Kitbag Conversations - Episode 27: Charles McBryde

Episode Date: September 28, 2022

This week I am joined by Charles McBryde (@charlesmcbryde) and this week we talk about:  - Why he is in Columbia - His time in Ukraine - Culturalism - And the human identify in wartime 

Hello everyone and welcome back to the podcast. This week we are joined by Charles McBride. You've seen him running around in Ukraine. He's in Colombia right now and he's an all-around modern TV d'lore. So, hey man, how you doing today? It's a very flattering image. Thank you. I'm doing well. You're blonde hair. You look very much like you should be in a movie from the 50s, so. Yeah, that's fair. I'll take that. I like T. Lawrence. Problematic as he is. He's one of the greats. Come on. He'll shape modern Middle East. Yeah, that's part of the problem.

Oh, man. So, yeah, what are you doing in Colombia? I don't really know, to be honest. My lease was up in L.A. and I was tired of paying L.A. rent, which I'm about to go back and do again. But I wanted a month of just like exploring and when I booked this trip, I didn't have a job. So, I thought I was like, yeah, I'm just going to disappear, you know, into the back country and like go on motorcycles all over the place. Well, I got a job, so I spent pretty much every day, you know, eight to five in my hotel room or in a coffee shop working on my computer. So, it's like, it's so great because in the evenings you go out and you can have a great dinner, see some friends, that sort of stuff. It's quite cheap compared to Los Angeles, but it's not quite the like rip roaring, you know, South American backpacking adventure I was expecting. Right in Colombia, are you capital somewhere else?

I'm in Medellin right now. Okay. Yeah, I haven't left Medellin partially because it's just an awesome city with a lot of stuff to do and partially because it's so exhausting to come sign for the weekend and I just want to sleep. Can you imagine if you booked a trip down there? Yeah, can you imagine if you booked a trip down there, max out all your credit cards and didn't get the job? You're like, well, shit. Yeah, that would be, I mean, the thing is like, that's kind of what I was expecting. I wanted to go to South America because I knew it would be cheap without a job, like I just do freelancing stuff. So, it's kind of the best of both worlds because I'm allowed to work remote, but I can live, I can earn dollars and live on pesos, so it's kind of, I mean, it's cultural imperialism, but you know what, the Colombians really want tourism dollars. So, here I am, giving tourism dollars. Anything to prop up the economy, man.

That's right. Oh, man. So, yeah, you've been all over. I remember war in Ukraine kicks off and you went ghost mode for a few days and then you popped up in Eastern Ukraine and I was like, oh, this guy's moving around. And then, yeah, it was, because I remember I started following you around mid-February timeframe when I think you and Rose Warfare wrote that, like a 10 slide, like this is what's going on in Ukraine. Here's who to follow to understand what's going on. Here's a good news source. Don't trust these guys. I think you were the first one to actually publish something like that on Instagram where it's like independent journalists know what they're talking about. Stay away from mainstream news because they're going to get wave tops and not actually get into the nitty gritty of what's going on. Yeah, that was interesting. It was actually with Pat from our words today, wasn't Rose Warfare. Although, I mean, I know this, but she did guys well. Yeah, are you any background noise, by the way, it's kind of a loud situation here. Not a lot. It sounds like you're talking through a phone, but yeah, it's nothing's coming through.

Okay, good. Yeah, no, I, that's interesting that that was the first time that you'd seen that because I think that that was, for me, it was kind of like a hybrid thing. I'd done some infographics like that before that had been successful. Nothing nearly as viral as that. It was really interesting that like, yeah, it's sort of like, I guess I did something that was going on Twitter and I like translated it to Instagram. And then it was kind of weird result of that was like a bunch of, you know, LA white girls with the Ukrainian flag in their bio are like sharing popular front, you know, and like, all these random, ocent accounts, you know, and they're like telling people to go and follow these just because they shared this infographic. So it was kind of an interesting mix of like, I have this audience that I built up, you know, just people, the type of people who like when something like this pops off, they want to care, you know, they want to put the Palestinian flag in their bio, they want to put BLM on their bio, want to share some useful information, combined with like, drawing attention to some people who actually really know their stuff, rather than just being like, donate to donate to UNICEF and follow CNN. Donate to this nonprofit that started yesterday. Where's it going? I don't know.

Oh, God, that's, that's one of the reasons why didn't you and I do a protest on like how to help people. Yeah. Yeah. And, and the thing about that was like, so much money disappears like the Black Lives Matter thing so much money just went into a black hole in those first couple of days. And one of the reasons I went to Ukraine was like the Ukrainian fundraising strategy at that point was like, posting screenshots of their like notes out like notes out screenshots of bank account numbers onto their Instagram stories. And I was like, this is not going to be an effective strategy for long. And I had a little bit of nonprofit experience. I figured that'd be a good, if I could, if I could brand something and make it seem appealing to a Western audience, they'd be more likely to trust it with partnerships and donations. Especially if you're like a recognizable figure going over saying like, this is what's happening. Here's who to talk to instead of this Ukrainian just said, give me money. You're like, I don't know where this is going. So. Right, exactly. And everyone knows Ukraine has a reputation for corruption and all this sort of stuff. So people had a lot who didn't know what they were getting into going into it. Oh, yeah, it's so especially when because I come from a military background when the war started, I immediately thought, where are these weapons going, because you have handed out 10,000 rifles, and then I'm pretty sure maybe 5000 showed up in Africa within two weeks.

It's like, oh my God, they're starting to, they're starting to basement somewhere waiting for the next revolution. It's, I was like, this isn't a solid long term strategy. Cool. It's very Volkstern. I mean, I understand the Russians are doing it now, but Yeah, it's one of those I'm like, yeah, it's a money pit. I don't know. There's a lot going on over there, especially I've talked to a few guys who've been in Ukraine fighting and they went Yeah, if America sends over five high Mars, Ukraine probably gets three in the other two show up in like Cambodia. You're like, all right, it's three more than we had yesterday. So I don't know if that's the case with the high Mars, but I could definitely see that happening with small arms and stuff like that. As far as I think the guys that I've spoken to like the heavy weapons stuff, it's been pretty well guarded in terms of like, they don't want that stuff going into the long hands. They learned the lesson from Afghanistan. But yeah, all the small arms and donations, all sorts of stuff. I know I met a lot of grifters over there, man. There's a funny thing is most of them are Westerners. I mean, the Ukrainians were, were pretty much completely all in on the war effort. Yeah, they were, they were individual cases of corruption, but all the grifters that I met over there were Westerners who were trying to run some sort of like fundraising grift or something like that, setting up a shady nonprofit or promising training to local defense forces and not delivering it to taking the money and Oh yeah, it's crazy stuff. Yeah, it's like after the American Civil War, all those northerners came south or like, hey, you want to help clean up the city. I mean, I have the only wagons to help clean up Georgia.

So just give me all of your money and I buy up all the real estate. You can have a clean city, but it's mine now. And so. Carpet baggers. Yeah, it's, it's a lot of different people who are drawn to things like this and a lot of them are very altruistic, a lot of them are very opportunistic. For instance, there's a huge problem every time something like this happens where like, massively displaced populations of children become huge targets for sex traffickers. And so like, a bunch of the guys that I talked to over there were working on like, counter trafficking operations and that was the only thing they were focusing on like there's literally a war going on, you know, and this guy's fighting and they need them and they're worried about orphans who are being left behind in cities and So, you know, this is a million different aspects to it. Like, yeah, it's definitely eye-opening. That's for sure. First time I've done anything like that.

Yeah, with looking at the Ukraine situation and looking at something like post Arab spring or African civil wars is there was a mass wave of refugees heading into Europe where before someone like Greece would sit down and go, scoop them all up and we're going to put them in this little corner, but then in Poland in Eastern Europe, they're like, we're taking everybody. So it was just a different way of looking at it like, All right, so like, who is the good and who is the bad and then it comes down to like, I guess cultural identity and whatnot, but it's the human trafficking was such a nightmare. Yeah, it's really in Poland actually started really cracking down on this after like a month. There's a famous example that there's some American Congress, even a state level congressman or something who had a previous maybe he was like on the sex vendor registry or something. But he set up some like really shady like save the children nonprofit and went and evacuated like 20 kids and had them put up in a hotel in Poland. I think the Polish police like found out about it, kicked him out of the country basically, and then they instituted like a new law that said like you couldn't you couldn't you couldn't take kids over the border with other parents or something like that. You had to have documentation. So the Ukrainian government and the Polish government ended up getting really good about that but you know in those early days of the war was just chaos.

But yeah, I mean, the thing about the refugees is like, I don't know if you've ever heard a Polish person talk about Ukrainians before the war, or like other Europeans are what you friends but like, they were not nice to them. They would they would talk about Ukrainians in the same way that like people at the southern border will talk about Nicaraguan or Guatemala like oh they're taking our jobs. Oh, they're corrupt. You're all they're, they're nerdy wells. And it was really interesting because that totally shifted when the war broke out. It took like a little while but then everyone was like, yeah, we love Ukraine and everything. In reality, it comes down to when I was in Poland in 2018, they were all they were doing was complaining about the Ukrainians. I don't know, like how dialed you weren't on like post Soviet economic statuses with former Soviet states but someone like Ukraine was absolutely good. It was, it's the poorest country in Europe. It's, it took all of the population of the former Soviet Union outside of Russia. And all these Ukrainian men and women had no way to make money so they started going to doing freelance work in Poland and so Polesman.

Yeah, we just got done with you guys. We don't want to see you again. So it came down to that like, we don't want Ukraine. It was very much like Irish need no apply. Like there's too many of you. We don't want you. It's the same thing with the Irish and the Italians and now it's culturally changing because they realize, oh Ukraine is a part of Europe. It wants to be a part of Europe. It's trying to lead the Russian Syrian influence. So we shouldn't be racist towards them. Well, yeah, but then the war starts and the Russians are invading Ukraine and it's especially someone like Poland went. I remember last time a country got invaded and no one helped them. It was us. So we're going to help Ukraine out. So it's, you didn't have to, you didn't have to explain to the Baltic countries and to Poland and to some of the other Eastern European except for Hungary apparently that like the significance of Russia, you know, fucking with its neighbors like they get that. It's almost like Europe kind of sold out Georgia in 08 where Georgia was like, I want to be a part of NATO and the European Union and got invaded and curb stomped and then we're economically stagnant.

They haven't really done much sense. They're kind of like dead in the water and everyone went, I don't want to see that again. But again, I don't think Europeans were too keen on taking in Georgian refugees. Yeah, it was just kind of like, I think it was one of those things where it was like this. Okay, how far will we let them go. And eventually it was just like, okay, you're going to launch a wholesale, you're going to launch the largest land war in Europe since World War Two. We're just not going to let that pass anymore and that's when the thing was like, everyone actually was because they thought Russia was just going to sweep it. Everyone was really upset, obviously, but no one taught the Ukrainians to the chance. Like in those early days, everyone, even the CIA was saying, yeah, people last four days a week, three weeks tops. And I remember listening to those reports and everything and then talking to the Koreans, they're like, no, no, we got this. And you're like, you sure though, because like you guys don't have body armor or boots. Well, like I've talked to you before and especially those who've immigrated to the US or Western Europe since post 2014. I was like, what do you guys think about the war? They're like, that's not our problem. That's in the East. That's Donbass. We don't care. And then as soon as the war started, they were like, I'm a nationalist. I was like, hell yeah. It's so funny to see how quickly it turned. So I know it's a similar thing because obviously you're being deceiving on the East Coast. I've known a lot of Ukrainians for the past couple of years. I dated a Ukrainian girl and she was friends with a lot of other Ukrainians who were kind of in this set of like models and influencers.

And that's a very heavily Ukrainian or Slavic set, just because like that region of the world produces a lot of the world's, you know, most beautiful people, frankly. And it was really interesting because all of them were very keen to like anglicize their names. And they would present themselves and they'd be like, oh, they would go by Mary, even if their name was Masha, you know, and they would, they would use, they wouldn't use Cyrillic letters and that sort of stuff. And it was really interesting because those people are very integrated into the United States and there was almost this like, I'm not saying they were ashamed of being Ukrainian. I'm saying they de-emphasized their Ukrainian heritage when they were in the West. They were in the war camp and that totally switched over. And yeah, you're right, because like the Donbass thing, I mean, to be honest, man, there's a lot of Ukrainians who kind of wanted to let that whole region go. There's no real pro-Ukrainians living in there anymore anyways. There was like after eight years. Yeah, it's like they've, yeah, the people who liked Kiev, the Kiev government, basically left unless they're fighting. I mean, that's not necessarily true. They still a lot of, and like, I guarantee if Ukrainians find us and hear this, they're going to skin me alive for saying this. But yeah, there's a degree to which Russia is a settler-pollonian state, right? And its strategy in Donbass and elsewhere is to just fill it with Russians until it becomes identified with Russia. And so I think that's kind of what they were doing. Yeah, you're right. If you were from the B or P, you know, maybe you weren't so worried about what was going on all the way over in the East.

But that really changed the world. There are a lot of people here who are in Arctic, which is, everyone from Arkham speaks Russian language. They're all culturally, they add family across the border. They're a lot of ties with Russia. They have a lot of sympathies with Russia. A lot of people in Arkham listen to Russian propaganda news and everything like that. Some of them were even in favor of Putin, you know, and then the invasion happened and suddenly like, I'm an Eastern Ukrainian, you're a Western Ukrainian, but we see eye to eye. And it's really interesting because the Western Ukraine is the most nationalistic, but the Eastern Ukraine has been the one who's been getting the shit knocked out of them by Russia. And so they're like, we hate these guys and we know you hate these guys. So now let's hate them together. Because Russia looks at them as second-class citizens. It's like, you're not Russian. We're Slavic. We understand. We look down on the Serbs, too. Don't think you're left out because, yeah. Yeah, so they're like, yeah, I think they're like, Ukraine comes out of this with a much more solidified cultural identity.

Yeah, in the same way that any country has solidified their identity through warfare like ours. Well, even post-Soviet Union collapse, it's most Ukrainian thought it was politically and culturally smart to just stick to Russian. They're like, that's more of a useful language internationally. Who cares about Ukrainian? All right. It's like, Russian is a business language, especially a big country. Some of them, yeah, some of them. It's the lingua franca of the region, but that's, I mean, that's a complicated history in the last 30 years. And Ukrainian nationalists have never really died. And I think it's important for people to realize that, like, even the Donbass region voted to leave Russia when that referendum came around in 1991. They voted, I think it was 54 to 46. So that was way closer than it was in Kyiv or Lviv, which was something like 90 to 10%. But those areas didn't want to be Russian as recently as 30 years ago. So, yeah, anyway.

Yeah, I mean, pivoting away from Ukraine because just seeing all these Russian soldiers getting rounded up, you know, protesters getting detained, getting handed a draft, and those are like, you're getting on a bus and you're going straight to, you know, Donbass. Shit, they're getting rusted out AKMs and, you know, Cold War era Soviet gear with tin helmets getting sent in where because all of their good stuff is captured by the Ukrainians now and it's, yeah, Russia is going to implode but I really want to pivot more towards Iran, because within the last five or six days that country is looking pretty much like there might be a revolution going on. Yeah. No, I mean, I, my, the thing about Iran is it's Iran or whatever that. It's definitely not anything close to like my region and from knowing what's about. I have so much less knowledge about that region than like post-Soviet Eastern Europe. So it's been an interesting kind of lesson for me because every time something like this kicks off I always like to sort of go back in time and dig up, you know, like what why did this lead to this way and this lead to this.

Yeah, and also I'd see like whatever saying pops off a lot of people jump to share the first thing that comes around without kind of a historical nuance and on what that signifies and everything. So yeah, I mean, it's something I'm still very much like I'm catching up on that, because I don't know what's going on. Cultural identity after the Iranian Revolution in 79 is anyone who left post-revolution classifies themselves as Persian, not Iranian, but then if you're in Iran, they're like, I'm Iranian. This is who I am. But then you go down to the deep state in Iran where they go, you can't say anything else where it's, I don't know if you ever, if you follow Henry Rollins or anything, he's that punk rock musician from the 80s. I don't know. But so he's one of those guys who just travels the world. He's like, wow, you can go motorcycling in Southeast Asia.

Guess I'm going to do that for six weeks. And he just goes around the world and he just talks to people. He went to North Korea just to see what was going on. And there was an interview with him where he talked about how he just went to Iran. He was in Tehran, asked, talking to people. He's like, what's your biggest issue is being a national in this country. They're like, the government, don't tell them I said that, but nobody really likes them. So yeah, and this is, you know, 15 years ago.

And. I mean, you just said that you don't. You're not thoroughly dialed into what's going on in Iran, but I mean, they, Shia Islam, Sunni Islam, they really don't get along. And post American invasion of Iraq and occupation, the. Pivot towards Shia Islam got very popular with Iraqis because they're like, we don't want to be occupied by anybody. I guess Iran's our new, our new, you know, go to. And so all these Iranian military members started occupying parts of like northern Iraq and Kurdistan and all these things. In the last 24 hours, they've been leaving those occupied regions to secure cultural and economic centers within the heart of Iran.

So it's, it's really interesting to see how rapidly everything's moving. It is moving incredibly quickly and it's moving quickly simultaneously with other things. It's interesting that you brought up kind of the Iranian cultural imperialism for Shia. Which I think it's interesting, you know, I think a lot of the conflicts. I mean, you know, Iraq and Syria, which has 20 years as we know, it's basically just become a giant proxy war for anybody who has money to go to the region. You know, you have. You have Turkish backs, militias, you've got Iranian backs, militias, you've got, you know, dominally empowered government forces.

You have terrorist organizations. But yeah, Iran has been really extending itself in Iraq in terms of like their activity. Well, the, the power balance within the last 50 years has rapidly shifted back in the late 80s, early 90s, or the 80s entirely. The Iraqis and Iranians fought an eight year long war where they essentially used ballistic missiles as bottle rockets and shot each other. Yeah, World War One style. And then million. Oh yeah, it's insane. And then US walked in top of the racks, Saddam's gone.

Now the big dogs in the region directs gone. That's pretty much like an American colony at this point. But then you have Iran who got stronger Saudi Arabia, who they absolutely hate because it goes down to that shoot Sunni Shia mindset. And then you had all these former Iraqi Sunnis who were with Saddam Hussein that were disposed by the government and the US went, all right, we're going to put she in and see how this goes. And so all those rat or those Sunnis went, well, I guess we're on our own now. So created, you know, ISIS and all these kind of things. And then help just refresh this society. Oh yeah, they're like we're ISIS now we used to be Al Qaeda, but they're not too cool anymore.

So it's, and then you have someone like Turkey who is a NATO ally openly trades with China and Russia plays the Black Sea, you know, like, they're in a win-win situation, no matter where they go. And so they go, I'm going to invade Syria. That is it that is what's going to happen. Turkey gets off scot-free with so many of its things because they don't nobody thinks of them as a big is a big bad, you know, unless you're British or Armenian, because they get to be in this privileged position where they hold all the cards. And so they get to have NATO military bases, you know, and because of that they get to impel the West to, you know, agree to various unreasonable demands like recently to allow Finland and Sweden into NATO they demanded that Kurdish refugees we sent back to Turkey. And what are what's going to happen there. Yeah, and that Finland and Sweden stopped materially assisting the SDF or Java. So it's like, I don't know, yeah, and then they go, they turn around and talk about how they're about to become so much closer to China and Russia, and then the world should look forward to seeing this new cooperation.

And then they go, and then everyone flies to Ukraine and stands with Vladimir Zelensky and says that Ukraine has Turkey support. Well, it's because they don't know the keys to the Black Sea, where this Russian industrial mobilization was happening and they're lining up across the Ukrainian border and all these Russian ships were entering the Black Sea and NATO went close the border. He's like, no, we have eight days they have an eight days notice to say why they're going in. I mean, I don't think they're up to anything too suspicious. And then at the same time are assisting Azure by John to rocket, you know, Armenia, indirectly they're like, here's all the munitions I'm not doing anything, but I'm not saying that I want you are media to win. And so, yeah, which is like geopolitically Armenia is isolated and they're only kind of quasi ally they have is Russia. So it's, I would just say an ally. Yeah, more like an abusive, abusive parent. That's why it's like Armenia doesn't have an ally Armenia is in possibly one of the worst positions in the world because

they have sympathy in the West, due to the Armenian diaspora, especially how like hardworking as people are and they, you know, have sort of a cultural cache in the United States through especially media kind of film and television and Hollywood. You have the Kardashians being the obvious example. But they're into the show a lot because they, when they have a friends. It's, it's, you know, quote unquote Russian peacekeeping forces and Armenia had a slightly privileged place in the Soviet Union. And they were slightly grateful. I don't want to speak to Armenians, but they were slightly grateful for the fact that sort of Soviet Union came in and was like, all right, well, Turkey can't really fuck you anymore. Because they're obviously their cultural enemy has been Turkey and, you know, which is a sort of fascist kind of oligarchy and Azerbaijan, which is a fascist oligarchy. One step further.

I hope that I don't want to interrupt you but just looking at like religious boundaries where you have shooting and see a kind of pinched in between you have this one Orthodox Christian country. In the next major Orthodox country is Russia and America, a lot of people in the West are predominantly Christian when I think those guys are better than the rest is simply because of that like he's Christian I'm Christian I think I think he's a good guy. Yeah, you know what I think is really interesting because like, you know, like Armenian Orthodoxy is hugely different in any sort of Christianity pretty much practice in the United States. I don't think it's really funny, but yeah they're in a tough position it's also difficult to explain to people that like. You know, Ukraine is using by rock hard drones. That's awesome they're fighting Russia. But also Turkey made those drones and they tested them on Armenians in 2020. You know, the, the Azerbaijan and, and then they look at that conflict and they say well, wait hang on the Russians the good guys here it's like no they're just the just the regional influence. The biggest issue is exactly there's no good guys it's everyone likes to put themselves in like us versus them, but the world today is so gray, where, yeah, someone like Turkey plays every single side and comes out on top every single time.

But yeah, post 2003 invasion of Iraq it's like well, the last guy was kind of a piece of shit so let's put in his enemy. Oh, he's even worse and he's backed by the Iranians God damn it. So it's. It's just like black and white right now. To be clear, I think the Armenians are the good guys in this situation that they're the most democratic nation in that region. And they have. I think they're fighting for things that if you want to talk about a loosely sort of democratic free society. What goes things that they value and they're one of the only people in the region fighting for that certainly more so than Azerbaijan, Turkey, others. And the problem is that their only friend in the region is another fascist oligarchy which is Russia. Yes, they really are on their own and because of the geopolitical significance in the region. It is difficult to try and justify NATO sending a bunch of stuff to them. In the same way that we did with with Ukraine, because, you know, obviously Turkey's not allowed that and it might, it would be a case of essentially the US unilaterally arming Armenia, which I think they should do frankly because

Armenia is always on shrink of another genocide. And they are just constantly like Azerbaijan would like to annihilate Armenia completely culturally. You know, physically wiped them off the base of the earth. It's just like generational hate for one another. Yeah, but it's kind of a one way thing because like Armenians don't want to genocide Azerbaijan but Turkey and Azerbaijan do want to genocide Armenia they've done it before. And the thing is like, they got away with it they got away with it in 2020, you know, thousands of Armenians paid the price for the fact that they didn't have any any allies. And I think, I mean, I don't know, you know, like, I have plenty, plenty of hangouts about US imperialism. And this wouldn't, you know, everyone in the State Department would probably be very uncomfortable about this but if you weren't looking the way I think the United States should act in this I think that they should take advantage of the fact that Russia is crumbling as a regional influence,

and they should arm the fuck out of Armenia and just like, let the Turks go home and cry. Because, yeah, I mean, it's interesting, it's interesting wondering what will happen to those weapons, like you said, yeah, like, you know, is it going to be like Afghanistan where they just end up in the hands of every, every random group. So, I'm not so sure that that would be the case, because I think the question, I think the question comes up and who are the Armenians give them to. They don't like any of their neighbors. And that's, it's, they defend themselves against all of them, you know, if they want to shake off sort of the Russian quote unquote peacekeeping yolk and the constant turn of genocide, then they basically have to become, you know, the Israel or Ukraine of that region. The one step further, maybe even the Sweden of the Middle East and the Central Asian area, because everyone in Sweden has a machine gun in their closet. They're like, we really don't have an army, but no one's ever invaded us because they know everyone's armed. So, like I just said, Israel, like everyone has a weapon. So, I don't know if they need, I mean, I'm in favor of everybody having lots of weapons, but like, I don't know if she didn't see what they mean, I think, I think they need to be armed in the same way that we are in Ukraine. They need to be able to sort of punch, take long range shots at their, at their enemies.

Because so far, I mean, this is the Russian threat. The reason the Russians got their shit rock because they were not anticipating counter strikes. In fact, they assumed that they would, you know, do things like control Ukrainian airspace within 24 to 48 hours. And that's why when you saw those early videos of like mile long columns of Russian tanks and armor getting destroyed by Ukrainian aircraft, those columns started moving under the assumption that Russia would control the skies. They did not anticipate it. And then, you know, then we talked about high marks blowing up bases in Crimea, and like even getting inside of Russia itself, they're like, Oh God, we did not know what we signed up for. And that's because Russia is a bully, and they're used to getting their way. And the only way that you stop the bully, but it's like repeatedly clumped you into the base until they stop fucking with you. And that's what we basically have to allow Armenia to do, if we care about them, which no one cares about Armenia, because they get sad. And if we stop, if we no longer care about them, I mean, it's just a matter of time before someone decides to wipe them off the face of the earth, because we know, we now know that the whole never again thing after the Holocaust was Oh, yeah.

And that's like, where do you think the, where do you think the UN came up with the term genocide, they use the Armenians as the example, they're like, this is the, this is the big one. Right. The Armenian genocide, even that topic in itself is such a sensitive topic for most countries because they're like, must don't want to recognize that it actually happened because they really partnered economically with Turkey and Turkey's like that never happened but if it did, it was the Ottomans. They're like, Yeah, exactly. Which I think is interesting because everyone basically wants to recreate the Ottoman Empire. And by bringing it back old Ottoman, like 1400s, Ottoman, Turk, like military uniforms to flank him when he gives presidential speeches like this guy's going all in. Yeah, man, it is the age of the second age of fascist demagogues.

It's hard to watch. It really is. Like the sensitive term is globalism but there's post collapse of Soviet Union's like the world's gotten so intertwined. And within the last 10 years, most nations got an increasingly nationalistic democracies on the decline and autonomous states are on the incline. Yeah, but that hasn't said hasn't made anybody less dependent on transnational capital. These are cultural nationalism so they're still very much tied to transnational capital in the same way the Nazi Germany was tied to transnational capital, perfectly willing to work with the globalist forces that may be crying. While, while preaching to their sort of nationalistic base, the supremacy of their, their bulk. Yeah, I think that's interesting. Like, Hungary and Poland, you know, they're kind of experimenting with fascist style politics, Hungary more successfully than Poland. Poland's political party is kind of ridiculous. Actually, the best thing that ever happened to them was the Ukraine war because they got to stop being incompetent.

Well, they didn't stop being incompetent, but they got to show the world that they could be generous and whatever. And they had this, it was kind of like Boris Johnson's like Ukraine war is the best thing that happened to him. Well, if you dial the clock back, the law and justice parties. It's dial the clock back a year or so. Remember when all those refugees showed up on the Belarusian border trying to get to Poland and they went we're not taking any refugees and that is our political position. Yeah. But the, they based their 10 year economic plan on the EU's money pot and the EU said, Oh, you're not getting any money until you take in refugees and they were like we're not taking refugees and they went I guess your economy is going to collapse and so it's forced. You know, it's in hindsight that was very much a Russian move like I need a break. I need to fracture the unity of the EU because we have countries like, you know, Austria or Hungary or Poland who are very nationalistic not taking refugees that's a political platform, and then they're kind of forced to do it. And then so he goes, All right, yeah, these guys don't seem to like each other anyways let's send more of them and then start putting guys in the border. And then it's also so it's so weird to me because like a huge part of Polish nationalism is anti Russian

sentiment, but Russia uses Polish nationalism to fracture European trans nationalism. So it's really weird. And it does the same with France obviously the same with Hungary or bond is historically incredibly guarded and the things he says about Putin is often quick to defend him he's very slow to criticize him. And sort of a kind of in a turkey census is has decided to just sort of unilaterally take Hungary down a middle road in terms of Russia EU relations which is crazy because he's partly European Union. So yeah, I think those countries deserve every slap on the rest of the EU has given them this makes me think of this. I just thought of this right now. So in terms of the Europe European Union Europe in general Poland is generally viewed as Eastern Europe's punching bag where every time they get independence they get invaded by the Germans or you know they've this is the longest period that they've had an actual country in a while now and it's quite successful. Armenia is the Middle Eastern punching bag I don't know why someone like Poland wouldn't closely tie themselves with Armenia going, we I understand where you're coming from. Well, I mean, I don't actually know enough about Polish attitudes are made to say they're not doing that. I know that like, Poland has a lot of solidarity with the Baltic states Baltic states of life so they're with Ukraine you know famously Estonia and Lithuania and Latvia and have given so much more proportionally of their economic wealth to Ukraine to assist the crisis in any other countries. Poland Poland as well for they've given a lot. So like their material assistance I think comes out of just like, Oh, you were bullied by these guys for your entire history as well. And I think it's, I think it's also that's more true when you have a world in which

Germany really changed. Germany is just like, so different than it was in the last century. So I think that like, they can you can have this sort of Berlin led economic, you know, union, which supports these, these sort of states that are on the historical. Russia is the more recent in a meeting Germany if that makes sense. So I think they're all banding together to face that threat. Well, I've talked about this on the pop before but you know when you and I were little kids who do you think for the bad guys in the world the Germans because you watched like war movies, but then the older you get it's the media portrays the Russian is this is the bad guy, because the Soviets just collapsed but the Russians are still kind of douchebags. And so, I mean, like, how old are you? 25. Yeah, I'm 27. So like, our, some of our earliest like memories of being like, teams of preteens are like playing the no Russian mission on modern warfare too. Oh, yeah. You know, we remember the Russians are awesome. Yeah, the good Russians and the bad Russians, you know, and the whole dichotomy that was set up by Activision, which of course is funded by both MI six and the State Department. But no, it's kind of interesting. I remember like, we were told to believe all these things about Russia, you know, red scare style stuff. And a lot of that was of course hyperbole a lot of it was sort of anti communist rhetoric, which sought to paint world socialist and leftist movement says a singular conspiracy run out of Moscow, which is of course ridiculous. We learned that in Vietnam.

But definitely growing up, we had this idea that Russia was the villain. And it was really interesting being over there. I mean, I've studied Russian history, and as a history major you studying the history of that region. It's kind of true. Like, yes, there's a lot of hyperbole and there's a lot of red scare stuff. And of course none of that should be directed at Russian people. But in terms of how Russia behaves on the international scale and on the battlefield, they are a bad guy. They are, they are a global villain. And I think that everyone kind of sees that now when we look at the pictures of is your man butcher. And you cross reference those with stories of like, the rape of, you know, Germany, as the red army was going across. Yeah, that's a topic nobody talks about. They're like, you know, tell us when World War Two, they're like, how many German women were massacred. It was an entire, it was an entire generation of women impregnated of children born between like 1944 and 1947 or so, called the Russian children, and they were essentially the results in rapes of German women by Russians. You bring that up in any sort of conversation, you know, up until, I guess, last year, really, and oftentimes, especially by people on the left, you know, oh, that's a Nazi talking point. That's a, you know, that's a fascist apology, all this sort of stuff to you, even though it's historically documented to be true. I'm one of the most anti-fascist people you can try and, you know, and I see Russia's role in World War Two is deeply problematic, especially when we talk about things like, what's today, 24th September?

I think a couple of days ago was the anniversary of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Act, which was, of course, the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany's non-aggression pact, which contained a secret protocol that they would essentially invade and divide up Poland into cooperative Nazi and Soviet spheres. And that's very uncomfortable for people who like to talk about, you know, how Soviet Union beat the Nazis and everything like that. In the same way that it's uncomfortable for people who want to talk about how the U.S. beat the Nazis, to talk about things like Prescott Bush and Coca-Cola and, you know, the ways in which American industrial tycoons supported Nazi Germany's rise. We just mentioned genocides. And in the 20s, 6 million Ukrainians starved to death. And that's a topic nobody ever talks about. Everyone talks about Holocaust and Armenia. 6 million Ukrainians disappeared. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. But that's a huge population. Guess where they all were from? Like Crimea, Eastern Ukraine. And that's why they're all Russians today, essentially, is because Stalin killed them all. And I think looking at a more recent example is say, like, 9-11 happens, America invades Afghanistan, and everyone goes, oh, they're no better, they're imperialists, they're no better than the Soviets. And it's like, I don't know. I know a lot of American soldiers went to villages where all of the men and women had red hair. They're like, Russians raped these guys. I don't think any Americans did that. So it's, it's like, it's just, I mean, and then you look at today in Bukha and Ukraine, it's, yeah, it's kind of like what they do. That's their thing. Yeah, they have one modus operandi. I mean, I would, I would push back on that and say, I think the invasion of Iraq was the ultimate proof that imperial powers do what imperial powers do.

You can talk about the rules of engagement that we operated under, which were much more stringent than the ones that Russia, for instance, Russia has a tendency to use rape as a tactic of war. They've done that for centuries. They didn't even before the Soviets, people don't, I don't think people realize that, but they did that in like Peter the Great's time. There's one very famous example, which I can't remember what I think it was like a Tatar village or something that they just came in and it was mass rapes and everything used as a tool of imperialism. So obviously that's not something that the United States does. When you look in, there were, there were cases of rape by British and American soldiers in World War Two going into Germany. You know, most of those were found out, prosecuted, people were executed, that sort of stuff too. Whether the Red Army was essentially encouraged. It was encouraged. Officers told their men to rape women. Something came out and said like, like we just had in Bukha where like, oh yeah, this battalion got is the, the accused battalion that raped all of this, these women, they're like, cool, they got guards at us, go stand in front of this machine gun and they just killed them all. They're like, there's no evidence. There's no evidence that anyone of our guys did this. And if they did, they're dead. So, yeah. The Russian strategy is just to like, the crazy thing about Buche and Izio is like, I don't know if you remember this, but when I was over there, I remember one of my friends started talking to me. She's had the most chilled look on her face. She's talked about Ukrainian telegram channels from Mariupol, talking about how the Russians have been bringing in portable incinerators, like portable crematoriums.

And at first, all the Ukrainians thought it was for their dead, but when they started realizing this was coming out of Buche and hearing everything that was happening, they realized it was for them. It was because the Russians couldn't afford for something like that to come out again. The only reason that we found out about Buche is because the Ukrainians unexpectedly pushed the Russians out before they could cover up everything. Same thing with Izio. Russians didn't think they were going to lose Izio. Oh, yeah. They found thousands of body bags just in crits and quad cons, or like these were used. These were designed to use on people, not their own guys. And I remember one of those, yeah, like you just said with those telegram chats where right before the war started, those mobile crematoriums were showing up and everyone's going, Oh, this is bullshit. Why would anybody ever use this? And if they are going to do it, it's going to be for the Russians to cover up their KIA, which probably happened, but it's, yeah, it was definitely used for people to cover it. It's so sinister, man. It's so sinister. I mean, it's just really heartbreaking. And this is going on in 2022 when we're set with so many problems, COVID climate change, and you have just the most barbaric things happening all across the world. I mean, I don't want to sound like some sort of, I'm deeply aware of the brokenness of humanity, but it is very discouraging to me that in a moment where the world should be coming together.

To ensure the most survival-invasive. It's one of the most grim reality checks since World War II. It's like, oh yeah, people can still do this. Everyone kind of forgot. Or the most recent example is Yugoslavia in the 90s where there was genocide. That definitely happened, but, you know, it wasn't in Russia invading a country. It was just a couple little towns fighting each other. Yeah, but they still managed to. I think that was a big wake-up call for a lot of people. That can happen in Europe again, because of course if it happens in places like Rwanda or places that don't have white people, fewer people here. Like I said earlier, that everyone was pretty hesitant to take in Middle Easterners and Africans after the Arab Spring, but Ukraine goes off and everyone went, they're my brothers. We're taking care of them. Right, you know, but when you see... There's no economic stock in Africa. Well, there is economic stock in Africa.

But what I'm saying is like, because someone like Europe has that colonial past, they're like, I really don't want to touch that, except France. They're pretty gung-ho about keeping their guys in the Western Africa until recently. But it's like, all right, you guys want to be independent? Be independent, fine. It's not my problem. It's kind of like the British mentality of approaching the African situation. And then, but then, yeah, it's just like, all right, we're in Europe. It's cool. We have the European Union. We have really cool movies and Paris is really neat. Oh, wait, we forgot about the Russians. And it's just a prolonged period of peace really made everyone, I guess, neglect the fact that these things can happen. Yeah. Well, I mean, one, one historical point, the British did not willingly let their colonies go. In most cases, there was lots of violent resistance to independence movement. Do you ever read about their, the Indian push for independence in 1947? And that's like, one to seven million people were killed and the British were like, fine, you can have it. I don't want to deal with this. It's insane. But yeah, people like to people don't like to think of Russia as an imperial power. They don't like to think of it as a settler colonial state because I think a lot of people on the left and in sort of Western academia live in this weird kind of kind of like it's like a leftist cinematic universe where like only the United States and Israel can be the bad guys and or Britain, you know, and they can't imagine like, there's a whole swath of millions of people whose regional bully is Russia, and who have the same cultural

tendencies and genocide and ethnic repression and cultural repression that, you know, say indigenous people in the United States and in our colonies have experienced from us, or people in India have experienced from the British, but they've just experienced it from Russia, I think cultural memories, you know, and those are more complicated because a lot of that was done in the name of something called communism, which, you know, I mean, depending on how you talk I don't think anybody would would say that, you know, the communism and Stalinism of Russia was anything like what Karl Marx and making for what communism would or should be. Or some like China and Chairman Mao were in the Great Leap Forward and estimated 50 million were killed and they were like, I don't know I kind of like watching, I kind of like my toothpaste and I know it's all made in China so I'm not really going to talk about that one. Right, yeah. And, you know, like China is a very capitalist state, you know, Russia is a capitalist right wing knowledge, and frankly has been for a long time. But I hope that this is put the nail in the coffin for the type of people that would be apologetic for Soviet communism. Because it's clearly Russia up to its hood. I mean, so many of these different. I don't know I being on the left, I have deep frustration with people who want to make apologies for imperial states in the last century who used the legacies true revolutionaries in order to solidify power in the

country and suppress dissent. And I think there's a lot of comeuppance with that right now and people are realizing. What was the battle crying the 70s and 80s the Soviets the evil empire and as soon as the wall came down they're like, well the US is the only one left so I guess it's them now. So, but then you know we had, because post Vietnam War the US was internationally humiliated 20 years of absolutely no progress pointless war essentially. The Gulf War one and absolutely came out of the gate going like, yeah we're not going anywhere, but then the Soviets were gone and the Chinese were just starting to get where they are today. So it's like well I guess the US is the bully running around now, but then everyone forgets about Eastern Europe and how they just collapsed and immediately all those former KGB agents went, oh we're not leaving we have all the money we know who's who's who. And so it quickly created the like this quasi confederation of independent states I think that's what it's actually called, and then started manhandling a lot of people. Yeah, and they just and they dispense with some of the more gentle aspects of the Soviet Union is that now they didn't have to hit. They didn't even have to. They didn't even have to sort of promote the social values of communism in name only.

Read about ruthlessly exploited it. Did you ever read Putin's autobiography first citizen. It came out in 2000, and it was pretty much there was a collection of reporters that were interviewing him in the late 80s or late 90s when he was the Prime Minister. And they're like, oh Mr. Putin you know what's it like to be president and he was like, did I ever tell you that my grandfather was one of the personal aids of Stalin and survived the purge and they're like. Okay, but what's it like to be president he's like did I ever tell you that my father fought in Leningrad. And was one of one one of 120 men to survive the war and he also blew up several German tanks and was actually classified as a hero they're like, what does that mean. What's it like to be Prime Minister present what's it like to work with Boris Yeltsin he was like this interviews over so when you read the book at that time you're going. Yeah, all right, it's just a guy with just flexing his family history but then the way he wrote it is he presented himself as the future of like I am Russia, like I am here for a reason.

And then, immediately after the book came out he rounded up a lot of his KGB friends from the 80s and 90s. And he put them in political positions all in the former Soviet Union, especially in Ukraine and Belarus. And then I'm all come to the old KGB headquarters in Moscow and like started reciting the lines to the KGB, you know, 10 steps to freedom is like you know step one secure the keys and everyone starts laughing and it was no billing no one used like like the SBU didn't use it. But then. Yeah, the KGB were like, those guys are still running a lot. And so they just like you said it's the more chill aspects of the Soviet Union is what's running the country now, especially Eastern Europe. Yeah, I wouldn't say chill. I think so pretty. Well, until recently I guess the more the more chill, you know, we have Ukraine but Yeah. Okay, I'm probably gonna have to put you in here man, but was there anything you want to hit before we wrapped up.

Not at all man I really appreciate you coming on. It was a good good chat. Yeah, sure was we were able to get this on schedule. Yeah, people are interested in what I was up to in your frame. They can check out the NGO that I've set up there. It's called Mission Particles. And they can find it on MissionParticles.com. And on social media and Twitter, LinkedIn Facebook, it's just at MissionParticles and then on Instagram, it's Mission.Particles. So it's essentially an NGO that extracts concentrations from cities on the Russian border.

So if they want to check that out, they're welcome to. It's good. Really appreciate it. And I'm gonna hang up if you just want to hold on for a second and then wrap this up. Okay, sounds good. Thank you.