The Team House - U.S. Contractors in Ukraine as Deterrence & The China Summit | EYES ON GEOPOLITICS

Episode Date: September 1, 2025

In this episode of Eyes on Geopolitics, Dee and Mick Mulroy discuss various pressing global issues, including the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit, US-India relations, the role of Pakistan in geopolitics, China's growing influence, the impact of US tariffs, the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, and the US military presence in Venezuela. The conversation highlights the complexities of international relations and the need for strategic alliances.support the show here:https://www.patreon.com/c/TheTeamHouse00:00 Introduction and Current Events02:57 SCO Summit and Global Alliances05:55 US-India Relations and Economic Policies09:00 Pakistan's Role in Geopolitics12:03 China's Growing Influence14:51 US Tariffs and Economic Impact18:01 Ukraine Conflict and Ceasefire Talks21:00 Israel-Gaza Situation and Humanitarian Crisis24:00 Venezuela and US Military PresenceBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support.

Hey, everybody. Welcome to another episode of Eyes on Geopolitics. I'm joined today with Mick Mulroy. Mick, how you doing? I'm doing good. Coming to you from Washington, D.C., where I can see all the National Guard soldiers out there. There's a lot of them walking around and guarding those monuments. Yeah, Mick's working on Labor Day, too.

Labor Day weekend, too, guys, by the way. He doesn't stop working. A lot happening That's something to brag about or not. I don't know. It's a fair point. Yeah, I don't know if you do brag about it or not.

A lot happening, as usual. We have the SCO, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which is holding a summit in China with a ton of countries. There's like 20 plus countries, you know, Turkey,

who's a NATO member, being among them. But you have China, Belarus, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Pakistan, Pakistan, there's a ton more, all meeting now, unlike this week in China. A lot of the headlines you've seen there have been like,

you know, Putin coming, you know, visiting and like pictures of Putin and Chi, like bear hugging each other. What do you make of this? So it is significant. I mean, you know, started with Russia and China, you know, the relationship with no limits, I think they call it. I'm sure you can make some jokes from that. Yeah.

The U.S. has tried, especially during the Cold War, to keep this Sino-Soviet, at least at the time, split. I think that was a phrase that we all use because we don't want two of the biggest countries geographically and population. Well, Russia isn't population-wise. We'll get to that. But geographically, to be completely aligned, it's not in our interest. Yeah. We like to keep them split. And that's not the case now.

And I'm not quite sure what we're doing to try to drive any kind of wedge in between the two, but we should be. And then the other, which got a lot of headlines, is the two most populous nations. So it was the Modi Chi meeting where it looks like they're actually becoming closer together. That's not in our interest to me. India is the biggest democracy in the world. they have issues with China. You know, there is a massive trade imbalance in India's benefit, but, you know, that's not necessarily a bad thing, right? I have a massive trade imbalance with Irish pubs around the world, and it works out for both of us, right?

Just because you buy stuff, more stuff, and then doesn't necessarily mean it's a bad thing. Sure. Right? It's, but they've had border disputes and all that, but they're coming closer together. And part of that, I think people are going to question whether the tariff policies, which has kind of been blanketed around the world, are going to push traditional allies of the United States closer to adversaries of the United States, whether it's India or Canada, right? I think the verdict is still out, but these are indications that it might have done that.

And I think that is going to be the questions that the administration will get. Is this really what you want to do? Why wouldn't we address China if we're going to do economic policy by pairing with our partners, which then gives us a lot more leverage on China? By blanketing it and not distinguishing friend from foe, you could have a negative effect. I know it's bringing a lot of funds into the U.S. government, according to economists,

paid primarily by the consumer Americans. But another issue when it has to do with foreign policy is the potential that we basically start creating alignments with countries based on their need to push back against our or economic policies. Question is still out there, but that's, I think that's an issue we're looking at. Yeah, and I mean, I've had a former, former CIA officer Louis Rida on, who's, was chief of station in New Delhi.

And, you know, he's got a real grasp on what goes on with India. And he pretty, he pretty much states that, like, India is an ally for sure, but, like, they're kind of out for themselves, right? Like they get a ton of weapons from Russia. They really are like a non-alignment kind of country or whatever. And it's interesting, like, yeah, we're doing everything we can to kind of push them towards China and Russia too. Because I'm sure they're still buying oil from Russia, right? As is China.

That's another topic, right? Yeah. And, you know, if we just throw in tariffs and sanctions, it's kind of like the same thing. but the sanctions aren't high enough to get them to stop buying Russian oil, then what's the point? Right. Then it just, then it just is just part of the tariff policy. Yeah. That's just part of the tariff policy.

It just means they're paying more tariffs, right? If it's punitive in the sense that you buy oil, you know, it'll be harder to sell to us, then it could have an effect. But that's not at least anything, nothing I've seen indicates that they are buying less. oil or stopped buying energy from Russia based on the current. Also, one country that always stands out, I don't know, I have like a sore spot for this country just because, like, Pakistan. Because frankly, like, they were supposed to be our partner in the global war on terror, especially with Afghanistan. And, you know, the ISI had elements in it or still does have elements in it that are less than a lot of, lined with U.S. kind of terrorist terrorism policy, right?

Yeah, so, like, I always see Pakistan, and it always gives me, like, a little bit of, like a, like a, chill in the back of my neck, like, they're such scumbags. They take our, obviously, they take our foreign and military aid, right? So, and for 20 years, they hosted in the tribal areas, Taliban, Al-Qaeda, you know, and bin Laden was found, you know, in their, comparable to their West Point where, you know, a mile away from like their military academy. So I see, especially Pakistan, right?

Like it gives me, I'm sure for you, it gives you the irks because you actually fucking work there and did this for, you know, as your career. So apparently, Modi was upset the way the negotiations went with the U.S. involvement with the flare-up with Pakistan. I don't know exactly the details, but that's something I've heard from several people who are more knowledgeable on this relationship, certainly the current relationship. And that has driven a wedge between us in India, right? And, you know, potentially even the personal relationship between the leaders. I don't know how I think that you can see it.

So it's probably accurate. But that's another aspect of the growing distance between the U.S. and India, which isn't a good thing. I mean, you always want to keep your allies, allies. We fight as coalitions, right? We always fight as coalitions. Not that we're looking to fight China, right? But you want to have the strongest allies in the event, the unfortunate event, that there's actually a confrontation between the U.S. and China. We want as many allies and fewer allies to India or neutral parties, especially if they come to our side, right, in any capacity.

So we have to keep that in mind when it comes to all of our relationships and all our actions, I think. So you think there was some ruffled feathers, I guess, when they negotiated the ceasefire or whatever, you know, those. That's what the word is. Yeah. Yes. I don't know why. I don't know what the U.S. did. So I'm not taking aside.

It's just, it's been said to me that there was. By people I trust, though. Right. We're like, are in the no and are probably dealing with this or at least at minimum at the periphery of what's going on. interesting interesting yeah i mean like there's probably an entire episode about like how uh how the u.s has navigated the pakistani indian uh you know rivalry and and for the last 40 years uh so anything else on the china summit that you want to hit on i mean i know we have a lot to discuss today sure i think it'd be maybe it's something that we because it's still going on and like you said

It's pretty big, and there's huge. Countries that are, you know, NATO allies. Turkey, yeah. I mean, and there's, I think there's who else. There's another one. I believe Armenia. Is Armenia, Turkey, NATO ally? Sorry, I'll put you on the spot.

Whatever. I don't think so. At least Turkey, Turkey's a massive native. Yeah. Yeah, the fact that Turkey's there is interesting. I mean, Erdogan does a really good job of, like, threading the needle on being no okay sorry everybody we don't know the nato countries by heart apologies uh but turkey does like it's super you know they dabbled with getting the s 400s that's why we cut them off the

f 35 and stuff like that so there's like a history there of like kind of doing their own thing a little i don't know why anybody would want the sful i mean if if anything is proven as in most of these russian systems aren't i mean look at iran yeah right yeah yeah yeah yeah Yeah, you're right. It's a false sense of security. It's interesting because like before this went down, like with Iran and stuff like that, where you saw like the S-300 and I don't know if they have 400s yet, but whatever, have gotten to the test of like fifth-generation fighters and probably even fourth-plus generation fighters.

Before that, it always seemed like, yeah, the S-300 and 400 are like unbeatable, like, air defense systems, you know? and it really does not seem like that's the case, you know? Yeah. Maybe it's like fourth-gen stuff and like non-anti-radiation missiles and stuff like that, but like we've found the way around them. So yeah, Erdogan is a weird, weird guy, like how he operates. Kind of plays every side, I feel like, you know, especially foreign policy-wise, like his foreign policy. Yeah.

I mean, part of that is, you know, you could argue whether the current administration is really disengaging and being the isolationist or actually significantly engaged. You can argue the way, but regardless of that, the more you retract from being the leader of the world, you know, under any administration, the more the free world feels like they are on their own. Yeah. So, and they start making their own alignments and not that they do. don't, if we're very forceful leader of the world, but they're going to do it more if we're not willing to stay in that role and really work with our allies. And so that's both, you know, the topic we had on economic policy, but also on security policy. And countries start realigning and looking for alternatives. If we're not there, something to keep in mind, it's a choice. And if we

choose to withdraw from that role. I'm not saying we are, but if we do, there's serious consequences. Yeah, I mean, you hear the rhetoric about us withdrawing from it, but it seems to be more and more like kind of ambiguous and opaque. It's like, are we pulling away, are we not? And it seems to go like different. It seems to like vary country to country too, you know.

So there's a super like just mud muddy vision. of what's going to happen in the future in terms of like U.S. foreign policy and where we are. Because like you said, if we leave and we step back completely, that there's a massive vacuum. And like just seeing the amount of countries that are going to the summit, it's pretty clear that like China's kind of at least trying to, like, you know how China is. They're weird, right? But they don't really seem to take a huge interest in major global, like, you know, foreign stuff. used to stay out of it basically. They don't like getting involved in conflicts.

They just look at everything as economic opportunities. Yeah. I mean, it's not necessarily a bad strategy, but yeah. And they keep growing and they're bringing people into their sphere in orbit. And that's people being countries. And that's something you should keep in mind. I mean, remember earlier this year, too, when the tariffs were really the rumors of tariffs were like spinning everywhere,

like how like Japan and South Korea and China were like kind of probably talking about like dealing with the tariffs together, which is like you wouldn't believe that if like somebody told you, like Japan, South Korea and China are budding up on something against the U.S. Like it's, it's pretty surreal. Yeah. Because I'm sure like for that to get out, like must have had some preliminary conversations like, right?

There's no way that's like just, you know, somebody's assistant or whoever, right? Like hit up the other person's deputy or whatever. And like they were like, hey, what do you think of this? Yeah. And these tariffs are getting challenged right now. There's some courts. And that's not my, my bailiwick. But they do have an impact on form.

Their major foreign policy impacts. I mean, economics is, is what drives most in security is basically to shore up our economic interest. But whether these continue or not. I guess it's going to be decided, at least a majority of them, decided by the Supreme Court here. Yeah, well, that's good to see, like, you know, the checks and balances are working, or trying to work. Also, tariffs are making things more expensive for us, too, you know, like for the U.S. consumer as well. Obviously, we don't talk about, like, domestic stuff that much, but at the end of the day, it's like, you know, a tax on just everybody.

is. I mean, if the cost is going up and the country of origin isn't paying for it, then somebody is. Yeah. It's going to be eaten by the, I mean, this is what every economist I think is saying. Right. Eventually it's going to be paid by the consumer. Yeah. Companies can't exist if their entire profit margin is gone.

I mean, what's the part of being a company, right? Right. So they're going to have to pass it on and, you know, I guess a flip side, you can say, well, if it goes to the national debt, at least people are, we're paying as a country down the national debt. It's a tax. It's tax the national debt. I just don't know that it is.

Right. Is it a there mark to go to the national debt? Unlikely. I mean, I've seen we've been running deficits the last couple months that are pretty astronomical, like $300 billion a month, U.S. national deficit, not debt. So that's kind of like I, like, holy smokes.

Like, you know, where's the money going? Like, do we get anything? from it, right? Like, do we get affordable health care or something like benefits the entire country? And it's pro-business, I would argue. What? Was that a conference? I don't know if he called it a conference, but it was about all national security stuff. Somebody asked a very well-known politician, like, what are we going to do about our national debt? And his answer was, we're going to sell camp penalty. I was like, what? And we're all military people.

So like, what are you talking about? It's like, well, you know, you sell camp, then you can pay off the national debt. And I was like, huh? Yeah, but then what are you going to do with the first Marine division, right? So I mean, uh, so like privatize it? Yeah, that's what that was his. And I think he was serious.

But it's like that's the plan. That's the plan. It seems like a bad plan. It seems like, again, I'm not an economist. I don't want to dive too deep. That's, it kind of inters, inter, mixed with, you know, obviously security defense, right? Yeah. Talking about selling, you know, one of our biggest military bases in the United States.

I think, obviously, he was saying that because it's in Southern California or the land's very expensive. But I think we have to have a better plan than that. Yeah, man. Not an economist. Yeah. I think it's safe to say that that's not the plan that Americans want to hear. mass sell-off. To who?

Like private companies? Yeah. What are you saying private companies to develop it to sell as real estate? Good God. You don't know much detail after that because that wasn't what the summer was about, but I remember everybody leaving going. Huh? Oh, man.

Is that actually the plan? Sell off like Yellowstone Park. I don't know. It is a prominent politician. He was out of office by then. Okay. You know, it wasn't, yeah, I'm not going to use his name. No, no, it's not fair.

But he was a prominent, I think, very respected. I don't even know if he agreed with it. But that's what he said, you know, the behind the scenes plan was just mass sell off federal property. Will that cover even $37 trillion? You know what I'm saying? I don't know, buddy. You have to sell the moon to cover. Yeah.

I don't know. The farther we get away from it, we'd have to sell him there. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Oh, man. Anyway, I don't know. Oh, yeah, we got here with Taras. Okay.

All right. So that's the time. We'll keep an eye on that for sure. See who's, you know, who's flirting with each other and playing footsy under the table there. I'm sure the CIA is all over that, I'm assuming. Like who's really, yeah, who's really like getting buddy, buddy there? Moving on to Ukraine, there was some talk, you know, ceasefire, the ceasefire talks and peace talks have seen. to kind of cool down.

Unfortunately, we talked about it last week where, you know, Russia's kind of reneging on everything they even maybe mentioned of doing absolutely no way for Western troops to be there. So I don't know what an Article 5 like security guarantee looks like in Russia's eyes. The one thing we brought, we were talking about is the possibility of like U.S. contractors being deployed to Ukraine. which, you know, I don't know how that would work, but maybe you can give me some insight on what's going on there. Right. So the coalition of the willing, 31 countries right now are willing to deploy their forces in the event of a ceasefire into Ukraine. I think that's absolutely essential. Russia, of course, doesn't want it, but that's tough, right?

Russia wants something where Ukraine essentially would set them up in the future to be able to restart the war. Yeah. Right. Yeah. They can't do that if, you know, I've heard upwards of 60,000 troops from European countries coming in there to do this peacekeeping. So they can't, they can't just start the war whenever they feel like it's at their advantage. Also, they want Ukraine to demilitarize too. So it's just like, come in whenever you guys want.

There's no real deterrent whatsoever. Right. So Ukraine demilitarizes and there's nothing between, you know, the static lines. And Keith, right? It's crazy. Okay, it's, you know, it's time for the U.S. just to say, that's just nonsense. Just call it out for what it is, right? And I know you ask specifically about contractors.

It's time for the U.S. to impose significant consequences. We said we're going to do it. It's time to do it. But there is this concept in addition to this coalition of the willing of a buffer zone. So that there will be this buffer between the two, front lines or between the two opposing sides, the Ukraine and Russia, of course, and that's where they'll patrol, right? You get between them, which I understand the concept.

President Zelensky's not too keen on the concept, the one because there already is, I think, something like that. But essentially, we've got to remember this is all Ukraine. Yeah, right. It's all Ukraine. So are they going to make the buffer like back into Ukraine? Right. Right. So ultimately, like all this stuff, it needs to be approved by the Ukrainians.

We shouldn't be imposing giving up territory, even with a buffer zone. It should be up to the Ukrainians. But to the extent that we can get that and it's supported by the French and the British, to have this peacekeeping force, I think that's a good concept. Sure. It'll be very difficult for Russia to launch three. 60,000 European troops without any consequence. Because they essentially be going to war with us, right? Right. Or with them, with them.

I don't know if they'll go as NATO. So I'm not sure the legalities of Article 5, if they just go as French as the Ritz as Poles. The other question, which just popped up, is apparently, according to reports, the presidents have been talking about this, is a willingness to send U.S. contractors, so veterans. So capability-wise, if they're veterans and they're screened,

they should have the capability. Sure. It's not like you get stupid when you leave the Air Force Marines. You know how this could work. If they pick the right veterans, then the capability could be there. And as long as they're still capable, right? They pass, you know, whatever test. they need to do to prove that they're so capable.

And then the question I would have is the U.S. paying for it. If U.S. is paying for it, then yes, they're not technically armed forces, but they are a U.S. entity, right? So, you know, it might be a way around saying no U.S. boots on the ground, but it still directly involves the U.S. government in boots on the ground, right? Yeah. Because they're not, they're Americans. And likely at a decent size.

number, right? Like, it's not going to be like 800 guys. I haven't seen any number attached to it. But it would be, it could potentially be the U.S. contribution. I see. To this force, which I'm not necessarily against. I guess it's a way to get around like I'm the president not putting active U.S. forces in harm's way. But if it's not paid by the U.S., if it's paid by something else, then.

Yeah, that seems insane. I guess we have to hear more details. Yeah. Yeah, because like, what happens? Let's say we do send like 20,000 contractor, 10,000 contractors, right? That's expensive. Yeah, and finding them, right? Because, like, you know, obviously the contracting world is still around, but it's not

as robust as it was 10 years ago, like, or even 15 years ago as like the GWAT was going on and Iraq was going on, right? So you have to, like, hire these guys. I'm not saying that, that's not, it's achievable, but it's not going to be like tomorrow. And what happens if you have like a, you know, even 1,500. of contractors on a base somewhere in Ukraine and they get hit by artillery. Like they don't have support for them, I would think, because they're contractors. They're not like 80 first airborne, 80 second airborne guys.

Right. Or 100 first. 100. Because my sense is right on. So the U.S. did say that we would provide air support. Okay. And ISR and intelligence analysis, etc. So under your scenario,

if it's 1,500 former U.S. military contracted by the U.S. government, which makes us responsible for it. If you're essentially employed by the U.S. government, then I think you would respond to that, of course, and have an obligation to. Right. It's just, I just don't know from the reports I've seen, and maybe there's more details that I'm unaware of, is whether this is something like Ukraine's going to pay for. If they could, they could do that now. They don't need to, they don't need the U.S. to talk about it. They could just do it. There's some discussions that Ukraine.

And they already have like an international regiment, but they could expand that and make it more substantial, you know, like the French. Yeah. Foreign Legion kind of concept. Because either way, and do it now, not necessarily wait until there's a ceasefire. Because to your point, D, there's nothing that Russia is doing that indicates they're going toward a ceasefire. No. No, there's nothing that we're doing, it's pushing about it. Right.

So it's secondary sanctions. sanctions don't really help because we don't trade with Russia. So what's, I mean, with sanctions, it's not, not that severe. But secondary sanctions, excuse me, secondary sanctions would have more in effect because it's on countries that purchase the energy. Yeah. And they're probably talking about that to tie into our first time. For sure.

Right now, right now. Yeah. What are you going to do if the sanctioning, Russia Act passes the Senate, which is well over the veto. It's 85. You need 60s. I assume it would come off. What are they going to do?

They're probably talking about right now, Russia, China, and India. And Turkey. Right? Those are the three big ones. Yeah. The three big ones are all in Shanghai right now. Man. And I don't think it seems like Russia's moving whatsoever on anything.

I think they just buy time and... you know, trying to, I don't know, run the clock. I don't know what the fuck their deal is. Like, you know, they're not going to get, they're obviously clearly, even without U.S. support, they're not going to get Keefe. It's not going to happen. They just keep trying to take more terrain, more terrain. So he just try to justify to his people, although he doesn't seem to care that much,

of why they did this and why they lost a million people either dead or seriously injured. Yeah. And there's no end in sight, right? There's no end in sight. No. And he's just throwing him at it, right? I mean, they've, there was one part, one battle, and they've taken some terrain where it was like 55,000 Russians against 14,000 Ukrainians. And they're just chewing them up.

Yeah. And it's clear that, you know, President Putin does not care about an entire generation of young Russian men. Yeah. They are just getting annihilated. They're taking some terrain. It's slow. Sure. But, you know, man, man, I mean, there's no way they would go.

Even if it wasn't a NATO, quote unquote, under the NATO banner where they would go for like, UK French pole German troops in Ukraine, no way. Which makes it even less likely that except the ceasefire. Right. Unless there's consequences. Right. Real consequences. What they start losing, right?

That's what they're going to go, okay, ceasefire, right? Because then they start losing terrain. The only way we're going to get there is we start cutting off. their funding for the war, and we start increasing Ukraine's capacity to be on the offensive. And there's over $300 billion in frozen Russian assets that can go to that. Yeah. Right. Have we kind of like lightened up the restrictions on them being able to use attack them

and hymars into more Russian territory or no, we're still kind of like. I believe that I believe, if I'm correct, the, the Pentagon has released some of this or relieve some of the restrictions, which is a good thing. And they approved a lot of sales recently, 800 million, I believe. Also a good thing. And important to point that out. The U.S. needs to be a good ally to Ukraine. We need to continue our support.

And it is in everybody's interest to bring this conflict to an end. And the only way we're going to do that is convince Putin he needs to bring this conflict to an end. I don't we have to convince Ukraine. They didn't want it to start the first place. Right. Yeah. So it really need to focus all of our efforts, Europe and the United States, on convincing Putin to enter into a permanent ceasefire. Yeah.

Hopefully it happens. Okay. Moving on to Israel, Gaza. Air drops have stopped. It seems like the Gaza city occupation plan is like kind of. of in full effect and they're starting to build up. We spoke last week about like the, they called up 60,000 reservists.

They're keeping another 20,000 that we're supposed to cycle out still there. Hamas did accept the ceasefire proposal from June, I believe. Haven't really heard much about that since then. What do you track in there? Clearly, like if the airdrobs and like more than likely they're not sending trucks in, either has pretty much stopped. People are beginning to starve once again. You know, we've talked about it too.

Like, why would they be doing this? Some population control to get people out of Gaza City and more to the south and stuff like that. And I get it, but maybe not use malnutrition as the move and starvation as the move. Famine was declared. Spoke about that. What are you tracking there? What's the latest? So there's around 6,000 trucks ready to go into Gaza, full of food.

Right now, there's, as you mentioned, about a half a million people are in IPC 5. That's the final phase of food insecurity. So it is starvation. It's labeled as catastrophic. There's about 1.1 million people getting close to the entire population, but 1.1 million people there are in IPC 4, right? Which is serious of itself. So this is, it does look, and you're right, apparently Hamas,

accepted an agreement from June and it doesn't look like the Israelis are interested in it. Much of the chagrin of a lot of the Israeli population. Yeah. We're seeing, we've seen a protest the whole time, but now we're seeing pretty substantial protests. I think one was 500,000 people. Yeah, yeah, that's a lot to consider the size of the Israeli population. Yeah. Yeah.

So this is a controversial inside of Israel, both the population and the IDF, right? So IDF's been pretty vocal all the way to the top about not wanting to see this happen. But it looks like it's going to happen. All that said, it looks like it's going to happen. The preparatory fires have been going on in many neighborhoods in Gaza City. Tens of thousands, I believe, have already left. they want them to go to south. That's the only place where the food is being distributed.

So they likely will go south. You said the airdrops have cut off. So there's nothing going into the north now. So it's going to move a lot of the population. And there's around 900,000 civilians in Gaza City. So this is going to be a huge move to another location. And it's going to cause even more strain on the system as it is. Now, if they allowed all these trucks to come in,

if they allowed traditional organizations that know how to run distribution points to come back in, it could mitigate this somewhat. But right now, this is going. And then, you know, this is going to be a multi-dimensional fight. I don't know how many moss fighters are left. One's too many. But the belief is they're probably kind of

concentrated in Gaza City. So this is going to be a Fallujah type intensity. And it's going to be any civilian that's there is likely going to get caught in the crossfire. So I hope they do leave for their own good because this is going to be super bloody and on both sides. And it's going to put more pressure on the Netanyahu government to come up with an in-state that isn't just continuously fighting, not just from the international community, which, of course, you're getting a lot of pressure now, but internally. Yeah. As the idea of soldiers, they've been fighting for so long or getting killed or injured.

So this is where it's headed, unfortunately, and it does not look like any efforts by the United States, Egypt or Qatar, or anyone else's have an impact to get a ceasefire. Yeah, brutal. Axios also reported that Israel has a plan to try and occupy about 60% of the West Bank. And they were trying to gear up to do that during Trump 1.0. And Trump 1.0 said no bueno, and they didn't do it. There's still no response from the Trump administration as of yet for that plan. And they said Israel is doing this in response to a lot of the European nations coming out and saying that there needs to be a

Palestinian two states and like you know for the most part a lot of Western countries nations have been pretty vocal in terms of like what's going on in Israel and how it's a genocide and and you know the starving people is no not great so we'll wait on that note D there's also this controversy if you will the Palestinian Authority not going to be allowed to go to the UN General Assembly at the end of September or September yeah right So why? The U.S. is going to deny them.

Jesus Christ. So who do we talk to? If we're not talking to Hamas, like, and we can't deal with Hamas, and who are we going to talk to not the Palestinian Authority? What other group is there? Yeah, it's unfortunate. There is no other group. The Palestinian Authority is Palestinian, but they have no authority.

Sure. Yeah, yeah. Essentially, they haven't, you know, they're just there. They're viewed by the Palestinians. It's corrupt, ineffective. in Kappanin, and they probably are. And so they're, this needs, they need to, I don't know how you would come up during, obviously, conflict in Gaza and the current turmoil and the West Bank with them selecting another.

But there needs to be an effort to do that. Maybe our golf partners can help, you know, come up with a technocratic based government that could be at least popular with the Palestinian people. I don't know how you would do an actual election. But this is apparently a pushback because of all the European countries that are going to recognize Palestine as a state. And then they're going to have Bunga. So it's, I don't know if this has been done before. U.S. usually doesn't block.

This is a country. We let everybody come too. You know, we let Iran come. Iran, Russia, all our troops have it. Because they're a nation state. So I don't know if like France can have them as a guest. But question like perennially has the Palestinian Authority been allowed to come to the United Nations General Assembly? I think so.

I think this is a, I think this is the first time they've been locked. I might be wrong about that. But if this is common, then I don't think we'd be making such a big deal about it. Sure. But this is this is an issue. And the further we get, you know, like you said, D, the occupation of the West Bank, 60 percent. obviously the complete destruction of Gaza, this idea that they're going to create this Riviera type thing.

It's getting further and further away from any chance of the two-state solution. It's almost like a throwaway line now, even if you're supported, I do. But it's getting further and further away from ever having a chance to become a reality. Right. Yeah. Right. Man, oh, man. I just hope

People A horrible decision by Hamas man Yeah I just hope they get food man Like they just For many reasons Yeah Yeah I don't know what the fuck

They were thinking To be honest Hamas You know To me it's Indicate Not only completely deprave What they did on October 7th

Let's just go past that But if you just look at it From the Palestinian Cause They destroyed it They destroyed Literally Gaza And they've

destroyed a lot of opportunities that they would have had to diplomatically end with a country of their own. It's just a fact. So, yeah. Do you think they would- The people that wave the Hamas flag and Esmila flag? No, yes. Not only are they supporting a terrorist organization and depraved murder, rape, kidnapping,

but they're counter to what I would consider anybody's view of what is in the interest of the Balasinian people. Right. Right. period. What's interesting, too, is like you have protesters here that do that. It's like, if you went to Gaza and try to pull that off, you're probably getting fucking kidnapped. You're not a lot.

You have no freedoms whatsoever. Hamas doesn't support free speech. They certainly don't, you know, you see the, yeah, I mean, things that are accepted in the West aren't accepted there at all. And they wouldn't, they wouldn't be allowed to last for a day, you know, this, you know, this idea that, you know, you've seen all the kind of craziness. on these campuses where people clearly don't understand what Hamas is if they're advocating for. Well, listen, a lot of folks, especially kids, young kids who are like more lefty, they're very much, I'm more liberal, right? But this is kind of where I diverge with them is like they're very much anti-Western,

whatever the U.S. does, like imperialists and stuff like that. I'm, I'll criticize the U.S., but like I'm not that. Like, I'm not going to show love to Hamas or China, which a lot of folks do on that side. Like, China is a horrible fucking dictatorship. They might not be communist anymore, which I know we hated. Right. But just totalitarian. Yeah, bro.

You have zero civil rights over there. Exactly. All the stuff they enjoy over here to say shit. Right. They wouldn't even have there. No. So they're advocating for something that essentially is against their own ability. sure to express their opinion which i should always have in the united states that's a democracy

right uh yeah so that's kind of where i diverge in terms of like uh because the life and like reality on the ground and how things actually work are very different than these like broad ideals of like peace and everyone being together and all that shit like the reality people need to be a little bit more pragmatic in terms of like i'm not taking a side or anything. I think I think starvation is terrible. I think terrorism is terrible. You know, like, you can have these views and still like, I just don't get their baseline foundational view is like America bad. Whatever America does is bad. And I'm not saying we're not fucking perfect at all, right, our foreign policy at all. And we should be able to be criticized about it.

But again, it's like you compare it to like the other countries out there, Russia, China, know. It's like Iran. It's like, dude, I know we're, we suck sometimes for sure, but we're the best that's possibly out there. Like, let's be honest. You're like, yeah. So that's kind of where I diverge like the tankies, you know. What's a tankie? That's like a person who's left, far left, who like hates anything America does, even though you live in America and are probably, you know, upper middle class and stuff like that. They hate everything that, like, American imperialism does, right? Where we overreach and stuff like that. And they take it to the point of, like, glossing over what China does with Uyghurs or glossing over what China does with Tibet and things like that.

They'll talk about the Tibet stuff. And then they'll be like, oh, yeah, but the Dalai Lama was like kissing a boy. Like, they always kind of try and like, which is weird in it of itself. But again, like Tibet's been fucking oppressed forever. And the Uighurs. a million Uyghurs in prison. Yeah. And they do a really try and do that.

And that's why they go hardcore with like Hamas, Hezbollah, like, they'll think about the logic. So they support Hamas and then they support China who imprisons people based on being Muslim. Yeah. It's mad. It makes no sense. The logic isn't there.

But it's the foundational thought of them, of their like base, their base of their base of thought is just America bad. Western ideals or like Western imperialism is bad. That's like, their main thought. And it's like, I feel you. And now I'll criticize America when they fuck up, right?

Iraq. That's American. Yeah, but you're fucking, yeah, exactly. You're able to do this in America because we have freedom of speech. And even if I don't agree with you or I disagree with you about things,

you could still protest, do it peacefully and try and be heard, right? Like that's what makes America, for lack of a better term, great, right? So, yeah, that's kind of super where I diverge. Like, even when, like, the Ukraine war started popping off, a lot of them were, like, very, very, like, no way it's going to happen.

And a ton of people said that. Like, even analysts were saying that. Like, it wasn't going to, the invasion was going to happen. But when it did, it was like, yeah, they don't really talk about it as, like, hardcore as they'll talk about, like, Israel and Hamas, which I understand, like, I don't agree with it Israel's doing with it, obviously. But you have to look at things pragmatically. It's not just black and white. Things are extremely complicated and nuance when it comes to like foreign policy.

And you can't just pick aside like, oh, XYZ is bad and that's it. I'm not going to hear what they have to say. I'm not going to negotiate with them. It's like who are you going to negotiate with them. Right. Tuvism is about the ability to change one's mind, right? Yeah. It isn't just knowing things.

It's about the ability to hear facts and change your position. If you're just dogmatic and you're just a propagandist where it doesn't matter what the facts are and you're just going to then you're not an independent thinker. You're basically just a puppet for these totalitarian governments around the world. Yeah. A useful puppet because you're in the United States. Right. And you have a megaphone. You can say whatever you want, basically.

Yeah. And authoritarianism is getting worse. Right. We're getting less. Countries are sliding. down the democracy scale and individual rights and civil liberties and some falling off yeah yeah that's an entire conversation in and of itself like the root cause of that like where do that come from i think it's just people being complacent and like apathetic to like their lives we're pretty

pacified in terms of like not just a nation but like the world you know like the western world and stuff like that. All right. So back to the, what's cooking. I'm glad I taught you something about tankies. That's a new one to me. Yeah,

that's what they're called generally tankies. Right. Oh, so Israel also smoked the Houthy Prime Minister last night. A bunch of his, like,

there was a few people like... This whole cabinet practically. Yeah, it got clipped. So we'll see what happens there. I mean, they're probably... And it was pretty, precision strike.

I think it was like a meeting. No, I don't think any mean like generals or military people, but I'm sure they're, they're probably on the target list as well. And again, this is what Israel does well, I think is precision strikes with good intelligence, which I think they should be probably trying to do in Gaza, you know, just decapitate the top, you know, and let them squirm, let them reconstitute, and then kill those guys again, whoever comes out of the vacuum. I hope we assisted.

Intel, but they obviously had very good intel. That is the absolute linchpin for having these solid decapitation strikes, these terrorist leaders. So good on them. Well done.

We'll see what impact it has, but that doesn't mean you don't do it, right? Sure. Still do it and hope it has a big impact. Yeah. And the Houthis have been, you know, shooting missiles and rockets and missiles and drones towards Israel over

the last few months and stuff. And striking commercial ships. They sank to in July. Civilians, right? Yeah. Sank. That's a definition of terrorism. Sure.

So shooting at unarmed civilians on a commercial vessel that have nothing to do with nothing, killing them, sicking their ship. That's terrorism. By every definition, I think, at least every definition I have. So this is what they get. Yeah. So as usual, there's a lot happening. there's going to be more happening next week, I'm sure.

I got to make a T-shirt, a lot cooking, because there is always a lot. It seems like there's always a lot cooking. Is there anything I missed, anything you want to touch on that I missed? Oh, I think we're going to touch a little bit about the deployment to the coast of it as well. Yeah, so I'm sure people have been, I've seen it online like everywhere, and there's some big YouTubers that I've talked about it and like their videos have exploded, which I was surprised about.

But we have moved like a handful of, I think we have a mute down there, a handful of the destroyers all surrounding Venezuela. Venezuela, obviously. Nuclear submarine. Nuclear submarine. Obviously Venezuela run by Nicholas Maduro, who in some eyes is a narco-terrorist, which I kind of agree with. I mean, his last election is highly disputed across the world in terms of like how.

Yeah, exactly. So what's happening there? What are you looking at there? So let's talk to several people about this who, and I'll start bringing up the Bay of Pigs and all this. It's important to bring up, you know, the U.S., every administration uses a projection of force for political reasons all the time. Do it in the Indo-Pacific, especially. We did it. We do it in the Middle East.

We did it under this administration, last administration. So let's not overblow it, right? I don't think there's any chance we're going to launch this Marine Expeditionary Unit. We're going to need more than 2,200 Marines. God bless him to like take over Venezuela. Yeah, maybe 23. So I'm just kidding. I don't think there's any real chance that that's, that's not the point, right?

So let's not overblow it, make it into something it's not. They are a narco state. apparently the military is very participatory in that effort, not just the gangs, right? Yeah. Because this person's horrible leadership in governance, I think 7 million people have fled the country. And where are they going? United States. So there's a drug problem.

There's a mass migration problem. There's destabilization in the region right there. issues with their neighbors. And of course, there's always the, they call the freedom of navigation ops, phnomps, that's how you pronounce that acronym. There's always that effort, right? So it's a key, waterway, and it's all tied to transport of drugs, although I think most actually come from the Pacific to the United States. But either way, this is, this is supposed to send a message. I'm certainly not opposed to it. But to be countered, or at least to show, The other side is, you know, sometimes you do this stuff.

You actually get the people to rally around the flag, right? Right. So we think we're going to show force and it's going to start an uprising and they overthrow Maduro. And there's a $50 million reward for his arrest. But we think it's going to do that. It's a potential could do the opposite, right? And I think you're seeing people sign up for the Army and I don't know how much that's really happening. So that's the flip side.

Is this really going to help us get him out of power? Or is it actually going to inspire people to say, oh, well, I don't like the government, but to rally to rally. I don't know. We'd have to see the facts on that. But I don't think if you should expect much either way in that regard. It's important for us to show that we care about, quite frankly, the Western Hemisphere. We don't do this as often in our own. on turf.

And so, yeah. Yeah. That's when we are with that. Did you see Russia saying, oh, they were going to send long range missile launchers or whatever to Venezuela? It's like Russia can't help itself,

but like try and act like they're fucking tough. They can't even take over a country that's neighbor to them. Like, I stop acting like you're this fucking big tough country that can project power everywhere. You can't. Clearly. Well, if they do it. I hope that tells us how they're not the, you know, the new Russia that we think they are.

Right. They are the same old Russia. And if they send any weapons systems, especially advanced weapons systems, to a person like Maduro, there you go. Yeah, it's pretty clear. So, yeah, so we'll keep tracking that too. Like you said, I do believe it's kind of like you said, it's more like, what do you call it? Gunboat diplomas. Vengo.

Yeah. That was the word That was perfect That was exactly the term I was looking for us Yeah, we'll keep an eye on it We'll keep an eye on everything As we do

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