The Team House - Has Israel Gone Too Far? | EYES ON | Ep. 17

Episode Date: April 4, 2024

Support the show here:https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouseToday the guys talk about the targeted strike of senior IRGC (Quds Force) embers by Israel in the Iranian consulate in Damascus. We also talk about the IDF strike on the World Central Kitchen convoy and whether Israel has gone too far with their operations in Gaza.Find Andy here:Twitterhttps://twitter.com/i/flow/login?redirect_after_login=%2Fandymilburn8LinkedInhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewmilburn2023Substackhttps://amilburn.substack.com/Andy's bookhttps://www.amazon.com/When-Tempest-Gathers-Mogadishu-Operations/dp/1526750554#israel #gaza #iran #irgcBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support.

Hey guys, it's Jack. I just wanted to talk to you today about a way that you can help support the podcast if you're not already. We would really appreciate it if you guys went and reviewed us on Apple or Spotify. Those reviews really help people find the podcast and help it get recognized. And, you know, if you've been enjoying the show, we really appreciate your support. Another thing that you can do to support the channel is to become a Patreon member. So we have Patreon memberships that start at just $5 a month. And, you know, when you sign up, you get access to all of our episodes ad-free. That's the big bonus for that. I mean, we also do some Patreon bonus episodes for our subscribers. But this is the biggest and best way that you can support the Team House channel and podcast if you'd like to. And we really appreciate that. So go and check us out at patreon.com slash the team house. Hello, everyone. Welcome to another episode of Aizan. I'm Andy Milburn. Jason Lyons. Dmitri, Tacos.

Hello. Hey, Dee, so today I think we've got, unfortunately, lots of action in the Middle East to talk about. Do you want to kick off about the strike in Damascus yesterday? Yeah. I mean, everyone pretty much saw what happened already now. I mean, Israel's kind of brazen air strike on the Iranian consulate that's like right next door of the Iranian embassy, which is also right next door to the Canadian embassy. killing seven you know irgc yeah yeah it was um look this was the you know i'll jump to the chase

this was the most significant strike that the Israelis have conducted on kud's force like ever um the top three field commanders within kud's force were killed i'll say that again the top three field commanders, Hussein Amanullah, who was, he was chief of staff for Syria and Lebanon. And then Rahimi, Hajsh Rahimi, who's, you know, to say a coupze force guy is controversial. Well, Rahimi is particularly controversial because his mandate is Palestine, right? And so a lot of discussion about whether he knew about these attacks, whether he was involved in them or not, the Israelis were convinced. that Hamas did at least inform him,

inform that attacks were coming. They may not, Hezbollah, and Iran may have not realized this scale, but nevertheless soon became aware of them and reinforced them 100%. So this is kind of revenge for that. And the third guy, the third guy killed General Zahidi,

the Israelis call him Madhavi. He's actually, he's a former head of all Coots Force in Syria and Lebanon. And he is, he's actually rumored to be Connie's successor. Connie is, of course, the head of Coots Force. So very, very significant. I'll pause there, guys, to see if you have any questions. Yeah, I was going to, sorry to drag you back to the beginning,

but for those who don't know, can you give a little background on what Coeds Force is? Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, this term gets used a lot. lot. So look, just by way of credits, okay, this doesn't make me an expert, but I'm probably one of the few US military guys. I would venture perhaps the only one since, aside from the hostages, who spent time in an Iranian jail. Okay, and now I've got to qualify that very brief period of time being questioned by the Revolutionary Guard, as they were called then. Back soon after, 11 years after the revolution, the beginning of the wall with Iran.

I was in Tehran taken off a bus and questioned by them. Again, that doesn't make me an expert, but it does. It removes any reservations that may have about what you've organization. They are, because many other people at the time were disappearing. Anyway, cut to the chase. the Revolutionary Guards, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Court to give it its full title. You hear it referred to as the IRGC. I think of them as kind of, you know, the Islamic Revolution's version of the Republican Guard.

You know, every revolution has a small group of the Jacobins and the French Revolution, a small group of activists. And the revolutionary guard were that. And they then became the de facto administration regime of Iran backing up the Supreme Leader, Ali Khomeini, who became the Supreme Leader in 1989. So you see now, you know, a lot of these guys are kind of the same age as me and Jason, you know, old enough to be D's grandfather. And they, but they were students, you know, in the 70, back in late 70s. You know, you name it.

Altman Dimajad, Hussein. in Siramani, I'm trying to remember his name, all of these guys. And now they're at the top of the Iranian NARang structure. Now, Kuzfors is kind of a subdivision of the IRGC,

and they are focused, they are, you know, while they've been classified as a terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department with good reason. But Kud's force is responsible for the Iranian regime's operations

overseas, primarily through the use of proxies, such as Hezbollah, such as quite improbably Hamas, and I say improbably because Hamas is, of course, a Sunni organization, but the Iranians were happy to hold their nose in this case and support Hamas, and then subsequently leave them out to drive because Hamas is doing their bidding, and as long as it is Sunni Arabs and Israelis being killed, this all plays very well to the Iranians. But now they've lost three of their top guys. they have to take action.

And this is what is causing concern, obviously within Israel now. This comes amidst massive demonstrations against Netanyahu. It is many feel a, well, it's hard to deny it's an escalation. Many feel that there are political motives for this. escalation, that it is, you know, that Netanyahu, if he can really, really solidify or continue down this polarization path and continue this campaign, rally the right behind him, get the patriotic and kind of the Jewish boat, he will take this, you know, to the Hilt. And that is what's worrying the vast majority of Israelis right now who don't feel

that this is the ticket that they bought when they, when they subscribe to the war on Hamas. Over to you, back over to you guys. Got anything, D? Yeah. So, like, my understanding is like Kud's force is basically like an IRC is how Iran can kind to project their power because like they don't really have a military that's strong. That's right. That's right.

And it's masterful. Because they are, you know, think of all the bumbling efforts we make to build advisor type units, right, both in the Army and the U.S. Marine Corps, a very ad hoc group of people. And it's not considered a very, you know, one of the things we've always struggled with conventional forces is they want to operate as battalions and brigades and divisions, but not training foreign indigenous troops. That is so unsexy, right? But that is the core of gray zone operations, using that term, I know. But that's conflict. Everyone uses proxy. Everyone's doing it. And we should get on board. The Mozart Group was a perfect opportunity, guys.

You all missed it. But so Coots Force are very adept at getting, at working with proxies. You know, they live in the country. They work closely with them. I'm not saying for a moment that they identify with them. They use them. There are tools, but they do it very well, very well indeed. And so with just a relatively small group of people, you know,

Coots Force, just a few thousand guys, they can conduct operations that are having a catastrophic, not a catastrophic, but a global effect. Think about what the Houthis are doing that we've talked about here. Hamas is the least capable of all of Quds forces proxies. Hezbollah is the most capable. And that is what everyone is worried about now, because Iran won't declare an war in Israel. Iran's not going to strike back in the same way. But using Hezbollah, Iran certainly has the ability to inflict serious damage on Israel.

And it's a question of math. It's a question of math precision fires. Hezbollah has an arsenal now many times the size of the one that it had in 2006. And even then was able to overwhelm Iron Dome. I'll pause there to see if you guys have any questions. It's a really, it's a really, this is a very interesting, important and quite scary flexion point. And so Kud's is, and this is. of my own ignorance, has always been a hands-off force, or have they ever been in direct

combat? Well, they are occasionally involved in, I mean, they are involved, you know, I mean, they, they're absolutely, they, you know, they don't have this, they don't have this artificial division between advise and assist and a company, right? No, of course. I mean, they, but the point is they don't need to. They do what they need to do to set the example, to rally support. I'll give you an example.

For instance, in Gaza, in Gaza, Israeli intelligence, not officially, but Israeli intelligence claims that they're picking up Farsi in Gaza, a coupons force guys, helping direct Hamas operations, all right? And that is the sort of help that they will give, you know, right up to, yeah, right up to the X, but the point is they there's always, and

you know this, of course, Jason, there's always kind of a, it always, they always give Iran the plausible deniability. Right. And that is their strength. You know, I mean, it's so, it, Coons Force is a master for organization in that sense.

It is a, it's very competent, very efficient. They have their fuck-ups, some quite hilarious fuck-ups at times. But for the most part, they they mean business and they do business, you know. And this is a very rare successful strike because they are very good at Fieldcraft. By the way, just getting news from the Israelis, and I think this was reported on U.S. media, Hussein Yusuf, who's a senior Hezbollah official also killed in the strike. So you've got guy and an official from P.I.J. and so

Palestinian Islamic Teahard who are involved in the fighting in Gaza in support of Hamas so that

that strike I'm going to go out on the limb and say that those names were known before that that was

carried out or what's maybe like a you know I'm sure some of them at least but I'm going

to venture to say given the names and the statutes that it was known, all the names on that target were known. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, these guys would have been top of the target list. I mean, they, I'm sure they're on our own target list too.

And so, and that's a really good point, Jason, because you know how it is when something happens, everyone assumes that the proximate cause is something that happened right before that. I'll give you the case in point. All right. So the destruction, there was a drone attack on Eilat, you know, two days ago. And then right after this, the strike on Damascus, well, you don't throw together strikes that easily. You know, I mean, this had been planned.

And they were just waiting for a reason. And the reason was probably, as you know, the time, location, the trigger, which had nothing to do with retaliation for any other event. how often do you get these seven individuals in a room? It would have been a high-level decision, obviously, but it just seemed probably like too juicy a target to pass up. And now, you know, as we've all seen, these targeted killings, they really have a good effect. Yeah, that was my question.

We all feel good. Oh, great, but you name it, you know. Yeah, like what gets followed by someone worse? What does the blowback look like now, like after these guys have been taken out and stuff like that. Like, what's a response from Iran look like? Is it just through Hezbollah? Like, yeah, I would guess the risk, I mean, first of all, there has to be a response to,

yes, Hezbollah, because, but it won't just be Hezbollah. There will probably be renewed drone attacks on southern Israel, from the Houthis, but certainly, yeah, this is, you know, what would be interesting is to know what the discussion is that is taking place now between Nazrallah and Khomeini. You know, Nazrallah, by the way, Nazrallah, Hassan Nasrallah is the head of Lebanese Hezbollah. And, you know, this warrants a whole show by itself. But the bottom line is, Nazrallah is, he's not a Lebanese patriot, but he's not, certainly not an Iranian stooch either. He is about himself and he's about Lebanese Hezbollah. And

the problem with inciting a war with Israel is that it sets him back in time, right? He's got a plan. And his plan is that, you know, the state of Lebanon becomes essentially his Bola's state. And he's a long way along that path. We've talked about this when you look at members of the, you know, the cabinet there. You look at the problems the military he's having with his Bala infiltration, all of these things. So he's almost there. He has built up his arsenal, which was devastated in the 2006.

He's built it up to a point where, yeah, you know, when we talk existential threat, very nearly existential threat. I mean, not existential, but can certainly has the capability to inflict tens of thousands of casualties on the Israeli population. But to do so, yes, he will become a global hero. But Hezbollah will take a shwacking. The Israelis were stumbling, sometimes who have been stumbling when it comes to targeting in Gaza, but they have everything in Lebanon dialed in. They've had 40 years literally to do this.

They cannot hit all the targets. They don't have enough ammunition to hit all the targets, but they all try. And that is what Nezrella knows. And the backlash will probably go against. is Bala. And so he, he's walking a fine line. He wants, you know, he senses that the, you know, the Arab streets, especially, you know, on the Shia side, everyone is really outraged. This, this level of anger in the Arab world, I don't, we haven't seen it in our lifetimes. And it's easy to overlook it from where we are. But it, but it is, it is, it has gathered a momentum that is

quite frightening. Nasrallah realizes that. So now he's caught, and the Israelis have just pushed the Iranians, right, into kind of openly having to demand retribution. So everything seems set for a Hezbollah strike into Israel. I'll pause that for a moment. Given everything you just said, do you think there's a, it's plausible that Nasrallah would say no? That, you know, if he's told, hey, we need you to. That's, that's the $10 million question, Jason. And the answer no one knows. Not even, you know, if you talk to Israeli intelligence guys who have kind of, who have lived Nasrallah for that entire careers.

And there are guys like that and women. And they all tell you they don't know. You know, he is, uh, Nasrala is, um, he's a very, very smart guy. But he also plays his cards quite close to his chest. That's why he's still alive. Um, we don't know. We don't know. and everyone since this kicked off, I say everyone, but all the pundits have been asking,

will he say no to Iran? Does he have enough, last, their power, confidence by himself to do so? And we will see. And so, you know, as things go ahead, a number of other things taking place to this morning there was an attack on, well, first of all, you know, relations between Israel and the United States are the worse that they have ever been. Again, you know, I stick to facts on this show. For the first time ever, guys, polls are showing the U.S. population, public, disagree with something that the Israelis are doing, foreign policy, how they're handling Gaza, right?

And, you know, there's Netanyahu snubs to the president. Netanyahu is banking on a Trump victory. But then Trump the other day said, hey, Israel just needs to finish this. You know, he seemed impatient. Of course he is. The Republicans don't understand. I mean, the Republicans don't want this probably going on either. My point is that everyone realized that this is severely damaging to U.S. prestige or view in the world.

And we don't have a lot of loss to depend on right now. And we're being dragged into the toilet. That's one argument. But it's hard to argue against, to be honest with you. Yeah. So what I wanted to do, you know, and then the world food. But at the same time, at the same time, we're giving them, you know, $18 billion in military aid. Yeah, what's it, $3.6 billion a year, you know.

No, but they're giving like the new aid package, right? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And, you know, the point is, but we have been giving them $3. You know, billions of dollars every year. And there was a very funny Saturday Night Live sketch in Israel. They've got their version of Saturday Night Live. where, you know, they've got this guy playing Netanyahu, and he's like, no, tell the Go-inster fuck off, you know, tell them, you know, tell them to take that $3.6 billion and shove it up their ass, you know.

So this was kind of a realization among the segment of the Israeli population who have close ties with the United States who, we don't want to alienate the United States. Right. We feel more in the kin with the United States and with Israel. And then you get this world food kitchen strike. Okay, seven killed U.S., Canada, Australia, Poland, and the United Kingdom, aside from the usual Palestinians, all right? Whichever way you look at it, here's, you know, here's what the news is reporting, that the convoy, let me a second, that it was coordinated,

that the yeah the coordinates were set in blah blah blah blah but it was still struck the Israeli said that they were investigating initially they said that it was operating outside curfew in an area not coordinated but now they

apparently are according to the latest yeah admitting that yes it was coordinated so so here's another a potential riff between the US and Israel you know I mean none of the

like the thought that Israel or any country can kill our citizens without even asking. You know, I know that sounds ridiculous. But I mean, because if they'd asked me, they'd have said, no, you fucking cannot kill that guy. He's working for the World Food Kitchen. By the way, you know, another insight I have here is having driven, you know, food, humanitarian assistance under bombardment for the World Food Kitchen. Obviously, I'm not completely unbiased in this story. Any questions on that? I mean, like, I think it's okay to not be, to be a little biased because they killed

fucking aid workers. They didn't kill like, you know, Hamas guys hiding in a hospital that like, you know, whether it's what they do, no, it was aid workers. It was clearly marked. It was coordinated. What do we don't? I mean, you know, it's supposed to be the best military in the world. I get it's war and it's a fucking disaster and it's mayhem and it's chaos.

but like do they even give a shit about how like the world honestly the united states perceives them are they just going to keep doing like what they're going to do and that's that yeah um i'm going to ask you your question deed just very quick uh just there's some more stuff coming in sure so the uh despite despite despite this is coming from the world food kitchen uh erin gole ceo Despite coordinating movements with the IDF, the convoy was hit as it was leaving Darol Bala Warehouse, where the team had unloaded more than 100 tons of humanitarian food aid, Bortigaza on Maritime Route. Reports are that it was hit actually three times from Aaron Gore.

This is not only attack against World Food Kitchen, attack on humanitarian organizations. Hit three times. What happened? They didn't get it right, the first two? I don't know. Who knows? Anyway, we'll see. I'm not dismissing.

I'm saying this is, yeah, this is. This is serious. It seems almost as though Netanyahu is not Netanyahu is doing bridge burning things, right? And if you've seen the movie Wag the Dog, you might be thinking along those lines. It's quite concerning. But what's the play? Like, what's the strategy in doing that? To not have any allies left?

Oh, no, no, no. To Netanyahu, this all makes, this all makes perfect sense. By the way, Israel has, Israel, if you mention, they haven't accepted their responsibility for the Damascus site. But it, you know, it does. It does make sense. So you think about it. You push Iran into war. You recover Gaza, right, for the state of Israel, which is what Netanyahu's base is pushing for to colonize Gaza and make it part of Israel. You know, that's the dog whistle piece, you know, in the background here. It's quite openly discussed among the members of the right wing in Israel. So he's going to satisfy the Israeli extremists, the ultra-Orthodox,

who are also, by the way, calling on him to destroy Al-Axa and rebuild the temple. I mean, I'm wondering where this is going to end. But the ultra-Orthodox who don't fight either. Exactly. And that is also causing internal problems in Israel. They call, you know, they are they good at beating up or shooting, you know, reportedly. This is the argument, okay, from many in Israel. Hey, these guys push us to the brink of war.

They cause problems with the Palestinians. And yet they don't have to deal with the consequences because they don't have to serve. And Netanyahu has fought against removing that exemption. The Supreme Court has said that. the exemption is no longer valid. So Netanyahu is dragging his feet on how to implement this, saying it's going to take a decade to bring these guys into the military. So you can see how this resentment is building.

But they are Netanyahu's base. And political survival was very, very important to him. And so dividing the world in this way in a way that it hasn't been divided since the early 80s over Israel, and it's far worse than it was in the early 80s, is it makes perfect sense to him. He's driving away friendly, you know, I mean, moderate, friendly Arab countries such as Jordan. He's driving, I mean, he is antagonized the Arab street

beyond all measure. So I think, you know, the real question here is, what else could he have done? What else could he? And I, you know, I've got some thoughts here. And bear in mind, my thoughts are not. from an armchair. You know, I've had to deal with these problems for real.

And, you know, there's a number of reasons why so many civilians are going to be killed. Underlying at all, frankly, is a... I mean, in some cases, it's explicit. You know, by... You will protect your soldiers' lives at all costs. And implicit to that, the never stated in an order is,

if that means a... between killing many palisalian civilians or having your own soldiers kill, then that's not a choice. You know, and so a lot of the things that we do in the U.S. to do with proportionality or to do with identification of discrimination identification, all these things that we're familiar with are not the norm. Now, they use these terms, and I'll give you an example. have how it goes awry.

They do collateral damage assessments, but here is how it's done. First of all, their intelligence within Gaza is not that good, and it's not a fault of Israeli's intelligence. It's just Hamas has got really fucking good at operating without giving their presence away. So a lot of the intel they're getting is based on drone observations,

and it's fleeting intelligence, so they feel like they have to make a decision very quickly. And so they do. And they always err on the side of caution for themselves or their forces. They will. And so one of the problems here is that the Israeli spokesman can say pro forma, hey, here's what we're doing. And it is true. And we have people, you know, like a guy, I have great respect for John Spencer at the Irregular Warfare Institute, goes to Israel, gets their brief, comes back, writes an article in Newsweek saying there's no army in the world takes so many measures to prevent civilian casualties. Well, John is a great guy,

greatest respect for him, but that is simply not true. John didn't, of course didn't lie, but he made a lot of statements without really looking behind. And I'll give you an example, so, okay? Collateral damage assessments are based on their intel, but their intel is not good. and they're under and again you know the arbiter is always if you don't make this strike are Israeli forces risk raised okay that is it it's it doesn't get into detail proportionality this isn't me just shooting you know I'm getting this and from guys I've spoken to and in fact it's in the papers in Israel too um so here's some some quotes all right from from Israeli soldiers in practice the terrorists

is anyone the IDF has killed in the areas in which its forces operate says an officer who served in Gaza the feeling we had was there wasn't there weren't any rules of engagement there another soldier says okay so what are the battles what's the fighting looking like in Gaza I mentioned

the other day they're taking lower casualties and we did in the flujia good for them except that they are causing many, many thousands times the civilian countries that we call in Fallujah because in Fallujah, we took a little bit more risk

because we're Americans. We may call it what you will. Even if you disagree with it, I'm proud of the fact that we risked our own lives to save civilians. There is no such fault within the Israeli military.

And it's very, very firmly rooted in their belief, their constant belief that Israel is under existential threat. Okay, those are, those are kind of the facts. And, you know, if anyone wants to challenge me in this, I'll give you, you know, by all means, please do, please do. But remember, three Israeli hostages were killed, right? They were shot. They were shot. They weren't killed in anirstrike. They were shot by Israelis, even after, here's what happened. And this kind of bear, this isn't tearing open the people who did this. It's explaining why the problem is a policy. It's not individual actions. So when these three hostages were killed, a drone was sent inside the building, but the Israelis having great success using drones inside buildings.

The drone flew into the building. Oh, no, shit. Sorry. It was a dog. They sent in a dog, and the dogs all have gopros. And the dog picks up these three Israeli hostages, and they don't know the dog has GoPro, but they're yelling in Israeli. And there are terrorists.

There's a couple of terrorists in there, a couple of wounded ones. once. The Israelis destroyed their house. They say, and who I don't disbelieve them, you know, the soldiers involved said they didn't check the GoPro camera. They, the host, um, uh, is a GoPro, excuse me, is a GoPro camera a live feed or no, no, no, it's not live feed. Sorry.

Um, but anyway, so the hostages, they're not killed, uh, in that house destruction. They get on the street, um, to a subsequently shot by Israelis. And now it gets really bad. The third one runs back into a house. Israeli soldiers follow him in and shoot him there, close range. So I'm like, okay, you know, think about all, think about all the measures here that, you know, that we know rules and engagement that would have prevented that happening. So when the Israelis said, hey, these guys weren't following policy, it's hard. It's hard to understand how so many guys didn't follow policy.

And the soldiers involved us saying that they were told to shoot anything that came into the area. And when you look at what happened, it's hard to believe, it's hard not to believe them. Okay. And then, you know, other soldiers are saying, yeah, we had free fire zones. Whenever we set up a, like a, you know, biblack air, I mean, not a bibbic, we went firm. But even moving during the day, we were told shoot anything that came into our zone. We gave civilians two weeks to move, and if they didn't move, you know, that's, they, they're fair game. So now there's so many things that interfere with civilians being able to move in that environment.

The messaging wasn't clear. The Israelis said they used roof knocking, which means firing a small caliber, I mean, a smaller caliber bomb into the roof or rocket into the roof before you bomb the building. But, you know, there's a problem. There's a problem with communicating with lethal force, all right? It's not always clearly apparent. If you're in a building and the roof gets hit, you may probably just think, well, that was a close one. You don't think, hey, this was a very kind warning that I'm about to be incinerated if I don't get out of this building. You have to, you know, I mean, it's almost as though they've got this.

Okay, we're going to go through this. Because their intelligence is not good, they can't make good estimates of proportionality. because they don't know the value of the units or organizations they're going after. So, you know, there's a lot of things wrong with what is being said about their procedures. And then as shooting their own hostages is concerned, you would think that that would cause them to reframe everything. But it hasn't because, again, there is this ethos. I mean, there's no doubt there's revenge under.

lying this. But that's speculation. There's got to be revenge in the back of the human beings involved in this. And this is why leadership is so important. But if you have leaders, I'm not saying this is happening, but it has happened in the US military. If you have leaders who are reconciled just saying, hey, whatever, man, you know, if you feel at risk, then by all means. And so when you get a case like the humanitarian convoy that was fired on and 100 killed the Israelis say only percentage of the proportion of those were killed by the Israelis but the hospitals saying that at large but anyway bottom line is definitely number of incidents of people lining up for food being shot by Israeli soldiers in every case

their answer has been I felt threatened all right and it seems once you utter those magic words all bets are off and we went through the stage too so we can't feel too, you know, not as, not as extremely as this, obviously. I mean, can you imagine if we had caused 31,000 civilians deaths in any operation? We would be facing criminal charges, frankly. But, yeah, I represent, you know, look, I understand this is a brutal dilemma. But I also, speaking as someone who has fought house to house and has planned urban operations, I'll pause there, guys, if you, because you've got any.

questions. No man, you're the of the three of us. You're the, uh, the one with the most expertise on this. Um, so I'm, I'm listening. I'm learning as well too. I'm sure we're going to hear about it in the comments, but I don't worry about the comments. We're talking the truth. Exactly. So yeah, I'm learning. We don't have, we don't have a dog in this fight. Like, I don't at least like to be completely honest. I mean, I understand that Israel needs to like smoke Hamas people, like Hamas leadership. I don't have. We don't have. We don't know. I I think they should have done it the wrong, the different way instead of sending like divisions into Gaza.

I'll give you another example. Okay, so in there and look, I was a fire support coordinator by military occupational speciality. And, you know, again, that doesn't make me. Stop bragging. No, I'm just saying because I want to preempt, you know, our favorite contributors who are highland and call me an idiot again or a moron. But I do know what I'm talking about.

And I, you know, the point is that, for instance, when, what the Israelis are doing, they're saying, hey, these are legitimate targets because Hamas is operating out of, you know, this building. But the building is an apartment block. The Hamas are operating one or two apartments. This is a real case, by the way. This was, oh, crap. It doesn't matter. I'll get back to it. It was a building that was destroyed in 2021.

So they'll destroy the whole building. And if they're warning the occupants of that building by firing into the roof, you can see the problem here. And if you've got an apartment block and people are worried about walking on the streets because they're free, you know, free fire zones, it gets very difficult to be a civilian, right? You can't go out in the streets. But if you stay in the building, you're going to get killed. So, yeah, you know, you can say, well, is Netanyahu, meanwhile, is saying Israel has the most moral army in the world. That may be. No one's, you know, I'm not making comments about the morality of the individual

soldier. I'm saying that they, that the way things are set up, the policy, that procedures, that their customs are such that nothing other than massive civilian casualties could be anticipated. So it's fucked is what, that's the, that's what we've realized. I mean, like, what does it end? Because they're going to go into Rafa and wrecks them shake like there. too. So where do all those civilians that moved away from Gaza City? Where do they go? What's the move?

Doesn't matter to them? It doesn't seem like it from an idiot like me. It doesn't seem like it. Yeah. Well, that's a, it's just hard to see a good outcome or a peaceful outcome to this now. And the incidents of the last, the attacks in Damascus, look, I know. I mean, we went through this discussion to Soleimani. This, Silumani was one of my bags, baby, you know, when I wore uniform. I was delighted as a human being to seem dead, but I was concerned that it was not part of a synchronized campaign, right? And I suspect that it may not have been.

And the same thing here, okay? If the Israelis have something lined up to mitigate the backlash, that's good. if they don't, then the jury's out on whether this was a good move, right? There's no way they have anything. But to your point about Raffa, this is as near a red line as I can see between the United States and Israel, all right? There was a point where Israel might have got away with saying, hey, look, we'll take care of the civilian population. We'll put them on the beach, blah, blah, blah. But after the, you know, now it seems as though with U.S. polls swinging against Israel's actions, death of U.S. citizens in the last 24 hours is not likely to help that.

I would say that the administration is really going to this today draw a hard line on Rafa, on going into Rafa because that Netanyahu has promised, promised the Israeli people that that's exactly what they are. That's what we're doing. You know, so, you know, I guess to kind of summarize what, you know, what I've been talking about, the problem is that, frankly, the IDF is not taking the trouble to distinguish between civilians and militants in Gaza. You know, the IDF would argue we just don't have time to take, you know, we don't, we can't do any more than we're doing because it's going to put us in danger. you know, the same time as rail's expanding, it's, you know, during the Duponzer operation,

because at the beginning it had very few real targets. Well, they were all old, as you can imagine. They hadn't been tracking Hamas. Well, now they've got hundreds of targets, but you know how it is, and, you know, people move all the time, and they're dropping dumb 2,000 bombs, you know, as everyone knows, well, not everyone knows people. It's capable of killing, wounding people more than a thousand feet away from the impact, right? CEP is what a thousand feet for two thousand? It doesn't matter. You know, I mean,

it's so how can you possibly say that when you're dropping dumb bombs in an environment like that after taking precautions like roof knocking or dropping leaflets and expecting people to move in that environment, how can you really expect civilian casualties to be lower? Also, what I worry about a little bit is like, you know, like we've discussed in other other episodes, you know, the Iranian, the Quds Force proxies all over the Middle East, whether they're in Iraq or Syria or wherever, are, you know, kind of operating relatively independently. And I don't really see them differentiating Israel and America for the most part, generally. So, like, I see that there is, you know, risk to American personnel and bases,

whether it's Baghdad airport or the embassy or whatever or Tower 22 or any of the other bases we have across the region. So what happens if we get hit again and we lose a couple servicemen again? We're brought back into it. We like in a more kinetic way. Like we need to step up and show like, hey, you don't do that. Here's a peepy whack. Yeah.

That's what I worry about. I know Iran doesn't want to drag Israel or the United States into a full-fledged war because like their military is not great. I mean, that's why they use the cuts for so much is because it rejects their power. They don't want to go to, you know, state-on-state war. Sure. This strike against Coots Force officers in that sense was very deliberately, very deliberately designed to give them no choice.

Right. You know, so Netanyahu, whatever he may say is after escalation. And there's something else, you know, there's, remember I talked about the Hannibal Directive last episode or two episodes ago, you know, there's these things going on, murky things going on within the military that suggests that, you know, brigade and battalion commanders are making their own decisions on rules of engagement.

In fact, that is the overwhelming feedback I'm getting. You know, I spoke to one battalion that moved in, you know, moved up north on 7 October, and they were weapons tight, you know, usual rules of engagement. and another battalion moved in after them, and they were reconnaissance by fire.

They were, you know, they were every morning and every evening, they would fire the morning and evening hate, as it used to be called in the First World War, into the villages on the Lebanese side. And that was sanctioned by their commanders. You know, and this is within the same organization. There is no, there doesn't appear to be any central rules of engagement.

So the Hannibal Doctrine was a directive, was an official thing. that authorized Israeli soldiers to risk the lives of hostages in order to free them. In other words, knowing what lay in store for them, you could accept a high level of risk. Okay, common sense, right? It has been interpreted apparently as meaning you can kill hostages or your own soldiers to prevent them being kept, held captive. Okay, and that was the Hannibal Doctrine.

There are incidents where soldiers are claiming that the Hannibal Doctrine has been called by battalion brigade commanders. And then just, you know, I guess there's a lot of these code red type things. There's another thing called the Daha doctrine, which was formulated in the 2006, Levinan War. Apologies, Da'ia. So its main tenet is that disproportionate attacks, including against civilian structures and infrastructure, are authorized, you know, for achieving the end. And that may well be what set play here, right?

Yeah, I don't know, I don't know how like you could be, you could justify this more and more as like, even the United States government. Like, it's like, dude, we, I mean, there's only so much we could do. Right. And it's not even dividing the world. I mean, the world's pretty much on one side of this for the most part. You know, I think, you know, in terms of states, you know,

like countries, you know, there everyone's, pretty much saying, hey, guys, let's chill out a little bit. And go back to what you're good at, which is assassinating top-level people, the odd nuclear scientists, you know what I mean? Like, let's just do that. Yeah, you know, Netanyahu actually has not been a hawk in the past. He's a little like he's going to love this analogy. And there's Rala, in the sense, he knows how to walk the line, right?

You know, get everyone fired up, but avoid. because he knows he's a survivalist. He knows that entrenched conflicts like Lebanon lead to the end of careers. And I mean, his career is undoubtedly over. The question is when. And he wants his, perhaps he wants his career to end the other side of a war, a major war, because that will extend, you know, that's the argument against him. So it's no longer at that point, longevity, its legacy.

Yeah. Yeah. or not even legacy, it's just preservation of power. He's a political creature. Dr. Net-Hio. And he cut his teeth in the talk,

in the reality, not reality TV, the talk show circuit here in the United States in the late 70s and 80s. That's what made him. Yeah, I mean, legacy hunting or political preservation. at the expense of tens of thousand civilians

and even Israeli soldiers and you know, just human death and destruction kind of makes you fucking evil in my opinion. That's completely my opinion. If you like BB Netanyahu, congratulations. I don't. I think he's a fucking rat. Yeah, I, I state facts, you know, and I do express opinions, of course. Otherwise, I'd be very

boring. But yeah, I, I am concerned. I'm concerned for Israel. I'm concerned for the Middle East. I'm concerned for the United States. Most of all, obviously, right now. And I think it's important for everyone, everyone watching. Remember that, never mind. I'm not even going to go down that route. So, anyway, hey, here's another thing on rules of engagement, okay, that wasn't, you know, John Spencer didn't mention the Newsweek article. The Israelis go into every building shooting for the most part. And that is, you know, that's kind of our SOP in Gaza. I'm not making a comment on right or wrong.

I'm just saying, you know, that leads not just to huge, enormous ammunition consumption, which they don't have a problem with when it comes to small arms, because, you know, obviously, logistics bylines. But two, you know, that is something reconnaissance by fire, as it were, something that we are never authorized to do in the U.S. or seldom authorized to do, certainly not in those environments. But that is that, you know, I look, no, frankly, most civilians, vast majority of civilians are killed by artillery, you know, to kill fire zones, relatively few, still hundreds, thousands probably, killed by direct fire. But so, but so all of this,

all of this is a problem it's not particular procedures it's the kind of the underlying culture it's the best way to put this i know i brought us near an end no that was perfect no i was i was great i think uh i think it's tough man i don't know i don't know what we should say goodbye is yeah no i you got anything no man i'm uh you know me i i like to learn so uh i had to sit back on this one and just listen and ask my little questions and I appreciate it. That's what I do every episode. You know, just for those interested in how, you know, how the, what the fighting looks like in Gaza, I mentioned Israeli casualties being remarkably low. You know, it's in the 200 and I think 50s and those 60s and, you know, six months of six months. Oh, I'm sorry, four to five months of

fighting. That's extraordinarily low. And, you know, one of the aside, we've talked about fires, but after they have plastered in an area, then they'll send in their special operations guys who will seize a foothold, kind of a bridgehead. Or, you know, they'll send in drones, dogs first. Then they'll send their special abrasions forces to hold a block. And only then will they send in their conventional forces. And then it's very, very slow. movement. I've been told, you know, a couple hundred yards a day. So you see it's a very cautious, very deliberate move. That's probably how they're saving their own casualties. Ballpark, Andy, how many Hamas fighters are there, like, actually fighting every day? Yeah, that's a good question. Because I haven't seen that anywhere. Yeah. So the Israelis say 20 to 30,000

at the beginning. They say now, remember last week I said 14 to 15,000, they're claiming kill. old, when you add out the battalions that they say they've killed, it's 14, 15,000 guys looking at Hamas's order of battle. Now Israel's saying they've killed 9,000 Hamas operatives. Coincidentally, exactly the number of military age males killed reported dead, right? So, hard to tell. Right. Really hard to tell. No one can. No one can tell you how many battalions are left in raw. For anyone who says they can is full of shit. I mean, even if we had the best intel in the wall. You know, you're talking about small groups of guys and all the engagements there are small

groups, you know, running around through tunnels in a densely, densely populated area. How can you possibly make a coherent estimate of how many people are there? I mean, how many fighters are there, all alone form them into battalions. It's ridiculously unrealistic. And as I've mentioned, Even if you ignore the figures, Western intelligence reports, the UK in particular. I don't want to burn him, but he's particularly well positioned to know about this, is saying that Israeli reports of Hamas casualties are very much over the mark. So there's very few silver linings. Yeah.

And as we talked about, even if Hamas was completely obliterated, there are thousands and thousands of kids who have seen their families right there is no endgame here let's go yeah there's no would you be happy the rest of your life would you not easy in your family i mean just fucking go up and smoke yeah would you say yeah i was like oh i want to be secular and democratic oh yeah that's what i want to do if revenge is the one thing that life offered you that's what you would do and anyone you know out there who who thinks they're different i

would love to hear from them. Yeah, that's like the Zenish person in the fucking world. Yeah. All right, that's it. On that happy note, on that happy note, soon, probably not next week because something exciting will show up. Soon we're going to talk about Taiwan, guys. And this is the opportunity for Deeve to say, what was the phrase?

I don't know. Non-consensual unification, which was giggling. It reminds him of that. It's my favorite. his favorite movies weekend at Rikas. But I didn't know. It's going to be a serious... No comment.

I just wanted to get that out of the way, yeah. All right. All right, guys, don't forget to like and subscribe. If you're listening to us on audio, rate and review at five stars. Check out Andy's book. Check out Andy's Twitter.

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And yet, it's just the best way to support the show because YouTube is not awesome right now. Thank you. Thanks, guys. Yeah, totally. Thanks, all right.