The Duran Podcast - BIDEN lame duck, approves ATACMS strikes into Russia

Episode Date: November 18, 2024

BIDEN lame duck, approves ATACMS strikes into Russia

All right, Alexander, here we are in Budapest, and I think for this video today, we will do a walk and talk. Yeah. Excellent, Adjia. All right, walk around Budapest and talk about some news. And obviously, the big news story is Biden's permission to Ukraine to launch attack them. Now, here's my question. Actually, which way do you want to walk? Shall we?

Let's walk whichever way. Let's walk that way. Yep. What do you guys say? Should we go that way? That way. Let's go that way. All right.

Let me, I need to be on. Alexander. Come around this way. There we go. All right, let's cross. So, my question to you, Alexander, is, uh, is this permission just to,

to use the attackums in Kursk, the excuse being North Korean troops, or is this permission to use the attackums anywhere that Ukraine and of course U.S. targeting, U.S. intelligence decides. I mean, is this just confined to the Kersk region?

We're not being told because, of course, there's no official decision, at least none which has been publicly announced. We're all getting this in reports and newspapers. But as night follows day, they might initially start by attacking Kusk. They're going to justify it with the presence of the North Koreans there. But we all know that in reality, if this decision sticks, it will be expanded and we'll have the missiles used everywhere and anywhere along the battlefronts

and to strike anywhere and everywhere that they can reach inside Russia itself. So we don't know what the... nature of the decision is, but already the New York Times is making it perfectly clear that they're prepared to go and attack further still if the situation warrants. And we know that that's exactly what they intend to do. Is it confirmed that the UK and France have also given permission for Stormshadow and Scalps? Well, and my follow-up question is also this needs the, this also needs the US is Intel and technology for the storm shadows and the scalps to be launched into pre-2014 Russia. That's exactly right. They can't do it. The British and the French talk a big

game, but the reality is they don't have the technology, the satellite and the imagery and the guidance data to be able to launch storm shadow and scalp missiles into Russia without the United States. Now it has not been confirmed because nothing publicly has been confirmed, but the reality is if the Americans are going to start launching missiles into Russia, we can be sure that the British and French are going to be given the same, well, shall we call it, permission to do so also. So I've no doubt that the British and the French will be following through and they'll be helping or resisting the Ukrainians to do the same thing. And if the Germans in a few weeks' time decides to supply Ukraine with tourist missiles,

which is very likely, then we're going to see the Germans doing it also. Tourist missiles, right? Tourist missiles, yeah. Do you know what their range is? Yeah, it's longer. It's about, as I understand it, attack of missiles have a range of about 350 kilometers. tourist missiles have a range of around 500 kilometers. So we're talking about longer range missiles

can strike deeper inside Russia and supposedly they are more difficult to track because they are more stealthy and they operate closer to the ground. But whether that's really the case, I'm actually personally skeptical and people who know more about these things than me I'm skeptical about it also.

Okay, so let me ask you the big question. Are you afraid of a nuclear conflict between the United States and Russia? Right, it is not something one can completely exclude. The Russians have said that they regard this as an act of war. This is crossing a big Russian red line and the Russians are furious about it. And if you're listening to what Russian officials,

officials are saying, Russian senators and parliamentarians, they are responding very strongly. But the Kremlin and the Russian Defence Ministry and the Russian Foreign Ministry are responding very calmly. And the reason they're responding calmly to this decision is because they know that it has been made by the outgoing president and his team. The president who has been rejected first by his own. party and then his entire administration rejected by the American people in an election, which has just happened just a few weeks ago, hardly weak in fact. And the Russians know that the next president of the United States was going to be Donald Trump, who's going to take office on the 20th of January, is perfectly capable of reversing this decision. And we're getting indications from

his team that he intends to do so. So the Russians are taking this very calmly overall at the moment. They will exercise restraint until they see what Trump does. If Trump continues with this and the Americans go on escalating and more strikes are launched into Russia than the Russians have said that they will respond, though not I think with nuclear weapons initially, but they will respond against American targets in the Middle East and elsewhere, and then we could be in a process of escalation. But for the moment, the Russians are staying cut. Yeah, the Middle East is the obvious area where the Russians can retaliate or... Exactly.

The Houthis, I imagine. Where else? Iran. What else could? I mean, Syria. There's a lot of areas where the US exposed. North Korea, Cuba, where they just become a brick stay, all kinds of places. Africa. I mean, this thing has absolutely the potential to get out of control. And bear in mind that is the United States that has its military spread out across the world. We did a program a short time ago with Jim Webb, former US Marine officer. He pointed out how spread out across Africa, for example, the US military is, and that's just one place.

And he also, by the way, pointed out that already we see the Russians gradually raising their profile in the Middle East, that the Houthis have gradually become, or not gradually, rapidly become more proficient in their use of weapons. The Iranians too. all of this, we're getting hints, is partly because the Russians have been providing that kind level of assistance. And we're going to see more of that if this decision sticks.

But my own sense is that Trump is going to try and act to bring this whole thing back under control. His son, Donald Trump Jr., has spoken out against it. Members of the transition team apparently have done so as well. And that's the key thing to understand about this, because Trump himself apparently wasn't consulted. Trump had a meeting with Biden in the,

in the White House, just a couple of days before. Yeah, and he didn't, and Biden didn't say anything. Biden said nothing. I mean, you know, this is... What a dick move. I'm sorry for my language. No, no, I think that's an absolute dick move, is it. It's absolutely correct language. I mean, the, the The function of the president, the serving president at this time, is normally understood as helping to arrange a smooth transition to the new president. Well, he's not doing that. What he's doing instead is he's taking this extremely provocative and aggressive step, which the Russians have previously said, they would...

they would see as an act of war, and he's done it without consulting Trump. I mean, that's the thing that- Why do you do it? Well, in fact, this is the real purpose. That's the real purpose of this. Because this is not about Ukraine and it's not even about Russia.

It's about making the situation for Donald Trump as difficult as possible in the weeks after he becomes president. Because the calculation is that if Trump continues with this, then the whole situation will escalate, the United States will be drawn more deeply into the conflict in Ukraine. Things will become worse, which is of course exactly what the administration in some ways wants. They actually want an escalation and a long-term commitment from the Trump administration into Ukraine. The alternative is, of course, if Trump calls this

off, well, they can restart the story, Trump, agent of Putin, doing what the Russians want, prioritising the Russian interests over the American interests, showing himself an unreliable defender of America's allies, and that sort of thing. The trouble is that all of these calculations, in my opinion, completely overlooked the fact that the American people have shown that they are completely hostile to this policy, overwhelmingly hostile to this policy. Apparently, even many Democrat voters have made it clear that they're not particularly keen

on this policy. So this whole narrative of that they're trying to refloat of Trump prioritizing Russian interests over American ones. Ultimately, it's going to fail. But nonetheless, that's what they're again trying to do. It's all about Trump at the end of the day. The Russians know this. They understand this very well. So that's one of the reasons they're remaining so calm.

Sullivan, Sullivan's idea? Lincoln's idea? Yeah, I think so. Who do you think pushed by it? The Pentagon wasn't for this. The Pentagon doesn't like it. And in fact, if you go to the original New York Times article, they're saying that some US officials remain opposed to the decision. So we don't know who exactly supported it and who opposed it.

But it's a reasonable guess. I'm absolutely sure that the terrible duo Sullivan and Lincoln support this thing because they want to make life as difficult as possible for Donald Trump and for the Republicans taking over. Okay, I could see Sullivan's game in this because at the end of the day, he's a campaign manager.

We've said this many times. You know, he's a campaign guy. Yeah, so he's worked on elections and I can definitely see him doing this in order to weaken Trump to weaken the Republicans maybe to keep Ukraine fighting

so that the collapse in in Ukraine happens after January 20th so I could see Sullivan's game what about Blinkton? Well Blinken is he's just an ideologue

I think he's in the cause I think this is exactly what he is I mean Blinken has been has supported this policy right from the get-go I mean way back in September when the British came to Washington, expecting to get the permission to use the storm shadows then. They did that because Blinken told them that they would get the permission.

And they were very angry and very embarrassed when they discovered that the Americans at that time were turning their face against it. But that was then. This is now. Blinken always advocates this kind of escalation. He is consistently advocated escalation. where the Russians are concerned. Sullivan, more careful, always more aware,

perhaps of the politics within the US, also more aware of the dangers of what the Russians might do. He has been the voice of caution, but no longer, because as far as he's concerned, he's about to leave office, he's dumping a problem of Donald Trump, and that's what the Democrats are about at the moment. make life as hard for trunk as possible. And that's all the rest of this.

Let me flood you in a thought, an idea that I had this morning thinking about this story. Maybe, maybe there was pressure being put on Sullivan, on Biden, on all of these guys from the DNC, from the people above the DNC, to approve the attack comes to escalate as much as they can before they leave office. or else they're going to continue to blame Biden for the election loss. What do you think about that?

I'm thinking they are blaming Biden. You know, you didn't drop out early enough. You're to blame for Trump winning. And then they've been hitting Biden hard. They've basically been putting the blame of the election loss on Biden. I am sure that's exactly what's been going on. I'm sure there's been an awful lot of discussion and talk with the DNC. with the Democrats.

Zelensky himself has been roped in. You're getting stories about how Zelensky's incredibly exasperated with Biden because Biden has been supposedly dithering and not approving arms deliveries to Ukraine in the quantities that the Ukrainians needed. And you can see, a whole narrative was being built up that, you know, it was all Biden's fault.

He clung onto the presidency for too long. He didn't support Ukraine poor-heartedly, full-heartedly. So you can easily see how this is this has done. And he's been given, they've been put under that sort of pressure.

They don't want that narrative to stick. And that's what they've done. I mean, it's all nonsense. I think that's the important thing to stress again. People who voted for Donald Trump in the election didn't vote for him because they thought Joe Biden wasn't being aggressive enough.

in supporting Ukraine. They voted for Donald Trump to the extent that they were thinking about foreign policy because they were thinking he was being altogether too aggressive not because he wasn't being aggressive enough. But you know, that's the narrative

that they're going to run with or was threatening to run with and Sullivan especially who wants to be in good position with the authority. Exactly. he wasn't going to... That's Sullivan. Exactly. He wasn't getting up,

push back against it. Yeah, Sullivan's thinking about being in good standing with the party, yeah. How about this scenario, which I think is very possible? The first missiles that are going to be launched,

allegedly the reports are that they're going to start striking Kursk with attack arms in the next couple of days. Yeah. Those are the reports that we're getting. I don't know if these are true.

true or not, but we'll see. There will be some missiles that get through. What are they going to target? That's my first question. Are they going to go after the nuclear power plant? What exactly are they targeting? Because Russia has moved all of their assets, the airfields, whatever, they've had in the area. A long time ago, they moved all of that stuff back.

Further away from any type of long-range missile strikes. So what are they going to target and what happens when? When and if something does get through and it does hit something in Russia maybe even does damage to non-military infrastructure. Yeah. What happens then? Well, I mean, we've seen this play out in Crimea, but this is pre-2014. Russia now, and this is the red line.

Yeah. This is a red luck. Well, again, it depends very much on how long this goes on for. If it continues, then the Russians will respond. And of course, if civilian infrastructure is attacked and large numbers of civilians are killed, then Russia is a country with a public opinion. The public opinion will start the demand action taken to respond.

I suspect initially that, I mean, the first thing the Russians would do is respond against Ukraine, because that's, you know, the place from which the launchers, the missiles are being launched. And, of course, they'll be hunting for the bull, the attack and missiles, and seeking to destroy them and that kind of thing. The big question is what exactly it is that these missiles are going to be used for in Kursk? We're being told they're going to be used against the North. Koreans, but soldiers are not the easiest target, as I understand it, for missiles of this kind.

You can go against barracks, training facilities, that kind of thing. But Troat soldiers on a battlefield tend to be fairly dispersed. I mean, they can concentrate sometimes, but that's relatively rare. And if a couple of hundred soldiers are killed in a single. strike. That's obviously a bad thing, but it's not going to change the outcome. If we start getting attacks on the course nuclear power plants, then of course we're in a completely different scenario. The Russians are going to take steps to protect it. They will have advanced air defence systems there to protect the power plant. They've shown that they can repel and defeat

cruise missiles attacking the Crimea bridge. But obviously if a missile gets through and hits the nuclear power plant, then we're in a completely different situation. And then, frankly, I'm not going to try and guess what the response is going to be. It's going to be very, very strong. Okay, final question.

What was my final question, Alexander? I lost my trade of thought. Maybe we should just wrap it up there. round for you tell. Well, I'm going to say like one very long thing, world opinion, this is just before a G20 meeting, world opinion. Go ahead. Go ahead. It'll be very negative. I was good to say that was my question. This is in a way played into Russia's hands because world opinion, yeah, is going to be very much in favor of Russia. I imagine Russia now has all the reason to get more involved in the Middle East, which is not playing in.

into the U.S.'s hands. I imagine not playing into Israel's hands, especially if Russia decides to beef up Iran. There is the good possibility that Russia will intensify, and that means that Ukraine, the Oleski regime, picked collapse a lot quicker than Biden and Sullivan had hoped for. So I mean, a lot of stuff can backfire on Biden and Sullivan and blinking and all these guys. Oh, this is a completely reckless. Which wouldn't be the first pipe. It wouldn't be the first. It wouldn't be the third quarter of back.

It's incredibly a reckless, completely irresponsible decision. All of the people who understands these things have said, don't do it. So they've gone ahead and done it. They did that with the sanctions, the freezing of the Russian assets. We're at a whole meeting in Kazan, doing all kinds of things about, which will ultimately affect the status of the dollar. all of that and just before a G20 summit meeting Biden has made a decision which world leaders there

are not going to be happy about and are going to criticize I mean it clearly hasn't been thought through because it's been done for absolutely stupid reasons connected with domestic politics all right we will end the video in there go to the Duran pick up some Merck's the Darius shop Pickers. Some merch this way. The link is in description box down below. Like this video, share this video, subscribe to this channel, subscribe to this channel, subscribe to my channel, all the links are the description box down below. Take care.