It Could Happen Here - Executive Disorder: ICE in Minneapolis, Greenland, DAVOS, Iran & Syria

Episode Date: January 23, 2026

The gang discusses ICE's occupation of Minneapolis, the crisis over Greenland, protests in Iran, and war in Syria. Sources/Links: Fundraiser: https://heyvasor.com/en/2026/01/19/urgent-call-for-humanit...arian-aid-for-rojava/   https://x.com/FBIDirectorKash/status/2011965846739173833 https://www.justice.gov/usao-mn/pr/alleged-latin-kings-gang-member-arrested-federal-charges-after-stealing-rifle-fbi https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/20/us/ice-shooting-minneapolis-charges.html https://www.dhs.gov/news/2026/01/15/dhs-releases-more-details-about-three-violent-criminal-illegal-aliens-who-violently https://www.facebook.com/MinnesotaNationalGuard/photos/members-of-the-minnesota-national-guard-are-on-standby-ready-to-assist-local-law/1285981430233367/  https://x.com/MnDPS_DPS/status/2012614253090619619?s=20  https://www.cbsnews.com/news/active-duty-soldiers-standby-possible-deployment-minneapolis/ https://www.citieschurch.com/leadership https://x.com/AGPamBondi/status/2013093526867689835 https://www.congress.gov/bill/103rd-congress/senate-bill/636 https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1AjH7MbFrd/ https://x.com/bennyjohnson/status/2013283898935882195?s=20  https://www.justice.gov/pardon/clemency-grants-president-donald-j-trump-2025-present  https://x.com/PressSec/status/2014020416860573726?s=20 https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/115911344443637897 https://www.forsvaret.dk/en/news/2026/exercise-arctic-endurance-continues-to-develop/ https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/foreign-secretary-statement-to-the-house-on-greenland-and-wider-arctic-security https://x.com/vonderleyen/status/2012608782593827232 https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cz7ynwzn8pqo https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/115925848634299232  https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/115926107400617491  https://www.regjeringen.no/en/whats-new/statement-from-the-prime-minister/id3146486/  https://hengaw.net/en/news/2026/01/article-167  https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0r4957rq8ro  https://apnews.com/article/ice-arrests-warrants-minneapolis-trump https://gordyaen.substack.com/p/voices-from-inside-east-kurdistaniran?r=33a5nb&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=post-publish&triedRedirect=true  https://www.reuters.com/business/davos/bessent-says-deutsche-bank-ceo-called-distance-bank-analysts-greenland-report-2026-01-21/ https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2023/2675/oj/eng https://www.wilmerhale.com/en/insights/client-alerts/20240401-the-eu-anti-coercion-regulation-a-new-tool-against-economic-pressure https://policy.trade.ec.europa.eu/enforcement-and-protection/protecting-against-coercion/qa-regarding-anti-coercion-instrument_en https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2026/01/20/eu-anti-coercion-instrument-trump-greenland-tariffs/ https://www.nortonrosefulbright.com/en/knowledge/publications/0c873dd6/eu-anti-coercion-instrument-key-takeaways-for-businesses https://www.nbcnews.com/business/economy/eu-trade-deal-trump-greenland-tariff-rcna255199 https://www.politico.eu/article/the-eu-magical-mystery-trade-weapon-other-options-donald-trump/ https://www.wsj.com/business/the-100-billion-of-u-s-goods-at-risk-of-tariffs-in-trumps-greenland-push-d7fbda31 https://www.cnbc.com/2026/01/21/trump-tariffs-nato-greenland-davos.html https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20260119-what-is-eu-anti-coercion-instrument-could-use-against-us-over-trump-greenland-tariffs https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2026/01/18/greenland-eu-trump-trade-bazooka/88245951007/ https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-greenland-anti-coercion-instrument-macron-bessent-eu-b2903967.html https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2026/1/20/trumps-greenland-tariffs-whats-europes-bazooka-option-to-hit-back https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4g5345ylk0oSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Also, media. What's getting assaulted by federal agents? No, no. We don't. I love when we start episodes both sleepy and all. I'm wired.
Starting point is 00:00:22 I'm awake. I'm white awake, baby. I'm a white awake like the political party. Will you do our? We already started. We already started. We have. This is executive disorder.
Starting point is 00:00:33 This is, it could happen here. Executive Disorder. order, our weekly newscast covering what's happening in the White House, the crumbling world, and what it means for you. I'm Garrison Davis. Today I'm joined by James Stout, Mia Wong, Robert Evans, and Margaret Kiljoy. This episode, we are covering the week of January 14th to January 21st. You know a lot of news organizations don't go woo-wut-wut? It's wild. They're cowards. It's fucked up. That's because they don't drink Fago. I know, that's right. The official beverage of journalism. This episode is pretty much about.
Starting point is 00:01:06 by four loco actually, Margaret, you're not allowed to... Yeah. Speaking of drinking, actually, we will start this episode with a big glass of whole milk. Everyone has one, right? Let's all go up at the same time. We'll finish it as we leave for the toilet. There we go. Delicious, delicious, delicious whole milk.
Starting point is 00:01:23 I drink a gallon every hour. We are not sponsored by the dairy lobby. There's nothing fishy going on whatsoever. We're all drinking whole milk now. Not at all. Not at all. Garrison Hafer Davis Heffa. Even Margaret.
Starting point is 00:01:39 Yeah. Who's been a vegan for how many decades? Look, you can be a vegan and still have a lot of money in the dairy industry. Well, all I'm saying is that if I increase my meat diet by 25%, it will stay the same. Look, that's accurate. We love that math humor. Yeah. And also, thanks to some of the new changes in the,
Starting point is 00:02:03 the way the Food and Drug Administration works, I can guarantee you that American whole milk has almost no dairy in it. It's mostly chalk and baby laxative, just like our heroin. I have a theory about this. Can I share my own book theory? I think the grand unifying principle
Starting point is 00:02:21 about which we could bring American people together is that there are too many milks. Everyone agrees on this principle. That's right. That's right. This is what should take over from class. Yeah, I agree. Yeah, milks.
Starting point is 00:02:31 The great unifying milk principle. Yeah, the milk reductionist. You know what place loves milk? Minnesota. Yeah, let's turn to Minneapolis, the continuing ice raids and the fallout from ice killing Renee Good. On Wednesday, January 14th,
Starting point is 00:02:48 ICE agents attempted to pull over a vehicle whose tag was registered to someone illegally in the country. The driver was not the owner of the vehicle and tried to evade arrest After a 15 to 20-minute car chase, the driver crashed into a light pole but continued to run on foot. The man ran towards a nearby apartment building with agents now chasing on foot, catching up with him after the man tripped and fell. A federal affidavit claims that another man watching from a porch named Giulio Caesar Sosa Sales
Starting point is 00:03:20 used a broom to assault the agents, while an unnamed individual hit the agents with a snow shovel. After the man they were chasing freed himself, one of the ICE agents fired his pistol, hitting Sosa-Saelis, who was then hospitalized with a non-life-threatening injury. This information is from an FBI report, which contradicts initial statements made by DHS, which claim that ICE was conducting a targeted traffic stop for Giulio Caesar Sosa-Selis of Venezuela National. Cool. I think it's worth noting that this is essentially ICE shooting the guy who saves the day at the end of home alone, just as a quick note. That's all I've got to say. So we haven't gotten very much good information about the shooting. That's not from the government. What we do have is there is a live streamed Facebook video of some of the 911 call that the family members made. And I'm just going to quote from CNN here. In the video, the family. tells a 9-11 dispatcher that agent shot Sosa Seles as he tried to enter his home. They were following my husband for about 30 minutes. They were trying to crash into him.
Starting point is 00:04:34 He arrived at home, and because we closed the door to them, they shot him. A woman can be heard telling the dispatcher. It's not clear who is speaking or whether Sosa Seles is the person referred to as being followed. So that's the only kind of independent thing that we have on this right now, which also significantly contradicts the story that they got attacked by a guy with a snow shovel. Right. I mean, I don't think it necessarily contradicts that there was a shovel getting moved in the direction of an ice agent at some point. Right.
Starting point is 00:05:09 Yeah. It may have just been a guy trying to create distance and space between itself and an armed man. Yeah, knocked it over as he ran past it, right? And then they tripped over it. Like, there's a wide variety of things that police officers have framed as. I was assaulted with this. And then if you look at the video, it does not look like someone assaulting a police officer.
Starting point is 00:05:29 Yeah. It might have just literally been a snow shovel on the porch, honestly. Well, they might have assaulted a police officer. I don't know. Like, I don't care either way. I'm just saying we don't know what happened. Yeah. The main report, which is in federal court documents that were unsealed on Tuesday,
Starting point is 00:05:42 have this FBI agent giving his report based on his knowledge of the incident, which had ICE chasing someone, and bystanders used a broom. and a shovel to try to get the agents off a man who was tackled on the ground. One ice agent deflected a shovel blow and it created a small gash in his hand.
Starting point is 00:06:03 The man that they were chasing was able to free himself from being held and as that man was running away, an agent fired a pistol. That is the most detailed report that we have at the moment. Yeah, and like we can't categorically say what happened, right? You can't report on law enforcement testimony
Starting point is 00:06:21 is your only source or you shouldn't. Sure shouldn't. I guess I can say that, like, I'm in Minneapolis right now, right? And so is Margaret, you're comfortable with me saying you're also in Minneapolis? It's true. I am in Minneapolis right now. Yeah, co-located, as they say. It is very hard to report on these things because essentially they happen extremely quickly, right? And like on almost every corner in most of the, like, dense urban parts of town, there are people hanging out just trying to keep their neighbors safe. and these things happen so fast that big crowds aren't even able to gather for the most part if you combine that
Starting point is 00:06:57 with the fact that these ice agents generally aren't wearing body-worn cameras you're only going to get a couple of accounts and it's going to end up in a he said, she said,
Starting point is 00:07:08 right, and then they're going to go with the law enforcement testimony which is what they want which is exactly. Yep, and I think it is also work noting that the last three shootings that we've gotten like the federal agents
Starting point is 00:07:20 lied about what happened And we got the videos later on and it showed that they were lying about it. At this point, my default assumption is that absent other information, they are not telling the truth. Yeah. Yeah. Also, they're framing, the Asians framing his business
Starting point is 00:07:36 to fire as related to being afraid of his life. And in the document, the fear would be based on the presence of a broom handle and a shovel. It's broom-based fear, yeah. So it is a broom-based assault that he cites the reason that he fired. Yeah, it's someone running away. Right.
Starting point is 00:07:55 And the woman who says that her son was the one being pursued by ICE, I'm just going to read the quote here because this is something that does directly contradict the testimony. But in an interview with CNN, Mabel Adjornow, the mother of Alfredo Alejandro Adjerno, disputed both of those claims
Starting point is 00:08:13 on the basis of her connection with her son immediately after the shooting. Eljornah said her son told her he was the one being pursued on foot by ICE and that the other guy was already inside the building when the agent shot him not outside where ICE said the agent fired the shot. Jeez, yeah.
Starting point is 00:08:29 Yeah, so that's the testimony that we have that's not from the ICE people, and I think we'll figure out in the coming weeks like what happens. Yeah, maybe. Maybe. Three people were arrested after this incident, the person that they were chasing,
Starting point is 00:08:44 who they have claimed two different people at some point, the man that Mia just referenced, as well as the person who was shot. And there's also this third individual who is allegedly the shovel wielder, which is not named in the FBI affidavit. Yeah. But all of these three people have been arrested. Yeah. During a protest that same night, dozens of people broke into two parked FBI vehicles, finding challenge coins and U.S. Marshal documents.
Starting point is 00:09:10 One person has been arrested for stealing a rifle from one of the vehicles. Bad challenge coins, much safer. You look safer to take. On Saturday, Governor Walls mobilized the Minnesota National Guard and placed them on standby to assist local law enforcement. If deployed, the Guard will be wearing yellow reflective vests to distinguish themselves from federal forces. Yeah, this is an interesting moment in and of itself, just the acknowledgement from both the military command and the governor that, like, yeah, you can't tell the difference between a soldier and a cop anymore. Like, we have to do this so that people don't think the army is the police. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:09:52 Right. And it's a very, like, oraborous moment, too, because you have just, like, the cops are dressing up like the soldiers. So the soldiers are like, oh, well, I guess we got to change how we dress now. Yeah. This could actually fuck up our ability to carry out our mission. Yeah. Further complicating matters,
Starting point is 00:10:08 1,500 soldiers from the 11th Airborne Division at Fort Wayneworth in Alaska have been placed on standby with Pentagon officials telling CBS, news that they are preparing to deploy to Minneapolis. Due to the 11th Airborne Division's Arctic Forte, there has also been public speculation that this activation may be related to rising tensions over Greenland, but that has no basis based on what officials are saying at the moment. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:10:33 A Sunday protest in St. Paul disrupted a church service because protesters believed that one of the pastors is also the head of the St. Paul Ice Field Office, David Easterwood. Easterwood's profile on the church's website does appear to match the identity of the head of the local Icefield office. Later that day, Attorney General Pampondi released a statement, quote, attacks against law enforcement and the intimidation of Christians are being met with the full force of federal law, unquote.
Starting point is 00:11:04 The Department of Justice announced that it was launching an investigation into the protesters, including TV journalist Don Lemon, who was streaming inside the church, for possible violations of the Face Act, which makes it a federal crime to interfere with people trying to access reproductive clinic services or exercise their First Amendment right of religious freedom at a place of worship. Hermet Dillon, Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, has also invoked the Klan Act as a justification to bring a conspiracy charges against protest attendees, darkly ironic since this very protest was partially put on by Black Lives Matter, Minnesota.
Starting point is 00:11:42 Yeah, that's also particularly wild given, like, we've been driving around today and seeing multiple churches with like ice go home kind of messaging. Obviously those people are not going to be protected in the same way, right, if they choose to take care of migrants. Like, I don't think I've seen any churches with like anything other than that messaging and in our time cruising around today. I haven't seen any pro-ice messaging anywhere, any pro-Trump messaging. Period. I have never seen a more united the city in my life.
Starting point is 00:12:14 Yeah, it's genuinely remarkable. like to see people who's, I don't think they would like identify as having radical politics, but they are like out standing on street corners in the freezing cold just to try and keep their neighborhood safe. Yeah, this is the, this is the warmer day of the week and I went and got all this like extra snow gear and I live in the mountains, right? That is like where I live. And I'm standing there in most of my like extra snow gear and everyone's like, today's the warm day. Everything's fine. And I'm like, I need to get inside soon. Oh, yeah. I will die.
Starting point is 00:12:48 Welcome to welcome to Minnesota winter. It's time. We're talking to a 76-year-old with no hat on. Yeah. 20 degrees? Incredible. Yeah, it's just... Warmed by pure anger. I mean, that is warm.
Starting point is 00:13:01 She was ready to take on the world. It was really... It was genuinely really wonderful to see. We went out, we talked to these people for a while. Some folks stopped by and insisted on feeding everyone. It's really nice to see a community, like, in time. highly in lockstep taking care of one another. And I feel like to me, so far, like the actual headline around Minneapolis is that, like,
Starting point is 00:13:25 obviously there's like these instances of really horrific violence coming from the state or coming from the federal government, right? But the actual story that so far the people we've talked to want to get across is this, they're like, yeah, yeah, yeah, journalists come here and just want to cover all the bad stuff that's happened here. but this horizontal organizing and this like feeling of togetherness and also more than anything else like I think even when you talk about the bad thing that's happening it's federal occupation right and like people are very very aware of the fact that this is an outside force occupying the city
Starting point is 00:14:03 and it um and so even like anything that's happening like individual bad actions taken by the federal police I think it needs to be understood that like no one here is by any other line besides, no, this outside forces here to steal our neighbors. Right. And us. You'll go past, like, fancy coffee shops and random, like, like, businesses. Like, I've seen businesses before having signs that say, like, refugees welcome and we cherish our migrant neighbors.
Starting point is 00:14:32 But the ones here also say, like, ice get out of town. Ice go home. We don't want you here. Like, people are, like, fuck ice. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:14:39 Like, people are not having it to a degree which, like, I don't think. think I've seen, you know, I wasn't in Chicago during the time that I was there, I was in Los Angeles. But like every neighborhood here feels like the neighborhoods sort of most in lockstep in those cities, right? Every neighborhood we've been to, right? Like in heavily Latino neighborhoods where I live, yeah, everyone's watching out for each other. And in San Diego, that is, but like here and every single neighborhood, everyone is watching out for each other from what we've seen. And like, it is folks of every age and demographic standing on street corners in the freezing cold,
Starting point is 00:15:17 just pulling a shift to keep an eye out. It's remarkable. Yeah. I was like, there's no way people are like, oh, every neighborhood has like a neighborhood watch. And I'm like, yeah, I don't know. There's like two people per neighborhood wandering at any given time. Like, I was like, how can you watch a whole city?
Starting point is 00:15:31 And like, oh, the answer is everyone in the city does it. Yeah. That's the story that I want people to take from this. is that nobody here wants this. And they're not just like angry and going on the internet. They're angry and getting to know their neighbors, going and organizing each other, taking care of one another,
Starting point is 00:15:51 and doing the things that they can do to keep each other safe. During Trump's 365 days in office press conference this past Tuesday, he discussed the killing of Renee Good and expressed hope that Good's parents would continue to support President Trump. Let's watch amazing. Yeah, come on. I haven't seen it.
Starting point is 00:16:15 Well, you are unlucky enough to see it now. No. Let's do it live. It's gross. It's weird. Garrison's Booting UpX.com, the everything website. And, you know, they're going to make mistakes sometimes. ICE is going to be too rough with somebody or, you know, they're dealing with rough people.
Starting point is 00:16:35 They're going to make a mistake. Sometimes it can happen. We feel terribly. I felt horribly when I was told that the young woman who was, had the tragedy, it's a tragedy, it's a horrible thing. Everybody would say, ICE would say the same thing. But when I learned her parents and her father in particular is like, I hope he still is, but I don't know, was a tremendous Trump fan. He was all for Trump. I love Trump.
Starting point is 00:17:07 And, you know, it's terrible. I was told that by a lot of people. They said, oh, he loves you. He was a, I hope he still feels that way. I don't know. It's a hard, hard situation. But her father was a tremendous, and parents were tremendous Trump fans. I'd so sad.
Starting point is 00:17:28 It just happens. It's terrible. What is there even to say? You know, what do you, how do you, the fuck? Yeah. It's interesting that he seems to be capable of, like, legitimately being upset at the thought of one of his fans not liking him anymore. Like, that's weird. The fact that he, like, he brings it up in a way that suggests, like, there's no artifice there, right?
Starting point is 00:17:52 Yeah. Like, that's the genuineness of like, oh, he actually seems to be slightly disturbed at the thought of one of his fans no longer liking him, even though his secret police murdered that guy's daughter. That's fascinating. It doesn't change anything. Like, I don't know. There's nothing to do with that information. But it's a fascinating understanding Donald Trump's mind data point.
Starting point is 00:18:16 Yeah. No, it is one of the weird things where you kind of see him be sincere and genuine briefly, but it's for such a fucking weird thing. It's such a weird thing. Yeah, yeah. Like, he understands that,
Starting point is 00:18:28 you're like, well, you know, maybe he doesn't like me anymore, but I hope he does. Yeah, this would be a reason to change his opinion of me, Yeah. I murdered his child. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:18:40 Yeah, I don't know what else to say about that. Yeah. I didn't either. So part of the whole reason why ICE is doing this operation in Minnesota, Operation Metro Surge, this was started in part due to allegations of COVID relief fraud among the Somali community in Minnesota. Ice director Todd Loins went on Fox News earlier this month in the lead up to ICE's deployment to address this. You know, one thing I were really focused on is the fact that, unfortunately, with Minnesota's sanctuary laws and jurisdictions, it attracts these type of fraudsters.
Starting point is 00:19:17 It attracts people that do take money away from the hardworking Americans and the people of Minnesota. We want to help root out these people that are committing fraud. And you look at the billions of dollars that potentially could have been stolen, that could have gone to foreign terrorist organizations. That's what we're really focused on. So we're hoping to get to the bottom of that. So as ICE is currently hoping to get to the bottom of this fraud problem in Minnesota, just this past week, Trump has pardoned at least 11 white-collar fraudsters. I think we can all agree. The biggest problem with that clip was the typo in ice at the bottom, where Fox News didn't put the period after the E in ICE, but they put the period after the I and the C. I think we can all agree. Yeah. Get on it, Todd.
Starting point is 00:20:05 Actually, Fox News is hiring a graphic design position in New York right now. So if you want to apply to fix the graphics. See you later, losers. Yeah. Can you use Chad GPT? They probably did. He has a job for you. Let's go on break and then talk about, as Trump calls it, Iceland.
Starting point is 00:20:26 Jesus, gosh. And we're back. First off, if you need to tell the difference between Greece, Greenland and Iceland. Just remember the words of wisdom from either the first or the second Mighty Ducks movie, right? Quack, quag. Greenland is icy and Iceland is nice, is the way to remember the two. Well, you can't spell nice without ice, Robert. That's what I call it in Iceland.
Starting point is 00:21:03 Yeah, yeah, that's how you tell the difference. That's a little tip for the president and everyone else, I guess, trying to remember. That's probably, that's how I've known the difference my entire life, and it's almost certainly because of watching the Mighty Ducks movies. The Mighty Ducks. Yeah, exactly. The Mighty Ducks films, sorry. Yeah. Shout out to my Iceland friends. I enjoyed Iceland very much.
Starting point is 00:21:23 Shout out to whoever made the Mighty Ducks. Yeah. I know the knowledge of their creation has been lost in time. It was actually the whole thing was actually a propaganda film by the Iceland tourist industry. A little known fact. That's right. Big Iceland. We are reporting this on the day that it looks like Donald Trump may have just blinked.
Starting point is 00:21:41 He hooked up a truth. announcing that he had reached an arrangement with NATO and that tariffs would not be necessary against all of Western Europe, basically. It's kind of unclear the details of this deal. He's saying that it's a big permanent thing. The U.S. has, you know, sorted out its security needs. It doesn't seem like we're going to be invading Greenland. But, you know, it's also Donald Trump. So we could be in a very different position tomorrow. But that's kind of the big update right now. Yeah, let's talk about kind of the lead-up to this moment, I suppose. Sure.
Starting point is 00:22:18 Multiple EU nations and Denmark have sent troops to Greenland the past two weeks for the Arctic Endurance military exercise aimed at countering Russian security threats and to demonstrate that European NATO countries have the capacity to defend Arctic territory without the U.S. needing control over Greenland. Now, Trump took this military deployment as a personal slight and levying. tariffs in retaliation, posting on truth social. Quote, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Finland have journeyed to Greenland for purposes unknown.
Starting point is 00:22:54 This is a very dangerous situation for the safety, security, and survival of our planet. Those countries who are playing this very dangerous game have put a level of risk in play that is not tenable or sustainable. Therefore, it is imperative that in order to protect global people, and security, strong measures be taken so that this potentially perilous situation end quickly and without question." Unquote, he then announced 10% tariffs against all of these nations, which would increase to 25% next month. Yeah, I guess my gut feeling is, you know, Tarif, Mino like it. But beyond that, this is kind of just what Trump does now, right?
Starting point is 00:23:39 is he threatens everyone with like whatever the nuclear option is short of the literal nuclear option, which in this case is nuking global trade. And then it kind of blows up in his face because the EU actually has the ability to collapse the dollar status as a reserve currency. And the money wardens of the world are aware of that, which is why the Dow plunged 800 points yesterday and probably why Trump felt pressured to come to an accommodation with NATO. I don't know that he ever literally planned on invading, although at this point I think you can't take that out of the equation. But this is just what he does now, right?
Starting point is 00:24:15 Like, none of this is, like, it's wild because he might have literally bombed a fucking NATO member. But I don't know what to say other than that. Yeah, I can explain a little bit more about the unhinged series of messages that Donald Trump has been sending to various world leaders. God. We know about these because they have all been released, right? Fantastic from planetary security. Yeah. Posting is French text.
Starting point is 00:24:45 Not just that, right? The Norwegians released the text that was sent by him to Norwegian Prime Minister, right? Like, the Norwegians, they're not normally like an impulsive nation. That's not what people know the Norwegians for now. They don't make big swings on the international scale very, very much, but they have done this time. So I'm just going to quote, right, from his message to Norwegian Prime Minister, quote, considering your country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped eight wars plus, plus is all in caps. Sure.
Starting point is 00:25:18 I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America. Then Trump released a text from Mark Rutter, the NATO Secretary General, that read, quote, Mr. President, dear Donald, what you accomplished in Syria today is incredible. We will get on to that. Returning to the quote, I will use my media engagement to Davos to highlight your work there in Gaza and in Ukraine.
Starting point is 00:25:46 I am committed to finding a way forward on Greenland. Can't wait to see you. Do you have the French text as well? It's a French text. I do. I don't have it in here, but yes, the Macron text message I'm more than happy to read
Starting point is 00:26:00 because that one was pretty funny, actually. So we are totally in line on Syria. We can do great things in Iran. Interestingly, none of these sentences end with any punctuation. No punctuation. No punctuation. Macron is joicing it. Unnecessary.
Starting point is 00:26:15 Not helpful. So I'll just read them in one continuous breath. I do not understand what you're doing on Greenland. Let us try to build great things. One, lowercase I can set up a G7, lowercase G, meeting after Davos in Paris on Thursday afternoon. I can invite the Ukrainians, the Danish, to Syrians, and the Russians in the margins. Two, let us have a dinner together in Paris together on Thursday before you go back to the U.S. Emmanuel.
Starting point is 00:26:41 Lots of lowercase in there, actually. None of the country is getting up a case. Imagine sending your situation ship this text and then he just posts it on true social. Yeah. It's so violated. Well, that's what's so weird to me is that this is almost word for word the text I sent James last week. It's true. I've posted it on a new website.
Starting point is 00:27:04 Very odd. I do not understand what you are doing on Greenland. Yes. That sentence just floating on its own. It's magnificent. It's magnificent. And it's also like, yeah, that is how basically everyone feels like, man, I don't know what you're doing on Greenland. Like, what is actually happening here?
Starting point is 00:27:24 I mean, what do you do when, like, there's a petulant child who also has a handgun? Or a nuke. You know? And you're just like, shut up, kid. No, wait, no, you could shoot me. Yeah. No, it's time for nap. Yeah, this is why I have, like, you know how hotels have those, like, little sprinklers in the roof?
Starting point is 00:27:39 I've got one of those just for CS gas. Yeah, yeah. Just to clear out the house in case, you know, you got to calm everybody down. That's what we need for the country. Yeah. Yeah. We all need a little holiday. Let's talk about Greenland, right?
Starting point is 00:27:53 Greenland's a semi-autonomous territory of Denmark. It was a colony. And then over the 20th century, Greenlanders became Danish citizens. and now they have like the semi-autonomous situation where they have a lot of home rule, but they are still part of Denmark. Denmark, of course, is part of the EU and of NATO. So therefore they are part of the EU and part of NATO, right?
Starting point is 00:28:14 As we said earlier, Germany, France, Sweden, Norway, Finland, the Netherlands and the UK have all sent various small numbers of troops to the territory in the past couple of weeks. But the US is the one that has the most troops on Denmark, right? Because the United States has a base. They've kept this base there. since World War II. It was there in World War II because the Nazis occupied Denmark, right, and then the United States garrisoned Greenland. Because it does have, like,
Starting point is 00:28:40 they're not wrong in saying it has an important strategic position, right, where it is. No, it's really well located. And the reality of, again, this is another mark in the column of, like, conservatives pretending climate change isn't real and acting based on the realities of climate change. Because of the warming oceans in that part of the world, it's going to become much more navigable. It used to not be as strategic because there was just less possibility of moving naval assets through the area. And now that that's not going to be a problem because the world's warming and there's going to be less ice there, Greenland has much more, a much higher like strategic value just in terms of like as a place to have as a potential naval choke point, right?
Starting point is 00:29:23 Are you saying that the people who named it were actually being prescient? Ahead of the curve. Yeah. Yeah, they were ahead of the curve. They weren't just trying to stop people from coming to Iceland. They forsoor it in the ruins. Yeah. So the US, it used to be called Tula Air Force Base, and essentially the US has the right, according to defense treaty with Greenland, to use Greenland to defend itself and to defend the Arctic, right? So what they previously had there, they kept the base during the Cold War because it was where they would be able to identify missile launches coming from the former Soviet Union, or what was at the time, the Soviet Union, right? and then they could intercept from there with their Air Force base.
Starting point is 00:30:01 They now, it is now a Space Force base. Yeah. It's now the Petufix Space Force Base. And the US can expand or garrison this base as it needs to, right? Like the majority of Greenland, it's all occupied, right? But it is not like, I guess urbanized or built upon, right? The US could expand this base. It could add more assets to this base.
Starting point is 00:30:24 But the United States has decided that it's not enough. and that it needs total sovereignty over Greenland. So there are a few ways it could achieve that, and we should just be explicit about those, right? The first is obviously by direct military action. That still seems relatively unlikely, but who knows these days? Hopefully. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:30:44 There is an influence campaign that they're trying, right? They're attempting to influence Greenlanders into wanting to become American. The polling data I have shown so that Greenlanders do favor independence, but they do not favor joining the United States. They wouldn't mind leaving Denmark. And also overwhelmingly, when presented with a choice between the United States or Denmark, would prefer to remain part of Denmark. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:31:09 Their situation right now is one that, like, they don't want to go out the frying pan into the fire, so to speak, I guess. Yeah. For reasons that make no sense to me is I text my friend about the doctor visit they can't afford. Yeah, like, it's interesting seeing those interviews where they're like, why would we want that? We've seen what you people have for healthcare. Yeah. This sucks. What is the appeal of being American?
Starting point is 00:31:31 If Denmark has any spaces, California, you know, we'll join you. So, yeah, the other option will be to purchase it, right? Which it's not on the card. It's like Greenland is not for sale. So, yeah, Mia, do you want to talk about this tariff campaign? They've been suggesting that they're going to leverage. Wait, wait a second. What's that, James?
Starting point is 00:31:50 Did you say? By God, it's Mia Wong's music. Yeah. I bet you would have picked that. We asked me what she wanted. It's amazing. She went into a room. She wrote down music notes on a piece of paper, and she came out with something that it turned
Starting point is 00:32:21 out someone else had done it before. Well, we couldn't license barracuda. So this is what we got. We actually were not trying to make a parody. This is one of those things like the evolution of the bow and arrow. We just kind of independently recreated rock the casbah, but based around tariffs from first principles. It's the carcinization of songs. That's right, carcimalization of songs.
Starting point is 00:32:40 All music becomes rock the casbah if you have given enough time. Give it long enough on the Galapagos Islands. That's what we sent me here to write a song. She was on the Galapagos Islands for a long time. That's right. Very nice there. So speaking of things changing very, very quickly. So two days ago, as we are recording this,
Starting point is 00:32:59 Trump was interviewed about these terrorists he was going to impose by, I think it was NBC, and he said, quote, I will 100%. It is now Wednesday, and he has back. off of the tariffs. Tomorrow, truly... There's another day, yeah. Who knows? Who knows? I think it's kind of worth noting. As of right now when we're recording this, everyone is kind of treating this as if this is over,
Starting point is 00:33:25 but except for the German finance minister who said, quote, it's good they are engaged in dialogue. We have to wait a bit and not get our hopes up so soon. Yeah. Which is significant. That's the smart play, too. Yeah. Yeah. And this is significant because Germany, as we'll get to a a second. Germany has been one of the major EU countries that does not want to deploy what is being called, and I can't believe
Starting point is 00:33:48 I'm saying this, the trade bazooka. So, every single article today is called, what is the trade bazooka? It's okay. We're all asking ourselves that, aren't we? Okay. So, before we get to the trade bazooka, it's worth noting that in terms of the retaliation that has been being
Starting point is 00:34:07 planned by the EU against the U.S. for trying to do this. There's actually two different things on the table. One is a package of tariffs that we've actually talked about before on this show that was the package of tariffs the EU developed as part of the trade negotiations. Well, basically, it was developed in response to Liberation Day tariffs last year. They'd been suspended as part of trade negotiations with the U.S. and the U.S. and the EU had finally reached an agreement. And then Trump said this and the EU backed out. So who knows what the tariff status is going to be, and if the EU and the U.S. are going to continue to have come to this agreement, that was supposed to stave these things. So these retaliatory tariffs were supposed to
Starting point is 00:34:48 go into effect on February 7th. We had just negotiated it not coming in. These are a bunch of targeted tariffs on a bunch of U.S. goods that are specifically designed to hit red states. The most famous of these is, for example, there's specific tariffs on like Kentucky bourbon and whiskey and stuff. But it all is. It also hits Boeing, a bunch of random consumer goods. It's just like chewing gum. It's on roughly $100 billion of U.S. goods. I think the biggest pressure points here are Boeing and general dynamics.
Starting point is 00:35:20 There's tariffs on car companies. There's also very importantly, there was a 25% tariff in here on soybeans, which I think is a major leverage point because the U.S. continues to need a market to sell all the soybeans that China's not buying. And, yeah, China ain't buying them right now. We just had another month where they bought none of our soybeans. Yeah. So these were the tariffs that the EU was going to put into effect on February 7th in response to the Greenland tariffs?
Starting point is 00:35:45 No, okay. Sorry, let me back this up. This is a tariff measure that was originally designed back in May of last year in response to Trump's original right of tariffs. A Liberation Day tariffs. Yeah. So they've been suspended until now and they were about to just not go into effect at all. However, the EU immediately has been like, okay, maybe we are going to impose these ones. Ah, got it.
Starting point is 00:36:05 Because of Trump's new Greenland leverage. tariffs. Yeah. I see. So this is, this is one of the two options the EU has. The other option,
Starting point is 00:36:14 and this is, okay, getting those tariffs would be a little bit difficult, but that's significantly the more likely option. The other option,
Starting point is 00:36:22 the thing you've been hearing about, which is the trade bazooka is... Which was also my, my grinder screen name at the RNC.
Starting point is 00:36:29 Trade bazzoa? You either get it or you don't. This is great. This is great. Okay, so, all right, what is the,
Starting point is 00:36:38 The trade bazooka. We're just going to move past that. So. It's what a lot of Republicans were asking themselves in 2024. Oh, God. Google trending term in Minneapolis or wherever you were. Okay, so the trade bazooka is an anti-coversion instrument that was originally designed by the EU in the early 2020s as a response to some bullshit that China pulled with Lithuania
Starting point is 00:37:03 over embassy stuff in Taiwan. It's a whole thing. I'm not going to explain it here. but these measures are, I think maybe the most extraordinary measures that I've seen. These measures, if they went into effect, would be more serious than Liberation Day tariffs. They are very, very difficult to enact. They require 15 of the 27 EU members. There has to be an investigation process.
Starting point is 00:37:30 There's a whole thing. And the negotiations have to actually break down. And this is where it's really difficult because Germany, in particular, does not really seem to want to do this. However, Trump has played this very badly in the sense that two of his natural allies in the EU are the UK and Norway, who he just was threatening to leverage tariffs on.
Starting point is 00:37:49 Well, the UK is not part of the EU anymore, but yeah. Well, yeah, but those are his two European allies. Right, yeah, right. And the UK still has significant leverage inside of there. Now, what is interesting is that Macron has called for its deployment if Trump presses to, you know, move on Greenland. So the question sort of is, what does this thing do? And the short answer is everything.
Starting point is 00:38:15 The long answer is incredibly long. And the medium answer is if you go read the document, I read it. I'm going to roughly base my description of what it can do on Willer Hale, which is a law firm's version of it. So there's 10 things they can do. They can put on tariffs. They can do import and export restrictions on goods. they can impose trade restrictions in general.
Starting point is 00:38:36 They can impose restrictions on government procurement and contracts and what goods are bought by governments. They can do services restrictions. They can do foreign direct investment restrictions. They can do restrictions on intellectual property right protections. They can do capital controls of financial services restrictions. They can do chemicals restrictions and like sanitary goods restrictions. So they can stop the U.S. from importing goods to the EU.
Starting point is 00:39:02 They can prevent EU governments from goods from goods. giving contracts to U.S. companies or buying anything from the U.S., they can restrict American intellectual property rights, which I don't even know what that would do. I think that means that they can all pirate whatever they want, right? Yeah, right. Like, I don't know. That rules. Spain did this for a long time.
Starting point is 00:39:18 Yeah, it's like, we're firing the trade bazooka, and now you can use every Disney character. Like, Disney will rise up. Yeah, just flood the market with Mickey Mouse pornography. That is part of the EU's response package. I mean, no, that already falls under fair use, Robert. Not the way I do it, Garrison. Not the way I do it. These are technically two different Mickey Mouse's.
Starting point is 00:39:40 No, no, no. I've been very clear about which Mickey Mouse is in my pornography. So the reason this is being called, like, the trade bazooker of the nuclear option is that the actual, once this is enacted, which is very difficult, the actual limits and what they can do are almost on existence. They can, once they've targeted it, it can kind of do whatever you want it to do. to the extent that they could, in theory, basically shut down all trade with the U.S. Why didn't they call it the trade Death Star? The Bazook is not thinking big enough.
Starting point is 00:40:13 Like, that takes out a tank. That's cool. Gene Wightly, I think it's being called the bazooko because the people reporting on this haven't actually read it and have not thought through the implications of what this thing does, which is that like, Jesus Christ.
Starting point is 00:40:26 The trade mutually assured destruction device? Yeah. Yeah. Is it mutually assured destruction? Is that what this whole thing is built around? Kind of, I mean, like, yeah, because the EU's economy will also plunge. Yeah, so this was originally designed around China specifically, but it's designed effectively as a nuke, right?
Starting point is 00:40:48 You're not supposed to have to ever get to the point where you're invoking it. It's designed to be a set of trade things that is so damaging that no one in their right mind would possibly risk it happening. Unfortunately, our president is Donald Trump. Yeah, we are. Yeah. Yeah, so that's, that's the sort of nukes. clear option here. I want to mention one other thing, which Robert briefly touched on earlier,
Starting point is 00:41:11 which is there's been a lot of discussion of a quote from a report by the guy who is Deutsche Bank's head of foreign exchange research. And he's talking about how much treasury bonds is owned by the EU. I mean, a lot. There are primary treasury bond holders, right? In terms of foreign treasury bond holders. Yeah, yeah. Between that and stocks, it's like $8 trillion. Yeah. And treasury bonds, by the way, the fact that the EU is like our primary foreign treasury bond holder, like treasury bonds and foreign countries holding them is why the dollar is the reserve currency. It's why if you are wanting to like ransom someone or buy illegal guns and drugs anywhere in the world, they're more likely to use dollars than euros. That is changing, you know, in the international crime game. But the dollar is still the default foreign currency.
Starting point is 00:42:03 If people around the world need a currency that's universally valued, the dollar is the best bet. And it's because of how treasury bonds work, right? Like, I'm oversimplifying, but that's a big part of it. Yeah. So, okay, I'm going to read the actual quote here. In an environment where the geoeconomic stability of the Western Alliance is being disrupted existentially, it is not clear why Europeans would be willing to play this part. to translate this from like banking into what is he actually saying what he is arguing here
Starting point is 00:42:38 is that there is the potential for these countries to stop buying U.S. Treasury bonds and effectively pull out of American assets. It's not quite that easy, but this this would be the, what we're talking about is like is the end of the U.S. dollar as reserve currency. And he's also very specifically, this is about the fact that the dollar statuses reserve currency is a thing that is allowing the U.S. military to carry out these kind of operations. Up until yesterday,
Starting point is 00:43:07 when he said this, the only people I have ever seen actually say this are, you know, I mean, economists who I like is people like David Hudson, David Graber talks about this. But like, this is a thing that you could only say if you were like a Marxist or an anarchist. And now you have Deutsche Bank analysts saying it. And this is something that was impossible, like two days ago.
Starting point is 00:43:29 that there would actually be serious discussion of, you know, using as a geopolitical tool, like getting out of U.S. Treasury bonds, which means ending the U.S. dollar as a reserve currency. And this was a big enough deal that the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury is claiming that Deutsche Bank called him to disavow the analysis. Wow. It's unclear if that's true or not. But this, I think, is one of the things that really panicked them in terms of why Trump backed off was there are multiple nuclear options
Starting point is 00:44:00 that are being put on the table for the first time ever and I think that that and the Dow route was enough to just panic them for at least one day and we'll see what tomorrow holds but this is a really significant shift
Starting point is 00:44:14 in what is able to be discussed in terms of reactions to what the U.S. is doing. Well, you know what else is the United States? These ads. Another flawless Robert Evans moment, everybody.
Starting point is 00:44:40 And we're back. All right. What else we got to talk to? Anything else happened in the entire world? I don't think so. Yes. Actually, there is two more Davos things very briefly that I think we should get to before we kind of end with some other updates on ongoing stories and situations that we've been covering on the pod for a while.
Starting point is 00:45:00 But when Mia was talking about how this sort of analysis was only used by, you know, like Marxist or certain types of anarchists before that is now getting kind of paid lip service on a national stage. That reminded me a little bit of Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney's Davos speech yesterday. Woo! Which addressed some similar things
Starting point is 00:45:23 on the fiction of the quote, rules-based international order. Christ. Holy shit. I mean, I agree with that description of the rules-based international order. Mark Connie's been reading my book. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:45:37 Let's take a lesson. We knew the story of the international rules-based order was partially false. That the strongest would exempt themselves when convenient. That trade rules were enforced asymmetrically. And we knew that international law applied with varying rigor depending on the identity of the accused or the victim. This fiction was useful. An American hegemony in particular helped provide. public goods, open sea lanes, a stable financial system, collective security, and support
Starting point is 00:46:13 for frameworks for resolving disputes. So we placed the sign in the window. We participated in the rituals, and we largely avoided calling out the gaps between rhetoric and reality. This bargain no longer works. Let me be direct. We are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition. Over the past two decades, a series of crises in finance, health, energy, and geopolitics have laid bare the risks of extreme global integration. But more recently, great powers have begun using economic integration as weapons. Tariffs has leveraged, financial infrastructure is coercion, supply chains as vulnerabilities to be exploited. You cannot live within the lie of mutual benefit through integration when integration becomes a lot of mutual benefit through integration when integration becomes the source of your subordination.
Starting point is 00:47:10 Jesus Christ. Yeah. It's really remarkable to hear the political leader of Canada being like, it was always very clearly a lie, the rules-based international order, where the United States exempted itself because it had power. But we pretended that this wasn't happening. We, like, acknowledging that, like, we ignored them breaking the rules because it was convenient for Canada. Yeah, it totally worked out well for us until now. It doesn't work out for well for us anymore. It's like, fascinating. It was us invading a rock. It was fine. But now like they fucking, they might invade us one day. So, oh, fuck. It's really interesting. Just totally pulling back the
Starting point is 00:47:49 curtain on this type of neoliberalism here. Yeah. I love to every time you get someone who would never ever give like anarchists or anarchist political theory the light of day, like independently come to a conclusion very late that is like that anarchists have been yelling. about free? Like, yes, it's a fiction. The rules-based international order is a fiction. All the, like, everyone's playing lip service to these ideas, knowing the U.S. has exempted itself because hiding behind the big guy is convenient, but that's a bad idea. The thing that people who knew anything were saying when we invaded Iraq, which was, if you let them get away with this, no one will ever be safe. That's the way. And all those people got pushed aside as like,
Starting point is 00:48:28 no, you're just being hysteric. Like, you're just being like that, you don't have like a real understanding of politics and how it works. And there will never be any kind of reckoning of people being like, oh yeah, all of like the, all of the people who were like inconveniently critical were right 20 something years ago. They'll never say that. But it's fun to see them admit it like, you know, kind of obliquely. Yeah, it sounds like he's been reading Charles Tilly. It's kind of remarkable. Carney did write this speech himself as something that he has come out and said, that this was not like some speechwriter who's pulling from like whatever
Starting point is 00:49:05 like, you know, neoliberal bookshelf is popular right now. Like he specifically wrote this himself. Yeah. I mean, he just cribbed from that book. I read as a kid, the emperor has no clothes. Like, or new clothes. So before the announcement of this ambiguous Greenland deal, which neither the European authorities nor Trump
Starting point is 00:49:26 has really given any details of yet. But before this, Trump did speak at Davos on Wednesday, where he confused Greenland for Iceland and said that they called him, quote-unquote, daddy. God damn it. Play the clip. I'm helping Europe. I'm helping NATO.
Starting point is 00:49:45 And until the last few days, when I told them about Iceland, they loved me. They called me daddy, right? Last time. Oh, God. Very smart man said, he's our daddy. He's running it. I was like running it. I went from running it to being a terrible human.
Starting point is 00:50:01 being. Very cool, Mr. President. Yeah. Based on the reporting, acknowledging that he multiple times, not just in this clip, said Iceland when he meant Greenland. Carolyn Levin, the press secretary, responded by saying, no, his written remarks referred to Greenland as a
Starting point is 00:50:17 quote-unquote piece of ice. Because that's what it is, unquote. So saying that he was literally calling Greenland like an ice land. Anyway. The emperor is totally wearing clothes. I don't know what you're talking. about. What's that Mon Motha
Starting point is 00:50:33 quote about they don't even bother to lie badly anymore? Yeah, it's the final indignity, yeah. That's the worst excuse I've ever heard. It's incredible. Ice, land. I mean, you've got to be a remarkable thing to be in her position, right? And just be like, what the fuck am I going to come up with? Like, how do I
Starting point is 00:50:51 what are we going to spin here? Ice, pause, land. Space land, yeah. Land, one word. It's incredible. Wait, wait, what, you go. go girl. Go off. Yeah. Wow. Later at the CEO reception dinner,
Starting point is 00:51:10 Trump said this. Oh, God. You got good reviews in that speech. Usually they say he's a horrible dictator type person. I'm a dictator. But sometimes you need a dictator. But they didn't say that in this case. Sure, my guy.
Starting point is 00:51:27 Sure. Oh, man. Of course they didn't. I wonder why. multiple times during this speech he was like if it weren't for the United States you'd all be speaking German and maybe a little Japanese it's like incredible
Starting point is 00:51:40 yeah how did he think like yeah how did he think that like control was going to break down between those two countries globally giving Japan right well on Sundays it's Japan and the rest of the time it's German incredible yeah Japan pulling up like your deadbeat dad to be like look this weekend you're mine
Starting point is 00:52:00 if he wasn't a horrific The perfect monster. Be really funny. We're eating sushi. He's so funny. He's our funniest president by a wide margin. Evil, but he's so funny. The way he pronounced Dictator, where there was like a slight pause.
Starting point is 00:52:18 He legitimately has good timing as a presenter. It's actually two words, Sophie. He was saying Dick and then Tater, like the contraction of potato. Yeah, like it sounded like he was giving a recipe. I was like, what are we doing here? Oh, my gosh. Gary, do we have anything else from Davos? No, I think that's all for Davos.
Starting point is 00:52:37 One of the funnier Davos is in recent memory. I agree. Yeah. Now we just have some sad news that James is probably going to say. Yeah, so I guess if we start with Iran, right, protests are continuing. The BBC had a piece today where they were leaked of photos of hundreds of the people who have been killed. Jesus. There's 326 victims, including 18 women.
Starting point is 00:53:01 The reason that they were able to get these images is it seems that people went to the mortuary and had to look through a slideshow of the faces of people who have been killed, many of whom are so disfigured that they're unrecognizable. Yeah. And they have to flick through hundreds of images of these brutalized human remains in order to try and identify their loved ones, right? it is unimaginable the scale of state violence. Gorda'in had an interview on his Twitter or his ex.com, right, that with people with someone inside Iran, which I'd encourage people to read and which we'll link in the show notes. But like people continue to be in the streets there
Starting point is 00:53:53 and the state continues to meet them with absolutely horrific violence. And talking of horrific violence, of horrific violence, I want to move now to Syria, right, specifically to Syria and Kurdistan and the, I guess, majority Arab parts of Syria that had previously been part of the autonomous administration of north and east Syria, right? Last week, we talked about fighting in Aleppo, and then we spoke about, like, fighting moving towards Euphrates, right? Fighting has now moved past where it was last week, and it's moving dangerously close to Amishla and Hesoka, which are the two biggest Kurdish cities.
Starting point is 00:54:32 Hesika is not just a city where Kurdish people live, right? Arab people, neither of these are, right? Arab people, Assyrian people, Armenian people, Yazidis. The AANES was a multi-ethnic project. That's what distinguished the SDF from the YPG and the YPJ, right, that they were multi-ethnic. They weren't just Kurdish. Yeah. The way that this has occurred is.
Starting point is 00:54:57 is that the Syrian transitional government has been able to flip multiple tribal groups who are mostly Arab, who had previously fought alongside the SDF as part of the SDF, right? But have now flipped to the side of the Syrian transitional government. So this leaves the SDF with previously units
Starting point is 00:55:17 that have been there suddenly flipping. And they have lost huge amounts of territory to include Raqa, famously former capital of the Islamic State. Yeah. the former capital where thousands died, both as a result of IS violence and in the fighting for the city and a result, as a result of civilians died as a result of coalition bombing during the fighting for the city, right? There have been absolutely horrific images of the brutalization
Starting point is 00:55:45 of the remains of captured YPG and YPGA fighters, right, men and women. We have seen executions. This is not just that executions are happening. It is that people who are fighting, not necessarily in the Syrian Arab army, but in at least alliance with the Syrian transitional government, have been so comfortable carrying out summary executions if they have decided to film and share them. So on Monday, Muslim Abdi, right,
Starting point is 00:56:16 the general of the Syrian democratic forces traveled to Damascus to attempt to negotiate a peace and was not able to do that. It seems that he was offered some kind of position, but he didn't want the position that there was not also some kind of autonomy backstops for the remaining areas of the AANES, right? And so as a result, there was a general mobilization in the AANES. People from Bakur, so people from northern Kurdistan have crossed the border.
Starting point is 00:56:48 There's a border wall, fence wall, depending on where you're at, in between Turkish Kurdistan and Syrian Kurdistan, right? And at one point, people have broken that down and young people have entered into Syrian Kurdistan to fight to defend the cities that are still part of the AANES. The counterterrorism group of the P-U-K has entered Syrian Kurdistan. That's quite surprising, right? Huh. Yeah. Which is the patriotic union of Kurdistan.
Starting point is 00:57:14 Yeah. Which is an Iraqi Kurdish political party, effectively. Yeah. That is not aligned with. Oh, yeah. And they're not lefty, right? Or they're not Democratic and Federalist. No.
Starting point is 00:57:25 They were at some point, like... They are now today basically like an arm of the Kurdish quote-unquote state in northern Iraq, right? They were originally more of an actual political party and did have some socialist elements. That's not really super relevant to what's going on. Yeah, the ideology is not the same as the ideology that you have seen in Mirashava, right? Yeah. But like I have, not since Kobani have you seen more unity of Kurdish? people regardless of politics, right?
Starting point is 00:57:57 Like I saw a statement from legacy stuff from Basani, from Talibanis. So these are the two major political figures in Iraqi Kurdistan. I've seen Kurdish religious leaders making statements, right? Because people are afraid of an ethnic cleansing because they have seen the ethnic cleansings
Starting point is 00:58:13 of the Druze and the Alawites that have already happened under the STG, right? It's worth noting, I guess, at this point, like, for whatever reason they have not chosen to remove the name, Arab from the country's name, like the Syrian Arab Republic. And I think like that Syria is a multi-ethnic and very diverse country. And if it is to succeed under any form of administration, it needs to acknowledge that, right?
Starting point is 00:58:36 And it's really worrying to see this like horrific inter-ethnic violence. And it is being massively accelerated by people in the media, right? To include a lot of like people who might be referred to as ex-executive. I don't think that's a reasonable appellation. Like, their expertise is pretty limited. But nonetheless, people who, like, to include journalists, telegram influencers, and then think tankers in the West, people are sharing things that are either not true or that have not happened in this time.
Starting point is 00:59:11 The telegram videos are actually not taken in Syria this week, right? That have taken different places and times. And we are careening towards this not becoming a fight between two days. different administrative projects, but becoming an inter-ethnic conflict, right? I think we're pretty much there at this point, and nobody seems to be looking for an off-ramp, which is tragic. Like, I was in Hesikar two years ago, and I was conducting interviews there, and I remember there was this little kid whose father had died fighting ISIS, and like, it was dark outside. You know, this was during a time when Turkey was bombing the region quite heavily, and the little kid,
Starting point is 00:59:50 I think, had been struggling to sleep because he was sleeping in the middle of the day, and then when he work up. We were just hanging out with his mother and I gave a little kid some toys to play with it that I brought with me and like I can't help but thinking how scared that poor little guy is now. You know, and his dad's not there right because like 12,000 members of the SDF he died fighting the Islamic State right. And now another state is coming to put his family, his kid in danger. Like that's horrific. What people have gone through in Syria already is too much and like to see more killing and dying there is heartbreaking for me. Yeah. Yeah. It's very briefed on the immigration update. It appears that immigration and customs enforcement are now under the impression
Starting point is 01:00:34 or they believe that they can enter homes without the consent of the homeowner so they can use force to enter in order to remove someone with a final removal order so long as they have an administrative warrant. That is a different thing from a judicial warrant, right? This is often what people talk about when they talk about does ICE have a warrant they're looking for a judicial warrant as opposed to warrant that they have issued themselves an administrative warrant and so this will obviously broaden the amount of places that they can enter and times when they end up entering people's homes by force right so we will likely be seeing more violence here as well yay I'm going to put a link to a Haver store fundraiser at the bottom of this if you
Starting point is 01:01:20 if you'd like to help people in Kurdistan. There are people who have been displaced four times now in the last few years since 2018. So if you'd like to help, you can do that. It will also include a fundraising link for Minneapolis if you'd like to spend some money closer to home. Great. If you'd like to email us, you can do so
Starting point is 01:01:36 by emailing CoolZone Tips at Proton.me. If you want the email to be encrypted, you should send it from a Proton address. Well, we look forward to hearing more from Margaret and James in Minneapolis. And I don't know. I guess that's it. We reported the news.
Starting point is 01:01:55 Did we? We reported the news? Yeah. All of it. Fuck yeah. That's kind of how it feels. We reported the news. It could happen here is a production of Cool Zone Media.
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