B (30:43)

Let's talk about this, this Wesley Clark memo that he never saw. Okay, so four star General Wesley never saw it, yeah. He says, so in the C SPAN interview, you don't remember this? He's talking about it. He says.

A (30:57)

Yeah.

C (30:57)

He said, I just got this down from upstairs, meeting the secretary Defense off today. And he said, this is a memo that describes how we're going to take out seven countries in five years. I said, is it classified? He said, yes sir. I said, I said, well, don't show it to me.

B (31:14)

Rumsfeld, who sometimes abrasive approach often alienated other cabinet members, produced 20 to 60 snowflakes. These memos, snowflakes a day, 20 to 60 a day, regularly poured out his thoughts in writing as the basis for developing policy. Every once in a while, one of these ranting Rumsfeld notes to Condi would come. You can almost hear the eye roll like this dude, Rumsfeld is drowning us in his little thoughts and his stupid memos. Do you have any evidence that this memo was actually important as opposed to one snowflake in a, in a shifting strategy of 60,000?

A (31:48)

The fact is that much of what he said came true and that's what makes it interesting, Chow.

C (31:53)

We're going to take out seven countries in five years.

A (31:57)

And that this was part of a strategy to overthrow seven governments in five years. And all of them except one have been done. It's literally, he names seven countries and there's one to go. And that one, by the way, happens to be the one that Donald Trump is flirting with a war with right now.

C (32:14)

Iran, starting with Iraq and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and finishing off Iran.

B (32:22)

Three of the countries on the on out of seven, almost half the countries have not done regime change, let alone within five years, let alone in the specific order prescribed by the memo. And, and not to mention we had, we did do regime change in countries not on the memo at all, like Liberia. So there's actually no variable from the memo that actually matches our foreign policy.

A (32:42)

And Coleman, my argument here isn't that again, I'm not saying that memo came to life and exactly what was written down on that has happened. Of course there were more memos. Of course there were more decisions that were added in afterward. I'm saying that a four star general said the decision had been made, that he had sources based on department, his source, Defense Department, who is basing it.

B (33:02)

On what the memo.

A (33:03)

There might be lots of memos that go out every day, but a memo that says we're gonna fight, we're gonna topple seven countries in the next five years, a pretty big memo that's not just one of the regular memos. That's the point.

B (33:13)

It was a big memo. Your only evidence is the guy who never read it. You realize how ridiculous this is? You couldn't. If you were a historian writing a book, you'd have to cut this out of the book because you're relying on the hearsay of someone that never even read the document, much less you or I have never read the document. And we know that they were writing 60 documents a day that Condoleezza Rice was putting in the trash. It's, it's a ridiculously low bar of evidence. You'd have to have to consider this memo and everything implied by it important.

A (33:41)

I mean, I, I don't know how to say this, dude. I. This just feels so nutty to me. I guess we'll just leave this up to people. And I'm not a historian writing a book. I'm a guy talking about these issues to the American people. So I don't know, you can, you can decide whether you find that to be a pretty interesting story or not. All right, so there is the, the devastating takedown of me. I mean, look, I, I will say it's incredibly dishonestly edited, but, well, you, if you may notice even in the thing that like everybody seems to be speaking uninterrupted and then in my part, it seems to be cutting all over the place. But I guess the big gotcha that they're saying here is, look, here's Dave talking about this thing all the time and really pointing to like, look, this means something. Here's Coleman saying it doesn't. And then at the end they have that line of me, which again, if you watch the whole thing uninterrupted, this was after we had gone back and forth like seven times. And I'm just getting like frustrated with it that I went, well, I'm not a historian and blah, blah, blah, this is, I'm a guy talking. And I think I'm making a good point. Now look, if you want to get be very pedantic or nitpicky, which is, I think what you really need to rely on to even make this argument. Yeah, that was a bad line. I shouldn't have said that. But you know, in a three and a half hour conversation, you're gonna have one thing that's like, I probably should. The point I probably should have responded with is like, yes, absolutely, that could be included in a historian's book. It's the testimony of a four star general. Of course someone could include that in there. But let's Regardless, okay, I should have said something a little bit better in that one line. But I am fascinated with the idea that this is the fight you guys want to have. And so, okay, let's have it. I think this is reasonable. I will go through the points that were made in this tweet here, but I think, like, let's just to be completely fair here, instead of, you know, playing, because there's what you do with this editing here, right, is they only play the part of the clip where General Wesley Clark is saying, I said, wait, don't show that to me. You know, they're playing that part. And even of the clip with Coleman, they play the part where I go, wait, he hadn't seen the memo. And then he goes, yeah, the C Span interview. And then the next thing I said was, oh, the Democracy now interview with Amy Goodman. Like, they cut that out, of course, because this is just the moment where I was like, wait, what are you referring to? Of course they'll keep that in and not keep in kind of the more interesting stuff. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show. Brand new sponsor we're happy to have on board, and that is Express vpn. Every time you connect to an unencrypted network in a cafe, a hotel, an airport, etc. Your online data is not secure. Any hacker on the same network can gain access and steal your personal data. It doesn't take much technological knowledge to hack someone. Just some cheap hardware is needed. A smart 12 year old can do it. Your data is valuable. Hackers can make up to a thousand dollars per person selling personal information on the dark web. ExpressVPN stops hackers from stealing your data by creating a secure encrypted tunnel between your device and the Internet. It would take a hacker with a supercomputer over a billion years to get past ExpressVPN's encryption. It's easy to use. You fire up the app and click one button to get protected. It works on all devices, phones, laptops, tablets, and more. So you can stay secure on the go. Secure your online data today by visiting expressvpn.com problem. That's E X P R E S s v p n.com problem. To find out how you can get up to four, four extra months free. That's Express. One more time. That's ExpressVPN.com problem. All right, let's get back into the show. But so let's, for the sake of fairness, let's play the Whole thing here. So what I want to do right here, okay, is I want to play Wesley Clark's comments on Democracy now. And then I want to play his comments when he was asked about this on Pierce Morgan a few months ago, more recently. So we're going to play the clip and then the next clip from Piers Morgan. Is Piers Morgan playing this clip and. And General Wesley Clark responding to it and giving his thoughts. So I, I want you guys to listen to this, and then we will talk about whether or not what's being said here is highly relevant. Let's play the clips.

C (37:52)

About 10 days after 9, 11, I went through the Pentagon and I saw Secretary Rumsfeld and, and Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz. I went downstairs just to say hello to some of the people on the Joint Staff who used to work for me. And one of the generals called me and he said, sir, you gotta come in. You gotta come in and talk to me a second. I said, well, you're too busy. He said, no, no. He says, we've made the decision. We're going to war with Iraq. This was on or about the 20th of September. I said, we're going to war with Iraq. Why? He said, I don't know. He said, I guess they don't know what else to do. So I said, well, did they find some information connecting Saddam to Al Qaeda? He said, no, no. He says, there's nothing new that way. They just made the decision to go to war with Iraq. He said, I guess it's like we don't know what to do about terrorists, but we've got a good military and we can take down governments. And he said, I guess if the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem has to look like a nail. So I came back to see him a few weeks later, and by that time we were bombing in Afghanistan. I said, are we still going to war with Iraq? And he said, oh, it's worse than that. He said. He reached over on his desk, he picked up a piece of paper and he said, I just got this down from upstairs, meeting the Secretary of Defense office today. And he said, this is a memo that describes how we're going to take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and finishing off Iran.

A (39:27)

Okay, so this was the original comment by General Wesley Clark. This was the original interview. I believe this was in 2007 that he. But he's talking about 2001 and how quickly the decision to go to that we were going to overthrow Saddam Hussein was made and then when, when he came back a few months later, the same general told him that the decision had been made to overthrow seven countries in the Middle east in the next five years. Let's, we'll get into this, but let's also in here for to have even more context, let's listen to what Wesley Clark said when that exact clip was played for him. And he was asked what was he saying during that time on Piers Morgan from just a few months ago.

C (40:09)

Let's play that clip in five years, starting with Iraq and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and finishing off Iran.

A (40:19)

General Clark, aside from the fact that you have aged extremely well since that clip, given my 22 years later, so congratulations on your gene pool. When you hear yourself talking then, I mean, you sound almost incredulous about what you were learning there. What do you feel about.

C (40:38)

Actually, you know, when it started, Piers, is 1991. I went in to see Secretary Undersecretary Wolfowitz in, in May of 91. He told me, I said, you got to be proud of how the troops have done on the Gulf War, right? He said, yeah, but President Bush said they're going to get rid of Saddam. He said, I don't think that's going to happen. He said, but we've got, we've got maybe five to 10 years to get rid of all these old Soviet surrogate countries, government like Iraq and Syria and Libya and so forth before the next great superpower comes along. I said, five to 10 years where we're going to attack them. And he said, well, and I said, who's the next superpower? Is it China? He said, well, and then he sort of faded off like Friday afternoon. I don't want to think about it anymore. But they actually put together a plan. They took it apparently to Brent Scowcroft, who was George H. Bush's national security advisor. And General Scowcroft said, let's hold on this until after the election. The election didn't work out for them. They left. I came into the Pentagon in the spring of 94. They said, what's the national security strategy? I said, I don't know. But what about the stuff that Wolfowitz was proposing? Nobody had ever heard of it. It got resurrected in a study that was paid for by the Israelis, Richard Pearl. And that's the study that said that if you want to protect Israel and you want Israel to succeed and have peace negotiations work, then you've got to get rid of the states that are surrounding on the periphery.

A (42:14)

All right, there we go. From making okay, so just to be clear, when explaining this, not only does Wesley Clark not say, oh, yeah, well, you know, I never saw the memo or something like this, he goes, oh, no, no. I had seen these plans from ten years earlier, and that basically this was what the neocons in the George H.W. bush administration wanted. And they were very upset that he didn't go all the way and overthrow Saddam Hussein. He goes, then they lost the election to Clinton. And then the, you know, the plan kind of died there because they weren't in power anymore. And in his words, it was reincarnated by a study paid for by the Israelis saying that if you want to protect Israel, this is the way to. Okay, so just to be very clear now, anybody start a starting point here, and this is probably maybe why. The reason why I didn't prosecute this case, as well as perhaps I could have, is that this just seems to be so obvious on its face to me. And you could see that me in the. In the clip there. Just say it. Like, who's looking at this and saying this isn't crazy? But look, let's take a look here at what actually happened, right? Because there's. There's a list of seven countries here that. That General Wesley Clark is saying we were supposed to overthrow in the next five years. Okay? So the countries. The countries that he listed off are Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Somalia, Sudan, and, And. And, excuse me, Iran. Okay? So now if you look at this list of countries, okay, because, like, what Coleman and these other guys are kind of hanging on to is here is like, yeah, but we didn't get regime change in seven countries in five years. So essentially, Dave, you're telling me that why this is so important is that it ended up coming true. He ended up being right. But look, it didn't come true. So let's examine that for a second. Okay, let's go through the countries. Let's go through subsequently what happened with US And Israeli foreign policy now on the list of countries that the seven countries, just to be clear here, the United States of America or Israel or both, have attacked every country with the possible exception of Sudan. Now, I will say here, Sudan is the country that I know the least about in, in terms of this stuff. Like, I know that, you know, like, I've just read a lot more about the other six countries than I have about Sudan. So, you know, do your own research on this or look into it or say what you want, but I also do know that the guy died, like, the guy who they wanted to Overthrow Bashir. Am I getting that right? I want to say, hold on. Omar Bashir, I want to say, let me double check that here, guys. Yes, Omar Al Bashir, he was the leader in Sudan who died. And they like southern Sudan did break off of Sudan and then they had their whole civil war there or whatever, but like not enough history about Sudan there. And I don't exactly, you know, I was trying to, I was looking up a little bit of it this morning and I started like, you know, looking up, I forget exactly what I, what I was searching, but I was searching something about like, you know, the Sudan civil war or something like that. And like the number one or number two hit on Google. Let me see if I could actually pull this up here because it was just, I don't know, I did just find this funny. But again, just to be clear here, I'm maintaining I really don't know enough about Sudan to speak about it with too much authority. But I did want to. This, this was just a funny note to me. Let me see if I can find this. I thought I had it here in my, my history somewhere. Maybe not. But it was like the number two hit on Google, I believe was, was a George Soros. It was a George Soros operation saying something about how important breaking up Sudan was or something like that. So like, I don't know the exact level of what like us Israeli slash Western, you know, meddling was in, in South Sudan, splitting off there. But let's just say, okay, that one maybe didn't exactly come true. The other six, every single one of them has been attacked by the United States of America or Israel or both. Let's go through them real quick. Afghanistan and Iraq, obviously, right? Two of the longest wars in American history, I guess you could say, conventionally speaking, the two longest wars in American history. 20 year regime change projects in both of those countries. Libya overthrown by the United States of America. Syria, both Israel and the United States and Saudi Arabia and Turkey all funded a giant regime change effort there for years and years and years starting in 2011, started pouring billions of dollars into the country. All types of CIA forces in there. Like an absolute civil war started by Washington D.C. started by the CIA. You should. I just finished reading Creative Chaos, which is the latest book published by the Libertarian Institute. Just phenomenal book, all about how the CIA started the war. And it's all about like the kind of early phases in the war. And of course this ultimately led years later to the overthrow of Bashar al Assad. So we got Iraq Afghanistan, Syria and Libya all had regime change wars there. Let's check in on Somalia. Well, of course we just had Dave DeCamp who was on the show a few weeks ago, breaking down how this has been. We've set the record for the most strikes in a year in Somalia this year. Now it's not a conventional boots on the ground war in the same way that Iraq or Afghanistan was. And so it's not like really thought of as America's longest war. It was, we didn't send tens of thousands of boots to, to go occupy the country. It's been more of a CIA, jsoc, Special Forces kind of war. But if you call that a war, which we would call if anyone else did it, to us, it is actually the longest war in American history and still going on there. What was the other one? Who have we not hit yet? We did Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, Somalia, did Sudan and Iran. What's been going on with Iran? Well, of course Iran has been threatened to high holy hell over, you know, since 9 11. And of course Israel and the United States of America did fight, albeit brief war there over the last year. And as I've talked about many times I've mentioned with Coleman, Israel was bombing, was bombing all types of regime targets after Trump dropped the bunker busters and they were calling Iranian generals and threatening their families. They were clearly attempting to lure America into a regime change, which by the way they're not done with in their own words. They're still sabotling about the next strike on Iran. And so I'm sorry, like just on the very face of it here, like, I don't know, they're trying to make it out like I'm walking away from this point or something. You have a four star general telling you explicitly that he had seen these plans for years. Not just that, there was one memo that, that the memo isn't even the point. The point is that he said a general confirmed that the decision had already been made. And yes, we went on to do that or attempt to do that in just about all of the countries listed. I'm sorry, what honest person does not find this to be relevant and interesting information? Like what is the argument here you guys are making? So let's, let's refer here. So in, in the tweet that, sorry, let me pull that one back up. In, in the tweet that, what was his name again that, that Nathan here wrote, he says, okay, Dave keeps saying all the stuff or whatever he goes, except as Coleman Hughes brilliantly showed in their Debate one, Clark never even saw the memo. Like, this is what they're harping on. This is how pedantic they're trying to be. That during, like, I, like, honestly guys, I just tell me what you think of this. That, yes, Wesley CL Say, hey, tried to show it to me. And I was kind of like, I don't know. And it's not exactly, it's not exactly clear what he saw or didn't see on the memo. But that's not really the point now, is it? I mean, it seemed like the way Wesley Clark was saying it was almost like, like, hey, I don't want to get you in trouble, because yes, is that classified? And then goes, hey, I don't want to get you in trouble. Now, I don't exactly understand because I. Wesley Clark almost certainly would have had top secret security clearance at the time. So I don't see why it would have been getting him in trouble to show it to him. But nonetheless, that seemed to be what he was saying. But that's really not the point now, is it? Whether he saw the memo is completely irrelevant. He's claiming he's seen these plans laid out for years. The point is that we went on to do so much of it. And you could downplay it, like Coleman sitting there saying like, well, half the countries didn't have regime changes, okay, The US And Israel or Israel sometimes. And Israel has attacked six out of the seven countries and one of them stopped kind of being a problem because the leader died and there was a civil war. Seems pretty relevant to me. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is massive chips. Did you know that all chips and fries used to be cooked in tallow up until the 1990s when big corporations switched to cheap, processed seed oils? Well, if you still want some of those tallow chips, you can get them now. With Masa, they decided to do something about this. They created a tasty and delicious tortilla chip with just three ingredients and no seed oils. These chips don't only avoid all the bad stuff. Stuff, they taste great too. Masa is crunchier, tastier and sturdier than other chips. Snacking on Masa chips is nothing like eating regular chips. With Masa, you feel satisfied, light and energetic with no crash, bloat or gross sluggish feeling afterward. Massa chips are beloved by tens of thousands of customers and have been endorsed by industry leading health and nutrition experts like Ben Greenfield and Gary Brecker. And if you're Ready to give Massa a try? Just go to Massachips.com Dave and use the promo code Dave for 25 off your first order. That's Massachips.com Dave. Promo code Dave for 25 off your first order. All right, let's get back into the show. Now, the second point here in the tweet is rumsfeld would send 20 to 60 of these memos a day. They weren't taken seriously. Okay, but the one that laid out that we were going to attack seven countries in five years, and then we went on to pretty much do it. That seems to be a really relevant memo. Like, I don't care how many he sent today. Let's talk about that one. This is on the level of me saying, like, we got a confession from the murderer. And you go, yeah, but he said, like, a thousand things that day. It's like, okay, well, I'm really focused on this one. Number three. In fact, for half of those countries on the list, this never even happened. Sorry. We just went through the countries on the list list, and that doesn't, like, it doesn't prove anything. I'm sorry. No, it. It either did happen or was attempted in all of these countries. And the. The fact that it. Again, the fact that if it didn't happen precisely the way Wesley Clark said or in the time frame, that doesn't make this any less relevant and interesting, then the next one. And for other countries not on the list, there were regime changes. Well, that means nothing. That means absolutely nothing. The fact that we also fought other conflicts doesn't prove wrong that this was the thinking in Washington at that time. Now, does it? Or does it prove that the. Does it prove that this means, like, it. Just because we went and attacked other countries also? Like, take, for example, Yemen. Okay, Yemen wasn't on that list, but we did, you know, launch a huge drone bomb campaign there for many years, starting in 2009 and then starting in 2015, we backed the Saudi invasion and really helped them. I mean, our navy was doing the blockading, and our air force was refueling the Saudi fighter jets. So it was really like an America Saudi war in Yemen. And that wasn't because of Israel, and it wasn't because of the seven countries in five years. It wasn't any of that stuff. It was essentially to placate the Saudis. The Saudis were real pissed about the war in Iraq, and they were real pissed about the deal in Iran. And they're also an important trading partner. And so, yeah, there are other things, too. The World is complicated and there's lots of different factors, but that's just a complete non point. The point is that we got a four star general telling us that these plans were laid out and then they were in large part carried out. Out. Now I would just. Again, the other aspect here is that this is com. Like, like you have Wesley Clark here saying that this was brought back to life by a study funded by the Israelis that the best way to protect Israel is this. Okay, well, who were the neoconservatives who were in power? Who are the people who he's talking about made this plan? Oh yeah, it's the same people who wrote the clean break memo. It is totally consistent not just with what Wesley Clark is saying, what they wrote in their own words. And so Coleman would try to, you know, jump on these things. Like, yeah, but the clean break memo says that the Hashemite King would be installed in Iraq. And it's like, yeah, but then that guy died. They still kept pushing forward with the plans to invade Iraq. I'm sorry. Like it is relevant. Like in the same way that it's relevant if a murderer was planning the murder for many years. It's relevant that they were planning the war for many years. I also, I'll just add in this because look, I'll say if anybody, if anybody is interested in learning more about this or actually trying to, to understand this stuff. And this is, look there, some reading is required in order to do that. But I would say I'll, I, I reposted today on Twitter and I'll put in the show notes for this. One of the best threads that Scott Horton put together over on Twitter if you want to find it. It's up on my Twitter right now. It starts with phenomenal thread by the great Scott Horton and the thread is called how the neoconservatives lied us into war with Iraq 20 years ago. A thread of the very best articles. And it's got about 20, 25 of the absolute best articles you could read on this. And my. And okay, one of the articles there is the Israel Lobby by Walt and John Mearsheimer. And so I would, with the caveat, because they wrote this article and then they ultimately wrote a book with the same title. So I'd add that book in there. So I got one book and about 20 to 25 articles if you want to read them. I'm just saying this is the challenge to any honest person. Read all of them and come back to me and try to argue, try to argue that the case is not just overwhelming. Overwhelming that the neoconservatives, in large part on behalf of Israel, were pushing for this war. And there's. I mean, it's just very hard to deny now. Now, as far as the other thing that they seem to be harping on here is that, well, it didn't happen exactly as Wesley clark said it would happen, right? Like it didn't happen in five years. But I think one of the things that you have to keep in mind here is that this was during 2001. And of course, the thinking back then was that we were, you know, this was going to be a cakewalk. And so, okay, this is. Here's one man, I always say his name wrong, so I just apologize in advance. But the former CIA whistleblower Kiraku, something like that. John Carico, here he is. I know I'm saying that wrong. I apologize for butchering your name. Here's. Let's play that clip, Natalie, of him real quick, because it's one more guy who was there and everything really seems to fall into place. So one more. So George asked me to be the note taker in this meeting. George tenet, the director of the CIA. It was chaney, Connie rice, colin powell, the chairman and vice chairman of the joint chiefs. George is at the head of a conference room table, and I'm sitting directly behind his right shoulder. And everybody else is on a TV screen. And then the general says, if all goes as planned, we can be in Tehran by August. George is sitting there and then he leans forward and turns off his microphone and he says, did he say Baghdad or did he say Tehran? And I said. He said tehran, Iran. And George says, have these people lost their minds? And then he turns the microphone back on and just sits. The meeting ends. I go back to the deputy director's office and I said, did you know we were going to invade Iran? And he goes, ooh, are they still talking about that? So there you go. So this is why. This is what is overwhelmingly. Seems to be the most. Like, the most obvious reasoning as to why they. They said five years is because this was 2001 and they still believed Iraq was going to be a cakewalk and that they would move that they would be in Tehran by the next year. That was the goal, that they were going to be able to finish this all off. Now, again, you might notice that in Wesley Clark's memo, it says five years and. And culminating in. In Iran. John kiriakou is saying he saw people saying maybe next year we could be in Iran again. This is we're going toward the thinking in Washington. But that's a pretty big deal here, man. Like, there's just, I just see no way to get around this. Now. One of the, I think where the, where the core of this seems to come down, like at one point during the, the debate, Coleman was saying, ah, you know, John Mearsheimer argues that it's the, it's, it's the Israel Lobby. But I'm just not buying it. I mean, look at the money that Apex spent. Were other lobbies that spent more than them. You're telling me you could get seven wars for this amount of money. But of course, nobody really is making that claim, including John Mearsheimer, who he says he's unconvinced by. But it doesn't seem like he's really grappled with the arguments. I think that, look, when John Mearsheimer defines the Israel lobby, he is describing a loosely connected group of people who are advocating for pro Israeli policies. And he makes the neoconservatives like one of the most important parts and certainly with the war in Iraq, the most important part of the neoconservative, you know, one of the most important parts of the Israel Lobby. And look, again, maybe this is pedantic. We. You could sit here and argue about like, like, should you consider the neocons part of the Israel lobby or not? Okay, I'll say it like this. No matter what you want to call them, no matter what you want to call them, here's the dynamic, okay? Let's say there were a bunch of people, call them the neoconservatives, ok? Who were all on record as saying that they were deeply committed to France. They, that. That France held a special place in their heart and that American interests and French interests were always one and that it was important that they be the, they have the closest relationship out of any two countries. And it's important that we give France billions of dollars every year and it's important that we always veto resolutions against them at the U. N. Because like, all of Europe hates their guts. But we got to come in there and make sure that we take care of them and we, no matter how much they mistreat their neighbors, we will always defend them. Okay? And of this group of neoconservatives, let's say like the vast majority of them were, were of French descent themselves. And then the minority who weren't of French descent, they weren't French themselves or didn't have parents or grandparents who were. Who were from France, but they did have a fundamentalist religious view that Jesus Christ would only come and save all of their souls if we supported France in everything that they do. Okay, and then let's say all of these people who eat the, the French ones themselves, who had, in their own words, I mean, they wrote memos to the prime Minister of France telling them that we think you oughta, we ought to overthrow the surrounding countries around you for your survival. And then years later they were saying, oh, we want to overthrow them for other reasons. But it was, but the whole time they were, they were openly, explicitly loyal to France, would never depart from that. And then the Prime Minister of France came over, or not at the time, the prime minister of France, but the longest serving prime minister in French history came over and testified before Congress that we ought to overthrow all of these other countries in his region. And then eventually an administration staffed almost entirely with these neoconservative France French supporters. They got us to go to war with France's neighbor, one of their biggest rivals, and overthrow them. Would it be reasonable to say that France had nothing to do with that war? Call it the French lobby, call it the Israeli lobby, call it whatever you want to. Would you sit there in that scenario and say, oh, if you even bring up French influence, then you're an anti frankite, then you're a wild conspiracy theorist. Is that even kind of reasonable? Who in the world is persuaded by this argument? Obviously, by their own admission, the neoconservatives were hugely influential in getting the war in Iraq. And obviously they are undeniably connected to Israel on many different levels. And again, if you want to sit here and say that a four star general giving away the whole game doesn't mean anything, good luck with that fight. I will gladly. We can meet right there on that turf and let's debate this all out again, just to be clear to anybody. And I'll, I'll share this all with you. Take the challenge. One book and 20 articles or something like that. It's a bit, it's a bit of reading, but I'm sorry, reading is required in order to really understand this. But anyone get through all that and then tell me you have an actual argument for how this wasn't all up and down. And let me just tell you, some of the articles in there are so goddamn great, it's like one of the best threads you'll ever read through. And I know it might seem a little daunting if I'm throwing a book in 20 articles at you, but like, just start with the first couple articles. Just start reading them because it is a fascinating bit of history, but. So listen, man, I. I don't really know what to say after this, but I am sorry. I've seen all these. It is a Catskill. That's it. It Dave's done. It's all over. I don't think so, guys. And in fact, I'll go out on a limb and say I welcome this to be the topic of conversation. Let's get much, much deeper into all of this. Let's go through all these articles together, shall we, guys? Let's listen to what David Wormser, the author of the Clean Break Memo, who went over to the Pentagon and started propping, Pumping out all types of just ridiculous propaganda to sell the war in Iraq. Let's go through all of it. Let's look at the propaganda that was coming out of Tel Aviv. Let's listen, listen, man. Let's look at Chalabi and what they all said about him after that. He betrayed them because they all. We got. David Worms, or his partner was on record just saying, we go. He promised us he would get in there and do good things for Israel, and then he lied. Kind of admitting it, right? Kind of admitting that that was a huge part of what the whole thing was. But if anybody wants to. Honestly, just the Israel lobby, Just that one book, if anyone wants to read that and then try to come back and say that, what, Israel had nothing to do with the war, you know, this. I'll say this, and I'll say this, the final point, and then we'll. We'll wrap up. You know, the point was made in that tweet that. That, hey, look, this. This doesn't mean anything because we also attacked other countries. Like, such a weird thing to say. It's as if. As if you had a guy who was plotting the murder of 10 people. And then I go, look, he was. He went and killed these people, and he had been plotting this for years. And then you went, ah, that's nothing, because he also killed other people. Like what? Okay, yes. If there is anybody out there. Look, the war in Afghanistan didn't have much to do with Israel. As I said, the war in Yemen didn't have much to do with Israel. And there's been other wars as well that didn't have that much to do with Israel. So anybody saying that, like, everything is controlled by Israel or everything is, you know, like, that's. Of course, that's ridiculous. But that's not the claim we're making. But if the claim you're making is that Israel was not a huge player in the war in Iraq. Let's have that fight forever. All right, that's it for today. Thank you guys so much for listening. Big show coming tomorrow. Looking forward to the response to it. Have a good one. Peace.