It's time to get the John Girardi update on world affairs. I'm imagining I'm some kind of like pontificating newscaster here, like that's my CNN intro or something like that. This is the fun part about having a radio show is you get to pontificate about things you.
Have no actual background in. So here we go.
But nonetheless, I think I have thoughts on it.
And I think they're somewhat reasonable.
I want to talk about Israel and what's going on right now between Israel and Hesbellah, Israel and Hummas, and the posture of the United States, which I've hated from the start. The posture of the United States. I think President Biden has or whoever is making decisions in the name of President Biden in a way that's almost worse than Ukraine. Has kind of positioned the United States in
the worst possible position possible. We are sort of in this murky middle of being maximally involved from the perspective of angering foreign countries, but minimally involved as far as what is happening with our stuff.
All right, So, just for context, the United.
States is in a state of proxy war with Hamas. It is also sort of by extension, kind of in a state of proxy war with Hesbola coming out of Lebanon to the north of Israel. So mas is in the Gaza Strip to the southwest. Lebanon is to the Hesbalah is attacking Israel as a terrorist entity out of the country of Lebanon from the north. The United States has declared proxy war. I say declared proxy war because Congress voted and the President okayed a whole bunch of military.
Aid to go to Israel.
They are fighting a war with our money, our stuff. We're giving them billions of dollars of military aid. And I think when you say we have declared a proxy war, it kind of crystallizes things in a way that it doesn't when you just say, well, the United States provided funding, the United States provided military aid to Israel. No, we declared proxy war, That's what it is. Biden likes to brag, Harris likes to brag. There, Oh, there's not a single American soldier in a war zone right now, which is
really funny. Harris said something like that during the debate. There's not a single American involved in an active war zone right now, and some American soldiers in Iraq had a kind of viral TikTok or YouTube or some kind of video saying, then, what the boop are we doing out here.
Where the they're watching the it's a bunch of soldiers in Iraq or somewhere watching the debate hearing Kamala Harris say there's not a single American soldier in.
An active war zone right now.
And then the guy holding the phone turns to the other guys in the platoon, and the guys was saying.
Then, what the boop are we doing out here now?
A declaration of proxy war is what I like to call it when Congress says we're going to send military aid to X, Y and Z, because that's kind of what it is. A proxy war is when somebody else fights a war for you. During the Cold War, there were a lot of proxy wars that were fought in many parts of the world where you had some Soviet backed actor state, actor, militia, terrorist entity whatever fighting against a Western or US backed actor, state, entity, militia, terrorist group, whatever.
And there were various of these proxy wars that were happening all over the world as the East and the West were buying for supremacy over the course of the Cold War.
And everyone knew what was going on.
I think what's been happening a lot since, Okay, Iraq and Afghanistan happen.
They are not hugely successful in a lot of ways.
Obviously, Afghanistan has turned out to be a complete flop, a complete disaster. The United States is there for years and year, decades sort of with no end in sight, these forever wars, and the American people clearly, by the time that George W. Bush administration was over, the American people at all pretty much collectively agreed that, Wow, these wars were a mistake. This is a disaster to be have the United States directly involved in this stuff. We
should never do this again. And so what did the Neo kan foreign policy blob show.
Too, Well, they shifted to proxy wars.
They shifted to having the United States just fund other countries to fight wars, just using our dollars, and then they could pretend like we're not super involved. But here's
the thing, other countries aren't dumb. Russia realizes that when we give Ukraine one hundred billion dollars, one hundred and fifty billion dollars to fight them in their you know, and by the way, I'm this is not some like pro Russian thing, Unlike some other conservative accounts who were getting a bunch of their funding through various channels, ultimately from Russian sources. The John Girardi shows not funded by the Russians. Putin's a bad guy. His invasion of Ukraine
was totally unjust, unjustified, unjustifiable evil. It is an unjust evil war in the Ukraine's our right to defend their country. However, it's a separate question whether it is wise for the United States to engage in it. And I feel like the Foreign policy Blob thinks that just giving Ukraine tens of billions of dollars is this nifty trick where we can incapacitate the army of one of our largest geopolitical foes, but not somehow be afraid that Russia's going to attack
us back or hurt us in some way. When meanwhile, Russia sees how is Ukraine arming themselves with our stuff? They see that the United States is openly advancing a policy to incapacitate Russia's military by giving Ukraine a bunch of their stuff. They now hate us. They are now our mortal enemies. There is no chance of peace that there's no chance of anything better than a cold war now between US and Russia. There's no chance for a
thawing of tensions. There's no chance for peaceful coexistence between US and Russia. They now hate US because we funded their opponent to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars. Tens of thousands of Russian soldiers have died on the receiving end of US artillery, US stuff, So that has geopolitical.
Ramifications for the future.
And I feel like members of Congress vote on funding Ukraine as if it's not that big of a vote. People remember who voted how on, you know, authorizing the use of military force to go into Iraq. People remember how congressman and senators voted for going into Afghanistan. Those are votes that people remember for the rest of their lives. Everyone remembers, Hey, Hillary Clinton was right there voting for the war in Iraq. Joe Biden was right there voting
for the war in Iraq. Barack Obama distinguished himself. Now he wasn't in the Senate yet, but he opposed the war in Iraq, and that gave him big time Democrat Bona Fidees when he was running for a president in two thousand and eight. But when we vote to fund people, so this is what I'm saying, we vote to fund wars,
it doesn't feel like as big of a thing. But the long term policy ramifications the hardening of enmity against us in various parts of the world because they know this person we're fighting, we're only fighting them because the United States is propping them up. So now we hate the United States, and we wonder so why does why do all these actors in the Middle East hate us? Well, it's because we are funding Israel.
That's why.
That's a major reason why for decades and decades and decades, because the United States has militarily funded Israel, all these countries in the Middle East hate our guts. Now you might say, well, fine, let them hate us, but don't act surprised when they try to engage in terrorist attacks. That is a reality of what it means to give military aid, military funding to another country. You enable them
to be your proxy war fighter. Now, with the current situation in Israel, I didn't think it was a great idea to send them more military funding.
My thought is.
I don't want the United States to be involved in whatever is going to happen. I don't want the United States to be responsible for whatever's going to happen. I think this is a horrible conflict.
Again.
Hamas is totally evil and totally unjustified in what they did to attack Israel on October seventh of last year. Completely utterly evil, horrible. But once we send Israel money, then it's our stuff. Now, what the Biden administration seems to be doing is sort of trying to stop Israel from going too far overboard, but being incapable of doing so. It seems that the Israelis have basically said, we're not
going to listen to you. We're going to conduct our military operations the way we want without listening to Joe Biden. And on a certain level, I get that a lot of American a lot of conservatives, are like, yeah, you go, Israel, do what you need to do. I guess I understand stand that instinct, because the Biden administration seemingly has no clear directives for how it wants It's it's expectations of
Israel do seem in various ways irrational. Israel can get attacked by rockets from Iran, but they're not allowed to respond. Israel gets attacked, they do some sort of responsive attack, and the United State, well, you're just escalating the situation. And okay, well so they're never allowed to respond. Is that is that what's going on? They're in this murky middle So I guess I understand the conservative instinct to say, yeah, Israel,
you go, you do what you want. On the other hand, though, there's this reality if you're getting military funding from US, then the president of the United States should be able
to dictate the course of things. They should listen to him. Now, I acknowledge that Joe Biden's inn idiot and his administration is a bunch of morons, and frankly, I think it's an open question whether Joe Biden is you know, whether he should even be in office or should instead be removed via the twenty fifth Amendment because he's so seeniw But clearly some kind of political deal was struck to allow Kamala Harris to run for president, but Joe Biden gets to stay in office, and we have to play
this game to pretend like Joe Biden is still a competent person, still competent enough to be the President of the United States for the sake of his ego.
But I do think.
That if we're giving them money, then yes, they should listen to the American president and do what he says. And I guess I just hate this posture that the United States is gonna fund other countries' wars, and then those countries aren't even gonna listen to what we tell them, even when it comes to things like these beeper attack infiltrating Hezbola's supply lines so that they got a bunch of beepers and walkie talkies that the Israeli probably the
Mosad had linked up with explosive devices. So you had a bunch of these Hesbela officers and stuff who had beepers on their hips and wound up blowing their nuts off. So the United States saying hey, that wasn't really a great idea, probably violates some aspects of international law.
Although the United States appealing to international laws.
Kind of a little bit laughable in certain respects. Probably according well, international law is kind of a tricky subject.
It's valid unless it's not.
Basically anyway, the Israelis detonate all of these walkie talkies and all these beepers, and the United States our foreign policy, our defense, our Secretary of State is basically left to sort of impotently saying, oh, that seems kind of that seems kind of excessive, that that seems sort of inflammatory to tensions here. It's like, we're not even involved, We're not even part of this process when again, we are funding Israel's military operations.
We are funding it.
And I guess I am angered and frustrated at Yes, I'm a little I am frustrated at the Biden administration sort of taking this bizarre, murky middle posture of not really pursuing peace, giving the Israelis all this military funding and enabling them to fight a war, but then not really enable them to really win it. Like we're sort of in the worst of both worlds, like either either
aggressively get peace or aggressively pursue complete war. Kamala Harris does this all the time, talking out of both sides of her mouth.
But I despise this idea.
I feel like it's unacceptable, this idea that Israel is getting funding from America and then not really listening to what we have to say with what they do with that funny. I think there's there's a certain aspect of that that that is unacceptable and which I think the Trump administration would I genuinely think the Trump administration would be handling this whole thing.
A lot better.
When we return then the very uncomfortable truths that neither side wants to acknowledge. Next on the John Girardi Show, some uncomfortable truths about Israel's war against Hamas and which will likely extend if Israel continue to pursue military action against Hezbollah, the terrorists from Lebanon in the north, which again they're only pursuing because hes Balah keeps fire, has been firing rockets that there is reel ever since October seventh.
But there's some uncomfortable truths that certainly Kamala Harris does not want to deal with, and that I think also people on the right don't want to deal with. Kamala Harris is both insisting on a piece on a seas fire, insisting on a quote two state solution, which I've never felt like. The two state solution has been more dead
than since October seventh. Since October seventh, when again Hamas the governing entity for which is both a terrorist organization and the governing entity for the Gaza Strip initiated a massive terrorist attack to kill a thousand Israelis with whom are you going to negotiate a two state solution with Hamas terrorists who actively want all of the Israelis dead, who want, you know, from the river to the sea, Palestine to be free, and that that's like their sworn oath.
I don't know if it's an oath, but anyway, that that's their thing.
And which, by the way, most of the Palestinians in the West Bank, it's not like the Palestinians in the West Bank are these moderate enlightened folks. They all thought most of the Palestinians in the West Bank thought October seventh was pretty cool. So I'm not exactly sure with whom Israel can agree to a two state solution that when one side doesn't really want a to if one of the two sides does not want a two state solution,
it's not going to happen. If if the Palestinians don't want a two state solution, if they just want a one state solution, and that state being Palestinian control and not the Israelis in control, then it's not gonna happen. So Harris keeps sort of saying out of one side of her mouth that Hamas needs to be destroyed because Hamas is evil terrorists, but that Israel really needs to
restrain itself. Well, if you want Hamas completely destroyed, then Israel can't be restraining itself, and your prospects for a two state solution are going out the window.
If Hamas is destroyed, Let's remember it.
Israel withdrew all of its Israelis, all of its settlers, everything out of the Gaza Strip. In two thousand and six, they gave up control of the Gaza Strip and said, all right, Palestinians can control it. The Palestinians immediately had an election in two thousand and six where they elected Hamas a terrorist organization. The guys from Hamas kicked out militarily the other political party, and they completely now control
and dominate the Gaza Strip. So they're the Now. They proceeded not to have another election for the next Here we are eighteen years later.
But that's that's the situation. I don't know whom.
There's nobody else to negotiate a two state solution with at least with regards to the Gaza strip. So Kamala Harris has some uncomfortable truths she refuses to grapple with. She's talking out of two sides of her mouth about that Israel needs to have a ceasefire, but we need to hold Hamas accountable. Those two things are irreconcilable. Israel can't stop fighting and still hold Hamas accountable. Hamasa needs to be eliminated and Israel needs to pursue a ceasefire.
The two things are irreconcilable.
Now, on the other side, I think conservatives in America who are the pro Israeli side, needs to acknowledge some stuff basically, and a lot of this is Hamas's fault in a sense, because Hamas are bunch of evil, horrible monsters who have a whole different conception of civilian versus military and civilian casualties versus military casualties than we do
coming from our Western formed consciences. Our Western mindset when it comes to war is that there's a distinction between civilian and military casualties, that military casualties are acceptable during the exercise of a just war, civilian casualties are not, and that Civilian casualties have to be mitigated as much as as possible. Civilian collateral damage has to be mitigated as much as humanly possible. The principle of double effect
has to always be respected. But Hamas doesn't care about that. Seemingly, Hesbulah in the North does not care about that. They think that they don't make a big distinction between civilian and military casualties. They actually are on purpose putting their civilians at risk because they know they can win an national p or victory if more of their civilians die, so they can say what how evil Israel is and
can thereby starve Israel of international support. They think of civilian deaths as something that is advancing their goals, and it's all sort of part of this sort of twisted Islamic Shria ideology. So they don't respect the traditional Western distinctions between military and civilian. In fact, they understand it, and they manipulate it by deliberately their civilians in harm's way as human shields.
I think conservatives don't want to acknowledge that maybe there's no way to actually eliminate Hamas. Will you hear conservatives say Israel needs to fight until HAMAS is completely destroyed. And there's a part of me that thinks that's like saying, you know, imagine if, like if someone said, we're not going to rest until Republicans are completely destroyed, how would you propose to do that?
To eliminate Republicans? You can kill Donald Trump, and you can eliminate the.
Lock up in jail. Let's say, lock up in jail.
You could lock up in jail Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell and Mike Johnson and every Republican elected official. You haven't eliminated Republicans, though. I think it's the same way. It's not like HAMAS has like a very strict roster of membership. These are all the HAMAS fighters and nobody else is really involved. It doesn't really work like that. Unless you're gonna say we're gonna have massive, massive casualties, you're not really gonna eliminate HAMAS.
I don't know how you realistically do that anyway.
I don't think conservatives want to grapple with this. When we return Robert F. Kennedy's Affair and some Thoughts about Life and Affairs next on The John Girardi Show.
So we were reading the lurid details of it.
Seems like the details are always lurid when it comes to Kennedy's Robert F. Kennedy is now embroiled in a
bit of a scandal. There's a political reporter named Olivia Nutzi who was getting a little creasy, and Kennedy and her engaged in some kind of weird sexting affair, and Kennedy sort of has leaked or given to reporters sort of his side of the story, and there were some reporters reporting on it that basically, oh, you know, Kennedy kept trying to block her, and then she would reach out and other means, say hey, can you unblock me?
I have something actually really important to tell you. And then she kept sending him Lewde pictures of herself that were more and more pornographic until then, and Kennedy found it difficult to resist, just like, all right, come on, oh oh this temptress. I find it oh too difficult
to resist. Okay, Yeah, as if, as if poor John Kennedy was ensnared by her magic wiles, like you know, like Odysseus being caught on the island with the nymph and her magic binding him to the island, and there was nothing he could do, nothing that poor John Kennedy could pause, that poor Robert Kennedy could do other than start sexting her back. Okay, married man Robert Kennedy. And the whole thing got me thinking about marriage and my own marriage, and the kinds of things that people do
and rationalize. And first I think, I want to it makes me want to talk about marriage. I mean thinking about this a lot. Holly and I have been kind of a mentor couple for a couple in our parish who are getting married, two young people in their twenties just getting started out. And I've talked with other young people, other folks in their twenties who think about getting married, dating seriously, decide to break up in some respects, and a couple of thoughts I want to talk about with marriage.
One of the things I dislike around kind of the conventional wisdom with marriage is people saying marriage is hard, marriage is so difficult, it's so much work, you gotta put so much work in it, and you gotta really Oh, marriage is such a burden, guys, And marriage is very tough.
But then that there's some you know, good at the end of the rainbow, and this.
Is a very common refrain that you hear, And.
There's part of me that's kind of like, don't I don't know that that's true, or it isn't it hasn't been true for me, or maybe it is true, but maybe in a somewhat different way.
Is marriage difficult.
I'm not denying that many marriages are, and that people have to overcome their flaws. You know, any marriage involves the mole of two unlikes together. Okay, No two people are perfectly fitting puzzle pieces as far as personality.
Not talking about physical stuff.
I'm just talking about personality, attitude, expectations, temperaments. You know that this side of heaven, there's basically it's hard to find two people perfectly SYMPATICA. Everyone's going to have some friction, everyone's going to have some tension. I'm not saying that in my marriage, for example, that we're one hundred percent perfectly fitting puzzle pieces. As far as personalities and temperaments and expectations. You know, I still do things that annoy
my wife. You know, I'm not saying that we're perfect by any stretch, But I think if you enter marriage with the right expectations and you find someone you really like a lot, and you like that person for you're thinking about the right kinds of things. I don't think marriage is hard or should be necessarily. I think life is hard. Life is hard. Raising children can be difficult and tedious and monotonous and takes a lot of energy
from you. Know, if you've got a sort of traditional stay at home parent and working parent, it puts pressure on the working parent that is often difficult and tedious and makes them more worried about what's going on with their job and more unable to take risks with their employment. For the stay at home parent, it's very tedious and difficult and involves a lot of labor with small, irrational people.
But that's life being hard, and the beauty of marriage is being able to go through it with another person that you love. I think difficulties in marriage the worst kinds of difficulties in marriage. Looking at you, Robert Kennedy Jr. I think comes from people who haven't taken the effort to really develop moral virtues. Some thirty year old sexting me whom I barely know. Let me tell you something is not going to result in a marriage wrecking side relationship.
It's just not okay. That is not going to be for me, some kind of deep temptation. My wife and I often sit around and joke with each other. How do people like find the time? How do people have the time and energy to have affairs? Like like we were holly at the end of the day, Like just at the end of the day, like wrangling five kids.
I'm at the end of my day. I've worked and you know, stressed out about this that or work.
And we're sitting there like where do people find the time? So it's like like where do people find the time or the energy of the motivation? Like you're the also and also like we're literally look at each other.
You're like the one.
Person I want to talk with about all this stuff.
Why would I want to talk to anybody else?
I think, though, what happens sometimes is people get married.
At a time when they're not.
They haven't really developed a lot of moral virtues. I think with men often, I think the widespread proliferation of pornography I think results in men having certain kinds of expectations and attitudes around lust and sex, where if you have a completely unregulated appetite when it comes to the ordering of sexual desire. And I think with the proliferation of pornography, I think this happens to more and more men. So here's Robert Kennedy Junior being sixty one years some
sixty one year old guy. All of a sudden, some thirty one or however old he is, I think he's in his sixties. Some thirty one year old chick starts texting him pictures of her boobs or something, and.
All a comply, I can't resist. Why.
Well, probably because he hasn't really developed any kind of Christian virtue of chastity, any kind of virtue of chastity, or of regulating sexual desire, even within the context, within the context of his marriage. Like I'm just saying, like that kind of thing for someone with a decent level of maturity is just not a temptation. You know, when I get some girl in a bikini follows me on Twitter, I understand that's not a human being.
That's a bot. Okay, that's like a Russian.
Oh, this person with four hundred, you know, following a certain number of people who's never tweeted once with you know, four hundred followers who are all you know, horny looking dudes in their forties.
Yeah, this is not a real human being. This is a bot. This is how I say, all right, let's block that.
Okay, I guess it just leads me to conclude I think a marriage. Marriage is hard. It can be hard. I think for people who get into marriage without maturing themselves first. And I don't mean just age. I mean as far as regulating their desires around sex, regulating their emotions, and not like being a robot, but like being normally virtuous, which involves saying no to a lot of base desires.
I mean sometimes people will, usually idiotic dudes, they'll.
Say, well, you know what, if men have all this sexual monogamy, is not really natural because men naturally want to have sex with a lot of people. Okay, I naturally want to eat the whole bag of oreos. It's not good for me though. It's not what my body is ordered towards eating. I want to eat a whole bag of oreos every time, but it's clearly unnatural for me to do so. It is clearly not ordered towards the good of my human nature. It makes me fat, it gets you know, all the bad health impacts of
eating a bag of oreos. So just to say, well, he's a man sexual desire, that's BS, that's BS. If you're going into marriage like that, then yeah, marriage is going to be difficult if you're going to just continue to be serially unfaithful in thought, word, or deed.
But if you work on yourself or allow God to work on you. From a Christian context, marriage can be a lot easier. And not only easier, I guess I would say I don't think marriage is hard at all. This is my counter thing.
Everyone's oh, marriage is so hard, you gotta work it. I don't think marriage is hard at all. I think marriage is easy. I think life is difficult and marriage is the single greatest, most beautiful joy producing aid to life. Seeing my dad go through cancer and pass away, that's hard, you know, it wasn't hard about it. Having my wife right next to me, holding my hand and crying with me and loving me, and my kids loving me.
That was easy.
That was the consoling part of it. So no, I think there are these little pious things we say where marriage is hard. I think marriage lived well, going into it the right way, living it out, or maybe you got into it the wrong way, but you of course correct and you start doing things the right way. I think marriage is easy. Life is hard, but I think marriage can be really beautiful. It involves a lot of a lot of saying no to yourself, but I don't
think marriage is that hard. When we return, why most modern appliances suck next on the John Girardi Show, Just a quick thought as we're ending, I read this whole tweet thread that was really interesting about why modern appliances suck, and it's basically because of all the various different green initiatives for different appliances like washers, dryers, dishwashers, et cetera. It's led to less quality in various kinds of household appliances.
They then also try to add in a bunch of electronic features that are totally unnecessary for the chief directive of clean. You know, have this dry or dry, have this dishwasher dishwash. My wife and I hate our dishwashers so much. We just despise it. We just bought it like a couple of years ago. It already sucks. It constantly gets clogged, it doesn't actually chop up food like it said it would chop up food, and dispose of food.
It is worthless.
Basically, I hate all household appliances, and probably tomorrow I'll go on a longer rant about this.
That'll do it. John Dio already show see you next time on Power Talk