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Speaker 1: As Israel pursues any military operations against a moss, it

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Speaker 1: has to prioritize the protection of civilians. It has to

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Speaker 1: make that job number one. Too many people have been

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Speaker 1: caught in this crossfire of a moss's making, children, women, men,

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Speaker 1: losing their lives. Their safety has to be a priority,

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Speaker 1: and military operations need to be designed around their protection,

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Speaker 1: not the other way around.

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Speaker 2: That's our Secretary of State saying, Israel needs to make

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Speaker 2: the protection of civilians the number one priority. He emphasized

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Speaker 2: that a couple of times number one above eliminating hamas.

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Speaker 2: I don't know if that is reality or not. Among

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Speaker 2: the things we will discuss with Mike Lyons, a military

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Speaker 2: analyst we've had on many, many times over the years

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Speaker 2: because we like talking to him. Mike served with various

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Speaker 2: military organizations both the United States and Europe throughout his career.

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Speaker 2: You can follow him at ma J Mike Lyons because

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Speaker 2: if something big happens militarily, I usually go to his

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Speaker 2: feed to see what he's got to say about it.

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Speaker 2: Mike Lions, Welcome to the Armstrong Show.

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Speaker 3: Hey, Jack, great to be back with you.

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Speaker 2: Hey, what was your first reaction when you heard about

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Speaker 2: the aid workers being.

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Speaker 3: Killed fog of war, frankly, and that's the most dangerous

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Speaker 3: place on the planet right now. And that that spot

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Speaker 3: the fact that from the combat zone perspective and you

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Speaker 3: put civilians in there, I didn't, you know, we learned

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Speaker 3: now more about the what what's kind of going on?

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Speaker 3: You know, Israel basically outsourced the security of those organizations

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Speaker 3: to Hamas. There was gunmen that were there that was

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Speaker 3: you know, if you're if you're in that environment, you

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Speaker 3: need protection as well. And it looks like they were

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Speaker 3: Hamas's operatives that were protecting those convoys. And so I

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Speaker 3: just figured out a lot of things must have went

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Speaker 3: wrong and misidentification mistakes, late at night, darkness, all these things,

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Speaker 3: even with all the technology that we have, and that

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Speaker 3: leads to the disastered hatem. I think that you know,

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Speaker 3: it was three different targets. They didn't bother to take

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Speaker 3: the ton in between after hitting the first target to

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Speaker 3: assess what was going on on. They were pretty set

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Speaker 3: on taking out those three targets right away, and if

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Speaker 3: they did that, they might have at least not shot

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Speaker 3: the second and the third truck in the convoy. But fundamentally,

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Speaker 3: that is the most dangerous place in the world. Then

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Speaker 3: there's an expectation that that's going to happen, and all

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Speaker 3: the things that went wrong went wrong, and this is

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Speaker 3: what happens.

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Speaker 2: Well, so I assume that you agree that the growing

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Speaker 2: analysis that this was on purpose is ridiculous.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, No, it wasn't on purpose. They could have done better.

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Speaker 3: A lot of it has to do with their rules

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Speaker 3: of engagement. It looks that, you know, the Israelis fired

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Speaker 3: the fire support officer, the one that was really responsible

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Speaker 3: for formulating the target and pulling a trigger, as well

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Speaker 3: as others in the chain of command. So they've taken

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Speaker 3: full responsibility for it. It was not on purpose. They

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Speaker 3: like anything else, it could have done better as they

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Speaker 3: go down and you know, redo what their rules of

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Speaker 3: engagement were. I mean, this is if you get into

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Speaker 3: the details of this. It was a convoy that that

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Speaker 3: did add gunman to it, that went into a way

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Speaker 3: our house and came out, and they made the presumption

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Speaker 3: that those gunmen were still on the on the trucks,

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Speaker 3: and they didn't see the world's central kitchen marker on

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Speaker 3: the top of course not it's eleven o'clock at night.

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Speaker 3: They didn't see that there should have been a beacon

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Speaker 3: on it, for example. That's what I would want. I'd want,

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Speaker 3: you know, safety flare beacons on those and telling everybody

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Speaker 3: that this is a safety this is a vehicle that's

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Speaker 3: delivering some kind of aid. But what the rules are

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Speaker 3: engagement I think changed now is that you've got to

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Speaker 3: put an Israeli soldier on the ground or a convoy

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Speaker 3: that's going to approach that, and you can't take it

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Speaker 3: out from a drone. They took that out from you know,

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Speaker 3: twenty miles away looking through a TV screen. That's where

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Speaker 3: it got impersonal. I think that's what the problem was.

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Speaker 2: Well, I I don't I'm just a talk show host.

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Speaker 2: I've never been involved in any of this sort of stuff.

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Speaker 2: I don't want to go too far down the road

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Speaker 2: of being callous. But are we holding or is the

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Speaker 2: world holding Israel to a standard that can't be met?

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Speaker 2: Or do you feel like they have been to Lucy Goosey,

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Speaker 2: I mean, we killed how many people did the Biden

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Speaker 2: administration killed there in Cobb Guy coming home with a

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Speaker 2: bunch of water bottles and his kids run out to

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Speaker 2: greet him, and we blew them all up with the

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Speaker 2: drone strike. Barack Obama when Joe Biden was Vice president,

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Speaker 2: the Doctors without Borders thing that happened, where like forty

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Speaker 2: people died in that. That was another mistake that we

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Speaker 2: apologized for. But we don't always get it right either.

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Speaker 3: No. No, And in fact, when we didn't relieve anybody

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Speaker 3: for it either, we didn't punish anybody as well. No,

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Speaker 3: I think Israel has held to a very high standard

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Speaker 3: with regard to conducting this war. I think that you know,

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Speaker 3: they've warned their enemy that they're coming the next day,

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Speaker 3: they're trying to move civilians. This is an enemy that

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Speaker 3: embeds himself with civilians, and so no, I don't think

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Speaker 3: they've been Lucy goosey. I think in this case with

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Speaker 3: just all again with what all the situations that take

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Speaker 3: place in the time and the place between the twenty

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Speaker 3: minutes when they decided they had a target, when they

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Speaker 3: thought it was a combatant, and it turns out it wasn't.

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Speaker 3: It's just the worst possible scenario. But no, I think

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Speaker 3: Israel has been fined a help to a higher standard

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Speaker 3: the health to their own standard, which they've been able

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Speaker 3: to explain. And I just don't think the rest of

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Speaker 3: the world is listening. The rest of the world does,

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Speaker 3: for some reason hold den war responsile. Then Hamas right, death,

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Speaker 3: civilian casualty is Hamas's problem, not Israel's problem, right, So

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Speaker 3: that's kind of how I see it.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's interesting. So the news all day yesterday on

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Speaker 2: this story, at least like on the Sunday talk shows,

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Speaker 2: was that Israel had pulled a bunch of troops out

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Speaker 2: of southern Gaza, and they were sort of portraying it

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Speaker 2: as a sign that maybe Israel was back and off

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Speaker 2: we're heading toward to cease fire. Do you see it

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Speaker 2: that way or are they just rearranging for the big

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Speaker 2: final battle in Rafa.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. I think it's smart, and I'll tell you why,

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Speaker 3: because they recognize that the maneuver element of this conflict

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Speaker 3: is over now, at least in these areas that they had.

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Speaker 3: What I mean by that is the use of shock

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Speaker 3: effect tanks and APC's and artillery. This enemy is so

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Speaker 3: embedded with the civilians in Rafa right now that they

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Speaker 3: recognize that that's just kind of let's move these maneuver

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Speaker 3: elements out for now and then get ready for this

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Speaker 3: attack that will take place maybe in a couple of

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Speaker 3: weeks from now as they as they kind of you know,

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Speaker 3: kind of gear up for it, so I and then

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Speaker 3: at the same time kind of put the cooling down

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Speaker 3: with regard to that. There's no way that you know,

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Speaker 3: they'll attack a convoy or something by accident at this point.

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Speaker 3: But in the same token, you had the most number

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Speaker 3: of trucks the other day, get into get into the gaza.

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Speaker 3: You know, this is an Israel allows its enemy to

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Speaker 3: be resupplied. I mean, this is crazy on some level.

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Speaker 3: They allow this to happen. They allow Hamas to come

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Speaker 3: in and take over all of these supplies that are

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Speaker 3: coming in from you know, from the outside. So they

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Speaker 3: still have an uphill battle, but I think this is

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Speaker 3: going to be a refit and rearm themselves in order

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Speaker 3: to eventually take take Rafa in the next few weeks.

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Speaker 2: I know you're a big student of military history. Are

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Speaker 2: there parallels to this when you're attacked by someone? We didn't,

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Speaker 2: We didn't make it our number one priority. As the

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Speaker 2: Secretary State just said to feed the Japanese people as

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Speaker 2: we were bombing them. Does this happen ever before this?

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Speaker 3: No, No, it's there's not a lot of historical parallels

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Speaker 3: to this, and that's because this is an enemy that's

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Speaker 3: fighting non conventionally, and that's why, that's why they have

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Speaker 3: to move those forces. They you know, traditional maneuver and

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Speaker 3: fire is against an enemy that does the same thing,

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Speaker 3: that that also admits defeat at some point recognizes that

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Speaker 3: it's not doing anything for the civilian population. And that's

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Speaker 3: you know that this argument about well, you know, we

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Speaker 3: can't you know, they can't win because you can't defeat

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Speaker 3: an ideology, Well, don't you know tell that's what happened

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Speaker 3: to the Germans. They defeated an ideology, they destroyed everything

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Speaker 3: that was there. And so the same ideology was defeated

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Speaker 3: in Japan. And that's what Israel is doing. Israel fighting

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Speaker 3: this war like it's nineteen forty five, and they're not stopping.

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Speaker 3: They're not stopping for one bit. They're not stopping because

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Speaker 3: of what Joe Biden says or what Blinkin says, or

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Speaker 3: whatever the case may be. The problem is Joe Biden's

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Speaker 3: finding it like it's nineteen eighteen. He wants to just

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Speaker 3: stop it and and give Hamas a chance to rearm

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Speaker 3: and retool and refuel. And that's what will happen over

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Speaker 3: the next forty years. But Israel's not going to let

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Speaker 3: that happen.

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Speaker 2: So our government released a report on Friday. They kind

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Speaker 2: of flew under the radar. I feel like that we

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Speaker 2: are preparing for a retaliation by Iran somewhere in the

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Speaker 2: Middle East on a target either US or Israel. Do

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Speaker 2: you think Iran is going to retaliate? They they vowed retaliation,

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Speaker 2: but they've been vowing that sort of thing for you know,

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Speaker 2: since I was a kid.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, my phone rang over the weekend off the hook

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Speaker 3: on that. I think that I just don't think that's

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Speaker 3: still the case, because that opens up a whole nother front.

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Speaker 3: If Iran launched a missile from Iran, some medium or

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Speaker 3: long range missile and hit Tel Aviv or hit something,

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Speaker 3: then that opens up a complete new front for Israel

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Speaker 3: to you know, to attack back, and there will attack

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Speaker 3: will not be proportional. They will go after their nuclear facilities,

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Speaker 3: They'll go after their Pentagon equivalent in Tehran. They will Again,

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Speaker 3: I don't think. I just don't believe Iran is you know,

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Speaker 3: kind of dumb enough to do that. That's that, you know,

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Speaker 3: that's to say that they're going to use their proxies

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Speaker 3: and use all what they can. One of the things

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Speaker 3: that I've seen reports on is trying to cut off

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Speaker 3: their land bridge that goes from Israel into the Persian Gulf.

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Speaker 3: That means activating proxy groups inside of Jordan, inside of

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Speaker 3: a rock and cutting off supplies that that Israel is setting.

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Speaker 3: It's you know, some of its goods to the person

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Speaker 3: gulf that way. But I again, for Iran to engage

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Speaker 3: Israel directly, I don't think that's a good idea from

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Speaker 3: their perspective.

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Speaker 2: What is your that's interesting? Your phone was ringing off

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Speaker 2: the hook on that particular question. What is your worst realistic,

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Speaker 2: worst case scenario? Where where are you concerned? Like, what's

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Speaker 2: the sort of thing that could could keep you awake

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Speaker 2: at night over the next week or two.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, it's the same thing that could have happened back

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Speaker 3: in nineteen seventy two and nineteen sixty seven. If all

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Speaker 3: these Arab nations decided to say, you know what, we've

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Speaker 3: had it with Israel, We've had it, and they all

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Speaker 3: got together and they decided to overwhelmed them. They Israel

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Speaker 3: still could potentially be overwhelmed in the North with Hezbollah

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Speaker 3: and in Lebanon they could and potentially have the Iranians

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Speaker 3: decide to get involved with ground forces, the Whosies. We

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Speaker 3: see what they're doing. They can, they can fire a

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Speaker 3: lot more rockets and then Hamas has been somewhat defeated,

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Speaker 3: but there's still battalions left in the south areon Ralfa.

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Speaker 3: That to me is the nightmare scenario, because then Israel

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Speaker 3: would have a real tough challenge defending all of those

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Speaker 3: different fronts. That's the nightmare scenario. And thank god in

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Speaker 3: the last fifty sixty years that hasn't happened. It almost

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Speaker 3: happened during the Yankapur War. As these Arab countries that

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Speaker 3: you decide to get together, but they just can't seem

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Speaker 3: to hold it together and Israel ends up defeating them.

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Speaker 3: That would be the worst possible scenario.

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Speaker 2: Interesting, Well, appreciate your time and your expertise on this

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Speaker 2: sort of thing. Need to talk to some of you

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Speaker 2: actually knows what they're talking about. Major Mike Leines, thanks

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Speaker 2: for coming on the Armstrong and Getty Show today.

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Speaker 3: Thanks Jack, thanks for having me.

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Speaker 2: You bet you Armstrong and Getty