relationship between Russia and Syria. Syria's got outsized significance
for a small country, for a lot of reasons. Okay,
some of those are cultural, some of those are Jewish strategic,
you know, some of them oh to the kind of
peculiar circumstances that Syrian people, who are unique people. It's
not just some kind of euschauvinistic mythology that the Syrians
themselves you know promote, you know, they they view themselves.
They're very much the air the kind of like the
Hellenic tradition. You know. But when the case of the
Soviet Union and then Russia, you know, a major component
of the Cold War was the ability to index with
both developing societies as well as as well as well
established national cultures in a meaningful way. You were basically
like selling your culture, okay, and the case of the Russians,
stuff like this was deeply historical in a way. It
wasn't for America. I mean, for reasons that I think
are fairly obvious. You know, like what America had is
kind of its selling point, to be kind of basic
about it, you know, was a technology, a model for prosperity,
you know, an opportunity to kind of align oneself with
what appeared to be the sewer power that had kind
of like the momentum of history and and kind of
the glamour and prestige of of what is new behind it.
The Russians really, I mean, maybe this is somewhat ironic
considering the kind of dictates of Marxist Leninism. You know,
the Russians really kind of sold the Soviet Union, and
the Russians today kind of like sell their diplomacy in
terms of you know, like them representing a deep and
powerful heritage. Okay, And as I'm sure people have noticed,
there's been something of an orthodox resurgence which is really
interesting that very much owes kind of like United Russia
and not just putin himself. I don't think it's particularly religious,
but that it was very much to kind of the
you know, Russian public diplomacy. And I mean there's historical
and Zeitgeist variables obviously they facilitated, but you know, Syria
is very much part of that. Okay, you know, after
I'm jumping around a bit, but bear with me. I
cite nineteen ninety nine is the year when not only
did kind of the the neo conservative backs truly triumph
and foreign policy corridors, but that's also when the Bush
Baker concord that they established with Moscow, which is like
shattered for all time. And what shattered it was like
the unprovoked and like latantly irrational attack on Serbia, because
I mean Serbia, Serbia is the Russian Federation and like
the Russian nation, kind of what Croatias did Germany, but
even more like deeply felt because obviously, you know, there's
a there's a there's a sectarian homogeneity in among Russian
people that there's not as part of it, but you
know that when when NATO assaulted Serbia, it it was, uh,
it was like it was kind of like viewed as
like an assault and Byzantium itself. Okay. Now, Syria obviously
is very diverse in sectarian terms. However, there's a tremendous
amount of Orthodox artifacts of Orthodox lore in in Syria,
you know. And I believe, although cultural anthropologists or relisous
scholars will disagree on this somewhat, I believe that Alo
whites are are occulted Christians. Okay, even if they're not,
they're very much adjacent Oriental Christianity, which itself is a
very or indexes very tightly with Orthodoxy. Okay, So there's
something of a special relationship between Russia and Syria anyway,
and not to be I mean crash isn't the word,
like not to be like overly simplistic about it, or
not to like fetishize, you know, racial matters. But I
mean if you look at if you look at the
Syrian uh kind of like ruling cadre Alo white or Moslim.
I mean, these look like white people. Okay, that's not
like some that's not just like they're it's not that's
not Telemundo optics. That's not some accident. You know. Traditionally
everybody kind of viewed like the Levantine Arabs and especially
you know, like the Alo Whites and the Christians is
like basically like not a Western people, but like a
civilized people. So trying to cast the Syrians is like
a bunch of like Beto Win like salavies or something
is totally bizarre. Like that's that's like saying like the
Japanese or a bunch of like primitive like cave dwellers
or something like. It's really it's really really ignorant. But
it's also just like totally at odds with kind of
how how Near Eastern cultures sort of like index with
the West and with Russia, which isn't the West, but
which is you know, a powerful, a powerful cultural force
to this day, although obviously not not I know, the
same degree as as kind of anglophone societies and mores
have have formative power. But there's a lot here. And
if you want to, like, if you want to understand,
like why the Syrian War also like Syrian Civil War
like cut so deep in the minds of Zionis, Like
Russia has been at war with Israel for decades, like intermittently, okay,
And a lot of that derives from Israel's ongoing conflict
with Syria. You know, as we get into like Russian
forces literally went into action against the IDF. There was
a huge dog fight over the Suez Canal between Soviet
MiGs and like Israeli F four's and Mirage fighters. I'm
talking like the largest like Ariel and like larger than
anything happened over Vietnam. This was like a general war
between the Soviet Union and Israel. Okay, this is why
the nineteen seventy three crisis was so dangerous, you know,
Like I'm always saying, that's what the Nixon quotes from
the Nickson tapes where he says, like, you know, we
can't blow up the damn world for these people, like
these people meaning the Israelis, that's what he's talking about. Okay,
it wasn't just an ordinary matter of coldor proxy battle
that kind of got out of control. You know. I
think we should get a little bit into like Jewish
Russian relations it just to kind of recap. If that's
not gonna derail the conversation too much. This might have
to be like a two part thing. If that's agreeable,
no problem at all, Okay. And I know that we've
dealt somewhat with so Jewish relations before. But let me
give like a brief, like a little background, Okay, and
stop me if I'm I'm kind of becoming too tangential,
like for context. By the turn of the twentieth century,
like by nineteen hundred, the majority of European Jewry, like
as we've think of it were, like lived in the
Russian Empire. There was about eight eight point between eight
point five and eight point seven million, like European Jews.
Over five million of those people lived in the Russian Empire.
They constant do about four percent of the total population
of the Russian Empire, and about ninety percent of that
population they lived in the pale of settlement, you know,
to which they were. They were largely restricted there, you know,
like going to owing to both law and custom. Okay,
like we got the uh and all, but about like
three to five percent. I've heard varying statistics. I rely
on Hannah or Rent for a lot of this because
I I don't think people can I mean, people try
to impeach her credibility all the time, but like serious
people don't, you know, really attempt to suggest that she's
not a wasn't a credible scholar, but basic but close
to close to ninety seven percent of these these Jewish
people in the palest settlement or or it works as
like middlemen of a sort, okay, in commodities, you know,
like uh, it was like literally like the converse, like
this funny converse of of uh, like the Russian Orthodox
peasant population where like the lot majority of them were farmers,
you know, like virtually virtually no, virtually none of the
people in the Pale settlement were farmers or factory workers.
The primary role of these Pale settlement Jews, you know,
they bought, shipped, resold local produce. You know, they provided
uh commodities on credit to provide a kind of a
basic uh like security to to the standing crops, as
well as you know, like more and more speculative endeavors
they're involved in in in a state management, you know,
and and and leasing. You know, they held the deed
or the title to a lot of productive capital, you know, tanneries, distilleries,
like sugar mills, like graneries, and like taverns and inns,
which the latter were like heavily indexed with the government
because there was the government had and a lot of
these Eastern European kingdoms and states like a monopoly on
liquor production and things. I mean, it's complicated, but you know, uh,
they were disproportioning represented in the in professional services, namely
as doctors and pharmacists, which obviously had you know, some
prestige behind it. I mean it's like today it doesn't really,
but in those days it really did, you know, And
there was a this became an issue during the Second
World War as like ethnic cleansing began in earnest I
mean between various populations. But there's a lot of Jewish artisans,
you know, like Taylor's shoemakers, guys who understood like medals,
how to work medals, you know, specialized jewelers and watchmakers.
These guys are overwhelmingly Jewish, and and especially in rural environments.
You know, I think we got into before two. These people,
the Russian Jews and the and the and the Russian peasantry.
They lived in absolutely segregated quarters. Like the Jews spoke Yiddish.
You know, they woren't distinctive clothes. They observed, you know,
a dietary regiment totally different than the majority. They practiced
a rigid kind of endogamy. You know, they only married
within the tribe. You know, they basically like every aspect
of kind of like their cultural learning was oriented towards like, uh,
the preservation of a collective memory, which was contra that
and the majority. Okay, you know they the centers of
communal life obviously were you know, like the synagogue. You know,
like in Russian culture, like there's like going to like
the bathhouse or sona is a big thing. There was
like Jewish saunas and like you know Russian ones. You know,
these these people that were not like assimilated into like
Russian society. And it wasn't just like because they desperately
wanted to be but like Russians were racist or something
like these like these people literally lived like parallel but
not intersecting lives and like the Russians themselves, like they
viewed Jews as like this kind of the did the
culture is bizarre and opaque. They viewed it as as
uh as hostile to the Christ. They viewed it as
like unclean, like literally and like ritually like other you know,
those were three people, you know, so basically these people
on the cross paths in the course of business, which
was sometimes basically amiable, sometimes pretty hostile, and occasionally you know,
they they'd run across each other, and you know, because
they they both had to deal with the same you know,
state bureaucracies to which one of the other population was
you know, like heavily represented, depending on mandate and locale
and stuff, you know, and I mean like not non
Jews didn't even most it was very other than scholars,
you know, and and linguists, like almost no Russians even
understoody Ish, you know. And this went beyond just Russia,
like in in Ukraine and Lithuania, Lafia and Moldova and Belarus,
like we're like, what's now Poland, Like these these these
pale settlement people and the people outside the pale settlement, nonetheless,
who were like you know, heavily indexed into that cultural milu,
like they didn't a lot of them didn't even speak
like the national language what we think of as the
national language. You know. It's so there you're you're talking
about you're talking about like an enforced alienation, okay, coming
from you know, Russian jewelry itself. I don't mean that
like the Tsarist system was like we must exclude these
people at all costs. Like, don't get me wrong, there
was definitely like reciprocal enmity, you know. But it's but
people gotta understand. It's like you read you read these
like dummy accounts where it's like, oh, there was you know,
Russian and Polish Jews were just like everybody else. But
then there was this prejudice that came out in the
twentieth century that's totally completely acidine. It was nothing like that.
You know, you could make the case in Berlin, which
might as well have been a different planet, you know
than the Russian Empire. Especially and it's kind of rural
geographic corridors. You had Jewish Berliners who basically like looked
askance at kind of like there the ostudent their their
ostudent brethren. You know, they they spoke German. You know,
they even if they didn't particularly want to mix or
integrate with German people, you know, they they kept up appearances.
You know, it was totally different. You can't extrapolate that
experience or or the experience like Parisan Jews to that
of to there the East. You know, like I'm not
saying there weren't like enmities in in the case of
the former that sort of dictated the terms of cultural interaction,
but it was it was not remotely comparable. It's like
I want to move, I want to jump ahead a bit,
you know. So that's this kind of like laid so
this is the context, understand you know, like the the
the Russian national culture and the place of like Jews
in it now obviously like the Bolshevik Revolution. You know,
it's kind of mac Donald. He coded a lot of
data and he wrote a lot about you know, the
outsized role that the outsize role that Russian Jewish people
played in in the NKVD and the terror apparatus and
things like that. You know that that's all true, okay.
And then of course, you know we've talked about you know,
Yaqui's view of the Doctor's plot in what was then
Czechoslovakia and the kind of purging of these elements from
the nomenclatura. I don't want to rehash all of that
because it's kind of too outside the scope. But the
point is when people today talk about it like, oh, Russia,
Russia is zog quote unquote zog or like Russia is
this you know vis a the you know, the the
Jewish diaspra or Israel. You're talking about like deep seated
hatred and animosity, like real hatred. You know, the fact
that like Theians don't like as that punch the air
and like openly curse you Da every morning. But the
fact that like Putin doesn't go on TV and like
declare that like you know, I deny the Holocaust, and
the fact that you know, Netanya who doesn't say inflammatory
things about the Russians publicly, like that means absolutely nothing.
Like first of all, I mean, if you don't understand politics,
if you think it's about you know, wearing your actual
feelings on your sleeve. You don't understand diplomacy, even at war,
especially at war if you think that does as characteristic
about enemies relate. But anybody would say that, you know,
like Moscow is something like love for jewelry is an idiot? Okay,
I mean that's not This is a very very very
hostile and tragic history. You know, so jumping forward as
people know, you know, Stalin, who is the constant machiavellian.
Stalin played cards pretty close to his chest when like
the uh when you know, during the when when Israel
like you know, from nineteen forty seven to forty nine
basically you know, like when when when Israel is a
Jewish state it was being established. He did it for
a couple of reasons. First of all, because elements like
Ergun you know, and Hagan and whatever we're like get
war with the British Empire would remained like the falling
British Empire, and Stalin obviously like supported that. But Stalin
also like he wasn't clear like what kind of trajectory
Israeli politic from take like very quickly, you know, the
Soviets like dropped and you know, all appearance of good
offices with Israel whenever game clear that this was you know,
the the that it was basically you know, a state
that represented kind of like the express political will of
like radicals and and and highly racializion is and it
was it was just like it was totally off the
table for like the Soviets to get behind Israel. And
really by after the Suez Canal crisis, like like Israel,
like Palestine became like literally kind of like other than
other than Europe Central. It became kind of like the
conflict diet of the Cold War, okay, and the Soviet
Union literally went to war with Israel. And the key
to this, you know, hostilities in absolute earnest really emerge
in conventional terms, and the immediate aftermath of the Sixth
Day War in ninety sixty seven, this kicked off what
was called by the Kremlin as well as as well
as by Nasaar's people the Continuity War. It translates Rolphick
to the Continuity War. It so between nineteen sixty seven
and seventy three, the story is not only it took
a massive reireament and retraining program of the of Egyptian forces.
They actually started trying to prop up Egypt when well
the sixty were was still in progress. But regular Soviet troops,
I'm not talking advisors, I'm talking the Red Army. They
took up infantry positions opposite Israeli forces to hold the
Suez Canal line at all costs. There was there was
Soviets who were manning the anti aircraft defenses around Cairo.
There was a there there were Soviet advisors who were
like leading company level elements of Egyptians against the IDEF.
You know, Like again, this isn't speculation or or or
something or something that was like you know, filtered out
of some like CIA memo that may or may not
have been an accurate reading of the the battle space.
This is this is this, This happened, This is documented,
something that became a grave concern to Kissinger himself as
well as uh people at Defense Intelligence as well as
the Pentagon. There was uh this So there was a
massive deployment of of integral Soviet combat units the Egypt
in response to what Israel called depth bombing in the
Egyptian hinterland. Like like basically this this this, this is
this is a campaign of strategic bombing of basically like
any like any target that uh it could remotely be
construed like infrastructural okay, like they're basically trying to flatten
Egypt and and you know, like and that and bombed
back to the Stone Age as it were. Okay, Naser
visited Moscow secretly on grounds of you know, legitimate urgency,
and this accelerated, this rapidly accelerated implementation basically NASA for
a head of state, especially in those days when I
mean this is obviously like well into like the jet
commercial travel era, but for the chief executive of a
nation at war to travel to Moscow and say, like
we're getting killed like a help, I mean, that's that's
that's crazy. Okay. So from that point forward until the
conclusion of the seventy three war, like basically the Soviets
took over uh like operational authority, like on the Egyptian front,
the Soviet expeditionary force that showed up in Egypt. It
was the most advanced element. They had some of these
uh like service their missile systems they were using. They
weren't even sending these to North Vietnam. This is like
still a spiritmental They were sending like their best man,
their best material, their best hardware the Egypt to fight
the idea, you know, and contra of what Israeli propaganda
was at the time, I think not. I think this
wasn't just capped kind of like both to the perception
of IDFs aptitude, but it was also kind of like
a suage American anxieties, which at that point were at
a fever pitch. You know. These Raelis claimed that by
the time the ceasefire in August nineteen seventy, there was
like this tascit ceasefire with Egypt. They claimed that like, well,
you know, there's this to like our victory over Soviet
and Egyptian forces and such, and it's only like a
you know, it's only like a skeleton crew or kind
of like a token detachment of of of Warsaw Pact
forces on the ground in Egypt. Like that that was complete,
that that was completely at odds with reality the uh
and and also too, I mean, if you're fighting if
the Soviets, and I mean today with far lesser degree,
but I think the point still stands in some capacities
saying that like the Soviets saying that Russians can't stand
the attrition you're implementing. I mean, that's that's ridiculous. I Mean,
the one thing is Russian whatever their problems, and I
don't have any illusions about the problems Russians had the
Russian Federation and Russians historically have in in military operations. Uh, Like,
suggesting they can't handle attrition is I mean, it's kind
of like laughable. I mean, that's like the one thing
they can absolutely handle. So there's so this uh kind
of bizarre uh state of things like set in. We're
on the one hand, on you know, there was a
there was this, there was kind of like this the
like the official party line in Washington was that this
wasn't a meaningful deployment by the Soviet Union, although the
theater remains critical. You know, you had the actual Soviet
army on the ground like fighting IDF in nineteen seventy two.
And part of this, I believe was NASA's alleged Maine
and and and and and then and Naster's successors alledgered
Maine because like periodically this was declared nineteen seventy two,
there was a quote nquote rift between Cairo and Moscow
whereby Soviet advisors were supposedly like expelled from Cairo. Meanwhile,
like the Soviet army again is fully indexed at you know,
in the command and commanding control capacity on you know what,
on the on the Egyptian front contra I d F
and they're like waging active war and you know this,
So this was uh that, this was murky as anything
was during the Cold War. But that's like the standard
rebuttal people have is like, oh but what about what
about the you know, the expulsion of Soviet advisors? But
it's like, okay, it also bigs the questions like why
this would be some public schism, you know, I mean
it's not That's not the way the Communists did things.
That's certainly not the way the Russians do things, and
that's certainly not the way Nasaites Egypt did things. There
were tensions between Moscow and Cairo leading up to the
seventy three war, but I mean literally on the October
sixth offensive and in concert with uh, with with with Syria,
this was literally planned on the Arab's side by bye,
by Soviet command elements, you know. So I mean like
if if there was this like a rift whereby like
Soviet advisors or something like banished from Cairo. It's like, well,
I mean apparently they were. They remained, you know, like
prop practical purposes, like the war planners in Cairo. But
the U there's a guy named Victor Kayak and he
was a he was a KGB type who in a
ninety two back when a lot of these security apparatus
types on the Formeries block. I mean they were both
substantially younger then a lot more than we're alive. But
also there was it was a rare brought nineteen ninety
one to like nineteen ninety six, there was a rare
kind of candor that these guys were prone to and
in terms of discussing cooler operations. But and Kayak and said, uh,
you know it was the KGB like US, US made
the kgby quote, the KGB persuaded President Nashoul to wage
the war of attrition to the bitter end. You know,
Naster may not, Naser may not trusted the KGB entirely,
but he did ask for help, and US, the KGB,
the best friend of oppress nations, did help and military
gear when it became clear there it's gonna do it
on the own by sending in our own forces. That's
a quote from Kayagin. Okay, now the actual more matrician
I will bring it back to Syria, I promise. From
seventy this involved fighting between not just the idea, the
idea f on one side, and not just Egypt but
also Jordan, the PLO Kuwait and really kind of the
what I think of it is like the step punk
the USSR, the Cubans as well as Syria, all right,
from sixty seven to seventy is kind of the peak
of this conflict cycle, you know, and then did it
endure the varying intensities until seventy three, and then seventy
three led to you know, the escalation to the point
of of of Defcon three in America and that that
changed everything. But that's that that's kind of ahead of ourselves.
Following the sixty seven sixty war, there was no serious
diplomatic efforts the for for a political solution to the
Arab Israeli conflict like the Arab League in sixty seven.
I mean, in the media aftermath there possibly became known
as the three no's, you know, no no recognition, no
negotiations with Israel, and like no peace until Palestine is liberated, okay.
And the Soviets basically they're the ones who, like, uh,
who made this possible. They made the confidence the side
on for the the several you know, for the Arab
League plus some of these non state actors to sign
off on a long campaign all right, initially as it's
kind of the the traditional Russian doctrine it like in
in the opening cells, as it were, of this kind
of period and hostilities engagement form like limited artillery doables
like small scale incursions from sign into Sinai and vice versa.
By sixty nine, the Egyptians, uh or at least or
at least there's Soviet advisors and commanders judged the judge
like company size and forces level, company sized forces and beyond,
like they judged them like prepared for like a higher
level of operational sophistication. Okay, because it's kind of when
like the true like war of attrition kicked off. I
think in like the public mind in terms of people
who consumed like global news and things, as well as
people kind of on the periphery of of military affairs,
you know, extensive aerial warfare like large scale shelling, you know,
like commando raids, like you know, combined arms assaults the frontiers.
I mean the same as when the war began, but
this you're talking about like real clashes of combined arms here, okay.
The Israeli Air Force responded by directly targeting Soviet military personnel.
From January to March in nineteen seventy forty eight Soviet
troops and pilots were killed in bombing raids at Cairo.
And then this there's a suburb of Cairo called that Sure,
this was uh, this is where most like Soviet fighter
pilots like lived. Okay. The Soviets responded, which was in
flagrant violation international agreements. They deployed S one service their
missile system to the Sewiz Canal zone like they were
fortifying the Suiz Canal zone like a smaller scale like
as deep as Hannoi was, okay, And this led to
like heavy attrition. This this culminated in a massive dog
flight over a This is the this the operation was
coding ramone twenty by the Israeli Air Force. There was
twelve to fourteen Soviet Mid twenty ones and twelve Israeli
Mirage threes and F four phantom twos. They it was
like I said, it was this massive dog flight in
the Suez Canal operational area, like five Soviet aircraft went down.
At least four of those pilots were killed. Israeli attrition
it's hard to say. I mean, the Soviets claimed it
was like far higher than it was. The Israelis claimed
like minimal attrition, but it was probably uncomparable. But the
entire purpose of this, by idea app was the lowreer
Soviet fighter pilots into in the in the air at
air combat so that they could be taken out because
I mean, it's cast you will like kill fighter pilots,
you know, I mean obviously you know. And but this
is for that for the people who claim it's like
euphemistic that you know, the Soviets right war with Israel.
I mean this this is my rebuttal okay, I'm in
a serious people don't don't claim that the uh in
it's aftermath like varying sources like some people, I mean,
and I'm talking objective people, not not just Zionis shields
or something like some people claim that like well Israel
was stood Soviet combined arms and you know they were
able to fight off. Uh, you know, they they're able
to fight in ways that here there too they hadn't
been comfortable with, or that hitherto had been an alien
type of warfare. I mean, I don't I don't know
any think that's true. I mean, I think the Soviets
brought brought they brought a quality of hardware and manpower
and operational sophistication to the table. Obviously, but the idea
was used to fighting Arab armies that had real problems
but were basically following warsaw peg doctrine. You know. The
American claim was that well, Israel successful and continuing to
hold the main line of resistance, which was the Barrow
called the bar Level line, and forcing the Egyptians ultimately
to come to the table. But uh, you know eventually,
I mean, but the but the consensus really on both
sides of the Aisle was that this this really kind
of sapped Israeli morale, you know, and this this really
this culminated really in the seventy three warrants conclusion. I mean,
is Israel had some big victories in seventy three, but
they also took some big hits. You know, this wasn't
people kind of trying to cast Israeli history as like
the Sixth Day War into perpetuity, like oh, these really
armies just top notch and they just over all their
ops Like that's not true, you know. And admittedly, like
if you're fighting the Soviet army and what was then
you know they're cutting edge wartech, like it's not a
minor thing, Like I'm not even saying that, like there's
some like shame in it, you know, it's.
Speaker 3: I U.
Speaker 2: Interestingly, there's a couple. There's a guy and a lady
there Israeli military type academics. The guy's name is Gideon
ramez Lay. His name is Isabella Jenor or Ginnor. They've
written a lot on Soviet Israeli hostilities. And obviously, like
I said, these people are both like Israeli Jews, They're not.
They're certainly not you know, people gonna be said to
have a poor review of the zigon of state. They
they both consider the war have been like a defeat
for israel I mean Israel. Their argument is Israel is
forced to accept the ceasefire and and basically a change
like a change in uh kind of like the criteria
for peace on the Israeli side and just like a
holy and just and and they you know, just completely
a complete sea change in the tenor of negotiations. But
so Soviet air defenses were dropping it for fantoms out
of the sky at an unsustainable rate. The Soviets and
the Egyptians proved they they blatantly violate not just proceeding
uh you know, ceasefire and treaty arrangements in the theater.
But they they didn't care a whit about you know,
deploying you know, banned weapons systems to the region. You know,
they they were in it to win it. You know
ramone twenty, this aerial operation that you know was purposed
to zapp the Soviet Air Force tactically. Yeah, that that
that was Ah, that that was a victory. But I
think that as part of the whole paradigm, like that
allowed the Israelis to kind of accept what there toofore
would have been not acceptable to design as hardliners, but
will also saving face. You know, hey, look like we
we defeated the mighty Soviet Air Force. You know, we
we can't we can't be said to have have lost.
So I mean it's complicated, Okay, but like my point
is that like Israel's fortunes were literally decided by the
Soviet Union, you know, in the Continuity War then in
seventy three, you know, so this, I I mean, there's
two things here. So I mean this, this is demonstrative
of how heavily the Soviet Union and Russia wasn't as
like politically invested in Arab fortunes and specifically Syrian ones.
But it's also like you think, you think the Israelis
have like good feelings towards Russia. I mean really, I
mean it's you know, it's propossible. Is closer to this
The main subject at hand, what uh halfes As Sad
was doing during this period. Hafesa Sad himself was a
MiG driver, he was a fighter pilot. In nineteen seventy one,
as a Syrian bath was kind of consolidating its hold,
like serious Syrian politics. We were very byzantine and and
and a lot of a lot of backstabbing, a lot
of corruption, things like this. Not quite as bad as
as the Iraqi situation has developed about a decade later,
but it was very chaotic asades A Sad. Really, it's
kind of like the father of modern serious political culture. Okay,
but that's kind of a subject for another day. But
in nineteen seventy one, Halfes as sad than the Soviet Union.
He permitted the Soviet Union to open its naval and
Tartis and then that the so the Russians community, you
utilize this this base. To this day Tartis is the
sole Mediterranean naval base for the Black Sea Fleet of
the Russian Navy. Okay, this was this is a big deal,
not just in not not just in like you know,
strategic terms, but uh it it it demonstrates like a
willingness of uh the Russians the sign on for the
long term on on on what am also like a
mutual defense treaty. So they've really got like absolute confidence
and like the tenure the perennial tenure of of the
regime currently situated in Damascus, or they're absolutely not gonna
let that regime fall. Okay. Like the Tartars treaty for example,
it runs, it ran it uh. It was set to
run for twenty years with automatic five year extensions unless
the unilateral unilaterally terminated I mean at uh and immediately
immediately after the fall of the Soviet Union, officially like
a fesisade recognized the Russian Federation as the legal successor
to the USSR and you know, retaining all basing rights
and everything else. Okay. During the seventy three war obviously,
which was kind of like Syria's moment in the sun,
because they proved themselves, you know, that they could think
they could function at a high level of operational sophistication.
Thousands of Soviet advisors, technicians, officers like combat officers assisted
the Syrian Arab Army. At least twenty were killed in action.
Almost three fifty funds of aid was airlifted to Syria.
They seelifted at the at the conclusion no hostilities, the
Sovietians sealifted over sixty thousand tons materials UH to Syria
to replenished losses, you know, like infrastructural military, you know,
like food stuffs like you name it. The one, uh,
the one kind of blip in Soviet or Russian Syrian
relations came in seventy six. The Soviets were just pleased
when ASAD deployed the Syrian Air of Army to Lebanon
and something of a diplomatic rift emerged. The Soviets were
really worried about a confrontation between the PLO and the
Syrian Era of Army, and for good reason, like they
were very much at odds. You know, both of them were
Moscow clients. This would have this could have been catastrophic
in terms of broader interests held by Moscow in the
Near East, and like taking sides in the sectarian war
between Arab factions. I mean, that's that's always going to
be a losing proposition. The UH. Brezhnev went as far
as UH threatening the threatened to freeze UH military aid shipments.
This ultimately was like smoothed over like a fence visited
at Moscow in nineteen seventy seven, like much fan fear.
He met with Brezhnev and Alexei Cossagen among others, or Cossagan,
you know, the UH Assade openly endorsed and supported one
hundred percent the the the the Soviet attack in Afghanistan,
which distanced them from basically every other Arab leader. But
I mean he didn't care like Assad's assad the message,
like he stands with Russia. So I mean the final
kind of if there was in fact, like a rift
that still need a remedy by Christmas nineteen seventy nine.
Like that. What sealed that, like Russian Syrian kind of
like the affinity for all time was the fact that
Asad said, like, you know, we stand, we stand with
the Soviet Union like against its enemies in Afghanistan, you know,
which was incredibly ballsy among other things, and it was
the right play for Asad, but it was very ballsy.
I covered nineteen eighty uh, Syria, the Soviet Union side,
the Treaty of friendship really until until it all went
down in eighty nine. You know, Uh, Syria, South Yemen
was the only Marxist Leninist Arab state, but Syria was
that even though Syria was not a Communist state at all,
like they were the jewel in the Crown, a warsaw
packed in terms of their in terms of era of
affairs and in the Middle Eastern theater. This uh. Gorbachev
scaled this back in April eighty seven, but once uh,
but again like within after after. I mean your Russia
was a mess like post Gorbachev, but the the any
uh any unwillingness other other newly m a stale in
Russian Federation, the back a sade like evaporated with you know,
the end of Gorbachev's tenure that uh interestingly he met Videv.
He was the first run He was the first Russian
president to visit Syria, like uh Putin visited Syria. I
believe he was on the ground for the there's two
parades or on me a condor a legion honestly, like
the the Russian UH military contingent, you know, marched in
Damascus after UH after victory, and I think, uh, I
can't remember if Pudin was made a state visit there
or not, but point being, maybe it was the first
leader of the Russian Federation to visit Syria. Jumping ahead
closer to the present for context, you know that this
is exactly why Syria was targeted for destruction in tart
okayd joined Boshwiti was golf or coalition which was instrumental,
you know, and the Syrians deployed to fight uh Saiddam.
You know, like any anybody remotely reasonable would view assad
As as like you know, somebody who the West wants
on their side. But of course you know he was it. Uh.
There's no like strategic logic to trying to destroy Syria
and utilizing you know, terrorists and ISIS and and these
tech theory lunatics, as is a deadnaz strategy. At the
onset of the Russian intervention in Syria government forces, they
controlled only about twenty six percent of the country. You know,
they're truly beleaguered. The UH. You know, Russia was fighting
the Islamic State, they were fighting the el news for affront,
which is basically al Qaeda. These the guys, like John
McCain said, are like are great guys and are like,
you know, fighting for democracy. He was talking about al Qaeda,
John McKay wine. He said, we need to support al
Qaeda to murder the Asad family. And I guess everybody
else who like al Qaeda doesn't like, you know, great
guy Thatjohn McCain. The UH. Putin and I mean for context,
I mean Putin is constantly cautious, as I think people know,
which is ironic that he's painted as this like mad,
reckless mad man, like he's you know, he really it
really uh disturviced uh to the Russian State that he's
he's he's pissed poor at at decision points. I think, Okay,
so it's not that he's prone to ultimatums. It's not
he's prone to absolute declaration of the matters of war
in peace. But uh, Putin said that the you know,
the Bath regime is absolutely not going to be allowed
to fall, you know, And he said, we don't negotiate
with terrorists. Neither does not neither does you know, President Asad?
And I mean that was the core of the issue too,
Like there was still it was on a tail end
of such things. There was still an America supposedly fighting
the global war on terror. I remember like a Bath
Party spokeswoman who I can't remember her name, which she
was got of this like severe Arab lady of whom
there are many, but uh, she was addressing some British
media contingent and she said, like, we don't negotiate with terrorists.
We're not We're not gonna let We're not gonna let
al Kaita. We're not gonna let Isis. We're not gonna
let some constellation of of jahadas, you know, forced us
to change the government by murdering people, you know. And
I mean there was this they're just kind of like
dummy silence by these media people. Then you know, when
they're like the great chorus of talking about like how
evil Lacade is. But I mean that's really this to
me is really this is when America lost all credibility
in foreign policy. You know, you're like you're literally saying
that you're you're arming and equipping al Qaeda to destroy
a secular regime led by a guy who's an eye
doctor who was raised in London. You know, like it's
I mean, that's it's not this isn't even like a
you can't even raginalize. They hadn't under you know, some
kind of appeal in Machiavellian necessity. It's just like it's
just bizarre. It's it's just like it's just like a
bizarre uh scorched earth position, you know, uh that only
makes sense designs, you know. Yeah.
Speaker 1: A buddy of mine, a buddy of mine used to say,
how do you make excuses for what? Trying to kill
somebody who wakes up and shaves his chin every day?
Speaker 3: That's like it's interestingly back with CNN. I mean, CNN
was always they always had some goofs on their staff,
but they, you know, I'm talking like thirty years ago,
they were like they were like a normal news network.
You know, like they had they had goops like Peter Arnett,
but like there was this they did this big interview
with a Fez Astad who people viewed as a compelling guy,
you know, and he kind of came to dominance, oh
to the Gulf or coalition, you know, and uh, people
seemed grateful for that, you know, and I'm sure like
Baker State Department was. But it's like if you you
know his like we paid back the Asad family by
arming al Qaeda and like calling for you know, Bishah
Asad his family to be murdered. I mean, like like
who does that? You know, Like you can't there's no percentage.
And uh, you know if you if you lay down
with pigs, you're gonna get dirty, you know. And not
not only gonna get dirty by dealing with America, but
they'll they're gonna try and like arbitrarily murder you at
some point, you know what I mean, Like this isn't
that it's aside from like the naked irrationality of it.
I mean, you you can't conduct politics that way.
Speaker 2: You know. I mean that's uh, that's like trying to
that that's like trying to go into business with Jeffrey
Dahmer or something you know, like uh, some some unhit
like a Mary is literally like it's a second unhinde
psychopath that might like randomly trying to murder you, like
you know, but you're supposed to They're supposed to be
something percentage and playing ball with with the with its ambitions.
But we should probably wrap it up because I'm coming
up on an hour and my our dear friend, uh
Jay Burden, I gotta he's hosting me in a minute
on his show. But I'm started to break this up
into two segments if that's not what you had planned.
But there's a lot here. Is that cool?
Speaker 1: Absolutely?
Speaker 2: All right? Yeah? Yeah, let me know when you want
to complete part two and we'll get it done.
Speaker 1: Sure as per normal. Two plugs.
Speaker 2: Yeah, man, for those who don't know, I'm sure everybody
probably does know already. Like I'm back on Twitter. It's
like the same account. It's at Capital r e a
L underscore number seven h on as seven seven seven.
I'm on substack real Thomas seven seven seven at subsec
dot com. I'm on Instagram, I I'm on I'm on Telegram,
I'm I got a website. It's number seven hm S
seven seven seven dot com like finding all those places,
and I got like a merse line that people seem
to like, and I'm very honored by that. Put they
put that in the description line. If you would please.
Speaker 1: Always yeah, some good Eric Craig does some good, good works.
Speaker 2: The man I really owe him a lot, Like he's
a great I mean, he's like he's just a good dude,
but his designs are really a really tremendous man. Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 1: All right, Thomas, thank you very much. I want to
welcome everyone back to the Peca Show. Thomas is back
for more Syria and Russia talk. How are you doing, Thomas, I'm.
Speaker 2: Well, thank you. I'm not It's been a minute since
we recorded. So if I'm repeating myself, please correct me,
because I can't remember exactly where I left off. I
think I think we left off approximately where I was
talking about some of the more recent scholarship on the
nineteen seventy three war.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's it. That's exactly where it was.
Speaker 2: Yeah, which has something of an outside significance. It's warranted.
I don't I don't mean outsized in the sense that
it's emphasized on duly that really changed the regional security
paradigm in the near ease, exposed a lot of idea
of weaknesses. I mean, don't get me wrong, ideaf on
the Egyptian front, they performed exceedingly well. The Syrians, however,
caught them lacking in some key capacities, you know, and
one of the reasons why Israel is so fixated on Iran. Admittedly,
then Yah was very clumsy in the way he articulates propaganda.
I mean that that's just a fact that I don't
think that can be denied. Ariel Sharon didn't have a
lot of finesse, but Sharon was something of a military
prodigy at these comparative terms. And obviously then Yah, who
doesn't possess that skill set. However, the his blass Syria,
the Syrian ara of army, you know, and in the
art forms of the Russian Federation. You've kind of got
to look at all those actors. It's kind of operationally integrated.
You know, there's nothing conspiratorial there. I mean, these are
these are israel primary ops, okay, And you know, like
we've talked about before, and anybody who is it all
knowledgeable about the conflict paradigm dynamics understands that Israel and
NATO to varying degrees back you know, these Salafi elements. Okay,
that's something of a detonation strategy, you know, because they
identify their their primary ops is is Syria hissbil uh
you know hasibial a slash Iran, I mean in all
but name his as kind of the Iranian foreign legion,
and the Russian Federation is part of that is like
an essential part of the constellation. And this goes way back.
And that's ket understanding the state of war and peace
in and occupied Palestine, and and and and with respect
to the Jewish state, they saidly so they I mean,
Israel essentially has two problems. They've got this internal crisis,
demographic crisis relating to the fact that Israel is a
racial state, you know, and they've got this unmanageable majoritarian population.
It's like super majoritarian population. You know, it's not their
strategic situation is not unlike they're the Republic of South
Africa around the time of Bota, you know, when the
when the kind of permanent emergency set in. You know,
I mean, I'm not I'm not comparing Israel to the
Boer Republic at all, unlike cultural or ideological or ethical
terms or anything like that. But in terms of the
military situation, there's a parallel, you know. And so they've
got this internal, this ongoing internal emergency. They've also got
this geostrategic problem, you know, with respect to what they
call the Shia Crescent, which I mean, she are obviously
very much the minority in darl Islam, but there's there's
a critical kind of like the Shia heartland, you know,
is is I ran in Iraq obviously, and it cuts
across the region in the Webanon, you know, So it
there's a that's that's a very dawn thing. That's a
very daunting arrangement, you know, in a general war. It's
a discussion of another time. But it kind of begs
the question like why exactly Israel maintains nuclear arms. You know,
some people argued it was a prestige and cloud move
during the Cold War. Being Prebaal, he basically suggests it's
like a Samson options sort of thing, whereby people wouldn't
let Tel Aviv fall because there'd be this uncertainty relating
to what they would do with these weapons of mass destruction.
I think that's a bit too imprecise, Like it's not
really a military imperative. That doesn't mean it's impossible. And
Israel is kind of strange in the way they approached
things because they're a totally abnormal state, invokes novelty a
lot and discussions of you know, dialectical processes and things,
and but he was he was kind of reluctant during
the Cold War to like diagnose, like then current strategic matters.
But the exception was kind of the case of Israel,
and he made the point that you know, Israel is
not really Israel's not an anachronism in the way some
people on the left would talk about it and still
do to some degrees. It's not like it's not like
it's a retrograde state like colonial power or something, despite
you know, a lot of the a lot of the
propaganda in the era of that effect that it derived
from the same kind of like dialectical process and like
causal nexus sociologically, historically, ideologically speaking, is the Third Reich
in the Soviet Union, Like that's why it's so strange.
I mean, obviously, Department of State, in the executive branch,
they're constantly claiming it's a liberal democracy, because I mean
that that's just a floating signifier that's suggests moral approval.
But even even where that not the case, it would
be difficult to describe what exactly Israel is, you know,
it just would be because it's it's it's not just
an outlier like North Korea is owing to its to
a strategic situation. And it's not like one of these
emirates or one of these small countries or constellation of
a sovereignties that you know, like rolled by a monarch
or something. It's it's something totally different than that, and
it very much belongs to the twentieth century, the twentieth
century dialectic. But anyway, kind of bring it back. The
consensus these days is essentially that the seventy three war
was a stalemate. Okay. David A. Korn he was a
diplomat back when Department of State was still a trithin
quality people. And he's he's written a lot, he's contributed
to a lot of articles, especially to publications like Foreign Affairs,
you know, things like that. He served he served for
some time until eve as it's called the political officer
and Hansho what's called the political section. That's kind of
like a halfway. If you're in that role, you're kind
of halfway between an intelligence officer and a diplomat, you know.
I mean, everybody who's assigned to a diplomatic posting is
in some ways an intelligence representative under light diplomatic cover,
and everybody knows that. But guys like Coren they deal
more in diagnostic analysis and things, and they're then they're
not just going to cocktail parties and and kind of
trying to dominate, you know, palace intrigues and things that
determine what the true seat of power is. You know,
they they've got a more they got more serious roles
in that. And he made the point pretty consistently that
one of the reasons why the paradigm is so volatile
Israel contra the that Shia Crescent, the states that constitute
that you a strategic concept. One of the reasons that's
so volatile is because you know, there was the outcome
was it's not now it was a no clear victor
on the Syrian front. Is the outcome is poorly understood,
you know, especially in Israel. It was retrospectively deemed a
success because there was some big there, there's some there's
some major kills scored by the idea AP in some
cases where they were pretty seriously outnumbered, like combined arms.
But the fact that they kind of convinced themselves of this,
they led to a false sense of security, especially on
the political side of things. The military IDEAF whatever it's problems,
it's it's military is pretty serious because they have to
be to sustain the status quo, you know, and as
people on the left, they don't so much anymore because
the intellectual left is kind of dead. But during the
Cold War and even beyond the event into the nineties,
they make the point that IDF is I mean, yeah,
they've got a National service law in place. You know,
it's like young people get drafted, but generally they get
drafted into support roles like you're talking about like special operations,
capable elements and like infantry elements. You basically have to
sign up for that, and the guys who do, they're
going to be pretty racialized in the first place. That's
why they want to do that kind of work. And
even if they weren't before, it's going to become that way.
You know, Like they there's no pretension in an army,
like the idef of like, hey, we're a political we
don't you know, take any position. We're just we're just
like loyal to the state. I mean, part of that
is because the fact that this you know, that Israel's
find itself in a ross and creed. But part of
it also is that, you know, again, like Israel's not
it didn't develop organically like a European country did or something,
So there's not there's not this tradition of like an
Israeli state that's you know, they like the post medieval
heritage of the people who live there or something. You know,
Israel is the Jewish state. The way it's configured isn't
really important so long as it is capable of sustaining
that demographic balance and being able to perpetuate its demographic
supremacy despite being massively outnumbered. So you're not gonna have
I mean, even if the just under those conditions like
you can't mean, I guess I'm getting as you can't
extricate those conditions from like ideological and parabise. Okay, So
that's probably a force multiplier in some ways. Like when
IDF actually goes into action, it can also lead to
some bad outcomes because it's the institutions like that, particularly
military institutions. We're having the wrong opinion can be interpreted
as like a breaching doctrine or something. It becomes this
kind of like ideological ghetto, you know. And Ehud Barak,
he's really the Israeli guy I pay attention to. Okay,
he's an interesting guy. He was a military man, you know,
like career idef type, and he's not a particularly charming guy,
but he's really kind of been the only champion oft
jitsuk ra Being's memory, you know, we're being of course,
is unceremoniously murdered in ninety five by this crazy young
guy who's like rotting in prison now. But you know,
I I'm not gonna say there was some conspiracy to
whack Rabine, but a lot of people were happy that
that that that that happened, and from that point forward,
Israel became a one party state, you know, and Rabine
was going to Rabine was was looking to commit to
some way out of the racial war. Okay, I don't
think that would have I don't think you ever would
have seen any kind of like formal equality between the populations.
Nor was Rabine just gonna throw his hands up and
be forced into the position that the clerk was in
South Africa and just say, okay, we're you know, any
any any any man or woman of majority within Israel Palestine,
or we're just gonna have you know where, We're gonna
give them the ballot and and see where the ships follow.
That wouldn't have happened, but some kind of extra case
and from grant apartheide would have happened. Okay, But Barack, Ehud, Barack,
he's the guy who made the point as well, that
really was keeping that Nyahu alive politically. It's the fact
that swapping out the civilian executive or kind of like
rendering it headless, like if you Dona was removed by
no confidence or if he was indicted, which you may
very well be if and when this war results. But
just perverse incentives that kind of pursue like bad strategy
is what I'm getting at, okay, and and what Barack
is getting it. You know, people turn around, I know
what I hear from them, and they say, like, well,
how does real performing so well? If what you say
is true? Well, two things, like I said We're talking
about basically two totally different conflicts that are related and
increasingly is she and soon you are breaching the sectarian
divide to tentatively cooperate against the common Zionist enemy. But
the gods of situation and in the situation in the
Levant and syria Is are two different things. I don't
feel comfortable going as far as to say that they're
just like two fronts of the same conflict. I mean,
there's like a common nexus and causes, but it's more
complicated than that. However, you know, idea got caught lacking
when Hamas assaulted. I think I covered this on a pod,
so if I'm repeating myself, forgive me. You know, on
October seventh, Price it's almost been a year. But when
Hamas breached the barrier fence, they assumed that the lead
element was gonna get wiped out, you know, basically like
a company sized element like storm to the mainline of resistance.
But when they did that, there was nobody there, you know,
like these Raelis were. It was like a skeleton crew
that was not abiding any kind of alert deployment at all,
Like some of them were literally sleeping, and Hamas just
like waxed them, and then when they broke through, immediately
Hamas like immediately started storming the breach with like as
many men as they could get through as possible. You know.
Then ID have like swarm drones on him and combine
garb and sort of like hosing them with fire. But
my point is that shouldn't have happened in the first place.
You know that feel like if when that'd be like
I point, it became clear the Russians were going to
like assault you know, don Bass to like relieve they're
people who were under pressure there from these guys who
were like supposedly like irregulars like Azo, but were very
obviously you know, very obviously like acting as official you know,
and in the service of the Kya regime. That'd be
like a point. It became clear like Russia was going
to assault these like as of guys, and uh, the
Ukrainian armed forces like preemptively like assaulted them then like
broke through the Russian mainline resistance like ended up in Russia.
Then like the Russians had to reconstitute like bring up
their bring up bring their firepower to bear on them,
like in the form of like armor, and you know,
like hyperbard artillery and stuff like get the situation under control.
Like if that had happened, like Putin would have been gone.
You know that that's that's that's a catastrophic fuck up.
So you know, I'm not I'm not saying like, oh,
IDF is like a shit force, because they're not. But
there's real problems there, okay, And this isn't just like
some like intelligence failure or something.
Speaker 1: But moving on, there were, like immediately immediately after that,
there were I was tracking people in the State Department
who are retiring, and there was one specifically, I can't
remember his name, but I did an episode with someone
else talking about it. Was that he retired because he
was in charge of getting the IDF and getting foreign
militaries are weapons and he said that there were divisions
in the IDF that he was not comfortable with arming.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I I'm sure that's true, and they've got real problems,
you know. Like I I'm not some expert. I know
something about Judaism, like the like the faith. I know
something about their heritages of people. I mean I do.
I am not some expert on the internal situation in Israel,
but I do know that hard line Zionus of the
kind who like sustain the military apparatus. Those people are
aging and there's not a lot of young people to
replace them, Like there is a hard line Jewish right,
but more and more it's that's kind to be constituted
by the people who are called correctly or incorrectly in
clogial terms like the ultra Orthodox. And they have a
strange they have a strange and somewhat contentious relationship with
the military. I mean, Israel's got real problems, you know.
I mean they that they can't be denied. So I
don't doubt that guy's testimony for a minute, But I mean,
like why would he lie about that. That doesn't if
he was going to try and make if he was
going to drop some kind of cap to try and
make the situation seem less severe than it was, or
to try and make Israel look like more cable with
your role. Like you wouldn't say that, but you know
the degree of which two you know, Israel had to
kind of Israel kind of had to win in Syria, Okay,
if they could have like knocked out a sod and
like crushed the string era of army. And also like
hit Hesiblah and like really really hard because the idea's
been smarting from from their fight with HESBLA in two
thousand and six for almost like twenty years now. You know,
they really kind of needed to make a statement like that.
And if if it's if Damasks had gone down in
flames and Syria kind of became partitioned, they the would
have been totally fine with like these lunatic killers, like
isis controlling like some chunk of it. You know. Then
they wanted to like basically like you know, create some
like fake like Kurdistan like through like you know, a
swath of Iraq and like assimilate part of Syria into that,
and then probably like have some some zone that was
like occupied by America but it was technically like you know,
the a d m Z or something or some kind
of like free zone. So it's like okay, then like
basically like they've sown up, They've sown up their problem.
And also too then like the Russians can't like access
like their key port there, like the Russian Our Federation
can't deploy there. That would have solved the like basically
like that that would have solved like one half of
the equation, you know, and then they could have brought
like full firepower to bear and you know, one hundred
percent of forces and being like to bear like on Gaza,
and there's really nothing anybody could do about it. So
the Russian the Russians really food barred their program. Like
the degree of which they did, like can't be overstated.
That's why like when I say to people, like when
I point out to them the fact that you know,
like the Ukrainian War is literally like a secondary front.
I mean, it's not secondary to people there. It's a
disaster and it's scale, it's it's it's just like a
they're is suffering and death is staggering. But I'm saying,
like to Israel, that's like a secondary front where they
can bring pressure to bear on Russia. And the fact
that when I raise that to people, they look at
me like why would you say that, It's like you
really don't understand that Russian Israel are like hate each other.
You know, they're like literally like mortal enemies. You know.
It's like the fact that Putin doesn't like call them
the K word and like shake his fist in the
ear and call for them to be destroyed, like you know,
like you sound like Arab strong man or something. I
guess people are so literally minded they can't like compute
this or something. But the fact that like you know,
likeever Offen going around like calling for some like pogram
of like Ukrainian jewelry or something like. I don't know,
I don't know how people can't discern this. But that's
really what's so dangerous about this situation. And that's also
why it's also like NATO's being so reckless. You know,
if it was just a question of we want to
murk the Russians and moving forward, you know, we want
to ford deployment where we can. That's like farther east
and central these are the you know, the central Asian
land mass. You know, then then Germany is that America
wouldn't be going about it. And it's kind of like
just like catastrophically reckless way. It's because it's you know it,
this is this is a this is like a key
front of basically of of Israel's war to survive and
perpetuate it as like the Jewish racial state. You know,
that's also what it likes the Lenski's in there like
outfront like that that's not good optics at all. And
it's not just that the Ukraineism and Alibi like, oh no,
we're not you know that this isn't some criminal psychotic regime.
Look we've got we've got the Jewish guy out fronto.
You know, it's involved in the entertainment business, and you
know we're a normal country. Like that's not why they're
doing it. It's because, uh, there's no way, uh, there's
no way some like boyish front man would would be
trusted there because I at any minute, like he could flip,
even if he wasn't intending to that, he could find
himself in a Melosovitch situation. We're suddenly like a bunch
of band right, So like, look, we're like tired of this,
you know, like we were not gonna like we're gonna
keep killing the Ivans, but we're not. We're not taking
orders from from his zid they call them. But that's
you know, that's and Syria is an important country and
it's got an outsized significance. There was I know that
your friend he was asking forgive me for being a
little scared, or he was asking about why there's panthers
in Syria and Lebanon. One of the reasons why part
of it is because of the peculiar dynamics of the
Lebanese Civil War that went on for decades, and then
the French were kind of backing all sides in that
war depending on like who had the upper hand, that's
what the French do, and the French like shove some
panthers into the breach on on the Arab side. But
there were a few dozen Vermacht officers who serving the
Court of Nasa as well as in Syria both before
and after, you know, the Syrian Bath conquered the political
culture and the Czechs the Skoda Arms Works, which is
kind of like the Czechs make great weapons. They're like
the Transylvanian Saxons historically, and like the Skoda Arms Works,
that's kind of like the Czech counterpart to Krupp that
during a comunist Czechoslovakia there are so many panzers and
like various like warsaw packed armies and adjacent armies. They
started like manufacturing replacing parts for panders and also too
obviously that's what that that's that's what these Vermachs guys
were familiar with. You know, and that's then that's why
that's the armor they knew how to fight in and
habituating yourself to a new tank model that you can
do it if you're a skilled tanker, but it's hard.
Franco Spain in nineteen forty three, they got about twenty
panzers like Mark four panzers that they'd ordered and Serrano Sooner,
who's a great man. I'm like Franco, and he was
like a diehard national socialist. He was constantly looking for
a way to get Spain into the war against the
UK in an official capacity. And after negotiations it broke
down because like Franco was like a ludicrous demands that
were you know, purposely that personally sabotaged any agreement between
you know, the the Reich and Madrid. There was still
hope and the Pandras that arrived like towards that end
because people thought so highly a Sooner and I mean
German counter legion had like spilled blood on Spain. I
mean that was sacred. You know. These Mark four as
they got were like the same ones that like the
pans are arm used. They weren't these they were they
weren't the like off brand like knockoffs, you know, they
were real pantheras and like most of them had never
like been deployed anywhere. So the Syrians got they the
Syrians got like a bunch of like brand spanking new
like mark for panders, and they also got some like yeah,
they also got some yag coons are like tank killers
like what was called assault guns in those days. So yeah,
like in sixty seven and seventy three, like there was
a there were panthers like assaulting idea, which is pretty
pretty cool.
Speaker 1: And there's a certain level of irony there that's not exact,
but still.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm people like me, I you know, I'm
very much like an anglophone person. I mean, I'm I
uh I realized, uh, I realized proper Englishman. And Scott's
like Peter Brimlow, who's like an awesome guy and he
was like very cool to us at either. But I
can tell you things. I can tell you things that
I'm like, I can tell you things that I'm kind
of like a little ulster bastard and like that's not wrong,
but uh, I'm like a very Anglophone person. So I've
got I think every I think every angle Saxon is
something of like a an orientalist. So I find I
find Eastern people is very interesting for various reasons, you know,
as did guys like Johann Van and Lee and a
lot of these National socialist guys who ended up in
these Arab states. It was twofold. On the one hand,
they're like, okay, well, we've got to accept Cold War realities,
but there's room to there's proverbial room to breathe and
ideological and cultural terms in some of these places in
Latin America and the Near East, and there's people or
remain receptive to our ideas and kind of want to
be shaped by our ways. And uh they were also
kind of like the shock troops contra Zionism, you know,
So there wasn't ideological component to it. There's like incredibly
silly propaganda and cap like put out by guys you
know about oh, like you know, Islamism is is just uh,
it's just this sort of anti Semitic, you know, Nazi conspiracy.
I mean, there's like very stupid stuff that affects. But
there was an is ideological affinity between people like the
Syrian bath and and and national socialists. That's not the
reason why. Like I mean, I like the Syrian people.
I know a lot of Syrians, and I hold in
a highest scheme. I think I think they're interesting in
like a cultured people. But they also you know, if
you if you there's some of these are are are
with the Third Reich and what it stood for, you know,
the obviously like a like like I think too too much.
Croatia was the only it was the only true like
national social estate that existed at the day to feed.
But like an adjacent political culture is like is like
bath is Syria? Like absolutely so yeah, I mean that's
not to your point, Like it's not it's not totally
all base or anything. But I'll i'll movie ahead. I
realized I'm getting tangential. But the you know, in the
the Russians cultivated. I can't remember how much we got
into this. I should have reviewed our earlier episode before,
like like yesterday this morning, So forgive me again if
I'm repeating myself, please call me on it. But you know,
the the Soviet leadership, they really they really cultivated and
like vice versa. You know, like I the naval basic tartis,
which is essential, it's the soul it's the sole Mediterranean
base for the for the Russian Navy's Black Sea Fleet
to this day, that was a big deal after if
the Suy Union went down the assade and the Russian
Federation worked out that this is like like the so
is that like permanent rights, like the Tartist Naval base.
You know, it's uh and it was it was. It
was a sad. I mean, it takes nothing away obviously
from the game. That's the Syrian Air of army and
and and their toughness and there and they desire to
win and things like that. But during the seventy three war,
you know, which which males is called the Ramadan War,
Alo Whites and Christians call it a couple of different things,
or just the nineteen seventy three war. The Israelis call
it the yan Kapoor War. But you know, like we
like we talked about, there was thousands of advisors, technicians there,
there were there were special operations type Soviet true, it's
about twenty of whom died in action in seventy three,
you know, and over close to four thousand tons of
aid you know ammo uh like ration packs, you medical
supplies like you name it by the by the conclusion
by the end of October, you know, it's a station
about still is immediately beyond the Soviet Navy. They'd see
lifted over sixty thousand tons of gear like weapons again
like weapons, AMMO, food stuffs, agricultural commodities to Syria or
replace its losses. I mean, that's that that's a huge effort,
you know. And as as we talked about, there was
some tension from about seventy five to seventy seven, I
guess the Syrians directly intervened in a webinon. There was
this kind of tense minuet because you know, the PLO,
the PLO, despite its, despite his like declared secularism, was
always you know, like a like a Sunni outfit, and
the Soviets were really concerned about, you know, active hostilities
breaking out between the Syrian Ara of Army and and
the plofes. Asad was able to smooth that over with
skillful diplomacy. But what really what really kind of solidified
their relationship even in the midst of some of these
like interscene conflicts between Soviet Allied elements, was Asad Asad
unconditionally backed like the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan, and he
made a lot of people really upset by doing that,
you know, like within his own within Darla Islam, you know,
but it was it was the right play considering the circumstances.
And it was also essential, I mean building during the
Cold War like that, that kind of consensus building across
a national frontiers was essential, you know, And it was, uh,
the kind of last hurrah of that sort of war
in peace diplomacy was Bush forty one's like quorum that
he gathered to wage the Gulf War, which was an
incredible which was a master stroke, you know, but that
was I think of that as kind of the book
end of the Cold War and the entire prodige and
of course the Physicsade you know, the syiener have already deployed,
you know, to back to back US forces and of
course America. How is America like pay that back by
like trying to murder the Assade family. It's it's it's unconstable,
like it's it's a vile I mean, aside in the
fact it's it's totally irrational, but it's just it's just vile,
Like you don't do that. April seventy seven as Asade,
he made a state visit to Moscow and he got
an audience in the president himself as well as Alexi
proceedon Kaseigan, you know who were I mean basically got
to meet the old Control Group of the Soviet Union.
I mean for for a small, you know, underdeveloped country,
that's that's pretty remarkable. And they signed h they put
pen to paper on what was called the Treaty of
Friendship in nineteen eighty, you know, less than a year
after the Soviets assaulted Afghanistan. And that was that was
not a that was not coincidental. That was very much
Taylor to send a message to the world. And subsequently
there became a permanent gar sin in Syria of Soviet troops.
You know, not only were the balk Assyrian weapons you know,
coming from Warsaw Pact, you know, the Soviet Union itself,
the d d R, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, what have you, but
also like North Korea, you know, like Syria, because there
wasn't the only uh, the only Marxist Leninist Arab state
was South Yemen, you know, so having having an ally
in the Arab world, which again Syria had and has
something about outside profile and conceptual terms, this is this
is a big win for the for the communist world,
even even though the Syrian Bath was not particularly empathetic
to doctrinal Marcis Lentinism, but that, you know, that's the
degree to which the Soviets became tolerant increasingly of what
a lot of people would have viewed as kind of
like a third position as tendency. That's very that's highly significant.
And of course that's kind of stuff that guys like
Otto Riemer and and George Switzer, Vierick and Ah Thompson
and Francis Yaqui. I mean, that was their whole that
that was their whole kind of diagnostic prediction, you know,
and that's one of the reasons why they did this.
Incredibly ignorant people who they like to bandy that there's
some kind of third worldism. I don't even know what
that means, but it, you know, within the X time,
within the extent paradigm of the Cold War, this made
absolute sense for you know, anybody who was on the
you know, on the national socialist or fascist side of things.
You know, it's it absolutely tracks. And Carrie Bolton, he's
one of the only he's one of the only kind
of contemporary I mean, he's an old guy now, but
when I take an temporary, I mean like somebody is active.
He's the only sort of like to like dissident, like
like national socialists, like academic writers. I take really seriously
like he's great, you know, and I he's kind of
an eccentric guy. He's some of his interests are kind
of eccentric, but I you know, he's his his viewpoint
is closest to mine own out of anybody. He's kind
of active in writing about you know, political theory and
national socialism and stuff. In twenty ten, Medgetev became he
became the first president of the Russian Federation to reciprocate
and visit Syria. I think, like I said before, I
can't I cannot remember if when the Russians after at
the Syria of Army routed isis you know, there was
a there was this parade for the Russian contingent there
there reminded me of the Conor Legion parade. It was
I thought it was really cool. I was. I watched
it on there's a YouTube stream that came through live
at like three am. And I can't remember if Putin
was there or not, but regardless it was you know,
the first state visit by a Russian Federation executive. It
was mitigative and that was ah, that was a big
deal too. And obviously in twenty ten, like less than
a year later, you know, the civil war kicked off
and that that wasn't that that wasn't uh, that wasn't accidental.
You know, ever conducts I can't remember we got into
this or not, but the did it to understand the
situation in Syria with Isis al Qaeda on news refront
the the Salafi terrorist elements who were assaulting the government.
These guys were these guys were rapidly successful. You know,
like obviously they had deep support you know, above border
or not from from Washington and Tel Aviv. You know,
they the Syrian government by the time of Russian intervention,
they could be set in control only about twenty six
percent of the country. I mean, they had Damascus and
they had most of the built up areas that but
that didn't matter. You know, when the integrating between Damascus
and these kind of like outlying territories that were held
by government forces and and UH and adjacent allies, it
was they couldn't operationally integrate with the forces and being
that they had. That's one of the things that the
Russian Federation brought to the table, you know. Russia also
they showed absolutely no mercy to these to these Salafi Islamis,
you know, the they were practicing a scorched earth campaign
against them. But that's what so the most horrifying modern
more footage I've seen is when Isis they assaulted, they
assaulted the suburb of Aleppo, and they beheaded all the males,
you know, from like little kids to like military age,
like teenage boys, to like old men. And it was
like this forest of like heads like impaled on these steaks,
and these Isis guys, Uh, they were doing their they
were doing one of their afternoon prayers and you know,
they were on their prayer mats. Like it's probably like
a whole platoon of them, and there was just these heads,
you know, like it's it's like something out of a
horror movie, you know, I mean, that's those are the
kinds of animals that American Israel returning it loose on
on Syria as a dead nation strategy, you know, and
to the Russians, I mean, God bless the Russians for
like blasting those guys to help. But you know, the
that that's probably the greatest victory, like battlefield victory. The
anybody like who should be you should view as like
an adjacent element if you're right wing. That that's really
like what the what the Syrina of r and the
Russian Federation and his block accomplished there other than operations
storm like when the Cross routed the chet Nicks and
like liberated the crying, that's like the only thing in
my lifetime that was comparable. So when these like demento
internet guys like don't go outside or something instead of
talking about, say love Ukraine, it's I realize like how
sick these fucking people are, and like I'm just like delusional,
you know, like they don't they they're they're like they're
either like ops or like masquerading as being like right wing,
or they're or they're just like or they just like
think that ship's like video games or something. I don't know,
but you know, I make the point again and again
if you don't if you don't understand that, like the
Syrians are like your allies and and this this is
an international struggle you can't isolate it and say, like
I don't care what happens outside of America. Like that's
this that the basic bitch like white and words stuff.
But it's also like you're not in the game if
you think these things occur in isolation. You know, whether
you like like globalism or not, it doesn't matter. Like
it's you can't ignore gravity, you know, it's it's the
same thing. Globalism is like gravity. The power playable paradigm
you live under is like the weather. You can't change it.
I mean, I mean, you can change it, but if
you got to like work within its parameters, you know,
like saying you're a you're you're gonna like you're gonna
take some like non position owing owing to some like
ethical orientation that you know, you convince yourself like means
you like rechecked like the prevailing the prevailing order that
I mean, that's that's that's that's meaningless and in playable terms.
But you know the UH plus too, that's when the
Russian Federation like finally drew a line in the sand,
you know, and I had they not, I I think
Russia would be an even worse shape today than than
than it is. Okay, I'm not saying bad things aret
Russian people. I mean, the Russians are in a desperate situation.
Putin said that like demand like like like I said,
is not going down. He said, the bad regime is
going to remain at all costs, and that and and
he and he delivered on it. You know. That's that's
that's what's kept Russia alive, is in in Warranty's terms,
you know, like, had had the Russians just allowed Seria
to go down like they they would have had a
cascading effect of of of catastrophes. You know, you've he
developed certain instincts for identifying what events are gonna have
those sort of seismic kinetic effects. And you better believe
if Damasius had fallen, that would have been one of
those events. Uh. It's also it was executed pretty splendidly, man.
You know, I'm We've talked a lot in various capacities,
and I recommend you know, super off. He's most known
for Icebreaker, but his book Inside the Red Army, you know,
it's about the state of it's about the state of
the Soviet Army, you know, basically in the in the
in the later bresident of the era and something that
remains this day and something that preceded the Bolshek Revolution.
You know, the Russians big thing, the big military science
imperative is to do everything possible to like overcome fog
of war issues, you know, situational awareness issues within the
battle space, you know, by eradicating and certainties. So they
treat they treat battle doctor and almost like a Western
army or like or like the US Army would treat regulation.
It's highly inflexible, okay, but for what they rush. By
the way the Russians fight, it does work. And the
combined arms the Russians brought to bear against isis like
cut them to pieces, you know. And it was absolutely
you know, like a like like the Russians isn't just
like rashally deployed. Like I remember, I can't remember his
name he was. He said black guy on I don't
even think he's on TV anymore. But he was kind
of like he was kind of like mini me Lester
Holt or something. He was. I mean, not that Lester
Hal's any great shakes, but this guy was like he
was kind of like the bush Ley Lester Halt, and
he was he was talking to he saw its like
uber Zionists, like like Nato Schill, like idiot who was
like a light current, like a retired like light colonel
or something. And this guy was dropping Cavaboll like, well
we saw him, Chuch, beyond ninety four. The Russians can't fight.
It's like, first of all, those you know twenty years ago,
you fool. Secondly, it you know, if if that was
a state of the arm front of the Russian Federation,
frankly wouldn't be able to deploy a scale the Syria
at all. You know. It's it's not like he would
have been able to like arrive in the battlespace, you know,
deploy in depth and then and then and then completely
food bar the operation. I mean, they definitely could have
lost it. But and I'm not going to suggest that
the rush An Army deploying the Syria as like something
on order of the British accomplishing that kind of logistic
what mirrorable they did at the falk Whens maybe two
or something, but it was was pretty damn impressive, okay.
And once they were able to essentially like immediately drop
like you know, five thousand boots on the ground and
a whole gang a mid twenty nines and some kind
of sex stuff like thermobar re artillery and things like that.
It's like, okay, I mean, i it appears as if
like the Russian army's back. I mean, the Roginary performed
pretty well in Georgia in two thousand and eight, but
there were still there were still problems. I mean, there's
problems today. But the you know, I nobody who's not
resorting the kind of callow propaganda, very deliberate sword is
is going to say that, you know, the Russian operation
in Syria wasn't impressive or something. You know, it's but uh,
moving on, Yeah, it's uh. The Russian the chief of
Staff of the Russian Air Force grass him of, he
stated in twenty seventeen. In twenty seventeen, like in twenty sixteen,
like twenty seventeen, there's kind of like this big like
retrospective on the Syrian operation, and part of it was,
you know, like a Russian flex like hey, this is
what we did. Like you know, rah rah, we're back.
We you know, we we're a serious you know, we're
we're we're serious military power again. But they carried out.
They carried out around twenty thousand sorties, like like yeah,
between like eighteen and twenty thousand sorties and there was
over seventy thousand strikes on what Grass them off called
quote the infrastructure of terrorism, which what I take that
to me is like a lot of ground assault type
stuff like basically like it has blood on the Seria
Army going into action, probably backed up by some Russian
armor and artillery, and then like basically like the Russians
that uh, they like pound the hell out of Isis
positions from the air, you know, like in immediate advance
of that combined ground and element you know, which would
then like encircle these positions with kind of like textbook
like Warsaw Pag deep battle just like smaller scale you know,
and basically treat basically treat the operation as as like
you know, the advance of fire wherever possible, you know,
like lay as much fire as possible on the opposing
force to kill it, you know, and even overkill it.
You know. It's not exactly a lot of places to
hide in the in the battle space and the uh
there are some very serious fighting in Damascus, but I
believe by the time there are friends of the Russian
Federation arrived on the ground. I believe that it basically resolved,
you know, the had the Russians had to route Isis
from demand. I mean, I it might be an improper
counterfactual because like if Isis was holding Damascus, it's like
what I mean that would indicate the war was over.
But it the point being, you know, they that would
have changed things, if that would have changed things, if
like his Blah was charged basically it was like liberating Damascus.
I mean, like what do you that would have kind
of neutralized Russian firepower too, unless they were playing on
like leveling the city without regard to without regard to
you know, friendly attrition and things. But yeah, it's uh yeah,
I I guess we went on an hour. Yeah, I'm sorry,
those two like heavy on the military side of things.
I'd like to I realize we still get a grip
of our Gladio series. There's if you want to do
like an epilogue in this, I mean, it's totally up
to you, obviously, it's just so literally there's something to
be said for like the the Jackson Vanic amendments and
what led to its passing and the whole kind of
narrative of Soviet Jewurry being like under threat and you know,
the g r U and the kg D quite literally
uh establishing a directorate to monitor Zionism. I mean this,
this is part of the equation. I mean there's a
lot to the Russian Syrian relationship and and just kind
of like the Russian you know, Russian enmity with with Israel.
And we could definitely go like another hour on that
if you want, but it's totally up to you. Just
let me know what you want to do next.
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's finish since we're on this, let's finish this
up and then we'll come back into a wrap up
episode on Gladio and then figure out where you want
to go from there. Yeah that's great, man, all right,
So just tell everybody where they can find your stuff
and uhpe.
Speaker 2: Yeah, man, you can find me on substick. This for
my podcast content is it's real Thomas seven seven seven.
That's substick dot com. I'm doing some by week we
pods with Jay Burden. He's like my homeboy. He's great,
like he really is. We're putting that up on gum
Road and having Burden do it like I might be
a total retard. I literally found gum Road like fucking unusable.
I spent like four hours of that fucking platform.
Speaker 1: It's not easy.
Speaker 2: It's it's it's like always there's always like there's always
like redundant buttons that don't do anything, and it's like
it's like some fucking uh yeah, it's it's like some
crazy person or like some like the bottomized page like
programmed or something. So I after like four hours this garbage,
I'm like, what the am I doing. I'm like, I'm
not gonna I'm like, it's I'd rather have a root
canal than like.
Speaker 1: Just like burden do it. He's young exactly.
Speaker 2: To do it. And the main thing is I love
substack because it's literally simple as like point and click
or like drag and populate, but they make it difficult.
You can like add collaborators on substack, but it doesn't
just like automatically like split revenue. Right, it's uh.
Speaker 1: Now we're getting inside baseball.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, check out check out Burn's action on gum Road.
It's radio free Chicago. And I shouted out when we
record new stuff, like on my substick, I like post
a link and stuff.
Speaker 1: As well as I'll pick up a link to it
and add it in.
Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you, and yeah, I mean obviously I'm on
I'm on X formerly bird app. You know, I'm at
Capital R E A L underscore number seven h on
A S seven seven seven. Here Kreig has been. He's
been busily making some new swag for like our merchandise,
which I think is pretty cool. Man, Like I legit,
like I stand by it because I think it's cool
and people seem to like it. So yeah, if you
could like drop a link to the merse stuff in
the description, that would probably be cool. But that's otherwise. Man.
I'm I'm I'm trying to get a jump on my
I make progress on my my manuscript stuff, my long
form written stuff, especially causin I'm gonna have to travel
a bunch this winter, which I didn't, which is is fine.
I am blessed people enjoy my company and want me
to go places where they're hosting things, but I didn't.
I didn't think i'd be like hitting the road again
until like springtime. So I'm gonna try, and you know,
like the next month, I'm I'm hoping I can have
like a workable manuscript. It just takes time, especially when
you got to properly like cite you know, your data
on things. But that's what I've been up on.
Speaker 1: Awesome though. All Right, till the next time, we'll wrap
this and wrap up Gladio and figure out where to
go from there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, man, that's great.
Speaker 1: Take care, Thomas, thank you. I want to welcome everyone
back to the Pecananas Show. Thomas, how have you been?
I'm right, let's uh, let's finish this up talking about
Russian series and I think, uh, I think I know
where you're gonna go with this one, so just let loose.
Speaker 2: Yeah, sort of thing. You know. Obviously we're coming up
to in the in the University of the Ramadan war
you or they're the Yan Kapoor war is, which interestingly
doesn't get it doesn't appear a lot in media these days.
Some of the fellows that made the point in our
discussions that you know, historical events don't really occur anymore.
I mean that, like you know, like Zazec makes that
point a lot, and and so does some of these
other guys who are kind of trying to salvage what
remains a condo philosophy. I mean there's something that's that's
a deeply psychological mechanism, you know, and there's like sociological
locations to it too, but in more kind of prosaic terms.
That that's an important point because I'm always emphasizing to
the fellas who don't remember because they weren't born yet,
that media narratives like however corrupt they were corrupted they
were by ideology and like conceptual biases, they did in
fact build on a continuing foundation of historical time, you know.
I make the point even really up until two thousand,
kind of like the last instance of this in this
in the spring or it was like summer or fall
of two thousand. I remember this vivid lead because I
made my dad really upset, and he went in this
local radio show to talk about it, the show Beyond
the Beltway that used to be like based here in Chicago,
and me and like my then girlfriend, we went down
to the studio to meet him, like in the loop.
And the subject that my dad was on this panel
with this like foreign navy seal guy and this kind
of crusty older dude was a civilian, but he'd been
on William Odom's staff in some capacity but Peter Arnett,
and this is one of the things that kind of
crushed his career. I mean, he was getting old up
there in years anyway, but he broke this story where
this guy claimed that. First of all, guy claimed that
he was a deserter in the Vietnam War, and he
claimed he ended up in Laos, Okay, and he said
there was this village like full of like you know,
like young white men who were like married to Indigenous women.
And he's like, what's happening here? And they're like, oh,
we're all deserters. This is like our commune where we're
like escaping the war. And if anybody who knows the
history of the conflict, that's preposterous on his own terms. Okay,
there's no way that happened. But he was or that
was taking what this guy said is fact. So our
nets like, well, like what happened. There's no record of
this place. So this guy's like, well, you know, he's
like Army special forces arrived one day after they bombarded
us with nerve gas and everybody died, but I was
out in the fields that day or the rice patties,
so I escaped. And he's like it was called Operation Tailwind,
you know, and my Dad's like, this is outrageous. This
is outrageous is being reported as news, And how dare
this guy like defame uh these Special Forces operators? But
did it takes that real? Seriously? You know, he was
a civilian, but he got to know a lot of
these guys very well, you know, and he takes he
takes the honor of such people seriously, you know. And
I mean for me, I mean, it was just I mean,
aside from that, it was like, I mean, our NETT
was just like lying, like it's if you're a serious journalist,
this guy's story was preposterous. You know. Like I said,
I was, I was like twenty four to twenty five
years old, and I was just kind of like a
student of the Vietnam War, and I'm like, there's no
way that happened. And of course it broke that this
guy with some crazy liars, that our net kind of disappeared.
But it was a big deal, man, because you know,
even twenty five years after Saigon went to put you know,
Vietnam was still on people's mind man, you know, in
conceptual terms, it was one of their main kind of
like pull stars of historical events, so that it doesn't
really that's it's just like not the case anymore. And
part of it's deliberate. It's like a deliberate sort of
like whitewashing of the collective memory. They're not so much
just kind of like erasing the collective memory of historical time.
But it's also these narratives increasingly are just kind of
generated out of nothing, you know, They're they draw upon
these kinds of like endure it this kind of like
enduring phraseology that regime information or propaganda. Oh, let's disseminate,
you know. So there's a certain structure to it, there's
a certain conceptual structure, but it's very much like it
kind of like every every aspect of it's just kind
of like autonomously situated in a psychological terms. It's really weird.
But in any event, even uh, even to the late nineties,
they when when there was when when when any kind
of crisis was an emergent between like Israel and it's
and its enemies, they there there'd be contextual references to
the Ramanan War, which they called the yan Kapor War,
in the nineteen sixty seven Six Day War, which was
Israel's greatest victory. That's not just cap that Israel had.
They were unusually larded with military talent at operational level
for various reasons. And I mean that was so that
was a big deal. And that's kind of what the
myth of Israeli military supremacy like was emergent, because in
sixty seven it wasn't a myth. I mean, on the
one hand, like modern combat resolves rapidly. That's why I
was trying to beside the people. You know, they people
get a corrupted view of this because pretty much like
the only like the only wars in living memory involve uh,
these kinds of nonsensical paradigms were like you know, some
Pentagon guy or some State department spokesman or woman is suggesting, well,
we're making incremental progress, you know, like the he's kind
of like endless deployments that don't resolve anything. Like people
think that that's normal, Like they don't understand that even
on condition, even under conditions, they're relative parody, you know,
like modern combined arms war. It's battles are usually massively
one sided, it's usually your route, it usually resolves like
within days, you know, but just the same uh, the
idea's performance in sixty seven was unusually strong. But all
of that, all that basically came to an end in
the seventy three war. And it's significant to us. I
mean even people who aren't particularly invested in Israel Palestine.
I don't think that's a correct disposition because if you know,
within the current paradigm, you you can't just kind of
like select, we choose what you quote care about that
wasn't of caring about it either, Like everything is impactful.
You know anywhere that anywhere that the US forces are
deployed under roscas a NATO or the ADF has deployed
you know, with the full with the full faith and
blessing and operational integration with an other the United States.
You know that this has this has implications for everything
that occurs in clinical nature. But you know, in seventy three,
I I believe that that was a more dangerous crisis
uh modality than the Cuban missile crisis, like the cubansical prizes,
the way it was unfolding in real time and the
way these Soviet naval vessels were approaching Cuba and there's
a question like will they run the blockade or not,
or like how will this resolve? Like and and as
like the days and hours were away in Kennedy's war room.
You know, people got the perception that this was especially critical,
and it was don't get me wrong. However, there was
nothing approaching strategic parody. Then in nineteen seventy three, there
absolutely was, like the stories didn't officially accomplish like strategic
parody in terms of forces and being you know that
were in fact deployed until seventy six or seventy seven.
By seventy three, that they they had the capability to
absolutely devastate Western Europe and the connell the United States,
you know, and uh owing to command and control duances
and the shrinking of the window where human decision makers
are capable of reacting, you know, that window of opportunity
to render decision had had shrunk dramatic from a decade previous,
you know, And so I maintaining that nineteen seventy three
when America went to deaf Con three, and it's the
only time that's ever happened, you know. And for context,
it's not like during the early years the War on
Terror with those like goofy, like color coded alerts, like
today you look at terror thread as purple, so like
chovid drubel up your rest or whatever, like you're supposed
to do. It wasn't like that, Like, it was quite serious.
And at deaf Con three, you know, basically that means
America shifted to a war footing and missileers in their silos.
They strapped into their siege to prepare for deep impact
and awaited launch orders and like the little doors like
atop the silo went like you know, which is kind
of horrifying. But and Brezhnev he mobilized the Soviet Union operationally.
In some ways they mirrored the NATI or order of battle,
but in other ways they were totally different. But they
had you know, America's kind of America's kind of rapid
reaction force during the Cold War was uh, it was
the eighty second Airborne Division. The Soviets mirrored that, like
the Soviet airborne troops and at that point were like
an air assault element. They they went on high alert
and they were preparing to deploy to the Middle East
to relieve the Egyptian Army. You know, so this was
this was really really bad. But that it's interesting that
that's been conspicuously absent. I mean it's to somebody in
my age, the absence is conspicuous. I haven't read one
reference to it. And since the IDF assaulted that Russian target,
which don't get me wrong, happened many times before, okay,
but it does constitute, if only in the court of
public opinion, and public opinion in wartime takes on and
outside significance, it does represent a kind of escalation that,
you know, the idea of is flagrantly assaulting Russian targets.
And it was one thing to do that during the
Serian Civil Wars. Nothing to do that now, But I
would think that any newsman or lady would, you know,
kind of like invoke the seventy three war as the
direct precedent to conteptualize what's happening, you know, and they're
not doing that at all. So that's just something that
sort of jumped out of me. But like moving on
to you know, the topic of the day. You know,
once again, I as I indicated, I don't want to
sound like some crazy old person, but if I'm repeating myself,
let me know, because I do forget sometimes where we
left off, and I try to refresh my recollection from
the last episode, but it always I don't always have
time to like totally go through it. So I'm not
gonna be offended if if you stop me and say,
like we're already covered that. But I think where we ended,
we were talking about, you know, the Russian Federation in Syria,
and how one of the major, one of the major
foreign policy moves, even even in the Yeltsin era, was
to absolutely you know, guarantee that you know, the Soviet
Mediterranean Fleet could still base in Syria, and the Syrians
were still obviously very much amenable to that. But you know,
despite even even Jelson's either you know, apathy or gross
in confidence or combination of both on parapelitical matters. You know,
it wasn't just him obviously either. It was you know,
the the the equivalent of the General Staff and the
enforced the Russian Federation and and in the Foreign Ministry
and other things. But they even when they were not
at all in a position to you know, be pursuing
a true kind of world velt politique strategy, you know,
they made sure they locked in a continuation of of
good offices with Syria. You know, and this is the
nineteen seventy one Naval Treaty that was signed with Halfes
al Asad. It granted the Soviet Union. He basically understriged
the access to the naval basic artists that it had
built and they continue to this day, you know. And
if the treaty runs for twenty years and there's automatic
five year extensions and it's one of the parties oppsiturnity agreement,
but it but it's it's a rubber stamp sort of thing,
you know. And the the Syrian state, Hauf as Asad,
who passed away in two thousand, he was one of
the first uh heads of state to recognize the Russian Federation.
You know, basically immediately as a Soviet Union became the
Russian Federation, he recognized it and made clear that the
Syrian government was going to abide any and any military agreements,
and specifically the the naval treaty regarding tartists. But you know,
and the UH I can remember got into this or not.
We were talking about the Continuity War between sixty seven
and seventy three and how the the Israeli air force,
you know, they fought this pitch there was this pitched
air battle you know, between the Israeli Air Force and
and and Soviet megs. But during the during the the
Ramedan War, Jogapor War itself, Uh, you know, there's thousands
of Soviet advisors on the ground as well as you know,
direct action military elements, you know, technicians, know, a veritable
battalion and technicians to assist the Syrian Arab army and
you know, to maintain their equipment and their armored platforms,
their aircraft, all of that. And at least twenty of
them died the Russians, So at least twenty kia and
probably more. I mean, that's just what the Kremline acknowledged.
But there was a during the war. There was over
thirty seven hundred tons of aid airlifted to the battlespace
by the end of October ninety seventy three. By sea,
the Soviet Union that transported sixty three thousand tons to
Steea or replaced it's military and infrastructural losses. That's a
massive commitment in relative and absolute terms. I'm not sure
people recognize that because you know, America throw his money
around like water, and it's constantly just like dumping these
like aid packages and secondary theaters that this was a
big deal. Okay, I think I got into the fact
that there was some tension in seventy six seventy seven
between Damascus and Moscow. The Syrian Arab Army deployed to
the Lebanese battle space, which put them directly opposite the PLO,
and you know the PLO the Popular Front and the
Popular Front Delivery of Palestine. They were very warshaw packed adjacent.
There's a big concern in the Soviet camp that this
would upset the kind of delicate balance that was in
place in the Arab Cold War as it's called. This
was remedied basically one hundred and ten percent when the
when the sovietwents were in Afghanistan. Because I can't remember
if I mentioned this or not, either, I guess aside
immediately like declared like solidarity with the Soviet Union in
in the war from in Afghanistan, and obviously I put
him at odds with basically every other Arab government, you know,
and that that and that's huge, it's and it's always
it's significant too. I mean, because the there's obvious and
inherent tensions between the Soviet between there were between the
Soviet Union and I ran and there out a day
between the Russian Federation and Iran. Some of these a
sectarian and religious theological. Some of these are ethnic. You know,
I that the persons in the Russians aren't aren't particularly cozy.
But there's there's a very large Azeri minority in Iran,
you know, Amadina Jods and ethnic Asiari. There's there, there's
there's some bad blood there, you know, aside from the
intrinsic value with Syria in absolute geo strategic terms to
the Russian Federation, it's it's also very much like a
con it represents kind of like it facilitates concord between
the Russians and in Tehran in a real way. You
know the UH I'm sorry one second, oh, and it's
in UH in April of seventy seven, like it has
this kind of Lebanon situation was developing as he had.
He traveled the Moscow and there's some interesting sort of
like cool footage that the Russians shot, and there's there's
also some there's also some British UH media guy in
the ground. The British were very well, very well indexed
with the Soviet Union and in terms of media for
whatever reason. So a lot of this, but there's this
this footage of Hafesisa arriving in Moscow and receiving you know,
like great honors. You know, it's really it's really interesting,
and especially for a small country. You know, it's Syria
has a very outsized relevance for this reason. But it's
uh he he got a side gottage an audience with Bresnan,
but uh with Alexei Pasigan, who uh was uh he.
The way to think of him is he he was
kind of in the role that Lavrov is today. You know,
it's an imperfect analogy, but for foreign policy purposes and
Warren peace terms, especially like if he's a via the
Arab world, it tracks and you know it's not that's
that's no small thing and it's not you know, that's
why when people when people talk about the assad family
like they're they're like you know, like like they're like
Saddam and his clan, they're there not at all. You know,
they're they're facade was anything but just some like tinpot dictator.
You know, I mean I I I think they're I
think the Syrians are a noble people generally and I
find the ASSAD is particularly impressive, but that that's not
that's not just that, that's not just cap I mean
a conceptual bias or something. You know. Fesisade visited at
Moscow again in early spring eighty seven April nineteen eighty seven,
and he traveled there with the then serving Defense minister
Mustafa class and he has to require the this advanced
service to air missile system it UH and Gorbachev denied it,
which is really interesting. And this was during a time
when it's a critical period when when when avionics were
becoming hyper advanced. You know, obviously the stealth but like
the beef stealth bomber. It was a very different kind
of plaid for him than those that the these missile
systems that the Syrians wanted to acquire were tailored the
as a counter measure for But that that entire sort
of like skunk Works series of projects that was the
emergent from this, that this kind of culture of high
tech adeonics. Okay, so you know the Syrians were asking
were requesting this for a reason, you know, they they
need they desperately needed countermeasures because Israel, uh Israel and
in Western Germanian the Cold War they were getting America's
best equipment. I mean the Germans and their own right,
I think the I think the Leopard tank is the best,
like modern bail tank, like hands down, but the but
they the West Germans and Israel I mean in the
in the in the former case that you know what,
obviously cold residencies, the latter was ideological and the ladder
obviously still this is the case in terms of what
they received. But they weren't getting like, they weren't getting
like knockoff versions of of American aircraft. They were getting
the real thing, you know. And this obviously decides to
give the Syrians pause because even before even before UH,
stealth technology became the norm, you know, long before it
advanced avionics were making it increasingly difficult really to but
he developed any counter, any counter versions at all, and
the Soviets UH. One of the things the worstaw packed
did very very well was aircraft countermagers. Okay, particularly service
the air missiles, like you know, the old the old
book and film Flag of the Intruder. It's it's a
dumb movie, but it's a pretty good book. If you're
in the air where.
Speaker 1: I read, I read the book and saw the movie. Yeah,
the book is a lot better.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but it's and Stephen koons Is is kind of
a he's kind of a strange guy, but he he
flew ay sixes over Vietnam and the part where the
the the kind of the kind of John Wayne type
aviator Jake Rafton, you know, his new his new uh
radar intercept of officer, his new ra O is is
this kind of like wild guy. But even he, like
fu sorties were downtown Hanoi is like a terrifying prospect
for American aviators because other other than Moscow, like it
was like the most hardened like target on this planet.
Like that. That's not that wasn't creative license. That was
including the book or something. And that owed the fact that,
I mean the Soviets built it up to make it
that way. You know, it wasn't it obviously there was
you know, they the Vietnamese are and industrious people, but
they they had nothing approaching that kind of technology. And
you know, they the Soviets knew that. I mean that
was before the sound of Soviets split. But you know,
the like like the Chinese had nothing remotely honorable, you know,
like the the chadac On equivalent was junk. But in
any event, so this was, uh, that was kind of
a turning point obviously in eighty seven when Garbasheff refused
basically the kind of honor the good offices that had
been sustained with serious really since day one, at least,
you know, in as regards military necessities and exigencies. But
you know, that was the what what garbage off was
attempting to accomplish. I was writing something about this the
other day, but that's kind of a subject for another episode.
I know, if if we go off on that tangent
like we'll be here all night. But it is uh
that that that was definitely like a novelist though, you know,
like I said, it even even even under Yel since tenure,
the you know, the Moscow never made any indication that
they did any intention of abandoning Syria. But moving forward,
what's I mean obviously it was most relevant to the
president is you know, the Serian Civil War, you know,
and I it's it's hard to diminate really what's what
people are thinking in Washington because you don't have a
serious foreign policy establishment, and you haven't since you know,
nineteen ninety two. But when Obama's people, when they were
saying that Damascus is imminiately going to fall, that that
that was that was in fact accurate at the outset
of the intervention, the Russian intervention, and there's another case
of pot putin waited far too long intervene. I mean
it it's a credit to the Syrian people, you know,
those loyal to Asad and the Hezebla and those Russian
forces were deployed. That they won, but it was becoming critical.
You know, the the Syrian government they officially only controlled
about a quarter of the country. You know, the statistics
separated is like twenty six percent of overall like territory.
And how how much that territory you can deploy in
depth or defend it. I mean they had they they
had the built up areas buying large but you know
they were they were essentially there was this there was
this garrison. Demaskus was like becoming a frontline city, you know.
And assad Uh Asad sends his wife away, and he
sent his Asad away, and you know he I developed
huge respect for Bashar the son because he said, I'm
not leaving Damascus if I have to well die here
and that's you know, I'm like, Okay, this guy's a
real man, and he's a real president. You know, he's
he's a real leader of he's a real worldlord now,
you know, because that's the way it has to be.
But you know, when the Russians did arrive, you know,
they rapidly integrated with you know, a lot of the
Syrian Arab Army defected. You know, I think a lot
of that the degree to which that Sunny Bath elements
and the Iraqi Bath and the Syrian Bath Party are
very different animals, but there is like a common ideological
core and there's and there's a common sociological rationale to
like the men who were in our heavily index with
the party, and you know, a bunch of Saddams officers
who were you know, part of the Sunni minority in Iraq,
like they clipped they clipped up with ices basically immediately,
not all of them, but a lot of them did.
And they were accepted by these guys, which is really interesting.
And some of the same thing happened in Syria, you know.
And the uh, the Syrian Bath Party even like at
the top, is more ecumenical than they're credited but it
still is. I mean, it's it's basically, you know, like
an an Alley white like minority rule situation. But and
it's it's interesting. And in May twenty ten, like before
the formal on set of hostilities, Medvedev had visited Syria
and that mid Medviedev's like brief ten, you're as the
president is interesting, man, and it's interesting how we became.
It was like out bad with Putin subsequently. But it's
pretty obvious that NATO Israel and I'm sure their proxies
in these isis types as well, because those guys weren't stupid.
They realize, you know, look, the time to move, you know,
the time to truly escalate is when the Russians are
are having some kind of crisis of leadership, you know,
or if not not, if not so much a crisis
and a literal like you know, war in the Kremlin,
like happened after a drop off died. You know, you
when the civilian executive is kind of headless, that that
causes problems. You know, it causes problems in terms of
like grand schemes, peated decision making, it all the way
down to the operational level. That's That's when I really
when Yahoo was secure. Unfortunately, because even people who despise them,
you know, they're playing musical chairs with with the civilian executive.
Is not what you want to do at war. But
because it may. When the Russians did deploy, they immediately integrated,
you know, with Heslo and the Serenira of army and
comand control capacities, you know, like like deeply and this
how this you know, there were the Russians no like
wartime diplomacy, man, I mean that during the Cold War,
I'd say the key ways I mean NATO had them
beat in all kinds of capacities like material, political and otherwise.
But you know what the Russians head was. I mean
they had firepower, obviously, they had a very tough and
game population in the Russian people, but they were very
they weren't aren't very adept at like war and peace
politics and that uh that that that's how they were
able to accomplish that, you know because like I I
mean obviously especially considering the the tactical situation on the
ground in Syria. I mean, Habla wasn't about to say,
like we won't index with the Russian. The Russian federation.
But there's always tensions in trying to integrate a command
and control structure, you know. And this was accomplished seamlessly essentially.
But the well, you know, the Russians, they the Russians
brought in like real firepower to bear. You know. The
Russians can't do high tech like America can. But the
war tech as during the Cold War is now was
good enough. And the Syrian intervention and the way they
you know, they they pursued it truly scorched earth policy
in the on the in the battle space, like against
their against the up for and it paid off, you know,
the and and Putin declared in knowing certain terms that
you know, the the like the Asad government is not
going to be allowed to fall. There is some momentum
behind Syria two in the quart of world opinion. It's
like we talked about, I'm not successful to propaganda, and
I mean I I'm not some young naive person. I
was legitimately horrified by those scenes from you know, like
the subbers of a Lepo over these these Isis barbarians.
You know, we're beheading people and putting heads on steaks.
You know, like I said, I saw the video of them,
you know, they were doing their afternoon prayers and their
prayer mats and uh, there's like a forest of hits.
You know, it's it's like a horror movie. But you
know people were seeing that kind of thing. And I
remember a Bath Party spokeswoman in knowing certain terms, telling
some European media type like, look, we're not we do
not negotiate with people who we will not negotiate with.
We're not going to change our government because terrorists are
are bombing us and killing people and beheading people. Like
what that's you can't ever allow that, you know this
is and you know this was also too when the
War on Terror was still on. It's like, so you
America is telling us and telling the world like, you know,
we're waging the war on terror, yet you're you're trying
to bring down a secularist eye doctor who it's got
like a pretty wife who looks kind of like any
white woman in the United States, and you're saying that
like isis are the good guys? Like that's that's really
when America lost all credibility, you know, like even more so,
I think than the Iraq fiasco, because that was just
like laid there. You know, it's like we will burn
down civilization and hand it to barbarians. You know that
basically a cow is what we want, and that's the
opposite of civilization, you know, the same nothing of the
fact that that's I mean nine eleven should never happen,
but it did happen, and it's like okay, so okay,
decades on, you know, a mere decade subsequent like now, now,
now you're willing to like accept that as you know,
just kind of like the verbial costs of going business.
It's like, that's that's unconstable. It scoresesque, but you know,
and then Putin clarified in twenty fifteen. It's really interesting
too because when speaking of the Medvita situation for three
four years, when when Putin, you know, he's kind of
like second uh permanent tenure as President of Russian Federation,
there's this kind of window where we're speaking very candle
I think I think Putin quotes himself pretty well generally,
but he plays up post of the chest and issues
he's like non answers that policy questions. There's like this
brief period of a few years where he was he
was kind of trying to like humanize his image. I
think I remember in October twenty fifteen. Yeah, it was
like it was like October November twenty fifteen. He gives
us an interview and he's like, look, he's like this,
He's like, you know, our the Syrian intervention was prepared
well in advance. Despite what made have appeared, we weren't
just responding to an emergency situation on the ground. We
knew that America and Israel wanted to bring down the
bath regime. We consider this unacceptable. We still do. It
was really interesting things like he'd never think. He just
doesn't talk that way anymore, you know. And one of
the things people criticize him for is is this kind
of like ambiguous language about Ukraine. You know, oh no,
this this is a special military operation, and you know,
not not being clear about objectives and things. It's it's
very different, but I think it's relevant, you know it,
I know it is. But uh, the uh in Putin's
terms and uh Russian speakers I'm sure will suggest and
suggest correctly. This is an imprecise, imprecise translation, but it's
the most coherent when I found, Like, in the same interview,
he said quote that that the objective wasn't remains quote
stabilizing the legitimate power in Syria and creating conditions for
political compromise. And that's very much a Putinism. Putin's always
resorting the you know, the rules based international order that
purportedly exists, and like, I understand why he does that,
but I think the time has passed for that those
sorts of appeals, But it's just it's just interesting, the
uh and if I can't remember, we dropped the brass tax,
like the like the literal numbers of what this operation
constituted in Syria. In some ways, especially considering a lot
of the discussion about the deterioration of Russian capabilities, in
some ways, this was as much a coup in world
opinion terms as the UK's effort in the fault Ones,
you know, because people were, I mean, Washington's always suggesting
that Russians can't do anything right in military terms, but
even relatively serious people were prone to talking that way.
But the Russian Air Force, it carried out over nineteen
thousand sorties, seventy one thousand direct strikes on what they
called the quote infrastructure of terrorists. You know, I interpret
that in like real human language, not military language, as
a combination of you know, ground support, attack missions, you know,
as well as uh you know, as well as bonding
of any positions and things. But i uh, close air
support and direct support of ground element forces is what
really carried the day. And again, the Russians they've always
viewed warfare as as kind of the advance of fire.
You know, they're very clouds of woodsy and they're like
literally clouds of wits end in their perspectives. You know.
That's who train them to fight modern war. You know.
It was uh clouds with himself and officers and there
are for the Russian Federation on parade they still you know,
perform the goose stuff. This you know, not a coincidence
because they they think it looks really sharp, which it does,
but it's because that's how they learned drill, you know.
And this, this, this solidified Russia as a as a
real military power on the world stage once again, you know.
And that's why it's there's it's not as like a
conceptual bias or like a categorical ignorance, when it's both
those things too. What you know, like the honest of
facilities in Ukraine. Like however mismanaged that war has been
and it's kind of like grossing is managed on on
the Russian side. Okay, But this idea that like Russia
lacks the capability to deploy its scale, It's like, what
are you talking about? I mean that that's that's at
odds of reality, you know. And if you're gonna if
you're gonna fight the uh, you're gonna fight the arm
force of the Russian Federation like literally on their own frontier,
you know, the the direct precedent that cons that bear
as well what happened in Syria. You know, I not
not make a mistake. I there is no like military
objective on you know that that Ukraine is pursuing because
there's no there's no path in victory in military terms.
And it's but if you accept that, you know, US, NATO,
Israel their only interest is you know, and it is
in creating attrition. You know, it's uh, it makes perfect sense.
But this idea that these these it's not as these
fools like blinking either, like as you know, there's this people.
I don't think there's any serious people in the foreign
policies stay asman, but even people less kind of you know,
out of it than he is. You know, they were
talking like, well, yeah, you know, the the Russian mainline
resistance is just going to collapse. You know, the moment
basically we start popping off combined arms and you know
from a borough communitions or whatever, and and then like
the you know, the the United Russia is just going
to collapse. It's like what are you smoking? Crack Like
that's you know, the one thing, the one thing the
Russians have going for them again is the fact that
they can bring firepower to bear. They've got a very
game population, and I as long as as long as
Putin is alive and relatively healthy, like United Russia is
like never been stronger, like they're Their problem is that
apparently they can't achieve consensus on who on a man
to take his place. But this idea that butth of
Russians literally took twenty five million dead. You know, if
you lose one in seven of your population to the
Wehrmacht in four years, and not only do you not
fall apart, you you can reconstitute into a superpower, albeit
a crippled one, immediately subsequent There's nothing sort of incredible,
and I think I think it's basically unprecedented, you know,
like some some sort of comparable scenario or a state
endoors that level of devastation and is able to you know,
it's not profit from it to uh, you know, immediately
reconstitute and project power in a way theretofore unthinkable even
prior to the onset of hostilities. But you know, the uh,
that's one of the reasons why I mean the the
You've got to understand the Ukraine War as as literally
like another a secondary front, a secondary theater of the
same conflict as was underway in Syria. And one of
the things facility Russian facilitated by Russian victory there was
not just clout in the national stage, but uh, it
basically guaranteed them access to the Eastern Mediterranean, you know,
and uh uh from there you can stage you can
stage comment operations like fear wide basically, you know, including
in places like Libya that for reasons, some of which
are within the bound rationality of ah, you know, NATO
decision making, and for some reasons they have it Libya
that makes sense. There's some that don't. But like point being,
Russia absolutely can deploy their in depth if they're not
tied down in their own frontier viause of Ukraine, and
that's really the key to understanding what is underway there
in in in in like hard material terms, I mean.
But the Aside himself apparently on the h on the
eve of Russian intervention, he I assume this came from
his general staff, and I the Seriennery of Army. I know,
people claim that they're shit, like the Egyptian Army or something.
I don't accept that. I don't accept that because of
the nineteen seventy three war. And like I said, the
issue with the Syriennery of Army, it wasn't that like
they were getting mauled in the field. It's that basically
like this soon he said, like we're not gonna fight
this war, you know. But Asad again I'm certain through
like his general staff or its equivalent, they issued this
series of reports to Moscow saying like this is the
this is the tactical situation, this is what we absolutely need,
this is what needs to be brought to bear. You know,
they basically like identified and characterized up for and like
how it was hurting them, and in a very concise
and clearheaded way said like this is why we're going
to lose this war unless you're able to deploy and
guarantee A, B and C, you know, and that that
events is like a remarkable level of trust because like
among other things, if you invite a great power and
in very reduced terms, Russia still is a great power
in relative terms, although like nothing you know, like a superpower.
You know, you invite the Russians to deploy in depth
and in hand your command control mechanism over to them,
they may will just decide that like now serious part
of Russia for all practical purposes like that that's not
just cap like when people like you know who's going
to attack one, Like it's it's no small measure inviting
like five or eight thousand like armed Russians and their
common aircraft and guys in their general staff like into
your country and saying like okay, fellas, like you know,
do do you do best? Then implement like death at
scale among like those people, but then like kind of
politely bow out when it's done. I mean, it's it's
a rare case, like real kind of like respect and
reciprocity at like cultural level as well as practical levels
but yeah, and that's why, uh you know, like I said,
if I could, if I can meet the when I
go I head to state, like I found a little
interesting as Bashar al Assade, like you know, he's uh,
he's a fascinating dude, and I find it highly relatable.
But yeah, the I think that's uh, yeah, I was
gonna get at some point. And we covered some of
this in earlier, I mean in like a different series.
I mean we were talking about, you know, the the
Jackson Vanic Amendment and what prompted it, which wasn't a
large measure, you know, the the public bro and the
Supreme Soviet moving moving to literally like outlaws of Zionism,
like it became it became a political crime against the
state to you know, like advocate for Zionism, you know,
and there's a party official in in April eighty three,
they're like this full page this full page ad titled
quote from the Soviet leadership laying out the case against
Zionism as as as viewed from Moscow, which is fascinating,
you know, and this and then subsequently, you know, that's
when you started hearing in media this narrative like like
a Soviet Jews the right risk of annihilation. You know,
the Soviet Union is this you know, anti Semitic country.
I mean they've been at war for decades already, but
it's it. Uh, it took on like an over the
you know, an above board like character, you know, and this, uh,
the the you know, the purported plate of Soviet jewelry.
It it was something that was endlessly bandied about by
not just NGOs and sympathetic media people, by the Reagan
administration like it's really it's really wild. And you know,
speaking of cold war movies or cold war theme movies,
then we Firefox is a really good movie. This if
you can, I mean you've got to look like the propaganda.
But I when I was like a little kid, my
mom and dad, I want to see it with them,
and it like blew my mind. But uh, you know,
one of the subtexts of it is that you know
that Clint Eastwood is like the Russo American like non
era combat pilot. You know, he uh he goes hit
his mission is like steal uh what the then fictional
mid thirty one, Like there is an actual mid thirty one.
It's it's call signs his Fox bat But it didn't
exist when Firebox came out, but the the med thirty one,
Firefox is like the super plane and it directly interfaces
with the pilot's brain waves, so like if you so
you think commands to the central processing unit and then
it responds. And because Eastwood in the film, his character
is this Russian guy Russian to he he speaks Russian,
you know, so it's so he can think in Russian
to manipulate the avionics. But any event, like a subplot
is there's this Jewish avi ONYX engineer and the Soviets
are basically they're like threatening to like waste his family
if he doesn't build the Firefox, and like uh, at
one point, like Queneatwood's character makes conted with him and
he's like, yeah, you know, like the the Soviets are,
you know, they're they're as bad as like the German Reich.
And that's kind of like obvious propaganda insinuated, you know,
But that he like he even that wasn't just like
Hollywood stuff like that's that was the narrative being presented,
but that that's kind of a tangential when it's a
long topic. But yeah, I think, uh, I think we're
coming up in the hour. Yeah, no, that's uh, that's
about all I got for this series. I don't I
don't want to break off another like subtopic. Man, And
forgive me if I repeated myself, but uh, yeah, I
think uh unless uh and unless I'm I got a
real gap and uh my recollection, I think we I
think we covered quite a bit of the of uh
what's relevant you know over these past few sessions.
Speaker 1: Can I hit you with one question from yeah, what
was your what was your take on the the Iranian
uh missile offensive?
Speaker 2: The Iranians had to do something, I mean, yes, like
his blase is for all practical purposes, you know, like
the foreign the Iranian foreign legion. But there's a plausible
deniability that the Iranians like very sort of jealously guard there,
but also just in in in terms of in terms
of poopolitical terms as well as for domestic consumption as
well as in the court of world opinion, like I
Ran had to respond somehow. And this this is basically identical.
It is basically a reducs of when when SOLMANI was
you know, it was the same thing. It was just
like it was just like very very controlled response. You know,
the target the areas targeted were like exclusively counter value.
You know, it was announced that this was going to happen,
So that's the way I read it. And it's more
for the benefit of like they were in regime despite
the time about media says this, it's not like the
Taliban or something, and it's it's also like it's already
they actually hold election as and I ran all the time,
and like the regime does have like certain credibility problems,
but like I'm a Dana Jod. You know, he was
not only in a Zeri, but the reason he's were
that like members only jacket. I remember, like media people
that make fun of him, but it's like the dude
work he was like an he was he was he
was like an oil rig worker or like a pipeline
like a like a foreman, and like that's why he
was trying to look the part of like you know,
mister like a Zeri working man. He was like this
big like socialist kind of like labor leader like Rabel Rouser,
and like the religious authorities didn't like him at all,
Like they basically allowed him they into the top job
because they had to, you know, and so talking about
something is alamist. It's like this most like you like
looking crack if you think that. But point being Iran's
it just gets it's a complicated situation domestically and the
regime there. They do have to cater to public opinion
more than people acknowledge in the West, and especially if
it looks like I mean, even if even if these
like retaliatory strikes like don't mean anything, it doesn't matter.
It's for domestic consumption anyway, you know, like Iran's Iran's
ground element in real terms is hepla. That's my interversation.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it seems like with some of the incursions
that I've been monitoring over the past twenty four to
thirty six hours, was doing a pretty damn good job
on the ground there. Yeah, it seems like it seems
like Israel they're only they can only do anything from
the air right now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they don't want Well it's also too what are
they gonna do? Are they gonna assault Evanon? Like it's
some the eighties early nineties. You were in two thousand
and six and they tried that you're not You're not
gonna they don't have the forces they don't have the
force structure or the political will to assault Beirut and
try and like route Hesibla from the Shia urban heartland.
You're gonna fight house to house against HESBLAF the next
five years and you know and take like twenty thousand
dead in a few months. Like, no, you're not gonna
do that. No, his was They're they're no joke, man,
They're they're definitely the most capable ground element other than
IDF in the region.
Speaker 1: Cool, well, do your plugs. We'll get out of here,
and I guess the next uh, next time we get
together will finish up the gladiol and then move on
to something after that.
Speaker 2: That's great. Yeah, yeah, yeah man. You can find me
on Subspect. It's real Thomas seven seven seven of subspect
dot com. That's where the pod is at, and as
well as like longer form stuff and just like various things.
I uh, I'm on social media at Capital R E
A L Underscore number seven h O M A S
seven seven seven. I'm on Instagram, I'm on t Gram.
I got my own website. It's Thomas seven seven seven
dot com number seven h O M A S seven
seven seven dot com And I got uh, I got
like merse that I sell because owing to popular demand.
I'm not trying to be corny like that's literally why
like I started doing it with my friend and partner
in crime, Hair Cree. But if you would include a
link to that in the description, that would be a
great help so people can find it.
Speaker 1: Yep, dah, last time it'll be it'll be there this time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 1: I appreciate it. Thomas, It's all the next time. Thank you.
Speaker 2: Boys,