Are We Headed Toward World War III? (Guest: Dave DeCamp)

[00:00:10] Speaker A: No rational person wants another world war. But it seems that the powers that be, particularly United States, are doing everything they can to start one. How is this happening? That's what we're talking about today on Crisis Point. Hello, I'm Eric. Sam is your host, editor in chief of Crisis magazine. Before we get started, just want to encourage people to smash that, like, button. Like, the United States wants to smash every country in the world. Also, you can follow us on social media at Crisis Mag. Also, I just want to make sure I mention we're doing our fundraiser. We only do two a year, so go to crisismagazine.com and we will have a pop up asking for money. We only run that twice a year, so we're running it right now, so please donate. We have a huge donor who's giving us $75,000 in matching grants if we can raise that much money. So please donate. And we really do appreciate that. Okay, so our guest today is David De Camp. He is the news editor of Anti War.com and also the host of Anti War News with David de Camp, which are both excellent resources. But what I think he's most famous for, at least here, is he is my first guest, I believe, who's ever been mentioned on the Joe Rogan podcast. So welcome to the program, Dave. [00:01:18] Speaker B: Thanks for having me, Eric. I'm a big fan. [00:01:20] Speaker A: Thanks. That was a little. Was that a little surreal for you when all of a sudden it was Dave Smith and he mentioned he was on Joe Rogan the day after the election. So this is like a huge one, right? And all of a sudden he just mentions you, puts out your ex address, tells everybody to follow you. What was that like for that? [00:01:34] Speaker B: Yeah, it was surreal, you know, because I was on, you know, I just happened to be on X that day they recorded, and I just saw Joe Rogan follows you. And I was like, what? And I knew it was Dave because I know Dave and he's like the only person I know that you know gets on that show. Right? And then he messaged. I messaged him later telling him, and he's like, yeah, we. He did it on the show. And I, like doubled my Twitter followers. Like, went from like 30,000 to 60,000. And it was surreal. You know, it's one of those shows like, I know Dave. I know Dave pretty well, but still Joe Rogan to me, because that's something I used to listen to, like when I was like, in my early 20s. Like, I used to listen to Joe Rogan all the time, right? And I heard from all my friends from home and, like, people I used to work with. So, yeah, it was. It was pretty cool. So, yeah, it was definitely. [00:02:19] Speaker A: Yeah. When you tweeted out that he was. That. That you were mentioned, I honestly, I just started following your. Your page to see the follower count go up because it's just fascinating to watch because, like, you said, you were in the 30s or something like that, and all of a sudden you're in the 40s and you're in the 50s and you're like, in the 60s. I'm just like, holy. And that was like, in a couple days, too. It kind of shows what kind of reach Joe Rogan has. [00:02:40] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah, it was pretty amazing. I've noticed some have. I've been shedding some followers lately. They might. Some of them might not like what I have to say, but, yeah, it's really cool. [00:02:49] Speaker A: It always is funny when you pick up followers from some media parents you do, and then you notice that they start kind of. Some of them go away because they're like, oh, this guy actually isn't what I thought he was. He actually thinks some things I don't really agree with. So that's always fun. Okay, so I. I wanted to have you on the podcast because I love the work you're [email protected] and I think, you know, obviously what's going on in the world right now with. In Ukraine particularly, and the Middle east and Gaza are very important and frankly, a bit frightening. Before, though, I wanted to get into those details. Why don't you. I know I found out not that long ago that you're Catholic. Why don't you tell us a little bit? Because most of our audience, not all, but most of our audience is Catholic, kind of. Tell us, did you grow up Catholic? Did you convert? Did you just become Catholic? You know, what's. What's your story? [00:03:39] Speaker B: Yeah, so I was raised Catholic. I'm a cradle Catholic. And I went away from the faith for most of my life. You know, when I was in high school, my mom's very, very faithful. She, you know, brought me to church every Sunday. But I like, was very. I was a very bad Catholic in high school. And, you know, when I went into college and in my 20s, I completely went away from it. I always believed in God. I always ultimately believe. Believed in God, believed in Jesus. I always knew that in my heart. So actually, so I returned to the church last year for a few years. There was times before where I started. You know, I would go to Mass once in a while. Or I would go to other denominations, which. And as a kid, you know, I was so ignorant. Like, I go there, I'm like, where's the. Where's the Eucharist? Like, I didn't even, you know, where I grew up. I grew up on Long island in New York. Very. A lot of Italian, Irish family. So, like, everybody was Catholic. So I took for granted kind of the gift that I was given by my family, the Catholic faith. And then last year, we live down in Virginia now, and I started going back to church and got my kids baptized. My wife and I had to get married in the church. And I've had, like, a big reversion. You know, it's been pretty major. It's been kind of an incredible year. And so it's one of those things. I'm sure you know the feeling as a convert. Like, when I think about it, actually, it hasn't even been a full year since I officially rejoined the church. It was in March that we got married, but it feels like so long. And. Yeah, it's just been great. And, you know, we've talked about this before. I agree with your stance that, like, people should wait a few years before talking about Catholicism publicly. And I. I try not to talk about it too much. Besides, just, like, I'll tweet something like, hey, praying the rosaries, help me, or I really. One thing I love about to see on Twitter is, like, Catholics who will post, like, a beautiful. Some beautiful Catholic art for whatever feast day it is once in a while. You know, I talked a little smack lately about Israel and Christians, but, you know, that's kind of related to my work. But so I try not to. I don't want to. I'm not ready yet to kind of get in the fray of, like, arguing with, you know, Orthodox Christians or Protestants and everything. But, yeah, it's real. It's been. Again, like, my life has been completely transformed in the past year. [00:05:56] Speaker A: That's awesome. And I love it because, like, I was following you before I even knew you were Catholic or anything like that. And it's just all. I just think it's great when you post, like, those little things like praying the rosary or something like that. I just think it's so great because, like, I would guess, unlike me, the majority of my followers are probably Catholic. I would guess that the vast majority of yours are not. So it's just a great. It's a great thing just to say. And, like, I, like, you know, like, I've said this before on the podcast, and you talked about that. You know, I'm not, you know, I do think people, when they convert or come back to the faith, they should wait a while before they try to opine about internal Catholic matters, just to kind of get, get back into a feel for what that, what it's like to be Catholic and live as a cat and stuff like that. But that, of course, doesn't mean people are. Recent conference, can't talk about anything. You know, it's like, you know, because you have an area expertise here, which is, you know, war of foreign policy, war, things of that nature. So why don't you tell us, like, I know You've been with Anti War.com for a while. How did you get involved with the anti war movement? [00:07:00] Speaker B: Yeah, so my background, you know, I went to college for something completely different. I went to maritime college in New York in the Bronx to get my merchant Marine license to work on ships, and I ended up working on ferries, New York on Long island, and then I worked on the Staten island ferry. It was a nice cushy city job. So I had a lot of time off. And I was never very politically active, but I was always anti war. You know, I was in high school when the. Actually, I was in middle school when the invasion happened. But, you know, I grew up in a suburb of New York. 9, 11 was really impacted where I lived. And I remember even as a kid, I was like 13 when we invaded Iraq. And even at that time, I knew it was wrong. And, you know, I just had that kind of gut feeling about it. So I was always anti war, you know, through high school, during the Bush years. And it was really during the 2016 election that I became more kind of, I had this kind of passion about it, and I became more angry about it because the worst thing about Hillary Clinton really was her warmongering. I mean, one of the worst things. [00:08:01] Speaker A: And bad there, but yes, that was definitely one of the worst. [00:08:04] Speaker B: Yeah. And that wasn't really even, you know, most people just didn't really seem to care about that. And then when it came to Trump, you know, he said some good things on the campaign trail about the Iraq war, but he also said he was going to kill terrorists and their families. And when he came into office in 2017, he ramped up all the wars, all the drone campaigns, airstrikes in Afghanistan, in Yemen, and nobody noticed. And it was all these fake scandals about Russiagate, Stormy Daniels, and really, it was just not on anybody's minds, these wars that the US Was involved in, a big one at the time was the war in Yemen that the US was backing the Saudis and the UAE in this brutal war. I mean, so many children killed and starved to death. And that was the one that really drove me. I started getting involved in anti war activism and protests and stuff, but that didn't, you know, people need to be aware of the war. You know, if you see someone protesting the war in Yemen on the, on the streets of New York, most people don't even understand how that connects to the, to the US so I started writing and just submitting articles to anti war.com and they started publishing them and we, I got to know my boss, Eric Garris, who founded the site, and Scott Horton, who's our editorial director. He's our most well known guy at this point. He just wrote a great book on Ukraine called I'm sitting right over there. [00:09:23] Speaker A: I just started it. I have not. I mean, boy, that's gonna, it might be a long time for. I'm finished with it probably because that thing is. [00:09:29] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm still working on it. [00:09:31] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:09:31] Speaker B: And I had to copy, like an advanced copy. So I got to know them and it felt good. Like, it felt sane. Like, same thing now. Like, I feel like if I meet a Catholic, like out in the wild or talk to a Catholic, like that feeling of, you know, there's this great evil thing happening that nobody's really aware of. And then we just kind of build a relationship. And I, so I do news coverage there. Like I write kind of short news articles every day, you know, sift through the news and try to figure out what's important from our perspective, what Americans should be aware of that their government is involved in. And our perspective is, you know, a non interventionist one that we don't think our government should be involved in these wars. We're libertarian leaning, you know, Austrian economics and gold and Bitcoin are things that we like. So that's kind of our perspective. But then again we have columnists from all over the political spectrum. So you'll see, you know, things from a left wing perspective, things from a conservative perspective. That's something I actually really like about it. [00:10:30] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:10:31] Speaker B: But, yeah, so that's what I do. I do the news every day, you know, five days a week. I work and kind of sift through these stories and write this stuff. And I, I actually kind of credit it how I ended up in this, why I cared about like kids in Yemen with being raised Catholic, because my grandparents, I remember, and my mom were always giving to charities, you know, In Africa and these other parts of the world. Like, I had that instinct to care about innocent people in these other parts of the world. I think from being raised Catholic. [00:10:59] Speaker A: Right, right. One of the things that I. I've been basically anti war for about. I mean, Ron Paul was like, you know, the Giuliani moment from 2008 campaign, you know, kind of started it. And then probably in the, like around 2011, 12 is when I really was like, okay, I'm starting to see this is just ridiculous. I mean, I was a big Booster in the 90s, the Iraq first Iraq war and you know, the 9 11. I was like, yeah, actually I. That's right, the second Iraq war, the invasion after 9 11. That was the first time I was squeamish about American foreign policy because I was like, I don't really think the story they're telling is true. And for a somebody like me who grew up very conservative, kind of neocon, that's a big moment. And then when Ron Paul kind of kicked in, I was like, that's why I started listening to him. Because I was like, okay, but here's the thing. I resisted the label for a very long time of anti war because in my mind, as a Catholic, I don't think that we should. At least my perspective is that we shouldn't be a pacifist, like, strictly speaking. And so we can't really be anti war in the sense that war sometimes is, you know, happens and you have to defend yourself and you're in a war, stuff like that. But then recently in the last few years, I've kind of realized, okay, that's just kind of stupid semantics because ultimately I, I don't know of a war that exists in our modern world today that I'm for. So I'm going to be anti war. If you, if all of a sudden one comes up that I feel is morally justified, then I'll say, okay, I'm okay with us fighting in this one, but I just am not free them. [00:12:34] Speaker B: Did you. [00:12:34] Speaker A: Do you have the same, like, feelings or. Or are you a pacifist? I don't really know. Like, where do you kind of fall on that spectrum? [00:12:41] Speaker B: I used to be more of a pacifist. And, you know, some people that work for the site, are involved in the site, are pacifists, but more so, you know, I mean, again, our perspective is kind of more libertarian. Like the American Revolution, you know, I think was a just war. And since I become Catholic, you know, my things have changed. I mean, I'm still figuring it out now. Like my political views on a lot of things, it's strengthened my anti war views. But, you know, it's a big change for me. You know, being Catholic is more my, Is my identity now more so than being like a libertarian? And there's some things with, you know, there are Catholic libertarians, there's a lot of great ones, but there are things that kind of clash there. So, you know, I'm trying to figure it out. But you know, just war theory, like what the Catholic Church teaches, I'm pretty much, you know, completely on board with that. [00:13:33] Speaker A: Right. And that's why I'm against all the wars today, because I don't think a single one of them qualify under just war theory. [00:13:42] Speaker B: That's absolutely right. [00:13:43] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:13:43] Speaker B: All the conflicts that the US is involved in right now. [00:13:46] Speaker A: Right, that's what I mean. [00:13:47] Speaker B: Yeah. Definitely do not fit with that. [00:13:50] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, that's something I just, I don't understand because I remember I actually did an article a few years ago about just war theory and about how it was being abused. And I went back and found like articles by Catholics justifying the second Iraq evasion invasion war by just war theory. They were basically. And they. And it just like when reading it, it sounds so ludicrous now. I mean, should have sound ludicrous at the time to me it didn't as much. But now it's just like, it's just so ridiculous. And it all comes back to, okay, let's just compare this leader that we don't like to Hitler and now we now it's just war. I mean, that seems to be the kind of neocon talking point. Well, let's talk about specifically now, today. I think that obviously I, I don't want to act like there aren't more conflicts. Like Yemen is a good example. Nobody knows about it. It's horrible what's going on. But like the two big ones of course are what's happening Ukraine, what's happening in Gaza. So first, why don't we talk about Ukraine? And you know, we mentioned Scott Horton's book, for those who don't know what we're talking about, a book called Provoked by Scott Horton. And it is just, it just came out like literally a week or so ago. You can get Amazon there it is. I mean, I like how you show the side first, see how big it is and like, what is it? Like a third of its footnotes where he's backing up everything that he's saying, basically. What's the subtitle of that book? [00:15:16] Speaker B: How Washington started the new Cold War with Russia and the catastrophe in Ukraine. [00:15:21] Speaker A: Right. So the basic point is that there's always, there's this big debate about whether or not Russia was provoked and people think that means they're justified and stuff like that. Why don't you give like a 64,000 foot view of kind of the US involvement that led to where we are today with Ukraine and Russia? [00:15:41] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, there's a lot to it. And Scott's book goes back to the end of the Cold War. And you know, the biggest, one of the biggest things that strained relations between the US And Russia post Cold War was NATO expansion. And, you know, he makes a very strong case in the first part of the book is about how the US Was telling the Soviet Union that we're not, you know, if you get out of East Germany, we're not going to move NATO east. You know, they were saying at one point that they weren't going to move it into East Germany, but they were saying we're not going to move it. You know, we're not going to march east with the, with the alliance. And, you know, there was not a formal treaty written out that says that. And you'll see now all these articles saying, oh, you know, that, that, that's a Russian talking point, Putin propaganda. But Scott makes a very strong case that, you know, what's really interesting about it is not only was, is that what the U.S. was telling these Soviet and Russian officials during meetings, that was also what the US Was saying publicly. You know, there's like State Department press briefings and stuff and statements where that's, that's, that's what they're saying. So NATO expansion was the first big march in the direction of what we have today in Ukraine and also the wars in the Balkans, Bosnia, Kosovo, the U.S. that was, you know, that's another thing. You know, there's a lot to get into with the different ethnic conflicts and everything. But again, the case that Scott makes very strongly is a big part of that intervention. This is like when the humanitarian intervention really started. That narrative NATO needed, you know, their biggest enemy was gone. Their reason for existing was gone. The Soviet Union, the Warsaw Pact was gone. So they needed work, you know, so they needed something to do. So they got involved in the Balkans and, you know, they broke up Yugoslavia. You know, you hear all this talk about you have to respect a country's sovereignty and their borders, like these borders that were drawn post World War II and then post collapse of the Soviet Union are completely sacred and they cannot be moved in any way. Well, look at what NATO, the US And NATO did in Yugoslavia to break those borders up. So, you know, this is all. And the view from Russia, Russia seeing what they do in Yugoslavia, you know, giving Russia a reason to see NATO still as an enemy, to see the west as an enemy. And then the expansion, when that started, you know, the most kind of famous example of this is George Kennan, who is a cold warrior who is credited with coming up with containment theory. You know, there's an interview with him when they started expanding NATO east. And it's really something, you know, he's. I forget exactly what he said, but it's something like, there's absolutely no reason to do this. This is to be the biggest mistake ever. It's a complete tragedy. And so, you know, fast forward a few years. In 2008, at the Bucharest summit, the U.S. well, NATO, which, you know, is the U.S. gave Ukraine, both Ukraine and Georgia, a promise that eventually, you know, you'll. You'll be able to join the alliance. And at the time, there was a guy named William Burns, who was the US Ambassador to Russia, who's currently the head of the CIA. And he wrote up this whole email to Condoleezza Rice saying that, you know, NATO expansion into Ukraine is the brightest of all red lines for Russia. They're worried that it's going to spark a civil war and then they're going to have to intervene. So they were very aware of how Russia felt about this yet. And then for a while, Yanukovych was elected, who was more pro Russia. So for a while, the idea of Ukraine joining NATO wasn't really in the cards. But then in 2013, 2014, the Euromaidan, the uprising in Ukraine, which the US was very involved in, that a whole nother aspect that a lot of people don't understand is that there's all these NGOs that operate in different countries that are funded by the US government, mostly through the National Endowment for Democracy, which is this big NGO that they fund, these pro democracy activists. Basically, they fund the political opposition in countries where the US doesn't like the government. So a lot of those NGOs were involved in this, in these protests. And there was also this kind of far right element to it, which the word far right has kind of lost its meaning lately. But these were like nationalist groups, pro Nazi. The history of Ukraine is complicated. They were under the yoke of the Soviet Union and the Nazis. So. But that's where what these groups were, you know, openly in favor, you Know, the descendants essentially of Stefan Bandera, these Ukrainian nationalists that were worked with the Nazis and every. And you know, they use Nazi iconography. You see this all over even today. So that was part of it. They were kind of the street team. And you know, this ended up with Yanukovych being thrown out. And the US again was very involved. You had John McCain going over there, Chris Murphy, these American senators going to the protests and saying, you know, we're on your side. You know, you imagine something like that happening in Canada or, you know, with Russian senators going over there. So, you know, there's a lot to this. And there's the infamous phone call between Victoria Nuland and the U.S. ambassador to the Ukraine at the time, just a few weeks before the Yanukovych was thrown out, saying, you know, who should be in the next government. The US kind of trying to determine that. And then Yanukovych fled. At one point he tried, he made a deal with the opposition that the EU was behind. And then, but then kind of the far right elements said no, you know, and they're attacking government buildings. So then Yanukovych fled and then the new government took over. And that government wanted NATO membership. And so this sparked all sorts of other crises across Ukraine. Russia taking Crimea. You know, it was a reaction to that, to this new government coming in. And also the war in the Donbas in eastern Ukraine that sparked. There's ethnic Russians, the Russian speaking population were worried about this new government that again included. You know, that's a whole other thing. There's a lot of ethnic tensions between Ukrainians and Russians. One of the first things that the, the new government did was get rid of Russia. Russian as like an official language. So they seceded basically. And it sparked this, this civil war in the east. [00:22:16] Speaker A: Did that fighting start in 2014 in Donbas or was that 2015? When did that. [00:22:21] Speaker B: It, it started in 2014. [00:22:23] Speaker A: So right after. Because it was February, Right. When they, when the, the government was overthrown of 2014. Right, okay. And then Crimea was taken like right after that. Right, like right. In February. Ish. Or something like that. Okay. And of course that was taken. I mean taken is probably the best word because didn't like only one person die or something like that? [00:22:40] Speaker B: Yeah, And I think it was like an accident or something like. Yeah, they didn't have to fire a shot. [00:22:45] Speaker A: Right. [00:22:46] Speaker B: And that is something. You know, like there was the referendum that said like 90 something percent people wanted to join Russia. And you always question when the numbers in the 90s, but if you look at polling both before and after, the majority overwhelmingly favored being part of Russia. [00:23:03] Speaker A: So now one thing about, yeah, I was going to say one thing about this that you, you know, you mentioned how in 2008 the United States basically made a promise. I know it's NATO, but we all know who runs NATO to, to have Ukraine join NATO at some point. And Russia was, is, was adamantly opposed that. And so my question is twofold. First is like, why does, why is Ukraine different? Because they obviously they didn't invade any of the other countries that joined NATO in the east, but they didn't invade Ukraine when that was in danger of joining NATO. And then, so why Ukraine? And also, is this just directed by Putin or is it more of a widespread belief in Russia among Russian leadership about the, the role of, of Ukraine being in NATO? [00:23:53] Speaker B: Yeah, this is, you know, a widespread belief among the Russian elite, among Russian officials. That's something Byrne said in that memo. And actually the criticism and a lot of the opposition to Putin in Russia is that he didn't act soon enough in Ukraine. They think he should have went in completely in 2014 because then they say, you know, he gave him all this time to get armed up by NATO and everything. But Ukraine, I mean, historically, you know, I mean, Kiev was the capital of Russia for a long time. It's, I think the historic reasons and also just the fact that it is right there, right on the border and they don't want NATO putting missiles there. That's one thing that's been happening in these other countries. The US building these missile systems that they say are like anti ballistic missile systems, but they can also fit Tomahawk missiles. Like it's this kind of buildup of NATO infrastructure and they don't want NATO missiles on their border. And you could say, you know, Putin miscalculated by invading Ukraine because now Ukraine is much more close to NATO and much more armed up by NATO. But this was what he, you know, reacted to. So the U.S. you know, they continued, they basically supported the Ukrainians in the civil war. Obama didn't give them what they call lethal aid. Now that's kind of the new name for like actual weapons that you fire. And it was actually TRUMP In 2018, the, the U.S. sent its first shipment of Javelin anti tank missiles to Ukraine, which was a big escalation. So, you know, these are all parts of it. And then, you know, we could get into what happened really under the Biden administration, you know, because they're complete failure of diplomacy or even really attempt Attempting to do diplomacy is a big reason why the invasion happened. [00:25:45] Speaker A: Yeah. But everybody involved can be pardoned, so it doesn't matter, right? [00:25:48] Speaker B: Yeah, that's right. [00:25:50] Speaker A: Yeah. So I mean, this, I know we could go on for hours and hours about this one, about just talking about Ukraine, Russia and the history behind it, but I think like a fundamental question is, and this is what I think I've only started Scott's book, but I feel like he's going to be addressing this is why did the United States decide to treat Russia as an enemy in, in how it kind of, I mean, after Soviet Union collapsed, Russia itself as a country, what was left of it, you know, was not very, was not a threat really. Of course they still had the nukes and things like that, but it was in shambles in the 90s. But yet it seems like even from the beginning, like I always thought it was more like. That's something I've already learned from Scott's book is I kind of thought that United started looking at Russia kind of as an enemy more, re restarted looking at the enemy more like in the 2000, like under Obama and things like that. But it seems to me like they kind of treated them as an enemy from the get go. As soon as the Soviet Union fell, they just, they kept their, their kind of attitude. Do you. Is there any reason for that other than just like, okay, we've, they've always been the enemy, we'll just continue to have them be the enemy. Or, or was there something more to it than that? [00:27:02] Speaker B: I mean, I think that at that point in the 90s and early 2000s, you know, when it. Again, when it comes to NATO, I think it really was you got this big military alliance and, you know, you don't want to end it. They didn't want to get rid of it. So they looked for, for work to do and you know, they needed Russia as the enemy. I mean, I really think that that is a big part of it. And it's also the control of our government that the, you know, the military industrial complex has. That's a really big part of this current war in Ukraine is just the payday. And when it comes to Russia, you know, one of the things there is also kind of this, you know, the neoconservatives who really influenced US foreign policy in the 90s and early 2000s, their worldview is essentially one of world domination. They want to control the whole world. And they saw Russia, even if it just has its influence in Eastern Ukraine and the Balkans and in Georgia in These places very close to Russia that, you know, they, they didn't like that, you know, they didn't want something pushing back against the, the, this new, you know, post Cold War world order. [00:28:18] Speaker A: Yeah, they don't seem to want any country to have a sphere of influence outside of their country like we do. I mean, like China they treat that way. Russia, they treat that way basically any country that tries to go beyond kind of their borders, have an influence. Although, of course, the entire Western hemisphere is under our sphere of influence. [00:28:36] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. And this is something, you know, Scott's book is great at this, at the, you know, U.S. officials discussing this and, you know, being well aware of what they were doing to Russia and how they might react. I mean, again, it was very clear. So, yeah, I think that's why I love the title Provoked, because that was the talking point when they invaded the unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. And again, the word provoked doesn't mean justified. Scott is not a supporter of the Russian invasion. Right. And it's a tragedy what, what's happened. And there's been so much death and destruction. You know, our argument is that this didn't need to happen. The US could have easily stopped this. And then a whole nother thing to get into is how the US Ensured that the war would continue and sabotage negotiations right after the Russian invasion. This. [00:29:30] Speaker A: What did Putin say he wanted before the invasion? Like, what exactly were his demands, like going into the invasion? [00:29:39] Speaker B: His main demand that he was trying to negotiate with the US he wanted a guarantee that Ukraine would not join NATO. And there is also other, like, kind of specific arms control things. Like I mentioned those anti ballistic missile systems that they just activated, one in Poland. And again, they fit these missiles that used to violate the INF treaty, which was arms control treaty that ended during the Trump administration. So they had like, specific things. They wanted to address that. But the main thing was Ukrainian neutrality. Another thing that was happening was the war in the Donbass was kind of, you know, it was a stale, frozen conflict for a while, but that was really kind of starting to ramp up again. But the main thing was they want. They wanted Ukrainian neutrality and the US Actually did. They were involved in negotiations with Russia, but they weren't addressing that main demand, even though, I mean, Biden said publicly, like, you know, Ukraine's not going to join NATO anytime soon, like, it's not a big deal, but they wouldn't give Russia any kind of guarantee like that. So. And that was something acknowledged by the State Department after the invasion that they didn't even entertain the idea. So it really is that main thing, it's the, the neutrality. [00:30:52] Speaker A: Why does America care if Ukraine is in NATO or not? [00:30:56] Speaker B: Well, again, they want, I think a big part of it is the money, the corruption in the government. I mean you have Lloyd Austin, the Secretary of Defense who's overseen this policy. He came straight from the board of Raytheon. And this has been the biggest payday for those companies in a long time. I mean some of the things like the Stinger anti aircraft missiles that they started giving Ukraine after the invasion, they're made by Lockheed Martin. They were out of, they, they stopped making them, they were becoming obsolete. Now they got all these new contracts to build them. So I think it could be as simple as that. I mean, obviously there's other factors and people want to think of more kind of conspiratorial. But I think, you know, you look at the corruption, the way our government is run is a big part of it. And also again, that ideology, this ideology that, you know, you have the neocons, which is a specific type of ideology and that was represented in the Biden administration with Victoria Nand, whose husband is Robert Kagan, who was like the one of the main neocons who crafted all this, these plans for the US to follow in the early 2000s. And they, they really hate Russia like Victoria N. Hates Putin hates Russia. Hillary Clinton had that same attitude. Anthony Blinken has that attitude. Jake Sullivan, these people think there it's kind of like imperial hubris in a way. Like they think their liberal rules based order that they call it like is the only game and should be the only game in town and that there shouldn't be any kind of illiberal forces pushing against it. But then that all goes out the window with Israel. You know, they've really been exposed as hypocrites there because they've tried to use all this international law against Russia, but then they don't apply to Israel. So they've been hypocritical the whole time, but now it's more in your face. But I think that's a big part of it. And Russia intervening in Syria too, right? Just to make sure Assad wasn't thrown out. That's another reason why they, they really turned up the heat on Russia after that. [00:32:59] Speaker A: So really it's just a matter of we're going to do everything we can to pressure Russia to try to isolate them, to try to reduce their influence, reduce their power in the world. And the idea is the closer we get the more we surround Russia with NATO countries with allies, the weaker it becomes. Is that essentially kind of the neocon strategy here? [00:33:21] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, I think so. And the weaker their influence becomes. [00:33:25] Speaker A: Right. Which is interesting because I feel like since the Russian invasion, Russia's influence in the world has actually increased, not decreased. [00:33:33] Speaker B: Yeah, well, that's, you know, why I said it's like hubris because in a way they're really incompetent because you know, the us, China and Russia are facing like very similar pressure and they've been, you know, they've really increased their trade and that's, Russia's able to really ramp up its manufacturing and can sustain this war for a long time. And time is on Russia's side right now. And then you have all the brics countries and kind of creating this alternate economic system. And that is a result of the US trying to sanction all these countries and driving them together. So. [00:34:11] Speaker A: And what do you think about. Okay, so I hear people say, you know, any type of discussion like this you're automatically get. People say we're Putin apologists. That, you know, Putin is, because Putin is Hitler. He basically is the incarnation, a reincarnation of Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin. Well actually probably like Joseph Stalin of Adolf Hitler. And, and then you also will hear some people like in the more kind of traditional world at times talk about, defend Putin as like a Christian leader who is bringing, you know, is kind of going against the woke west and, and defending Christian values. Where do you, where do you stand on Putin like as, as an actual leader of Russia and as a person? [00:34:58] Speaker B: He's, you know, and this is something Scott always says, he's basically a bureaucrat. He's a right wing leaning bureaucrat, strong man. He's not, you know, this big great defender of Christian values and of the West. I mean he's, you know, he's very critical of the west and everything. You know, I think people can fall into that trap that they kind of lionize Putin. Like they really, you know, I could see how the framing is like that because you see the, you know, the US is kind of exporting this, the views they have here, you know, all the gay stuff and everything to that. That's a big part of US foreign policy now is exporting that view. And you see it in Ukraine and you see it in Ukraine supporters and everything. And he sees Alinsky cracking down on the Orthodox Church there. But I'm not pro Putin in any, in any sense. I mean he is one thing about Putin is that he's Predictable. You know, there's kind of this narrative that he's this completely unhinged madman, which doesn't really go well with constantly poking him and trying to escalate. But, you know, like, you can kind of know what Putin's gonna do. So, yeah, I think he's just, he, you know, one thing that I do think he, he believes is that he is acting in the interest of his country and his people. And again, you know, you look at what's happening in Russia, you know, the war has been brought to Russia, Ukraine has invaded. It's a small part, but there's been all these drone attacks. You know, it hasn't been good for the Russian people for these past few years. So I don't, you know, support the war. And it's foolish, I think, to even support a war of a foreign country. [00:36:42] Speaker A: I think. I. One thing I realized in the interview we had with Tucker Carlson, Putin did, when he was asked the orth the question about like Orthodox Christianity and stuff, his answer struck me as exactly how a non practicing Catholic American politician would answer a question about Catholicism. The exact same way of kind of like you give these kind of lip service and, you know, you don't say anything bad about it, but it's clear you don't actually really believe. I could be wrong. But it was funny how I thought he sounded and kind of like what you're saying about him being like a bureaucrat. You know, he's a politician. He's, he's got his views. And I do think also though he does. The one thing I don't get is people who criticize him for doing everything he, what he thinks is best for his country. Because isn't that what every leader is supposed to do with their country? I mean, we might not like it, but it's like, I do think he does seem to be doing what he thinks is best for Russia, which I'd want my president to do that for America. And I want, you know, I think the Canadian Prime Minister should do that and all that. So I think that's kind of a silly critique of Putin that he's doing that now when it comes to Ukraine. Now we have Trump coming in. If we don't like, if Biden does, the Biden administration, we can't say Biden, who knows what he's doing. But if the Biden administration doesn't completely screw it up, what do you think is the best path forward for the Trump administration to bring about resolution of this conflict? [00:38:11] Speaker B: Well, you know, so with everything that the Biden administration is up to now. I mean, things are really getting tense again. One of the biggest escalations, I know you mentioned it on your show, was the long range strikes in Russia now. So the US and NATO are, you know, these missiles that they use, they need intelligence from the us, from the countries that they get the missiles from. So the US is directly supporting these missile strikes on Russian territory. So I think when the Trump administration comes in, I think it should be a day one phone call. You know, you call Zelensky and tell him, look, we gotta, we gotta negotiate. You know, we're gonna leverage any aid to you on the condition that you're gonna talk and then call Putin and tell him the same thing and try to freeze, try to ceasefire just right away because of the stakes right now and just because of all the killing and, and the situation for Ukrainians, you know, their energy infrastructure is being completely destroyed and everything. So that's what I think, you know, that ceasefire, then negotiations, you got to stop the killing. And that's something Trump said that I really liked a few times. So I mean, I really hope that he does that. I think there's a chance, I think that is his instinct. You know, some of the people, his foreign policy team is not very good so far. You know, when he picked J.D. vance, I thought that was a really good sign because Vance, you know, unlike Trump, Trump hasn't really spelled out how he's going to end anything. [00:39:40] Speaker A: Right. [00:39:41] Speaker B: But the. Sorry, my phone's ringing. It's just making a noise. Do you hear that? [00:39:48] Speaker A: No, no. [00:39:49] Speaker B: Okay, sorry, just distracted me. But Vance has, you know, spelled it out, basically said that it's like we got to freeze the lines and work out some kind of deal, Ukrainian neutrality and Russia. And you know, he said, you know, essentially, you know, what he talks about is kind of turning it into a frozen conflict, which I think there's a problem with that. And I don't think Russia is really going to go for that because again, time, they have the advantage right now. But I think with some of these people he's put in charge, he nominated this guy Keith. Well, he didn't nominate him because he doesn't need to be approved by the Senate. This guy Keith Kellogg, who is a Russia hawk, but he's, he's drawn up some plans to end the war. Some of the things he's put, put forward, I don't think Russia is going to go for. But you know, again, I hopefully, I hope that the approach that they take is ceasefire and then negotiations right And I think it's. [00:40:41] Speaker A: It's just a matter of. I mean, usually negotiations happen. It's a matter of everybody saving face. Everybody has to walk away and be able to tell their people, okay, we got what we want. Even if you didn't get what you want, you need Putin to be able to say that, you need Zelensky to be able to say that, and you need Trump to be able to say that. And that's the key. And one of the things that makes me the most angry about this whole situation is I. I think Zelensky seems like a deeply corrupt politician, and I don't trust him at all. But it does seem like. Like right after the invasion in March, he wanted to negotiate, and he was basically told not to by Boris Johnson, and by. Which is basically by America then. And I just. That. That just makes me so angry. The. The. The. The leader of the country that's being invaded wants to negotiate, and he's basically told by his puppet masters, I guess, no, you cannot do that. Why? Because we hate Russia. We don't want to negotiate with them. But he's actually the one who is responsible for the lives of his people and all that, and he actually wants to. In this case, he's. He's got the right instinct, doing the right thing, and we just shut him down. And now he becomes somebody who just comes to us for another billion dollars here and there every couple, you know, few months. And so that was just. I just don't. That's unforgivable in my mind, that they. That they did that. And that has been verified. Right. That that actually happened. I mean, what I've seen is, like, that. That, you know, Boris Johnson was involved, and it really happened, you know, right after the invasion. [00:42:07] Speaker B: Yeah, I think that should be one of the biggest scandals of the Biden administration that has been confirmed by all sides that there were these talks in March and April 2022, and publicly, Ukrainians were saying that they could take NATO membership off the table. Russia, the deal that was on the table was Russia would withdraw from the territory that they controlled. Ukraine would be neutral. There were some kind of vague things about demilitarization. They wanted to put certain limits on Ukraine's military. And then the denazification is another kind of vague Russian talking point. But last year, the Ukrainian official who led the negotiations came out and said that all of that was kind of secondary. The main thing was neutrality. Russia wanted neutrality, that they wanted to end the war. And Boris Johnson came over and said, we don't want to sign any deals. We want to keep fighting. You know, so this is completely verified. And now that Ukrainian official said there were other reasons they didn't want to sign a deal, that they didn't. They didn't trust Russia, which, of course, they have reasons not to trust Russia. But they would have been a lot more likely to sign a deal if they didn't have the US And NATO whispering in their ear and saying, no, we're gonna. We're gonna give you everything you need fight. So, again, that should be the biggest scandal here. And if you look at the timeline, you know, we were talking about why. Why are they funding this war? They've said. Another thing that they've said is that they want to weaken Russia. That, you know, basically confirming that it's a proxy war. And that's something that Boris Johnson actually just said last week. He was doing some interview, and he said it is a proxy war. But the problem is we're not giving our proxies enough weapons or something. But you look at the timeline, it's like negotiations foiled. Lloyd Austin goes over to Ukraine. He comes back and says, one of our goals is to weaken Russia. And then they pass this, like, $40 billion Ukraine bill. Turkey, which is a NATO member, but they're not aligned with most of NATO. They said they thought the war was going to end. They hosted the peace talks, and then they went to a NATO summit. And then they got the feeling. This is from Turkey's foreign minister at the time. They got the feeling that there were some countries in NATO that wanted the war to continue. And I mean, there's all other sources saying this, that they wanted the war to continue. And now Ukraine, if there is a peace deal, they're going to lose all this territory that they wouldn't have lost if they made a deal. Hey, it wouldn't have been the best deal. Russia would have got some things they wanted, but they would have their territory intact and all these people wouldn't be dead. [00:44:37] Speaker A: Yeah. But Lindsey Graham stays happy and can continue to beat the war drums over here and act like he's a big hawk. And it's just. It's awful. Now, I think with that whole. I think that one of the two big ones going on, Middle east and Ukraine, I think Ukraine's one most likely that could lead to a World War 3 type situation because it's Russia involved and they're the biggest nuclear power. It's all of Europe involved and things like that. And you could potentially get China involved. You just never know. I. I Honestly, at this point, I'm just praying that we can make it to January 20th and Trump can, because I think Trump himself knows from a political standpoint there's. If there's one thing we know about Trump is he's very good at knowing the best way to promote himself and. And to. I don't even mean that in the worst way, but just like, kind of get the best press and things like that. If he got a ceasefire over there early in office, like in the first, you know, couple weeks, that. That would be huge. I mean, and then. And hopefully that would then lead to a negotiated. Negotiated piece that would actually be more permanent. Okay, so let's move over now to the. The Middle east, which, you know, is also a disaster area now. I just want to. I'll make the claim. I'll just make the statement right here. If you're listening and you think criticism of Israel's government means you're an anti Semite, you probably should just stop the podcast now, go somewhere else and do whatever, because we both think that's ridiculous. Obviously, that's not the case. So I just wanted to kind of throw that out there because somebody in the comments will probably say something about being anti Semitic. So we're not going to listen to you. This is another case, like with Ukraine and Russia. Everybody just looks at with Ukraine with one date, February, was it 25th, 2022, with the invasion of Russia. Like, history started at that point, and so therefore Russia is completely to blame. There's nothing. United States had nothing to do, whatever. But we just talked about. And Scott Horton wrote about in his book, there's decades of history there. It seems like we're doing the same thing here. History began on October 7, 2023, with the Hamas attack in Israel. And therefore everything after that is. Is read and is viewed in light of that. I'm not going to ask you the whole history of the Middle east conflict because we don't have, like, you know, we could martyr Maid, you know, do our. Or how long was his podcast on that? But, like, we have to. But like, give us just a general feel of what was the situation in Gaza with, you know, Syria and Lebanon and Israel and Hamas and all that over the past few decades, like, kind of what was the status quo that we were dealing with that that led to. Because it's not like it just happened out of thin air. What led to October 7th, in other words? [00:47:29] Speaker B: Yeah, well, so there is a lot to that. Yeah. You know, the thing really to focus on is, is the occupation of the west bank in Gaza. After the 1960s war, Israel captured that territory from Jordan and Egypt, and then they kept the Palestinians under a military occupation and settlements started to expand. You know, this is something that happened later on. But, you know, it was very clear that they didn't want to give up that land, but they also didn't want to give the people who live there equal rights. They didn't want to give them, you know, the fundamental natural rights. And, you know, we could get into the Oslo Accords and there was a chance at peace there. But keeping a population under military occupation for that long, the violence that happened in that conflict from both sides, you know, you get a group like Hamas, you get extremists again on both, both sides. And, you know, you can go back to the Uragan to before the modern state of Israel was founded. You mentioned the Martyr Made podcast. That's a great place to learn about this, that, you know, they were. The Zionist militias were conducting terrorist attacks against the British, against the Arabs, to get the British to leave. The bombing of the King David Hotel was pretty much the biggest terrorist attack in the conflict since October 7th, if you consider that a terrorist attack. And so, you know, you get a group like Hamas, you get the occupation. And a big point was 2006, when there was the elections and Hamas won. And then there was kind of a civil war between them and Fatah, the other main faction. And Hamas took over Gaza. And by the way, the U.S. the Bush administration encouraged that civil war to happen. They helped funnel arms to Fatah. So there was kind of a military takeover of Gaza. And then Israel imposed the blockade on Gaza. And a blockade is a state of war. And people always like to say, oh, you know, well, Egypt is also blockades Gaza. It's like, I don't really get how that's an argument that, like in the, you know, Egypt has. Is very much in cahoots with the US And Israel on all of this. The reason why they get so much military aid from the US is for signing, you know, a peace deal with Israel and cooperating with them. But anyway, so you have the blockade on Gaza, and over the years, there's been wars. The 2014 war was a very violent war where lots of, you know, civilians and children are killed in, you know, these. These bombings and everything. And, you know, one statistic I always like to point to when we talk about the blockade in Gaza is, you know, the unemployment rate there was about 50%, and among the youth, it was about 70%. So you have a Lot of young men unemployed, no prospects. They can't go anywhere other than this place where they, you know, really there's. They, they don't have anything. And then you have these, these occasional wars, these bombing campaigns, and then over in the west bank, the expansion of settlements. And so you had, you know, this brewing problem. And then kind of the, the extremists on the Israeli side, the people that we see in the current government now, in the Netanyahu government, gained more power and influence. And this was a big part of just kind of the year before October 7, this Netanyahu government came in. And Netanyahu, you know, he was the prime minister for so long, and then he really lost his popularity. So he allied with these very extremist factions. These guys like Itamar Ben gvir, he's the National Security minister now. Bezel El Smotrich, these guys are settlers themselves. And they're openly in favor of expelling all the Palestinians from the west bank from Gaza, taking over the land, building settlements. And so the year before, October 7th was one of the most violent, was the most violent year in the west bank since the early 2000s. And again, the West Bank's under military occupation. You can't keep people like that. You have Gaza in the blockade. People say Israel wasn't occupying it because there weren't actually soldiers in Gaza. But technically a blockade is occupation. But in the West Bank, I mean, you have people who have, who've lived there, including Christians. It's a whole nother aspect of it. Who. It's their land, but they don't have property rights. They don't have any sort of rights. Settlers go in there, they terrorize them, they push them off their land. They're backed by the Israeli military. Maybe not officially, but, you know, this is. You can't treat people like this and not expect a very nasty reaction. And that reaction again from Hamas, they called it the Al Aqsa Flood, which is named after the Al Aqsa Mosque, which, of course, when we talk about the religious aspect of this, that's where they want to build the Third Temple. And you know, these guys like Ben Gavir, they're those kind of guys, like, they stoke the tensions around Al Aqsa Mosque. The reason why they called it that, they said they started planning this in, I think it was 2022, when there was the Israeli forces, police, they stormed Al Aqsa and they beat worshipers and. And then Hamas fired some rockets and then Israel launched a very heavy airstrikes that killed a Few hundred Palestinians. So all these things build up and October 7th was the reaction to that. And I would never, you know, ever justify any kind of attacks on civilians. But this is, you know, you got to understand the cause of this. And there's also the question of how could that have, how could Israel have let that happen when Gaza is one of the most heavily surveilled places in the world and there's all these, you know, Netanyahu and they had all these warnings and somehow all these Hamas fighters broke out of Gaza and were able to kill all these people and, and you know, it was just horrific. [00:53:22] Speaker A: But yeah, it does make you ask some questions about also, like, wouldn't Hamas, like realize that the reaction would be kind of what it was to something like this, that they, they are in the position of weakness in this relationship with Israel, for lack of a better term. I mean, they know Israel has the more power they have the backing the United States and a lot of the world, but especially United States. That's all it really matters. I mean, it's not that unpredictable that the reaction of Israel would be what it was to this. So I mean, do you think it, I mean, we can't know, but do you think it might boil down to just simply the frustrations of decades and just like what else are we going to do that kind of led to that? [00:54:07] Speaker B: Well, yeah, and it's also part of their strategy is the civilian, you know, like getting the sympathy of the world, which they have, you know, they, they have won the, they've lost the war. I mean, it's tough to call it a war now because it's not really what's happening. But when it comes to the PR war, I mean, the Palestinians have won. [00:54:28] Speaker A: Right? [00:54:28] Speaker B: You know, the whole world is against what's happening in Gaza except for the United States and like the UK and. [00:54:33] Speaker A: And a lot of Americans don't realize that. [00:54:35] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, we're very out on our own on this. So I don't know if they think it would go that Israel would go this big and this hard and that the US would completely back them to the hilt the way that they have give a. [00:54:50] Speaker A: Give a. I just want to make sure this is clear because what you often hear is like, you know, when you try to push back on the United States based narrative that Israel is justified in, in what they're doing because look, they were attacked by Hamas. They're, they're in danger. They're surrounded by all the Muslim countries, all this. And like, what I'm trying to say is like, okay, there has to be some limit. Everybody has to agree. Maybe not, maybe not Ben Shapiro, but everybody else has to agree, has to agree that there's some limit to a response. I mean, obviously as Catholics we know just war theory. There's all, there's definitely has to be a proportional response. But even those who aren't Catholic and don't subscribe to that, like you wouldn't say, okay, Hamas did that, so now the United States is can nuke every Muslim run country. I mean that would, I think most people be like, oh, of course they can't do that. But give us a sense of what Israel is actually doing in Gaza, in Lebanon and in these places so people understand that this is not just a matter of, okay, you got some Israeli soldiers finding Hamas fighters and killing them and maybe incidentally killing a few civilians along the way. I think most people would understand that and be sympathetic to like that, that issue. But give some examples maybe or something to say how that's not, that's not what's going on here. [00:56:13] Speaker B: Well, so there was some really, there's some reporting that came out last year from a magazine called 972 Magazine. There is rally kind of left wing publication that cited all these Israeli sources who essentially confirmed that part of the Israeli strategy is to bomb civilian targets that they call power targets. And it's part of a strategy to put pressure on the civilians, hoping that they'll rise up against Hamas. But that strategy has never worked in the history of warfare. Basically, if you terrorize people like that, you know. But anyway, so another thing that that report revealed, and you see this, this is clear in what in Israel strategy is, if there's one Hamas guy in a building and there's 100 children, if there's 100 kids in that building, they'll blow up the building to kill the one Hamas guy. There was actually an interview, this was a really revealing moment. And I know some people that have kind of turned their view on this. Wolf Blitzer was interviewing a Israeli military spokesman and Israel just bombed the Jabalia refugee camp. These apartment buildings that are, you know, very densely populated. And they just dropped these huge bombs on it. And it was clear hundreds of people were killed. And he asked the military spokesman and he said, well, there was a Hamas commander there. So that, you know, so we've seen kind of the public confirmation that that is their strategy, that those reports said something like, oh, 300 people are killed and one we get one Hamas guy, that that's enough. And then again, Also the power targets. And. And we have seen them, you know, something like 70%, 60 to 70% of all the buildings in Gaza have been destroyed or damaged. And now we've also seen in certain parts of Gaza, the IDF is bulldozing every building in sight. They control about 16% of the territory in Gaza where they've completely gotten rid of all the buildings. And they have Jewish settlers coming in to kind of scout these locations. That's clearly part of this, is that they want to just conquer it and they want to get all the Palestinians out. But while they're there, they're going to make it as miserable as possible for them and kill and starve as many as they want. So I know, you know, if people hearing all that, you know, you look at what they're doing day in and day out right now, there's always airstrikes, dozens of people killed every day. They'll bomb these schools, sheltering civilians. And they say others, it was a Hamas command and control center. No evidence for that claim. What do you see? You see women and children killed. And again, this is every day. The other big claim about Hamas is that they use civilian shields, which is true to an extent that during previous conflicts they would fire rockets from civilian areas. But they have attacked every hospital in Gaza at one point. Some of them have been completely destroyed. They claim that they were Hamas command and control centers. I interviewed one of these doctors. There's been this group of American health care workers who have volunteered in Gaza and have been all at all the different hospitals. They signed an open letter to Biden telling him to end aid to Israel. And they said not a single one of them saw any militant activity at the hospitals. So, you know, they're just trying to. Why would you target a hospital? Why would you, you know, like, I mean, they actually bomb. Just today, there was airstrikes on a hospital in Kemal Adwan in northern Gaza, and a kid in a wheelchair was killed. I mean, this is stuff happening every day, and people want to say it's fake, but it's not. And I've spent a lot of time looking at horrific pictures and images that I've seen people claim were fake that were not. They don't need to fake anything at this point. These atrocities are happening every day, and there's a lot more to it to get into it. But one story I always think of, at one of these hospitals, the Israeli military told him to evacuate it, and there was premature babies in an incubator. And they told them, like the director of the hospital told the IDF that they were there. The IDF said that they were going to do something. And this has been reported in, you know, the Washington Post, cnn. It's not some fringe story. And then when the IDF left the hospital and everybody went back, the kids were in there like decomposing. So it shows they have a hatred. They treat the Palestinians in Gaza like they're animals. And they've said this, you know, yo. Of Gallant, the former defense minister, when they started the blockade, they said we're fighting human animals. So they view them as, as animals, as subhuman, and they're treating them, you know, as such. So, you know. [01:00:39] Speaker A: Yeah, I know you, you're, you're, you hesitate to speak for Catholicism, being a newly brought back Catholic, but I don't hesitate. I've been around long enough. I'll go ahead and do it. But I just want to be clear to the audience. If there's a Hamas commander in a building and you know, there's, let's say 100 kids in there, it's actually immoral to bomb that building. I mean, I in. Because you're not in a direct threat of. If the Hamas leader's pointing a gun, the window and firing, he's got some kids with him and you shoot at him to stop him and some kids die, that can be justified. But that's not what's happening here. It's literally they're just trying to wipe it out and they don't care about any of the what's happening as well as that. And I just think that's, that's, that's horrific. Now, what about, though, the, what's going on in like Lebanon with Hezbollah and things like that? Because that's not, obviously that's not the same situation here, but yet there is fighting going on there. What, what, what's going on? I'm actually, to be honest, I'm a little bit confused by it. And that's why I think other people probably are too. [01:01:42] Speaker B: Yeah. So Lebanon, there was a ceasefire deal that was supposed to go into effect last week. There's been some Israeli airstrikes since then, but for the most part it's holding. So essentially what happened was Hezbollah fired, started firing rockets at Northern Israel on October 8, the day after October 7. No. [01:01:59] Speaker A: And 20, 23 or 24, did they start firing right after? Okay, so the day after. [01:02:06] Speaker B: Okay, okay, so they fired some rockets and Israel, you know, hit back with airstrikes. And then there was kind of this tit for tat for about, for almost a year. And you know, there were some very heavy Israeli airstrikes. Israel killed a few hundred people in Lebanon, a few dozen were killed in Israel. Like, you know, the, Israel has, you know, the advantage over Hezbollah and Lebanon. They have an air force and they don't. So that was kind of the, the status quo for the year was like these kind of back and forth strikes. And Hezbollah was saying they weren't going to stop until there was a ceasefire in Gaza. That's what they said would have stopped their attacks. So then we saw things start to escalate at certain points. Israel would launch an airstrike in Beirut, in the capital. And they haven't done that since the 2006 war against the Hezbollah guy. And there was all these escalations and then they basically decided, Israel decided to really ramp up and try to take out Hezbollah. And then we saw the pager attack was really the start of that when they blew up these pagers and the walkie talkies. And then on September 23, Israel launched one of the heaviest bombing days of bombing in like modern warfare. They leveled all these buildings in southern Lebanon, killed like 500 people. And you know, this is another thing. They're claiming they're bombing residential buildings, claiming there's Hezbollah weapons there. And you know, another thing that they do with Hezbollah and Hamas, if they're home with their family sleeping in their bed, they bomb them. And they consider that justified. So we saw a lot of that, you know, a lot of civilians killed in Lebanon as well. So, you know, from September 23rd until recently, it was just very heavy Israeli airstrikes. Israel invaded southern Lebanon and Hezbollah is a pretty formidable fighting force. Even with all these strikes, you know, Israel took out their leader Nasrallah, they still put up a fight. So then there's been this ceasefire deal. But basically Hezbollah has always been a big problem for Israel because if they want to say, take, you know, they react to what they do in Gaza and what they do in the west bank and you know, they're, they're supported by Iran. So they wanted, they saw the opportunity to take Hezbollah out completely. And I think there's been the ceasefire, but I think they're probably going to go back, you know, restart it again. [01:04:24] Speaker A: And the ceasefire only applies to Hezbollah, right, in Israel, not, not Gaza and Hamas or anything like that. Correct. [01:04:30] Speaker B: And I mean, the ceasefire only applies to Hezbollah in the sense that Israel's been bombing Lebanon for the past week and Hezbollah fired like two rockets back. So, you know, Hezbollah's in pretty rough shape because they agreed to this deal where basically Israel has freedom of action in southern Lebanon. So, but there is a chance, I think, of that ramping up again. [01:04:52] Speaker A: So Israel can still bomb Israel still under the ceasefire, still can bomb Lebanon, south Lebanon. [01:04:59] Speaker B: Not actually, not under the deal that, that Israel signed with Lebanon. But the US gave Israel like a letter of assurance that they, if they felt the ceasefire was being violated, then they can take action. And that's the problem. You know, the US acts like it's kind of a neutral mediator, they help broker the deal, but they clearly favor one side way over the other. So, yeah, it's just a mess. And it's, you know, Lebanon's a really small country, so it's been completely devastating to that country. [01:05:29] Speaker A: It's a very, not, it's, it has a lot of Christians there as well in Lebanon. It's probably the, is it the, I think it's the most Christian of the countries in that area. But I, I, somebody can fact check me on that. But I, I believe it's, yeah, I mean, and the Christians have a lot of authority and they're actually in, you know, have, they have Christian president. Right, Right. So I mean, they have a say in the politics and the leadership and everything like that. So now my question then is like, you know, we can criticize Israel and we can, you know, for what they're doing, we can criticize Hamas and Hezbollah, whatever. But again, my question goes back to the one, Ukraine, what's the US Interest here? What does US have to do with this? Like, why does it matter to the US about what's going on in Israel and Gaza and things like, what's our strategic interest here? [01:06:22] Speaker B: There is none. So this is where people, this is where people are going to accuse me of being anti Semitic. Probably, you know, a big part of this is the lobby. It's the, it's the Israel lobby. It's the influence that they have over our politicians. And, you know, I'm joking about saying the antisemitism thing. This is something, you know, plenty of Jews will tell you this. You know, there's plenty of American Jews who are opposed to what's happening and this arrangement. But, I mean, I would recommend everybody read the Israel Lobby by John Mearsheimer. That really lays a lot of it out. But it's kind of the way our political system is set up that these lobbying groups can have such great influence and you see it kind of cracking a bit. And young people overall are much more skeptical of the relationship between the US And Israel, whether they're on the left or the right. You know, it's always been kind of more of a left wing thing to be critical of Israel. But overall, you know, you see all of the politicians, even the ones, you know, they'll sound so great on Ukraine, say, you know, we shouldn't be funding these other wars overseas, but it all goes out the window with Israel. And the reason why I said there's no strategic interest. One of the talking points is, oh, they're like our aircraft carrier in the Middle East. They're our greatest ally against all the Arab hordes that they're surrounded by. But the US has all of its bases in the Arab countries. All of the Gulf Arab countries are ready to play ball with the us they want to do business, they want to make money. And if anything, our relationship with Israel is a strain on those relationships. Even Jordan, I mean Egypt, I mean, they're completely in the pocket of the U.S. so, you know, that, that just doesn't fly, that this idea that we need Israel to have a military footprint there. You know, I also don't think we should have a military footprint there. [01:08:12] Speaker A: But, but we don't need Israel to have one. In fact, that probably hurts it. I mean, I had a guest on a few months ago when we talked about the theological implications. But I, and I, so I don't, we don't need to go over that. But I do think that cannot be understated. How much is particularly evangelical Protestants, but unfortunately a lot of Catholics, how they've bought into this idea of the monarchy of Israel as like the continuation of the biblical nation country of Israel from the Old Testament and that we have to film just. Was it just this week or last week? Shapiro and the other guy from Daily Wireless, they. What was. Do you know his name? What's. [01:08:52] Speaker B: Andrew Clavin? [01:08:53] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, Andrew Cleveland. Right. [01:08:55] Speaker B: He said it was really something what he said. He said, you know, Ben, everybody gives you a hard time for dual loyalty for being loyal to Israel, but we should all, all Christians should be loyal to Israel because, because Christ was born there. [01:09:06] Speaker A: Which is just ludicrous, the idea. I mean, it's like, it's like 200 years ago, would you have said all Christians have to be loyal to the Ottoman Empire because they. That's who controlled it at the time where Christ was born. So are we now, like we all. [01:09:20] Speaker B: Had to be in Bethlehem. Should we all be loyal to the Palestinian Authority because Bethlehem's in the West Bank? [01:09:26] Speaker A: Yeah, well, yeah, there you go. Even like, hey, so I mean, just unbelievable But I do think that's a, that's, that kind of gives a, a supercharge to the Israeli lobby in America. Is that evangelical backing? Because evangelical Christians in this country are very powerful. And you know, like I said, a lot of Catholics go along with it as well. And I think that's, I think that's part of it. But it really is hard to understand why we think there's strategic interest for us. Now there is the argument that people say, oh, we're defending the one democracy in the Middle East. What would you say to that argument? [01:10:04] Speaker B: Lebanon's also a democracy. I would say that first. But I mean, again, that gets into kind of the ideological, kind of liberal interventionism. That is what drives a lot of our foreign policy. So I think that is part of it, you know, that the US they feel like we're more ideological compatible with Israel than the Arab states. So, you know, maybe that's the case. But at the same time, it is a Jewish state. You know, it's essentially an ethno state. If you're, if you have Jewish heritage, you can move there. If you don't, you can't. And occupation, I mean, that's not democratic. Keeping under people, under military occupation. [01:10:47] Speaker A: Yeah. Now one of the things I, I kind of feel like people don't take a step back when they talk about this conflict because they just think, okay, Hamas attacked Israel on October 7th. Israel's responding is the basic argument, as it goes. But the fact is Israel, every country has a right to defend itself because that's what people say, oh, Israel has a right to defend itself. [01:11:13] Speaker B: That's true. [01:11:14] Speaker A: But like, at least for Catholics discussing this under just war theory, it has to be a proportional response. Isn't there an argument that Israel, it could basically just defend itself without, and it could, it could prevent the loss of further life without, like destroying Gaza and things like that. In fact, it's probably causing more problems. Like the famous Pat Buchanan quote from. Was that 20 years ago when he said like, when Israel at that point had killed some people in gods or something like that, some young girls and, and Pat Buchan said their brothers, those girls, brothers are eventually going to be fighting, you know, Hamas fighters one day. And, and literally it was like, like 15 years later, right. When he predicted that's exactly what they were doing. And so like, isn't there something to be said for like, the US should be really pushing Israel? Okay, yes, you can defend yourself, but your work is to just basically defend your borders, make sure you're not attacked again. Because what, you know, not to go and attack and destroy Gaza and Lebanon and other places like that. [01:12:18] Speaker B: Yeah. And, you know, so say October 7th happened and you know, is there a different approach that Israel could have taken besides these heavy bombings and of course there is, and it would have been very difficult. But, you know, it's like a counterinsurgency approach where you try to win the hearts and minds of people. And I know that sounds silly because the US Tried to do that in Iraq and Afghanistan and failed very pretty badly. But there were know, successes in certain parts and I know veterans who were involved in things like that and they really put themselves at risk to make sure that they didn't kill civilians again, even though overall it was a disaster. But, you know, these things have happened on a smaller scale in these American interventions. But yeah, that, that's the, you know, they, you gotta try to separate yourselves from the people you're fighting and not just say, oh, they're all animals and we have to kill all of them and their children deserve, deserve to die, which is the attitude that they have. [01:13:19] Speaker A: So I asked you on the Ukraine situation, how about on this one with Trump? When the Trump administration takes over? What can. I mean, okay, let's be honest. The Trump administration, a lot of the people associated with Trump are very good sounding, at least on Ukraine, I mean, rfk, you know, Vance, others, and none of them are good sounding on this really. But what can they do realistically to try to end this conflict that, you know, bring it to a resolution? [01:13:52] Speaker B: You know, when it comes to the Trump, I mean, just in general, when it comes to ending this conflict and bringing out a resolution, I mean, I really am at a loss when it comes to actually ending the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians at this point. It's clear this, this Israeli government is hell bent on, you know, right now they're focusing on conquering north Gaza. They're essentially conducting an ethnic cleansing campaign. And this has been acknowledged by Israeli media where they're going through these cities, getting people out of there under threat of death, and then they demolish all the buildings so they have nowhere to go back. So they're going to be going through with this. And judging by Trump's appointees, you know, Trump says he wants peace and I, I think he is genuine when he says that. But he also says he was the most pro Israel president of all time and Biden abandoned Israel and he's going to give them whatever they want. And what they want is to conquer Gaza and they want to annex the west bank. And he appointed Mike Huckabee to be the ambassador to Israel. And you talk about the theology, and that is a big part of the US Why the US Supports Israel the way it does. I'm glad you mentioned that. You know, there are, you know, ways people can be convinced to support Israel other than just kind of political lobbying. But, you know, Huckabee is on record saying Israel has all the rights to the West Bank. He doesn't. He calls it Judea and Samaria. He's. He's even said there's no such thing as a Palestinian. They're just Arabs, and that they can go to some other Arab country. So that's a sign that they're going to just let Netanyahu kind of continue with this, with what he's doing. And, you know, they might declare some kind of victory when they're done in North Gaza with what they're. They're trying to do and kind of pause things or scale things down a bit. But right now, to me, every sign is telling me that they're gonna just give them what they want. Yeah, options for peace, real options for peace is really the only way, which is sad to say as an American. The only way this is going to stop is if America cuts Israel off like Ronald Reagan did when they invaded Lebanon in the 80s, you know, and even George Bush put pressure on Israel, you know, threatened military aid. Joe Biden has not done that. You know, there's been kind of these PR moves that all the Israel supporters get mad about, but realistically, he hasn't put any real pressure on them. The US does have that pressure. Is Trump going to use it? I mean, I hope that he is genuinely distressed by what's happening in Gaza, but I haven't seen really anything to tell me that. [01:16:24] Speaker A: Yeah, I think there's two things about Trump I'm. I'm hopeful for that could work out for the best for this situation. One is, I think he genuinely does not like to see killing going on. Like, I think he genuinely wants to stop killing. He might have weird ways to go about it. He might have wrong ways to go about it, but I think he. That's the end result he wants, I think, is that, which is good. The second thing is Trump very much always considers himself the alpha dog. And I don't think he'll want to be seen as somebody who's the lackey of Netanyahu, lackey of Israel, and he'll want to be seen as. I'm telling you what to do. You're not telling me what to do. Which could work in the favor of the innocent people because he'll tell Netanyahu, listen, you got to cut. You got to do this and not more because otherwise we'll going to cut you off. Simply because he wants to be seen as the guy in control, which he should actually in this situation. But, you know, I think that's his natural instinct is, is to do that. So, I mean, it's not like I think he's going to all of a sudden cut them off or, or, you know, turn anti Israel, but that, that might work in our favor at the very least. So. [01:17:27] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, I think that's true. I think, you know, Trump's also a wild card. So, you know. [01:17:31] Speaker A: Yeah, you'd actually don't know what he's going to do. [01:17:33] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:17:35] Speaker A: Okay, so let. I want to wrap it up here, but I just want to get your, like, your general feeling. Are you going. Especially with Trump taking office and kind of what's happening? What's going on? Should we have a white pill or a black pill as far as World War 3, as far as 2025, like, where we're going and things of that nature? Where are you? [01:17:57] Speaker B: Well, I. When it comes to Ukraine, I say white pill. When it comes to march toward World War iii, overall, I would say black pill. Because a lot of this is about, you know, a lot of the reasoning behind some of these Trump picks wanting to end the war in Ukraine is because they want to focus more on China. And there's this whole other thing happening over there with Taiwan. [01:18:24] Speaker A: Right. We've brought that up. Yeah. [01:18:26] Speaker B: Yeah. So I think overall, we're headed in a very bad direction. The US Military is openly planning for a direct war with China in the future, even though they have nuclear weapons. That's like, you know, so there's concerning things. But I think overall, this election has showed that American people overall don't want to be involved in these foreign conflicts. Because whatever you say about Trump, he did campaign on ending this war. He campaigned on peace, even though I don't think he's really genuine when it comes to the middle, to Israel. But, you know, that was his campaign, and Kamala Harris campaigned on war. [01:18:56] Speaker A: Right. [01:18:57] Speaker B: And people rejected that. So I think that's a reason to be optimistic. And we kind of just need to get more people on board with our line of thinking. [01:19:06] Speaker A: Yeah. And the interesting thing, since at least 2008, the President, the presidential candidate who was the more peace candidate, won as far as their campaign. I mean, Obama he was definitely the anti war candidate in 2008. McCain was clearly the pro war candidate. Now, of course, we know what Obama actually did when he was in office. But the point is the American people seem to have no appetite for war, yet we seem to have people in charge who really want to it and then we can get in the whole reason for that, but we won't. Okay, so, well, let's just, you know, we're gonna hope and pray and you know, World War 3 is avoided and these conflicts in. But I, I really appreciate the work you're doing. So people go to ant. I'll put a link to it. Antiwar.com also put a link into Scott Horton's book Provoked. Is there anything else you want to. Where people to go or anything like that? [01:19:56] Speaker B: Yeah, that's it. You find all my work there. Also, I have the show, it's called Anti War News. It's on YouTube or his podcast form. People could check that out. [01:20:05] Speaker A: And can you link, is that also like anti war.com? will it have a link to the podcast? [01:20:09] Speaker B: Yeah, if you look at the site, the top corner, you'll see the YouTube icon there. [01:20:14] Speaker A: Okay. And I'll put a link to that as well. So. And how often do you do the podcast? [01:20:18] Speaker B: It's five days a week. It's, it's, it's kind of like a rundown of the news stories that I cover. So it's like a daily news show. It's kind of for like, you know, you kind of have to be like a foreign policy nerd to like it. [01:20:29] Speaker A: Well, similar story. I've watched it before. I just didn't know how. I didn't realize it came out every day. YouTube is not telling me that as they should, so. [01:20:36] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, yeah. [01:20:37] Speaker A: So, yeah. [01:20:38] Speaker B: I don't think we're getting any help from the algorithm. [01:20:40] Speaker A: Yeah, they're probably not. Yeah, you're not the type of podcast they're going to try to promote, so. Okay. Well, thanks, Dave. I really appreciate you being on the podcast today. [01:20:51] Speaker B: Yeah, thanks for having me, Eric. It was great. [01:20:53] Speaker A: Okay, until next time, everybody. God love.