Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 1/15/23 Israel Special: 100 Days In Of Gaza War, Bibi Tells USA 'This Is Your War', Two Navy Seals Lost During Yemen Operation

Episode Date: January 15, 2024

Krystal and Saagar discuss 100 days of war in Gaza, Benjamin Netanyahu tells USA 'this is your war', and two Navy Seals lost at sea during Yemen operation.    To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show AD FREE, uncut and 1 hour early visit: https://breakingpoints.supercast.com/ Merch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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murderer is still out there. Each week, I investigate a new case. If there is a case we should hear about, call 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey guys, Ready or Not 2024 is here, and we here at Breaking Points are already thinking of ways we can up our game for this critical election. We rely on our premium subs to expand coverage, upgrade the studio, add staff, give you guys the best independent coverage that is possible. If you like what we're all about, it just means the absolute world to have your support. But enough with that. Let's get to the show. Good morning, everybody. Happy Monday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal? Indeed we do. Big day for American domestic politics. Hard to believe, but the Iowa caucuses are today.

Today. The weather is absolutely horrendous. Everywhere, here included. Indeed. So we'll see whether that's going to make a difference. We've got the very last Iowa poll, the one that's considered to be the highest quality. We'll break that down for you, Sagar. And I've got our own predictions for what it's worth. We're also taking a look at the way that Trump has decided at the very last moments here

to go after Vivek Ramaswamy. And Vivek is responding in a very interesting fashion. Trump also, this is kind of funny, taking out ads against Nikki Haley on MSNBC. Brilliant, which we will tell you about. Because it has turned out a lot of her support is independents, but also some Democrats who may cross over. So we'll take a look at that. Ron DeSantis is receiving a participation trophy in Iowa. Let's see if he can surpass expectations and get back in the game.

At the same time, we're also marking 100 days of Israel's assault on Gaza. We'll break down the very latest from you there. Some pretty stunning comments from Netanyahu about how this is our war too. And in line with that, we actually, it appears, have suffered our first casualties in that war in our backing up of Israel. So a lot to break down for you there in the latest fallout from our strikes on Yemen, which occurred over the weekend. Sagar's also going to be taking a look at the case of a journalist who died imprisoned in Ukraine without the American press or the American president saying a damn word. So whether or not you agreed with this man and his views, this was an American citizen who was basically killed in Ukrainian detention and went without a single word from anyone here in America. It's a really tragic case. I'm gonna break it down for everybody. But before we get to that,

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I guess. We should also mention. Oh, that's right. Because of the weather. Because of the weather, the RFK Jr. focus group that we had scheduled for this weekend has had to be postponed. It is still going to be in the works. We've got a tentative date rescheduled and all the participants lined up and whatever. So we will get that to you.

But we didn't want to fly people out to Detroit in the middle of a snowstorm. It didn't seem like that was particularly smart. Didn't seem exactly prudent. There was like several inches of snow, ridiculous windchill. It wouldn't have even been safe for the participants to arrive. Nobody would have showed up. I hope nobody would have showed up. It's a whole thing. It has on the books. It's already been rescheduled. We're going to bring it to you as soon as possible. And we will tease those results as they come. Huge developments with regards to Israel and the Gaza Strip. We have now passed 100 days

since October 7th, 100 days of Israel's assault on the Gaza Strip. Let's go ahead and put some of the overall statistics just so we have a sense. Euromed Monitor, they've been tracking the number of deaths, the number of casualties, number of journalists killed. And they actually had a headline that in 100 days of war, there are 100,000 Palestinians who have either been killed, injured, or who are missing. Now, the top line numbers here in terms of killed, and they include in this number those who are presumed dead under the rubble, which is why their number is a little higher than what you see from the UN. 31,497 killed, 12,000 plus of those are children, 6,000 plus of those are women.

Some close to 29,000 of those are considered to be civilians or estimated to be civilians. You have nearly 2 million Palestinians who have been displaced. The amount of destruction to buildings and civilian infrastructure in the Gaza Strip is really difficult to comprehend. It's on the level, has surpassed even the level of something like the Allied bombings of Dresden. Nearly 70,000 homes have been destroyed. Almost 200,000 homes have been partially destroyed. 320 schools damaged, 1,671 industrial facilities damaged, 239 mosques damaged, three churches damaged. And you can see also the toll on healthcare professionals, civil defense workers, and on the press. So horrific numbers. This is as of January

14th, so as of yesterday, any way that you put it. At the same time, something we have been tracking closely here, especially in the wake of that UN report, that half of all residents of the Gaza Strip, half of all Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are starving, and 90% have regularly gone days without having a single thing to eat. So that is the context for these videos. Let's put this up on the screen that we can see. This is in northern Gaza. These are people who have come out effectively of hiding, risking their lives trying to find food with the expectation that there is a food truck delivery. And you can see them all clustered here.

And what happens? The Israeli forces, the IDF, begins firing on these people. That is why they are fleeing, as they are out risking their lives in an attempt just to find food and avoid starvation. So it is truly a horrifying situation. Reminder, this is an official representative of the Israeli government of this agency called COGAT, which is responsible basically for coordinating humanitarian aid. This was a quote that this individual gave to Haaretz, who said, there is no hunger in

Gaza. There were stockpiles of food in Gaza. Don't forget that this is an Arab Gazan population whose DNA is to hoard, certainly when it comes to food. So these are the sort of just like blatantly racist and denialist rhetoric that is coming out of official Israeli agencies with regards to the level of hunger saga that is being experienced right now in the Gaza Strip, which experts are saying the hunger and the disease may ultimately claim far more lives than the bullets in the box. I mean, that's usually the case, actually, if we think back to some of these conflicts, kind of tried and true strategy. I think the problem

right now for the Israelis is that the more and more that this is happening is that they can't claim it's in the midst of a lot of the war. So for example, you know, previously some of the numbers and all of that you showed, that was during actual like bombing campaigns. Now, as I understand it, a lot of that has been reduced. I'm not saying it hasn't happened. Obviously, you know, these people were fired upon, but now we're getting into the big occupation questions. And while all of that happens and things shake out, there's all this reporting right now between the US and what they're exactly, the plan that they're trying to push. It's a cockamamie scheme involving Saudi Arabia, recognition, Palestinian statehood, American

dollars and much more. Is that this acute hunger situation is going to remain the biggest center of gravity. And it also will determine a lot of the follow-on events, especially because they can't stop the images that continue to come out. And I mean, already, we're seeing degradation akin to Mogadishu in Somalia, you know, back in the 90s. And the same problems are going to arise that happened at that time. If everybody wants to remember, as we had a global crisis, you know, the Somalis that were descended into complete civil war, and there were all these different warlords.

The UN was trying to make inroads, and the entire U.S. mission was to try and support the world. Food program tended to blackhawk down. Eventually, we withdrew. Somalia never really has been the same since. The question, too, is here about what is going to constitute in Gaza. Eventually, this will consolidate and always does to control for resources. So will Hamas rise? Will we have an insurgency that battles it out with another group?

What about these Palestinian authority officials? Who's going to take responsibility? The Israelis themselves are going to remain like a security holding where they maintain, obviously, a blockade on some of the humanitarian aid and all that. Maybe they'll cut a deal with a certain militia. I actually think this is where things could get more messy and more out of control than before. And I mean, we've been saying that now for quite some time, but the hunger situation, the food situation, and generally the questions around, the big meta questions around occupation and who has administration and control for this is more terrifying as we move into like low-grade, more low-grade operations. But at the same time, all things on the horizon say that a new Israeli military campaign may mount

in the south. And that could kick things off into actually a whole other direction. Yeah, that's exactly right. Actually, if we could go ahead and put up on the screen that Wall Street Journal report about how the Israelis are planning to seize that last Gaza border that they don't control. This is the Egyptian border, the Rafah crossing that we have been discussing quite a lot. And this is, okay, this is a problem for a lot of reasons. Number one, it is obviously a massive infringement on any sort of idea of Palestinian control of the Gaza Strip. That's the number one, and that has long been mostly a fantasy anyway. It also is really infringing potentially on the sovereignty of Egypt, but

also in terms of the humanitarian crisis. So after people were forced out of the north and the north was bombed to hell in Gaza, they moved to the south. Many people moved to Khan Yunus was one of the major cities in the south that people moved to. Well, Khan Yunus has now been bombed to hell and many people have fled from there as well. Where have they gone? Over a million Gazans, and remember, there's only roughly 2.2 million Gazans in total, are now clustered in Rafah, in the very place where the Israeli government and the Israeli military are saying they are planning their next offensive. So we're hearing all this rhetoric about, oh, we're shifting to another phase and it's going to be lower grade, et cetera, et cetera.

We haven't really seen that. But this is a massive, massive risk. In this Wall Street Journal report, they say an offensive in the area will be complicated militarily due to the presence of more than a million Palestinians who have fled the rest of the Strip, have concentrated in the area. Most of them are packed into the city of Rafah, adjacent to the border, or camping in areas along the border. Even a limited military operation to occupy a stretch of land a few hundred yards wide would require Israeli forces to push through Rafah City, which straddles the border and areas where

the displaced people have gathered in tent camps. Security analysts are concerned such an operation would deepen the humanitarian crisis. So they are far from finished. All of the supposed US pressure, which has always been nothing but rhetorical, has obviously not shifted or changed their plans whatsoever. Yeah, it also appears, Crystal, that this would be a violation of the 1979 peace treaty between Israel and Egypt. They actually specifically in the treaty, it limits the number of troops between the both nations in the border areas. The other problem is, is that in terms of tunnels and all that, I mean, this is the main way that weapons and all these other goods get into Gaza.

It's like the number one highway for Hamas and all of that. So theoretically, I mean, the fighting there could be worse. It also is awful because you've got even more of the civilians that are packed into the small area. And it is also, you know, the main way that humanitarian aid has been getting into the Gaza Strip, the limited amount that's been let in. So it could be even further of a disaster. This one actually probably bears the most risk into a spillover conflict because it involves the Egyptians. And the Egyptian military is already not happy about this.

They think that, I think correctly, that the likely, they think that if all things were able, if the Israelis were to do whatever they want, they think that the Gazans would just, if the Israelis would do whatever they want, they think that the Gazans would just be pushed out into Egypt. Egypt does not want it. They say they would literally go to war if something like that were to happen. So then the question is about US diplomacy and the pressure that we may exert on Egypt and more. We don't know yet what this will look like and if this will even be allowed to proceed, if there is some sort of risk of a broader war or if they'll openly continue the middle finger to America, continue anyway. We could find ourselves in a serious situation, even just as serious as the Red Sea,

which we're about to talk about. Yeah, I mean, we're already in a broader war. It's just a question of how hot that is gonna get. And just one note on the tunnels, because I know people understandably think about these as just a nefarious way for Hamas to get weapons in, etc. But keep in mind that for years and years now, Israel has imposed a blockade on the Gaza Strip. And they have very precisely limited what goods are allowed to come in. And it's not just grenades that they block. Yeah, it's like TV. It's things like potato chips. Yeah, that's right. And candy, and it's just completely at their whim what is able to come into the Gaza

Strip through official channels. Previously, they talked about putting them on effectively a starvation plus diet and controlling the caloric intake so that people would remain hungry, but not so bad that they would starve to death. Yeah, no. So that's a lot also of what's coming in through the tunnels, just so people are aware of the purpose of these tunnels and their totality. Defend the Hamas tunnels? Actually, part of the problem with the tunnels was that

because it was the only way to get stuff in, the way that these Hamas guys became phenomenally rich is that they control the black market. That's actually how they made it. The vast majority of their money was made on kind of controlling the racket in Gaza. I mean, the images of their houses and all that are now public. You don't make that because you're smuggling in weapons. The weapons are what you're able to buy because you can smuggle in potato chips and TV and, in many cases, like medicine and other things.

Building materials so they can rebuild after the various mowing of the lawn. They're just like the Taliban. They're like a drug cartel. They're like a criminal cartel that also happens to have like a militant arm. That's how they were able to maintain control for such a long time. And a large, some of that was downstream of the blockade, which is part of the problem. And I think, I think though, you know, they're going to go through and they're going to try and clear at least some of these tunnels. But, you know, if, and they haven't really done this yet, in terms of tunnel clearing operations that a lot of people expected, we will see if they're going to try and to take

control, to seize control, because this continues to be probably the main way that you're able to have any sort of communication back and forth for the Hamas leaders to be able to get in and out and have any sort of mobility, at least it have been in the past, including Iran and anything that they've been able to send to other countries that have been able to support Hamas. So I'm not quite sure, you know, what it's going to look like, but it could be a nightmare. It really could. I mean, you know, we haven't yet seen some of the worst nightmarish military scenarios play out with the tunnels and all of that, but we could see it here. It's possible. I think it's also important to point out at this point, you know, 100 days into the war, Israel stated supposed goal of eradicating Hamas by anyone's estimates, including their own very rosy estimates of how many Hamas fighters they've killed,

nowhere close to achieving what they claimed their goal would ultimately be. And now we've said from the beginning, citing people who are military analysts who have studied these sorts of groups, that the idea of eradicating or eliminating Hamas was always sort of preposterous. Because in addition to the estimated 30,000 fighters they have, which again, Israel doesn't even claim that they've come close to or even eliminated half of those Hamas fighters. In addition to that, this is a political system, it's a political ideology. And in fact, the more brutal Israel is, the more they starve people, the more they deny them medical care, the more kids you have getting amputations with no anesthetic, the more Hamas members you are

creating, the more you are bolstering the Hamas ideology. And we have seen that very clearly with polls coming out of the West Bank. We've seen it very clearly in terms of the limited information that we're able to get out of the Gaza Strip, that this has actually strengthened Hamas. So if you look 100 days in, Israel hasn't been able to rescue a single hostage. Actually, they murdered, their forces murdered three of their own hostages because they thought they were Palestinians. The only hostages exchanges came during a ceasefire and they were nowhere close. In fact, they've gone backwards in terms of their stated end of eradicating Hamas. And at the same time, we've always been directly complicit.

We've always been supplying Israel, but we just keep getting pulled more and more and more directly into this war. And I do mean directly into this war, and I'll talk about some likely casualties that we have just suffered. But here is Bibi Netanyahu telling an Israeli outlet, and this is going back to D3 guys, telling an Israeli outlet that when Tony Blinken, our Secretary of State, was there in Israel, he told him flat out that this is our war too, which listen, frankly looking at it, you can't really deny.

Let's take a listen to that. A few days ago, I met the Secretary of State Blinken. I thanked him for the American assistance and I said to him, we wage this war after these monsters butchered us. We do not stop. We do not stop until we eliminate the Hamas and bring back the hostages. And I also said it's not just our war. It's your war as well. This is the war of the sons of light against the sons of

darkness. This is against the axis of evil led by Iran and the Houthis and the Hezbollah and Hamas. And I added that I don't forget for one moment that in addition to the war in Gaza, in addition to bringing back their hostages and the inhabitants to their homes, both in the north and the south, we have an existential mission to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. That's my mission. That's our mission. And I said to the Secretary Blinken, this must be your supreme mission as well. There is so much there to break down. I mean, first of all, just him blatantly saying this is our war too, which again, I can't even disagree with at this point. Secondly, he is one of a

number of Israeli officials who are thumbing their nose at the supposed concern that the Biden administration has expressed about the length of this war, about the indiscriminate bombing of this war, about the humanitarian crisis. He says there very clearly, we are gonna do what we want to do. And finally, and he also talks again about the sons of light versus the sons of darkness. We see what the supposed sons of light have been doing to thousands and thousands, millions actually, of civilians in the Gaza Strip. And then he goes on to tell us what our foreign policy priorities should be with regard to Iran. Iran, who again, yes, they have supported Hamas. They were not involved in October 7th. And Bibi Netanyahu is here telling us what our foreign policy priorities

should ultimately be. So there is a lot there, Sagar, to take issue with. And also, again, in this day and age, they should probably realize that we hear them when they're speaking in Hebrew as well. And there is an ability to translate here. But the fact that this is for an Israeli Hebrew language audience, he clearly fact that this is for an Israeli Hebrew language audience, he clearly thinks that he's able to sort of like keep this from the American public. I mean, I think he's right. If you look at the headlines across America today, it's gonna be Iowa and it's gonna be

the Blizzard and that's what the vast majority of people are. How many people are gonna listen to a translated version? Actually when I was in Israel, one thing I did notice, they watch a lot of news. It's a very news consuming public. Oh really? Yeah, I mean, it makes sense. They're a nation always either on the brink or currently involved in a war. So they're very closely monitoring. It's much smaller, more homogenous. So anyway, my point being that he's much more likely to get his message across to the people who he needs to save his ass and not get kicked out of office, as opposed to people

who are in the US who have all kinds of different concerns. So I don't necessarily think it's probably, you know, it's not the wrong move on his part because he's been able to basically get away with everything that he wants. The real question, you know, Chris, do we have the element from Axios? Yeah. Yeah. Let's put it up there, please. D6. On the screen that just demonstrates here, like kind of what U.S. policy towards has been out. It says Biden is frustrated and running out of patience with Netanyahu, U.S. officials tells me.

I mean, it's just like the 99th story now, you know, leaking behind the scenes. At a certain point, either back him or don't. And this is where it's like, what are we doing here? You know, are we, you know, it's an unequivocal support on the back end, but then always covering our ass in the press. Either call him out in public and pull the support and tell him to wrap it up or back him 100 percent. You know, honestly, but they are trying to have it both ways. It's just ridiculous, in my opinion.

I mean, really what I think we need to do, what I've seen in the past now, what I've seen some even Obama people float is Biden needs to press for a change in government in Israel. And look, I know that this, you know, sounds a little bit like interfering, but at this point, you know, given the intertwinement of the two governments, I think we should just make it clear, be like, look, Bibi, we got, we don't have any confidence in you. So it's like Israel, you guys can figure it out. But until we see long-term change and you actually, you know, change your government, you have somebody who can speak properly on your behalf, then U.S. support, it's just not going to happen for this interim period. Because at this point, I mean, it's just putting us in such a precarious position. We're about to talk now about the likely unfortunate casualties already in a war they're suffering right now.

And it's just costing America billions of dollars from the shipping. I mean, look, I can add up the bill for all the bombs that we just put on Yemen. And it's probably well over 100 million if we don't even include all the resources that we've deployed. And just in general, like this was my same critique of Ukraine. Think about the amount of brain space that this takes up for the U.S. military, for the American president, and for decision makers in Washington. That is the most precious thing in the world. It's like the entire world is currently revolving around this conflict. And it's like, if that's going to be the case, then we should have less of an impotent role, I think, in it. Yeah. I would say so. I would say so. I mean, I just can't with these

endless pieces about how frustrated they are and how they're trying so hard behind the scenes, etc., etc. I want you to think about how completely bizarre this is that you have the president and his aides leaking to Axios that they are basically in disagreement with their own policy set by the president of the United States. Right. I mean, this president is the one who has set no red lines, unconditional support, rushing weapons, bypassing Congress to rush these weapons and the 2,000-pound bunker buster bombs

that are being dropped on civilians. So if you really are frustrated with the war effort, you sure have a funny way of showing it. It dovetails with this always frequent, feigned Democratic Party impotence, like pretending like all things are just happening, we have absolutely no control of them. No, you set the policy, you set the strategy, you are the ones who have made it very clear that yes, you may do a little bit of hand wringing. But at the end of the day, you're going to give Israel and you're gonna give give Netanyahu every single thing that they want. So of course, they're not going to listen to you. Of course, Bibi's going to go on Hebrew, you know, in Hebrew language on Israeli news and be like, yeah, we told them we're not stopping. We're doing whatever the hell they want.

And this is our war. And by the way, we think you should attack Iran next. Like, of course, he's going to feel entitled to do that because that is the policy that you set. So to go to the press, and I have to say too, these reporters just lay this out totally credulously based on whatever it is that the officials are saying without providing any context that, hey, if they actually had a problem with it, there are weapons, there are tools that we could use, including not shipping them the weapons that they want until they do the things that you supposedly claim that you care about. But just to give you a very clear sense of how this is not at all dissonant, Bibi's policy is

not at all dissonant with the Biden administration policy. The White House just put out their statement about 100 days of war. How many times do you think they mentioned Palestinians? How many times? Zero, zero. They did not mention Palestinians, the massive death, the hunger, the starvation. They did not mention it a single time. So yes, if you're a BB Netanyahu, you're looking at that. You're looking at Joe Biden. Okay, he hung up on the phone with you in a huff 20 days ago. Who cares? Who cares? Sagar, I thought there was an extraordinary quote in that Axios piece from Senator Chris Van Hollen, who is a totally party-supporting, standard-issue Democrat, who says, for now, Netanyahu appears more willing to listen to Ben-Gavir and Smotrich than to what the president

of the United States says. And it is no surprise why that would be. First of all, he's ideologically aligned with that. That's number one. Number two is that they actually are willing to threaten to withhold their support, break up his coalition and undermine his power base. So yeah, they have a lot more power and they have a lot more say, even though the Biden administration would like to pretend there's some fringe voices irrelevant to the government. We have a Democratic senator here who, by the way, was just in the region who was saying, not the case, not the case. These people actually have a lot of influence, way more influence than the President of the United States is willing to exert. Well, why wouldn't he have more influence? Like Biden is willing to back him and these people are actually control his political future.

So I actually think it's quite of a rational move on his part. But listen, we're probably just not going to change anything about it. So it is what it is. Yeah. Over the past six years of making my true crime podcast hell and gone, I've learned one thing. No town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've received hundreds of messages from people across the country begging for help with unsolved murders.

I was calling about the murder of my husband at the cold case. I've never found her and it haunts me to this day. The murderer is still out there. Every week on Hell and Gone Murder Line, I dig into a new case, bringing the skills I've learned as a journalist and private investigator to ask the questions no one else is asking. Police really didn't care to even try. She was still somebody's mother. She was still somebody's daughter. She was still somebody's sister.

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really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st, and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Ad-free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Lott. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast.

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And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. At the same time, there has been stunning revelations that two U.S. Navy SEALs have been lost at sea near Yemen off the coast of Somalia in what has been described as a mission to essentially board a ship at night and try to intercept weapons that they believed were going from Iran to Yemen. That piece has now been confirmed that that's the mission that they were on. Here is John Kirby getting asked about this.

Let's take a listen. We received that report about two Navy SEALs missing off the coast of Somalia. They were attempting to board a small ship believed to be carrying weapons from Iran to Yemen. What is the status? As far as we know, that search is still ongoing for those two sailors that are in the water.

And we hope to get some updated information today. But we're obviously watching this very closely. But this is directly related to what is going on. This was not related to the strikes in Yemen. This was normal interdiction operations that we've been conducting for some time to try to disrupt that flow of weapons supplies to Yemen. So it's not related to the strikes that we took against the Houthis. But still, in this region, the Houthis, as you just mentioned there, say the motivation here is they're trying to get back at Israel's allies.

That's a justification they're using for attacking some of these ships. Does the US assess that these coalition strikes will deter the Houthis, or are you bracing for retaliation and an open ended conflict? I think it'd be Pollyannish for us to think that there couldn't or may not be some sort of retaliatory strike by the Houthis. We're watching this very, very closely. We've taken the requisite necessary precautions in the region to make sure we're ready for

that if that should occur. These strikes were meant to disrupt and degrade their ability to conduct these strikes. And so we think that we had good effect on that. We're still assessing the battle damage assessment of those strikes, but we think we had good effect. We'll see what happens. The Houthis have a choice to make here now, Margaret. And the right choice is to stop these reckless attacks.

And no matter what they say, this is not about punishing Israel. I mean, one of the ships they took a shot at yesterday was Panamanian flag that it was taking Russian oil. It had nothing to do with Israel. So it may be an open-ended conflict. We don't know if deterrence has been established. Nobody wants a conflict with the Houthis. We're not looking for a conflict with Yemen here.

We're trying to get these attacks to stop. So you can see there, he tries to distance the mission that these Navy SEALs were on from our strikes on Yemen and on the Houthis. But these are very clearly linked, Sagar. It's total BS. I'm actually really upset about it because it's obvious. Look, you cannot tell me that these are normal operations. We don't normally have US Navy SEALs who are bound, like boarding ships openly in the middle of Somalia with weapons bound for Yemen. This is obviously a new policy that was put into place as part of this so-called coalition where we're trying to

stop the weapon shipments from Iran to the Houthis to prevent attacks in the Red Sea. For some reason, this responsibility has wholly come upon the United States, even though this is supposedly a conflict that involves Israel. Okay, so now we're involved in it. And now, I mean, look, I hate to say it. These two Navy SEALs are lost at sea now for days in the middle of the ocean. That is horrible. I mean, look, I hope to God that they are found alive.

Imagine being the family members of two of these guys. And listen, they certainly, like in terms of the mission and all of that, it's one of those where we have to think about what was the strategy? What were we actually doing here? This was involved to try and prevent weapons flows from Iran to the Houthis, which are attacking ships. But the thing is, is that all of that for the center of gravity is Israel and is Gaza. And that's why you put it correctly. It appears that these are going to be the first direct. Look, I don't want to say casualty yet.

The first at least like directly affected American soldiers or American service members, other than the ones who've already been attacked in Iraq and in Syria. Yeah. Who were directly involved in a combat operation or in some sort of operation that was directly involved in the conflict here. Which, look, this is really tragic. I mean, these guys, it's like, what a horrible, horrible situation for their command, for the people who were involved, for their teammates and for their families and everyone else involved. And we just have to think about, like, what is actually going on here? And what were these guys doing?

And the truth is, is that this was all because the Houthis are attacking ships, which they say is because of the situation in Israel and in Gaza. And I got no love for the Houthis and I got no love for anybody, you know, who's attacking ships or anything other than that. If I thought that we could solve this problem by bombing,

I'd be like, listen, 100%. The issue is, is that, as I said from day one, the Saudis bombed these people, kingdom come, for nine straight years. And lo and behold, in the so-called battle damage assessment, which I know we're about to get into, Crystal, they say they only destroyed 10 to 20% of their offensive capability and that over 80% remains not only capable, but way harder to destroy because it's all mobily launched, which means that we could be in a way worse situation. I mean, just today, the news broke that the, that there was a, yeah, the U.S. has shot down a Houthi missile named at a U, aimed at a U.S. Navy ship. It only, this, today,

this happened. And not, in this case, listen, shooting in a Panamanian tanker, carrying Russian oil, whatever, all right? Like like that's way less of our responsibility. This is at the USS Laboon, which is a U.S. destroyer. 4.45 p.m. Yemen time. Anti-ship cruise missile. These things are no joke. Luckily, we have good defense. But what if it doesn't?

You know, it only takes one, and then we're in a whole other different situation. Yeah. That's what I worry about. That's what I worry about the most with this. Well, and let's just put some more details up on the screen that we know here. This is from the Washington Post, everything we know about what happened with these Navy SEALs. And keep in mind, this is the official story. Yeah, right. Of what happened here. Who really knows? Okay, Navy SEALs lost at sea. We're searching for Yemen bound weapon shipment. So we have confirmation

of what was being said there. It went awry near Somalia last week. They were dispatched to look for suspected Iranian weapons bound for militants in Yemen, which has become a staging ground for repeated attacks on commercial vessels in the Red Sea. The two service members who went missing were preparing to board the ship in rough seas when one of them slipped from her ladder. The second sailor, seeing their comrade fall into the water, dove in to help. The official said on the condition of anonymity to describe early assessments. This occurred Thursday in the Gulf of Aden. They've been missing since Thursday, guys.

Not immediately clear whether other military personnel successfully boarded the ship or if so, whether any Iranian-made weapons were located. Again, I say this is the official stories that they fell into the water. It is very possible that that is not actually what happened, but that both the attempt to distance this action from the strikes, the bombings of the Houthis in Yemen, and also potentially, I don't know what actually happened here. But if they are lying and they were actually killed by Iranians and they're saying they fell into the water to avoid escalation, I support that lie. I'm just going to go ahead and say it straight out. I don't know.

But- Well, I wouldn't support it for their family members. Look, it's awful because in my view, they are both trying to directly involve US soldiers, US service members in this and then distance themselves from it when things go wrong. That's why you don't put our troops at risk unless it's actually 100% worth it. You don't send people to go and board a ship unless you're like, unless, you know, it's for something that directly involves us, which is really important to our overall security. Well, obviously the reason I say that is just because I want to avoid war with Iran. Yeah, obviously. I want to avoid that escalatory spiral that you're talking about that we are dramatically at risk of because of what Israel is doing in Gaza.

I mean, all of these reports act like this is just happening out of nowhere. And again, we're powerless to stop it or do anything about it. When there was a ceasefire, this all stopped. The attacks on our service members in Iraq that almost killed them by the way we came this close. It hit a military barracks where they were sleeping and by the luck of God, the universe, whatever you want to say, thankfully they were not killed, okay? These attacks in the Red Sea dramatically decreased because this all stems from a conflict that we are directly involved in, regardless of what Joe Biden wants you to believe in the

hand-wringing reports that they released to the press. So what the hell are we doing here, I ask again. Let's go ahead to E4, guys, so we can see. This strategy, even if you want to say, like, OK, we're not going to call for a ceasefire, so I guess we have to bomb the Houthis. What are we even doing here when it didn't even work? The New York Times is reporting their offensive ability remains intact after the US-led airstrikes. So it's not like we even were effective at degrading the Houthi capabilities to continue

to strike. So there's that. You also have, we can skip ahead to E7. You have even the Rand Corporation before this happened saying that this is an absolutely foolish strategy. One of their analysts wrote this for a magazine here saying, don't bomb the Houthis because it's not gonna work. It's not that they're opposed, the Marine Corporation famously hawkish, but they say this is, decades of experience have shown military efforts to dislodge the Houthis are unlikely to be effective. If bombing the Houthis would work, as Sagar has said in the past, they would already

be gone. That would be done and finished. The Saudis have been bombing them for quite a while now to little impact. If anything, this bolsters their hand domestically because it is a uniting issue. The support for Palestinians is a uniting issue within Yemen. There were huge, huge demonstrations in the Yemeni capital of Sana'a after the US struck these sites in Yemen. By the way, let's put this next one up on the screen from Ryan Peterson. After the US and UK navies launched missile attacks on land-based Houthi targets in Yemen, instead of sending a signal, the Red Sea is now safe for ships.

This morning, 16 more vessels that had been en route to transit the Red Sea had instead diverted around Africa. So congratulations, you made the shipping situation worse. You made it worse. Because guess what, guys? Do you really want your container ship to go through what is now an active war zone, thanks to the US and the UK? So you didn't degrade their capabilities. You've made the shipping situation worse and put E9 up on the screen. By the way, oh, oil prices went up after our strikes on the Houthis. So way to go, guys. Brilliant, brilliant strategy. You've done nothing but put US service members at risk. You've done nothing but expand the danger of this war and the possibility of greater conflagration. You have made the shipping situation worse and you caused

oil prices to go up. Brilliant fricking strategy, guys. Way to go. Yeah, it seems that the only ships left in the Red Sea are US Navy ships, US or UK ships. I should laugh, but it's not funny because now they're getting fired on as of literally this morning. And just that any time, look, low-grade situation, this is the thing about asymmetric warfare is we, quote-unquote, destroy whatever, 10% to 20%. And if anything, whatever you hit first is usually the easiest stuff to hit, which means whatever comes next is way harder to hit. It's just like the North Koreans, anybody else who wants to display asymmetric power, what do you do? You make it difficult. And so you take other camouflage, you put it on the back of a truck, and you move it around. And with modern technology involving attack drones, as we've seen from the Houthis,

and with the missiles, you can have a pretty significant impact with not that much money. So I've said it too, you can solve this one way militarily, you have to occupy Yemen. I don't want to do that. I don't think that's worth it at all. There's another way, which is we could have diplomacy as this. I actually recommend you read that, you know, the Rand article, because it's in Foreign Affairs Magazine. It's well-reasoned. It is. And she points out, you know, everything that I've talked about before, about the bombing campaign and about previously, about how if this is militarily capable. We've talked about this already, too, with Gaza now for like a hundred days,

literally at this point. I'm like, listen, if it was easy to, if we were going to win a war for the populace, destroyed insurgency with bombing alone, then we would have come out Vietnam as the greatest victors of all mankind. It turns out it's a lot more difficult than that. Yeah. The issue, you know, is the same thing, you know, here, but look, I think, look, we really could be, you know, near breaking point, as you say, because what we are waiting and looking for is a conflagration type event. The Red Sea, like the initial bombing, maybe that's not going to set it off. And if anything, it may not even happen, Crystal, it may not even happen in Yemen. Yemen is just the latest indicator of the 40th order consequence of destabilization.

It could happen with the Rafah military operation we just talked about. Do you remember early on in the war when an Israeli tank actually fired on Egypt and everyone just kind of looked the other way? They apologized. They're like, oh, we're really sorry. I mean that was serious. That was serious business. This is what I keep saying. It only takes one thing.

Two Navy SEALs here, likely, you know, they're missing. You know, hopefully we are able to find them, but who knows? The U.S. is clearly going to try and cover that up. But what if there's one more? What if we, you know, like you said, a barracks got hit? Can you imagine a scenario where five U.S. service guys are killed in a barracks in Iraq? That's, I mean, what's going to happen? There's also, people forget this, there is a peace process going on inside Yemen. There also, I don't know if people know this, the Iraqi prime minister and the US right now are in major negotiations over keeping our troops actually in the region. The Biden administration wants to stay. The Iraqis want us out. We'll see. I mean,

I want us out too. But obviously they, you know, they're trying to keep us in. Who knows what that situation will look like? Like there's big diplomatic problems, I think, all over. Saudis are very unhappy with these strikes on Yemen because, yeah, they were in the middle of a peace process and trying to resolve this conflict and not have endless war. And this is before we even mentioned the fact they didn't seek congressional authorization. The strikes are illegal. Biden's being criticized. But we're actually on Ro Khanna on tomorrow to talk about this aspect as well. But even if you don't care about that, even if you don't care about the Constitution,

you don't care about striking a sovereign nation, if you even put all of that aside, it is a stupid strategy that has already failed and backfired. So brilliant work, guys. Way to go. Over the past six years of making my true crime podcast, Hell and Gone, I've learned one thing. No town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've received hundreds of messages from people across the country begging for help with unsolved murders. I was calling about the murder of my husband at the cold case. They've never found her. And it haunts me to this day. The murderer is still out there.

Every week on Hell and Gone Murder Line, I dig into a new case, bringing the skills I've learned as a journalist and private investigator to ask the questions no one else is asking. Police really didn't care to even try. She was still somebody's mother. She was still somebody's daughter. She was still somebody's sister. There's so many questions that we've never gotten any kind of answers for. If you have a case you'd like me to look into, call the Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them.

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Hey, guys. We actually are running into a bit of a scheduling thing. We'll see you next time. on here with all of that. But otherwise, we will have a breaking news tonight about Iowa. And then we will also have a show early for you tomorrow morning with Ryan and Emily here at the desk. We'll break everything down about what happened with the results of the Iowa caucuses. And we will see you all then. I know a lot of cops. They get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no.

This is Absolute Season 1. Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. Listen to Absolute Season 1. Taser Incorporated on the get right back there and it's bad. Listen to Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The OGs of uncensored motherhood are back and badder than ever. I'm Erica. And I'm Mila. And we're the hosts of the Good Moms, Bad Choices podcast, brought to you by the Black Effect Podcast Network every Wednesday.

Yeah, we're moms, but not your mommy. Historically, men talk too much. And women have quietly listened. And all that stops here. If you like witty women, then this is your tribe. Listen to the Good Moms Bad Choices podcast every Wednesday on the Black Effect Podcast Network, the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you go to find your podcast. Over the years of making my true crime podcast, Hell and Gone, I've learned no town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've heard from hundreds of people across the country with an unsolved murder in their community. I was calling about the murder of my husband. The murderer is still out there. Each week, I investigate a new case. If there is a case we should hear about, call 678-744-6145.

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