Speaker 1: Also media.
Speaker 2: All right, welcome to it could happen here. And what
Speaker 2: it is today is me James and Mia Wong. Hi mere, hello, Hi.
Speaker 2: What we're here to talk to you about today is
Speaker 2: something else, which, despite my positive tone of voice, is
Speaker 2: sad and depressing.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just a lot of that, and like we
Speaker 2: don't want you to be too sad. It doesn't bear
Speaker 2: moping around, you know, like we've got time to get
Speaker 2: organized and that's what we should be doing.
Speaker 3: And also like just get.
Speaker 2: Out and go outside and see your friends and do
Speaker 2: things that bring you joy. Like we'll work out how
Speaker 2: to get through it. So you know, like, yeah, I
Speaker 2: think it's really easy. And I found myself doing this
Speaker 2: stay at home and be sad, but don't Like I
Speaker 2: went out with some friends for a hike on Friday,
Speaker 2: and I feel so much better. So I would advise
Speaker 2: you to do that. Maybe you're listening on your hike.
Speaker 2: That would be fun. Actually, I think if I was hiking,
Speaker 2: I would I would skip this one and listen to
Speaker 2: the birds.
Speaker 3: And you know, well, I mean.
Speaker 4: You know, if you want the ideological framing event, the
Speaker 4: ideological framing of it is that morale is a terade
Speaker 4: a struggle, yes, and it is very easy to lose
Speaker 4: if in morale is absolutely terrible.
Speaker 3: So yeah, we got four years.
Speaker 2: We can't be being moping around like we will get
Speaker 2: through it.
Speaker 3: We will find ways to make it better.
Speaker 2: And part of the way we do that yet is
Speaker 2: keeping amoral up and doing things that bring us joy.
Speaker 2: Thing that brings me joy is talking about roch Java,
Speaker 2: the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, and we're
Speaker 2: going to talk about that today. So we're talking about
Speaker 2: Donald Trump's foreign policy in his second term. So his
Speaker 2: previous foreign policy was a pretty mixed bag, and he
Speaker 2: bombed the shift out of the Islamic State, right cool
Speaker 2: based he also bombed the shit out of thousands of
Speaker 2: Syrian and Iraqi civilians.
Speaker 3: Not so cool.
Speaker 2: Also, we should note, not so different from every other
Speaker 2: president this century. Bombing civilians has been pretty much the
Speaker 2: the through line of American foreign policy in that part
Speaker 2: of the world for a very long time. In particular
Speaker 2: in the Trump administration I'm want to talk about, there
Speaker 2: was a single US strike cell called Talent Anvil. I
Speaker 2: think they were mainly like CAG guys from what I read,
Speaker 2: so Delta Force guys Army Special Forces guys who were
Speaker 2: making these decisions. They hired office building in Syria, and
Speaker 2: these guys were constantly looking at drone feeds and various
Speaker 2: other information and then calling in strikes on various targets. Right,
Speaker 2: I'm not sure if they had the CAG guys in
Speaker 2: the watching computers. I'm not entirely sure, and like, well
Speaker 2: they didn't have someone else who knows, But this strike,
Speaker 2: Celle dropped more than one hundred and twenty thousand bombs
Speaker 2: and Jesus Christ, yeah, yeah, the amount of ordinance we
Speaker 2: dropped on Syria is insane. Its circumvented procedures are in
Speaker 2: place to prevent Philian death. In order to do so,
Speaker 2: they had embedded lawyers who were supposed to approve the strikes.
Speaker 2: But these lawyers tried to raise the alarm that some
Speaker 2: of these strikes were reckless. They weren't hitting things that
Speaker 2: were actual targets, and they sort of ran into an
Speaker 2: organizational brick wall. At some point, pilots even refused to
Speaker 2: engage targets because they didn't think of Jesus, Yeah, which
Speaker 2: is it's not usual.
Speaker 4: Yeah, like that'd be pretty fucked for a fighter pilot
Speaker 4: to be like, no, I don't think I've ever heard
Speaker 4: of that before.
Speaker 2: No, So I found this out in uh well, I
Speaker 2: think it was the New York Times. New York Times,
Speaker 2: a pretty good investigation which we linked in our sources.
Speaker 2: And yeah, it's like a throwaway line, but I would
Speaker 2: love to hear more about that. It could have been
Speaker 2: a drone pilot too, which is slightly different. Gig, I
Speaker 2: guess you know, if you're sitting north of Las Vegas,
Speaker 2: they're flying a drone kind of kind of a different scene.
Speaker 2: So in the battle to defeat the Islamic State, thousands
Speaker 2: of innutescent people lost their lives as we reached the
Speaker 2: end of that battle. Donald Trump, who's president at a time,
Speaker 2: personally called urda one who's the president of circuit right.
Speaker 2: In late twenty eighteen, Trump asked the third one, if
Speaker 2: we withdraw our soldiers, can you.
Speaker 3: Clean up isis? That's a quote?
Speaker 2: According to an unnamed Turkish official interviewed by Reuters, at
Speaker 2: one replied that Turkish forces were capable of a mission. Quote,
Speaker 2: then you do it, Trump told him and us as
Speaker 2: National Security Advisor John Bolton, who was also on the
Speaker 2: call to quote start work for withdrawal of US troops
Speaker 2: from Syria. What this resulted in was US troops pulling
Speaker 2: out from some locations in Syria, right, local people throw
Speaker 2: tomatoes at them. Even worse than the tomatoes were the
Speaker 2: fact that it gave NATO's second largest army, which is Turkey,
Speaker 2: of course, free reign to attack the Autonomous Administration North
Speaker 2: in Essyria, which it did in twenty eighteen it did
Speaker 2: again at twenty nineteen. Those two operations to claim considerable
Speaker 2: ground in Syria cost countless civilian lives. Continue to perpetrate
Speaker 2: human rights abuses to rehabilitate people from ISIS and other
Speaker 2: Jahadi groups as Turkish Free Syrian Army, and they kill
Speaker 2: some people who were people I care about, and I
Speaker 2: continue to care about the cause of Rajava or Autonomous
Speaker 2: Administration in North New Syria very deeply, and and it
Speaker 2: really fucking sucks to think about the potential of the
Speaker 2: US abandoning those people again, not that Biden has done
Speaker 2: very much. Yeah, now, I think this anecdote, right of
Speaker 2: what Trump does with one tells us a lot about
Speaker 2: his approach to foreign policy, which is he really sees
Speaker 2: it as very transactional, which is no different from everything
Speaker 2: else he does. I guess like he's a very transactional person,
Speaker 2: and he seems really only to be concerned about what
Speaker 2: he can get out of it. So like in this case,
Speaker 2: I guess he wants to say he bought US troops
Speaker 2: home from Syria, like he's anti war. This is one
Speaker 2: of his things, he says now, right, but he's prepared
Speaker 2: to also in the case of the bombing, Right, he's
Speaker 2: not so concerned with civilian casualties as long as he
Speaker 2: can claim that he was the one who defeated ISIS. Right,
Speaker 2: abomber couldn't do it. He did it, and he did
Speaker 2: it on a pile of civilian remains, and also using
Speaker 2: chiefly the Syrian Democratic.
Speaker 3: Forces, right, not US forces. There were US forces on
Speaker 3: the ground.
Speaker 2: They were engaged in combat, but in minuscule numbers compared
Speaker 2: to SDF, who lost fifteen thousand of their children in
Speaker 2: a battle against ISIS. I think Trump would be very
Speaker 2: willing to admit that he's transactional, right, That's kind of
Speaker 2: his brand, is like America first and fuck everyone else.
Speaker 2: So I think he'll probably be similar in this term. Right,
Speaker 2: he will act unilaterally, He'll pivot whenever the fuck, he
Speaker 2: feels like it. He will continue with his affection for
Speaker 2: strong men and dictators all around the world. But a
Speaker 2: lot of stuff has changed since Trump's first term, and
Speaker 2: I think it's illustrative for us to think about how
Speaker 2: he will engage with things that have changed.
Speaker 3: So what has changed.
Speaker 2: There's a much larger conflict between Russia and Ukraine now,
Speaker 2: and that conflict has been seen massive and overt support
Speaker 2: both from the USA and for the rest of NATO.
Speaker 2: There's been a revolution in Mema. I suppose he doesn't
Speaker 2: know that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I really doubt maybe some of the like weird
Speaker 4: pro coup meaning from the right guard to him, Yeah, perhaps.
Speaker 2: Or like, I mean, the parallels between the CO and
Speaker 2: Memma and January sixth are pretty obvious, right, Okay, Like
Speaker 2: give January sixth to the landing. It lived a lot
Speaker 2: like that, except that it was a military party not
Speaker 2: just a political party. The Islamic State doesn't exist as
Speaker 2: a territory identity, but it very much does exist as
Speaker 2: a terrorist group, which continues to and has actually increased
Speaker 2: its activity this month, with sleeper cells, continued suicide bombings,
Speaker 2: continued attacks, and the SDF continue with their anti Issis
Speaker 2: operations without US support, those would be harder. And so
Speaker 2: we have to ask, I guess on what Trump's going
Speaker 2: to do with these things? And I want to look
Speaker 2: at a few different issues and pick apart what Trump
Speaker 2: said on his campaign website, pick apart what he said
Speaker 2: on the campaign trail, and then look at who he's
Speaker 2: appointed so far. We're recording this on Tuesday the twelfth,
Speaker 2: So if someone gets appointed before you hear this, that's
Speaker 2: why we've missed them out. So I guess to start
Speaker 2: with Trump's foreign policy, we should talk about his number
Speaker 2: one like peer competitor, which is China in his eyes, right,
Speaker 2: not a big China appreciator. So I looked at his
Speaker 2: campaign website for this, which really has some just incredible
Speaker 2: use of capital letters.
Speaker 3: He just fucking does what he wants. It's wild to see.
Speaker 2: So chiefly, one of the things that he's been on
Speaker 2: about for a while now is tariffs on Chinese make goods. Right,
Speaker 2: as means the foreign policy, Yeah, we just we talked
Speaker 2: about this last episode. Yeah, you will have heard about
Speaker 2: tariffs at this point. Yeah, So, as we've previously mentioned, right,
Speaker 2: he's talked about the tariffs. These tariffsould cost a lot
Speaker 2: of money, and they would increase the cost of you
Speaker 2: going shopping.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and they would probably destroy vast whilst of the
Speaker 4: global economy, yes, both the Chinese and the American economy, Yes, yes,
Speaker 4: sort of implode.
Speaker 2: And then all these countries in Africa and you know,
Speaker 2: me and La for instance, exports a lot of these
Speaker 2: rare earth metals to China, right, and a lot of
Speaker 2: countries in Africa do too. Aside from the economic sort
Speaker 2: of aggression, it stands on, Taiwan is weird, which is
Speaker 2: normally where we would like expect to see the most
Speaker 2: like physical friction between US and China. Right. Mike Pompeo
Speaker 2: has pressed for the USA to formally recognize Taiwan before,
Speaker 2: which would be a step, but you know that there'd
Speaker 2: be a pretty big swing. Trump, on the other hand,
Speaker 2: seems to want Taiwan to pay the United States for
Speaker 2: being into ally right now.
Speaker 4: Yeah, then this is like one of his big sort
Speaker 4: of foreign policy principles is like try to get people
Speaker 4: to pay him for stuff, because that's sort of the
Speaker 4: only way his brain works. But Rember, this was NATO
Speaker 4: a lot, whereas this whole line on NATO that like
Speaker 4: NATO should be like paying us because people like you're
Speaker 4: not spaying enough on defense, so we're like paying all
Speaker 4: the defense budgets. This is like one of his kind.
Speaker 3: Of Yeah, it's been his like hobbyhole.
Speaker 4: Yeah, like floats around at his brain sort of colliding
Speaker 4: with its walls.
Speaker 3: Yeah, empty space. Yeah. Yeah, like a big bung ball.
Speaker 2: Ironically, like in the time that Trump's been out of
Speaker 2: of is Russian aggression has led native members to spend
Speaker 2: more on defense, yeah, rather than Donald Trump lambasting them.
Speaker 2: So one of his big things is that Taiwan should
Speaker 2: pay the United States. But it would seem very unlikely
Speaker 2: that he if he's not going to abandon Taiwan, I
Speaker 2: think because it gives him a place to grandstand on China.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and also, like you know, I mean, one of
Speaker 4: the things about Trump is that one of the best
Speaker 4: ways to sort of influence him is just get a
Speaker 4: world leader in a room with him alone. Yes, but unfortunately,
Speaker 4: well fortunately for us, Trump does not speak Chines easy,
Speaker 4: and she doesn't seem to like him very much.
Speaker 2: So yeah, yes, we won't be here. We won't be
Speaker 2: joining the PRC anytime soon. China, along with Russia right
Speaker 2: to countries we've spoken about. Most of both make big
Speaker 2: plays in Africa. Russia has re branded what was Wagner
Speaker 2: it's Africa Core, and they're sort of providing support to
Speaker 2: regimes that lack en afflegitimacy to exist otherwise. Yeah, they
Speaker 2: are like classic mercenary shit, like it's your state illegitimate
Speaker 2: and does it lack the capacity to do the violence
Speaker 2: it needs to maintain itself. Don't worry hereris herism psychopaths
Speaker 2: from Russia.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And there's just a lot of people, I think
Speaker 4: because like a lot of these sort of governments will
Speaker 4: kind of like do their like like put a red
Speaker 4: beret on and start doing their anti imperialist cosplay. And
Speaker 4: then you like read the like the fine print of
Speaker 4: the contracts they've signed with like Africa Core, a thing
Speaker 4: that like you expect to be spelled like Africa and
Speaker 4: Core with a K like ko rps like and it's like, oh, okay,
Speaker 4: so like they've signed away a bunch of the country's
Speaker 4: mineral rights, Like they've signed away a bunch of these
Speaker 4: specific minds to these mercenary groups. It's like, oh okay,
Speaker 4: so this is like also this is also just imperial
Speaker 4: it's just new management.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, Yeah, it's just different imperialism. And then China
Speaker 2: has big plays in Africa too, right, Like I've personally
Speaker 2: seen a lot of Chinese own minds in Africa, Chinese
Speaker 2: roads in Africa. China does also like offer infrastructure. Chinese
Speaker 2: has a kind of quid pro quo. It doesn't come
Speaker 2: in like with the violence like Russia does. It comes
Speaker 2: in with that will build your hospital if we can
Speaker 2: have all your natural resources. US policy in Africa is
Speaker 2: pretty much to stop those two countries getting too much influence.
Speaker 2: The Biden administration is as many liberals are right, there's
Speaker 2: actually not that much difference between what Biden and Trump
Speaker 2: will do in Africa. The difference is Biden is smart
Speaker 2: enough not to say it. Trump's ability to do anything
Speaker 2: useful in Africa is going to be masked by his
Speaker 2: massive racism, Like when he says things like shithole countries.
Speaker 2: It becomes a lot harder for the US to do
Speaker 2: anything in Africa that isn't tinged by that, right, Like,
Speaker 2: it doesn't make that sort of imperialist ambition more obvious.
Speaker 2: US politicians rarely talk about they were any campaign or
Speaker 2: what they were going to do in Africa. And so
Speaker 2: pretty much the only things we're going to hear from
Speaker 2: Donald Trump, but Africa, I would imagine, are going to
Speaker 2: be when he lets his racism out. Yeah, that will
Speaker 2: have results for like US credibility. Also, my guess is
Speaker 2: we see intensifications of sort of US drone strikes, particularly
Speaker 2: in the Horn, and we see like like all of
Speaker 2: the stuff that Biden is doing, but worse and killing
Speaker 2: even more people somehow. Yeah, I would imagine that we
Speaker 2: will see these more aggressive throne strikes, especially against like
Speaker 2: Islamist groups in Africa. The US has special Forces deployments
Speaker 2: in a few places in Africa, which will probably maintain
Speaker 2: I would imagine, like, I don't think those are like
Speaker 2: things that Trump would He wouldn't see any benefit from
Speaker 2: stopping them, I guess, and it.
Speaker 3: May not even know about them.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I think we will see little change in Africa,
Speaker 2: would be my guess.
Speaker 4: Yeah, my oldly worse.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I talk of mildly worse.
Speaker 4: Mire.
Speaker 2: The thing that makes these podcasts mildly worse is our
Speaker 2: obligation to pivot to advertisements, which we must do now.
Speaker 3: That was a great one, holding out on you for
Speaker 3: three years. You have a good ad pivots.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, there it is. That's what we've got for you.
Speaker 2: All Right, we're back. So I want to talk about Europe.
Speaker 2: As you've heard in the Tariff's episode, right, he wants
Speaker 2: to put tariffs on European goods. European Union is going
Speaker 2: to slap tariffs right back on American goods. That doesn't
Speaker 2: really help anyone. It will make exporting from the USA
Speaker 2: very very hard. One thing that the USA might stop
Speaker 2: exporting is is weapons to Ukraine. It's a little unclear.
Speaker 2: Trump he called Olenski the greatest salesman on earth, but
Speaker 2: it was also claimed that he can personally end the
Speaker 2: war in twenty four hours. I don't think that means
Speaker 2: that he will be deploying himself to the down Bass
Speaker 2: like a like a like a gun dam. But he
Speaker 2: claims he can do this with his negotiating skills. This
Speaker 2: seems unlikely. To put it mildly, I don't think that
Speaker 2: it would be possible to end this war in twenty
Speaker 2: four hours if both sides declared peace right now, getting
Speaker 2: communications to their frontline troops would be a challenge in
Speaker 2: twenty four hours in some places. Yeah, So the way
Speaker 2: I interpret this and I may be wrong here is
Speaker 2: that he is likely to leverage the support that the
Speaker 2: United States gives to Ukraine in order to force Zelensky
Speaker 2: into an unfavorable settlement, which would achieve his goal of
Speaker 2: a being able to say he stopped giving American money
Speaker 2: to Ukraine, which has been a big talking point for
Speaker 2: the like every time you start with the western North
Speaker 2: Carolina right up to the hurricane or these Republicans sort
Speaker 2: of talking points were like, oh, well, all the money
Speaker 2: is in Ukraine, so we can't have fucking MREs for
Speaker 2: people in western North Carolina, Like FEMA has no money
Speaker 2: because we sent Ukraine some memphors. This is very silly, right,
Speaker 2: It's not a zero sum game. It's not really a
Speaker 2: reasonable critique, but it's one that Trump has kind of
Speaker 2: managed to stick in the culture was his base seems
Speaker 2: to see the money going to Ukraine is directly coming
Speaker 2: from things that would otherwise be going to them, which
Speaker 2: he would benefit from it if he could bring this
Speaker 2: war to a close, right j d Vance has mentioned
Speaker 2: a demilitarized zone in between Russia.
Speaker 3: And Ukraine, which.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's gonna minister the DMZ, Like yeah, like did
Speaker 2: we really want this? Are we going to have troops
Speaker 2: out like we do in South Korea for you know
Speaker 2: when when was a career around the nineteen fifty seventy years, right,
Speaker 2: And I don't think that's really really what they want.
Speaker 3: The think what DMC is. No one actually likes them. No,
Speaker 3: this sucks, It sucks. Yeah, they're awful.
Speaker 2: It's just a bit of land that you can yeat
Speaker 2: weapons over each other, like especially in like modern warfare,
Speaker 2: that they're not that effective at stopping to be bull fighting. Right,
Speaker 2: But very funny that North's career will be two for
Speaker 2: two on DMZs in wars it has been involved with
Speaker 2: huge up for them. He essentially seems to be advocating
Speaker 2: for exactly the peace settlement that Putin has proposed and
Speaker 2: that has been rejected multiple times. Several sources I've seen
Speaker 2: suggest that Trump has spoken to Putin quite a few
Speaker 2: times since leaving office. This His plan for Ukraine certainly
Speaker 2: seems closer to the Russian one than the Ukrainian one,
Speaker 2: the Ukrainian one being stop invading us and go home,
Speaker 2: and the Russian one being, well, we'll just keep all
Speaker 2: the stuff we've taken so far and then add a
Speaker 2: buffer zone in between. And Ukraine can keep whatever's left
Speaker 2: of its country.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: What's interesting to me is what other NATO members will
Speaker 2: do in the event of the US reducing its AID.
Speaker 2: I would suspect that they will try and step up
Speaker 2: and meet that gap. It might also result in the
Speaker 2: US put certain restrictions on its AID, right, how it
Speaker 2: can be used, where it can be used crucially, Right,
Speaker 2: they don't like Ukraine using things to attack in Russia proper.
Speaker 2: They don't mind am using them to attack Russian forces,
Speaker 2: but not within Russia. I did see a picture yesterday
Speaker 2: of a I think it was three guys from Rogue
Speaker 2: I think it's called, which is a unit within the
Speaker 2: International Legion who had been killed within Russia. And they
Speaker 2: had a lot of like eighty fours and things like that, right,
Speaker 2: like US or anti tank weapons.
Speaker 3: But the United States.
Speaker 2: Doesn't want Ukraine using the long range artillery and stuff
Speaker 2: it's given it to yeat projectiles at Moscow. I can
Speaker 2: see a situation where if the US draws down some
Speaker 2: bit AID, European allies of Ukraine might not play some
Speaker 2: of those restrictions on their AID, and that could lead
Speaker 2: to some interesting complications for Russia. Right If Ukraine is
Speaker 2: more effective, Like if they get more aid from Europe
Speaker 2: and Europe doesn't place restrictions on the aid, they could
Speaker 2: potentially strike Russia within Russia, which is not going to
Speaker 2: be good for Putin and it's probably not going to
Speaker 2: be good for like bringing I mean, unless they can
Speaker 2: deal some really crippling blows, it might not be good
Speaker 2: for bringing the war to an end.
Speaker 3: But maybe it will.
Speaker 2: Maybe they've they've done some pretty effective things with not
Speaker 2: a huge amount so far.
Speaker 4: I don't know, maybe get lucky on a strike on
Speaker 4: the Kremlin or something.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, just the one like I mean, yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm sure that would be their strategy if they wouldn't
Speaker 2: have they didn't have restrictions, would be to just keep
Speaker 2: pounding places they think Putin might be.
Speaker 4: This is the history of Russian warfare. Dumber things that
Speaker 4: have happened and have lost Russia wars. So yeah, yeah,
Speaker 4: a lot dumber than that. So yeah, I don't think
Speaker 4: that Ukraine will be screwed if the US pulls out.
Speaker 4: I do think it will be a lot harder for them. Yeah,
Speaker 4: And you know, if that's something, there are a lot
Speaker 4: of US sits still fighting in Ukraine. Would be pretty
Speaker 4: devastating to abandon Ukraine. And I think also just from
Speaker 4: the sort of stopping Russian aggression standpoint, it's much better
Speaker 4: stop it here than somewhere else. But yeah, we will see.
Speaker 2: I guess European countries are really ramping up their defense,
Speaker 2: but they right now the US is like the heart
Speaker 2: of the military industrial complex, and and Europe really can't
Speaker 2: keep up with the US production. Of course, the US
Speaker 2: being the heart of the military industrial complex does mean
Speaker 2: that a lot of Trump donors will probably be able
Speaker 2: to leave ridge of their donations to his campaign, and
Speaker 2: so we might not see as much of a drawdown
Speaker 2: of Bay to Ukraine as we're worrying about here. May
Speaker 2: talking of launching things from a long distance at a
Speaker 2: very small target, I would like to launch these advertisements
Speaker 2: from iheartman the advertising department directly to your ears.
Speaker 3: Heger. It's all so bad.
Speaker 4: As we were recording this, it's come out that the
Speaker 4: new Secretary of Defense is going to be Pete Hegseth,
Speaker 4: who's like a Fox News guy who doesn't believe germs
Speaker 4: are real.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this guy who has not washed his hands in
Speaker 2: ten years. Great, I mean, at least he might die
Speaker 2: of COVID. Yeah, I was going to say he made it. Wow.
Speaker 3: Sorry that that that hair is really something. Oh that's
Speaker 3: not good at all. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Wait what when June fourteenth, twenty fifteen, hag Seith accidentally
Speaker 4: hit a Westward juror.
Speaker 3: With an act over a live cube Like, dad, I
Speaker 3: think it was incredible.
Speaker 2: Let's have that length pulled up. All right, this video
Speaker 2: is unavailable. All right, No, we're finding this video that
Speaker 2: nothing disappears from the internet.
Speaker 3: All right, here we go.
Speaker 5: No mis fucking dog my god, this is just clown shit, Like.
Speaker 3: I need to write.
Speaker 2: Listen, if you were hit in the dick and balls
Speaker 2: by an axe thrown by Future Defense Secretary, please contact
Speaker 2: cool Zone Media Atiheartmedia dot com. I hope the VA
Speaker 2: is paying for this man's benefits.
Speaker 4: It's the stupidest thing I've ever seen someone do, like
Speaker 4: in the course of reporting for this show.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's amazing, like very funny. Again, please contact us.
Speaker 2: I hope you're okay. Service related injury. Yeah, so that's
Speaker 2: that's peak. Hegseth right. Future sec Deef, also former reservist
Speaker 2: who deployed to Guantanamo, was an induantry platoon leader at Guantanamo.
Speaker 2: I think he also deployed to Afghanistan in twenty twelve,
Speaker 2: and previously he'd also deployed to Iraq. He'd a voluntary
Speaker 2: two voluntary deployments or was in two locations in IRAQII.
Speaker 2: So he's hit the greatest hits of US foreign policy
Speaker 2: in the last twenty years. I guess he's made his
Speaker 2: career as a Fox News pandit.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's just like a right wing ghoul. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean in the last Trump administration when he was punditing,
Speaker 2: he advised Trump had been considering pardoning several war criminals
Speaker 2: and did pardon several war criminals, right, and Hexceth was
Speaker 2: one of the people who A he talked about on
Speaker 2: Fox News, Well he was advising Trump to do it,
Speaker 2: and b he was advising Trump to do its. Christ Yeah,
Speaker 2: you can read up about the Trump pardons of war criminals.
Speaker 4: It's bad enough that a guy was getting turned in
Speaker 4: by his own Special Forces unit. Like do you know
Speaker 4: how bad, how like fucking hideous? The shit you have
Speaker 4: to do is for like for like your own guys
Speaker 4: in a special Forces unit to be like, holy shit,
Speaker 4: we have to stop this guy. Yeah, Like it's awful.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean if you should look up Clinton Rance's
Speaker 2: stuff as well, Like, yeah, LOI NC if you're interested
Speaker 2: in this stuff. He was convicted I think of two
Speaker 2: murder accounts for ordering his soldiers to fire and unarmed people.
Speaker 2: And then yeah, the other one was a Green Beret
Speaker 2: named Matt Altsin who was also charged in the murder
Speaker 2: of someone in Afghanistan, someone who had been making I DS.
Speaker 2: So like, I think we can see where this guy
Speaker 2: is going. We've just found this out as well as
Speaker 2: we're recording for context. Like that's quite troubling.
Speaker 5: Yea.
Speaker 2: His other two foreign policy appointments that I've seen so
Speaker 2: far have been less so.
Speaker 3: Look, i'd say less so.
Speaker 2: Marco Rubio is a turd, right, Like, like, I think
Speaker 2: we all know that we I share very little with
Speaker 2: Marco Rubio.
Speaker 3: On Turkey and Rajaba. He is good.
Speaker 2: He is not a fan of Verta one. He's in
Speaker 2: contact with googlanists. He kind of puts Turkey in the
Speaker 2: in the bricks box is a good yeah, which which
Speaker 2: leads us to the very funny idea of Marco Rubio
Speaker 2: ordering a drone strike on airc Adams.
Speaker 4: I mean, well, here's the thing though Good's dead now,
Speaker 4: so so like there's like a secession crisis of like
Speaker 4: who's gonna.
Speaker 3: The goodinist anti Pope Marky Rubio.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that could be very good for Rajava at least
Speaker 2: right the big concern among those of us who carry
Speaker 2: deeply about Rajava has been that Trump will abandon them
Speaker 2: as he did in the past.
Speaker 3: Right, And so I guess we're looking for glimmers of hope.
Speaker 2: And I think Ruby a kind of oddly weirdly was
Speaker 2: one compared to I was expecting more of the hegthf
Speaker 2: like Fox News commentator type people in foreign policy positions
Speaker 2: because Trump fundamentally doesn't care about foreign policy, and like
Speaker 2: it's an area where he can kind of give something
Speaker 2: to those kind of like insane far right commentator types.
Speaker 2: He also did appoint Mark Waltz, I think could be Wols.
Speaker 2: He's one of the first special Army special Forces guys
Speaker 2: serving Congress, maybe the first as a national security advisor.
Speaker 2: Walls as a member of the Kurdish Caucus in Congress. So again,
Speaker 2: positive for a Java. Talking of Army special forces, there's
Speaker 2: one more insane Trump foreign policy proposal that I want
Speaker 2: to discuss and that is his desire to use the
Speaker 2: United States Army in Mexico. I'm just going to read
Speaker 2: from his campaign website here. President Trump will take down
Speaker 2: the drug cartels just as he took down ISIS. He
Speaker 2: will impose a total naval embargo on cartels, order the
Speaker 2: Department of Defense to inflict maximum damage on cartel leadership
Speaker 2: and operations, and designate cartels as foreign terrorist organizations and
Speaker 2: choke off the access to the global financial system. President
Speaker 2: Trump will get the full cooperation of neighboring governments to
Speaker 2: dismantle the cartels or else expose every bribe and kickback
Speaker 2: that allows these criminal networks to preserve their brutal rain.
Speaker 2: He will ask Congress to ensure that drug smugglers and
Speaker 2: traffickers can receive the death penalty.
Speaker 3: There's a lot there.
Speaker 2: The way that Donald Trump helped defeat ISIS was exclusively
Speaker 2: by bombing things and with some small contributions from US
Speaker 2: ground troops. But we don't really have a partner force
Speaker 2: in Mexico like that, and I think, especially with the
Speaker 2: new administration in Mexico, and especially with Trump proposing one
Speaker 2: hundred percent tariffs on Mexican goods, we're unlikely to find one,
Speaker 2: which leaves the very strange kind of prospect of US
Speaker 2: troops carrying out like unapproved, undeconflicted hits on Mexican nationals
Speaker 2: in Mexico.
Speaker 3: Which like its an act of war.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you are invading Mexico, is what you're doing, I
Speaker 2: actould point out. And the Bortac under Biden did shoot
Speaker 2: one Mexican national this year who was he was holding
Speaker 2: up migrants with the gun.
Speaker 3: He was, he's rubbing with a gun.
Speaker 2: It wasn't into place where I've been dozens of times
Speaker 2: where they shot him and they didn't seem to be
Speaker 2: much fuffle about that. But that is not invading Mexico.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Like if they're invading Mexico, like you know, as
Speaker 4: as close as American Mexican sort of security cooperation has
Speaker 4: been and as many people as that's killed from the
Speaker 4: Mexican side, like.
Speaker 3: That's oh boy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like it remains to be seen how much of
Speaker 2: this actually happened. Right, Mexico has a new president, the
Speaker 2: United States has a new president. They're not exactly politically
Speaker 2: fellow travelers, I'll say.
Speaker 4: That, but yeah, I mean I will say like Armlow
Speaker 4: and Trump got along like decently well, yeah, largely off
Speaker 4: of Omblos like anti immigrant policies, but I don't know
Speaker 4: if that's going to work with China.
Speaker 2: Bomb like and like in the final year of Armlow
Speaker 2: like they definitely they did a lot to help Biden
Speaker 2: within effectively enforcing US border policy by deporting people's South.
Speaker 2: People I spoke to in the Darien series have been
Speaker 2: sent south again this week. But Biden's had actually some
Speaker 2: pretty high profile cartel arrests right within Cineloa cartel. He's
Speaker 2: destabilized that cartel, but those happened within the US. They
Speaker 2: didn't send teams into into Mexico. And the way that
Speaker 2: the US has traditionally got hold of cartel leaders before
Speaker 2: is him to be arrested in Mexico in cooperation with
Speaker 2: Mexican government forces, be they police or military, and then
Speaker 2: extraducted them to the US trial. And that doesn't seem
Speaker 2: to be what Trump is proposing. But again, like the
Speaker 2: Bomber rhetoric and the reality are sometimes very different.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I have some vague memory that he, like last time,
Speaker 4: he wanted to like send special forces guys to do this,
Speaker 4: and his advisors were like, what the fuck are you
Speaker 4: talking about? We can't send yeah, like people in New Mexico.
Speaker 2: Yeah, look, just to be real, those organizations have reached
Speaker 2: inside the United States, and that would be an extremely
Speaker 2: messy situation. Yeah, and like the way this would have
Speaker 2: to be done, right, Like, I don't think you can
Speaker 2: do this with drone strikes. That you have to do
Speaker 2: this with boots on the ground. And that's going to
Speaker 2: be contrary to what he's promised to do, which is
Speaker 2: not risk more US soldiers' lives. Who knows what this
Speaker 2: will actually look like.
Speaker 4: Yeah, my guess is you will find a way to
Speaker 4: get the maxim umber civilians killed.
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, yeah, we de would himself. Yeah, it's that's
Speaker 3: probably would be the result of this, Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2: And I think as you sort of wear this down,
Speaker 2: like civilian deaths are probably going to increase. Right, He's
Speaker 2: never shown himself to be unduly concerned about those things.
Speaker 2: He doesn't see that in the problem. The second thing
Speaker 2: the US will lose is what Joseph Nay called soft power, right,
Speaker 2: which is like the power to influence people without projecting force,
Speaker 2: cultural power, cultural capitals.
Speaker 3: Body you might have called.
Speaker 2: It really getting heavy on the university shit at the
Speaker 2: back half of this episode.
Speaker 3: The US lost a lot.
Speaker 2: Of that in the first Trump term, right, and it
Speaker 2: will lose more of it in the second Trump term.
Speaker 2: Some of that is, you know, the US maybe shouldn't
Speaker 2: be influencing, and the US has had some pretty malign
Speaker 2: influence around the world.
Speaker 3: You can listen to a song called Washington Bullets to
Speaker 3: learn more about it.
Speaker 2: But it will mean that, like there will be a
Speaker 2: space for other bad actors, right, Russia, China. You know,
Speaker 2: Russia has not shown itself to be any more concerned
Speaker 2: with human rights, and probably less so than than the
Speaker 2: United States went in it. And it's time in Syria, right,
Speaker 2: it's been an unmitigated disaster for the Syrian people. The
Speaker 2: Russian cooperation with your side regime. We do not need
Speaker 2: more of that around the world. The WAGNSLA to Africa,
Speaker 2: Core diplomas in Africa have been horrific in terms of
Speaker 2: human rights, and this will open more spaces for that.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I mean, it doesn't look great this secretive appointment.
Speaker 2: Maybe we'll learn more about that in the coming days,
Speaker 2: but that doesn't look great. There are some bright spots
Speaker 2: for a Java. I guess there's some glimmers of hope there,
Speaker 2: which is a nice thing. Trump's policy on Gaza fits
Speaker 2: with this general model of like he wants to end conflicts,
Speaker 2: and the way he sees of doing that is doing
Speaker 2: away with any restraint in terms of civilian casualties. And
Speaker 2: so the way that he went after isis was to
Speaker 2: just say bomb them all. I can see him doing
Speaker 2: the same thing in Gaza, right, just saying like he
Speaker 2: wants to claim that he bought an end to the
Speaker 2: war and he doesn't care how many bodies he's standing
Speaker 2: on when he says that. Yeah, same thing in Lebanon, obviously. So, yeah,
Speaker 2: these are not great things. These are things that we
Speaker 2: will have to deal with for decades to come, whatever happens.
Speaker 2: And I guess the way that you can do something
Speaker 2: here like why a little glimmer of hope. It's like
Speaker 2: you can reach out to people all around the world
Speaker 2: and let them know that like even if America's foreign
Speaker 2: policy is shit, you're not. I have sat in Rojaba
Speaker 2: and i have seen them taking the children to the hospitals,
Speaker 2: and I've watched the US soldiers sit in their bases
Speaker 2: and do nothing, and like it didn't help. Really I didn't.
Speaker 2: I wasn't able to do very much. I couldn't even
Speaker 2: give blood, but I was able to be there with them,
Speaker 2: and maybe they're meant something, and like you can do
Speaker 2: little things to show your solidarity around the world because
Speaker 2: there won't be much of it coming from the government.
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