The Pete Quiñones Show - Episode 1106: Post-Nuremberg Russian-Syrian Relations w/ Thomas777 - Part 1

Episode Date: September 12, 2024

56 MinutesPG -13Thomas777 is a revisionist historian and a fiction writer.Thomas talks about the close relations between Soviet/Russia and Syria post-WW2. Thomas' SubstackThomas777 MerchandiseThomas' Book "Steelstorm Pt. 1"Thomas' Book "Steelstorm Pt. 2"Thomas on TwitterThomas' CashApp - $7homas777Pete and Thomas777 'At the Movies'Support Pete on His WebsitePete's PatreonPete's SubstackPete's SubscribestarPete's GUMROADPete's VenmoPete's Buy Me a CoffeePete on FacebookPete on TwitterBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-pete-quinones-show--6071361/support.

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Financial Services Ireland Limited. Trading as Cooper Financial Services is regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland. Ready for huge savings? We'll mark your calendars from November 28 to 30th because the Liddle Newbridge Warehouse Sale is back. We're talking thousands of your favourite LIDLIDL items all reduced to clear. From home essentials to seasonal must-habs, when the doors open, the deals go fast. Come see for yourself. The Liddle New Bridge Warehouse Sale, 28th to 30th of November. Liddle, more to value. If you want to support the show and get the episodes early and ad-free, head on over to freemam BeyondtheWall.com forward slash support. There's a few ways you can support me there. One, there's a direct link to my website. Two, there's subscribe star. Three, there's Patreon.

Four, there's substack. And now I've introduced Gumroad, because I know that a lot of our guys are on Gumroad and they are against censorship. So if you head over to Gumroad, And you subscribe through there. You'll get the episodes early and ad-free, and you'll get an invite into the telegram group. So I really appreciate all the support everyone's giving me, and I hope to expand the show even more than it already has. Thank you so much. I want to welcome everyone back to the Pekingana show. Thomas is right back.

Two episodes in a row with Thomas. We are blessed. How are you doing, Thomas? I've done well. Thank you. I'm glad I'm glad people aren't suffering Thomas overdose, I guess. But yeah. I don't think that's possible.

All right. So the last time we recorded, you had mentioned what we were talking about Russia. You had mentioned Russian-Syrian relations. And I'm just obsessed with Syria, have been for a while now. I got kicked off a podcast once for saying that Assad was probably one of the best leaders. in the world right now. And when you look at the post, the post Nuremberg order, these are two countries that you're supposed to hate. So I have great interest in them and you have information on their relations since this, since this order kicked off and want to

hear about that. So start anywhere you want. Yeah, I mean, there's two, there's two variables that even people who are generally dissident adjacent don't fully grasp regarding the relationship between Russia and Syria. Syria's got outsized significance for a small country for a lot of reasons. Some of those are cultural, some of those are geostrategic. You know, some of them owed to the kind of peculiar circumstances that Syrian people, who are unique

people, it's not just some kind of chauvinistic mythology that the Syrians themselves promote. You know, they view themselves very much the airs, the kind of like the Hellenic tradition, you know. But in the case of the Soviet

Union and then Russia, you know, a major component of the Cold War was the ability to index with both developing societies as well as well as well established national cultures in a meaningful way. You were basically like selling your culture, okay? And in the case of the Russians, stuff like this was deeply historical in a way it wasn't for America. I mean, for reasons that I think are fairly obvious. You know, like what America had is kind of its selling point to be kind of basic about it, you know, was a technology, a model for prosperity,

you know, an opportunity to kind of align oneself with what appeared to be the superpower that had kind of like the momentum of history and kind of the glamour and prestige of what is new behind it. The Russians really, I mean, maybe this is somewhat ironic considering the kind of dictates of Marxist Leninism. You know, the Russians really kind of sold the Soviet Union and the Russians today kind of like sell their diplomacy in terms of, you know, like them representing a deep and powerful heritage. Okay And as I'm sure people have noticed There's been something of an orthodox resurgence Which is really interesting

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subject to lending criteria Terms and conditions apply Volkswagen Financial Services Ireland Limited Trading as Cooper Financial Services is regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland That very much owes kind of like United Russia and not just Putin himself

I don't think it's particularly religious but that owes very much to kind of the Russian public diplomacy and I mean there's historical and zeitgeist variables obviously that facilitate it but you know Syria is very much part of that okay you know after I'm jumping around a bit but bear with me I cite 1999 is the year when not only did kind of the the the neo-conservative faction truly triumph in foreign policy corridors but that's also when the Bush base or Concord that they established with Moscow, which is like shattered for all time.

And what shattered it was like the unprovoked and like blatantly irrational attack on Serbia. Because I mean, Serbia, Serbia is the Russian Federation and like the Russian nation, kind of what Croatia is to Germany, but even more like deeply felt. Because obviously, you know, there's a, there's a, there's a, there's a sectarian homogeneity. among Russian people that there's not as part of it. But, you know, when NATO assaulted Serbia, it was kind of like viewed as like an assault on Byzantium itself. Okay.

Now, Syria obviously is very diverse in sectarian terms. However, there's a tremendous amount of Orthodox artifacts, of Orthodox lore. in Syria, you know, and I believe, although cultural anthropologists and religious scholars will disagree on this somewhat, I believe that al-O-whites are occulted Christians, okay? Even if they're not, they're very much adjacent Oriental Christianity, which itself is a very, very, indexes very tightly with orthodoxy, okay? So there's something of a special relationship between Russia and Syria anyway. And not to be...

I mean, crass isn't the word. Like, not to be overly simplistic about it or not to, like, fetishize, you know, racial matters. But, I mean, if you look at the Syrian kind of like ruling cadre, al-Alawite or Muslim... I mean, these look like white people, okay? That's not like some, that's not just like they're, it's not, that's not, that's not, that's not telemundo optics. That's not some accident, you know, traditionally everybody kind of viewed like the 11thine Arabs and especially, you know, like the Alawites and the Christians is like basically like not a Western people, but like a civilized people.

So trying to cast the Syrians as like they're a bunch of like Bedouin, like Salafis or something is totally bizarre. like that's that's like saying like the japanese or a bunch of like primitive like cave dwellers or something like it's really it's really really ignorant but it's also just like totally at odds with kind of how how near eastern cultures sort of like index with the west and with russia which isn't the west but which is you know a um a powerful um a powerful um a powerful cultural forest to this day um although obviously not know at the same degree as it's kind of anglophone societies and moors have have um formative power but there's a lot here and if you want to like if you want to understand like why the syrian war also like syrian civil war like cut so deep in the minds of zionists like um russia's been

at war with Israel for decades, like intermittently, okay? And a lot of that derives from Israel's ongoing conflict with Syria. You know, as looking into, like, Russian forces literally went into action against the IDF.

There was a huge dog fight over the Suez Canal between Soviet Migs and like Israeli F-4s and mirage fighters. I'm talking like the largest, like aerial and get like larger than anything I happen over Vietnam.

This was like a general war between the Soviet Union and Israel. Okay. This is why the 1973 crisis was so dangerous. You know, like I'm always saying, that's what the Nixon quotes and Nixon tapes, where he says, like, you know, we can't blow up the damn world for these people. Like these people, meaning the Israelis, that's what he's talking about.

Okay. it wasn't just an ordinary matter of Cold War proxy battle that kind of got out of control. You know, I think we should get a little bit into like Jewish-Russian relations. Just to kind of recap, if that's not going to derail the conversation too much. This might have to be like a two-part thing if that's agreeable. No problem at all. Okay. And I know that we've dealt somewhat with, um, in Rousseau-Jewish relations before.

But let me give like a brief, like a little background, okay, and stop me if I'm, I'm kind of becoming too tangential. Like for context, by the turn of the 20th century, like by 1900, the majority of European Jewry, like, as we think of it, where like lived in the Russian Empire. There was about 8.5 and 8.7 million like European Jews.

Over 5 million of those people lived in the Russian Empire. They constituted about 4% of the total population of the Russian Empire. At about 90% of that population, they lived in the pale of settlement, you know, to which they were largely restricted there.

you know like going to all into both law and custom okay um like we got the uh and all but about like three to five percent I've heard varying statistics

I rely on Hana or rent for a lot of this because I don't think people can I mean people try to impeach her credibility all the time but like serious people don't you know really um attempt to suggest that she's not a wasn't a credible scholar

but um basically close to 97% of these Jewish people in the palest settlement or it works as like middlemen of a sort

okay in commodities you know like it was like literally like the converse like a funny converse of like the Russian Orthodox peasant population where like the majority of them

were farmers you know like virtually virtually no virtually none of the people in the pale settlement were farmers or factory workers. The primary role of these pale settlement Jews, you know, they bought, shipped, resold, local produce. You know, they provided commodities on credit to provide a kind of a basic, like security to, to, to,

the standing crops as well as, you know, like more speculative endeavors. They were involved involved in estate management, you know, and leasing. You know, they held the deed or the title to a lot of productive capital, you know, tanneries, distilleries, like sugar mills, like granaries, and, like, taverns and inns, which the latter were, like, heavily indexed with the government because there was, the government had in a lot of these Eastern European kingdoms and states, like a monopoly on liquor production and things. I mean, it's complicated. But, you know,

they were disproportionately represented in professional services, namely as doctors and pharmacists, which obviously had, you know, some prestige behind it. I mean, it's like today, it doesn't really, but in those days it really did. You know, and there was a this became an issue during the second world war as like ethnic cleansing began in earnest

I mean between various populations but there's a lot of Jewish artisans you know like Taylor, shoemakers guys who understood like metals and out of work medals you know specialized jewelers and watchmakers these guys were overwhelmingly Jewish and especially in rural environments. You know, as I think we got into before, to these people, the Russian Jews and the Russian peasantry, they lived in absolutely segregated quarters. Like, the Jews spoke Yiddish.

You know, they wore distinctive clothes. They observed, you know, a dietary regimen totally different than the majority. They practiced a rigid kind of endogamy. You know, they only married within the tribe. You know, they basically like every aspect of kind of like their cultural learning. Airgrid, operator of Ireland's electricity grid, is powering up the northwest. We're planning to upgrade the electricity grid in your area,

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Make your awards more rewarding. Visit Optionscar.orgiae today. Was oriented towards the preservation of a collective memory, which was contra that of the majority. Okay, you know, the centers of communal life obviously were, you know, like the synagogue. You know, like a Russian culture, like there's like going to like the bathhouse or sonnas a big thing. there was like Jewish sonnas and like you know Russian ones you know these these people that were not like assimilated into like Russian society and it wasn't just like because they desperately wanted to be but like Russians were racist or something like these like these people literally live like parallel but not intersecting lives and like the Russians themselves like they viewed Jews as like this kind of they viewed their culture as bizarre and opaque they viewed it as as as as a as hostile to the Christ they viewed it as like unclean like literally and like ritually like other you know those are dirty people you know um so basically

these people only cross paths in the course of business which was sometimes basically amiable sometimes pretty hostile and um occasionally you know they they'd run across each other and you know because they they both had to deal with the same you know state bureaucracies to which one of the other population was you know like heavily represented depending on mandate and locale and stuff you know and I mean like non-Jews didn't even

it was very other than scholars you know and linguists like almost no Russians even understood itish you know and this went beyond just Russia like in Ukraine and Lithuania Latvia and Moldova and Belarus

like we're at like what's now Poland these pale settlement people and the people outside the pale settlement nonetheless who were like you know heavily indexed into that cultural milieu like they didn't a lot of them didn't even speak like the national language

what we think of as the national language you know it's um so they're you're talking about you're talking about like an enforced alienation okay um coming from you know Russian Jewry itself

I don't mean that like the Tsarist system was like we must exclude these people at all cost like don't get me wrong there was definitely like reciprocal enmity you know but it's um but people got to understand it's like you read you read these like dummy accounts where it's like oh there was you know Russian Polish Jews

were just like everybody else but then there was this prejudice that came about the 20th century that's totally completely assigne it was nothing like that you know you could make the case in Berlin, which might as well have been a different planet, you know, than the Russian Empire, especially in its kind of rural geographic corridors.

You had Jewish Berliners who basically, like, looked askance at kind of like their ostudin, their Austrian brethren. You know, they spoke German. You know, they, you know, even if they didn't particularly want to mix or integrate with German people, You know, they, they kept up appearances. You know, it was totally different. You can't extrapolate that experience or the experience like Paris and Jews to that of, to there the east.

You know, like, I'm not saying there weren't like enmities in the case of the former that sort of dictated the terms of cultural interaction, but it was, it was not remotely comparable. So, like, I want to move, I want to jump ahead of it, you know, so that's, this kind of like laid, so this is the context to understand, you know, know, like the Russian national culture and the place of like Jews in it. Now, obviously, like the Bolshevik Revolution, you know, is Kevin McDonald, he coded a lot of data and he wrote a lot about, you know, the outsized role that, the outsized role that Russian Jewish people played in the NKVD and the terror apparatus and things like that. you know that that's all true okay and then of course you know we've talked about you know yaki's view of the doctor's plot in what was then chegoslovakia and the kind of purging of these elements

from uh the nomenclatured i don't want to rehash all of that because it's kind of too outside the scope but the point is when people today talk about like oh russia russia is zog quote unquote zog or like Russia is this, you know, vis-a-vis, you know, the Jewish diaspora or Israel, you're talking about, like, deep-seeded hatred and animosity, like, real hatred. You know, the fact that, like, the Russians don't, like, as I'd punch the air and, like, openly curse Judea every morning, but the fact that, like, Putin doesn't go on TV and, like, declare that, like, you know, I deny the Holocaust. And the fact that, you know, Netanyahu doesn't say inflammatory things about the Russians publicly.

Like, that means absolutely nothing. Like, first of all, I mean, if you don't understand politics, if you think it's about, you know, wearing your actual feelings on your sleeve, you don't understand diplomacy, even at war, especially at war, if you think that does this characteristic about enemies relate. But anybody would say that, you know,

like Moscow with something like love for jewelry is an idiot. Okay, I mean, that's not, this is a very, very, very hostile and tragic history. you know so jumping forward as people know you know Stalin who was the Khashemakiavellian Stalin played cards pretty close to his chest when like the uh when um you know during the when when Israel like um you know from 947 to 49 basically you know like when is when Israel is a Jewish state was being established he did it for a couple of reasons first of all because it's like Ergun, you know, and Hagan and whatever, we're like at war with the British Empire,

what remained like the falling British Empire. And Stalin obviously, like, supported that. But Stalin also, like, he wasn't clear, like, what kind of trajectory Israeli politics would take. Like, very quickly, you know, the Soviets, like, dropped any and all appearance of good offices with Israel. I wouldn't have a game clear that this was, you know, that, that, um, it was basically, you know, a state that, that represented kind of like the express political will are like radicals and and highly racialized Zionists and it was it was just like it was totally up the table

for like the Soviets to get behind Israel and really by after the Suez Canal crisis like Israel like Palestine became like literally kind of like other than Europe Central it became kind of like the conflict die out of the Cold War, okay?

And the Soviet Union literally went to war with Israel, and the key to this you know, hostilities in absolute earnest really emerged in conventional terms in the immediate aftermath of the Six Day War in 1967.

This kicked off what was called by the Kremlin as well as as well as by Nassar's people, the Kyn. continuity war. It translates roughly to the continuity war. So between

1967 and 73, the Soviets not only took a massive rearmament and retraining program of Egyptian forces. They actually started trying to prop up Egypt when, well, the 60th War was still in progress. But

regular Soviet troops, I'm not talking advisors. I'm talking the Red Army. They took up infantry positions opposite Israeli forces do hold the Suez Canal line at all cost. There were Soviets who were manning the anti-aircraft defenses around Cairo. There was Soviet advisors who were leading company-level elements of Egyptians against the IDF. You know, like, again, this isn't speculation or something that was like, you know, filched out of some like CIA memo that may or may not have been an accurate reading of the of the battle space this is this is this this happened this is documented um so that it became a

great concern to um kissinger himself as well as uh people at defense intelligence as well as the Pentagon, there was a massive deployment of integral Soviet combat units to Egypt in response to what Israel called depth bombing in the Egyptian hinterland. Like basically, this, this, this, this was, this was a, this was a, this was a, this was a, this been a strategic bombing of basically like any like any target that uh it could remotely be construed as like infrastructural okay um like they're basically trying to flatten egypt um and you know like in and bomb it back to the stone age as it were okay um nasser visited moscow secretly um um on grounds of, you know, legitimate urgency.

And this accelerated, this rapidly accelerated implementation. Basically, Nassar, we're ahead of state, especially in those days when, I mean, this is obviously like well into like the jet commercial travel era. But for the chief executive of a nation at war to travel to Moscow and say, like, we're getting killed, like help. I mean, that's, that's crazy. Okay. So from that point forward, until the conclusion of the 73 war, like, basically the Soviets took over, like, operational authority, like, on the Egyptian front.

The Soviet expeditionary force that showed up in Egypt, it was the most advanced element they had. Some of these, like, serviced their missile systems they were using. They weren't even sending these to North Vietnam. This was like still experimental. They were sending like their best man, their best material, their best hardware to Egypt to fight the IDF. You know, and contra what Israeli propaganda was at the time, I think not, I think this wasn't just cap to kind of like bold to the perception of IDF's aptitude. But it was also kind of like a swage American anxieties, which at that point were at a fever pitch. you know these really claimed that by the time

the ceasefire in August 1970 there was like this tacit ceasefire with Egypt they claim that like well you know there's this owed to like our victory over Soviet and Egyptian forces and such and it's only like a you know it's only like a skeleton crew

or kind of like a token detachment of Warsaw Pact forces on the ground in Egypt like that that was complete that was completely at odds with reality and also too I mean if you're fighting if the Soviets and I mean today are a far lesser degree but I think the point still stands in some capacities saying that like the Soviet saying the Russians can't stand the attrition you're implementing I mean that's

ridiculous I mean the one thing's whatever their problems and I don't have any illusions about the problems Russians had the Russian Federation and Russians historically have in military operations, like suggesting they can't handle attrition is, I mean, it's kind of like laughable. I mean, that's like the one thing they can absolutely handle. So there's, so this kind of bizarre state of things like set in, where on the one hand, you know, there was a, there was this, there was kind of like this, um, the, like, the official party. line in Washington was that this wasn't a meaningful deployment by the Soviet Union, although the theater remains critical. You know, you had the actual Soviet army on the ground, like fighting IDF. In 1972, and part of this, I believe, was Nassar's ledgered main, and Nassar's successor's

ledgered main, because, like, periodically this was declared. In 1972, there was a quote-unquote rift between Cairo and Moscow, whereby Soviet advisors were supposedly expelled from Cairo. Meanwhile, the Soviet army, again, is fully indexed in the commanding control capacity on

on the Egyptian front, Contra, IDF, and they're like waging active war. And, you know, this, so this was this was a, this was murky as anything was during the Cold War, but that's, like, the standard rebuttal people have is like, oh, but what about, what about the, you know, the expulsion of Soviet advisors? But it's like, okay, it also begs the question is like, why this would be some public schism. You know, I mean, it's not the way the communists did things. It's certainly not the way the Russians do things. And it's certainly not the way Nazarite, Egypt did things. There were tensions between Moscow and Cairo leading up to the 73 war. But, I mean, literally, on the October 6th offensive

in concert with with Syria. This was literally planned on the Arab side by Soviet command elements. So, I mean, like, if there was this, like, a rift whereby, like, Soviet advisors

or something like banished from Cairo, it's like, well, I mean, apparently they were, they remained, you know, like, for all practical purposes, like, the war planners in Cairo. but um the uh there's a guy named victor kayakin he was a he was a he's a

he was a KGB type um who uh in a 92 back when a lot of these security apparatus types in the former east block I mean they were both substantially younger then a lot more of them were alive but also there was air grid operator of Ireland's electricity grid is powering up the northwest

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Visit OptionsCard.organt.i.e. today. It was a rare, throughout 1991 to, like, 1996, there was a rare kind of candor that these guys were prone to. in terms of discussing colder operations. But, and, um, Kaykin said, uh, you know, it was the KGB, like us,

us being the KGB, the KGB persuaded President Nasser to wage the war of attrition to the bitter end. You know, Nasser may not, Nasser may not trusted the KGB entirely, but he did ask for help. And us,

the KGB, the best friend of oppressed nations did help. First in military gear, when it began clear. They're not going to not do it on the own by sending in our own forces. That's a quote from Kayagan. Okay? Now, the actual war of Atrition,

and I will bring it back to Syria, I promise. From 1960s, this involved fighting in between not just the idea, the idea for one side and not just Egypt, but also Jordan, the PLO, Kuwait, and really kind of the, what I think of is like the Shrepanth, the USSR, the Cubans, as well as Syria. All right, from 67 to 70 is kind of the peak of this conflict cycle.

You know, and then it endured the varying intensities until 73. And then 73 led to, you know, the escalation to the point of, of, of, of, a, of, a of DefCon 3 in America and that changed everything, but that's that's kind of ahead of ourselves. Following the 67, 6-day war, there was no serious diplomatic efforts to for a political solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict. Like the Arab League in 67 in the immediate aftermath, their policy became known as the three knows, you know, no, no recognition, no negotiations with Israel and like no peace. until Palestine is liberated. Okay?

And the Soviets basically they're the ones who made this possible. They made the confidence to sign for the several, you know, for the Arab League plus some of these non-state actors to sign off on

a long campaign. All right. Initially, as kind of the traditional Russian doctrine um

it like in the opening salvos as it were of this kind of period and hostilities engagement of good form of like limited artillery duels like small scale incursions from into Sinai and vice versa

um by 69 the Egyptians, or at least their Soviet advisors and commanders, judged, like, company-sized and forces and beyond, like, they judge them, like, prepared for, like, a higher level of operational sophistication. Okay. Because it's kind of when, like, the true, like, war of attrition kicked off, I think, in, like, the public mind in terms of people who,

consumed like global news and things, as well as people kind of on the periphery of military affairs. You know, extensive aerial warfare, like large scale shelling, you know, like command or raids, like, you know, combined arms assaults. The frontiers remain the same as when the war began, but this, you're talking about, like, real clashes of combined arms here. Okay. the Israeli Air Force responded by directly targeting Soviet military personnel. From January to March, 1970, 48 Soviet troops and pilots were killed in bombing raids at Cairo.

And there's a suburb of Cairo called Deshore. This was where most Soviet fighter pilots lived. The Soviets responded, which was in flagrant violation of international agreement. they deployed S-125 service their missile systems to the Suez Canal Zone. They were fortifying the Suez Canal Zone like at smaller scale,

like as deep as Hanoi was. Okay? And this led to like heavy attrition. This culminated in a massive dogfight over a... The operation was coding Ramon 20 by the Israeli Air Force.

There was 12 to 14 Soviet MiG-21s and 12 Israeli Mirage 3s and F4 Phantom 2s. Like I said, it was this massive dogfight in the Suez Canal operational area. Like five Soviet aircraft went down. At least four of those pilots were killed. Israeli attrition, it's hard to say.

I mean, the Soviets claimed it was far higher than it was. The Israelis claimed minimal attrition, but it was probably comparable. But the entire purpose of this, by IDF, to lure Soviet fighter pilots into air-to-air combat so they could be taken out. Because, I mean, it's costly to, like, kill fighter pilots. I mean, obviously. You know, but this is, for the people who claim, it's, like, euphemistic that, you know,

the Soviets' right war with Israel, I mean, this is my rebuttal, okay? I mean, serious people don't claim that. in its aftermath varying sources like some people I mean I'm talking objective people not just Zionist shields or something

like some people claim that like well Israel was stood Soviet combined arms and you know they were able to fight off you know they were able to fight in ways that here there too they hadn't been comfortable with or that hitherto had been an alien

type of warfare I mean I don't I don't really think that's true. I mean, I think the Soviets brought, they brought a quality of hardware and manpower and operational sophistication to the table, obviously. But the IDF was used to fighting Arab armies that had real problems, but were basically following Warsaw Pact doctrine. You know, the American claim was that, well, Israel was successful and continuing to hold the main line of resistance, which was the bar of, to borrow lewine and forcing the Egyptians ultimately to come to the table but uh you know eventually i mean but the but the consensus really um on both sides of the aisle was that this this really kind of sapped israeli morale you know and this this this culminated really in the 73 war in its

conclusion i mean israel had some big victories in 73 but they also took some big hits you know this wasn't um people kind of trying to cast Israeli history as like the sixth day war in a perpetuity like oh these really armies just top notch and they just bowled over all their ops like it's not true you know and admittedly like

um if you're fighting the Soviet army um and what was then you know their cutting edge war tech like it's not a minor thing like I'm not even saying that like there's something like shame in that you know it's um I uh

interestingly there's a couple there's a guy and a lady there's Israeli military type academics the guy's name is gideon remez lady's name is Isabella genor or ginor they've written a lot on Soviet Israeli hostilities and obviously like I said these people are both like Israeli Jews they're not they're certainly not you know people going to be said to have a poor view of the Zionist state they they both consider the war to have been like a defeat for Israel I mean their argument is Israel is Israel is forced to accept a ceasefire

and basically a change like a change in the kind of like the criteria for peace on the Israeli side and just like a holy and just and they you know just completely a complete sea change in the tenor negotiations because so their defenses were dropping

up four phantoms out of the sky at an unsustainable rate the Soviets and the Egyptians proved they blatantly violate not just preceding you know ceasefire and treaty arrangements in the theater

but they they didn't care a wit about you know deploying you know banned weapon systems to the region you know they were in it to win it you know Ramon 20, this aerial operation that, you know, was purpose to zap the Soviet Air Force tactically. Yeah, that that was a victory.

But I think that as part of the whole paradigm, like, that allowed the Israelis to kind of accept what there before would have been not acceptable to design as hardliners, but well, also saving face. you know hey look like we we defeated the mighty Soviet air force you know we we can't we can't be said to have have lost um so i mean it's complicated okay but like my point is that um like israel's fortunes were literally decided by the soviet union you know in the continuity war then in 73 you know so this i mean this two things here so i mean this this this is demonstrative of how heavily the soviet union Russia wasn't as politically invested in Arab fortunes and specifically Syrian ones.

But it's also like you think the Israelis have like good feelings towards Russia. I mean really? I mean, it's, um, you know, it's preposterous. Um, closer to um,

this, the main subject at hand, what, uh, Hefez Assad was doing during this period, Haphazazade himself was a big driver. He was a fighter pilot. In 1971, as a Syrian bath was kind of consolidating its hold. Syrian politics were very Byzantine and a lot of backstabbing, a lot of corruption, things like this. Not quite as bad as the Iraqi situation has developed by a decade later, but it was very chaotic.

Assad, Hafez Assad really is kind of like the father of modern Syria's political culture, okay? But that's kind of a subject for another day. But in 1971, Hafez Assad and the Soviet Union, he permitted the Soviet Union to open its naval base and TARDIS. And the Russians continue to utilize this base to this day. TARDIS is the sole.

Mediterranean naval base for the black sea fleet of the Russian Navy. Okay. This is a big deal. Not just in, not just in like, you know, strategic terms, but it demonstrates like a willingness of the Russians to sign on for the long term on, on, on, on, what amounts like a mutual defense treaty. So they've really got like absolute confidence in like the tenure the perennial tenure of the regime currently situated in Damascus or they're absolutely not going to let that regime fall. Okay. Like the TARDis Treaty, for example, it runs, it ran, it, uh, it was set to run for 20 years with automatic five-year extensions unless unilaterally terminated. Um, I mean, it, uh, and, uh, immediately.

Immediately after the fall of the Soviet Union officially, like Hefez Assad, recognized the Russian Federation as the legal successor to the USSR and, you know, retaining all basing rights and everything else. Okay. The, during the 73 war, obviously, which was kind of like Syria's moment in the sun, because they proved themselves, you know, that they could, they could function. at a high level of operational sophistication. Thousands of Soviet advisors, technicians, officers, like combat officers, assisted the Syrian Arab Army. At least 20 were killed in action. Almost 3,750 tons of aid was airlifted to Syria.

They sea lifted, at the conclusion of hostilities, the Soviet Union sea lifted over 60,000 tons of materials. to Syria to replenish losses, you know, like infrastructural, military, you know, like foodstuffs, like you name it. The one kind of blip in Soviet or Russian-Syrian relations came in 76. The Soviets were just pleased when Assad deployed the Syrian Arab army to Lebanon. And something of a diplomatic rift emerged.

The Soviets were really worried about a confrontation. between the PLO and the Syrian Arab army and for good a reason. Like they were very much at odds, you know? Both of them were Moscow clients. This would have this could have been catastrophic in terms of broader

interests held by Moscow in the Near East. And like taking sides in a sectarian war between Arab factions, I mean, that's always going to be a losing proposition. Um, the, uh, Brezhnev went as far as, uh, threatening to freeze, uh, military aid shipments. Um, it's ultimately was like smoothed over, like a fess visited at Moscow in 1977, like much fan fear.

He met with Brezhnev and Alexei Kossigen, among others, or Kosykin. you know, the Assad openly endorsed and supported 100%. The Soviet attack in Afghanistan which distanced them from basically

every other Arab leader, but I mean, he didn't care. Like Assad's Assad sent the message like he stands with Russia. So I mean the final kind of if there was in fact like a rift that still need a remedy by Christmas, 1979, like that what sealed

that like Russian Syrian kind of like affinity for all time was the fact that Assad said like you know we stand we stand with the Soviet Union like against its enemies in Afghanistan you know which was incredibly ballsy

among other things I mean it was the right play for Assad but it was very balzy October 1980 Syria and the Soviet Union signed the Treaty of Friendship really until it all went down in 89 you know

Syria South Yemen was the only Marxist-Leninist Arab state but Syria was the even though Syria was not a communist state at all like they were the jewel in the crown of Warsaw Pact in terms of their in terms of Arab affairs and the Middle Eastern theater

this Gorbachev scaled his back in April 87 but once but again like within after after

I mean Russia was a mess like post Gorbachev but the any unwillingness of the newly a stalwart Russian Federation the back Assad like evaporated with you know

the end of Gorbachev's tenure um that uh interestingly medvedev um he was the first he was the first Russian president to visit Syria like Putin visited Syria um

I believe he was on the ground for the there was two parades or I'm gonna be a Condor Legion honestly like the the Russian military contingent, you know, marched in Damascus after victory. And I think, I can't remember if Putin made a state visit there or not. But point being, maybe it was the first leader of the Russian Federation to visit Syria.

Jumping ahead closer to the present. For context, you know, this is exactly why Syria was targeted for destruction in part. Okay. Hafez Assad joined Bush 41's Gulf War Coalition, which was instrumental. You know, and the Syrians deployed to fight Saddam. You know, like anybody remotely reasonable would view Assad as like, you know, somebody who the West wants on their side. But of course, you know, he was, um, it, uh, there's no like strategic logic to trying to destroy Syria

and utilizing terrorists and ISIS and these tech-firy lunatics as a detonation strategy. At the onset of the Russian intervention in Syria, government forces, they controlled only about 26% of the country. They were truly beleaguered. um the uh you know Russia was fighting the Islamic State they were fighting the LNus for a front

which is basically Al Qaeda these are the guys like John McCain that are like are like you know fighting for democracy you was talking about Al Qaeda John McCain wanted he said we need to support al Qaeda to murder the Assad family and I guess everybody else who like

Al Qaeda doesn't like you know great guy that John McCain the uh Putin in um I mean for context I mean Putin is constantly cautious as I think people know which is ironic that he's painted as this like mad reckless madman like he's

you know he really it really is a disservice to the Russian state that he's he's pissed poor at at decision points I think okay

um so it's not only he's prone to ultimatums it's not he's prone to absolute declaration the matters of war and peace but uh um Putin said that the you know the bath regime is absolutely not going to be allowed to fall you know and he said we don't negotiate with terrorists neither does not neither does um you know president Assad. And I mean, that was the core of the issue, too. Like, this was still it was on the tail end of such things. There was still an America was supposedly fighting the global war on terror. I remember, like,

a bad party spokeswoman who, I can't remember her name, which she was got in this, like, severe Arab lady, of whom there are many. But, uh, she was addressing some British media contingent and she said, like, we don't negotiate with

terrorists. We're not, we're not going to let, we're not going to let al-Qaeda, we're not going to let ISIS, we're not going to let some constellation of, of jihadists, you know, force us to change the government by murdering people, you know, and I mean, there was this, they're just kind of like this, like, dummy silence by these media people,

then, you know, when they're like a great chorus of talking about, like, how evil Assad is. But, I mean, that's really, this to me is really, this is what America lost all credibility in foreign policy. You know, you're like, you're literally saying that you're,

you're army equipping al-Qaeda to destroy, a secular regime led by a guy who's an eye doctor who was raised in London. You know, like, it's, I mean, that's, it's not, this isn't even like a, you can't even like, you know, under, you know, some kind of appeal in Machiavellian necessity. It's just like, it's just bizarre, it's, it's just like, it's just like, it's just like a bizarre, uh, scorched earth position, you know, uh, that only makes sense to Zionists, you know, um,

Yeah, a buddy of mine used to say, how do you make excuses for trying to kill somebody who wakes up and shaves his chin every day? It's not a cleric. Interestingly, back when CNN, I mean, CNN was always, they always had some goofs on their staff, but they, you know, I'm talking like 30 years ago, they were like a normal news network. You know, like they had goofs like Peter Arnett,

but like there was this, they did this big interview with Afezasad, who people viewed as a compelling guy. you know, and he kind of came to prominence, um, going to the Gulf War coalition, you know, and, uh,

people seemed grateful for that. You know, and I'm sure like Baker's State Department was, but it's like, if you, you know, his, like,

we paid back the Assad family by arming al-Qaeda and, like, falling for, you know, Bashar Assad and his family to be murdered. I mean, like, like,

like, like, you can't, there's no percentage in, uh, you know if you if you lay down with pigs you're gonna get dirty you know and not not only gonna get dirty by dealing with America But though they're gonna try and like arbitrarily murder you at some point You know I mean like this isn't that it's aside like the naked irrationality of it. I mean you you can't conduct politics that way

You know I mean that's that's like trying to that's like trying to go into business with Jeffrey Dahmer or something you know like some some unhitting you like America is literally like it's like an unhinged psychopath that might like randomly try to murder you like I you know but you're supposed

to there's supposed to be some like percentage and playing ball with with its ambitions but um we should probably wrap it up because I'm coming up on an hour and um my our dear friend

uh Jay Burton I got a he's hosting me in a minute on his show. But I'm sorry to break this up into two segments if that's not what you had planned. But there's a lot here. Is that cool? Absolutely. All right. This was great.

Yeah, yeah. Let me know when you want to complete part two and we'll get it done. Sure. As per normal, do plugs. Yeah, man. For those who don't know, I'm sure everybody probably does know already. Like I'm back on Twitter. It's like the same account. It's at capital R-E-A-L.

underscore number seven HMAS 7777 I'm on substack real Thomas 7777 at subsdeck.com I'm on Instagram I'm on I'm on I'm on telegram I'm I got a website it's number seven HMAS 777.com like find me all those places and I got like a MERS line that people seem to like and I'm really honored by that but that put that in the um description line if you would please always yeah thanks yeah some good air creg does some good good work he's the man i really owe him a lot like he's a great i mean he's just a good dude but um his designs are really are really tremendous man yeah definitely all right thomas thank you very much