Hi Thomas. So it's been a situation that's happened a few days ago. Hamas out of Gaza has both invaded Israel, taking some hostages, shot a bunch of people, retreated back into Gaza, and now Israel's responding. Some people think this is sort of World War 3. Some people believe that this is all one big giant conspiracy from all the Israeli side to to allow them to annihilate Gaza. Other people believe this is a symbol or a symptom of a general competency crisis.
And it's showing that Israel is not as strong as we once were led to believe. So we brought Thomas on because I couldn't think of anyone else better to talk about this in the at least in this sort of initial burst of activities to share his thoughts. I think we're prerecording this. Usually we do these things live. We don't know what's going on with YouTube and censors and all the rest of it.
I don't want anyone ever to have to protect their words or say anything that they don't think it's true. So we'll just have the conversation. And this may pop up on YouTube and might pop up on some other places. Who knows? Thomas, thanks again for coming on thoughts in general on the Israeli Hamas conflict. There's there's three layers here that conceptually they need to be addressed. And within one of those layers, there's a couple main subjects
that need to be addressed. There's a, there's a military and strategic aspect to this. There's a political aspect and there's a there's a historical aspect that is impacting affairs globally today. And within that political aspect, it's not a normal war and peace paradigm. Israel's a totally abnormal state. I don't think that's controversial. Even people don't agree with my views and values shouldn't find
that controversial. Ernst Nolte made the point, and Martin Grant. Martin van Creveld, the Dutch Israeli historian, stipulated this directly, citing Nolte Okay. Israel, the Soviet Union and the Third Reich were totally abnormal States and just value neutral terms. They weren't normal countries and they all developed in dialogue with each other and out of a out of a zeitgeist of crisis. Okay, that discreetly impacted the. Radicalized populations that created those respective
political cultures. The only one of those states that still exist is Israel. That's one of the reasons why. I mean, America's policy corridors have totally been Co opted by Zionist interests. I mean that goes out of saying, but one of the reasons. But that aside, one of the reasons why the way people talk about Israel doesn't make any sense is because I don't think they truly understand this
conceptually. I mean, I don't think people really understand politics any meaningful way generally. I mean, not because I'm so smart that I do, but this is pretty much all I do. Israel's not a, quote, UN quote democracy. That doesn't make any sense. Okay, it's not a democracy in kind of the Aristotelian sense. It's not a democracy in kind of like the liberal shorthand sense. And like nobody, like nobody in the Israeli government or no, like hardcore Zionists would
like suggest that. So that's just bizarre. That doesn't make any sense. Like, nor is Israel kind of this, like Rhodesia or South Africa kind of like realist, like racial state that's trying to manage, you know, kind of the reality of an emboldened, like colored world or during the cold world we call Third World. Like, they're not dead either. Like Zionism is a premise done that okay. It's premised on this idea that the Jews are discreet and insular people, unlike all other people.
They're uniquely threatened in existential terms by everybody else. Nobody else really has a legitimate right to racial posterity or, like, blood posterity, if I'm looking like that, except for Jews. It's absolutely imperative that this kind of right to that posterity be protected at all costs and that that's completely at odds with. Not just kind of hard, hard and fast like realist logic, but it's totally at odds with what kind of the prevailing like value system is of globalism.
Just in like, just like on its own terms. Okay. However, it's inextricably bound
up with that. And that's why I'm always making the point that, you know, much of it seems to be like at odds with kind of like, you know, the global liberal paradigm, what I think of as the social engineering Nuremberg paradigm, it's actually like an inextricable like component of it, but it's something that people don't like to discuss openly, like the minority that does actually understand the nuances of it, because that raises some, that raises
contradictions that can't really be mitigated by appeals to. You know, the kind of self-contained ethics of the aforementioned system, but that's that's the way to understand Israel. That's what I can always say to people and I'll bring it back in a minute. I don't want to proselytize or something. People are like, oh, I don't care what all those savages do. It's like, well, you better care man, because you're under, you're being ruled by these people, okay.
And what you're talking about the war in Ukraine, we're talking about the war in Syria. And by the way, like the reason why, the reason why, the reason why? The reason why American Israel went all in against Russia and Ukraine is because of what happened in Syria, by the way. OK, so you can pretend like you don't care about that. But they if that's if that's really the case, like don't
don't complain about wokism. Don't complain about, you know, like the excess of the Bite administration. Like, don't complain about these crazy people like Lindsey Graham. Just like targeting half the countries in the world for annihilation, for being insufficiently like woke or something.
Because it's all like bound together within the same kind of like conceptual Nexus, Okay. But to bring it back, what's different about this conflict cycle from previous ones between Israel and all of their neighbors since 1948? I believe that clearly I think Hamas is performing better than
they have before and. In large parts the the, the sectarian, the kind of terribly saying what every sectarian division between XI and Sunni at least unlimited operational terms, has been overcome Okay, because Hezbollah and Hamas and Hezbollah is probably the best infantry element in the Middle East. Okay. If it's not arguable. Like again, being Preveld, he like stipulates that okay. They are very, very tough.
They're a real fighting force. They're not just like ragtags or or or like crazy jihadis or something. They're not even like really in that culture. I mean they're they're they're overwhelmingly Shia for, you know, for one. But it it's long been the the claim by people who would be in a position to know that Hamas has been drilling with Hezbollah and there's been some operational integration there, Okay.
And at least at like company level, like Hamas scenes, they've like gotten its, its, its acts together. OK. So that's what's different. At the same time kind of the myth of like Israeli like superiority on the battlefield, that's kind of an overstated, I mean 1973 kind of like kind of like squashed that sensibility, OK. And that's one of the reasons why the Camp David, of course, became so imperative, because I mean, first of all, like removed Egypt from the Soviet camp.
But it also it like Israel basically realized like we've got a kind of negotiating table with some of these people, okay, because it's not manageable. So what's different now, again, is the operational sophistication of the OP for that Israel is fighting. But also there's a basic irrationality that's unprecedented to America and
Israel these days. You know, like I and you see this in the Ukraine war too, like how everyone would feel the Ukraine war, this is just being allowed to continue in perpetuity. Like that's not, that's not how you manage politics. So how do you manage war and peace? You know, you don't just say like Moscow is evil and we're going to drag this war out as long as absolutely as long as possible like that. That's irrational. That's not what you do.
You know you don't saying, you know, Netanyahu is saying. 1 billion people are all evil and they hate us and we will never stop fighting them because anti-Semitism, that's not rational and that's not sustainable. The only real comparable paradigm what Israel's dealing with is what South Africa was dealing with from PW BOTA until the end of the existence of the Bo Republic. Like, I'm not saying there's like moral equivalence between the two countries. Obviously, my sympathy is with
African honors. I mean, they're quite literally like my people. I mean, they're reformed and they're, you know, Germanic and, you know, they're they're they're they're a pioneer population like us in America. But aside more of that, like, there was always more of an interdependence between white S Africans, you know, it's like Clive Ruby Lewis said. There's not like white S
Africans and black people. You know, there's dozens of ethnicities in South Africa like, some of which were adjacent to the white minority, some of which were neutral to it, some of which were actively, actively at war with it. But there was never anybody in South Africa, except maybe the most unhinged Yahoo. There's no advert government who said we're going to, like, perpetually wage war on every black ethnicity because they hate us and we will never
surrender or give a single inch. Like, you can't conduct politics that way. You just can't. You know you can't. You can't declare. You can't declare. Everybody but me is evil. I will never negotiate under any circumstances. But that's a uniquely Zionist thing to do. Like nobody else thinks that way. Like to think that way. You've got to believe in some deep and axiomatic way. No one else is really human. Nobody else has a legitimate claim to anything.
You know, nobody else is is is acting in a way I must abide for any reason at all, because only I matter, You know, only my ambitions are valid, and beyond that I simply don't need to abide anybody else's claims, even for pragmatic or reasons or basic reasons of of physical security, because I am always right and everyone else is always wrong. Like that's literally the way these people think. I'm not just like being funny or something.
So that's. That's my basic takedown, kind of. I realize there's a lot there, but, you know, yeah. And I don't. Well, no. I think what just to jump in for a second, I think what underscores it is that is that we've seen now over the last since 2020.
Really. This what I call sort of Saturday morning cartoon logic being applied to health issues, to the war in Ukraine and now the situation with Hamas where people are saying truly outrageously stupid things as you said, like a war to end, no to a never ending war that has no end goal, has no, seemingly has no other point other than other than to mass murder people.
That seems to be the only like we can just look at the Ukraine situation like Bachmot still is is a I I I strained my brain to to to to conceive of a reason for it. You know you have to almost make up stuff that is also Saturday morning cartoon stuff, like maybe there's something hidden in the salt mines. Maybe there's like there must be something else right because you strain for rationale.
Why would Why would a country send its people into a into a meat grinder for nothing, for a for a podunk town that that they used to have a salt line in it like it doesn't? It doesn't conceivably make any sense, but. It's also like in the case for Israel, like, I made the point of view before. Look, if you don't like Arabs or Muslims, I do. And a lot of them are my comrades. If you don't like them, that's
fine. You don't like anybody, You don't want to. But if you're going to sit around, it's, you know, Gaza literally is an open air prison, Okay like it is. It's a giant concentration camp. It's high. Probably that's what it is, Okay. These people are basically under a permanent blockade and an opener of prison. You know, it doesn't mean to me they feel bad about that. Doesn't mean you need to sympathize for these people.
But saying like, those people are savages and folk, all of them, you know, if you're going to be a bigot man, like you have big and favor your own people, don't be some, like, fucking dumb Hick and like decide you're going to be like a bigger Jewish bigot than Jews themselves. I mean like that's that. This is like fucking asinine. And it's also, again, it's like,
you know, there's something. You, you know, you like, like these people in Gaza. You know, unless, unless people are truly talking about, God forbid like the political will and technology to like kill every single one of these people or beyond that they kill literally 1 billion people who populate Dar al Islam, you're going to have to deal with these people. That's reality, OK? Adults within reality understand that. And that's saying fuck everybody else, I'm going to kill you as
long as I can. That's not that's not policy. You know, and also I'll add, you know, you mentioned before we went live about the communcy crisis and its relationship to to military affairs. One of the reasons, I'm sure I mean, I that Israel does not have meaningful human intelligence, which, despite what people claim, still matters, especially if you're talking about a literal like racial war. You know where where people live quite literally on top of each other.
You know if you're going to, if you're going to, if you're going to try and like erect like brand apartheid between populations and just absolutely refuse like any any kind of meaningful negotiation. You know, it's just to achieve some kind of peace at distance like you're not, you're not going to be able to understand the strategic paradigm as it impacts you in very intimate terms. And since we're a being was assassinated, that's like a
whole other issue. But the course Israel produced some fairly competent statesman, like whatever I think about Israel, anything else, you know, before the mid 1990s, like after Rabin was killed, that really was the ascendancy of leekhood and permanent capacities. And I'm not, I'm not saying there's like I don't want to get into, like whether like why he was killed or really loves conspiracy people have drunk things with that. That's not my point. Like something went to that event.
Like, like Netanyahu, Is that me? Like a crook, The guy, just there's something wrong with him. You know, like he's not, he's not an intelligent person and he's not a reasoned guy and he's certainly not a man you want as warlord. You know, like Sharon, Sharon might have been a terrible person and like, not a good guy. But before he became elderly and kind of and and kind of compromised by, you know, his people doing to get old, you know, he was a career military
man. And you know, they did, however objectionable. And you know in the long term like leakage orientation towards the problem was you know at least like one could say that like wasn't about a rationality of of of of operational military affairs like Sharon like had his shit together. I mean like net Netanyahu is a fucking buffoon. You know he's, he really is. You know. And it's I don't, I don't see how a man like that and you know like a crony cabinet around him
can see their way out of this. But, you know, it's also, I mean, the amazing thing about Israel is. I think Michael Sawyer, I mean, sometimes he seems unhinged, but I think sometimes during the Iraq War especially, I think he was, I think he was doing God's work. But he, he made the point years back. How can you make an enemy of everybody? You're at war with the Shia, You're at war with the Sunni, you're at war with the Christians.
You're worth the Arab, you're worth the Persian, You're worth the like, you're literally not, not at war with anybody. I mean, like, how is that sustainable, man? You know, like doesn't make you some kind of, like, base badass or some kind of? You know, or some kind of like a lone Spartan contingent, You know, against all odds. It makes you crazy or it makes you suicidal or makes you like
self defeatingly incompetent. You know, I mean I think that's it wasn't rambling a bit but that's yeah, man, I mean these things are all very well. No, but it's. But I think it underscores, it underscores this, this sort of ideas. Like, you know, one of the things that I got very good at, especially with the Ukraine Russia thing, and I think it's because when media reports started started talking, it was something that I have been following for 30 odd years. Sure.
And when media reports started coming out and talking about Putin acting in ways that Putin has never acted, I was like, oh, so you're talking about Bill Putin? Like, this isn't Vladimir Putin, This is some other guy. This is Rob Putin or whatever, who? I don't know who. You're talking about or like Daryl Putin, like my cousin from the Hood or whatever, right? And it's amazing to me how propaganda works until it hits you and it hits up against your actual knowledge about a
situation. You're like, no, no, what are you just talking about? The same thing with Israel now, I feel is that, you know, when I first saw the reports, you're automatically going, well, wait, where was where's the IDF? Where's this? Where's that? You know, where's the intelligence like this? We're always told this is world class intelligence. And then you catch yourself saying it, you're like, wait a minute, how do I know that? And why do I know that?
And more importantly, why do I want this to be true? Because almost everything in the media narrative structure is based on that. You want something to be true for some reason. You desire this thing and it's going to feed you the information that confirms that desire. That Israel's this badass country in the Middle East, that you know, the IDF and and the intelligence services out of Mossad is just like, you know, all knowing, all seeing can do everything.
And you better not screw with these guys cuz they're they're
they're total badasses. In reality it might just be a bunch of 19 year old girls who don't want to go serve in the military who are now you know who are who you might be in a situation where your operative army is has a competency crisis you've there's one report out of that I mentioned before went live that it's quite possible that that Israel's low on artillery so their iron shield doesn't have the MIT right missiles they don't have enough artillery to just to just attack
Gaza from a distance Hamas has now taken. They've been waging, they've been they've been waging a war against Syria for no particular reason for you know a decade and a half. I mean like it, which, which again, like I said, and I mean the fact that they the fact that they got their face broken by Russia and Hezbollah. In in Syria I mean that that's why they went all in against Russia and Ukraine when they did but it But with regards as in regards to the Assad and intelligence matter.
I I firmly believe like I said I'm not I haven't visited the Holy Land but I but I do I I do know a fair amount of guys who are from there who are there now not in the battle space but like guys no live on told me you know in the past 30 years especially like you don't really associate like if you're if you're a Moslem or if you're a Christian you don't really associate with Israelis like you used to like these people used to whatever
the bad blood was whatever the wider political paradigm. You know whatever kind of apartheid features kind of drove a wedge between you know people in in kind of common spaces. There was a basic you know they'd socialize in some basic way and of course you know there there'd be the odd kind of like marriage across the ethnic racial sectarian line. But I mean, the less that happens, like, the less you're going to be able to insinuate yourself into these spaces.
And you're not really going to know what what what you're not going to. You're not going to have a conceptual picture of like what what the what what the Gaza Street is doing. And it's also too literally like I said, I'm not, I don't resort to hyperbole, man, unless I'm like making fun of stuff. The Gaza Strip is literally an opener of prison, Israel's disengagement from it.
There's this kind of, there's this, there's this kind of like Demilitarized Zone, like Barrier Strip that's hyper militarized that that Palestinians are forbidden to transverse. There's essentially like a permanent embargo on it. You know in terms of essential goods. The only majority of people who live there, other people who were displaced by the ethnic cleansing operation from 1946 to 1949, it's it's it's an it's like an iron cage. That's the term like Rashi Khalidi used for it.
Okay. So if you're basically, if you're basically treating these people like you're a warden or you're a jail cop and there are your charges, you don't you don't know what they're up to. Like, you're not, you're not getting good human intelligence. And if your notion is we don't have to deal with these people because we're Israel and fuck everybody else on the planet, you know you're not going to have the psychology for that either.
Like, if you want to, if you understand people, if you have to like, walk among them, OK? And like, if you're not in their race, there's always going to be like barriers, but they are going to like, come to like you even like, in spite of themselves, OK? And they are going to like get comfortable at least around you and you're going to like pick up like tells. You're going to like overhear things. You know, you're going to like observe pattern even among like very insular peoples.
And in the Middle East, I mean, they're like the insular of insular peoples, frankly, a lot of these populations. So you're never going to have like a complete picture, kind of like their cultural mind, but you are going to discern when at least when things change or or when the kind of like war drums are sounding around Gaza in like subtle ways. And I don't believe Israel can do that anymore for reasons I said. But again, I've not been there
on the ground. I mean, people can tell me that this is totally off base, but I don't think it is, OK. There's comparable precedent for things like that, where the capability to devise a picture from human intelligence just like completely disappears for reasons I said, because of total isolation. And you know, kind of like the most basic, like human level of sociality, but but all for only two. Like the IDF is like U.S.
Army and it's like full of like fucking fat people and like and like idiots and like, you know, intersex like women who weigh like £400. I don't know. And if that's the case, yeah, I'm sure that's not helping any. So what do you think? Okay? One of the main concerns here was because they've already listed in the media a few things. This is why I found interesting and disturbing at the same time. They're claiming that these that.
When Hamas broke through the lines, shot up a a rave or an outdoor festival and and kidnapped a bunch of women mostly and went back into the Gaza, there's now reports that they're mass rape, they're gang raping these women, which is you keep seeing this narrative pop up. I just did a preliminary like search on it, like where is this coming from? And it seems to be the only confirmation I could get from it was that the the the report of
gang rape came from? An account on X. It was called the Israeli war room that are making these claims. It it what I think is important for people to understand is like it. There's some some things that you can deal with just small little things and then go okay. If they're lying about this or this is inconclusive, why they're repeating it and where does this lead us to what I can say.
What I can say to that man is you remember in 1990 there was a testimony before Congress by that Kuwaiti nurse who said that when the Iraqis invaded, I wasn't nursed. And they took all the babies out of incubators and threw them on the floor and they died. And then they like raped all the boys and girls like, you know, these like teenage boys and girls, you know, And then they and then they went from bed to bed and like mass occurred like all the elderly and invalids.
And then it comes out like five years later. That Lady was a member of the Saudi royal family. She worked with this, like big international PR firm, like she wasn't a nurse. This story was literally made-up by like these Madison Ave. like Horror Story writers, you know, like this sounds like made-up, but it's not like that happened. I mean it's like, I don't do I find it hard to believe that like very jumped up angry young man would like gang rape women
in a war zone. I do not find that hard to
believe at all. But it's like why are there these like pictures where it's like a found footage of horror movie of these like pretty girls being led away and he's like grimy looking like kind of stereotypical like dirtbag Arab guys like like, you know like acting on like, why what's like, what is this It's like the Blair Witch Project like Arab Rape Edition. Like it doesn't like who's who's taking this footage guys like, oh this is me committing war
crimes. I mean, like, I mean I'm sure there's some of that like, but it's it's it's weird, man. And it's like, I going back, what was the what was the what was the War Department's big coup after Wilson's war declaration? It's like this King Kong gorilla and the poster with, like, a naked girl over his shoulder. Stop. The yeah. The the eternal Huns. Yeah, yeah, weeping German girls. It's always raped. You know, like, you gotta save them.
You gotta save these, these like, poor girls being raped by these like brutes. That's always the narrative. No, again, I'm not trying to be flipping like women get raped constantly in war and that's fucked up. Like, I'm not saying that does not happen, but it's like, why is that always the narrative, you know? And it's like, I mean, I know why, but it's like, it's also, I mean, I don't. But, you know at some point it's
like, what's the point? I can, I can pull up like gross pictures all day of like little kids, like little Arab kids, like soccer who got like fucking lit up by like 50 calibration ammunition. Like what does it, what does it prove? Like bad things happen at war. Like I don't. It's like, well, that's that's wrong. If, like Hamas does fucked up shit like, I don't, OK. I mean, I don't accept it. That's the interesting part about this whole thing, right.
Because it's it's bad enough that Hamas did invade that that rave that's, I don't think there's any contention about that. Did shoot people at at that festival. Did kill people that festival and did take prisoners absentially for now. There's there's speculation going going crazy about why they did that, whether it's being using them as human Shields or is. Exchangeable tokens or as a way to to draw the Israeli military into Gaza and then and then have
urban warfare. I'm I'm open to all those possibilities. The the the thing that I rejected off the top of it is that it doesn't make, typically speaking when people take when people kidnap people in a in a time of war, they tend not to mistreat those people that horrible. I'm not. I'm not saying they're putting up at the Ritz, but. It doesn't make any sense for them to to to visit horrors upon them when they could just shoot them in the head, right?
I mean, there's there's like, again, too, there's like a horrible sexual violence that happens at war. But it's like I like so in the opening salvos of this these guys who presumably if they're in the kind of, if they're in the kind of first wave operationally on the Hamas side. I mean presumably these guys would be kind of like the
hardened cadres. You know they'd at least or at least led by guys where they're equivalent of like pretty experienced Ncos like their first order of business is like kidnap girls to like rape them. Like that's I mean so morality and fucked up aspects that aside like that that that represents kind of a breakdown in military discipline like immediately I mean that's not you can't in in terms of like military necessity
and pregnancy. You can't, like, have men doing that kind of thing, you know, like, again, not to minimize, like a horror of, like sexual violence, but you know what I mean? And, like, it's but the whole thing is it's smacked of, you know, like what I said, like these kinds of this kind of entirely predictable, like these kind of entirely predictable propaganda areas always having to do with sex, always having to do with, you know, the the
destruction of innocent victims. Like, you know there's like a pattern here and obviously like that inflames the passions of people in a way that and I see it too. Like people. I was like I got like 50 emails or like TM. Some people think you're a piece of shit you support rape. You folk. I'm going to kill you. It's like, what are you talking about? Because it's like, you know, it's like in these people's minds like they can't.
They're not capable of of they're not, they're not capable of of discerning that like things they see on TV or the Internet like aren't reality. You're like aren't happening to them or like or that there's, you know, there's facts and a paradigm present that supersedes, like bad guys raping women. Like, it's really kind of fascinating as a study in human psychology, albeit it's pretty, it's banal and it's kind of upsetting. But. Well, it goes back to what I was
saying about. So no, it's okay. It's about, I think, going back to what people wanting somebody to be true. If you can attribute the worst possible crimes to a group of people then you can do whatever you want to those people and not feel bad about it because obviously, well, look they're they're mother rappers and and and murderers and and look and I'm I've always been very neutral on both the Hamas or let's say Palestine is Israel in
general. I recognize that neither side or my friends, they're not interested in me or and helping
me at all. And you know I I wish them good luck and God bless and hope they they figure these these things these things out the but as you alluded to the the the issue of course is that it does involve us because geopolitics whether you like it or not is part of your life and movements in Levant are going to actually start affecting you know whether we send people out to the desert to die again.
And you know just general policies and if you know, if if we have to send that print out more money to to to to beef up a war measures in in in Israel. What does that do to our, you know to your to your local economy? Well we're going to find out because that seems to be that that seems to be the case. I want to touch on two other things. That's why we have you here. One is that the absolute disappearance of Ukraine from
the media narrative. Which I thought was a little bit, you know, beyond coincidental. Let's, let's put it that way. Especially as we're getting reports that the entire Ukrainian offensive line is now completely crumbling in in in in real time. And then of course now everyone's freeing World War Three. So maybe you can just comment on the first briefly, but but especially with the 2nd. The I guess the the things we should I would guess I'll defer
to your to your expertise. What should we be looking for if this if If we are worried about World War Three, how would that actually come come about from this conflict? I'll address that question. First World War Three and the way people bandy. It isn't possible at present. People forget or they don't. The 20th century was totally, totally, totally totally abnormal. Okay. Things like that happen literally once every thousand years if that.
You know, this is like there's really nothing you can like extrapolate from there like generally about about the status quo on at scale, at temporal scale as regards power politics. Because that basically almost never ever ever ever happens, OK. It was a uniquely dangerous strategic landscape. Although there was like only a handful of conflict dyads, if they were tripped they they would have almost inevitably led to like general nuclear war.
And I never accepted like Carl Sagan's kind of piece like view that this is the end of life as we know it. No. But if 200 million people dead like worldwide like that that that that does change life as you know it, OK. There's there's no chance of that kind of escalation happening because there's not there's not the political will. There's not the forces and being there's not, there's not the mobilization, there's not the ongoing mobilization of of war readiness.
There's not the mindset. There's not the knowledge even to like do that anymore. But also like it wouldn't like the the constellation of alliances would not develop whereby that kind of destruction at scale is possible. What I believe is kind of the main conflict theater in the 21st century is Central Asia. I do agree somewhat with a lot of what Pepe Escobar says, not entirely, but when he describes Central Asia as like a continent unto itself.
And if you looked at it as like a discrete continent, it has like the the the majority of the world's remaining like coveted natural energy resources, petroleum, natural gas, you know, all all these things. You know, a huge percentage of
the global population. There's there's basically like a great game like Ward, like like low intensity war development between like the United States, China, Turkey, the Russian Federation, like secondary players are Iran and Kazakhstan, you know and some of these other countries and it there's there's potential for that by midcentury. I think the trip into like a hot like a hot general war between like some consolation of those combatants.
But I think that that's really kind of the only like burdening conflict dyad that has like potential for like general war between like nation States and the way we think of it like combined arms, possibly even tactical nuclear weapons if
things get to that point. But I don't like, I mean the issue with the mid, the issue with the Near East is that if America is going to simply say no matter what, you know, we're going to, we're going to fight some like racial, holy war, literally the posterity of the Zionist state as it exists. We will not compromise. We will not give an inch.
We will not allow the state to be reconstituted into like this kind of like multiethnic like you know like kind of like normal like managerial regime, you know, there, there, there. There's a potential for like a real bloodbath there, owing to both, you know, an unreasonable kind of spirit of of of vengeance as well as a basic a total like lack of conceptual literacy on the reality of these things.
At the same time, I believe that it's quite obvious Russia to a lesser degree, China, because their interests are different and there's less of a military aspect to it. But also Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria, this, these consolations of lesser like Arab and Islamic states, you know, who are at at permanent a prone enemy footing with with with with America,
Israel, people. It's kind of like letting America fail and like not responding with provocations and it's like letting it fail over and over again. And like, you know, and I I I don't. I think Putin is a poor warlord in a lot of ways. I I think Putin tolerates provocations to the degree that now he's fighting NATO, literally with the decapitation range of Moscow. And he never should let things
get to that point. But at the same time, there is like an internal logic to that basic strategy. Why? Like why? Why? You know what? Why confront America directly when it it's hurting itself? Like more than I could. It's an oversold vacation, but I think that's part of it. That's my take on that, Why Ukraine has left the news cycle. I don't think. I don't think Biden's joking. I think Biden really is like a fucking moron. He's like a doddering idiot.
Yeah. He has no idea what the fuck's going on, Even when he's a young, even when he's a young man. There's that footage of, like, him talking to Clarence Thomas saying like, you and I understand each other and Tom was like, senator, I literally have no idea what you're talking about. You know, like, the guys are fucking idiots. So, like, when Biden comes out and says, like, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna stand with Ukraine to the end. There's no kind of what that means.
Okay. The people who do understand what that means and the Pentagon or do have a clear picture. I've said from inception, it's just about money and clout and and and and and and and hurting Ivan because they've got, you know, these kinds of perverse tribal prejudices owing to their own parentage or they've taken them on or something. But there's no there there. There is. There is not now. There has never been, there will never be some military path to victory for Ukraine.
There's absolutely no chance Ukraine can defeat the Air Force, the Russian Federation, chase the remainder of it into Russia, annihilate it, go to Moscow, occupy it, prevent Russia from ever reconcentrating forces, and then declare victory. That's there was no chance of that happening. None like the odds that happening or me, like, going to, like, play professional football in the NFL tomorrow, OK. It's literally a fantasy.
It can't happen. So the purpose of this war has always been, you know, basically, you know, for I'm not what these people claim, like, oh, war is all about big business and bankers. But there's an aspect of war profiteering, especially now because there's like nothing else going on in that regard. These, like, Zionist types, they don't give a fuck about Ukrainian people.
If Ukraine turns into like a wasteland, turns like a big cemetery, they don't care because their ideas like, well, you know, for a few years we hurt Russia. So fuck it, who cares? And we got rich doing it. I think it's like that simple. But it's like, you can't at the First of all, Zalenski's an incredibly grotesque person. He's literally like this, like a little rat man, you know, shows up in like dirty clothes. Like we need the more money to fight. I mean, like after a while like
that greats on everybody. And it's like even people who are kind of, who are kind of, you know, just to be sure that we're not really sophisticated political affairs. You can't just declare for like years on end like oh this, the Ukrainian offensive is going to turn everything around like at some point like that loses like its percentage, you know, even in even in even when we're dealing with the kind of like goldfish memory of of your average kind of like cable news
watcher. So I think that's why. But it's also, I do think that I nobody thought Ukraine could someone win this war militarily. But I think some of these fools actually did think that like, Russia was going to, like internally fall apart and like Putin was going to be sidelined by some like military Hutu. That was like all fucked up. And like that didn't happen. And like, basically like, OK, Russia's like a mess, but Russia's always a fucking mess,
you know? And like, it's so you basically have like nothing to show for this, for this grotesque, you know, kind of endless, you know, like parade of human suffering and destruction based on asinine rhetoric and it kind of hysterically bigoted, kind of declarations that without any substance. I mean, I think that's what it is. I think it's that simple. Well, I think that pigeonhole that leads us into where we can
wrap up here is that I think. One of the difficulties is trying to understand wind conditions. You know, a lot of people now openly speculating about why Hamas is doing what they're doing. Obviously they if if Hamas isn't going to be able to take over Israel from Gaza by itself, it's the the actions seem to be just almost it fits into an evil narrative if you're just looking at it like Hamas just wants to kill Jews.
And that's that's the only reason that they're doing any of this stuff is just to. To be evil and kill Jews but what if you look at if you try to but yet you can't factor that into a coordinated attack so So what So they spent all this time and effort to be hyper coordinated to get all these missiles to to paraglide over positions to to you know to to strike Israel where where their weakest and and and and complete these military goals and yet are just crazy evil people like that
doesn't that doesn't compute so. And again, we're into speculation zones, but if we're going to speculate or if you're going to speculate, I should say what do you think Hamas is general wind conditions here are. And I only really ask this because one of the things that if I can pull it up here, one of the interesting reports I think was out of Reuters, I don't know where it is right now. They they talked to one of the one of the leaders over in Gaza.
And had asked if he would be open to ceasefire negotiations or any of that already that kind of thing. Initially they had said no they're going to fight to the they're going to fight to the to the end here. But he made a statement which I thought was telling which is saying yeah we're we we could be open to the to something like that we've we've achieved our our our. I think I forget what a word he used, but he's he's they've achieved their objectives, so that's interesting to me.
What are your thoughts on all that, Thomas? It's a long campaign, okay. I mean, it's more there's more of a conventional arms aspect to it than something like the provisional IRA's long campaign or like probably maybe a more apropos analogy to the Popular Front for Liberation of Palestine General Command. But what I said earlier, I made the point that I'm not resoling. I had probably when I say that Gaza is literally an iron cage God, just literally under siege.
It's under for all part of a purposes. It's under starvation blockade and it's it's it. These people are boxed in under under Israeli arms. Okay. They they're they're they're they're quite literally trying to liberate that space okay. They're they're trying to bring down the prison walls okay and making it make it clear to Israel when as we discussed war and live Israel may in fact be vulnerable and as as regards like their their munitions and and the forces and being and and
munitions and things. This may be an opportune time to strike or Hamas finally has the discipline and the operational competence you know, to in fact really hurt Israel in Gaza and beyond and force them to make concessions of of what people might characterize as a human rights nature. I don't, I don't like that term. But you know what I mean.
You know, to basically afford, afford Gaza like basic access to the freedom of movement as well as access to the commodities and things that we equate with, with civilized life in the modern world, Okay. And finally, Hamas is more politically savvy than people give it credit for. In the West and in the Western world, this stuff doesn't resonate. But among Arab people, even those aren't even those who aren't particularly radical or
even particularly religious. It's highly resonant and they're bringing world attention. Again, I'm not talking about like America and like Western Europe or Japan. I'm talking about like Darl Islam and beyond, you know, the the 2 billion other people, you know, in the global South or whatever, it's bringing attention to their plight, as it were. Like whether you or anyone sympathize with them, it's not important. And that is huge, especially these days.
I mean, it was huge 30-40 years ago. But especially these days, like any kid or any any Hamas fighter can like pull out like it's cheapo smartphone and like say this is what's happening here. That's why and also, you know, Israel. Israel. Like I said, Israel just got smacked down in Syria, Israel's fighting in Yemen. Israel's fighting in the Levant, Israel's all over Iraq. Israel's arming Ukraine.
And this kind of like endless campaign against Russia, like Israel can't afford to take on like another, another, another enemy in like some hot battle theater. It's all of those things. But I'm, you know, I'm not at all like a military type, but I think I do know something about power politics and I think I do know something about the process of political warfare. Whatever meets the road, just, you know, because I do okay. But yeah, that's.
What do you think of the, what do you think of the likelihood of of Iran getting dragged in through through a Lebanon because I know my initial thoughts. About all this is like if if this spills over to Lebanon, that could pull Iran in because of Hezbollah.
If that was going to happen, what happened in Syria and in 2006, that was the last time Israel fought, fought Hezbollah like an open combat and Hezbollah performed exceedingly well, Okay, they claimed that Al Quds and like Iranian elements were on the ground and Lebanon. I don't doubt that. I mean I'm sure that's probably true Okay in Syria. I'm sure that I'm the reason why Mr. Trump like had Suleimani murdered was. I mean that was the allegation
if I recall correctly. I if there was going to be if if Syria had truly fallen to to to these to these to these tech theory murderers that are supported by like you know these terrorists and American Israel support and like it. It was open season on Shia and Alawites and and Christians in in in in like the constellation on Assad. Basically I think there would have been direct Iranian intervention and so we're not we're not going to let like
Syria become. We're not we're not going to let America create some Green Zone and what was Damascus. I think that was very possible and that's another thank God. Like Russia didn't let that happen. But I don't Israel did Israel, Iran, Syria, the PLO, Hezbollah. I mean they they were fighting a hot war in in the Beirut St. you know for a decade and a half. And the big fear then was like oh Iran's going to escalate and Iran is more cunning than people
think I think. I don't think they have it in them to be like a great regional power in the in in power political in like conventional power political terms. But they're an ancient people and they they're they're more cunning than people think man. I mean so that was Saddam's Saddam's claim you know was when when I, when I ran launched it's you know crusade against the NASA and Islamic Republic was that these people can't fight like they're they're effeminate
pacifists. They're a bunch of calligraphers and and and and and and and ayatollahs and and and rawafied, you know, whatever, like I. But it proved him wrong. I think they're, I think they were cutting the net. All right. Let's wrap this up. Thank you, Thomas. I appreciate it. We will be putting this out as soon as we do. I'll let you know. No, thank you. Just on a personal note, you know, my cohost, Mark is, is married to an Israeli. I know emotions are.
That's not why he's not here, right? Yeah, he's not. That's not why he's not here today. He had work and stuff, but. I know emotions are incredibly high about these things. I wanted to be clear from this channel's perspective that we're certainly not endorsing either side. It's not a good guy, bad guy situation, you know.
We have of course detailed our objections to Zionist and Zionist policies and and the Jews in general, but that doesn't mean that we wish any kind of harm to happen to anyone. On the streets or or any any
specific individuals. And so we we send our hearts and prayers out to everyone in that region and hope that we can hope that this doesn't go on for his for longer than it has to unfortunately but Thomas so I don't want to know on a sober note but there's nothing there's no like haha moment I can I can figure out here for that one. Thomas let the people know where they can find you where they can hear you. And again, thank you very much for coming on. No, you're welcome, man. I thank you.
It you can find me on my sub stack. It's, it's realthomas777.subset.com. That's what the podcast is. That's where we got a chat going, you know, about stuff. And that's where, like some of my longer form writing is. Season two of the podcast is going to drop like a Halloween weekend and then that way, which point like you're going to be able to access all of season one for 100% free and now it's literally only $5 a month. That's the lowest I can make it without eating a loss.
I'm hoping I I'm hoping within 2024 I can I can make like everything free. But I I'm trying to make things like literally, like as cheap as possible without, you know, but I'm on Twitter or like X right now. I mean whoever. I don't know if I'm gonna get like nuked off off of these social media platforms but I'm there at a real capital rel under score #7 hmes 777. I got I got I got banned from Telegram again for like some
reason. I mean there's people in there like literally like post, like snuff porn and like they probably again like saying like mean things about Ukraine or like Israel or it's crits insane like the same like 5 *. I I do not like Telegram at all. I only was fucking with it because like every time I got new people like begged me to come back because like that's you know, that's like the platform a lot of people like, but I'm not on there right now.
I don't really want to return and it's just it's just something just like grimy about it, man. But the that's basically and I'm launching, you know, I spent the summer like shooting content for my channel, the channel's Thomas TV, on YouTube. It's not populated by stuff yet other than like, you know, some like tasks and introductory stuff. But I mean, I'm based in 2024 in the seasons with the pod and sexing it up a lot.
And I've been blessed, you know, with a great editor and and and cameraman, but also, you know, I want to transition more to like, video content. So that's basically like what I'm trying to do. And as a whole lot of people going to test, I'm always traveling over the place and like meeting people like you want to meet me. That is like incredibly easy to do. And I'm all about social capital and all kinds of people can
vouch for me, man. So don't hesitate to reach out if like, you want to do that, too. That's all I got. Thank you again, Thomas. Thank you for getting for everyone who's watching, listening of course subscribe and share and like the channels and this we are experiencing unprecedented growth in the last year. So we always like to see that those numbers go up a little bit. Subscribe to our Patreon or sub stack, I'll be putting up more
and more content there. It's that'll be exclusive there to give everyone some little treats and say thank you for giving us your money because I got bills, man. Again, Thomas, always a pleasure, man. Well, thank you so much. Likewise. Thank you, Jason.