It Could Happen Here Weekly 224

talk about private maritime security today. The reason why, of course, is that Iran is currently attacking boats in the Strait of Horn Moves and elsewhere.

goes through the State of hormor Moves. And this is a longstanding issue, right, I think probably lots of listeners won't be aware of the long history of private security on ships. Right, I'm only going to talk about this in the context of the twenty first century, but this goes a lot further back. It's largely a consequence of the way the law governs the ocean. It's actually the same Wow. Sorry, yah, daddy long legs. I don't know if it's an American word for that that. I don't know,

Daddy long legs. That's okay, Yeah, absolute unit has just entered my office space. A world LM be the reason that we can have private security contractors, often with machine guns, etc. On boats. It's the same reason that horrific labor abuses are perpetrated on boats on a daily basis. Right, Perhaps the most well documented are among the most well documented are the ones off Thailand on fishing ships, which often

involve Burmese refugees or people fleeing Mianma. Right there, essentially enslaved on these boats or in sort of indentured servitude of trying to quote unquote pay off their trip out of the country they were fleeing. Right, I'm not talking about labor abuses today. I want to talk more about private security. Most of security provided two boats in the world in general is not provided by states. It is

provided by private military contractors. Right earlier on in the twentieth century, the typical profile of one of these people would have been that they'd left the military and a state in the global north. They had found let's say, life for employment in the civilian world to be difficult for them. And I've met a number of these people

in a number of places. Many of them went to parts of Africa thinking that they were going to work protecting wildlife and then ending up protecting large container ships instead, or attempting to work for a company that would one day let them protect wildlife or something similar. Generally, the companies they end up working for are generally referred to as private maritime security companies pmsc's, as opposed to PMC private military contractor, although it is a version of the

same thing. Generally, these companies offer a shipping company a sort of package, and it's not just armed. Security also include stuff like intelligence, crisis response, and potential intervention. I spoke to someone, for instance, who had worked for a shipping company and his major job was to deal with when people were kidnapped off the boats. He would then either go and rescue the people or negotiate with the people who would kidnapped them.

Right before this, piracy had existed mostly in Southeast Asia. On piracy has guested for as long as people going on boats has existed, right but specifically paracy off Southeast Asia had before this been more of a like a smash and grab kind of situation, like turn up, take

what you can leave. What was distinct in this piracy that we began to see from like two thousand and eight onwards was that pirates were either trying to see the entire cargo of a vessel the vessel itself, or to kidnap people from the vessel and hold them for ransom. I guess the most high profile case was called the Mayerscalabama. Are you familiar with this one?

they went in this safe room. Well, they captured the captain of the ship pretty quickly. The ship didn't have any means of defending itself other than it tried to like I'm not a massive boat, understander, It tried to use its rudder to swamp the pirate ship as it was coming up, so like kind of flick it that that didn't work. Yeah, And one member of the ship's crew who hid himself with a knife and successfully subdued and captured the leader of the pirates, and the crew

then attempted to trade this person for their captain. They tied up the pirate who they had captured, attempted to trade him for their captain. The pirates took the leader of the pirates that then never gave the crew their captain and then made off in a lifeboat with a large amount of cash and the captain. This resulted in a standoff. Now, the Meskalabama was I believe a US flagged ship. It may have been a US Dutch ship, but it was flagged to like a nation in the

major in the global north right. This would become relevant later. The United States sent two boats which proceeded to engage in a standoff with the lifeboat for several days, where they first attempted to drop a SAT phone and a mobile phone to the pirates in the lifeboat. The pirates through those in the ocean because they thought that they were using them to communicate with the captain of the ship.

At one point, the captain, who they'd held hostage, ended up in the ocean, but then he got back into the lifeboat. The situation was resolved eventually by the Navy seals shooting all the pirates. They were based on one of the US ships, and they used sniper rifles to shoot the pirates. Really yep, they shot them all off the lifeboat while the captain of the ship was also

in the lifeboat. WHOA yeah, no, then I would be shocked if that's not a film about this, or I know the captain of the ship has written a book about his time being captured. But obviously, like this kind of rattled the world, right, It scared a lot of people, specifically in the shipping industry, because this is a scary thing to happen, and specifically this change in the nature

of piracy from taking stuff to potentially capturing people. And I believe the goal of the pirates here was to get the captain ashore where they could hide him more easily, right in Somalia. And then it becomes entirely different issue when you're trying to get US troops into a completely different country to rescue someone a different land mass. Yeah. Yeah, And I think it's really important to talk about like the jurisdictional issues here because they are what gives the

PMSCs so much leeway. I think we'll take a little break talking about jurisdiction and we will come back. All right, we're back. So to understand private maritime security companies, you've got to understand the world of flags of convenience. First. Are you familiar with flags the convenience garrison? No?

You will often see flags of a few countries. The most common ones are Liberia, Panama, and the Republic of the Marshall Islands. The reason that boat own might choose let's say you Garrison have a boat right there, you shipping company Garrison Davis Boats Incorporated, and you don't want to register them in Canada or the United States. Might be to avoid tax liability. Might be to avoid like what you consider to be burdens and safety regulations, okay.

Might be to avoid the frustrating constraints of Canadian labor law. Or it might be to avoid some ecological constraints on your boats which your flag nation might impose. And generally flags of convenience have very little in the way of taxation and regulation, right and so people might choose to flag their vessel in Liberia, Panama, Publican Marshall Islands, Hong

Kong instead to avoid some of those issues. Right now, The issue comes when you read say you register your boat in Liberia and your boat is off on its way delivering things, and then some pirates seize your boat.

weaponry they held on your boat. Ah, the rmiders the Marshall Islands does just regulate somewhat the weaponry that the Marshal Islands flagged boats could have. I think the reason there are so many boats flagged in the Marshall Islands, at least in part, is because half the world's tuna is caught in Marshall Islands waters. So a lot of those vessels will probably have they'll choose to have the Marshal Islands flag because it allows them to fish in

territorial waters. Would be my guess. I've met some some contractors on Marshal Lea's boat, so I'm not a guy who was a helicopter pilot for a tuna fishing boat in a bar once. I guess they fly the helicopter to look for the fish and then the boat comes and catches the fish. Huh yeah, fascinating world. I don't think it's a highly enjoyable job, but I think it's people do it to get their flight hours up so

they can do other things. So because of this legal it's not really a legal gray area, just the fact that these people are not regulated in any way. Right, people can carry weapons on ships. Now. In the case of piracy off Somalia specifically, the United Nations did authorize military action against Somali pirates and between twenty and forty boats were there at any given time in the next

four years trying to police piracy. But that's not enough boats because every boat that is moving through that area is at risk for piracy. And pirates can use very small boats to board very big boats, right, And unless that very big boat is somehow able to defend itself, all they need is a few weapons and the ability to get on board, and they're hard to trut.

like big sticks and harsh words, I guess. So like when you have the guys who took over the MESK Galabama coming in with a few kalashnikov they have the balance of force on their side, right, That is no longer the case anymore. Initially in two thousand and nine, groups like Blackwater tried to get in all this, and they did it actually by more or less, I guess, like copying the privateer model that we'd seen in the

nineteenth century. They refitted commercial boats with weapons and offered them like for higher as like a rental, like as an accompaniment.

people on the vessels. So like these security contractors will now live on the oil tanker or the container ship, either for its all journey or for the duration of the time which it's considered danger well.

flag of the ship and what regulations it has. Right generally, if they're entering into an area where they can't be armed, they have what are called floating armories. Those are what they sound like. You don't understand how long in my freelance career I spent trying to get onto one of these particular boats. It was a long time.

listening and you're a boat security guy, I know. This is continues to fascinate me as an area where like the state doesn't exist and we have this like post state private militarization.

But even Dutch companies or Dutch flag vessels weren't using it because it was so much paperwork and the government couldn't keep up with their demands. They right, now, we'll just get some guys, what's pay them? Be fine? Yeah. The state has more or less completely removed itself from the sphere and removed itself from doing anything approaching accountability, and so it is extremely hard for these people to be held accountable for things that they do in international waters. Right.

There are like industry standards in the industry itself sets in the same way that there are standards for cops at the cops themselves set, and those have generally not been the best means of accountability. Right in the theory, anytime they engage someone, certainly, if they kill someone, the ship's authorities should report that. Yeah hopefully, yeah cool, I'm sure they will. I'm sure they love to do the paperwork. But then who would they report it to, right, do

they report it to the country? They suspect the peace people they are shooting at their country. Do they report it to the flag of convenience country? Do they report it to the company they work for? Like I'm sure there is some jurisdiction of maritime law which would give us an answer to that, But in practice there appears to be very little mechanism for accountability in the same way that there is very little mechanism for accountability for

labor law violations at sea. I would recommend if people haven't listened as a podcast called Outlaw Ocean. It's probably five or six years old at this point. I think it was in New York Times Investigation along with someone else. It was a good podcast about labor violations at sea, and they specifically looked at some of these fishing vessels and the fact that they use people who are essentially an indentured servitude. But they also touched on private maritime security.

These days, we see a lot less piracy off Somalia right like it has reached its peak. This little little chunk in an article I was ringing on jastore this morning that I thought was interesting quote maritime security companies have been consulted on greenpeace activists attempt to climb onto a gas prom off your platform in September twenty thirteen to protest ruling in the Arctic and attacks against oil and gas installations by the Movement for the Emancipation is

a niche a delta. So I guess these people have a wide remit in which they operate. As I say, they's somewhat different from like land based PMCs because land brace private military contractors are generally operating either with backup from a state or as back up to a state, and so there is like an accountability mechanism somewhat there. We saw in the Global War on Terror that that we still lack accountability mechanisms for private military contractors on land,

but that certainly remains the case on the ocean. Right. Yeah, So another thing we should consider here is a historical parallels, right, And the obvious historical parallel would be looked to nineteen eighty seven and the what's generally referred to as the tanker War. Right, what the United States attempted to do was to open up a channel. The straightform moves is very narrow. As I said, it's narrowest point, it's just

twenty one miles. There are two channels because obviously not the entire twenty one miles is deep enough ships to go through. There are two channels that are each about two miles wide, and think they're three kilometers wide. It's still not very great at that conversion. So the United States attempted is to open one channel and then run

a convoy system. Right. Think about when you have roadworks and you know the cars go one way and then the cars go the other way, and someone goes in front of you and they have it like a flashing light till you'd follow them or what have you. And the United States attempted to escort convoys of mostly reflagged Kuwaiti oil tankers through the straight Horn moves right. The very first escort mission involved a Kuwaiti oil tanker that had reflagged as an American tanker had become the Bridgeton.

It was the Bridgiton that struck an underwater mine on that very first mission. I didn't cause any casualties, it did cause damage to the ship. During that same operation in a United States ship also struck a mine. It was called the United States Samuel Roberts Samuel B. Roberts. I believe it struck a mine while transiting international waters. It just goes to show that when there are minds in this area, in any area, it's very hard to know when they've all been removed, and it's very hard

to know where they all are right now. During that same operation, a United States warship mistakenly shot down an Aralian civilian flight, killing all two hundred and ninety people on board. This goes to show how crowded the space is around the straight offore moves, and it goes to show how I mean, even in a relatively modern war,

the possibility for mistakes is very high. And that's before you even considered the fact that the Trump administration is willing to accept, even among administrations as the United States, they are willing to accept a very high number of innocent deaths. I also want to talk about, because this is such a small straight to crowded straight right, the possibility of attack is not just limited to naval attack

right to boats. We know that US destroyed most of Iran's navy, and we're going to speak about how the IRGC navy is not the same as Iran's regular flag navy. Right when we talk about the Iranian navy, big gray boats. Yes, the US has destroyed many of those with the IGC. We're looking at much smaller, fast attack vessels, right, sometimes

civilian vessels with a machine gun mounted to them. Those have not all been destroyed, and it will be very hard for United States to destroy those all from the air, as it will be for the United States to destroy the ground attack capability that Iran has. Right. They have jrnmus missiles, they have Shahed drones. They can use regular unguided rockets. A Shahed drone from anywhere in the country of Iran, given its range, could hit a boat in

the Strait of Hormos. These horn Moose class missiles. They're called Hormos missiles, so they're launched from vehicles. Right. It looks like a lorry and it comes out and it pops up its back. It lifts up the miss island launches it. These are very easy to hide, right. Lots of entities in this region use tunnels and caves to hide things. I'm sure the Iranian state does too, But you could hide one of these missile launches anywhere in

a city in a cave and a tunnel. It only needs to pop out, deliver its missile and then it can be abandoned, right, or it can go back into its cave whatever it wants. But the Iranians don't need to destroy every ship that transits the Strait of Hormoos to close the Straight of Hormoos. First of all, there are only two three kilometer channels.

an insurable effort. Because frequently you will hear that a ship with armed security has never been taken by pirates. That's really hard for us to confirm, right, like, there's no independent data on that, but certainly it it likely reduces a chance so then being taken by pirates, and

that has made them insurable. The Iranians knocking out one or two tankers will make the Straight of hormones an uninsurable passage, or it will make the insurance so costly that commercial entities will not be willing to undertake that journey. Right now, Donald Trump is said the United States will act as the insurer. I know, man like it will be a lot of tankers for us to buy the if the Iranians keep you know, they've knocked out two

large vessels overnight, it seems unlikely. Donal Trump has said a lot of things right, not all of them are true. Very well, even in the last few weeks, Donal Trump said a lot of things about the straight of Horror moves that were not true. So we will see that I wanted to explain some of those threats. Let's have a talk about the specific naval threat now that IGC Navy all right, So let's move on to discussing what

exactly this means in the current era. Right when the United States is saying the straight of Horror moves is open except for Iran shooting at ships, and Iran is radioing ships right now and telling them they're not allowed to enter the straight of horm moves, and they're obviously threatening them if they do. So, what we will see right now in the straight of hornor moves is this situation where Iran has a few mechanisms for attacking these

these ships. Right, the one that's being talked about the most are minds, and the mindset it ran has to my understanding of just straight up World War two leg s minds. Have you ever played mind sweeper Garrison?

But the thing which has been less discussed is that the IGC has tons, and if they don't have, if they run out, it's very easy to make more right of like civilian fast boats. Think of a little boat with a motor on the back and a belt fed machine gun in the front, right, Like, very easy to take those boats and swarm a large vessel, right, Like, even if that vessel has private security on board, the straightforard moves is twenty one miles across. Like, you could harass people if you had a jet ski.

They also have what are called uncrewed surface vessels. I'm sure they use like the gender neutral framing, but they are think of a large think of a boat that doesn't have anyone driving it, right, And it was uncrewed surface vessels that they used last night at the time of recording to explode a tanker in the port in Barcera, Right, Okay, very hard for the United States to stop these uncrewed surface vessels. Right, they are like the Shihi drone of

the ocean. This boat's not coming home. It's designed to eliminate another boat. But it can be It could be steered, right, It's not just like a torpedo. So what exactly are the options I guess for the United States? Trump has offered to secure shipping through the straight ofform moose, right, he offered to accompany ships. The Navy doesn't have the

capacity to do that. To accompany the amount of the world shipping that goes through the straight ofform moves would require masses of ships to accompany them, right, They'd have to travel at the same speed as these ships. Some of these ships are flagged to countries all over the world, right, including countries the US doesn't have the best relationship with,

especially right now. The companies could hire more private maritime security, and I'm sure they will, but also like, part of the role of private maritime security companies is to be like, don't do that, it's too dangerous. And going through a straightform moods right now is probably too dangerous, right, sure, So I don't know how you would quickly equip a ship in a way that you could be like cast iron secure that it will be able to fend off

like a little swarm of little boats trying to attack it. Right, I don't think an RPG could sink one of these ships, but it could really fucking give it a bad day. Oh you know, Like there's not a good situation when there's a hole in your boat from what I understand. So, like the other option would be for the US to put personnel on these ships, which would be problematic from

a number of approaches. Right, it is a Liberian flagship, and now you're asking what US marines to risk their lives to defend the Liberian flagship so everyone can get their TIMU purchases. And like we can not slow down global trade. There is not a good option here. Like the state the States of the world couldn't find a good option when we were dealing with piracy in two thousand and nine, ten, eleven, twelve. Right, they felt better

outsourcing the accountability for that to private companies. The States didn't want to have to wear the reputation damage for like this boat once again opened up with a belt fed on what turned out to be a fishing vessel, or they felt like that liability was too much for them, right, so they didn't want to do it and they would much rather have private companies do it. I don't really see an option here that makes the shipping safe going through this area.

for people being abused at sea through labor violations. I don't really see a way we come out of this without more damage to innocent lives, right, Like, either the United States just decides that it's going to go like scorched Earth on any boat its seas in the straight of Horn moves isn't like a big tanker. And then these these vessels, they're not all US flagged, right, the US doesn't have a means to be like, Okay, you can go now you can't go now the straightforward moves

is not in the United States. It doesn't control that water, and so I don't really see a solution for this now. Like one thing that the world of private maritime security shows us is that neoliberal globalism is willing to look the other way a great deal and allow a great deal of violence on behalf of corporations, not on behalf of the state. Right Like when people are getting engaged

by these vessels, it is to protect property. Granted, sometimes it is also to protect life, right like these pirates have killed people and kidnap people in search. But the state has been willing to see its monopoly on violence at the high seas because it could find a good solution to this, and it's been willing to overlook a lot of loss of life. And I just don't see a way that this doesn't lead to more loss of life. That is probably what we have to look forward to.

It may have already begun happening in the straight of horn Moves between when we record this and when you hear it, but it is deeply concerning and pretty shit, given that there are so many people just trying to make their way and live their lives in that area. Yeah, it's a happy one. Shout out to Greenpeace also for also patronizing these companies.

boat ignorers are about to find out. If this continues for weeks or months, then it will be incredibly detrimental.

in Iraq right now. Sure, yeah, these people will be making a lot of money, I think, especially like probably consulting right now with global shipping. I was reading about

the East India Company this morning. I was learning, for instance, that the value of a t ship leave in China was a billion dollars in twenty twenty four money, which is how like these private maritime security companies in another age were able to develop right because it was worth boat jacking, that boat pirrating, whatever that's called, because of the value of tea at that time. So it's not

a new problem. But there was a relatively short period of time in global trade history in which the state attempted to advance any form of hegemony over the high seas, and it is completely retreated from that in the twenty first century. But it will be very difficult for any state to try and regain that now, Like I don't see even the United States doesn't really have the capacity to do that. Garrison looks ponderous.

global author doesn't need to be consumed. And it is wild that right now, the solution of the global shipping industry seems to be some of these people will die, but we will keep the oil moving and the treats moving. But that has been, as I hope I've illustrated here right, like, some people will die, but we will keep the treats moving, has been pretty much the status of the shipping industry for most of the twenty first century.

Garrison now is the age of pirates. Yeah, our flag means a complete lack of accountability.

but it's worth repeating. So here's an update on what's been happening in Gaza specifically, despite the ceasefire agreement, reports indicate ongoing demolition of homes in Gaza City and restricted entry of food, medical, and humanitarian aid. Again, since the ceasefire started, more than six hundred Palestinians have been killed

by Israeli fire, with one hundreds more injured. For some reason, these don't count as ceasefire violations, and according to the Gaza Government Media Office, there's been over sixteen hundred violations by Israeli forces, including air attacks, shelling, and direct shooting.

Of the past one hundred and thirty some days of the ceasefire, Analsis shows attacks on one hundred and eleven of them, at least in a previous episode, I also talked about what the yellow line was, which was this kind of unilaterally imposed military boundary inside Gaza to make sure that Palestinians are sequestered into smaller spaces, and Israeli forces have continued to target individuals and structures across this yellow line, claiming that these actions are necessary to stop

militants and now JA zero reports, however, that Israeli backed gangs armed gangs are operating back and forth across the

yellow line, so they're allowed now. Rapach Crossing, which is at the southern tip of Gaza, has officially opened but is operating under intense Israeli security with some monitoring by the Palestinian authority and EU officials, but reports indicate that only about fifty to one hundred and fifty people are allowed to cross daily, which is far below the demand for the estimated twenty thousand plus sick or wounded Palstinians

needing evacuation. And since it's opened, its face closures. There's been a lot of confusion about policy, with many reporting harsh treatment, invasive searches, and restrictions on personal belongings for those passing through, and that crossing is not functioning for commercial or humanitarian aid, which must go through other Israeli

controlled crossings. At the Munich Security Conference that was held February thirteenth, the top US appointed diplomat overseeing the ceasefire, Bulgarian diplomat Nicolaim Ladanov said, quote continued violations of the agreement pose major obstacles to the Pastinian committee expected to oversee post war governance and reconstruction end quote, and he was specifically talking about Hamas basically violating the agreement by not laying down its weapons not disarming, and the Paladian

Foreign Minister Varsen Shaheen, speaking at the same panel, focused on this idea that Gaza must not be severed from the West Bank and that the Palsidian authority, meaning the government in the West Bank that she represents, will need to take control of governance at some point in Gaza so that Pastinians could maybe have a state in the future. Something of course, the Israeli government has rejected outright, which

brings us to this issue of disarming Hamas. Now, this has been a condition of the US and its representatives on the Board of Peace. Here's Trump on this a few days after the ceasefire was announced.

of war. Trump has also claimed that countries had committed a bunch of troops to the International Security Force that's supposed to go into Gaza, secure Gaza and disarm Hamas. He didn't name which of these countries had committed troops, but Indonesia did confirm that it will send eight thousand troops. And in that same truth social post, Trump again reiterated that quote very importantly, HAMAS must uphold its commitment to

full and immediate demilitarization end quote so. Back in December, in an interview with Israel's Channel twelve, as reported by drop site News, US Ambassador to the UN Mike Waltz, said that the International Security Force was intended to disarm Hamas one way or the other. Specifically, he said, quote by all means necessary, and that quote obviously it'll be a conversation with each country. Those rules of engagement are ongoing.

I'll tell you this. President Trump has repeatedly said HAMAS will disarm one way or another, the easy way or the hard way. Now. Hamas, for its part, claims it

never agreed to disarm. In an interview with drop site News in December twenty twenty five, senior HAMAS leader had Ad Micheald said that while HAMAS is open to quote freezing or storing its defensive weapons, it wouldn't disarm unless it was in the quote context of establishing a Palestinian army or security force capable of defending itself from Israeli aggression.

Hamas has claimed that it only has a mandate to negotiate a ceasefire at exchange of captives, and that every other issue needs to be handled through some sort of

consensus process involving the other Palestinian political factions. And in that same interview, Michild rejected the idea of an international security force disarming them, saying that quote we accept them on the borders as separation forces between the Palestinian side and the Israeli side, not as forces deployed inside Gaza as was intended for them, and as Nittanyaja wants for them to clash with Palestinians and disarm them end quote.

it could not be built on total disarmament. So with that as an introduction, I wanted to take this episode to talk about what Palestinians think of disarmament and broadly and more generally arm tactics. And when I say Palestinians, I hope it's clear I don't just mean Hemas. I know that comes as a shock to some, but Pastinians aren't monolithic. And there has been a great deal of debate since the Octu over seventh attacks by hems on the role of arm tactics armed groups, especially in the

absence of national institutions or functioning national liberation movements. In December of last year, twenty twenty five, the New Arab hosted a very interesting debate between different Pastinian representatives of Hamas Fateh, the party of the Pasidian Authority, and a

human rights activist and writer. And they hosted this in Gaza, literally on the grounds of the bombed out of Shippe hospital, and they've debated some key questions, for example, who has the right to decide or in peace for Palestinians, How can Pastinians understand October seventh, does Hamas need to disarm? Who should govern Gaza? And you know what, this may come as a shock to both the American left and the American right, but the Pasadian speakers at this interview

did not all agree with each other. So I'm going to give a brief rountdown of what this panel discussed. The main Hamas spokesperson hasn't caused him basically argued that decisions on war and peace should be made through national consensus within a unified Pastinian institution, not unilatterally by any faction, but that in the absence of functioning institutions, then Hamas is a part of the Palastinian body politic has a

right to engage in violence and defend Palestinians. He also argued that it wasn't Hamas's fault that there wasn't national consensus or functioning national institutions. His narrative was that Hamas consistently sought unity first by entering into elections in two thousand and six and supporting election attempts that President Mahmad Abbas of the Party and the Paladian Authority ended up canceling.

He also reiterated that Hamas doesn't mind handing over governance in Gaza to a technocratic body, which proves from his perspective, that they aren't trying to govern alone. And on the question of disarmament, he said Hamas would commit to cease fire, they would commit to maybe storing their weapons, but they wouldn't disarm entirely, and they maintained that armed tactics are

illegitimate right. He also emphasized that Israel alone was responsible for the destruction of Gaza and that no one could have anticipated the level of brutality Israel would unleash now. The Faateehespauk's person Munder Hayek understandably disagreed with many of

these points. He represents the opposing party, and from his perspective, the October seventh attacks were launched without national consensus and that Concessus could only operate through the Past Time Liberation Organization the PLO, which is the internationally recognized representative of

the Palestinian people. Hayak also made the reasonable argument that even if everyone agrees armed resistance is a right that those engaging in that tactic should consider the regional and international context, as well as the impact of these kinds of tactics and the likelihood of their success, and in his view, because these things were not considered October seventh led to very negative results for Palestinians and a lack

of meaningful international support. He also admonished Hamas leadership for making what he thinks this is a political decision of not negotiating a ceasefire earlier, accusing them of having been able to stop the war in the first six months and limit the bloodshed. And finally, he criticized Hamas for prolonging negotiations and refusing to put the PA in charge

of Gaza. And he landed on the argument that there could be no future for Hamas from his perspective, as part of a national liberation movement unless it accepted the PLO, it disarmed, it renounced violence, and understood that the PA, the Palsenian Authority, was the only legitimate authority that could control both territories, the West Bank and Gaza. And the way to quote unify Palstinen geography is through the Palsenian authority and doing that would be the only way to

get back to the state building project. I'm just summarizing here to be clear, his words, not mine.

He blamed both sides, and he accused both sides of not actually being serious about any of the dialogue sessions that were held between the two parties in the past in Cairo, Beirut, and Beijing. But he agreed with the fatehpokesperson that October seventh has not been allowed to be assessed properly and that Palestinians never got to decide if the consequences justified whatever October semath was trying to do, and he blamed Hamas for that, so, agreeing with the

other panelists that the rights to resist as legitimate. He also acknowledged that disarmament was an internationally demanded condition, so he posed the question how would Palestinians navigate this, and from his perspective, Hamas should be more flexible on the weapons and disarmament issue, especially given the degree of people's

suffering and the need for reconstruction in Gaza. I summarize all of this for you, because this debate held in Gaza among people who had directly lived through the last two years of genocide, should demonstrate that there is no national consensus, and that it's not because Postinians don't know how to resolve these issues, it's because they haven't been

given the space to do so. There has been a lot of discussion about how to unify these different parties, about reviving the Pastaine Liberation Organization, making it more inclusive and democratic and therefore more legitimate as an actor, so that it could make decisions the Pastinian people would accept, and so that not one faction can do what at

once can engage in tactics without considering the consequences. But none of these attempts, and there have been plenty, like the Palstinian National Conference, have really been incorporated into discussions of post conflict processes or management by the international community. Perhaps I shouldn't be surprised when the idea we're going with is the quote Board of Peace basically functioning as a colonial oversight board and a club for authoritarian regimes.

For example, when asked about whether they would support a Hamas candidate or a Fete candidate if elections were held for the presidency, thirty four percent of Palestinians say they would vote for a Fute candidate, twenty four percent would say a Hamas candidate, nine percent would say they would keep president Mahammad Abbass, and a whopping thirty two percent would say they wouldn't even vote, And this non voting percentage goes up to forty seven percent if the elections

are just between Mahmud Abass and a Hamas candidate. And they also ask about direct support of political parties, so there's a more direct question. In the latest poll from October twenty twenty five, again it shows twenty four percent support FATEH, hardly a majority, thirty five percent support MS, again hardly a majority, nine percent support third parties, and thirty two percent either say they don't know or refuse

to answer. So this is not a situation where either of these parties have im mandate, and it's clear that neither party is representing the Pasenian people right now, nor do their actions have majority support. Now, some might wonder is this debate emerging because of the sheer level of destruction in Gaza. We are talking over seventy thousand people killed in Gaza that we can even confirm so far.

Is it that, in this context, this context of severe consequences from Israel, what prompted this debate and self reflection?

released within a month of October seventh. This essay, titled Moral Matters and Hard Times, again demonstrates the Palestinians have never shied away from this discussion and indeed made criticisms

of these political parties very quickly following the attacks. Now, of course, Bashada lays the blame for civilian deaths on Israel, given that it targets Palestinian civilians as he argues out of racism, and as he argues to try to turn the population against armed tactics and armed resistance, and he quotes Israeli leaders directly here. So he talks about President Herzog saying there are no innocence in Gaza and Israeli Defense Minister you Off Gallant at the time calling people

in Gaza human animals. And he also points out that Israeli society at the time was overwhelmingly supportive of cutting off food, water, and medicine to Gaza. So, although Bashada rejects this kind of absolute evil framing of the attacks and says we need to understand the context of a seventeen year see John Gaza settlement expansion, incursions on the

al Axamosk and prisoner mistreatment. He also plainly argues that immoral acts committed during October seventh So to him, documented instances of harm to civilians, theft, mistreatment, et cetera, are not acts of resistance, and in fact, from his perspective, they harm legitimate resistance, and he argues again a month within the attacks, that the leadership of the quote unquote resistance have a duty to clarify what happened and condemn

those immoral acts. He says, quote having recognized a people's right to resist occupation, can it be concluded that we are not permitted to judge the morality of acts of resistance to occupation. My answer is that, on the contrary, it is not only permissible, but perhaps necessary end quote. So he argues that the right to resist does not exempt these movements from moral judgment, and distinguishing between legitimate military operations and a moral acts against civilians is essential

to maintaining the justice of the Pastinian cause. Even as we can acknowledge and emphasize the quote moral depravity of

the Israeli response end quote. Now, whether you agree with him or not, whether you side with one of the panelists I mentioned from the interview or the other, what I want people to take away from this episode is that all of this clearly shows Palestinians have been taking seriously the strategic and moral implications of all of these tactics arm tactics included, and that there isn't any one

party that speaks for what Postinians want right now. The only way to get national consensus is to allow the Palestinians to create or revive the institutions necessary for that to take place. Disempowering Palestinians, ignoring their aspirations and ignoring the need for their input, or blocking them from undergoing this essential process will only prolong the conflict and prolong the suffering. That's it for me today, Thanks for listening.

website VC Infodocs, which I really cannot recommend enough. It is the most comprehensive, compile source of information on these venture capital firms and the network state and all the things that I've been talking about that I've ever encountered. It was a very significant source for the episodes that I did about Abundance. Shanley, Welcome to the show.

end these people's reign over the world. Absolutely so, all right, I think the place that we should start is I think when people think about and it's something that you have talked about, when people think about sort of venture capital and tech and the wave that they're trying to take over the country, there is this myopic focus on Peter Thiel and Jarvin Curtis because they are these sort of almost semi mythological at this point figures who have a

bunch of really really unhinged beliefs and love talking about them constantly.

cults of personalities that are being created. They're relating to this issue through sort of like individual players in the environment, and that's actually very limiting when we're talking about a system that consists of trillions of dollars, hundreds of venture capital firms, thousands and thousands and thousands of startups, and

all of the financial structures that are around them. So it has this effect of almost minimizing what's happening, yeah, and also kind of diverting something so serious into something that is kind of like, well, we can just make fun of them and that's gonna do something, and that's activism.

forces of history. This is a situation where like we're looking at a structural force and everyone is like looking at the clown they've stuck on top of the structural force.

It's like, no, no, no, no, no, we got to understand the actual structures here, which I think you've done maybe the best job I've ever seen, and actually looking at what we're dealing with, which is these networks of hundreds of venture capital firms and startups and yeah, this entire sort of ecosystem that has become a sort of force of history.

Can you explain a little bit about what venture capital is dex and then what the effect on sort of the tech sector that it's had has been.

and they have this problem, which is that, Okay, we have all of these piles of money, but this money is capital, right, and capital wants to be turned into more and increasing amounts of capital. But how do you do that, Like where do you actually put this money in an economy where you know, like this is the context of the seventies, where like output everywhere is decreasing and like the returns are on capital are falling, and you know the long range rate of returns collapsing, what

do you do with it? And in the seventies, the thing that they did with it was they put it into like third world debt. And this is like why the term third world is a slur now when it used to be a political movement, is that, you know, these countries took all of these redgestable interest rate loans and then when the interest rate went to like two

hundred percent or whatever, they got completely annihilated. And some of that capital went to weapons, because weapons are a thing that you can put capital into that destroys capital. And also it let's you know it lets like Saudi the Saudi monarchy stay in power. But it's also a thing where like you don't find a way to make money with that capital. You could just buy a bunch of jet fighters from the US, which do nothing, but you spent your money on something one hundred percent.

a tech companies in America. There's sort of this race happening all over the world of countries trying to make sure that they're able to compete or at least exist on the technological plane of what's being developed. And that makes venture capital almost like the crown jewel now that everyone is trying to get ahold of.

UAE has a massive part in this. We're fighting in Yemen where they we literally don't know how many people they killed, like they tried, they tried to do a starvation genocide of the whole country because they couldn't win the war militarily. They were deploying Sudanese child soldiers as mercenaries who have been taken from the Jualadid, the group who's now like doing a genocide in Sudan. They are also people who do the genocide and are four back

in the two thousands. Like this is like the scale of atrocity that they're committing. You know, everyone's very focused on walkashowgime is like yeah, it's very very bad obviously to like kill journalists and like cut them up with bone salt. But like these are people who were doing airstrikes on school buses. These are people who were again deploying Sudanese the child soldiers on battlefields. And these people

are going, no, fuck it. Not only are we going to rehabilitate their image, we're going to take their money, and we're going to build them fucking weapons forever.

focus on and Dural. They have hundreds of weapons companies now hundreds of weapons companies, and they have the big prime companies like and Dural that are really like the power houses that are supposed to be like Lockheed and raytheon. But they also have weapons part manufacturers. They have drone companies for like all layers of earth see you know, air everything like that. They're doing hypersonic missiles, They've advocated for a new Manhattan project. They're working on developing weapons

of mass destruction. So when venture capital is going into these spaces like they are going into win, they are going in with a fully envisioned picture of what the new age military looks like with AI technologies, with autonomous technologies, you know, with everything that they've been able to developed, and now they have a fully featured war platform that they have to try to get other countries to buy because it's ready.

and venture kapitalists are pouring money into it. And so you see that one of the immediate things that has come out of, you know, the Israel American VC relationship is the genocide, and is the ongoing development of themselves and of Israel's the technocratic state.

dollars just that one firm. Okay, so now you start adding that up the other firms that they work most closely with and are working on the exact same things and fund the exact same startups. Founder's fund, Peter Thiel's firm is one of those. General Catalysts is another one that's very very important. And General Catalyst looks a lot like andresen Horowitz.

in nineteen seventy two. So this is an example of how a giant VC firm has really been yoked to an agenda that started in sort of these other younger upstart players and Andres and Horoz has talked about how ultimately venter capital will consist of four or five major firms and then basically no mid size firms and then some sort of boutique firms that are a little bit more specialized. So in that that kind of category, we

have firms like lux Capital. Lex Capital is one of the most bloodthirsty, sociopathic, zionist, weird biotech shit, weird weapon shit, out and out bloodthirsty extremists, like just openly maybe one of the most in that sense. They're incredibly Zionist, and they are a relatively small firm, but they're able to be in the mix because they have this sociopathy, this blood lust that you actually see across all of these firms is that like there's sort of like outright sadistic

at a certain point. You know, Andresen Horowitz actually hired Daniel Penny too killed jordan' neely, who was a thirty year old, you know, black homeless man. And this guy was not a venture capitalist and Mark Andresen hired him. There's a degradation in morality, and there's sort of this like welling up in the venture capital space of this

like extremely depraved like anti morality where they hired this murder. Yeah, you know, someone who killed a black man and and made press releases about it and they talk about what a great VC he is, and so they're immersed in this like this like culture of sort of of of war and like genocide and like killing them so super disserting, So.

of just the government budget. And we can go back to this when we're talking about the network state, because what the CIA is really good at is cooing and other countries. And now you see the network state down in Latin America trying to keep governments down there. So there's been in there's been an incredible fusion of the CIA with venture capital that has has transformed both of them.

takes on the administration and management of those underlying assets. So, you know, for investors who don't want to be on coinbase, you know, buying from these like sketchy companies, these were ways to make these assets available to the investment market and crypto really needed that and Blackrock came in to do that, and the they partnered with Coinbase, and they partnered with other you know, venture capital things, so they did the.

And one of Mark Andresen's first things was trying to get internet credit card payments working over the browser, and then you have PayPal, So at the point that they sort of were like, we're going to do our.

They are developing stock markets and stock exchanges. They have point of sales systems, they have betting markets.

But another reason why the network stay has happened is because as the crypto market really kind of started to take off, they decided, we don't want to pay taxes

on this. We did this all by ourselves. And one of the things the network state is it is a series of global tax shelters and tax evasion zones all over the world because they knew that they were striking goal and they wanted to make sure they get it out of having to pay it to the irs and having to pay it to the people in this country and other countries.

blah blah. I'm like Mark and Dresen works like the devil. He does not take a day off.

monopolizing the places where they want to expand into. But there's also a global strategy here that's all kind of like a part of this larger plan, and I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about that before we go much deeper into a next episode.

right wing politicians. We already see this with Bukele, with Malay. They're going to do the interference in elections, the lobby and the bribery, social medium manipulation, everything that they need to do to make sure they get politicians all over

the place who are going to take their orders. As we discuss replacing the global economic system with the crypto financial system, and then these megaprojects, the data centers, the new cities in order to feed all of their data centers and all of their new factories and their new manufacturing. We're headed for a new age of resource extraction where they're literally already going all over the world with AI

mining companies to find li the uranium and cobalt. They need to re arm all of Europe, they need to recolonize Latin American Africa. They need to suppress leftism and communism globally. And you know, ultimately this all unfolds within a war with China, because that's what's waiting for them at the end of this thing. And once you have all these things in place, you're looking at the rise of the techno fascist civilization, which is the network.

like that resistance is not designed to take down Curtis Yarvin. Yeah, it is designed to take down a capitalist system.

have for them. You know, the network state is basically creating zones around the world where they can execute their projects. So you know, some of these are more of the like ideological projects like maybe like practice or something like that. But you also see network state sites that are very focused on being like industrial centers, manufacturing centers, you know, biotech and start development where they can get away from regulations where they can sort of benefit from like co

development on a campus. You know, you have sort of new city ideas like California Forever. You have network state sites that the only thing they're doing right now is they're registering startups to operate in different countries and favorable terms. You have a whole sort of bunch of different versions of this, so it's a very like extensible concept for them.

I think some other you know, interesting properties of the network state is that it can become like a point of sort of negotiation with the with the host country. Like one of the points of the network state is to open up a country to the cryptocurrency markets, to mining markets.

doing unregulated clinical trials. The doctors in Honduras have been organizing to try to shut this down and they haven't been able to and they're gonna have way worse problems now because Trump just installed a new president, install the president there who is in support and is taking the steps to you know, support this a special economic zone called their ZA. But that's that's one of the big reasons that they're doing it. Their medical offering is profound.

They're doing clinical trials, drug developments, activating clinical research sites. They're also involved in like insurance software, insurance marketplaces, IVF, longevity, anti aging, like the whole you know thing. And this goes back. It's like when venture capital is entering a new market now, like they come like locked and loaded with a full platform and getting more accelerated clinical trials is something that is going to move their project forward significantly.

Network state is is a way to accomplish that.

It's like very sort of like fascist state of exception where like oh yeah, no, we've just you know, there's like a crisis in the crisis is that we can't do like human experimentation, and so we've now created this zone where just none of.

approved is Jim o'nill. And Jim o'nill is from Peter Thiel's Vendor Capital from myth Roles and he was also on the board of the C studying Institute, which is where a lot of this sort of network state stuff does come from. So this is a recipe for like mass scale medical abuse. And even if you look at like what world coin, which is Sam Altman's like eyeball scanning thing like that is a biotech thing like that starts to get into the the realm of like medicine

and stuff like that. So you see these sort of forces starting to converge in these areas, like these aren't infants that they are doing these babies that they're doing these on. And at the same time, in that same country, an extremely well established executive in the network state is looking to build a network state city.

all those pieces together, it's extremely worrying. One of the venture capital mining startups because now they have multiple mining startups. Discovered the largest discovery of copper in ten years from computers in Berkeley, and then they showed up in Zambia,

Oh God, to start extracting the copper. So, you know, the network state opens up these countries to like this new era of like exploited labor, mineral harvesting, medical experiments, and the network state gives them a way to get into a country and start exploiting the fuck out of it.

capital starts interacting with another country. Yeah, and what we see in Latin America is that they make contact with Hunterists, they set up a colony, they start terrorizing the people on the island, They become material actors in installing an illegitimate president with Trump's.

and platform that they can give them. They're giving them an economic policy that they can go forward and say, we're going to turn this country into like a technology industry and we're going to bring all this foreign investment blah blah blah. You know, they can really just like hand pick politicians and pretty easily like set them up with a guaranteed win and over time, that's like a global tech fascist access.

staying well? China's Belt and Road initiative is creating infrastructure projects and nation state alliances across Latin America and across Africa for China, and you see the network state really investing in Latin America and Africas. While so certainly, one way to conceptualize this is as the network state is a counter to Belt and Road and it is part of their cold war with China which is playing out across all of these regions.

believe the same shit. You're both fucking racist doing colonialism, but like you've decided to drag the entire fucking world into your Like oh god, okay, I'm gonna I'm gonna tell one China racism story here, because we've be getting in a normal am out of American racism, like like this is this is a country where like, like China's the country where like you get soapbads, where like you have a black person and they like rub their skin with soap and they like turn white. This is like

the kind of racism you're dealing with. One of the big ecological moments in China was there's a documentary called Under the Dome. So we're gonna get a little bit far field here, but this I think matters a lot in terms of why this is happening. The CCP allowed this woman who'd been a state broadcaster like a television personality like broadcaster for a long time. She had a kid,

so she was taking time off. This is like the early twenty tens, like the height of like air pollution in China, and she does this like giant documentary about air pollution. It's allowed to stay on the Internet for

like a couple of days before it's taken down. And one of the big points of this is that part of the reason that pollution is so bad is that there are all of these cars in China that don't meet Chinese emission standards for being sold to the Chinese market, And the reason they're producing these cars is that they specifically have an entire class of cars that are like way, way way more pollutant and shittier that they specifically designed

to sell to Africa. Like it's like that kind of like structure of racism, right, and it's like, you know, it's just like the sort of horror show of like watching these two just like different versions of this sort of like nightmare colonialism entity where you know, like China is trying to find a way to reproduce its own capital as its growth rate like slows, and the networks that people, you know, I have also had this project of like we want to sort of install our own

version of fascism here, and they're just sort of like building these like parallel networks against each other just like I don't know, it makes me so miserable that so many people are getting fucked by just like the global capital of superpowers and the way that like venture capital money has become a political force that can do their own unbelievably like probably more hideously fucked versions of what Chinese capital has been able to do.

It leads to that, but once you add up these pieces of them having land and them having cities, and then they're racism. So they think that they're better than everyone, and they're like misogyny and like their wealth and them being sort of in their own kind of category which also has all of the different sort of pieces of civilization. Like out of that they derive both an identity and

like a drive for civilization building. And so one thing that people talk about a lot is eugenics, and like eugenics beliefs sort of in the tech class, but we are so far beyond that and into an actual eugenics project where venture capitalists are encouraging the tech class to create more and more babies. They are creating a dizzying number of fertility startups, IVF, genetic screening, you know, engineering

of the genome, like all of these different areas. And they see Israel as the example of that because the Israeli fertility rate is really high despite it being a technocratic.

It's like, well, like obviously they're not going to be able to successfully like create a super race or whatever, because like that's just digenics doesn't work, right, Like but like it's you know, but like it doesn't matter. They have achieved a level of power and a level of capital. Where like the actual quote behind the reality based community thing, where for the Push administration, we're like the thing that got into like the media was like calling their roles

the reality based community. The actual quote is about how liberals observe reality and conservatives create it, and so they're trying to sort of just hammer reality into their preferred shape through this combination of wealth and violence. And because of that, yeah, they can just fucking do this, all of this like eugenic shit that people just talk about.

These are invasions of countries, These are invasions of sovereign nations and of communities, and that's what we need to fight back. And I think my research and other researchers and what's on vcmfhodox like leads to that conclusion of like that is how we're going to have to fight this.

movement was. There's a bunch of different names, but like the original anti globalization movements, like the one that was born out of the nineties, the one that was born out of the Zapatista's rebellion against NAFTA, Like the Zapatista is brought together hundreds and hundreds of groups from all over the world, like to these giant convergencies, and they planned like an international strategy to presist these sort of these like free trade proposals. And you know, were they

able to like defeat capitalism and like retake the globe. No, but they were successful in killing basically all new free trade agreements like in the period after. And this is where you get like the Battle of Seattle and like the whole Giant, like all the protests at all of the summits, and like Genoa, and this is the process that built the modern left right, like the modern American left comes out of occupy, which is a bunch of

the veterans of that movement by doing this. Yeah, and like you all, like everyone listening to this, unless you were born in like the twenty tens, have lived in a world where people did this.

resistance around this. And that's why I'm here, and that's why I stay in this because this fucking sucks and there's not a lot of community support. It's isolating, da da da. But I think this is I think this is a fight we can win if we're all willing to get on board about what is happening and do the work of building that. So I am I'm excited for that. I think I think it can happen.

at it across entire continents that are colonized and fifteen to twenty years later, literally like the people who are his friends who are there have liberated Africa, right, Like you know, we're talking about like this this what looked like a just a group of just like random people

facing within a completely impossible project of defeating colonialism. Suddenly you know again, like twenty years later, it's like Julius de Reira is like running Tanzania, right, And the odds that they faced are so much longer than the odds that we faced, and were they able to create exactly the world that they wanted to know. But the world that they left after them was one where entire continents

were no longer It's literally directly ruled by colonizers. Yes, and yeah, like that is probably the kind of response that this requires, but I don't know, people have done it before, and it can be done again.

And there I was Sunday, March fifteenth, on my phone googling to find the closest buffalo wild wings when I discovered that these us at Bertini was in fact, only to be served in five cities. Yeah, in Tennessee, Illinois, Georgia, Texas, and the Sea World location in Orlando, Florida. And I failed myself and you by not traveling specifically to the Sea World location to try the Espresso Proteini, which would have been the correct choice.

Also checking in on the Shield of the Americas, which we mentioned last week, Gustavo Petro, president of Columbia, has responded to what appears to be an Ecuadorian bomb falling on Colombia. So we are a couple of weeks into this and Ecuador's already bombed the wrong country. Oh good, not great. It was in an area very close to the border. But Petro posted today on egg dot com, the everything website, I'm blighted by the fact that groc thinks it can speak Spanish better than meat. So I'm

just going to read whatever this shitty translation is. I suppose it has been confirmed that the bomb in Colombian territory belongs to the Ecuadorian Army. The investigat continues and a diplomatic protest note will be sent. So yeah, that's Ecuador playing with fire there. Yeah. Finally, PBS is reporting today that an offer is on the table from the White House to end the shutdown. I'm just going to read I guess the terms that have been offered by

the White House. So the first one would be the expansion in the use of body worn cameras by DHS law enforcement, and they will increase congressional oversight by requiring retention of body worn camera footage. The next one, they would limit civil immigration enforcement at certain sensitive locations. They go on to say sensitive locations include places like hospitals

and schools, which is current practice. There were other places that were considered sensitive locations previously not to be churches, right, But that's not a definitive list, and I don't does it mean they will return to the old sensitive his doctrine. It's a little unclear. Yeah, they talk again about increasing congressional oversight, particularly by creating mandatory review and compliance reporting

from the Spectro General of the HS. They talk about visible officer identification and the administration would require officers to clearly verbalize their agency and identification upon request when engaging in official duties. And then finally they will adhere to existing practices of law and practice of not deporting US citizens. And then they go and say they only detain them of a crime has taken place. Some of these appear like concessions, but they kind of only matter in so

much as you trust them. They've always got like even the sensitive places has an exemption for like a terrorist threat, given that, for instance, it was suggested very shortly after Alex Pretty was killed that he was a terrorist attempting to kill officers, etc. Yeah, none of this matters, and like it's still going to be this is we are pleasing ourselves, right, Perhaps we should move on talking of DHS. Let's talk about Friend of the Podcast, Gregory Bovino.

was humbling. Cool. He will be retiring just a few days after his fifty sixth birthday. The agency's mandatory requirement ages fifty seven, and I've seen a lot of places citing that that applies to offices hired after the middle of two thousand and eight. Bavino was hired in nineteen ninety six, but at fifty five, with thirty years of service, he would be eligible for optional retirement under the FERS. He hasn't reached a minimum retirement age, so I think

that would impact the amount of retirement he gets. Oh interesting, Oh.

when they have a mandatory retirement of fifty seven. I do feel like this, plus Gnome, plus the stuff that you've mentioned up top Garrison, it suggests that the tides are perhaps turning. Plus this, we've seen Republican sheriffs in Florida opposing mass deportations this week, right, we've seen Republican congress people making public statements about this. We are probably really beginning to see the beginning of the end of

the Right being in lockstep behind mass deportations. I don't think that means with it going to see the end of ice raids. I don't think that means we're going to see the end, no, of massive detention and of massive deportation. But it's clearly, as we are looking towards the midterms, something that some parts of the Republican Party

want to distance themselves from. And there's movement on this, and it shows that these forces are fluid in can actually be changed through taking like agency, like through through through imparting yourself upon the world, like what's happened in Minneapolis for those for those weeks to to you know, months showed that the world actually can be changed through

through mass action. Yeah, like like Border Patrol and Ice went to Minneapolis to fight, and it seems like they came off worse, right, Like they were not able to subdue the city in a meaningful way and it has resulted in most of their leadership being removed. Yeah.

where this particular story is set. But we're we're talking about something that's going to be an increasing factor in the lives of everyone gathering news and everybody consuming it, which is poly market our gamble on everything happening in the world. App that apparently the world needed for some reason. So on Tuesday, March tenth, twenty twenty six, as you know, hostilities continued between Iran and Israel, ballistic missile got past Israel's defense systems and landed in near the city of

bait Schemesh, just outside of j Rusalem. It did not land near anything, but it looks like trees, you can see. There was video captured of the explosion and posted by a journalist named Immanubal Fabian Oh yeah, who wrote with his post, no injuries are reported in Iran's latest ballistic missile attack on Israel. The fourth to day one missile struck an open area just outside beit Chamesh first responder say, and footage shows, and the footage does indeed show a

ballistic missile impacting. There is an explosion. This does not look like fragments of a missile that were taken down. You know, based on what I know of ballistic missiles, and based on what people who I know no more than me know about ballistic missiles, this was an intact ballistic missile hitting. It didn't hit a target that was valuable, It didn't hurt anybody as far as we're aware, but it got through the missile shield and a hit in

Israeli territory. Normally you would wonder like, why does this this? I mean, this matters, you know if you're a local reporter, obviously, but why would anyone else care?

on March tenth was in fact intercepted. Is this true or did no such interaction occur? So people start posting and sharing in other places that oh, I reached out to this guy and he said the missile was actually intercepted and it was just a piece that fell, and he reported it wrong, which is not at all what

this guy had reported. So he's really confused. He has like, why are all these people bugging me about this very minor story and why are they spreading disinformation claiming that I debunked my own story when I didn't.

plus two. Otherwise, this market will resolve. No missiles or drones that are intercepted will not be sufficient for a yes resolution. Right, So that's why fourteen million dollars was in the air.

will invest no less than that to finish you. This is insane, but it's inevitable if you think about how polymarket works, right that once people are putting fortunes on the line around stupid shit, you know, like betting whether or not, oh the missile make it through or not on this That is dumb, right, missiles and stuff that's very serious to a lot of people who live in the region, But betting on it this way is fundamentally stupid.

But it's all Polymarket's all stupid bets like this, and they are going to increase only come after people once they realize, hey, maybe I can actually change and get a winning resolution or whatever if I harass the journalist on the ground. There's a vested financial interest in going after people over stuff like this. So this is this particular story is happening in Israel, involves the reporting of an Israeli journalist. This isn't gonna stay limited to that

conflict or to that region of the world. This is going to be thing that journalists all over the world increasingly deal with. This isn't important story and one that I think says some pretty bleak shit about the immediate future of news gathering in this country.

who indefinitely postpone the termination of the TPS. The Trump administration has hustled really hard to get this to the Supreme Court. They first tried to get the Supreme Court to let them remove people while it waited to weigh in on the case, and then they tried to get the Supreme Court to take the case before the Second Circuit had a chance to weigh in This is called thirty or right before judgment. It's how the case got

to the Supreme Court. This, I should note it's different from the Venezuela case where the TPS was terminated because the numbers are much smaller, and therefore it's going to be harder for the US government to show harm. Right, it pertains to thirty forty thousand people ever had to guess by con trust. It's very easy for people to

show potential harm in Haiti or Syria. Right, just to give an example of Syria that has been folenced directed against Alavites, Drew's people and Kurds largely unimpeded by the government since a sad fell last year, and Syria remains on the State Departments do not travel list. Yeah, you had some stuff about prairie Land. Do you want to share in it?

got their first conviction in an antifat heroism case. On Friday, March thirteenth, eight people were convicted by a federal grand jury on charge of riot, conspiracy to use and carry an explosive, and providing material support to terrorists. One of the defendants was convicted of attempted murder of a police officer, and another person was convicted on two accounts of concealing documents,

bringing the total number of federal defendants to nine. This case stemmed from what the defense argued was a noise demonstration protest outside of an ICE attention facility in Prairie Land, Texas, last summer on the night of July fourth. After protesters through fireworks and vandalized property, DHS personnel called local police for assistance. One officer arrived, drew his handgun, and yelled stop at a person in all black clothes who was

running away. One of the defendants, named Benjamin's Song, then yelled get to the rifles, before firing toward the officer with an air of fifteen, hitting him in the neck. A week into the trial, US District Court Judge Mark Pittman ruled at defense attorneys could not argue that the defendants include the accused shooter were acting in self defense or the defense of others against unlawful force just because the officer had already drawn and pointed his handgun before

Song fired. Prosecutors compared this to Waco. Judge Pittman ruled that the officer drawing and pointing his handgun at a fleeing suspect is not quote unquote excessive as a matter of law because the officer did not actually use deadly force or shoot first, and he listed three federal precedents for this. Let's get into this action and the role of Antifa in the court case. This action was originally planned on the encrypted messaging app Signal and via an

in person quote unquote gear check meeting. The day before the action. Benjamin Song advertised the action in a larger group chat of dozens of quote unquote trusted individuals. When asked about bringing firearms during action planning, Song repeatedly stated, I'm not going back to prison, I'm not getting arrested.

the nighttime action. Two defendants were neither in these planning chats nor attended the gear check meeting, but all of defendants that attended the protest carpooled in two vehicles, bringing a total of eleven firearms, body armor, eye facts, and all war Black Bloc which were all presented as government evidence exhibits. The government argued that the defendants were members

of a quote unquote North Texas Antifa cell. The indictment describes Antifa as a quote militant enterprise made up of networks of individuals and small groups, primarily ascribing to a revolutionary, anarchist or autonomous Marxist ideology which explicitly calls for the overthrow of the United States government, law enforcement authorities, and

the system of law. Prosecution argued that this cell was linked through a triple ven diagram of the Socialist Rifle Association, the John Brown Gun Club, and the Emma Goldman Book Club, which is a local Zene Destro group that also put on community events. Prosecution said that this ven diagram converged on quote unquote direct militant action. The government called on David Kyle Sheeter as an expert witness to testify about Antifa. Cheter's a member of the Center for Security Policy, an

SPLC designated hate group. Defense tried to object to this witness's expertise, but the judge informed the defense that they missed the deadline for such objections, which would have been in a pre trial motion. Much of this case was spent arguing over whether the defendants were quote unquote Antifa, what that even means, and if it's relevant to the charges. According to Prairie Land Support Committee court notes, Judge Pittman asked the prosecution, quote is it necessary to prove this

stuff about Antifa? The prosecution responded that Antifa ideology, particularly black block, was how the group operated. The judge pressed, whether it's Antifa or the Methodist Women's Auxiliary, why does it matter? The prosecution argued, they took direct action against the ice facility. The prosecution argued black Block and Antifa ideology were central to how the alleged attack was carried out.

law enforcement. Now, all of this raises the question whether this prosecution is against the defendant's political ideology or the specific criminal acts of throwing fireworks or shooting at a police officer, rather than being convicted of being members of Antifa the terrorist group, something that still doesn't really have

legal precedent. Prosecutors argued that the Antifa ideology, left wing anti authoritarianism played a role in inspiring defendants, formed the basis of political affinity that brought the collection of individuals together, and relates to a collection of security practices, subcultural practices, and associated tactics which were employed before, during, and after the criminal acts related to the Noise Demo protest. There's been a lot of reporting on people being convicted for

possessing zines. These are short political pamphlets, usually with some kind of radical political ideology. There's a lot of anarchist zines out there now. Zines did play a role in this trial, a two part role. Prosecution argued that the presence of insurrectionary zines is indicative of an alignment with Antifa, even if possession of these zines itself is not a crime.

The other relevancy of zines to this case relates to the concealing documents charges against Daniel Ronaldo Sanchez Estrada and his wife Marcela Rueda, based on transporting a box of political zines from his wife's house to a friend's house in dent In, Texas. The government claimed that Rieda called Sanchez Estrada from jail on July seven, instructing him to conceal evidence by telling her husband to tow her vehicle, which was at the action staging site. Quote toe it.

My phone is in the back. Do what you got to do. Just toe it unquote. The defense claimed that she was worried about her car being repoed. Centisstrada never got to the car or the phone, but Raeda also said quote move whatever you need to move in the house unquote. Saniasstrada mentioned already being at the house and replied, we're good quote unquote in reference to moving stuff from

the house. Prosecution argued this meant moving evidence. Defense noted that Raeda was talking about her pets at the time. According to support committee notes, Sanchisstrada and his wife Rida were found guilty of conspiracy to conceal documents and other objects that would implicate Reeda in the riot and shooting at the Prairie Land Facility. Now nine of the counts count one, two, four, and five through ten cited Pinkerton versus.

United States, nineteen forty six. The judge explained to the jury that a defendant can be criminally liable for the offenses committed by another co conspirator if the offense was quote reasonably foreseeable and committed in furtherance of the conspiracy unquote. From very early on in the trial, prosecution argued that song firing on the officers was quote unquote reasonably foreseeable based on the planning of the protest and previous statements

made by Song. The jury found all defendants charged guilty of counts one two, three and four that's riot material sport, terrorists, and explosive charges, but did not find other defendants besides Song guilty of attempted murder or discharging a firearm using this Pinkerton co conspirator liability. Lastly, let's discuss two charges which now could carry worrying potential to be used against

protesters in the future based on this case's precedent. First conspiracy to use and carry an explosive and using and carrying an explosive during a riot. The only explosives used were fireworks, and even the judge confirmed in this case that it was established that the fireworks caused no damage to the ice facility. Yet Stephen Brenneman and ats explosives a special agent, testified that fireworks still meet the statutory

definition of explosives under eighteen usc. Section eight four four IJ because they contain gunpowder as defined in the statute. Me and Robert have been to and reported on a fourth of July protest also in from of a government building back in twenty twenty, where people launched a lot of fireworks up at that Federal courthouse.

is not what the defendants were charged under. They're not saying that Antifa qualifies as one of these designated foreign

terrorist organizations. That's not what's being argued here. The defendants were charged under Section A, alleging they provided and attempted to provide material support and resources, including property that can be money, services, training, communic pations, equipment like walkie talkies, weapons, explosives, personnel including themselves, and transportation, knowing and intending that they were to be used in preparation for and in carrying

out an offence identified as a federal crime of terrorism, or in carrying out the concealment of an escape from set offense. The statute lists at least twenty eight possible terrorism offenses. Relevant to this case are three eighteen Usc. Eight four to four F. It's maliciously attempting to damage government property by means of fire or an explosive fireworks count eighteen USC. One three sixty one, willful depredation against any property of the United States exceeding one thousand dollars.

This is property damaged by other means exceeding that one thousand dollars threshold. And eighteen USC one one four killing or attempting to kill any officer or employee of the United States. Government accused the defendants of providing material support to terrorists in these three different ways, but to convict, the jury only had to decide there was proof beyond reasonable doubt on one of these ways. They didn't need

all three. To quote the jury instructions, Quote, if a defendant's speech, expression, or associations were made with intent to knowingly provide material support or resources to be used to prepare for or carry out a violation of federal law, or to carry out the concealment of an escape from such violation, then the First Amendment would not provide a defense to that conduct.

intent to influence or intimidate government policy. Right, that's the sort of framing that was used in the guilty please for some other former defendants of this case, And that's what the government is trying to argue here. We're gonna go on a break and return for one final segment touching on the economy and Iroan. Sorry lacking.

Israel have not attacked them thus far. Now there has been some developments in terms of attempts to open the Strait. Israel claimed they would help reopen the Strait. We also got a report in Reuters that Britain, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Japan have agreed to help open the Strait. This is a kind of weird group of countries. It is the G seven, which is the Good Group of Seven, which is a very sort of influential group of American allies.

But it's the G seven minus Canada with the Netherlands in its place, which is sort of odd. Now, this is not going to do anything to actually open the Straits. There are two reasons for this. One is that none of these countries have actually committed to do anything other than quote to contribute to appropriate efforts to ensure safe passages through the Strait and start quote preparatory planning, which

means absolutely nothing. And the second reason is that if all of these countries, you know, put every single naval asset at the disposal for some reason, to put all of them in the street and four news, it wouldn't

do anything to actually open them straight. There's a good piece and defector about this called Trump to World, Please help Me Unshoot my own leg off, where the author Albert Burneco points out, and I think this is a very useful way of understanding the problem here that these oil tankers are.

the world when they attack the Runs South Pars gas field. Now, as political points out, these are the fields that few Iran's domestic energy grade, which means any hit to them is extremely painful because it means that people lose like heat and power. Now, Trump did very quickly make an extremely funny post that is sadly too long to read here begging Iran not to attack Cotter, saying the US didn't know anything about it and that Cotter didn't have

anything to do with the strike. There's been a bunch of contradictory information. Netanyahu has claimed publicly now that the US didn't know anything about the strike in Israel, you know. Laterally, there's also been reports of the US knew it was going to happen this whole The US didn't know anything about it. Please don't hit Cotter seems to be a kind of pr strategy on their parts. It didn't work. Iran ignored it and retaliated on Thursday by hitting Cotter's

massive liquid natural gas processing facility. This is one of the largest facilities in the world for liquid natural gas, of which Cotter is one of the world's largest suppliers. I think they're the second largest of liquid natural gas. I'm going to read this from Reuter's because this is what the straight laced analysts are saying now.

economy worldwide. As we are going to talk about in a second. All of this is also happening in the context of Trump's threats to destroy carg Island, which is where ninety percent of Iran's oil imports flow through, which would likewise be absolutely catastrophic for the Iranian economy because it would take a significant amount of time to repair. However, Comma, these are all kind of empty threats. Well, when I say empty threats. They don't mean that the US or

Israel won't do it. I mean that it doesn't solve the problem, because the problem with any threat you can make against Iran is like you already killed the Iya Toola, Like what else are you going to do? Right, you can completely destroy Iran's economic capacity for a significant period of time, But if you do that, then the Iranian government is still just going to not open the strait. Right, the more you attack them, the more incentive they have

to continue to retaliate. And that's what's going to happen if you continue this campaign, which it seems like the US and Israel determined to do. They're just holding all this talk about like revenger to do phase of the war, and the war is going to now last like several

months longer. And again, the problem here is that the more that you attack critical infrastructure inside Iran, the more that the Iranian government gives less of a shit about again destroying significant portions of the world's natural gas supply, or hitting more oil facilities or you know, and this is the one that I really haven't seen any talk about, but is a thing that Iran could do if they decided that you know, this is like the end for

our people is starting to hit desalinization plants in places like the UAE and Cotter, which are i mean, infrastructure that will make the country's uninhabitable. And right now there haven't been any attacks on them because that's a really hideous thing to do, and it's also the sort of absolute last resort. But it's a thing that like, you know, if you keep hitting them, they're going to keep hitting more and more targets that are going to significantly impact

the lives of everyone in the region and around the world. Now, on the sort of economics end, we've been kind of in this little bouncing up and down Stace's lock, A little bit of this has been broken because of again we're now seeing instead of just the already very very bad damage of nothing can get to the strait, we're

now starting to see permanent damage to oil infrastructure. Right and by the way, it's us as are worth noting Royer's reports that the estimated damage i think both from revenue lost and from to actually repair the facility that Carter State run gas company is talking about, they're talking about twenty billion dollars of damage. This has fine caused a sort of tank in the Asian markets, which are

down like around three percent. In a lot of places, we're seeing like somewhere between two to three percent for things like the DK in Japan. We're seeing like one percent down in Shanghai. And you know this is because a lot of these countries, particularly in Asia, use a large quantity of not just oil but also natural gas from the Gulf, which means that these are the countries that are on the front lines of this crisis. Now, the Brink Crude Index, which is your sort of basemark

for oil prices, is over one hundred dollars. Now it's staying over one hundred dollars. Experts are saying it's only going to increase, which yes, no shit, of course, it's only going to increase. It's just going to be continued to be more tax I have seen some reporting saying that like, worst case scenario, we could see it at two hundred dollars. Two hundred dollars is like a nightmare,

like the nine dollars gasoline. Unbelievable, hideous nightmare. I'm not going to weigh in on whether we're going to get to that point before Trump, like Baiales out of this war, but it's going to continue to go up as both the actual global oil supply is reduced and also as the capacity for a rebound once if this war ends, is decreased by the continued destruction of oil infrastructure. So all in all, things continue to be extremely bad, and the outlook for the global economy is very bad. The

outlook for the people of Iran is very bad. The outlook for people across the world is not good.

last spoke. Hag Island and no, only did the Persian Gulf that is replete with oil infrastructure and storage facilities, it's the island throughach a large amount of Iran's oil exports ravel.

the Iranian state is saying is not true. We can confirm that there were strikes there using all kinds of information by satellite imagery, open source flight threatening, et cetera. That strikes definitely happened. Strikes this week by the IDF also killed Ali Larijani and basiege unit Commada Hola Moreza Solemoni. Shortly after these claims first surfaced, a note was published in Lara Johanni's handwriting. But it is fairly certain now

that he is dead. Larijani's assassination, I guess or killing one of your call it by the IDF is notable because he's one of the people who would have had the sway in the regime to negotiate with the United States. You could make a case that the IDF killing him is a way for a negotiated piece to be even harder, for this conflict to continue even more. He is also a person who is responsible for massive crimes against the citizens of Iran, right including the violent, murderous clampdown on

protests that we saw in January of this year. The United States is also deploying the thirty first Marine Expeditionary Unit to the Middle East as part of an amphibious response group that includes the USS Tripoly. In fact, it's approximately twenty five hundred marines who will be deployed. This is the closest we've seen twenty official communication of United States boots on the ground in the region. There's a number of things that a marine expedition unit could do.

One of them is to do search and rescue or provide evacuations for people on vessels in the straight of horn moves that are struck right. Another of them is to assault or take islands where Iran may have based its military infrastructure, so to do things that are either not possible or not easy with air strikes. Another one is to add more air power that's closer to the region that the Tripoli can carry their thirty five lightnings,

So it could be that. Another one is for these two thy five hundred marines to invade Iran, right and to begin a land war to attempt to They could also be training Iranian opposition groups, right that that's possible. It wouldn't. It's not like a core Marine Corps mission, but there's a Special Forces mission. But there's a number of things it can be doing. There are also a number of more marine expeditionary units and other forces that

could be moved to the region. It's interesting to see this just a few months after we saw that National Security strategy which focused heavily on the Western hemisphere. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, right, the US isn't going to involve its OLM Forever Wars in the release anymore.

landing and Amphoebius assault. But these marine expeditioning units are like the like the first response, I guess, like they have their own air power, they have helicopters. Yeah, obviously they come on a boat. They can move quite quickly. They have the marine so capable of doing infantry stuff. So like it makes sense that this would be what they would sayd talking of US forces in the region. A US case one pint thirty five aircraft crashed over

Iraq last week. This is not a combat aircraft, right, it's not another a fighter bomber. But to my knowledge, the only way out of these planes is bailing, and all six crew members on board are confirmed to have died. The United States SAT Consas has flown over six thousand sorties since OEF began.

Iraqi coffins as they have been since before. Many of our listeners who were born and of course a lot of people in Iraq who have no quarrel with anyone that will also be innocent victims of this. I don't mean, by any means to suggest it's only US service people who are the victims. Here. I want to talk about the conflict between the United States and Hashda Shabi. The US has carried out a series of air strikes against PMF groups, so these are popular mobilization forces for Shia

groups in Iran for the Islamic State. A strike on a house in Baghdad killed the leader of Katib Hasbola in a Raq. The strike was confirmed on Sabrine News. Sabrine News is like their telegram outlet. It's like an aligned telegram news outlet for the group. Yeah, for the PMF, and they made the statement quote, we announced you the martyrdom of hajj Abu Ali al Askari. In the days since he's killing, we have I've seen many attacks on United States facilities in it Rut. The embassy's cram CRAM

is counter rocket artillery and mortar. When you see videos of drones being shot down, when you see like a you hear like a runt and then you see a burst of like tracer fire and the drone explodes, it's normally the c RAM, So the embassy cram egaz and is destroyed drone. But other footage posted online shows an FPV drone that's the first person view drone FPV drone. It looks like you're flying as opposed to like you're looking directly down flying over the embassy compound for almost

two minutes. I'm guessing it was a fiber optic controlled drone, right, so there's no means of like jamming the signal, but this is still a monumental failure for security. Right. At the same time, we saw two drones at least enter and explode in the Victory Base, which is near Baghdad Airport. The videos from those are bizarre. It seems like the drone gets into the base and then it's just like whoa, what the hell, Like it didn't seem like they had

a clear target. It kind of flies around and like seems so shocked that it was able to penetrate this supposedly impenetrable area.

an aircraft. But if we group FPV and like drop A drones as commercial office shelf drones, this is the thing, right, you know, the United States has been supporting Ukraine since twenty one, since before twenty twenty two, but it's including since twenty twenty two with the false galvation. It has

not been supporting the revolution in the Ammar. But clearly they have not learned enough from those two conflicts, right in terms of the use of these small commercial off the shelf drones, And this is now showing up as

a weakness in their defense strategy. Like this is a serious thing for the US government for someone to be and for them to just fly a recondrone over the embassy, obviously they now know where everything is, and for them to publish that footage is like a public somewhat like humiliation, right, the sort of security infrastructure. So finally, I guess a couple more things. Iran is now militarizing the area of Kurdistan between the Iranian and Iraqi states. So that's the

Iran Iraq border in kurdis Dan. Right, it seems to have issued orders preventing people moving around the region as they habitually. Would people move around because they've always moved around. People move around with their animals, right. The Iranian government appears to have ordered its troops to shoot people who

perceived to be moving around without permission. People often gather near the border with a ruck to access cell signal, and the government forces appear to have left their bases in the region in favor of occupying the mountains as well as local educational institutions and sports facilities. Right, So that means that people in town are now its threat, and Hengar has some incidents where people have been shot

by security forces in that region. Finally, then I want to talk about the resignation of the director of the National Countess Terrorism Center, Joe Kent. Kent resigned this week saying, quote, Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation. It does seem that that is where a lot of people stopped reading anything. Kent said, Yeah, are people who did not know who Joe Kent is, right, and don't have access to Google for reasons that I don't understand. Yeah, yeah,

some really incredibly shitty reporting on this. Kent went on in his note to among other things, talk about the death of his wife, which is genuinely tragic. Kent has some disgusting views, right, Like, but it does seem that the death of his wife was kind of a I guess, a turning point. It's a fair to say, yeah, like you've looked at Kent a lot, like in his politics.

He calls that in his resignation statement quote a war manufactured by Israel, and he also seems to suggest that Trump was conned by Israel into starting the war with Iran. Far too much reporting has missed this context, so he's essentially using what, on the face of it is an anti submit like saying, I mean, yeah he.

where he's going to expound on this. Carlson has similarly voiced these sorts of objections based on if any intelligent person you know reads into it based on anti Semitism, not actually based on again principled solidarity with oppressed people's or anti imperialism.

alone to make such final judgments. That is a remarkable statement for those of us who lived through the whole Iraq has WNDS era. But the United States has long history of involvement in the Middle East, and yes, the extent to which we are partnering with Israel is often in support of our other objectives in the Middle East and our ability to use Israel as like a proxy state. That's why the Unitedate government has such a large interest

in Israel. Is we have other reasons for wanting to be active and control parts of the region or influence the region. Yeah, often the priorities of Israel not always right, like in the first time the United States invaded the Persian Gulf. That often they are fighting alongside each other because they have similar interest not because of any nefarious Jewish conspiracy. Yeah, yep, which.

as young as eight or nine. In some cases, there's evidence of molestation of girls as young as like twelve thirteen. And then Deloresuerta, who was very famously one of his organizing partners for quite a long time, came out and said that he's sexually assault to her on at least raped her on at least two occasions, which led to pregnancies. So that is all coming out now and it's all pretty horrific. But yeah, I like, there's not much more to say. You can read the article, yeah, and should Yeah.