Newest War Developments: AI Bombings, Advice to Trump, and the Nuclear Agenda to Reset the World
80m 22s
The transcription discusses the broad impacts of the ongoing war involving Iran, Israel, and the U.S., highlighting global economic disruptions due to the Strait of Hormuz closure and regional military actions like Israel's moves in Lebanon. It emphasizes severe censorship by governments and social media, obscuring facts about casualties and damage. The war is portrayed not as a conventional conflict but as a transformative event driven by religious and secular visions for a new world order, potentially accelerating nuclear proliferation as a deterrent. Concerns are raised about U.S. actions, including possible use of autonomous weapons in attacks like on a school and questionable diplomatic sincerity, stressing the need for honor and transparency. The complexity of the war, with Israel as a decision-making partner and deep ideological stakes, suggests it may persist, challenging resolution and demanding careful scrutiny from the public.
[MUSIC] In a moment, we're going to speak to former Colonel Douglas McGregor about what is happening around the world in the wake of the war in Iran that began a little over a week ago. And so much is happening and it's not exactly clear how it's all connected. All of a sudden you read that Israel is occupying parts of Southern Lebanon, killed a priest last night. Really? What is that? Is that true? You read that there are power outages in Bangladesh, Bangladesh. Yes, Asia is suffering. The world is suffering due to the choke point of Hormuz, the Straits of Hormuz, that are closed or semi-closed by Iran and have been since this began. And that's causing massive downstream effects in markets, in manufacturing and the global economy. How long is that going to last? What's the end game there? And then of course the war itself, which is playing out in Iran and Israel and throughout the Arab world, really, primarily in the Gulf States, but not just the Gulf States. What's the damage? Well, the truth is that a lot of cases we don't really know because the censorship of this war on social media, of course, the big mainstream outlets are censored, always have been. But the promise of social media was you could get unmediated information, you could get videos live from the scene and now suddenly you can't. That lasted about 24 hours before the clamp down. And in part, that was by governments, governments of the Gulf States. They don't want physical destruction of their country's broadcast to the world. The government of Israel is clamped down completely. They don't want videos of Tel Aviv or HIFA burning. In fact, in some of these countries go to jail for posting that stuff online, but it's not just the governments of those countries that are imposing censorship. It's the social media companies here that are imposing censorship on the American people who are paying for all of this. So they can't know. And then there does seem to be a kind of censorship practiced by the US government around casualties and deaths. How many people have died so far in this conflict? How many have been injured? Where? And under what circumstances? Now, these are sensitive questions in any conflict. And of course, you don't in any way want to degrade the effectiveness of the US military. You don't want to dispere the troops whom we are rooting for sincerely, always and everywhere, rooting for Americans. In whatever theater, in whatever war it wasn't of their choosing. In some cases, they are just the people who suffer first and most to do the decisions of politicians. So we're always on their side and you don't want to make things worse for them. On the other hand, Americans do have on a fundamental level a right to know the effects of this war on their countrymen. If Americans are killed, we have a right to know that. And yet there's some indication that we really don't. So as you try to figure out what's going on, keep in mind, you can't really get the full picture because the clamped down on information. So in the conversation that we're about to have, we're going to go through what we think we know. In some cases, we might be wrong. Just want to be honest about that upfront. Very hard to know what the truth is at this stage, really at any stage, but particularly in the face of this kind of censorship. But we're going to try to be as honest as we possibly can and provide as much information as we possibly can given the limitations because this war matters, maybe more than most wars. This war hasn't been settled. Clearly, there are parties who would like to settle it, but no one person's in charge of whether it gets settled. Israel is a partner in this war. Probably the first war the United States has ever fought with a true partner with decision-making authority. It's very different from going into Afghanistan with a NATO coalition, Norway didn't have veto power over anything, but Israel does. And so it's complex, very complex and the Iranians have their own, of course, completely different agenda. So it may not be settled anytime soon. We're praying that it is. But more fundamentally, this is a different kind of war. So over the course of our lifetimes, most wars the United States has fought. All of them really on some level wars of choice. The US hasn't been invaded really since 1812. So all these rewards that the US government decided to become involved in or start. And pretty much all of them were initiated on the same pretext, which is we are preserving the order of the world, the international order, the rules-based order, whatever you want to call it. We're preserving the way things are. And this country we're going to war with violated the rules. Therefore, we're going to war to restore the rules. That is not what we're watching now. There are some evidence that the President of the United States, Donald Trump thought that's what this was about. Iran wants to get nukes. They can't have nukes. We can't have more nuclear proliferation. You can't have rogue states with nuclear weapons. Weapons of mass destruction are bad. God, we've heard that before. Of course, the effective this will be to radically accelerate proliferation around the world because what's the lesson of what we're doing right now? You better have nukes or else you're going to get regime changed. No one's trying to regime change North Korea because they have nukes. So the incentive for every small but reasonably wealthy country as of right now is getting nukes as quickly as you can because you're going to get regime changed if you don't potentially. And if you're a bystander to a war and happen to get caught up in it, like the Gulf States are right now, no one is going to protect you. These security guarantees, formal and informal are not real. Downtown Dubai can still get destroyed and your economy destroyed for a generation because who's going to stop it? You're on your own. So countries that feel they're sincerely on their own have every incentive to have the most effective deterrence possible and that would at this point be nuclear weapons. So you're going to see a lot more nuclear arm states in the next few years without question. So if the point of this was to preserve the status quo on nukes, it had the opposite effect. But the point of this was not to preserve the status quo at all. It was to overturn the status quo to usher in a new age. That's the point of this war. This is a pivot in history and a lot of the people supporting it know that. Now they're really in two groups. One are people motivated by religious impulse that would include some Israelis, some religious Jews, not all, but some. And that would include some Christians, Christian Zionists. And both groups believe that they're helping to accelerate the end of history. Armageddon, the end of time, the return of the Messiah, whatever you want to describe it. But both groups believe that history is linear. It began in one place and arrives at another with the return of God to Earth. And then history ends and we are redeemed or damned depending. So that's the basic idea. And both of these groups seem under the impression that they can force God's hand, that they can bring this about through an active will or violence, which is to say both groups believe on some level that they are God, which they are not. They're not in charge of history. You can't force God's hand. He's in charge. You are not. But both groups have lost sight of that. So that's their motive. And then there are secular boosters of the war, promoters of the war, planners of the war. And their vision while not strictly speaking religious is not really so different. They would like to usher in rule by technology, whether that's mass surveillance, whether it's transhumanism, the merging of man and machine, but the rule of the Earth by technology. And there are a lot of people who want this and a lot of people who think it's inevitable. And this is the moment where that age of history begins with this war. So again, this is not a war that is confined to the region. This is not a war between the United States and Israel and Iran. This is not a war designed to prevent a rogue state from getting nukes. It was never that. This is a war designed to usher in a new age of man, a new period in history, a new world. And so wars like that are fundamentally theological in nature. That's theology, whether it's secular or religious, it's still theology. These are articles of faith. This is an eschatology. And wars like that aren't resolved quickly because we're talking not just about disarming a madman. We're talking about changing the nature of life on this planet forever. So big stakes in the minds of the people pushing this. And that means this is going to go on for a while, declared or not. And as it does, how do we respond? Well, we pray, number one, the most effective thing you can do is to say prayers for peace. Number one, most effective thing you can do. But two, keep an eye on the effect of this war on us here in the United States. We're prosecuting this war. We're the main combatant here. We're spending the most money, dropping the most bombs. And how do we do that? So the key, really, whether you think this is insane as a lot of people do, probably the majority of the country believes that, or you think it's necessary. Some people do you believe that, Fox News viewers believe that, Democratic leaders believe
that in the house and senate but no matter what side you're on the united states needs to behave with honor now why is that because that's the whole point of being the united states you can't have wars in a democratic republic or in a country where the people supposedly rule or their consent is necessary whether it is or not that's what we tell ourselves you can have wars unless you believe that you are on the deepest level better than the people you're fighting we're not savages they are therefore we get to kill them and we've always told ourselves that in some cases it has been absolutely true whether we can kill them or not it's another question it's a moral question but as a sort of matter of civic engagement the population has to believe they're better than the people they're fighting or else you can't have the war and you're really sort of flirting with revolution at that point and we don't want that so in order to believe you're better than your opponent you have to be you have to behave with honor and so for example if innocence are killed girls at a school to name a current example you have to believe that it was accidental and you have to say out loud that was wrong and in this specific case the bombing of a girl's school next to an Iranian naval base that was apparently the school of choice for officers at the naval base these were the children the daughters of the people were fighting you have to believe that was accidental despite the fact it was hit twice 40 minutes apart looks very much like a double tap which is to say a bombing and then an attack on the people coming to rescue the injured that's what it looks like but as an American you have to believe this was a tragic mistake but we have to verify that we have to know for certain that it was in order to keep our honor because if you wake up in the morning and you're living in the kind of country that thinks it's okay to kill not simply military officers but their daughters that country's not worth fighting for now speaking for myself i am assuming that was a tragic mistake but it's important to get to the bottom of it how did this happen were these autonomous weapons have made the decision was there an AI program that targeted this school that thought it was something else or thought it was within bounds and targeted it bombed it and then bombed it again 40 minutes later if that's the case no more autonomous weapons for us should we really be making life for death decisions with a machine with no human interaction no human sign off on that of course not that's grotesque to hand the power of life and death over to a machine that's just transparently insane of course you would never do that if you were a civilized country and we can't do that did we do that we need to find out and if we did we can't do that again we have to apologize for it you can't kill the children of your enemies in fact you can't kill innocence period because we're the west and we believe that people are responsible for the sins they commit not for the sins their relatives committed or their ancestors or their future descendants or people who look like them we don't believe that because we believe in the individual soul each person individually accountable to god and to the US military for the things he does right in wrong period collective punishment is the opposite of what we believe that's what Israel believes and that's why on a basic level Israel is not does not have a western outlook because the Israeli government believes it is okay to kill people on the basis of their bloodline they are amolec as the prime minister often says again and again and again this is amolec kill not just the perpetrator but his wife his children their children his pets this is a theological concept that Christians and the west reject as grotesque and evil we cannot participate in that ever because the moment we do we are not better than the people we're fighting at all and we can't have that it's a stain on all of us so we need to find out what happened there and the second thing we do need to do is make certain that the diplomatic efforts the United States made to get to a political agreement before the war were legitimate that they were in a ruse designed to distract and trap the Iranians why because an honorable nation does not engage in that kind of deceit and trickery an honorable nation states its objectives out loud attempts in good faith a political nonviolent solution and then if that fails resorts to force that's the American tradition that's the western tradition that's not the eastern tradition but it's our tradition and we have to uphold it and as of right now we have to believe that's what we did and that it just didn't work couldn't come to terms and so President Trump was effectively forced by the Israeli government into this decision to go to war but if it ever emerges that are diplomatic efforts with the ron both in February of this year and in June of last year were fake and they were designed to lull the Iranians into a false sense of security so we could launch a sneak attack on them how is that better than Pearl Harbor how is that better than any dishonorable sneak attack in history of course that's not it's low it's beneath the United States is beneath us as American citizens and anyone who participated in that needs to be punished for it right away and as a practical matter it makes diplomacy of all kinds impossible how do we settle the conflict between the United States and Russia using Ukraine pour you a crane as a proxy we fight the war Ukrainians die how do we settle that conflict by the way a lot of us we should had been settled before launching a war on a run because now the Russians are of course giving targeting information to the Iranians why wouldn't they we've done the same with Ukrainians for the last four years that should have been settled but it's going to be hard to settle it now because the message to the rest of the world is American diplomacy is fake it's not real you send negotiators in they distract us and then you prepare a sneak attack on us now we don't know that's what happened there's no proof that's what happened but we need to find out what exactly did happen because you can't behave that way it's a disservice to American citizens if you behave that way and it makes our future much much tougher much much tougher spring is the most refreshing time of your nothing compliments are better than black rifle coffee lots of it is an American company founded by veterans with conviction they built the whole thing around a simple idea do it right or just don't do it they're definitely doing it right we know because we drink it all day long if you want coffee without theatrics start with just black whole bean if you grind to yourself ground if you don't no sweeteners designed disguise mediocrity no seasonal gimmicks masking weak beans just bold American roasted coffee that delivers what it promises 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So giving the full benefit of the doubt to the United States as a default position as Americans and we are we need to get to the truth of that and everything else that's happening in this war so with that we turn to a man who is highly informed on this again we're feeling in the dark but we're going to tell you what we think we know because you need to know. Colonel Douglas McGregor. Doug thanks so much for doing this so energy markets spiked future spiked last night today they've come down quite a bit they appear to be pricing in a shorter war of the belief that the president of
of the United States will find what they're calling an off ramp and the things will cool down quickly. Is that a good bet? Do you think what's likely to happen? Do you believe? Well, I think that's a call that we can't make at this point. I think it's going to be very difficult for the president to retreat from some of the more stride remarks that he's made, not the least of which is his recent demand for unconditional surrender. And we have to remember that from the standpoint of Iran and everyone in the region looking at this, he's demanding unconditional surrender to Israel and Israel's demands. So I don't think that's likely to happen. And I don't know how he gets out of that particular box. You know, you have to add to that lots of what I would call toxic inflammatory rhetoric about chopping the heads off of babies, which Iranians have not done and have nothing to do with. And I think some statements about deliberately killing children insisting that the children at the school that was bombed in Iran were deliberately killed by Iran. There's no evidence for that. And that's the sort of thing that if you're looking for an offer at, that's not how you find one. So I just in the intro said that I don't think there's ever been a war led by the United States in which we've had a partner with decision-making authority as Israel obviously has. Have we ever done this? No, I think the British had considerable influence over us during the Second World War. Not because we liked it, we didn't. We had Britain as a staging base. The island offshore was invaluable to us, or we couldn't have landed on the continent. I would say something else about your deduction. By the way, after I heard that, if I were a drinking man, I would have had a stiff shot of single malt scotch because it's a very sobering introduction. I hope everybody listened to you. We live in a world today that is so remote from the world that I grew up in. It's almost impossible to recognize. And one of the things that historically presidents have tried to do is they go back to Abraham Lincoln. And he made a number of statements. And one of them was paraphrased by Reinhold Niebure. I'm sure you've heard of Niebure. Yeah, today nobody's got to use him anymore. But he was a very thoughtful man, a theologian of philosopher, and someone who studied international relations. And he quoted Lincoln by saying that the challenge in American foreign policies to link the contingencies of power with the principles of justice. He said, "You've got to do both. Can't simply justify armed action on the basis of, well, it's a great, we're a great power. We decided to do it has to be done." That was unacceptable to him. Now this was spoken in the 50s in the aftermath of World War II. We did a lot of things during the Second World War that we subsequently viewed as having been very wrong. Curtis Lamey famously told his staff, "If we don't win this war, while the war was going on against Japan, after the war, we will all be executed as war criminals because they were fire bombing German, or excuse me, Japanese cities. And killing tens of thousands of people." So we do know the difference. We know what's right and what's wrong. And I think we have tried to be on the right side of that equation. The problem is that we haven't always linked our actions in the way that Lincoln said. In other words, we don't always link the contingencies of power with the principles of justice. And I don't think that our attack on Iran is justified. It's not something that if you put it to a referendum in the United States, people would overwhelmingly support. I think people would reject it. But we're doing it nonetheless. And each day that it continues, we look less and less justified, less and less legitimate, and less and less moral. I don't think that something Americans want. And I don't think a lot of Americans are really paying attention at this point, sadly, because these are things that always happen on other people's soil, remote from the United States. And so the average American says, "Well, that's too bad. I'm going to go down to the 7/11 and buy a six pack." That's part of our problem. We're a big country. And there are a lot of people who have decided, "Well, I don't have any influence." Because we need to differentiate who elect. You still get the same outcome. What's the difference between Tony Blinken and Marco Rubio? I mean, there really isn't. What happened with Biden? Well, Biden was viewed as this very corrupt and not terribly smart man who was manipulated by people. Now we have President Trump. And many people are beginning to wonder whether or not that's also happening to him. So it seems as though we haven't seen dramatic change from one administration to the next. That's another serious problem. But I think your introduction hits something very, very hard that we need to focus on. We need to be concerned about injustice. We need to be concerned about human life. We can't afford to surrender to the impulse to murder anything that stands in our way. And that's effectively what Prime Minister Netanyahu and the Israeli state is engaged in. Well, well, I mean, anyone who does that will be punished for it. It not just in the next life, but in this life. I mean, it's just a fact, right, that when you murder people, you are punished. And so you can't engage in that. And it also saps sort of like the reason for having your country and being proud of it. We, as you said, we've, and you've, you've led troops in battle. You've seen war and you know that it for all the ugly things that happen. The United States has made in general a good faith effort to remain decent, you know, at the level of like shooting people, like try to shoot the right people. And if we give that up, then I sort of wonder like what we're left with. Well, I think we need to keep something in mind, having worked with the Air Force and knowing people who were target tears. Back in 1999, we had six layers of private tears. In other words, if you multiplied it, I guess it would like 24, 25, 26 people, all professional target tears, who studied maps, who studied photographs, studied intelligence. And after your targeting had gone through all of these tears, that's when the target became valid. Yes. Two people didn't walk in the room, put a picture up in the wall and say, okay, let's blow that up. No, not at all. I'm absolutely certain that whatever we did in Iran was an accident. Absolutely. Just as our striking of the Chinese embassy was an accident. Yes. And that's not necessarily because the target tears weren't doing their jobs. And the photographs don't tell you everything. Frequently, you don't have the best maps. You should, but they're not always perfect. You would think at this point having planned for decades to bomb Iran. Well, let's face it, this has been on the shelf for a long time in the Department of Defense, excuse me, now the Department of War. So we've looked at lots of targets, but this may have been something else earlier or mistaken for something. But I know absolutely without question, this was not deliberate. What I don't like is if it becomes clear, and I think it will, that we did it. It was a Tomahawk whistle or some standoff munition. Shouldn't lie about it. This is a big problem. Everybody's impulse at the top is to lie. And if you do that, you destroy your credibility, not just overseas, but here in the United States. Yes. So it's always best just to tell the truth. But that seems to be the last thing anybody wants to tell during war. Creation makes credit card statements particularly scary. You work 40, 50 hours a week just by groceries and gas, things you used to be able to afford without thinking that much about it. Then the banks charge you 20% interest. If the system is designed to keep you under water, it's working. But there's another option. Our friends at American financing are doing something the big banks despise. They are helping people. Mortgage rates in the fives supporting the American dream of homeownership. And they're showing homeowners how to take their hard earned equity to wipe out high interest debt. Now we're against debt in general, but in this economy, most people have no choice at all. So don't go bankrupt and sleeping yourself to a lender. Average savings are about 800 bucks a month and it takes only 10 minutes to talk to a salary-based mortgage consultant. Now upfront fees or obligation to see how much you can save. Give American financing a call 800 685696 as 1,800 685 5696 or visit American financing.net/tucker. America's home for home loans. You know, I'm sympathetic to the impulse to lie during war because and even now, I mean, I think certain things are true. I don't know that they are, but I probably wouldn't say it because you don't know their consequences. So I understand that. I think it's wrong, but I get it. And I agree with you, it's impossible for me to imagine that an American would press go on a Tomahawk headed for a girl school. I just can't believe that and I don't believe it. But I do believe that we have autonomous weapons at work and that some of these targeting decisions are being made by machines, not people. There's a park called police park in Tehran that apparently was blown up because and you can understand if it was an AI program making these decisions, this is police and that's not. I'm just guessing I don't know why it was blown up, but it was a park. No reason to target it. That suggests that autonomous weapons, that machines were making these decisions and that strikes me.
as totally wrong, tempting, I get it, but is that acceptable to you? No, but I think you have something else at work and I also saw this in the past in another air campaign that is enormous pressure from the top. Give us more targets. We need them now. We have all this equipment, we have all this aircraft, all these ships, they need more targets. Where are the targets? At the time, we were engaged. We couldn't find very many valid, legitimate military targets in Yugoslavia. Yugoslavia is not a very developed country, it's quite backward. That's when you begin to say, "Well, we'll hit the VW Gulf factory." Why? It could have military use. How? They could take the automotive parts and it could be put into the yard. This is the sort of mentality that you get and you blow it up. You blow it up because you can find it. You have multiple bridges across the river and somebody comes and says, "We're only two bridges there with any military utility." So you get those. Then you come back later on and say, "Well, we've got to get, we need more targets." Well, what about these bridges? Well, they don't really have any, could it be used? Could soldiers cross that bridge? Well, I suppose they'll blow it up. And I think that's what happens over time with air and missile campaigns. You go into something where you don't have a ground force. There is no long-term strategic outcome that forces you to include all the elements of power and to think through carefully your objectives. You're being told, our job is to go in there and bomb the Iranian government in dissimission. And that means it's 93 million person population is going to be made to suffer until the government relents and surrenders and says, "Okay, we'll do what the Israelis want." I don't think that's plausible. I don't think it's militarily useful. I don't think it's strategically attainable. But it looks to me as though Mr. Netanyahu's delusions and you were talking a little bit about this when you touched on the issue of greater Israel have now become President Trump's reality. I think he is fully absorbed, assimilated into the Israeli mentality that this state, these people, must be destroyed or bent to Israel's will. Because if they're not, then Israel will never be safe. And if Israel's not safe, then potentially we're not safe. Well, you and I know that's wrong. Israel's safety is one thing. Our safety is another. Their interests are one set of things, one set of goals, but not necessarily our interests. Do we have an interest in destroying Iran? You know, during the war, Admiral Leahy, who was FDRs, effectively chairman of the Joint Chiefs. He was a senior military advisor. He'd been CNO the Navy. Very, very brilliant man. And well, very experienced. He brought in Arnold, who was Chief of Staff of the Air Force at the time, de facto under Marshall. And General Marshall was Chief Staff of the Army. And he sat them down and he said, "Do you understand that when this war ends, we actually want to be friends with the Germans and the Japanese?" And they both sat there with blank faces and he obviously was obviously they didn't understand. He said, "This war is going to end. You are destroying everything in these countries. This is a catastrophe." Well, Leahy was thinking in the future, "Is it really any interest in the United States in our lives to flatten Germany, to turn it into rubble?" And of course, you always have people that are eager to hate in the plural and internalize hatred and say, "Oh yeah, let's get those people. They're terrible. That's so forth." Same thing with Japanese attackists into summer 1941. They deserve it, really. We destroyed both countries for all intents and purposes and then we spent 50 years paying for it. It was called the Cold War because we turned half the world over to communism. Now, we are apparently on the road to destroying Iran and make no mistake about it. We have the capacity to destroy Iran. Now, if this doesn't come faster enough or we begin to back away from it, what does Mr. Netanyahu do? And I think that's a question that we need to answer because he is not clearly under the authority of the President of the United States. In other words, the President is the Commander-in-Chief of NATO. If NATO goes to war, they look to us. Our C4ISR, our command structures and everything and the President to make final decisions. The British and the French would never launch a nuclear weapon without consulting with us. Is that the case with Mr. Netanyahu, who leads a country that refuses to admit that it has any nuclear weapons? And I would argue, no. So while we may be partnered, this relationship is not an easy one and we should not dilute ourselves into believing that under the worst case scenario, if they're not satisfied, or they think that their country is being finished off. And quite frankly, right now, even though we're not seeing a lot of footage from Israel, Israel is being subjected to pulverization. The large missiles, the Qorram Shah too, that landed on top of Haifa and destroyed the refinery, the oil infrastructure. I'm sure the docs have taken a beating. I mean, that's a very important port for Israel. And if we were going to bring troops into the region, we would probably have to come through that port. Right now, it's in bad shape. It may get worse. So is this going to go on and on and on? I think right now, there's no ended site because there's really no strategy other than we're going to bomb you into submission. And a war with no strategy tends to be a war effectively without end. And then if you pour oil onto the fire and say, "I the use surrender unconditionally," or we destroy you, what does the enemy do? What is the incentive for him to surrender to someone who is demanding effectively the submission of his country as people to a state like Israel that hates them? And they're well aware of that. Why would the US government ever yoke itself in a war to a country with different aims, with different objectives? And this is not an attack on Israel, but any country that had a different goal. Why would you ever be a co-equal partner with that country? Well, we concluded in the aftermath of World War I that the Bank of England and the British Empire had enormous influence over us, had misinformed us, misled us with the, unfortunately, with the assistance of President Wilson. And of course, the man who was his "chief of staff and national security adviser" was not even an American citizen. He was a British subject. His name was Kerr-Wahos. And that led to conclusions after the war that this should never happen again. One of the reasons it was so much opposition to going to war in Europe again was because of the experience during World War I. Not we took terrible casualties. That's another story awful. Worse, frankly, in a shorter period of time than World War II. And I think what we have now is a similar situation. We have large numbers of people who are dual citizens. And we have large numbers of people, they call them Zionist billionaires. Think whatever name you want. They have spent enormous quantities of money over many years to reach the condition that exists today. A condition under which Israel's demands, and you have to link Israel to the larger financial picture because these billionaires control more than just a fraction of finance. They control the financial system in our country. They have a huge impact on it globally, certainly in the West. And they have interests in expanding that power and influence. Israel is a way to do that. And the Israelis, of course, they see themselves in a position of either we expand or eventually we die. That's because we don't have enough people. Our birth rate isn't high enough. So we have to annihilate the people that are close to us in our country and eventually on our borders and expand. That means you march in 11. It means you march into the Sinaian, into Egypt. It means you go south into Jordan and Saudi Arabia. All you have to do is look at the map. I mean, from their standpoint, this is a rational calculus. I just don't think it's attainable by them. And that's why we're involved. Because the only way to attain these goals and objectives is with the enormous power and influence of the United States. And we have committed ourselves heart and soul to this project. It's as simple as that. All you have to do is listen to the state of the Indian speech by President Trump. And the one time everybody stood up left and right Democrats Republicans was when he talked about depriving Iran permanently of any nuclear weapon. And everybody stood up in a plug. And I will not allow that. I will prevent that. Well, first of all, there's no evidence that they've got a nuclear weapon. We haven't had any evidence for that for a long time. So is that really what this is about? No. I don't think so. I think it's about more than that. It's also about the missile arsenal that they want to eradicate. In other words, Iran has to live in a state of permanent vulnerability to Israeli attack and destruction. Otherwise, Israel is not safe. Now, many of these corrupt
Arab states have accepted that bargain and they are in the view of many of the people that live in the region in Arab countries as members of the Arab version of the Epstein class And they're hated So when you go to the Emirates for instance, there are plenty of people living in these countries who privately are very happy to see These people removed from power these family dictatorships, which are hopelessly corrupt They're sick of it. So we're we're involved in much more than just Iran. This has global implications for power and influence and It's no accident that you have Mr. Whitkopf and Mr. Kushner as the principal diplomats and in Russia the Russians have Sort of looked at this and say okay fine. We understand you want your son-in-law and you want your friend To negotiate and they want to enrich themselves in the process fine. We'll help them do that But please can't you find your way to an agreement with us? Can't we hammer out something concrete that serves our interests? Well, it's yours. Of course the answer to that thus far as we know And I think you do anything with the same people these of you are wrong We pray that the war with Iran ends immediately, but the truth is it doesn't seem to be ending immediately If you're the head of household you need to think through what this could mean for you and the people you're in charge of the ones who love you who rely on you And in a time like this you can't really know what's gonna happen next energy markets or one indication they're rattled people are dying The world is well one miscalculation from something really really bad So it's really clear you can't outsource your responsibility for your family for your people to the government When systems fail they fail and they fail quickly No one's coming to stock your pantry or keep the lights on so at minimum You should be thinking this through don't wait for disaster to distract to ensure that you have the basics covered food water light energy and That's exactly why we started a company called last country supply It's our store it carries the same preparedness products that we have well in this barn for example The products that give any head of household peace of mind knowing that if something bad happened you could take care of the people you're responsible for no matter what So continue to pray for an end to war and violence, but also at the same time make sure that your family is ready Stock up in the products that we trust at last country's supply dot com slash Tucker Why would the United States ever Allow its own citizens to be killed in order to expand the Israeli Empire Well, it's not an empire. Let's face it. It's a relatively small country the size of New Jersey's I guess if you live in Jersey, that's an empire I've got some friends were in the army with me and they were Italian and it was an empire But that's another story I think Americans don't completely grasp what's happening and they have been forced fed for decades A narrative that is designed to depict the Iranian state at its people as the sworn enemies of mankind and most of all of us Of course people to be in there spent any time there especially over the last 20 years have come back and said look Iran today bears very little resemblance to Iran of 47 years ago Iran has changed a great deal in fact I Think you can make a good case that had we not bombed anybody and stayed out of this that within the next six months to eight months the Islamic government would be gone because I think the country itself Seasoned not as this is Lamaq stayed at all It sees itself as a Persian state with a Persian history and culture Many many people in that country view Islam itself as a unwanted import from the Arab world Now there are plenty of people who are very religious. There's no question about it Most of them live in the rural areas very few of them live in the large urban areas and here's another interesting insight I Received this lengthy note from someone in the region who explained that we had when we bombed in the Israelis bombed Tehran They killed large numbers of people in these what they call middle class upper class neighborhoods Who are actually very much in agreement with us that the Islamic government should go away? Yeah, I think if left alone it'll go it'll go that way one way or the other But Iran is a nation state. They're not prepared to sacrifice their sovereignty Put their citizenry at permanent risk essentially to Live under the control of what they see is the Epstein class and on a plantation run by the Epstein class And that's the way they look at it and We don't see it that way because we're not thinking in those terms all we can do is go back to 1982 Talk about these Marines and that barracks that were killed but nobody knows the whole story behind that business And I stumbled on this because Cap Weinberger who the former Secretary of Defense his office called asked me to fly to Washington He wanted to talk to me about this book. I'd written called breaking the failings which he liked and So I I said sure I flew back there and I ended up spending instead of the expected hour. I was there for almost two and a half It was a wonderful meeting and one of the things it came up was Beirut Because one of the arguments I was making is that if we followed this plan Went to a very small but but potent presence in Kuwait and just kept that there We might avoid any any future war in the Middle East. He said of course absolutely No question about makes perfect sense and I said well what happened in Beirut? And he said you know, that's an interesting story. I was sitting in my office watching television and suddenly It was announced that President Reagan had approved the commitment of US Marines in and around Beirut as part of some sort of peacekeeping operation to separate the PLA or the PLO from the Israelis and so forth And he said no one called me said Ronald Reagan didn't call me didn't say anything so I picked up the phone And I called the office and I said can I see the president and Secretary said of course, Mr. Weinberer come over. I'm sure he'd be delighted to see you. He and Reagan got along very well So I showed up and he walked in the office and he said sit down cap what's going on? He said, well, you just announced this What are you doing? And he said well, you know George Schultz was here He spent a couple of hours And he convinced me that we had a moral obligation to participate in this peace keeping force multinational that's gonna bring peace to to Lebanon and Beirut and keep the Israelis in the PLO And he said sir that you're not gonna get that in that part of the world All we're going to be are targets. This is a waste of time. It's worse than that. It's dangerous Can't you rescind the order? He said well cap. I made a public speech. I committed myself in my administration to this How would I look if I suddenly within a few hours announced that no? I've reconsidered it. We're not going to part to participate in what this is being built as a moral mission So I said all right. He said well, I'm sorry cap I should have called you but you know George was here and so forth You know George Schultz is a secretary of state was considered on the very liberal side and Cap Weinberger was furious Said fast forward several months and I get a call the middle of the night And it's the secretary of Reagan. He says the president wants to see you immediately So he gets up and he finds out about this bombing You know he finds it's coming to CNN and everything else This time when he when he gets to the White House he walks to the door the door opens and Ronald Reagan is standing right in front of him And he walks in and he grabs Weinberger's and he said you know cap you were right. I was wrong Now we need to get our men out of there immediately. Yes And the rest is history he did Now there were lots of statements about will track down whoever did this or anything else But he understood we were blown up because we were there Most of the people that we lost in Iraq and I would argue Afghanistan have been killed because we were there And the real question is why were we there? And I've never been satisfied with the explanations Because if you wanted to remove somebody from power in a place like Iraq That's a fairly straightforward operation. You don't have to kill a lot of people and the army will help you You know, we look what was demonstrated in Venezuela I mean, I think that was a bad decision, but nevertheless what did we demonstrate that we could pay everybody off And we could shut everything down go in and bring out the president and his wife fine Well, those kinds of things can be done in certain countries under certain circumstances I know that it was a good thing. I wouldn't have done it But that's what are under the bridge now you're dealing with the civilizational state Persia represents much much more than people in the United States realize They owe some of their culture and language to Sanskrit and Indian Civilization, which is another civilizational state Russia is a civilizational state China is a civilizational state These are foundation stones in the edifice of humanity
and world civilization. Now you want to destroy Persia, which has been around for 2,700 years. Well, good luck. I don't see it happening. And I don't think if it even gets close that the Russians and the Chinese are going to sit there and do nothing. How do we get out? I think you have to find an intermediary. First of all, someone who is not part of a problem. My personal preference, if I were advising to President, is to call President, or excuse me, Prime Minister Modi in India. Now you can say, well, he was just in Israel. Well, that's fine. He has good relations with Israel. That's not a bad thing. He also has good relations with Iran. He's never been an enemy of the Iranian people. Neither are the Shiite Iranians his enemy. He knows that. And he has reasonable relations with the Chinese. They have their differences up in the mountains in the Himalayas, the Hindu Kush, and that is a legacy of British colonialism. But my point is that he's historically leading a neutral state and a neutral state that is growing in statute, in power, in influence, and importance. We should recognize that and welcome it. Not treated as a problem. And I think if President Trump talked to him and said, we need to end this. And somebody will say, well, why do you need to end it? Because if we don't, we're going to hit $300 per barrel of oil. We're going to watch 60 to 80% of the stock value crash. People are going to lose trillions in wealth. It will be a disaster. And it's not something we'll recover from. We've already seen that the Israelis hit a refinery on the outskirts of Tehran. And what did Iran do? They destroyed the refinery. And it's supporting infrastructure in Haifa. How does this help us? How does this help anybody? The damage it's being done is going to be semi-permanent. And by that, I mean, it's going to take years to recover from this. The Qatari government has said, we're shutting down. We can't store anymore. We can't drill anymore. We can't refine anymore. I mean, this is a catastrophe. We look at this and say, well, only 3% of our oil comes from the Gulf. Well, I got news for you. 50% of it goes to India. 50% goes to China. You know, 70 plus percent goes to Japan. Mid 60% or so, 64 or 65% goes to South Korea. Now, did we call the President or the Prime Minister of Japan? Did we call the President of Korea and say, by the way, we're considering a war against Iran, action against Iranians. And we want to know what you think the impact will be on your country because you are friends of ours. You are our allies. Did we do that? I don't think so. I think we are acting like the biggest bully in the school yard. They hell with everybody else. This is what I want. And I'm going to pound your face into the dust. I mean, we've all seen those people. They exist. I grew up with some of them. I had to crack, kick that in me once or twice, to reach that. I know exactly what that is. Well, you can't do that in international relations for very long before people gang up against you. We already have this thing called bricks. And we seem to be determined to destroy that because we see bricks. And right now it has what 10 members, something like that. And there are 50, 60 standing in line ready to join. We don't like it because they're looking at potentially gold-backed currency. What a novel idea. And if it's not gold, it will be gold plus maybe platinum, silver, who knows, other precious metals. And we're saying, well, this is a threat to us. It's a threat to our petrodollar. Tucker, we're killing the petrodollar right now in the Gulf. This is going to end. This very lucrative cycle where people, we buy oil, they take the dollars that they get from us and they reinvest it in our country at a place called the bond market. Not anymore. And that's one of the engines that drives our economy. We've thrown all caution to the wind. Think of any number of worst case scenarios and they are on the horizon. President Trump is still president of the United States. Not president of Israel. And he has to think about the consequences here at home for us. For the average man, not for the billionaire class, the Epstein class, for the rest of us. I don't see that we're thinking this through. And I don't just blame him because he's had whole-hearted support from everybody on the hill. Don't believe any of those Democrats from Chuck Schur to slot can do any number of them. Oh, I was always against it. Really? Well, you sure as hell aren't on record and things are getting very bad. Eventually, I think members of his own party will deserted if he doesn't find an offering. So back to your question. Step number one, find a mediator. Somebody that they will listen to. Because no one is going to listen to us. If you're in a rotting, would you pay any attention to what we say? How many times have they been attacked in the midst of negotiations now? Twice? Why would the Russians pay any attention to us? This is a catastrophe. And if we do nothing, eventually we will wake up and discover there are some aircraft in the airspace over Iran. They're probably Russian. And they probably will put up something similar to A-Wax. And if that shows up, then the message is stop. And the question is, what do you do? You know, we used to have this thing in the Ranger course. It's three o'clock in the morning. It's below zero outside. You're in the mountains and snow up to your rear end. And somebody walks in and says, you're now the patrol commander. You're now the platoon leader. Where are you on the map? What are you going to do now, Ranger? I mean, that's kind of where Donald Trump has headed. What's he going to do then? I mean, I clearly, the wise course at this point, since it doesn't appear to be a way to open the straits using the US military is to try and decelerate to find that mediator. But the hitch or one of them is Israel. I mean, if Iran remains intact with a functioning government that is a direct descendant of the previous government that we tried to overthrow, we wound up killing the wife and the child of the current Ayatollah, apparently. That government will acquire nuclear weapons. Why wouldn't they? And we'll dedicate itself even more resolutely to the destruction of Israel. So if you're, I think, why wouldn't they? And they've said they will. So if you're Israel, you can't, you cannot allow that. You can't have a ceasefire and leave this government intact. And that leaves you no recourse, but weapons of mass destruction, does it? Well, it could. There is also the other possibility. And that is that as the Pakistani government has said, they will provide a nuclear weapon to the Iranians. Now, the Pakistanis have always had a very close relationship with the Turks. And that's one of the reasons that Erdogan, who's the ultimate fence sitter, never quite aligns with anybody. And it's worked well for him, by the way. Yes, Martin, he's that one, Schlonger has always said, we're not afraid of you. Because of Pakistan, he's made it clear they will have a nuclear weapon if they need it. In fact, the exact conversation was held back under the Obama administration. And I think it was the deputy secretary of state who was there. And he said, what do you do if Iran gets a nuclear weapon? And he asked the chief of staff of the Turkish armed forces. And he said, well, that's our problem. He said, why not? Because Pakistan has said they'll provide us with a nuclear weapon if that happens. This is your logic. And this is your logic playing out exactly what you described. So you really want to stop this train now that's headed down the side of a mountain and doesn't seem to have any breaks. So you've got to go to someone who can stand in there. Now you've got to tell this man, what are you prepared to do? Are you prepared to cease fire immediately? Which is not difficult to do because we're talking about air and naval forces. If you had seven, eight hundred thousand men under arms on the ground in a massive army, that's stopping everything is very difficult. But air and naval forces can immediately disengage, pull back. That can be done. Are you willing to do that? And if you are willing to do that, what should I ask the Iranians to do? You know, the first step is to get this fighting to stop because of exactly what we're discussing. It's going to run out of control. And I have worried for the beginning because I am people in Israel that I cared about very much. Some friends and they're all angry with me because I'm not unconditionally supporting what they're doing. And I told them from the beginning, I don't think this will work. And I do not think this is in the interest of the Israeli state. And I have said, if this goes to the inevitable conclusion, Israel may not survive this. And I think the hatred, the hostility that is growing in the region, not just against us, but especially especially against Israel, just earth shattering beyond anything that has ever seen. It needs to
stop now. I hear all these people worrying about anti-Semitism. Well, if you're worried about that then stop doing what's what's going on. That's the quickest and easiest way to try and bring this under control. No, their thinking is if we kill everybody doesn't like us, we'll be fine. Yeah, that that attitude doesn't have a good track record that's self that's self-defeating, I would say. And I I know that I like to mention real quick and this was a conversation, believe it or not, that Churchill allegedly had with Stalin. And through an interpreter, I have to understand Churchill knew Stalin was a criminal and a murderer. No doubt about it. And he certainly did not see him as morally superior to Hitler. In fact, he probably thought he was worse. And Stalin knew that. And he used to sort of jab at him because FDR was Stalin's poodle. Anything Stalin did was good. And Stalin was morally superior to the British Empire. Anyhow, Stalin said to Churchill, you know what the difference between me and Hitler is? And Churchill said no. He said, I know when to stop. Yeah, he was right. He was right. Hitler never figured that out. And he vanished. Stalin survived. Yep. Until he went too far domestically in his own guys killed him. But yeah, no, I mean, he lived another eight years. I mean, I may ask, what do you think the likelihood of the US committing ground troops is? I think it's zero. I don't even know why they they maintain the pretense. First of all, the army today is a shadow of what it was 30 years ago. And I hear it as well. I've rebuilt the military during my first arm. That's just silly. Army's take about 10 years to build. You know, that's what it took us after the Vietnam War. And it took us 10 years to build an army. It probably takes 20 plus years to build a navy because building ships and submarines is time-consuming, resource-consuming, very expensive. Takes a long time to train people. One of the reasons that Yamamoto attacked Pearl Harbor, he said, was if we're going to fight the Americans, we have to kill all the officers in the United States Navy. So we need to kill them in the harbor in Pearl Harbor. If we can kill them, it'll take the United States years to recover from the loss of all those trained officers. He was right. Didn't work. Thank God. But I don't think people understand. So they have no idea what it takes to build effective military power. And the second thing is a draft. Privately, I would like to have a selective draft because I think average young man, not woman, but the average American male who's got an IQ of a hundred or above and is physically fit should spend a couple of years in the military. I think it's a healthy thing. But that's not widely accepted in our country. We don't like it. The British never liked it. So the idea of this being something good is impossible to convince people to support. And if you go back, you lived through the Vietnam period, at least some of it. And I, as soon as Nixon ended the draft, suddenly all the demonstrations against the war went away. Now there were some very sincere people who were against the war for all the right reasons. My point is of as perjury, just didn't want to go. What's it going to be like now? Why are we going to Iran? Where is this place? How long is it going to take us to get there? And then we have to look at what's happened in Eastern Ukraine. Warfare has changed. It's changed dramatically. We have persistent surveillance above. We can see everything everywhere all the time. We can target everything everywhere all the time. So where are you going to concentrate two or three hundred thousand men? How many ports are you going to get into? How soon are you going to be taken under effective ballistic missile attack? And we already know that however much money you spend on air and missile defense, it's not going to be good enough to deal with modern hypersonic missiles. Can't be done. So it's an accident and a disaster waiting to happen. We're not prepared for that. And the nation's psychologically is not prepared for it because no one has sold anything to them. We haven't had any fireside chats from Donald Trump saying I just want to spend a few minutes and explain to you why I'm doing what I'm doing. Have you ever heard that? No. So why would anybody go? Do you think it's possible since you're describing a cul-de-sac, you know, box canyon here? Once again, do you think it's possible that nuclear weapons are used? If a nuclear weapon is used, it will be by netting Yahoo in his government, not us. Yes, good. I, you know, I met and talked with President Trump. I like President Trump personally. And you can say what you will about the man, but I see no evidence that he would be talked into that by Mr. Netanyahu. I just don't. I hope I'm not wrong, but I just don't see that happening. I also see little evidence that people at the top of the military staffs have been collectively would sign on for that. You might get a few, unfortunately, most of them are airmen or in the Navy, but I don't think they would be very supportive. I think they'd say is this really the right place, time and reason? Yes. Because increasingly we view nuclear weapons as something that protects your territorial integrity. Everybody knows that if you try to invade the United States from Canada or Mexico, yeah, we'll nuke you. No, no question about it, right? But why would we do that with Iran? But Israel is different as we've discussed. And the more desperate they become if Iran does not submit, and I see no evidence that they will submit, the more likely that option could be embraced and employed. And that's why we started this because you asked specifically about who has the authority. I hope President Trump does, but I don't think so. I think Mr. Netanyahu is going to do whatever Mr. Netanyahu wants to do. I mean, because we're implicated in that and because the million Americans who live in the region and the energy interest there and just like the fate of the world are all part of this calculation, why wouldn't we bring him to heal and prevent that? How do you do that? How do you do that? I mean, you're going to have all the people that put you into the White House that spent billions on your campaigns, who gave you the power and the Congress that has essentially been purchased by the lobby, not by the lobby directly, but by the Zionist billionaires who pour money into the process to get people elected. You know how that works. What are they going to do? Are any of them going to sober up and go to Trump and say, look, this has gone too far. I don't see any evidence for that. Before this started, we are now learning and I think these are accurate reports that members of the uniform military understood, advisors to the president understood that this was not the things we were promising we would achieve were not actually achievable and that this was a very unwise course. They knew that that. But apparently none of them threatened to resign if the president went forward. What do you think of that? Well, we have to understand something about the people in uniform and I don't think we've ever had anybody that resigned in protest. The only one that I can think of who made his use on Vietnam heard was General Decker. He only served two years as Chief of Staff of the Army because McNamara went to Kennedy and said he doesn't support our policy in Southeast Asia. He won't put any troops in. So Kennedy said, good rid of him. So he simply retired at the end of the first two years of his service as Chief of Staff. But we say in theory that and this is something that goes back to Frederick the Great of Prussia, any officer whose conscious, conscious will not permit him to execute an order always has the right to refuse that order and resign his commission without prejudice. Yes. Problem is we don't let people go like that. If General Cain were to go in and say, this is it, can't do this. I'm tendering my resignation. He loses his retirement benefits and his pension. Why? So if you're in the middle of your, and you do that, you lose your, whether you're a sergeant or whomever you are the law says, if you resign in protest over something, you don't get to keep your pension and you don't get to keep your benefits. So it's, it's really not true. Now when you move to the civilian side, the cabinet members, what's to stop them? Nothing. And that's where the resignations should take place. But that's the last place I would expect to see any. Even though you and I know a couple of them and consider them friends, I don't see any evidence for that. And the theory is interestingly enough, if I do this, I poison the waters against me for the rest of my life. If you're in the military, I'll never get a job after, you know, I believe. No one will hire me in the defense establishment. - Go and hire me any more. - That's it.
And the civilian says, "Well, I won't get any cushy jobs, no bank boards, no industrial concerns. Nobody will have me around." It's a terrible thing because the ones who really have the flexibility to simply stand up and say, "Thank you very much. Here's my resignation. I'm handing it to you right now as of this moment I resign as X and you could walk out of the Oval Office and that's just fine." Instead, what will happen if we're going to project into the future is if we don't change course, we're going to escalate. We're going to double down. In other words, well, if the last 2,000 bombs and 800 missiles didn't do it, we'll drop 500,000 bombs and 200 more missiles. You understand? That's where we're headed. Double down, escalate, escalate, escalate. And then at some point it's going to dawn on everybody. This is going too far. This is dangerous. Either because of Russians, make it clear they won't tolerate or the Chinese are both or because they suddenly look in the United States and people have said, "Wait a minute. I can't put gas in my car. I don't have a job anymore." I mean, you just go down the list. The economic catastrophe will visit us. Then all the heroic figures in the cabinet will say, "Oh, resign." I never saw a more empty place than the West Wing of the White House and the Executive Office building right after the election in 2020. That's what you'd see. Every year is a little out of here. Do you think, I mean, you're describing a system that doesn't serve the country of governs and that moreover has been revealed as useless, in fact, counterproductive? Like, everyone knows this isn't working now. You can't lie about it anymore. Does that mean we get a new system? Are there after this war, however it's resolved, however it ends, do you think that there will be structural changes to the country? I think we have to anticipate something like that happening because federal government is a big part of our lives. I listen to people all the time say, "Why do I want a smaller government?" Well, check your mailbox. What are you getting in the mail? What's coming into your bank account? How much of it is government? How much of it is federal? People don't realize that what is the percentage of the gross domestic product now for the government? Somewhere in the 30 plus percent. Back in 1900, it was what, 2 percent? You go back before the Civil War less than 1 percent? I mean, the government was there, but it wasn't a big feature of the economy. It was involved in our lives. General Sherman, and everybody's heard of Sherman and his Civil War service, he became Commander of the United States Army. In those days, we didn't have a staff system, so he just was designated Commander-in-Chief of the US Army. He was so frustrated with the corruption in Washington that without telling Grant who was then President, he packed everybody in the war department up and he went to St. Louis. He said, "I'm getting out of Washington." When Grant found out, he said, "Oh my God." He said, "Why did you do this?" He said, "This is a cesspool. It is full of corruption. I hate those people." And finally, Grant persuaded his old friend, "Yeah, God, I come back to Washington." And eventually, he did. So this is not an entirely new problem, but in those days, the government was not what it is today. It's very intrusive. It's a source of wealth. that is sitting in the various cabinet departments over there, a lot of them have their eyes on money. What comes down the pike? What sort of new generous program grant or opportunity is presented? And they're involved, they're part of this process. Friend of mine said the other day, he said, these people are parasitic. They're like crustaceans or Ramora on the body of a shark. I said, well, that's pretty rough. But, you know, as I said, this is a huge problem. Any American people, when things go very badly for us in the financial system and the economy, they're going to want answers and it's not going to be pretty. And this, unfortunately, what we're doing right now is put us on an accelerated path into disaster, I think. Yeah. And I mean, it was so obviously going to happen. It was, it was just couldn't be clearer that there was no compelling national security related reason to do this, that the aims even to extent they were articulated were going to be hard to achieve, if not impossible, and that we were dragged into this by a foreign government, which is what happened. That was all so obvious that you have to kind of think maybe destroying or weakening the United States was the point. I don't think so, but now you're up against a different problem. There are a lot of people in Washington that do not understand what Stalin talked about, limits. They don't understand the limits of power. They don't understand the financial limits of expense. They don't appreciate debt. Remember, oh, this is the new economy. debt no longer matters. I mean, I don't know how many times I've had people tell me that for the last 10 years. You know, after World War II, when Eisenhower was president, what does he do? He shrinks the defense budget. He cuts back on the size of the army. He invests in nuclear weapons. He sees this as a relatively inexpensive way to maintain deterrence. Tries to keep the Navy and the Air Force within bounds, which is why everybody in the services that the United States president hated him. Now, why? Well, he understood that investment in military power, there's no salvage value to what you produce. In other words, the sunken cost is enormous. He also understood something else. He didn't want to be involved in wars. Why not? Why would the man that was at the top of the military establishment and you're not want to be involved in a war? Well, in January of 1945, he had sent a letter to Marshall and said, "Oh my God, this bulge is terrible. The Germans have done something we didn't think they could do. I need more men." And Marshall wrote back, "You're not getting anymore. You've got all the forces that you're going to get. You better get out there and win the war." So Eisenhower learned there were limits to what we could produce. That's right. Limits to how much we could invest. And we were not Stalin. We could not pave the road to Berlin with millions and millions and millions and millions of dead troops, dead soldiers, and destroyed lives and civilians. So he kept us out. Now, then you get Jack Kennedy and later on, you get LBJ and Nixon and these three people were at a very low level during the Second World War and they were in the Pacific. And they saw these vast fleets on the ocean and aircraft in the sky and they said, "Where are the greatest country in the world? My God, no one can do what we can do. Our power is limitless." And Eisenhower always said, "That's a mirage. Our power is limited always." Yes. And we have to operate within limits. I don't see anyone with a sense of that in Washington. No, not the White House, not anywhere. Yeah. It's called hubris and it's the death of men and empires. Colonel Douglas McGregor, thank you for that wise summation of everything that's happening. Thank you, Tucker. God bless. God bless. Thank you.
Podcast Summary
Key Points:
The conflict has caused global disruptions, including regional military actions and economic strain due to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
Widespread censorship by governments and social media platforms is limiting information about the war's true impact, including casualties and destruction.
The war is framed as a pivotal historical shift, driven by religious and secular ideologies aiming to establish a new global order, rather than merely preventing nuclear proliferation.
There are concerns about U.S. conduct, including the use of autonomous weapons and the integrity of diplomatic efforts, emphasizing the need for accountability and honorable behavior.
The conflict's complexity and high stakes suggest it may prolong, with significant implications for international stability and nuclear deterrence.
Summary:
, highlighting global economic disruptions due to the Strait of Hormuz closure and regional military actions like Israel's moves in Lebanon. It emphasizes severe censorship by governments and social media, obscuring facts about casualties and damage. The war is portrayed not as a conventional conflict but as a transformative event driven by religious and secular visions for a new world order, potentially accelerating nuclear proliferation as a deterrent.
S. actions, including possible use of autonomous weapons in attacks like on a school and questionable diplomatic sincerity, stressing the need for honor and transparency. The complexity of the war, with Israel as a decision-making partner and deep ideological stakes, suggests it may persist, challenging resolution and demanding careful scrutiny from the public.
FAQs
The closure or partial closure of the Straits of Hormuz by Iran is causing significant disruptions, including power outages in regions like Bangladesh and affecting global markets, manufacturing, and the economy due to restricted oil flow.
Censorship is imposed by governments in the region, such as Israel and Gulf States, to control imagery of destruction, and by social media companies, limiting unmediated information and videos from the conflict zone.
The U.S. government practices censorship around casualty figures, balancing the need for operational security and troop morale with the public's right to know about the war's effects on Americans.
This war involves Israel as a decision-making partner with veto power, unlike past coalitions, and is driven by ideological goals to usher in a new historical era, rather than merely preserving international rules.
The conflict could accelerate nuclear proliferation, as smaller countries may seek nuclear weapons for deterrence, fearing regime change if they lack such capabilities, contrary to the goal of preventing rogue states from acquiring nukes.
Supporters include religious groups aiming to accelerate apocalyptic events and secular proponents seeking a technology-driven new world order, making this a theological war about reshaping global history.
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