It Could Happen Here - Drone Strikes in Rojava

Episode Date: October 24, 2023

James is joined by Robert, Shereen, and Gare to discuss the drone strikes in North and East Syria after his recent trip to the region.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Submit your podcast today at iHeart.com slash podcast awards. That's iHeart.com slash podcast awards. Call Zone Media. Greetings, podcast enthusiasts. It's me, James, a man who has commenced his one-man war against Qatar Airlines who detained me against my will for most of the last two days in a very small

part of a very big plane. See, there's a you know, airlines from Middle Eastern countries are usually like the best airlines are like Royal Jordanian and Air Emirates. If it's if it's owned by a king, it's usually a safe bet. But but Cutter Airways.

That's what they say about England. Breaks that mold. Proudly breaks that mold. Yeah. Yeah. Fuck me. One of the one of the less pleasant experiences available to a human being that doesn't end in death is a 36-hour trip from Kazakhstan to Southern California, which I have just enjoyed. I always enjoyed those trips back from Air Emirates because when you're on the Air Emirates flight, if you ask the steward or whatever, if you tell him,

hey, I would like eight shots of vodka and four glasses of orange juice. He'll just give it to you. Like, not even a question. Not even a question. And so, have I vomited on a couple of Air Emirates flights? Yes. Is it always a good time? Probably.

You don't remember. No, no, no. Yeah, see, I was at the point of frustration where like, and I'm, as an English man, if I become frustrated and drunk, then my instinct is to fight everyone or throw bottles, and I thought that that would probably result in further detention, so decided against becoming bladdered. Or I could have started singing i guess that's the other option available to me uh that fits my culture um yeah so we're not here to talk about things that i like to do in my free time as much as i would like love that but we are here to talk

about uh things that i have been seeing in my work time when i was traveling to Kurdistan last couple of weeks. Kurdistan, for people who are not familiar, is a big area, the area where Kurdish people live, and it spans several countries. The areas I went were in Iraq and in Syria, or it's not really in, I guess, Syrian regime territory, but if you look on the map. Northeast Syria, known as Rojava. The other two parts that are generally considered part of Kurdistan

are a big chunk of southern Iran and also a big chunk of southern Turkey. Yeah, so Rojava just means west. I think Rojelat is east, eastern Kurdistan. So yeah, I've spent the last week and change in that area. And while I was there, the Turkish state began a massive drone bombing campaign, which is what we are gathered here today to discuss. So for people who are not familiar, it's four years, almost this drone bombing campaign started almost four years to the day

since turkey's invasion of what they call the m4 strip uh so that's uh the area around surakania and tel abiyad uh we've talked about that before on the podcast so if you want to know more about that uh you can go back and listen to it um it's it's the area along the border, one of the areas on the border between Turkey and Syria. And as people will know, Syria is a country that has had a long and terrible civil war, which they've heard about in lots of episodes, right? And we're not talking about that today so much as we're talking about the Turkish state's use of drones to bomb what people generally in this country will know as Rojava. So just to give some statistics off the top, this is the fourth year in a row of aggression at this time of year. So there have been two land attacks, I think Operation Olive Branch and Operation

Peace Spring. And then the last two years, there have been drone strikes at this time of year. At this time of year, it seems very hard not to conclude that these are attempts to destroy civilian infrastructure and make it very hard for people in the cold months of the year. So right now, around 2 million people in northeast Syria are going to be without power and without water. And I experienced some of that when I was there. And the places I stayed were run off generators. So you'd have intermittent power, you'd have power for a bit, and then they'd put some petrol in the generator and the power would go down. Or the generator would have a little tantrum and the power would go down.

But generally, I had a lot better access to power. Some people had a lot better access to water. So as I was traveling around, I noticed some people didn't have access to running water. They can't turn on the tap and get water. Obviously, that's a massive problem. It's something I think, as people are listening to this, Israel is also bombing the shit out of Gaza, the whole of the Gaza Strip. And the US recently intervened to ensure that people there have access to water. And they have done very little in the case of protecting people in North and East Syria. So across this drone campaign, 48 people have died.

Across this drone campaign, 48 people have died. And the worst, I guess the highest casualty-producing strike was one that happened while I was there. 29 Asaish. Asaish are like internal security forces. Sometimes you'll see it translated as police, but I don't think that's quite accurate, that they don't do cop shit. They're not there to arrest you for parking in the wrong place

or do the things that cops do. like they're not there to uh you know like like arrest you for parking in the wrong place or and then do the things that cops do uh they're there largely as like internal security due to the the various uh non-state armed groups that are in the area and state armed groups i guess that are operating in the area that would make things dangerous for people living there so these particular assays were anti-narcotics assays and again why i'm grounding this and what they do is because they're not the people who like uh send you to jail for the rest of your life for like having an ounce of weed they're the people whose job is to prevent the trading captagon uh will people know do people know what captagon is absolutely not yeah it's uh it's it's uh it's one of the

drug i mean it's that when you when you hear about drug interdiction forces, like police in Rojava, they're going after Captagon. It's a big chunk of both what kept ISIS, it's the Pervitin, you know, the meth that Nazis took for ISIS, right? And it was also a big chunk of how they got their funding was moving. And the Assad regime also gets a piece of a lot of the Captagon trade. regime also gets a piece of a lot of the the capagon trade it continues to fund these largely these like is the most insurgent groups right in the area because it's small and it's high value and like robert says to give it to their fighters it's this is very common like around the world we we discuss this in myanmar too right the military there take um something else called yaba but there's these kind of meth derivatives are very common and

they're very commonly sold that's how a lot of these non-state armed groups get money to buy stuff right so when we're talking about uh drug interdiction it's not done in a vacuum it's not done because like they think that necessarily the drugs are bad uh or that you know there's some kind of moral failure that comes from the use of these substances. It's because it allows funding for groups that are trying to kill people on the ground. So interdicting the drugs is part of an anti-terrorism operation that allows people to live safely, which is what they deserve after 10 plus years of war in that area. So 29 people is a lot of people, right? 29 anti-narcotics issues is a lot of the people who do that job it's going to make it significantly harder for them to continue doing

that job which means it's going to make it significantly easier for those armed groups to get funding right it's also so while i was there there was a massive funeral for these people, right? Every town, every settlement across Rojava has lost somebody in that strike, right? So in Kambishlo, in Kobani, in Al-Hasakah, like all these places had big funerals because, you know, three or four or ten people came from that town. And like that's, I saw a little girl like going to her dad's funeral right like a little girl holding a picture of her dad and it's pretty fucked up like it's hard for that not to affect you especially as like these people weren't fighting anyone they weren't attacking anyone right they were just they were taking a training they were taking an anti-narcotics training at

night and 60 of them were gathered in this building 29 were killed 28 were injured and it's in the sort of furthest northeast um part of north and east syria around a town called derrick um which is on the border of al-malakai yeah derrick yeah probably my pronunciation is arse um al-malakai it might say on the map if you're looking on google maps you're trying to work out where this is um lots of these places the reason they will have two names is Kurdish and Arabic right and so like under the previous Assad regime like Arabic was the sort of language that people were enforced to speak and use and now under the self-administration people tend to use Kurdish and they tend to use a Latin script as opposed to an Arabic script right right? So that's why you'll see two names very often if you're looking on a map. But like 29 is, you know, there's 19 other people, mostly civilians, right? Who were killed

and 2 million people are now living without power, without water, and without these basic services, power, without water, and without these basic services, which in turn will result in more death, right? More people will die because they don't have access to those things which are life-sustaining, right? Old people, young people, sick people. Those things are the very basics of sustaining human life. And so without them, things are going to get a lot harder. I want to talk a little bit about where these drone strikes happened.

Because largely, aside from the one on the SH, they weren't at large groups of people or buildings. Instead, they were deliberately targeting infrastructure. So of the ones that I saw and the ones i read about and they targeted like an electricity substation in one case uh they targeted a lot of water facilities right like like water pumping stations etc that allow people to get water a cooking gas plant which it's pretty obvious what that does right it allows people to get bottles of gas to cook their food. And a lot of oil infrastructure. So I saw a few of those, aren't they called like donkeys?

You know, the things that go up and down? Yeah. Am I using the right word? I don't know the word, but the little crane things. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The things you can see if you drive through Bakersfield. I'm sure there's a name. Yeah.

Are they oil derricks? Yeah. Someone Google the name of the nodding dog. A pump jack. Is that? No? Yeah. Wait, that's the first thing that came up.

Sounds like a dude who goes to the gym a lot. Yeah, bro, I'm pump jacked. I mean, it is called an oil oil donkey as well so you weren't wrong yeah nodding donkey pumps yeah that's what i thought they were nodding donkeys okay yeah that's that's a phrase we're going with um so you could see a lot of these that were like knocked over on their side right that had been drone struck and and then you could see others that were just knocked out because the power to them had been knocked out. So obviously that's not only a major revenue source, but also that is how people in a region get fuel, right?

So it's going to be harder for them to get diesel. It's going to be harder for them to drive around. People already don't drive around a lot because a lot of the drone strikes on people in the YPG, YPG, so the people's defense forces and women's defense forces. Lots of drone strikes have happened when those people are driving their cars or when they get in a car.

So it can be quite hairy driving. And so a lot of people were driving too, like I drove around, but that's just one of the areas of risk for people, right? but that's just one of the areas of risk for people, right? Of the people killed, 35 were SAE, 11 were civilians, and two were SCF. So most of these were either internal security or civilians. And I think Robert and I spoke while I was there, and Robert made a good point about how this enables these non-state armed groups,

like either ISIS or HTS? My main concern for you while you were there was not that you would get hit in an airstrike, but it was that because of the damage done to the security forces as a result of the Turkish airstrikes, there's always been ISIS cells there, right? Yes. They've never gotten rid of all of them. And periods where the AANES self-administration is under attack are the periods in which it's

most dangerous because it provides there's less security forces, you know, watching everything. People in general are out less, which provides cover for for some of these groups that may want to do like a kidnapping yeah yeah yeah and uh it's not a place where a lot of uh i guess folks who look like me um i'm sorry that that was a concern for us and like it's a concern for these people too right they they still do car bombs in derazor uh not you know they think still kill civilians yeah they they roll up uh isis people on a probably weekly basis and people are interested in getting more information both

about the drone strikes and about what they call sleeper cells the rajava information center very nice people uh they have a good website uh it's rajava information center.org they produce monthly reports uh on both things so that will give more information on those things now will be a good time to pivot to adverts but i've got a buckle that is do you know who else provides great services i don't think we can i don't reasonably make that claim the products and services that support this podcast. Here they are. Welcome. I'm Danny Thrill.

Won't you join me at the fire and dare enter? Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows, presented by iHeart and Sonora. An anthology of modern day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America. From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters. To bone chilling brushes with supernatural creatures. I know you. Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time.

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I guess not just from North East Syria. These also happen up around Soleimani. Soleimani, if you're looking on the map, depends again on the language, right? Those have happened again against KCK, sort of money if you're looking on the map um depends again on the language right those have happened again against uh kck which is like the kurdistan communities council so that would be the i guess the um the that if you look at like syria iran turkey and ir and Iraq as different countries, all of which have some administrative control over the nation of Kurdish people.

Kurdish people live in all four countries and they live in other countries too, of course. Then the movements in each of those countries are subsidiary to the KCK. Some of those KCK folks are up in Soleimani, so there will be drone strikes there. And that's far inside Iraqi Kurdistan. You're a long way from the border there. And that's what these drone strikes... Turkish intelligence and the Turkish military to target people much, much further inside with very little consequence or risk on their end, right? These drones are largely not being targeted because certainly in ANES, the Autonomous Administration in Northeast Syria, they don't have the means to target them, right? The United States hasn't supplied them with the weapons that they would need to shoot down those drones, which I think brings me on to the role of the US in this. And I guess more broadly, the role of the coalition.

In this case, coalition is a coalition to defeat ISIS, right? It's made up of dozens of countries, the UK, the US, Germany, lots of other Western, I guess, countries broadly, and countries in that part of the world too. I think Iraq is part of it. Certainly, Iraqi Kurdistan has done their own operations against ISIS sleeper cells, Peshmerga. And everywhere you go, you'll go through Peshmerga checkpoints. I was going through an area where they had arrested an ISIS member the day before. So like it's, they'll be getting you out the car,

you know, going through your bags, looking through your stuff, right? And so that's all part of the same operation. But the US has a base in a place called Al-Hasakah, which again, you can look up on the map, right?

It's a little west, I'm trying to line up my compass here, a little west of Kamishlo, which is the capital of the region and the u.s pretty much u.s troops don't do a great amount of leaving that base it's fair to say uh they'll come out in helicopters they were going out like sort of supporting uh s sdf um patrols in the alhazard region but they were supporting them from the air right they generally aren't going out and about like uh with people on the ground talking to people unless it's a specific mission which they do sometimes um you can if people are interested in like the u.s presence it's it's called operation inherent resolve and they have a twitter account where

they'll sometimes post themselves doing things uh but what they don't do is protect that like and so the u.s and the autonomous administration are allies in this fight against isis right but they are only allies in this fight against isis the u.s is not supporting them in defending themselves from drone strikes or like ensuring that a civilian population is protected from those attacks so the u.s has the capacity to shoot down these drones and they prove that by shooting one down uh last week or the week before i'm a little bit jet lagged so i'm a bit bungled on time but um i think it was last week the u.s shut down a turkish drone so that'd be about two weeks ago for when this is airing. Yes, yeah, sure.

Good point. So yeah, two weeks ago, the United States shut down, an F-16 shut down a Turkish drone. So specifically it was a drone called an Akinci, which is a newer variant of the Bayraktar drone.

We've spoken about these drones before, right? They're the drones that people, like, I don't know, you can go on etsy and buy a stuffy version of these drones which right that's because that's concerning yeah it's really dystopian and crazy i don't like it yeah yeah i do not like it either i think it illustrates the way the war in ukraine has become like a football match for some people. Yeah. Yes. Or like a film where like, I just want to reinforce that.

It's turned into like fandom. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. I think that's an excellent way of putting it, Gary. Like it's not cool when anyone gets fucking drone struck. It's not cool when like everyone in an area spends every night worrying if

death is going to come from the sky at some point right like the effect of these drone strikes isn't just on the people killed or the people in injured or even the infrastructure the effect is on every single person uh worrying what's going to happen tonight right like and i can speak to a tiny part of that experience right nothing compared to what people living there have gone through at all but it's a concern every time it gets dark you know well it's tonight the night especially for the rural folks who might be living in a rural area but near to a substation or near to one of those uh nodding donkeys or other infrastructure which has been targeted or near a cooking gas plant right those things i can imagine explode with quite some force uh what they can't leave right they can't just up and

and not live near any infrastructure. Infrastructure is what allows the place to be survivable for civilians. So they just have to live with this constant fear. And it's very odd to see that and then simultaneously see this sort of, I don't know, deification of drone strikes that are happening in Ukraine.

And like this, you know, people with dog dressed as napoleon twitter avatars uh yeah cheering someone's kid dying yeah i mean throughout all of the kind of new conflicts we've had the past five years like the and especially the past like two three years like the idea of like politics as fandom has produced some of the like most like inhumane gross uh aspects of how people have been like consuming social media and just the sheer it's like people forget that this is like thousands of people's actual like human lives that they're like yes memeing about and it's it just it just becomes just they talk

about it in the same way they talk about like a marvel movie or like a star like it's it's yeah or sports like it's it it it it's like this weird like gamified it it allows you to to approach these things from a just a from a very separate perspective when you're when you're viewing it from like this fandom angle i think but politics is fandom in general i think it's gotten a whole lot worse since the trump era you had you know like that's where we had like resistance libs that were uh like copying off some of the stuff from the new star wars trilogy which is kind of the inspiration for a lot of their stuff. We got Nazis doing a whole bunch of politics as fandom as well. It just creates like, it's like this team sports,

like fandom thing that is just pervade. It seeped into like almost every single aspect of like, not just politics, but now like conflict and like geopolitics. It's like whoever has the best branding is the one that's has the the best chance yeah and it's i don't know it's it's it's disturbing to watch i i don't know how to like counter counter it because it feels like the more you engage the further sucked into the abyss you become um but it also doesn't feel good to just like ignore it as well because it's just it's like it feels like this kind of endless trap

that is just a part of existing in this weird postmodern internet world. Yeah, I don't know. I think one would hope that the internet in some ways could help us see that at the end of every drone strike is a little fucking child most of the time. I spent some time last week with a family who almost exactly one year ago lost their 15 year old son in a drone strike and like it that like i

understand people die in these things like on an intellectual level and even on a personal level like having spent time in these places you know for a decent amount of my adult life but fuck me it's just like it destroyed you. Like seeing a mom bury her son, cry for her little boy. It's fucking heartbreaking. And like I got to live that for one morning and those people live that every single day and every time. And I don't, I don't know.

It makes me want to shout at people when I see this. I don't actually think it's, I don't mean to be a do see this. I don't actually think it's. I don't mean to be a doomer here. I don't think it's a solvable problem. Yeah, this is we are talking about it within the language of fandom, because that is kind of the defining public social relationship of our time. Yeah, but like this is always what people have done to war one way or the other. Right. Yeah. It's faster now and more commercial.

Right. Like one thing for whatever reason, I think just because we're acculturated to it, hearing people talk about, you know, doing what they do in times of war because of patriotism, because of nationalism, because of belief in the founding principles of their country. because of belief in the founding principles of their country um seems a little bit less coarse than like doing it because you fell in with a bunch of memers who use little dog avatars and shit but like i don't know it's not it's not like less logical than than yeah being ride or die because like you happen to be born under so-and-so, the king. Yeah, fair. Yeah, yeah. And that dehumanization.

I think the difference to me is... So Robert and I have both experienced this, right? In order to kill somebody, you have to dehumanize them. To kill people en masse, you have to do that en masse, right? If you're fighting a war, it doesn't behoove you to think... You make it sound like we're killing people, James. Well, that's the thing that we do that en masse, right? If you're fighting a war, it doesn't behoove you to think... You make it sound like we're killing people, James. Well, that's the thing that we do on the podcast, Robert. Yeah, we kill people en masse, yeah.

Yeah, sure, you're going to have to... Cooler zone is where we talk about the killings. If people want to subscribe, that's what we do instead of adverts, is we list the people we've killed. Yeah, James, as the quote on your Blue Sky account says, one death is a tragedy, one million is a statistic.

James Stout. Yeah, that's right. Every day I strive to get my number up, you know. But so far I've let everyone down. That's not true. To my knowledge, none of us have killed anyone.

To your knowledge. To my knowledge, yeah us have killed anyone but i to your knowledge to my knowledge yeah shireen's probably got some bodies in the uh in the closet you know jesus christ god it's just welcome i'm danny thrill won't you join me at the fire and dare enter? Nocturnum, Tales from the Shadows, presented by iHeart and Sonora. An anthology of modern day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America. From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures.

I know you. Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time. Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows as part of my Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Jack B. Thomas,

the host of a brand new Black Effect original series, Black Lit, the podcast for diving deep into the rich world of Black literature. I'm Jack Peace Thomas, and refuge between the chapters. From thought-provoking novels to powerful poetry, we'll explore the stories that shape our culture. Together, we'll dissect classics and contemporary works while uncovering the stories of the brilliant writers behind them. Blacklit is here to amplify the voices of Black writers and to bring their words to life. Listen to Blacklit on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The 2025 iHeart Podcast Awards are coming.

This is the chance to nominate your podcast for the industry's biggest award. Submit your podcast for nomination now at iHeart.com slash podcast awards. But hurry, submissions close on December 8th. Hey, you've been doing all that talking. It's time to get rewarded for it. Submit your podcast today at iHeart.com slash podcast awards. That's iHeart.com slash podcast awards. So what I wanted to say is that like when, yeah, like if you're in the military, you probably know this, right? Like this sort of blood makes a grass grow shit. Fine, whatever. Like that's how wars work.

War is undesirable. It's horrible. You have to be horrible. You have to dehumanize people to kill them. You don't have to fucking do that if you're on twitter.com. But like people, you know, people with the silly dog avatars chiefly,

but other people too, have begun to see themselves as like participants in conflict in a way that they maybe didn't. Maybe they did, and I just wasn't around in the second yeah no i think i think that does tie into part of how the fandom things works because a part of participating in fandom is being in these kind of very very alienating online spaces because any type of like engagement on the internet in this way is is fueled through the process of alienation but when that kind of

starts applying to to politics you feel like either the act of consuming or or like you know joining in on conversation is itself like a form of activism uh by just like just through like consuming or sharing content you feel like you're actually participating in the thing itself um yeah and i think some of it's this almost narcissistic need to not let the world pass you by because it's there there's something deeply uncomfortable about just like watching massive things happen and realizing like there's nothing i can do about this yeah um to feel like you matter and there isn't a lot of the time right like your your take you know the the instant a hospital gets attacked in Gaza, your your take on that is is is not particularly helpful or necessary. Yeah. Unless you're I don't know, Joe Biden.

Right. But yeah, which is not I don't think his take was helpful. But right. It was like it had an impact because he's the president. But like most of us, we're just kind of part of the churn. And there's almost there's like a degree of emotional need to it, especially when you see these horrible footage of bodies piled high. Right. You feel like I'm a bad person if I don't do something. And the only thing I can do is tweet or whatever your social media is. I feel like I just, just to play devil's advocate for a hot sec. I think it's a little different when there's so much conflicting information, especially, I mean like the Gaza thing is a great example because the electricity is out. They don't want them to share anything.

So I think when it comes to stuff, something like that, it's more about like spreading awareness versus like having a take. In my opinion, it's more just like, Hey, the news might say this, but this is from the actual person on the ground telling you what's

happening. So I think there's a little bit of nuance because I also think the only reason that like, like just for Palestine, for example, just as we don't have to go into it too much, but a huge reason why there's so much more support for the Palestinian movement is because of social media. Yeah, definitely.

People see people in Gaza as people now, not as statistics or just through the lens of Hamas or whatever. Yeah. I mean, I think it depends on how you do it. Yeah, I mean, I think it depends on how you do it. And like, I mean, it is it is accurate to say that to a significant extent, the ultimate outcome of these conflicts are determined in large part due to public sympathy. Right. Like that's going to be probably true of however things ultimately shake out in Gaza. And it's certainly been true of the conflict in Ukraine, right? Like the degree to which weapons keep flowing to that country is going to be heavily based on the degree to which sympathy for that cause remains among US taxpayers and taxpayers

in other countries that are sending them those weapons. That's going to have an impact on the presidential election. Maybe. I mean, that is the other thing, right? That like everyone who is engaging with this stuff via social media, there's a tendency to get caught up in a bubble in terms of just thinking about how much this is on the mind of like American voters. Maybe it'll be different this election, but generally, like, again, my feelings on this are kind of muddled, but like very, very often, no matter how big a deal a story is, you know, online and stuff, American voters rarely vote based on foreign policy concerns. Yeah, tends to be elections. I want to say- I'm not saying that's what matters morally. I'm just talking about like-

You're totally correct. Yeah. And especially in terms of your ability to influence something. It doesn't matter how much you care if other people don't at an election time. I want to maybe finish up. I have just knocked over a bottle of osipropyl alcohols. So my office is rapidly becoming... You just like gassed yourself.

That's why I went to turn on the fan and open the door. Good times. So maybe I want to finish up before I evacuate by saying that it's something you can do and it's to give your time and money. I know that doesn't feel as good as trying to do amateur OSINT on Reddit, but you can help, actually, and you can make a meaningful difference with a few bucks.

And I know I sound like an NPR advert now, but the Rojava Information Center has some good resources. And I'm not going to read them out because it's quite complicated. Like I said, it's bank transfer information. But if you feel helpless, you are not. You can do a lot with a little. You can raise money. You can help to organize donations right that like this these things make a difference if someone who doesn't have water now gets a

pallet of bottled water that makes a difference if someone gets a heater for their home that makes a difference if even if it's someone whose kid has died right like making their life a little less painful in a physical sense right like helping themping them be warm at night. That does make a difference and you can do that. And if you want to make a difference, I would really encourage you to do whatever it is. It doesn't have to be here, right? It's like there's an ethnic cleansing happening in Azerbaijan. There is an ethnic cleansing happening in Gaza, right?

These are places where you can show meaningful solidarity and support with a little bit of a donation or a fundraiser it's happening at our fucking border right like someone died at our border since our last recording someone else got run over by some chad in a truck um but like you can make a difference in a meaningful way with actions and it's really easy to get sucked into like just posting into the void and feeling helpless, but like there are helpful things you can do. Yeah. Yeah.

And you don't have to just, you don't have to be like rich or have a lot of disposable income to do this. There's a lot of like traditionally anarchist communities have put on benefit shows to run, to fundraise from an entire community so that's not just you trying to you know you know put like your few pennies aside there is there's ways there's ways to do this that just involve you actually like getting involved with your like local culture and a part of that is like it's not politics is fandom it is meta politics it's where you actually put your politics into your into your actual everyday life and it influences the friends you

have the communities you have um so whether that's you know a whole bunch of trans musicians doing a benefit show to to get donations to send over to rojava or send over to gaza or you know there's a lot of other sorts of things that, that, that is a way of actually having part of your politics be not just like consumption have not, it's not just like Twitter accounts with flags in your avatar. Uh, it's actually like living your life in a way that matches the things that you believe. And I think that, that like, sorry, having spoken to people in Rojava in the YPG and the YPJ and these other organizations, like one of the things that you believe and i think that that like sorry having spoken to people in rajava in the epigay and the epigay and these other organizations like one of the things that

makes them distinct from other militaries is that they are building the world they want to see while they're fighting against the thing that's killing it right like that's destroying it uh like a lot of times we'll see leftist militaries not exactly uh doing the equality the leftism is about one hopes so like you can participate in that as garrison said right by doing the mutual aid by doing the benefit show by doing the fundraiser like you are making a world in which this shit will happen less when you do things to stop it happening or to ease the pain of it happening now so uh and you're building communities right and strong communities are more resilient to this shit uh yeah and like things are getting pretty bleak and we're only going to get through them by helping each other and so building a network

that continues like if i think about how much better the mutual aid response has been this time to what's happened at the border compared to what it was in may that's because people built networks didn't go away and it it was good in may in part because we built networks that that help to make being unhoused in san diego feel be survivable right and like those networks are resilient and they uh they're flexible but they and they help us like mentally process all the horrible shit and also physically help people so yeah you you have that within your means too right you have a signal on your telephone like you you can organize things uh you don't have to feel helpless but i feel dizzy uh due to the isopropyl alcohol that i have spilled so maybe that's a wonderful time to end the uh all right everyone james is going to

hallucinate uh in his office and uh you i hope are going to hallucinate in his office, and you, I hope, are going to hallucinate wherever you happen to be right now. Enjoy. Hallucinate a better world. Hallucinate a better world. It might be the only way to live through one. What a wonderful podcast a Garrison Davis is, everyone. Hi, it's me, James.

You thought I died, but I have have not i survived the isopropyl alcohol fumes uh i wouldn't advise doing that to yourself very unpleasant but i'm back just to update you we recorded that last week and i am recording this the day before this goes out so i'm recording this on the afternoon of monday the 23rd of October. I just wanted to update everyone. As Robert mentioned in the show, the weakening of the SAE, and the fact that people are not able to be out and about because of these drone strikes, combined with the events in Israel and Palestine in the last couple of weeks, have resulted in a significant uptick in violence in the area. So I just wanted to update you on that, especially as I've seen a decent amount of misinformation, which will be

shocking to many of you on twitter.com. So there have been a series of rocket and UAV unmanned aerial vehicle drones, drone attacks on US bases across the north of Iraq and across Syria. So some of those happened at Al-Tanf, which is further south. Some of them happened at al-Hasakah. Some of them also happened to oil pipelines. And I would be very wary of people posting pictures of big fires and claiming that there are attacks at US bases. Every time I've seen that, it's actually been an attack at an oil pipeline. And either the person doesn't know that that's not a u.s base or or they are willfully being misleading to try and get more clicks people get paid on twitter for engagement now so i'm quite cynical about people's reasons for doing that but there definitely have been attacks but they have not resulted in much loss of life one

contractor i believe did lose their lives uh due to a cardiac incident that happened when they were sheltering from from what turned out to be a false alarm of a drone attack. But no one has been directly killed by those drone munitions. There have been a number of people killed in increasing conflict in the area. One person was killed in Kamishlo, very, very close to where I stayed actually. You can probably see it from my hotel room in a car bomb, which is not a normal thing to happen in the middle of that city a car bomb going off so that's obviously cause for concern for some people um in derazur sdf and coalition forces have conducted a number of operations against isis sleeper cells who are still there

arrested detained a number of suspected is members. They've also been fighting against Iranian-backed militias across the Euphrates. We've also seen fighting between the Peshmerga, so those are the military forces of the Kurdistan regional government in that area of Iraq, and the Iraqi army around the Makhmur refugee camp, which is a refugee camp for Kurdish people who had fled from Turkey. And of course, we've seen a lot of threats, a lot of even fighting inside Iran, but it's generally been Iranian-backed militias attacking US bases so far across that whole area. So I just wanted to update you on those things. Obviously, we'll keep updating you on them and also to just suggest once again

that people verify the sources of information because I have seen, especially about this area where I think literacy is very low among the general US population, some outrageous claims being made by people who either don't know what they're talking about

or are willfully misleading people. So I wanted to counsel people to be concerned about that. We don't have exact, I don't have exact numbers of the numbers of drone attacks. I'm looking at a Pentagon press conference that happened 39 minutes ago and they're not giving them out there.

So I have asked them for comment on a couple of things that didn't email me back. Very sad, ghosting me a bit. Yeah, that's the latest information on that. I wanted to make sure that we have the latest update for you. a bit. Yeah, that's the latest information on that. I wanted to make sure that we have the latest update for you. It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com, or check us out on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find sources for It Could

Happen Here updated monthly at coolzonemedia.com slash sources. Thanks for listening. You can find sources for It Could Happen Here updated monthly at coolzonemedia.com slash sources. Thanks for listening. You should probably keep your lights on for Nocturnal Tales from the Shadow. Join me, Danny Trails, and step into the flames of right. An anthology podcast of modern day horror stories inspired by the most terrifying legends and lore of Latin America. Listen to Nocturno on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The 2025 iHeart Podcast Awards are coming. This is the chance to nominate your podcast

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That's iHeart.com slash podcast awards. That's iHeart.com slash podcast awards. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast, and we're kicking off our second season digging into tech's elite and how they've turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, Better Offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech Thank you.