Provoked with Darryl Cooper and Scott Horton - EP:44 - Everything's Fine After All

Episode Date: May 2, 2026

Darryl Cooper & Scott Horton discuss the latest updates in the Iran War and Israel's war on Lebanon (and most of their neighbors). They also delve into the complexities of the Ukraine conflict, recent... developments in the Libertarian Party, and the humanitarian crises resulting from Israel's actions in Lebanon. Chapters: 0:36 Welcome and Updates 1:19 Upcoming Oxford Debate 4:34 Libertarian Party Concerns 8:13 Personal Attacks and Allegations 11:15 New Podcast Announcement 13:05 Life Updates and Moving 13:25 Current Events in Iran 18:29 Trump's Dilemma 21:09 Military Strategy and Options 27:16 U.S. Military Capabilities 31:21 Iraq and Regional Dynamics 35:37 Violence in Lebanon 38:44 Settler Violence in Israel 42:09 Coffee Break and Sponsorship 43:32 Audience Questions and Responses 57:54 Closing Thoughts and Farewell (Cleaned up w/ the Podsworth app. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://podsworth.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠) Provoked show site: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://provoked.show⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Darryl's links: X: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@martyrmade⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://subscribe.martyrmade.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Scott's links: X: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@scotthortonshow⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://scotthortonacademy.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://libertarianinstitute.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://antiwar.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://scotthorton.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://scotthorton.org/books⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.scotthortonshow.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:04 All humans break. The difference between humans and gods is that gods can break humans. Negotiate now. End this war. You're watching Provoked with Daryl Cooper and Scott Horton, debunking the propaganda lies of the past, present, and future. This is provoked. Darry Cooper, Martin Aid. How are you, sir? What's up, brother? Nice to be back.
Starting point is 00:00:40 Sorry, everybody, about the hiatus, the unannounced hiatus last week. That was, I think that was all on me. I think Scott told me that we were going on Thursday, and I would not prepare. And then he had to go back on Friday. I might have neglected to mention that. It's been a very busy travel season for me. And maybe I just took it for granted.
Starting point is 00:01:00 We're on Thursday for a minute, but actually not. Anyway, yeah, sorry about that, everyone. But thanks for joining us. Man, people get upset. You guys, okay? What's going on? Is everything all right? we're having the show.
Starting point is 00:01:12 We're here. It's all good. I was just traveling like usual. I remember where I went. Anyway. Tell them what you're traveling too soon. A couple weeks here. Moving from one place to another in my same county.
Starting point is 00:01:26 Next week, I'm doing the Oxford debate at Oxford University. And, man, you want to know this? Check this, man. Let me see if I can page up to this silly thing here. It says the goofiest thing. Darrell Cooper, you won't believe it. This is actually not really fair, although whatever, it's just because the other side is that wrong, really, right? This is the question for the debate. This house would rather go to war with Russia than lose Ukraine. And Daniel Fried, who is the former
Starting point is 00:01:58 State Department National Security Council, I mean guy, and the, I forgot, man, I had a whole list here It's like the former foreign minister of Estonia and somebody of equal status, former ambassador to NATO from one of them other countries. And then on my side, get this, dude, I think I have this right. On my side of the debate, the other two guys, I thought it was four and four. It's three on three, which is still odd, but my two debate partners, it's the former president of the Czech Republic. and the former prime minister of Slovakia
Starting point is 00:02:38 are going to be my debate partners in this thing. I'm not sure exactly how I got mixed up with such riffraff. So we'll see how it goes, man. It should be pretty good, I guess. You know, I got 10 minutes. I don't even know if I have a rebuttal, I'll think of something to say. I'll have to write 10 minutes on my way over there,
Starting point is 00:02:57 like, what are the crucial points I want to make? Dude, there's so much just loaded into the way the question or the premise or whatever is structured, like lose Ukraine? Like, do we, is Ukraine hours now? Like, what the hell are they even talking about? Right. I mean, yeah, is that like a euphemism for sit back and watch
Starting point is 00:03:19 as they lose the war? You know, so like that. I mean, because they say, you know, rather go to war with Russia than lose Ukraine. Well, like without us, the war's over tomorrow. Like if we and Europe stop providing anything to them, the war's over tomorrow. Russia's not going to, under those circumstances,
Starting point is 00:03:36 go across the river and invade until they get to, you know, Lavov. So how are you going to lose Ukraine? Like, Ukraine might lose some Eastern territories, but it's just, that's a crazy premise. Have fun. It is. And it really, in fact, it's like
Starting point is 00:03:52 unfairly biased toward me, if anything. You know what I'm going toward our side? It makes the other side have to defend a ridiculous stance, which is that, no, Britain should declare war on Mosul scow first, you know, which is no, nobody's really saying that. So, I don't know. And in fact, it's funny because after the question, it goes on and on. It says, well, some people think this and some people think that and all of this stuff. So I don't know. But anyway, you know what? I don't want to
Starting point is 00:04:18 talk too much about that because I don't want to like give away the whole game of Dan watching tonight, you know, which he probably is. But you know, there's a related subject, which is important, you know, to me, but maybe less so to you, but it is important overall, I think, in the scheme of things, at least in, I guess, yeah, maybe just in my world, but the chair of the Libertarian Party, Stephen Nicaela, I think is how you say it,
Starting point is 00:04:46 has made an alliance with this group called the International Association or International Alliance, maybe I forget, of libertarian parties. And it was actually founded by a friend of mine named Jeff Neal, who was the former chair of the party and who hasn't had anything to do with it in a long time. And he never had anything to do with USAID or NED or any of that type stuff. But I'm very suspicious of any type of astroturf type deal. And we have seen in some cases where like the Atlas Network,
Starting point is 00:05:16 for example, I don't know that they work directly with USAID and NED, but they work with a lot of groups that do. and they get, you know, that kind of the worst part of the Cato-ish edge, like Tom Palmer and those guys, get that kind of globalist, internationalist, George Sorosian-type association rubbed off on that part of libertarianism. And here the LP has now made this official alliance with this group, and they are like giving all their awards to people in America's enemy countries, like Iran and stuff like that. being good little sock puppets it looks like. And I think that this must have been a mistake at first.
Starting point is 00:05:58 You know, I don't know. I'm trying to like take it in good spirit. I don't know this guy Nicaela whatsoever or like what his stance is on this stuff. There's some guy Pierre, something or other, is the guy from the organization that they're like working with. But as somebody told me today that they're trashing me and saying I'm a Russian agent and this and that.
Starting point is 00:06:15 And like, so then the idea is that they're trying to get the American National Libertarian Party to sign on as, you know, one of these like internationalist-type globalist sort of organizations. And we saw there was a lot of sock puppetry like this, even way back in the Maydon Revolution in 2014, we have all these people claiming to be Eastern European libertarians demanding that America help them fight Russia. Russia is the true enemy of liberty and freedom in the world. And that's why America must intervene on the side of the libertarians of Ukraine and the libertarians
Starting point is 00:06:49 of Lithuania and all that. their liberty is what is the most important thing, when in fact that's not true at all and we don't give a damn about them and certainly not now that the Soviet Union and totalitarian communist slavery is over. It really makes no difference to us either way as Americans, but they're trying to push this hard
Starting point is 00:07:10 and they're trying to, you know, through their influence, use the libertarian party and grab it basically and change it from even under the worst of like Nick Sarwalk and whoever. Like he's, I think, soundly non-interventionist. I don't think he was ever bad on it. Well, he may like believed in stupid Russiagate theories or something, but I don't think he was ever for intervention anywhere.
Starting point is 00:07:33 I could be wrong about that. But the Libertarian Party, I don't think, has really been like this. And lately, it's been more and more Ron Paulian. So it would be a huge mistake if the Libertarian Party were to take a major step backwards and start associating with, you know, this kind of astroturf stuff. and especially, you know, trying to turn the Libertarian Party into some sort of internationalist-type movement, which is just preposterous. I mean, we are for, of course, free trade and open relations with all none,
Starting point is 00:08:01 and entangling alliances with none, as in not even Canada and Mexico, and don't even get me started about perfidious England. No, you know, we're not much less, you know, the Bulgarian. You should say that at Oxford. I'm sorry? You should say that at Oxford. Yeah, I might. That's going to, yeah, I'm going to have to work in part of that for sure.
Starting point is 00:08:23 And, yeah, and then, you know, actually I did an interview yesterday where a guy said to me, go, some libertarians say you're a Russian agent, and I'm like, what? Like, if I'd been drinking, it would have been a spit take type thing. Like, what libertarians ever said that about me is, oh, Eastern European libertarians have said that about me? Because they think America, you know, they're like Zionists. They just think they own us and we owe them, which is the furthest thing from true. And they say, and in fact, that was one of the things today, this. guy Pierre, which is a pretty homosexual name, if you ask me, Pierre said that I'm a Russian agent.
Starting point is 00:08:56 And I just thought that maybe I should address that since I wrote a whole book that explains why the war in Ukraine is at least 49% Washington's fault. And that is that I've been at this since the 1990s. And everybody knows that I'm a Branch Davidian and I'm a member of the Iraqi Mukbarat and, you know, obviously a major promoter of Bashar al-Assad's Ba'ath party. and Gaddafi's, Kami, Nazi, whatever you call that thing that he was doing there, sort of wacky colonel style socialism or whatever. No, what I am is all a partisan of those people long before my allegiance to Russia,
Starting point is 00:09:35 you dingbats. I'm a branched of idiot, everybody knows that because I defended them from lies against them. Just the same as my allegiance is clearly to Ayatollah, whatever his name is, I haven't figured out how to pronounce it yet, simply because I'm going to sit here and tell you that, at least as far as we know, they have not diverted any of their uranium stockpile to military purposes and things like that.
Starting point is 00:09:59 Everybody knows how that works, and I just think it's the dumbest thing in the world that anybody would even try to say that, especially to libertarians. But anyway, that stuff is still going around, and it must be fought at all times. It's like when you get a cold, you got to drink lots of water.
Starting point is 00:10:14 So we got to make sure to cleanse ourselves of these types of influences, no matter how much money they may offer or any of those kinds of things. Dude, did you ever see the... I'm sorry, I'm looking something up for you right now. Did you ever see that in the old Transformers cartoon? There was a guy who was like modeled on Gaddafi.
Starting point is 00:10:33 He was a villain. And he was the head of the socialist, Democratic, Federated Republic of Karbamia. Dude, I used to watch the hell out of that cartoon, but no, I don't remember that specifically. But yes, I mean, I was, in fact, in second and third grade when that cartoon was on TV. So that was made for me. And I saw the movie in the theater.
Starting point is 00:10:58 I could tell you which theater, although I don't think the building was there anymore. But yeah. Anyways. So not to talk about Ukraine and Libertarian Party politics stuff. You know, I don't know. But I just, whatever, it came up. And I want to say too much about the Ukraine thing because I'm sort of saving that. We'll talk about that next week.
Starting point is 00:11:14 I have another announcement. Oh, just real quick. Yesterday I interviewed Daniel Davis and Larry Johnson because why I interview anybody else? Those two guys are the best of the best. And Larry on Iran and Danny on the Ukraine. So if you guys want to take a listen to those, they'll be up at the Scott Horton show thing soon. And then I also want to announce that our good friend, or I don't know if you know the guy, it's a good friend of mine, Jim Webb Jr., people may be familiar with Senator James Webb of Virginia, former. He had been Ronald Reagan's secretary of the Navy for a while, and then he became a senator, and he was a good kind of anti-war, right-wing Democrat for a few years in, say, like, late Bush, Obama years. And then he finally quit. I think he said he was just so disgusted with the Senate. He just couldn't abide being a part of the institution anymore. It was not worth the effort
Starting point is 00:12:08 put into it. Which imagine that being a senator, you would think at least you get to have a say in this important august chamber of decision-making power and whatever and instead is just a whorehouse. He's like, I'm out of here to forget it and just quit. But anyway, his son is a great guy. He is a Marine Corps veteran of Iraq War II and is a great anti-war guy and a good friend of mine. And he is launching a new podcast, the James Webb Jr. show. And I'd done heard a rumor that you are already scheduled to be on it. And in fact, oh, look, I have it right here. I can share this whole little jam here. Although I can't read it. It looks like... Oh, we got Joe Kent's going to be on there. Danny Davis.
Starting point is 00:12:46 Good old. Oh, looks like you're first there, Mr. Cooper. First episode. Absolutely. And then his dad there, Senator Jim Webb and Robert Barnes. And I'm not sure why I wasn't on there. Didn't he say he wanted me on there? And then maybe Rachel missed his email or maybe I did something. Maybe I told him, catch up with me another time because I'm busy.
Starting point is 00:13:05 But yeah, I have been moving and it's been crazy. I'll tell you, if I had been fat, I would be in shape now. but I wasn't fat, so... No. I don't know how you drink as much Dr. Pepper as you do and not get fat, but it works out. Man, it's up and down the stairs with boxes of things is doing it.
Starting point is 00:13:24 You know, like how to go on. What's been going on in Iran, dude? Tell me about that, because I have... I'll be honest, I'm a little bit out of the loop this week. Partly just because I've been busy, but the real truth of the matter is that it's just kind of the point where the news is just so...
Starting point is 00:13:42 depressing and repetitive that I find it hard to follow. And so I've been really focusing on trying to get this next World War II episode out because I just, every time I open my phone, I just want to like blow my brains out looking at this stuff. It is really ugly, man. And it's, and it's absurd. But also people really want to hear your podcast series. So I don't think that anyone would argue that. Like, no way, man. Your most important comparative advantage is live tweeting the do, you know, hour by hour. Like, nah, that's, they want you doing the last.
Starting point is 00:14:22 I mean, it's so hard to even, you know, like, there's a part of me. And I'm not talking about this show. You know, I love my weekly hour with the great Scott Horton, of course. But, like, in general, like, if you notice, like, I haven't been on Twitter really at all for, I don't know, few, like, weeks. And, you know, there's a part of me that regrets ever doing anything other than just, like, the straight history stuff and ever getting into the, to getting to a place where people are kind of waiting for my hot take on the day's events. Because, like, it gets to a certain point. This war is, like, definitely there where you just kind of start to realize that, like,
Starting point is 00:14:59 anything that you can say about it for the most part, if you're responding to, like, daily, you know, the daily ticker, a good portion of that is just going to end up being completely nonsense or just completely meaningless because the news that we're getting is completely meaningless. You know, the stuff that's coming out of the White House or out of the Pentagon, anything that they're telling us, it's like, you don't know from day to day. If that's just literally, like, if that's a purposeful propaganda lie that they're, or if it's just Trump tweeting and he's just kind of throwing some, you just don't even know. And so you, you comment on it and you're like a week later, you know, you feel like a dumbass for even given at the time of day.
Starting point is 00:15:37 It is depressing. Well, yeah, although I think you got a pretty good track record of what you take seriously and not and what indications are really meaningful and not. I mean, we know Trump tweets like a storm. Well, it was easier, right, when there were a lot of active military operations going on because you could actually watch that, you know,
Starting point is 00:15:58 and I had sources in the region that could, you know, that could kind of tell me what was true and false in the news in a general sense. but like once the major military operations stopped and we're doing this sort of blockade but kind of not really a lot of things are going through but no we really got them and it's just sure is a blockade like now really all we have is like statements
Starting point is 00:16:21 where's this going what are they saying what's and it's like it's can't you know Trump's voice heggsess voice all these people it's just like fingernails on a chalkboard to me these days yeah I feel well look I mean the question is I mean I guess there's really only one question, which there's no way for us to know the answer to, right? Which is just, you know, in Trump's judgment, you know, how does he weigh the calculation of having to stop short of his goals and, in fact, leave with Iran more empowered is what he's more
Starting point is 00:16:52 less going to have to accept in order to end the conflict or whether he's now, you know, box himself into a situation he feels like where he has to follow through. remember we talked, I think we talked about this, right? The Time Magazine article that would be what three weeks old now, I believe, maybe four. I think three weeks old now probably. And in that one, it says that after last June that Netanyahu said to Trump, well, now you definitely have to go back to war because now they're definitely going to make a nuke now that we bomb them.
Starting point is 00:17:29 And then after starting this war, when the regime change didn't work, and they called off even trying to send in the Kurds. Someone at CIA must have said that like, or DIA or somebody said, this ain't going to work, man. You might as well call this off now instead of just marching this Bay of Pigs disaster in there. So they called off the Kurd thing. And then Netanyahu said, well, you're going to have to continue the war until regime change because they're definitely going to make a new now. And now you killed the new I. I'm elaborating this part, but we all know. You killed the. the Ayatollah's wife and father and what sister or mother, whatever it is, and severely wounded him.
Starting point is 00:18:12 People really don't like it when you do stuff like that to them most of the time, especially high explosives tearing their bodies apart, that kind of deal. And so now you have to finish what you started. I mean, obviously Trump must be feeling like, no way, dude. Like obviously he knows that he can't. It's already not worked. Like, what's he going to do? Quadruple down on something absolutely insane thing,
Starting point is 00:18:40 like the kind of thing that could get him thrown out of office for trying to what, like sending some ground force to Tehran. It seems impossible to do it. I just don't see, in other words, whatever, he can threaten on Twitter and he could even restart the bombing campaign. But he's already learned. I know he's W. Bushian in a lot of ways, but he's already learned he cannot coerce their behavior from the air.
Starting point is 00:19:02 It's not working. It didn't work already. So like, why do that again? Says a reprisal thing. Like, I don't know. So that's the box he's in. He doesn't want to look stupid. He just, you know, kick them up.
Starting point is 00:19:15 Two more pegs in the region. In fact, so you asked me what happened. The Ayatollah put out a statement. And it says, America will have no role in the Persian Gulf going forward. We're going to renegotiate all of this. And they've already proven they can hardly defend themselves, much less all their supposed allies in the region here.
Starting point is 00:19:34 Bluff called. And he's right about that. He is absolutely right about that. But he's also being a jerk about it, which is its own statement, right, of this kind of defiance and willingness to fight and to declare a new order in the region. So them's fighting words big time, man.
Starting point is 00:19:54 And so that's what sucks, right? It's just on one hand, we can just quit and walk away. Who gives a shit at all? I don't care. There's nothing that we, lose by giving up our empire. Yet we have the public choice theory of this guy who's still sitting there for three more years, who only he gets to decide, basically. There's no one else who can overrule him. And then if the Senate can concoct some crime and overthrow him with a super
Starting point is 00:20:22 majority, forget it. He's there for three more years. Yeah. And I don't think anybody at this point should have any illusions about whether he's weighing, like the idea of Netanyahu using the narrative on him that, oh, they're definitely going to get a nuke now. I don't think Trump thinks about any of that stuff when he makes these decisions. I think he is purely a political animal, purely like a media guy who is like thinking of how is this going to play? You know, like the, I think that would it play if they had and got nukes though. I think the biggest hope that we have that this thing does come to, you know, some sort of sustainable conclusion
Starting point is 00:21:03 in the relatively near future. Has nothing to do with military assets, has nothing. I think it's just that, you know, we got the 250th anniversary of the Declaration Independence coming up and Trump does not want that big party of his to be marred by just, you know,
Starting point is 00:21:21 this unresolved issue that's hanging out over there. And, you know, I kind of wish, I understand why they're not. You know, I'd be really upset if if somebody did to my country what what we did to their country but i really like i wish i could get the iatola on the phone or something be like guys can you just like can you just give trump and out here just don't you know you're going so hard about how we're going to drive you out like we can talk about that like like jfk with cruched up like six months down the line like oh no
Starting point is 00:21:53 we're not letting let you back in whatever can you just give this guy an out please like But I understand why they're not, you know? Yeah, no, man. You know, in terms of own goals, this is Iraq War II level screw up. And, you know, we talked about it. Oh, I think it's worse. I think it's worse. I think it's worse. And here's why.
Starting point is 00:22:16 Iraq War II, while it was a strategic disaster, you know, it made in the eyes of neocons and a lot of people driving this, this war necessary. I think this one's worse because, you know, the Iraq war exposed the limits of the U.S. military's ability to affect political outcomes in a very, like, specific in minute manner when there's an insurgency, you know, our ability to win hearts and minds and sort of shape the institutions and all that kind of stuff. But it did not call into question the U.S. military's ability to go in there and kick somebody's ass. Like, that was not called into question. And now that is not even called into question. We have, like, we have displayed the limits of U.S. hard power for the entire world to see.
Starting point is 00:23:06 You know, I have to imagine that before this war, you know, the Russians might have been, you know, they might be thinking of themselves. Like, man, U.S. actually wants to come on over into Ukraine. Like, and they really want to fight, bring it on. We can take them in our own backyard. but there's probably a part of them that's like, maybe, maybe, you know, because we haven't really seen the limits of their power. Same with China and Taiwan.
Starting point is 00:23:31 I think we can do it. I don't think there's anything they could do to stop us, but maybe now it's like not even a question. The idea of us defending Taiwan is a joke. I mean, we can't even get close to the coast of Iran. And when you compare, like, not just the number, but the quality and capabilities of their anti-ship. systems. I mean, it's not even, it's, it's night and day. And which we already knew that,
Starting point is 00:23:56 but now that is demonstrated before the planet Earth in a way. It's a lot of different. Exactly. Gouldstein wrote a study, you know. God dang. Yeah, it is. It's everything. Well, now, so what do you make of all the buildups? Now, on one hand, this is important that they pulled one of the three aircraft carriers out. On the other hand, they say they're sending in these Dark Eagle hypersonic. missiles, which on one hand, okay, I got to admit, I never heard of them. And I thought that the official story was that America doesn't have any hypersonics yet. And I don't know when they were
Starting point is 00:24:34 first announced. I guess I should have tried to ask Grock, when did they first announce that they have operational hypersonic missiles? Because what the hell is the point of having a hypersonic missile if you don't announce it to the Russians and the Chinese? Because the whole purpose of it is to be a nuclear deterrent. If they're going to act like Russian, now use these in conventional, conventional combat against Iranian targets. As I was reading before, some informed opinion was, that can only mean they need them for the increased range because they still don't have anything like air superiority over the country at all.
Starting point is 00:25:05 And their standoff ranges are of their, you know, whatever cruise missiles that they've been firing are becoming either outdated or they're running out of those missiles or whatever it is. And that's why they need these. But so I'm sorry. I'm working towards a question here, Cooper, which is, I mean, how do you assess that? Do you think they're really preparing to go back to war?
Starting point is 00:25:25 There have been reports of the Israeli saying the same thing, too. They're not getting what they want here. What are they going to do? I mean, look, so let's look at a few parts of that, actually. As far as those Dark Eagles go, like I knew that they were in development and that they were in testing. I think that last I heard they were not slated
Starting point is 00:25:46 to be rolled out operationally this soon, so they must have brushed that forward. if it's actually even happening, who knows, you know, like it could just be something that they're throwing out there. You know, my question with it, though, really would be, well, it's sort of what you said, like, what exactly would the point of it be? Is there, are there Iranian air defenses just shooting down all of our current missiles and we just got to find something that can get past their AD? No, like, you know, they occasionally shoot down a Tomahawk or something like that because they're big slow-moving school buses. But for the most part, like, you know,
Starting point is 00:26:25 when we fire a missile or when we, you know, when we actually deploy ammunition, it hits its target or, you know, somewhere in the general vicinity. But it, you know, it doesn't get shot down. And so a hypersonic would seem to be, I mean, plus the thing is, like, those things, if they really are operational. By the way, I just checked, chat GPT anyway, says it was first announced last month that they were operational. Okay. Okay. We can't have that many of them. And so it's like, it seems to me like a PR thing, honestly.
Starting point is 00:26:57 No, the report is that there's eight. There's eight of them. I think that's wonderful. I mean, that's good. I don't know. That's what I mean. Like, that's actually then a perfect encapsulation of like this whole, this whole portion of the war, I think, which is like,
Starting point is 00:27:16 don't get me wrong. The idea that Trump could be stupid enough to restart the hot war, totally possible. Like I don't really put anything past this administration anymore. It comes to just raw irrationality. But they're being told, I mean, I can tell you for sure. They're being told by everybody, except for Benjamin Netanyahu probably, but everybody on our side. There are no military options to accomplish the goals that you set for yourself. at the beginning. There are no military options to accomplish the much more modest goal that we've
Starting point is 00:27:53 set for ourselves now, which is forcing them to open the Strait of Hormuz and leave it out. Like, we do not have that. And going in and bombing for another 40 days or whatever, I mean, we are dangerous to be low. I know that you know a bit about what conversations are happening at the Pentagon somehow, but do you know that this word is getting to the president that he is being told even by Pete Hegseth? No. No. There are limits here.
Starting point is 00:28:21 No, I don't know that. I know, and I don't know what Hegseth says or things. I don't have anybody close to him. You know what? His men are telling him that like, hey, boss, you know that we love. 100%. I 100% can tell you that. On the uniform side, I have sources that are, that are close to the highest people on the
Starting point is 00:28:41 uniform side. And that is, that's something that's not even held out for debate. it's just it's the consensus it's the understood assumption that you know i like what i assume is there there may be some people who think we can do something like we did in syria where we sat on their oil field for you know however just years and years and eventually just but i mean like the problem is you're sitting on south korea's oil you're sitting i mean you're sitting on like the whole world's oil when you do this and so and and and you're doing it to an that has retaliatory options. And so, you know, it's, I think what Trump wants is a way to back
Starting point is 00:29:25 out of this without losing face. Like, that's really where we're at. There was somebody, I think it was Trita Parsy, who he made a very good point that the negotiating, the Iranian sacrificed a bit of negotiating position when they accepted the ceasefire. Because by doing, doing that, they are, that's, that was Trump's primary ask. Like, all he needed was for shooting to stop, you know, because when we were running out of munitions, Israel was running out of air defense munitions, and he just needed the shooting to stop. And to be put in a position where if it starts, it can be framed as an Iranian aggression again. And so he already got what he wanted. And so that, you know, lessens the incentive for him to make more compromises in the Iranians direction to do
Starting point is 00:30:15 anything else. I think at this point, if the, if this is going to, if the trajectory of this thing's going to change, it's going to be because pressure from our other allies, specifically in Asia, but in Europe to a degree as well, but I think especially in Asia, is, is going to have to get to a point where enough people in the American establishment decides that it outweighs, you know, Israeli influence, which is, Obviously, you know, it's the elephant in the room, obviously, but it can be outweighed, you know, if it gets to a point where, you know,
Starting point is 00:30:52 even the Israelis see that there's no way forward militarily. So, yeah, yeah. By the way, so for those keeping up with, I guess the beginning of Iraq War IV here, hopefully it doesn't escalate too much out of control. Iraq War III and a half is what's left to fighting ISIS over there. There have been 400 strikes on American positions in Baghdad and in Iraqi Kurdistan by Shiite forces there since this war broke out.
Starting point is 00:31:21 Boy, talk about underreported there, man. These are all the Iraqi Shiite militias that are, you know, make up the core, the Bada Brigade, the most important of them made up the core of the Iraqi army in the first place. And then after Obama's support for al-Qaeda in Syria and the dirty war from 2011 to 14, well, really through the rest of his presidency, blew up into the caliphate in 2014, which conquered Western Iraq. Then the Ayatollah al-Sastani down there in Najaf called for all true-believing Shiite males to come and join the what they called the popular mobilization units,
Starting point is 00:32:00 these Shiite militias that went to fight the Islamic State, the bin Ladenite caliphate that Obama. And so then these are the militias that are still around, and they include Iraqi Hezbollah, they call it Khatib Hezbollah and a bunch of new breakoff groups of all different descriptions that seems to be one of the most powerful ones and Aseb al-Hawk was another
Starting point is 00:32:22 anyway so they've been fighting they've been attacking the green zone and attacking targets in Kurdistan there's a great piece I don't know if anybody follows this guy Ali Sufhan he was the former FBI agent who was like the sidekick to John O'Neil the head of counterterrorism before September 11th
Starting point is 00:32:40 and he was in charge of the Cole case, for example. And he has his own kind of advisory group that I subscribe to their morning email. It's just called the Sufong group, I think it is, or something like that. And he just sends out a morning email that's like pretty good intelligence analysis stuff. And they had a really solid report about what's going on in Iraq. And then at the same time, too, they're appointing a brand new prime minister. And you got to admit, I guess I got to admit, America does still have some influence there
Starting point is 00:33:10 because apparently it was at Trump's insistence that they not re-nominate or rename Nuri al-Maliki to be the prime minister of Iraq. They were about to, and he was the second prime minister of the sock puppet government that W. Bush created after Ibrahim Jafari. And, well, Iod Al-Aoui was the first kind of sock puppet, but once they wrote the Constitution and held elections,
Starting point is 00:33:37 first was Jafari and then was Nuri al-Mal-Maliki. and he was a terrible god dang prime minister. He was a ruthless Shiite chauvinist against the Sunnis. And in the way he persecuted the war and the way he froze them out after and all of that, he was largely blamed for Islamic State being able to take over the west of the country because he just left them high and dry out there with no money, no oil, no nothing to burn in the sun after successfully using America to take Baghdad for him. So at least we got that.
Starting point is 00:34:08 They named some guys some businessman who's not even, I'm not sure if he's a member of the Dawa party or what, honestly. In fact, the New York Times story did say he was a member of some. I think it did say he was a member of something tied to the Dawa party. So whatever. Same stuff, but at least it ain't willing to withhold their oil revenue if they went through with nominating him. Is that what it was? Yeah, very well, yeah. That's actually something that I only learned about a year ago,
Starting point is 00:34:38 or something. I somehow missed that during the whole post-Iraq war era that they don't get their oil revenue directly. It all goes to the U.S. Federal Reserve and we give them a check. But then we decide not to. Yeah, yeah, we hold their treasuries in New York. We hold all their assets and liabilities for them. I mean, I wonder how would that, how would it work for, like, the Iraqi government presumably could just tell their customers like, hey, you're paying us now, right? I mean, what would the threat be, I guess? I don't really understand.
Starting point is 00:35:11 The carpet bombing campaign. Well, yeah, there's always that. There's always that. Yeah, no, I don't know. I don't know. We have been bombing Iraq for 35 years this year. I do know that. There's a slight exception in 2013,
Starting point is 00:35:27 because in 2012, we still had a drone war, chasing the jihadis into Syria where they could be heroes. 2013, I think they took a year off. 2014, the war against the Islamic thing came back up again. So it's 35 years with one year off. 2013 was the only year we were not bomb in Iraq this whole damn time. Anyway, I know people like little factoids like that. Hey, oh, now let's talk about Lebanon because this is just crucial, man.
Starting point is 00:35:53 There's a religious war going on. And it's, you know, the Israeli regime in the name of the Jews, they claim at least. And they are destroying not just Shiite Muslim villages, and habitats, cultures, communities, villages, and some of them dating back hundreds or supposedly even thousands of years, including Kana, which is the site of the first and second and now third Kana Massacres,
Starting point is 00:36:22 which is also supposedly where Jesus walked on water and all of that stuff. They are killing everyone and they're destroying everything, including today they blew up a convent and whatever you call it, like a nun and teacher seminary, school kind of thing. They blew that up. They've been blowing up entire villages, but they seem to be
Starting point is 00:36:45 focusing even on churches. And of course, there was the scandal of the IDF soldiers smashing the head of a fallen statue of Jesus Christ. There was an attack of publicized. I guess they had it on video with a settler in West Jerusalem,
Starting point is 00:37:04 I guess, attacked a Catholic nuns. and ran it behind her, sucker punch, pushed her to the ground. Then I clicked away before, but I read it that he started kicking her too until somebody stopped while she's laying on the ground. And then the point is not that, oh, as Tucker Carlson's email said this morning, it's not that like, oh, this represents all Jews or any kind of thing like that. It's not about that. It's demonstrating that there is a lawlessness here that the Israeli government does not punish crimes like this.
Starting point is 00:37:35 They have license to commit crimes against. to Palestinians. Another great example was footage from the West Bank, where these settlers went and set this family's home on fire in the middle of the night in an attempt to murder them and successfully destroy their home. And luckily they lived. And Zay Jalani, who's a young left-wing Twitter guy, maybe he's not that young anymore, but young progressive Twitter guy. So he's from the south, though. And he said, in my town, if somebody did that, if the homeowner shot them and killed them, the mayor would congratulate them and give them a key to the city. That's what you're supposed to do. Somebody tries to burn down your house with your family and you shoot them to death,
Starting point is 00:38:18 but the Palestinians have no Second Amendment. They have no right to defend themselves. So they're just subject to this kind of absolute lawlessness. And whatever regime claims to be the one state from the river to the sea there will not provide security for the non-Jews under its so-called protection occupation at all. And then, so I guess my question for you then, Daryl Cooper, is what gives, man? I mean, this stuff is getting famous now. And people
Starting point is 00:38:48 are, they've got to be pissed off. I mean, when I was a kid and they talked about the Civil War in Lebanon, geez, it was just all so confusing, right? But this ain't confusing. This is just the Israelis going in there and blowing it up whatever they feel like, taking whatever they want. Yeah, well, two things.
Starting point is 00:39:04 As far as the settler violence goes, I mean, it really only makes sense. Lawlessness isn't even really quite the right word just because, you know, you have to understand, these are ununiformed Israeli troops, basically. You know, these are guys that go in and do things that the IDF would rather, you know, have its hands off directly, you know.
Starting point is 00:39:29 And as far as what's going on, Lebanon, look, the primary weapon that Israel has wielded over Lebanon for 50 years, has been the threat of inciting a civil war in the country. Like, and that sometimes is very, very explicit, you know, like in the late 1970s, after the Civil War was, you know, simmering down for a few years. And Ariel Sharon was, he was the defense minister under Monacham Began. And, you know, Began at this point was, you know,
Starting point is 00:40:01 probably kind of senile at this point. He was like, they say he was depressed a lot. He was getting older. He was not really running the government, at least in a day-to-day way. And Sharon just took the opportunity to get with IDF Northern Command and go completely rogue up there. And they were, I mean, they were set in car bombs in Shiite villages to make it look like it was Palestinians. They were blowing up Palestinians to make it look like it was Christians. I mean, they were doing all these different things for the specific purpose of trying to incite a civil war that,
Starting point is 00:40:37 I mean, you know, Sharon had this whole grand plan where, you know, he wanted to incite a civil war in which the Lebanese would ethnically cleanse the Palestinians. They would have to flee to Jordan, and then they would take over the Jordanian government. And then that would be Palestine. And we could stop talking about it, giving credit for ambition and sort of, you know, thinking big, I guess, if nothing else. But, but, yeah, you know, this is a, you know, this is the difficult thing in a place like Lebanon. And, like, I'm not over there. I don't know people in Lebanon. And so I don't know how this stuff is playing in terms of, you know,
Starting point is 00:41:11 they bomb a Christian village, you know, whether the Christians in that country are saying, Hezbollah, this is all your fault. And we're, you know, we're going to hold you accountable.
Starting point is 00:41:22 We're going to show the Israelis that we're going after Hezbollah so that they stopped doing this. Or if it's making it more sympathetic, like I really don't know how that's playing. I got an email from, I got an email from a guy, a writer that I've interviewed on my show before. He said,
Starting point is 00:41:36 in Beirut, and he said it is working, in fact. Yeah. Which, I hope Israeli intelligence isn't listening and getting great confirmation here. I'm sure they're tapping plenty of phones there. But he said, no, it is. They're so divided there. And that was the purpose of it and seemed to be working. At least, whatever, the people he's talking to.
Starting point is 00:41:57 All right, now listen, it's time for the Scott Orton Coffee from Mundo's Artisan Coffee's part of the show, sponsored super chat section thing. Dude, I've been coffee for a while now. It's pretty good. I got to say. Oh, you got some? Yeah. Oh, Red. I should have had him send that to you. Did you buy it? I don't know if it was
Starting point is 00:42:20 that. I think maybe it was I came with my lifetime membership to the Academy. I can't remember. Came with something. No. No. Maybe I gave it to you when you came. You probably sent it to me. I didn't have a grinder. And I got myself a grinder about two weeks ago, and I started drinking it for my morning coffee.
Starting point is 00:42:38 Works pretty well. It is good, right? It's great coffee, man. And we're making money off of it, too. Whenever I send you money at the end of the month, some of it is coffee money that we make, that we split from the proceeds when we get a small cut when people buy this coffee to help support this show.
Starting point is 00:42:55 And sales are going up, man. I get it's actually getting annoying all the emails I get about it all the time. You just made another commission off of the thing. Because people love drinking it, and they keep ordering it over and over again because it tastes so dang good. So there you go. Moondos artisan coffees. Get it.
Starting point is 00:43:09 They hate Starbucks. So it's Moondos, and it's really dang good. You should buy some. Also, I don't have it to show you on the screen here, but it's agoristtaxadvice.com. Agaristtaxadvice.com. That's Matt Sersely.
Starting point is 00:43:20 He's a really great tax lawyer, and it's no gimmicks or loopholes, but it is a very tight reading of the tax code, and he'll make sure you pay only what you absolutely have to. Cool. Let's get more. Go ahead. Get to some of these.
Starting point is 00:43:35 super chats, dude, because I'm on a strict timeline, like I said. I got 15 more minutes, so. I know it. So let's start with, I think everybody knows what I'm going to say here, but you answer your opinion here between Mark Levin and Ben Shapiro, whose voice is more of an affront to the Eighth Amendment? Oh, man. That's like a question. It's like, you know, like one of those old, like, communist Romanian prison camp things where they ask you if you want to chop off your foot or your hand. And like, I don't know. No, man, that's a tough one.
Starting point is 00:44:07 I'd have to, if I was gunned to my head, well, gun to my head, I would take the bullet. But gun to my head and I had to choose, I would have to say, Shapiro. Yeah, it's got to be Shapiro. I mean, quite honestly, I haven't listened to a single clip 11 this whole time that he's made himself famous again here. I just read about them. I won't listen to him. But Shapiro, you know, I'll be watching skateboarding, man, or Star Wars cartoons or whatever, just garbage while I'm working.
Starting point is 00:44:35 something in the background on YouTube. And Ben Shapiro is buying ads on YouTube where he's sitting there going, man, yeah, yeah, yeah, in the middle of a skateboard contest. Leave me alone. Ugh. Ah, with the Iran war, people are speculating if the Houthis will close the Bob Al-Mandeb straight.
Starting point is 00:44:55 I've heard the Houthis are actually a family. Who are the Houthis and how close are they with Iran? Great question. Yes, the Houthis are family. The tribe is called the Houthis. the family name of the bosses of the tribe. The actual official name of the group is Ansar Allah, and they took over the capital city of Sanat,
Starting point is 00:45:14 the end of 2014, beginning in 2015, and for 10 years after, they were still called rebels for some reason because the media is completely controlled by the intelligence services. I mean, if there's a measure of it, oh, the Houthi rebels, the Houthi rebels sitting in their giant palace
Starting point is 00:45:32 that rules over the capital city in command of their state military. They issued a statement from their foreign ministry today. Yeah, there's a real rag-tag group there. Anyway, they are Zadishites from the north, from the Sada province. And I don't know the whole long and twisted ancient history of Yemen, but I know that for a very long time,
Starting point is 00:45:55 they were dominant in the country, although not so much recently. You have to read my chapter in enough already for me to tell the whole story here. In fact, if you go to my YouTube, channel, Scott Horton showed YouTube.com slash Scott Horton show and look under playlists. You'll see where I do a breakdown of enough already and I have a Yemen chapter there. It's a little like 10 minute long video where I explain all this stuff about how they came to
Starting point is 00:46:17 to fight the former dictator, then a lie with him and then kill him and take over that country. The Iranians are their friends, but they're not that close of allies. And there's a great article years ago in, and I interviewed the guy too, it's Eust Hilterman, J-O-O-S-T, Ust-Hiltern, and he wrote this thing for foreign policy called the Houthis are not Hezbollah. And it was about how Hasbala, yeah, they are Iran's 51st state, basically.
Starting point is 00:46:44 But the Houthis, not so much. And one great piece of evidence of that, that even Obama admitted in a New York Times interview with Thomas Friedman in 2000, I'm going to say 16, maybe 15. I think 16. That he admitted the Iranians told the Houthis not to conquer
Starting point is 00:47:03 Senat, the capital city, because they said the Saudis are going to freak out and start a war. Don't do it. And then they said, screw you kids on what to do and went ahead and did it anyway, it started a war. The Saudis freaked out, and of course Obama helped them launch a horrific war against Yemen. They got so
Starting point is 00:47:19 little coverage because it mostly was from the air, but it was deliberately targeting their humanitarian, their civilian food systems and everything. And hundreds of thousands of people died because that war is absolutely sick. And now, they close the Babal Mendeb? Maybe. Yeah, if America goes back to a massive bombing campaign,
Starting point is 00:47:38 is that a card that Tehran can play? Boy, I think it very well could be. I don't know why they wouldn't. In fact, I think it was, it's, you know, I guess it raises questions, why they didn't jump in in the last, worse war, you know? So, I mean, I always took that as a, as a sign of Iran's confidence in the proceedings, you know, the fact that they hadn't played that card yet. Because the Houthis made very clear that they stood ready. I mean, they were ready to do it if Iran, you know, asked him to. And so the way I understood it, like, I'm not like a super deep knowledge expert on the history of the Houthis or just Yemen in general. But from what I understand, you know, in the 70s and the 80s, when the Shiite awakening that, you know, really was led by, I don't
Starting point is 00:48:31 if led by is really the right answer, but Sauter's dad, you know, it was, it was very much like in the, you know, kind of fashion of the times, it was a, it was a class and religious sort of awakening because the Shiites in southern Lebanon, but also in, you know, Iraq, they were like poor. They were lower class. They were, you know, pretty much sort of kicked around in all the countries that they lived in except for Iran. And even then, obviously, before the revolution, like there was, you know, there was some difficulty. But, and so this was like, this was a, you know,
Starting point is 00:49:08 I don't say uprising, but an awakening that involved both religion and class. And the whole time that it was going on, from what I understand, the Houthis were, they kind of had their own thing going. And I assume that's because unlike a lot of the other Shiites, you know, you don't hear about the way you do with the Sunnis for the most part, about all these Shiite tribes. They exist, but like they don't have the same valence, you know,
Starting point is 00:49:33 in the Shiite world for the most part as they do in the Sunni world. And, you know, so I think that while that Shiite awakening was going on, the Houthis were just kind of insulated from it to a degree and had their own thing going. Yeah. Yeah, and importantly, the major slum in East Baghdad, the Shiite slum in East Baghdad was called Saddam City. at the insistence of the great dictator
Starting point is 00:49:59 until the day he was overthrown. And then that day, it became renamed Sauter City after Mactata's father. I don't know if you guys can see in the background I actually have right here. Mktata by Pat. Oh, it's just off here. I bet if we enlarge size me,
Starting point is 00:50:15 maybe you can see it on the side here. I have Mokata by Patrick Coburn here. Fantastic book. Is that about the father or the son? The son? Well, both. But yeah. The father is a fascinating guy.
Starting point is 00:50:26 I mean, he was a very impressive figure in a lot of ways, in a complicated figure, as a lot of the leaders in the Muslim world back in those days, we know, were. But, yeah, I should read that book for sure. Yeah. So people are talking about Tom Oaks, I thought we didn't have them. We didn't. I mean, the deal is, I guess they just announced them.
Starting point is 00:50:46 People had asked me whether they secretly have them, and my answer always was no way, because what is the point of having hypersonic missiles, if it's not to announce to Russia and China that we have? have them, that we have missiles just like they have, or certainly the Russians have, we have missiles that you cannot possibly shoot down because they're so dang fast, faster than ICBM coming in at Mach 18 from space or whatever it is. We beat that and you can't hit it.
Starting point is 00:51:11 And especially at the angles that we can fire them at. And so don't mess with us, right? Same thing. That's why they created them too. And I think that's why Iran used them in Tel Aviv and Russia used them in Kiev was to demonstrate straight to the United States, that we can shoot these things and fly him straight. And there has been plenty of coverage, though, I'm sure, well, I'm not sure of it. I think you may very well know actual facts about this firsthand or something or maybe much
Starting point is 00:51:41 closer than reading about it like the rest of us about the long-term failures of the American hypersonic missile project and system that, you know, Lockheed and all these guys. Andrew Coburn wrote a lot about this, but it was either. and then the regular defense press, which I read pretty often, Defense 1 and Defense News and things like that. And they would talk about how, man, these tests are just failures. They can launch the things, but they can't steer them.
Starting point is 00:52:07 If they try to steer them at all, they blow up, and this kind of deal. And so maybe they've made some real breakthroughs here. It was kind of embarrassing for them, right? That Iran did hit Tel Aviv with hypersonic missiles. I saw them. I mean, some of those may have been fake, but I'm virtually positive.
Starting point is 00:52:25 At least one of those was confirmed. as legit. Yeah, I mean, look, it's one of those things that really is a difficult engineering problem. I mean, when you're talking about, you know, steering something who's, you know, it's airframe just by necessity because of weight considerations has to be thin, you know, relatively thin. It's not like four inches of steel is the airframe or something, you know, it's like, it's relatively thin. And so to maneuver that at such high speeds is actually a pretty tough engineering problem. you know, the thing is, like, the United States for the longest time, and we're still just, I mean, we're still not caught up on this at all.
Starting point is 00:53:05 It was always interesting, like back even when I was active duty, and then when I was with the DOD, we go to these intel briefings where we just sort of make, they make sure that we're up on, like, enemy capabilities and whatnot, and the different platforms that they're fielding. And they'd go through all of these missiles, these, like, anti-ship missiles and stuff that the Chinese and the French were putting out, the Russians are putting out. And dude, they were absolutely incredible, like offensive systems.
Starting point is 00:53:32 And then we asked, like, hey, do, why don't we have anything like that? Because we didn't have anything like that. Like, the last thing we had that we made ourselves was the harpoon missile system, which was just a big, slow, dumb cruise missile that, you know, was meant to shoot down or shoot at ships that, you know, don't really have serious air defenses. You know, we've got the naval strike missile now, but the Norwegians made that.
Starting point is 00:53:58 And it's decent, you know, it's pretty good. But, you know, for the longest, I mean, even now, if you go out on any of our cruisers or destroyers, the primary, you know, the primary weapon that the ship has to attack other surface vessels, it's just, it's gun. That's what it's got. It's got a gun. And even the, you know, the Tomahawk is really amazing.
Starting point is 00:54:22 in some ways, you know, in the sense that, you know, it's overlapping navigation systems, you know, which, you know, include everything from SATCOM to pre-program coordinates, to, you know, the ability to read the landscape itself and navigate according to that. I mean, like, really, really amazing in that sense. But in terms of what it actually is, I mean, you can, if we shot a bunch of tomahawks at some Russian S-400 systems,
Starting point is 00:54:48 they'd shoot them all down. Just like our Aegis weapon system would shoot them all down. down. They're not particularly impressive, like, you know, unless you're shooting at, you know, jihadists or something like that. And so what that's meant is that like our sort of built-in institutional knowledge on the offensive, on the strike side, has really deteriorated over the years to the point where now that we're trying to build hypersonics and we need a new naval strike missile upgrade and stuff. Like we're having to sort of build that out on the fly because we don't have that. We've spent a huge amount of resources, huge amount of time expertise on missile defense.
Starting point is 00:55:29 We're by far the best at that. I mean, we, and I don't just say that because that's the field I was, you know, involved in here in the U.S. and I'm a patriotic missile defense guy of the U. like, it's true. Like our systems are better than anybody else's. The S-400's good. The S-500's good from what I understand, from what I know about them. But our systems are great at that. But we just, we never really, or we stopped. I want to say we never, but back about 40 years ago, we stopped putting a whole lot of research and development into offensive strike systems just because, you know,
Starting point is 00:56:03 nobody had anything that could shoot down a tomahawk. And, you know, who's, well, we're not going to, we're not going to need to blow up another surface ship. Like, who are we going to shoot? Like, the Chinese hadn't even begun to grow their Navy yet in the 80s and 90s. You know, the Russians are decaying. who are we going to get to a big naval fight with? So that's, you know, unnecessary.
Starting point is 00:56:24 And so we just, you know, it's one of those things that, like, you know, the pipeline for that whole process, if you need to develop something quickly and new, it just doesn't exist. And so we've been having to try to build that out. Yeah. All right. So, listen, we got to wrap up real quick. One guy's saying the fact that we, the U.S. did a regime change in Venezuela before Iran
Starting point is 00:56:45 indicates that it's not about Israel. It's all about controlling oil choke points. for the Cold War, China, or whatever. A guy asked me this in an interview of me yesterday as well. But the thing is, no, man, maybe they just wanted to lock down Venezuelan oil before they go screwing around, taking risks with Iranian oil.
Starting point is 00:57:01 You know what I mean? That was... It's not about the Lakut. It's definitely about the Lakut. And listen, I'm not just citing these as like authoritative figures where I'm saying they're very well-done stories. In the New York Times, the Washington Post,
Starting point is 00:57:13 the Wall Street Journal, the Times of Israel, Bloomberg News, and probably how, about how Benjamin Netanyahu convinced Donald Trump to do this. And it's not just that they claim that, it's that they're well-reported stories with hundreds of citations overall, if you combine them, about the story of how this war happened. And it wasn't because the Pentagon Joint Staff said,
Starting point is 00:57:39 we can no longer tolerate Persia being independent. We must do a regime change in order to someday screw China out of oil that right now we're actually begging them to come reopen the straight force. It's just that ain't what it was. No. The Lakoud is all about Greater Israel. I know we're out of time. You got to go, let me just say real quick,
Starting point is 00:57:58 if anybody wants to know about the Southern Poverty Law Center and their role in infiltrating people into the white supremacist movements of the 1990s, and including friends of Timothy McVeigh, like one Andre Karl Straussmeier, a crucial figure in the Oklahoma City bombing. Well, then all you got to do is listen to my archives and my interview, and my interviews with J.D. Cash, and he'll tell you all about him confronting Morris D's,
Starting point is 00:58:21 about running Andrei Strauss Meyer for the FBI. And, you know, he died a long time ago now, but I've been doing this a long time. So you can go back and find all those in the archives. And also, of course, check out Libertarian Institute.org slash OKC. That is the ultimate archive of real documents. No rabbit trails, no red herrings, only the absolute very best stuff,
Starting point is 00:58:47 curated by the great Richard booth at libertarian institute.org slash okayc if you want to know the truth about all that. And with that, let's go. So we'll see you guys next week. Stop by the Scott Horton Academy on your way out. Oh, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. And check me out on the first episode ever of the Jim Webb show this Monday. Oh, yeah, absolutely.
Starting point is 00:59:09 And that's right here on the YouTubes. And of course, the Martyr Mac have Martyr Made. No, I'm going with that from now on. I'm going with that from Marter Mac. You like that. You like that. You're a hard of mac, baby. We'll get you a nice hat with a feather.
Starting point is 00:59:21 It'll be great. This has been Provoked with Daryl Cooper and Scott Horton. Be sure to like and subscribe to help us beat the propaganda algorithm. Go follow at Provoked underscore show on X and YouTube. And tune in next time for more Provoked.

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