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already has. Thank you so much. I want to welcome
everyone back to the PECAO Show. Thomas is back for
more Syria and Russia talk. How are you doing, Thomas.
Speaker 2: I'm well, thank you. I'm not It's been a minute
since we recorded, so if I'm repeating myself, please correct me.
So I can't remember exactly where I left off. I
think I think we left all the props and that
we were always talking about some of the more recent
scholarship on the ninety seven twenty three war.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's it. That's exactly where it was.
Speaker 2: Yeah, which has something of an outsized significance. It's warranted,
I don't I don't mean outsized in the sense that
it's emphasized unduly. That really changed the regional security paradigm
in the Near East, 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, and
then yeah, I was very clumsy in the way he
articulates propaganda. I mean that that's just a fact. 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 Yahoo
doesn't possess that skill set. However, the his bloss Syria,
the Syrian Arab 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's primary ops okay, And you know 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 has beil Uh,
you know, hasbil a slash Iran, I mean, in all
but name, his was 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 essentially 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's
there's a that's that's a very daunting 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 Preball, he basically suggests it's I
guess Sam's a 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 approach
things because they're a totally abnormal state, involves 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, departments in the executive branch they're constantly
claiming it's a liberal democracy, because I mean that that's
just a floating signifier that suggests moral approval. But even
even where that's 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.
I David A. Korn he was a diplomat back when
Department of State was still a tricting 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's served he served for some time
in Tel Aviv as it was called the political officer,
and Hanshu 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 this signed to a diplomatic posting
is in some ways an intelligence representative under light diplomatic power,
and everybody knows that. But guys like Corn 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 role
than that. And he made the point pretty consistently that
one of the reasons why the paradigm is so volatile
Israel contra the the Shia Crescent, the states they constitute
that do a strategic concept. One of the reasons that's
so volatile is because you know, there was the outcome
was it's not no, 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 in some cases
where they were pretty seriously outnumbered by combined arms. But
the fact that they kind of convinced themselves of this,
it led to a false sense of security, especially on
the political side of things. The military idea, 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 know so much anymore because
the intellectal left is kind of dead. But during the
Cold War and even yond, like even 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 and
our 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 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, the 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 I mean, I guess I'm getting
as you can't extricate those conditions from like ideological and paras. 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 breach in 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 of
Jitsuk Rabin's memory, you know, we're being of course, was
unceremoniously murdered in ninety five by this crazy young guy
who's like rotting in prison now. But you know, I
I'm not going to say there was some conspiracy to
whack Rabin, but a lot of people were happy that
that that that happened, and from that point forward, Israel
became a one party state, you know, and Rabine was
going to Rabin 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 Ravine 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,
where we're just gonna have you know, where we're gonna
give them the ballot and see where the ships follow.
That wouldn't have happened, But some kind of extrication from
grand apartheid would have happened. Okay, But Barack Ihu Barack,
he's the guy who made the point as well. That
really was keeping the Nyahu alive politically. It's the fact
that swapping out the civilian executive or kind of like
rendering it headless, like if you don't I was removed
by no confidence or if he was indicted, which you
may very well be if and when this war results.
But the perverse incentives that kind of pursue like bad
strategy is what I'm getting at, okay, and what Barack
is getting it. You know, people turn around I know
what I hear from them, and they say, like, well,
how it is 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 and
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 it. I think I covered
this on a pod, so if I'm repeating myself, forgive me.
But 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 going to get wiped out,
you know, basically like a company sized element like storm
the mainline of resistance. But when they did that, there
was nobody there, you know, like the Israelis 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 combined arms 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 it'd be like if
when 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 irregular is 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 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 hyperbaric 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 what I'm not. I'm not saying like, oh,
IDF is is like a ship force, because they're not.
But there's real problems there, Okay, and this isn't just
like some like intelligence failure or something. But moving on.
Speaker 1: But 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'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 heritage 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 you 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
cloqual 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 I don't doubt that guy's testimony for a minute,
But I mean, like, why would you 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 stringer of army
and also like hit Hesiblah and like really really hard
because the idea's been smarting from from their fight with
Hezebla 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 the 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 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 I 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 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 have literally minded they can't like compute this or something.
But the fact that like you know, likeever often 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
more like NATO's being so reckless. You know, if it
was just a question of we want to MRK the
Russians and moving forward, you know, we we want to
ford deployment where we can that's like farther east and
central Visa, 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 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 I like ze Lenski's in there like outfront like
that that's not good optics at all. And it's not
just said 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 front who
you know, it's involved in the entertainment business, and you
know we're in 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 we're not gonna like we're 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 figuring 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 the Frond 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 uh,
there were a few dozen very mocked off users who
served in 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 Communist 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 what that's the armor they knew how to fight
in and have situating 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 was 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 broke down because like Franco's like a
ludicris de Man's that were you know, purposely that personally
sabotaged any agreement between you know, the Reich and Madrid,
there was still hope and the Panders 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 just like off brand like knockoffs,
you know, they were real Panjas and like most of
them had never like been deployed anywhere. So the Syrians
got 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: Truth. 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 englishmen. 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 angle hood 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 von Leers and
a lot of these national socialist guys who ended up
in these Arab states. It was twofold. And 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're also kind
of like the shock troops contra Zionism, you know, so
there was an 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 just uh,
it's just this sort of anti Semitic you know, Nazi conspiracy.
I 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 I mean, I like the
Syrian people. I know a lot of Syrians, and I
hold in a high 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
with the Third Reich and what it stood for, you know,
the obviously like a like like I think too Jamas
Croatia was the only it was the only true like
national social estate that existed after the Day defeat. 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 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 asad and like
wece versa. You know, like I the naval basic Tarts,
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
he's like permanent rights like the Tartist naval base. You know,
it's uh, and it was, it was. It was a
sad politicking. I mean, I take nothing away obviously from
the game. That's the syrianair 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 masm Is called the Ramadan War, Alohites
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 truths about
twenty of whom died in Action seventy three, you know,
and over cub close to four thousand tons of aid
you know, AMMO, uh like ration packs, you know, medical
supplies like you name it, by the by the conclusion,
by the end of October, you know, it's cessation about
still is immediately beyond the Soviet Navy they'd see lifted
over sixty thousand tons of of gear like weapons again
like weapons, AMMO, foods, us agricultural commodities to Syria or
replace its losses. I mean, that's that that's a huge effort,
you know. And as uh as we talked about, there
was some tension from about seventy five to seventy seven,
I guess the Syrians directly intervened in Webinon. There was
this kind of tense minuet because you know, the PLO,
the PLO, despite its despite its 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 Arab Army and and the
PLO hawfes 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 intersne conflicts between Soviet Allied elements, was Ad a
sod 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 Dar al Islam,
you know, but it was it was the right play
considering the circumstances. And it was also essential, I mean
building there during the Cold War like that, that kind
of consensus building across UH national frontiers was essential, you know,
and it was uh the kind of last hurrah of
that of more 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 in the
entire prodige and of course the Fasisade, you know, the
Syriener 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 Assad family.
It's it's it's unconstable, like it's it's a vile I mean,
aside in the fact it's totally irrational, but it's just
it's just vile, like you don't do that. April seventy seven,
a Fessi Sade he made a state visit to Moscow
and he got an audience in the bresid of himself
as well as a legacy posedon Kasegan, you know, who
were I mean basically got to meet the OA 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, uh,
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 that was not coincidental with
that was very much taylor to send a message to
the world. And subsequently there became a permanent garrison in
Syria of Soviet troops. You know, not only were the
balk Asyrian weapons you know, coming from Warsaw Pact, you know,
the Soviet Union itself, the DDR, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, what have you.
But also like North Korea, you know, like 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 of an outsized profile in conceptual terms, this is
this is a big win for the for the communist world,
even even though the Syrian Bath was not particularly sympathetic
to doctrinal Marxist Leninism. 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
Auto Riemer and and George s. Wister Vierick and Ah
Thompson and Francis Jacky. 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 did they like to bandy that
there's some kind of third world is I don't even
know what that means, but it, you know, within the
X time, within the extant 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 a time for 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 viewpoint is closest to mine own out of anybody.
He's kind of active in writing about you know, political
theory and in national socialism and stuff. In twenty ten,
Medgette 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 Syriana of army routed ISIS. You know,
there was a there was this parade for the Russian
contingent there that 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 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 or forgett 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 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 were turning loose on on Syria
as a dead nation strategy, you know. And to the Russians,
I mean, and God bless the Russians for like blasting
those guys to hell. 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, and that that's really like
what the what the Syrina of r and the Russian
Federation and his block accomplished their other than an operations storm,
like when the Cross routed the chet Knicks 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 to say love Ukraine, it's I realized, like how
sick these fucking people are, and like I'm just like delusional,
you know, like they don't own they're 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 think 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 America, Like
that's this that the basic bitch like white and word stuff.
But it's also like you're not in the game if
you think these things occurrent isolation but you don't. 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 political 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 like you're gonna take some
like non position, owing owing to some like ethical orientation
that you know you've convinced 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 but 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 about Russian people. I mean
the Russians are in a desperate situation. Putin said that
like 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 up Russia alive.
As in Warren Key's terms, you know, like had had
the Russian just allowed Seria to go down like they
they would have had a cascading effect of of of catastrophes.
You know, you've developed certain instincts for identifying what events
are gonna have those sort of seismic kinetic effects, and
you ever believe if Damasius had fallen, that would have
been one of those events. It's also it was executed
pretty splendidly man. You know, I'm We've talked to a
lot in various capacities, and I recommend you know, super of.
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 in the in the later bresid Of era and
something that remains this day and something that preceded the
the Bolshek Revolution. You know. The Russians big thing, they're
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 doctorate almost like a
Western army or like or like the US Army would
treat regulation. It's highly inflexible, okay, but for what they're right,
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 rastually 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
Halts any great shakes, but this guy was like he
was kind of like the bush Ley Lester Holt, and
he was he was talking to he saw 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 cap about like well saw
Church 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 art 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 they would have been able to
like arrive in the battle space, you know, deploy in
depth and then and then and then completely food bar
of the operation. I mean, they definitely could have lost it.
But and I'm not going to suggest that the Russian
Army deployed to Syria as like something on order of
the British. Uh, accomplishing that kind of logistic what mirrorable
they did at the Falklands maybe two or something, but
it was it 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
I make twenty nines and some kind of sex stuff
like thermobar recartillery and things like that, it's like, okay,
I mean, I it appears as if like the Russian
Army's back. I mean, the Rugian ary 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 moving on, Yeah,
it's uh, the Russian the chief of Staff of the
Russian Air Force grass them 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, rab rab We're back. We you know,
we we're a serious you know, we're we're a 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 called quote the infrast structure 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 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 an immediate advance of that combined ground and element
you know, which would then like encircle these positions with
kind of like textbook like Warsaw Pack deep battle just
like smaller scale you know, and basically treat basically treat
the operations as like you know, the advance of fire
wherever possible, you know, like lay as much fire as
possible on the opposing forced 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 would 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 Lah was charged
basically it was like liberating Damascus. I mean, like what
do you that would have kind of neutral 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
about an hour. Yeah, I'm sorry, those two like heavy
on the military side of things. I'd like to I
realized we still gotta wrap up 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
Jackson Vanic amendments and what led to its pass and
the whole kind of narrative of Soviet Jewry 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.
Speaker 2: Go from there. Yeah that's great, man, all right.
Speaker 1: So just tell everybody where they can find your stuff
and uh nope, yeah, man.
Speaker 2: You can find me on substick this My podcast content
is it's real Thomas seven seven seven that's substick dot Com.
I'm doing some bi weekly 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 burned 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: Like 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 what bottomized page like
programmed it or something. So I after like four hours
of this garbage, I'm like, what the fuck am I doing?
I'm like I'm not gonna I'm like it's I'd rather
have root canal than like just like do it. He's young,
exactly do it. And the main thing is I love
substick 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 substick, 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. Then on
gum Road it's radio free Chicago. You know, I shouted
out when we record new stuff, like on my substick,
I like post a link and stuff as.
Speaker 1: 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 burd app. You know, I'm I'm
at Capital r e a L underscore number seven hm
as 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.
Speaker 3: 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 because in I'm gonna have to
travel a bunch this winter, which I didn't, which is
is fine.
Speaker 2: 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've got to properly like cite, you know, your data
on things. But that's what I've been up on.
Speaker 1: Awesome, all right, So 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 yoush.