The Team House - Israel Targeting U.S. Lawmakers on Social Media | EYES ON | Ep. 26

Episode Date: June 6, 2024

Support the show here:https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouseToday the guys run down the top stories that caught their eye. First we spoke about the shooting outside of the US Embassy in Lebanon, then the Israeli attempt at targeting U.S. lawmakers on social media to try and tip the balance for military aid. We also touch on Hezbollah's drone attack that killed IDF soldiers.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/1526750554Team House socials https://www.instagram.com/the.team.house/https://twitter.com/theteamhousepod?lang=enBecome 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. To support the channel is to become a Patreon member. So we have Patreon memberships that start at just $5 a month. And 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 it and check us out at patreon.com slash the team house hello everyone welcome to another episode of eyes on i'm andy milburgh i'm jason i'm dmitra contacos well everyone we are we're going to have a fairly fairly succinct rapid fire episode today you'll be glad at least to hear

the first part of that and the reason I say that isn't simply because we're really really busy people and have to rush off. There is that we are very important people but also it's kind of just been a week of a lot of

small stories which in their aggregate add up we think right so T With that lead, and what do you, oh, hey, to preempt what you were about to say, there was an attack on the U.S. Embassy in Beirut this morning. And if this is fake news, I will eat my microphone.

But it's in the Israeli papers and it's on Twitter, unknown assailant, fired shots at the U.S. embassy and was subsequently shot in turn by the Lebanese armed forces and arrested. So obviously wasn't killed, but he's in Kasi right now. That's all we know, as they say. Do you guys know, have you heard anything more on that? I haven't.

No, this is news to me. Yeah, once you told us before. Yeah. We should have rushed to get this out, you know, and because we now we seem to be graduating, right? from like a general discussion on current affairs and now we are breaking news channel rivaling cable news networks.

We should go live. We'll do it. This shows live next time. I think so. Yeah, we've all had some pretty good experience live, right? Yeah, a lot of fun. You're way through college. So, you know, a bunch of stuff.

We talked to last week about Israel, secretly targeting American lawmakers with the Gaza War influence campaign. Not just, I'm sorry, we talked last week, not just about, we talked last week, I'm sorry, about the International Criminal Court, right? Jason wasn't that right there? That was the newsbreaking about former Mossad director. Yeah. Trying to influence.

Yeah, running an influence campaign against the prosecutor. Yep. Yeah. And then, you know, this week secretly targeted American lawmakers with influence. You know, I mean, that doesn't seem like news to me. Of course, Israel is targeting lawmakers. Israel has always had a very strong lobby in the United States. And it's bipartisan in the fact that it seems to have leverage on both sides of the aisle.

So, of course, they're doing that. I don't know why that is hitting the news. And then there's, you know, this latest ceasefire proposal. Look, I've said this before. I think there's one really key component of this right now. And it all comes down to that is that Hamas wants a guaranteed ceasefire for at least six weeks. All right. preferably, you know, end of war, but I believe in the latest opera, it was, you know, guaranteed

ceasefires for six weeks, which is actually quite a long time. And Israelis are saying, no, absolutely, because that is, that is victory for Hamas, you know, once the six-week ceasefire starts, now international pressure for negotiations continue. Hamas is still alive. And for Hamas survival is victory, right? for everything that has happened. So that is the key issue. It's not so much about numbers of hostages released. I think the sad part of this is that, look, of course, I believe hostages,

that hostages are alive in a significant number. And of course, for what it's worth, absolutely, I believe that everything should be done to release them. But I think a sad and cynical part of this is that Hamas will use this, will use the unknown here, the big unknown as a leverage. And the big unknown is how many of them are still alive, right? What is the pool that Hamas can negotiate from? And by the way, you know, I mean, the Israelis are willing to negotiate trade.

Recovering bodies of civilians and soldiers is very important to Israel too. So that doesn't end negotiations, even if a significant number of the hostages are left. A little bit of on the negotiations. You mentioned like six weeks ceasefires are no go for Israel. I mean, there's no way Hamas releases all the hostages without a complete ceasefire, right? Without a complete like at least total pause of this war going on. Why would they? Why would they?

Yeah, I mean, absolutely right. why why would they uh they that's all their leverage gone you know i mean yeah so if if israel's if israel's doing uh wasn't isn't a no go for six weeks and hamas is a no go for you know not releasing hostages unless there is an actual full blown cease far aren't they actually really far apart they yeah i i i mean i believe they are i you know it really comes down to look it really comes down to this it comes down to Netanyahu and it comes down to Yawa Xinjar, head of Hamas. And the reason why I say it comes down to Netanyahu is because, you know, within the

Israeli kind of cabinet, Netanyahu is kind of regarded as a first among equals, right? I mean, not him, Netanyahu, but the title of prime minister, so that everything is presented as a cabinet decision, not a single, you know, person. But on the hostage negotiations, Netanyahu is kind of playing it very close to his chest, his own chest. So, you know, even his own negotiators reportedly don't know what he is willing to, to agree to. And that's, you know, that's the issue right now. Will he agree to this six weeks ceasefire? And if he does, I don't, you know, Hamas has not agreed to release all the hostages. I believe the agreement was for 40 hostages to be released if, you know, for a six-week ceasefire. That's really going to be,

that's the question now. There is the pressure on the, on the US to find a resolution. I mean, there always has been, but it's, it's ratcheted up because while, All of this has been going on. And since the Israeli attack on Rafa almost three weeks ago, aid into Gaza has almost tried out because all of the crossings were closed, both Kerem Shalom and Rafa crossing, which were the two significant crossings for goods. So the situation has got worse, not better.

And then you add to that, this fiasco that occurred when the, you know the u.s effort in all of this um the the floating pier right joint logistics over the shore right if you've joint yeah joint logistics over the shore jlots 320 million dollars worth of equipment just broke apart when the mediterranean uh hit c state three um okay and and actually this it's supposed to be, I'm sorry, I think it's C-State 2 to 3. Okay, it's advertised this stuff to, this P is supposed to remain intact or operable up to, you know, up to including C-State 4. So, you know, that's kind of a debacle. Not only that, but from a force protection standpoint when this thing broke up, an unknown number of U.S. soldiers were left floating

around on these pieces barge and ended up reportedly. being washed up on Gaza Beach. I don't know that to be true, but I've heard it from a number of people. And so number one, you know, these are soldiers now with a combat amphibious landing, which is more than any marine alive has right now, Jason. So we should be worried.

This is an accidental amphibious assault. And they secured Gaza breach. beach, you know, in these little floating pieces of Higgins boat. So I guess $320 million was not absolutely wasted, but being a little cynical, but it broke at all, you know, and that's not the end of the problems. The Egyptians closed the Rapper crossing. You know, the Israelis are closed Khrom Shalom after a mortar attack. The Egyptians closed wrapper after the Israelis occupied the Philadelphia Corridor, which is an area, the strip of land between Gaza and Egypt. And so, you know, as I mentioned, all of these things were the perfect storm.

Seastate 2. It's turned out and just halting the flow of aid into Gaza, which is ratcheting up the pressure, of course, on the U.S. government to find a solution. And all eyes right now are on Netanyahu because the ball is in, you know, the ball is in his court right now to see if, yes, indeed he will agree to a six-week ceasefire. And that's why there have been these massive demonstrations in Tel Aviv against, you know, to stop the war,

these have nothing to do with kind of national concern about the damage inflicted on Gaza. they have everything to do with concern for the hostages and the feeling that Netanyahu is willing to sacrifice them for his own political career. I mean, you got to assume if he does make a deal for the six week ceasefire for 40 hostages, the guys right to Netanyahu are not going to exactly be fucking, you know, skipping for joy. Yeah, exactly. So, you know, we've mentioned before.

I mean, everyone talks about. Moldrich and Ben Gavere, who is two right-wing cabinet ministers. But, you know, Netanyahu has a base in the right wing. That's wider than that. There are other ministers and minor positions. But the point is that he owes survival in the coalition to support from two parties that represent respectively kind of not, I don't want to say ultra-right, wing, but extreme right wing, right wing of Lekud, far to the right of Lekud, let me put it that

way. Okay, those are the kind of the settlers, the Judean Samaria, Samaria are part of the ancient land of Israel, and the Palestinians should not have a state, you know, all the, all those, those views, which, by the way, represent a significant amount of a number of Israelis' views, which have morphed in the last two decades. Anyway, so that's kind of his base, right? So I mentioned the, I'm sorry, ultra-right or right-wing, and then you have the ultra-Orthodox, who, for religious reasons,

which, you know, justify the settlement, West Bank settlements and the fact that there should not be a two-state solution. And so you're right, any, not only, any, yes, any ceasefire, any ceasefire agreement to a ceasefire will outrage the right and Netanyar, probably lose Netanyahu to support. It's hard to predict. You know, he could hang on, but he knows that his future, his days are numbered. And if he, as we mentioned before, if he is thrown out, boated out or or kind of moved this side in a, you know a coalition push um that's wrong to use um then he faces criminal charges for corruption

um so there's a lot it's not just his political career it's his personal career his freedom is at stake that's at least what cynics point out i mean it's all true um whether those are his motivations as for of course i mean it it seems as though it's unlikely to motivations, which when you think about it is outrageous. And that's why the Israelis, you know, a significant portion of Israeli population is pissed off. And then you get this, you know, these demonstrations by families of hostages who, of course, have a huge amount of collective sympathy. In fact, are used repeatedly as the reason for why the invasion of Gaza took place, you know, not just retribution and prevention, but recovery.

And then you see these demonstrations being put down very, very zealously, let me put it that way, some might say brutally by Ben Gavir's police. When I say Ben Gavir's police, I mean the national police, he is, you know, he's the Minister of National Security. And so these scenes of families of hostages, being, you know, carted off and beaten by cops are outraging a number of Israelis who feel that, you know,

they have a legitimate concern. And then you get, you're getting a very disturbing trend, I would say in the security forces, we talked about the IDF and we talked about Shindbad. I'm not, no, I'm not necessarily saying what's happening there is disturbing. arguably what's happening there will save Israel in the sense that an increasing amount of resentment towards Netanyahu. But what is worrying is that on the other side, the police force and reservist battalions are known to be extreme right way. In fact, there are five units that the U.S. has sanctioned or held in suspension for Leahy,

betting reasons. And all of those units are reservist units, and all of them have a reputation for the far-right kind of views and actions. And you think about it, that's a dangerous thing, right? If you have within a military entire battalions recruited, say, from a certain area or from a certain segment of the population who share the same rather extreme views, And then you put them in a position where they have to provide security in an area where, you know, where the Palestinians, which is a Palestinian area, now you have trouble, right?

You've got people who are sworn to kind of evict and either evict or kill these people. And now they're providing security in that area. That's, you know, that is, that's concerning. All of that is going on. So to say the IDF is homogenous in its views towards Netanyahu would be misleading, the generals maybe, but there are certain segments, certainly are the army who that support. But listen to the way I'm talking. You know, I'm talking as though this is not any other, I mean, a third world, I mean, not a third world country,

but, you know, kind of a banana republic looking at a coup. That is what's disturbing to a lot of Israelis too. It's like what happened to what happened to the, you know, the most transparent democracy in the Middle East. I mean, it's, yeah, it's, it's troubling times. And yeah, just to add a little bit more spice to the sauce, New York Times reported that like Netanyahu's supposed to come and address Congress. It was said June 13th, but Netanyahu's camp said there wasn't a. set date for it. But, I mean, let's say it's in two weeks instead of a week. I mean,

he's coming to, you know, he's coming to do like a Zelensky speech. Yeah, so he lost your earphones? No, I just spilled more from my computer. Yeah. So, I mean, that's just going to add a little bit more flame to the fire. Because, you know, for the most part, I don't know how Americans feel. Like, I'm sure there's polls out there about like what's going on in Israel. and Palestine, but you see the demonstrations, you see what's going on. It's not exactly like people are all gung-ho for Israel. I think it's understandably so because they've been a bit, you know,

they've 10x the belligerents of Hamas, in my opinion anyway. Yeah, I mean, it's certainly, it's a tough time, not just for Israel, but also for the United States, well, for the, uh, the administration. I mean, increasingly, the U.S. government is in a bad position. You know, we talked about the fact that that fire in Rafa, right, that it was, you know, was a GBU 39, right? So the United States has been pushing Israel to use the GBU 39. They are relatively small bombs.

I believe it's like something like 30 kilograms of explosive. Anyway, they used specifically to minimize collateral damage. The problem is the Israelis use them in an area just saturated with people, which kind of negates. Yeah. You know, I mean, yes, you can use them. You can shorten the safety parameters on their use. because of the amount of explosive, but they still carry explosive.

You can't just drop them in the middle of people, which appears to be what happened. I know people are quibble with that, but the point is, you know, a piece of shrapnel hits a tank that calls it this. These are all, these aren't just, oh, hey, that shit happens. You guys all know, I know Jason in particular,

if one of us was responsible for this on US operations in place like Kabul or Baghdad, we would be A-5B facing charges, okay, for just poor, fire support planning. And that's where it is. Their standards are very different. You know, the bar is much, much lower. And that is, you know, I'm not commenting on the ethics of that. I'm just saying that is, that's the way it is.

And I challenge anyone to explain that different. And that's why you get events like what happened in Rafa. And it's disingenuous of the Israelis to say, hey, we were just using that bomb you told us to. You know, fuck. I mean, it's like what that's like is shooting, you know, instead of shooting buckshot into a crowd, shooting a 5.56 and then saying, hey, I only killed one person,

you know, instead of a ton of others, but you're still shooting into the crowd. Okay. Yeah. And D also talked you were talking about internal strife in the U.S. as far as Israel goes. I think June 4th, according to Routers, the U.S. House of Reps passed legislation to impose sanctions on the ICC, the International Criminal Court, for because of their decision, the prosecutor's decision to levy charge arrest warrants against Israeli officials. So it probably won't become law. I think the vote was 2.47 and 155 and 42 Democrats join the Republicans on backing it.

But it's just going to widen the schism. So, you know, even if it doesn't become law, just the fact that it was pushed forward is it's big. Yeah. Yeah, I saw that. I mean, more than likely it's not passing the Senate, my guess. Yeah, listen, I'm sure, you know, a lot of those. Congress people get a lot of money from some Israeli lobbies and stuff like that. So, or they have districts that are, you know, heavily Jewish or whatever, you know what I mean?

And so, I mean, that's just American politics, right? It's like mostly, it's mostly like just, it's more mostly style, no substance. Absolutely. Another thing we talked about was up north, what's going on with Lebanon. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, great. That's that's a great point. So on Sunday, a Hezbollah drone crashed in Naharia, which is a coastal city. It's like the largest coastal urban conurbation north of, north of Haifa. And that is the furthest that a Hezbollah drone has penetrated the Israeli air fence. You know, I wrote about this. I think I talked. about it about three weeks ago there was a drone attack on um it was an ambush actually on an Israeli Humvee and uh it resulted in one one dead several wounded but interesting thing about it was

they hit the Humvee with the cornet but then followed up with drones to hit the um kind of the QRF as it came to you know to to relieve them and um It was more than 6.00. I'm sorry. It was just someone not correct me. I think it was like 14 more. And so I wrote, not pretending to be pressing, hey, this is kind of a dangerous precedent. They're using drones now in conjunction with direct fire weapons and indirect fire. That's the other thing they were using mortars too. You know, this rather quite sophisticated combined arms attacks. Well, the one in Naharia, the, you know, obviously Israelis aren't going to release how this drone penetrated airspace, Israeli airspace, but it's not the first time. This is just the deepest penetration. And the fact that, you know,

that it got that far, it's not both well. So let me, you know, let me, let me just say this. So what, I, this is, his bull is treating northern Israel as kind of its, it's, it's battle. lab, right? I mean, it's keeping the fires smoldering. And literally, by the way, because also over the weekend, his Bollah fired a bunch of rockets. In addition to other drones and started fires that have spread to a significant part of northern Israel now, and threatening one of the largest cities in the North Korea, Shemona, which is right on the border. So, So all of this is going on and about 60,000 Israelis cannot live in the north. They cannot return to their homes because of the threat.

So from Israel's perspective, Israel's already at war. And so my point was, yeah, Hezbollah is trying to keep it and smoldering without crossing that red line, which will compel Israel to actually launch a ground invasion. But I think that's almost inevitable now. I just don't see Hezbollah stepping down. And as long as there are 60,000 Israelis who cannot return to the homes, as long as Hezbollah still firing rockets, I think domestic pressures alone would be enough to compel the government to start a war in Lebanon, perhaps.

And this government needs no prompting. Andy, do you think that would be something that would be forced, in conjunction with what's going on in Gaza or would it be on to the next one after? Yeah, great, great question. I mean, I think the IDF is what they'd like to see is this. They'd like to see, first of all, definitely not a military occupation within Gaza. We've spoken about that. They've been very direct about that.

In fact, defense minister Galant and kind of his ultimatum, to Netanyahu last week, just said, hey, this cannot be an occupation force. So the IDF wants to be able to count on those troops, you know, the three brigades or so currently now in Rafa in Gaza. And so the plan would be, hey, we've got to get to the next stage, which is starting, you know, which is providing some alternative security force within Gaza. We pulled the IDF out on the outskirts. They've already formed kind of a Gaza unit, not the Gaza division, but a Gaza CT force to, to conduct intelligence collection and strikes within Gaza.

So that's kind of the idea, I think ideal within the IDS mind. Gaza, we wind it down. We take Rafa, we wind it down, we transition, and then we kick off Lebanon. You know, that's the plan at least. Gotcha. And all while they're smoking IRGC guys in Syria. Yeah, yeah. Sorry, Jason.

What were we going to say? No, no, no. I was just just saying that. I'm sure that that plan that the IDF has is not in and on Hezbollah's play cards, that they would rather probably divide them on two fronts. Yeah. Yeah, it's really, it's really, I mean, this is, you know, I'm just about to say fascinating to watch, which makes me sound very cold-blooded,

but it is because the kind of the balance, I mean, first of all, Nesvrallah is virtuoso. Nazrana. Nazrallah is the head of Hezbollah. But he, as you know, he is virtuoso in pushing, you know, pushing escalating, escalating, then just pulling back before the red line. You know, he messed up by his own. Interestingly, 2006, where Hezbollah kicked off that war after, you know,

the Second Lebanon War after kidnapping to Israeli soldiers. And as Rolla said after that, he made a comment one of the rare times he's admitted a mistake. He said, yeah, I misjudged. He didn't use the term redline, but I misjudged that point. So because that was Second Lebanese War did wonders for his ball out from a Strachon perspective. And arguably, it was a catalyst for its currently its rearmament at the hand. said to the Iranians, which is brought it up to this very high capability. But in the immediate aftermath, it seemed like a disaster of Hezbollah, too, because of what had

happened to Lebanon. So my point is, yeah, I think, I think Hezbollah is going to, or Nessala's either getting direction to or on his own volition, it's going to all want to avoid out and out of war until the time is right. The question is, what does that mean? Yeah. sorry d you were talking about Syria

no no no yeah I mean the other piece of news was the Israelis hit another IRGC official in Syria yeah so this guy

I don't know much about him and I haven't done you know research but Saeed Abiyah just reported as an Iranian advisor he was killed in Aleppo on Sunday

clearly he is important enough for the Israelis to hit him and he was important enough for the the irgc chief to Iranian revolutionary guards chief uh hussein salami yes that is his name um to actually you know to to talk about retribution just for his death warning you know he warned today uh yeah it's today that that israel would pay a price for for this guy's death. He was an Iranian military advisor, so I'm guessing, you know, he was probably the rank of general, but I hadn't heard of him.

Not that that means anything. He's dead now, and the point is that the, you know, this war continues in both the eyes of the Israelis and the Iranians. The question for us, of course, is how much we are going to be involved, too. We is in the United States. Yes, I'm sorry. I know we have an international audience,

we also as in the UK and Greece. Was there anything else? I'm trying to remember what we, with a rundown was. And for the audience, like, you know, we will shift from Middle East stuff

once it's not as spicy because it's, it's like every day is a new thing going on there. I'd love to hit on Ukraine and what's going on there. Like do a deep dive in, uh, show about that.

Maybe bring on a, another expert besides Andy. I'm not an expert. Yeah, I absolutely will bring on someone with, you know, with really current, current views. Yeah. I'll have anything.

A good pivot there. And in the espionage world, it's not as, you know, espionage is not as sexy now that the Cold War is over. And, you know, we're not, we're not in a world. war type situation yet or according to some people but it still happens so uh germany is feeling the pinch uh they had a gentleman a captain in the procurement uh side of the german army he was just

sentenced to let's see three and a half years in prison for spying for russia um now it's kind of a little bit misleading this guy he decided that he wanted to pass information to over to Russia. So he approached the Russian embassy in Berlin and also in Bern. I believe he went to a Russian facility and offered his services. There's no details on the counterintelligence side of the operation, how they caught the guy or, you know, the details of that. But apparently he was shared photographs of munitions.

training systems as well as aircraft technology. And he, so his quote when he was, uh, in front of the court, a guy's 54 years old. He said it's the biggest mess I've ever made in my life. Well, no shit. Understatement of the year. Um, so, oh, he went to the consulate and bond, unprompted. Was he, uh, did he have Russian, was he a dual national or anything? No, no.

It says that. So his defense was that he claimed, chronic overwork paired his ability to think critically about his actions. He had been influenced by a stream of pro-Russian propaganda and disinformation that it'd be consuming on TikTok, damn TikTok and Telegram at the time. And he was also had just joined the far-right alternative for Germany, AFD party. I'm not savvy on what they're all about. It just says far-right, which could mean anything.

and came during a four, he said that his decision was made during a four-day period of high stress, whatever that means. Let's see, it says that he- You know, that's a really, so there's a number of really kind of worrying things about that. Remember last time, or two episodes ago, we talked about a Russian active measures campaign that supposedly was ordered by Putin about 18 months ago.

And then we talked about kind of indications that it was kicking off in Europe with attempted sabotage of the German factory, recruiting of German-Russian dual nationals to attack U.S. targets in Germany and now recruiting of German military personnel, which is really worrying. And by the way, if we have German listeners, I'd welcome to hear that point of view. But there is always been a little bit of a disturbing relationship between the Bundeswehr and the historic Vermat. Okay.

And, you know, or the, you know, the German Special Operations Unit's case gain and their predecessors are not just in the Vermont in the SS. you know, so you can put that down to, hey, that's just normal units enjoying their, you know, their legacy. But there's a lot of, you know, a lot of, and this has been, this has been observed by Western officers from since the 80s. Significant Port of German officers seem very nostalgic about those times. And so potentially, you know, there's kind of a recruiting base. there for for for for Russians right the you know a lot of Germans as you mentioned the party the AFD I forget it sounds like one of those one of those bug sprays but yeah it's been it's been growing in in strength because of you know kind of ubiquitous concern

resentment about Germany's position as home for immigrants you know you you know, Europe's home for immigrants, at least Western Europe's, Germany's position as funder of the European Union, the feeling simply that Germany is contributing more to the world than Germany is getting. That is, you know, kind of the root, the root philosophy of a German, you know, far right party. They're not talking, they deliberately trying to,

they do talk about immigration, but they're walking a very fine line they know because of Germany is very strict. It's particularly strict anti-defamation. I mean, I hate speech. But yeah, that's interesting. I'd say watch that space. Absolutely. So, Dee, that's about it, I think, for today.

Yep, I think that's it. Yeah. Just to add to the bit of, like, Poland arrested a few guys to four guys about a week ago, or about two weeks ago now. for doing the same thing. I mean, basically taking pictures of crossings between the Polish and Ukraine border,

like what's going over there, like military equipment and stuff like that. And I guess sharing that with the baddies. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, when you think about it, this is a right time. I mean, as the war in Ukraine,

well, it devolves into its stalem. and there's war fatigue even in Western Europe, it's absolutely a perfect time for the Russians to do one of the things that they do very well, which is, you know, when I say active measures, I don't just mean disinformation, I mean a kind of a campaign of what we call a gray zone campaign, non-attributable below the level of armed conflict.

Speaking of which, you know, there are accusations, the Russians think that we're already doing that in Ukraine. You know, I mean, so they already believe that they're out war with NATO and of course, you know, by implication, I mean, of course, the United States. And that all these things to include attacks on German, on U.S. bases and German soil, are perfectly justified. I just was on, did an interview with, I don't know, it was an Al Jazeera, but it's a dreadful.

Oh, out of beer, okay, it's a Middle Eastern network, arguing against a, you know, a Russian think tank, military think tank, dude. You know, so obviously a government stooge, masquerading as an intellectual. But, you know, I mean, his point was this. he really, really clearly believed that NATO, that the strikes against Russian forces were being planned and executed by Americans, by NATO. And, you know, that the Israelis, I mean, not the Israelis, the Ukrainians just simply weren't capable of doing this stuff. And so it was NATO. I mean, he says this on television.

This is Dr. Blah, blah, blah, blah, representing. You know, so clearly that is the party line. It's remarkable. And then you get a guy like this who believes it. And there's probably, look, I mean, yes, certainly Ukraine's proxy war. Jack has written about, you know, Jack's written about agency operations, right? today in the French press the headline is

the CIA and the war in Ukraine not not a headline it's a it's like an opinion article that CIA and the war in Ukraine knowing knowing when you've gone too far really knowing when you've really gone too far

question not so I haven't been talking about that for like his own French fucking you know aren't they sending advisors Don't get all heated. Don't get all heated. I know, but I'm saying, like, what kind of dumb opinion is that? Are you telling us we can't have an objective conversation about, say, the Greek intelligence, sirs?

I mean, that's the best intelligence service in the world. This is known. It is. By far and away. The goat F us. Your street general that you always see. All right. Now we've devolved.

Yeah, yeah. Now we're inside, inside our signal chat and the shit we send each other. All right, everyone. Super, I was going to say, super singing, super engaging with you again. Please keep the great comments coming in, even the insults, really help improve our morale day to day. So just keep them coming. Thank you. Of course, don't forget to like and subscribe.

Check out Andy's book, Andy's Substack, Andy's Twitter, Andy's LinkedIn. All the links will be in the description. Patreon.com. team house steak knives where yeah they're coming soon um and we had a very spicy episode on the team house the other day with a former navy seal that called out of a lot of other former navy seals and it's getting a lot of really yeah that's unusual yeah is it yeah for publicity who knew thank you guys thanks right bye everyone