October 24, 2023 • 39 mins
James is joined by Robert, Shereen, and Gare to discuss the drone strikes in North and East Syria after his recent trip to the region.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Also Media.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Greetings podcast Into theis. It's me James, a man who
has commenced his one man war against cutter airlines, who
detained me against my will for most of the last
two days in a very small part of a very
big plane. See there's a there's.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
A You know, airlines from Middle Eastern countries are are
usually like the best airlines are like Royal Jordanian and
the Air Immirates. If it's if it's owned by a king,
it's usually a safe bet. But but cutter airways, that's
what they say about England breaks that mold, proudly breaks
(00:47):
that mold. Yeah, yeah, fuck me.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
One of the one of the less pleasant experiences available
to a human being that doesn't end in death is
a thirty six hour trip from Kingston to now in California,
which see I've just enjoyed.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
I always enjoyed those trips back from Air Emirates because
when you're on the Air Emirates flight, if you ask
the steward or whatever to you, if you tell him, hey,
I would like eight shots of vodka and four glasses
of orange juice, He'll just give it to you, like,
not even a question, not even a question. And so
(01:25):
have I vomited on a couple of Air Emirates flights?
Speaker 1 (01:27):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (01:27):
Is it always a good time? Probably you don't remember. No, No, yeah,
I see.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
I was at the point of frustration where like and
I'm as an english Man, if if I've become frustrated
and drunk, then my instinct is to fight everyone or
throw bottles, and I thought that would probably result in
further detention, so decided against decided against becoming bladdered. Or
it could have started singing. I guess that's the other
(01:55):
option available to me that fits my culture. Yeah, so
we're not here to talk about things that I like
to do in my free time, as much as I
would love that, but we are here to talk about
things that I have been seeing in my worktime. When
I was traveling to Kurdistan last couple of weeks. Kurdistan,
(02:16):
for people who are not familiar, is a big area,
the area where Kurdish people live, and it spans several countries.
The areas I went, we're in Iraq and in Syria
or in that it's not really in I guess Syrian
regime territory. But if you look on the.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
Mout northeast Syria known as Rojava. The other two parts
that are generally considered part of Kurdistan are a chunk,
big chunk of southern Iran and also a big chunk
of southern Turkey.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
Yeah, so Java just means west. I think Roja lat
is east eastern Kurdistan. So yeah, I've spent the last
several last week and change in that area. And while
I was there, the Turkish state began and a massive
drone bombing campaign, which is what we are gathered here
(03:05):
today to discuss. So for people who are not familiar,
it's four years almost to this drone bombing campaign started
almost four years to the day since Turkey's invasion of
what they call the M four Strip. So that's the
area around Surakania and tell Abayad, we've talked about that
before on the Podka, So if you want to know
(03:26):
more about that, you can go back and listen to it.
It's the area along the border, one of the areas
on the border between Turkey and Syria. And as people
will know, Syria is a country that has had a
long and terrible civil war, which they've heard about in
lots of episodes, right, and we're not talking about that today,
(03:47):
so much as we're talking about the Turkish state's use
of drones to bomb, what people generally in this country
will know as for a Java, right, So just to
give them statistics off the top, this is the fourth
year in a row of aggression at this time of year, right,
So there have been two land attacks I think Operation
(04:09):
Olive Branch and Operation with someone called peace Spring, and
then two years the last two years there have been
drone strikes at this time of year, this time of year,
it seems very hard not to conclude that these are
attempts to destroy civilian infrastructure and make it very hard
for people in the cold months of the year. So
(04:30):
right now, around two million people in north east Syria
are going to be without power and without water. And
I experienced some of that when I was there, and
the places I stayed will run off generators, so you'd
have like intermittent power, you'd have power from it and
then they'd put some petrum in the generator and the
power will go down, or the generator would have a
little tantrum and the power would go down. But generally
(04:53):
I had a lot better access to power that some
people had a lot better access to water. So as
I was traveling around, I noticed some people didn't have
access to to like running water, right they can't turn
on the tap and get water. Obviously that's a massive problem.
It's something I think like as people are listening to this,
Israel is also bombing the shit out of Gaza, the
(05:14):
whole of the Gaza Strip, and the US recently intervened
to ensure that people there have access to water, and
they have done very little in the case of protecting
people in North and East Syria. Right. So across this
drone campaign, forty eight people have died, and in the
(05:35):
worst of I guess the highest casualty of producing strike
was one that happened while I was there, twenty nine
internal security forces. Sometimes you'll see it translated as police,
but I don't think that's quite accurate, like that they
don't do cop shit, Like they're not there to you know,
like arrescue for parking in the wrong place, or and
they do the things that cops do. They're there largely
(05:57):
as like internal security to the various non state armed
groups that are in the area and state armed groups.
I guess that they're operating in the area that would
make things dangerous for people living there. So these particular
essays were anti narcotics essays. And again why I'm grounding
this and what they do is because they're not the
people who like send you to jail for the rest
(06:17):
of your life for like having an ounce of weed.
They're the people whose job is to prevent the trading
cap to gone will people know what people know what
captagon is.
Speaker 3 (06:28):
Absolutely yeah, it's it's it's it's one of the drug
I mean, it's that when you when you hear about
drug interdiction forces, like like police in Rojava, they're going
after CAPTI Gone. It's a big chunk of both what
kept isis it's it's the it's the purveten, you know,
the meth that Nazis took that for isis right, and
it was also a big chunk of how they got
their funding was was moving and the a sad regime
(06:50):
also gets a piece of a lot of the captivegone trade.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
It continues to fund these largely these like it's the
mist insurgent groups right in the area because it's small
and it high value, and like Roberts also to give
it to their fighters. This is very common, like around
the world, We discuss this in Miandmar too, right, that
the military there take something else called yabba. But these
kind of meth derivatives are very common and they're very
(07:15):
commonly sold. That's how a lot of these non state
armed groups get money to buy stuff. Right. So when
we're talking about drug interdiction, it's not done in a vacuum.
It's not done because they think that necessarily that drugs
are bad or that you know, there's some kind of
moral failure that comes from the use of these substances.
(07:36):
It's because it allows funding for groups that are trying
to kill people on the ground. So like interdicting the
drugs is part of an anti terrorism operation that allows
people to live safely, which is what they deserve after
ten plus years of war in that area. So twenty
nine people is a lot of people, right, twenty nine
anti narcotics assay issues is a lot of the people
(07:57):
who do that job. It's going to make it signific
currently harder for them to continue doing that job, which
means it's going to make it significantly easier for those
armed groups to get funding. Right. It's also so while
I was there, there was a massive funeral for these
people right, every town, every settlement across where Java has
lost somebody in that strike, right, So in Kambishloh, in Kabani,
(08:24):
in Alhasaka, like all these places had big funerals because
you know, three or four or ten people came from
that town, and like that's I saw a little girl
like going to her dad's funeral, right, like a little
girl holding a picture of her dad. And it's pretty
fucked up. Like it's hard for that not to affect you,
especially as like these people weren't fighting anyone, they weren't
(08:45):
attacking anyone, right, they were just they were taking a training.
They were taking an anti narcotics training at night, and
sixty of them were gathering. It's building. Twenty nine were killed,
twenty eight rain injured. And it's in the sort of
furthest northeast part of northern Eassyria, but around a town
called Derek, which is on the board of at al Malkay. Derek. Yeah,
(09:06):
probably my pronunciation is asked al Malachaia might say on
the map if you're looking at a Google map, so
you're trying to work out what it is. Lots of
these places. The reason they will have two names is
cored edition and Arabic.
Speaker 4 (09:18):
Right.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
So, like under the previous Sad regime, like Arabic was
the sort of language that people were enforced to speak
and use, and now under the self administration, people tend
to use Kurdish, and they tend to use a Latin
script as opposed to an Arabic script. Right, So that's
why you'll see two names very often you're looking on
a map, But like twenty nine is only you know,
(09:41):
there's nineteen other people, mostly civilians, right, who were killed,
and two million people are now living without power, without
water and without these basic services, which in turn will
result in more death. Right, more people will die because
they don't have access to those things which are life sustaining, right,
(10:02):
old people, young people, sick people. Both things are the
very basics of sustaining human life, and so without them,
things are going to get a lot harder. I want
to talk a little bit about like where these drone
strikes happened, because largely aside from the one of their age,
they weren't at like large groups of people or buildings. Instead,
(10:27):
they were like deliberately targeting infrastructure. So of the ones
that I saw and the ones that I read about,
they targeted like an electricity substation in one case, they
targeted a lot of water facilities, right, like water pumping stations,
et cetera, that allow people to get water, a cooking
gas plant, which it's pretty obvious what that does, right,
(10:50):
It allows people to get bottles of gas to cook
their food, and a lot of oil in destructures. So
I saw a few of those called like donkeys, you know,
the things that go up and down, yeah, using.
Speaker 5 (11:04):
I don't know the word, but the little crane things.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, the like the the things you can
see if you drive through Bakersfield.
Speaker 5 (11:12):
I'm sure there's a name.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
Yeah. Are they oiled derricks? Yeah? Someone someone googled the
name of the nodding dog they pumps jack?
Speaker 5 (11:21):
Is that no?
Speaker 2 (11:24):
Yeah, that's that's the first sounds like like a dude
who goes to the gym a lot, Yeah, broke and
pump jecked.
Speaker 5 (11:31):
I mean it is called the an oil donkey as well.
So you were, yeah, nodding donkey pumps. Yeah's thought they
were noding donkeys. Okay, yeah, that's that's that's a phrase
we're going with. So you could see a lot of
these that were like knocked over on their side, right
that had been drawn struck, and then you could see
others that were just knocked out because the power to
(11:52):
them had been knocked out. So obviously that's not only
a major revenue source, but also like that is how
people in the region get fuel, right, so like it's
going to be harder for them to get diesels, going
to be harder for them to drive around. People already
don't drive around a lot because a lot of the
drone strikes on people in the Yepagay Yepja, so that
(12:14):
the People's Defense Forces and Women's Defense Forces, lots of
drun strikes have happened when those people are driving their cars.
When they get in a car, so it can be
quite hairy driving. And so a lot of people were
driving to like I drive around, but that's just one
of the areas of risk for people.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
Right. Of the people killed, thirty fives a eleven were
civilians and two SEFs, So most of these were either
internal security or civilians. And I think Robert you were
Robert and I spoke well while I was there, and
Robert made a good point about how this like enables
these non state armed groups like either ISIS or like.
Speaker 3 (12:55):
HID that My main concern for you while you were
there was not the you would get hit in an
air strike, but it was that because of the damage
done to the security forces as a result of the
Turkish are strikes, you would it would, it would. There's
there's always been is as cells there right that they're
they're they've never gotten rid of all of them. And
(13:18):
periods where the A and E. S self administration is
under attack are the periods in which it's most dangerous
because it provides there's less security forces, you know, watching everything.
People in general are are outless, which provides cover for
for some of these groups that may want to do
like a kidnapping.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, and it's not a place where a
lot of I guess folks who look like memory. That
was a concern for us, and like it's a concern
for these people too. Write they still do car bombs
in derizor not, you know that they think still kill civilians. Yeah,
they roll up IIS people on a probably weekly basis,
(13:57):
and people are interested in getting more information both the
drone strikes and about what they call sleeper cells. The
Java Information Center very nice people. They have a good website.
It's Jarva Information Center Org, which they produce monthly reports
on both things, so that will give more information on
those things. That would be a good time to pivot
(14:17):
to adverts. But I've got all that is. Do you
know who else provides great services? I don't think we can.
I don't reasonably make that claim.
Speaker 4 (14:29):
The products and services that support this podcast here they are.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
We're back and we are discussing torone strikes North Asyria,
I guess not just from North Asyria, like these also
happen up around Slimani sort of many if you're looking
on the map, depends again on the language. Right, those
have happened again against KSEK, which is like the Kurdistan
(15:05):
Communities Council, So that would be the I guess the
the that if you look at like Syria, Iran, Turkey
and Iraq as different countries, all of which have some
administrative control over the nation of Kurdish people, right, Kurdish
people live in all four countries, and they live in
(15:27):
other countries too. Of course, then the movements in each
of those countries are subsidiary to the k c K,
and so some of those KTK folks are up in Solimani.
So like that there will be drowne strikes there, and
that's that's far inside Iraqi Kurdistan. Right, You're you're a
long way from the border there, and that's that's what
(15:49):
these drone strikes. I guess. The drone strikes allow Turkish
intelligence in the Turkish military to target people much much
further inside with with a little consequent or risk on
their own. Right, these drones are largely not being targeted because,
certainly in an Ees, the Autonomous Administration in North Eastyria,
(16:11):
they don't have the means to target them, right. The
United States hasn't supplied them with the weapons that they
would need to shoot down those drones, which I think
brings me onto the role of the US in this
and I guess, more broadly, the role of the coalition
in this case. Coalition is a coalition to defeat ISIS. Right,
it's made up of dozens of countries, the UK, the US, Germany,
(16:37):
lots of other Western I guess countries broadly, and countries
in that part of the world too, like I think
Iraq is part of it. Certainly, like Iraqi, Kurdistan has
done their own operations against ISIS sleeper cells, peshmurger and
like everywhere you go you go through pesh mega checkpoints.
Like I was going through an area where they had
(16:58):
arrested and isis member the day before, So like it's
they'll be getting you out of the car, you know,
going through your bags, looking through your stuff. Right, So
that's all part of the same operation. But the US
has a base in a place called Alhassaka, which again
you can look up on the map, right, it's a
little west. I'm trying to land up my compass here,
a little west of Camishlo, which is a capital of
(17:21):
the region, and the US pretty much US troops don't
do a great amount of leaving that base. It's fair
to say they'll come out in helicopters. They were going
out like sort of supporting SDF patrols in the Ahaska region,
but they were supporting them from the air.
Speaker 3 (17:40):
Right.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
They generally aren't going out and about like with people
on the ground, talking to people unless it's a specific mission,
which they do sometimes you can if people are interested
in like the US presence. It's called Operation Inherent Resolve,
And they have a Twitter account whether sometimes post themselves
doing things. But what they don't do is protect that
(18:01):
and So the US and the Autonomous Administration are allies
in this fight against ISIS, right, but they are only
allied in this fight against ISIS. The US is not
supporting them in defending themselves from drone strikes or like
ensuring that a civilian population is protected from those attacks.
So the US has the capacity to shoot down these drones,
(18:24):
and they prove that by shooting one down last week
or the week before. I'm a little bit jet lagged,
a bit bangledo on time, but I think it was
last week the US shut down a Turkish drones that
came out two weeks ago for when this is airing, Yes, yeah, sure,
good point. Yeah. So yeah, two weeks ago the United
States shut down and F sixteen shut down a Turkish drone.
(18:47):
So specifically, it was a drone called an a Kinji,
which is a newer variant of the Bairaktar drone. We've
spoken about these drones before, right, they're the drones that
people like, I know, you can go on actually by
a stuffy version of these drones, which rights that's concerning.
Speaker 5 (19:04):
Yeah, it's really dystopian and crazy.
Speaker 2 (19:08):
I don't like it. Yeah, I do not like it either.
I think it illustrates the way the war in Ukraine
has become like a football match for some people, yeah yes,
or like a film where like I just want to
reinforce it.
Speaker 4 (19:21):
Like it's turned into like fandom.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
Yeah yes, yeah, I think that's an excellent way of
putting it. Garasay, Like, it's not cool when anyone gets
fucking drone struck. It's not cool when like everyone in
an area spends every night worrying if death is going
to come from the sky at some point, right Like,
the effect of these drones trucks isn't just on the
(19:43):
people killed, or the people injured, or even the infrastructure.
The effect is on every single person worrying what's going
to happen tonight? Right Like, And I can speak to
a tiny part of that experience. Right Nothing compared to
what people are living there have gone through at all,
But it's a concern every time it gets dark, you know,
well it it's tonight then, I especially for the rural
folks who might be living in a rural area but
(20:05):
near to a substation, or near to one of those
nodding donkeys or other infrastructure which has been targeted, or
near a cooking gas plant, right those things I can
imagine explode with quite some force. They can't leave, right,
they can't just up and and not live near any infrastructure.
Infrastructures what allows the place to be survivable for civilians.
So they just have to live with this constant fear.
(20:28):
And it's very odd to see that and then simultaneously
see this this sort of deification of drone strikes that
are happening in Ukraine and like this, you know, people
with dog dressed as Napoleon Twitter avatars, Yeah, cheering someone's
kid dying.
Speaker 4 (20:46):
Yeah, I mean throughout all of the kind of new
conflicts we've had the past five years, like the and
especially the past like two three years, Like the idea
of like politics as fandom has produced some of the
like most like inhumane, gross aspects of how people have
(21:07):
been like consuming social media and just the sheer. It's
like people forget that this is like thousands of people's actual,
like human lives that they're like meaming about, and it's
it just it just becomes just they talk about it
in the same way they talk about like a Marvel
movie or like a star sport like it's it's it's yeah,
or sports like it's it it it it's like this
(21:29):
weird like gamified. It allows you to to approach these
things from a just a from a very separate perspective
when you're when you're viewing it from like this fandom angle,
I think. But politics is fandom in general. I think
it's gotten a whole lot worse since the Trump era,
YE had, you know, like that's where we had like
resistance libs that were like copying off some of the
(21:52):
stuff from the New Star Wars trilogy, which is kind
of the inspiration for a lot of their stuff. We
got Nazis doing a whole bunch of politics as fandom
as well. It just creates like it's it's it's like
this team sports like fandom thing that is just pervate.
It's it's it's it's seeped into like almost every single
aspect of like not just politics, but now like conflict
(22:13):
and like geopolitics.
Speaker 5 (22:15):
It's like whoever has the best branding is the one
that has the best chance.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
Yeah, and it's I don't know, it's it's it's disturbing
to watch.
Speaker 4 (22:24):
I I don't know how to like counter counter it,
because it feels like the more you engage the further
sucked into the abyss you become. But it also doesn't
feel good to just like ignore it as well, because
it's just it's like, it feels like this kind of
endless trap that is just a part of existing in
this weird postmodern internet world.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
Yeah, I don't know. I think like one would hope
that the Internet in some ways could help us see that,
like at the end of every drone strikes a little
fucking child most of the time, or like like I
spent some time last week with the family who almost
exactly one year ago lost their fifteen year old turn
in a drone strike, and like it that, Like I
understand people die in these things, like on an intellectual
(23:10):
level and even on a personal level, like having spent
time in these places for a decent amount of my life,
But fuck me, it's just like it destroyed you. Like
seeing a mum bury her son cry for her little boy.
It's fucking heartbreaking, and like I got to live that
for one morning, and those people live that every single
day and every time, like and I don't, I don't know,
(23:34):
it makes me want to shout at people when I
see this.
Speaker 3 (23:37):
I don't actually think it's I don't mean to be
a doomer here. I don't think it's a solvable problem. Yeah,
this is we are talking about it within the language
of fandom because that is kind of the defining public
social relationship of our time. But like this is always
what people have done to watch, sure one way or
(23:58):
the other. Right, Yeah, it's faster now and and more commercial, right,
like one thing for whatever reason, I think just because
we're a culturated to it. Hearing people talk about, you know,
doing what they do in times of war because of patriotism,
because of nationalism, because of belief in the founding principles
of their country, seems a little bit less coarse than
(24:22):
like doing it because you fell in with a bunch
of memers who use little dog avatars and shit. But like,
I don't know, it's it's not like less logical than yeah,
being right or die, because like you happen to be
born under you know so and so the king.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
Yes, yeah, yeah, and like that dehumanization. I think the difference,
like to me is like so like Robert and I
have bose experiences, right to in order to kill somebody,
you have to dehumanize them. To kill people on mass
you have to do that on mass right, if you're
fighting a war, it doesn't behoove you to make it
sound like we're killing people.
Speaker 4 (25:01):
Ge.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
Well that's the thing that we do on the podcast, Robert, Yeah,
we kill people in maths.
Speaker 3 (25:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:06):
Yeah, sure, you're going to have to school. A zone
is where we talk about the killings. If people want
to subscribe, that's what we do instead of adverts, is
we list the people we've killed.
Speaker 3 (25:16):
Yeah, James as the as the quote on your Blue
Sky account says, one death is a tragedy, one million
is a statistic James Stout.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
Yeah, yeah, that's right, and it's every every day I
strive to get my number up, you know, but so
far I've let everyone down. That's not true. And to
my knowledge, none of us have killed anyone but your knowledge,
to my knowledge, yeah, Sharen's probably got some bodies in
the in the class, you know, Jesus Christ. It's so
(25:59):
what I want to to say is that like when yeah,
like if you're in the military, you probably know this, right,
like like this sort of blood makes a grass grows, shit, fine, whatever,
Like that's how wars work. War is undesirable, it's horrible.
You have to be horrible. You have to you have
to dehumanize people to kill them. You don't have to
fucking do that if you're on Twitter dot com. But
like people, you know, people with the silly dog advatars chiefly,
(26:23):
but other people to have begun to see themselves as
like participants in conflict in a way that they maybe didn't.
Maybe they did and I just wasn't around in the
second world.
Speaker 4 (26:32):
Yeah, No, I think I think that does tie into
part of how the fandom things works, because a part
of participating in fandom is being in these kind of
very very alienating online spaces. Because any type of like
engagement on the Internet in this way is fuel through
the process of alienation. But when that kind of starts
applying to politics, you feel like either the act of
(26:55):
consuming or or like you know, joining in on conversation
is itself like a form of activism. By just like
just through like a consuming or sharing content, you feel
like you're actually participating in the thing itself.
Speaker 3 (27:09):
Yeah, And I think some of it's this almost narcissistic
need to not let the world pass you by because
it's there. There's something deeply uncomfortable about just like watching
massive things happen and realizing like there's nothing I can
do about this. Yeah, to feel there isn't a lot
of the time, right, like your your take, you know,
(27:31):
the the instant a hospital gets attacked in Gaza, your
your take on that is is not particularly helpful or
necessary unless your I don't know Joe Biden, right, but
which is not. I don't think his take was helpful,
but right, it was like it had an impact because
(27:51):
he's the president, but like most of us were just
kind of part of the churn, And there's almost there's
like a degree of emotional need to it, especially when
you see these horrible footage of bodies piled high. Right,
you feel like I'm a bad person if I don't
do something, and the only thing I can do is
tweet or whatever your social.
Speaker 5 (28:11):
Media, I feel like I just just to play Devil's
advocate for hot sake. I think it's a little different
when there's so much conflicting information, especially I mean, like
the Gaza think is a great example. Because the electricity
is out, they don't want them to share anything. So
I think when it comes to something like that, it's
more about like spreading awareness versus like having a take.
(28:32):
In my opinion. It's more just like, hey, the news
might say this, but this is from the actual person
on the ground telling you what's happening. So I think
there's a little bit of nuance because I also think
the only reason that like, like just for Palestine for example,
just is we don't have to go into it too much.
But a huge reason why there's so much more support
(28:53):
for the Palestinian movement is because of social media.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
Yeah, so definitely, Yeah, people see people in gods are
as people now, not as statistics or just through the
lens of hamas or whatever.
Speaker 3 (29:04):
Like yeah, yeah, I mean it depends. I think it
depends on how you do it. And like, I mean,
it is it is accurate to say that to a
significant extent, the ultimate outcome of these conflicts are determined
in large part due to public sympathy, right Like, That's
going to be probably true of, however, things that ultimately
(29:26):
shake out in Gaza, And it's certainly been true of
the conflict in Ukraine, right Like, the degree to which
weapons keep flowing to that country is going to be
heavily based on the degree to which sympathy for that
cause remains among US tax payers and taxpayers in other
countries that are sending them those weapons. That's going to
(29:47):
have an impact on the presidential election maybe, I mean
that is the other thing, right that, like everyone who
is engaging with this stuff via social media, the a
tendency to get caught up in a bubble in terms
of just thinking about how much this is on the
mind of like American voters. Maybe it'll be different this election,
(30:07):
but generally, like again, my feelings on this are kind
of muddle, but like very very often, no matter how
big a deal a story is, you know, online and stuff,
American voters rarely vote based on foreign policy concerns.
Speaker 2 (30:22):
Yeah, tends to be elections, I want to say. I'm
not saying that's what matters morally. I'm just talking about,
like you're totally correct. Yeah, yeah, and especially in terms
of your ability to influence something, it doesn't matter how
much other people don't. An election time, I want to
maybe finish up. I've just knocked over bottle of os
of procol alcohols. My office is rapidly becoming yourself. That's
(30:45):
why I went to turn on the fan and open
the door. Good times. So maybe I want to finish
up before I evacuate by saying that that it's something
you can do, and like it's to give your time
and money. I know that doesn't feel as good as like, yeah,
you know, trying to do amateur ocin on Reddit. But
(31:05):
you can help, actually, like and you can make a
meaningful difference with a few bucks. And I know I
sound like an NPR advert now, but like the rajarv
of Information Center has some good resources, and like they
they have, I'm not going to read them because it's
very complicated, like I say, it's bank transfer information. But
if you feel helpless, you are not, Like you can
(31:25):
do a lot with a little. You can raise money,
you can help to organize donations, right that, Like these
things make a difference. If someone who doesn't have water
now gets a palette of bottled water, that makes a difference.
If someone gets a heater for their home, that makes
a difference. If even if it's someone whose kid has died,
right like, making their life a little less painful in
(31:47):
a physical sense, rightly helping them be warm at night,
that does make a difference. And you can do that.
And if you want to make a difference, I would
really encourage you to do whatever it is, and it
doesn't have to be here, right, it's had that like that,
Like there's an ethnic cleansing happening in Azerbijan, there is
an ethnic cleansing happening in Gaza, right, Like these are
places where like you can show meaningful solidarity and support
(32:11):
with a little bit of a donation or a fundraiser. Right,
it's happening at our fucking border, right, Like someone died
at our border since I last recording. Someone else got
run over by some chat in the truck. Like, you
can make a difference in a meaningful way with actions,
And it's really easy to get sucked into like just
posting into the void and feeling helpless. But like there
(32:32):
are helpful things you can.
Speaker 4 (32:34):
Do and yeah, yeah, and you don't have to just
you don't have to be like rich or have a
lot of disposable income to do this. There's a lot
of like traditionally anarchist communities have put on benefit shows
to run to fundraise from an entire community. So that's
not just you trying to you know, you know, put
(32:55):
like your few pennies aside. There's there's ways, there's ways
to do this that just involve you actually like getting
involved with your like local culture, and a part of
that is like it's not politics as fandom, it is metapolitics.
It's where you actually put your politics into your into
your actual everyday life and it influences the friends you have,
(33:16):
the communities you have. So whether that's you know, a
whole bunch of trans musicians doing a benefit show to
get donations to send over to Rajava or send over
to to Gaza, or you know, there's a lot of
other sorts of things that that is a way of
actually having part of your politics be not just like
consumption have not it's not just like Twitter accounts with
(33:39):
flags and your avatar. It's actually like living your life
in a way that matches the things that you believe.
Speaker 2 (33:46):
And I think that that like, sorry, having spoken to
people in more Java, in the Yepigay and the Yepijay
and these other organizations, Like one of the things that
makes them distinct from other militaries is that they are
building the well they want to see. They're fighting against
the thing that's killing it right like they're destroying it.
Like a lot of times we'll see leftist military is
not exactly doing the equality that leftism is about. One hopes.
(34:10):
So like you can participate in that, as Garrison said, right,
by doing the mutual aid, by doing the benefit, sure,
by doing the fundraiser, Like you are making a world
in which this shit will happen less when you do
things to stop it happening or to ease the pain
of it happening. Now. So and you're building communities, right
and in strong communities are more resilient to this shit. Yeah,
(34:33):
And like things are getting pretty bleak and we're only
going to get through them by helping each other and
so building a network that continue. Like if I think
about how much better the mutual aid response has been
this time to what's happened at the border compared to
what it was in May, that's because people built networks
didn't go away, and it was good in May in
part because we built networks that help to make being
(34:55):
on housed in San Diego feel be survivable. Right, And
like those networks to resilient and they're flexible that they
and they help us like mentally process all the horrible
shit and also physically help people. So yeah, you have
that within your means too, Right, you have a signal
on your telephone, like you can organize things. I don't
(35:16):
have to feel helpless, but I feel dizzy due to
the I suprise but alcoholic that has feeled. So maybe
that's a wonderful time to end the All right, everyone,
James is going to hallucinate in his office, and you,
I hope, are going to hallucinate wherever you happen to
be right now. Enjoy the better world. Hallucinate the better world.
(35:39):
It might be the only way to live through one
wonderful podcast. To Garrison Davis's everyone, Hi, it's me James.
You thought I died, but I have not. I survived
the uproble alcohol fumes. I wouldn't advise doing that to yourself.
Very unpleasant, But I'm back just to update you. We
recorded that last week and I am recording this today
(36:02):
before this goes out. So I'm recording this on the
afternoon of Monday, the twenty third of October. I just
wanted to update everyone. As Robert mentioned in the show,
the weakening of the Sae Shrint and the fact that
people are not able to be out and about because
of these drones strikes, combined with the events in Israel
(36:23):
and Palestine in the last couple of weeks, have resulted
in a significant uptake in violence in the area. So
I just wanted to update you on that, especially as
I've seen a decent amount of misinformation which will be
shocking to many of you on Twitter dot com. So
there have been a series of rocket and uav UV
and manned aerial vehicle right drones drone attacks on US
(36:46):
bases across the north of Iraq and across Syria. So
some of those happened to Altant, which is further south.
Some of them happened to Al Hassaka. Some of them
also happened to oil pipelines. And I would be very
wary of people posting, which is are big fires and
claiming that there are attacks at the US Bass. Every
time I've seen that, it's actually been an attack on
an oil pipeline, and either the person doesn't know that
(37:09):
that's not a US base or they are willfully being
leading to try and get more clicks. People get paid
on Twitter for engagement now, so I'm quite cynical about
people's reasons for doing that. But there definitely have been
attacks that they have not resulted in much loss of life.
One contractor I believe did lose their lives due to
Carliac incident that happened when they were sheltering from a
(37:31):
what turned out to be a false alarm of a
drone attack, but no one has been directly killed by
those drone munitions. There have been a number of people
killed in increasing conflict in the area. Both One person
was killed in Camishlow, very very close to where I stayed.
Actually you can probably see it from my outolium in
a car bomb, which is not a normal thing to
(37:52):
happen in the middle of that city, a car bomb
going off, So that's obviously cosst for concern for some
people in Deir rezor SDF and coalition forces have conducted
a number of operations against ISIS sleeper cells who are
still there, arrested, obtained a number of suspected ISIS members.
They've also been fighting against Iranian backed militias across the Euphrates.
(38:14):
We've also seen fighting between the Peshmerger so that those
are the military forces of the Kurdis down regional government
in that area of Iraq and the Iraqi Army around
the Macmaal refugee camp, which is a refugee camp for
Kurdish people who have fled from Turkey, and of course
we've seen a lot of threats, a lot of even
(38:38):
fighting inside Iran, but it it's generally been an Iranian
backed militias attacking US bases so far across that whole area.
So I just wanted to update you on those things.
Obviously we'll keep updating you on them, and also to
just suggest once again that people verify the sources of
information because I have seen, especially about this area where
(38:58):
I think literacy is really among the general US populations,
and outrageous claims being made by people who either don't
know what they're talking about or are wilfully misleading people.
So I wanted to counsel people to be concerned about that.
We don't have exact I don't have exact numbers of
the numbers of drone attacks. I'm looking at a Pentagon
press conference that happened thirty nine minutes ago, and they're
not giving them out there. So I have asked them
(39:21):
for comment on a couple of things. So didn't email
me back, very sad ghosting me a bit. Yeah, that's
the latest information on that. I wanted to make sure
that we had the leaders update for you.
Speaker 1 (39:34):
It could happen here as a production of cool Zone Media.
For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
cool zonemedia dot com or check us out on the
iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts,
you can find sources for It could happen here, updated
monthly at cool zonemedia dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening.
Also Media.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Greetings podcast Into theis. It's me James, a man who
has commenced his one man war against cutter airlines, who
detained me against my will for most of the last
two days in a very small part of a very
big plane. See there's a there's.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
A You know, airlines from Middle Eastern countries are are
usually like the best airlines are like Royal Jordanian and
the Air Immirates. If it's if it's owned by a king,
it's usually a safe bet. But but cutter airways, that's
what they say about England breaks that mold, proudly breaks
(00:47):
that mold. Yeah, yeah, fuck me.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
One of the one of the less pleasant experiences available
to a human being that doesn't end in death is
a thirty six hour trip from Kingston to now in California,
which see I've just enjoyed.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
I always enjoyed those trips back from Air Emirates because
when you're on the Air Emirates flight, if you ask
the steward or whatever to you, if you tell him, hey,
I would like eight shots of vodka and four glasses
of orange juice, He'll just give it to you, like,
not even a question, not even a question. And so
(01:25):
have I vomited on a couple of Air Emirates flights?
Speaker 1 (01:27):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (01:27):
Is it always a good time? Probably you don't remember. No, No, yeah,
I see.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
I was at the point of frustration where like and
I'm as an english Man, if if I've become frustrated
and drunk, then my instinct is to fight everyone or
throw bottles, and I thought that would probably result in
further detention, so decided against decided against becoming bladdered. Or
it could have started singing. I guess that's the other
(01:55):
option available to me that fits my culture. Yeah, so
we're not here to talk about things that I like
to do in my free time, as much as I
would love that, but we are here to talk about
things that I have been seeing in my worktime. When
I was traveling to Kurdistan last couple of weeks. Kurdistan,
(02:16):
for people who are not familiar, is a big area,
the area where Kurdish people live, and it spans several countries.
The areas I went, we're in Iraq and in Syria
or in that it's not really in I guess Syrian
regime territory. But if you look on the.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
Mout northeast Syria known as Rojava. The other two parts
that are generally considered part of Kurdistan are a chunk,
big chunk of southern Iran and also a big chunk
of southern Turkey.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
Yeah, so Java just means west. I think Roja lat
is east eastern Kurdistan. So yeah, I've spent the last
several last week and change in that area. And while
I was there, the Turkish state began and a massive
drone bombing campaign, which is what we are gathered here
(03:05):
today to discuss. So for people who are not familiar,
it's four years almost to this drone bombing campaign started
almost four years to the day since Turkey's invasion of
what they call the M four Strip. So that's the
area around Surakania and tell Abayad, we've talked about that
before on the Podka, So if you want to know
(03:26):
more about that, you can go back and listen to it.
It's the area along the border, one of the areas
on the border between Turkey and Syria. And as people
will know, Syria is a country that has had a
long and terrible civil war, which they've heard about in
lots of episodes, right, and we're not talking about that today,
(03:47):
so much as we're talking about the Turkish state's use
of drones to bomb, what people generally in this country
will know as for a Java, right, So just to
give them statistics off the top, this is the fourth
year in a row of aggression at this time of year, right,
So there have been two land attacks I think Operation
(04:09):
Olive Branch and Operation with someone called peace Spring, and
then two years the last two years there have been
drone strikes at this time of year, this time of year,
it seems very hard not to conclude that these are
attempts to destroy civilian infrastructure and make it very hard
for people in the cold months of the year. So
(04:30):
right now, around two million people in north east Syria
are going to be without power and without water. And
I experienced some of that when I was there, and
the places I stayed will run off generators, so you'd
have like intermittent power, you'd have power from it and
then they'd put some petrum in the generator and the
power will go down, or the generator would have a
little tantrum and the power would go down. But generally
(04:53):
I had a lot better access to power that some
people had a lot better access to water. So as
I was traveling around, I noticed some people didn't have
access to to like running water, right they can't turn
on the tap and get water. Obviously that's a massive problem.
It's something I think like as people are listening to this,
Israel is also bombing the shit out of Gaza, the
(05:14):
whole of the Gaza Strip, and the US recently intervened
to ensure that people there have access to water, and
they have done very little in the case of protecting
people in North and East Syria. Right. So across this
drone campaign, forty eight people have died, and in the
(05:35):
worst of I guess the highest casualty of producing strike
was one that happened while I was there, twenty nine
internal security forces. Sometimes you'll see it translated as police,
but I don't think that's quite accurate, like that they
don't do cop shit, Like they're not there to you know,
like arrescue for parking in the wrong place, or and
they do the things that cops do. They're there largely
(05:57):
as like internal security to the various non state armed
groups that are in the area and state armed groups.
I guess that they're operating in the area that would
make things dangerous for people living there. So these particular
essays were anti narcotics essays. And again why I'm grounding
this and what they do is because they're not the
people who like send you to jail for the rest
(06:17):
of your life for like having an ounce of weed.
They're the people whose job is to prevent the trading
cap to gone will people know what people know what
captagon is.
Speaker 3 (06:28):
Absolutely yeah, it's it's it's it's one of the drug
I mean, it's that when you when you hear about
drug interdiction forces, like like police in Rojava, they're going
after CAPTI Gone. It's a big chunk of both what
kept isis it's it's the it's the purveten, you know,
the meth that Nazis took that for isis right, and
it was also a big chunk of how they got
their funding was was moving and the a sad regime
(06:50):
also gets a piece of a lot of the captivegone trade.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
It continues to fund these largely these like it's the
mist insurgent groups right in the area because it's small
and it high value, and like Roberts also to give
it to their fighters. This is very common, like around
the world, We discuss this in Miandmar too, right, that
the military there take something else called yabba. But these
kind of meth derivatives are very common and they're very
(07:15):
commonly sold. That's how a lot of these non state
armed groups get money to buy stuff. Right. So when
we're talking about drug interdiction, it's not done in a vacuum.
It's not done because they think that necessarily that drugs
are bad or that you know, there's some kind of
moral failure that comes from the use of these substances.
(07:36):
It's because it allows funding for groups that are trying
to kill people on the ground. So like interdicting the
drugs is part of an anti terrorism operation that allows
people to live safely, which is what they deserve after
ten plus years of war in that area. So twenty
nine people is a lot of people, right, twenty nine
anti narcotics assay issues is a lot of the people
(07:57):
who do that job. It's going to make it signific
currently harder for them to continue doing that job, which
means it's going to make it significantly easier for those
armed groups to get funding. Right. It's also so while
I was there, there was a massive funeral for these
people right, every town, every settlement across where Java has
lost somebody in that strike, right, So in Kambishloh, in Kabani,
(08:24):
in Alhasaka, like all these places had big funerals because
you know, three or four or ten people came from
that town, and like that's I saw a little girl
like going to her dad's funeral, right, like a little
girl holding a picture of her dad. And it's pretty
fucked up. Like it's hard for that not to affect you,
especially as like these people weren't fighting anyone, they weren't
(08:45):
attacking anyone, right, they were just they were taking a training.
They were taking an anti narcotics training at night, and
sixty of them were gathering. It's building. Twenty nine were killed,
twenty eight rain injured. And it's in the sort of
furthest northeast part of northern Eassyria, but around a town
called Derek, which is on the board of at al Malkay. Derek. Yeah,
(09:06):
probably my pronunciation is asked al Malachaia might say on
the map if you're looking at a Google map, so
you're trying to work out what it is. Lots of
these places. The reason they will have two names is
cored edition and Arabic.
Speaker 4 (09:18):
Right.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
So, like under the previous Sad regime, like Arabic was
the sort of language that people were enforced to speak
and use, and now under the self administration, people tend
to use Kurdish, and they tend to use a Latin
script as opposed to an Arabic script. Right, So that's
why you'll see two names very often you're looking on
a map, But like twenty nine is only you know,
(09:41):
there's nineteen other people, mostly civilians, right, who were killed,
and two million people are now living without power, without
water and without these basic services, which in turn will
result in more death. Right, more people will die because
they don't have access to those things which are life sustaining, right,
(10:02):
old people, young people, sick people. Both things are the
very basics of sustaining human life, and so without them,
things are going to get a lot harder. I want
to talk a little bit about like where these drone
strikes happened, because largely aside from the one of their age,
they weren't at like large groups of people or buildings. Instead,
(10:27):
they were like deliberately targeting infrastructure. So of the ones
that I saw and the ones that I read about,
they targeted like an electricity substation in one case, they
targeted a lot of water facilities, right, like water pumping stations,
et cetera, that allow people to get water, a cooking
gas plant, which it's pretty obvious what that does, right,
(10:50):
It allows people to get bottles of gas to cook
their food, and a lot of oil in destructures. So
I saw a few of those called like donkeys, you know,
the things that go up and down, yeah, using.
Speaker 5 (11:04):
I don't know the word, but the little crane things.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, the like the the things you can
see if you drive through Bakersfield.
Speaker 5 (11:12):
I'm sure there's a name.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
Yeah. Are they oiled derricks? Yeah? Someone someone googled the
name of the nodding dog they pumps jack?
Speaker 5 (11:21):
Is that no?
Speaker 2 (11:24):
Yeah, that's that's the first sounds like like a dude
who goes to the gym a lot, Yeah, broke and
pump jecked.
Speaker 5 (11:31):
I mean it is called the an oil donkey as well.
So you were, yeah, nodding donkey pumps. Yeah's thought they
were noding donkeys. Okay, yeah, that's that's that's a phrase
we're going with. So you could see a lot of
these that were like knocked over on their side, right
that had been drawn struck, and then you could see
others that were just knocked out because the power to
(11:52):
them had been knocked out. So obviously that's not only
a major revenue source, but also like that is how
people in the region get fuel, right, so like it's
going to be harder for them to get diesels, going
to be harder for them to drive around. People already
don't drive around a lot because a lot of the
drone strikes on people in the Yepagay Yepja, so that
(12:14):
the People's Defense Forces and Women's Defense Forces, lots of
drun strikes have happened when those people are driving their cars.
When they get in a car, so it can be
quite hairy driving. And so a lot of people were
driving to like I drive around, but that's just one
of the areas of risk for people.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
Right. Of the people killed, thirty fives a eleven were
civilians and two SEFs, So most of these were either
internal security or civilians. And I think Robert you were
Robert and I spoke well while I was there, and
Robert made a good point about how this like enables
these non state armed groups like either ISIS or like.
Speaker 3 (12:55):
HID that My main concern for you while you were
there was not the you would get hit in an
air strike, but it was that because of the damage
done to the security forces as a result of the
Turkish are strikes, you would it would, it would. There's
there's always been is as cells there right that they're
they're they've never gotten rid of all of them. And
(13:18):
periods where the A and E. S self administration is
under attack are the periods in which it's most dangerous
because it provides there's less security forces, you know, watching everything.
People in general are are outless, which provides cover for
for some of these groups that may want to do
like a kidnapping.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, and it's not a place where a
lot of I guess folks who look like memory. That
was a concern for us, and like it's a concern
for these people too. Write they still do car bombs
in derizor not, you know that they think still kill civilians. Yeah,
they roll up IIS people on a probably weekly basis,
(13:57):
and people are interested in getting more information both the
drone strikes and about what they call sleeper cells. The
Java Information Center very nice people. They have a good website.
It's Jarva Information Center Org, which they produce monthly reports
on both things, so that will give more information on
those things. That would be a good time to pivot
(14:17):
to adverts. But I've got all that is. Do you
know who else provides great services? I don't think we can.
I don't reasonably make that claim.
Speaker 4 (14:29):
The products and services that support this podcast here they are.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
We're back and we are discussing torone strikes North Asyria,
I guess not just from North Asyria, like these also
happen up around Slimani sort of many if you're looking
on the map, depends again on the language. Right, those
have happened again against KSEK, which is like the Kurdistan
(15:05):
Communities Council, So that would be the I guess the
the that if you look at like Syria, Iran, Turkey
and Iraq as different countries, all of which have some
administrative control over the nation of Kurdish people, right, Kurdish
people live in all four countries, and they live in
(15:27):
other countries too. Of course, then the movements in each
of those countries are subsidiary to the k c K,
and so some of those KTK folks are up in Solimani.
So like that there will be drowne strikes there, and
that's that's far inside Iraqi Kurdistan. Right, You're you're a
long way from the border there, and that's that's what
(15:49):
these drone strikes. I guess. The drone strikes allow Turkish
intelligence in the Turkish military to target people much much
further inside with with a little consequent or risk on
their own. Right, these drones are largely not being targeted because,
certainly in an Ees, the Autonomous Administration in North Eastyria,
(16:11):
they don't have the means to target them, right. The
United States hasn't supplied them with the weapons that they
would need to shoot down those drones, which I think
brings me onto the role of the US in this
and I guess, more broadly, the role of the coalition
in this case. Coalition is a coalition to defeat ISIS. Right,
it's made up of dozens of countries, the UK, the US, Germany,
(16:37):
lots of other Western I guess countries broadly, and countries
in that part of the world too, like I think
Iraq is part of it. Certainly, like Iraqi, Kurdistan has
done their own operations against ISIS sleeper cells, peshmurger and
like everywhere you go you go through pesh mega checkpoints.
Like I was going through an area where they had
(16:58):
arrested and isis member the day before, So like it's
they'll be getting you out of the car, you know,
going through your bags, looking through your stuff. Right, So
that's all part of the same operation. But the US
has a base in a place called Alhassaka, which again
you can look up on the map, right, it's a
little west. I'm trying to land up my compass here,
a little west of Camishlo, which is a capital of
(17:21):
the region, and the US pretty much US troops don't
do a great amount of leaving that base. It's fair
to say they'll come out in helicopters. They were going
out like sort of supporting SDF patrols in the Ahaska region,
but they were supporting them from the air.
Speaker 3 (17:40):
Right.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
They generally aren't going out and about like with people
on the ground, talking to people unless it's a specific mission,
which they do sometimes you can if people are interested
in like the US presence. It's called Operation Inherent Resolve,
And they have a Twitter account whether sometimes post themselves
doing things. But what they don't do is protect that
(18:01):
and So the US and the Autonomous Administration are allies
in this fight against ISIS, right, but they are only
allied in this fight against ISIS. The US is not
supporting them in defending themselves from drone strikes or like
ensuring that a civilian population is protected from those attacks.
So the US has the capacity to shoot down these drones,
(18:24):
and they prove that by shooting one down last week
or the week before. I'm a little bit jet lagged,
a bit bangledo on time, but I think it was
last week the US shut down a Turkish drones that
came out two weeks ago for when this is airing, Yes, yeah, sure,
good point. Yeah. So yeah, two weeks ago the United
States shut down and F sixteen shut down a Turkish drone.
(18:47):
So specifically, it was a drone called an a Kinji,
which is a newer variant of the Bairaktar drone. We've
spoken about these drones before, right, they're the drones that
people like, I know, you can go on actually by
a stuffy version of these drones, which rights that's concerning.
Speaker 5 (19:04):
Yeah, it's really dystopian and crazy.
Speaker 2 (19:08):
I don't like it. Yeah, I do not like it either.
I think it illustrates the way the war in Ukraine
has become like a football match for some people, yeah yes,
or like a film where like I just want to
reinforce it.
Speaker 4 (19:21):
Like it's turned into like fandom.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
Yeah yes, yeah, I think that's an excellent way of
putting it. Garasay, Like, it's not cool when anyone gets
fucking drone struck. It's not cool when like everyone in
an area spends every night worrying if death is going
to come from the sky at some point, right Like,
the effect of these drones trucks isn't just on the
(19:43):
people killed, or the people injured, or even the infrastructure.
The effect is on every single person worrying what's going
to happen tonight? Right Like, And I can speak to
a tiny part of that experience. Right Nothing compared to
what people are living there have gone through at all,
But it's a concern every time it gets dark, you know,
well it it's tonight then, I especially for the rural
folks who might be living in a rural area but
(20:05):
near to a substation, or near to one of those
nodding donkeys or other infrastructure which has been targeted, or
near a cooking gas plant, right those things I can
imagine explode with quite some force. They can't leave, right,
they can't just up and and not live near any infrastructure.
Infrastructures what allows the place to be survivable for civilians.
So they just have to live with this constant fear.
(20:28):
And it's very odd to see that and then simultaneously
see this this sort of deification of drone strikes that
are happening in Ukraine and like this, you know, people
with dog dressed as Napoleon Twitter avatars, Yeah, cheering someone's
kid dying.
Speaker 4 (20:46):
Yeah, I mean throughout all of the kind of new
conflicts we've had the past five years, like the and
especially the past like two three years, Like the idea
of like politics as fandom has produced some of the
like most like inhumane, gross aspects of how people have
(21:07):
been like consuming social media and just the sheer. It's
like people forget that this is like thousands of people's actual,
like human lives that they're like meaming about, and it's
it just it just becomes just they talk about it
in the same way they talk about like a Marvel
movie or like a star sport like it's it's it's yeah,
or sports like it's it it it it's like this
(21:29):
weird like gamified. It allows you to to approach these
things from a just a from a very separate perspective
when you're when you're viewing it from like this fandom angle,
I think. But politics is fandom in general. I think
it's gotten a whole lot worse since the Trump era,
YE had, you know, like that's where we had like
resistance libs that were like copying off some of the
(21:52):
stuff from the New Star Wars trilogy, which is kind
of the inspiration for a lot of their stuff. We
got Nazis doing a whole bunch of politics as fandom
as well. It just creates like it's it's it's like
this team sports like fandom thing that is just pervate.
It's it's it's it's seeped into like almost every single
aspect of like not just politics, but now like conflict
(22:13):
and like geopolitics.
Speaker 5 (22:15):
It's like whoever has the best branding is the one
that has the best chance.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
Yeah, and it's I don't know, it's it's it's disturbing
to watch.
Speaker 4 (22:24):
I I don't know how to like counter counter it,
because it feels like the more you engage the further
sucked into the abyss you become. But it also doesn't
feel good to just like ignore it as well, because
it's just it's like, it feels like this kind of
endless trap that is just a part of existing in
this weird postmodern internet world.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
Yeah, I don't know. I think like one would hope
that the Internet in some ways could help us see that,
like at the end of every drone strikes a little
fucking child most of the time, or like like I
spent some time last week with the family who almost
exactly one year ago lost their fifteen year old turn
in a drone strike, and like it that, Like I
understand people die in these things, like on an intellectual
(23:10):
level and even on a personal level, like having spent
time in these places for a decent amount of my life,
But fuck me, it's just like it destroyed you. Like
seeing a mum bury her son cry for her little boy.
It's fucking heartbreaking, and like I got to live that
for one morning, and those people live that every single
day and every time, like and I don't, I don't know,
(23:34):
it makes me want to shout at people when I
see this.
Speaker 3 (23:37):
I don't actually think it's I don't mean to be
a doomer here. I don't think it's a solvable problem. Yeah,
this is we are talking about it within the language
of fandom because that is kind of the defining public
social relationship of our time. But like this is always
what people have done to watch, sure one way or
(23:58):
the other. Right, Yeah, it's faster now and and more commercial, right,
like one thing for whatever reason, I think just because
we're a culturated to it. Hearing people talk about, you know,
doing what they do in times of war because of patriotism,
because of nationalism, because of belief in the founding principles
of their country, seems a little bit less coarse than
(24:22):
like doing it because you fell in with a bunch
of memers who use little dog avatars and shit. But like,
I don't know, it's it's not like less logical than yeah,
being right or die, because like you happen to be
born under you know so and so the king.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
Yes, yeah, yeah, and like that dehumanization. I think the difference,
like to me is like so like Robert and I
have bose experiences, right to in order to kill somebody,
you have to dehumanize them. To kill people on mass
you have to do that on mass right, if you're
fighting a war, it doesn't behoove you to make it
sound like we're killing people.
Speaker 4 (25:01):
Ge.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
Well that's the thing that we do on the podcast, Robert, Yeah,
we kill people in maths.
Speaker 3 (25:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:06):
Yeah, sure, you're going to have to school. A zone
is where we talk about the killings. If people want
to subscribe, that's what we do instead of adverts, is
we list the people we've killed.
Speaker 3 (25:16):
Yeah, James as the as the quote on your Blue
Sky account says, one death is a tragedy, one million
is a statistic James Stout.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
Yeah, yeah, that's right, and it's every every day I
strive to get my number up, you know, but so
far I've let everyone down. That's not true. And to
my knowledge, none of us have killed anyone but your knowledge,
to my knowledge, yeah, Sharen's probably got some bodies in
the in the class, you know, Jesus Christ. It's so
(25:59):
what I want to to say is that like when yeah,
like if you're in the military, you probably know this, right,
like like this sort of blood makes a grass grows, shit, fine, whatever,
Like that's how wars work. War is undesirable, it's horrible.
You have to be horrible. You have to you have
to dehumanize people to kill them. You don't have to
fucking do that if you're on Twitter dot com. But
like people, you know, people with the silly dog advatars chiefly,
(26:23):
but other people to have begun to see themselves as
like participants in conflict in a way that they maybe didn't.
Maybe they did and I just wasn't around in the
second world.
Speaker 4 (26:32):
Yeah, No, I think I think that does tie into
part of how the fandom things works, because a part
of participating in fandom is being in these kind of
very very alienating online spaces. Because any type of like
engagement on the Internet in this way is fuel through
the process of alienation. But when that kind of starts
applying to politics, you feel like either the act of
(26:55):
consuming or or like you know, joining in on conversation
is itself like a form of activism. By just like
just through like a consuming or sharing content, you feel
like you're actually participating in the thing itself.
Speaker 3 (27:09):
Yeah, And I think some of it's this almost narcissistic
need to not let the world pass you by because
it's there. There's something deeply uncomfortable about just like watching
massive things happen and realizing like there's nothing I can
do about this. Yeah, to feel there isn't a lot
of the time, right, like your your take, you know,
(27:31):
the the instant a hospital gets attacked in Gaza, your
your take on that is is not particularly helpful or
necessary unless your I don't know Joe Biden, right, but
which is not. I don't think his take was helpful,
but right, it was like it had an impact because
(27:51):
he's the president, but like most of us were just
kind of part of the churn, And there's almost there's
like a degree of emotional need to it, especially when
you see these horrible footage of bodies piled high. Right,
you feel like I'm a bad person if I don't
do something, and the only thing I can do is
tweet or whatever your social.
Speaker 5 (28:11):
Media, I feel like I just just to play Devil's
advocate for hot sake. I think it's a little different
when there's so much conflicting information, especially I mean, like
the Gaza think is a great example. Because the electricity
is out, they don't want them to share anything. So
I think when it comes to something like that, it's
more about like spreading awareness versus like having a take.
(28:32):
In my opinion. It's more just like, hey, the news
might say this, but this is from the actual person
on the ground telling you what's happening. So I think
there's a little bit of nuance because I also think
the only reason that like, like just for Palestine for example,
just is we don't have to go into it too much.
But a huge reason why there's so much more support
(28:53):
for the Palestinian movement is because of social media.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
Yeah, so definitely, Yeah, people see people in gods are
as people now, not as statistics or just through the
lens of hamas or whatever.
Speaker 3 (29:04):
Like yeah, yeah, I mean it depends. I think it
depends on how you do it. And like, I mean,
it is it is accurate to say that to a
significant extent, the ultimate outcome of these conflicts are determined
in large part due to public sympathy, right Like, That's
going to be probably true of, however, things that ultimately
(29:26):
shake out in Gaza, And it's certainly been true of
the conflict in Ukraine, right Like, the degree to which
weapons keep flowing to that country is going to be
heavily based on the degree to which sympathy for that
cause remains among US tax payers and taxpayers in other
countries that are sending them those weapons. That's going to
(29:47):
have an impact on the presidential election maybe, I mean
that is the other thing, right that, like everyone who
is engaging with this stuff via social media, the a
tendency to get caught up in a bubble in terms
of just thinking about how much this is on the
mind of like American voters. Maybe it'll be different this election,
(30:07):
but generally, like again, my feelings on this are kind
of muddle, but like very very often, no matter how
big a deal a story is, you know, online and stuff,
American voters rarely vote based on foreign policy concerns.
Speaker 2 (30:22):
Yeah, tends to be elections, I want to say. I'm
not saying that's what matters morally. I'm just talking about,
like you're totally correct. Yeah, yeah, and especially in terms
of your ability to influence something, it doesn't matter how
much other people don't. An election time, I want to
maybe finish up. I've just knocked over bottle of os
of procol alcohols. My office is rapidly becoming yourself. That's
(30:45):
why I went to turn on the fan and open
the door. Good times. So maybe I want to finish
up before I evacuate by saying that that it's something
you can do, and like it's to give your time
and money. I know that doesn't feel as good as like, yeah,
you know, trying to do amateur ocin on Reddit. But
(31:05):
you can help, actually, like and you can make a
meaningful difference with a few bucks. And I know I
sound like an NPR advert now, but like the rajarv
of Information Center has some good resources, and like they
they have, I'm not going to read them because it's
very complicated, like I say, it's bank transfer information. But
if you feel helpless, you are not, Like you can
(31:25):
do a lot with a little. You can raise money,
you can help to organize donations, right that, Like these
things make a difference. If someone who doesn't have water
now gets a palette of bottled water, that makes a difference.
If someone gets a heater for their home, that makes
a difference. If even if it's someone whose kid has died,
right like, making their life a little less painful in
(31:47):
a physical sense, rightly helping them be warm at night,
that does make a difference. And you can do that.
And if you want to make a difference, I would
really encourage you to do whatever it is, and it
doesn't have to be here, right, it's had that like that,
Like there's an ethnic cleansing happening in Azerbijan, there is
an ethnic cleansing happening in Gaza, right, Like these are
places where like you can show meaningful solidarity and support
(32:11):
with a little bit of a donation or a fundraiser. Right,
it's happening at our fucking border, right, Like someone died
at our border since I last recording. Someone else got
run over by some chat in the truck. Like, you
can make a difference in a meaningful way with actions,
And it's really easy to get sucked into like just
posting into the void and feeling helpless. But like there
(32:32):
are helpful things you can.
Speaker 4 (32:34):
Do and yeah, yeah, and you don't have to just
you don't have to be like rich or have a
lot of disposable income to do this. There's a lot
of like traditionally anarchist communities have put on benefit shows
to run to fundraise from an entire community. So that's
not just you trying to you know, you know, put
(32:55):
like your few pennies aside. There's there's ways, there's ways
to do this that just involve you actually like getting
involved with your like local culture, and a part of
that is like it's not politics as fandom, it is metapolitics.
It's where you actually put your politics into your into
your actual everyday life and it influences the friends you have,
(33:16):
the communities you have. So whether that's you know, a
whole bunch of trans musicians doing a benefit show to
get donations to send over to Rajava or send over
to to Gaza, or you know, there's a lot of
other sorts of things that that is a way of
actually having part of your politics be not just like
consumption have not it's not just like Twitter accounts with
(33:39):
flags and your avatar. It's actually like living your life
in a way that matches the things that you believe.
Speaker 2 (33:46):
And I think that that like, sorry, having spoken to
people in more Java, in the Yepigay and the Yepijay
and these other organizations, Like one of the things that
makes them distinct from other militaries is that they are
building the well they want to see. They're fighting against
the thing that's killing it right like they're destroying it.
Like a lot of times we'll see leftist military is
not exactly doing the equality that leftism is about. One hopes.
(34:10):
So like you can participate in that, as Garrison said, right,
by doing the mutual aid, by doing the benefit, sure,
by doing the fundraiser, Like you are making a world
in which this shit will happen less when you do
things to stop it happening or to ease the pain
of it happening. Now. So and you're building communities, right
and in strong communities are more resilient to this shit. Yeah,
(34:33):
And like things are getting pretty bleak and we're only
going to get through them by helping each other and
so building a network that continue. Like if I think
about how much better the mutual aid response has been
this time to what's happened at the border compared to
what it was in May, that's because people built networks
didn't go away, and it was good in May in
part because we built networks that help to make being
(34:55):
on housed in San Diego feel be survivable. Right, And
like those networks to resilient and they're flexible that they
and they help us like mentally process all the horrible
shit and also physically help people. So yeah, you have
that within your means too, Right, you have a signal
on your telephone, like you can organize things. I don't
(35:16):
have to feel helpless, but I feel dizzy due to
the I suprise but alcoholic that has feeled. So maybe
that's a wonderful time to end the All right, everyone,
James is going to hallucinate in his office, and you,
I hope, are going to hallucinate wherever you happen to
be right now. Enjoy the better world. Hallucinate the better world.
(35:39):
It might be the only way to live through one
wonderful podcast. To Garrison Davis's everyone, Hi, it's me James.
You thought I died, but I have not. I survived
the uproble alcohol fumes. I wouldn't advise doing that to yourself.
Very unpleasant, But I'm back just to update you. We
recorded that last week and I am recording this today
(36:02):
before this goes out. So I'm recording this on the
afternoon of Monday, the twenty third of October. I just
wanted to update everyone. As Robert mentioned in the show,
the weakening of the Sae Shrint and the fact that
people are not able to be out and about because
of these drones strikes, combined with the events in Israel
(36:23):
and Palestine in the last couple of weeks, have resulted
in a significant uptake in violence in the area. So
I just wanted to update you on that, especially as
I've seen a decent amount of misinformation which will be
shocking to many of you on Twitter dot com. So
there have been a series of rocket and uav UV
and manned aerial vehicle right drones drone attacks on US
(36:46):
bases across the north of Iraq and across Syria. So
some of those happened to Altant, which is further south.
Some of them happened to Al Hassaka. Some of them
also happened to oil pipelines. And I would be very
wary of people posting, which is are big fires and
claiming that there are attacks at the US Bass. Every
time I've seen that, it's actually been an attack on
an oil pipeline, and either the person doesn't know that
(37:09):
that's not a US base or they are willfully being
leading to try and get more clicks. People get paid
on Twitter for engagement now, so I'm quite cynical about
people's reasons for doing that. But there definitely have been
attacks that they have not resulted in much loss of life.
One contractor I believe did lose their lives due to
Carliac incident that happened when they were sheltering from a
(37:31):
what turned out to be a false alarm of a
drone attack, but no one has been directly killed by
those drone munitions. There have been a number of people
killed in increasing conflict in the area. Both One person
was killed in Camishlow, very very close to where I stayed.
Actually you can probably see it from my outolium in
a car bomb, which is not a normal thing to
(37:52):
happen in the middle of that city, a car bomb
going off, So that's obviously cosst for concern for some
people in Deir rezor SDF and coalition forces have conducted
a number of operations against ISIS sleeper cells who are
still there, arrested, obtained a number of suspected ISIS members.
They've also been fighting against Iranian backed militias across the Euphrates.
(38:14):
We've also seen fighting between the Peshmerger so that those
are the military forces of the Kurdis down regional government
in that area of Iraq and the Iraqi Army around
the Macmaal refugee camp, which is a refugee camp for
Kurdish people who have fled from Turkey, and of course
we've seen a lot of threats, a lot of even
(38:38):
fighting inside Iran, but it it's generally been an Iranian
backed militias attacking US bases so far across that whole area.
So I just wanted to update you on those things.
Obviously we'll keep updating you on them, and also to
just suggest once again that people verify the sources of
information because I have seen, especially about this area where
(38:58):
I think literacy is really among the general US populations,
and outrageous claims being made by people who either don't
know what they're talking about or are wilfully misleading people.
So I wanted to counsel people to be concerned about that.
We don't have exact I don't have exact numbers of
the numbers of drone attacks. I'm looking at a Pentagon
press conference that happened thirty nine minutes ago, and they're
not giving them out there. So I have asked them
(39:21):
for comment on a couple of things. So didn't email
me back, very sad ghosting me a bit. Yeah, that's
the latest information on that. I wanted to make sure
that we had the leaders update for you.
Speaker 1 (39:34):
It could happen here as a production of cool Zone Media.
For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
cool zonemedia dot com or check us out on the
iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts,
you can find sources for It could happen here, updated
monthly at cool zonemedia dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening.
It Could Happen Here News
Hosts And Creators
Robert Evans
Garrison Davis
James Stout
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