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Scott Horton
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Daryl Cooper
All humans break. The difference between humans and gods is that gods can break.
Scott Horton
Humans negotiate. Now end this war. You're watching provoked with Daryl Cooper and Scott Horton debunking the propaganda lies of the past, present and future. This is provoked
Daryl Cooper
Foreign.
Scott Horton
Guys. It's the show now on our new night for the what? Third week. Yeah, yeah, Thursday. Me and Daryl Cooper, we talk about Iran mostly and other things. Welcome, Mr. Cooper. How are you tonight?
Daryl Cooper
I'm good, brother. How are you? Did you happen to see in the chat? Someone answered our question for us in detail. Telestai Mark. Te telis D Mark. Sorry, buddy. That's a tough one. He said Godspeed descends. We were discussing for everybody out there what God speed, what that term comes from. And he says it descends from the original God spell the gospel. It came in time to mean God speed thee on thy way in a more general sense. So thank you, sir.
Scott Horton
There you go. Hey, that was what you said it then.
Daryl Cooper
Basically, I'm.
Scott Horton
I'm.
Daryl Cooper
I'm always right.
Scott Horton
That's where John Weeks.
Daryl Cooper
I give up.
Scott Horton
The hell does that mean? Now I'm kind of bummed because last week it was letting me detach your video where I could float it around and put it right next to the camera. But now it's not letting me do that, but I don't know why.
Daryl Cooper
Are we recording?
Scott Horton
No, we're live, man. I just like to drag your head where it's sort of, sort of pseudo eye contact here while I'm looking at you in the camera.
Daryl Cooper
Okay, I gotcha. Well, let's see. We should probably get rocking and rolling now.
Scott Horton
We are slow. Everybody loves us anyway. Look we got news to talk about. Sponsored by Expat Money. Now, Expat Money is run by a guy named Mikel Thora. And he's a really good guy. And how I know is I actually toured Mayan ruins with him. In Guatemala? No, in Mexico. It was cool. I was on a Tom woods cruise and so was he. And he's a great guy, man. And we spent some time with him and he's been an Expat for about 25 years. And he'll just help you figure out how to set up residency in other countries, how to invest in property in other countries, even get citizenship in other countries if you need to, and find ways to protect your neck and make backup plans for no matter what. Or maybe you just want to go for the cost of living or what? And all you got to do here is, you see, you just sign up for the email list and. And then once you do, you will get a free copy of Plan B residencies and instant citizenship is free. Special report for getting started on this stuff. And of course, they do their big Expat Money summit every October, too, but we'll talk more about that later. Anyway, brought to you. Provoked. Brought to you by them. So, yes, and the things that we're going to discuss tonight include Ukraine, but let's put that off. We have Washington Post relevant subject right there. Just where it's coming from. US Intelligence warns Israel is likely to undermine Iran peace deal. Officials say an official estimate by the CIA of their prediction of what's going to happen here. They were tasked with looking into that and this is what they assessed in their estimate, sir. Then this UN report about the deliberate targeting of Palestinian children in the occupied territories has come out. And I'm afraid that I never did find a chance to read through this thing, but I wanted to at least point out that it exists. And, you know, if you read anti war.com regularly, then you already know what's in there. It's in the news all the time. But they're collecting it all in one place for you. We also have. Oh, I should still have it on this, shouldn't I? Senate votes to check Trump's war powers. That's a first. There have been war powers votes on Yemen before, and I think that's all. But those were concurrent resolutions, which are the kind that the president can veto if he feels like it. And this time is not. This is a joint resolution in a way that the language says he shall obey if they pass it this way. And none of these tricks about, oh, you need a filibuster. 60 votes in the Senate or any of that either. Bare majority.
Daryl Cooper
It passed and trumped on that on the Republican side.
Scott Horton
Well, it was. Susan Collins actually voted for it, which was surprising. There's Rand Paul and then there's a guy who I want to say is from out in Colorado that I just read something else attacking him for being so pro war and pro Zionist. So maybe he was just making an anti Trump point of some kind, or maybe that was wrong. But I'm sorry, I forget the guy's name. I think he's from out in Colorado or something. But Trump had announced all. There were four of them and, oh, here it is. It's Cassidy is who I'm saying. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana is the guy who. He broke with the Republicans and voted with Rand Paul on this. But then I was, I was reading a thing attacking him as being, you know, totally pro Zionist and pro war. So I don't know. But he did the right thing here for whatever reason. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine, and then Trump denounced them on Twitter and said it was aid and comfort to the enemy. And he kind of has a point that it, you know, undermines his position in negotiations, but he shouldn't have started this war. But he's saying, oh, man, now you're just telling the Iranians that you're forbidding my freedom of action, right when I'm trying to get out of the thing and it's already over. That sucks. He kind of has a point about that. But whatever it's actually good for, even if it hurts his negotiating position a little, it is good that now it's the law that he absolutely must seek an authorization before going back to strikes over there, or it he would be in violation of not just the Constitution, but the statute of the law there. Go ahead.
Daryl Cooper
Well, he's in two negotiations sort of right now, right. One being with the Iranians and the other one being with the Israelis, trying to figure out how to get them just to go along with our program here. And on one hand, I could see that this War Powers Resolution might actually strengthen his hand with the Israelis, even as it weakens it, you know, with the Iranians. He can go to the Israelis and say, look, man, you can't like, just drag me back into this, okay? Like I, you see the war power, I just, it's out of my hands now. And so, you know, maybe that's a good sign on that side of it. I'm interested in that first story The Washington Post story, which is sort of the CIA's official outlet. And, you know, a story like that comes out, I mean, it's, it's one of those classic stories. There's a lot of them like this, where the story is not the story. You know, the story is Railers are going to undermine the peace process, like odoi, you know, whatever. The story is that the intelligence community wants this out there.
Scott Horton
Right. And so Post their main organ for stuff like that.
Daryl Cooper
Yeah, yeah. And that's really interesting. I mean, it just, it does go to show you that, you know, I mean, it could just be that there's a split and this is one faction, but usually the Washington Post doesn't, doesn't go with minority positions, you know, coming from out of the intelligence agencies. I mean, and so they're, you know, they're putting this out there because they want to put the Israelis on notice. And, you know, I even, I wonder if it was straight from the intelligence community itself, like deep dark halls of Langley or whatever, or if this is something that the administration directed, you know, somebody to leak. So, yeah, very interesting. You know, we, we talk a lot.
Scott Horton
Let me ask you, I'm very interested in your take on the potential and, or what you know about, or what you think or speculate about the relationship between Trump and Netanyahu. Now, how much of the division between them is a kind of gentleman's agreement to play politics and, or, you know, to what degree you think there's a real sort of struggle over what's to be done here?
Daryl Cooper
Well, did you see that story? Or maybe it's just a, you know, being shared around on Twitter. It was just like a clip from the book written by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan. Yes. Trump yelling at BB on the phone. Bb, now I'm doing it. You got me doing it. It's your fault.
Scott Horton
I did. I hate that.
Daryl Cooper
I once accidentally. But supposedly Trump was shouting at him on the phone, telling him, you know, everybody hates you. Even the two. Like all the Jews in America hate you. Even the two Jews on this phone call with us hate you. And that was Kushner and Witkoff and kind of going off on him like that. I mean, look, I'll say this, like, I don't think that, that, that Trump and Netanyahu's relationship is going to break down to a degree where they aren't on the same, working off the same page unless the big Jewish donors sort of make a collective decision that Netanyahu is. Become a liability and he's got to move on. And then Trump, you know, might, might throw him under the bus. But, you know, Trump is like the ultimate transactional player, right? And so if he will not break with Bibi because B will not break with Netanyahu because Netanyahu does something he doesn't like or refuses to go, he, he will do that when he senses that Netanyahu is weak. And when he senses that Netanyahu is weak, that's when, you know, he'll start to turn on him. And, you know, the fact that he's doing it very obliquely and indirectly, you know, there's these, these leaks coming out about these supposed spats that they have. But then you have, you know, you do have like Vance going out saying some things that, you know, they, they, they, they wouldn't get anybody's dander up who watches the Provoke podcast or anything. But from like an insider beltway position, like, you know, somebody in his position saying the things that, that Vance has been saying about the US Israeli relationship, you know, that's just not something that you would ever hear. And then when Trump was asked about it, after all of the hawks have been going after Vance, kind of trying to, you know, they don't want to go after Trump directly at least yet, you know, they still think there's a chance to pull him back in. And so they, you know, they're going after Vance to make it seem like, you know, he's the one that's, you know, that's causing this and driving a wedge. But then Trump comes out publicly and like fully backs him. He says, I, you know, I thought he was fantastic on the press conference this morning, etc. And so when Trump's saying stuff like that and saying it in the teeth of all of this criticism, like come in advance from all of these same people, you know, and, and I look at my ultimate barometer, which is always the, you know, the Twitter timelines of people like Mark Levin and they, unless they're just putting on an Oscar worthy performance, are not happy, which means I'm very happy.
Scott Horton
Yeah, well. And yeah, I could see what they have to be upset about. You know, they did not get any of what they want here. And I'm, I hate to do this, man. No, this is last week's show. I was just sitting here speculating, speculating about what the deal may be, how far they could get and what might happen and what kind of thing. So, but that's all I'm interested in, right? That's all I could think about, right, is like so what's really happening in Switzerland? How far are they going to get? How far have they agreed in advance that they're going to get? Look, at the end of the day, you and I both know that we're going to settle on 3.6%, but you're going to keep the kilograms under X or whatever. You know what I mean? Like, how much of that has already
Daryl Cooper
been, you know, the thing is, you have like the, the Kennedy Cuban Missile crisis, like, option, right? Which is like, we're going to remove our missiles from Turkey, but I can't do this right now for political reasons, but I'll do it and, you know, soon enough after this blows over. And the Soviets could take that from Kennedy and his, and his, you know, the, the channels through whom he was communicating and, and take that seriously. Problem we have is that the Iranians cannot take anything like that seriously. How could they possibly, you know, and, you know, it really does seem like the position we're in now is that the Iranians are feeling their oats and, you know, they feel like. It seems like their position toward us right now is, you know, let's go make a deal in Switzerland. Every time that you, you know, send another missile here, another drone here, other. Every time you do anything at all, like in, Anything happens in Lebanon, then the deal get, you know, the wall gets 10ft taller. I mean, it's just that it seems like that's where they're at, like, let's make a deal. But every time anything happens, we're taking one more step forward, and we're not taking any steps back. And they seem to be, you know, like, gambling. You know, it's probably, it's an informed gambling decision, I suppose, but just they, they seem to be gambling that we just do not have the political and military wherewithal to escalate to a degree that's going to force them to buckle. And I mean, they can only be reinforced in that view by the War Powers Authorization, you know, being passed by the Senate. So, so the House had already passed it. Is this thing, like, long now? Okay. Wow. Yep.
Scott Horton
That's.
Daryl Cooper
That's good, man. I mean, you know, again, like, if you take this all, like, as a piece, right, where you've got leaks coming to the Washington Post from the intelligence community, essentially official leaks from the intelligence community, talking about how the Israelis are undermining things, and then all of a sudden a few senators switch their votes and now there's a war Power authorization. You do wonder if the consensus is shifting, you know, and it's no longer just a Vance kind of Trump thing, you know, where they're trying to push it through that maybe the consensus is shifting. You know, whether that's because they, you know, they, they understand the predicament we're in or whether it's because they want to gear up for something else, which is very possible, it's hard to say. But it does seem like things are shifting, like sort of in the bowels of the ship, you know.
Scott Horton
I hope so. Yeah. I, I, I really should be reading, like, the UPI wire. I don't know if they have anything. Who, who's reporting good scoops out of the Pentagon and how the Joint Staff feel about this right now and all that. We got the CIA blabbing to the Post. What's the, I haven't read anything. And I, I tried.
Daryl Cooper
Well, I. Did you see the report? I think this was from Vance talking. I think he announced that CENTCOM and the IRGC are in direct communication to like, you know, find ways to de, escalate things militarily. And like, that was one Levin was flipping out about earlier. And again, from their perspective, I get it. But that's a very interesting move, man. And what it does is like, you know, you know, Iran, the, the Iranian regime is not the Taliban, you know, where like, if you're from Afghanistan and you're fighting in the ufc, you can't even wear your country's flag out because we just don't recognize it. It's not like that. But ever since 1979, it's kind of been like that. It's like, yeah, okay, like, you know, it would take a war to dislodge you, but we don't, it's a matter of time, a, you know, and, and until that matter of time runs out, we're not going to take you really seriously as the governor, as the government of Iran, like, you know, and treat you like a, like an equal state, you know, And I mean, this is one, like, it would be one thing, you know, setting up direct talks with the Iranian army or, you know, or something, but the IRGC directly, I mean, that's, that's a pretty strong signal that if nothing else, what Iran has gotten out of this is a seat at the table of nations, you know, and they, you know, they got it the hard way. A lot of fire and blood on their side, but, you know, and who knows? I mean, like, you know, it's hard to say. Like, you think about, like, it looked like it looked like Assad had won the War in Syria, you know, but the, the, the apparatus is a persistent bitch, you know, and so there may be a longer term plan or something, but. Yeah, I don't know. I, I, I think that, I think that there seems to be an emerging consensus that we got to get out of this now. And you know, the, if we could do it, I mean, look, you want to talk about like the, you know, look at the Russians, the smart thing for the Russians to do back in like March or April of 2022 when, you know, Boris Johnson scuttled, the, the deal that they're working out with the Ukrainians is to just be like, all right, fine, we're back, we're, we're backing, backing up, putting up a hard defensive line, keeping Crimea and you know, we're not going to do this anymore. And if we could pull that off, whatever the political cost or the national prestige, whatever, if we could actually go into this thing and have, look, I mean, again, we talked about this last week. I know a lot of people are totally not on board with this and I totally understand why. But if the administration does back out of this, then, look, you got to give them some credit and I understand it's like completely their fault that we're in this situation. But, but there are very, very, very few politicians, I mean, recently have ever that that could be in this situation where everybody looks at this war that we started as pretty much a loss and being like, yeah, whatever, we're walking away. This is like bad money after good. And so yeah, I, I hope it happens and I will give them credit for it if it does.
Scott Horton
Yeah, well, look, we played the clips and joked about it last week where he's like, hey, everybody's got missiles and nuclear programs. What's the big deal? So you can just go ahead and flip flop on the thing. I meant to do that. Everybody knows I meant to do that. It was the best war ever and we don't even have to cheer. He doesn't care. It's just, you know, whether he just has the space to frame it that way and like, whatever, I do agree that it's the only way to get out of it. Right. Same thing even with Afghanistan. And, and it led to bad consequences. In fact, they could not say we're leaving Afghanistan because we lost.
Daryl Cooper
Yeah.
Scott Horton
And the only way to win would be to like triple the war as it was at its height. And even then we just lose. But it would take us 20 more years to lose again. And so that's why we're leaving, because we suck and it's their country. And so what are you gonna do, huh? They couldn't say that. So instead they go, oh, we won, and that's why we get to leave. And which led to unfortunate consequences, such as them leaving all that military equipment with the Afghan national army that was about to cease to exist and hand it all over. Taliban, for one example, and the panicked, you know, fleeing at the end and all that. But the same thing here, like, we just cannot reasonably expect them to say, yeah, we totally suck and we blew it. Like, if anybody could say that with a straight face and not care, it would be Donald Trump. But I don't think we expect any politician to frame it like that. They have to say that it's good, well, whatever, just as long as nobody believes them. But if that's what they have to say to get out of there, then fine. You know what I mean?
Daryl Cooper
Yeah. And you hope that the Iranians would, you know, would let that slide somewhat, you know, give us a little bit of an out, recognize how our political system works in the modern media environment and just, you know, give them an out. Like, the problem with that is that if you really think about it, like, all of their demands, they're all, all they really basically amount to is you got to treat us like a real country. You have our money, give it back. You're sanctioning our oil. Stop doing that. You were blockading the strait. Don't do that. Like, these are all just sort of, you got to treat us like a real country. And so it's hard for them to walk a lot of that back. I mean, the only one that I could really, that goes beyond that framing is, you know, that they want us out of the region. You know, but even then they could say, well, yeah, we meant like all of this forward deployed gear that, you know, you have that, that makes like a mass attack possible, like, like happened in February, but your bases and stuff, you know, that's, that's a different story. We weren't talking about that. You know, maybe they could do that. But at the same time, like, I am, I am really firm in my belief at this point. Just from talking to people, watching this play out. I, I am pretty firm in my belief that we, we're stopping right now not because it's a bad idea to keep going, but because we cannot keep going. We can't. We don't have the resources and we don't have the, you know, the sort of economic cushion to be able to do it. And we just have to stop. And the Iranians see that, that, you know, you just hope, even if, even if that is the case now, you know, you hope that the Iranians would give us a dignified way out. Just because why, why make it so that six more administrations are going to have a grudge? You know what I mean? Like, just. Yeah, but on the other hand, I mean, they may be looking at it and just saying, like, you know, yeah, we won this round, but Israel controls their government. Everybody knows that. And they'll be back. And so we have to take what we can now, take advantage of this. It's possible, but, you know, I think
Scott Horton
it would be all these militarists on all sides say the same thing, that the other guys only understand one thing, force. And so that's why we got to go ahead and do the terrible, stupid, counterproductive thing we got to do. So, you know, on the other side of, hey, let's not rub their noses in, it is. No, we got to teach them a
Daryl Cooper
lesson, you know, and also, I mean,
Scott Horton
look, don't push your luck is really the. Where we're at.
Daryl Cooper
Yeah, I mean, that's true. And when you think about, like, how this war started, you know, just the dastardly way that we started this war and the fact that we blew up a girl school, bunch of civilian infrastructure, like, oh, you know, more people, I believe have been killed in Lebanon by the Israelis, and those are mostly all civilians have been killed in Lebanon than have been killed in Iran, which, you know, that's an interesting thing in itself, I think.
Scott Horton
Yeah, right.
Daryl Cooper
I think that, I think that really shows, like, what, what the game was here. I think that the more this goes on, I, the more. I think that from the Israeli side, and I don't think they told Trump this, I think that, that their, their plan was hopefully, you know, we topple the regime in Iran, hopefully we degrade their military to the point they have to tap out. Those are all like, hopefully. But what they really wanted was for us to tie up Iran while they took over southern Lebanon. But, you know, that's not working out either because we didn't do as well against the Iranians as everybody expected us to. And the Israelis, while they're, you know, they're, they're standing on Lebanese territory, they are taking casualties down there, and it's not going as smoothly as they would have hoped either. So the more. It really does look to me a lot like that, though, you know, I don't. What do you think about that?
Scott Horton
That that was a primary Purpose of the war with Iran?
Daryl Cooper
Yeah, because as soon as we got into it, the Israelis just kind of bailed and, like, went and focused on Lebanon. And after that, you know, after the first week or two, and, and once, you know, once we had them all tied up and we were really into the war, they just shifted all their focus over to Lebanon and it just seemed a little, you know, that was
Scott Horton
a surprise in Washington or whether that was always part of the agreement.
Daryl Cooper
Yeah, I wonder, too. I, but I, I think that, I mean, there may have been some people in Washington that, that were in on it, but I think with Trump, you know, you're not going to sell him on a war like this because Israel wants to go in and, you know, take southern Lebanon. The way to sell this war to him is you're going to do what, you know, all these presidents before you couldn't do. You're going to be the one. And, you know, they're not. If you take out the Iranian regime, why, they might hate you or whatever, but you're going to have a bust in the White house for another 200 years. You know what I mean? That's how you sell Trump on anything. And, and so I imagine they focused on the nukes and the death to America and Iranians are crazy and evil and all that, but. Yeah.
Scott Horton
Well, listen, I'm going to go back to something that you said before. Oh, sorry. This is the Matt Serley, anti IRS tax lawyer, AgustAdvice.com Hate neocons part of the show. This is the part of the show sponsored by Matt Sersley where we criticize neoconservatives. Basically, what it is is he's a lawyer, not an accountant. And if you own a small business or if you make a lot of money as a professional or something, you need to protect your neck from the irs, then this will help you do that. No gimmicks. You gotta obey the law, but you'll make sure that you only pay what you absolutely have to and not a penny more. Go and talk to your new lawyer, Matt Cercley. He's at Agar's Tax Advice. And so now is the make fun of neocons, sponsored by Matt Sersity part of the show. Guess who wrote this headline here? Well, who knows who wrote the headline, but guess who wrote this article in the Washington Post. Democracy dies in darkness is the Washington Post's slogan there, which is a little bit better than the New York Times slogan. You can't make an omelette without breaking eggs. But anyway, in The Washington Post, somebody wrote opinion. The Iran deal comes with a familiar false promise. Bad actors tend to betray agreements without consequences.
Daryl Cooper
That's hilarious, man. These people, I guess.
Scott Horton
Who wrote it? Trivia question. I don't know. Anyone Not Richard Pearl?
Daryl Cooper
Yeah, just hit me. I don't know. I thought it was Vance when that picture came up.
Scott Horton
Oh, yeah,
Daryl Cooper
yeah, that fits.
Scott Horton
Douglas fight. So we always pick on Wormser, especially because he's the brains who wrote the Clean Break and Coping with Crumbling States and Tyranny's Ally, endorsed of course, by his boss, Richard Pearl. But then in third place there, Douglas J. Fife, who under the W. Bush administration under Paul Wolfowitz, became the Deputy Secretary of Defense for Policy. And he was the guy under Douglas Feith was Bill Ludy and Abram Schulsky. And these are the guys what lied us into Iraq War two with the Office of Special Plans and the Policy Counterterrorism Evaluation Group. And under Schulski and Ludy were all the Michaels, Ledeen and Reuben and Maloof and Makovsky. And of course there was Harold Road in the Office of Net Assessment. And anyway, all these guys. And Douglas J. Feith was. He was the boss of the osp. He was over Schulsky and Ludy at OSP under the Policy Shop. And these were the guys who lied us into Iraq War ii. And Douglas Feith was known for one, having Israeli officers barge right into his office. In fact, let me show you. As long as I'm showing things here, this would be Karen. You guys are familiar with her. If you watch Kyle Anzalone show for one, you know about Karen Kotowski and her articles and her great podcasting stuff. And she is. Oh, this one is at the American Conservative and it's called
Daryl Cooper
in.
Scott Horton
No, not in Rumsfeld Shop. It's Open Door Policy. It's called Open Door Policy. Okay. It's going to come right up. Oh, it did come right up. Open Door Policy by the very nice and wonderful Karen Kotowski. And Daryl, you may very be very familiar with Karen's story. Karen was a lieutenant colonel in the US Air Force and she was assigned to the Near East South Asia desk, which was adjacent to the Iraq desk. But then they expanded the Iraq desk and they renamed it the Office of Special Plans. And Bill Ludy, who I mentioned, who worked for Douglas F. And with Abram Shski in the Office of Special Plans, he wore two hats and he was also her boss. She had a unique view directly into what was going on with the Office of Special Plans. And she Started writing anonymous articles for David Hackworth, who I know you know all about David Hackworth. She started writing for his site, which was called Soldiers for the Truth, and they were written anonymously at first. And then she, you know, was the source for a lot of important news articles at that time. And then she came out and started writing under her own name for Lou Rockwell.com in as soon as she retired in 2000 and would have been early 03, I guess she got out of there as fast as she could and started writing for lrc. And then she wrote a series for the American Conservative magazine. The first one is called In Rumsfeld's Shop. And then the second one is called God. I always forget the second one, but it's right there in my brain. I can feel it. It's right near. In Rumsfeld's shop. In Rumsfeld Shop. Something, something. An open door policy. An open door policy is the big one because this is the one where she's asked to go and escort some Israeli military officers to Douglas Feit's office. They just push her right out of the way, and they lead the way, storming down the halls of the Pentagon and barge right into Fight's office like they own the place and leave her standing there like, wow, what in the hell is going on here? She had never seen such a thing. And she tells that story in Open Door Policy.
Daryl Cooper
Well, Karen, if it seems like they're acting as if they own the place.
Scott Horton
Conscientious objector. That's the second one. These are the three here, you can see. Yeah. So, yeah, Douglas 5. And I'll tell you this, too. Way back in the day, Lauren, this is way back when he was first kind of coming out. And these, these topics were fresh, relatively. I interviewed Colin Powell's chief of staff, Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, and Wilkerson, you know, told me, and, you know, we all know who these neocons were in the neocon network in the vice President's office and the rest of the W. Bush government here. And he said, listen, out of all of those neocons, he said two of them, he believes were actual agents of influence for Israel. I mean, they all were sort of de facto. Yeah, he thought two of them.
Daryl Cooper
What's that mean? They were taking paychecks.
Scott Horton
I mean, or we're working under explicit direction of Israeli government handlers telling them what to do, you know. And he named Douglas F. And David Wormser. He didn't even say Pearl. He said Fight and Worms are, he thought were like working Directly for the Israelis. There was this a funny story. There was a guy named something Nelson, I can't remember his first name, but he had this thing called the Nelson Report, which was this real like sort of low circulation, high level insider newspaper newsletter thing in Washington D.C. and Jim Loeb reported on it one time had a story about, you know, who knows, the sourcing, whatever. The Nelson Report had it that they do this report and Rumsfeld can't be there that day. So Douglas F. Is filling in for Rumsfeld. And so then when he gives the Pentagon side of the story, when they have their big discussion, Condoleezza Rice, who's then this is in the first term. So she's national Security advisor, she says to fy, okay, Doug, let me tell you, when we want Israel's point of view, we'll just call. The embassy is expensive. So of all the neocons of Scooter Libby and Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Pearl Wilkerson at that time told me that he identified these two worms are in fight as the ones who are working directly for the Israelis at the time.
Daryl Cooper
Yeah, you know, it's like Powell was
Scott Horton
the Secretary of State, by the way, at the time, ladies and gentlemen, the
Daryl Cooper
guy staff, you know, they all are de facto agents. The interesting thing is I was thinking about this earlier. Like it seems impossible that these people could ever be held accountable. But you know, I think back to. And maybe it would take, you know, the Israelis doing something that fundamentally changes our relationship like Stalin did after the war. But you know, back during the 1930s, I mean, you had literally. Not literally, but virtually the entire sort of IntelligenceSIA in the U.S. the sort of, the, just the whole liberal consensus, right, under the F. Under the New Deal regime that was, if not sympathetic to the Soviet Union in the sense of thinking we should be giving them aid and comfort or anything, at least looking at them as sort of fumbling their way in the right direction. Right. And, and that with our, you know, with our help, you know, maybe they'll stop killing millions of people and with their help, maybe we'll learn how to do a little central planning kind of thing. It was like, it was like really like a consensus among, you know, the people who would have, who pushed Russia gate, you know, or today who want us to, you know, have a war with Russia, whatever. Like that, that class of people there was a ton of, of sympathy for the Soviet Union. And so eventually when you had guys like Aler Hiss get arrested and tried and convicted for working for the Soviets, you know, his. To his dying day, he never copped to being a spy because in his mind, he was not a spy. Just like Douglas F. Does not think he's a spy. He thinks he's a liaison, a sort of back channel that, you know, a sort of unofficial diplomat without, you know, what do they call him anyway, it doesn't matter. Portfolio. And so, like, you know, they thought that back then, a lot of these people who were working for the Soviet Union didn't think of themselves as spies. They looked at themselves as back channels and liaisons. And a lot of these people today could be held like, again, it's not going to be a thing where all of those people you mentioned could be held accountable, but there could be some. Some trophy scalps. You know, they could find a couple who did take something or, you know, the problem with it, the thing that's going to make it really difficult is you'd have to find a few gentiles to throw into the mix just so that it's not rounding up and prosecuting a bunch of Jews, because that'll never happen.
Scott Horton
Well, that was the thing they did investigate the Pentagon neocons, and they got Larry Franklin and all the rest of them got away. And the leaders of apac, Rosen and Weissman got away and Fife. And, you know, this was in the Washington Post that, you know, because one of the pretexts for investigating was that Ahmed Chalabi had told the Iranians that the Americans had broken their codes. So then they started investigating Chalabi, but then that leads to who all were Chalabi's friends in the Pentagon. And there was a bunch of them.
Daryl Cooper
Is Chalabi still alive?
Scott Horton
No.
Daryl Cooper
Yeah. Okay.
Scott Horton
He died in like 2013 or something like that. That's where good maybe. But yeah, this was in the Washington Post at the FBI. You know, the. The Franklin probe and the. The Chalabi probe kind of came together at the Pentagon, and the FBI questioned all the neoconservatives about, you know, whatever, but it never went anywhere. Larry Franklin was the only one that got got. I don't think that Rosen or Weisman were convicted. Maybe Rosen was. I think Weisman maybe turned on Rosen, but I don't remember anymore. But. But yeah, that was it. That was who got bus of all the Israeli spices. It was the.
Daryl Cooper
They all need to be rounded up.
Scott Horton
Another friend, which, by the way, he just has the least Jewish last name of them all, I guess.
Daryl Cooper
I don't know. The Jews we can deport to Israel and all the gentiles can go to prison. That's how I feel about the neocons. They're all. I mean, at this point, you know, it's funny, like, sort of like, says
Scott Horton
that he knows what that word means. He's talking about a hundred people, not 7,000. You know, like every conservative Jew in America or whatever.
Daryl Cooper
No, no, yeah. I'm talking about these specific.
Scott Horton
The actual.
Daryl Cooper
Yeah. These people times, you know? Yeah. And like, you know, it's funny. Like, Stalin would, you know, he. He said that the famous quote, what is it? One death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic. Which is another way of saying that crimes committed at the scale of, like, state action, like official state action, you remove the label crime essentially from it. And there's a. There's a bit of that with the. With the treason that goes on with the neocons, where it is treason, but they've so captured our government that they're really just executing our government policy at this point because they've captured it. It's, like, hard to disentangle that, you know.
Scott Horton
Well, sure. I mean, look, George Bush and Dick Cheney hired those guys. Yeah. And, you know, I'm sorry if I'm being redundant. I've. I've said this lately. I don't know if it was on this show or what, but the original guy who was up for Secretary of defense was Dan Coates, who was just a generic Republican senator from the Midwest. But then in his job interview, he screwed himself up and said, oh, missile defense, we don't want to do that. That's a stupid waste of money. And they were like, no, dude, that's the point. We're Republicans. Get the hell out of here. Don't call us. We'll call you. And then never did. And then Cheney said, well, you know, my old mentor Donald Rumsfeld was the Secretary of Defense under Jerry Ford. I bet he'd do it. He's still around, you know. So he said, oh, okay. So that was how Rumsfeld got the job. And I don't know. I'd like to know the answer to this. And maybe this has been written. I bet Jim Loeb knows. I could try to ask him, but I think that Rumsfeld was already very tight with Wolfowitz, and he's the one who picked Wolfowitz to be his deputy. Or if Cheney did, Chaney, you know, may have told him, here, meet my friend Paul. But whatever, they got along just like peas and carrots over there, man. You know what I mean? Rumsfeld wanted to do what he wanted to do anyway. And so, you know, no denying, right, everybody in the Vice President's office worked for Dick Cheney. Scooter Libby wasn't telling Dick Cheney what to do. Dick Cheney was telling Scuder Libby what to do, and Scuda Libby was telling everybody else. You know, that was how that worked. So, you know, as, as Walt Mer put it, they didn't do the war. It was W. Bush who launched the war. But he couldn't have done it without them, without the Israel Lobby and without the vanguard of the Israel lobby, the neoconservatives in the, in the Vice President's office, National Security Council and State and Pentagon, and. And boy, did they do it. And by the way, for people who are interested in this, and I hope you are, I have a Twitter thread that should be really easy to find. Where I say articles, there are a few different threads. If I say 28, 28's a good 28 articles about how the neoconservatives lied us into war, and then the list is much longer. It's like 35. When I was done thinking of them, it was just a ton of articles about the neoconservatives in the Office of Special Plans and the whole neocon Network
Daryl Cooper
and how it worked.
Scott Horton
And it's like 30 articles in a row about it all, and many of them at least partially based on the testimonies of Karen Kotowski, the great Pentagon whistleblower there. And definitely worth the read. And then you'll totally have a handle on it. You read that. And it includes my favorite, I'm always recommending to people how Ahmed Chalabi Khan, the neocons about how these guys, yeah, they're stupid. Doesn't mean that they're not premeditated murderers. It just means that they're really bad at their stupid, premeditated murder jobs that they do all the time. And then, you know, speaking of Douglas F, presently from the Washington Post here, his law partner, Mark Zell, represented settlers on the West Bank. And he's quoted in that article, how I Met Chalabi Khan. The neocons saying that Chalabi, he's a treacherous, spineless turncoat. Why he stabbed us in the back. He promised us he was going to do all this stuff. And boy, before he had one set of friends, and now he has another one. And he even said he was going to build an oil pipeline to Hia when. And that's a direct quote there, basically from Mark Zell, Douglas Feist alter ego there, you know, complaining about how Chalabi Fooled these guys and told them what they needed to hear to get America to get rid of Saddam Hussein for him and for his Iranian sponsors. And that does not detract from the neocons responsibility. It doesn't detract from Netanyahu's responsibility. Netanyahu bought this line of crap from Chalabi by way of worms or two. Yeah, they're going to build me an oil pipeline to Haifa. He was in on it. He believed in the clean break apostle wasn't just written for him. He thought it was brilliant and it wasn't. These are the guys who screwed it all up. So now here's Douglas FY in the Washington Post saying, no, you can't quit now this JD Vance guy is saying that we can deal with the Iranians, but you just can't because you know how they are. And. And I just think it's funny that Douglas Fife one is allowed to speak publicly about his opinion about who you should kill or not or negotiate with or not or what have you. Tommy Franks, I meant to say this earlier. It would have been funnier. Tommy Franks back then called him the stupidest effing guy on the face of the earth.
Daryl Cooper
Yeah.
Scott Horton
Plan how to do the invasion and then. But also that this is who they're left with. This is what they gotta do. They're scraping the absolute bottom of the barrel. They go, who are we gonna get to defend this? Somebody called Douglas Feith over at the Hudson Institute. Maybe he'll write one for us. Or what was the last time they featured Douglas Veith in the Washington Post or that he would have dared to write one. His name doesn't lead to a link to anything. He's at Hudson and I've actually seen articles by him denying that he ever believed in Clean Break. He was just friends with those guys and they added his name to the paper. It's not my fault, he said, except he was the head of the office of special Plans basically. Or you know, over was under him. So yeah, absolutely his fault. Whether he believed in Wormsrs, Wormser's clap trapper, his nonsense or not. But anyway, so there they go at the Washington Post, the guys who lied us into war with Iraq about why you cannot trust the Iranians to negotiate. Darrell Cooper.
Daryl Cooper
Yeah. Do you ever wonder if I don't know which one is. Is worse, like pretends worse for the future, but like, do you ever wonder when they write something like that the Iranians cannot be trusted to keep to a deal that they make? Like is there any. Are they Sort of like if you were to confront them sort of, you know, one on one behind closed doors and be like. I mean, you realize that's sort of the opposite situation. 180 degrees, right? They were the ones. And they would be like, yeah, I know. You know, but I'm pushing this. Or are they like, just. And I could see this, too. Like, you know, that they just really do believe it and they see it that way. And that's, like, somehow even scarier. I want to respond real quick. We got a little conversation going on, started by, I think, Nathaniel, Nate, Daniel, talking about some hip hop guys. Answer your question? Yes. I have listened to Jedi mind tricks since 2000, 2001, probably, and technique, probably about as long. And I actually know a guy who knows both of those guys. And we. I'm gonna try and get Immortal Technique on this show. That would be dope. I'll bet you he's a Scott Horton fan. He should be. If he's not.
Scott Horton
I've interviewed tech before.
Daryl Cooper
Okay, there you go. He's a Third World commie. You know, it is. But he. Yeah, I love tech.
Scott Horton
Yeah, I like him, man. He's got some good stuff. And, you know, when that first came out, when I first heard revolutionary volume two, it was right on time in, like, 2004, when it really mattered. You know what I mean? When it was actual in defiance of the absolutely suffocating false consensus about the war at that time. It was badass, dude. The Jedi mind tricks. I've heard before, but I never got into them. I think I actually have them in my folder somewhere, but I don't think I ever really got into them.
Daryl Cooper
But as you have anything wrong, man?
Scott Horton
Final here.
Daryl Cooper
I remember that when I was first getting into Jedi mind tricks, there's this track on their album Violent by Design, and Vinnie Paz is going through his. He's the first verse in it. And there's this one part, I'm listening to it for the first time where he says. He said, I think. Let me think. It's been a while since I heard. He said, crystallize. We keep it live. You can't see me banish satanic verses like Ayatollah Kamini. I was like, oh, buy this album. I'm buying this album. This guy's. This guy's good.
Scott Horton
All right, now it's time to sell them some coffee. Listen here, you kooks. You got to go to Mundo's Artisan Coffee. What you do, go to scottorton.org coffee. That's how you do it scotthorton.org coffee and then it'll take you and you'll get. It's Ethiopian mixed with Sumatra. It's got a big Scott Horton logo on it and it tastes just like me. And it's free to me as long as you people keep buying it. So you gotta keep buying it. It's really good too, man. You won't go back to Dunkin Donuts or Folgers or none of that Walgreens coffee. No more after this Mundo's Artisan Coffees. You go to Scott Horton.org Coffee Marvel's
Daryl Cooper
child slaves look so happy.
Scott Horton
Yeah, they're totally stoked with their labor. Hey, I gotta wake up in the morning and I gotta stay awake around 2, so leave me alone. Those kids can get back to work. But listen, more importantly, time is it. We have a little bit.
Daryl Cooper
We got 10 minutes. We got any questions or. Yeah, I wanted to talk about Russia a little bit. What now? I wanted to talk about Russia a little bit. Like where you think.
Scott Horton
Oh yeah, no, hold that thought because I got one more thing here. I wanted to say that some strange anonymous person donated a nice little amount of money to the Libertarian Institute today. And I don't know who it was and so there's definitely no strings attached and it wasn't that much that you could find my soul with it anyway or anything like that. But I just wanted to say thank you very much to whoever that anonymous donor is. Presumably, possibly they might consume the provoked podcast I do with my buddy Daryl and everything, you know, so they might see this. And so thank you very sincerely on behalf of me and all of my guys. That's what I'm going to do with your money, is I'm going to turn it into overhead and pay my guys so that they can pay their bills and also write good things. And we will publish them@libertarianinstitute.org so this is how it works. It's very strange. Libertarians, we don't charge prices. We all have 501 C3s because, I mean, we gotta avoid the tax man as best we can. But then that means we gotta give away all our content and then we just gotta rely on the kindness of strangers to help us through. And so thank you, anonymous donor, on behalf of all of the guys and our great lady as well there at the institute. A couple of great ladies, actually, now that I think about it, @libertarianinstitute.org donate so yeah, and then, then here's my setup for you talking about Ukraine. I read this in the independent this morning, Mr. Cooper, Putin is asking for peace talks. It's time to kick him while he's down. By Sam Kylie Putin is rattled and Trump needs a win. The reason that Trump, the reason that Putin, Trump, Netanyahu, Putin, they're all so interchangeable to me. What can I say? All these guys look alike. The reason that Putin is saying that he might be willing to talk is because his cities are getting hit, his refineries are getting bombed. There's been massive new sort of waves, I guess you would call them, of drone attacks inside Russia, including one that they said was 3,000 kilometers. So what's that like 2,000 miles east of the border there, where they infiltrated drones deep into, you know, behind Russian lines there, hitting targets at will. And so this guy says that, yeah, he's weak, we got him on the ropes, we need to hit him while he's down now and ruin his life. And then it's. I gotta say, man, I'm sorry, because I know you got all. Plenty of your own in here, but I'll just go ahead and ruin this for you. That he just says, now we defeat their army right? Now. What would. Now is the time to defeat them. Now is the time to press our advantage. And then 1, 2, skip a few, 99, 100, and the Russians lose and turn around and go away. And then. And that's it. And like, what? This is the crap that they're still shoveling. This is what we gotta suffer. You know, halfway through 2026, I can't believe how long this war has still gone on. And instead of saying, hey, man, the Ukrainians have had some recent successes in some areas and they got a few good licks in, and maybe now would be the time to bring the Russians to the table. They embellish their successes and say, now's the time to definitely not talk and to keep the war going. The only thing that remains is making sure to keep the Americans on board. What do you think?
Daryl Cooper
Well, you know, it. It's kind of alarming that this deep into the war, when you listen to, like, Ursula von der Leyen, a lot of the European leaders, even Mertz, talk about this. I mean, they are talking in terms of still dealing, like, a serious strategic defeat to Russia to defeating their army, to driving them out. And, you know, you have to assume, I mean, that they're feeling that their confidence is coming from these recent strikes that Iran, that, that Ukraine has managed to carry out, like, within Russian territory.
Scott Horton
I mean, and.
Daryl Cooper
And they are. They are significant, you know, they're hitting oil infrastructure. But also, I mean, there were some heavy strikes that they hit Moscow with. And, you know, the calculation seems to be that if we can, you know, hit hit targets in Russia that are sort of, you know, Russia is a huge country. It's not like you're going to blow up like, all of their strategic sites or anything, but if we can just hit them enough, it looks bad. And people are going to start, the people who are, who are questioning the war are going to start being louder and they're, you know, some people are going to start switching sides and that somehow us sending drones and hitting Moscow, US sitting, sending drones over the Baltic states to hit oil installations is somehow either going to make Putin see the light and just completely turn tail and show his belly to us, or that he's going to get, like, deposed by a nice liberal who's going to cut a deal with Ukraine and, like, leave. It's just, it's, it's completely delusional. And it, the only, like, thing I can really think of why they would be behaving this way and thinking this way at all is that they just do not at all. And I can't say that they have, you know, that they have their reasons for thinking this, but that any, any sort of supposed red line that the Russians had or say they have or whatever. Just nobody takes any of that seriously. Like, you're, you know, you can talk, you can send Lavrov out and make these grave statements about how if this keeps going, the war could expand, but you won't do it. You know, you just won't do it. You're scared or you're too prudent, whatever it is. And it reminds me of like a, you know, what a lot of US Foreign policy actually reminds me of, but especially our relationship with Russia is. You'll see like, some, some relationships, right, where the, you have a husband and a wife, and the wife or the, sometimes the husband, but like, often it's the wife because they have, you know, different tools at their disposal for throwing their weight around the relationship. They sort of establish this, this constant deterrent where I know that you're not going to, you know, smack me and throw me off the balcony. You're not going to do anything like that. And so I can just push as hard as I want, knowing that there's not going to be like any over the top repercussion, and I'm just going to win every argument that way, because you'll always be the one who backs down and Says that, you know, the only place for this left to go is me throwing this chick off the balcony, and I'm not going to do that. So I guess she wins. And we're just sort of doing that. We're just. We're the guy who, you know, like, we're just. We act in ways that. That assume that the other side is going to be rational, and we just push. We just push and push and push. Understanding that, like, they understand the consequences of, you know, of. Of a real war with Europe and the United States, even if it's not that they're afraid that they'll lose, maybe Russia thinks they'll win. They just know that the consequences of it are so great that they just won't do it. And so we can push as hard as we want, and Russia will be the rational one who, like, maneuvers around to avoid the big conflagration. And you do that, and you do it and you do it, and you start to think that the other side's never going to do anything, no matter what you do to them. And I don't know, man, when we're shooting, like, British Storm Shadow missiles, you know, deep into Russian territory now, you just wonder when. You know, the thing that I'm. I wouldn't even say worried about, almost expecting at this point is we're gonna take Russia seriously once the missiles start landing in Poland and Germany and some other European places. Like, it's just. It's going to get to that point where we're going to push them and push them and not take anything they say seriously.
Scott Horton
And it will probably get worse, right?
Daryl Cooper
It won't. It won't be, oh, oh, it'll definitely get worse. I just, you know, it's. It's almost as if, like, these people live in, you know, the thing, like, especially these European leaders, like, there could be real consequences for them. I mean, for us, if there's a nuclear war or whatever, then obviously it's consequences for everybody. But even if it's not a nuclear war, if this thing expands out and the Russians feel like they got to start striking European targets, I mean, that is. I mean, that's gonna be. It's gonna be really hard for them. And they're acting as if it's just not real. Like, the. It's. There's a zero percent chance of it. It's not that we. They probably won't do it. They're just acting like it's not even a possibility.
Scott Horton
Well, I'm telling you, when I spoke at Oxford, when I Did that debate at Oxford, and I go, you know, they got nuclear weapons. You can't fight Russia. They got nukes. They all scoffed at me. Now what. Whatever. Meaning. I guess I was kind of working this out on some other guy's show. I might be being redundant, but I think, Daryl, what it is, is nuclear deterrence has changed. So the idea before was we can't fight them because they got nukes. If we got into a war with them, it could devolve very quickly into a nuclear war. But now it's not that. Now nuclear deterrence means we can do whatever we want to them, and they wouldn't dare resist because of nuclear deterrence, because we got nukes, and they dare not fight back. So now it's not a reason to never fight Russia. Now it's why we can fight Russia and they wouldn't dare do anything about it. And, like, I hear people talk like this, and it's really stupid. You know what I mean? You get. And I do get the idea somebody. Somebody got mad at me. It sounded probably arrogant or whatever when on the Rogan show, I was explaining about nuclear stuff, and he's like, I bet they're not even having this conversation in the White House about it. And I'm like, yeah, no. And somebody says, oh, yeah. Like, oh, you're, you know, so much more. And. And then all these guys, like, on the Cabinet or whatever, it's like, well, look, I think Rubio's probably been pretty thoroughly briefed on the stuff or whatever, but none of them really have an ax to grind like me. But they're really trying to discover and lay out an alternative narrative about the truth about the nuclear program when the diplomacy broke down and how. And what the. What they really do mean by enriching up to 60% and whatever that, like. No, Rogan is right. Like, quite frankly, the discussions that we have on this show are the kind that we really wish that they were having in the Vice President's office on the National Security Council. Instead, it's like, what I thought you were about to say a minute ago was like, Jesus, like, they really believe their own. And they really just. The things that they tell us are really the things that they think.
Daryl Cooper
Wow.
Scott Horton
Sit and listen to them. Right? It's like we were talking about with Newland and Pompeo debating Walt and Mearsheimer, like, wow, that really is the best you can do, huh, lady? God dang.
Daryl Cooper
You know? Yeah. Yeah. And part of it is they are.
Scott Horton
When they're trying.
Daryl Cooper
Part of it is that there's really bad incentives, like built into our sort of, you know, our, our media dominated political system where, you know, I'll bet you that there are insiders, maybe even like a guy like Mike Pompeo who among friends, you know, again, behind that proverbial closed door, it's like, yeah, he knows we gotta stop this war with Iran. He knows we can't keep going with it. You know, he knows that everything short of an invasion has been tried and we don't have like a lot of other military options left. But he's not going to say that. He's going to go out on TV and be like, why? We're just on the cusp of winning and it's just this dastardly anti semi JD Vance and these other Israel haters or whatever that are saving the Iranian regime, like justice is about. He knows all that's not true, but he's going to go out and say it because then he can go and say, hey, look, I was tough on them and I didn't lose the war. He lost the war. Because it, you know what I mean? It's just like there's every incentive for these people to do stuff like that. And it seems like, I mean, the only way to overcome that incentive structure is that the other countries, they have to, they have to make it real. You know, they have to make it real for, for our side and. Yeah, because it just, it's just not real right now. There's just, there's no way that, Well, I mean, just the Ukraine thing in general, like, I don't know how many people have been killed there, but it's probably like a million, you know, maybe more, maybe less. But when you talk about all the wounded and the fact that Ukraine, whatever, however it comes out of this is just going to be a borderline failed welfare state and just all this human misery that is just unbelievable that, that, you know, none of that seems to really register as something that's happening to real people, you know, as a result of us wanting to stick it to Putin, kick him while he's down. It's like, dude, like, I just, I just don't understand these people, you know,
Scott Horton
I know, it is sick. I have a whole section on the book where I just collect those quotes where they go, man, we're getting such a great bang for our book. We're sending home Russians in body bags and no Americans are getting killed. And yeah, like six times out of eight they won't even mention that, well, you know, some Iranians are being Killed. But heroically though or not, you know what I mean? They won't even mention Ukrainians at all. The, the, the Russians soldiers lives have value to be destroyed and our soldiers lives have value to be preserved. The Ukrainians aren't even worth a mention. Dude, they can just ruining the thing like it's unreal. Dude, it is. It's totally sick. Now look, you said we got to take questions and you're right. But first I got to tell them about expat money again. And because I agreed to, but also because I screwed up and I should have told you guys when you go to expat money, you got to do slash provoked that way you know that Daryl Cooper and me, Scott Horton sent you. So go to expatmoney.com provoked and then sign up for their email list and you get their free booklet there. Learn how to protect your net with overseas investments and the like. Expatmoney.com promote and then hell, as long as we're doing a little bit of money making here, I got just what you need for the back of your truck. Libertystickers.com I own it again. And I threw away almost all of them. I kept about three pages worth and mostly anti Israel stuff. See in this great. You'll like this, dude. Well, anybody with kids who gets the joke swiper. No swiping with the evil Benjamin Netanyahu, the grand larcenist on the front there. And you know, whatever man, it's liberty stickers for the back you truck so you can tell everybody in traffic how stupid and wrong they are about everything now. So here's all the books I published. You see, these are the books I wrote and these are the books I published at the Libertarian Institute. And there's a bunch of really great ones here. And I wish that you guys would all please go and check them out@libertarianinstitute.org books and then. Oh, one more thing. And then questions. Hey look, they killed the bin Ladenite in Syria with an airstrike. They got our troops out of there. They actually did pull out of Syria there. What A couple months ago they finished and then they killed a guy on the motorcycle they say was a leader of the Islamic State, which would be, I guess the bin Ladenites who are not in bed with the actual Islamic State that now rules Syria under.
Daryl Cooper
Although, dude, did you see those quotes from Alara's interview like a week or so ago about, you know, the idea of Syria going into Lebanon and just sort of talking about the. Go ahead. Oh, bro, like here's what's crazy. Here's what's crazy is this former ISIS and Al Qaeda commander sounds infinitely more measured and sane than anybody on the US or Israeli side about this issue. I mean, he was, he was really going to. He's like, look, yeah, we're happy to, you know, to help out in Lebanon any way we can, but you know, going in there militarily is not going to solve anything. And however we do engage with it, Lebanon going forward, it's not going to be the kind of relationship with them that, you know, we had it under the Assad regime, you know, going back to, you know, Hafez and just really like a sort of measured, sane like, like something that you would hope to hear from any of our leaders and you never do. I was like, that's really saying something. That the Al Qaeda ISIS guy is like the sanest dude in the room, the most mature guy in the room.
Scott Horton
Just proving too that I still was right about everything all along. When I'm telling you, like, why? Why Scott Horton? Why would Barack Obama support the Islamic State in Syria? Al Qaeda in Syria? Because they hate Hezbollah and that's what Israel wants. That's it. The enemy of my allies enemy is my friend, even though they're my enemy, even though that's who killed Americans in Iraq War II and that's who shed American blood from 1990 through 2001 and the rest of. So, but yeah, anyway, it's treason. That's why.
Daryl Cooper
Now, any of these questions? I got dinner on the table right now.
Scott Horton
Oh, really? So you would you say do them or skip them?
Daryl Cooper
Yeah, let's do it. Let's do it.
Scott Horton
Okay, go ahead, you pick. I haven't even.
Daryl Cooper
Okay, well, I'll read this first one because it's not a question from Micah Clark who I see in here a lot. What up, Micah? I'm subscribed to the academy and I have creative chaos. Will Chamberlain and Ben Ferguson don't want this smoke. Probably not. Let's go to the next one. Low brow Mick, Cassie, Ms. Lowbrow. The Trump vs. BB stuff seems like kayfabe right out of Trump's wrestling days. Also, Daryl, good call. He's recognizing my Rhodesian military shirt that I was wearing on Tom. Tom woods show. So good on you for knowing what was up. See Richard Dams. Richard, my eyes are bad. Ricardo Dams. Richard, Richard O Dams. What do you think? Yeah, this is like, like me reading these names is like my version of you at the beginning of the show having your technical problems. He says, what do you think of reports saying Mossad was trying to murder the guys? I assume he's talking about the negotiators. And then Pakistan saying, we'll nuke you. Only China could do that. You know, I don't think that I missed it if they, you know, I, I, I don't think Pakistan's going around threatening to nuke anybody that cavalierly.
Scott Horton
No, Pakistan doesn't threaten to nuke Israel. No, no, no, I don't know who reported that, but that's, I'd have to see that. But that don't sound right.
Daryl Cooper
And then actually that's pretty much what we got. We got Micah Clark again saying he just ordered some, I assume, coffee. He's trying to figure out how to track the order.
Scott Horton
Oh, great.
Daryl Cooper
And then Valhalla sent us 1999 just to say what's up? Cool, man.
Scott Horton
All right, well, listen, man, here's the deal. Everybody go and subscribe to the Martyr Maid podcast. He's got so much great stuff there. Mr. Cooper does. He would never, you know, brag like that, but he does such great work. These long form podcasts, Israel, Palestine, Jonestown, the miners of West Virginia and blacks and Jews and all kinds of things I ain't even mentioned because I forgot. But the latest is enemy World War II from the German's point of view. And chapter one and chapter two are already up there and it's something else. And also here's my substack, Scott hortonshow.com if you sign up, you get all the interviews for my interview show a day early and without ads. And then you'll also be getting the audiobook. The first two sections of the audiobook are up there. The audiobook of Provoked H.W. bush and Bill Clinton, which is already like nine or 12 or something hours of, of audio right there. Just the first two chapters and I'm working on the rest. The rest is coming soon of the audiobook there. That's all at my substack, Scott hortonshow.com and then, oh, and the Academy. Sign up for the Academy, Scott Hortonacademy.com and that's it. Goodbye, Darrell Cooper. Thank you, sir. 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 Provoked Underscore show on X and YouTube and tune in next time for more Provoked.
Date: June 27, 2026
Hosts: Darryl Cooper, Scott Horton
This episode explores the unraveling U.S. interventions in the Middle East—particularly concerning Iran—and the broader failures of neoconservative foreign policy. Scott Horton and Darryl Cooper deconstruct the ongoing shifts in American policy, dissect the internal and external political dynamics at play (including the Trump and Netanyahu relationship), and reflect on the psychology, propaganda, and practicalities of war, negotiations, and withdrawal.
The hosts discuss a joint Senate resolution to restrict presidential war powers regarding Iran, which passed with rare Republican support. This differs from prior "concurrent resolutions" that the president could veto.
Key insight: This legislative move signals Congress taking back some control over military action, potentially curbing executive authority and responding to public exhaustion over endless wars.
"It is good that now it's the law that he absolutely must seek an authorization before going back to strikes over there...he would be in violation of not just the Constitution, but the statute."
— Scott Horton [06:36]
Darryl observes this might actually strengthen Trump’s hand with Israel, letting him claim "my hands are tied"; while simultaneously weakening his stance with Iran.
Discussion of a Washington Post piece, sourced from the CIA, warning that Israel may undermine Iranian peace efforts.
Cooper points out these leaks are often more about signaling splits within the US establishment or warning certain actors (Israel) than reporting facts.
"Usually the Washington Post doesn't go with minority positions coming from out of the intelligence agencies...they're putting this out there because they want to put the Israelis on notice."
— Daryl Cooper [08:09]
The hosts reflect on the tangled, transactional relationship between Trump and Netanyahu, speculating on whether their public spats are genuine or kayfabe.
"I don't think that Trump and Netanyahu's relationship is going to break down...unless the big Jewish donors sort of make a collective decision that Netanyahu is a liability."
— Daryl Cooper [09:42]
The hosts analyze the shifting regional balance owing to Iran’s increasingly assertive stance and America’s diminishing appetite for escalation.
They highlight that Iran is making incremental gains with little fear of major U.S. escalation.
The Senate’s war power move reinforces Iran’s view that the U.S. can’t or won’t escalate further, and that diplomacy—not force—will shape the next phase.
"We’re stopping right now not because it’s a bad idea to keep going, but because we cannot keep going. We don’t have the resources..."
— Daryl Cooper [21:17]
Notably, direct communication is happening between CENTCOM and the Iranian IRGC, signaling a kind of de facto recognition of Iran’s regional status.
"That's a pretty strong signal that if nothing else, what Iran has gotten out of this is a seat at the table of nations, and they got it the hard way."
— Daryl Cooper [15:57]
The hosts shift focus to the neoconservative architects of previous U.S. wars, discussing how figures like Douglas Feith and David Wurmser are still given platforms to argue against any diplomatic overture to “bad actors” like Iran.
They examine the Office of Special Plans and the manipulation of intelligence that led to the Iraq War, referencing whistleblower Karen Kwiatkowski’s experiences inside the Pentagon.
"Douglas J. Feith was known for, one, having Israeli officers barge right into his office..."
— Scott Horton [28:59]
"He said two of them, he believes, were actual agents of influence for Israel... He named Douglas Feith and David Wurmser."
— Scott Horton [32:02]
They reflect on the broader moral and institutional failures that have allowed these voices to still shape policy and discourse.
"[Neocons]...they’ve so captured our government that they’re really just executing our government policy at this point, because they’ve captured it. It’s like hard to disentangle that."
— Daryl Cooper [37:53]
The last act of the episode assesses the Ukraine war. Western leaders, the hosts argue, remain delusional about the possibility of defeating Russia, despite years of stalemate and escalating risks.
"...they are talking about still dealing a serious strategic defeat to Russia to defeating their army, to driving them out. And... their confidence is coming from these recent strikes..."
— Daryl Cooper [51:02]
Cooper uses a relationship metaphor, likening Western escalation to pushing Russia assuming no response, which is perilous.
"We just push, understanding that... Russia will be the rational one who maneuvers around the big conflagration. And you do that, and you do it, and you do it, and you start to think that the other side's never going to do anything, no matter what you do to them."
— Daryl Cooper [53:23]
Horton notes a dangerous inversion where nuclear deterrence is now interpreted as a shield for limitless Western provocation.
"Now nuclear deterrence means we can do whatever we want to them, and they wouldn’t dare resist because of nuclear deterrence, because we got nukes, and they dare not fight back."
— Scott Horton [56:32]
The hosts lament the utter disregard for Ukrainian and Russian lives shown by Western officials, who frame the war’s body count in terms of strategic benefit.
"The Russians soldiers' lives have value to be destroyed and our soldiers' lives have value to be preserved. The Ukrainians aren’t even worth a mention...it's unreal. It is, it's totally sick."
— Scott Horton [60:51]
On the intelligence leaks and media:
"The story is not the story. ... The story is that the intelligence community wants this out there."
— Daryl Cooper [08:05]
On Trump and Netanyahu:
"You'll have these leaks about supposed spats, but unless the donors cut off Netanyahu, Trump will never break with him."
— Daryl Cooper [10:13]
On direct US-IRGC talks:
"...that’s a pretty strong signal...what Iran has gotten out of this is a seat at the table of nations, and they got it the hard way."
— Daryl Cooper [15:57]
On neoconservatives in the Pentagon:
"Lauren Wilkerson told me, of all those neocons, he believed Douglas Feith and David Wurmser were actually working directly for the Israelis."
— Scott Horton [32:02]
On proxy war carnage:
"I don't know how many people have been killed there, but it's probably like a million...and none of that seems to really register as something that's happening to real people..."
— Daryl Cooper [58:51]
Debate over Godspeed/Gospel etymology [01:32 – 02:17]
(Light banter, displaying the hosts' chemistry and humor.)
Banter on Hip-Hop & Jedi Mind Tricks [45:24 – 46:34]
(Injecting a touch of culture and levity.)
Neocon 'Hall of Infamy' rundown [26:00 – 33:29]
(Scott’s detailed recall illustrates the depth of recurring players in perpetual war.)
Sharp critique of Western media [51:39 – 56:32]
(Cooper’s analogy about Western assumptions toward Russia and the detachment of leaders.)
The conversation is irreverent, sardonic, deeply informed, and scathing in critique of political and bureaucratic elites. Both hosts approach their topics with skepticism toward official narratives, often using pointed humor, historical analogies, and detailed recollections to advance their critique. They are direct, often digressive, but always returning to the broader theme: the repeated folly of elite geopolitics, the suffering imposed on ordinary people, and the persistent lack of accountability for those responsible.
This episode of Provoked is a wide-ranging, incisive indictment of America’s neocon-driven foreign policy and the cyclical blindness it perpetuates. From Iran to Ukraine, Horton and Cooper show how war’s human toll is too often erased by political self-interest and propaganda, while the architects of disaster remain influential, unrepentant, and dangerously wrong.