Daryl Cooper (2:59)

Dude, there's so much just loaded into the way this. The. The question or the, the. The, you know, the premise, whatever is structured. Like, lose Ukraine. Like, do we. Is Ukraine ours now? Like, what the hell are they even talking about?

Scott Horton (3:13)

Right? I mean, yeah. Is that like a euphemism for sit back and watch as they lose the war?

Daryl Cooper (3:20)

You know, I mean, because they say, you know, rather go to war with Russia than lose Ukraine. Well, like, without us, the war's over tomorrow. Like, if we and Europe stop providing anything to them, the war's over tomorrow. Russia's not going to, under those circumstances, go across the river and invade until they get to, you know, Lvov. So how are you going to lose Ukraine? Like, Ukraine might lose some eastern territories with. But it's just. That's a crazy premise. Have fun.

Scott Horton (3:50)

It is. And it really, in fact, it's, like, unfairly biased toward me, if anything. You know what I mean? Toward our side. It makes the other side have to defend a ridiculous stance, which is that no Britain should declare war on Moscow first, you know, which is. No, nobody's really saying that. So I don't know. And in fact, it's funny because after the question, it goes on and on. It says, well, some people think this and some people think that and all of this stuff. So I don't know. But anyway, you know what? I don't want to talk too much about that because I don't want to, like, give away the whole game of Daniel watching tonight, you know, which he probably is. But, you know, there's a related subject which is important, you know, to me, but maybe less so to you, but it is important overall, I think, in the scheme of things, at least. And I guess, yeah, no, maybe just in my world. But the chair of the Libertarian Party, Stephen Nikayla, I think is how you say it has made an alliance with this group called the International association or International alliance, maybe I forget, of Libertarian parties. And it was actually founded by a friend of mine named Jeff Neal, who was the former chair of the party and who hasn't had anything to do with it in a long time. And he never had anything to do with USAID or Ned or any of that type stuff. But I'm very suspicious of, you know, any type of Astroturf type deal. And we have seen in some cases where, like the Atlas Network, for example, I don't know that they work directly with USAID and Ned, but they work with a lot of groups that do and they get, you know, that kind of the worst part of the Cato ish edge like Tom Palmer and those guys get that kind of globalist, internationalist, George Sorosian type association rubbed off on that part of libertarianism. And here the LP has now made this official alliance with this group and they are like giving all their awards to people in America's enemy countries like Iran and stuff like that. They're you know, being good little sock puppets, it looks like. And I think that this must have been a mistake at first. You know, I don't know, I'm trying to like take it in good spirit. I don't know this guy Nikayla whatsoever or like what his stance is on this stuff. There's some guy, Pierre something or other is the guy from the organization that they're like working with. But then somebody told me today that they're trashing me and saying I'm a Russian agent and this and that and like. So then the idea is that they're trying to get the American National Libertarian Party to sign on as, you know, one of these like internationalist type globalist sort of organizations. And we saw there was a lot of sock puppetry like this even way back in the Maidan Revolution in 2014. We have all these people claiming to be Eastern European libertarians demanding that America help them fight Russia. Russia is the true enemy of liberty and freedom in the world. And that's why America must intervene on the side of the libertarians of Ukraine and the libertarians of Lithuania and all that their liberty is what is the most important thing, when in fact that's not true at all. And we don't give a damn about them and certainly not now that the Soviet Union and totalitarian communist slavery is over. I mean it really makes no difference to us either way as Americans. But they're trying to push this hard and they're trying to, you know, through their influence use the Libertarian Party and, and, and grab it basically and change it from even under the worst of like Nick Sarwak and whoever. Like he's I think soundly non interventionist. I don't think he was ever bad on. Well, he may like believed in stupid Russiagate theories or something, but I don't think he was ever for intervention anywhere. I could be wrong about that. But the Libertarian Party I don't think has, has really been like this and lately it's been more and more Ron Paulian. So it would be a huge mistake if the Libertarian Party were To take a major step backwards and start associating with, you know, this kind of astroturf stuff. And especially, you know, trying to turn the Libertarian Party into some sort of internationalist type movement, which is just preposterous. I mean we are for, of course, free trade and open relations with all none and entangling alliances with none, as in not even Canada and Mexico. And don't even get me started about peridous England. No, you know, we're not. Much less, you know, the Bulgarian.

Daryl Cooper (8:13)

Say that at Oxford. I'm sorry, you should say that at Oxford.

Scott Horton (8:18)

Yeah, I might. That's gonna. Yeah, I'm gonna have to work in part of that for sure. And. Yeah, and then, you know, actually I did an interview yesterday where a guy said to me goes, some libertarians say you're a Russian agent. And I was like, what? Like if I'd been drinking it would have been a spit take type thing. Like what libertarians ever said that about me? It's, oh, Eastern European libertarians have said that about me because they think America, you know, they're like Zionists. They just think they own us and we owe them, which is the furthest thing from true. And they say, and in fact that was one of the things today. This guy Pierre, which is a pretty homosexual name if you ask me, Pierre said that I'm a Russian agent. And I just thought that maybe I should address that since I wrote a whole book that explains why the war in Ukraine is at least 49% Washington's fault. And that is that I've been at this since the 1990s and everybody knows that I'm a Branch Davidian and I'm a member of the Iraqi Mukbarat and you know, obviously a major promoter of Bashar Al Assad's Bath Party and Gaddafi's commie Nazi, whatever you call that thing that he was doing there, sort of wacky colonel style socialism or whatever. No, what I am is all a partisan of those people long before my allegiance to Russia, you dingbats. I'm a Branch Davidian. Everybody knows that because I defended them from lies against them. Just the same as my allegiance is clearly to Ayatollah, whatever his name is. I haven't figured out how to pronounce it yet simply because I'm going to sit here and tell you that at least as far as we know, they have not diverted any of their uranium stockpile to military purposes and things like that. Everybody knows that's how that works. And, and I just think that's the dumbest thing in the world. Anybody would even try to say that, especially to libertarians. But anyway, that stuff is still going around and it must be fought at all times. You know, it's like when you get a cold, you got to drink lots of water. So we got to make sure to cleanse ourselves of these types of influences, no matter how much money they may offer or any of those kinds of things.

Daryl Cooper (10:22)

Dude, did you ever see the. I'm sorry, I'm looking, I'm looking something up for you right now. Did you ever see that? In the old Transformers cartoon, there was a. A guy who was like modeled on Gaddafi. He was a villain and he was the head of the Socialist Democratic Federated Republic of Carbamia.

Scott Horton (10:42)

Dude, I used to watch the hell out of that cartoon. But no, I don't remember that specifically. But yes, I mean, I was in fact in second and third grade when that cartoon was on tv. So that was made for me and I saw the movie in the theater. You know, I could tell you which theater, although I don't think the building's there anymore. But yeah. Anyways, so not to talk about Ukraine and Libertarian party politics stuff, you know, I don't know. But I just, whatever it came up. And I didn't want to say too much about the Ukraine thing because I'm sort of saving that.

Daryl Cooper (11:14)

We'll talk about that next week, I

Scott Horton (11:15)

guess, but I have another announcement. Oh, just real quick. Yesterday I interviewed Daniel Davis and Larry Johnson because why interview anybody else? Those two guys are the best of the best. And Larry on Iran and Danny on the Ukraine. So if you guys want to take a listen to those, they'll be up at the Scott Horton show thing soon. And then I also want to announce that our good friend, or I don't know if you know the guy, he's a good friend of mine. Jim Webb Jr. People may be familiar with Senator James Webb of Virginia. Former. He had been Ronald Reagan's Secretary of the Navy for a while and then he became a senator. And he was a good kind of anti war right wing Democrat for a few years in say like late Bush Obama years. And then he finally quit. I think he said he was just so disgusted with the Senate he just couldn't abide being a part of the institution anymore. Was not worth the effort put into it. Which imagine that being a senator, you would think at least you get to have a say in this important august chamber of decision making power and whatever. Instead is just aouse. He's like, I'm out of here to forget it and just quit. But anyway, his son is a great guy. He is a Marine Corps veteran of Iraq War two and is a great anti war guy and a good friend of mine. And he is launching a new podcast, the James Webb Jr. Show. And I done heard a rumor that you are already scheduled to. To be on it. And in fact, oh, look, I have it right here. I can share this whole little jam here. Although I can't read it looks like, oh, we got Joe Kent's gonna be on there. Danny Davis, good old. Oh, looks like you're first there.

Daryl Cooper (12:49)

First episode. Absolutely.

Scott Horton (12:51)

And then his dad there, Senator Jim Webb and Robert Barnes. And I'm not sure why I wasn't on there. Didn't he say he wanted me on there? And then maybe Rachel missed his email or maybe I did something wrong. Maybe I told him, catch up with me another time because I'm busy. But yeah, I have been moving and it's been crazy. I'll tell you, if I had been fat, I would be in shape now. But I wasn't fat.

Daryl Cooper (13:13)

So. No, I don't know how you drink as much Dr. Pepper as you do and not get fat, but works out, man.

Scott Horton (13:20)

It's. It's the up and down the stairs with boxes of things is doing it. I got it going on.

Daryl Cooper (13:25)

What's been going on in Iran, dude, tell me about that. Because I have. I'll be honest, I'm a little bit out of the loop this week, partly just because I've been busy, but. But that the real truth of the matter is that it's just gotten to the point where the news is just so depressing and repetitive that I find it hard to follow. And so I've been really focusing on. On trying to get this next World War II episode out because I just. Every time I open my phone, I just want to like, like blow my brains out looking at this stuff.

Scott Horton (13:58)

It. It is really ugly, man. And it's. And, And. And it's absurd. But also people really want to hear your podcast series, so I don't think that anyone would argue that, like, no way, man. Your most important comparative advantage is live tweeting the doom. You know, hour by hour, like n. That's. They want you doing the last.

Daryl Cooper (14:22)

I mean, it's so. It's so hard to even, you know, like, I. There's a part of me and, and I'm not talking about this show, you know, I love at my. My weekly hour with the Great Scott Horton, of course, but like, in general, like, if you notice, like, I haven't been on Twitter really at all for, I don't know, a few, like, weeks. And, you know, there's a part of me that regrets ever doing anything other than just, like, the straight history stuff and ever getting into the. To. To getting to a place where people are kind of waiting for my hot take on the day's events and because, like, it gets to a certain point, this war is, like, definitely there, where you just kind of start to realize that, like, anything that you can say about it, for the most part, if you're responding to, like, daily, you know, the daily ticker, a good portion of that is just going to end up being complete nonsense or just completely meaningless because the news that we're getting is completely meaningless. You know, the stuff that's coming out of the White House or out of the Pentagon, anything that they're telling, it's like, you don't know from dayto day if that's just literally, like, if that's a purposeful propaganda lie that they're. Or if it's just Trump tweeting and he's just kind of throwing something, you just don't even know. And so you. You comment on it, you're like, a week later, you know, you feel like a dumbass for even giving it the time of day. It is. It is depressing.

Scott Horton (15:40)

Well, yeah, Although I think you got a pretty good track record of what you take seriously and not. And what indications are really meaningful and not. I mean, we know Trump treats tweets like a storm, but.

Daryl Cooper (15:51)

Well, it was easier, right, when there were a lot of active military operations going on, because you could actually watch that, you know, and I had sources in the region that could, you know, they could kind of tell me what was. What was true and false in the news in a general sense, but, like, once the major military operations stopped and we're doing this sort of blockade, but kind of not really a lot of things are going through, but no, we really got them. And it's just. Sure. Is a blockade, like, now really, all we have is, like, statements. Where's this going? What are they saying? What's. And it's like, it's can't. You know, Trump's voice, Hegses voice, all these people, it's just like fingernails on a chalkboard to me these days.

Scott Horton (16:32)

Yeah, I feel. Well, look, I mean, the question is. I mean, I guess there's really only one question which there's no way for us to know the answer to. Right? Which is just, you Know, in Trump's judgment, you know, how does he weigh the calculation of having to stop short of his goals and, in fact, leave with Iran more empowered is what he's more or less going to have to accept in order to end the conflict, or whether he's now, you know, box himself into a situation he feels like where he has to follow through. Remember, we talked, I think we, we talked about this, right? The Time magazine article. That would be what, three weeks old now? I believe maybe four, I think. Three weeks old now, probably. And in that one, it says that after last June that Netanyahu said to Trump, well, now you definitely have to go back to work, because now they're definitely going to make a nuke now that we bomb them. And then after starting this war, when the regime change didn't work and they called off even trying to send in the curve, someone at CIA must have said that, like, or DIA or somebody said, this ain't going to work, man. You might as well call this off now instead of just marching this Bay of Pigs disaster in there. So they called off the curd thing. And then Netanyahu said, well, you're going to have to continue the war until regime change because they're definitely going to make a new now. And now you killed the new a. I.

Daryl Cooper (18:01)

They.

Scott Horton (18:01)

I'm elaborating this part, but we all know you killed the AASP wife and father and what sister or mother, whatever it is like, and severely wounded him. People really don't like it when you do stuff like that to them most of the time, especially high explosives, tearing their bodies, you know, apart, that kind of deal. And so now you have to finish what you started. I mean, obviously, Trump must be feeling like, no way, dude. Like, obviously he knows that he can't. It's already not worked. Like, what's he gonna do? Quadruple down on some absolutely insane thing, like the kind of thing that could get him thrown out of office for trying to what, like sending some ground force to Tehran? It seems impossible to do it. I, I just don't see. In other words, whatever he can, he can threaten on Twitter and he could even restart the bombing campaign. But he's already learned. I, I know he's w Bushy and in a lot of ways, but, like, he's already learned he cannot coerce their behavior from the air. It working. It didn't work already. So, like, why do that again? Says a reprisal thing. Like, I don't know. But. So that's the box he's in is just, he doesn't want to look stupid. He just, you know, kicked them up. Two more pegs in the region, in fact. So you asked me what happened. The ayatollah put out a statement and it says America will have no role in the Persian Gulf going forward. We're going to renegotiate all of this. And they've already proven they can hardly defend themselves, much less all their supposed allies in the region. Here. Bluff called. And he's right about that. He is absolutely right about that. So. But he's also being a jerk about it, which is its own statement. Right. Of this kind of defiance and willingness to fight and to declare a new order in the region. So them's fighting words big time, man. And so that's what sucks, right? Is just on one hand, we could just quit and walk away. Does it. Who gives a at all? I don't care. There's nothing that we lose by giving up our empire. Yet we have the public choice theory of this guy who's still sitting there for three more years, who only he gets to decide, basically. There's no one else who can overrule him other. And then if the Senate can concoct some crime and overthrow him with a super majority, forget it. He's there for three more years. Yeah.

Daryl Cooper (20:27)

And I don't think anybody at this point should have any illusions about whether he's weighing like the idea of Netanyahu using the narrative on him that, oh, they're definitely going to get a nuke now. It's. I don't think Trump thinks about any of that stuff when he makes these decisions. I think he is purely a political animal. Purely like a media like guy who is like, thinking of how is this going to play? You know, like the, I think, how

Scott Horton (20:53)

would it play if they went ahead and got nukes, though?

Daryl Cooper (20:55)

Well, I think the biggest hope that we have that this thing does come to, you know, some sort of sustainable conclusion in the relatively near future has nothing to do with military assets. Has nothing. I think it's just that, you know, we got the 250th anniversary of the Declaration Independence coming up, and Trump does not want that big party of his to be marred by just, you know, this unresolved issue that's hanging out over there. And, you know, I kind of wish I understand why they're not, you know, I'd be really upset if, if, if somebody did to my country what, what we did to their country. But I really like, I, I wish I could get the Ayatollah on the phone or something. Be like, guys, can you just like, can you just give Trump an out here? Just don't, you know, you're going so hard about how we're gonna drive you out. Like, we can talk about that like, like JFK with Khrushchev, like six months down the line, like, oh no, we're not letting, letting you back in or whatever. Can you just give this guy an out, please? Like, but I understand why they're not, you know.

Scott Horton (22:02)

Yeah, no, man, you know, in terms of own goals, this is Iraq War two level screw up. And I, you know, we talked.

Daryl Cooper (22:11)

I think it's worse. I think it's worse, I think it's worse and here's why. Iraq War two, while it was a strategic disaster, you know, it, it made in the eyes of neocons and a lot of people driving this, this war necessary. I think this one's worse because, you know, the Iraq war exposed the limits of the US Military's ability to affect political outcomes in a very like, specific and minute ma manner when there's an insurgency, you know, our ability to win hearts and minds and sort of shape the institutions and all that kind of stuff. But it did not call into question the US military's ability to go in there and kick somebody's ass. Like, that was not called into question. And now that is not even called into question. We have like, we have displayed the limits of us hard power for the entire world to see. You know, I, I would, I have to imagine that before this war know, the Russians might have been, they, you know, they might be thinking to themselves, like, man, if us actually wants to come on over into Ukraine, like, and they really want to fight, bring it on. We can take them in our own backyard. But there's probably a part of them that's like, maybe, maybe, you know, because we haven't really seen the limits of their power. Same with China and Taiwan. I think we can do it. I, I don't think there's anything they could do to stop us. But maybe now it's like not even a question. The idea of us defending Taiwan is a joke, right? I mean, we can't even get close to the, to the coast of Iran. And when you compare, like not just the number but the quality and capabilities of the anti, their anti ship systems, I mean it's not even, it's, it's night and day and which we already

Scott Horton (23:55)

knew that, but now that is demonstrated before the planet Earth.

Daryl Cooper (23:59)

You know, Taiwan knows, you know. Exactly.

Scott Horton (24:03)

Goldstein wrote a study, you know. God dang. Yeah, it is, it's. It's everything well now, so what do you make of all the buildups?

Daryl Cooper (24:12)

Now?

Scott Horton (24:12)

On one hand this is important that they pulled one of the three aircraft carriers out.

Daryl Cooper (24:16)

Yeah.

Scott Horton (24:17)

On the other hand they're, they say they're sending in these Dark Eagle hypersonic missiles which on one hand. Okay, I gotta admit, I never heard of them. And I thought that the official story was that America doesn't have any hypersonics yet. And I don't know when they were first announced. I guess I should have tried to ask Rock when did they first announce that they have operational hypersonic missiles? Because what the hell is the point of having a hypersonic missile if you don't announce it to the Russians and the Chinese? Because the whole purpose of it is to be a nuclear deterrent. If they're going to act like Russia now use these in conventional combat against Iranian targets. As I was reading before, some informed opinion was that can only mean they need them for the increased range because they still don't have anything like air superiority over the course country at all. And their standoff ranges are of their, you know, whatever cruise missiles that they've been firing are becoming either outdated or they're running out of those missiles or whatever it is and that's why they need these. But so I'm sorry, I'm working towards a question here, Cooper, which is, I mean, how do you assess that? Do you think they're really preparing to go back to war? There have been reports of the Israelis saying the same thing too. They're not getting what they want here. What are they going to do?

Daryl Cooper (25:31)

I mean, look, so let's look at a few parts of that actually as far as those Dark Eagles go. Like I, I knew that they were in development and that they were in testing. I think that I, last I heard they were not, they were not slated to be rolled out operationally this soon. So they must have rushed that forward. If it's actually even happening. Who knows, you know, like it could just be something that they're, they're throwing out there, you know. My question with it though really would be. Well, it's, it's sort of what you said, like what, what exactly would the point of it be? Is there, are there Iran Iranian air defenses just shooting down all of our current missiles and we just got to find something that can get past their ad? No, like, you know, they occasionally shoot down a tomahawk or something like that because they're big slow moving school buses. But for the most part, like, you know, when we fire a missile or when we, you know, when we actually deploy munition, it hits its target or, you know, somewhere in the general vicinity, but it, you know, it doesn't get shot down. And so hypersonic would seem to be. I mean, plus, the thing is, like, those things, if they really are operational,

Scott Horton (26:44)

by the way, it's, I just checked Chat. GPT anyway, says that it was first announced last month that they were operational.

Daryl Cooper (26:50)

Okay. Okay. That we can't have that many of them. And so it's like, it seems to me like a PR thing, honestly, the

Scott Horton (26:57)

report is that there's eight. There's eight of them.

Daryl Cooper (27:04)

I think that's wonderful. I mean, that's good. That's what I mean. Like, that, that's actually then a perfect encapsulation of like, this whole, this whole portion of the war, I think, which is like, don't get me wrong, the idea that Trump could be stupid enough to restart the hot war, totally possible. Like, I don't, I don't really put anything past this administration when it comes to just, just raw irrationality. But they've, they're being told. I mean, I can tell you for sure they are being told by everybody, except for Benjamin Netanyahu, probably, but everybody on our side that the mil. There are no military options to, to accomplish the goals that you set for yourself at the beginning. There are no military options to accomplish the much more modest goal that we've set for ourselves now, which is forcing them to open the Strait of Hormuz and leave it. Like, we do not have that and going in and bombing for another 40 days or whatever. I mean, we are.

Scott Horton (28:07)

To clarify. I know that you know a bit about what conversations are happening at the Pentagon somehow, but do you know that this word is getting to the president that he is being told, even by Pete Hexeth?

Daryl Cooper (28:19)

No.

Scott Horton (28:20)

No, there are limits here.

Daryl Cooper (28:21)

No, I don't know that. I know, and I don't know what Hegseth says or thinks. I don't have anybody close to him, but on the, his men are telling

Scott Horton (28:28)

him that, like, hey, boss, you know

Daryl Cooper (28:30)

that we lie 100%. I, I 100% can tell you that on the uniform side, I have, I have sources that are, that are close to the, the highest people on the uniform side, and that is, that's something that's not even held out for debate. It's just, it's the consensus, it's the understood assumption that, you know, I like what I assume is there, there May be some people who think we can do something like we did in Syria where we sat on their oil field for, you know, however, just years and years and eventually just. But I mean, like, the problem is you're sitting on South Korea's oil. You're sitting, I mean, you're sitting on like the whole world's oil when you do this. And so, and, and, and you're, you're doing it to an opponent that has retaliatory options. And so, you know, it's, I think what Trump wants is a way to back out of this without losing face. Like, that's really where we're at. There was somebody, I think it was Trita Parsi who, he, he made a very good point that the negotiating, the, the Iranians sacrificed a bit of negotiating position when they accepted the ceasefire, because by doing that, they are, that's, that was Trump's primary ask, like that all he needed was for shooting to stop, you know, because we were running out of munitions, Israel was running out of air defense munitions. And he just needed the shooting to stop and to be put in a position where if it starts, it can be framed as an Iranian aggression again. And so he already got what he wanted. And so that, you know, lessens the incentive for him to make more compromises in the Iranians direction to do anything else. I, you know, the, the, I think at this point, if, the, if this is going to, if the trajectory of this thing's going to change, it's going to be because pressure from our other allies, specifically in Asia, but in Europe to a degree as well, but I think especially in Asia, is, is, is, is going to have to get to a point where enough people in the American establishment decides that it outweighs, you know, Israeli influence, which is obviously, you know, it's the elephant in the room, obviously, but it can be outweighed, you know, if it gets to a point where, you know, even the Israelis see that there's no way forward militarily. So.

Scott Horton (30:56)

Yeah, yeah, by the way. So for those keeping up with, I guess, beginning of Iraq War four here, hopefully it doesn't escalate too much out of control. Iraq War three and a half is what's left of fighting ISIS over there. There have been 400 strikes on American positions in Baghdad and in Iraqi Kurdistan by Shiite forces there since this war broke out. Boy, talk about underreported there, man. These are all the Iraqi Shiite militias that are, you know, make up the core, the bottom brigade, the most important of them made up the core of the Iraqi army in the first place. And then after Obama's support for Al Qaeda in Syria in the dirty war from 2011 through 14, well, really through the rest of his presidency, blew up into the caliphate in 2014, which conquered Western Iraq. Then Dayatola Aliyastani down there in Najaf called for all true believing Shiite males to come and join the, what they called the popular Mobilization Units, these Shiite militias that went to fight the Islamic State, the bin Ladenite caliphate that Obama had built. And so then these are the militias that are still around and they include Iraqi Hezbollah, they call it Katib Hezbollah, and a bunch of new breakoff groups of, you know, all different descriptions. That seems to be one of the most powerful ones. And Asab Al Haq was another. Anyway, so they've been fighting, they've been attacking the Green Zone and attacking targets in Kurdistan. There's a great piece. I don't know if anybody follows this guy, Ali Sufan. He was the former FBI agent who was like the sidekick to John O', Neill, the head of counterterrorism before September 11th. And he was in charge of the Cole case, for example. And he has his own kind of advisory group that I subscribed to their morning email, it's just called the Suan Group, I think it is, or something like that. And he just sends out a morning email that's like pretty good intelligence analysis stuff. And they had a, a really solid report about what's going on in Iraq. And then at the same time too, they're appointing a brand new prime minister. And you got to admit, I guess I got to admit America does still have some influence there because apparently it was at Trump's insistence that they not re nominate or rename Nuri Al Maliki to be the prime minister of Iraq. They were about to. And he was the second prime minister of the sock puppet government that W. Bush created after Ibrahim Jafari. And well, Iad Aloi was the first kind of suck puppet. But once, once they wrote the constitution and held elections, first was Jafari and then was Nur al Maliki and he was a terrible God dang prime minister. He was a ruthless Shiite chauvinist against the Sunnis and in, in the way he persecuted the war and the way he froze them out after and all of that he was largely blamed for Islamic State being able to take over the west of the country because he just left them high and dry out there with no money, no oil, no nothing to burn in the sun after Successfully using America to take Baghdad for him. So at least we got that. They named some guys, some businessman who's not even. I, I'm not sure if he's a member of the Dawa Party or what, honestly. In fact, the New York Times story did say he was a member of some. I think it did say he was a member of something tied to the Dawa Party, so whatever. Same. Same stuff. But at least it's threatening to withhold

Daryl Cooper (34:27)

their oil revenue if they, if they went through with nominating him.

Scott Horton (34:31)

Or is that what it was? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Daryl Cooper (34:34)

That's actually something that I only learned about a year ago or something. I somehow missed that, like during the whole post Iraq war era that, you know, they don't get their oil revenue directly. It all goes to the US Federal Reserve and we give them a check, but then we decide not to.

Scott Horton (34:50)

Yeah, yeah, we hold their, their Treasuries in New York. We hold all their, all their assets and liabilities for them.

Daryl Cooper (34:57)

I mean, I wonder how, how would that, how would it work for, like, could the Iraqi government presumably could just tell their customers, like, hey, you're paying us now, right? I mean, what would the threat be? I guess. I, I don't, I don't really.

Scott Horton (35:11)

Their carpet bombing campaign?

Daryl Cooper (35:13)

Well, yeah, there's always that. There's always that.

Scott Horton (35:17)

Yeah, no, I don't know. I don't know. We have been bombing Iraq for 35 years this year. I do know that there's a slight exception in 2013 because in 2012 we still had a drone war chasing the jihadis into Syria where they could be heroes. 2013, I think they took a year off. 2014, the war against the Islamic back up again. So it's 35 years with one year off. 2013 was the only year we were not bombing Iraq this whole damn time. Anyway. I know people like little factoids like that. Hey, oh, now let's talk about Lebanon, because this is just crucial, man. There's a religious war going on and it's, you know, the Israeli regime in the name of the Jews, they claim at least. And they are destroying not just Shiite Muslim villages and, you know, habitats, cultures, communities, villages, and some of them dating back hundreds or supposedly even thousands of years, including Khana, which is the site of the first and second and now third Khana massacres, which is also supposedly where Jesus walked on water and all of that stuff. They are killing everyone and they are destroying everything, including today. They blew up a, a convent and whatever you call it, like a nun and teacher. Seminary, you know, school kind of thing. They blew that up. They've been blowing up, you know, entire villages. But they seem to be focusing even on, on churches. And of course there was the, the scandal of the IDF soldiers smashing the head of a fallen statue of Jesus Christ. There was an attack of publicized, I guess they had it on, on video with the settler in west, or in, yeah, in West Jerusalem, I guess, attacked a Catholic nun and ran behind her. Sucker punch pushed her to the ground. Then I clicked away before, but I read it that they, that he started kicking her too, until somebody stopped while she's laying on the ground. And then the point is not that, oh, when like as Tucker Carlson's email said this morning, it's not that like, oh, this represents all Jews or any kind of thing like that. It's not about that. It's demonstrating that there is a lawlessness here, that the Israeli government does not punish crimes like this. They have license to commit crimes against Palestinians. Another great example was footage from the west bank where these settlers went and set this family's home on fire in the middle of the night and attempt to murder them and successfully destroy their home. And luckily they lived. And Zay Jelani, who's a, a young left wing Twitterer guy, maybe he's not that young anymore, but young progressive Twitter guy. So he's from the south though, and he said in my town, if somebody did that, if the homeowner shot them and killed them, the mayor would congratulate them and give them the key to the city. That's what you're supposed to do. Somebody tries to burn down your house with your family in it, you shoot them to death. But the Palestinians have no second Amendment, they have no right to defend themselves. So they're just subject to this kind of absolute lawlessness. And whatever regime claims to be the one state from the river to the sea there will not provide security for the non Jews under its so called protection or occupation at all. And then so I guess my question for you then, Daryl Cooper, is what gives, man? I mean, this stuff is getting famous now and people are, they've got to be pissed off. I mean, when I was a kid and they talked about the civil war in Lebanon, geez, it was just all so confusing, right? This ain't confusing. This is just the Israelis going in there and blowing up whatever they feel like, taking whatever they want.

Daryl Cooper (39:01)

Yeah, well, it's two things. The, as far as the settler violence goes, I mean, it really only makes sense. Lawlessness isn't even really quite the right word, just because, you know, you have to understand these are UN uniformed Israeli troops basically. You know, these are, these are guys that go in and do things that the IDF would rather, you know, have, have its hands off directly. You know. And as far as what's going on in Lebanon, look, the, the, the, the primary weapon that Israel is, has wielded over Lebanon for 50 years has been the threat of, of inciting a civil war in the country. Like in, that sometimes is very, very explicit. You know, like in the late 1970s, after the Civil war was, you know, simmering down for a few years. And, and Ariel Sharon was, he was the defense minister under Menachem Begin. And you know, Begin at this point was, you know, probably kind of senile at this point. He was like, they say he was depressed a lot, he was getting getting older. He, he was not really running the government, at least in a, in a day to day way. And Sharon just took the opportunity to get with IDF Northern Command and go completely rogue up there. And they were, I mean, they were setting car bombs in Shiite villages to make it look like it was Palestinians. They were blowing up Palestinians to make it look like it was Christians. I mean, they were doing all these different things for the specific purpose of trying to incite a civil war that, I mean, you know, Sharon had this whole grand plan where, you know, he wanted to incite a civil war in which the Lebanese would ethnically cleanse the Palestinians, they would have to flee to Jordan and then they would take over the Jordanian government and then that would be Palestine. And we could stop talking about it. Give him credit for ambition and sort of, you know, thinking big, I guess, if nothing else. But, but yeah, that, you know, that this is a, you know, this is the difficult thing in a place like Lebanon. And like, I'm not over there, I don't know people in Lebanon. And so I don't know how this stuff is playing in terms of, you know, they bomb a Christian village. You know, whether the, the Christians in that country are saying, Hezbollah, this is all your fault. And you're, you know, we're going to hold you accountable. We're gonna show the Israelis that we're going after Hezbollah so that they stop doing this or if it's making more sympathetic. Like, I, I really don't know how that's.

Scott Horton (41:31)

I got an email from, I got an email from a guy, a writer that I've interviewed on my show before. He said he's in Beirut and he said it is working, in fact.

Daryl Cooper (41:38)

Yeah.

Scott Horton (41:39)

Which Hope Israeli intelligence isn't listening and getting great confirmation here. I'm sure they're tapping plenty of phones there. But he said no, it is, they're. They're so divided there. And that was the purpose of it. And it seemed to be working, at least whatever the people he's talking to. All right, now listen, it's time for the Scott Orton coffee from Mundo's Artisan Coffees, part of the show sponsored super chat section thing.

Daryl Cooper (42:09)

Dude, I've been coffee man coffee for a while now. It's pretty good, I gotta say.

Scott Horton (42:13)

It is. Oh, you got some?

Daryl Cooper (42:14)

Yeah.

Scott Horton (42:16)

Oh, red. I should have had him send that to you. Did you buy it?

Daryl Cooper (42:19)

I don't know if it was that. I think maybe it was. I came with my lifetime membership to the Academy. I can't remember. Came with something.

Scott Horton (42:27)

No, maybe I gave it to you when you came.

Daryl Cooper (42:29)

You probably sent it to me because I didn't have a grinder and I got myself a grinder about two weeks ago and I started drinking it for my morning coffee. Works pretty well.

Scott Horton (42:39)

It is good, right? It's great coffee, man. And we're making money off of it too. Whenever I send you money at the end of the month, some of it is coffee money that we make that we split from the proceeds when we get a small cut. When people buy this coffee to help support this show and sales are going up, man, I get is actually getting annoying. All the emails I get about it all the time. You just made another commission off of the thing because people love drinking it and they keep ordering it over and over again because it tastes so dang good. So there you go. Moon Dose Artisan Coffees. Get it? They hate Starbucks. So it's Moon Dose and it's really dang good. You should buy some also. I don't have it to show you on the screen here, but it's agorist tax advice.com agaristaxadvice.com that's Matt C. Le. He's a really great tax lawyer and it's no gimmicks or loopholes, but it is a very tight reading of the tax code and he'll make sure you pay only what you absolutely have to. Not one more.

Daryl Cooper (43:34)

Go ahead. Let's get to some of these super chats, dude, because I. I'm on a strict timeline. Like I said, I got 15 more minutes, so I know it.

Scott Horton (43:40)

So let's start with. I think everybody knows what I'm going to say here, but you answer your opinion here between Mark Levin and Ben Shapiro, whose voice is more of an affront to the 8th amendment,

Daryl Cooper (43:53)

man, that's like a question. It's like, you know, like one of those old, like, communist Romanian prison camp things where they ask you if you want to chop off your foot or your hand. I don't know, man, that's a tough one. I'd have to. If I was gunned to my head, well, gun to my head, I would take the bullet, but gun to my head, and I had to choose. I would have to say Shapiro.

Scott Horton (44:18)

Oh, yeah, it's gotta be Shapiro. I mean, quite honestly, I haven't listened to a single clip 11 this whole time that he's made himself famous again here. I just read about them. I won't listen to him. But Shapiro, you know, I'll be watching skateboarding, man, or Star wars cartoons or whatever. Just garbage while I'm working or something, you know, in the background on YouTube. And Ben Shapiro is buying ads on YouTube where he's sitting there going in the middle of a skateboard contest.

Daryl Cooper (44:45)

Leave me alone.

Scott Horton (44:49)

Ah, with the Iran war, people are speculating if the Houthis will close the Bob Almond debs straight. I've heard the Houthis are actually a family. Who are the Houthis and how close are they with Iran? Great question. Yes, the Houthis are a family. They're. The tribe is called the Houthis. That's the family name of the bosses of the tribe. The actual official name of the group is Ansar Allah. And they took over the capital city of Sanaa at the end of 2014. Beginning in 2015 and for 10 years after, they were still called rebels for some reason because the media is just completely controlled by the intelligence services. I mean, if. If there's a measure of it. Oh, the Houthi rebels. The Houthi rebels sitting in their giant palace. Oh, that rules over the capital city. In command of their state military. They issued a statement from their foreign ministry today. Yeah, there's real ragtag group there. Anyway, they are zadishites from the north, from the Sada province. And I don't know the whole long and twisted ancient history of Yemen, but I know that for a very long time they were dominant in the. Although not so much recently. You have to read my chapter in Enough Already for me to tell the whole story here. In fact, if you go to my YouTube channel, Scott Horton show YouTube.com Scott Hortorton show and look under playlists, you'll see where I do a breakdown of Enough already. And I have A Yemen chapter there. It's a little like 10 minute long video where I explain all this stuff about how they came to, to fight the former dictator, then a lie with him and then kill him and take over that country. The Iranians are their friends, but they're not that close of allies. And there's a great article years ago in, and I interviewed the guy too. It's just Hilterman, J O O S T Yust Hilterman. And he wrote this thing for foreign policy called the Houthis are not Hezbollah. And it was about how Hezbollah. Yeah, they are Iran's 51st state, basically, but the Houthis not so much. And one great piece of evidence of that that even Obama admitted in a New York Times interview with Thomas Friedman in 2000. I'm gonna say 16, maybe 15, I think 16, that he admitted the Iranians told the Houthis not to conquer Sanaa, the capital city, because they said the Saudis are going to freak out and start a war, don't do it. And then they said screw you kids on what to do and went ahead and did anyway and started a war. The Saudis freaked out and of course Obama helped them launch a horrific war against Yam. And Nick got so little coverage because it mostly was from the air, but it was deliberately targeting their, their humanitarian, you know, their civilian food systems and, and everything. And hundreds of thousands of people died because that war is absolutely sick. And now will they close the Babel Mandeb? Maybe, yeah. If America goes back to a massive bombing campaign. Is that a card that Tehran can play? Well, I, I think it very well could be. I don't know why they wouldn't. In fact, I think it was, it, it's, you know, I guess it raises questions why they didn't jump in in the last worst war, you know, so,

Daryl Cooper (47:56)

I mean, I always took that as a, as a sign of Iran's confidence in the proceedings. You know, the fact that they hadn't played that card yet because the Houthis made very clear that they stood ready. I mean, they were ready to do it if Iran, you know, asked him to. And so the way I understood it, like, I'm not like a super deep knowledge expert on, on the history of the Houthis or just Yemen in general, but from what I understand, you know, in the 70s and the 80s, when the Shiite awakening that, you know, really was led by, I don't know if led by is really the right answer, but Solder's dad, you know, was, it was very much like in the. In the, you know, kind of fashion of the times, it was a. It was a class and religious sort of awakening, because the Shiites in southern Lebanon, but also in, you know, Iraq, they were, like, poor, they were lower class. They were, you know, pretty much sort of kicked around in all the countries that they lived in, except for Iran. And even then, obviously before the revolution, like, there was, you know, there was some difficulty. But. And so this was like. This was a, you know, I don't say uprising, but an awakening that involved both religion and class. And the whole time that it was going on, from what I understand the Houthis were, they kind of had their own thing going. And I. And I assume that's because unlike a lot of the other Shiites, you know, you don't hear about the way you do with the Sunnis, for the most part, about all these Shiite tribes. They, like. They. You. They exist, but, like, they don't have the same valence, you know, in the Shiite world, for the most part, as they do in the Sunni world. And, you know, so I think that while that Shiite awakening was going on, that the Houthis were just kind of insulated from it to a degree and had their own thing going. So.

Scott Horton (49:46)

Yeah, yeah. And importantly, the major slum in East Baghdad, the Shiite slum in East Baghdad was called Saddam City at the insistence of the great dictator until the day he was overthrown. And then that day it became renamed Solder City after Mactata's father.

Daryl Cooper (50:07)

Yeah.

Scott Horton (50:07)

I don't know if you guys can see in the background. I actually have. Right here, Muktata by Pat. Oh, it's just off here. I bet if we. But if we. A larger size. Me. Maybe you can see it on the side here. I have Mactata by Patrick Coburn here. Fantastic book.

Daryl Cooper (50:20)

Is that about the. The father or the son?

Scott Horton (50:22)

The son.

Daryl Cooper (50:23)

Well, both, but, yeah, the father's a fascinating guy. I mean, he's very impressive figure in a lot of ways and a complicated figure as a lot of the. As a lot of the leaders in the Muslim world back in those days, you know, were. But yeah, I should read that book for sure.

Scott Horton (50:38)

Yeah. So people are talking about Tomahawks. I thought we didn't have them. We didn't. I mean, the deal is, I guess they just announced them. People had asked me whether they secretly have them, and my answer always was no way. Because what is the point of having hypersonic missiles if it's not to announce to Russia and China that we have them that we have missiles just like they have, or certainly the Russians have. We have missiles that you cannot possibly shoot down because they are so dang fast. Faster than ICBM coming in at Mach 18 from space or whatever it is. We beat that and you can't hit it. And so, and, and especially at the angles that we can fire them at. And so don't, don't mess with us. Right. Same thing. That's why they created them too. And I think that's why Iran used them in Tel Aviv and Russia used them in Kiev, was to demonstrate to the United States that we can shoot things and fly them straight. There has been plenty of coverage, darl, I'm sure. Well, I'm not sure, but I think you may very well know actual facts about this firsthand or, or something or, or maybe much, much closer than reading about it like the rest of us about the long term failures of the American hypersonic missile project and, and system that, you know, locking all these guys. Andrew Coburn wrote a lot about this, but it was even in the regular defense press, which I read, you know, pretty often Defense One and Defense News and things like that. And they would talk about how, man, these tests are just failures. They can launch the things, but they can't steer them. If they try to steer them at all, they blow up in this kind of deal. And so maybe they've made some real breakthroughs here. It's, it was kind of embarrassing for them, right, that Iran did hit Tel Aviv with hypersonic missiles. I saw them. I mean, some of those may have been fake, but I'm sure, I'm virtually positive at least one of those was confirmed as legit.

Daryl Cooper (52:28)

Yeah, I mean, look, it's one of those things that really is a difficult engineering problem. I mean, when you're talking about, you know, steering something who's, you know, it's airframe, just by necessity because of weight considerations, has to be thin. You know, relatively thin. It's not like 4 inches of steel is the airframe or something. You know, it's like it's relatively thin. And so to maneuver that at such high speeds is actually a pretty tough engineering problem. And you know, the thing is like the United States for the longest time, and we're still just, I mean, we're still not caught up on this at all. It was always interesting, like back even when I was active duty and then when I was with the DoD, we go to these intel briefings where we just sort of make, they make sure that we're up on like enemy capabilities and whatnot. And the different platforms that they're fielding and they go through all of these missiles, these like anti ship missiles and stuff that the Chinese and the French were putting out, the Russians are putting out and dude, they were absolutely incredible like offensive systems. And then we asked like, hey do, why don't we have anything like that? Because we didn't have anything like that. Like the last thing we had that we made ourselves was the Harpoon missile system, which was just a big slow, dumb cruise missile that you know, was meant to shoot down or shoot at ships that, you know, don't really have serious air defenses. You know, we've got the naval strike missile now, but the Norwegians made that and it's decent, you know, it's pretty good. But you know, for the longest, I mean even now, if you go out on any of our cruisers or destroyers, the primary, you know, the primary weapon that the ship has to attack other surface vessels, it's just its gun. That's what it's got. It's got a gun. And even, even the, you know, the Tomahawk is really amazing in some ways, you know, in the sense that, you know, it's overlapping navigation systems, you know, which, you know, include everything from satcom to pre programmed coordinates to, you know, the ability to read the landscape itself and navigate according to that. I mean, like really, really amazing in that sense. But in terms of what it actually is, I mean you can, if we shot a bunch of Tomahawks at some Russian S400 systems, they'd shoot them all down just like our Aegis weapon system would shoot them all down. They're not particularly impressive, like you know, unless you're shooting it, you know, jihadists or something like that. And so what that's meant is that like our sort of built in institutional knowledge on the offensive, on the strike side has really deteriorated over the years to the point where now that we're trying to build hypersonics and we need a new naval strike missile upgrade and stuff, like we're having to sort of build that out on the fly because we don't have that. We've spent a huge amount of resources, huge amount of time, expertise on missile defense. We're, we're by far the best at that. I mean we, and I don't just say that because that's the field I was, you know, involved in here in, in the US And I'm a patriotic missile defense guy of the U. Like it's true, like our systems are better than Anybody else's the S400 is good. The S500 is good, from what I understand, from what I know about them. But our systems are great at that. But we just. We never really. Or we stopped. I don't want to say we never. But back about 40 years ago, we stopped putting a whole lot of research and development into offensive strike systems just because, you know, nobody had anything that could shoot down a Tomahawk. And you know, who's. Well, we're not gonna. We're not gonna need to blow up another surface ship. Like, who are we gonna shoot? Like, the Chinese hadn't even begun to grow their navy yet in the 80s and 90s. You know, the Russians are decaying. Who are we gonna get into a big naval fight with? So that's, you know, unnecessary. And so we just, you know, it's one of those things that, like, you know, the pipeline for that whole process, if you need to develop something quickly and new, it's. It just doesn't exist. And so we've been having to try to build that out.

Scott Horton (56:36)

Yeah. All right, so listen, we got to wrap up real quick. One guy's saying the fact that we, the U.S. did a regime change in Venezuela before Iran indicates that it's not about Israel. It's all about controlling oil choke points for the Cold War, China or whatever. A guy asked me this on my. In an interview with me yesterday as well. But the thing is, no, man, maybe they just wanted to lock down Venezuelan oil before they go screwing around, taking risks with Iranian oil.

Daryl Cooper (57:01)

You know, I mean, that was not about the lad. Yeah, also definitely about the lacud.

Scott Horton (57:05)

And listen, I'm not just citing these as like, authoritative figures or whatever. I'm saying there are very well done stories in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, the Times of Israel, Bloomberg News, and probably Hiretz about how Benjamin Netanyahu convinced Donald Trump to do this. And it's not just that they claim that. It's that they're well reported stories with hundreds of citations overall. If you combine them about the story of how this war happened. And it wasn't because the Pentagon Joint Staff said, we can no longer tolerate Persia being independent. We must do a regime change in order to someday screw China out of oil. That right now we're actually begging them to come reopen the straightforward. It's just that that ain't what it was.

Daryl Cooper (57:53)

No, it was the Leud.

Scott Horton (57:54)

It's all about Greater Israel. And I know we're out of time. You got to go. Let me just say, real Quick, if anybody wants to know about the Southern Poverty Law center and their role in infiltrating people into the white supremacist movements of the 1990s, and including friends of Timothy McVey, like one Andre Carl Strauss Meyer, crucial figure in the Oklahoma City bombing, well, then all you got to do is listen to my archives and my interviews with JD Cash and he'll tell you all about him confronting Morris D's about running Andre Strass Meyer for the FBI. And, you know, he, he died a long time ago now, but I've been doing this a long time. So you can go back and find all those in the archives. And also, of course, check out libertarianinstitute.org okc. That is the ultimate archive of real documents. No, no rabbit trails, no red herrings, only the absolute very bus best stuff curated by the great Richard Booth@libertarianinstitute.org okc if you want to know the truth about all that. And with that, let's go. So we'll see you guys next week. Stop by the Scott Horton Academy on your way out.

Daryl Cooper (59:00)

And then, oh, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. And go ahead, check me out on the first episode ever of the Jim Webb show this Monday.

Scott Horton (59:08)

Oh, yeah, absolutely. And that's right here on the YouTubes. And, and of course, the Martyr Mac Mare.

Daryl Cooper (59:14)

I'm going with that from now on. I'm going with that from Martyr Mac. You like that, Martyr Mac.

Scott Horton (59:19)

We'll get you a nice hat with a feather. It'll be great. This has been provoked with Daryl Cooper and Scott Horton. Be sure to like and subscribe to help us beat the propaganda algorithm. Go follow at ProvokedShow on X and YouTube and tune in next time for more Provoked.