Latest / World Ablaze with George Fontes / 43 - KERVIN AUCOIN - GEOPOLITICAL INTELLIGENCE EXPERT

Transcript

43 - KERVIN AUCOIN - GEOPOLITICAL INTELLIGENCE EXPERT · World Ablaze with George Fontes

• 0:01
  You are listening to a Fonz Media Network production.
• 0:17
  Welcome World of Blaze listeners.
• 0:18
  I'm excited to have Kervin.
• 0:20
  Sorry, I'm just going to mispronounce it.
• 0:22
  Can you just pronounce it yourself?
• 0:24
  We keep going over that.
• 0:25
  Kervin O'Quinn.
• 0:27
  All right, Kervin.
• 0:28
  Sorry to do that to you, but yeah.
• 0:31
  No, we can stick with first names.
• 0:33
  I'm good with that.
• 0:35
  My last name has gotten me in and out of trouble for many years.
• 0:41
  So you and I were kind of introduced through John and another podcaster.
• 0:49
  And he's been around a while.
• 0:51
  But yeah, we got a little chat on next.
• 0:52
  He's like, hey, you guys should actually get together and do an episode.
• 0:55
  so definitely wanted to thank him for that and then I started listening a little bit more to
• 1:01
  yours I actually was funny as I came across your podcast before that that interaction on it on x
• 1:06
  and listen to you and your wife and I thought it was interesting on how you're able to take
• 1:12
  so much information and kind of like you just explain it in a way that people can grasp you
• 1:19
  know while not trying to be too over the top or you seem to be in the middle on most things I
• 1:24
  noticed. I'm not going to ask your political leaning so much if you want to give it to me,
• 1:28
  great. But I do like how you try to take a neutral position to really just explain what's going on
• 1:34
  and letting people form their own opinions. So I really liked that. I thought that was cool
• 1:39
  because there's very few of those types of shows. I tried doing that in the beginning,
• 1:43
  but it got harder as time went on for me anyway. Well, the world makes it harder,
• 1:48
  right, to kind of try to stay neutral. First of all, I want to say thank you for that because
• 1:52
  that's the hope that I have that comes through. And I get backlash from both sides of the political
• 2:02
  aisles. I'm not a very political person. I used to be when I was younger, and then I got disillusioned
• 2:08
  to it, became very apolitical, and started to do this sort of neutral thing that you're talking
• 2:14
  about, where something happens, right, in a certain side. I know we'll get into Israel and the Middle
• 2:21
  East and what's going on there. And that's really highlighted this kind of divisiveness, right? So
• 2:27
  if somebody says something about Israel in a positive aspect, and I push back in a negative,
• 2:33
  not really a negative aspect, but just saying, well, to understand what the people in Gaza or
• 2:37
  the people in Lebanon are going through right now, they'll say, oh, you're a left-wing
• 2:42
  Hamas supporter. And then the same thing for Palestinian supporters, I will push back and say,
• 2:49
  well, Israel's the only Jewish nation, Jewish state surrounded by Arab states that have been
• 2:56
  calling for the entire destruction of the Jewish people. I think they have a right to defend
• 2:59
  themselves. And so what they're doing, maybe they're carrying it out in the wrong way,
• 3:05
  but they have a right to do what they're doing. And then I get, you know, pushback on,
• 3:08
  on both sides of that. It's tough. Well, that's, that's, that's a particular topic
• 3:13
  where it's too hard to be neutral because there's such, when we're talking about a land
• 3:17
  with so much history.
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  I mean, history in regard to, you know,
• 3:22
  everybody argues that it's their land, number one,
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  no matter how far back you go.
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  And a lot of people dismiss the fact that
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  there were multiple peoples displaced in that land
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  and dispersed throughout the world and forced to do so.
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  And then coming back to try to claim it again.
• 3:39
  And then there's just so much going on.
• 3:41
  Then from what I understand, I'm not,
• 3:43
  and you can definitely correct me on this,
• 3:45
  It seems like a lot of it outside the land is really centered around a faith or religious belief.
• 3:51
  And the issue that I see is it's such a closely related belief, but there's always those little differences that just, for some reason, just lead to so much bloodshed.
• 4:02
  And it almost makes you scratch your head as soon as, like, why can't they just shake hands and really get along?
• 4:07
  But I think it goes beyond that.
• 4:08
  It's really about the claim to the land and the fact that, hey, you killed my ancestor, my grandfather, whatever.
• 4:14
  And then the revenge cycle just began and just never ended and kept going and going and going.
• 4:21
  And I might be slightly off on that, but.
• 4:23
  No, you're absolutely right.
• 4:25
  And also, we're talking about history, right?
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  We're talking about ancient history.
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  And so what ancient history do you actually believe?
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  Because there is so much.
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  We know so little about our ancestors and the ancestral history.
• 4:41
  so do you trust biblical history you know where where Abraham started all of this you know he
• 4:48
  came from Ur which is a city south of Baghdad you you know I deployed to Baghdad if you take a plane
• 4:54
  and fly a mission around that area you will see Ur one of the original settlements in the area
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  and Abraham was supposed to have walked from there and entered what was then
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  And the people, not even called the Jewish people of that time, but the tribes of Judah entered into Israel.
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  And they were told that God gave them this land.
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  We're talking thousands of years ago.
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  And then more recently, and I say more recently, but we're still talking about a thousand years ago, the 1500 years ago.
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  So you've got a man in Muhammad who was a prophet or claimed to be a prophet, depending on how you interpret the history.
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  So he claimed to be a prophet, and by force, he came in and claimed these lands for his own people.
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  It's the people of the Arab lands, and he claimed these lands.
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  And so when people say, well, this is the land of the Palestinians or this is the land of the Israelis, how far are we going to go back, right?
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  That's always been kind of my take and stance on that.
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  And I'll throw them out there.
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  And I don't mind bringing up certain other personalities and podcasters only because some of these guys are very public and they're very opinionated.
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  But you take Dave Smith, for example, who I do listen to and I respect because he's a pretty smart, intelligent person.
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  and he does read books, which is great.
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  But it's a pretty hard line about, you know, it's not Israel's land.
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  They were not there, and it was really Palestinian land,
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  and you can't just drive them out and claim that you now have claim to this land.
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  I get it, but I think even with him, and the problem with someone like Dave
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  is he's super intelligent, but he'll never stop arguing until he feels he's right
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  or he's bored of the conversation, literally.
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  And so he can go forever trying to argue that point,
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  But I think when he makes that point, he deliberately omits that it was a tribal land that did belong to the then-Jewish people at the time who were displaced.
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  And you can say, hey, the land was conquered.
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  Great.
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  If we use that argument, then conquerors own and rule that land just as we did in America here with the Native Americans.
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  And unfortunately, every country in the world has been developed and made, and borders have been set based on being conquered.
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  That was just a bloody history of humanity.
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  and that is exactly what happens.
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  It's just how the world was shaped.
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  Unfortunately, and the thing with the Jewish people,
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  from what I understand, from what I researched,
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  and again, you can correct me,
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  is they were displaced back then.
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  I mean, come on, the Ottoman Empire came in.
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  They ruled most of the world back then
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  and they helped drive the Jews out.
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  And at the time, the Palestinians,
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  before they're considered Palestinians,
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  sided with the Ottoman Empire
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  so that they can remain in the land
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  and live in the land
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  and support the Ottoman Empire.
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  What do you think the native tribal Jewish people were going to do?
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  Just forget about it?
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  And they never did.
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  And so there's that part of that history that nobody really talks about.
• 8:01
  Yeah, I mean, look, the Jewish people have been conquered their entire lifetime, right?
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  The Egyptians brought them in, and we're learning more about that history
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  because there was a brief time where historians thought, well, no, that wasn't Jewish people that
• 8:17
  the Egyptians brought in to Egypt to work and do certain things. And now we're finding out
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  through certain tablets that have been, and scrolls that have been found, that the words
• 8:27
  that they were using for the people that they brought in were the same words that were used
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  for Jewish people throughout history. And listen, the Romans, the Jewish people,
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  Yes, it's a very tribal religion, but the tribes were there in Israel when Rome had their empire and they taxed the Jewish people and it's written record.
• 8:49
  I mean, you can debate history and ancient history, but we have written record of the Jewish people living on that land, being controlled by the Romans.
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  Like you said, you're exactly right. The Ottoman Empire came in. They laid waste to that land. People had to either leave or surrender.
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  Jewish people said they would not surrender
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  They left and the Palestinians
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  What are now the Palestinians
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  Or were the Palestinians then
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  Sort of
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  Brokered a deal and said if we can
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  Just get this sort of land carved out
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  Right here there's not really much in it
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  We'll stay here and
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  We'll abide by your rules which is really
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  What the Jewish people said to the Romans
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  We'll abide by your rules pay your taxes
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  And then you know
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  That'll be it then the Roman Empire
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  Started to put the fist down
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  on the Jewish people.
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  They had uprisings in the early first century,
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  went to war with the Romans
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  and the Romans thought they could defeat them very easily
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  and the Israelis were able to push back on them.
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  Now the Palestinians didn't have to do that
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  because they just understood,
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  hey, the Ottomans are going to let us live here
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  and we're going to remain here.
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  Now, if you want to go more recent history
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  And we talk about, you know, after World War II and the Holocaust, which was such a tragedy.
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  And I want to put that out from the very beginning.
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  What happened in the Holocaust and what is factually documented that U.S. and British soldiers found as they got into the concentration camps was absolutely horrific.
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  And millions of people died in World War II.
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  and so they understood that the Jewish people needed they needed a place they didn't want to
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  go back to Europe they didn't want to go back to their homes because there was still a large
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  part of society that didn't want them there you know they were they were indoctrinated to hate
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  these people for their religion or where they came from and so nations got together and decided
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  you know, apart from everyone else, right?
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  They just said, hey, let's put these people back
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  into what we think is the land that they deserve.
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  They were put in that land.
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  And immediately the Arab nations went to war with Israel
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  because they didn't want the Jewish people there.
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  And I don't think that's something that gets highlighted a lot,
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  especially among like pro-Palestinian crowd
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  is that the Jewish people went there and they said,
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  hey, we're going to live in this land and this is where we're going to be settled. They put us here.
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  They were invaded. They went to war with places like Egypt and Lebanon and Syria.
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  And they won those wars. And when you win a war, you get to decide what you're going to do.
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  So they kept that land. Then the Palestinian question came up. What are we going to do with
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  all these Palestinians? Because they don't want to be ruled by the Jewish people. So they need
• 11:50
  their own rule, their Arab rule. So the Palestinian people got their own government up, their own
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  military. A two-state solution was brought up. The Israelis agreed to the two-state solution.
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  The Palestinians and the other Arab nations said, no, we want all of that land because it's our land.
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  And so another war kicked off. And so we just have a cycle of wars. And it's not just that one
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  side won't agree with the other side. It's the Israelis were put there. Where do you want them
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  to go? The Palestinians say, we've been here. Where are you going to put us? And so now we have
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  a land of just people going, where are you going to put us? And I think if you just took the people
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  and put them together and ask them, do a meeting with everybody and say, hey, what do you guys
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  think we'd probably find a solution. Our problem is we have governments who just don't like each
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  other and don't care about the people who want to go to war and they want to put down their fist
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  and make this a complete victory for one side or another And that what we seeing right now with Israel and Hamas right Israel now has a choice right Because they just killed Yahya Senwar He the leader of Hamas Hamas is in shambles
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  There is a chance if you're part of the ceasefire, you're pro-ceasefire in Palestine, that you can have a ceasefire.
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  And Hamas is completely dismantled right now.
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  That's something a lot of people said would never happen.
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  And they're completely dismantled.
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  And the Israelis could say, okay, let's do the ceasefire.
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  Netanyahu has just said, if you release all the hostages, release all your arms, everything will be fine and we'll have a ceasefire.
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  and Hamas is saying, we don't trust you.
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  We don't trust Israel.
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  We don't trust the Jews.
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  And there's a history of not trusting the Israelis
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  for right reasons.
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  They say one thing, Netanyahu especially says one thing
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  and does another.
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  And so Israel has a choice.
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  Do they try to broker that deal
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  or do they do the knockout punch
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  and say we'd never, because they've said
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  their whole goal is the annihilation of Hamas.
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  And so unless Hamas is completely annihilated, every single member is gone.
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  They're not going to agree to a peace deal, which is separate from a ceasefire, a full
• 14:25
  peace deal that kind of sets boundaries.
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  So that's where we stand right now.
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  And it's going to be a never-ending cycle.
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  It's the truth of, it's kind of an unfortunate truth of the situation because the classic
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  example of how the people suffer because governments disagree. You know, the problem
• 14:43
  is everybody in the world just wants to live, like literally live, you know, food, shelter,
• 14:49
  enjoy their life. And governments disagree and they pull everybody in with them. I mean,
• 14:54
  why can't we just put the leaders of every government in the ring and have them just
• 14:58
  fight it out? And then whoever walks out, walks out, right? I mean, it's ridiculous.
• 15:02
  I was going to go back to that two-state solution though. That does come up a lot. And
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  nobody can understand why it's unacceptable.
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  And it's always put on the Palestinians.
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  Really, lately, Hamas, who has the governing body,
• 15:17
  so to speak, of the Palestinians,
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  even though unofficially it does.
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  Also, Egypt has denied a two-state solution
• 15:22
  up until recently.
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  But what I was going to say is,
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  it's been said, just to argue the other side,
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  that that agreement originally,
• 15:30
  when it was put together or that proposal,
• 15:32
  was kind of not equal to where,
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  I think it was 60% of the land or maybe more, I might be off on that, but I think it was at least
• 15:39
  60% really did go to the Jewish people or Israel as it is today. And less of it went to the
• 15:48
  Palestinian side and also, you know, cut off routes to, you know, the access to the ports and
• 15:54
  everything as well. And there's that side is, and I can see that, but at the same time, you're
• 16:00
  correct and we're like, yeah, no, it's all or nothing, you know, is their response, which is
• 16:05
  not really negotiating, uh, you know, a deal. And I, and I'm sure that they could have came to an
• 16:09
  agreement, but do you know, do you happen to know what, cause I was reading your back when you sent
• 16:15
  me, uh, you were, you were in intelligence, right? In the army. Is that correct? Yep. And, and so
• 16:21
  being that that was your career, what you did and you were deployed and you worked with, uh,
• 16:25
  special operations. Is that also correct? Yes. Okay. So what, from your experience,
• 16:31
  just being in the area and dealing with all this and just analyzing everything,
• 16:35
  and I think today you still are in intelligence, correct, in your own business?
• 16:40
  Yeah. So my company, Oakland Analytics, is a private intelligence company that provides
• 16:46
  intelligence to the everyday consumer as opposed to your C-suite and Fortune 500
• 16:53
  companies. So I've kind of cheapened, not
• 16:57
  say cheap, but I've lessened the price of intelligence for people.
• 17:01
  It's not cheapening. It's more
• 17:05
  accessible. Yeah, exactly.
• 17:09
  Being that's what you do. Why
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  in your opinion does, I don't know if it's all the Palestinian people or just
• 17:17
  the governing bodies of the time. Why are they denying any kind of deal
• 17:21
  when it could have been done.
• 17:23
  Yeah, it's...
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  And now it seems too far away for some reason,
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  but at the time, I think it could have been done.
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  I think there was a chance even...
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  So before, like October 7th of 2023
• 17:33
  changed the entire landscape of the Middle East.
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  Before that, I think there could have been
• 17:39
  a two-state solution.
• 17:42
  But there's another thing that I say,
• 17:45
  and then I'll answer that question.
• 17:46
  Sure.
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  We're trying to fix Middle Eastern problems
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  with Western solutions.
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  And you can't do that.
• 17:52
  That's exactly right.
• 17:53
  Yeah.
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  Our ideals are very different from their ideals.
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  And no one is right or wrong in that.
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  It's just a certain culture.
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  And so I'm also an Arabic linguist or was an Arabic linguist.
• 18:08
  I'd have to think for a second to see how my language is now, but I haven't used it in quite a while.
• 18:15
  And with that, so I was at the Defense Language Institute learning Arabic.
• 18:20
  With that, I had to learn the Arab culture and the religion of Islam.
• 18:25
  And I learned a lot about the Arab people and the things that, so before Islam even came about, the Arab people were some of the smartest individuals in the world.
• 18:39
  They created mathematics and algebra, things of, you know, poetry.
• 18:44
  Some of the great poems are great Arab poems.
• 18:50
  And so we have that in history of these great minds that focused a lot on this.
• 18:57
  And then not to disparage religion, and I don't do that.
• 19:02
  Every religion, I think, has its pros and cons.
• 19:05
  But as the religion of Islam started to become widespread in the region, the leaders in that
• 19:16
  time frame started to crack down.
• 19:20
  on more education. And it's sort of like when you think of certain aspects of Christianity
• 19:26
  in history, where the Enlightenment period was kind of, they wanted to crack down on it.
• 19:31
  Because the more you learn about the world and history and all of this stuff, it's possible
• 19:37
  that you're going to call out the religious leaders for certain things that they're saying
• 19:42
  that just don't make sense. And that happened, and they lost a lot of their history and a lot
• 19:48
  of their education because of this. And so starting there, getting into right now, there is a trust
• 19:55
  issue between, first of all, the Arab community and the West, but more pervasively the Arab
• 20:02
  community and Jews. And I saw that during my education for Arabic. We'd have to watch news
• 20:10
  every day in Arabic because you want to immerse yourself in the culture and kind of understand
• 20:16
  these level three, four, five dialogues that are going on.
• 20:21
  And so you watch a lot of even Al Jazeera in Arabic,
• 20:25
  not the English language version, but the Arabic, the Arab version,
• 20:29
  or a more conservative, I would say, or far right kind of Arab TV station,
• 20:36
  like Memory TV is sort of a far right.
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  It closely aligns with like RT Sputnik TV.
• 20:44
  and I remember a moment where Egypt,
• 20:47
  there was an earthquake in Egypt
• 20:49
  and I'm watching,
• 20:51
  I can't remember if it was Al Jazeera
• 20:52
  or another news organization,
• 20:54
  but the headline that they kept going with that
• 20:57
  was that it was the Jews.
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  The Jews created this earthquake
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  to destroy parts of Egypt.
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  And so this is major mainstream news
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  in Arab countries that are being,
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  that's what's being promoted.
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  And that's what kids are seeing
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  and families are seeing.
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  And there's a history of that
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  and a history of not trusting,
• 21:21
  not trusting Jewish people,
• 21:22
  not trusting America,
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  because the United States has done some terrible things
• 21:26
  to Arab communities,
• 21:28
  especially in the Middle East.
• 21:30
  Not going to deny that.
• 21:32
  So we have a trust issue there.
• 21:33
  I don't think we can.
• 21:34
  Yeah, no.
• 21:36
  I always say, you know,
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  I know what I did
• 21:39
  as far as in my time in uniform
• 21:43
  and my time working in the Middle East.
• 21:46
  And I had a lot of issues
• 21:47
  with what some other people were doing to Arab people
• 21:50
  just because they were Arab.
• 21:52
  You know, everybody's a terrorist.
• 21:53
  We had people coming in saying,
• 21:55
  walking while Arab.
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  And that's why we picked them up.
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  And I was a human collector,
• 21:59
  a human intelligence analyst.
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  And I was like, so why'd you get this guy?
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  And he was like, he's Arab.
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  He's gotta be a terrorist.
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  And I was like, no, that's not the right answer.
• 22:09
  It wasn't everywhere, but these pockets, right?
• 22:13
  And so that's where the trust issue comes in. And it's so bad that, so if you fly into Israel and let's say someone like myself, I have visas and stamps from countries like the UAE, Iraq, Kuwait, all the Arab countries.
• 22:35
  I go into Israel, they will first of all tell me, do you have another passport? Because they don't want to stamp that passport. Because if an Israeli stamp is on that passport, you're not allowed in another Arab country with that passport.
• 22:50
  Any of them?
• 22:50
  They will deny you.
• 22:51
  Not allowed in any of them?
• 22:52
  As far as I know now, the Gulf states and then Saudi Arabia might be a little bit different. But going to a place like Kuwait or Iran, God forbid, at this point, you'd be rolled up and questioned and interrogated.
• 23:11
  That's not true for Israel.
• 23:12
  If you go in now, Israel does.
• 23:16
  So something we don't do in the U.S. because it's it's probably rightfully considered racist or sexist or whatever is we don't target individuals based on the way that they look.
• 23:30
  The Israelis do.
• 23:32
  They will.
• 23:33
  They're heavily profiling individuals.
• 23:35
  Yes.
• 23:35
  So they profile their, what in the UK is CCTV or surveillance cameras and stuff.
• 23:43
  They are heavily watching people that they know.
• 23:46
  And listen, they're in the culture all the time.
• 23:48
  So they see a person and they can tell you, this person's from Iraq, this person's from Iran or Syria.
• 23:55
  And they're targeting and profiling these people based just off of what they look.
• 24:00
  And then they go and question them and then further dialogue happens, whether they'll release them and send them along on their way or they'll send them to secondary questioning.
• 24:11
  So there's a difference there. I would say Israelis really don't trust the Arab community, really, but there's a little more trust to that.
• 24:19
  And for all the conversation about Hamas controlling Gaza, and that's the government and the military wing of Gaza in Palestine, Israel actually supports a lot of the infrastructure in Gaza.
• 24:33
  That also causes problems because if you have a trust issue, every rolling blackout is Israel's fault.
• 24:42
  Every collapsed building is Israel's fault.
• 24:45
  the fact that no one can work their way up in life and that they're poor, that's Israel's fault.
• 24:53
  And then on the Israeli side, every time there's an Arab strike, that's the fault of the Arab
• 25:00
  community. And so that's why I go back to fixing Middle Eastern problems with Western solutions.
• 25:07
  We would see that and go, well, just stop it. You're human. Have a conversation with each other.
• 25:13
  And they would go, no, because when Abraham did this, it started a historical process that got us to where we are today.
• 25:21
  And we cannot stop that.
• 25:23
  Yeah, we cannot forget it, and we're not going to let it stand.
• 25:28
  And the whole thing, there's a lot I want to go back to in that.
• 25:33
  But when you were talking about how Israel actually supported a lot of the infrastructure in Gaza, you're right.
• 25:39
  I don't think people realize that, like power, water.
• 25:41
  and they would always point the Hamas, I believe,
• 25:48
  would always point the finger at, oh, look, you know,
• 25:50
  we don't have water because they're shutting it off on us or, you know,
• 25:53
  they're, like you said, killing our electricity.
• 25:55
  Maybe some of that is true.
• 25:57
  It could be what they were using to try to control and you know stifle whatever was going on with Hamas and what they were trying to do in terms of trying to attack Israel
• 26:08
  But I can't sit here and accept that Israel is innocent in all of this.
• 26:16
  I'm not saying that's what you're saying at all, by the way.
• 26:17
  I'm just making a statement.
• 26:19
  I don't believe they're innocent in all of this at all either.
• 26:22
  And I understand, you know, the long history and how they were mad as a people being driven out of land and, you know, dispersed.
• 26:30
  And then, you know, they were persecuted by the pogroms years ago and being hunted and literally killed on the street.
• 26:37
  Like basically, like you said, with profiling, they would see a Jewish person and literally hang them in the street, you know.
• 26:45
  and they've gone through a lot,
• 26:48
  but I think a lot of everyone in the Middle East
• 26:51
  has gone through so much
• 26:52
  because it's like it's just constantly
• 26:55
  just a crazy circular vehicle of,
• 26:59
  seems like just hatred to be quite honest.
• 27:02
  And we don't understand it though.
• 27:03
  Like I said, as Westerners,
• 27:05
  we can't get our head around why.
• 27:06
  Like, why can't we move past?
• 27:08
  Why can't we get around?
• 27:10
  I think the biggest thing that needs to be defined though,
• 27:12
  because everybody seems to,
• 27:14
  at least the Western side of the world seems to equate terrorism with Islam.
• 27:20
  I would love to know if it can truly be explained the difference between Muslims,
• 27:26
  you know, people of the Islamic faith, because I'm kind of confused in where I see, you know,
• 27:31
  as a Westerner that, you know, a woman can't show herself, be fully clothed, the whole deal,
• 27:36
  stone to death. Then you see other Muslims where they're just on Instagram and, you know,
• 27:40
  and whatnot and just, I'm confused.
• 27:43
  It's like, wait a minute, which is it?
• 27:45
  Can you explain it?
• 27:46
  So terrorism, I would say, first of all,
• 27:50
  is not just, it's not a Muslim issue
• 27:53
  or an Arab issue, right?
• 27:54
  We've got Eastern European terrorists.
• 27:57
  We've got homegrown terrorists in our own country
• 27:59
  on the right and the left.
• 28:02
  So far right and far left.
• 28:04
  And so I would break it down for a Western audience,
• 28:08
  It's much like evangelicalism in the United States.
• 28:14
  And what I mean there is you see, so you go, if you go to, let's say you're in Seattle, Washington, and you go to a church in Seattle, Washington, and you're probably going to see flip-flop shorts, women, maybe not dressed provocatively, but regular.
• 28:30
  Normal.
• 28:31
  Normal dress, right?
• 28:33
  If you go to maybe an evangelical church in Missouri or where I'm originally from in Louisiana, especially in the northern Louisiana area, you may see a church that's more aligned with purity laws.
• 28:51
  Pentecostal, you'll see dresses.
• 28:53
  Women can only wear dresses.
• 28:55
  Men have to wear this certain thing.
• 28:58
  And so that's an extreme view of a particular religion, and I think that's what's pervasive in the Muslim religion, the religion of Islam.
• 29:08
  So when people say, well, Islam is a peaceful religion, and for the most part, it is.
• 29:14
  Did it always start that way?
• 29:16
  If you read the history of Muhammad, it did not.
• 29:18
  I mean, he was basically a warlord.
• 29:21
  I'll get a lot of flack from the Arab community for that because he's the prophet Muhammad.
• 29:25
  you know, peace be upon him. But he really was. He decided at a very early age that he was going
• 29:33
  to take over and create this religion, become the prophet. And he went to war with other nations
• 29:41
  in order to spread Islam. And the whole point was, and the whole point of jihad, if you hear
• 29:48
  jihad, which is just holy war, is that Islam is the only religion. So from an extremist point of
• 29:54
  view. Islam is the only religion that should be allowed. And if that's true, then we have to fight
• 30:02
  in order to make Islam the only. And that's why the Muslim, you know, Islam very early,
• 30:09
  they fought the Spaniards who were Catholics. They took over Constantinople, made it Istanbul.
• 30:17
  So they conquered a lot of the area, a lot of that region in order to spread the religion.
• 30:24
  and and so that's part of it so especially so if you're talking about the the u.s the united states
• 30:31
  you we talk a lot especially right now because you can't talk about donald trump and kamala harris
• 30:38
  without talking about being a far left woke person or a far right christian nationalist and people
• 30:46
  are very scared about christian nationalists because they are viewing that um in some points
• 30:53
  rightfully so, as what's happening in Islam, right? So there is a far right sect of Islam.
• 31:00
  That's ISIS. That's Al-Qaeda. That's Hamas and Hezbollah and the IRGC, which is the umbrella.
• 31:08
  That's the peak to the umbrella of all of this. And so it is a select group of extremists that
• 31:17
  They're making the most amount of noise.
• 31:20
  So I wouldn't say, especially in the United States,
• 31:24
  and I've met tons of Muslim people within the United States,
• 31:30
  and no one that I know is an extremist there.
• 31:35
  And that's usually true because they kind of try to hide in plain sight,
• 31:39
  and they probably would not interact with me on most occasions.
• 31:43
  But for the most part, every Muslim I meet is just a man, woman, or a child trying to make it in America.
• 31:51
  And so their view is, yeah, I'm a Muslim, but I'm also an American.
• 31:54
  And I'm here to be a part of this community.
• 31:57
  Yeah.
• 31:59
  I think most people have a problem separating the fact that there are extremes.
• 32:07
  And, you know, we can even just take the Christian Bible.
• 32:11
  So you'll have some denominations of Christianity or believers, for example, that just believe the Old Testament.
• 32:19
  You know, eye for an eye, that whole bit.
• 32:22
  Yeah.
• 32:22
  And then there's the New Testament believers who are like, hey, you know, that was the past.
• 32:25
  That was the history that was written.
• 32:26
  Those are the lost set.
• 32:27
  But the world changes, and here we are now, and this is how we have to move forward as a people.
• 32:32
  And we're nicer, and we're forgiving, right?
• 32:35
  I think that's the same thing with Islam.
• 32:38
  I personally need to do more research on it.
• 32:40
  And I've always wanted to, I just don't have the time right now, but I really need to dive
• 32:44
  into it because I want to understand why, why there's, why there's just, you know, all
• 32:49
  we see is the bat and right away it's like, we don't need that here regardless.
• 32:54
  But then, you know, like I've met many people who are Muslim and it's like, they don't live
• 32:59
  that way.
• 32:59
  That's not their belief.
• 33:00
  Are they reading from the same book?
• 33:01
  That's my question.
• 33:02
  You know, like, I don't know.
• 33:03
  I don't know.
• 33:04
  They are reading.
• 33:05
  So they're reading from the same book, right?
• 33:07
  The Quran.
• 33:08
  but it's all about interpretation.
• 33:11
  And look, Christians, we're reading from the same Bible.
• 33:14
  I say we, because we're in the West.
• 33:17
  It's majority Christian.
• 33:19
  Reading from the same Bible,
• 33:21
  why do we have so many different sects of Christianity?
• 33:27
  Because we've all interpreted different ways.
• 33:31
  And the best way to interpret it is to go,
• 33:33
  so there are two ways, not two ways.
• 33:35
  You've got a couple, two things together
• 33:37
  when you're reading ancient texts,
• 33:39
  especially like the Bible and the Quran.
• 33:41
  First, you've got to read it in its own language
• 33:43
  and that's very difficult.
• 33:45
  Some of the languages like Aramaic,
• 33:47
  not many people can read that.
• 33:49
  There's very few studiers of Aramaic
• 33:51
  or Greek or the ancient Hebrew.
• 33:58
  So you first got to read it in the language
• 34:00
  that it was written in,
• 34:02
  but it's not just that.
• 34:04
  You've also got to understand the time
• 34:06
  that it was written in.
• 34:08
  So when was this written
• 34:11
  and why was it written at that point?
• 34:14
  If you don't understand that,
• 34:16
  you can read a text out of context
• 34:17
  and say, oh, that's really what they mean.
• 34:21
  And then you understand-
• 34:22
  I think time period is the big context issue though, right?
• 34:24
  Yeah.
• 34:24
  But we go back to,
• 34:26
  we've lost so much of our history over time.
• 34:30
  Yes, we have.
• 34:32
  Not to bring a Kamala Harris line in,
• 34:34
  but the passage of time is the passage of time.
• 34:37
  Every year that we are removed from those historical points,
• 34:43
  we lose what actually happens.
• 34:45
  So we lose context of the texts that we are reading.
• 34:49
  You know, it's why stoicism right now is so pervasive,
• 34:53
  is because, especially among young men,
• 34:56
  because I think that, okay, it's a language.
• 35:00
  it's written in a language that some people can be trained on and understand and read
• 35:06
  and translate it correctly into English. But those Stoics wrote so much about the history of their
• 35:16
  time that we understand almost everything about what was going on in that timeframe. We've lost
• 35:22
  bits and pieces, but you talk Marcus Aurelius, we can probably go through his entire lifetime
• 35:29
  and understand the wars that he was a part of, the history of his family,
• 35:34
  because they were very, they wrote a lot about it.
• 35:39
  Now, the Hebrew people or the Jewish people did the exact same thing.
• 35:43
  The problem goes back to being conquered.
• 35:46
  A lot of the ancient texts were destroyed.
• 35:50
  You've got the, look at the Library of Alexandria, right, in Egypt.
• 35:56
  That was destroyed.
• 35:57
  that had everything in it yeah who knows i mean i think about that sometimes honestly when you when
• 36:06
  when you when you talk about people being conquered over the years and how
• 36:09
  the conqueror would suddenly be like i don't need your history or your bullshit i'm just wiping it
• 36:15
  out and it's all about me now and my people and it's like you lose so much so much you know it's
• 36:23
  it's almost like I can say,
• 36:26
  I know I'm getting away from what we originally discussed,
• 36:28
  but I kind of believe in the fact that,
• 36:31
  well, it's not a fact, but I believe my opinion anyway,
• 36:34
  that civilization over time has probably peaked
• 36:37
  and has gone the way of being technologically advanced
• 36:40
  in different forms and then wiped out and rebuilt over time.
• 36:44
  Because it seems like almost every year,
• 36:46
  especially recently, it's getting,
• 36:48
  they're uncovering more and more of that.
• 36:50
  Like, wait a minute, how did this happen?
• 36:52
  And then, as you said, like the Library of Alexandria, how it was like burned, done, gone.
• 36:57
  Who knows what was there that could have probably explained a lot of what we're seeing when we're finding these new artifacts and whatnot.
• 37:04
  I think the abolition of knowledge is horrible.
• 37:08
  And that's probably one of the worst things you could do in humanity, in my opinion.
• 37:13
  Well, outside of torturing and maiming, causing holocausts against fellow man.
• 37:19
  But still, that's one thing that I've always hated.
• 37:22
  And it really just causes confusion and hatred for no reason because then we lose understanding and, like you said, context.
• 37:30
  Yeah, and I have gone every year, I get closer to the opinion that, you know, there were ancient, first of all, there's ancient civilizations that we've never heard of.
• 37:44
  I'm not a conspiracy theorist.
• 37:46
  I'm very much, like you said, a moderate intelligence.
• 37:49
  I'm an intelligence analyst.
• 37:51
  I try to figure out what's going on.
• 37:53
  But within that, I take information and try to assess what actually happened or what is going to happen.
• 38:01
  And the more I read about history, there are ancient cultures that we have no idea who they are and what sort of technologies that they have.
• 38:11
  And I see how we're using technology right now.
• 38:14
  I could very much be far off, but I have fun with this.
• 38:17
  It's something that really helps my mental health a lot because I can research into this stuff and I'm not married to it.
• 38:25
  So if I'm wrong, who cares?
• 38:27
  It was just fun to research it.
• 38:29
  But the more technology we get, the closer we get to wanting to go back to those ancient times.
• 38:37
  And we see it all the time.
• 38:38
  I'm on X, you're on X, Instagram, all these things.
• 38:42
  and every day it's like, why do I even do this?
• 38:45
  Why don't I pick up a book or a newspaper?
• 38:48
  Let's go back to newspapers.
• 38:50
  Let's go back to-
• 38:51
  I tell my wife all the time.
• 38:52
  I feel like every year I just keep getting dumber and dumber.
• 38:55
  I mean, I used to be very, very studious in just reading
• 38:58
  and just soaking things up And I mean I was at a point I be reading a five 600 page novel whatever And I I done in a few hours and now I fall asleep if I try to read a book
• 39:09
  And,
• 39:09
  you know,
• 39:09
  and there is a huge difference to,
• 39:12
  because you could read the same amount of words in a day through news articles
• 39:16
  or posts on Instagram and Twitter.
• 39:19
  But for the most part,
• 39:22
  a book,
• 39:23
  a novel or historical text is supposed to be,
• 39:28
  completely researched,
• 39:31
  backed by editors,
• 39:33
  backed by historical documents,
• 39:35
  and it's not allowed to be released
• 39:36
  until you're sourced out
• 39:38
  every single thing. A post
• 39:40
  on X is just a post on
• 39:42
  X, and it could be four pages
• 39:44
  long. Now, if you have a blue checkmark, you can write
• 39:46
  as many words as you want, and
• 39:48
  it could be the dumbest thing you've ever read.
• 39:51
  And the problem is, a lot of times,
• 39:52
  and it happens to me as well, if it
• 39:54
  aligns with your worldview, you're
• 39:56
  going to keep reading it. And it's going to infuriate you from time to time because you're
• 40:01
  going to go, I knew that that's what they were going to be doing. I knew that's what's going to
• 40:06
  happen. And this guy, this girl, this whatever is saying, I'm not saying whatever in a negative
• 40:14
  context. I'm just saying whoever it is that's posting it, if it agrees with you, you're going
• 40:18
  to read everything and you're going to go, that person's right. Anybody who's in the comments
• 40:22
  saying they're wrong. Those people are wrong. Well, everybody likes affirmation in their belief.
• 40:27
  They want to feel that what they believe is correct, and they want that reinforcement.
• 40:33
  And the problem is now we start creating these echo chambers for ourselves because we feel
• 40:37
  comfortable in our beliefs. I got to step back and question myself sometimes. You just start
• 40:44
  doom scrolling. You're just like, and after a while, I'm like, wait a minute. What's the other
• 40:48
  perspective? What's the other side saying about this? You got to be able to break yourself free,
• 40:52
  But it was funny what you said about that because, as you said, books, novels, articles used to be fact-checked.
• 41:00
  You couldn't release them until they were.
• 41:02
  They were cited.
• 41:03
  You knew exactly where the information came from.
• 41:05
  I came across this.
• 41:07
  It's been said before, but J. Van, I think it's Babel or Babel, PhD, he put a post out there.
• 41:13
  I want to read it because this is totally relevant.
• 41:15
  he's talking about how social media distorts perceptions of norms 0.1% of users share 80%
• 41:23
  of fake news yeah there's a tiny portion of bad actors you saw that right yeah and it has this
• 41:28
  whole article I didn't go into the whole thing yet but it's it's so true it's a tiny percentage
• 41:33
  just spewing all the nonsensical bullshit and the thing is with social media like let me get back to
• 41:40
  civilization real quick because it's going to tie into what I'm trying trying to say the point I'm
• 41:44
  trying to get across is that I feel for as advanced as we are now, I don't think we're
• 41:51
  as advanced as we've ever been. And I'm not sure if that makes any sense to you, but you know,
• 41:57
  just because we have an iPhone doesn't mean we're, you know, far and away from where we could have
• 42:03
  actually possibly been as, as, as a species. Absolutely. And the, the thing that, that I see
• 42:10
  with social media is it's nice,
• 42:12
  not even just social media,
• 42:12
  let's just say just having the worldwide web
• 42:15
  at your fingertips is all about access.
• 42:18
  But the problem is you can't,
• 42:19
  it's hard to filter true information
• 42:22
  versus false information
• 42:23
  or information that might not be completely false,
• 42:25
  but done in a way to guide you
• 42:28
  and manipulate you to fall on either side of the aisle,
• 42:33
  so to speak.
• 42:34
  And I think that's a big issue
• 42:35
  and it's really hard to,
• 42:37
  especially these days,
• 42:38
  It's so hard to decipher what is right, what is wrong.
• 42:41
  I always say sometimes on my show, to be quite honest, is, you know, I usually like to give
• 42:45
  all the facts and say, here's where I got it from.
• 42:48
  But there's times where I'm like, you know what?
• 42:49
  Do your own research.
• 42:51
  If you don't believe that what I'm saying is correct and prove me wrong, go find it.
• 42:54
  You know, because I think it's important for people to start to be that type of person
• 42:58
  where you start to question, go, hold on, is this guy saying the truth or is he just
• 43:02
  speaking out of his ass here?
• 43:03
  and I think everybody should start to do that,
• 43:08
  get back to actually fact-checking for themselves
• 43:10
  and not just believe the first thing you read.
• 43:13
  Yeah, and you've got people,
• 43:15
  there was a show on ESPN a while back
• 43:18
  called Numbers Never Lie
• 43:19
  and as an intelligence analyst,
• 43:23
  I can tell you that that's false.
• 43:25
  Numbers can lie.
• 43:26
  You can manipulate data
• 43:27
  to make it say what you want it to say
• 43:30
  and I say that, listen,
• 43:32
  So the FBI just came out.
• 43:34
  So they came out a month or two ago saying that extreme crime was down a certain percent, right?
• 43:42
  I'm familiar.
• 43:42
  They just changed that recently in the last week, that it's actually up by 4.8%.
• 43:49
  And the way this all came about was that, I believe it's the Institute of Criminal Justice Studies.
• 43:57
  They do their own data.
• 43:59
  and they were actually saying that violent crime is on the rise in the United States.
• 44:07
  It's been on the rise since 2020.
• 44:09
  And 2023, it increased year over year from 2024 and 2024 is on the same trajectory.
• 44:17
  And then the FBI released and said, no, actually, it's going down.
• 44:21
  And they both use different types of, they use the same data,
• 44:24
  but they also use different pieces of data that they can collect.
• 44:28
  There's a lot of pushback to the FBI saying, you're saying it's down. I'm witnessing with my own eyes certain things that kind of tell me that it's up. So what say you? And so now with all that pushback, the FBI tried to quietly push out. No, it really is. We redid the data and the numbers are actually up by 4.8%.
• 44:55
  So yes, data can lie as long as you can manipulate it in a certain way.
• 45:00
  Well, was that manipulation or suppression of information from the get-go?
• 45:04
  Well, so the FBI would tell you they didn't have all the data that they needed in order to make the assessment.
• 45:11
  And I tell that to people when I'm doing my assessment.
• 45:14
  So if somebody asks me, can you do an intelligence product and assess a certain thing, I've done for cross-border with Ukrainian people, getting them to safety.
• 45:27
  I've put out some products for nonprofits to help them move out there.
• 45:33
  And at the end, it will always say, this is all the data that I have, and new data may change my assessment.
• 45:41
  And that's part of the intelligence cycle.
• 45:44
  The last part is, it used to be just called dissemination, but it's always dissemination and re-evaluate.
• 45:54
  So give it to the customer, but continue to evaluate what's going on.
• 45:59
  Okay.
• 45:59
  So not disagreeing with you because this is what you do.
• 46:03
  So I can't.
• 46:04
  I mean, you're the expert, not me in this.
• 46:06
  but I agree in that statement
• 46:11
  and, you know,
• 46:12
  hey, this is based on,
• 46:14
  basically you're saying
• 46:15
  this is based on the information at hand,
• 46:16
  which is the only way that you can
• 46:18
  give information,
• 46:20
  make an assessment on what's going on.
• 46:22
  Your conclusion is only as good
• 46:25
  as the info that you have understood.
• 46:28
  But are we to believe
• 46:29
  the FBI really didn't have the information?
• 46:32
  No, I mean, they did.
• 46:34
  An organization like that.
• 46:35
  Maybe they didn't have it.
• 46:35
  they have access to.
• 46:37
  It's the FBI. It's the Federal Bureau of
• 46:39
  Investigation. If they tell a police
• 46:42
  force that they need the
• 46:43
  data, the police force is going to give them
• 46:45
  the data. I didn't work in the
• 46:47
  FBI or on the police force,
• 46:50
  so I don't know sort of
• 46:51
  the doctrine that...
• 46:53
  Or how that works, how they interact. Yeah, so there
• 46:55
  could be...
• 46:57
  Like I said, I don't know this, so
• 46:59
  I'm just going to say this as
• 47:01
  a blanket statement.
• 47:04
  There could be
• 47:05
  requirements that if the FBI reaches out, the police force has to give up that information.
• 47:13
  So that would then mean the FBI didn't go out searching for that stuff. And their blanket
• 47:19
  statement would be, well, we just didn't have access to it. You have access to everything.
• 47:24
  You're the FBI. It's like the CIA saying, we didn't have access to the intelligence.
• 47:29
  Yeah, you did. You're red on everything. You have need to know.
• 47:33
  Yeah. What don't they know?
• 47:35
  Right. That's what we're trying to figure out.
• 47:38
  Well, let's, we kind of went veered off with it, but that's fine.
• 47:44
  You know, sometimes I'll do that because I have my mind just,
• 47:48
  my wife will tell you she thinks I have ADD, but it just never stops.
• 47:51
  And I'll say, hey, wait a minute.
• 47:53
  I think there should be a study.
• 47:55
  I think our whole generation, we just go, we have ADHD.
• 47:59
  It's like, there's probably a reason for that in how we were brought up.
• 48:04
  Now we're going to go down a different road if we keep talking about that.
• 48:07
  And I'll just start going into the food.
• 48:08
  But anyway, well, I was going to try to get back to Israel.
• 48:12
  So here's my question.
• 48:16
  Because you helped establish the history.
• 48:19
  And you gave us a lot based on your knowledge and your experience from the area in which you did in the military and intelligence and analyzing all that data.
• 48:28
  But fast forward, I believe Israel had a right to respond.
• 48:32
  any country should respond the way they were attacked on that October 7th,
• 48:37
  okay, last year, 23.
• 48:39
  So do you think at this time, though, are they going too far
• 48:43
  or are they not going far enough?
• 48:46
  Or what is your opinion on it?
• 48:47
  I mean, at some point, when do you have to say, you know what,
• 48:51
  you kind of proved your point?
• 48:54
  Or is it correct for them to believe in the total destruction
• 49:00
  and extermination of not the Palestinians, by the way.
• 49:04
  I don't think that's their end game here.
• 49:06
  Obviously, they want to get rid of Hamas, Hezbollah,
• 49:08
  anyone they consider a terrorist to their state.
• 49:12
  So do you think they're going too far,
• 49:13
  or do you think they're approaching this rationally
• 49:16
  as any other nation would?
• 49:19
  So, all right, this is my opinion.
• 49:21
  Okay.
• 49:21
  I do that on the podcast as well.
• 49:23
  When I'm going to give my opinion on something,
• 49:25
  I want to state it.
• 49:26
  And that's a point where if you as an individual listening can hear my opinion and then you can go research the facts and form your own opinion off of that.
• 49:36
  I will say
• 49:38
  so this is what Israel did
• 49:42
  immediately after October 7th
• 49:45
  is
• 49:46
  and I'm going to say this
• 49:47
  I'm not a supporter of Russia
• 49:48
  and what they did in Ukraine
• 49:50
  but from a military standpoint
• 49:51
  they did what Russia should have done
• 49:55
  if they really wanted to take Ukraine
• 49:57
  which is what the U.S. is called
• 50:00
  what the U.S. did in Iraq and Afghanistan
• 50:01
  which is shock and awe
• 50:03
  you do shock and awe
• 50:05
  that's what Israel did
• 50:06
  the problem that I have is that they're still doing it. They're still taking and they go,
• 50:12
  well, we can't go in because of the tunnels. And I understand that. It's a tough decision for a
• 50:17
  commander on the ground to make, to tell his forces, you're going to go in this tunnel.
• 50:21
  There could be 20 Hamas fighters in there. And those Hamas fighters have the advantage because
• 50:26
  they know you're coming. They can hear you. You don't know where they're at and they know exactly
• 50:31
  where you're at. So you're sending those troops to die. So they couldn't do that. You can do
• 50:38
  a ground war in Gaza, I believe. Like I said, it's my opinion. Once the shock and all was over with,
• 50:48
  you can send troops into Gaza and go just like the U.S. military did, door to door, house to house,
• 50:54
  and root out those individuals.
• 50:59
  Now, the problem that the U.S. military had was,
• 51:04
  if you remember, George W. Bush went on the aircraft carrier
• 51:07
  and put Mission Accomplished back in 2005 or 2006, I believe.
• 51:14
  I believe so.
• 51:15
  In Iraq.
• 51:16
  Yes.
• 51:16
  He said Mission Accomplished.
• 51:17
  Yes.
• 51:18
  He got a lot of flack for that.
• 51:19
  It was 2005 because there was an election,
• 51:21
  the election process was going on,
• 51:23
  and he got a lot of flack for that.
• 51:24
  The truth of the matter is, it was true.
• 51:27
  Mission was accomplished.
• 51:28
  We got Saddam Hussein.
• 51:30
  We crippled the entire Saddam government.
• 51:34
  Had the U.S. left and told Iraq,
• 51:37
  hey, this is now yours, you do with it what you want,
• 51:40
  we'd probably still be in the same situation we are now,
• 51:43
  but we would have lost a lot less U.S. troops.
• 51:46
  What happened was we said,
• 51:47
  the international community is going to call us bullies
• 51:51
  and they're going to hate us
• 51:52
  if we don't do peacekeeping in this region.
• 51:56
  So you think the U.S. felt it was like obligatory for them to stay there?
• 52:02
  Absolutely.
• 52:03
  Okay.
• 52:04
  Absolutely.
• 52:04
  And that's the Al-Qaeda uprising started.
• 52:09
  And a lot of Iranian proxies popped up in Iraq just based on the fact that U.S. troops were staying there.
• 52:18
  And so the people of Iraq got very disillusioned to U.S. troops as the war went on because of things that I've mentioned before.
• 52:27
  Walking while Arab and having certain people in U.S. military uniforms.
• 52:31
  The Abu Ghraib prison pictures came out showing that we put in U.S. interrogators, put Iraqis that were in prison on top of each other and stripped them of their clothes and took pictures with them and did all of these despicable things.
• 52:48
  all of that would never have happened
• 52:51
  if we would have just left
• 52:52
  and said this is now your country
• 52:54
  you form the government, do whatever
• 52:56
  what we wanted to do was force them
• 52:59
  to start a government
• 53:01
  that's pro-US
• 53:02
  so that we can influence
• 53:05
  Middle East operations
• 53:06
  that's oil, that's
• 53:09
  other services and goods
• 53:11
  we've tried that time and time again
• 53:12
  and it never works
• 53:13
  never works
• 53:15
  maybe it's because like you said
• 53:18
  Western view versus Eastern view.
• 53:21
  Now, Israel is more attuned to Middle Eastern society, right?
• 53:26
  So they understand this.
• 53:28
  But to just keep, it is targeted, right?
• 53:32
  The destruction of buildings because a terrorist is inside of it, that's targeted.
• 53:38
  But there are also families in there.
• 53:41
  Those families are dying.
• 53:42
  And you're creating new terrorists every time that happens.
• 53:45
  Absolutely.
• 53:45
  every time someone's father or brother dies,
• 53:47
  another one will uprise,
• 53:49
  uprises or rises up to take their place.
• 53:51
  And I hear what you're saying.
• 53:53
  I personally think enough, enough,
• 53:55
  enough is enough.
• 53:58
  But I know I'm,
• 53:59
  sometimes I'm fumbling.
• 54:01
  Well, it's been a long day.
• 54:02
  I've been thinking about this
• 54:03
  in like a football analogy,
• 54:05
  like American football.
• 54:08
  So I'm a Saints fan.
• 54:10
  That's not good this year,
• 54:11
  but I've watched.
• 54:12
  I actually am liking
• 54:13
  what the Saints have been doing
• 54:15
  I've been supporting them
• 54:16
  you know
• 54:17
  good
• 54:18
  so
• 54:18
  yeah
• 54:19
  we're definitely watching them
• 54:21
  as one of our teams
• 54:21
  this year for sure
• 54:22
  good deal
• 54:23
  I just
• 54:24
  I know
• 54:26
  I've sat down
• 54:26
  so many times
• 54:27
  and watched a game
• 54:28
  and seen a team
• 54:30
  be up
• 54:30
  40 to
• 54:31
  14
• 54:32
  in the
• 54:33
  by halftime
• 54:34
  right
• 54:35
  and that's
• 54:36
  arbitrary number
• 54:37
  whatever
• 54:37
  and then I
• 54:39
  go check the score
• 54:40
  at the end
• 54:41
  and it was 42 to 40
• 54:42
  and you go
• 54:42
  what happened
• 54:44
  it was like
• 54:44
  well
• 54:45
  they had their foot on the throat and they took it off and they decided to let the other team
• 54:51
  come back. Now, that analogy does not speak anything to the humanitarian crisis or anything
• 54:56
  like that. It might be sort of a dumbed down analogy, but what I'm trying to get to here is
• 55:04
  Israel can take their foot off the throat of Hamas. Hamas is going to reestablish,
• 55:10
  reorganize and get bigger. That's what Israel thinks. So that's where it comes into. We have
• 55:16
  to annihilate. I can't blame that way of thinking though. I mean, realistically, I think that Israel
• 55:23
  has gotten to the point with all of this that they're like, you know what? Screw this. This
• 55:28
  time, let's just really end it. And that's what they're trying to do. People don't like it because
• 55:33
  it's messy and it's war and it is what it is. Unfortunately, you know, innocents die.
• 55:38
  but Israel also approached it very messy from the get-go by just targeting
• 55:44
  towns, villages, and cities and saying, oh, well, you know,
• 55:47
  there are tunnels underneath and we couldn't decipher who was who,
• 55:49
  which to be honest was bullshit, you know, and, and they,
• 55:53
  they made it very evident when they were able to suddenly blow people's
• 55:58
  pagers up. Well, that seems pretty precise and, you know, to me.
• 56:02
  And, and so now after that, I think that they're,
• 56:05
  they've been better at targeting exactly who they want to go after.
• 56:10
  But, you know, how do you explain them, you know, going ahead and just telling, you know,
• 56:20
  NATO members, and I know they're not a NATO nation, but, you know, members of NATO who
• 56:23
  are also allies of the US, like, hey, screw you.
• 56:25
  I don't care what you say.
• 56:26
  We don't need you.
• 56:26
  We're going to do what we want.
• 56:28
  They blew up that French gas company, oil company, I believe, whatever it was.
• 56:33
  and France didn't respond, not militarily anyway.
• 56:39
  They were stern to say, hey, we're no longer going to support you.
• 56:41
  And then Israel just raises their middle fingers like, well, we don't need you.
• 56:44
  At what point is Israel not going, like they're not realizing,
• 56:49
  I'm not saying they don't have a right to what they're doing
• 56:51
  because we went after bin Laden.
• 56:53
  We didn't care.
• 56:54
  We went after everybody we wanted to go after, and that's what Israel is doing.
• 56:58
  But at what point does Israel or Netanyahu not take a step back and go,
• 57:03
  while we are doing what we have to do,
• 57:07
  what are the consequences of this
• 57:08
  with everybody else in the world?
• 57:11
  All it takes is for them to do the wrong thing
• 57:15
  and get one of the NATO members involved
• 57:18
  because they have to,
• 57:19
  and then we're in a very messy situation
• 57:22
  with Article 5, right?
• 57:25
  Yeah, if so, Article 5, like you mentioned,
• 57:28
  is the NATO article that says
• 57:31
  if one NATO nation is attacked,
• 57:32
  All NATO nations have been attacked and they have to come to the defense of that one NATO nation Article 5 has only been invoked once and that is after 9 So the United States was attacked for 9 All the NATO nations came together
• 57:50
  The Iraq war was not a NATO war.
• 57:52
  We had NATO nations that did not decide to go with us on that.
• 57:59
  So here's what I'll say.
• 58:00
  I'm sorry, go ahead.
• 58:01
  Yeah, sorry.
• 58:03
  Here's what I'll say about the Israel conundrum, is that at some point,
• 58:09
  And you asked, and I don't know if I said definitively, you asked if I thought they've gone too far.
• 58:16
  Definitively, what I will say is at points, they have gone too far, in my opinion.
• 58:23
  The nations that are supplying goods and services militarily to Israel, the United States being the key one there, is going to have to decide when enough is enough.
• 58:34
  because right now they are, it's, hey, don't do this Israel. Just like you said, Netanyahu says,
• 58:41
  screw you, I'm going to do it anyway. They do it. And the US just goes, well, don't do it again.
• 58:47
  And then don't do it again. And so when I was a human intelligence analyst out in Iraq,
• 58:53
  I had another analyst, this was years ago, and I'm still studying Israel at that time. And he was
• 59:00
  educating me on some things. And he goes, you know, Israel in the United States, Israel's like,
• 59:04
  that friend at the bar you always go to the bar with that gets too drunk and then starts a fight.
• 59:10
  And then you have to get into the fight. And you keep going to the bar because you like the guy.
• 59:15
  And you guys have a great time, but sometimes he takes it too far. And then you have to get
• 59:20
  involved. And at some point, you have to tell that guy, either you're going to stop doing that
• 59:24
  or I'm not going to be associating with you anymore. And so we're close. I don't think
• 59:31
  We're at that level.
• 59:32
  We are very close to that level.
• 59:34
  The response that Israel is going to take on Iran is going to say a lot about future dialogue with the United States.
• 59:42
  Yeah, look, Spain's already announced they're cutting them off.
• 59:46
  France's cutting them off in terms of support for all of this.
• 59:50
  What I see is I think this is an opinion, but I think most people from the outside looking in could probably agree with this assessment that Israel does what they do because they know the U.S. is behind them.
• 1:00:01
  them. Yeah. I believe that. I do. And we have a long history. We'll get off this topic soon
• 1:00:09
  because I wanted to go into, you know, your neck of the woods of what you specialize in. I think it
• 1:00:13
  was like Russian. I've got a few more minutes. Okay. We'll move on out of this pretty soon. But
• 1:00:18
  anyway, yeah, I think they just do what they do because we're behind them. And then if you look
• 1:00:27
  at the history of what they have done over the years, all over the years, they have been
• 1:00:33
  told to calm down and more than one occasion throughout the years because of how they've
• 1:00:37
  approached certain situations and gone after other nations.
• 1:00:40
  So they do have a history or a pattern of doing this.
• 1:00:43
  Now, we can argue whether all of that was justified, but still, I don't know.
• 1:00:49
  I just hope all this ends soon and it ends in a way that doesn't drag everybody into
• 1:00:56
  a world war.
• 1:00:59
  And then with that, I kind of want to move
• 1:01:00
  let's quickly go over a few other things.
• 1:01:03
  Just came
• 1:01:05
  out and I think you saw this.
• 1:01:07
  What do you think about North Korea
• 1:01:08
  sending troops over now?
• 1:01:10
  In the war with Ukraine.
• 1:01:11
  About 12,000 North Korean
• 1:01:14
  troops going out to
• 1:01:15
  Ukraine to fight.
• 1:01:19
  So first of all,
• 1:01:20
  for big picture is now you're
• 1:01:22
  seeing what we
• 1:01:24
  would consider in World War II, the Axis
• 1:01:26
  alliance, which is, and Iran has called their own group the axis of resistance. I think that's
• 1:01:33
  going to be coined for this entire axis, which is Russia, China, North Korea, Iran. So those groups
• 1:01:41
  are coming closer. And now you've got 12,000 to 13,000. I've seen some say as much as 17,000
• 1:01:47
  North Koreans moving to Russia because they need more fodder. And it's very interesting that all
• 1:01:53
  those troops are going to the Kursk region. And if you haven't been following that war recently,
• 1:01:58
  the Kursk region is where Ukraine successfully did a counteroffensive and took over Russian land
• 1:02:04
  in Kursk to push back those Russian munitions so they can't hit places like Kiev and Lviv
• 1:02:10
  areas within Ukraine. So Russia is not only conscripting these North Koreans, they are going
• 1:02:17
  to one of the bigger hotbeds where Russia wants to show force and push back Ukrainians
• 1:02:26
  back across the border.
• 1:02:27
  So that's very interesting.
• 1:02:29
  Do you think this is something that may pull China into the fold on this?
• 1:02:36
  I think China's going to be, so China's got their own thing that they want to do with Taiwan.
• 1:02:40
  And I think they're going to stay out publicly out of everything until they can do that.
• 1:02:45
  now China's got an issue with manpower
• 1:02:49
  we see China, they've got millions to throw at this war
• 1:02:53
  they've got to do it very quickly
• 1:02:55
  within the next five years
• 1:02:58
  because a lot of the male service members in China
• 1:03:03
  are aging out of being able to fight
• 1:03:07
  so they're not going to send
• 1:03:09
  I absolutely do not think
• 1:03:10
  I have it as unlikely that China is going to send PLA into Russia to help that battle.
• 1:03:18
  What they're going to hope.
• 1:03:19
  So they helping monetarily They helping with certain missile defenses things of that nature militarily through back channels They won publicly state that they doing this but they
• 1:03:33
  are. I think that's where it's going to stay. The country I'm looking at getting heavily involved
• 1:03:39
  is Belarus. And the problem with Belarus is it's right there with Poland. And there could come a
• 1:03:48
  time where Russia says, screw it, we're going full on. Belarus, you've got the nukes. So Russia
• 1:03:55
  last summer sent nuclear weapons. I believe it was last summer. My timeline could be all off. But
• 1:04:01
  Russia sent nuclear weapons to Belarus to store them along the border there. And so now Belarus
• 1:04:07
  has it. There could come a time in the near future where Putin says to Lukashenko in Belarus,
• 1:04:17
  hey all bets are off go into poland we're going through ukraine and we're going to get into poland
• 1:04:24
  and we're going to war with nato because we're at odds and this is this is going to be a full war
• 1:04:32
  so belarus is going to be very important um lukashenko was put in place by russia so he has
• 1:04:38
  certain obligations to the the russian state and the russian military that he is going to have to
• 1:04:44
  accept. Once Putin says Belarusian forces, even if it's just put them in Ukraine, that's going to
• 1:04:50
  happen. What a mess, man. It is. It really is. I know you're going to have to go here soon. So
• 1:04:59
  I'm going to, I'm just going to quickly go over a few other things. So let's, let's go back to the
• 1:05:03
  USA itself. I mean, and always, if you want me back on, we can spend some more time when I have
• 1:05:09
  more time later. No, I know you got to go. Let's quickly, election opinion. What do you think
• 1:05:17
  and how's that going to go? And then I would like you to talk more about your podcast so everybody
• 1:05:21
  knows where to find that and listen to you and your wife and go over all that as well.
• 1:05:27
  So let's start with your opinion on what's going on with the election.
• 1:05:30
  Yeah, look, so I've said it. I was recently on a podcast with some people that I say are very
• 1:05:37
  good friends of mine.
• 1:05:38
  It is called Songs and Stories. It's by the
• 1:05:41
  band Emory. I was on
• 1:05:43
  there and I talked heavily about the
• 1:05:44
  election. I don't give, I'm not going to give
• 1:05:46
  who I'm going to vote for, but
• 1:05:48
  I will give how I'm assessing
• 1:05:51
  things are going to
• 1:05:53
  go. And so right now
• 1:05:55
  everything flows through Pennsylvania.
• 1:05:57
  You can run 20,000
• 1:05:59
  simulations.
• 1:06:00
  The person who wins Pennsylvania
• 1:06:02
  wins the presidential election.
• 1:06:04
  We all know that. We can see it. It's evident.
• 1:06:06
  That's why Trump and Harris both have been going into Pennsylvania.
• 1:06:13
  Recently, what's been happening that's been interesting to me is Michigan and Wisconsin have sort of turned over to Trump.
• 1:06:20
  Something has happened within Michigan and Wisconsin that has made them more palatable to Trump.
• 1:06:26
  And if he can win Wisconsin and Michigan, he doesn't need Pennsylvania.
• 1:06:31
  I didn't see that coming a couple of months ago.
• 1:06:33
  Yeah, that's interesting.
• 1:06:34
  That's another key one to go on.
• 1:06:37
  So depending on who you trust, the pollsters,
• 1:06:40
  the pollsters still have Kamala Harris winning
• 1:06:43
  at least the national vote by 1.8%.
• 1:06:46
  They still have her favored in Pennsylvania
• 1:06:50
  and a couple of other states, including Nevada,
• 1:06:54
  which I think is trending more towards Trump.
• 1:06:56
  So do you trust the pollsters or do you trust Vegas?
• 1:06:59
  Meaning people are putting bets on the election
• 1:07:02
  and Vegas doesn't lose.
• 1:07:03
  I think at this point, I don't trust the polls. I think I'm leaning more towards how Vegas is going to be, judging how this is going to go. Yeah, well, we'll see how this all unfolds. Well, let's talk about your podcast really quick before you have to head off and then whatever else you want people to know about you and we'll get you out of here.
• 1:07:25
  One more thing on the election.
• 1:07:26
  Oh, yeah.
• 1:07:27
  And now I'm extending my time a little bit.
• 1:07:29
  But yeah, so one more thing on the election.
• 1:07:33
  My hope is that it's not a hotly contested election.
• 1:07:36
  Either way, whoever wins, it probably will be because Pennsylvania is one of those states
• 1:07:41
  that can't assess the election right after the polls are done.
• 1:07:46
  So it's going to go through the night.
• 1:07:48
  but I hope someone wins with more so than the last election or the one before
• 1:07:54
  that,
• 1:07:55
  because that's what China wants.
• 1:07:57
  Honestly,
• 1:07:58
  that's what they've been trying to do is a hotly contested election that no
• 1:08:01
  one approves of.
• 1:08:02
  And we have a civil war in this country.
• 1:08:04
  So that's my hope.
• 1:08:06
  So I said,
• 1:08:07
  I don't care.
• 1:08:07
  Like I'm not going to support one candidate or another,
• 1:08:10
  but my hope is somebody wins by a lot.
• 1:08:13
  I believe what that post was that came out about the UK labor party.
• 1:08:18
  sending 100 people over here to campaign for Harris.
• 1:08:22
  But anyway, yeah, let's go over your podcast here
• 1:08:27
  and what you offer and your scheduling
• 1:08:29
  and when that comes out and how that came together.
• 1:08:32
  Yeah, so the podcast is This Week Explain.
• 1:08:35
  It's a geopolitical intelligence podcast
• 1:08:38
  just based off of my history,
• 1:08:40
  my experience as an intelligence analyst.
• 1:08:43
  And you set it up perfectly at the beginning.
• 1:08:45
  We try to break down these big events and we don't get technical.
• 1:08:50
  We don't get bogged down.
• 1:08:52
  And so that's, if you know anything about intelligence analysis, the reports have to be concise and they have to be easy to understand.
• 1:08:59
  I say for a fifth grader usually we usually say a two general needs to understand it That a fifth grade education level sometimes on these big picture things That just a dig at the officer core
• 1:09:14
  But that's what we're really trying to do is everybody's talking about these big picture things in a very technical sense. And so no one really understands it except for the people who are in these certain technical things.
• 1:09:28
  So you talk about tanks, people who understand tanks, they're going to be able to speak very fluently about it.
• 1:09:35
  But not everybody understands that.
• 1:09:37
  And I think everyone needs to understand these big geopolitical events.
• 1:09:41
  So we try to break it down.
• 1:09:43
  And I was going to do it by myself when this all started.
• 1:09:46
  And I started, I did what everybody tells you.
• 1:09:48
  You want to start a podcast, you start recording.
• 1:09:50
  So I hit record and I started talking.
• 1:09:53
  Ben Shapiro type of kind of thing where it's just me and I'm just talking.
• 1:09:57
  and you can say whatever you want about that guy,
• 1:09:59
  but he's got to be brilliant to be able to talk
• 1:10:01
  for an hour and a half by himself.
• 1:10:03
  I could not do that.
• 1:10:05
  It's a skill.
• 1:10:06
  So I said, man, I can't do this,
• 1:10:09
  but I think it's important.
• 1:10:10
  I think what I'm doing is very important
• 1:10:13
  and people want to hear it.
• 1:10:14
  So I went to my wife and I was like,
• 1:10:16
  I really need somebody else.
• 1:10:18
  And I don't have any, like I have friends and stuff,
• 1:10:20
  but that would kind of get bogged down
• 1:10:22
  into stories about our past
• 1:10:25
  and kind of goofing off and things like that.
• 1:10:27
  And I was like, Tiana, you know,
• 1:10:29
  we have these conversations all the time.
• 1:10:32
  Like we sit at the dinner,
• 1:10:33
  at the dining room table or in our bed
• 1:10:35
  and we just talk about this stuff
• 1:10:37
  and we bounce things off of each other
• 1:10:39
  and we go to one side and the other.
• 1:10:41
  Let's do that as a podcast.
• 1:10:44
  And we set up and we hit record.
• 1:10:47
  And I won't say those early episodes were the greatest,
• 1:10:50
  but it set the foundation for it.
• 1:10:54
  where we could sit and it's become a part of our relationship and our marriage where
• 1:11:00
  Thursday nights we sit down and we have a conversation and that's the podcast.
• 1:11:04
  And then Fridays it gets released.
• 1:11:07
  I like that you two can come together and have these conversations about politics and
• 1:11:11
  major events that are going on in the world. Not too many couples can actually do that,
• 1:11:16
  to be honest.
• 1:11:17
  And we get bogged down sometimes, especially Israel. Israel, Hamas, Israel, Hezbollah.
• 1:11:22
  I mean, hell, 90% of this episode was Israel.
• 1:11:25
  Yeah, it's a tough one.
• 1:11:26
  There's a lot going on out there.
• 1:11:28
  And how do people find you outside of that?
• 1:11:31
  I mean, I know your podcast is everywhere.
• 1:11:33
  I've heard it a few times already myself.
• 1:11:35
  I like it.
• 1:11:36
  I appreciate that.
• 1:11:36
  And then anything else in terms of socials, websites, anything like that?
• 1:11:40
  Yeah, so our Instagram, at Oakland Analytics, we post.
• 1:11:45
  So if you listen to the podcast, if you're on that Instagram account,
• 1:11:48
  you'll see a lot of the posts leading up to it,
• 1:11:51
  just talking about big events that happen.
• 1:11:54
  So the way we do it is put out the event,
• 1:11:58
  have a headline, kind of give you a basis on it
• 1:12:01
  as a screenshot there.
• 1:12:02
  And then within the caption, I will have an assessment.
• 1:12:06
  I think that's very important.
• 1:12:07
  Don't just put out what's going on.
• 1:12:09
  Like, you know, Israel bombed this area,
• 1:12:12
  killed 20 civilians.
• 1:12:13
  We want the assessment.
• 1:12:15
  Why did they do it?
• 1:12:16
  What are the secondary and tertiary repercussions of that?
• 1:12:19
  And that's what we're trying to do on Instagram, you know, X and Facebook.
• 1:12:24
  You can find us everywhere on the socials except for TikTok.
• 1:12:28
  Just because through my experience, I don't trust TikTok at all.
• 1:12:34
  I don't do it either.
• 1:12:35
  That probably gets a lot of people to not see what we're doing.
• 1:12:39
  But I'm going to sleep well at night knowing that I am not a part of that algorithm.
• 1:12:44
  From what I can tell, people are finding you.
• 1:12:46
  and I think from what I can see, you're growing and growing.
• 1:12:50
  So whatever you're doing, you're doing it right.
• 1:12:53
  You know, and you're presenting the info in a way that, you know,
• 1:12:56
  everyone could consume.
• 1:12:59
  Like, honestly, my show, yeah, I'm sure it can get one-sided
• 1:13:02
  and I have a certain audience, I get it.
• 1:13:04
  But at the same time, you know, we need people like you
• 1:13:08
  who can just stay, correct me, correct others.
• 1:13:13
  they go, nope, this is where it's at. And this is the facts. And that's an important thing. So
• 1:13:18
  anyway, I appreciate you. And yes, I would like to have you back if you ever have the time. I know
• 1:13:22
  you're super busy. So with that being said, hey, let's get you out of here so you can do what you
• 1:13:26
  got to do. And next time, hopefully we can spend more time together and have a longer conversation.
• 1:13:31
  Yeah, let's go for two to three hours once I have some time. I think there's enough in the world
• 1:13:37
  that you and I could have a conversation for three hours and it would feel like two minutes.
• 1:13:41
  Oh, yeah. And I love learning. So, you know, you have a bunch of knowledge that I don't. And so I'm, yeah, very happy to ask questions and get educated.
• 1:13:50
  Same here. I love bouncing ideas off of smart people like yourself.
• 1:13:54
  That's debatable.
• 1:13:57
  Thank you. Have a good night there, Kerbin. And yeah, let's definitely stay in touch after this. Okay.
• 1:14:03
  Thank you so much for having me. And as I always say, stay safe out there.
• 1:14:06
  Yes. Thank you.
• 1:14:11
  Attention Devils hide behind redemption
• 1:14:15
  Honesty is a one way gate to hell
• 1:14:41
  you