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- [00:01]
A
Welcome to Green and Scrappy Politics for Scrappy People, a regular podcast on radical environmental and anti capitalist politics, brought to you by Bob Pizanko and Scott Parkins. It is not knowable if force will be used, but if it is to be used, it is not knowable how long that conflict would last. It could last, you know, six days, six weeks, I doubt six months.
- [00:33]
B
Welcome to the silky smooth sounds of the Granny Red podcast and your co host Scott Parkin in San Francisco, California today. And as always, I'm joined by Bob
- [00:44]
A
Bozaiko on the dark side of the American Dream.
- [00:47]
B
The dark side of the American dream. Yes. And that's what we're going to be talking about today. You just heard our former Secretary of Defense, the late Donald Rumsfeld, talking about the Iraq War. It's actually Pre Invasion, it's February 2003. When he's talked about it, he talks about how the Iraq war could last six days, six weeks or six months. And as we know, it went on for many years, something like eight years. US Involvement was like seven, eight years, something like that. And we wanted to open with that because we're going to be talking around, talking about this idea of forever wars. Then we're going to get a little bit of the background and then we're going to talk about some of the forever wars which have been going on here more recently.
- [01:30]
A
Yeah, we haven't done something like this specifically for a while. It's hard to keep up. In February of 2022, which is four years ago, a few weeks ago. Four years ago, a few weeks ago, Russia invaded Ukraine and that set that up. And we did a bunch of shows at the beginning. And then of course it's events, real life transpired. And then you had Israel and you have all kinds of other stuff going on. So we just wanted to talk about that. Could you just hopefully very brief background and we've done many of shows on this. But from the end of World War II, you know, 1945, you have the Cold War and until around 1990 or so, you have a fairly consistent structure of U.S. foreign policy. Right. It's based on this idea of containment. It's based on this idea of suppressing third world liberation movements. That's what leads to wars in Korea and Vietnam and attempted subversion in Cuba and things like that, and massive defense budgets and a massive arms race. A couple things happened that, and I would say that more or less we're still in an era where a lot of those things are still, I think the trademarks of U.S. foreign policy. But a couple things happened in 1990, 91. You had the demise of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. And obviously the right wing loves it. Liberals loved it. Trotsky has loved it. Right. But what that did was eliminate the most important counterbalance to American hegemony and to American recklessness, to America's ability to do, or at least it's thinking it had the ability to do anything it wanted anywhere, which is what we're seeing today. And then about a decade later, you had the attacks, the terrorist attacks of 91 1. And I think those things really have led us to this period of forever wars. And remember, the American people have never supported this 2016. That was a key element in Donald Trump's first campaign. We're not gonna have any of these forever wars. And I think it mattered. I think it was an important piece to his popularity at the time, especially when the Democrats running at the time were promising more of it. Hillary Clinton, as Secretary of State, was responsible for overthrowing Gaddafi and for a coup in Honduras. She had promised that she would invade and attack Iran. Obviously, there was this blank check, as always, to Israel. So Trump was able to exploit that and manipulate it. Now, liberals have a lot of fun saying, oh, I can't believe you. So you believe Trump. I can't believe you accepted when he said that he was going to be a peace president. You got one side who's lying to you. You figure they're lying to you. Yeah, you're not a peace president. But when the other side is not even trying to do that, and they're just saying, yeah, we're going to give you more war, then what's the point? And in Trump's first administration, it's funny because we'll talk about Iran later. That was really one of the big pieces in the first Trump administration was Iran. And the irony there was he kept attacking people like John Bolton for wanting to go to war in Iran. Trump was interventionist, right? He ratcheted up pressure against Cuba, supported Israel, all that kind of stuff, but nothing dramatic. But in 2022, I think that's where kind of our current story begins. Right. This is when Russia invades Ukraine, which had which part of a longer process than it begun almost a decade before that. The origins of this kind of Russia, Ukraine conflict occurred, like in 2014. And then obviously, the big one, which has massive implications. And again, I think that's even more important because of what happened after 9, 11 and the attendant wars with it. The invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. And then more importantly, the invasion of Iraq, the attack on Iraq. And then after that, you have this cascade. Right. Syria in Lebanon and all over the region.
- [05:09]
B
And then, of course, yeah.
- [05:12]
A
And then that hits its peak in October of 2023 after the Hamas attack. And then Israel counters with this genocide that's ongoing today. And so just, I think, just to try to piece it together, I don't think, obviously people aren't believing Trump anymore. This is actually more than Epstein. I think the gravest threat to Trump's political life right now is his own people saying, you betrayed us. You're not maga. Right. You're making Israel great. You're getting involved in wars in Iran. So it's a weird situation. Right. Democratic Party, as always, is just going along for the ride. Do you want to just start by giving a little bit of an update? We haven't done anything on Ukraine in a long time. We did a bunch of stuff when it started. You and I did some stuff. We had Andy Bacevich on. We did a lot of shows, but we haven't really done anything since then just because there's so much going on. But do you want to just start with a little bit of bringing it up to now with that?
- [06:10]
B
Yeah, I should. Just the sort of. It's been that war has been going on for four years. As of about 10 days ago, it. Right now, as of March 2026, Russia occupies about 20% of Ukraine. The out of a population of 41 million, 8 million Ukrainians have been internally displaced. Six to 7 million have fled the country, which has created Europe's largest refugee crisis since World War II. The killed or wounded estimates are significant and they're a little bit all over the place. Estimates for Russian military personnel killed range from 275,000 to 325,000, according to a January 2026 report from the center for Strategic and International Studies. And then with on the Ukrainian side, lower but still pretty significant for a small country or a smaller country than Russia, somewhere between a hundred thousand and forty thousand.
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A
Yeah. There's also again, let me just. Because you're right, those numbers are all over the place. BBC has numbers, the Red Cross has numbers.
- [07:15]
B
Zelensky has different numbers. Much lower.
- [07:16]
A
Yeah, but casualties which are non deaths for Ukraine, it's about 5 to 600,000. And then for Russia it's probably between 1.5 million. And I think everybody agrees that Russia suffered way more losses than.
- [07:28]
B
And as we. It was a. We called it our Ukraine series and we actually got a lot of props from a lot of our listeners for that because we were talking about stuff that other people were not talking about. But it should be really noted is that the, that Europe and the United States under Biden poured all of this money and all of these weapons into Ukraine because they saw as an opportunity to bleed Russia, which is what has happened. Just looking at those numbers like of killed and wounded and Trump claims to be friends with Putin. We've seen a number of high profile media, media moments where Trump and J.D. vance have like really confronted Zelensky. But like there's still like some amount of weapons still going into Ukraine from the US and some amount. It's less than it was under Biden, but there's still some sort of.
- [08:19]
A
The US has sent 188 million. 188 billion. I'm sorry. To Ukraine. I think about that's a staggering amount of money. It's weird because part of the liberal attack on Trump is that he's this puppet of Putin and so on. But it's a lot more than that. The guy doesn't have any strategy really. There's really no logic to what he's doing.
- [08:40]
B
It's not free D Chess.
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A
He's right. He's got this massive grand strategy and he's going to do this and that and yet. But no, in terms of the kind of military disposition that positions right now, I think it's important what you just said. Not really a lot's happened there, right. You've had this massive bloodshed. And in that regard, the strategy is working. Right? Russia is getting bled. Russia's spending a ton of money. Russia is isolated. It's now encircled by an alliance NATO with I think 31 states in. Reminds me of the trench warfare World War I, right, where somebody will advance a hundred yards and then get pushed back a hundred yards. And there are drone attacks, there are attacks on civilian installations. But the war is pretty static right now. At various times, we'll hear Russia's three months away from victory or Russia's three months away from falling apart. And I don't think any of that. I think it's just going on, it's continuing. And it does bleed into things like Iran too. And I think Russia sees these other forever wars as a way to weaken the US I've never bought into the whole kind of Trump is a puppet of Putin thing anyway. And the whole Russia gate thing I still think is terribly misguided. But it's a liberal fantasy. They talk about Russia. It's like with the Epstein Files, Right. You talk about Russia, so you don't have to talk about Israel. I really do think that's always been the part of it. Right. Russia interfered in our elections. There's really no evidence of that. Israel appeared in our elections. They do it openly. Right. There is no Russian
- [10:09]
B
right now. Just as a side note, right now AIPAC is a little bit on the run politically in the US because of the. What's this called? The unpopularity of what the Israelis have done in Gaza. And they're still pouring lots of money into these politicians. They own a good chunk of our Congress, including the Democratic leadership, including the Republican leadership, including the White House. And they're just. They're still giving money to politicians just under different names. Like they're no longer calling themselves aipac. The candidates are denouncing aipac. But then if you look at the groups that are giving money to these pro Israel politicians, they're still, like, backed by APAC funders. So it's just an important thing to note is that even though there's this huge level of popularity and there's like a push to get rid of them, like, they're still very much a player out there.
- [10:55]
A
It's weird, too, because Ukraine also, with Trump's kind of coalition or whatever you want to call it, maga, I mean, Ukraine has a weird spot in that, too, because a lot of those people are actually pro Russian. Right. Carlson and the rest of them, and
- [11:07]
B
anti NATO too, which is why you have.
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A
Remember we did a show called the NATO Left, which we still have.
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B
Right. Which includes NATO liberals.
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A
NATO liberals, yeah, but it's even bigger. I think it's the NATO left, right. You have liberals, but then you also have people like these Swotskyists who are like, basically pimping the same line. It's like the NSC and the. And NATO and things like that. But it's weird for Trump because he's obviously Israel. We'll talk about that is the biggest part of this. I wouldn't call it abandonment of Trump. The guy's actually, like, vulnerable now with his own people. And of course, we'll have that. We'll have to bring in Comrade Marjorie Taylor Greene, which is like the last fucking thing I'd ever thought we'd talk about. He's become the leader of the resistance. Right. But he also, I think, gets criticism from his own group for. Because this war is still ongoing. Because he promised. Didn't he say he was going to end it on the first day in office? Yeah. Day one.
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B
Day one day One. But everything also has a two week. He always gives himself two weeks for everything.
- [12:01]
A
Two years. He's ended a wars. Come on, give the guy a break. That's exhausting.
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B
Where's that Nobel Prize? He's only gotten the FIFA Peace Prize.
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A
Yeah, he's. You would think he would be a better representative of the FIFA. The very vaunted and noble FIFA Peace Prize.
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B
They're the past winners of that.
- [12:17]
A
I like Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Henry Kissinger, Vigo Maradona. Anyway, it's. But the war in Ukraine's still going on. The United states in the 60s, a lot of especially leftist scholars, and after that as well, often talked about the limits of US Powers. A very famous book by Gabriel Kolko, who had an immense influence on me, called the Limits of Power. Because the United States had this immense hegemony at the end of World War II. Right. We have 5% of the world's population. You control 50% of the assets of the wealth. Our task in the coming years to maintain this position of disparity. But there were limits to American power, and we saw that fairly quickly in Korea, Vietnam especially, and elsewhere. Right. And I think that's really what we're seeing now. So you have these forever wars, but they're no closer to ending now than they were then in Ukraine and Russia. There's no kind of clear path to ending this war at this point. You have this massive destruction. US alone has dropped nearly $200 billion. And think about that. That is. I forgot I should have done how many homeless people you could take. You could probably take care of the entire homeless population in the US with 200 billion, you could probably give every snap recipient, like whatever was needed. Pre K education, you don't spend a lot of immunizations anymore, but that's a lot of money. 200 billion is a lot of money. And that's gone to Ukraine, an area where, you know that that could have been disposed of diplomatically. And this is important too, because we see this when people talk about further wars. There's always been. And the United States has done this forever. There's always been a rejection of diplomacy. In March of 2022, we now have reports that Putin was basically in agreement on negotiations. And even Naftali Bennett, who's a Zionist war criminal, has said this, right? Putin and Zelensky at that point had essentially agreed on kind of a ceasefire based on Ukraine would not enter NATO and there would be some transfer of land. But it was fairly workable. And it was Biden who Stepped in Biden. And was it still Cameron in Britain at the time? I can't remember. It's five Prime Ministers.
- [14:32]
B
So Liz Truss was. Liz Truss.
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A
I don't remember. Was Liz Truss the one who was like the head of cabbage and Liz Truss, which one was wonka or whatever?
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B
10 days, she had the 10 day prime.
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A
But at any rate, Biden and whoever, the British pm, maybe it was born. It was Boris Johnson. It would have been Boris Johnson at the time, but Biden and Boris Johnson scuttled it. Right. And so the war goes on and it's dragging on and it's still there today. You don't get much about it. You'll see something in the news every now and again, but for the most part, what you have now is. It's like I said, it's remastered. World War I, you have this kind of bloodshed, this bloodbath. Back then it was trenches and bombardments. Today it's drones and other kinds of technological warfare.
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B
A lot of missiles.
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A
A lot of missiles. But the war isn't close to ending and the bloodshed continues and American money is still going there. And Trump actually catches a lot of hell. Not from the Democrats, who are all in. Right. They still, it's weird, like Democrat leadership and which has its own agenda. But liberals, they're still living in like 1946. Right. You still see liberals who are like all in on Ukraine. I know you said even in Berkeley there were Ukrainian flag. Not probably not now, but they were like Ukrainian flags.
- [15:43]
B
They're still crazy on cars and in people's houses. Windows.
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A
Yeah, see that was. That became like a liberal crusade.
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B
Liberal international, next to the Palestinian with Palestinian flags and Black Lives Matter signs.
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A
Yeah, no, I remember, you know, when that, when that first broke out, you saw that.
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B
Do these people really see the context of it?
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A
But on the other side, you have people who would call themselves lefties, who are really avidly pro Russian, which I think is preposterous. Putin is monstrous. He's not. He's not a good guy. Not an anti imperialist. Right. We're seeing that as well. At the same time, beginning your analysis by saying I denounce Putin or I denounce Maduro or I denounce Khomeini or whoever. Anyway, what's the point? Who gives a what I think or what I denounce? But anyway, anyway, any.
- [16:26]
B
Denounce Hamas, any last things on Ukraine. Just that it's also begun to transform Europe. Is like one of the things we're seeing is the Germans and the French and the British put a lot more money into their military budgets than they had before. I just saw this in this last week or two where Macron said that France was actually going to begin to build more nuclear weapons and actually be public about the count. So we're also. This war of attrition is going on in Ukraine, and the Americans and the Europeans are still putting money in to bleed Russia. Russia's doing this, but then they're also beginning to arm. Europe is becoming a much more heavily armed camp as well. And that's. I think that's important.
- [17:10]
A
No, it is. And it's funny, too, because one of the liberal attacks on Trump is that he's destroyed NATO, which is something I've wanted my whole life. Like, I've always advocated for that. And you do see this. And he has definitely ruptured the alliance. Right.
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B
Although the head of NATO, I don't know if he's the General Secretary or whatever the title is, but is very much like, Trump's the greatest guy ever. He's a genius.
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A
Yeah, Yeah. I think it was the military head of NATO who basically said, it's a pipe dream if you think we can do this without the US And I would assume that the American military contractors got to him because. And to go back, and we said this in 2022, and I can't stress it enough, the US has no enemies. There is no. I would argue in 1945, there really wasn't much of an enemy. The imbalance of power was immense. In 1945, Soviet Union didn't wake up by the war. Today, it's even less. Russia's not a threat to the United States in no way. China's not a threat to the US China's clearly an emergent more than emerging. It's an emerged country. It's a big country. China doesn't have anywhere near the military establishment that the US Does. It's not a threat. It's an economic threat. I would argue it's economically ahead of the US Especially now. But the United States created this crisis and contrived a threat that didn't exist, and it always does that. And clearly that 188 billion, that's public money. That's money. It comes from me and you and everybody else. But a lot of profit has come out of that war, too, which hasn't gone to you and me from military sales and military contractors and Halliburton and Schlumberger and all that other stuff.
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B
Right.
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A
I guess. Then after that, the big one, obviously, is Israel's various wars, plural forever wars, sort of like Israel wars. And while the biggest, obviously, is the genocide in Gaza, it's way more than that. Israel's been involved in Syria. Israel's been involved in Lebanon. This has been involved in Iran. It's really involved in Iran. Now, just in with regard to the genocide in Gaza, the numbers I see for USA, I think are low. They're generally in the 20 to 30 billion range. Those numbers are always sketchy because there's various ways to get aid to a country. Right. And there's various ways you can hide it. And I would assume it's actually bigger than that, but not like 30 billion isn't an insignificant amount of money. So the United States has continued to fund Israel, send it weapons, and provide political cover at the ICJ and at the UN For Israel's crimes. Netanyahu is an indicted war criminal.
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B
Right.
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A
And it's funny, the US Media keeps talking about Iran. Khamenei killed this many people, and he's this and that dude. Compared to Netanyahu, it's nothing. He's like petty criminal. Compared to Netanyahu. Yes.
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B
When you look at the. I think the numbers in Gaza, the official numbers are around 70,000. Whenever you see Bernie Sanders say the numbers, that's like the, that's the, like the most conservative.
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A
Yeah.
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B
Numbers that are like a little bit forthcoming, but it's probably hundreds of thousands of people, if not more. And that's just the people who died in the hospital. That's not including people still buried under the rubble for a year now. And Netanyahu basically waged war on a. On a civilian population because he couldn't really get at the military resistance, which was like, pretty dug in. He also opened up a front on Lebanon and Hezbollah at the same time and against the Houthis in Yemen. It's we ever. I think everyone at this point, it's not out, out of bounds to say that probably everything that Trump has done in the Middle east has been at Netanyahu's best. Netanyahu. Netanyahu's basically convinced him to do what he's doing now. No other US President ever did that. They. There's a famous line where Clinton's response after a meeting with Netanyahu is, did he forget who the superpower is? And netb for 30 years has been wanting to do this. And he couldn't convince George W. Bush to go after Iran. But Trump is an easy mark, even though he's so smart. Right.
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A
Although again, to go back, Hillary Clinton Promises. Kamala Harris in 2024 promised this. No, Trump. Trump is in many ways the only person dumb enough to do this. And I know there's conspiracy theories that Israel has video of Trump raping children or whatever. And anymore, who knows? Because, I mean, everything, I guess, is possible. But this is also consistent with American policy in that region. The US has always supported Israel.
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B
Right.
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A
And it started with Biden. Let's keep that in mind, too. And Trump clearly has ratcheted up. And yeah, Netanyahu is. I'm not sure with Trump and Netanyahu which one is the organ grinder and which one's the monkey, but they clearly go on. But at the other end, one thing about Bernie Sanders, a lot about Bernie Sanders pisses me off, frankly, anymore. But he always says this is Netanyahu's war. He refuses to acknowledge that this is anything bigger or that there's a historical context that goes back to at least 1948 on this. Right? He won't even say the word genocide, which we know a lot of people are killed. I think it's a genocide. I don't think how. I don't know how you can say it's not. But even so, it's a word. But singers just won't do any of that.
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B
International associations of genocide scholars have called it. Israeli genocide scholars have called it a genocide.
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A
Yeah, the famous Omer Bartov. Yeah. Yeah, it is. But even then, like, the guy won't say the word. He keeps saying it's Netanyahu's war. And this has become the Democratic Party line. Netanyahu's the bag. It's like they're looking for bad guys in here. It's why conspiracy theories are insane. We're looking for heroes and bad guys. As if there's no bigger structural context in which this occurs. There ain't no heroes. There are no fucking heroes in this right now. The closest to a hero, God forbid me, is like, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Right. God knows what her deep down motives are, right? Who knows? But at any rate, so obviously the. The genocide continues. The media is barely talking about the west bank right now, which is being resettled, where Israel is just going in and just destroying villages, taking people's homes away from them. They're having sales in New York City for land that they're about to steal, haven't stolen it yet. And they're taking. They're selling it in the United States. Both parties have gone along with that. And we've said this many times in the United States, for the first time Ever. Americans have turned against Israel, which is really quite shocking. And among Democrats, it's immense. It's, I think single digit support for Israel.
- [23:18]
B
Now the polls last summer, last fall were 7% of Democrats support Israel, especially younger Democrats.
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A
So we just saw this play out in the elections. Right. Where Democratic incumbents either were beat or barely hung on because they took APAC money and they were primaried. Right. And this is going to become a bigger issue and the Democrats just don't care. They're withholding this autopsy of 2024, which is dumb because everybody knows what it said. Are you withholding like we already know what it said and it said that Kamala Harris lost because of this continued support for Gaza. She came right out and said we're not going to change anything. Yeah. And then you have AOC this the darling of the left who says Kamala Harris is tirelessly working for pay peace.
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B
So 24 7. 24 7.
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A
Yeah. So this is where we are. I think we've talked about this a ton. Right. But that's now morphed into not just attacks on Iran because Trump and Biden have voted on us. Remember, Trump assassinated the Iranian commander, Soleimani. And this is important too because we mentioned how the US scuttled negotiations in. In Ukraine. It's definitely done the same with regard to Iran. Like the attack on Soleimani came either as he was returning from or going to some kind of negotiation on Israel's nuclear program. Remember, the United States and Israel and Iran had a nuclear agreement going back to 2015 which Iran complied with. There were no allegations. It's the most investigated country ever. And we just recently did two shows on this Withstander Siddiqui and Afshin Mateen,
- [24:44]
B
which probably will come out after this episode.
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A
Yeah. And highly recommend both of those, but
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B
read their books too.
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A
Yeah. Iran was in compliance with the treaty and Trump abrogated it because who knows?
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B
Because Obama and in many ways that Obama. Whatever. I don't want to lift up Obama by any means, but Obama challenged the Washington Congress and Cesar. Yeah, he went against what McCain and Hillary Clinton, Chuck Schumer wanted as far as Iran went by making that deal.
- [25:13]
A
McCain's remember McCain famously was singing Bomb Moran just what Brian Wilson wanted. But yeah, so he did. And Obama did on Cuba too, which we'll mention at the end. Obama can give him a couple. Couple bouquets for that. Right? Yeah. But even then the assassination, and that's something that US and Israel are doing, which is fairly new, which is these open assassinations in the old Days, they would get like the CIA to do it with Lumumba or something, or they would try to poison Castro cigars. Now they just bomb them, they just kill everybody.
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B
Decapitation, I think, is their shortest.
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A
Yeah. They killed Nasrallah and the head of various. The head of Hamas and now kidnapped Maduro. So it's all that's wrong. In the 40s, after World War II and the Cold War, you had this. We've often referred to it as like liberal imperialism or open door imperialism, as a product of new left. Right. Now that's just gone. Trump is basically. His idea is this is the biggest military in the world. I control unilaterally. Me control, the biggest military in the world. It's not America's, it's Trump's military.
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B
Right.
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A
He sees everything as private, like isis, his private army, which it is.
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B
Right.
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A
So we're seeing this at home as well. And so he basically thinks he's going to stop us. And which is why what's going on in Iran is interesting.
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B
Right.
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A
Because it's not going as planned, despite
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B
what we're seeing in Western.
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A
Yeah. So he attacked and assassinated Soleiman. There's been this pressure on Iran. And then last June, the United States launched attacks for 12 days going after Iran's nuclear program. Because Iran, as it has been for 30 years, is on the verge, is only two weeks away from an atomic weapon.
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B
It's literally like, there's probably montages of how everything is two weeks away.
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A
Yeah. Netanyahu. And especially saying, yeah, they're two weeks away. Tom Cotton, who's a Harvard graduate, say what you want about Harvard, it's overblown. Right. Because I never was a professor at Harvard, so how great could it be? But Cotton says Iran has been an imminent threat for 47 years. I don't think. I don't think that word means what you think it does. Imminent.
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B
They didn't teach the word imminent at Harvard.
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A
I guess not, but that's preposterous. Iran has never been that close to a nuclear weapon. It's just not there. The United States attacked and it was funny because. What did Trump say last summer? He said we obliterated Iran's entire nuclear program. And anything to the contrary is fake news from the radical left press.
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B
What I say now is we're going to. We're obliterating again. He has said that this week.
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A
And it's just grave diggers, grave hunters. You go in and you kill the corpse again. Or vampires or whatever. Maybe he thinks it's a zombie Too. I know it's 3D chess. The guy's brilliant. I'm sure there's this big strategy there that we just were too dumb to understand. I don't know.
- [27:52]
B
But within 24 hours of the first strikes, the Washington Post, which is a Bezos owned media outlet, said that U.S. intelligence assessments solve no immediate threat from Iran. Ted Cruz went on a morning talk show and said Iran was nowhere near developing a nuclear. Yeah, and.
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A
And Kelsey Gabbard had said that last year.
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B
And then she got sidelined in the administration.
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A
She got sidelined. That's why they had to send her to Georgia. She had to reclaim her status by.
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B
She had to lead an invest. An FBI raid on voting election center. Yeah.
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A
Maybe she can join the Space Cadet Club with Christine Nomenau. Or what was it called? The Space Shield. The Shield.
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B
The Shields of America.
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A
Is that a real thing?
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B
Apparently they created it hours before they fired Christina. Seriously?
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A
Is that like a Marvel movie? That's my first thought. And I don't watch Marvel movies. Movies. But isn't that what they do?
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B
Well, there's Captain America's Shield, so maybe that's where he got it from.
- [28:47]
A
Maybe she'll get a new uniform. She doesn't have to wear the cowboy hats anymore.
- [28:49]
B
She can wear the winged mask or whatever.
- [28:52]
A
Is Corey Lewandowski go with her?
- [28:54]
B
Apparently. Okay.
- [28:55]
A
Because you know what?
- [28:55]
B
His position was definitely out at dhs. I saw this morning.
- [28:58]
A
Yeah. His position before was under Secretary. So bada boom. Bada, bada boom. Any soon?
- [29:06]
B
I don't think so.
- [29:07]
A
What?
- [29:07]
B
Too soon? I don't think.
- [29:09]
A
No, not with her. But Mark. Wade Mullen, he got a winner there.
- [29:11]
B
Jesus Christ. Yeah.
- [29:13]
A
Anyway, so now you know the attack on Iran. Now Trump and Hegseth have given what, four different explanations for it. It was about nuclear program, then it was because of Israel. No. Then it was because it was America's decision. It was because Iran was an imminent threat. I don't know where.
- [29:28]
B
There's where Rubio said that we did it because we knew Israel was going to do it and we knew they were going to punch back at us.
- [29:34]
A
Yeah. So if I'm ready to punch you, I know you're going to punch me back. So I'm going to also punch a bunch of other people reports this. They just report it as if it's like a real thing.
- [29:48]
B
Yeah.
- [29:49]
A
Anyway, and this is the kicker, and you just mentioned it, and it's hard to know what's really going on there because the media has been. It's always dismal but it's been pretty bad. We do know that in the first 36 hours of the attacks, United States, we know what the US has done and Israel have done, which is pretty big. The United States has expended over 3,000 munitions already. And as of today. What's that tracker that you and I have been looking at? I forget who put it out.
- [30:19]
B
Yeah, is that from Brown University?
- [30:21]
A
No, this is. I don't think this is Brown.
- [30:22]
B
I think this is Thomas Watson Institute.
- [30:25]
A
This isn't, I think. Is this the Council on Foreign Relations maybe is putting that in order.
- [30:30]
B
The Quincy Institute link?
- [30:32]
A
It's Quincy.
- [30:34]
B
It's called the Iran War Tracker.
- [30:35]
A
Yes, it's the Quincy Institute. Highly recommended. Andy Basovich, we used to have him on all the time. I think he's retired now.
- [30:41]
B
Quincy Institutes and there are folks like Trita Parsi are all over the place,
- [30:46]
A
but they're today, what are they at? 6 and a half billion today. So it's $11,000 per second. So since we started talking, it's been, I don't know how many tens of millions of dollars.
- [30:58]
B
It's 11,000 as of right now. It's been six days since the war started. And so therefore it's a billion. A billion a day?
- [31:06]
A
Yeah, it's over a billion a day. And that's United States munitions. United States ships, for instance, three F15EXs, which is the kind of modern model of the F15, the more updated one, were shot down accidentally. And I'm going to put that in quotations, because at this point, who the hell knows what's going on there? Accidentally shut down by Kuwait, your ally, shooting down one jet, but shooting down three? I don't know, any rate, sounds like a liberty attack, right? But at any rate, those were something like 90 to 95 million each. So the United States lost $300 million worth of equipment right there, right? Yeah, the United States. The bigger issue is what Israel? What's happening in Israel? And I have no idea. I have friends who are like scholars of the Middle east or who've lived in the region who send me stuff frequently from Al Jazeera, but also other, like, regional media. And you don't want to. Nowadays, especially with AI, you don't want to just like dutifully report it and pass it on. So I'm trying to confirm this, and Google searches just won't tell you.
- [32:07]
B
Yep, yep. The Israelis are actually pretty good at keeping a clamp on media. It's a very small space and they have a police state there. We Saw a story this week where a Turkish CNN reporter was arrested for shooting pictures, shooting video of a spot in Tel Aviv where an Iranian missile had hit and demolished a building. And so there's definitely, we're hearing some numbers of casualties out of Israel and there's social media posts of people in Israel who are posting Iranian missiles coming down. And they're also one of the big stories, the through line story all week has been how the Israelis and the Americans are running what they call interceptor missiles. And like the Iranians are able to put out like cheaper missiles and cheaper drones and overwhelm defense systems in on American bases in the Gulf states and Israel. And the make the interceptor missiles takes longer and costs more.
- [33:04]
A
Yeah, someone saw that. Guess where the United States is considering buying interceptors from that?
- [33:10]
B
The Ukraine.
- [33:11]
A
Ukraine.
- [33:12]
B
And the other part is that the Iranians have actually sold a lot of drones to the Russians and the Ukrainians became very adept at being able to shoot them down.
- [33:20]
A
Yeah.
- [33:21]
B
So that there's a, there was a Washington, excuse me, a Wall Street Journal article this week that Russia is the big winner as Iran drains the missile supplies needed by Ukraine because the US is needing them for to fight Iran.
- [33:34]
A
I don't know how much I'm assuming that Iran is getting some equipment from China and Russia or it has in the past. Iran is using low cost drones. I forget what they cost like $50,000 each, which is pretty minimal. So if you get a bunch of them destroyed, all you got to do is hit one target in Iran. Like strategically it's a little bit of
- [33:51]
B
the flood the zone strategy too. It's like they said, 100 drones and there's only like 20 interceptor missiles.
- [33:57]
A
Yeah, yeah. And they're going after like they're very
- [34:00]
B
democratization of drone warfare.
- [34:03]
A
There's also, I think Iran has like a kind of strategy there. Right. It's not just blow everything up in sight. Right. Or blow up a school of schoolgirls because the maps are older, AI centered or whatever. Right. They're going after a supply. It's a, it's an old military strategy. You go after the other countries industrial capacity. You go after their bases. You have to the supply lines. One thing again, and I'm not a military historian, I've know a little bit about it. One thing the media is not really talking about is logistics. Right. The United States interceptors. Yeah. Who knows? Is the United States able to replace the equipment that's getting destroyed, the equipment that's getting depleted? It's lost $2 billion just in equipment in, in three, four days. Right. These are massive, immense losses. Trump is going to go back to, to the, to Congress now and ask for, I think, was it 50 billion more? What's he going to get? Right. That's not going to stop him. Right. They couldn't stop on a. And this is what pissed me off with Democratic one, but they kept saying he did, this is unconstitutional. He didn't have authorization. It's like, that's a fucking cover. You're covering your ass because goddamn well he's going to get it. And he did. That was never gonna, they were never gonna stop him. Right. And they. You can and justify. But we could say those four Democrats who got a bunch of APAC money, but they were just there to take the fucking dive. Schumer and Jeffries had it set up. Schumer, Jeffries are not unhappy with the outcome here. Right. Because for them it's win, win. You can continue to give Israel whatever it wants and at the same time, you can blame Trump for it when things go bad. Right.
- [35:31]
B
Yeah.
- [35:32]
A
What they don't realize or they just don't really care about is the fact that they're losing. They've lost control. I would argue they already lost grip over their own party.
- [35:40]
B
And we're seeing, I totally agree with that. We're seeing that play out in these primaries in a serious sort of way. And they're taking credit. There's interesting things going on. They flipped a state House seat in Arkansas this week. They had a big flip of one in Texas and in Tarrant County a couple of weeks ago. And those are folks who are like, running on progressive issues. Stuff that like, Jeffries and Schumer don't like. Yeah, like it's Mom, Donnie kind of politics, actually.
- [36:07]
A
Yeah. We talked about Teleriko, I think last week, and he won. Telorgo's hasn't been like, really out front with support for Palestine, but he has criticized Israel as opposed to Crockett. And that became a big issue, became a major issue for progressives who, who broke heavily for Talarico. Right. And he didn't really turn Israel into a major campaign issue, but he handled it a lot better. So I think, I don't, I think they don't care. It's. They're not stupid. And for how long? People in the Democratic Party have been saying. They said it to Kamala Harris way before the election. Millions of people said, and we saw it in the primaries when Biden was still running. They said, if you continue to support Israel and to continue to Subsidize this genocide. We're not going to vote for you. And they didn't care. And they still don't. They would rather see young Americans snatched off the streets, kidnapped and thrown into some secret prison God knows where, than reduce aid to Israel even by a time.
- [37:06]
B
By a dime. By a dime.
- [37:07]
A
Yeah. They'd rather see ICE run roughshod. They'd rather give free rein to Trump's private militias in America than they would actually stand up to Israel.
- [37:18]
B
They are, they, they walk, they march in lockstep with actually Trump and the Republicans when it comes to things like Iran and Israel and even to like a lesser extent, Ukraine and Russia.
- [37:29]
A
Yeah.
- [37:30]
B
And I think it's just important to note. And this $50 billion that are going to go in to build more missiles, because even though we have an infinite amount of weapons, which is the narrative that Hegseth and Trump has really been pushing, because they see that they're, they see all these press articles, like this Wall Street General Journal article, for example, oh, we're running out of weapons to defend our people in bases in, in Dubai and Saudi Arabia places. Is that like they, they have to put this money in to have these weapons? One, and then two, they actually have to change the story, the narrative that we're actually not going to lose because we don't have the right weapons anymore because we don't know what the fuck we're doing, which is they didn't, which is why they did this. They just kill, kill with strongest people. Why does Iran have the right to defend themselves? I don't understand. That's the story that the press is asking Iranian officials. It's like, why are you firing on US Bases in the Gulf states? Because you're attacking us.
- [38:23]
A
It's a. Jon Stewart, the liberal icon. Jon Stewart the other night went off on Iran. Why is Iran attacking all these other countries? And that's something we didn't even mention. Right. They're attacking American bases. So they've hit Dubai, they've hit Saudi, they've hit. They want the CIA headquarters in Riyadh. They've hit American bases.
- [38:38]
B
The place they hit in Kuwait where they killed the six folks where it wasn't a CIA station as well.
- [38:43]
A
If you know anything about the rules of war, which is archaic and laughable obviously, anymore. But those are legitimate targets, right?
- [38:50]
B
Yeah.
- [38:50]
A
Those are military installations of an invading country, of, of an aggressive country. You're allowed to hit those. And they know that. And Jon Stewart's not a dumb guy. He knows that too. But I Think you know what, these,
- [39:00]
B
I'll tell you this too, is that I think there's an element where they want to bring this Gaza type warfare. I actually feel like that's what they did in Minneapolis. I feel like that's what they did in Venezuela. Definitely what they're trying to do with Iran. The thing with Iran is it's like big enough and strong enough and well organized enough and has been waiting for this moment for 40 years, studying and preparing. Is that like it's really an opponent who can really hit. And so I think they're really cut off, they're off balance.
- [39:26]
A
But yeah, as we've said on our recent shows, it's a country of 92 million, it's a big country. It's a mountainous 55%, 55, 60% of Iran is mountainous. And Iran is worth its lesson the hard way. Right. What's the point of negotiating? Because. Right. Oman was brokering a deal which essentially I think there was an agreement and Trump, I think, was afraid of that. So he had to attack Iran basically because the agreement that would leak out and also because I don't know if he. I think Schumer and Jeffries appreciated that he attacked before a vote could be held. Kind of let them off the hook again. But the war. And you see a lot of, a lot of military people who aren't getting profiled or platformed the way others are. A lot of vats, a lot of officers are talking about how badly this is going right now. The United States has created an immense amount of destruction. There's no doubt it can do that did in Vietnam. I think that's what people don't understand. It's like you can blow the shit out of another country. That doesn't mean you're succeeding. If that were the case, the US Won the Vietnam War, which is what revisionists and conspiracy theorists say, right? Like they killed 3 million Vietnamese, they win the war. And so you're kind of seeing that. Plus it's also again, who know, like Spain has definitely stood up and said we're not going to support the US In Iran. I saw reports today that France and Britain have said they won't let the US Use bases there. Don't know if that's true or not because anymore who knows what's what?
- [40:46]
B
I'm talking about stories about the Russians sharing intelligence, the Russian sharing.
- [40:51]
A
I'm more likely to believe that also. When I first saw this, I didn't, I wasn't sure, but I did read other sources. But various Gulf nations are considering withdrawing their investment. And Gulf nations are pissed off because a lot of them are saying like the US has abandoned us. They're doing everything to protect Israel. Right. And then another part of it, which we heard before this started, haven't heard since then, which I suspect is still going on, is American sailors aren't real happy to be there too. You saw what was probably very clearly. I won't call it a mutiny, but it's monkey wrenching on a high level. Unlike the Gerald Ford. Right.
- [41:22]
B
Yes.
- [41:23]
A
Where the entire plumbing system just was
- [41:25]
B
clogged up with T shirts by accident.
- [41:27]
A
It's by accident and like that. Right.
- [41:29]
B
They'll be fixed in two weeks though, right?
- [41:30]
A
Yeah, it's. I'm not under the illusion that Iran is like hasn't. It's been hit, it's taken. Its commander was killed. And again like by assassinating Khomeini and promising to assassinate whoever succeeds him. And today Trump even said it has to be unconditional surrender. So what is restraining Iran now from doing whatever it wants?
- [41:52]
B
Right, Exactly.
- [41:52]
A
The thing is, if you believe Iran had a nuclear missile now you know for sure it doesn't because then used it.
- [41:58]
B
They didn't just assassinate their supreme leader, they assassinated like top 50 members of their leadership.
- [42:04]
A
And they did that last. They assassinated. They've been doing this for years.
- [42:07]
B
Yeah.
- [42:08]
A
And again, that's different in the Cold War, to do it this openly. It's different. And Trump again, the whole liberals get all upset, we're losing our allies and the world doesn't respect us anymore. And I never given a shit about that. I've never been supportive NATO or anything like that. But Trump's going it alone, I think more than ever before. Right. Yep. Just. I don't know if there's anything lasting. But just to wrap it up, because forever.
- [42:33]
B
I do want, I do want to talk about the other beneficiary of this, which is the US weapons manufacturing sector. Just to throw this out, just for this, I did a little bit of research from last Friday, which was the day before Trump's attack. Trump and Israel's attack on Iran. I was looking at just the increase in stock prices over the weekend, like from Friday to when the market opened on Monday. There was a 5% increase in the stock value of Lockheed, 6% of Northrop Grumman Raytheon had a 5% increase. General Dynamics had a 3.5% increase. So they all had, they had, all had stock pumps. This $50 billion, Trump actually because of this crisis they're in about the lack of missiles and interceptors is that Trump actually called a special meeting at the White House a day or two ago with the CEOs of the weapons companies to pressure them. To pressure them to get. Build up the arsenal of democracy, as it were. Right. And there's including. This includes like a. There's an executive order in January that identified contractors deemed to be underperforming in the production and while distributing profits to their shareholders. And so he's actually going to do a little bit of his punishment for anyone who's underperforming on these weapons production. I will say that the weapons manufacturers are also. The last five years we've seen this sort of celebratory tone from the CEOs of the big four or five weapons manufacturers. I just want to throw a couple quotes out real quick because I just like doing this in October of 2023. Think about that. October of 2023. Greg Hayes, the CEO of Raytheon, said the war in Gaza or in Israel again is a tragic situation, but it will eventually lead to additional orders, most likely like orders of weapons in 2022, January 2022, about a month before the Ukraine war started. I think he told Greg Hayes actually really has a big mouth. He said that we've got technologies that help in these engagements, whether it's Patriot systems or some of the radar systems. And that's also where he famously gave a. Gave a talk to the shareholders call, talking about how with what's going on in the South China Sea and what was going on in Eastern Europe, we're going to see a lot of profit, we're going to see a lot of sales. He started the decade off in 2021 by saying, look, peace is not going to break out in the Middle east anytime soon. I think it remains an area where we'll continue to see solid growth.
- [45:01]
A
I always think of. There's a great scene in Reds where John Reed comes back. This is after the Mexican Revolution. He's speaking at the Liberal Club of San Francisco. And the guy gives this really loud, pompous introduction. And Jack Reed is here to tell us why the United States is fighting in World War I or in the Great War in 1916. And John Reed stands up and he says, prophets. And there's just a dead silence. And the whole, no, that's where we are. Yet they're pretty, pretty blind about where it is.
- [45:30]
B
We, we could get into this in a future show, but there's a whole, there's a whole story that we could tell about how headseff has forced out all of these, all this leadership at the pinnacle to the people who actually know how to fight the war.
- [45:41]
A
Well, Department of State, FBI, everybody. That's one of the people wrote about this with regard to the Vietnam War. By the time the United States got more involved in Vietnam, anyone who knew anything about the region had been. It had been the same way. They'd been eliminated because of Mark McCarthyism, because of the China lobby. Right?
- [45:57]
B
Yeah.
- [45:57]
A
So all these China hands. The China hands also knew about Asia. They knew about Vietnam as well. So the United States goes into Vietnam saying Vietnam is just a puppet of China. Anybody who, like, had a fucking ounce of sense at the time who read anything about it would have known Vietnam and China hate each other. They always hated each other. And it's. You're getting the same thing now where you have these insane ideas about Israel and Saudi and everything else. It's really put these other Arab countries in a bind because it's probably not going to lead to their overthrows. But the Arab Arabs in general hate Israel. But these Arab states, the leadership states, the Gulf states. Yeah, especially the uae, which is Zionist. Saudi ain't much better. But now, you know, they're getting hit because of Israel and their people are pissed off and they're not getting supported by the US and they're talking about withdrawing investment.
- [46:47]
B
They're also like, not. I think about Israel and I think about Iran. Those are like hardened military states, ready, that's been waiting for this moment forever. Those Gulf states, the families that rule them, like, they're more inclined to be like, dancing right away in a European nightclub or things. I don't think you're really. I don't think they're ready for state.
- [47:07]
A
Their violence is internal against regime enemies, regime opponents.
- [47:11]
B
Yeah.
- [47:11]
A
And then you look at, look at what the Houthis have done just by themselves the last three or four years
- [47:16]
B
with, with, with drones. They buy at Target.
- [47:18]
A
They're shutting down like traffic in like the Red Sea. Now the Strait of Hormuz is closed. Oil. Oh, what? I actually wrote it down. I forgot about that. Oil has gone just in this week from $67 to $90 a barrel. That's a 50% increase in less than a week. Really. Gas in the US is now averaging. That was yesterday, so it may even higher today. 3:32 a gallon, which was over 40 cents a gallon up. I'm seeing that here. It was 319 yesterday. And it was, I think 279 or
- [47:49]
B
269 last week I saw in LA, Los Angeles today, where it's like something like seven dollars a gallon.
- [47:55]
A
Yeah. And the market, if you have. Trump's always bragging about your big, beautiful 401k, which typical Americans don't have, but that's clearly taken a hit because so much of that is invested in the markets. And we just saw February lost jobs. The thing is, what really, like, aside from the horrible human cost of all this, which is just catastrophic, this is actually, for the first time, Trump is actually politically vulnerable. And the Democrats keep throwing them rope. They keep throwing them a lifeline. They're. They're caved in on ice. Now that Kristi Noem is gone, I'm sure they'll be fine. And they'll say Mark Wayne Mullen is different, and they'll brag about getting rid of Kristi Noem. And they've already authorized. It's hard for them to come back and criticize Trump now. They authorized the fucking war. He did. They. They did what they did. It was authorized. It's now a constitutional order or whatever you want to call it. They're not gonna. They're not gonna prevent him from getting 50 billion or whatever he wants. Even, even Ruben Gallegos and Mark Kelly have said that they haven't decided yet how they're gonna vote on this. Jesus Christ. Trump threatened to not just jail, but didn't he say he was gonna hang? Didn't he say Kelly deserved to be laid at gallows or something?
- [49:03]
B
He's locked in those five members of Congress, which include two senators, right?
- [49:08]
A
Yeah. They're turning around and giving him what he want. The guy threatened to kill you personally, right?
- [49:14]
B
I'm Sicilian, dude.
- [49:16]
A
You threaten to kill me. We're. We're not friends anymore. Like, whatever you want. I don't care if you have a resolution in favor of apple pie. Like, I'm voting against everything you do for the rest of your life. It's not unbelievable if you're old enough to re. To follow the Democratic Party. But it's so maddening. The one thing, though, like, we are seeing a resistance and on all different levels, we're seeing in the streets, right? We saw this on campuses with regard to Israel's genocide. We've seen it more recently in, like, Chicago and especially Minneapolis against ice. We're seeing it at the voting booths now. Three Democrats in North Carolina lost their primary because they had voted, taken positions, like, to support ice, for North Carolina
- [49:58]
B
law enforcement to work with ice.
- [50:00]
A
And you are seeing, like, just Democrats all these years. This Vote blue. Shit doesn't work anymore. Vote Blue. Nomadic. They're just, they're tired of it because it never got you anywhere. In 50 years all we've seen is this move to the right. I'm going to call it, I drift. It's more than that. It's pretty speedy. And, and the last thing, like we've mentioned all this, we basically talked about the Middle East. This is also going on in Venezuela now in Ecuador where Trump actually has ground troops under the guise of narco terrorism. And, and Cuba, which is really heartbreaking, is in the crosshairs.
- [50:31]
B
Trump's also trying to change the story away from Iran because they're losing to, to Cuba.
- [50:36]
A
Yeah. The only thing is I wonder again, like how do you do all these things at the same time, right? Then Cuba especially right now, Cuba's in its worst crisis. Right. There's a shortage of oil, electricity isn't running. It's a humanitarian crisis. They're trying to starve it out. They've been for 60 some years. Right. It's a gen outside of Havana from the airport there's a sign that says Blakeo, the greatest genocide in history. Right. You've got 60 some years of this blockade. Now Cuba's in the crosshairs. I don't know what they're going to do. They've already kidnapped Maduro. Dulcie Rodriguez seems to be cooperating. I know American Trotskyists are so pissed off at her. I think she has a gun at her head. I don't know, maybe she's bad, maybe she sold at Maduro, I don't know. But right now it's hard to do much when the Americans have a gun at your head, which is Trump isn't lying about that, he's not hiding it. And Ecuador now is a right wing government that the United States shall put in power.
- [51:29]
B
Who are narco traffickers?
- [51:31]
A
Traffickers.
- [51:31]
B
The US going and bombing narco traffickers in the country.
- [51:34]
A
It's for business, right. It's we're going to take care of this family so this family can prosper. It's like intervening in a mobile or something like that.
- [51:40]
B
Like John Conley in south Boston, the 70s and 80s.
- [51:44]
A
Yeah. It's bleak as how you'd like to think that Mexico and Brazil might be gets able to get some oil but they have their own shit to deal with right now, especially in Mexico. Trump squeeze. Who knows what's going on with the cartels in Mexico. I think there's some pretty solid evidence that the United States, especially the CIA has worked with them in the past. We are. It's not just forever wars. It's like forever everywhere wars, right?
- [52:11]
B
Yeah.
- [52:12]
A
And that's somewhat different. The United States is, Jason, basically conducted subversion and covert operations. That was the theme of the Cold War. Right. Internal subversion, covert ops, things like that. And we saw that all over the place. Right. Constantly.
- [52:25]
B
Right.
- [52:26]
A
Eisenhower went into Guatemala, went into Iran. Kennedy went into a bunch of places when he wasn't working tirelessly for peace all over the world. And now the veneer is off. They're not even pretending any longer that they're there to protect democracy or anything like that. Anyway, Ukraine and Russia are still going at it. There's still a genocide in Gaza and the West Bank. Iran is not going to end in six days or maybe six months, I don't know. But they didn't get.
- [52:57]
B
Definitely not two weeks.
- [52:59]
A
Not two weeks.
- [53:00]
B
I do want to shout out something we didn't mention, which is good because it's really been troubling me. It's been on my mind all week. Is this bombing this girl's outwit or school on the first day, which the US actually tried to deny in the beginning, but investigative reporters have been able to piece together it was the US who dropped the bomb there. Whether apparently it was near a Revolutionary Guard base, who knows, because there's no more rules of engagement as they like to brag about. And I think also applying these, this Gaza, the Gaza principles to Iran, they're just going to indiscriminately kill whoever they want. I watched video of another school being hit today and it's just very troubling. 175 people died, many of which were like elementary school age girls. And it's just terrible. And then Trump and Hegseth go up in front of the cameras all the time and just brag about it. It's.
- [53:52]
A
Is that the one. And one of these. It was AI generated. There's a place in Tehran called Police Park. It's the name of a park. It would be like calling it like, like the 5th Street park or Montrose park or whatever. AI targeted that because it was a park. It was like playground equipment, but it said police on it. Right. It's like these people who like get rid of programs because there's some. AI comes up with some kind of DEI word or something like that to it. Right. And. Yeah. And that's going to continue, right? They're going to continue to. If there really was such a thing as international law and if institutions like the the UN or the ICJ had any real power or they cared. What Hegseth has been saying that that's a de facto war crime right there.
- [54:36]
B
He incriminates himself all the time. He's pretty dumb.
- [54:40]
A
He's pretty dumb by saying, we have no rules of engagement. We're going to fight total war like that. That's. The Nazis didn't even do that shit. They weren't that dumb.
- [54:49]
B
Yeah, yeah.
- [54:50]
A
The guy. If there really was some kind of system of justice. Yeah, he's a goner. He's being hanged at Nuremberg or whatever.
- [54:56]
B
If there was 3D chess going on, they probably wouldn't be doing menial shit to incriminate themselves either.
- [55:01]
A
No, but see, that's part of the 3D. And I don't know. Yeah, I mean, it's. We've said this before. Is it better to have, like, idiots who are really violent and nihilistic, like Hegseth, who are just destructive, or would it be worse if they were smart? I don't know. Just one last thing, because we've talked about all the money the US is throwing around, Trump also sent 40 billion to Argentina so that it could screw over American farmers even more.
- [55:29]
B
3D chess right there, Bob. Strategic, genius strategy. Yep, Rabbit there. I think we've shared enough today, but we'll have more episodes on this coming up. Folks, you've been listening to the Green and Red podcast talking about forever wars in Ukraine and Iran and other places. If you like what you hear. And please check us out on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Bluesky. If you really like this code of greenredpodcast.org and hit that support button and become a patron@patreon.com GreenRedPodcast if you're watching this on YouTube, hit the subscribe button. If you're listening to this audio platform, give us a rate and review because it helps us with the algorithms. And like the late Jesse Jackson said, keep hope alive, make trouble and misbehave. We'll talk to you again soon. Sam.