Speaker 1: As Israel pursues any military operations against a moss, it
Speaker 1: has to prioritize the protection of civilians. It has to
Speaker 1: make that job number one. Too many people have been
Speaker 1: caught in this crossfire of a moss's making, children, women, men,
Speaker 1: losing their lives. Their safety has to be a priority,
Speaker 1: and military operations need to be designed around their protection,
Speaker 1: not the other way around.
Speaker 2: That's our Secretary of State saying, Israel needs to make
Speaker 2: the protection of civilians the number one priority. He emphasized
Speaker 2: that a couple of times number one above eliminating hamas.
Speaker 2: I don't know if that is reality or not. Among
Speaker 2: the things we will discuss with Mike Lyons, a military
Speaker 2: analyst we've had on many, many times over the years
Speaker 2: because we like talking to him. Mike served with various
Speaker 2: military organizations both the United States and Europe throughout his career.
Speaker 2: You can follow him at ma J Mike Lyons because
Speaker 2: if something big happens militarily, I usually go to his
Speaker 2: feed to see what he's got to say about it.
Speaker 2: Mike Lions, Welcome to the Armstrong Show.
Speaker 3: Hey, Jack, great to be back with you.
Speaker 2: Hey, what was your first reaction when you heard about
Speaker 2: the aid workers being.
Speaker 3: Killed fog of war, frankly, and that's the most dangerous
Speaker 3: place on the planet right now. And that that spot
Speaker 3: the fact that from the combat zone perspective and you
Speaker 3: put civilians in there, I didn't, you know, we learned
Speaker 3: now more about the what what's kind of going on?
Speaker 3: You know, Israel basically outsourced the security of those organizations
Speaker 3: to Hamas. There was gunmen that were there that was
Speaker 3: you know, if you're if you're in that environment, you
Speaker 3: need protection as well. And it looks like they were
Speaker 3: Hamas's operatives that were protecting those convoys. And so I
Speaker 3: just figured out a lot of things must have went
Speaker 3: wrong and misidentification mistakes, late at night, darkness, all these things,
Speaker 3: even with all the technology that we have, and that
Speaker 3: leads to the disastered hatem. I think that you know,
Speaker 3: it was three different targets. They didn't bother to take
Speaker 3: the ton in between after hitting the first target to
Speaker 3: assess what was going on on. They were pretty set
Speaker 3: on taking out those three targets right away, and if
Speaker 3: they did that, they might have at least not shot
Speaker 3: the second and the third truck in the convoy. But fundamentally,
Speaker 3: that is the most dangerous place in the world. Then
Speaker 3: there's an expectation that that's going to happen, and all
Speaker 3: the things that went wrong went wrong, and this is
Speaker 3: what happens.
Speaker 2: Well, so I assume that you agree that the growing
Speaker 2: analysis that this was on purpose is ridiculous.
Speaker 3: Yeah, No, it wasn't on purpose. They could have done better.
Speaker 3: A lot of it has to do with their rules
Speaker 3: of engagement. It looks that, you know, the Israelis fired
Speaker 3: the fire support officer, the one that was really responsible
Speaker 3: for formulating the target and pulling a trigger, as well
Speaker 3: as others in the chain of command. So they've taken
Speaker 3: full responsibility for it. It was not on purpose. They
Speaker 3: like anything else, it could have done better as they
Speaker 3: go down and you know, redo what their rules of
Speaker 3: engagement were. I mean, this is if you get into
Speaker 3: the details of this. It was a convoy that that
Speaker 3: did add gunman to it, that went into a way
Speaker 3: our house and came out, and they made the presumption
Speaker 3: that those gunmen were still on the on the trucks,
Speaker 3: and they didn't see the world's central kitchen marker on
Speaker 3: the top of course not it's eleven o'clock at night.
Speaker 3: They didn't see that there should have been a beacon
Speaker 3: on it, for example. That's what I would want. I'd want,
Speaker 3: you know, safety flare beacons on those and telling everybody
Speaker 3: that this is a safety this is a vehicle that's
Speaker 3: delivering some kind of aid. But what the rules are
Speaker 3: engagement I think changed now is that you've got to
Speaker 3: put an Israeli soldier on the ground or a convoy
Speaker 3: that's going to approach that, and you can't take it
Speaker 3: out from a drone. They took that out from you know,
Speaker 3: twenty miles away looking through a TV screen. That's where
Speaker 3: it got impersonal. I think that's what the problem was.
Speaker 2: Well, I I don't I'm just a talk show host.
Speaker 2: I've never been involved in any of this sort of stuff.
Speaker 2: I don't want to go too far down the road
Speaker 2: of being callous. But are we holding or is the
Speaker 2: world holding Israel to a standard that can't be met?
Speaker 2: Or do you feel like they have been to Lucy Goosey,
Speaker 2: I mean, we killed how many people did the Biden
Speaker 2: administration killed there in Cobb Guy coming home with a
Speaker 2: bunch of water bottles and his kids run out to
Speaker 2: greet him, and we blew them all up with the
Speaker 2: drone strike. Barack Obama when Joe Biden was Vice president,
Speaker 2: the Doctors without Borders thing that happened, where like forty
Speaker 2: people died in that. That was another mistake that we
Speaker 2: apologized for. But we don't always get it right either.
Speaker 3: No. No, And in fact, when we didn't relieve anybody
Speaker 3: for it either, we didn't punish anybody as well. No,
Speaker 3: I think Israel has held to a very high standard
Speaker 3: with regard to conducting this war. I think that you know,
Speaker 3: they've warned their enemy that they're coming the next day,
Speaker 3: they're trying to move civilians. This is an enemy that
Speaker 3: embeds himself with civilians, and so no, I don't think
Speaker 3: they've been Lucy goosey. I think in this case with
Speaker 3: just all again with what all the situations that take
Speaker 3: place in the time and the place between the twenty
Speaker 3: minutes when they decided they had a target, when they
Speaker 3: thought it was a combatant, and it turns out it wasn't.
Speaker 3: It's just the worst possible scenario. But no, I think
Speaker 3: Israel has been fined a help to a higher standard
Speaker 3: the health to their own standard, which they've been able
Speaker 3: to explain. And I just don't think the rest of
Speaker 3: the world is listening. The rest of the world does,
Speaker 3: for some reason hold den war responsile. Then Hamas right, death,
Speaker 3: civilian casualty is Hamas's problem, not Israel's problem, right, So
Speaker 3: that's kind of how I see it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's interesting. So the news all day yesterday on
Speaker 2: this story, at least like on the Sunday talk shows,
Speaker 2: was that Israel had pulled a bunch of troops out
Speaker 2: of southern Gaza, and they were sort of portraying it
Speaker 2: as a sign that maybe Israel was back and off
Speaker 2: we're heading toward to cease fire. Do you see it
Speaker 2: that way or are they just rearranging for the big
Speaker 2: final battle in Rafa.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I think it's smart, and I'll tell you why,
Speaker 3: because they recognize that the maneuver element of this conflict
Speaker 3: is over now, at least in these areas that they had.
Speaker 3: What I mean by that is the use of shock
Speaker 3: effect tanks and APC's and artillery. This enemy is so
Speaker 3: embedded with the civilians in Rafa right now that they
Speaker 3: recognize that that's just kind of let's move these maneuver
Speaker 3: elements out for now and then get ready for this
Speaker 3: attack that will take place maybe in a couple of
Speaker 3: weeks from now as they as they kind of you know,
Speaker 3: kind of gear up for it, so I and then
Speaker 3: at the same time kind of put the cooling down
Speaker 3: with regard to that. There's no way that you know,
Speaker 3: they'll attack a convoy or something by accident at this point.
Speaker 3: But in the same token, you had the most number
Speaker 3: of trucks the other day, get into get into the gaza.
Speaker 3: You know, this is an Israel allows its enemy to
Speaker 3: be resupplied. I mean, this is crazy on some level.
Speaker 3: They allow this to happen. They allow Hamas to come
Speaker 3: in and take over all of these supplies that are
Speaker 3: coming in from you know, from the outside. So they
Speaker 3: still have an uphill battle, but I think this is
Speaker 3: going to be a refit and rearm themselves in order
Speaker 3: to eventually take take Rafa in the next few weeks.
Speaker 2: I know you're a big student of military history. Are
Speaker 2: there parallels to this when you're attacked by someone? We didn't,
Speaker 2: We didn't make it our number one priority. As the
Speaker 2: Secretary State just said to feed the Japanese people as
Speaker 2: we were bombing them. Does this happen ever before this?
Speaker 3: No, No, it's there's not a lot of historical parallels
Speaker 3: to this, and that's because this is an enemy that's
Speaker 3: fighting non conventionally, and that's why, that's why they have
Speaker 3: to move those forces. They you know, traditional maneuver and
Speaker 3: fire is against an enemy that does the same thing,
Speaker 3: that that also admits defeat at some point recognizes that
Speaker 3: it's not doing anything for the civilian population. And that's
Speaker 3: you know that this argument about well, you know, we
Speaker 3: can't you know, they can't win because you can't defeat
Speaker 3: an ideology, Well, don't you know tell that's what happened
Speaker 3: to the Germans. They defeated an ideology, they destroyed everything
Speaker 3: that was there. And so the same ideology was defeated
Speaker 3: in Japan. And that's what Israel is doing. Israel fighting
Speaker 3: this war like it's nineteen forty five, and they're not stopping.
Speaker 3: They're not stopping for one bit. They're not stopping because
Speaker 3: of what Joe Biden says or what Blinkin says, or
Speaker 3: whatever the case may be. The problem is Joe Biden's
Speaker 3: finding it like it's nineteen eighteen. He wants to just
Speaker 3: stop it and and give Hamas a chance to rearm
Speaker 3: and retool and refuel. And that's what will happen over
Speaker 3: the next forty years. But Israel's not going to let
Speaker 3: that happen.
Speaker 2: So our government released a report on Friday. They kind
Speaker 2: of flew under the radar. I feel like that we
Speaker 2: are preparing for a retaliation by Iran somewhere in the
Speaker 2: Middle East on a target either US or Israel. Do
Speaker 2: you think Iran is going to retaliate? They they vowed retaliation,
Speaker 2: but they've been vowing that sort of thing for you know,
Speaker 2: since I was a kid.
Speaker 3: Yeah, my phone rang over the weekend off the hook
Speaker 3: on that. I think that I just don't think that's
Speaker 3: still the case, because that opens up a whole nother front.
Speaker 3: If Iran launched a missile from Iran, some medium or
Speaker 3: long range missile and hit Tel Aviv or hit something,
Speaker 3: then that opens up a complete new front for Israel
Speaker 3: to you know, to attack back, and there will attack
Speaker 3: will not be proportional. They will go after their nuclear facilities,
Speaker 3: They'll go after their Pentagon equivalent in Tehran. They will Again,
Speaker 3: I don't think. I just don't believe Iran is you know,
Speaker 3: kind of dumb enough to do that. That's that, you know,
Speaker 3: that's to say that they're going to use their proxies
Speaker 3: and use all what they can. One of the things
Speaker 3: that I've seen reports on is trying to cut off
Speaker 3: their land bridge that goes from Israel into the Persian Gulf.
Speaker 3: That means activating proxy groups inside of Jordan, inside of
Speaker 3: a rock and cutting off supplies that that Israel is setting.
Speaker 3: It's you know, some of its goods to the person
Speaker 3: gulf that way. But I again, for Iran to engage
Speaker 3: Israel directly, I don't think that's a good idea from
Speaker 3: their perspective.
Speaker 2: What is your that's interesting? Your phone was ringing off
Speaker 2: the hook on that particular question. What is your worst realistic,
Speaker 2: worst case scenario? Where where are you concerned? Like, what's
Speaker 2: the sort of thing that could could keep you awake
Speaker 2: at night over the next week or two.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's the same thing that could have happened back
Speaker 3: in nineteen seventy two and nineteen sixty seven. If all
Speaker 3: these Arab nations decided to say, you know what, we've
Speaker 3: had it with Israel, We've had it, and they all
Speaker 3: got together and they decided to overwhelmed them. They Israel
Speaker 3: still could potentially be overwhelmed in the North with Hezbollah
Speaker 3: and in Lebanon they could and potentially have the Iranians
Speaker 3: decide to get involved with ground forces, the Whosies. We
Speaker 3: see what they're doing. They can, they can fire a
Speaker 3: lot more rockets and then Hamas has been somewhat defeated,
Speaker 3: but there's still battalions left in the south areon Ralfa.
Speaker 3: That to me is the nightmare scenario, because then Israel
Speaker 3: would have a real tough challenge defending all of those
Speaker 3: different fronts. That's the nightmare scenario. And thank god in
Speaker 3: the last fifty sixty years that hasn't happened. It almost
Speaker 3: happened during the Yankapur War. As these Arab countries that
Speaker 3: you decide to get together, but they just can't seem
Speaker 3: to hold it together and Israel ends up defeating them.
Speaker 3: That would be the worst possible scenario.
Speaker 2: Interesting, Well, appreciate your time and your expertise on this
Speaker 2: sort of thing. Need to talk to some of you
Speaker 2: actually knows what they're talking about. Major Mike Leines, thanks
Speaker 2: for coming on the Armstrong and Getty Show today.
Speaker 3: Thanks Jack, thanks for having me.
Speaker 2: You bet you Armstrong and Getty