Latest / Drawn of History / Joe Rogan Experience _2303 - Dave Smith _ Douglas Murray(M4A_128K)

Transcript

Joe Rogan Experience _2303 - Dave Smith _ Douglas Murray(M4A_128K) · Drawn of History

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: The Joe Rogan Experience.
• 0:06
  Speaker 2: Train by day, Joe.
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Rogan podcast by night, all day.
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: All right, we're up. Good to see you guys. What's happening?
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: Are you going no headphones?
• 0:18
  Speaker 3: Oh.
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: Keep the do? I'll do that.
• 0:20
  Speaker 3: I'm not quite sure what they add, but yeah.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: There we go. All right. The goal of this is
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: every time I see people that disagree... with anything that's happening,
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: any gigantic world events. It's one of these retarded shows
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: where they're screaming... There's the word again.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: We brought it.
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: We were just talking about that. You did it, Eddie.
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: The word retarded is back, and it's one of the
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: great culture victories that I think is spurred on probably
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: by podcasts. But these things are always like Piers Morgan-y,
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: which is fine. You know, where everyone's screaming over each other,
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: and there's five different people talking over each other. There's never...
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: Just rational conversations where you discuss things. And I respect
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: both of you. I think both of you are brilliant.
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: And I thought, I bet you agree on a lot
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: of things. I bet you disagree on a lot of things.
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: And it'd be fascinating to see your perspectives on these things.
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: So that's why you're here together.
• 1:16
  Speaker 3: Okay. Can I ask you something?
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: Yes, sir.
• 1:21
  Speaker 3: Since the war in Israel began and since the war
• 1:24
  Speaker 3: in Ukraine began, you've had quite a lot of people
• 1:27
  Speaker 3: who are very against both. in different ways. Do you
• 1:31
  Speaker 3: think you've had enough people on who are supportive of
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: either war?
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: I don't know that word enough, if that's a good word.
• 1:40
  Speaker 3: Let's say enough people who are on the side of
• 1:43
  Speaker 3: Israel instead of wild critics.
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: Well, I've had a few. I mean, I believe Gadsad
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: is on the side of Israel. Jordan is on the
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: side of Israel.
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: You had Mike Baker, Coleman Hughes.
• 1:56
  Speaker 3: Coleman did it for like 20 minutes. That wasn't why
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: he was here.
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: No. I mean, none of them. And none of them
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: is why they're here.
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: You know?
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: It's a good question.
• 2:05
  Speaker 3: Do you think you've tilted one way?
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: Me personally?
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: No, no, no. Just with the guests you've had.
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: The guests? Yeah. Probably more tilted towards the idea that
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: perhaps the way they've done it is barbaric. Mm-hmm.
• 2:21
  Speaker 3: But why do you think that is, just out of interest?
• 2:23
  Speaker 3: I'm just interested in your selection of guests because you're
• 2:25
  Speaker 3: like the world's number one podcast.
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's not. I don't think about it that way.
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: I just think I'd like to talk to this person.
• 2:35
  Speaker 3: But can I just, sorry, it's your show. Sure, sure.
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: If you're going to interview historians of the conflict or
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: historians in general, why would you get somebody like Ian Carroll?
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but Ian Carroll, I didn't bring him on for
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: that purpose. I brought him on because I want to
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: find out, like, how does one get involved in the
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: whole conspiracy theory business? Because his whole thing is just conspiracies.
• 2:58
  Speaker 3: Sure.
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: You know?
• 2:59
  Speaker 3: But do you have any, I mean, there's been a
• 3:03
  Speaker 3: tilt in the conversation, in both conversations in the last
• 3:05
  Speaker 3: couple of years. And it's largely to do with people
• 3:10
  Speaker 3: who have appointed themselves experts who are not experts.
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: You mean like Ian? I don't think he appoints himself
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: an expert in anything.
• 3:18
  Speaker 3: Who's that other dude who thinks he's an expert on Churchill?
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: Oh, Daryl Cooper does not think he's an expert.
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: In fact, I think it's everybody else is always calling
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: him an expert. And he's like, I'm just a history.
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: Have you ever absorbed any of his material? Have you
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: ever consumed any of his podcasts or anything like that?
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: I tried.
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah?
• 3:36
  Speaker 3: It's pretty hard to listen to somebody who says, I
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: don't know what I'm talking about, but now I'm going
• 3:42
  Speaker 3: to talk. or I don't know about this, or I'm
• 3:46
  Speaker 3: not capable of debating this historian, but I'm gonna just
• 3:48
  Speaker 3: tell you what I think.
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: I think that's a little bit out of context. Yeah,
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: but that's not exactly what Darrell was saying. I mean,
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: Darrell's point of view, however you feel about this, what
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: Darrell's saying is he doesn't really like doing debates. He
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: likes to do long format stuff where he can really
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: explain his position.
• 4:03
  Speaker 3: But if you throw a lot of shit out there,
• 4:06
  Speaker 3: there's some point at which I'm just raising questions is
• 4:09
  Speaker 3: not a valid thing. Mm-hmm. You're not raising questions. You're
• 4:13
  Speaker 3: not asking questions. You're telling people something.
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: Do you think Daryl's doing that?
• 4:17
  Speaker 3: I think there's a whole bunch of guys doing that.
• 4:19
  Speaker 3: I think Dave is doing that, very obviously. Dave's a comedian,
• 4:24
  Speaker 3: but he's now mainly talking about Israel. No.
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: I don't know if I'm mainly talking about Israel.
• 4:31
  Speaker 3: That's all I see on the internet.
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: Well, that might be what you've seen. It's just you
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: consuming clips.
• 4:36
  Speaker 3: But that is also your shtick now, isn't it?
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: Well, what do you mean by that's my shtick?
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: Well, you're not a geopolitics guy in general, are you?
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: I don't even know exactly what you're asking.
• 4:47
  Speaker 3: I'm saying you've decided, being a comedian, you've decided now
• 4:51
  Speaker 3: to become somebody who talks about Israel.
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: I think you're incorrect. I don't think it's a decision.
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: I just think you have long-form conversations, multiple of them.
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: It's a huge event that's in the news, so it
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: comes up. I don't think it's a thing. I think
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: if you're on the outside, you'd say, oh, look, they're
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: trying to get attention by talking about this very polarizing
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: issue publicly.
• 5:11
  Speaker 3: But you do get attention from that. If you'd spent
• 5:14
  Speaker 3: the last year speaking about Myanmar, you would not be
• 5:18
  Speaker 3: on my lips.
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but he does talk about Yemen constantly. He talks
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: about a lot of things that aren't in the news.
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: Well, I tend to talk about the conflicts that my
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: government is directly involved in, which I think is reasonable
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: to me. But I don't quite get, like, what's all
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: the appeal to authority stuff? I mean, what, you have
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: to be an expert?
• 5:36
  Speaker 3: No, I think authority matters. I think that if you
• 5:39
  Speaker 3: just throw a lot of shit out there, And then say,
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: I'm not interested in the alternative views on this. And
• 5:46
  Speaker 3: particularly when it's a counter-narrative that is wildly off. And
• 5:50
  Speaker 3: when you get people, look, I just feel, we should
• 5:53
  Speaker 3: get it out straight away. I feel you've opened the
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: door to quite a lot of people. You've now got
• 5:58
  Speaker 3: a big platform who have been throwing out counter-historical stuff
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: of a very dangerous kind.
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: You mean Daryl? Are you talking about Daryl?
• 6:06
  Speaker 3: Daryl, who's the other one?
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: I don't think Daryl has anything dangerous.
• 6:10
  Speaker 3: Derek, what's the other guy? Derek, what's his name? Cooper,
• 6:15
  Speaker 3: is it? Which one is it?
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: No, that's Daryl Cooper. Daryl Cooper.
• 6:17
  Speaker 3: Who's the other one? There was one I just checked
• 6:21
  Speaker 3: on the way here. Daryl Cooper. Yeah, Daryl Cooper, Ian Carroll. Look,
• 6:27
  Speaker 3: these guys are not historians. They're not knowledgeable about anything.
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: No one's calling Ian Carroll a historian.
• 6:31
  Speaker 3: No, but then why listen to their views on Churchill?
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: Daryl is incredibly knowledgeable.
• 6:36
  Speaker 3: He's not. He's not. Why do you say that? Several reasons.
• 6:41
  Speaker 3: One is when he was offered to debate the current
• 6:46
  Speaker 3: greatest living biographer of Churchill, he said, I can't because
• 6:51
  Speaker 3: he knows much more than me and I admire his
• 6:53
  Speaker 3: work and I've learned from it, but I can't possibly
• 6:55
  Speaker 3: debate him. That's Andrew Roberts.
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: But you don't have to be able to debate people
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: to have opinions. No, no, no.
• 7:02
  Speaker 3: You don't have to debate people.
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: If it's not your thing.
• 7:04
  Speaker 3: But if you, for instance, well, OK, but if you
• 7:07
  Speaker 3: say I've decided that Churchill is the bad guy.
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: It's not what he said. It's not what he said.
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: It's not what he said.
• 7:13
  Speaker 3: Neither Carroll nor Cooper have said that.
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: Well, listen, I don't know what Carroll said, but Daryl
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: Cooper has not said that. What he said was he
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: he jokes with his friend Jocko, who's an Anglo-Saxon. He
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: jokes with them, you know. I think that Churchill was
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: the secret villain of World War II. And what he's
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: saying is by Churchill's actions, the war escalated.
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: He's not.
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: He's not saying anything.
• 7:39
  Speaker 3: He's not just asking questions, is he?
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: No, but the claim isn't that he's just asking questions.
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: He has a point of view. You can explain this better.
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: He literally says he's joking. Yes, he said in the comment,
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: he goes, listen, I'm being hyperbolic. And then he once
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: again disclaimed, he goes, and I'm not claiming Churchill committed
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: the most atrocities or was the worst part. But in
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: many ways, I do view him as the chief villain,
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: as my hyperbolic, provocative statement. What's the point of that? Well, okay,
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: but Pat Buchanan wrote an entire book on this. Is
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: he not allowed? Is he not an expert? Is he
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: not allowed to be interviewed?
• 8:09
  Speaker 3: He's certainly not an expert. He can be interviewed. I've
• 8:10
  Speaker 3: watched Pat Buchanan debate. I watched Pat Buchanan debate against
• 8:14
  Speaker 3: Churchill historians, and he was absolutely leveled because he doesn't
• 8:17
  Speaker 3: know what he's talking about.
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: When did Pat Buchanan debate and get leveled?
• 8:21
  Speaker 3: About 20 years ago.
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: I'm just curious.
• 8:22
  Speaker 3: He debated against Andrew Roberts and several other historians at
• 8:25
  Speaker 3: Intelligence Square in London. I was there. He didn't know
• 8:28
  Speaker 3: what he was talking about. He had a contrary view,
• 8:30
  Speaker 3: and it was interesting and stimulating to hear. But if
• 8:33
  Speaker 3: you only get the contrary view, which is, isn't it
• 8:36
  Speaker 3: fun if we all pretend Churchill was the bad guy
• 8:39
  Speaker 3: of the 20th century? At some point, you're going to
• 8:42
  Speaker 3: lead people down a path where they think that's the view.
• 8:45
  Speaker 3: And that's horseshit of the most profound kind.
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: I don't think that's what he's trying to do.
• 8:52
  Speaker 3: I think that's exactly what they're doing. And the problem is,
• 8:55
  Speaker 3: is that because you... I mean, your own platform has
• 8:59
  Speaker 3: come about because you're a very successful comedian and much more,
• 9:02
  Speaker 3: and you do ask questions and you are interested, but
• 9:05
  Speaker 3: there are a lot of people who have come along partly,
• 9:08
  Speaker 3: I think, because they've come on this show who have
• 9:10
  Speaker 3: come along and they've decided I can play this double game.
• 9:14
  Speaker 3: On the one hand, I'm going to push really edgy
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: and frankly, sometimes horrific opinions. And then if you say
• 9:22
  Speaker 3: that's wrong, They say, I'm a comedian.
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: But wait a minute, no, no, no, no.
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: How can you tell me I'm just a comedian? I'm
• 9:30
  Speaker 3: just throwing stuff out there.
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: What horrific opinions that's wrong are you talking about specifically?
• 9:37
  Speaker 3: Once guys like this get into very obvious stuff, which is.
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: Guys like Daryl?
• 9:41
  Speaker 3: The ones I'm describing.
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: You need to listen to Daryl to really understand what
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: he's saying. If you take Daryl's words out of context,
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: Daryl has some of the most nuanced, balanced, and charitable
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: views- on all the figures in history.
• 9:58
  Speaker 3: Well, particularly Hitler. it seems.
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: No, no, you're wrong.
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: You're wrong.
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: He doesn't. What did he call him? How did he
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: describe him?
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: I think he compared him to a methed-out psychopath who
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: was holding an entire nation of people hostage, I believe.
• 10:13
  Speaker 3: Was the way he put it. He also said on
• 10:14
  Speaker 3: here that he... Wasn't anti-Semitic until the Holocaust. There were
• 10:19
  Speaker 3: no speeches of Hitler's in the 1930s.
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: No, no, no, no. No, he said he was not
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: public about it.
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: He said he was downplaying it to win over. He
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: said there was a period where he was downplaying it
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: to win over popular support in Germany.
• 10:34
  Speaker 3: There is no historian of World War II who thinks
• 10:37
  Speaker 3: that Hitler was downplaying anti-Semitism in the 1930s. That was
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: what he was doing. He wrote a book about it
• 10:44
  Speaker 3: in the 1920s. He got to power on it and
• 10:47
  Speaker 3: he grew his power on the back of it. The
• 10:49
  Speaker 3: idea that you can argue that in the 1930s, Adolf
• 10:53
  Speaker 3: Hitler was downplaying the anti-Semitism. There's no historian who would
• 10:59
  Speaker 3: agree with that. So why would you throw out the
• 11:02
  Speaker 3: idea that in the 1930s, Hitler was not being anti-Semitic
• 11:06
  Speaker 3: in public? That was what he was doing in public.
• 11:09
  Speaker 3: He announces to the German parliament what he wants to do.
• 11:12
  Speaker 3: So when you're throwing out claims like he was keeping
• 11:17
  Speaker 3: it down in the 1930s, first of all, what are
• 11:20
  Speaker 3: you doing? And secondly, why? Okay.
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: I mean, I think that it's, kind of hard because
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: I don't even know exactly what Daryl's point on that was,
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: and so I'm not really in a position to argue
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: what he was saying there. I don't think you're giving
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: him the most charitable interpretation.
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: I don't need to give him the most charitable interpretation
• 11:41
  Speaker 3: to be able to.
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: See what he's doing. Okay, I think you're strawmanning him,
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: I should say.
• 11:44
  Speaker 3: Look, anyone can look up what he said on this
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: show and others, what these two guys in particular have
• 11:50
  Speaker 3: said on repeated podcasts with both of you. It's an
• 11:52
  Speaker 3: attempt to downplay... Hitler and always to do down church.
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: I don't think you downplayed Hitler.
• 12:00
  Speaker 3: No, I said in conversations with you and others, this
• 12:04
  Speaker 3: is the shtick of these guys. They've decided it's edgy
• 12:06
  Speaker 3: and funny. And I think this is very, very interesting
• 12:09
  Speaker 3: and also very dangerous because we live in an era
• 12:12
  Speaker 3: now that the right has got some mojo back in America.
• 12:17
  Speaker 3: We saw years of crazy left overreach where they tried
• 12:21
  Speaker 3: to make us all say the craziest things. And completely predictably,
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: there are now figures on the right playing with really
• 12:30
  Speaker 3: dark and ugly stuff on their side.
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: I agree with that.
• 12:35
  Speaker 3: And they are mainstreaming this.
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: I don't think Daryl's doing that.
• 12:36
  Speaker 3: And I think it's partly being mainstreamed by the two
• 12:38
  Speaker 3: people I just described. And both of you have kept
• 12:41
  Speaker 3: speaking to these people and you don't get on the
• 12:44
  Speaker 3: historians who know about this. And that's just alarming to me.
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: Well, can I just say, because I kind of do
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: agree with part of what you said there. Like, I
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: do think it is true that almost as a reaction
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: to like the woke insanity that we've seen on the left.
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: And I think literally I think nobody's been a more
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: effective critic of that than you. I do think there
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: has kind of been a right wing reaction that has
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: embraced racialism and is is. Dangerous and not a good
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: pair and.
• 13:14
  Speaker 3: Now they're flirting with now of course denial and yes,
• 13:16
  Speaker 3: but they're not solving I.
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: Think you're wrong to include Darryl in that group now
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: the other thing is I'm sorry cuz maybe I'm misunderstanding
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: what you're saying people that I've had conversations with these
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: downplayed Well, who are the two guys? I've never Podcasted
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: with Ian Carroll. I have podcasted with Darryl Cooper once
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: and And he absolutely did not downplay any of the
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: Nazi atrocities at all. And I would also, I think
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: that if we're zooming out here a little bit, maybe
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: this is kind of part of the disconnect. Broadly speaking,
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: in American culture, the idea that it has not been
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: driven into people enough that the Nazis were bad and
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: that Adolf Hitler was, he is literally the modern devil.
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: He is much more so than the actual devil. Adolf
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: Hitler is what's viewed as the most evil thing to
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: the point that, I mean, just my entire life growing up,
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: if there was a guy who sold soup on Seinfeld
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: who was like authoritarian, he's a soup Nazi. Everyone was Hitler.
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: The left called George Bush Hitler, and they called Obama Hitler,
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: and they called Trump Hitler. Every single enemy that we've
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: gone to war with is always called Hitler. Saddam Hussein's
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: the new Hitler. Muammar Gaddafi's the new Hitler. Putin's the
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: new Hitler. So the idea that we haven't driven into
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: people enough, that Adolf Hitler was a really bad guy.
• 14:39
  Speaker 3: I'm not saying that at all. I'm not saying that
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: at all. I'm saying... just as the left likes to
• 14:43
  Speaker 3: play with very dark, ugly stuff. And they've done it
• 14:47
  Speaker 3: for decades. They have done. They have played down Chairman
• 14:52
  Speaker 3: Mao's murder of the Chinese throughout his era in power.
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: They played down Stalin. They still march on occasions with
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: posters of Lenin. They they've spent decades trying to do
• 15:05
  Speaker 3: down evils that were done on their side. And I
• 15:10
  Speaker 3: would suggest that one of the things that is going
• 15:12
  Speaker 3: on at the moment is despite or maybe because of
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: what you just described, there are movements now on the
• 15:18
  Speaker 3: right in America, subcultures, including people who follow both of you,
• 15:22
  Speaker 3: who are very interested in playing with this absolute beyond
• 15:29
  Speaker 3: the pale thing. Why somebody like Jake Shields wants to
• 15:32
  Speaker 3: play around with Holocaust denial? Why?
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: I can't answer for Jake Shields. I don't know.
• 15:39
  Speaker 3: Why do you think?
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: I have no idea. I think a lot of people
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: get captured by audience capture.
• 15:45
  Speaker 3: Captured by their audience.
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's the thing. You get a lot
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: of positive reinforcement from a bunch of twisted people.
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: Well, it's also, I mean, there's something about, you know,
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: Michael Malice had that great line. He goes, when you
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: take the red pill, you're supposed to take one and
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: not swallow the whole bottle. And I think there's like
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: this dynamic. What happens is, and of course, people know
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: the red pill is the analogy from The Matrix. The
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: idea that you wake up to realizing that so much
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: of the stuff you believed was bullshit, propaganda, and is
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: all lies. And this is a real danger when the
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: establishment and the institutions are all caught with their pants
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: down having sold a bunch of very consequential policies based
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: on lies. And then once people realize that, They go, well,
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: what else have they been lying to me about? And
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: then they almost want to look into every single thing
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: and go, yeah, I think the whole thing was lies. Now,
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: I agree with you. There's danger in that. And I
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: think that there are some things that then people jump
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: to conclusions that are totally wrong. But I guess I
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: tend to look at that and go, well, then maybe
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: the people with power, not random podcasters, but like the
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: people with real power should do a better job of
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: not lying through their fucking teeth about everything.
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: Well, maybe you have power. Maybe you have power, both
• 16:58
  Speaker 3: of you. We live in an era where podcasters have
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: a lot of power. If you go on a podcast
• 17:03
  Speaker 3: with Jake Shields and Jake Shields goes on to another
• 17:06
  Speaker 3: podcast and says he doesn't think six million Jews were
• 17:08
  Speaker 3: killed in the Holocaust, what do you think is happening there?
• 17:12
  Speaker 3: That's an exercise of power.
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 17:15
  Speaker 3: And I agree with you about the breakdown of trust. Absolutely.
• 17:21
  Speaker 3: We have lived through an era where in real time
• 17:24
  Speaker 3: we saw something called a conspiracy, the lab leak. which
• 17:27
  Speaker 3: turns out to be true, as you and others said
• 17:31
  Speaker 3: it might be from the beginning.
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: I find that to be very racist.
• 17:35
  Speaker 3: And Joe?
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: Both of you.
• 17:38
  Speaker 3: It used to be racist when we were saying that
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: it was likely that the COVID pandemic variant had come
• 17:44
  Speaker 3: out from the place making COVID variants.
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: Especially since it's in the exact town. It seemed like it.
• 17:51
  Speaker 3: It seemed like it was possible to us.
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: Ask yourself this. Who has access to your medical history?
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: In theory, it's just you and your doctor. But in reality,
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: hundreds of shady companies called data brokers are keeping tabs
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: on every symptom you Google, every treatment you research. and
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: every pre-existing condition they think you might have. That's valuable
• 18:13
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• 18:17
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• 19:40
  Speaker 1: Research, and they go, no, what happened is these freaks
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: were eating bat heads. That's not racist. The other one
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: was racist.
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: They were eating pangolins. That one fell apart in front
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: of our eyes. Well, it took four years. And I've
• 19:57
  Speaker 3: said repeatedly, it's kind of inevitable to me that if
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: you see something that is called a racist conspiracy theory
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: fall apart and become also what we used to call
• 20:07
  Speaker 3: true in a few years... it's likely to blow a
• 20:11
  Speaker 3: lot of people's minds. But the question then is, do
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: you help those minds that have been blown blow themselves
• 20:17
  Speaker 3: out some more by doing a whole load of other
• 20:20
  Speaker 3: conspiracy stuff? Do you decide to go, hey, what else
• 20:23
  Speaker 3: have we been lied to? Maybe Churchill wasn't a great guy.
• 20:26
  Speaker 3: Maybe Hitler wasn't such a bad guy. Maybe the Holocaust,
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: et cetera, et cetera.
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: And that is exactly what- No one is saying maybe
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: Hitler wasn't such a bad guy.
• 20:34
  Speaker 3: You are saying that. If you're saying that in the
• 20:36
  Speaker 3: 1930s- Hitler kept the anti-Semitism down.
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: No, no, no, no. That's not what he's saying. What
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: he was saying is that he didn't do it as publicly.
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: He was doing it in meetings because the support for
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: that kind of thinking wasn't as ubiquitous as it was.
• 20:52
  Speaker 3: I've seen this. I've seen this before. I know exactly
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: what these guys are drinking. They're drinking a couple of very,
• 20:59
  Speaker 3: very discredited historians like David Irving, and they are just
• 21:04
  Speaker 3: regurgitating it. And it was always been the same thing.
• 21:09
  Speaker 3: It is always an attempt to minimize Hitler's anti-Semitism actions. Eventually,
• 21:15
  Speaker 3: down the road, you get to minimizing his actual involvement
• 21:17
  Speaker 3: in the Holocaust. And then you can go on.
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: To the next stage. Yeah, but you can't say that
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: about Daryl. It's not true. What you're guilty of here
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: is kind of similar to, I think, something that the
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: woke left has done, which is this concept creep where
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: you're talking about some people online who are doing this thing.
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: And then you're lumping in other people with them. Listen,
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: I'll just say this right now. Daryl Cooper is currently,
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: I believe, almost finished, or he's working on a big
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: World War II series. And when this comes out- What's
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: it gonna be on? The podcast. Yeah, he does long-form podcasts.
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: When this comes out, I am quite confident to say
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: beforehand that if you're going into it expecting him to
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: be downplaying the atrocities of the Nazis or downplaying the
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: evil things that Adolf Hitler did, you're gonna be disappointed.
• 22:01
  Speaker 3: My point is, why are we even talking about this guy?
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: Because you brought him up.
• 22:04
  Speaker 3: Yes, because he comes on podcasts like this. My point is,
• 22:08
  Speaker 3: this is not a serious historian. No, no, no. He's
• 22:10
  Speaker 3: not a historian.
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: He never claims to be. He's been doing these long-form
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: podcasts on these subjects for over a decade. And if
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: you go back to 2015 and listen to Fear and
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: Loathing in the New Jerusalem, it's an incredible piece. Excellent.
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: How many hours long?
• 22:27
  Speaker 3: 30-something.
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: And it literally starts from the persecution of the Jews
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: where they're being driven out of Europe. It's like this
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: horrific account of what happens to these people. What he's
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: trying to do is paint a picture of how the
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: world goes mad and how the world goes sideways. And
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: he's doing it from the perspective initially of these Jewish
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: people that are living in Europe that all of a
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: sudden their neighbors are turning on them and they're being attacked.
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: Like it's– incredibly charitable. But what he's trying to do
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: is show what happens to human beings when they're confronted
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: with unbelievable atrocities and how things go so incredibly sideways.
• 23:14
  Speaker 3: Lots of people have written and spoken about that.
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: So why is he not allowed to?
• 23:18
  Speaker 3: He is allowed to. So he is allowed to. I'm
• 23:21
  Speaker 3: saying that there is a weird way in which figures
• 23:24
  Speaker 3: like him, whose ideas are not being counted when they
• 23:27
  Speaker 3: are raised, are given platform after platform to spread their views.
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: They are welcome to those platforms. I'm not saying they
• 23:34
  Speaker 3: shouldn't be platformed. I'm saying these are very, very fringe
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: figures who are pushing ideas that are either debunked now,
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: have been debunked before, or they will not stand up
• 23:44
  Speaker 3: against somebody who disagrees with them.
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: Okay, I would just say, maybe this is the disconnect here.
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: When you say there's not pushback, Daryl's one line on
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: Tucker Carlson, this one line where he himself said he
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: was being hyperbolic and kind of says this to prod
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: at his buddy, got more pushback than any one line
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: I've ever heard on a podcast. There were numerous articles
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: written by historians, numerous shows that covered it. People went
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: through their Twitter threads about it. So I don't exactly
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: get your point. Like, there was lots of pushback. If
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: you're saying he should go and debate somebody who's giving
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: him pushback on that, okay, maybe. I also think it's
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: reasonable for him to say, I don't really do debates.
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think it's weird to mainstream very fringe views
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: constantly and not give another side. I think that's weird.
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: Well, I mean, okay, I think there's a little bit
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: of a contradiction here. You're saying now that these are
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: fringe views, but then you're also saying that these are
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: enormously powerful views.
• 24:37
  Speaker 3: No, no, no, there's no contradiction. Let me clear it
• 24:39
  Speaker 3: off if you think there is. I think there are
• 24:41
  Speaker 3: very fringe views that have become mainstreamed on the right.
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: But then aren't they not fringe by definition?
• 24:47
  Speaker 3: Sure, you can play an epistemological game.
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: No, I'm just saying what's being accurate.
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: But you do understand the concept, don't you?
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: That fringe ideas become mainstreamed? Okay, sure.
• 24:56
  Speaker 3: So that's it. Okay.
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: I'm not exactly sure. So you're saying that what Joe
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: shouldn't have Daryl Cooper on?
• 25:03
  Speaker 3: No, I'm saying that if you mainstream very, very fringe views,
• 25:09
  Speaker 3: which are easily able to be debunked, if you mainstream them,
• 25:15
  Speaker 3: at some point, that view that was so fringe will
• 25:18
  Speaker 3: be what eager, very disconnected, unhappy people are going to
• 25:25
  Speaker 3: start playing with too. And if... These people are such
• 25:29
  Speaker 3: experts in how you see a society go weird. They
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: can look at what is happening to a portion of
• 25:35
  Speaker 3: the right everywhere on this stuff. There is a portion
• 25:38
  Speaker 3: of the right across the West that is playing this
• 25:43
  Speaker 3: very dark game, and they're doing it deliberately, and you
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: can't not be aware of that.
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: I agree with that. I don't think Daryl Cooper is
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: doing that, but I do agree with your characterization. I
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: think it's a pretty important distinction there.
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: You're just taking this one statement. And then where he's
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: trying to joke around with his buddy, this Churchill statement.
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: And this is the basis of this.
• 26:05
  Speaker 3: He and these other guys are all doing the anti-Churchill
• 26:08
  Speaker 3: stuff now.
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: But he's not doing an anti-Churchill stuff.
• 26:11
  Speaker 3: He and the other people in the orbit I'm describing.
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: Churchill was the author of this whole Operation Unthinkable, right?
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: Where they wanted to use the Nazis to invade Russia.
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: Wasn't that Churchill? Is that not true?
• 26:26
  Speaker 3: We're going to have to get into the weeds on Churchill.
• 26:28
  Speaker 3: There is always going to be a corner, which you
• 26:30
  Speaker 3: can get me on, on a bit of Churchill.
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: But that's the point.
• 26:35
  Speaker 3: You'd have to say which bit you're talking about.
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: But that's the point, is to have a comprehensive view.
• 26:39
  Speaker 3: Churchill was never working with the Germans to invade Russia.
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: No, no, no. This is a plan that was drawn up.
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: Do you know about Operation Thinkable? Pull it up, Jamie.
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: Operation Unthinkable was at the end of the war. I
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: believe Churchill was concerned about the rise of Russia and
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: the rise of the Soviet Union. And the idea was,
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: and we'll find out what the historical facts are about this,
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: Operation Unthinkable, the name given to two related possible future
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: war plans developed by the British Chiefs of Staff Committee
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: against the Soviet Union during 1945. The plans were never implemented.
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: The creation of the plans was ordered by the British
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: Prime Minister Winston Churchill on May 1945 and developed by
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: the British Armed Forces Joint Planning Staff in May 1945,
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: the end of World War II in Europe. One plan
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: assumed a surprise attack on the Soviet forces stationed in
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: Germany to impose the will of the United States and
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: the British Empire upon Russia. The will was qualified as
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: a square deal for Poland, but added that that does
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: not necessarily limit the military commitment. The assessment, signed by
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: the chief of army staff on 9 June 1945, concluded
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: it would be beyond our power to win a quick
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: but limited success, and we would be committed to a
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: protracted war against heavy odds.
• 28:00
  Speaker 3: First of all, I never do Wikipedia.
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: Okay, we don't have to do Wikipedia.
• 28:07
  Speaker 3: No, no, that's okay.
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: This is just what Jamie pulled up.
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: Okay, but first of all, yes, at the end of
• 28:12
  Speaker 3: the war, a plan requested that wasn't seen through that
• 28:18
  Speaker 3: suggests that after the defeat of Nazism, communism of the
• 28:22
  Speaker 3: Soviet form is also going to be a threat to
• 28:24
  Speaker 3: Europe was simply evidence that, I mean, it's obvious. True.
• 28:27
  Speaker 3: It's what Churchill worried about throughout the 40s. He worried
• 28:31
  Speaker 3: about it in Yalta. He worried about it everywhere. I'm sorry,
• 28:34
  Speaker 3: but I have to return to this point that This
• 28:37
  Speaker 3: man manages to do one of the most heroic things
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: in human history, in standing alone against evil in its
• 28:45
  Speaker 3: most concentrate form. And he does about as much as
• 28:49
  Speaker 3: any human being can do to save the civilized world.
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: If you just park that and you go on to
• 28:59
  Speaker 3: a plan in 1945 to try to counter Soviet domination
• 29:06
  Speaker 3: of Europe, You see what I'm saying? This is not
• 29:09
  Speaker 3: doing something in the round.
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's also, look, I mean, look, I'm not even like,
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: I'm not at all the expert on World War II.
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: And I'm not like gonna debate with you about World
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: War II. But I would say that like, that is,
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of room for nuance and disagreement with
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: what you just said. You know, in the 20th century,
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: we had two world wars. They're the worst thing, objectively speaking,
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: the worst thing that's ever happened in the history of
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: the world. And the Second World War is the biggest
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: bloodshed in human history. And it ended with handing the
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: man who you just mentioned, Joseph Stalin, half of Europe.
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: So listen. If you want to argue, I'm Jewish of
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: German descent, so I'm not against the argument that the
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: Nazis had to be defeated and that was the most
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: important thing, but there still is just the basic facts
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: that it almost couldn't have gone worse. It was like
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: just a nightmare for civilization. And if people want to
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: look back at that and go, man, was there any
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: other way this could have been handled? Was there any
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: other way? Were there blunders that were made here? Now, personally,
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: what I feel much more comfortable arguing would be that
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: I try to blame everything I can on Woodrow Wilson
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: as much as I can because also he created the
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: income tax on the Federal Reserve and did so much
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: to damage my country. But I think American entry into
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: World War I was really a disaster. And imposing the
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: Treaty of Versailles on Germany was a disaster. I also
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: think that's kind of fairly mainstream history. Like, that's not
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: a particularly controversial view that, like, imposing the Treaty of
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: Versailles on Germany ended up in disaster.
• 30:43
  Speaker 3: Well, no, except that, as Martin Amis said, the only
• 30:45
  Speaker 3: way to not get to the treaty of versailles would
• 30:47
  Speaker 3: be for germany to win world war one but.
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah yeah but we're not talking about the nazis winning
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: the war we're talking about you know listen i think.
• 30:55
  Speaker 3: That but secondly sorry i just have to address that
• 30:59
  Speaker 3: fundamental you say uh the outcome of world war two
• 31:03
  Speaker 3: and everything happened and it was the worst thing that's
• 31:05
  Speaker 3: ever happened and the worst thing imaginable worst possible outcome
• 31:08
  Speaker 3: you said just about you said worst possible outcome let
• 31:10
  Speaker 3: me give you a much worse possible outcome. Hitler wins. Right.
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: Okay. Sure.
• 31:16
  Speaker 3: So it's not the worst possible outcome.
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: That's true.
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: Listen, but okay.
• 31:18
  Speaker 3: Hitler. Yes.
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: Okay. I'm not saying you can't dream up a worse outcome.
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: I'm saying what you have.
• 31:22
  Speaker 3: It's not dreaming up. That's just what my country and
• 31:25
  Speaker 3: others went through.
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: But what did end up happening was the 60 million
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: people died, including the Holocaust. And then Joseph Stalin takes
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: half of Europe. So, okay, fine. I should, I'll correct that.
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: There is a worse outcome.
• 31:37
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: But that's not a great one.
• 31:40
  Speaker 3: No, nobody said it was. There's a very weird argument
• 31:43
  Speaker 3: that you now hear about this. This attempt to revision this,
• 31:46
  Speaker 3: and I know why it's happening.
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: I don't think there's anything that's revisionist.
• 31:49
  Speaker 3: I think there is. But this attempt to sort of say, look,
• 31:53
  Speaker 3: at the end of World War II, what have we got?
• 31:55
  Speaker 3: Stalin has half of Europe. What was the point? And
• 31:58
  Speaker 3: so on. That's going on. That's going on. And there
• 32:02
  Speaker 3: are people who are feeding it. That argument is very similar.
• 32:06
  Speaker 3: This particular school of, as it were, history. is doing
• 32:11
  Speaker 3: something that I've seen happen with American history as well,
• 32:13
  Speaker 3: particularly with Lincoln. Lincoln's an interesting comparison to make with
• 32:16
  Speaker 3: Churchill on this. There are people who will criticize Churchill
• 32:21
  Speaker 3: for mistakes made, not hard to do, quite hard not
• 32:24
  Speaker 3: to make mistakes while fighting at a war of total
• 32:27
  Speaker 3: annihilation against your country. People will say, oh, he didn't
• 32:32
  Speaker 3: sort this out in 1945. You know, it's rather like Lincoln.
• 32:37
  Speaker 3: He didn't solve every problem in the world for all
• 32:39
  Speaker 3: time but he solved a hell of a big problem
• 32:42
  Speaker 3: for his time. And that requires some kind of generosity
• 32:47
  Speaker 3: of spirit and understanding in hindsight, as opposed to, I
• 32:53
  Speaker 3: will find something that he did that I wouldn't have
• 32:55
  Speaker 3: done because if I'd have been running the British Empire
• 32:59
  Speaker 3: in 1939, I'd have known exactly how to do it.
• 33:01
  Speaker 3: And I'd have known how to hold the whole thing together.
• 33:02
  Speaker 3: And I'd have kept Stalin back and he'd have been
• 33:04
  Speaker 3: great at Yalta.
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: And But I don't think anybody's saying that.
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree with you. I think there is a
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: tendency of like woke left kids to do this. But
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: I don't think that's what– certainly not what I'm saying
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: and I don't think what Daryl is saying. I do
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: also think that one of the bigger– kind of the
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: bigger picture dynamics to all of this is that we
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: have at least since 9-11 been in a state of
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: perpetual war. And all of these wars have been disasters.
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: They have been so many lies involved in selling all
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: of them. I mean, the whole Iraq war, the whole
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: war in Afghanistan, just lying the whole way through. I mean,
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: I remember literally having conversations with Green Berets in the
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: middle of the war in Afghanistan. And they're like, George W.
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: Bush is telling you that the army we're building up
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: there is really successful. This thing is going to fall
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: in a week without us. And then all through the
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: Obama administration, it's just like lie after lie after lie
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: with disastrous wars. And so this does create a fertile
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: ground for people to say, I wonder if they were
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: lying about all these wars. Again, I'm not really trying
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: to argue with you about World War II. I'd rather
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: argue about.
• 34:11
  Speaker 3: These wars today. I think the interesting question is whether
• 34:13
  Speaker 3: you're busy watering it.
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: Well, should you not talk about mistakes that were made overall?
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: You should.
• 34:19
  Speaker 3: Absolutely.
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: Okay, you should.
• 34:20
  Speaker 3: Absolutely. I have all four going back and looking at mistakes.
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: So what is your argument then?
• 34:25
  Speaker 3: It's a very weird thing to go back, zone in
• 34:28
  Speaker 3: on a man, say this one thing is a mistake
• 34:31
  Speaker 3: and should characterize him, and you ignore everything else.
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: You're taking him out of context when you're talking about Daryl,
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: who's done, what was it, 30 plus hours?
• 34:40
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• 36:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a very different thing.
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: He's not doing a podcast like talking to people.
• 36:12
  Speaker 3: Okay, nor is he doing scholarly work, nor is he
• 36:15
  Speaker 3: working in the archives. Come on. He is not the
• 36:18
  Speaker 3: historian of our era.
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: He's not complaining to me.
• 36:21
  Speaker 3: This is the thing, Joe. This is like punching jelly. No,
• 36:24
  Speaker 3: but you don't consume his work. What I'm saying, because
• 36:28
  Speaker 3: I don't need to consume endless versions of a revisionist history.
• 36:33
  Speaker 3: I understand. But it's not revisionist history.
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: If you listen to his work, it's not revisionist history.
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: He's basing it on historical work. Yeah, I know.
• 36:43
  Speaker 3: Okay, so this is my point about Jelly. It's a
• 36:46
  Speaker 3: shape-shifting thing. Comedian or historian?
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: He's not a comedian.
• 36:51
  Speaker 3: Historian or... Or podcasts? Would be historian or actual historian?
• 36:55
  Speaker 3: You say he doesn't claim to be a historian, but
• 36:57
  Speaker 3: he's pumping out tens of hours of history.
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: Neither does Dan Carlin. He doesn't claim to be a
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: historian either.
• 37:03
  Speaker 3: You see my point about the move. It's like some
• 37:06
  Speaker 3: weird jujitsu move where you say, hang on, you know
• 37:09
  Speaker 3: all about this as well. You say, I'm not a historian,
• 37:14
  Speaker 3: but I'm going to spend my time talking about history.
• 37:17
  Speaker 3: I'm not a journalist, but I'm going to spend my
• 37:19
  Speaker 3: time talking about this thing. I'm not Expert on this
• 37:22
  Speaker 3: but I'm gonna spend my time talking about this thing.
• 37:24
  Speaker 3: It's a weird move.
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 37:26
  Speaker 3: No, you don't think no.
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: I'm a free American. I can talk about what I
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: like to So I don't know what is the point here?
• 37:31
  Speaker 3: I've noticed you can but we all can't the point
• 37:35
  Speaker 3: is what are you pushing? What are you watering?
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: What am I pushing? Yes Liberty free markets peace prosperity
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: not getting in another stupid catastrophic war which we're on
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: the precipice of right now That's what I'm pushing.
• 37:48
  Speaker 3: What are we on the precipice of?
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: Well, I think you weren't you just talking about it
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: the other day. Everyone I hear on the inside says
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: we're about to attack around. I think you just said
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: something about that the other day. Am I wrong about that?
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: I thought I saw in one of your interviews that
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: you did.
• 38:00
  Speaker 3: Possibly. That doesn't mean we are on the verge of
• 38:03
  Speaker 3: a war. I mean, you keep referring to we being
• 38:05
  Speaker 3: in wars. There's a very big difference between a country
• 38:09
  Speaker 3: having a military that's engaged and a country being at war.
• 38:14
  Speaker 3: This country is not being at war. For 25 years,
• 38:17
  Speaker 3: you have not been fighting for the American homeland for
• 38:19
  Speaker 3: 25 years.
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: Yes, we haven't. That's true. We haven't had a war
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: on our shores. We've been picking on third world countries
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: halfway around the world.
• 38:24
  Speaker 3: Well, you haven't been randomly picking on them. I mean, Afghanistan,
• 38:28
  Speaker 3: you went.
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: I didn't say it was random.
• 38:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, right.
• 38:30
  Speaker 3: Okay. It wasn't like you suddenly decided to bomb, again,
• 38:33
  Speaker 3: Myanmar or something. You went to Afghanistan to find bin
• 38:37
  Speaker 3: Laden and take revenge for 9-11 and stop an attack
• 38:41
  Speaker 3: like that happening again on the American homeland. That is
• 38:44
  Speaker 3: very different from a country being at war.
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but that's a total mischaracterization of the war in Afghanistan.
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: It's one thing to say that might be an accurate
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: characterization of the special operations mission in late 2001. But
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: then we thought a 20-year regime change war against the Taliban.
• 38:59
  Speaker 3: Because you got dragged into the quicksand of war.
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: Okay, fine.
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: But I thought it wasn't a war. I don't get
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: your argument.
• 39:06
  Speaker 3: No, I said it was a war. It's your use
• 39:08
  Speaker 3: of we here. as if you're personally like suffering this war.
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you're a taxpayer.
• 39:12
  Speaker 3: We're taxpayers, so we pay for it. Okay, fine.
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: Douglas, if I went back and corrected you on every
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: time you've used the term we to refer to your
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: government or something like that, like if I were to say, oh,
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: we just imposed tariffs on China, would you point out
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: that I didn't and it was the Trump administration?
• 39:26
  Speaker 3: I'm saying you take it obviously very personally and that's
• 39:29
  Speaker 3: your right to do so, of course. I'm just trying
• 39:31
  Speaker 3: to make sure.
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: We're accurate here. What do you think I'm taking personally?
• 39:35
  Speaker 3: Just that, the American wars.
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: Sure, yeah. I think they've killed hundreds of thousands of
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: people and cost my country $ 8 trillion and degraded my
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: country very much.
• 39:45
  Speaker 3: And there's a very good argument to make on that.
• 39:48
  Speaker 3: I'm still slightly bemused about this move from I'm an
• 39:53
  Speaker 3: expert on this and I have views to I'm a comedian.
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: I've never claimed to be an expert on anything.
• 40:00
  Speaker 3: This is the problem, Joe. I mean, if somebody says-
• 40:04
  Speaker 3: Wait a minute.
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: You have to claim to be an expert on something
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: to have an opinion on something?
• 40:07
  Speaker 3: No, you don't have to be. You don't have to be.
• 40:09
  Speaker 3: So what's the issue? I'm not a historian, but I'm
• 40:12
  Speaker 3: pumping out history. I'm not an expert, but I'm talking
• 40:14
  Speaker 3: all the time about this thing.
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: But you're not even talking about specifically on what he
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: just said.
• 40:18
  Speaker 3: No, I'm saying this is my point about this. You
• 40:21
  Speaker 3: say I'm not an expert.
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: So what's the solution? To not talk about it?
• 40:26
  Speaker 3: No, it's to have more experts around.
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: Well, the expert class hasn't done a great job.
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: I know.
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: This is follow the science. Absolutely. I agree with that.
• 40:35
  Speaker 3: I just said to you, I agree with that. But
• 40:37
  Speaker 3: one of the problems is.
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: During all of COVID, I will put my track record
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: against any of the expert class on COVID. I'm glad
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: to do that. So should I have just shut up?
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: Should I have shut up by opposing lockdowns and opposing
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: vaccine mandates?
• 40:50
  Speaker 3: No.
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: That was the argument at the time. You realize that, right?
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: That's the entire argument that you're making. Let the experts
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: handle this.
• 40:55
  Speaker 3: No, no, no.
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: You're not an expert. You're right.
• 40:57
  Speaker 3: I was just a comedian. not listening to what I'm saying.
• 41:02
  Speaker 3: I think you have to take, I think we should
• 41:05
  Speaker 3: agree perhaps on the following, that one major thing can
• 41:09
  Speaker 3: break down in front of your eyes, or many major things.
• 41:12
  Speaker 3: And it does not mean that every single one of
• 41:15
  Speaker 3: the sewer gates should be lifted. Okay?
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I get that point.
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: Who's saying it should be?
• 41:22
  Speaker 3: I'm saying this is a chatter on what is part
• 41:24
  Speaker 3: of our side at the moment. is that a lot
• 41:27
  Speaker 3: of the sewer gates are being lifted, sometimes by people
• 41:31
  Speaker 3: who know that they're doing it, sometimes by people who don't,
• 41:34
  Speaker 3: sometimes by people who say, I don't know, I'm just
• 41:37
  Speaker 3: throwing it out there. But at the very least, there's
• 41:40
  Speaker 3: some damn hygiene that should be required, isn't there?
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm not sure exactly what you're asking, but sure.
• 41:48
  Speaker 3: Just that. Let's have a bit of hygiene on our
• 41:51
  Speaker 3: own side. Not lift every sewer gate.
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: And when you say our own side, you mean the
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: right wing broadly speaking?
• 41:56
  Speaker 3: Broadly speaking. And I'm sort of funny about libertarians. I'm
• 41:58
  Speaker 3: never quite sure. I always think libertarians are essentially the
• 42:02
  Speaker 3: bisexuals of politics.
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: They should just.
• 42:05
  Speaker 3: Choose, Joe. They should choose. It's kind of. They just
• 42:09
  Speaker 3: want everything in the buffet.
• 42:10
  Speaker 2: It's very funny.
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: Well, I think we want some things.
• 42:13
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: Okay. That's a weird way to put it, but I
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: get your point.
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: I see your point.
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: All right. Well, I mean, I don't know. Look, I mean, essentially,
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: I just don't. Maybe there's something I'm missing here. But
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: if your argument is that, like, you're saying, I claim
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: to be an expert, but then I have, like, a
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: parachute to get out of it by being like, hey,
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: I'm just a comedian who's just saying this. But I
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: don't think I've ever, like, really claimed to be an expert.
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: I have opinions on things. Because I'm interested in these topics.
• 42:37
  Speaker 3: I know, but. Isn't it weird to go around, for instance,
• 42:41
  Speaker 3: let's get to the last year and a half. It's
• 42:44
  Speaker 3: a bit weird to be simultaneously saying, I'm not an
• 42:47
  Speaker 3: expert on a conflict and talking about it everywhere.
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: I don't think so. Not really. I mean, I don't know.
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: I don't think like, I don't see how you- Do
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: you talk about these things?
• 42:57
  Speaker 3: Which things?
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: All these things that we're talking about.
• 42:59
  Speaker 3: Some of them, yeah.
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: Are you an expert?
• 43:00
  Speaker 3: I am on some, yes.
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: On some, but you talk about some that you're not
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: an expert on. You'll notice that I didn't do.
• 43:05
  Speaker 2: What should you do if those subjects get breached?
• 43:07
  Speaker 3: Well, I think that you educate yourself as much as
• 43:09
  Speaker 3: you can.
• 43:10
  Speaker 2: Shouldn't you say I'm not an expert and then give
• 43:12
  Speaker 2: your opinion if you're in the middle of a conversation?
• 43:13
  Speaker 3: I think it's, as I say, I think that it's
• 43:15
  Speaker 3: a weird move to say I'm not an expert on this,
• 43:18
  Speaker 3: but I'm going to talk about it nonstop. I think
• 43:20
  Speaker 3: that is strange.
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: Listen, I will certainly concede that I am weird. So
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: I'm not disagreeing with you. It's weird that I'm as
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: obsessed with all this stuff as I am. I mean, like, okay,
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: I'm a weird guy.
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: I do.
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: tell jokes at nightclubs and then get obsessed with politics
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: and monetary policy and like, okay, fine. But I just
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: like fundamentally disagree with this idea that, which I really
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: do think is, um, quite anti-democratic in spirit and quite elitist,
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: that there's an expert class, they can have opinions on
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: all of these things. It's weird for any regular person
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: who's just read about it.
• 43:54
  Speaker 3: Not my view, not my view.
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: Seems like what you're saying.
• 43:57
  Speaker 3: I conceded already. I said a long time ago that
• 43:59
  Speaker 3: I believe much of the expert class let itself and
• 44:02
  Speaker 3: us all down very badly. And I think that happened
• 44:05
  Speaker 3: in foreign policy in areas, not every area. But it
• 44:08
  Speaker 3: happened in some areas. I think it happened with COVID
• 44:10
  Speaker 3: in many areas. But that does not mean that it's
• 44:14
  Speaker 3: just a free-for-all. No. There are some things we can
• 44:18
  Speaker 3: still verify to be true and can still agree on
• 44:21
  Speaker 3: as baseline levels of agreement in a free society. And yes,
• 44:26
  Speaker 3: everyone is free to air their views, but it does
• 44:29
  Speaker 3: not mean that everyone who sounds off on an issue,
• 44:33
  Speaker 3: whether it's World War II, the war in the Middle East,
• 44:37
  Speaker 3: the war in Ukraine, has an equally valid point of view, no.
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: I certainly wouldn't argue. I mean, that to me is
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: just batting down a straw, man. I mean, I certainly
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: wouldn't argue that everyone has an equally valid point of view.
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: And I certainly wouldn't argue that there shouldn't be some
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: standards of like who you would want to find interesting
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: and talk to and who you wouldn't. But also it's like,
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: so let's have the conversation that like, I don't know,
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: like if there's, if there is, if there are experts
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: out there who can smack all of this stuff down
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: or just destroy every point that I make over the
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: years or whatever. Like, okay, so then do it. And
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: then let's see.
• 45:14
  Speaker 3: Well, that's a bit weird because also then it's like
• 45:17
  Speaker 3: the debate me bro thing.
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: But you just criticized Daryl for not debating. No, it's fine.
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: It's fine.
• 45:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I know. Let me just make the main point.
• 45:25
  Speaker 3: I think what I'm trying to get at, Joe, is
• 45:27
  Speaker 3: that it's a bit like the Twitter algorithm thing, which is, yes,
• 45:31
  Speaker 3: everyone is and should be free to say what they like.
• 45:35
  Speaker 3: On Twitter, apart from whatever the very fringe things of
• 45:39
  Speaker 3: like immediate incitement to violence and all that kind of thing.
• 45:42
  Speaker 3: But we all know that one of the oddities of Twitter,
• 45:45
  Speaker 3: including since Elon took over, is that what you hope
• 45:49
  Speaker 3: is a restored marketplace of ideas ends up pushing you
• 45:53
  Speaker 3: really crazy shit. Yes. And that is what I'm suggesting
• 45:56
  Speaker 3: is happening on a podcast level and maybe on a
• 45:59
  Speaker 3: wider level beyond that. I get stuff on Twitter I
• 46:04
  Speaker 3: just do not want. I do not want a guy
• 46:06
  Speaker 3: with 1,500 followers who's got some zany new view on
• 46:10
  Speaker 3: something who isn't an expert but is an expert to
• 46:14
  Speaker 3: be pushed at me. And effectively, what is happening with
• 46:17
  Speaker 3: the Twitter algorithm is happening everywhere else as well. And
• 46:21
  Speaker 3: we're all for the open marketplace of ideas. I want that.
• 46:24
  Speaker 3: I thrive in it. But it is It is different
• 46:28
  Speaker 3: once you get into the thing of is something manipulating
• 46:30
  Speaker 3: the algorithm behind? Is the algorithm being pushed on me?
• 46:34
  Speaker 3: Why am I being given this? Why am I not
• 46:36
  Speaker 3: being given that? Why am I being constantly pushed this view?
• 46:40
  Speaker 3: And I think that the answer to a great degree
• 46:43
  Speaker 3: is the same thing in your world as it is
• 46:46
  Speaker 3: in the Twitter world, which is if you go straight
• 46:49
  Speaker 3: online and you say, you know, JFK file drops. watch
• 46:55
  Speaker 3: live stream of Kennedy historians reading the papers live, you're
• 47:00
  Speaker 3: not going to get any views. No one's going to
• 47:03
  Speaker 3: watch it. That's kind of what's needed is for the
• 47:06
  Speaker 3: people who know the documents to go through the documents.
• 47:08
  Speaker 3: But you and I know that if, as there was
• 47:10
  Speaker 3: some guy who did immediately, you do something like live
• 47:15
  Speaker 3: stream Mossad involvement in JFK, you're going to milk it.
• 47:19
  Speaker 3: You're going to cream it online. The money comes in.
• 47:23
  Speaker 3: I'm saying that there's a similar algorithm in all of
• 47:25
  Speaker 3: our lives that we're not as aware of as we
• 47:27
  Speaker 3: should be, which is that we because we all know
• 47:30
  Speaker 3: this at some level, that there are certain things that
• 47:35
  Speaker 3: get your ability, your base going or get people going
• 47:39
  Speaker 3: interesting and crazy. And then they start debating it and
• 47:42
  Speaker 3: all that sort of thing. And that algorithm of online
• 47:45
  Speaker 3: seems to me to be spilling into the real world.
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: I don't disagree that there's certainly more sensationalist stuff will
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: get you more clicks. I also don't think it's not
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: really unique to social media or podcasting. I mean, this
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: has been true.
• 47:59
  Speaker 3: No, believe me, I write for the tabloids.
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, right? This has always been true. So yeah, okay.
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: So it's kind of one of the problems of humanity.
• 48:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't think anybody's arguing against that. You know,
• 48:09
  Speaker 2: it's certainly never my intention when I talk to someone
• 48:13
  Speaker 2: to try to get more views. It sounds crazy, but
• 48:15
  Speaker 2: I'm only talking to people that I'm interested in talking to.
• 48:17
  Speaker 2: And in Daryl's case, It's because I've been a listener
• 48:20
  Speaker 2: of his podcast for years. That's it. This is like
• 48:28
  Speaker 2: genuinely how I pursue things.
• 48:30
  Speaker 3: I believe you.
• 48:31
  Speaker 2: That's why you're here. I'm genuinely interested in your views
• 48:34
  Speaker 2: as well. Even though you completely disagree with him. I mean,
• 48:40
  Speaker 2: this is the marketplace of ideas in real time.
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: I agree.
• 48:45
  Speaker 3: Although, as I say, I think you've massively underrepresented the
• 48:50
  Speaker 3: pro-Ukraine argument and the pro-Israel argument in the last two years.
• 48:57
  Speaker 2: I don't know. I mean, well.
• 49:00
  Speaker 3: That's my observation.
• 49:01
  Speaker 2: Okay. You're totally allowed to have that observation. What's the
• 49:06
  Speaker 2: pro-Ukraine argument that you think is not being represented enough?
• 49:12
  Speaker 3: Well, my broad view is that... again, something to do
• 49:16
  Speaker 3: with the algorithm, that anything that is... conspiratorial about Zelensky
• 49:24
  Speaker 3: or the Ukrainians in the conflict does very well. Anything
• 49:28
  Speaker 3: that says actually the Ukrainian army is fighting to try
• 49:33
  Speaker 3: to retain as much of their country as they can
• 49:36
  Speaker 3: doesn't do as well. I think that everything that is
• 49:41
  Speaker 3: pushing the idea that, for instance, the Americans caused it
• 49:45
  Speaker 3: or something like that does well. I think everything that
• 49:49
  Speaker 3: says actually in February 2022, Vladimir Putin's tanks invaded Ukraine
• 49:56
  Speaker 3: and they shouldn't have done doesn't.
• 49:57
  Speaker 2: Do as well. I don't think I've ever heard anyone
• 49:59
  Speaker 2: say that what Vladimir Putin did wasn't horrific.
• 50:05
  Speaker 3: That's not my point. The point is that after that...
• 50:09
  Speaker 3: There's a whole set of things. Let's look at, for instance,
• 50:11
  Speaker 3: the issue of corruption. Ukraine is a pretty corrupt country
• 50:15
  Speaker 3: by EU standards, by World Bank standards. And it's been
• 50:22
  Speaker 3: a problem, as it is in that neck of the woods.
• 50:26
  Speaker 3: And it's understandable that if the U.S. is one of
• 50:29
  Speaker 3: the countries putting money and arms into Ukraine, then it's
• 50:32
  Speaker 3: going to be a subject of legitimate interest to the
• 50:35
  Speaker 3: American people and others, the European taxpayers. Nevertheless, you end
• 50:40
  Speaker 3: up in this. And I know this because it's the
• 50:42
  Speaker 3: same thing in the old media. You end up on
• 50:44
  Speaker 3: like the new bit of the story. And there's always
• 50:48
  Speaker 3: a risk that you will lose sight of the beginning
• 50:51
  Speaker 3: of the story. For instance, I mean, Putin's corruption is legendary, gargantuan,
• 51:00
  Speaker 3: and not as interesting, it seems to me. The algorithm
• 51:05
  Speaker 3: doesn't push that.
• 51:07
  Speaker 4: And.
• 51:08
  Speaker 3: I think that's, to a greater extent, the case with
• 51:12
  Speaker 3: the Israel-Hamas war as well.
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: Well, isn't there a little bit of a concern? Like,
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: I would say a couple things here. Number one... I
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: don't know how the algorithm works or what it's pushing.
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: It's an interesting thing that we probably should all know
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: more about, but I think there's a danger to just
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: classify everything as, well, the algorithm pushes this and doesn't
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: push this. It could also be that some ideas are
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: just resonating more and some ideas are more popular than
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: other ideas. And probably both of those things are at
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: work in that dynamic. But I also think that something
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: like the reason why, say, talking about Ukrainian corruption is
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: more interesting in a lot of ways than talking about
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: Russian corruption is obviously because like, well, one of these
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: countries is an enemy and the other one is one
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: that we're sending tens of billions of dollars to. And so, yes, well,
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: debating on between Zelensky and the weapons companies, I don't know,
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: he says he only got $ 70 billion of it, but
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: we've spent closer to 170, so whatever. But the point
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: is that obviously, if there is a country that we
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: are propping up, funding, arming, and they're corrupt, I would
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: say my starting point would always be to be more
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: concerned with that corruption than an enemy country, which it's
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: almost kind of a given is a corrupt country. Like,
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I'm sure there are fringes of the
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: right who might say like Vladimir Putin, some great guy
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: or something like that. But that is, I really do
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: not think that is the argument that most people who
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: are critical of this, of Biden's policy are making.
• 52:39
  Speaker 2: Sure.
• 52:40
  Speaker 3: I mean, I think one of the interesting things that
• 52:42
  Speaker 3: happens in this is the old cliche of losing the
• 52:45
  Speaker 3: wood for the trees, it just happens an awful lot.
• 52:49
  Speaker 3: And it's the nature of the old news cycle, let
• 52:52
  Speaker 3: alone the current one, the social media era. Actually, I
• 52:56
  Speaker 3: remember that. So I would like to go back to
• 52:59
  Speaker 3: World War II. Let me just very quickly. I remember
• 53:01
  Speaker 3: this debate with Pat Buchanan when he was debating much
• 53:04
  Speaker 3: more learned historians on the subject of the origins of
• 53:07
  Speaker 3: World War II. And the whole thing got lost in
• 53:09
  Speaker 3: all of this sort of mad puzzle of views about
• 53:12
  Speaker 3: iron ore production in the Bavarian forest and this sort
• 53:15
  Speaker 3: of thing. And I remember everyone was all over the place.
• 53:18
  Speaker 3: And the moderator turned to the historian Andrew Roberts and said,
• 53:21
  Speaker 3: Andrew Roberts, why did World War II begin? And he said,
• 53:25
  Speaker 3: World War II began because Hitler invaded Poland. And those
• 53:30
  Speaker 3: moments come along quite often at the moment, which is Yes,
• 53:35
  Speaker 3: there's an awful lot of very interesting things to look into.
• 53:38
  Speaker 3: There's a lot of very interesting things going on, which
• 53:40
  Speaker 3: we should all be able to talk about and do
• 53:42
  Speaker 3: talk about. But sometimes you have to remember the origin
• 53:47
  Speaker 3: causes of things as well. And you have to stick
• 53:50
  Speaker 3: to keeping that in mind. Yeah, well, I certainly agree
• 53:53
  Speaker 3: with people are pretty bad at the moment of keeping
• 53:56
  Speaker 3: that in mind. Like you can there you can concede
• 54:00
  Speaker 3: Ukrainian corruption. You can concede all sorts of things. And
• 54:04
  Speaker 3: still not lose sight of the thing of if Russia
• 54:08
  Speaker 3: rolls tanks into neighboring countries, it can't be allowed.
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: Well, listen, OK, so on that, I think we have
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: an area of agreement. And I do think like even
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: while I much prefer the path that Donald Trump is
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: pursuing to the path that Joe Biden pursued when it
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: comes to the war in Ukraine. And of course, this
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: is Donald Trump's thing, is once you piss him off,
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: he's gonna call you every bad nickname that there is.
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: But when he said- And sometimes when you don't piss
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: him off. Well, sure. The Danes come to mind. I
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: believe he said that Zelensky started the war.
• 54:41
  Speaker 2: Yes, he did.
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: Which is like, okay, all right, that's a little bit ridiculous.
• 54:44
  Speaker 2: Did he really say that?
• 54:45
  Speaker 3: He said Zelensky started the war and that Zelensky was
• 54:47
  Speaker 3: the dictator.
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: Yes, okay.
• 54:48
  Speaker 2: What?
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: Trump said that? Yes. But it was after Zelensky pissed
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: him off.
• 54:52
  Speaker 2: He said Zelensky started the war?
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 54:54
  Speaker 2: Really?
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: But this is how Donald Trump is. Love him or
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: hate him for better or for worse Donald Trump It's
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: like if if you he feels that you disrespected him
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: or come came at him. He's gonna be ten times more.
• 55:05
  Speaker 3: Vicious This happened two weeks before the Disastrous Oval Office meeting. Yeah,
• 55:10
  Speaker 3: and I wrote the next day the cover in the
• 55:12
  Speaker 3: New York Post Which was a big picture of Vladimir
• 55:15
  Speaker 3: Putin with the headline. This is a dictator Just again
• 55:19
  Speaker 3: as I say not to lose track in all of
• 55:23
  Speaker 3: the melee not to lose track of of the basic facts.
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: Well, look, I will say this as somebody who is
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: very anti-war, broadly speaking, and I do agree with you
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: that it should, like, we should be able to have
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: conversations about all the things that led up to the
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: war and all the different, you know, like blunders that
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: were made and also still recognize that Vladimir Putin invaded
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: a country and is responsible for you know, at least
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: hundreds of thousands of people dying. And, you know, Scott Horton,
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: who I always try to promote on here, he just
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: wrote this book called Provoked. I think it's the best
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: book that's been written on the history leading up to
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: the war between, it basically takes you from the collapse
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: of the Soviet Union up to the war in Ukraine.
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: And even in that book, the book is called Provoked.
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: And the argument is that Western policy was very provocative
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: toward Vladimir Putin. And there were a lot of off
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: ramps that could have been explored and should have been explored.
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: But he has an entire chapter in the book where
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: he is saying like, look, Putin had a lot of
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: other options. He didn't have to do this. It's not
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: as if any of that justifies his invasion. And so
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: I do agree with you that whenever we're talking about
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: a war, particularly a war of aggression, that should always
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: be in the front of people's minds. I mean, you
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: can criticize, you know, I would say, I think I'm
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: consistent on this across the board. You can criticize lots
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: of things about the insurgency in Iraq, certainly, but you
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: should remember that George W. Bush invaded the country when
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: he shouldn't have and based off lies. So I say
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: that when my government does it, I'll say it when
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: the Russian government does it also. That being said, there's
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: a very strong argument that there were many policies that
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: the US, you know, NATO and Europe as well, but
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: mostly the US pursued that were just almost like if
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: you wanted to come to this inevitable conflict, this would
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: have been the policy to pursue to give you the
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: best chance to end up there.
• 57:21
  Speaker 3: You know, I was with a British military friend recently
• 57:24
  Speaker 3: and somebody asked, what does the fog of war mean?
• 57:29
  Speaker 3: And he gave a brilliant, example of what it means
• 57:32
  Speaker 3: on the battlefield, which a lot of people don't understand.
• 57:35
  Speaker 3: There's a version of the fog of war in history
• 57:37
  Speaker 3: as well. The great Czech writer Milan Kundera had a
• 57:42
  Speaker 3: beautiful phrase in a book of his from the 90s
• 57:45
  Speaker 3: called Testaments Betrayed, where he said, the odd thing about
• 57:49
  Speaker 3: mankind is, he said, we walk through life in a
• 57:51
  Speaker 3: fog and we stumble along a path and we create
• 57:55
  Speaker 3: the path as we stumble along it. So that's not
• 57:58
  Speaker 3: the interesting thing. The interesting thing is, that when we
• 58:01
  Speaker 3: look back, we see the man and we see the path,
• 58:04
  Speaker 3: but we don't see the fog. Everything looks inevitable when
• 58:10
  Speaker 3: you're standing in the present. Everything looks like it was
• 58:13
  Speaker 3: going to happen this way, and you have these endless,
• 58:17
  Speaker 3: often fascinating, often futile, explorations of what might have been.
• 58:24
  Speaker 3: But it doesn't take into account the fog.
• 58:26
  Speaker 2: That's a very good point.
• 58:27
  Speaker 3: And the fog of Russia... after the fall of the
• 58:30
  Speaker 3: Soviet Union, was pretty considerable. The efforts in the 1990s
• 58:36
  Speaker 3: to bring them into a more obvious part of the
• 58:38
  Speaker 3: international order failed. My own view has always been that
• 58:43
  Speaker 3: in part we missed an opportunity to pay a kind
• 58:47
  Speaker 3: of civilizational respect to the Russians, which they deserved. But
• 58:55
  Speaker 3: also throughout the period that people now say there are
• 58:58
  Speaker 3: all of these off-ramps, And now so many people claim
• 59:02
  Speaker 3: that NATO went around the region desperately trying to provoke
• 59:05
  Speaker 3: the Russians into some kind of war or inevitably leading
• 59:09
  Speaker 3: them that way. because of NATO expansionism. They never take
• 59:12
  Speaker 3: into account what was in my memory and experience very clear,
• 59:18
  Speaker 3: which was NATO didn't go to go around recruiting. People
• 59:22
  Speaker 3: came to NATO. Countries came to NATO wanting to join.
• 59:27
  Speaker 3: precisely because they feared the aggression that Ukrainians have suffered
• 59:30
  Speaker 3: since February 2022, and indeed before. I was in Georgia
• 59:34
  Speaker 3: just after the 2008 war began. The country, not the state. Well,
• 59:38
  Speaker 3: it has to be confirmed, otherwise people are like, what?
• 59:41
  Speaker 3: Who invaded Georgia?
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: Did we attack Georgia?
• 59:44
  Speaker 3: They're no bastards. But I was in the country of Georgia,
• 59:48
  Speaker 3: and Putin had tried to invade them, and had seized
• 59:52
  Speaker 3: Setia and Abkhazia, and... They were desperate to join NATO.
• 59:57
  Speaker 3: In fact, they were desperate to join the European Union.
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 3: I rather frivolously said to a Georgian friend, if you want,
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 3: we can swap. You can take our British membership of
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 3: the EU. But in the NATO thing, they were desperate
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 3: for it. And they were desperate for it precisely for
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 3: the reason that many of the Ukrainians were desperate for it,
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 3: which was only way to stop Putin expansionism. So, you know,
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 3: in the whole fog of the post-Soviet era, That is
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 3: one of the many things that gets left out of
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 3: the conversation. And by the way, Putin's actions in February
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 3: 2022 and since, all he's done is provoke two new
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 3: countries to join NATO and his borders with NATO have grown.
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: That's true.
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 3: Finland and Sweden wanted to join. And the only reason
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 3: Finland and Sweden wanted to join was because they too
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 3: are scared. It's a heck of a thing to get
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 3: the Swedish to join a military alliance. It doesn't come
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 3: easy to them. It doesn't come natural. And these countries
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 3: joined because like Georgia, like Ukraine, they desperately feared Putinist expansionism.
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 3: And they weren't wrong.
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: Okay, but I get your point. First off, the war
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: in Georgia in 2008 actually came, was it two or
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: three months after the Bucharest summit where NATO announced that
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: Georgia and Ukraine would be entering NATO. So just making
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: that point that that The NATO aspirations came first. But listen,
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: I don't think you're wrong. I don't think anybody is
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: ever implying that we've expanded NATO through force and that
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: the countries who were joining, or at least the governments
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: of the countries who were joining, didn't want it. Although
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: in the case of Ukraine, there's a great piece in
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: the Washington Post about this in 2006, where joining NATO
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: was actually very unpopular. And there was a lot done,
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: and largely because they just didn't want to take on
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: the headache of the conflict that this might provoke. But
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: the question, I think, isn't, necessarily like, do these countries
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: wish to join NATO? Of course, I think most countries
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: in the world would like to join NATO. I think
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: most countries in the world would like the most powerful
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: government in the history of the world to guarantee their
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: defense and subsidize their defense. The question is, is that
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: in America's interest? And in terms of your point of
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 1: seeing through the fog, I mean, look, there was, as
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: you know well, in the 90s, in the late 90s,
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 1: during the first round of NATO expansion, there was a
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: lively debate amongst this. I don't mean a debate amongst
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: Outsiders or non-expert experts or whatever. I mean, within the
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: real deal experts, the wisest gray beers in the national
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: security apparatus, there was a real debate with at least
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: three secretaries of defense who warned against this. Robert Gates,
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: Robert McNamara, William Perry, the secretary of defense at the time,
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: almost resigned, said his biggest regret in life is that
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: he didn't resign over it. George Kennan was able to
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: see right through that fog. He literally said, the cold warrior,
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: founder of the containment strategy, saw right through that fog
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: and goes, this will inevitably lead to a conflict with Russia.
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 1: And his exact words were, and then when there's a
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: Russian response, everybody will say, look, this is why we
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: needed to expand NATO. But the point here is, okay,
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 1: even within that deep debate, which there were lively debates about,
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: even the people who were on the pro-expansionist side of things,
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: like Henry Kissinger, Even he said Ukraine would have to
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: be a special arrangement. Ukraine will not come into NATO
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: because obviously that's leading to a war with Russia. And
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: so I don't think it's unreasonable. And I think this
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: is a fair thing that we should do in all
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: conflicts is like to have, as Mearsheimer puts it, to
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: have strategic empathy. To say like, hey, listen, let's reasonably
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: place ourselves in the other person's shoes and say how
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: would we react if somebody was expanding their military alliance
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 1: that is explicitly anti-us and is bringing it up to
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 1: our borders and now is openly for years and years
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 1: and years saying that we are going to bring your
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: largest neighbor where you have very important strategic interests from
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 1: your point of view. into our military lines, and you
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 1: are saying over and over again, this is our brightest
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: red line. Do not do this. And then they keep
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: flirting with doing this over and over. Then they back
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: a street push that overthrows the government there. Don't you
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 1: think maybe that would be a provocation?
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 3: First of all, two things. If you want that strategic empathy,
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 3: I'm not an admirer. Um, but if you want to
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 3: do that, um, you can do it the other way
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 3: around as well. Surely.
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 3: I mean, do the same thing with the Ukrainians.
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 2: Absolutely.
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Latvians and others.
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but I would never, but my response to you
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: was never, I can't understand why the Latvians or the
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: Lithuanians would want to be in NATO. I understand.
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 3: And I can understand why Russia thought that Ukrainian membership
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 3: in NATO was a red line. I can understand that,
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 3: but that wasn't why Putin invaded in 2022. And I
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 3: think there's an oddity, if I can say so. Maybe
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 3: this particularly comes across on the libertarian, bisexual side. But
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 3: I think there's an oddity of the.
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: Let the record show him, a happily married heterosexual man.
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 3: They all say that. I think there's an oddity that
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 3: sometimes particularly happens on the libertarian side, which is a
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 3: presumption that things only really happen in the world because
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 3: we make them so. And... You know, Russia invades Ukraine
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 3: because of American policy in Eastern Europe post 1989, 1990.
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 3: Something happened in the Middle East because of American policy.
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 3: And I think it's a very blinkered and parochial view
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 3: of things, because my experience in countries around the world
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 3: is that there's a heck of a lot going on
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 3: that America is frankly not really involved in.
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 1: Well, that's certainly a straw man of my position. I'm
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 1: not saying that America is.
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 3: No, no, no. But what I'm saying is it is very...
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 3: In fact, it's partly since you very kindly raised the issue, Joe.
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 3: Your book. It's one of the things.
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 2: Democracies and death cults.
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 3: It's one of the things I find very interesting about
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 3: this with democracies, which is it is one of the
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 3: things in the nature of a liberal democracy that because
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 3: we have the right to air our opinion, because we
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 3: have the right to criticize our government and much more,
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 3: we end up doing all of that. And there is
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 3: a misapprehension people can come to. I don't know if
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 3: you do, but they can come to, which is effectively,
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 3: we are the only force that causes action in the world.
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 3: And there's a reason for that, which is that we have,
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 3: thank God, a say in how liberal democracies are run
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 3: and how we're governed. And we can chew over all
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 3: of the disagreements that we have. But when the liberal
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 3: democracy comes against the kind of rock, like a death cult,
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 3: a totalitarian regime, a dictatorship like Russia or the Iranian
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 3: revolutionary government, there's always this temptation to say, to focus
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 3: our attention on our own side because we can't do
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 3: a darn thing about the other one. It's a version of,
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 3: you know, the great late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan said
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 3: when he was ambassador to the UN, he had this
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 3: great rule, sort of known among those who know about
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 3: it as Moynihan's rule, which is, he said, if you
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 3: sit at the UN or the UN Human Rights Council
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 3: or any of these bodies, you would come away with
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 3: the belief that the most abused people with the fewest
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 3: rights in the world live in America and other Western
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 3: liberal societies. And he came because we're the ones that
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 3: talk about it. You know, if there's one incident of
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 3: racism in America, the whole world knows about it. Everyone
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 3: reads it. There'll be protests everywhere. If there's one incident
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 3: of racism in North Korea... it's not going to make
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 3: any news. And then you have on top of that
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 3: the fact that the way in which despotisms and death
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 3: cults and dictatorships work, the information just doesn't come out.
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 3: And Moynihan's rule ended up being that the, in an
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 3: interesting point, he said that his rule by the end
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 3: of his time in the UN was that the number
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 3: of human rights violations that occur in a country happen
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 3: in exactly inverse proportion to the numbers of claims of
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 3: human rights violations. Because only the countries which care about
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 3: it and which such things can be aired in are
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 3: ever going to get it out. But the point of
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 3: Moynihan's law and the warning of it is be careful
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 3: not to come away with the mistaken idea that the
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 3: freest and most liberal societies are the worst. And I
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 3: think there's a version of Moynihan's law that applies, whether
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 3: it's from the Middle East to Ukraine and Russia, which
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 3: is we come away with this people may come away
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 3: with the impression that the bad things in the world
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 3: effectively all come from here. And there is quite a
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 3: lot to be said for some of that, but there's
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 3: not everything to be said. Much of the world runs
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 3: on a dynamic and a dynamo, which you can't do
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 3: a darn thing about, other than to try to understand it.
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, so I mean, again, I certainly.
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 1: There is truth to a lot of that. And I
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 1: think that is a fascinating kind of dynamic where there
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 1: is something about kind of like, you know, I noticed
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: this even just with my own kids. Like it's like,
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 1: and people, when you have kids and you raise them
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 1: really well, you know, like you're really sweet to them
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 1: and you don't hate them and you give them a
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 1: good life. Small things end up becoming huge, like things
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 1: in their mind. Like someone pushed me at the playground
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 1: and it's like, whoa, this is, whereas like the way
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 1: I grew up, that would have just been kind of
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: like a non-event. But anyways. I think it would be
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 1: certainly incorrect to assume that everything that happens bad in
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: the world is somehow a consequence of US meddling. I
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 1: also think that there's people on the other side here,
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 1: maybe the people who are more neocon leaning, more war
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 1: hockey leaning, They have a tendency to only focus on
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 1: the bad things that everybody else does and act like
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 1: our policies have no impact on this.
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 1: So very specifically, you know, with the Russian invasion of Ukraine,
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 1: I'll just get to like bullet points on this. And
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 1: there's we could talk about a lot of this. But look,
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 1: number one, in in 2008, as you well know, right,
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 1: the Joe Biden CIA director who was the CIA director
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 1: for the entire war up until Donald Trump just came
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 1: back in. He wrote the Net Means Net memo to
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 1: Condoleezza Rice, a private cable to the then Secretary of
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 1: State when he was ambassador to Russia to let her
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 1: know that this flirting with bringing Ukraine into NATO is
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 1: going to end up in a war. And by the way,
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 1: the Russians don't want to do it. His words exactly.
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 1: If you keep pushing with this, the Russians are going
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 1: to have they are going to have to make a
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 1: decision that they don't want to make, which is whether
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 1: they intervene or not. And number two, Straltenberg. I might
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 1: be butchering that again, but the head of NATO, he
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 1: himself said that Vladimir Putin sent him a draft treaty
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 1: in late 2021 and said, look, if you just put
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 1: into writing that you will not bring Ukraine into NATO,
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: I won't invade. Now, if you want to argue that....
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 3: I admire your appeal to authority to the head of
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 3: the CIA.
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 1: It's not an appeal to authority. How is that an
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 1: appeal to authority?
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 3: You regard the view of the CIA director on that
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 3: occasion as being useful for your argument. But secondly, there's
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 3: an oddity to believing that what Vladimir Putin said.
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 1: Or even, okay. So don't believe what he says. I'm
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 1: not gonna pretend to read his heart and mind or
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 1: something like that, but at the very least, you handed
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 1: him the giant excuse in order to do it. I mean,
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 1: maybe he doesn't really believe it, but this is his
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 1: argument to his own people and to the world that
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 1: it's like, look, and we put him in a position
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 1: You know, you hate Vladimir Putin, he's such a terrible guy. Well,
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 1: we put him in this position where he gets to
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 1: now very plausibly say to the international community in the
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 1: same way that if the Soviet Union had survived and
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 1: the United States hadn't.
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 3: He doesn't very plausibly have the opportunity to do that.
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 3: He invaded Ukraine because he wanted to annex the whole
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 3: country because he was trying to pretend the whole place
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 3: had been run by Nazis.
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 1: Well, I mean, okay, the whole place wasn't run by Nazis.
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 1: There certainly were some Nazis there.
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 3: This is what he told the Russian people.
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 1: Oh, he also brought up– You can.
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 3: Lie an awful lot when you're a dictator and you
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 3: have the ability not just to run all of the
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 3: media but to kill your political opponents. I mean you
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 3: can do an awful lot. Sure. None of this– I
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 3: just got back from Ukraine again the other week and
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 3: it's so weird. I saw the Oval Office meeting as
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 3: it happened from a trench in the front line between
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 3: the Russian and Ukrainian positions in the east of the country.
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 3: And it was so weird seeing the way in which
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 3: this country's territory was being talked about by outsiders, particularly
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 3: by America, because there's so many oddities about it. But
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 3: the people who are fighting there, the soldiers on the
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 3: front lines, the ones I was with, they're not. Fighting
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 3: against Putin forces because of NATO expansion or anything that
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 3: fighting because He lied to his own army. He lied
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 3: to his own people He lies to the world and
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 3: he decided he wanted to gobble up Ukraine because he
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 3: wants to reconstitute the Soviet Union and As a result
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 3: these young men are in dugouts in the middle of
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 3: winter fighting Russian soldiers because the Ukrainians homes are 13
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 3: kilometers behind them. And I just, I think among much else,
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 3: that stuff that cannot be forgotten about. None of this
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 3: is simply about NATO expansion or this or that. It's
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 3: about a country whose people are suffering in their third
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 3: year of war. And it's almost total war as much
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 3: total war as we've got in the modern age.
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 1: And, um, But that's not but that's not I'm not
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 1: disagreeing with any of that. I'm not saying the Ukrainian
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 1: people were fighting because they wanted to keep their country.
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 1: People don't very much like being invaded by foreign countries.
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 1: I understand that completely. And I've also always said throughout
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 1: this whole thing, that is their right. They have a
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 1: right to do that. We as Americans have a right to,
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 1: you know, have an opinion on whether our government ought
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 1: to be funding and arming the thing. But all I'm
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 1: saying is that I'm not making an appeal to authority here.
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 1: I'm just saying that you have the top people in
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 1: the Russian government all unanimously saying, like, this is our
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 1: red line. You keep flirting with NATO expansion into Ukraine.
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 1: And then you have all the people at the top
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 1: of NATO and at the top of the U.S. government
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 1: admitting it, too. And going, like, yeah, this is the
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 1: whole beef. So why is it, like, these two things
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 1: aren't mutually exclusive?
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 2: No, no, they aren't, no.
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 3: But, I mean— They weren't going to expand NATO to Ukraine.
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 1: Well, they kept flirting with it, and you know this.
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 3: The Ukrainians wanted membership, and it was very unwise whenever
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 3: anyone from the rest of the West even flirted with it.
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 2: Didn't Kamala Harris openly say that NATO was going to
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 2: join you?
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, shortly before the war.
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 2: Ukraine was going to join NATO?
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I never saw her as the Kissinger of our era.
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 1: Which I agree with. There's an there's some area of agreement.
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 3: He's the guy but.
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 1: Well obviously that guy's the future But but okay, but
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 1: it is that still the vice president of the United
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 1: States of America and it's.
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 3: Listen again That's not why Putin invaded, but.
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 1: Well you you can invade.
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 3: It because he because of the thing He's dreamt of
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 3: since he full of falling down of the Soviet Union.
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 2: Do you know how he dreams?
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 3: We know a lot from what he said and what
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 3: he's done and since the fall of the Soviet Union.
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 3: And his statements, certainly very early on in his presidency,
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 3: he's continued.
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 2: But if he does have a red line and you
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 2: violate that red line, is that because he's following his
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 2: dreams or it's because he's.
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 3: His dream is, as he's said many times, is the
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 3: reconstitution of the Soviet Union's territory.
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 1: I don't think that's exactly what he's said. He's alluded
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 1: many times to how great the Soviet Union was and
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 1: what a tragedy it is that it collapsed and things
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 1: like that.
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 3: But regardless... Something we can agree is... What?
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 2: A fiction.
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 1: Oh, I think the Soviet Union collapsing is one of
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 1: the greatest things that's ever happened in the history of
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 1: the world.
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 3: One of the most evil regimes, if not the most
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 3: evil regime. And very likely a result of American action. Sure.
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 1: There were a lot of factors in there.
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 3: Just going to throw in some pro-American views.
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 1: I will certainly concede that us luring them into Afghanistan...
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 1: was played a huge role in weakening the Soviet Union.
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 1: It came with the minor little price tag of 9-11.
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 3: That was the.
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 2: But, okay.
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 3: But, you know, that's... The Soviet Union did not fall
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 3: just because of Afghanistan.
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 1: No, I didn't say, I said it played a role.
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 1: I didn't say it was just because of Afghanistan. The
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 1: main thing was the stationing of European troops. Also because
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 1: communism as an economic model just doesn't work. And it
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 1: was a disaster and it was destined to collapse. We
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 1: can agree on that. All centrally planned, totally socialist economies
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 1: are destined for bad results.
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 3: I don't like the word destined in that because, I mean,
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 3: in my experience, things that don't work can go on
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 3: an awfully long time.
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 1: Well, look, the Soviet Union went on an awfully long time.
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 1: I mean, it was.
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 3: I thought when I went to North Korea some years ago,
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 3: that couldn't go on for much longer. And on it goes.
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So fair point there. But certainly it's going to be,
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 1: you know, it's a much different dynamic for a communist
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 1: country like North Korea, who is a relatively small and
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 1: not expansionist, whereas the Soviet Union was trying to maintain
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 1: an empire, which is a much tougher thing to do. Look,
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 1: the United States of America is going broke trying to
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 1: do it. So it was pretty tough for them to do.
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 1: I'm saying here is that like if you if the
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 1: dynamic again It's not just that like first off in
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 1: 2008 at the Bucharest summit We announced we were doing
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 1: it and we didn't give them a map plan But
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 1: we announced they are coming into NATO over and over
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 1: not just the Kamala Harris comment over and over and
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 1: over again through the years people at the highest level
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 1: of the US government asserted that this is going to
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 1: happen that it's a matter of time and then 2014,
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 1: this was a major, major provocation toward the Russians that
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 1: we backed this street protest against the democratically elected government there.
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 3: Again, it's tricky because the Maidan protests were genuine students
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 3: in the center of the city who were uprising against
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 3: a corrupt government.
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 1: I'm not even arguing with that. They were shot.
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 3: And that, again, it's the people of Ukraine, like other countries,
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 3: they do have agency beyond what Washington.
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm not claiming any of those people don't have agency.
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 1: I'm just claiming that Washington poured $ 100 million into the
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 1: thing and sent our politicians over there. Our politicians openly saying,
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 1: we're on your side. You have the backing of America.
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 3: Historically, America does like to be, has liked to be
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 3: on the side of people who desire freedom over autocracy.
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 1: When it's convenient. Not so much when it's not. Not
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 1: in Saudi Arabia. Not in Egypt.
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 3: I'm glad you joined me in my dislike of the
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 3: House of South.
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 1: Okay, fine. But look, it does attack.
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 3: I was worried for a moment there.
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but it does attack your central point there, that
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 1: it's like, no, I'm sorry. See, this is my beef.
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 1: My beef isn't ever with talking about the corruption or
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 1: the evil things that other governments do. What I don't
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 1: like is this whitewashing over our own corruption and the
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 1: evil things that are. The idea that America, we have
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 1: a history of just standing with the people because we
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 1: love democracy so much.
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 3: No.
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 1: We use that as an excuse when we think it's
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 1: in our strategic advantage. We will overthrow democratically elected governments
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 1: with no problem, which, by the way, Yanukovych was democratically
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 1: elected with elections verified by the EU. But I'm not
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 1: denying any of those kids had agency, and I'm sure
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 1: a lot of them were protesting against their own corrupt government.
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 1: But the point is that, like, look, Imagine on, I
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 1: think it was Jeffrey Sachs came up with, this isn't mine,
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 1: but imagine on January 6th, if like Chinese politicians were
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 1: coming over and handing out sandwiches to the rioters and saying,
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 1: we have your back. We have, I mean, listen, we
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 1: would lose our collective minds if another country came in
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 1: and did something like that. Okay. And, but I mean,
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 1: we lost our collective minds about Vladimir Putin installing Donald Trump,
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 1: and it was all just completely made up. It wasn't
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 1: even a real thing. But so to think, okay, those
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 1: people- Well, we didn't.
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 3: Lose our minds on that, a certain subset.
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 1: Of mainstream media lost their minds, yes.
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 2: Wasn't even a subset.
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 1: For me being the- No, a main set.
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 1: For me being the bisexual libertarian here, you have corrected
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 1: me on my collectivism several times here, and you are right. Yes,
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 1: we didn't lose our mind, but others, many other people
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 1: here did. But look, I mean, you're pouring $ 100 million-
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 1: into a street protest against a democratically elected president of Ukraine.
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 1: And the whole issue is over, essentially, whether he's going
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 1: to tilt toward an economic deal with Europe or tilt
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 1: toward an economic deal with Vladimir Putin. I mean, Douglas,
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 1: like if anyone did that in our region of the world,
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 1: we would, D.C. would overthrow that government, invade in a moment.
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 1: If China poured $ 100 million into Mexican protests and was
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 1: able to overthrow the democratically elected government.
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 3: What do you think D.C.
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 2: Would do?
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 3: Change the subject maybe, but Qatar pours hundreds of millions
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 3: of dollars into this country, billions indeed. and tries to
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 3: change policy in this country. And nobody's trying to overthrow Qatar.
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 3: Nobody's trying to overthrow the Emir or his family. And
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 3: they've been poisoning American universities, American institutions, buying up American politicians.
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 3: They put billions into this country.
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 2: I think I just sent you something about that this morning.
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 1: Yes, I mean, well, okay, but that is a little
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 1: bit different than overthrowing our neighbor government and trying to
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 1: install a hostile government toward us.
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 3: You're saying that we'd lose our mind if anyone tried
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 3: to interfere here. There are lots of people.
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 1: But I wasn't saying if anyone.
• 1:21:59
  Speaker 3: And the most obvious one is Qatar, which which has
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 3: poured money into D.C. and into elite institutions and universities
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 3: in this country. And I don't find from one week
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 3: to the next anyone who's particularly riled up about it.
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 1: Well, so they've been I mean, so they're pouring money
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 1: into D.C. And so do you think that they are
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 1: influencing U.S. policy through doing that?
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 3: I think they're trying to, yeah.
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 1: Maybe they are trying to.
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 3: They're definitely succeeding with the universities and others.
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 2: Maybe.
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 3: For sure.
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 1: They should try with the political class more if they're
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 1: trying to turn us anti-Israel or something like that because
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 1: both major parties in this country will fund and unconditionally
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 1: support Israel no matter what. So, I mean, I don't know.
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 3: Well, no matter what. But, I mean, Qatar is definitely
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 3: trying to inference things their way as other countries are.
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 3: I mean, I cite it as an example of something
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 3: that's very interesting, which is an attempt to interfere in
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 3: American public life, which gets almost no attention. Indeed, the governments,
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 3: whether Democrat or Republican, still seem to adore the Qataris,
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 3: even as they act as one of the backers of
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 3: terrorist groups across the Middle East and elsewhere. I cannot
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 3: understand why it doesn't Get more attention.
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 1: Well, according to the former defense minister of Israel, they
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 1: were begging Qatar to pour that money into Hamas.
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 3: No, that's not what happened.
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 1: Well, that's what he said. His words, begging.
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 3: You're referring to the funding of Hamas in the 2010s. Yes.
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 3: The Qataris poured the money in. And the question on
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 3: the Israeli side was, what are you allowed to do
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 3: with funds that were going into Gaza? And the Israelis
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 3: allowed the funds to go from Qatar to Gaza.
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 1: I think a little bit more than that. I think
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 1: when the funds dried up, Netanyahu sent the head of
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 1: the Mossad in there to beg him to keep the
• 1:23:53
  Speaker 1: funds going.
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 3: Again, I'm not sure. It's like quoting the head of
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 3: the CIA, quoting the head of the Mossad.
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 2: Maybe.
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 1: Maybe?
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 3: But that's not the evidence of the last 18 years.
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's... You can... Okay, so I... I mean,
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 1: I guess... I think I'm allowed to quote powerful people
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 1: when they admit what they're doing.
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 3: I mean, it's kind of like, again, I mean, it's
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 3: just it's just an interesting thing because, again, it's a
• 1:24:15
  Speaker 3: discipline about this, which is do I only quote powerful
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 3: people when they say the odd thing that I agree
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 3: with or do I simultaneously distrust all powerful people? It's
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 3: just an interesting rhetorical.
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 1: Well, no, I mean, I think that obviously, like, I
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 1: don't blindly trust any anyone in the political class or
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 1: the media class for that matter either. But when they
• 1:24:40
  Speaker 1: admit things that are like very against their interest to
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 1: admit and kind of give away the whole game that
• 1:24:46
  Speaker 1: now they're pretending doesn't matter. Are you sure whether it's.
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 3: The CIA or Mossad that it isn't just if they
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 3: say something that you happen to want to be the case?
• 1:24:54
  Speaker 1: Well, this is kind of like saying if I were
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 1: to end on trial and I were to like I'm
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 1: the prosecution and I'd enter into evidence, a written confession
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 1: by the defendant and you go, well, are you only
• 1:25:04
  Speaker 1: entering this in? Because this kind of goes along with
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 1: your case. Like, I suppose we're all guilty of having
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 1: these these incentives to some degree. But I do think
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 1: it's a relevant detail that the former defense secretary admitted this.
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 1: And by the way, Netanyahu's admitted this. Ehud Barak has
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 1: admitted this.
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 3: They admitted that they allowed funds to go from Qatar
• 1:25:21
  Speaker 3: to Hamas because Hamas was governing the Gaza.
• 1:25:23
  Speaker 1: For the reason of preventing the establishment of a Palestinian state.
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 3: No, that was not the case.
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 1: That is what Netanyahu said. That is what Ehud Barak said.
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 1: It's all up and down.
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 3: There's one claim. There's one recording of Netanyahu saying something
• 1:25:38
  Speaker 3: along those lines. But look, I mean, we should get
• 1:25:42
  Speaker 3: on to it.
• 1:25:42
  Speaker 1: I could read you the quotes from Ehud Barak as well.
• 1:25:44
  Speaker 1: All of them have talked about it.
• 1:25:47
  Speaker 3: The situation, let's get on to it. The situation there
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 3: on the war of the last 18 months now, more
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 3: than 18 months in the Middle East, is a result
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 3: not of that, but of Hamas deciding to start another
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 3: war with Israel and trying to annihilate their neighbors.
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 1: But you don't think if they were being propped up
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 1: by Israel, that has nothing to do with the group?
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 3: They were not being propped up by Israel. The reason
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 3: why Hamas were in power, as you know, much, much
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 3: against the interests of the Israelis, was that they were
• 1:26:21
  Speaker 3: voted into power after the Israelis withdrew from Gaza in 2005.
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 3: Condoleezza Rice and other American statesfolk insisted that the Palestinians
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 3: should have elections straight after the Israeli withdrawal. They had elections,
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 3: perhaps unwisely, and Hamas won and then didn't have another
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 3: election again and ruled the Gaza for 18 years until
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 3: they finally got the great fruit of their labors on
• 1:26:48
  Speaker 3: the 7th of October, 2023, and went around southern Israel
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 3: massacring everyone they could, including young people at a dance party,
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 3: and then caused in turn the destruction of the place
• 1:27:04
  Speaker 3: that they were meant to be governing. The whole thing
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 3: is a great tragedy, and all of it is at
• 1:27:14
  Speaker 3: the feet of Hamas.
• 1:27:16
  Speaker 1: I certainly agree with you that it's a great tragedy.
• 1:27:20
  Speaker 1: And I do, you know, I think it's, you know,
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 1: when you accuse me of using the quotes that kind of,
• 1:27:28
  Speaker 1: you know, back up what I believe, I think it's
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 1: very convenient here to remove all responsibility from the Israelis. Like,
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 1: even if I'm telling you, that you have these quotes.
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 1: I mean, again, I'm not talking about fringe figures. We
• 1:27:40
  Speaker 1: could read through the list of people who have admitted
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 1: what the strategy was with them funding Hamas and propping
• 1:27:45
  Speaker 1: them up. But hold on, let me just say, so
• 1:27:46
  Speaker 1: if you're gonna tell me Israel props up this terrorist
• 1:27:50
  Speaker 1: organization in order to kill the peace process, in order
• 1:27:53
  Speaker 1: to make sure that the international community gives them a
• 1:27:56
  Speaker 1: no one, by the way, Smotrich, right, the finance minister, okay,
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 1: he's on record, he's on record saying, look, Hamas is
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 1: an asset. The Palestinian Authority, they're the liability. Hamas is
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 1: an asset because then we can tell the international community, well, look,
• 1:28:12
  Speaker 1: what do you want us to do? There's a terrorist
• 1:28:13
  Speaker 1: organization here. We can't do business with them. And then
• 1:28:16
  Speaker 1: even Ehud Barak admitted like this was also so that
• 1:28:18
  Speaker 1: liberal Israelis, you know, if it was the Palestinian Authority,
• 1:28:23
  Speaker 1: they'd be like, hey, we should make a deal with them.
• 1:28:24
  Speaker 1: But since it's Hamas, they can't. OK, so if Israel
• 1:28:26
  Speaker 1: props up this terrorist organization and then as a response
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 1: to them committing a horrific act of terrorism decides to
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 1: level the entire place and just slaughter women and children
• 1:28:37
  Speaker 1: in large numbers.
• 1:28:38
  Speaker 3: It didn't decide to do that and it didn't do that.
• 1:28:40
  Speaker 3: it didn't do that.
• 1:28:40
  Speaker 1: It didn't level the place. Gaza hasn't been destroyed.
• 1:28:42
  Speaker 3: Gaza is pretty leveled by now. Yeah. But it did
• 1:28:44
  Speaker 3: not go in to level the place like that. No.
• 1:28:47
  Speaker 1: Okay, they went in and leveled the place, but that
• 1:28:49
  Speaker 1: wasn't their intention.
• 1:28:50
  Speaker 3: Let's just go back to the beginning if we can.
• 1:28:52
  Speaker 2: Sure.
• 1:28:53
  Speaker 3: Because it's important. Since you're interested in the question of
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 3: the Palestinian state, The Palestinians were given another state in
• 1:29:01
  Speaker 3: 2005 when every single Jew was removed from the Gaza
• 1:29:06
  Speaker 3: by the IDF and when even the graves of Israelis
• 1:29:09
  Speaker 3: in Gaza were dug up and taken into the rest
• 1:29:12
  Speaker 3: of Israel. Of all of the what-ifs of Palestinian Arab history,
• 1:29:20
  Speaker 3: the era since 2005 should be one of the great what-ifs,
• 1:29:24
  Speaker 3: which is what if... The American taxpayers' money that was
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 3: poured into Gaza, the European Union taxpayer money that was
• 1:29:31
  Speaker 3: poured into Gaza, had been used by a government in
• 1:29:35
  Speaker 3: Gaza to build a state that lived side by side
• 1:29:40
  Speaker 3: with their Israeli neighbors and flourished. And it's not like
• 1:29:45
  Speaker 3: the money wasn't there. It's not like there wasn't the
• 1:29:47
  Speaker 3: international will. Ismail Haniyeh and the other leaders of Hamas
• 1:29:52
  Speaker 3: used that money, as you know, to make themselves billionaires.
• 1:29:56
  Speaker 3: and to buy themselves and their kids condos in Qatar
• 1:30:00
  Speaker 3: and to live extremely well whilst withholding the money from
• 1:30:04
  Speaker 3: the Palestinian people, whilst building their network of tunnels throughout
• 1:30:09
  Speaker 3: Gaza and building an infrastructure of terror. And that's what
• 1:30:13
  Speaker 3: they did with 18 years in Gaza. And of all
• 1:30:18
  Speaker 3: of the what-ifs, just consider that that one was in
• 1:30:22
  Speaker 3: their hands. The Israelis did not make them vote in Hamas.
• 1:30:27
  Speaker 3: The Israelis would not want a terrorist entity that wants
• 1:30:32
  Speaker 3: to annihilate the state of Israel that is there on
• 1:30:36
  Speaker 3: their doorstep, constantly firing rockets, starting wars every few years.
• 1:30:43
  Speaker 3: Why would the Israelis want a group there That means
• 1:30:46
  Speaker 3: that if you're living in towns like Sderot or Ashkelon
• 1:30:50
  Speaker 3: or Ashdod, your children grow up all the time knowing
• 1:30:52
  Speaker 3: that they might have to go to the bomb shelters.
• 1:30:54
  Speaker 3: And that's during peacetime.
• 1:30:57
  Speaker 1: Well, according to them, the reason they want it there
• 1:31:00
  Speaker 1: is because then it kills the peace process. And then
• 1:31:02
  Speaker 1: you have no one to negotiate with certificate. And then
• 1:31:07
  Speaker 1: you can keep your eyes on building up settlements in
• 1:31:09
  Speaker 1: the West Bank.
• 1:31:09
  Speaker 3: There are, as now, many people to negotiate with. Mahmoud
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 3: Abbas may be, I don't know, as the joke goes,
• 1:31:16
  Speaker 3: currently in something like his 20th year of his first
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 3: four-year term as head of the Palestinian Authority. But Mahmoud
• 1:31:22
  Speaker 3: Abbas is there in Ramallah. The compounds of the Palestinian Authority,
• 1:31:27
  Speaker 3: which I've been to many times in Ramallah, are there.
• 1:31:30
  Speaker 3: They run their portions of the West Bank. They could
• 1:31:34
  Speaker 3: be there to negotiate with at any moment. The Israelis
• 1:31:37
  Speaker 3: have said they want to negotiate with them at any
• 1:31:39
  Speaker 3: moment and come to the deal. In fact, Netanyahu, you're
• 1:31:42
  Speaker 3: fond of quoting, said again before this war began that
• 1:31:45
  Speaker 3: he would come to the table with no red lines
• 1:31:51
  Speaker 3: to begin with to start another negotiation with the Palestinian Authority.
• 1:31:56
  Speaker 3: But let's just get back to this thing because this
• 1:31:58
  Speaker 3: is so crucial. I am so startled by the post-October
• 1:32:04
  Speaker 3: 7th world, not just in Israel and Gaza and everywhere
• 1:32:09
  Speaker 3: where I spent most of the last 18 months, But
• 1:32:12
  Speaker 3: in what's happening here in the United States of America,
• 1:32:15
  Speaker 3: it blows my mind much of the response here and
• 1:32:20
  Speaker 3: the desire to leap over the first victims of this
• 1:32:27
  Speaker 3: and go on to all of the proximate causes, theoretical causes,
• 1:32:31
  Speaker 3: what ifs and so on. I was, as I described
• 1:32:35
  Speaker 3: in the opening of this book, I was in New
• 1:32:36
  Speaker 3: York on the 7th of October and I woke up
• 1:32:39
  Speaker 3: and started seeing what was happening. and discovered that later
• 1:32:42
  Speaker 3: that day already there were plans to organize a protest
• 1:32:47
  Speaker 3: in Times Square. And what was the protest in Times Square?
• 1:32:51
  Speaker 3: Massive protests in support of Hamas as the massacre was
• 1:32:55
  Speaker 3: still going on. And one of the things I just
• 1:32:59
  Speaker 3: cannot get out of my head is why in the
• 1:33:01
  Speaker 3: last 18 months, when Hamas did what they did, have
• 1:33:06
  Speaker 3: so many people made excuses for them or decided to
• 1:33:09
  Speaker 3: side with them or deny their actions or excuse their actions.
• 1:33:14
  Speaker 2: Why do you think that is?
• 1:33:16
  Speaker 3: Several very, very big things. One is, I think people
• 1:33:23
  Speaker 3: wanted to ignore the nature of the atrocity because it
• 1:33:26
  Speaker 3: was so appalling that it went against much of their narrative.
• 1:33:32
  Speaker 3: I was at a reunion of one of the survivors
• 1:33:35
  Speaker 3: of the Nova Party on one occasion and he said
• 1:33:37
  Speaker 3: to me, what would you do if this had happened
• 1:33:40
  Speaker 3: in your country? And I thought, well, it hasn't happened
• 1:33:44
  Speaker 3: at this scale, but something like it has happened. The
• 1:33:48
  Speaker 3: Ariana Grande arena bombing in Manchester in 2017, the Bataclan
• 1:33:54
  Speaker 3: massacre in Paris in 2015, the Pulse nightclub shooting in 2015.
• 1:33:59
  Speaker 3: But all of these occasions when young people were murdered
• 1:34:02
  Speaker 3: for being at a pop concert or a nightclub, the
• 1:34:06
  Speaker 3: world's attention, the world's empathy, the world's sympathy went to
• 1:34:09
  Speaker 3: the victims. Only in the case of the young Israelis
• 1:34:14
  Speaker 3: dancing in the early hours of the morning on October
• 1:34:16
  Speaker 3: the 7th, 2023, do the victims become victimized again and
• 1:34:22
  Speaker 3: not believed. The era we lived through in the late
• 1:34:27
  Speaker 3: 2010s was the era of believe all women. And of
• 1:34:31
  Speaker 3: all the Israeli women who were raped that morning, much
• 1:34:34
  Speaker 3: of the international community does not want to listen to
• 1:34:36
  Speaker 3: them at all and certainly doesn't want to believe them.
• 1:34:40
  Speaker 3: And there are many reasons. One, at the most fundamental level,
• 1:34:44
  Speaker 3: is that I think a part of a generation that's
• 1:34:48
  Speaker 3: coming up has been told there is something especially wicked
• 1:34:52
  Speaker 3: about Israel, that there is something especially wicked about Israel's
• 1:34:57
  Speaker 3: existence and its actions and its people, and it means
• 1:35:01
  Speaker 3: that when their people are burned alive in their homes
• 1:35:04
  Speaker 3: or raped at a music festival and shot in the head,
• 1:35:07
  Speaker 3: they are uniquely undeserving of sympathy. And I think that
• 1:35:10
  Speaker 3: people have been indoctrinated by very bad actors into this
• 1:35:15
  Speaker 3: and as a result have excused atrocities or make excuses
• 1:35:20
  Speaker 3: for them, make excuses for the people who do them.
• 1:35:24
  Speaker 3: I think in addition it plays to some of the
• 1:35:27
  Speaker 3: darkest things of the regional mind as well as the
• 1:35:33
  Speaker 3: international mind. The aims of Hamas, their stated aims, include
• 1:35:40
  Speaker 3: the annihilation of the Jewish people. And October the 7th,
• 1:35:44
  Speaker 3: they had their best go at doing that. And the
• 1:35:48
  Speaker 3: fact that in a decision between whether or not you're
• 1:35:53
  Speaker 3: on the side of the people who want to dance
• 1:35:55
  Speaker 3: and live in peace with their neighbors, or whether you're
• 1:35:59
  Speaker 3: on the side of the people who want to rampage
• 1:36:02
  Speaker 3: through a dance party bar in the early morning, macheteing
• 1:36:06
  Speaker 3: at people, I find it amazing that there are so
• 1:36:08
  Speaker 3: many people who don't know which side they're on. But
• 1:36:10
  Speaker 3: there are a lot of them. There are a lot
• 1:36:12
  Speaker 3: of reasons for that. But one of the foremost reasons
• 1:36:16
  Speaker 3: is the fact that the state of Israel has been
• 1:36:19
  Speaker 3: uniquely libeled, has been uniquely lied about. Its history has
• 1:36:24
  Speaker 3: been uniquely lied about. It has been uniquely put under
• 1:36:28
  Speaker 3: an international spotlight and then misrepresented in a way which
• 1:36:33
  Speaker 3: I cannot think of many other countries in the world
• 1:36:35
  Speaker 3: that have been treated that way. and there are deep
• 1:36:41
  Speaker 3: reasons for it and shallow reasons for it. The deep
• 1:36:44
  Speaker 3: reasons include some of the most ancient bigotries of the
• 1:36:46
  Speaker 3: human heart, and the shallow reasons are people who don't
• 1:36:50
  Speaker 3: know what the hell they're talking about.
• 1:36:55
  Speaker 1: Okay, I think that there's, look, I'm not going to
• 1:37:00
  Speaker 1: speak for whatever you person out there believes. I don't
• 1:37:05
  Speaker 1: exactly agree with like the characterization that there was no
• 1:37:08
  Speaker 1: outpouring of like feeling after October 7th. And certainly like
• 1:37:13
  Speaker 1: everybody I know was just like, oh my God, this
• 1:37:15
  Speaker 1: is like a horrific atrocity. And like what the, the,
• 1:37:18
  Speaker 1: an unprecedented terrorist attack from Hamas, the worst terrorist attack
• 1:37:22
  Speaker 1: in Israeli history, um, against Israelis. And the, It was horrible.
• 1:37:28
  Speaker 1: I think what a lot of, I'm not arguing that
• 1:37:32
  Speaker 1: there are no people who are actually pro-Hamas or there
• 1:37:35
  Speaker 1: are no people who are actually like hate Jews or
• 1:37:37
  Speaker 1: something like that. I do think that what happens is
• 1:37:40
  Speaker 1: that a lot of people get put in that category
• 1:37:43
  Speaker 1: who do not belong there. Much like we've seen this
• 1:37:45
  Speaker 1: over the last year and a half where a lot
• 1:37:47
  Speaker 1: of people, you know, you have John Podhoretz calling Thomas
• 1:37:51
  Speaker 1: Massey anti-Semitic scum. because he said, we're dead broke. We
• 1:37:55
  Speaker 1: can't afford to fund everybody else's war here. People have
• 1:37:59
  Speaker 1: been calling Tucker Carlson anti-Semitic all over the place. These
• 1:38:03
  Speaker 1: are two guys, Thomas Massey and Tucker Carlson, who have
• 1:38:05
  Speaker 1: never uttered the words the Jews in their life. They're
• 1:38:09
  Speaker 1: just not anti-Semites at all. So there's a lot of people,
• 1:38:12
  Speaker 1: I think, who are, when they're critical of the Israeli
• 1:38:15
  Speaker 1: government's response to this, get Lumped in as pro-Hamas. I
• 1:38:19
  Speaker 1: will certainly say that's certainly not my position. I think
• 1:38:22
  Speaker 1: your description of them, death cult, by the way, the
• 1:38:25
  Speaker 1: same term that Daryl Cooper used to describe Hamas, I
• 1:38:28
  Speaker 1: think is an accurate one. And it was horrible. But
• 1:38:32
  Speaker 1: I think that your characterization, first of all, that they
• 1:38:38
  Speaker 1: gave the Palestinians a state in 2005 is just wrong.
• 1:38:42
  Speaker 1: And I just think that is not at all an
• 1:38:44
  Speaker 1: accurate way to describe the disengagement, which we could get
• 1:38:46
  Speaker 1: into more if you want to. But First of all,
• 1:38:49
  Speaker 1: I would just point out that if the two-state solution
• 1:38:52
  Speaker 1: was achieved, I assume you're arguing it was taken away
• 1:38:56
  Speaker 1: after that. You're not still arguing that the Palestinians have
• 1:38:59
  Speaker 1: a state, or are you saying they have had a
• 1:39:00
  Speaker 1: state since 2005?
• 1:39:00
  Speaker 3: They were given a state in Gaza.
• 1:39:04
  Speaker 1: And when was it taken away?
• 1:39:06
  Speaker 3: Well, they kind of screwed it up for themselves on
• 1:39:08
  Speaker 3: the 7th of October.
• 1:39:09
  Speaker 1: So you're saying from 2005 all the way until October 7th,
• 1:39:12
  Speaker 1: there was a two-state solution. It had been achieved.
• 1:39:15
  Speaker 3: Well, it was another state, yeah.
• 1:39:16
  Speaker 1: Okay, but that would be two states then.
• 1:39:17
  Speaker 3: No, it was another state. It was different from the PA.
• 1:39:21
  Speaker 1: Okay, right, but I'm saying a Palestinian state.
• 1:39:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:39:24
  Speaker 1: Okay, so what's interesting about that is that this is
• 1:39:28
  Speaker 1: not how any of the leaders really describe it. I mean,
• 1:39:32
  Speaker 1: Netanyahu himself is not claiming that they had already achieved
• 1:39:35
  Speaker 1: a two-state solution. Why are you talking about this? What
• 1:39:37
  Speaker 1: happened in 2005 in the disengagement was that essentially Israel
• 1:39:42
  Speaker 1: went from occupying the place to surrounding the place. And
• 1:39:45
  Speaker 1: they've had it under a brutal blockade since 2007. And yes,
• 1:39:50
  Speaker 1: you were right.
• 1:39:51
  Speaker 3: That it was... Why do you think... I don't agree
• 1:39:53
  Speaker 3: the blockade was brutal by any means.
• 1:39:55
  Speaker 1: You don't think the blockade of Gaza was brutal?
• 1:39:59
  Speaker 3: How brutal do you think the Egyptians are? Pretty brutal.
• 1:40:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:40:04
  Speaker 3: They allowed stuff in.
• 1:40:07
  Speaker 1: Okay. I mean, some stuff has gotten in. Yes, that's true.
• 1:40:11
  Speaker 3: No, more than some stuff. Okay. More than some stuff.
• 1:40:13
  Speaker 1: Okay, some... I'll say this right because there's been different
• 1:40:16
  Speaker 1: levels of blockade even before 2007 going back I know
• 1:40:19
  Speaker 1: in 1996 they had like a pretty strong blockade that
• 1:40:23
  Speaker 1: year according to the World Bank it contracted 40% of
• 1:40:27
  Speaker 1: the GDP of Gaza so just for for Reference the
• 1:40:32
  Speaker 1: Great Depression we it was a 30% contraction This was
• 1:40:35
  Speaker 1: in 1996 for one year they gave them something worse
• 1:40:39
  Speaker 1: than our Great Depression That was just one year. From
• 1:40:42
  Speaker 1: 2007 on, there's been a blockade of that country. You
• 1:40:45
  Speaker 1: don't think that's kept the country poor?
• 1:40:47
  Speaker 3: Why do you think there's a blockade of any kind?
• 1:40:50
  Speaker 1: Why is there a blockade? Well, I mean, the argument
• 1:40:54
  Speaker 1: from Israel would be that- No, why do you think?
• 1:40:58
  Speaker 1: I would say, okay, I think that the disengagement, I
• 1:41:00
  Speaker 1: think Smotrich was correct when he said- I'm sorry, I-
• 1:41:04
  Speaker 1: My mistake there. I think the, which another quote that
• 1:41:06
  Speaker 1: I'm sure you're familiar with, but Dov Weissklaf, who was
• 1:41:10
  Speaker 1: the senior advisor to Sharon, was the prime minister at
• 1:41:12
  Speaker 1: the time. He essentially said, the reason we're doing the disengagement,
• 1:41:15
  Speaker 1: the reason we're doing this is so that we can
• 1:41:18
  Speaker 1: put the peace process in formaldehyde. This is the reason.
• 1:41:21
  Speaker 3: We're doing it. You're not answering my question. Can you
• 1:41:23
  Speaker 3: just cite very right-wing Israeli politicians? But what do you
• 1:41:26
  Speaker 3: think is the reason?
• 1:41:27
  Speaker 1: I'm getting there. I'm getting there. I'm saying, so I
• 1:41:28
  Speaker 1: think they disengaged in order to kill the peace process.
• 1:41:31
  Speaker 1: I think they put the full blockade around the country.
• 1:41:34
  Speaker 1: for the reason that they've always kind of done it there, that, yeah,
• 1:41:37
  Speaker 1: they don't want too much stuff getting in. They want
• 1:41:38
  Speaker 1: to keep them, as they put it, on a diet,
• 1:41:41
  Speaker 1: and they don't want rockets to fly into Israel.
• 1:41:44
  Speaker 3: The second one is a kind of important one, isn't it,
• 1:41:46
  Speaker 3: the final one you said? Yeah, it is. If the
• 1:41:50
  Speaker 3: Palestinian leadership in Gaza after 2005 had not from the
• 1:41:57
  Speaker 3: get-go decided to use Gaza as a stockpiling place for
• 1:42:02
  Speaker 3: rockets to fire into Israel, all of it would be different.
• 1:42:06
  Speaker 3: If they had just resisted the temptation that so many
• 1:42:09
  Speaker 3: of us do in our lives to stop keeping RPGs
• 1:42:12
  Speaker 3: in our cellars and then Katyusha rockets in our children's bedrooms,
• 1:42:16
  Speaker 3: all of it could have been different. If that desire
• 1:42:20
  Speaker 3: to live in peace beside your neighbors had superseded the
• 1:42:24
  Speaker 3: desire to stockpile rockets, it would all be different.
• 1:42:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, or if Israel just hadn't occupied them for 60 years,
• 1:42:31
  Speaker 1: it would all be different too. They weren't occupying.
• 1:42:36
  Speaker 3: Well, you believe in self-determination, I'm sure. Yes.
• 1:42:39
  Speaker 1: I believe in individual rights, yeah, sure.
• 1:42:41
  Speaker 3: Okay, individual rights. And that includes the right to make
• 1:42:44
  Speaker 3: bad decisions.
• 1:42:46
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 1:42:47
  Speaker 3: The Palestinians in Gaza, when they voted in Hamas, made
• 1:42:50
  Speaker 3: a very bad decision.
• 1:42:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, of course, Douglas.
• 1:42:53
  Speaker 3: Hang on, hang on. And in the years after that,
• 1:42:56
  Speaker 3: They made bad decision after bad decision. It was a
• 1:43:00
  Speaker 3: very bad decision to continually fire thousands of rockets into Israel.
• 1:43:05
  Speaker 3: It was a very bad decision to use what boats
• 1:43:09
  Speaker 3: came in early on and to use the smuggling networks
• 1:43:13
  Speaker 3: from Egypt not to bring in supplies you could actually
• 1:43:16
  Speaker 3: build a thriving society with, but to bring in rockets.
• 1:43:19
  Speaker 3: It was a very bad idea. No, there was not
• 1:43:22
  Speaker 3: starvation in Gaza after 2005. No, there was no deficit
• 1:43:26
  Speaker 3: of goods coming in. I've been plenty of times. There
• 1:43:29
  Speaker 3: was no deficit? No.
• 1:43:30
  Speaker 1: No goods were kept out.
• 1:43:31
  Speaker 3: There are plenty. Have you been to the crossing points? No.
• 1:43:36
  Speaker 3: When were you last there at all?
• 1:43:38
  Speaker 1: I've never been.
• 1:43:40
  Speaker 3: You've never been?
• 1:43:41
  Speaker 1: Well, am I not allowed to talk about it now?
• 1:43:45
  Speaker 1: Have you ever been to Nazi Germany? Are you allowed
• 1:43:47
  Speaker 1: to have feelings about them?
• 1:43:48
  Speaker 3: You can't time travel, but you can travel.
• 1:43:51
  Speaker 1: Okay, but so what? So what's the point? Lots of
• 1:43:54
  Speaker 1: people have been there and agree with me, and lots
• 1:43:56
  Speaker 1: of people have been there and agree with you. Yeah,
• 1:43:57
  Speaker 1: but if you're going to.
• 1:43:58
  Speaker 3: Spend a year and a half talking about a place,
• 1:44:00
  Speaker 3: you should at least do the courtesy of visiting it.
• 1:44:03
  Speaker 3: All right.
• 1:44:04
  Speaker 1: I just think this is a non-argument.
• 1:44:05
  Speaker 3: You don't think? No.
• 1:44:08
  Speaker 2: I think it's a non-argument, but if you want to
• 1:44:10
  Speaker 2: go and touch the ground, I think you have.
• 1:44:12
  Speaker 3: To see, I think it's a good idea to see stuff,
• 1:44:14
  Speaker 3: particularly if you spend a career talking about something.
• 1:44:17
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 1:44:19
  Speaker 3: I have a journalistic rule of trying never to talk
• 1:44:21
  Speaker 3: about a country, even in passing, unless I've at least
• 1:44:23
  Speaker 3: been there.
• 1:44:24
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 1:44:25
  Speaker 3: It's sort of normal in it's a normal thing to do.
• 1:44:28
  Speaker 3: You're talking about the hang on. You're talking about crossing points.
• 1:44:32
  Speaker 3: And not only have you never been to a crossing
• 1:44:34
  Speaker 3: point in either Egypt or in Israel, but you never
• 1:44:36
  Speaker 3: even been to the region. Okay.
• 1:44:38
  Speaker 1: Again, I think this is a non-argument. I don't understand.
• 1:44:40
  Speaker 3: No, it's not a non-argument. Yeah, it is. It's not
• 1:44:42
  Speaker 3: a non-argument if you're insisting that you're an expert of
• 1:44:47
  Speaker 3: some kind, or not claiming you're an expert, but still
• 1:44:50
  Speaker 3: talking about it, about the provisions going into Gaza or not,
• 1:44:54
  Speaker 3: if you've never seen any of this going on.
• 1:44:57
  Speaker 1: So you're not allowed to speak about things that you've
• 1:44:59
  Speaker 1: read about. You can only speak about things that you've
• 1:45:01
  Speaker 1: seen with your own eyes.
• 1:45:03
  Speaker 3: You can talk about what you want as you're proving.
• 1:45:07
  Speaker 3: But that is a different matter from spending an awfully
• 1:45:11
  Speaker 3: long amount of time talking about an issue in a
• 1:45:18
  Speaker 3: region you haven't even had the courtesy to visit whilst
• 1:45:23
  Speaker 3: developing all of these views about it. I mean, now
• 1:45:27
  Speaker 3: I slightly get an idea of where you're coming from.
• 1:45:30
  Speaker 3: You've read about this blockade. And so you imagine that
• 1:45:35
  Speaker 3: that's what it is. I imagine you've read all the
• 1:45:38
  Speaker 3: people who say that Gaza was a concentration camp. And
• 1:45:42
  Speaker 3: you probably think that too.
• 1:45:45
  Speaker 2: Am I right?
• 1:45:46
  Speaker 1: I mean, again, literally a concentration camp. It shares a
• 1:45:50
  Speaker 1: lot of similarities, I would think.
• 1:45:53
  Speaker 3: Wow. Well. As I say, you can't time travel.
• 1:45:56
  Speaker 2: Back to the Nazi era, but you could go to.
• 1:45:58
  Speaker 3: The Middle East and actually visit it.
• 1:46:01
  Speaker 2: It's not hard to do.
• 1:46:02
  Speaker 1: The World Bank said in 1996, for the one year
• 1:46:04
  Speaker 1: of the blockade.
• 1:46:05
  Speaker 3: Now the libertarians are quoting the World Bank.
• 1:46:07
  Speaker 2: I love it.
• 1:46:07
  Speaker 1: It doesn't mean anything. This is a non-argument. Yes, I'm
• 1:46:10
  Speaker 1: saying the World Bank did their own analysis of this,
• 1:46:13
  Speaker 1: and they said that it was a 40%... Why don't you.
• 1:46:14
  Speaker 3: Do your own analysis?
• 1:46:16
  Speaker 2: Hold on. You've got to stop interrupting and let him
• 1:46:19
  Speaker 2: finish the sentence.
• 1:46:20
  Speaker 1: The World Bank said that 40% drop in the GDP
• 1:46:24
  Speaker 1: of one year due to the blockade. And there's been
• 1:46:27
  Speaker 1: a blockade from 2007 on. So are you saying that
• 1:46:30
  Speaker 1: this hasn't had an economic effect? Is that the argument?
• 1:46:32
  Speaker 2: No.
• 1:46:33
  Speaker 3: Of course it'll have an economic effect.
• 1:46:34
  Speaker 2: So you're saying you have to be on the ground
• 1:46:36
  Speaker 2: and do an audit of the blockade in order to
• 1:46:38
  Speaker 2: be able to comment on it?
• 1:46:39
  Speaker 3: I think you should at least know what it is,
• 1:46:40
  Speaker 3: what the territory is, what the situation is in the region. Yes, absolutely.
• 1:46:44
  Speaker 2: And the only way to do that is to be
• 1:46:46
  Speaker 2: there in person.
• 1:46:46
  Speaker 3: I think that's the best way. It's not the only way,
• 1:46:48
  Speaker 3: but it's the best way. For sure. For sure. If
• 1:46:52
  Speaker 3: you have never seen the countries in question, you've never
• 1:46:55
  Speaker 3: spoken to the people in question. You've never interviewed anyone.
• 1:46:58
  Speaker 3: You've never gone around. You've never seen the terrain and
• 1:47:01
  Speaker 3: so on. And you've used Wikipedia. I'm sorry. No, that's
• 1:47:05
  Speaker 3: not the same thing.
• 1:47:05
  Speaker 1: OK, well, I've not just used Wikipedia, but didn't you
• 1:47:09
  Speaker 1: write a big piece when the war in Ukraine first
• 1:47:11
  Speaker 1: came out titled something like I've been to Ukraine and
• 1:47:14
  Speaker 1: they can win. They can repel the Russians. So you
• 1:47:17
  Speaker 1: could go there and still get it wrong. Right.
• 1:47:19
  Speaker 3: No, I was with the Ukrainian armed forces in 2022
• 1:47:22
  Speaker 3: when they were retaking territory from the Russians.
• 1:47:24
  Speaker 1: Right, the last time they had any advances, yeah.
• 1:47:27
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I said I can see how they can win,
• 1:47:28
  Speaker 3: which would be advances like that, yeah.
• 1:47:30
  Speaker 1: You said if we just fund them or if we
• 1:47:32
  Speaker 1: just arm them, that they can then, they can rebel.
• 1:47:33
  Speaker 3: I said that the Ukrainian army was making great successes,
• 1:47:36
  Speaker 3: which it was when I was with them in the fall.
• 1:47:38
  Speaker 1: Of, Okay, listen, there were lots of people who went
• 1:47:40
  Speaker 1: to Iraq and said we'll be greeted as liberators and
• 1:47:43
  Speaker 1: paid for an oil and democracy will spread through the
• 1:47:45
  Speaker 1: region So I don't know either take on the arguments
• 1:47:47
  Speaker 1: or don't but I don't think your arguments incorrect Okay, fine.
• 1:47:51
  Speaker 1: Well then then present a counter argument to it, but
• 1:47:54
  Speaker 1: to just tell me I'm not allowed to talk about
• 1:47:55
  Speaker 1: something Yeah, I know but you keep playing this game
• 1:48:02
  Speaker 1: where it's like the whole opening to this podcast was
• 1:48:05
  Speaker 1: like the non experts talking about this is such a
• 1:48:08
  Speaker 1: problem and Now you're saying because I haven't been there,
• 1:48:09
  Speaker 1: I can't talk about it. Is there a blockade there
• 1:48:12
  Speaker 1: that's causing economic devastation or not? According to the World Bank,
• 1:48:15
  Speaker 1: there is.
• 1:48:16
  Speaker 3: First of all, I don't think it's a game. I
• 1:48:20
  Speaker 3: don't think it's a game at all.
• 1:48:21
  Speaker 1: Me neither.
• 1:48:22
  Speaker 3: I'm not playing a game.
• 1:48:23
  Speaker 2: But this is semantics.
• 1:48:25
  Speaker 3: No, but this is important. I've seen plenty of this
• 1:48:31
  Speaker 3: up close. I've seen plenty of this with my own
• 1:48:33
  Speaker 3: eyes because I do believe that one of the things
• 1:48:36
  Speaker 3: you should do if you're talking about something, is to
• 1:48:39
  Speaker 3: see it.
• 1:48:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you've established that. Is there a blockade?
• 1:48:42
  Speaker 3: The blockade that existed, to the extent it existed, was
• 1:48:45
  Speaker 3: a blockade to try to make sure that the Israelis
• 1:48:47
  Speaker 3: and the Egyptians knew what materials were going in and
• 1:48:50
  Speaker 3: out of Gaza after the first rocket fires, when Hamas,
• 1:48:54
  Speaker 3: in fact, before Hamas was elected. The Israelis and the Egyptians,
• 1:48:57
  Speaker 3: the Egyptians didn't do a very good job of it,
• 1:49:00
  Speaker 3: were meant to be trying to make sure that the
• 1:49:02
  Speaker 3: materials that went into Gaza were not materials that could
• 1:49:04
  Speaker 3: be used to build up the Gaza and Hamas war machines.
• 1:49:08
  Speaker 3: the reason why trucks get searched is not because the
• 1:49:14
  Speaker 3: Israelis want to search through grain or flour. It's because
• 1:49:20
  Speaker 3: they wanted to stop the trucks containing the arms and
• 1:49:24
  Speaker 3: the munitions that the Gazan, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad fighters
• 1:49:28
  Speaker 3: were going to use to fire against Israel. And I'm sorry,
• 1:49:31
  Speaker 3: it just makes the most obvious strategic sense. As the late,
• 1:49:35
  Speaker 3: great Joan Rivers once said, if as an appeal to authority.
• 1:49:40
  Speaker 3: That one I'll allow.
• 1:49:42
  Speaker 1: That one I like.
• 1:49:43
  Speaker 2: She also said that Michelle Obama's a man.
• 1:49:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I know.
• 1:49:46
  Speaker 3: She did that.
• 1:49:46
  Speaker 1: That's what I'm saying. She got everything right. So continue.
• 1:49:49
  Speaker 1: Go ahead.
• 1:49:49
  Speaker 3: But as Joan Rivers said, if New York was being
• 1:49:53
  Speaker 3: rocketed from New Jersey, we would level New Jersey. I
• 1:49:57
  Speaker 3: don't think you need to level it, by the way.
• 1:50:00
  Speaker 3: But you would at least try to make sure that
• 1:50:01
  Speaker 3: rockets weren't being imported in larger quantities into New Jersey.
• 1:50:05
  Speaker 3: Of course.
• 1:50:06
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 1:50:06
  Speaker 3: That's all the Israelis were doing.
• 1:50:08
  Speaker 1: And they haven't turned away any food or aid. They
• 1:50:10
  Speaker 1: haven't said you can't bring potato chips in or you
• 1:50:13
  Speaker 1: can't have cookies because they have dual use. Isn't this
• 1:50:15
  Speaker 1: their whole argument that there's anything that could be used
• 1:50:17
  Speaker 1: to build a rocket has to be excluded?
• 1:50:20
  Speaker 3: Anything that could be used to build a rocket.
• 1:50:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:50:22
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:50:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:50:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:50:24
  Speaker 3: But that's a good reason, again, not to build rockets
• 1:50:27
  Speaker 3: and fire them at your neighbors. It's almost like there's
• 1:50:29
  Speaker 3: a cost to pay. It's almost like there's a cost
• 1:50:31
  Speaker 3: to pay for... instead of living in peace with your neighbor,
• 1:50:35
  Speaker 3: constantly trying to wipe them out. And that is what
• 1:50:39
  Speaker 3: Hamas did for 18 years, 18 years. This is what,
• 1:50:42
  Speaker 3: this is why I think it's so unbelievable taking agency
• 1:50:47
  Speaker 3: away from the Palestinians of Gaza is that the Hamas
• 1:50:50
  Speaker 3: had 18 years and 18 years is, is obviously the
• 1:50:54
  Speaker 3: time from the birth of a child to the end
• 1:50:56
  Speaker 3: of their formal education. They literally had the opportunity to
• 1:51:00
  Speaker 3: create a generation in Gaza, that wanted to live beside
• 1:51:03
  Speaker 3: their Israeli neighbors. And from everything I've seen since the
• 1:51:07
  Speaker 3: 7th of October in the region, and from all of
• 1:51:10
  Speaker 3: the dead and the survivors and the family members I've seen,
• 1:51:13
  Speaker 3: so many of them, particularly the people in the south
• 1:51:15
  Speaker 3: who were attacked on the morning of the 7th, were
• 1:51:17
  Speaker 3: literally people who dreamed of living in peace with their
• 1:51:20
  Speaker 3: Palestinian neighbors. They were people like Vivian Silver, whose body
• 1:51:24
  Speaker 3: wasn't identified for months because there wasn't enough of her
• 1:51:27
  Speaker 3: charred remains left to even extract DNA from. She spent
• 1:51:30
  Speaker 3: every weekend like so many people in the communities in
• 1:51:33
  Speaker 3: the south of Israel, every weekend driving children with the
• 1:51:36
  Speaker 3: most rare medical conditions that couldn't be treated in one
• 1:51:41
  Speaker 3: of the Hamas-run hospitals in Gaza into very specialist units
• 1:51:45
  Speaker 3: inside Israel. And she spent every weekend doing that and
• 1:51:49
  Speaker 3: working with B'Tselem and all of these radical left Israeli groups.
• 1:51:53
  Speaker 3: And it didn't matter a bit when Hamas came in
• 1:51:55
  Speaker 3: because they burnt her in her own home anyway. My
• 1:51:57
  Speaker 3: point is, in all of the counterfactuals of this conflict,
• 1:52:01
  Speaker 3: The most important one is what could have happened if
• 1:52:06
  Speaker 3: instead of educating a generation into wanting to annihilate their neighbors,
• 1:52:11
  Speaker 3: Hamas in power had spent 18 years building up a state,
• 1:52:16
  Speaker 3: teaching peace, creating coexistence with their neighbors. You think any
• 1:52:23
  Speaker 3: of the people on the kibbutzim in the south or
• 1:52:25
  Speaker 3: the young people dancing at the Nova party weren't dreaming
• 1:52:29
  Speaker 3: of the day that the Palestinian government in Gaza would
• 1:52:33
  Speaker 3: have created those conditions for them to live beside as well.
• 1:52:37
  Speaker 1: Of course.
• 1:52:38
  Speaker 3: Right. Right.
• 1:52:40
  Speaker 1: Everybody argues against. Nobody's arguing. Douglas, it's just.
• 1:52:43
  Speaker 2: No, I mean here.
• 1:52:44
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's not what I'm saying. Look, I'll say
• 1:52:47
  Speaker 1: this again, because you bring up the point about agency again.
• 1:52:50
  Speaker 1: And I hear this a lot as a counter. Much
• 1:52:53
  Speaker 1: like I said in Ukraine, it's not denying anybody agency.
• 1:52:57
  Speaker 1: I'm not saying that. Believe me, if I was in
• 1:53:00
  Speaker 1: control of how people acted, I would certainly.
• 1:53:04
  Speaker 2: There are.
• 1:53:06
  Speaker 1: This there are. Palestinians could have handled things much better.
• 1:53:09
  Speaker 1: And there are different points where we probably all would
• 1:53:12
  Speaker 1: agree that we wish they had done it this way
• 1:53:14
  Speaker 1: and not this way. And I think that embracing for
• 1:53:17
  Speaker 1: those Palestinians who embrace terrorism, which from, you know, which
• 1:53:22
  Speaker 1: pretty early on, I mean, Israel and Palestine have been
• 1:53:24
  Speaker 1: at war since the existence of Israel, really. And I
• 1:53:27
  Speaker 1: know it's convenient to kind of pretend October 7th was
• 1:53:29
  Speaker 1: like the first thing, but actually there's a long history here.
• 1:53:33
  Speaker 1: I'm not denying any of them agency. The problem is
• 1:53:35
  Speaker 1: that I see it as like you only seem to
• 1:53:37
  Speaker 1: focus on the agency of one side. And then, you know,
• 1:53:40
  Speaker 1: if you want to talk about counterfactuals, I think the
• 1:53:42
  Speaker 1: most interesting counterfactual, well, maybe I'll give you two. Number
• 1:53:46
  Speaker 1: one would be Chaim Weizmann, who was essentially supposed to
• 1:53:50
  Speaker 1: be the David Ben-Gurion, like he was in line as
• 1:53:52
  Speaker 1: like the number one ranking Zionist. This is pre the
• 1:53:55
  Speaker 1: creation of the state of Israel, who urged all of
• 1:53:58
  Speaker 1: the Zionist militias to not embrace terrorism. And he ended
• 1:54:01
  Speaker 1: up losing that battle, ultimately. In many ways, this is
• 1:54:04
  Speaker 1: how terrorism was introduced.
• 1:54:05
  Speaker 3: He was the first president of the state.
• 1:54:08
  Speaker 1: David Ben-Gurion was. I was saying Haim Weissman. Haim Weissman.
• 1:54:10
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 1:54:11
  Speaker 1: And he basically ended up losing his position to David
• 1:54:14
  Speaker 1: Ben-Gurion because they just wanted to be more hardcore. By
• 1:54:17
  Speaker 1: the way, the Erdogan and the Lehigh and the Haganah,
• 1:54:21
  Speaker 1: they openly embraced terrorism to drive out an occupying force.
• 1:54:26
  Speaker 1: This is literally the story of the creation of the
• 1:54:28
  Speaker 1: state of Israel. The Palestinians fell into a terrible, tragic
• 1:54:34
  Speaker 1: mistake early on. And I'm saying, listen, I reject terrorism
• 1:54:38
  Speaker 1: as we all should, just because killing innocent people is wrong.
• 1:54:41
  Speaker 1: I'd like to get to that a little bit more
• 1:54:42
  Speaker 1: in a second, because it's interesting that we haven't really
• 1:54:44
  Speaker 1: gotten into what I think is a great humanitarian crisis here.
• 1:54:49
  Speaker 1: But they were following, I think in some ways they
• 1:54:51
  Speaker 1: were very influenced by the Algerian model, that they were like, hey, look,
• 1:54:55
  Speaker 1: we could, listen, there's a lot of groups, whether it's-
• 1:54:58
  Speaker 1: Which Algerian model? Well, driving the French out.
• 1:55:02
  Speaker 3: The first Algerian war.
• 1:55:03
  Speaker 1: Yes. Right. But look, I mean, there's a lot of
• 1:55:06
  Speaker 1: these scenarios where we look back at Nelson Mandela, for example.
• 1:55:10
  Speaker 1: Nelson Mandela was not imprisoned because he was making picket signs.
• 1:55:15
  Speaker 1: I mean, there have been people who have embraced violence
• 1:55:18
  Speaker 1: as a means to achieve a policy end, including the
• 1:55:21
  Speaker 1: early Zionist settlers, including the Israeli government, including the U.S.
• 1:55:25
  Speaker 1: government and lots of governments around the world. The tragic,
• 1:55:29
  Speaker 1: tragic mistake in terms of political outcome from the Palestinians
• 1:55:32
  Speaker 1: is that they really just underestimated the fact that these
• 1:55:36
  Speaker 1: Jews had no home to go to. This was their home.
• 1:55:39
  Speaker 1: And you could drive out the French from Algeria because
• 1:55:41
  Speaker 1: they go, screw it, we're going back home to France.
• 1:55:44
  Speaker 1: The Jews had been so persecuted in Eastern Europe that
• 1:55:46
  Speaker 1: there was no home to go. And of course, then
• 1:55:48
  Speaker 1: after World War II, they were here to stay. And so,
• 1:55:51
  Speaker 1: of course, it's been a tragedy. And of course, a
• 1:55:53
  Speaker 1: lot of Palestinian actions I wish would be different. I
• 1:55:56
  Speaker 1: wish Hamas didn't exist. It should be pointed out, by
• 1:55:58
  Speaker 1: the way, that in 2005, you did mention that it
• 1:56:01
  Speaker 1: was really part of the Bush administration's exporting democracy around
• 1:56:05
  Speaker 1: the world that put pressure on them to have these elections.
• 1:56:07
  Speaker 1: It should also be mentioned that Hamas did not win
• 1:56:09
  Speaker 1: a majority in one single precinct. They won pluralities all around.
• 1:56:13
  Speaker 1: So just saying, when we're bringing up this election, half
• 1:56:17
  Speaker 1: the population of Gaza today is under the age of 18.
• 1:56:20
  Speaker 1: They were toddlers if they were alive in 2005. of
• 1:56:23
  Speaker 1: the other half that maybe, maybe half of them voted
• 1:56:26
  Speaker 1: in these elections, it was never a majority that supported Hamas.
• 1:56:30
  Speaker 1: They eked out a victory. And then, of course, there
• 1:56:33
  Speaker 1: was an attempted coup after that, and that's when Hamas
• 1:56:36
  Speaker 1: seized complete control. The coup failed, regardless of any of that.
• 1:56:43
  Speaker 1: I agree with you that, like, yeah, the Palestinians have agency,
• 1:56:46
  Speaker 1: and I wish some of them had made better decisions. Now,
• 1:56:48
  Speaker 1: many of them have made better decisions and it's still
• 1:56:51
  Speaker 1: resulted in nothing better happening for them and their people.
• 1:56:54
  Speaker 1: And so I do find it kind of hard to
• 1:56:57
  Speaker 1: like lecture a group of people who are going through
• 1:57:00
  Speaker 1: so much, like the level of human suffering that's being
• 1:57:02
  Speaker 1: inflicted on the people of Gaza right now cannot be overstated.
• 1:57:06
  Speaker 1: And so, you know, to lecture them about how you're
• 1:57:08
  Speaker 1: supposed to handle that exactly. But I will say, man,
• 1:57:14
  Speaker 1: I think there's kind of this selective empathy that you
• 1:57:17
  Speaker 1: have here. Like, I agree with you. You know, talk
• 1:57:19
  Speaker 1: about these teenagers being slaughtered at a music festival on
• 1:57:22
  Speaker 1: October 7th. It's like, my God, like, I have little kids.
• 1:57:25
  Speaker 1: I can't, like, imagine the nightmare of this happening to
• 1:57:28
  Speaker 1: somebody's children. But at the same time, we're not having
• 1:57:31
  Speaker 1: this conversation on October 9th or in November or December
• 1:57:35
  Speaker 1: of 2023. We're having it in 2025, where.
• 1:57:39
  Speaker 1: The tragedy that's been inflicted on Gaza is orders of
• 1:57:43
  Speaker 1: magnitudes greater than October 7th. There are just every day
• 1:57:47
  Speaker 1: people are inundated with images of just dead women and children.
• 1:57:51
  Speaker 1: This is like one of the most brutal wars. And
• 1:57:54
  Speaker 1: by several metrics that really, you know, like personally matter
• 1:57:58
  Speaker 1: to me, like the number of dead kids, I think
• 1:58:00
  Speaker 1: that's a pretty good one. It's more children have died
• 1:58:03
  Speaker 1: than in any recent war. I mean, this is like,
• 1:58:06
  Speaker 1: it does, I do think there's almost... like a fundamental
• 1:58:10
  Speaker 1: framing bias that you get into when people have these
• 1:58:13
  Speaker 1: these debates. And I've had several of them, as you
• 1:58:15
  Speaker 1: have also. But it seems to me that there's almost
• 1:58:18
  Speaker 1: an implicit difference in the value that you place on
• 1:58:23
  Speaker 1: Israeli life versus the value that we place on Palestinians life.
• 1:58:27
  Speaker 1: And to even like, we've gone this far into the
• 1:58:29
  Speaker 1: conversation and haven't even talked about the fact that like,
• 1:58:33
  Speaker 1: Israel has, feel however you feel. If you want to argue,
• 1:58:35
  Speaker 1: I haven't been there. Stuff does get through the blockade.
• 1:58:37
  Speaker 2: Okay, fine.
• 1:58:38
  Speaker 1: This is a captive people, you know, that Israel has
• 1:58:41
  Speaker 1: dominated since at least 1967. Many of them are there
• 1:58:46
  Speaker 1: because of the creation of the state of Israel who
• 1:58:48
  Speaker 1: used to live in what is now called Israel. And
• 1:58:52
  Speaker 1: they are just, I mean, the, amount of human suffering
• 1:58:55
  Speaker 1: that's being inflicted on them, when even as you kind
• 1:58:58
  Speaker 1: of acknowledged with the George W. Bush exporting democracy, Hamas
• 1:59:01
  Speaker 1: in many ways was forced on these people. In fact,
• 1:59:04
  Speaker 1: we saw protests against Hamas just recently. So I don't know.
• 1:59:08
  Speaker 1: I mean, that to me seems to be the greatest
• 1:59:10
  Speaker 1: human tragedy. And I think much more so than you
• 1:59:12
  Speaker 1: can characterize it as people being pro-Hamas or people being anti-Semitic.
• 1:59:16
  Speaker 1: But I actually think that the mass movement around the
• 1:59:19
  Speaker 1: world of people who oppose this war has been that
• 1:59:21
  Speaker 1: people feel really awful about all these babies who are
• 1:59:25
  Speaker 1: being slaughtered.
• 1:59:26
  Speaker 3: Okay, quite a few things. First of all, let's just
• 1:59:31
  Speaker 3: get one term correct, because you said you do think
• 1:59:34
  Speaker 3: it's a concentration camp.
• 1:59:36
  Speaker 1: I said it shares many, you know.
• 1:59:39
  Speaker 3: And you also say that there's a disproportionately heavy youth
• 1:59:43
  Speaker 3: population in Gaza. Yes.
• 1:59:46
  Speaker 1: Do you think that's not accurate?
• 1:59:49
  Speaker 3: I think the second one is accurate. Right. But it's
• 1:59:51
  Speaker 3: a very strange thing to say that there's a population
• 1:59:55
  Speaker 3: boom in a concentration camp. In Auschwitz in the 1940s,
• 1:59:59
  Speaker 3: there was not a doubling of the population.
• 2:00:02
  Speaker 2: He didn't say it was a death camp. He said
• 2:00:04
  Speaker 2: it shares many.
• 2:00:05
  Speaker 3: Of the characteristics. Auschwitz was a concentration camp.
• 2:00:09
  Speaker 1: It was ultimately a death camp, no? Yes.
• 2:00:12
  Speaker 3: It started as a concentration camp.
• 2:00:13
  Speaker 2: Yes, correct.
• 2:00:14
  Speaker 3: You'll notice that people were not doubling in size their
• 2:00:18
  Speaker 3: number because of the children they could have in Auschwitz.
• 2:00:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but nobody's calling it a concentration camp because it's
• 2:00:25
  Speaker 1: the same as Auschwitz.
• 2:00:26
  Speaker 3: Okay, but let's just at least tidy up the language
• 2:00:29
  Speaker 3: a bit. Either you think the place is a concentration
• 2:00:32
  Speaker 3: camp or you think it's not a concentration camp and
• 2:00:34
  Speaker 3: I don't think it can be a concentration camp or
• 2:00:36
  Speaker 3: any such term is suitable. when you're talking about a
• 2:00:39
  Speaker 3: place which you yourself have admitted has a disproportionately young population.
• 2:00:42
  Speaker 3: So that's the first thing.
• 2:00:43
  Speaker 1: I don't think reading in any way argues against it.
• 2:00:46
  Speaker 1: I didn't call it a concentration camp. You said it
• 2:00:48
  Speaker 1: has many of the same characteristics.
• 2:00:50
  Speaker 2: But you asked him if it did. You asked him
• 2:00:53
  Speaker 2: if it had any of the characteristics of a concentration camp.
• 2:00:55
  Speaker 3: Yes, because he said earlier that it did.
• 2:00:57
  Speaker 1: Okay, so let me be much more precise. Let me
• 2:01:00
  Speaker 1: be much more precise, okay? So I'm not claiming that
• 2:01:02
  Speaker 1: it is a concentration camp or that it is akin
• 2:01:05
  Speaker 1: to Auschwitz. I'm saying that it's been under full blockade
• 2:01:08
  Speaker 1: since 2007. Israel rules the seas, the airs. They control
• 2:01:11
  Speaker 1: electricity that goes in. They're not allowed to have an airport.
• 2:01:14
  Speaker 1: They're not allowed to have a seaport. They don't have
• 2:01:15
  Speaker 1: the freedom to leave without permission from the Israeli government.
• 2:01:18
  Speaker 1: They don't have the freedom to trade with the world.
• 2:01:20
  Speaker 1: They don't have a freedom to vote over the government
• 2:01:22
  Speaker 1: that rules them. I don't know. Call it whatever you
• 2:01:25
  Speaker 1: want to. That's the situation.
• 2:01:27
  Speaker 3: All of which is a result of the election of Hamas.
• 2:01:30
  Speaker 1: None of it's Israel's fault. Israel's not responsible for one
• 2:01:32
  Speaker 1: of the babies that have died, the bombs that they're dropping.
• 2:01:35
  Speaker 3: Let's get onto that then, because you say it's one
• 2:01:37
  Speaker 3: of the most brutal wars. It's a very brutal war.
• 2:01:41
  Speaker 3: It's a very brutal war. It's certainly not even sadly
• 2:01:44
  Speaker 3: among the standards of our time by any means the
• 2:01:47
  Speaker 3: most brutal. We don't need to get into the rather
• 2:01:50
  Speaker 3: statistician ugly debate about whether or not you follow the
• 2:01:54
  Speaker 3: Hamas government in Gaza's figures for the death counts, which
• 2:02:02
  Speaker 3: most of the world's media rely on and which I
• 2:02:04
  Speaker 3: don't think are reliable to the least extent. But you
• 2:02:07
  Speaker 3: don't need to rely on that to say that even
• 2:02:10
  Speaker 3: by the standards of a conflict in neighboring Syria, the
• 2:02:14
  Speaker 3: highest Hamas death count inside Gaza for the appalling last
• 2:02:20
  Speaker 3: year and a half is less than an average year
• 2:02:25
  Speaker 3: has been for the last decade in Syria during the
• 2:02:28
  Speaker 3: civil war.
• 2:02:29
  Speaker 1: So the whole deck, I mean, total far more people
• 2:02:32
  Speaker 1: died in Syria. I'm not arguing that, but you're saying
• 2:02:34
  Speaker 1: it's less than any year. I think there were years
• 2:02:37
  Speaker 1: that were.
• 2:02:37
  Speaker 3: Pretty six to 800,000 people have been killed in Syria
• 2:02:40
  Speaker 3: during the civil war there. And, uh, I give it
• 2:02:44
  Speaker 3: as an example, far too many examples of wars in
• 2:02:47
  Speaker 3: the region and in the wider world to go to.
• 2:02:50
  Speaker 3: But I think we get, once again, back to the
• 2:02:52
  Speaker 3: issue of language on this. He says, one of the
• 2:02:55
  Speaker 3: most brutal wars is simply obvious that it's an appalling war,
• 2:03:00
  Speaker 3: but it is not, by any numerical or other standards,
• 2:03:03
  Speaker 3: the most appalling war of our time. It's a war
• 2:03:06
  Speaker 3: that Hamas started because they shouldn't have invaded their neighbor,
• 2:03:08
  Speaker 3: and they shouldn't have tried to genocide their neighbor. Now,
• 2:03:12
  Speaker 3: if the war can be prosecuted, could be prosecuted, it
• 2:03:16
  Speaker 3: was always for two reasons. Always for two reasons. The
• 2:03:20
  Speaker 3: first one, as stated by the unanimity of Israeli politicians
• 2:03:26
  Speaker 3: and others, was to retrieve the hostages, who we also
• 2:03:29
  Speaker 3: haven't spoken about, but there are still hostages in Gaza
• 2:03:31
  Speaker 3: held for the last 18 months by Hamas, including young
• 2:03:34
  Speaker 3: Eden Alexander from New Jersey. If Hamas had not stolen
• 2:03:40
  Speaker 3: the hostages and hidden them in their tunnels and hidden
• 2:03:43
  Speaker 3: them in civilian homes, this war would have all been different.
• 2:03:47
  Speaker 3: If they had have given them back, and they could
• 2:03:49
  Speaker 3: give them back tomorrow, it would all be different. But
• 2:03:52
  Speaker 3: they didn't. They decided to do what they did on
• 2:03:55
  Speaker 3: the 7th and to hold on to the 250 hostages
• 2:03:59
  Speaker 3: as it was at the beginning from the beginning. The
• 2:04:01
  Speaker 3: second reason why the war is still being prosecuted is
• 2:04:04
  Speaker 3: because of the stated aim to destroy Hamas, which is
• 2:04:08
  Speaker 3: the stated aim of the Israelis. Neither of these things
• 2:04:13
  Speaker 3: is remotely easy. And just from a point of humility,
• 2:04:17
  Speaker 3: I think, on everyone's side, we should concede none of
• 2:04:21
  Speaker 3: that is easy. It is not easy to get 250
• 2:04:24
  Speaker 3: hostages back when they have been distributed across the Gaza
• 2:04:28
  Speaker 3: to civilian homes, hidden in tunnels, surrounded by munitions and
• 2:04:32
  Speaker 3: much more. Hamas is not an actor like Denmark. Its
• 2:04:40
  Speaker 3: backers don't behave the way that our governments do in
• 2:04:45
  Speaker 3: the West. They have a totally different time scale that
• 2:04:48
  Speaker 3: they think along. They have a totally different scale of
• 2:04:52
  Speaker 3: values as well. The taunts of Hezbollah's leadership, of Hamas's leadership,
• 2:04:59
  Speaker 3: of their backers in Tehran are annihilationist to their core.
• 2:05:06
  Speaker 3: But at any point in the last 18 months, the Qataris,
• 2:05:10
  Speaker 3: for instance, or the Iranians, the Turkish government or others
• 2:05:17
  Speaker 3: could have put their pressure on Hamas to return the
• 2:05:20
  Speaker 3: hostages who are still being held in captivity and everything
• 2:05:23
  Speaker 3: would be different. Secondly, as you know, I'm sure you
• 2:05:29
  Speaker 3: don't have to have seen this with your own eyes
• 2:05:30
  Speaker 3: to know it. As I'm sure you know, the way
• 2:05:33
  Speaker 3: in which Hamas built up the structure of the Gaza
• 2:05:35
  Speaker 3: throughout the 18 years that they had was precisely to
• 2:05:39
  Speaker 3: flout and use every law of war against the Israelis.
• 2:05:44
  Speaker 3: Every army in a conflict has certain rules of war
• 2:05:50
  Speaker 3: that you're meant to abide by. One of the most
• 2:05:53
  Speaker 3: obvious is that you are identified as being a combatant,
• 2:05:59
  Speaker 3: not as a civilian. Okay. Another is you don't put
• 2:06:04
  Speaker 3: weapons in civilian houses and civilian buildings. You do not
• 2:06:08
  Speaker 3: fire from houses of worship rockets. You do not launch
• 2:06:13
  Speaker 3: attacks from hospitals. You do not keep detention facilities where
• 2:06:17
  Speaker 3: you can torture and disappear people inside hospitals and other
• 2:06:21
  Speaker 3: medical facilities. All of these laws of war are the
• 2:06:26
  Speaker 3: laws that Hamas breaks every minute of every day by
• 2:06:30
  Speaker 3: their actions. So if you want to get the hostages
• 2:06:35
  Speaker 3: back and if you want to destroy Hamas, when you're
• 2:06:39
  Speaker 3: fighting against a force which does not only not follow
• 2:06:43
  Speaker 3: the rules of war, but uses your following of the
• 2:06:47
  Speaker 3: rules of the laws of war against you, at least
• 2:06:51
  Speaker 3: concede this is a highly specific and complex military operation.
• 2:06:57
  Speaker 3: And if you have, or anyone else has, and I
• 2:07:01
  Speaker 3: say this genuinely, a better way to get back the
• 2:07:07
  Speaker 3: hostages and to destroy Hamas, I at any rate am
• 2:07:11
  Speaker 3: all ears.
• 2:07:13
  Speaker 1: OK, OK, well, there's there's a lot there. So, number one,
• 2:07:16
  Speaker 1: like I do agree generally with your point about having
• 2:07:20
  Speaker 1: some humility in these complex situations. But I would also say, like,
• 2:07:24
  Speaker 1: do you not then at any point as you're like
• 2:07:26
  Speaker 1: a very well-known public figure who's supporting this war? think
• 2:07:30
  Speaker 1: about the level of human suffering that is being inflicted
• 2:07:33
  Speaker 1: on these innocent people, and go like, man, is there
• 2:07:35
  Speaker 1: another way? Maybe I'm getting this wrong. Maybe this is
• 2:07:37
  Speaker 1: the Iraq war all over again, which you also supported,
• 2:07:40
  Speaker 1: that maybe that was a big mistake.
• 2:07:42
  Speaker 3: If I say it, I don't need to think about it.
• 2:07:44
  Speaker 3: I've seen it.
• 2:07:46
  Speaker 2: I know it.
• 2:07:47
  Speaker 3: I describe it in my book. I describe what I
• 2:07:49
  Speaker 3: see in Gaza with the Palestinians when they're moving down
• 2:07:54
  Speaker 3: the humanitarian corridor.
• 2:07:55
  Speaker 1: Okay, let me just respond to some of the stuff
• 2:07:57
  Speaker 1: you say. Okay, so then I guess it's not really
• 2:07:59
  Speaker 1: that much of, humility involved in this, but there's two
• 2:08:03
  Speaker 1: very different goals that are being stated here, right? Like
• 2:08:05
  Speaker 1: there's the retrieving the hostages and then there's taking out Hamas. Now,
• 2:08:10
  Speaker 1: retrieving the hostages and actually many of the families of
• 2:08:14
  Speaker 1: hostages who are taken have been some of the only
• 2:08:16
  Speaker 1: people really protesting this war in Israel. Because, of course,
• 2:08:19
  Speaker 1: you know, if you imagine if you have your family
• 2:08:21
  Speaker 1: over there and your government is leveling this place, that
• 2:08:24
  Speaker 1: is not the best path to pursue to make sure
• 2:08:26
  Speaker 1: you get all the hostages out alive. I would say
• 2:08:28
  Speaker 1: that it fell apart. But Donald Trump having his envoy, Witkoff,
• 2:08:34
  Speaker 1: go over there and work out this ceasefire deal that
• 2:08:37
  Speaker 1: they had for a few weeks, they did get, I believe,
• 2:08:39
  Speaker 1: 30 hostages back during the phase one of this ceasefire,
• 2:08:44
  Speaker 1: seems to me like that would be the method to
• 2:08:46
  Speaker 1: pursue to try to get the hostages back. But if
• 2:08:50
  Speaker 1: you're talking about eliminating Hamas, and I think there's something
• 2:08:53
  Speaker 1: kind of interesting that you touched on there. I don't completely,
• 2:08:55
  Speaker 1: you know, I disagree with much of your characterization of it,
• 2:08:58
  Speaker 1: that like Israel are the good guys who always follow
• 2:09:01
  Speaker 1: the rules. We could kind of get into some of that.
• 2:09:02
  Speaker 1: There's lots of rules like in that Israel does not follow.
• 2:09:06
  Speaker 1: That being said, yes, of course. I mean, you're describing
• 2:09:09
  Speaker 1: the Guerrilla warfare, terrorist organizations. That's right. They stated differently.
• 2:09:15
  Speaker 1: Gaza doesn't have an air force or an army or
• 2:09:18
  Speaker 1: a navy. They're just basically militias running around, terrorists who
• 2:09:23
  Speaker 1: are trying to do everything they can to fight an
• 2:09:25
  Speaker 1: asymmetrical war. And just like we helped teach Osama bin
• 2:09:29
  Speaker 1: Laden how to do the Soviets and then Osama bin
• 2:09:31
  Speaker 1: Laden successfully did to us. The whole game in these
• 2:09:34
  Speaker 1: asymmetrical wars is to get exactly what Hamas got out
• 2:09:37
  Speaker 1: of this, right? Like, Osama bin Laden knew that he
• 2:09:40
  Speaker 1: couldn't bankrupt the United States of America by taking down
• 2:09:43
  Speaker 1: the Twin Towers, but he thought he could lure us
• 2:09:45
  Speaker 1: into a war in Afghanistan that would bankrupt us. Now,
• 2:09:48
  Speaker 1: it didn't completely, but it, you know, came pretty close.
• 2:09:52
  Speaker 1: That being said, well, I just mean in terms of
• 2:09:55
  Speaker 1: how much it drained the treasury, it was way more
• 2:09:58
  Speaker 1: than any terrorist attack could have possibly done. That being said...
• 2:10:04
  Speaker 1: The idea that it's not like I don't think morally speaking,
• 2:10:09
  Speaker 1: when you're inflicting this level of suffering on a group
• 2:10:12
  Speaker 1: of people, that the calculation should be like, well, we
• 2:10:15
  Speaker 1: want to remove Hamas from power. That's the goal. Justice
• 2:10:18
  Speaker 1: for October 7th. You know, there's lots of governments around
• 2:10:21
  Speaker 1: the world that we would and Hamas isn't exactly a government, but.
• 2:10:24
  Speaker 1: There's lots of regimes around the world that we would
• 2:10:27
  Speaker 1: all like to see removed. But that doesn't mean that
• 2:10:30
  Speaker 1: we would approve of any means by which to get there.
• 2:10:33
  Speaker 1: You know, if you were like, hey, I think Kim
• 2:10:35
  Speaker 1: Jong-un's government should be dissolved. I'm sure we would all
• 2:10:38
  Speaker 1: agree with that. But if you were like, I'm going
• 2:10:40
  Speaker 1: to level the place and just like slaughter people in
• 2:10:43
  Speaker 1: order to do it, you might be like, OK, hold on.
• 2:10:45
  Speaker 1: But aside from that. This has been acknowledged at the
• 2:10:49
  Speaker 1: highest levels of Israeli intelligence and U.S. intelligence. There's just
• 2:10:53
  Speaker 1: no way to get rid of Hamas without it being
• 2:10:56
  Speaker 1: replaced by more Hamas or Hamas-like group because it's the
• 2:10:59
  Speaker 1: basic understanding of this whole situation, right? It's General McChrystal's
• 2:11:04
  Speaker 1: insurgent math. There's still Hamas people. Hamas are popping back
• 2:11:08
  Speaker 1: up in the areas that Israel's already leveled. And the
• 2:11:12
  Speaker 1: more innocent people you kill, the more radicalized you're going
• 2:11:15
  Speaker 1: to get this population. The more these people are going
• 2:11:17
  Speaker 1: to hate you and join up with the resistance movement.
• 2:11:20
  Speaker 1: And so I just think that to use the justification
• 2:11:23
  Speaker 1: that we're trying to get rid of Hamas and therefore
• 2:11:27
  Speaker 1: it's not like it doesn't matter how many innocent women
• 2:11:30
  Speaker 1: and children die in the process.
• 2:11:31
  Speaker 3: Of course.
• 2:11:32
  Speaker 1: Or there's no responsibility on you. You now are not
• 2:11:35
  Speaker 1: responsible for the bombs that you drop, how many people
• 2:11:37
  Speaker 1: they kill.
• 2:11:38
  Speaker 3: No, of course you're responsible.
• 2:11:40
  Speaker 1: So Israel is responsible then.
• 2:11:41
  Speaker 3: They're responsible for the means of their retaliation and their
• 2:11:44
  Speaker 3: war aims. Yes, of course. First of all, let me
• 2:11:47
  Speaker 3: just say I totally disagree with your characterization of Osama
• 2:11:52
  Speaker 3: bin Laden and what he wanted to do. And I
• 2:11:54
  Speaker 3: don't think that Osama bin Laden's stated public utterances along
• 2:11:58
  Speaker 3: those lines. But anyway, the reason why the hostages have
• 2:12:02
  Speaker 3: been released, the numbers that have, is because of constant
• 2:12:07
  Speaker 3: kinetic force by the IDF. Hamas does not come to
• 2:12:12
  Speaker 3: the table and ever hand over hostages out of goodwill.
• 2:12:17
  Speaker 3: It doesn't do it out of the goodness of their
• 2:12:19
  Speaker 3: own heart. It does it because of the constant kinetic
• 2:12:23
  Speaker 3: force of the IDF in Gaza. And if it weren't
• 2:12:26
  Speaker 3: for that, all 250 hostages would still be there. Second
• 2:12:31
  Speaker 3: thing is, when it comes to Hamas itself, I totally
• 2:12:35
  Speaker 3: disagree with the presumption that if you tackle a terrorist entity,
• 2:12:42
  Speaker 3: you will create more terrorists. Ergo, you should not attack
• 2:12:46
  Speaker 3: the terrorist entity.
• 2:12:47
  Speaker 1: That's not the argument that I'm making.
• 2:12:50
  Speaker 3: It's a commonly held argument that if you respond to terrorism,
• 2:12:54
  Speaker 3: you create terrorism. And of course, the only thing in
• 2:12:57
  Speaker 3: that case is you just have to.
• 2:12:57
  Speaker 2: Sit back and take it.
• 2:12:58
  Speaker 1: The argument that I'm making is that when you slaughter
• 2:13:01
  Speaker 1: innocent people, those people around them tend to hate your guts.
• 2:13:05
  Speaker 1: That's the argument that I'm making.
• 2:13:06
  Speaker 3: First of all, your characterization of the slaughter. It's horrible,
• 2:13:11
  Speaker 3: the war in Gaza. It's horrible that young Israelis have
• 2:13:14
  Speaker 3: to go in yet again to Gaza and try to
• 2:13:17
  Speaker 3: find Israeli hostages and try to get the leadership of Hamas.
• 2:13:21
  Speaker 1: That's what's horrible about it?
• 2:13:22
  Speaker 3: It is not the case. Yes, because I think there's
• 2:13:24
  Speaker 3: a consequence to starting wars.
• 2:13:27
  Speaker 1: But so it's not horrible for the people who didn't
• 2:13:29
  Speaker 1: start a war? Why do we become like these collectivists
• 2:13:32
  Speaker 1: as soon as a war starts?
• 2:13:33
  Speaker 3: It is horrible for everybody else.
• 2:13:35
  Speaker 1: Involved no, it's the most horrible for the Palestinian people
• 2:13:39
  Speaker 1: in Gaza right now though That is the group of
• 2:13:41
  Speaker 1: people who are being fucked over the most right now.
• 2:13:44
  Speaker 3: No, yes at the moment. Yes, right, but they're not
• 2:13:47
  Speaker 3: being fucked over The IDF has been moving through Gaza
• 2:13:51
  Speaker 3: for 18 months. No Israeli soldier I have spoken to
• 2:13:54
  Speaker 3: ever wanted to go and see the Gaza again Okay,
• 2:13:58
  Speaker 3: nobody wanted to go back. They were dragged back because
• 2:14:01
  Speaker 3: of Hamas's actions and And if Hamas had acted differently
• 2:14:05
  Speaker 3: or the Palestinians had voted in different people to govern them,
• 2:14:08
  Speaker 3: it would all be different. But again, that's a hypothetical.
• 2:14:12
  Speaker 3: The reality of the war on the ground is that
• 2:14:16
  Speaker 3: in this incredibly heavily built up area, with weaponry hidden everywhere,
• 2:14:22
  Speaker 3: with soldiers, I've spoken to too many of them, they
• 2:14:26
  Speaker 3: go in, you have a group of people coming out
• 2:14:29
  Speaker 3: of a civilian building with their hands up, and from
• 2:14:32
  Speaker 3: their midst come a bunch of Hamas terrorists firing at
• 2:14:35
  Speaker 3: you in the hope that the IDF will fire back
• 2:14:38
  Speaker 3: at the civilians. Gadi Eisenkot, one of the members of
• 2:14:41
  Speaker 3: the war cabinet in the early stages of the war,
• 2:14:43
  Speaker 3: lost his own son and then his nephew. His nephew
• 2:14:45
  Speaker 3: was killed in a firefight in Gaza because the Hamas
• 2:14:51
  Speaker 3: terrorists were firing from a mosque, and that was why
• 2:14:54
  Speaker 3: Gadi Eisenkot from the Israeli cabinet's nephew died. The whole
• 2:14:59
  Speaker 3: operating theater... is hideous because of what Hamas has done
• 2:15:04
  Speaker 3: to the Gaza. The reason why Sinoir cropped up in Rafah, finally,
• 2:15:08
  Speaker 3: the mastermind of October the 7th, one of the most brutal,
• 2:15:12
  Speaker 3: sadistic psychopaths, to use an overrated term you can ever imagine,
• 2:15:17
  Speaker 3: in an Israeli prison, by the way, for having strangled
• 2:15:19
  Speaker 3: Palestinians to death in the 2000s, but anyway. The reason
• 2:15:22
  Speaker 3: why Sinoir crops up in Rafah late last year is
• 2:15:27
  Speaker 3: because there was nowhere else for him to run because
• 2:15:30
  Speaker 3: of the actions of the IDF to pursue the leadership
• 2:15:33
  Speaker 3: of Hamas that was responsible for the 7th. Now, can
• 2:15:37
  Speaker 3: all of Hamas be destroyed? Probably not. Can you make
• 2:15:43
  Speaker 3: it effectively impossible to function or incapable of functioning, unable
• 2:15:49
  Speaker 3: to fire rockets? and govern the Gaza, yes.
• 2:15:53
  Speaker 1: Right, but it comes at the price tag of slaughtering
• 2:15:55
  Speaker 1: tens of thousands of innocent people.
• 2:15:57
  Speaker 2: No, no.
• 2:15:58
  Speaker 1: And you're accepting that price.
• 2:15:59
  Speaker 3: No, every single war of this kind will include civilian casualties,
• 2:16:04
  Speaker 3: and you and I will almost certainly disagree on the numbers.
• 2:16:07
  Speaker 1: I'm not claiming that the health ministry's numbers are perfect, yeah.
• 2:16:09
  Speaker 3: But there will be, almost certainly, the best case analysis
• 2:16:16
  Speaker 3: is that one innocent Gazan has been killed for every
• 2:16:20
  Speaker 3: one terrorist. That's the best case scenario you can hear.
• 2:16:25
  Speaker 3: But that would be almost unparalleled in the laws of war,
• 2:16:27
  Speaker 3: and it's not how the American or British militaries operate
• 2:16:30
  Speaker 3: in terms of casualties to terrorist ratios. But when we
• 2:16:34
  Speaker 3: had the campaign against ISIS a decade ago, after ISIS's
• 2:16:40
  Speaker 3: fighters had gone and massacred people at the Bataclan theater
• 2:16:43
  Speaker 3: in Paris and so on, we used Turkish fighters, brilliant,
• 2:16:49
  Speaker 3: brave fighters from the Peshmerga militias to work on the ground.
• 2:16:53
  Speaker 3: And the French and American and British air forces bombed
• 2:16:57
  Speaker 3: like hell from the air. And we made ISIS effectively
• 2:17:03
  Speaker 3: touch wood 10 years later, operationally incapable in capital cities
• 2:17:08
  Speaker 3: in Europe. Has ISIS as a whole gone away? No.
• 2:17:13
  Speaker 3: They still have pockets in Syria and in Iraq. But
• 2:17:18
  Speaker 3: we stopped them from being able to do what they
• 2:17:21
  Speaker 3: most desired to do. And the same is possible with Hamas.
• 2:17:26
  Speaker 3: Will they be replaced by some other group? Again, then
• 2:17:29
  Speaker 3: we get to one of the crucial decision points for
• 2:17:32
  Speaker 3: the Palestinian people. Is it inevitable that they constantly have
• 2:17:37
  Speaker 3: to elect people who want to annihilate their neighbors? Or
• 2:17:41
  Speaker 3: will there ever be a generation that can find a
• 2:17:43
  Speaker 3: way to live in peace with their neighbors?
• 2:17:46
  Speaker 2: I agree.
• 2:17:47
  Speaker 3: Most people don't like being bombed. In fact, nobody does.
• 2:17:52
  Speaker 3: But if the people of the Palestinians in Gaza can
• 2:17:57
  Speaker 3: find it within themselves to realize the thing they asked
• 2:18:01
  Speaker 3: for in the elections is the thing that has destroyed
• 2:18:04
  Speaker 3: the area they live in, and like that brave young
• 2:18:08
  Speaker 3: man two weeks ago in Gaza, who rose up against
• 2:18:12
  Speaker 3: Hamas and was identified by the people who remain in
• 2:18:15
  Speaker 3: Hamas and was tortured, and then his body thrown onto
• 2:18:17
  Speaker 3: his parents' doorstep in the Gaza. And the parents started a, well,
• 2:18:22
  Speaker 3: the family, the clan started a bit of a war
• 2:18:24
  Speaker 3: against Hamas. But that's how Hamas treats Palestinian dissidents. But
• 2:18:30
  Speaker 3: if there were more people like that young man, and
• 2:18:31
  Speaker 3: of course, as we all know, the history of totalitarian
• 2:18:34
  Speaker 3: and terrorist groups running societies is They're very successful and
• 2:18:38
  Speaker 3: they stay in power because they're willing to torture and
• 2:18:41
  Speaker 3: use violence and much more. It's a horrible thing you
• 2:18:45
  Speaker 3: have to contend with. But if more people like that
• 2:18:48
  Speaker 3: young man had come about in Gaza in the last
• 2:18:50
  Speaker 3: 18 months or before, yes. Yes, it would all be different.
• 2:18:55
  Speaker 3: And if they could avoid electing a terrorist group that
• 2:18:59
  Speaker 3: invades their neighbors and fires rockets at their neighbors, yes,
• 2:19:02
  Speaker 3: it could all be different. It could all be different tomorrow.
• 2:19:04
  Speaker 3: And I'll tell you, sorry, again, There is not a
• 2:19:07
  Speaker 3: person living by the Gaza in the south of Israel
• 2:19:11
  Speaker 3: who does not dream of the day that such a
• 2:19:13
  Speaker 3: generation of Palestinians emerges.
• 2:19:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I think that... Okay, a few things here. On
• 2:19:22
  Speaker 1: Syria there, because it is true. I mean, I think... Okay,
• 2:19:26
  Speaker 1: so John Brennan and Barack Obama, the head of the
• 2:19:29
  Speaker 1: CIA and, of course, the former president of the United
• 2:19:32
  Speaker 1: States of America, had a policy of committing literal treason...
• 2:19:36
  Speaker 1: before they ended up accusing Donald Trump of treason, which
• 2:19:39
  Speaker 1: was all bullshit. But they had a policy of committing
• 2:19:41
  Speaker 1: literal treason by funding al-Qaeda and ISIS in the Syrian
• 2:19:46
  Speaker 1: civil war. Poured billions of dollars and tons of weapons
• 2:19:50
  Speaker 1: into that conflict. When Donald Trump, now it is true,
• 2:19:52
  Speaker 1: by the way, you are correct, that there certainly were
• 2:19:56
  Speaker 1: military actions taken against ISIS after they invaded Iraq, which
• 2:19:59
  Speaker 1: was not supposed to be part of the plan. There
• 2:20:02
  Speaker 1: was also a lot of military actions taken by Vladimir
• 2:20:04
  Speaker 1: Putin against ISIS after he came in on Assad's request,
• 2:20:08
  Speaker 1: as you know. In 2017, when Donald Trump came in,
• 2:20:12
  Speaker 1: one of the best things Donald Trump ever did, he
• 2:20:14
  Speaker 1: cut off the CIA program to fund the anti-Assad rebels.
• 2:20:18
  Speaker 1: And this was also a big part of what ended
• 2:20:20
  Speaker 1: up taking the energy out of ISIS. Also, I think
• 2:20:24
  Speaker 1: there was a lot of good reporting that just they
• 2:20:27
  Speaker 1: turned enough people on the ground against them. They were
• 2:20:29
  Speaker 1: even just too radical and just people ended up hating them.
• 2:20:32
  Speaker 1: It is true that they receded for quite a while,
• 2:20:35
  Speaker 1: although the former emir of Al-Qaeda, al-Jilani, is now ruling Syria,
• 2:20:40
  Speaker 1: which does not seem like a great deal or something
• 2:20:42
  Speaker 1: that people in America should support. The true enemy of
• 2:20:46
  Speaker 1: the American people, Al-Qaeda, now being in charge of Syria.
• 2:20:51
  Speaker 1: I think that, you know, it's easy to talk about how, like,
• 2:20:56
  Speaker 1: if the Palestinians had done this different, then maybe things
• 2:20:58
  Speaker 1: would have worked out different. But I just think, again,
• 2:21:01
  Speaker 1: When you look at things, when you say, which essentially
• 2:21:04
  Speaker 1: I think is your point here, right? Which, I mean,
• 2:21:06
  Speaker 1: I tried to push you on this, but you're saying, look,
• 2:21:08
  Speaker 1: we can degrade Hamas, but the cost of that is
• 2:21:12
  Speaker 1: going to be slaughtering a whole bunch of people.
• 2:21:14
  Speaker 3: It's not slaughtering, it's war.
• 2:21:17
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 2:21:17
  Speaker 1: I think you're, okay. They're not being slaughtered. They're being killed, okay,
• 2:21:22
  Speaker 1: whatever word you wanna use.
• 2:21:22
  Speaker 3: They're being killed in a brutal war started by Hamas, yes.
• 2:21:25
  Speaker 1: Yes, it's babies and little kids screaming out for help
• 2:21:30
  Speaker 1: under rubble and no help is coming. They sit there
• 2:21:33
  Speaker 1: under the rubble until they die. That is the level
• 2:21:35
  Speaker 1: of human suffering that's being inflicted. And if you want
• 2:21:38
  Speaker 1: to say, well, listen, that's a price that I'm willing
• 2:21:40
  Speaker 1: to pay to try to degrade Hamas, even though you
• 2:21:43
  Speaker 1: yourself recognize that we can't totally eliminate them, but we
• 2:21:45
  Speaker 1: could maybe degrade them or maybe take them down a peg.
• 2:21:49
  Speaker 1: And the price for that is these babies being tortured
• 2:21:52
  Speaker 1: to death, essentially, whatever you want to call it. Okay.
• 2:21:56
  Speaker 2: But.
• 2:21:57
  Speaker 1: From the other side of that story, like if there's, like,
• 2:22:00
  Speaker 1: I got little kids. I don't know if you have kids.
• 2:22:02
  Speaker 1: I know you have kids, Joe. If anybody ever was
• 2:22:04
  Speaker 1: saying to me that, like, my kids were the acceptable
• 2:22:07
  Speaker 1: price for this policy that we want to put into place,
• 2:22:10
  Speaker 1: I'm saying I don't think there's any scenario, any scenario, Douglas,
• 2:22:14
  Speaker 1: where there would be any time where you would accept
• 2:22:16
  Speaker 1: Israeli kids dying like that as an acceptable price for
• 2:22:19
  Speaker 1: a policy that you're going to be advocating for.
• 2:22:24
  Speaker 3: First of all, again, go back to the... what is
• 2:22:27
  Speaker 3: actually happening. There is no desire or aim by the
• 2:22:35
  Speaker 3: IAF or the IDF to go into Gaza and kill
• 2:22:38
  Speaker 3: women and children.
• 2:22:39
  Speaker 1: Well, they're doing it.
• 2:22:40
  Speaker 3: Hang on, hang on. There is no desire for that.
• 2:22:43
  Speaker 3: Does it happen collaterally? Certainly, certainly. And that is one
• 2:22:48
  Speaker 3: of the very ugly rules of war and things that
• 2:22:51
  Speaker 3: happens in war. And it's another of the reasons why
• 2:22:54
  Speaker 3: almost like you shouldn't start a war and hide your
• 2:22:56
  Speaker 3: rockets and your terrorists inside civilian buildings.
• 2:22:59
  Speaker 1: But hang on. You've made this point a lot of times,
• 2:23:01
  Speaker 1: but okay.
• 2:23:02
  Speaker 3: Well, it clearly can't be made enough because there is
• 2:23:05
  Speaker 3: no intention on the Israeli side to cause the death
• 2:23:10
  Speaker 3: of non-combatants.
• 2:23:11
  Speaker 1: Oh, come on.
• 2:23:13
  Speaker 3: Hang on. Why do you think the Israelis would want
• 2:23:16
  Speaker 3: to go and kill children in Gaza?
• 2:23:18
  Speaker 1: Listen, let me just, how about I say it like this, okay?
• 2:23:21
  Speaker 1: And by the way, when I say it like this,
• 2:23:23
  Speaker 1: I'm not claiming that disputes between nations are the same
• 2:23:27
  Speaker 1: as handling a dispute domestically. I'm just saying on the
• 2:23:30
  Speaker 1: idea of intentionality or who wants to do this or whatever. Look,
• 2:23:34
  Speaker 1: if you, even if you had the right, let's say
• 2:23:37
  Speaker 1: somebody broke onto your property and killed some of your
• 2:23:40
  Speaker 1: family members and you wanna go kill this guy. If
• 2:23:43
  Speaker 1: he goes back to his apartment building and you know
• 2:23:47
  Speaker 1: that there's women and children in that apartment building, and
• 2:23:49
  Speaker 1: so your move is to blow up the building, what
• 2:23:51
  Speaker 1: you would be charged with is murder in the first degree. Cold-blooded, premeditated,
• 2:23:57
  Speaker 1: intentional murder. And you could sit there and tell the judge,
• 2:24:01
  Speaker 1: I didn't wanna kill all those people. Why would I
• 2:24:03
  Speaker 1: wanna kill all of those people? I just had to
• 2:24:05
  Speaker 1: kill that one guy. But that's bullshit. That's not what counts.
• 2:24:09
  Speaker 1: You did it intentionally. You dropped a bomb knowing that
• 2:24:12
  Speaker 1: there were women and children in that building. You're taking
• 2:24:15
  Speaker 1: an action knowing that these innocent people are going to die.
• 2:24:17
  Speaker 1: Then that is by definition intentional. And, you know, you
• 2:24:21
  Speaker 1: could sit here and talk about and it is true.
• 2:24:23
  Speaker 1: There have been documented cases of Hamas attacks. placing missiles
• 2:24:26
  Speaker 1: in mosques and in schools and things like that. But
• 2:24:29
  Speaker 1: when you look at the aerial footage of Gaza, that
• 2:24:31
  Speaker 1: does not describe every single strike that Israel has launched.
• 2:24:36
  Speaker 1: There have been tons of bombs dropped where it's simply,
• 2:24:39
  Speaker 1: and we have very good reporting on this, where they
• 2:24:41
  Speaker 1: literally just have information that they believe with some degree
• 2:24:47
  Speaker 1: of certainty that a couple of Hamas militants are in
• 2:24:50
  Speaker 1: this building. And so they blow up the building. That
• 2:24:52
  Speaker 1: is intentionally murdering innocent people. And you if you're going
• 2:24:56
  Speaker 1: to advocate for this war, I don't see how you
• 2:24:59
  Speaker 1: can do it without saying that, like, at least bite
• 2:25:02
  Speaker 1: the bullet that Madeleine Albright did when she was asked
• 2:25:05
  Speaker 1: that we've played this clip on the show before when
• 2:25:07
  Speaker 1: she's point blank asked about the sanctions on Iraq. And
• 2:25:12
  Speaker 1: our 500,000 children, is that price acceptable? And she said, yes,
• 2:25:15
  Speaker 1: we believe that price is acceptable. You're saying, if you're
• 2:25:18
  Speaker 1: going to support this war, you know this is the
• 2:25:20
  Speaker 1: price of it, so why can't you just say, yes,
• 2:25:22
  Speaker 1: that price is acceptable? Because then we could have a
• 2:25:25
  Speaker 1: real conversation about why the other side is going to
• 2:25:28
  Speaker 1: look at you like a monster.
• 2:25:29
  Speaker 3: Because, first of all, I don't agree with any of
• 2:25:31
  Speaker 3: the characterization you make.
• 2:25:33
  Speaker 1: Any of it.
• 2:25:33
  Speaker 3: Okay. You say that the Israelis get some information, as
• 2:25:38
  Speaker 3: if this is like, what, they're making it up? Or
• 2:25:42
  Speaker 3: you think the Israelis want to drop a bomb? No,
• 2:25:46
  Speaker 3: they act on information about where the terrorists are, just
• 2:25:50
  Speaker 3: like they act on information of where the hostages are. Secondly,
• 2:25:56
  Speaker 3: when you talk about the destruction of the Gaza, something
• 2:25:59
  Speaker 3: you probably haven't realized, but is one of the reasons
• 2:26:02
  Speaker 3: why the destruction looks so bad and is so bad,
• 2:26:07
  Speaker 3: is because when the IDF were clearing the areas that
• 2:26:10
  Speaker 3: they'd asked the civilian population to leave and were going
• 2:26:14
  Speaker 3: house to house, and it isn't just stories here or
• 2:26:18
  Speaker 3: stories there, it's every second or third house in Gaza
• 2:26:23
  Speaker 3: that has either munitions or tunnel entrances. Every second or
• 2:26:27
  Speaker 3: third house. This is not the odd case. One of
• 2:26:31
  Speaker 3: the things that everybody who has been there knows is
• 2:26:34
  Speaker 3: that you go into a mosque and you know there
• 2:26:36
  Speaker 3: will be either Rockets and or tunnel entrances. You go
• 2:26:40
  Speaker 3: into a hospital and you know that there will be
• 2:26:43
  Speaker 3: grenades or tunnel entrances or dungeons or whatever. Just on
• 2:26:48
  Speaker 3: a lighter note, early in the conflict when the Shifa complex,
• 2:26:52
  Speaker 3: which is used as a Hamas headquarters and has also
• 2:26:55
  Speaker 3: been used as a hospital, but even in 2014 the
• 2:26:57
  Speaker 3: BBC said this is where Hamas are operating from. When
• 2:27:00
  Speaker 3: that was shown by the Israelis to have massive weapons
• 2:27:03
  Speaker 3: stores in the tunnels and cellars underneath it, They had grenades, RPGs, Kalashnikovs,
• 2:27:11
  Speaker 3: and the BBC's chief Middle East correspondent was asked live
• 2:27:14
  Speaker 3: on air, why would these things be in a hospital?
• 2:27:18
  Speaker 3: And Jeremy Bowen said, well, it's perfectly possible, because there's
• 2:27:21
  Speaker 3: a lot of guns in the Middle East, it's perfectly
• 2:27:24
  Speaker 3: possible the security department of the hospital had the Kalashnikovs.
• 2:27:28
  Speaker 3: I said, yeah, and did the grenades belong to the cardiologists?
• 2:27:31
  Speaker 3: I mean, why? Why is this so normal that these
• 2:27:36
  Speaker 3: every civilian mill building like this and every second or
• 2:27:39
  Speaker 3: third house in Gaza is a weapons dump or a
• 2:27:42
  Speaker 3: place that you enter the tunnels from? But the reason
• 2:27:45
  Speaker 3: why the devastation, which it is in the north in particular,
• 2:27:49
  Speaker 3: but also in Rafah and elsewhere, is what it is,
• 2:27:52
  Speaker 3: is because every time the IDF went into an area
• 2:27:56
  Speaker 3: where they had told the civilians to leave, The Hamas
• 2:28:02
  Speaker 3: terrorists that remained were in civilian buildings and booby-trapped a
• 2:28:10
  Speaker 3: very large number of the buildings. So what they did
• 2:28:13
  Speaker 3: as they proceeded through those areas of the Gaza to
• 2:28:15
  Speaker 3: clear them was to set off munitions, which the American
• 2:28:19
  Speaker 3: military and others use, which sets off secondary explosions in
• 2:28:22
  Speaker 3: places that are booby-trapped. And much of what you see
• 2:28:25
  Speaker 3: in the photographs that you see and many other people
• 2:28:27
  Speaker 3: have seen from Gaza is the result of that. It
• 2:28:31
  Speaker 3: is the result of the IDF trying to clear an
• 2:28:34
  Speaker 3: area which has been very carefully and well booby-trapped for years.
• 2:28:40
  Speaker 3: Let me make one other very quick point about the
• 2:28:42
  Speaker 3: bigger picture that you said, because I think it's important.
• 2:28:46
  Speaker 3: We were talking about the Syrian, you mentioned the Syrian
• 2:28:49
  Speaker 3: conflict with ISIS. I think, again, it's really important to
• 2:28:52
  Speaker 3: keep this in mind, what I said earlier about, let's
• 2:28:55
  Speaker 3: not think we are the primary actors everywhere, or even
• 2:28:59
  Speaker 3: that important. I remember the debate over the Syrian intervention issue.
• 2:29:05
  Speaker 3: And at the time, despite being in many cases an interventionist,
• 2:29:09
  Speaker 3: I said on that occasion that we didn't know what
• 2:29:11
  Speaker 3: we were doing, clearly didn't know who we were going
• 2:29:13
  Speaker 3: to back. If you remember, John McCain went to Syria
• 2:29:17
  Speaker 3: to speak to some rebels, and one of them immediately
• 2:29:19
  Speaker 3: turned out to be a kind of head-hacking jihadist. That
• 2:29:21
  Speaker 3: wasn't great. And I said, I don't have any confidence
• 2:29:24
  Speaker 3: that we know who to back. And despite many Syrian
• 2:29:27
  Speaker 3: friends of mine imploring me otherwise, I said, I don't
• 2:29:29
  Speaker 3: think it's something we can get involved in. However, if
• 2:29:34
  Speaker 3: you look at the last 10 years or more, what
• 2:29:36
  Speaker 3: is it now, 13 years of conflict in Syria, the
• 2:29:40
  Speaker 3: US and the Western powers are not remotely significant actors
• 2:29:43
  Speaker 3: in that conflict. The significant actors in that conflict were,
• 2:29:48
  Speaker 3: always have been, the Russians, the Iranians. I mean, one
• 2:29:55
  Speaker 3: of the things that blows my mind in the analysis
• 2:29:58
  Speaker 3: of the region is the fact that the prime... mover
• 2:30:03
  Speaker 3: in the region, the revolutionary Islamic government in Iran that
• 2:30:06
  Speaker 3: has been oppressing the Iranian people since 1979 and has
• 2:30:09
  Speaker 3: been holding a great civilization in captivity, that the Iranian
• 2:30:15
  Speaker 3: revolutionary government in Tehran has literally been colonizing the region.
• 2:30:20
  Speaker 3: I have this rule about, I took it from Vasily Grossman,
• 2:30:22
  Speaker 3: the great Soviet Jewish writer, who had this great line about,
• 2:30:26
  Speaker 3: tell me what you accuse the Jews of and I'll
• 2:30:27
  Speaker 3: tell you what you're guilty of. This absolutely runs as
• 2:30:31
  Speaker 3: well with the accusations against the Jewish state in the region.
• 2:30:34
  Speaker 3: The Iranian revolutionary government is constantly accusing the Israelis of colonialism,
• 2:30:39
  Speaker 3: of expansionism. It is the Iranian revolutionary government that has
• 2:30:42
  Speaker 3: been colonizing Iraq, colonizing Yemen, colonizing and destroying Lebanon, and
• 2:30:47
  Speaker 3: colonizing Syria. And the amazing thing, when you look at
• 2:30:51
  Speaker 3: the disaster that has happened in Syria in the last
• 2:30:54
  Speaker 3: 13 years, and I don't see it getting especially better
• 2:30:58
  Speaker 3: under the, the current jihadist, the disaster is not of
• 2:31:04
  Speaker 3: our making primarily. We are bit players. America is a
• 2:31:08
  Speaker 3: bit player.
• 2:31:08
  Speaker 1: In Iraq?
• 2:31:09
  Speaker 3: In Syria.
• 2:31:10
  Speaker 2: We are a bit player.
• 2:31:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but you mentioned Iraq in there too.
• 2:31:12
  Speaker 3: I know. Well, the great idiocy of that was that
• 2:31:16
  Speaker 3: Iraq notices Iraq Um, failings, our lack of staying power,
• 2:31:21
  Speaker 3: our desire to get out as soon as possible and
• 2:31:24
  Speaker 3: much more, which is all understandable. And they moved in
• 2:31:28
  Speaker 3: and they moved in, of course, but I was talking
• 2:31:31
  Speaker 3: about Syria in this Syrian theater. The, the main actors
• 2:31:37
  Speaker 3: are not us. And one of the things I still
• 2:31:39
  Speaker 3: interested in about this mindset that you have is why
• 2:31:43
  Speaker 3: does it always have to be us? It's other people
• 2:31:47
  Speaker 3: who have actions in the world. The Russians, the revolutionary
• 2:31:52
  Speaker 3: government in Iran, they are so busy.
• 2:31:53
  Speaker 1: In the region. See, I think this is all about
• 2:31:57
  Speaker 1: framing here because I don't think I've ever once made
• 2:31:59
  Speaker 1: this claim. You've made this point several times so far,
• 2:32:01
  Speaker 1: but I've never once made the claim that everything is
• 2:32:03
  Speaker 1: always us. I think you're the one who's downplaying the
• 2:32:06
  Speaker 1: influence and impact that we have. We are, after all,
• 2:32:09
  Speaker 1: when I'm saying we, I'm saying the United States of
• 2:32:10
  Speaker 1: America's federal government. is the largest, most powerful organization in
• 2:32:13
  Speaker 1: the history of the world. It is the world empire.
• 2:32:16
  Speaker 1: And to sit there and say Iran colonized Iraq, no,
• 2:32:20
  Speaker 1: George W. Bush invaded the country on a bunch of lies,
• 2:32:24
  Speaker 1: a war that you supported. He went in there and
• 2:32:27
  Speaker 1: overthrew Saddam Hussein and installed democracy in the Shiite majority country.
• 2:32:32
  Speaker 1: Of course he handed the thing over to Iran, but
• 2:32:35
  Speaker 1: to say that that had no impact on Syria, or
• 2:32:38
  Speaker 1: that the U.S. military funding and arming the anti-Assad rebels
• 2:32:42
  Speaker 1: had no impact. I'm not claiming the entire thing is America.
• 2:32:46
  Speaker 1: Bashar al-Assad was an actor. There were other forces there
• 2:32:49
  Speaker 1: aside from the U.S.
• 2:32:51
  Speaker 2: Meddling there.
• 2:32:52
  Speaker 1: But at the same time, you got the most powerful
• 2:32:54
  Speaker 1: government in the history of the world, who, as we
• 2:32:56
  Speaker 1: all know, put Syria on its seven countries in five
• 2:32:59
  Speaker 1: years list of who we're going to go overthrow. And
• 2:33:02
  Speaker 1: it's had a profound impact on the region. Of course
• 2:33:05
  Speaker 1: it did. It was a huge contributing factor to that
• 2:33:08
  Speaker 1: civil war to begin with.
• 2:33:09
  Speaker 3: I think America is obviously a major actor, certainly could be,
• 2:33:12
  Speaker 3: is meant to be the major actor on the world stage.
• 2:33:14
  Speaker 3: I think that the history of the region and many
• 2:33:16
  Speaker 3: other regions around the world is that America does not
• 2:33:19
  Speaker 3: have either the staying power, the capability, the intelligence, the
• 2:33:22
  Speaker 3: kind of people that you would produce in order to
• 2:33:25
  Speaker 3: have the kind of impact that you actually think it has.
• 2:33:28
  Speaker 3: American weakness in the Middle East has been, I mean,
• 2:33:32
  Speaker 3: I say this as somebody obviously from Britain, but When
• 2:33:35
  Speaker 3: Britain was a dominant world power, she produced the type
• 2:33:39
  Speaker 3: of person who was keen to go and be a
• 2:33:43
  Speaker 3: governor of, you know, a stan somewhere and learn the
• 2:33:47
  Speaker 3: local dialects and, you know, run the civil service.
• 2:33:51
  Speaker 1: You guys were better at empire than we are.
• 2:33:52
  Speaker 3: The point is they produced that sort of person because
• 2:33:56
  Speaker 3: they wanted to stay. America has never produced that sort
• 2:33:59
  Speaker 3: of person, and it certainly hasn't in the Middle East
• 2:34:02
  Speaker 3: in particular. It acts militarily on occasions, and in my view,
• 2:34:07
  Speaker 3: sometimes well, sometimes poorly. But the reason why America was
• 2:34:11
  Speaker 3: so badly outplayed by the mullahs in Iraq was simply that,
• 2:34:16
  Speaker 3: as you say, after the war, America had nothing like
• 2:34:19
  Speaker 3: the staying power of the mullahs in Tehran, had nothing
• 2:34:22
  Speaker 3: like the ability to affect post-war change like the Iranian
• 2:34:25
  Speaker 3: revolutionary government did. And so, yes, If we create a
• 2:34:29
  Speaker 3: vacuum like that or somebody else creates a vacuum, and
• 2:34:31
  Speaker 3: after all, we did not cause the beginning of this. We,
• 2:34:35
  Speaker 3: the West, I'm saying on this occasion, did not cause
• 2:34:37
  Speaker 3: the beginning of the Arab Spring, as it was optimistically
• 2:34:41
  Speaker 3: called at the beginning, or the beginning of the revolution,
• 2:34:45
  Speaker 3: the uprising in Syria in 2011. These things were ground up.
• 2:34:52
  Speaker 3: and the actors in the region moved in much more
• 2:34:55
  Speaker 3: deftly and effectively than we did. It's the same with Lebanon.
• 2:34:58
  Speaker 3: It's the same with Lebanon. America doesn't even have eyes
• 2:35:01
  Speaker 3: over Lebanon. Iran has an army that has a checkpoint
• 2:35:05
  Speaker 3: at Beirut Airport that will check you on behalf of
• 2:35:09
  Speaker 3: Hezbollah when you come in there. You can't tell me
• 2:35:12
  Speaker 3: that America is, just because America's on paper and much
• 2:35:17
  Speaker 3: more has the power, that America is the deft operator
• 2:35:21
  Speaker 3: in the Middle East. There are so many people who
• 2:35:23
  Speaker 3: outwit America in the Middle East all the time.
• 2:35:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but you can't tell me that there hasn't been
• 2:35:27
  Speaker 1: an impact from the $ 8 trillion that we've spent there
• 2:35:30
  Speaker 1: and the multiple regime changes all around the Middle East
• 2:35:33
  Speaker 1: that were done by America. These weren't just going to
• 2:35:36
  Speaker 1: happen on their own. Are you saying that didn't have
• 2:35:38
  Speaker 1: an impact?
• 2:35:38
  Speaker 3: Iraq was certainly done by America, of course.
• 2:35:40
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 2:35:41
  Speaker 1: So Iraq was certainly done by America. Libya?
• 2:35:44
  Speaker 3: NATO.
• 2:35:45
  Speaker 1: Right, but NATO is the European wing of the American empire.
• 2:35:49
  Speaker 1: I mean, let's get real. That's an American decision. Right,
• 2:35:54
  Speaker 1: I'm saying it's not because some random European country decided.
• 2:35:56
  Speaker 3: By the way, let's just also go back, just because
• 2:35:58
  Speaker 3: the Libyan intervention, I was pretty iffy about at the time,
• 2:36:03
  Speaker 3: but that was done not to create an empire or
• 2:36:08
  Speaker 3: anything like that. It was done for one very clear reason,
• 2:36:11
  Speaker 3: and I remember the debate's in the European capitals, and
• 2:36:14
  Speaker 3: in Washington, D.C. at the time. There was a belief
• 2:36:18
  Speaker 3: that after the uprising against Gaddafi began, that there would
• 2:36:23
  Speaker 3: be a mass slaughter, genocide, carried out by Gaddafi against
• 2:36:28
  Speaker 3: the people.
• 2:36:29
  Speaker 1: We're talking in 2011?
• 2:36:31
  Speaker 3: And it was 2011, yeah. There was a belief. Everybody
• 2:36:35
  Speaker 3: believed it. He had started his son, if you remember,
• 2:36:38
  Speaker 3: Saif Gaddafi, formerly of the London School of Economics, showing
• 2:36:41
  Speaker 3: that we can produce the best. Saif Gaddafi stood up
• 2:36:46
  Speaker 3: and said, we will fight to the last bullet and
• 2:36:47
  Speaker 3: so on. And everybody believed them. And the desire to
• 2:36:52
  Speaker 3: intervene was caused in an attempt to not to. People
• 2:36:56
  Speaker 3: did not want the resources of Libya. Nobody wanted Libya
• 2:36:59
  Speaker 3: to fall apart or anything like that. They did it
• 2:37:02
  Speaker 3: because there was a genuine belief in what was called
• 2:37:04
  Speaker 3: at the time, which has gone out of fashion, but right.
• 2:37:06
  Speaker 1: To protect, the duty to protect. And that was why
• 2:37:09
  Speaker 1: they went in. So it's just important to keep that
• 2:37:12
  Speaker 1: sort of nuance around. Well, I don't think it's correct.
• 2:37:15
  Speaker 1: I mean, you always kind of like ascribe the best
• 2:37:18
  Speaker 1: of motives to Israel and the West and nothing but
• 2:37:20
  Speaker 1: the worst of motives to all of their enemies. So
• 2:37:22
  Speaker 1: just riddle me this then. If we just went in
• 2:37:25
  Speaker 1: because there was this uprising in 2011 and because we
• 2:37:28
  Speaker 1: were worried that Qaddafi was about to go general, something
• 2:37:30
  Speaker 1: that your own, the UK Parliament, did an investigation into
• 2:37:34
  Speaker 1: and found out was.
• 2:37:35
  Speaker 2: Just completely wrong.
• 2:37:37
  Speaker 1: But why is it then that I got four-star General
• 2:37:41
  Speaker 1: Wesley Clark, Supreme Commander of the NATO Forces, Why is
• 2:37:47
  Speaker 1: it that he told me that he saw the plans
• 2:37:49
  Speaker 1: in 2001 to overthrow Gaddafi and that this was part
• 2:37:52
  Speaker 1: of a strategy to overthrow seven governments in five years
• 2:37:56
  Speaker 1: and all of them except one have been done at
• 2:38:00
  Speaker 1: this point? So you're telling me it's a complete coincidence
• 2:38:03
  Speaker 1: that he saw that the neoconservatives had this plan to
• 2:38:05
  Speaker 1: overthrow Muammar Gaddafi and then 10 years later we happen
• 2:38:08
  Speaker 1: to do it when we have the opportunity? The two
• 2:38:10
  Speaker 1: aren't related at all?
• 2:38:12
  Speaker 3: It's nice to hear the N-word again.
• 2:38:15
  Speaker 1: The N-word?
• 2:38:16
  Speaker 3: Did I say that?
• 2:38:18
  Speaker 1: Oh, that one. I was thinking of a different one.
• 2:38:20
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 2:38:23
  Speaker 3: First of all, I would assume, I would hope that
• 2:38:25
  Speaker 3: there's American military planning for absolutely everything. I would hope
• 2:38:29
  Speaker 3: that there is a scenario for absolutely everything somewhere in
• 2:38:33
  Speaker 3: the American pentagon or whatever.
• 2:38:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but he didn't say we're drawing up war games.
• 2:38:38
  Speaker 1: He said this is the plan that we're going to impose.
• 2:38:40
  Speaker 3: I would assume that. I would hope that. any major
• 2:38:44
  Speaker 3: power like America would have plans in place for almost
• 2:38:48
  Speaker 3: everything that is likely. America should have started planning for
• 2:38:56
  Speaker 3: some kind of kinetic force in Libya from the 1980s.
• 2:39:02
  Speaker 3: Of course. Of course there'd be plans.
• 2:39:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but again, this is not what Wesley Clark's like.
• 2:39:07
  Speaker 1: he wasn't saying we've drawn up war games. We've drawn
• 2:39:11
  Speaker 1: up war games with everybody. We have war games with China,
• 2:39:13
  Speaker 1: war games with Russia. We've mapped out how a kinetic
• 2:39:16
  Speaker 1: war would work, even with countries that have nuclear arsenals,
• 2:39:19
  Speaker 1: just in case we have to fight a traditional war
• 2:39:21
  Speaker 1: and nukes aren't being used. That's not what he's talking about.
• 2:39:24
  Speaker 1: He said that not only, he was told, we're in
• 2:39:27
  Speaker 1: Afghanistan now, this is late 2001. He goes, next we're
• 2:39:31
  Speaker 1: going to Iraq, after that we're going to Libya, after
• 2:39:34
  Speaker 1: that we're going to Syria, Somalia, was it Sudan, and
• 2:39:39
  Speaker 1: finishing off with Iran. He laid out the path of
• 2:39:43
  Speaker 1: what we're about to do, and then we did it
• 2:39:46
  Speaker 1: in the next administration. You don't think there was any
• 2:39:48
  Speaker 1: connection between those two?
• 2:39:49
  Speaker 3: What, we did Somalia and Sudan?
• 2:39:52
  Speaker 1: No, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. If you go look at
• 2:39:54
  Speaker 1: the list of seven countries, it was Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya,
• 2:40:01
  Speaker 1: I believe Somalia, Sudan, and Iran, I believe.
• 2:40:06
  Speaker 3: Why would America want to do any of those things?
• 2:40:09
  Speaker 3: Who wants to do it?
• 2:40:10
  Speaker 1: Well, what he said is that essentially these plans– he
• 2:40:13
  Speaker 1: said later in an interview with Piers Morgan that he
• 2:40:16
  Speaker 1: had seen the plans at first in 1991, that they
• 2:40:19
  Speaker 1: came from Paul Wolfowitz– That basically then they got, what?
• 2:40:22
  Speaker 1: What's funny about what the four-star general said? No, I'm
• 2:40:27
  Speaker 1: just curious. What's laughable about this?
• 2:40:31
  Speaker 3: Paul Wolfowitz is a great figure for almost any deep
• 2:40:37
  Speaker 3: conspiracy in this country because he was a deputy secretary
• 2:40:41
  Speaker 3: of defense at the highest in his life. He is
• 2:40:45
  Speaker 3: forever being ascribed almost.
• 2:40:49
  Speaker 3: It's almost supernatural power. The highest position he ever got
• 2:40:56
  Speaker 3: to was as Donald Rumsfeld's deputy. And it's a very
• 2:41:01
  Speaker 3: strange thing always when Wolfrid's name comes up because he
• 2:41:06
  Speaker 3: was a relatively low level person to whom almost everything
• 2:41:10
  Speaker 3: can be ascribed.
• 2:41:11
  Speaker 1: And I find it strange. I get it, this is
• 2:41:13
  Speaker 1: such a straw man. I didn't ascribe everything to him.
• 2:41:15
  Speaker 1: I'm literally telling you what the four-star general said about him.
• 2:41:20
  Speaker 1: And I wouldn't say Deputy Secretary of Defense is like
• 2:41:23
  Speaker 1: a nothing position. It's a pretty consequential position.
• 2:41:26
  Speaker 3: Not as important as Rumsfeld or Cheney, but yeah.
• 2:41:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, agreed. But who said it was?
• 2:41:32
  Speaker 3: No, fire on.
• 2:41:32
  Speaker 1: I just feel like you're batting down straw men. I
• 2:41:34
  Speaker 1: never said that he is the creator of all conspiracies
• 2:41:36
  Speaker 1: or anything. I'm literally saying, that the four-star general said
• 2:41:39
  Speaker 1: that he first saw the plans from him, that he
• 2:41:42
  Speaker 1: had brought this to the National Security Advisor, and it
• 2:41:44
  Speaker 1: had basically been like, eh, we'll look at this after
• 2:41:46
  Speaker 1: the election, and that then it was resurrected later by
• 2:41:49
  Speaker 1: Richard Perle, and that these guys were producing, again, not
• 2:41:53
  Speaker 1: me saying this, this is four-star general Wesley Clark, he said,
• 2:41:55
  Speaker 1: in a study paid for by the Israelis, And yeah,
• 2:41:59
  Speaker 1: you can laugh at this all you want to, Douglas,
• 2:42:01
  Speaker 1: but you can go read the clean break memo for yourself.
• 2:42:04
  Speaker 1: This was the neoconservative strategy, along with their counterpart, the
• 2:42:07
  Speaker 1: Likud's in Israel, that they wanted to remake the region
• 2:42:11
  Speaker 1: in a way. And I'm sure by their own justification,
• 2:42:13
  Speaker 1: they believed that democracy would sweep the region and it
• 2:42:16
  Speaker 1: would be better off for them. Nonetheless, they pursued this
• 2:42:19
  Speaker 1: path that has ended in nothing but disaster. And I
• 2:42:22
  Speaker 1: don't think that to say that in 2011, it was
• 2:42:24
  Speaker 1: like a purely humanitarian mission to go overthrow Muammar Gaddafi,
• 2:42:28
  Speaker 1: I do not think is right.
• 2:42:29
  Speaker 3: Well, first of all, before I get to the substance
• 2:42:31
  Speaker 3: of it, why would they want the current situation in Libya? Huh?
• 2:42:36
  Speaker 3: Why would they want the current situation in Libya?
• 2:42:39
  Speaker 1: Well, because they wanted Gaddafi out.
• 2:42:42
  Speaker 2: Why? Why?
• 2:42:43
  Speaker 1: Well, OK, if you read the clean break memo, what
• 2:42:45
  Speaker 1: their argument essentially is, is that you wanted to have
• 2:42:48
  Speaker 1: regime change against the hostile surrounding Muslim countries. But was
• 2:42:53
  Speaker 1: Gaddafi not hostile to Israel?
• 2:42:56
  Speaker 3: To Israel? Yeah, sure. But he was I mean, the
• 2:43:00
  Speaker 3: Europeans and everybody else in NATO found that Gaddafi was
• 2:43:03
  Speaker 3: a really relatively easy person to get on with latterly.
• 2:43:06
  Speaker 1: Right. Yeah. No, I think it was an insane policy.
• 2:43:08
  Speaker 2: No, no.
• 2:43:09
  Speaker 3: You'll notice that. after he hands over the nuclear program
• 2:43:13
  Speaker 3: and thus makes himself very vulnerable, unfortunately, for the future
• 2:43:18
  Speaker 3: of world peace, Libya has been unutterably disastrous for Europe.
• 2:43:24
  Speaker 1: Hang on, hang on.
• 2:43:25
  Speaker 3: Unutterably disastrous for Europe.
• 2:43:27
  Speaker 1: I agree with you.
• 2:43:28
  Speaker 3: And Somalia and Sudan, why does America or Israel want to,
• 2:43:33
  Speaker 3: to do regime change in Somalia.
• 2:43:35
  Speaker 1: Can I just ask you a clarifying question on this?
• 2:43:39
  Speaker 1: When you say that was a disaster for the prospects
• 2:43:41
  Speaker 1: of world peace, you mean overthrowing Gaddafi was a disaster?
• 2:43:43
  Speaker 3: I say that him being, sorry, I should have clarified.
• 2:43:47
  Speaker 3: My thing is, Him being overthrown after he's given over
• 2:43:51
  Speaker 3: the nuclear weapons is a disaster because it leaves on
• 2:43:53
  Speaker 3: the table this thing that you have to hold on
• 2:43:55
  Speaker 3: to nuclear weapons. And if you don't hold on to
• 2:43:57
  Speaker 3: nuclear weapons, you could be dead.
• 2:43:58
  Speaker 1: Do you think maybe the Israelis should stop using the
• 2:44:00
  Speaker 1: term the Libyan model to push for negotiations with Iran?
• 2:44:04
  Speaker 3: No, I don't think anyone should use... Lib what happened
• 2:44:08
  Speaker 3: to Gaddafi as being a good precursor.
• 2:44:10
  Speaker 1: Well, we certainly have a lot of agreement there. It
• 2:44:13
  Speaker 1: was an absolute disaster, particularly to do it, to let
• 2:44:16
  Speaker 1: a guy get sodomized to death after he denuclearized is
• 2:44:20
  Speaker 1: not a good precedent to set.
• 2:44:22
  Speaker 2: I agree.
• 2:44:22
  Speaker 3: And that's one of the reasons why... One of the
• 2:44:25
  Speaker 3: reasons why Iran wants a nuke so bad. I'm not sure.
• 2:44:28
  Speaker 3: It's just being sodomized to death, as you put it.
• 2:44:31
  Speaker 3: But yeah, they want a nuke because they.
• 2:44:35
  Speaker 3: I mean, if you like what the Iranian revolutionary government
• 2:44:38
  Speaker 3: has done since 1979, you'd love what they'll do with
• 2:44:40
  Speaker 3: the world when they've got a nuke. But anyway, put
• 2:44:42
  Speaker 3: that aside for a second. I mean, I just... I'm sorry,
• 2:44:46
  Speaker 3: we've slightly come back to where we started, but when
• 2:44:50
  Speaker 3: you start talking about Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle, I just...
• 2:44:55
  Speaker 3: It's all awfully... noxious-smelling. Richard Perle was... member of the
• 2:45:05
  Speaker 3: Defense Policy Board, which had an advisory capacity toward the
• 2:45:10
  Speaker 3: Pentagon in the early 2000s. But it was by no
• 2:45:15
  Speaker 3: means a policy board that dictated Pentagon policy.
• 2:45:20
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 2:45:22
  Speaker 3: In the last 30 years of American foreign policy, there
• 2:45:26
  Speaker 3: have been many major actors. Paul Wolfowitz is a relatively
• 2:45:31
  Speaker 3: major one. But We come slightly back full circle. In
• 2:45:37
  Speaker 3: my view, I'm not saying you're guilty of this, certainly
• 2:45:39
  Speaker 3: not knowingly. In my view, when people start talking about
• 2:45:43
  Speaker 3: Paul Wolfowitz, I always remember that line of Mark Stein's
• 2:45:46
  Speaker 3: many years ago. And he said, you can't help thinking
• 2:45:47
  Speaker 3: that one of the reasons why people find Wolfowitz so
• 2:45:49
  Speaker 3: appealing to talk about is that his name starts with
• 2:45:53
  Speaker 3: a nasty animal and ends Jewish.
• 2:45:57
  Speaker 1: That is a funny thing to say.
• 2:45:58
  Speaker 3: People love St.
• 2:45:59
  Speaker 2: Wolfowitz. It's such a great name. It is for a movie.
• 2:46:05
  Speaker 3: He's perfect for it.
• 2:46:06
  Speaker 2: Perfect for it.
• 2:46:07
  Speaker 1: And he looks perfect for it.
• 2:46:09
  Speaker 3: You'll say, oh, the crafty Paul Wolfowitz.
• 2:46:11
  Speaker 2: His crazy eyebrows. Famous hawk.
• 2:46:12
  Speaker 1: So you're a bigot. You're a Jew hater if you
• 2:46:14
  Speaker 1: mention the neocons. No, no, no.
• 2:46:15
  Speaker 3: Just let me continue with the thought. So I remember
• 2:46:20
  Speaker 3: those days and his boss, Donald Rumsfeld, was like the
• 2:46:28
  Speaker 3: ruler of the world at that time. He had such charisma,
• 2:46:35
  Speaker 3: such genius was attributed to him for the initial invasion
• 2:46:40
  Speaker 3: of Iraq. You can't imagine the admiration that existed in
• 2:46:46
  Speaker 3: the defense establishments around the world for Rumsfeld. Dick Cheney
• 2:46:52
  Speaker 3: was so powerful that People of right and left, particularly
• 2:46:57
  Speaker 3: on the left, spent all those years in the W.
• 2:47:01
  Speaker 3: Bush administration saying W. wasn't the real president. He was
• 2:47:04
  Speaker 3: being run by Dick Cheney because he was the brilliant,
• 2:47:08
  Speaker 3: et cetera, et cetera.
• 2:47:08
  Speaker 1: You're certainly listening to him at the beginning.
• 2:47:10
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 2:47:11
  Speaker 3: But I'm just saying it goes back to this thing
• 2:47:13
  Speaker 3: of when certain ideas catch hold and what's really going
• 2:47:18
  Speaker 3: on in them. Nice. To attribute American foreign policy in
• 2:47:22
  Speaker 3: the last 40 years to Paul Wolfowitz and Dick Pearl
• 2:47:26
  Speaker 3: is knowingly or otherwise to encourage a conspiracy that has
• 2:47:32
  Speaker 3: very obvious legs. And I just urge you not to
• 2:47:36
  Speaker 3: do it.
• 2:47:36
  Speaker 1: Okay. Let me respond to this a little bit. First
• 2:47:39
  Speaker 1: of all, um, I did not. It is not at
• 2:47:42
  Speaker 1: all saying that these guys therefore just control everything. I'm
• 2:47:47
  Speaker 1: just pointing out what a four-star general claimed, where plans originated,
• 2:47:53
  Speaker 1: and that they ended up being implemented. That doesn't mean
• 2:47:55
  Speaker 1: that they were the absolute ruler or arbiter of what
• 2:47:59
  Speaker 1: was going to happen. But again, I got to say,
• 2:48:02
  Speaker 1: for you to say that I can't bring up the neoconservatives.
• 2:48:06
  Speaker 1: I never said you couldn't. I just laughed. Right. But
• 2:48:09
  Speaker 1: the implication is that I'm unwittingly giving fertile ground to
• 2:48:14
  Speaker 1: some like Jew-hating conspiracy if I bring up a guy
• 2:48:18
  Speaker 1: who's got a Jewish last name who was a consequential
• 2:48:20
  Speaker 1: person in our government. This is like identical to the
• 2:48:23
  Speaker 1: arguments of the woke left that would just be like, oh,
• 2:48:26
  Speaker 1: if you even say something, you know, if you bring
• 2:48:27
  Speaker 1: up the crime rate in Chicago, you're basically a bigot
• 2:48:31
  Speaker 1: because other people could take this and run with it.
• 2:48:34
  Speaker 3: Come on.
• 2:48:34
  Speaker 1: No, you come on. What's the argument?
• 2:48:36
  Speaker 3: If you said to me... I said a.
• 2:48:37
  Speaker 1: Four-star general said something and there's no... What's the response?
• 2:48:42
  Speaker 3: If you said to me or somebody said to me,
• 2:48:45
  Speaker 3: don't you think that some people are running the global
• 2:48:50
  Speaker 3: financial system? And I said, possibly. And I said, who
• 2:48:56
  Speaker 3: do you think it is? And they said, the Rothschilds.
• 2:49:04
  Speaker 3: I think I'd be right in saying there was something
• 2:49:07
  Speaker 3: a bit off. about the character of the person doing
• 2:49:11
  Speaker 3: that because it seemed like they were playing to some
• 2:49:13
  Speaker 3: kind of lazy old trope. And I think similarly that
• 2:49:17
  Speaker 3: if you give the implication that a cabal of people, particularly,
• 2:49:24
  Speaker 3: and you should be really careful about this because of
• 2:49:26
  Speaker 3: the people who will come up underneath you. If you
• 2:49:29
  Speaker 3: give the implication that these cabals exist and you decide
• 2:49:35
  Speaker 3: to elevate the Jews or people with Jewish names in
• 2:49:39
  Speaker 3: it and then play down the non-Jews, I can tell you,
• 2:49:43
  Speaker 3: you will be opening up a world of madness.
• 2:49:47
  Speaker 1: But am I really playing down the non-Jews? I mean,
• 2:49:50
  Speaker 1: go look at the stuff that I've said about Obama,
• 2:49:52
  Speaker 1: about George W.
• 2:49:53
  Speaker 3: Bush. You said Middle East policy is Dick Pearl and
• 2:49:57
  Speaker 3: Paul Wolfowitz. And I said, how about it?
• 2:49:59
  Speaker 1: No, no, no, no. I mean, this is why I'm
• 2:50:00
  Speaker 1: saying this is a woke leftist tactic. I literally just
• 2:50:03
  Speaker 1: mentioned that a four-star general said this. I'm quoting him.
• 2:50:07
  Speaker 1: And now you're telling me that this is the same
• 2:50:10
  Speaker 1: thing as promoting.
• 2:50:10
  Speaker 3: Don't pretend to me that when you quote somebody, it's
• 2:50:12
  Speaker 3: a totally arbitrary thing that you just pluck out of
• 2:50:14
  Speaker 3: the air.
• 2:50:15
  Speaker 1: You decided to cut that out. I'm not arguing that
• 2:50:17
  Speaker 1: it's arbitrary. I'm saying I'm using the quote for a reason.
• 2:50:20
  Speaker 1: I was connecting it to an argument.
• 2:50:23
  Speaker 3: And I'm saying to you.
• 2:50:24
  Speaker 1: I'm giving fertile ground to Jew haters to mention it.
• 2:50:29
  Speaker 3: I think that when you decide to elevate what is...
• 2:50:34
  Speaker 3: a conspiracy of people who are overthrowing the governments of
• 2:50:39
  Speaker 3: various countries, some of which haven't been overthrown and others
• 2:50:42
  Speaker 3: of which have, but by the way, were not overthrown
• 2:50:44
  Speaker 3: by American dominance, certainly not in Syria. And then you
• 2:50:48
  Speaker 3: say that the people who are doing it are these
• 2:50:52
  Speaker 3: people with Jewish names. I think you should be more
• 2:50:57
  Speaker 3: judicious than that because you probably know what bubbles up
• 2:51:00
  Speaker 3: underneath you online by now.
• 2:51:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, look, I mean, there's no question that there are,
• 2:51:05
  Speaker 1: you know, no matter what. And by the way, you know,
• 2:51:08
  Speaker 1: it's funny just hearing you say this to me. I mean, look,
• 2:51:10
  Speaker 1: and by the way, I completely agree with you. I
• 2:51:12
  Speaker 1: think you've been one of the best champions on opposing
• 2:51:15
  Speaker 1: Europe's insane immigration policy. I also think the United States
• 2:51:19
  Speaker 1: of America has had an insane immigration policy. I'm happy
• 2:51:21
  Speaker 1: to see that.
• 2:51:22
  Speaker 3: Point of agreement.
• 2:51:23
  Speaker 1: That seems to be being reversed. But imagine you made
• 2:51:26
  Speaker 1: a point about immigration and I were to say to you,
• 2:51:28
  Speaker 1: be careful what's bubbling up online. Because now you're getting, look,
• 2:51:32
  Speaker 1: the fact is, if you are taking a position that opposes, say,
• 2:51:37
  Speaker 1: Muslim immigration into the UK. then yes, it is quite
• 2:51:41
  Speaker 1: possible that a lot of people who really just hate
• 2:51:43
  Speaker 1: Muslims are gonna end up liking what you had to
• 2:51:46
  Speaker 1: say or following you. But that doesn't mean you're responsible
• 2:51:49
  Speaker 1: to it. And if I were to say that to you,
• 2:51:50
  Speaker 1: you would be the first to very eloquently point out
• 2:51:53
  Speaker 1: that that is a complete non-argument. The question is, is
• 2:51:56
  Speaker 1: this policy good or is it bad? And whether there's not,
• 2:52:00
  Speaker 1: and if you wanna say to me, hey, I should
• 2:52:02
  Speaker 1: like disclaim when I make this point that like, hey,
• 2:52:06
  Speaker 1: I'm Jewish. I love Jewish people. The fact that there
• 2:52:09
  Speaker 1: were some Jewish people involved in our foreign policy establishment
• 2:52:12
  Speaker 1: does not mean that it's the Jews. Then fine. I'm
• 2:52:15
  Speaker 1: happy to say that. But I just think it's a
• 2:52:16
  Speaker 1: non argument to say that, like, oh, you know, you're
• 2:52:20
  Speaker 1: you're kind of like giving you're creating fertile ground for
• 2:52:23
  Speaker 1: this hatred. If I'm being completely honest, I think we've
• 2:52:26
  Speaker 1: seen what you're talking about bubbling up on Twitter. Do
• 2:52:29
  Speaker 1: you think that's gotten worse over the last 18 months?
• 2:52:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 2:52:35
  Speaker 1: Right. I think kind of what Israel's doing in this
• 2:52:37
  Speaker 1: war and the U.S. funding and arming it have been
• 2:52:40
  Speaker 1: something that is really a great facilitator for that stuff
• 2:52:43
  Speaker 1: to bubble up.
• 2:52:44
  Speaker 3: We could go back to that, but I disagree. I
• 2:52:45
  Speaker 3: think that Israel has every right to go in and
• 2:52:47
  Speaker 3: destroy the terrorist group that carried out the massacres.
• 2:52:50
  Speaker 1: Yes, again, but no one's arguing that they have the
• 2:52:52
  Speaker 1: right to destroy the terrorists. The question is they have
• 2:52:54
  Speaker 1: the right to kill innocent people.
• 2:52:55
  Speaker 3: Let's not go around again, which I think we've done.
• 2:52:57
  Speaker 1: Which is not answering what I'm saying.
• 2:52:58
  Speaker 3: I think I've already answered that, but just to go
• 2:53:01
  Speaker 3: back to the meat of that. I think you don't
• 2:53:04
  Speaker 3: realize that actually, uh, people like me who have a
• 2:53:09
  Speaker 3: voice and write and much more do think about that
• 2:53:13
  Speaker 3: all the time. It's a profound, uh, concern and responsibility.
• 2:53:20
  Speaker 1: I agree with that.
• 2:53:21
  Speaker 2: Right, right.
• 2:53:22
  Speaker 3: And don't think I don't worry all the time and
• 2:53:26
  Speaker 3: make sure I intervene into the debate very carefully at times.
• 2:53:32
  Speaker 3: when I think some people have picked up something that
• 2:53:35
  Speaker 3: I've been saying and are going to go wrong with it,
• 2:53:39
  Speaker 3: that scares the hell out of me. And I do
• 2:53:41
  Speaker 3: it regularly. And I do it because I have to.
• 2:53:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, listen. Okay, so that's a point of agreement, too.
• 2:53:47
  Speaker 1: But you don't stop believing in that policy for it,
• 2:53:49
  Speaker 1: and you won't stop bringing that up.
• 2:53:50
  Speaker 3: No, but you do say, but you do say on occasion,
• 2:53:53
  Speaker 3: I mean, most obvious one on that, if there is
• 2:53:57
  Speaker 3: something where something really... something really terrible, and there's a
• 2:54:05
  Speaker 3: bunch of people that decide to riot or commit violence
• 2:54:11
  Speaker 3: or something like that, I know that I have to,
• 2:54:15
  Speaker 3: as a duty, say, absolutely, this is to be condemned.
• 2:54:21
  Speaker 3: If it is people trying to pretend that all Muslims
• 2:54:24
  Speaker 3: this or all that, absolutely, I intervene to stop that.
• 2:54:30
  Speaker 3: But I think that this is one of the responsibilities
• 2:54:33
  Speaker 3: that comes with putting out ideas in the public square.
• 2:54:37
  Speaker 3: And I think that none of us are blame-free, but
• 2:54:43
  Speaker 3: all of us have some kind of responsibility to know
• 2:54:47
  Speaker 3: that what we put out there is very carefully watched,
• 2:54:53
  Speaker 3: very carefully followed, and that we have to tread well.
• 2:54:59
  Speaker 1: Well, okay, so I agree with that. But when you
• 2:55:01
  Speaker 1: say you intervene, what exactly do you mean by that?
• 2:55:04
  Speaker 1: You mean you voice opposition to it. You say, hey,
• 2:55:06
  Speaker 1: that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that we have
• 2:55:09
  Speaker 1: to have the same immigration policy that's good for our country.
• 2:55:12
  Speaker 3: Or make sure I say which politician I think can
• 2:55:15
  Speaker 3: deal with it decently and which ones will not. I mean,
• 2:55:17
  Speaker 3: I've made plenty of enemies in the European right by
• 2:55:21
  Speaker 3: saying who I think is bad and who will not
• 2:55:24
  Speaker 3: do this well. I just put it out there. I
• 2:55:27
  Speaker 3: literally say it. As a point of caution.
• 2:55:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 2:55:32
  Speaker 1: Well, I mean, I don't disagree with that. And I've
• 2:55:35
  Speaker 1: certainly done the same thing and said that, like, I
• 2:55:37
  Speaker 1: don't know, like, I don't like the I don't like
• 2:55:41
  Speaker 1: Jew hatred on Twitter. And I don't like people jumping
• 2:55:44
  Speaker 1: to wild conspiracies that they don't have enough, nearly enough
• 2:55:48
  Speaker 1: evidence to, you know, actually back up, which I've seen
• 2:55:51
  Speaker 1: quite a bit of. That being said, I also think
• 2:55:53
  Speaker 1: there's a whole lot of real conspiracies, and I'm not
• 2:55:56
  Speaker 1: going to stop talking about those just because some people
• 2:55:58
  Speaker 1: on Twitter might take it in a bad direction.
• 2:56:01
  Speaker 3: Well, as the great Michael Malice said, and as you quoted,
• 2:56:05
  Speaker 3: one red pill, not the whole bottle.
• 2:56:07
  Speaker 1: I've been trying to limit people to one red pill.
• 2:56:09
  Speaker 1: One red pill a year is.
• 2:56:10
  Speaker 3: All you need. A lot of people, they take one
• 2:56:12
  Speaker 3: of those things and they just get hungry.
• 2:56:14
  Speaker 2: Sort of like boosters.
• 2:56:15
  Speaker 3: Like boosters.
• 2:56:16
  Speaker 1: Well, it ends up, yeah, exactly. Take none of those. No,
• 2:56:20
  Speaker 1: you're supposed to take one red pill.
• 2:56:21
  Speaker 3: By the way, what's the one in front of you?
• 2:56:24
  Speaker 2: Which one?
• 2:56:25
  Speaker 3: That one there. This? That one, yeah.
• 2:56:26
  Speaker 2: It's nicotine.
• 2:56:28
  Speaker 3: Oh, that's the chewing one.
• 2:56:30
  Speaker 2: It's like a pouch.
• 2:56:31
  Speaker 3: Chris Williamson showed me yesterday this one that you, he
• 2:56:34
  Speaker 3: said weightlifters are using in Austin. It's like a. Like
• 2:56:39
  Speaker 3: a powder or something?
• 2:56:41
  Speaker 2: Weight lifters?
• 2:56:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 2:56:42
  Speaker 1: A nicotine powder?
• 2:56:43
  Speaker 2: No, it's not nicotine.
• 2:56:44
  Speaker 3: It's something like it.
• 2:56:45
  Speaker 2: Creatine?
• 2:56:46
  Speaker 3: No, it's like... It's to sniff.
• 2:56:50
  Speaker 2: Oh, no, no, no. That's smelling salts.
• 2:56:52
  Speaker 3: Smelling salts. That's right.
• 2:56:53
  Speaker 2: Smelling salts. For goof. For silly. We do that... to
• 2:56:56
  Speaker 2: be silly. They're horrible.
• 2:56:57
  Speaker 3: I hadn't heard of that since 19th century women who
• 2:56:59
  Speaker 3: thought they had the vapors and he said, these are
• 2:57:01
  Speaker 3: smelling soft.
• 2:57:01
  Speaker 2: Well, they used to use it for boxers when they
• 2:57:03
  Speaker 2: got knocked out to wake them up.
• 2:57:05
  Speaker 3: That was it? Yeah.
• 2:57:06
  Speaker 2: That was it.
• 2:57:06
  Speaker 3: Does it work?
• 2:57:07
  Speaker 2: Well, it works for weightlifters. You sniff it before you
• 2:57:11
  Speaker 2: lift incredible amounts of weight, allegedly. Powerlifters use them. That's
• 2:57:15
  Speaker 2: literally why they sell it. It just jolts your entire
• 2:57:19
  Speaker 2: central nervous system because it's so horrific.
• 2:57:22
  Speaker 1: Want to smell?
• 2:57:23
  Speaker 3: No.
• 2:57:25
  Speaker 1: This is, by the way, a little insight into the
• 2:57:27
  Speaker 1: comedy community. The deal is that Joe will help advance
• 2:57:31
  Speaker 1: the careers of comedians unlike anybody since Johnny Carson, but
• 2:57:34
  Speaker 1: then the cost is you do have to sniff smelling salts.
• 2:57:37
  Speaker 1: We all have to do that. It's about the bargain
• 2:57:42
  Speaker 1: of sorts, but it is what it is.
• 2:57:44
  Speaker 2: Do you have a hard out, Douglas?
• 2:57:45
  Speaker 3: Kind of. I've got to get to D.C., one of
• 2:57:49
  Speaker 3: my least favorite cities in the country.
• 2:57:51
  Speaker 1: Another area of agreement. There we go.
• 2:57:55
  Speaker 2: Thank you. Thank you for doing this. Appreciate it. It
• 2:57:58
  Speaker 2: was very, very good. I enjoyed it very much, and thank.
• 2:58:01
  Speaker 3: You, Dave.
• 2:58:01
  Speaker 1: I do. Yeah, of course, thank you to you, John.
• 2:58:03
  Speaker 1: Thank you, Douglas, very much. I do appreciate that. While
• 2:58:05
  Speaker 1: we do fundamentally disagree on a lot of this stuff,
• 2:58:07
  Speaker 1: I do admire that you will have these conversations.
• 2:58:10
  Speaker 2: I'll show everyone the book here. Oh, Jesus Christ. Avoided
• 2:58:14
  Speaker 2: on myself, luckily. On democracies and death cults, Israel and
• 2:58:18
  Speaker 2: the future of civilization, Douglas Murray. Did you do the
• 2:58:21
  Speaker 2: audio book?
• 2:58:22
  Speaker 3: I did do the audio book. Thank you. You can
• 2:58:24
  Speaker 3: hear these mellifluous tones.
• 2:58:25
  Speaker 2: Yes, love it. It would be a tragedy if anybody
• 2:58:28
  Speaker 2: else did it. Thank you very much. Yes. All right. Beautiful.
• 2:58:32
  Speaker 1: All right.
• 2:58:32
  Speaker 3: Goodbye, everybody. Thank you.