The Team House - Julian Assange (WikiLeaks) Makes Deal and Goes Free | EYES ON | Ep. 30

Episode Date: June 25, 2024

Support the show here:https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouseToday the guys talk about the new that Julian Assange Struck a deal with the U.S. Justice Dept. for time served and will go free, we also talk about Israeli shaping operations for their eventual fight with Hezbollah and what the potential fallout of an invasion of Lebanon would be.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#assange #wikileaks Become 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 Aizan. I'm Andy Mulder. I'm Jason Lyons.

I'm DeMache Contacos. And so today, I'm going to kick off with an interesting story with a personal connection here. Jason, what's up with your old friend, Julian Assange? Things are moving at last. they see. I know you guys go way back. So. And bear in mind that a number of us are dummies, but try and break it down for us. And we can talk about Mr. Julian after that. Absolutely. So, yeah, Julie sent me a, that's what we call him on the circuit.

Julie sent me. Which coincidentally is his wife's name, too. That was very confusing. We, so apparently he is currently in the northern Marianas Islands. which might be a surprise to some because the last everyone knew he was in a British person. Well, first in the Ecuadorian. Yeah, tell us what happened there. Yeah, so going back really quick, his actual true name is Julian Hawkins. I don't know where the Assange came from.

But everyone, most people know him as being the founder of WikiLeaks in 2006, became infamous for leaking footage a la Chelsea Manning to a. US airstrikes, military logs from Afghanistan, Iraq, and U.S. diplomatic cables, which really was a no-no. So back in 2010, as he was starting, WikiLeaks was starting to, you know, the name was starting to get out there because of Chelsea Manning. He was November 2010, Sweden charged him or issued an arrest warrant against the signs for sexual assault allegations.

And that was that so it, it was brought by Sweden because it was a Swedish national or because I believe it was a Swedish national or it could. Yeah. Yep. So. And what does this as such does he claim this is trumped up? Because I'm wondering, you know, I mean, his wife doesn't seem to have a problem with it. Yeah. He's always maintained its innocence on that. And to be honest with you, I don't even know whatever came of it. I think the WikiLeaks, um, uh, and it's, Charges overtook all that, which is sad, but I would have to look into what, oh, I'm sorry, it looks like they dropped the investigation in 2019, Swedish. Oh, right. Okay.

Yeah. So, but in between that, he took off and sought refuge in the embassy of Ecuador in London in June of 2012. he claimed political persecution because he thought he would be extradited to the United States, which he would have been. He actually, even a little side note, during that time, he stood up the WikiLeaks party in the Australian Senate, but failed to win one seat. No surprise there. So during this time in the Ecuadorian embassy, he made him. himself a bad guest. He, you know, there's pictures of his cat wearing a bow tie in the window, all kinds of stuff.

He made all kinds of demands that the Ecuadorian officials, you know, couldn't or didn't want to didn't want to go through with. And he was embarrassing them, right? Yeah, he was embarrassing. Appearances at the window. Yep. So eventually in 2019, the Ecuadorian officials invited the police. invited the police in, the UK police in. They went in, they arrested him on

guilt or a charge of breaching the bail act and he was sentenced to 50 weeks in prison. At the same time, the U.S. government unsealed a indictment charging him with conspiracy to commit computer intrusion related to the manning leaks. Oh, so that was the single felony charge. Yep, that was it. Because they all reduced it to a single felony charge and that is it. Can you read that again, Jason? He had. He had. He had. Had two more in May of 2019 and June of 2020, they unsealed new indictments against him, charging him with violating the espionage act of 1917 and also conspiring with hackers. He was incarcerated in the H.M. I assume that stands for His Majesty. His Majesty's Prison,

Belmarsh in London. And then during this time, U.S. extradition efforts were ongoing. And but as of yesterday, two days ago, the, he reached a plea agreement with the U.S. prosecutors pleading guilty to a charge under the U.S. Espionage Act, conspiring to obtain and disclose classified U.S. and national defense documents. So, and this was a plea deal was in order to avoid potential imprisonment in U.S. So he was flown to the North Mariana Islands. He'll appear in court Wednesday. 9 a.m. local time

Wednesday he'll plead guilty and then he'll be set free. He can do whatever he wants. So the Marianas, you know, it just occurred to me. It was really it was really to keep the media away.

You know, the announcement of the plea deal and then he's already there and it just didn't give people the media enough time to get out there. And no major paper is going to have a stringer out there in the Marianas. Yeah. So it was a pretty strong way.

This broke last night and he jumped on a plane literally last night. So it was well, it was well orchestrated. Yep. And I'm just reading something now that says after, after this is all over, he'll be taking to Bangkok. Yeah. Oh. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Just the place you want to send an alleged rapist, right? Yeah, exactly. So the whole thing with the Ecuadorian embassy, too, you know, I mean, it just wreaks to this whole thing, wreaks of immaturity. And I think, you know, my feeling is we, we U.S. government have given him center stage, which is all he wanted.

When you think about, and this is open for discussion and argument, obviously, but, you know, the damage to national security, I don't know, damage to national security of what is Sange lead to primarily diplomatic documents, embarrassing diplomatic documents, to include the revelation that the U.S. had bugged. Chancellor of Germany, right? Yeah, headless... You know, and a number of other things. And then some serious stuff about also... I mean, it's all serious, but about war crimes in Iraq, which actually were investigated, you know?

So my point is, yeah, it's embarrassing, but there was nothing here that I felt brought the edifice coming, shattering down. Everyone, you know why no one got really pissed off or broke off diplomatic relations because of stuff released in Wikilead. because everyone knows that happens. That is global geopolitics.

You do shit that you don't want other countries, even your best allies to know about, because everyone operates in their own national interest, but they do things that are embarrassing, and they don't want others to know about it. So what? Assange released one cache of these things, which already outdated, which just shows kind of a very naive view of the world,

if he thinks that, I mean, that's the world, that's how the world, that's how major powers total along without coming to blows is lying to each other. You know, I mean, it's come along. You know, and I felt that we just made too much of him. You know, I agree. Said, hey, let's just charge him with rape. We don't get, you know, the rest of that stuff.

Yeah, it's embarrassing, but it's just not worth our time. The U.S. would have looked really big on this. And Assange, he's now just the rapist. I mean, you know, or alleged rapist, like the guy that I just won a lawsuit against. Yeah, absolutely. I agree. Michael Ryan Burke. Michael. Shout out.

Ryan Burke. Now we're speaking of a rapist. Yeah, I agree. He was, as the saying goes that I cannot stand. He was a big nothing burger as far as I'm concerned. He didn't reveal anything earth shattering, anything that was futuristic as in like future plans. He just released stuff that was already pretty much known. And again, like you said, every country.

country does it. I'm not saying that it's right, quote unquote, but it is right. It's what everyone does. And so he's not, it was more of a power trip than anything as far as I'm. I think it will like spun him back into like the pot, like to the news was

WikiLeaks and like the whole DNC email stuff. Like I think that's what kind of like gave it a little amplification. Yeah. Yeah, that that is true. And that's when of course, Trump jumped on board at the time and said positive things about WikiLeaks,

which kind of, so, yeah. I mean, but at the same time, at the same time, like the one Trump, like the Trump administration was kicking around ideas and how to clip Assange, like as he's being transferred from the embassy to, like kill him. Kill him. Sorry, that's like bridge and tunnel speak for kill. tunnel

Are you kidding me? Yeah, yeah it's in the guard It's in everywhere, yeah It's just 2021 Well, there you go You know, I mean If you read

CIA guys too By the way If you read Yeah I mean in fact Jason would have been a good choice For this Because

previous relationship Nobody would see A black audience Yeah You could have blended in Actually you'd be surprised You know Sweden is no longer

are um, it's very diverse. Yeah. Absolutely. Um, okay. Anything else on this? He just seems like a really unpleasant person. You know,

he seems like, um, not, not, and, and we gave him too much attention. We've given them too much attention. I mean,

he's a megalomaniac. You know, you know, he's going to have a podcast in like a few months. He's going to go on the circuit. He's going to be on every fucking show. Yeah, team house.

I mean, we'd have him on. I'd have him on for sure. Just because of the, Just because of the numbers. Yeah? Yeah. Do you think, yeah.

I would have a, I would have a former Al-Qaeda guy on. On the team house, right? Yeah. Yeah. Not necessarily on eyes on. I mean, I'm open to hear. I mean, we've got slightly higher standards. Than a team has?

You're not wrong about it. No, no, no, no. You're hearing the eyes on. Yeah, yeah, compared to the regular team house. I don't know. I mean, I think it'd be interesting to hear another perspective. Maybe like a former Al-Qaeda guy or. I agree.

No, 100%. I think, of course, Jason and I might have some problems clearance-wise. Are you tracking that? Someone talked, interviewed a terrorist who had a clearance. I mean, he had a clearance. He was a journalist. He interviewed a terrorist. And now it's catching up on him.

Really? Yeah. So I'm very. All right. So we're leaving for the 10. No, no, no. I mean, we can negotiate around this. Maybe you'll be the cutout, the front man.

and Jason and I will be in the next room. No, so I'm thinking, Hey, ask him about USS Cole. Yes, yeah. No, so we would do it with the team house proper.

Hmm? We would do it on the team house proper. No, I mean, seriously, I think that's a great idea because that's a lot, right? Has anyone ever done it?

They had one guy on some YouTube show that was a former Al Qaeda guy, but he was an al Qaeda guy before 9-11. He's a bomb maker. Yeah. Yeah. And he was, I think he ended up being an MI6 agent for a while.

That's cheating. He got out. Yeah, no double agents. We don't want tone coats. Yeah. Although the guy who wrote, there's a really good book called Son of Hamas. It was written about 10 years ago by a guy who was in Hamas turned by the Israelis, I believe became a double agent. I would love to talk to that guy of the team house.

Yeah. Let me look at up. If you guys, you can look at it. If you guys, you can look it up on Amazon. It was a popular book. It was required reading at Marsok. I think it was on a battalion reading list. And I picked it up and read it and was really good.

If you want to learn about what it's like growing up in Gaza, recruiting into Hamas, training, all of that stuff, kind of the culture, the mentality, and the whole that they have, read that book. And it's really interesting. And he talks about his interrogation under the Israeli. And he doesn't have an axe to grind, you know, because he's not a, hey, you know, he's not campaigning for a two-state solution or anything. He is like, hey, his, you know, his, his, his what took place kind of thing. I mean, it is an indictment of Hamas, obviously.

But, but it's, it gives some really good. Of course, not that that's a bad thing. Oh, my God, I'm going to get able to find that. No, absolutely. I mean, people have to assume it's not it's going to be an indictment of Hamas. He's a double agent, right? Yeah, exactly. kind of acts the grind to work for the Israelis.

But you know what? You know what would be interesting to read is someone who was not a turncoat, you know, who presented their arguments. It's like here's why, you know, here's why. Here's how I can justify this. That would be really interesting. Because you don't know what you're getting from a turncoat, right? I've always wanted to talk to like John Walker Lind.

That guy, remember the American Alabama? Yeah. He's writing he's writing op-eds for like, I think the intercept. Is he really? Is he? Oh, for the intercept, my favorite paper. I know. I figured that would trigger you, Andy.

Yeah. Oh, you're just for shitting. No, I swear to God. Okay. Yeah, he's writing, he wrote op-eds for the intercept. Yeah. So that's super cool. I mean, he should write op-eds.

But the intercept is particularly, particularly good for a trader to write for. If you still regard him as a trader. I don't care, frankly. Traders don't bother me. unless they're selling secrets and then they really fucking bother me. But, you know, knuckleheads like that who really just didn't even get to basic training, I don't, you know, I don't, I can't muster up anger because someone like that makes decisions based on a very immature mind.

And every day across this country, millions of kids are making very bad decisions, you know, sometimes resulting in loss of life. So, you know, we put him on a different pedestal because he turned into a traitor. But in actual fact, he was less of a dramatic figure than your average criminal, you know, for what he actually did. All he did was buy a ticket to Afghanistan and, you know, and turn up the recruit training camp, recruit training camp. But before 9-11, I'm like that, right?

Yeah. Yeah. And he was rolled up, like, relatively fast into Afghanistan. Very quick thing. Yeah. Yeah. I think, yeah, I can't remember what I think. It was a Mazal Sharif.

Yeah. Yeah. And Span. Passed on. His fan was a. Mark Murphy. Yeah. And there was a bunch of SPS guys.

Anyway, yeah, that was. There was one Green Beret, Justin Sapp, who we've had on the team house multiple times. Oh, yeah, yeah. Toby Hardin wrote a good book about it called The First Casualty. So many books. That's a good book. I love that. You know, because we keep looking back to that because it was.

a successful campaign. It's a successful, the regular warfare campaign. But we can't overdo it. You know, we keep going on and on and on about horse soldiers, blah, blah, blah. It was one event where it went marginally well, not completely, you know, and that was good. And we should have learned from those lessons, but we didn't, all right? We subsequently went in with a heavy touch everywhere we went. But where we've done well, I know this is a separate topic.

Afghanistan, early days, planned Colombia. El Salvador. We had a light touch, you know, small groups of SF or highly selected conventional forces, guys in the roles of advisors, trainers. And we do very well. It's when we saturate the battlefield with crunchies, with conventional soldiers,

that we start to come across. And, you know, there's a natural, there's a natural drift on that too, right? I mean, of course, more like Chris. let me ask you Andy when like Afghanistan was happening right in that first year when it was like primarily soft in CIA and and uh you know the the local forces uh was like big army spinning up like hey we want to get in our big military we want to get in on this we want to get really like you know sing our teeth yeah is there like a lobbying thing that happens there yeah oh my god

oh my god it's sickening yeah it's um you know everyone everyone everyone everyone wants to turn in the barrel, everyone, because it's, you know, probably the fairest way to describe it is, of course, because we all devote our careers and lives to preparing for conflict, that when our nation is involved in conflict, it's natural that we should want to be involved. Okay, that's kind of a natural and selfish explanation. But it's also true for many, and they're very aware that unless they have combat zone fitness reports, they're not going to be highly competitive for the next level, which is, you know, the B-1 and all of that motivation. There is that type of officer, right, a soldier, of career and Sierra. And, and, but, but the

battling, you know, at, you know, at GEO level is going to tie, or, or rather, not GO level, Colonel, Lieutenant Colonel, but also GEO level represent one in. GEO is general officer? General officer. You know, and I, I mean, I, I've suffered through this, the decision to send a Marine Special Operations Task Force to Iraq instead of an Army one was a very emotional, not for me, but it was very emotional decision for certainly Army S-Ed guys and it wasn't their decision and they opposed it. Thank you, General Cleveland, right until the end. You know, but my, I mean, that's that's my point is that everyone wants to show that they

had skin in their game. when I did go to Iraq in the headquarters above me were a thousand personnel very top heavy and ranked to include no less than a dozen general officers over a task force over a task force at 500 people

all right what do they what do they never have so many so few people being led by so many exactly they fucking held up con ops that's what they did because our con ops had to go from cubicle to cubism was going to say he had to say he had to go and every one of them every one of them had to put their

imprint on it right because that is their staff officer this is very risky because i happen to know this tribe and i was here back in you know we met i'll never forget you know the commanding general hundred first airborne who kept her saying i've been here six times and um you know one of my guys muttered untris breath you and you learn nothing each time um but i did hear someone asking a civilian And did you ever know in Iraqi any of those six times? Somebody said that to him? Yeah. I'll tell you exactly when it happened, okay?

All right. This is, I know it's the side story, but it's a funny one. Okay, so, and this has all kinds of, I think all kinds of, it's a parable, right? But it happened, sadly. So there was a, 2016, it was kind of supposed to be the breakout campaign. It's supposed to be the Operation Cobra to, get up the middle of Euphrates Valley and start to invest in Mosul. And I get the name of the operation, the Valley, something.

It doesn't matter. But anyway, so the big centerpiece of this was the Iraqi generals, to include their chart, who, by the way, I was an advisor to in the Battle of Fallujah. Anyway, it doesn't matter. He's now headed the Iraqi Special Forces. No kidding. Here's the chart.

back then he was a major Ahmed Abdul and I won't mention this last name anyway so there's this big rehearsal and they've got Iraqi media in there filming some of it

not the actual plan right and then you know how the army loves these massive terrain models they've had you know a battalion of soldiers making this terrain model because that's all their soldiers did they weren't allowed of base. So they guarded gates and they, you know, they did things like, uh, look,

you know, secure porter shitters and make terrain models for that seven months. And they got to wear that patch on the right shoulder. But anyway, so these, uh, there's this great terrain model of, you know, showing the objectives and all that. Bottom line is the Americans get up and they talk through the plan. Think about this. The Iraqis are executing this plan. But it is officers from 101 who are telling them what they're going to do, right? So far, okay, except not really good to have Americans deliver an order to Iraqis in front of their own generals in the sovereign country, right? You know, much better to have their guys issued the order, you know, an American's success. Mistake number one. Anyway, it is, there's a, there's a river crossing. That's why the Americans have

to brief it, because only American, only the American army can ever cross a river, right? And it is just a fucking massive show as usual. You know, the Sosa smoke barrage begins at you know, zero minus 10, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then we're going to have this and that. And it goes on for about 30 minutes. And nowhere and the translators,

it goes on longer than that because the translator is having to translate. And at the end, the general, I'm trying so hard not to say his name. The general, 1001st Airborne, complete silence, turns, turns, to the major general who is going to command the operation. Remember, the head of the charter is in the room. And he says, so, what are your thoughts?

And the major general goes, swear to God, this is true. We're going to die! Jesus. Exactly those words. Except those, we're all going to die. And he's on his feet, and he's just almost in tears. and the look of nonplussed shock among the Americans around that terrain model. And, you know, those of us who, you know, and this sounds like arrogant, it's not tended to be,

but those of us who with some soft background or advisor background are just thinking, what did you think that's going to happen, dudes? You know, you set this up. It was a patronizing show. And you aren't going to be the ones out there in the breach, you know? I mean, it's, what do you mean you were fucking briefing it? Anyway, it doesn't matter. It was all glossed over.

The slides had the 101st airborne stamp. It was declared a great success. Not everyone did die. Very few people died, although the Iraqi Air Force did their best to make sure that more Iraqi soldiers did die by bombing us less than three times. But enough of that. I digress. All right. Hey, Dee, we can make this.

Yeah, we can make it a short one, right? No, so we got more going on right now. Oh, no. Cut that. While you were talking, sorry, this came in, and I don't know if you knew about this already, but apparently Israel's Supreme Court ruled that ultra-orthodox Jewish men must be drafted into the military. It says a lead that blow to Prime Minister Netanyahu that could lead to the class of his increasingly fragile governing coalition. So I didn't know this.

They were exempt. 13% of the Israeli society, they were exempt because they study full-time or religious seminaries. I guess that's going to go to the way. That's definitely going to cause some problems for the right flank. No? For Netanyahu? No, this is a longstanding game.

Okay, so the Supreme Court, yeah, I'll tell you what's just happened or, you know, I mean, with my perception of that and then just go back to explain the issue. But, you know, Netanyahu has to give in to this, but his backers on the right don't agree with it. And, of course, his ultra-Orthodox backers do not agree with it. But he knows it's going to take time. So, you know, he passes something.

He knows it's going to get challenged. That doesn't bother him too much because it isn't the end state he cares about, as always. It is the process. It is survival. It is support. So as long as he can be seen to be bringing to make, to be to be making sure that the draft in Israel applies to all, which is the real issue here for many, right? It's not that they're anti-religious. It's, hey, we're going to fight.

You know, we don't have enough, big enough population to afford to tell these tens of thousands of people you don't have to join up. right that's kind of the argument um and there's also the subscript of and by the way you guys are causing all the fucking problems you know yeah that's not my subscript yeah yeah but it is a subscript among some israelis right hey you guys are the ones beating up arabs burning down villages you know killing people on the west bank um and we're the ones who have to deal with it and you don't have to put it on a uniform pick up a weapon and do it there's there's an argument people will object to me and say i'm mixing up the ultra right with the ultra-author Orthodox, but naturally there's a shaded area in the bend diagram.

Anyway, bottom line is this. It's been a festering saw for some time. Netanyahu promised that he would do this, and now he wants to be seen to do it, but he knows it's going to take a long time. And he is probably telling his friends on the right, hey, relax, this is going to take, fuck, this is going to take years, which it will. Because even if the Supreme, you know, just implementation of everything that needs to happen is going to take a long time.

And for a while, it's going to involve more effort, more manpower than it produces. Okay, because these students have to be inducted in a certain way, Yashiba. And to take a step back, why is there such a large heredity population in Israel and what is their function? Well, the heredis are, they are meant to encapsulate the Eastern European Jewish population in the pre-war years, you know, or the early part of the 20th century, and the population that was almost entirely annihilated in the war, you know, specifically when I see Eastern Europe, mainly Poland. And the heredies there were very, very strong.

And it was, I mean, not strong, but there were a lot of them. Of course, they were annihilated, perhaps, you know, disproportionately, who knows, because they were, they are pacifists, They didn't resist. They, you know, men didn't even try to escape. And they were hurted to the gas chambers and killed, almost exterminated. So in the aftermath of the war, as Ben Gurian is the, you know, the first Israeli Prime Minister, you know, one of his projects was to preserve the heredite culture,

right in Israel and so he you know they they they they gave them priority on on the ships coming over to Israel they set up communities for them they set up you know the she they allowed them to set up the yeshiva system you she the system really and and those who you know forgive me as a goal I'm trying to explain this but so the Jewish religion to prosper and continue especially in the diaspora you need a cadre of people who are who are constantly, you know, propagating, not propagating is wrong word, but studying, you know, the religious rules, applying them to modern society, able to answer questions from adherence, you know, hey, can I ride on an elevator on Shabbat? All these things that are really is

answer, right? And these are important questions to many Israelis. So they feel, they do fulfill a function. I mean, but the problem is, not the problem. They breed, okay? they breed and they breed and they have a lot of kids. So now you get this kind of large flock of Herodes and there are those among the Israelis who refer to them as penguins. So that's not a bad analogy. And of course, you know, they just keep procreating, procreating. And the question becomes, okay, now there are a significant percentage

of the Israeli population. can we afford still to give them the exemptions? Do they even need to be protected in the way that they were in the immediate post-war years? So all of this is kind of context behind what is going on. Some already very few support this, most oppose it, but they're not vehemently in opposed opposition. Difficult to have demonstrations against the draft when your country is out war. war, right? So, you know, again, that's another good time to do this, right, when the country is at war rather than in times of peace.

Awesome. Sorry, Dee. No, that was great. Yeah, I didn't mean to interrupt. I did. It just popped up on my phone. Yeah, so, you know, I mean, Netanyahu has promised to ensure that you integrate, but there's all kinds of things that have to be taken care of because they have special diets.

They can't do certain things. They have to have, you know. I'm talking about them as though they're a strange species of animal. I don't need to do that. I'm just saying that just in just the way, you know, can even more trouble when we integrated females into the infantry, women into the infantry. You know, you had to think about all of these things, right?

That's no longer dudes only. Well, in this case, yeah, the heredi soldier. You know, the question is, do you make them just live like an Israeli soldier? you know, for instance, in an Arab army, it doesn't matter. I mean, they won't get group exemption for certain things when they're in the army. Will that apply to the heredities? You know, hey, suck it up. You're going to use electric stuff.

And it doesn't matter if it's Shabbat. You're going to have to, you're going to have to bayonet people on Shabbat. And that involves work. Who knows? It's going to be interesting. Yeah. And how much, and will it cause tension? Probably not.

one thing Israel does have, despite its huge rifts, is 7 October internal risks, 7 October did, did ultimately have a unifying effect and peeped over some of these cracks within Israeli society. But they're starting to become apparent now as war, you know, the longest war Israel's ever been in enters its 10th month. 10th or 9th? Yeah. Anyway, long way in, right? Yeah, and it sounds like it's probably going to, continue to, it's going to get longer because they're, you know, working on Asbalah in the north. Yeah. And that's, you know, we talked about this a little bit.

Whether so many, so many variables here, it's really, it's going to be interesting to watch. And I don't mean to talk about this as though it's a football game, but it's way more interesting in a football game. You know, you've got Nasrallah, who just gave his speech the other day that I heard was really powerful. I mean, I had parts of it read to me. He's a good speaker. And he's a smart guy. No, I'm not eulogizing Nazrallah, but you've got to recognize your adversary. The Israelis have great to respect them.

And there's a line in there where he talks about what is coming for Israel. And Nasrallah always talks this way. But the problem is when he says something, he usually follows straight. And, you know, it's not, it sounds like empty bombing. vast, but often it is not. And so when he talks about drones, he's like, yeah, you're worried about the missiles, we've got plenty of those, but the drones are the thing, what's going to hurt you? And we had so many, I just don't know what to do with them. And as I, you know, we talked about a little bit, whatever reason or however, Hizbollah is using many of the same tactics that

Ukrainian drone operators are using to include the use of offline drones, offline, you know, tactics, so that you don't have to be jammed. And there's various ways to make a drone go offline. You know, you can familiarize it essentially with the train or with the map, and then it runs off, you know, it runs off its own memory. It's no, there's no external link. I'm not explaining this in the correct technical terms. But, and Hezbollah can do this.

Hezbollah, by the Israelis admission, I've spoken ahead of the Israeli drone command, he said, his baller is way ahead of them. As far as sophistication of their, not so much sophistication of their drones, but of their tactics, which is a very interesting comment. Very interesting. I wonder where they're getting their training from. Yeah, that is, yeah, certainly is lurking in the wings. And the point is that the decision may not be solely in Israeli hands.

You know, the discussions right now center around the fact that 70,000 Israelis had been evacuated from northern Israel. And the question of, well, look, that's already a violation of our sovereignty, which means that we are at war. And unless they can return to the homes, we still are at war and we need to take measures that will allow them to do so. So the only thing that will prevent a war in the north is if Nasrallah agrees just to stop the rocket attacks, he said he would when the fighting in Gaza ended. When there was a ceasefire, well, the fighting is ending in Gaza, it's dying down. but I don't think it's going to be observed by Nasrallah as the Israelis observing his demand, right? So that's number one. It's pretty not going to happen.

Number two is some kind of international agreement. I mean, you guys can judge how likely that is. Yeah. A third is the Israelis actually go in and invade. And the invasion could be a limited push up to the Latani River. We always use that term the Latani River. The Latani River is a useful demarcation because north of the Latani River, you're getting, and if you're north of the Latani River and you want to hit Israel with rockets and missiles,

you're using more sophisticated types, more sophisticated models, right, of which Hezbollah has a lower inventory. But the problem is that the Hezbollah and southern Lebanon live there. So it doesn't make sense to push them back north of Lebanon. But, you know, I mean, they live there with their wise families, kids, so it's really difficult to talk about moving the militia backwards. The militia, in a sense, is embedded, is embedded in the population. So anyway, so that would be first case scenario, an invasion up to Latani River. Another scenario, second, would be almost a complete invasion of Lebanon, all right? to include an amphibious assault in the north, perhaps facility of Tripoli,

Tripoli in Lebanon, obviously, and approaching Beirut from north and south simultaneously. Three years ago, no, two years ago, the Israeli 9th division did an exercise in Cyprus, or an amphibious assault to simulate a landing in northern Lebanon. So it's in their plans. It's in their contingency plans for Lebanon. And, you know, they've got, to use our terms, they've got, they've got kind of a series of FDOs from what they're doing now, which are targeted strikes. You know, I mean, they've got all these targets pre-planned.

And so when rockets start coming in, you'll notice that aircraft are already almost in the air and they're striking. But the problem is they're not hitting the point of origin. they're hitting known targets, previous known targets. There's no telling whether there's anything even there. It makes everyone feel good. But as well as not, you know, they're not done. They're moving all the time. I mean, Hamas is being effective in using launch sites and scarpering right afterwards.

So in the hospital, is way more sophisticated of mass. So sadly, I think that war in the north sooner or later is going to be unavoidable. well, it's occurring, it depends what you call war. You know what I mean? There is a free exchange of fire almost daily, well, daily across the border. And there are casualties on both sides. That to me seems like a war already. What happens if Hezbollah, like, let's go, let's rip their like, you know,

a million arsenal of rockets and drones and all that stuff. And the Iron Dome is, you know, oversaturated. Overwound, yeah. Um, yeah, that's, I mean. That's a legitimate. Right. Yeah, that's the biggest fear. And no one can answer that question. Well, let me put it this way. Anyone who claims that Iron Dome, Arrow and David Sling between them are enough to block such an attack really, really hasn't done, hasn't looked at the problem. it is a yeah i mean of course the u.s the u.s would pick up the delta between the inevitable delta between

what the Israelis can handle and what is launched at them because there is going to be a big difference we saw that when iran launched all those drones and missiles everyone was like yeah that was just a you know slap in the face well guess what if the u.s ships hadn't been out there knocking those things down and and it was mainly u.s ships yeah i get it jordan and the UK knocked down one peace, whatever. But if the United States had not done that, the damage to Israel would have been quite a bit more severe. And that is not something that is readily acknowledged in Israel. You know, I was there. And no one said to me, hey, you're American thinking. You say it was all about, yeah, we stopped them. That's what the Israeli public was being taught that their own systems

stopped that attack. Not true. And so, you know, and that was kind of a half-hearted attack. I mean, compared to what, Hosebola, if Hosballa goes to war, they know they're going to war. Netanyahu's already said publicly, we will turn Southern Lebanon into Gaza, all right? So, Nazrallah knows what's in store for him, and it's going to be all out. And it will be very ugly, very ugly indeed. Israeli army has, you know, they've, the IEF has learned. They have many limitations. A lot of it based on their training and selection.

No, just training the personnel. The reservists are not up to target, are not up to snuff for a war, even, you know, even post-Gaza. Because in Gaza, what they were doing basically was occupying territory. You know, you'd have supporting arms flatten an area. You'd have special operations forces go in, get a foothold. You'd have the units for reconnaissance platoons go in

and expand that foothold. And then finally, you try. in the conventional soldiers, they get off in a bit like area in the middle of, you know, whatever the operation areas, and then they expand from there. They suffered very low casualties, you know, so they haven't been at war. All this talk about that combat veterans, okay, I get it. Nominally, they've been in combat, but they haven't been looking guys in the face, shooting them, you know, it's been combat like a giant Kaks, I would suggest. And that is going to be different than what they face in Hasbala, with Osbalah, a lot different. And the lessons of 2006

have been forgotten. Yikes. That sounds like it's going to be an absolute shit show. Great. Thanks, Andy, for the great news. Yeah. And it's funny. You mentioned Cyprus. I saw that Nasrallah gave a speech recently. I don't remember exactly when it was. And he specifically singled out Cyprus as threatening them and said, keep it up in your next. Keep aiding Israel and you know Cyprus is like What the hell Cyrus man?

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