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The Lebanon Pager Attacks · Conspiracy! The Show

0:10
Speaker 1: Wait true insurance. Get I'm true. I'm a checkup with insurance.
0:15
Speaker 1: Get true? Than is wait you?
0:31
Speaker 2: Hey, everybody, welcome to Conspiracy The Show. I'm your host,
0:37
Speaker 2: Adam Todd Brown joining me as guest co host this
0:40
Speaker 2: week of Tiff Myers is here.
0:41
Speaker 1: Hey, what's up? I'm you see your other like intros
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Speaker 1: where you're like favorite co hosts and nobody. Yeah, I
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Speaker 1: enjoy that one a lot.
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Speaker 2: So I like to pull the rug out from underneath
0:52
Speaker 2: people every once in a while and just go the
0:55
Speaker 2: guest co host route.
0:57
Speaker 1: And since I'm here, I think your fans know what's
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Speaker 1: going to.
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Speaker 2: Be sad well, yeah, I mean just the fact that
1:03
Speaker 2: this is a conspiracy podcast in the year twenty twenty four,
1:08
Speaker 2: most of what we talk about is sad over current
1:12
Speaker 2: on this side of things. This is super current. This
1:15
Speaker 2: happened right in the span of time where I hadn't
1:20
Speaker 2: booked a guest and had not figured out a topic.
1:23
Speaker 2: I was going to do all that yesterday and it
1:26
Speaker 2: just unfortunately fell right into my lap. At first, we
1:31
Speaker 2: were going to be talking about the Lebanon pager attacks,
1:35
Speaker 2: but it has become so much more since then. The
1:38
Speaker 2: Lebanon Pager walkie talkie, fingerprint reader, solar panel attacks. It
1:45
Speaker 2: seems this is nuts. This is fucking crazy.
1:49
Speaker 1: It just seems like Israel's infiltrated like every aspect of
1:53
Speaker 1: electronics in a country and it's figured out how to
1:56
Speaker 1: just turn them into bombs. They've weaponized people as electronics.
1:59
Speaker 2: And I think you mentioned this when we were texting
2:02
Speaker 2: about this. But if Israel can do this, the United
2:05
Speaker 2: States can do this, and they can probably make it
2:08
Speaker 2: a little more targeted.
2:10
Speaker 1: Then this was the reason I say this is because
2:13
Speaker 1: like Israel and their IDFs been like the model for
2:17
Speaker 1: like the NYPD, Yeah, for like years. So it's like
2:21
Speaker 1: these terrorist attacks about Israel, both on the Palace Scenians
2:23
Speaker 1: and the Lebanese kind of seen in like labs or
2:27
Speaker 1: like you know what I mean, or just testing grounds
2:29
Speaker 1: for what the NYPD could probably do. I mean, they
2:32
Speaker 1: just killed somebody this week for hopping it like a turnstile,
2:36
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. Like if if they can
2:38
Speaker 1: pull like a rico and be like, let's just give
2:40
Speaker 1: all these drug dealers or like this crime syndicate bucking
2:43
Speaker 1: pagers and then blow them up, why that's not out
2:45
Speaker 1: of the realm of possibility.
2:46
Speaker 2: Yeah, because this had to at least in some part
2:49
Speaker 2: be an inside thing, because this required so much knowledge
2:56
Speaker 2: on the part of Israel in terms of what has
2:59
Speaker 2: ble plans were, And I don't know, I feel like
3:03
Speaker 2: there has to be someone within Hesbela who tipped Israel
3:08
Speaker 2: off for sure.
3:09
Speaker 1: I mean, it's the only way they could have done this.
3:11
Speaker 1: They have like a mole, and I wouldn't put it
3:13
Speaker 1: past sence even if they had, like just a spy
3:16
Speaker 1: and the inside.
3:17
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I would assume they do. And so before
3:20
Speaker 2: we talk about the actual attacks, I guess we should
3:24
Speaker 2: do our best to talk about why they happened. Because
3:28
Speaker 2: here's the thing. Israel hasn't even commented on it. It's
3:33
Speaker 2: just everyone knows that they didn't but they haven't said
3:37
Speaker 2: they did it. So we don't have Israel coming out
3:41
Speaker 2: officially and being like, here's why. And I personally think
3:45
Speaker 2: they didn't really have a reason to do it. Now
3:48
Speaker 2: it's been suggested that Hesbelah found out about this plot
3:52
Speaker 2: and so Israel was like, all right, we got to
3:54
Speaker 2: do it right now, which god that makes it I
3:57
Speaker 2: don't know. I don't know if you could make it worse,
3:59
Speaker 2: But then you're just doing it for the fuck of
4:01
Speaker 2: it kind of.
4:02
Speaker 1: Well, I mean Israel since like the since like October seventh,
4:05
Speaker 1: and they've they've been like attacking Lebanon like on and
4:09
Speaker 1: off since I want to say, like maybe December with
4:11
Speaker 1: like southern Lebanon with like white Bosphorus bombs. So they've
4:14
Speaker 1: been committing war crimes there already for the last few months. Yeah,
4:18
Speaker 1: and like obviously Lebanon and has been like retaliating, but
4:22
Speaker 1: they just seem like they're just getting like skirmishes like
4:26
Speaker 1: on and off like the last few months.
4:28
Speaker 2: Yeah. And one of the things Israel said right before
4:32
Speaker 2: this attack, and I mean like right before, was that
4:36
Speaker 2: they were expanding their war objectives to include returning residents
4:43
Speaker 2: of Northern Israel back to their homes because that area
4:47
Speaker 2: that's where the border with Lebanon is. It's South Lebanon
4:51
Speaker 2: is where they're sending bombs, and North Israel obviously is
4:55
Speaker 2: where Lebanon would retaliate. So apparently like sixty thousand people
5:00
Speaker 2: have been displaced from Northern Israel, and it seems like
5:05
Speaker 2: Israel's using that more as an excuse, yeah, as opposed
5:09
Speaker 2: to it being the actual point. But they updated their
5:13
Speaker 2: war objectives to include returning people to northern Israel, and
5:18
Speaker 2: it seems like that is kind of the de facto
5:21
Speaker 2: explanation on their part, but even then not.
5:25
Speaker 1: Really still pretty shitty.
5:28
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, it's shitty. I'm just saying I think that's
5:31
Speaker 2: the closest we've gotten to them saying why or providing
5:36
Speaker 2: what they would deem justification for this.
5:39
Speaker 1: And again, like if any other country was like pulling
5:42
Speaker 1: a shit, they'd be condemned immediately.
5:44
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, if Iran did this, it would be on
5:47
Speaker 2: the news in the United States all the time, which this,
5:49
Speaker 2: I mean, the news is covering this.
5:51
Speaker 1: How can you not if China did it to like Taiwan. Yeah,
5:54
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying.
5:55
Speaker 2: I mean, if you're one of those Israel has a
5:57
Speaker 2: right to defend themselves. Types imagine we were at war
6:00
Speaker 2: with China and China did this within the United States,
6:04
Speaker 2: would you be like, oh, man, that's war. War sucks.
6:07
Speaker 2: Like that's not war, that's beyond what is acceptable in war.
6:13
Speaker 2: That's war crimes is what that is. And that part
6:18
Speaker 2: is not getting mentioned enough in American media, Like your
6:22
Speaker 2: mainstream outlets aren't. Like there's always going to need to
6:25
Speaker 2: intercept in news Week and shit like that, but like
6:29
Speaker 2: your New York Times, Washington Post stuff like that.
6:32
Speaker 1: No, I think what the New York had like a
6:34
Speaker 1: pun involved, Like they had a pun headline of like
6:38
Speaker 1: ring ring boom or something.
6:40
Speaker 2: Oh the New York Post.
6:41
Speaker 1: Yeah. So it's like and also I think the Western
6:44
Speaker 1: media is like they do a good job quote unquote
6:47
Speaker 1: of like just labeling everybody as like that terrorist group.
6:50
Speaker 1: So they're like, it's real bombs, three thous has bullads,
6:54
Speaker 1: you know, whereas like most of that was like actual
6:57
Speaker 1: civilians and with these people.
6:59
Speaker 2: Yeah, the people who died in the first wave of attacks,
7:02
Speaker 2: I believe there were twelve people who died, among them,
7:05
Speaker 2: two kids and four healthcare workers, which even then I
7:10
Speaker 2: know the next question is, oh, so the other six
7:13
Speaker 2: were all Hesbela leaders, right, I don't know, probably not.
7:16
Speaker 2: They're probably just civilians who weren't as of note as
7:21
Speaker 2: healthcare workers.
7:22
Speaker 1: Yeah, this was.
7:23
Speaker 2: More than just like physical terror. This is psychological terror.
7:28
Speaker 2: Because one of the articles will link to it came
7:31
Speaker 2: out right after the first attacks and they were like,
7:33
Speaker 2: this is going to fuck with Hesbula's head because now
7:37
Speaker 2: they don't know if what if our walkie talkies are
7:40
Speaker 2: also rigged, and then the next day the fucking walkie
7:43
Speaker 2: talkies start blowing up.
7:44
Speaker 1: Yeah, so the other.
7:46
Speaker 2: War goals they have, elimination of Hamas and its military capabilities,
7:50
Speaker 2: return of all hostage is taken on October seventh, and
7:53
Speaker 2: ensuring that the Gaza strip no longer quote poses a
7:56
Speaker 2: threat to Israel. All right, So just really quick numbers
8:01
Speaker 2: before we carry on. Twelve hundred people were killed on
8:04
Speaker 2: October seventh, Around two hundred and fifty were taken hostages.
8:07
Speaker 2: Conservative estimates of the number of people who've died in
8:10
Speaker 2: Gaza since then is forty one thousand plus.
8:14
Speaker 1: Yeah. I've I mean I've seen like higher numbers obviously
8:17
Speaker 1: from like independent European like medical firms where they're just like, no,
8:21
Speaker 1: this isn't this isn't one hundred thousands people that have died,
8:24
Speaker 1: because they're probably not even factoring in people that have
8:27
Speaker 1: died of like famine, like malnutrition or just you know
8:30
Speaker 1: what I mean, Yeah, because there's other factors, because they've
8:32
Speaker 1: just fucking made Gaza completely desolate.
8:35
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know how you could even count, Like
8:38
Speaker 2: if you look at what Gaza looks like, now, how
8:41
Speaker 2: would you even find all the dead people. It gets
8:44
Speaker 2: just rubble. And a White House reporter brought this up.
8:48
Speaker 2: I forget what White House official they were talking to,
8:51
Speaker 2: but they were like, so, Israel's just going to announce
8:55
Speaker 2: like a full on war next and that Lebanon is
8:58
Speaker 2: the frontline, right, And the US response was like, people
9:02
Speaker 2: got to decide what kind of lives they want to
9:04
Speaker 2: live and what kind of future they want to have.
9:07
Speaker 2: And it's like that's as ominous as anything else I've
9:09
Speaker 2: heard about.
9:10
Speaker 1: This, that's crazy.
9:12
Speaker 2: That is a crazy response to an act of terror,
9:17
Speaker 2: like an active terror carried out by our ally.
9:20
Speaker 1: I don't know what we're getting from them. I don't know,
9:23
Speaker 1: I've never it seems very one way.
9:25
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's just the presence in the Middle
9:29
Speaker 2: East among but like countries that don't like US, but
9:33
Speaker 2: I don't know.
9:34
Speaker 1: I don't I don't think they've done anything to help
9:35
Speaker 1: them like US though. And it's like America's America's allied
9:39
Speaker 1: with like Saudi Arabia and like the UAE, which are
9:42
Speaker 1: like the most powerful countries there.
9:44
Speaker 2: Yeah, we know Saudi Arabia can get shit done.
9:46
Speaker 1: Yeah, and like Egypt and Jordan. Yeah, it's just a
9:50
Speaker 1: colonial power there essentially.
9:53
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, absolutely, and yeah, Israel and hasbile to have
9:57
Speaker 2: a long history of conflict. Obviously there's an actual war
10:00
Speaker 2: in the mid two thousands. This is an actual war
10:03
Speaker 2: yet it's just acts of terror carried out, but it'll
10:07
Speaker 2: probably turn into that. So let's talk about these attacks.
10:11
Speaker 2: Pager is, the first day, walkie talkie, solar panels, all
10:13
Speaker 2: kinds of shit. The second day. First attack happened Tuesday,
10:16
Speaker 2: September seventeenth. One of the first things that struck me
10:19
Speaker 2: is out about this is for the United States and
10:23
Speaker 2: pretty much anyone outside of Israel not knowing that this
10:27
Speaker 2: attack was going to happen. We had a shit ton
10:29
Speaker 2: of information about it pretty quick.
10:31
Speaker 1: Yeah, like I saw people breaking down like pager models
10:35
Speaker 1: in like the first couple hours. Yeah, it was crazy,
10:39
Speaker 1: and we'll.
10:41
Speaker 2: Get into it later in a minute. But it seems
10:43
Speaker 2: like they meaning whoever did this Israel Masad, I mean
10:48
Speaker 2: that's one and the same, But whoever's behind this, it
10:52
Speaker 2: seems like they built these pagers like they made them.
10:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I saw like is I was trying to
11:01
Speaker 1: find it for a couple hours, like an hour to yesterday,
11:04
Speaker 1: but saw like an Israeli news story where they essentially
11:06
Speaker 1: like a report where they broke down how it was
11:09
Speaker 1: made and how they've like configured the parts to kind
11:13
Speaker 1: of look like pager parts but they're functional, but they're
11:16
Speaker 1: just essential ages bombs that just react that like high frequencies.
11:20
Speaker 2: Yeah, I have way too many notes, so I had
11:23
Speaker 2: to cut it. But one of the articles we were
11:26
Speaker 2: going to talk about is like a history of bombs
11:30
Speaker 2: being made this way, and one of the most fascinating
11:33
Speaker 2: examples was an explosive device that was made to look
11:37
Speaker 2: like an ink cartridge in a printer. And one of
11:40
Speaker 2: the things they mentioned is that printer ink and this
11:43
Speaker 2: particular explosive have very similar chemical properties. And then they
11:48
Speaker 2: used a circuit from a Nokia cell phone, so when
11:52
Speaker 2: it went through airport security, it didn't set off any
11:55
Speaker 2: sort of alarms because it just seemed like regular shit. Yeah,
11:59
Speaker 2: this is high tech stuff, I mean obviously, but sure. Yeah,
12:04
Speaker 2: And so I think one of the first questions people
12:08
Speaker 2: probably had, like the instinctive question was who the fuck's
12:10
Speaker 2: still using pagers? And for one thing like medical personnel
12:14
Speaker 2: still using a whole lot first responders and things. But
12:18
Speaker 2: Hesbela was concerned that Israel was basically listening to their
12:23
Speaker 2: communications and wanted to go with a more secure form
12:28
Speaker 2: of communication and.
12:29
Speaker 1: Also like being able to track them, like it's easier
12:31
Speaker 1: to track on a cell phone.
12:33
Speaker 2: Yeah. Fuck yeah, that's one of the things I didn't
12:35
Speaker 2: put in the notes that I read about this. This
12:37
Speaker 2: attack is going to make it way easier for Israel
12:41
Speaker 2: to kind of pinpoint where people are because now they
12:44
Speaker 2: know where the explosions went off.
12:46
Speaker 1: That's true, because there were even some explosions that went
12:48
Speaker 1: off in like Syria.
12:50
Speaker 2: Yeah. And one unfortunate detail on Hesbola's side of things
12:55
Speaker 2: is that when they decided to stop using phones, and
12:58
Speaker 2: for the life of me, I don't know why they
13:00
Speaker 2: did this, they announced it during a live televised statement
13:05
Speaker 2: back in February. Why why why would you announce that
13:10
Speaker 2: live on TV?
13:11
Speaker 1: I mean, it's mass communication, like it's the easiest way
13:14
Speaker 1: to reach him. But like, yeah, again, it allowed Israel
13:17
Speaker 1: to infiltrate like their supply chain.
13:19
Speaker 2: Yeah, so Israel obviously knew this was coming, this shift
13:23
Speaker 2: in technology, and it seems like they injected themselves into
13:29
Speaker 2: the process. The device they ended up going with is
13:33
Speaker 2: the Apollo R nine. Twenty four pager, which, oh, that
13:39
Speaker 2: feels symbolic that it's ar as the first two letters.
13:43
Speaker 2: That's sure good tool to kill people in the United
13:46
Speaker 2: States with also, so I.
13:48
Speaker 1: Know you were probably gonna get to it. But just
13:49
Speaker 1: like the sketchiness of these pagers and like tracking down
13:53
Speaker 1: exactly where they came from, I.
13:55
Speaker 2: Think NPR probably has the best reporting on that right now,
13:59
Speaker 2: and we'll link to their article in the show notes,
14:02
Speaker 2: but we'll also talk about it in a bit. Yeah,
14:05
Speaker 2: the origin of these pagers is nuts and it feels
14:08
Speaker 2: like intelligence operation shit, absolutely like every detail of it.
14:13
Speaker 1: Well, because like you can track five thousand pagers, you
14:17
Speaker 1: can easily find out where you're gonna get that from,
14:20
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. Yeah, that's such a fucking
14:23
Speaker 1: easily unique thing to like try to source and figure
14:26
Speaker 1: out who's gonna get that, so to infiltrate it probably
14:29
Speaker 1: pretty fucking easy.
14:30
Speaker 2: And not just that, but the initial company that they
14:34
Speaker 2: suspected these pagers came from, they cornered the market on
14:37
Speaker 2: pagers because no one uses them anymore. So once Israel
14:41
Speaker 2: heard Hesbilla say we're gonna switch our communications, I'm sure
14:45
Speaker 2: the obvious leap in logic there is, Oh, they're gonna
14:48
Speaker 2: go with pagers. Who do people get pagers from? And conveniently,
14:51
Speaker 2: it's like one guy in Taiwan who brought the pager back.
14:56
Speaker 2: So yeah, in that way, this had to be pretty
14:59
Speaker 2: easy to get that part. It just had to be
15:02
Speaker 2: building the devices. So there was a source that said,
15:07
Speaker 2: speaking of having a lot of details, that there were
15:10
Speaker 2: three grams of explosives planted in each device, and it's like, damn,
15:14
Speaker 2: how do we know that already? Yeah, those devices were
15:18
Speaker 2: sent a message that appeared to be from Hesbala leadership
15:22
Speaker 2: on September seventeenth at three point thirty pm, and after
15:26
Speaker 2: a couple seconds that message caused the devices to explode.
15:30
Speaker 2: Twelve people killed on the first day, thousands more injured.
15:33
Speaker 2: I think it was twenty eight hundred, Yeah, twenty eight hundred.
15:37
Speaker 2: We already mentioned nine year old girl, eleven year old boy,
15:40
Speaker 2: and four healthcare workers were among the twelve dead. I
15:44
Speaker 2: think it's worth noting here these attacks happened exactly one
15:48
Speaker 2: day after Biden administration advisor Amos Hochstein met with net
15:54
Speaker 2: Nyahu and Israeli Defense Minister jo Av Galant. But we
15:58
Speaker 2: had no idea this was happening, I.
16:00
Speaker 1: Know, and didn't like a yoab for someone else on
16:03
Speaker 1: the defense seem like tweet something like oh yeah where
16:07
Speaker 1: they were just like got them essentially and then deleted it.
16:10
Speaker 2: Oh I don't know about that, but that wouldn't surprise me.
16:12
Speaker 2: But he before this was basically like, yeah, we got
16:16
Speaker 2: to get people back to northern Israel, and military actions
16:20
Speaker 2: the only way we're going to do it. And then
16:22
Speaker 2: this happened, which this calling this military action, that's a stretch.
16:27
Speaker 1: This is terrorism. Yeah.
16:29
Speaker 2: The second attacks happened the next day. Those were walkie talkies.
16:33
Speaker 2: This was an even deadlier attack. Killed twenty people, wounded
16:37
Speaker 2: more than four hundred and fifty. I'm assuming just because
16:41
Speaker 2: it's a bigger device than a pager, you could probably
16:44
Speaker 2: get more explosives in it, and.
16:46
Speaker 1: Like less people would have a walkie talkie than a pager,
16:48
Speaker 1: especially obviously the medical field. Yeah.
16:50
Speaker 2: Yeah, here's an important detail. A HESBLA security source told
16:55
Speaker 2: Reuters that these walkie talkies were purchased five months ago,
16:58
Speaker 2: around the same time the pagers were purchased. But I
17:02
Speaker 2: also read another report that said they were purchased in February,
17:05
Speaker 2: so sometime between February and April is when these were purchased.
17:09
Speaker 2: That's going to be important when we get to the
17:11
Speaker 2: conspiracy part of this episode.
17:13
Speaker 1: Well again, also other things like blowing up like sellar panels,
17:17
Speaker 1: fingerprint readers, like they infiltrated their supply chain of tech,
17:22
Speaker 1: and I don't know, like that happened here, I would
17:25
Speaker 1: fucking I would stay to fuck away from every tech
17:28
Speaker 1: that I purchased recently, you know what I mean? Yeah, absolutely,
17:32
Speaker 1: Like these are fucking earbones. Thank god I bought them
17:34
Speaker 1: like a year ago, Like you know, it's just like
17:36
Speaker 1: I'd be so fucking paranoid.
17:38
Speaker 2: Yeah, I just bought a pair of headphones, and if
17:41
Speaker 2: this was happening here, You're right, I'd be like, well,
17:43
Speaker 2: I'm not not putting those in my fucking ears.
17:46
Speaker 1: Yeah.
17:47
Speaker 2: So, in terms of the walkie talkies, it seems like
17:50
Speaker 2: it's gonna be hard to track down where those came from.
17:54
Speaker 2: There's pictures circulating that show they come from a company
17:57
Speaker 2: called Icon, which is based in Japan. The problem is
18:01
Speaker 2: those devices, the walkie talkies, the company phased them out
18:04
Speaker 2: in twenty fourteen, including the batteries needed to power them.
18:08
Speaker 2: So that was probably some black market.
18:11
Speaker 1: So again, I've been in the security industry for a while,
18:14
Speaker 1: so like certain camera companies, right, they will be able
18:18
Speaker 1: to have their cameras, especially now with like the rise
18:20
Speaker 1: of school shooters, they'll be able now they are now
18:23
Speaker 1: able to have like their cameras like integrate with people's
18:26
Speaker 1: walkie talkies, Like no matter how long ago you bottom,
18:29
Speaker 1: is based off like our frequencies to be like there's
18:31
Speaker 1: an emergency. So even if these fucking walkie talkies were
18:35
Speaker 1: like twenty years old, all you need is obviously they infiltrated,
18:38
Speaker 1: like they infiltrated their supply chain. But like, just our
18:40
Speaker 1: f frequencies have never fucking gone out of style. There's
18:44
Speaker 1: not obsolete. We still using daily Like this wasn't like again,
18:47
Speaker 1: it wasn't complicated. It wasn't fucking complicated at all.
18:51
Speaker 2: This reminds me of a thing that happened in the
18:54
Speaker 2: United States, where I think it was maybe twenty fourteen.
18:58
Speaker 2: Also sometime around then, but we found out that the
19:02
Speaker 2: FBI had teamed up with the Best Buy geek squad
19:05
Speaker 2: and they were like, hey, there's certain people where if
19:09
Speaker 2: a computer from them comes in, we're gonna want you
19:11
Speaker 2: to notify us so we can look through that computer
19:15
Speaker 2: governments can get to your shit.
19:16
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, like super easy.
19:19
Speaker 2: And so might be harder to track the walkie talkies.
19:22
Speaker 2: But the pagers we know quite a bit about. And
19:26
Speaker 2: again I'll link to an NPR article that went deep
19:30
Speaker 2: into where these came from. The pagers in question again
19:34
Speaker 2: AR nine twenty four. In theory they are made by
19:37
Speaker 2: a Taiwan based company called gold Apollo. But the founder
19:41
Speaker 2: of gold Apollo, guy named Sue ching Qwang. We'll just
19:45
Speaker 2: call him Sue from now on.
19:47
Speaker 1: Was the pronunciation.
19:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know, I don't know if I nailed
19:51
Speaker 2: it or not.
19:51
Speaker 1: I you sounded pretty confident.
19:55
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was delivered it with confidence, but inside I'll
19:58
Speaker 2: take it quivering. He, like I mentioned earlier, kind of
20:02
Speaker 2: celebrated in Taiwan for bringing the pager back to life.
20:07
Speaker 2: And this was I think maybe ten years ago something
20:11
Speaker 2: like that. And his whole thing was, well, we'll just
20:14
Speaker 2: sell them to foreign governments. That was the pivot, and
20:17
Speaker 2: it brought pagers back to life. And it seems like
20:20
Speaker 2: it was just this guy that did it.
20:22
Speaker 1: Also, isn't like the easiest thing in the world to
20:24
Speaker 1: do to just sell to a foreign government, like you
20:26
Speaker 1: have to have previous contexts. Yeah, you know what I mean.
20:29
Speaker 1: Like again in sales, like you have to. I just
20:34
Speaker 1: can't call up like Andrews Eppers Base and it's like
20:38
Speaker 1: y'all give me the head of your puremid They'll be like, no,
20:42
Speaker 1: there's steps to follow.
20:43
Speaker 2: So yeah, they must have just sold it to one
20:47
Speaker 2: in that got the ball rolling. I don't know who knows.
20:51
Speaker 2: And so he also at one point claimed the FBI
20:55
Speaker 2: as a client. So that's interesting. Go figure. According to
20:59
Speaker 2: the NPR, Tickle Sue claims he was approached three years
21:04
Speaker 2: ago by a Taiwanese woman who he only knew as Teresa,
21:10
Speaker 2: who said she was a local rep for a Hungary
21:13
Speaker 2: based company called BAC Consulting. Here's my thing. He talks
21:19
Speaker 2: about how they negotiated for two months and she was
21:22
Speaker 2: flying back and forth to Europe to talk to her
21:25
Speaker 2: contacts there. But this whole time he never got her
21:28
Speaker 2: last name.
21:29
Speaker 1: I mean, they're usually on business cards, I would.
21:32
Speaker 2: Think, or on the documents you're signing or something.
21:35
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, it's usually something.
21:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, that part seems weird to me. Along the way,
21:40
Speaker 2: Teresa told him the company also had interests in East Africa,
21:44
Speaker 2: but never mentioned Lebanon. And when I heard that, I
21:47
Speaker 2: was like, oh, yeah, so this is military intelligence of
21:50
Speaker 2: some sort. Yeah, a matter of what country, And it's
21:53
Speaker 2: probably like I reflexively always go to CIA, but that's
21:57
Speaker 2: just because I live in the United States. It's probably Masad,
22:02
Speaker 2: but could be a team up, you know, Collabo.
22:05
Speaker 1: If somebody's bringing back like a dead form of technology, right,
22:09
Speaker 1: that's harder to track by governments, But then he's kind
22:12
Speaker 1: of selling it to governments, then like some sort of
22:15
Speaker 1: intelligence agency is going to be like, yo, I need
22:17
Speaker 1: to get my fucking hands in this to know what
22:20
Speaker 1: these other governments are fucking doing or who's communicating with what?
22:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that had to be the whole plan
22:26
Speaker 2: was all right, well pagers are back. See I think
22:30
Speaker 2: this and I don't have any proof of this. This
22:32
Speaker 2: is just my gut, but sure I think this plot
22:36
Speaker 2: started with them at least finding out that pagers were
22:40
Speaker 2: a thing again and that they were being sold to
22:42
Speaker 2: foreign governments, and by that I mean Israel. I feel like,
22:45
Speaker 2: once you find that out, it wouldn't be impossible to
22:49
Speaker 2: get someone if you have someone on the inside in
22:52
Speaker 2: Hesbola to just kind of over the course of time,
22:55
Speaker 2: get them to start pushing leadership on the idea that hey,
22:59
Speaker 2: we need to you know, smartphones. The government's all over smartphones.
23:02
Speaker 2: Israel's probably spying on our phones. We should probably just
23:05
Speaker 2: switch to a different communications system. And once they agree,
23:10
Speaker 2: you just fucking drop these poison goddamn pagers into the
23:13
Speaker 2: supply chain.
23:14
Speaker 1: Which I just don't know why you wouldn't go back
23:16
Speaker 1: to like dumb phones, right yeah, yeah, like get those
23:20
Speaker 1: old Nokia bricks.
23:21
Speaker 2: I wonder if it was an availability thing because those
23:26
Speaker 2: also are going to operate well yeah, I don't know
23:29
Speaker 2: if those would be as easy to track, but right, yeah,
23:33
Speaker 2: I don't know. I bet it was an availability thing
23:36
Speaker 2: because I would have been like, well, where are we
23:38
Speaker 2: going to find five thousand pagers? And they're like, oh,
23:41
Speaker 2: there's a guy in Taiwan. It's like, oh, okay. But
23:44
Speaker 2: the ric phones, I don't think anyone's which there is
23:47
Speaker 2: a case to be made for those huge phones. I
23:49
Speaker 2: used to work at a cell phone company and it
23:53
Speaker 2: was early two thousands, actually late nineties, and it was
23:56
Speaker 2: at a point where we were already carrying around small
24:00
Speaker 2: all our phones that we could fit in our pocket.
24:02
Speaker 2: But we would get people who would call in all
24:04
Speaker 2: the time and would switch their service from that phone
24:08
Speaker 2: to the gigantic bag phone that they also had, because
24:12
Speaker 2: those have bigger antennas and get better service in remote areas.
24:17
Speaker 2: So like if people were going camping, they would switch
24:20
Speaker 2: their service to that bag phone because in those remote
24:24
Speaker 2: areas it still worked.
24:26
Speaker 1: But I'm even talking about like those phones like in
24:28
Speaker 1: the early two thousands where they didn't even have cameras yet.
24:31
Speaker 1: You know, yeah, you could play snake on it.
24:33
Speaker 2: Oh yeah.
24:34
Speaker 1: Now I think smartphones are easier to track because of
24:37
Speaker 1: a built in like internet connectivity with the data right,
24:40
Speaker 1: so you not even you're not just getting cell phone signals.
24:42
Speaker 1: You're getting like Wi Fi and shit and GPS. Yeah,
24:45
Speaker 1: so where's those older phones? You just like got fucking
24:48
Speaker 1: cell phone signals?
24:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's probably right, but pagers.
24:52
Speaker 1: Fuck.
24:53
Speaker 2: So back to the supplier of these pages, Sue says
24:58
Speaker 2: that about a year BAC came back and asked if
25:03
Speaker 2: they could design their own products under his company's trademark,
25:07
Speaker 2: and he agreed. But and there's a very long section
25:12
Speaker 2: about this where when they approached him about this, he
25:15
Speaker 2: was like, these devices you're making they're ugly and they're
25:19
Speaker 2: really bulky. Why don't you just use my devices instead,
25:23
Speaker 2: it's going to save you money. You don't have to
25:25
Speaker 2: build your own stuff. And they were like no, no, no, no, no,
25:27
Speaker 2: we want these bulkier pages. And it's like, I wonder
25:31
Speaker 2: why you need them to be bulkier. What are you
25:34
Speaker 2: trying to fit in there?
25:35
Speaker 1: Fucking bombs?
25:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, so it seems like these pagers were designed specifically
25:41
Speaker 2: to be weapons of terror kind of. And so he
25:46
Speaker 2: also noted that the payment from BAC actually came because
25:51
Speaker 2: BAC is registered in Hungary, Budapest, Hungary, but all of
25:56
Speaker 2: his payments came from a bank account located in the
26:00
Speaker 2: Middle East that was blocked at least once by his
26:03
Speaker 2: bank in Taiwan. So then it's like, was that Hesbla
26:06
Speaker 2: or was that Massad?
26:08
Speaker 1: Probably Massad at this point.
26:09
Speaker 2: Yeah, I would suspect Massad at that point.
26:13
Speaker 1: Also, there's even like deeper conspiratorial links where a lot
26:18
Speaker 1: of Middle Eastern conspiracy theories, I guess are kind of
26:21
Speaker 1: under the thought that like Israel Massad are the ones
26:25
Speaker 1: that are like fucking creating all these terror groups to
26:28
Speaker 1: begin with.
26:28
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a thing that's been thrown around about the
26:31
Speaker 2: United States also, is that. I mean, especially with ISIS,
26:36
Speaker 2: there was the bits of suggestions that the United States
26:41
Speaker 2: had a bigger hand in making ISIS happen beyond just oh, well,
26:46
Speaker 2: we reduced those countries to rubble and that's naturally going
26:49
Speaker 2: to produce terrorists. It seems like more than that, because
26:54
Speaker 2: there's an obvious benefit to the United States war machine
26:59
Speaker 2: having anyone wreaking havoc in the Middle East, because then
27:03
Speaker 2: we can be like, we got to get involved, baby,
27:05
Speaker 2: and that's how we make our money. And I've heard
27:08
Speaker 2: that about net and Yahu. Also that with Hamas and
27:11
Speaker 2: Hesbela both, he's not been completely unresponsible for them becoming
27:17
Speaker 2: a thing.
27:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, especially like Amas.
27:19
Speaker 2: Yeah, because Hamas is super recent, right.
27:22
Speaker 1: It came into power in two thousand and eight. I
27:25
Speaker 1: believe there's more like a political party. And most of
27:28
Speaker 1: the people they didn't even get like the majority vote,
27:30
Speaker 1: I believe, right, and the people that did vote for
27:33
Speaker 1: most of them don't exist anymore because the Palestinian like
27:38
Speaker 1: age is like so young, just because they fucking killed
27:41
Speaker 1: when they're older.
27:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I mean it's not hard to figure out
27:47
Speaker 2: why a group like Hamas or Hezbola would gain more
27:52
Speaker 2: and more members over the years. It's because what countries
27:57
Speaker 2: like Israel do in the Middle East. It's because of
28:00
Speaker 2: what the United States does in the Middle East. I
28:02
Speaker 2: have no doubt that most of these groups started out
28:05
Speaker 2: very fringe. But we'll get to quotes later where even
28:07
Speaker 2: with this attack, there's people in Lebanon who are like, listen,
28:11
Speaker 2: a lot of people who didn't back has Bela before,
28:15
Speaker 2: back has Bela now, and like why wouldn't you, Like,
28:18
Speaker 2: why the fuck wouldn't you. They're they're not the ones
28:20
Speaker 2: putting bombs in three thousand fucking pages and setting them
28:23
Speaker 2: off in public market places like just out in the world. Nuts. Oh,
28:30
Speaker 2: there's one last weird detail about BAC Consulting. NPR downloaded
28:36
Speaker 2: annual reports for the last couple of years for that company.
28:40
Speaker 2: They show the firm is registered to one person, a
28:43
Speaker 2: woman named Chris Gianna Barsani are Kidiacono, and their books
28:48
Speaker 2: showed a balance of three hundred and twenty dollars as
28:53
Speaker 2: of May of this year. So that's not weird at
28:56
Speaker 2: all because if that's May, and these pagers were sold
29:00
Speaker 2: in February. Between February and April. Where's that money? I mean,
29:05
Speaker 2: I get that she might have had expenses to as
29:08
Speaker 2: far as where that money went, but if nothing else,
29:11
Speaker 2: that three hundred and twenty dollars thing to me, if
29:14
Speaker 2: she is just an innocent middle person in this as
29:18
Speaker 2: opposed to being like intelligence herself, that speaks to her
29:23
Speaker 2: being really susceptible to someone coming to her and being like,
29:27
Speaker 2: looks like your company's about to fucking fail, But we
29:30
Speaker 2: have a deal we can get you involved in. You're
29:32
Speaker 2: gonna have to do it off the books, and you're
29:34
Speaker 2: gonna have to accept some concessions on our part, but
29:38
Speaker 2: we can help you out. Because that's her job, like
29:41
Speaker 2: her BAC Consulting. They list their like about us. Their
29:46
Speaker 2: mission statement is bringing technology from Asia into Hungary. So
29:51
Speaker 2: that's what she did. Someone knew they could contact her
29:53
Speaker 2: about that. And if they had three hundred and twenty
29:57
Speaker 2: dollars on the books as of May of this year,
29:59
Speaker 2: I could see one being like.
30:01
Speaker 1: That's like an account, dude, that's an account to keep
30:03
Speaker 1: a business account open. And it's like an amount, you
30:06
Speaker 1: know what I mean, It's like the minimum amount you
30:07
Speaker 1: probably need to keep a business account open.
30:09
Speaker 2: Yeah, everything about this seems like a front. Have you
30:13
Speaker 2: looked at the business itself?
30:15
Speaker 1: Have you seen the pictures, dude, I've seen the pictures
30:16
Speaker 1: where it's like in some fucking building with just a
30:18
Speaker 1: bunch of other things there on the front front placard
30:21
Speaker 1: where it's like it's a physical address, but nobody's been there.
30:25
Speaker 2: Apparently it's like a residential building. It's like a two
30:29
Speaker 2: story house basically, or a townhouse or something. It's in
30:32
Speaker 2: the middle of a residential neighborhood and it just has
30:35
Speaker 2: a paper sign on the front door that says BAC Consulting.
30:40
Speaker 2: And it's like, that's like when I see like a
30:43
Speaker 2: wig shop open still in La and it's like, what
30:46
Speaker 2: are you afront for? There's no way you're moving that
30:49
Speaker 2: many wigs, Dude, in a storefront in La.
30:52
Speaker 1: Fucking shoe repairman, Yeah, exactly. Like I remember when I
30:57
Speaker 1: lived at Glendale, just on the main streets, we're just
31:00
Speaker 1: like old timey businesses like shoe repair man, fucking sewing
31:04
Speaker 1: machine fixers. And I'm like, yeah, okay, I'm not going
31:08
Speaker 1: to go in there.
31:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, stores that just sell bathtubs. It's like, come on,
31:12
Speaker 2: stop it, And yeah, that's what her business looks like
31:16
Speaker 2: because she I don't think she lived there. It's just like,
31:19
Speaker 2: because she's not from Hungary, she's I believe from England,
31:22
Speaker 2: or she was educated in England. She might not be there.
31:25
Speaker 2: But her quote, I don't make the pagers. I'm just
31:28
Speaker 2: the intermediate. I think you got it wrong. End quote.
31:31
Speaker 2: She sounds like Lee Harvey Oswaldering. Now that was him.
31:34
Speaker 2: After JFK. He was like, I'm just a fucking patsy man.
31:37
Speaker 2: I didn't do this, And it's very possible that she
31:41
Speaker 2: didn't know what she was doing.
31:43
Speaker 1: Sure, but like, it's funny because what you told me
31:47
Speaker 1: about this episode. I was like, there's no way conspiracies
31:50
Speaker 1: for this can be formed so quick. And it's like
31:52
Speaker 1: I'm wrong. I am so fucking wrong.
31:55
Speaker 2: Yeah. This will link to a couple articles about her.
31:59
Speaker 2: There's this, there's one from The Independent, which is a
32:03
Speaker 2: British publication that's especially interesting. It goes into more details
32:07
Speaker 2: about her. She's highly highly educated, and when I say that,
32:14
Speaker 2: I mean she got a PhD in physics and then
32:17
Speaker 2: kept going to school after that.
32:19
Speaker 1: Jesus.
32:19
Speaker 2: So I also wouldn't be surprised if she handed least
32:24
Speaker 2: some insight into how to build these things and you know,
32:28
Speaker 2: make them explode when you needed them to. A PhD
32:31
Speaker 2: in physics isn't nothing. That's not That's not a degree
32:35
Speaker 2: you get because you have a lot of money from
32:38
Speaker 2: your parents and you just don't want to start working
32:40
Speaker 2: like you gotta be fucking smart. Get a PhD in physics.
32:44
Speaker 2: That's goddamn Carl Sagan stuff. Yeah, Jesus so I don't
32:49
Speaker 2: know how much I trust that woman. One thing I
32:52
Speaker 2: did find looking into BAC Consulting is it is an
32:56
Speaker 2: unfortunately common business name out there in the world.
33:01
Speaker 1: Fucking or redirect the names or redirect the letters. It's
33:04
Speaker 1: ABC Consulting, you know what I mean. It's just a
33:06
Speaker 1: fucking phony, fucking name.
33:08
Speaker 2: Yeah. And there I found at least one BAC Consulting
33:12
Speaker 2: business that has a huge banner on their website that's like,
33:15
Speaker 2: this is not the BAC Consulting that's involved with the
33:19
Speaker 2: page or attacks, which that's gotta be such a thing.
33:21
Speaker 2: I bet people are getting inundated with calls from dummies
33:25
Speaker 2: who find the first BAC Consulting they can find on
33:29
Speaker 2: LinkedIn and are like, why did you bomb?
33:31
Speaker 1: Has blow to imagine imagine working for that company and
33:35
Speaker 1: this news comes out that BAC Consulting bought it or
33:38
Speaker 1: was like the intermediary, and you're like, holy fuck, we
33:40
Speaker 1: gotta this is. We gotta change fucking everything.
33:43
Speaker 2: Yeah. It kind of reminds me of when season one
33:47
Speaker 2: of Archer came out and then Isis came out like
33:49
Speaker 2: a year later, and like, Isis was the name of
33:53
Speaker 2: the group Archer worked for? Really yeah, I think that's
33:57
Speaker 2: how it went. I know Isis was a group in
34:00
Speaker 2: the show Archer, and I'm pretty sure it was the
34:02
Speaker 2: name of the organization he worked for. And then actual
34:05
Speaker 2: Isis happened about a year later. Whoops. So yeah, I
34:10
Speaker 2: feel like we're not getting the whole story out of
34:13
Speaker 2: this woman. And I mean that doesn't surprise me.
34:15
Speaker 1: Why would she be like, oh yeah, we work straight
34:17
Speaker 1: to this, Like well, you know what I mean, there's
34:19
Speaker 1: no benefit for her to do that.
34:21
Speaker 2: She also looks like a spy really, Oh did you
34:24
Speaker 2: look at her? I mean she looks like a spy
34:26
Speaker 2: the way Angelina Jolie looks like a spy in that
34:29
Speaker 2: she kind of looks like Angelina Joe Lee and oh
34:32
Speaker 2: sure she was in that Salt movie. But yeah, she's
34:35
Speaker 2: got international intrigue looks. Yeah.
34:38
Speaker 1: Yeah, if she approaches you.
34:40
Speaker 2: In a bar and you work for a government, don't
34:42
Speaker 2: go for it. When she starts hitting on you. She's
34:45
Speaker 2: out of your league. She just wants your secrets.
34:47
Speaker 1: She does have crazy eyes.
34:49
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. So one of the things that I've seen
34:55
Speaker 2: talked about in regards to this, and I mean, I
34:58
Speaker 2: guess why people are asking, but was this really a
35:01
Speaker 2: war crime? And it's like, well, first of all, it's
35:03
Speaker 2: just terrorism. That's one thing. Like it's beyond a war crime.
35:08
Speaker 2: I don't know which is higher on the hierarchy of
35:11
Speaker 2: dastardly acts.
35:13
Speaker 1: But I think they're like synonymous, right.
35:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, they got to be pretty much the same. Yeah,
35:18
Speaker 2: But we'll link to a few different articles about it.
35:20
Speaker 2: There's one that was published on the West Point website
35:23
Speaker 2: that uses a lot of legal talk to like kind
35:27
Speaker 2: of tap dance around whether this was a war crime
35:30
Speaker 2: or not. And it's like, of course, you're not going
35:32
Speaker 2: to come right out and say it this point, but
35:36
Speaker 2: it seems like most sources and experts seem to agree
35:40
Speaker 2: that just the lack of regard for civilian casualties alone
35:45
Speaker 2: is a war crime. According to several different statutes and
35:49
Speaker 2: also disregarding how much civilian casualty there would be because
35:54
Speaker 2: they didn't have any way of knowing where these devices
35:56
Speaker 2: were going to go off. No, when the walkie talkies
35:59
Speaker 2: went off, one of them went off at a funeral.
36:01
Speaker 1: Like one of them thea the clip going around is
36:04
Speaker 1: a guy who's like a grocery store clerk and he's
36:06
Speaker 1: fucking by the watermelons and it sh blows up.
36:09
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a kid right next to him.
36:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, and kids looking up like, who the fuck hit
36:12
Speaker 1: this guy?
36:13
Speaker 2: Yeah. There's a former State Department official who was interviewed
36:16
Speaker 2: by the Intercept and he points to something called the
36:20
Speaker 2: Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons that prohibits quote the use
36:25
Speaker 2: of booby traps or other devices in the form of
36:28
Speaker 2: harmless portable objects which are specifically designed and constructed to
36:33
Speaker 2: contain explosive material end quote. And so that's that would
36:37
Speaker 2: also include like putting a bomb inside what looks like
36:40
Speaker 2: a wrapped birthday gift.
36:43
Speaker 1: Or like a sandwich, like they would bugs money.
36:46
Speaker 2: With it, and just leaving it out for someone to find, Like,
36:49
Speaker 2: you don't know who's going to find. That could be
36:50
Speaker 2: a kid that finds it. You never know, yeah, and
36:53
Speaker 2: it is a thing that Israel, Lebanon, and the United
36:58
Speaker 2: States all agreed to was that we would not do this,
37:03
Speaker 2: and seems like we did it. I mean Israel definitely
37:06
Speaker 2: not US oh Man. And here are a couple of
37:10
Speaker 2: quotes also just to further drive home the idea that
37:14
Speaker 2: this was a war crime. This is Jessica Peak, international
37:17
Speaker 2: law professor at UCLA School of Law. I think detonating
37:20
Speaker 2: pagers in people's pockets without any knowledge of where those
37:24
Speaker 2: are in that moment is a pretty evident indiscriminate attack.
37:28
Speaker 2: I think this seems to be quite blatant both violations
37:32
Speaker 2: of proportionality and indiscriminate attacks end quote. And then this
37:36
Speaker 2: is vulgar chirk UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. Simultaneous
37:41
Speaker 2: targeting of thousands of individuals, whether civilians or members of
37:45
Speaker 2: armed groups, without knowledge as to who was in possession
37:48
Speaker 2: of the targeted devices, their location, and their surroundings at
37:52
Speaker 2: the time of the attack violates international human rights law
37:56
Speaker 2: and to the extent applicable international humanitarian law end quote.
38:01
Speaker 1: Again, Israel always had nearly a year of going hard
38:04
Speaker 1: in war crimes, so not surprised.
38:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, there aren't there warrants out for yes, Yahoo over
38:12
Speaker 2: defense minister. Yeah, yeah, for targeting civilians using starvation as
38:18
Speaker 2: a weapon. So, I mean, in the big scheme of things,
38:22
Speaker 2: as crazy as it sounds, this is kind of minor
38:24
Speaker 2: in terms of the shit Israel's gotten up to over
38:27
Speaker 2: the past year or so.
38:29
Speaker 1: This past year, they've killed more kids than like any
38:33
Speaker 1: other conflict or any other country in the last century. Yeah,
38:36
Speaker 1: I mean, I.
38:37
Speaker 2: Wouldn't be surprised if it's a nine to eleven worth
38:39
Speaker 2: of kids alone.
38:40
Speaker 1: It's like over twenty thousand, Like it's a lot of
38:42
Speaker 1: fucking kids. Oh so that's like six nine elevens.
38:44
Speaker 2: At least, yeah, seven eight nine elevens.
38:46
Speaker 1: Yeah, we refused hug metrics, so we measured things at
38:48
Speaker 1: nine to eleven.
38:51
Speaker 2: So I guess we have reached the conspiracy section of
38:55
Speaker 2: this episode, in that we know who did this, We
38:59
Speaker 2: roughly know why did it. What we don't know is
39:02
Speaker 2: how involved the United States was in all of this.
39:05
Speaker 2: And here's the thing we know, like we know if
39:09
Speaker 2: the United States knew, like the United States had to
39:12
Speaker 2: fucking know.
39:14
Speaker 1: It's just green light it. I think at least the
39:16
Speaker 1: greenlit Yeah, and.
39:18
Speaker 2: That's kind of our job when it comes to Israel
39:20
Speaker 2: is to like stand back and be like, whoa we
39:23
Speaker 2: told them not to, Like we said, don't escalate things. Nah,
39:28
Speaker 2: they did it anyway.
39:30
Speaker 1: We're kind of like their cool parents where they're like,
39:32
Speaker 1: we want to know the bad stuff, but we're not
39:34
Speaker 1: going to judge you. Yeah. It's fucking insane.
39:37
Speaker 2: It really is. One of the first really high profile
39:42
Speaker 2: voices to come out in question whether the United States
39:46
Speaker 2: is involved in this is Alexandria Acascio Cortes, who posted
39:52
Speaker 2: on Twitter the following this is kind of long. Israel's
39:56
Speaker 2: pager attack in Lebanon detonated thousands of handheld devices across
39:59
Speaker 2: a s of public places, seriously injuring and killing innocent civilians.
40:04
Speaker 2: This attack clearly and unequivocally violates international humanitarian law and
40:09
Speaker 2: undermines US efforts to prevent a wider conflict. Congress needs
40:13
Speaker 2: a full accounting of the attack, including an answer from
40:16
Speaker 2: the State Department as to whether any US assistance went
40:19
Speaker 2: into the development or deployment of this technology. End quote.
40:24
Speaker 2: Didn't she vote to fund Israel too?
40:26
Speaker 1: That's what I'm saying. It seems super performative. Yeah, just
40:30
Speaker 1: to kind of keep her like constituents, like you know, yeah.
40:33
Speaker 2: It feels like wrestling almost the American government. I've said
40:39
Speaker 2: that a bunch of times. The American government in general,
40:41
Speaker 2: to me, feels like wrestling where everyone's on the same track.
40:46
Speaker 2: They know how things are going to go. It's just
40:49
Speaker 2: they have to pretend to fight sometimes. Oh yeah, you
40:53
Speaker 2: got to have different characters so the entirety of the
40:56
Speaker 2: audience resonates with someone.
40:59
Speaker 1: I remember when I was like a college I was
41:00
Speaker 1: doing like like electure like roady type work for like
41:03
Speaker 1: events back in DC. So I was in Congress a lot,
41:07
Speaker 1: and like you would see like on the news these
41:09
Speaker 1: two congress people like arguing and shit, but then like
41:12
Speaker 1: right after the event they were like shaking hands in
41:14
Speaker 1: like high five it. Like you I would just see
41:16
Speaker 1: that as like a fucking roady And I was like, Oh,
41:19
Speaker 1: it's all bullshit. It's all bullshit.
41:21
Speaker 2: Yeah, I say all the time, when the two sides
41:24
Speaker 2: of our government agree on something, we're fucked like. It's
41:28
Speaker 2: usually something bad. It's never going to be something beneficial.
41:32
Speaker 2: Immigration is the one I point to the most Democrats
41:36
Speaker 2: talk a good game when it comes to being more
41:39
Speaker 2: pro immigration than Republicans, but Biden deported more people from Trump.
41:43
Speaker 2: Obama deported more people than Trump. Sure, no matter what
41:47
Speaker 2: they say, I think the United States is of one
41:51
Speaker 2: mind when it comes to immigration. As a government in
41:54
Speaker 2: Israel too.
41:55
Speaker 1: I think giving money Israel, yeah, and supporting them no
41:58
Speaker 1: matter what.
41:59
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. I think even when people within the government
42:02
Speaker 2: complain about funding Israel, even if they mean it, they
42:07
Speaker 2: know there's not really any point in.
42:10
Speaker 1: Let me look at the polls now where they are
42:12
Speaker 1: like seventy percent more people whatever would sport Kamala Harris
42:16
Speaker 1: if she calls for a ceasefire, right and she just
42:19
Speaker 1: still has it, Yeah, it'd be the layup to make
42:22
Speaker 1: you win, to give you a surefire win and she refuses.
42:26
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, Which that's insane to me. And I don't know,
42:30
Speaker 2: like how long do they think this kind of situation
42:34
Speaker 2: can hold where you can constantly be like, hey, we're
42:37
Speaker 2: the fucking world police, baby, We're out here making sure
42:41
Speaker 2: everyone's safe and sound, and it's like we're funding terrorism, dude.
42:45
Speaker 1: That myth of like Western morality of like where the
42:49
Speaker 1: police is fucking going out the window like October eighth,
42:52
Speaker 1: like fucking were weird, no fucking better, Like I don't know.
42:56
Speaker 1: You always at least see people like kind of like
43:00
Speaker 1: Middle Eastern leaders for how they handle things, like they're like, oh,
43:04
Speaker 1: it was fucking Saudi's are terrible for what they did
43:07
Speaker 1: to a journalist, but like we're funding a genocide. We
43:10
Speaker 1: can't really talk shit anymore.
43:12
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think we've also killed some journalists.
43:15
Speaker 1: Oh for sure. Yeah, we're just not we just don't
43:18
Speaker 1: do it.
43:18
Speaker 2: On Zoom calls in the Turkish consulate.
43:21
Speaker 1: And then wears clothes.
43:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, we've we faked a car accident like fucking professionals.
43:28
Speaker 1: Yeah, we do. So.
43:30
Speaker 2: One of the first conspiracies that went around about this
43:35
Speaker 2: is one that claims officials at American University of Beirut
43:40
Speaker 2: Medical Center knew this attack was coming, and just hearing
43:43
Speaker 2: that name, I'm like, yeah, they probably knew. I wouldn't
43:46
Speaker 2: be like someone had to tell them.
43:47
Speaker 1: I mean, that's that's the biggest university in like Lebanon
43:51
Speaker 1: and probably the best university in the Least. Like when
43:53
Speaker 1: I lived in midd Least, that was the target school
43:56
Speaker 1: for like a lot of my friends. So AUB, Yeah,
43:59
Speaker 1: that was like this goal in the Middle East was AUB.
44:03
Speaker 2: And the reason people suspect them of having some advanced
44:07
Speaker 2: knowledge of this. Is they, by sheer coincidence, switched to
44:11
Speaker 2: a new pager system on August twenty ninth, And I
44:16
Speaker 2: agree that that is weirdly coincidental timing. This story is
44:22
Speaker 2: really indicative of how we treat conspiracy theories in this
44:27
Speaker 2: country or just kind of in the world in general
44:29
Speaker 2: right now, at least in a mainstream way. Someone pointed
44:32
Speaker 2: this out that hey, you switched to your systems on
44:35
Speaker 2: the twenty ninth, You're an American institution. Did you maybe
44:38
Speaker 2: know something was happening? And they issue a statement on
44:42
Speaker 2: Instagram and are like, no, we didn't know. We actually
44:46
Speaker 2: started planning this switch back in April and just happened
44:51
Speaker 2: to implement it on August twenty ninth. And in the
44:55
Speaker 2: world we're living in to a lot of people, that
44:57
Speaker 2: counts as this theory being debunked. We asked the people
45:00
Speaker 2: in question, and they said, no, what the fuck are
45:03
Speaker 2: they supposed to say? You think they're just gonna put
45:06
Speaker 2: their hands up and be like, ah, you got us,
45:08
Speaker 2: We did know. How'd you figure it out? Like of
45:10
Speaker 2: course they're gonna say no. And this thing where they say, oh,
45:14
Speaker 2: we started planning it in April. That's more suspicious because
45:18
Speaker 2: that's when Hesbela bought these fucking pagers. That's around the
45:22
Speaker 2: time Israel would have found out that Hesbela was buying
45:25
Speaker 2: these pages. That actually lines up fucking perfect with them
45:30
Speaker 2: knowing that this was maybe gonna happen. That doesn't like
45:33
Speaker 2: make me less suspicious at all.
45:34
Speaker 1: No, that yeah, it's like almost too perfect it. I
45:38
Speaker 1: don't know, Like I feel like institutions usually make their
45:41
Speaker 1: decisions when school ends, so like maybe like I'll give
45:46
Speaker 1: it like a teen percent chance it's pure coincidence. Yeah,
45:49
Speaker 1: but no, it's too perfect.
45:52
Speaker 2: A very good time Jesus. And it would also be
45:56
Speaker 2: such good cover for Israel because if they switched, if
46:02
Speaker 2: they had advanced knowledge of this and they switched their
46:04
Speaker 2: pager systems, that would kind of apply that maybe they
46:07
Speaker 2: were using these pages before. Yeah, and for Israel that's
46:11
Speaker 2: good cover because they're like fucking people have been using
46:14
Speaker 2: these pages forever with no problems. Of course we didn't
46:17
Speaker 2: tamper with them.
46:18
Speaker 1: Put again in a medical setting, like I get it,
46:20
Speaker 1: because it's stronger frequencies and more reliable signal. Why you'd
46:23
Speaker 1: have pagers like I get that. Yeah, but fuck but
46:26
Speaker 1: to have the only thing that like says American in
46:30
Speaker 1: like Lebanon would be the safe one is fucking not
46:34
Speaker 1: a good. Look.
46:34
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's weird timing, if nothing else. You brought up
46:39
Speaker 2: something right before we started recording that I didn't have
46:43
Speaker 2: in the notes.
46:44
Speaker 1: So the UN recently passed the resolution to like end
46:47
Speaker 1: essentially and Israel's occupation in Palestine, where they've called for
46:52
Speaker 1: Israeli settlers to and armies to like leave those palaceteating
46:56
Speaker 1: settlements and give Palestine like a statehood within like twelve months.
47:00
Speaker 1: This happened like yesterday day. It was super super recent, right,
47:04
Speaker 1: so it's like it kind of makes sense, like even
47:07
Speaker 1: pay Palestinians like reparations and give them back their land
47:10
Speaker 1: like it's shit like that, So it kind of makes sense,
47:13
Speaker 1: Like did you know Israel definitely got a heads up
47:16
Speaker 1: this is coming down to pipeline, Yeah, to fucking start
47:19
Speaker 1: like a regional war to be like, how can we
47:22
Speaker 1: give the Palestinians back their land within twelve months when
47:25
Speaker 1: we're at war with Lebanon now, because like how much
47:27
Speaker 1: longer can they realistically keep bombing Gaza? You know, there's
47:31
Speaker 1: really nothing there anymore. So it just kind of makes
47:35
Speaker 1: sense to also kind of keep those like shitty to
47:39
Speaker 1: keep like that now yahoo and power. It can't be like,
47:42
Speaker 1: oh I need to transfer power. I can't do it now.
47:45
Speaker 1: They weren't a war, Like, come on, guys, like it
47:48
Speaker 1: makes fucking perfect sense to fucking start this war with Lebanon.
47:53
Speaker 1: Just keep everything status quo.
47:55
Speaker 2: And also if you can win that war quick enough,
47:59
Speaker 2: you can just be like, give back what land. We
48:01
Speaker 2: just fucking won this in a war, baby, that's ours.
48:04
Speaker 2: Now you figure out somewhere for people to go. Yeah,
48:07
Speaker 2: I wouldn't be surprised if that has a lot to
48:09
Speaker 2: do with them launching this when they did.
48:12
Speaker 1: I let's say because right, because it's like it makes
48:15
Speaker 1: it makes fucking perfect sense to be like, dude, we're
48:17
Speaker 1: in a war now, we can't give up land. I
48:20
Speaker 1: don't know, it just makes perfect sense.
48:23
Speaker 2: And in the context of the war they're already fighting,
48:27
Speaker 2: the one in Gaza. I have an article in here
48:30
Speaker 2: about the Israeli media response, and even among that crowd
48:36
Speaker 2: that's like, well, yeah, we got to defend ourselves, which
48:39
Speaker 2: is not all of the Israeli media. Some of Israeli
48:42
Speaker 2: media's like, what the fuck? But it seems like the
48:45
Speaker 2: consensus among both of those groups, even if you're like, oh,
48:50
Speaker 2: good job on taking out a bunch of hes Bulla fighters,
48:52
Speaker 2: the consensus is, but what's the point. What is this
48:56
Speaker 2: going to fucking accomplish? Because their goal, their argument is, oh,
49:01
Speaker 2: we want to you know, get people back to northern Israel,
49:06
Speaker 2: and the only way we can do it is to
49:08
Speaker 2: fight Hesbela. And people's obvious question is this is just
49:12
Speaker 2: going to escalate things with Hesbela. How is that gonna
49:16
Speaker 2: make it safer to return people to northern Israel? And
49:19
Speaker 2: the answer is it's not. That's just no, they're lying
49:22
Speaker 2: to have an excuse to do.
49:24
Speaker 1: This, and it's like another war that like we're paying
49:26
Speaker 1: for as Americans, right.
49:28
Speaker 2: And another concern that Israelis who are opposed to this
49:33
Speaker 2: have is, well, you just told us that the war
49:36
Speaker 2: with Hamas is like on the verge of wrapping up,
49:39
Speaker 2: like total victory over Hamas, like not wrapping up in
49:42
Speaker 2: the good way, although there's no good way it could
49:44
Speaker 2: wrap up. No, But so a lot of people's questions, well,
49:48
Speaker 2: you just told us that's almost over, and now you're
49:51
Speaker 2: launching like a whole fucking new war with Lebanon, right,
49:54
Speaker 2: and it seems like Israel is just like right, correct,
49:57
Speaker 2: you are correct.
49:58
Speaker 1: And and again it's also like with in these twelve months,
50:01
Speaker 1: like countries can't do business with Israel anymore. Country like
50:05
Speaker 1: obviously America is still because they don't give a fuck
50:07
Speaker 1: about the UN sure, but like so they're gonna be
50:10
Speaker 1: fighting like a war or a secondary front funded solely
50:13
Speaker 1: by America, and like really fucking continue to tank their economy,
50:17
Speaker 1: like their economies with fucking tanking since Diska's a conflict
50:21
Speaker 1: because countries and businesses don't want to do business in
50:23
Speaker 1: a fucking war zone. Yeah, of course except America to
50:26
Speaker 1: the military industrial complex.
50:28
Speaker 2: And you don't want to do business with someone who's
50:30
Speaker 2: using starvation as a weapon.
50:31
Speaker 1: That's no, it's not a good look, such a bad look.
50:34
Speaker 2: But I mean the United States doesn't care about a
50:37
Speaker 2: bad look.
50:38
Speaker 1: No, we would, We would have a Nike ad there
50:40
Speaker 1: right now, becauld Yeah, we don't go a fuck.
50:43
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I could see us running a just do
50:46
Speaker 2: it campaign regarding Palestine. I mean, that's what's happening with
50:51
Speaker 2: fucking right wingers. Nikki Haley visited Israel, not too long
50:55
Speaker 2: ago and was writing finished them on their bossizing bombs.
50:59
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, it's like, god, damn, it's just fucking it's
51:03
Speaker 1: fucking goal. So we're a country run by fucking goals
51:08
Speaker 1: to just care about money like a crazy I don't
51:12
Speaker 1: Oh no, man, I don't get it, maybe because I
51:14
Speaker 1: don't have that kind of money yet to be like
51:16
Speaker 1: we need to fucking do this. But it's fucking gross.
51:19
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah it is. And so speaking of that
51:24
Speaker 2: escalation that people within Israel are worried about, obviously, people
51:29
Speaker 2: in Lebanon are worried about it also, especially government officials.
51:33
Speaker 2: This is a quote from Lebanon's Minister of Economy, A
51:38
Speaker 2: Mean Salaam, speaking to CNBC. It's definitely a very serious escalation.
51:43
Speaker 2: I don't see any act of escalation that will not
51:46
Speaker 2: lead to provocation, and that is what we fear most
51:49
Speaker 2: because what happened yesterday will only trigger more escalation into
51:52
Speaker 2: the conflict. This will be a very very dangerous forty
51:56
Speaker 2: eight hours that this country will witness to see how
51:59
Speaker 2: the reaction will be end quote. And it seems like
52:03
Speaker 2: provocation is at least part of the point here with Israel.
52:07
Speaker 2: I think they want to launch this as an all
52:10
Speaker 2: out war, and I'm sure they're expecting the response they
52:14
Speaker 2: get from this is going to be enough that they can,
52:18
Speaker 2: at least in their own minds and to their constituents,
52:21
Speaker 2: justify an even more intense response, which buckle up Lebanon.
52:27
Speaker 1: But it's like Israel's not even like that good at war. Yeah,
52:31
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying, Like they're still good, they're
52:33
Speaker 1: getting sucked up by like Hamas soldiers with gorilla warfare.
52:38
Speaker 1: They're like a Star Wars defense system hasn't or Iron Curtain.
52:42
Speaker 2: Excuse me, Iron Dome. I think it is right.
52:45
Speaker 1: Iron Dome has not protected or stopped anything. Like They're
52:50
Speaker 1: not good at this.
52:52
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I think the issue is they just
52:56
Speaker 2: have so much more money, that's sure. That's one of
52:59
Speaker 2: the things that keeps coming up here is like, as
53:02
Speaker 2: I've been reading about even this in particular, is even
53:05
Speaker 2: this pager attack just demonstrates that they have so many
53:10
Speaker 2: more resources than the people they are fighting or terrorizing, colonizing,
53:15
Speaker 2: whatever you want to call it. They just have such
53:18
Speaker 2: an advantage that I think that's why they haven't just
53:23
Speaker 2: launched a ground invasion like they keep threatening to do,
53:25
Speaker 2: because you got to kill a lot of people first
53:28
Speaker 2: for that to work. Otherwise, you're sure. There is a
53:31
Speaker 2: pretty long history of countries invading other Middle Eastern countries
53:35
Speaker 2: and that shit does not go well. Ask Russia, as
53:39
Speaker 2: the United States, ask any number of countries. It's not
53:43
Speaker 2: nothing pulling off a ground invasion in the Middle East.
53:47
Speaker 1: And it's not quick either, right, Like, it's not quick.
53:51
Speaker 2: It's crazy terrain that you have to deal with. You're
53:54
Speaker 2: not I mean, this attack hit people in fucking markets
53:58
Speaker 2: and things. But once launch a real ground invasion, Oh,
54:02
Speaker 2: you're gonna have to go some places. And yeah, I
54:04
Speaker 2: wouldn't be surprised if stuff like this is just a
54:07
Speaker 2: means of softening Lebanon up for that ground invasion.
54:11
Speaker 1: You know. It's yeah, who knows fucking awful it is?
54:15
Speaker 2: And uh yeah, here's one more quote before we get
54:19
Speaker 2: out of here. Oh Amin Salam did also mention that,
54:23
Speaker 2: and I talked about this earlier. These attacks have rallied
54:26
Speaker 2: people behind Hesbela who were not Hesbela supporters before, and
54:30
Speaker 2: it's like, yeah, that's what war crimes usually do. That's
54:34
Speaker 2: usually how that works is the more aggressive the entity
54:39
Speaker 2: that the so called terrorists are fighting. The more aggressive
54:42
Speaker 2: that entity gets, the more people rally around those quote
54:47
Speaker 2: unquote terrorists, And of course it's fucking happening here. Of course,
54:51
Speaker 2: this is gonna make people within Lebanon be even more
54:55
Speaker 2: anti Israel than they might have been before.
54:57
Speaker 1: But it's also like, which like Middle Eastern state is
55:01
Speaker 1: going to help find Lebanon as well, you know what
55:03
Speaker 1: I mean, Like how much longer can like Israel keep
55:08
Speaker 1: attack in these countries without other Middle Eastern countries mobilizing
55:12
Speaker 1: if Saudi Arabia was like, yeah, we'll fucking back you
55:14
Speaker 1: a little bit.
55:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, like or Iran, I mean Iran the whole reason Hesbla,
55:20
Speaker 2: I mean not the whole reason Hesbela is kind of
55:22
Speaker 2: aiding Hamas in this situation because a lot of the
55:25
Speaker 2: attacks from Lebanon, in Hesbela's own words, is well, we're
55:30
Speaker 2: trying to like draw resources away from them, yeah, turning
55:34
Speaker 2: Gaza into rubble and hopefully pulling some of their forces
55:37
Speaker 2: up here so they can go a little softer on Gaza.
55:41
Speaker 2: And part of the reason they're doing that is they
55:44
Speaker 2: are part of something called the Axis of Resistance, which
55:50
Speaker 2: is a term that was brought to life after George w.
55:55
Speaker 2: Bush called Iran North Korea and was it Afghanistan the
56:02
Speaker 2: evil And in response, the Axis of Resistance was formed,
56:08
Speaker 2: which it's kind of inn informal coalition led by Iran
56:14
Speaker 2: that also includes Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and Palestinian groups. And
56:22
Speaker 2: it seems like they are sort of the like a
56:26
Speaker 2: sort of NATO type of thing for these Middle Eastern
56:30
Speaker 2: countries where they agree that if one of them is
56:32
Speaker 2: being attacked by the West or by Israel, which is
56:35
Speaker 2: the same thing, then they will help each other in
56:39
Speaker 2: that fight. And because Lebanon and Gaza are so close,
56:43
Speaker 2: it stands to reason that Lebanon would be the first
56:46
Speaker 2: one to step in. So, yeah, this has so much
56:50
Speaker 2: potential to turn into just full on, like full like
56:55
Speaker 2: large scale warfare in the Middle East. And then fucking
56:59
Speaker 2: side are we to fight on? Obviously we're we're fight
57:05
Speaker 2: fight on the side that's committing the genocide. Yeah, we're
57:08
Speaker 2: not the good guys, you say, Yeah, we are not
57:14
Speaker 2: the fucking good guys in this.
57:16
Speaker 1: I mean, look at all the congress people and the
57:18
Speaker 1: politicians that like Apak Pays. Yeah, we are not going
57:23
Speaker 1: against Israel.
57:24
Speaker 2: No, which is a bummer. It's it's for lack of
57:29
Speaker 2: a better way. I mean, there's a lot of other
57:31
Speaker 2: ways to do it, but yeah, this sucks. This is
57:34
Speaker 2: it's frustrating because there are so many people around the
57:38
Speaker 2: world calling for Israel to fucking stop this. And yeah,
57:45
Speaker 2: the International Criminal Court that is warrants, like and it's
57:50
Speaker 2: it's gonna take someone fucking invading Israel. I think, yeah,
57:55
Speaker 2: and then that's gonna probably that's gonna turn into a
57:58
Speaker 2: whole goddamn thing. But but yeah, like I said, Usa, baby,
58:02
Speaker 2: So I think that's our episode.
58:04
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, I think like, shit sucks. Yeah, and it's
58:08
Speaker 1: only gonna get worse.
58:09
Speaker 2: Yeah, I imagine by the time this even goes up,
58:12
Speaker 2: which is a day from now, it's probably gonna be
58:16
Speaker 2: significantly worse than it is right now.
58:18
Speaker 1: I mean I was checking my phone during the episode
58:20
Speaker 1: for like to see if any updates had come in
58:22
Speaker 1: terms of retaliation.
58:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know Israel has already started attacking other targets
58:27
Speaker 2: in Lebanon since they did this, but there weren't a
58:30
Speaker 2: ton of details about it by the time we started recording. Yeah,
58:34
Speaker 2: this is bad. It's bad, and it's gonna get worse
58:37
Speaker 2: and get a lot worse. Man, But Hey, thank you
58:42
Speaker 2: for doing the episode. I appreciate it. We thank you
58:45
Speaker 2: for doing my comedy podcast, Conspiracy Show.
58:49
Speaker 1: And I'm glad to be your Middle East of correspondent
58:51
Speaker 1: on this.
58:52
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I yeah, I appreciate the perspective you
58:56
Speaker 2: brought to it.
58:58
Speaker 1: Dude, No, it's it's crazy. Israel's been fucking pulling this
59:02
Speaker 1: shit for fucking decades decades. It's and like an American
59:07
Speaker 1: medium doesn't care or views them as like the victim,
59:11
Speaker 1: especially again when you label everybody as like Hasbla or
59:14
Speaker 1: everybody's hamas and.
59:15
Speaker 2: Everyone who criticizes Israel as an anti semi Also.
59:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's just fucking it's just fucking lazy. It's just
59:22
Speaker 1: fucking lazy, and like, it's just lazy, it's a lazy
59:26
Speaker 1: an immoral Yeah.
59:27
Speaker 2: So this seems like a good time to plug stuff, right,
59:30
Speaker 2: I got nothing. I have a solo podcast called in
59:33
Speaker 2: Broad Daylight that people can listen to where I also
59:35
Speaker 2: talk about shit like this, but also things happening domestically,
59:39
Speaker 2: like how immigrants are being demonized in this country right now.
59:43
Speaker 2: You can get that wherever podcasts are at, or you
59:45
Speaker 2: can watch it on YouTube at Adam Tiger and your substack,
59:49
Speaker 2: oh yes, and on my substack at Adam Todd Brown
59:51
Speaker 2: or Adam tod Brown dot substack dot com. You don't
59:53
Speaker 2: got nothing to plug. No, all right, sorry, no, let's
59:59
Speaker 2: get the fuck out of here. A TIFFs say goodbye,
1:00:03
Speaker 2: goodbye everybody. We love you.
1:00:28
Speaker 1: Sh