Krystal and Saagar discuss a Ukraine General admitting the war is unwinnable, CNN report exposes horrifying Israeli torture camps, Lindsey Graham calls for nuking Gaza, and meet the hawks behind Biden's Israel policy.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here
and we here at breaking points, are already thinking of
ways we can up our game for this critical election.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
We rely on our premium subs to expand coverage, upgrade
the studio ad staff, give you, guys, the best independent
coverage that is possible. If you like what we're all about,
it just means the absolute world to have your support.
But enough with that, let's get to the show. Let's
move on to Ukraine. This was also a very important story.
This is one which we've been tabling for a little while.
(00:30):
There's been no immediate developments with the biggest news that
really came out from just two days ago. Let's put
this up there on the screen is you can look
view it in two ways. President Putin of Russia has
replaced Sergei Shogu, who was the longtime defense Minister, one
of his closest allies in the Russian government, in a
major security shakeup. Allegedly Crystal he had. He's been nominated
(00:54):
and given a promotion. But I guess they call this
promotion a promotional firing in the best way possible. But
what's fascinating is that he did not put a military
man to replace him. He actually put a former deputy
prime minister quote who specializes in economics to replace Shogu. Now,
the reason why that's so important is that this shows
(01:15):
basically that the Russian economy post sanctions, the way they've
been able to survive is to fully ramp up their
entire military industrial complex. It's the way that they've been
able to pump so much money into their economy. They
become one of the major employers. Obviously, they've drafted and
or recruited hundreds and hundreds of thousands of Russian citizens
into the military. They've got artillery production which is coming up.
(01:39):
So economic management and a fusion of the war industrial
complex tells us actually that Russia is in a more
robust and actually self sufficient place than it was prior
to the war. Sergei's firing really comes on the heels
of obviously his failed invasion of Ukraine and some of
his embarrassing It just revealed the oligarchic corruption that was
(02:00):
inherent to the system. Hiring somebody like this, especially on
the heels of the many Russian victories recently that have
been happening. It tells us where things are going in
that they're coming at this from a total position of strength.
Their economy is doing better than the Eurozone according to
the IMF, you know, the international molitor fun You've got
putin basically more popular than ever, more of a stronger
(02:22):
hold on power. The oligarchs themselves all have not deserted
him despite all of these sanctions, And now you're putting somebody, frankly,
even more competent who's in charge, which, if you think
Russia's an adversary, is not necessarily something that you want.
So by all means, their military is much more powerful,
their new leaders are much more efficient, and they're showing
(02:42):
us that their war footing is actually on more of
a basis today than it was before, and that any
attempt to degrade their capacity has not happened, despite the
two hundred billion dollars or whatever that we've spent so far.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
Yeah, so reportedly, there's a few things going on here.
To start with, Shoigo is the guy who thought that
they would just roll into Kiev and knock off the
Zelenski government and it'd be over like this and no problem.
And obviously that didn't work out. And you'll remember the
early phases of this war went very badly for Russia.
I mean, it was really a truly a catastrophic, like
disastrous showing from the Russia military. There's also you know,
(03:19):
all these I'm sure justified allegations of corruption in the
sense that he's like, you know, corrup dude, who's feeding
off the teat of the state. So there's that, and
then the i think bigger picture here is that they
describe this economist I'm going to go with Belusov as
his name. They say he's a fan of military Kanesian Kanesianism.
(03:39):
He believes in the supremacy of the government in the economy,
government first, then business. And so it's an acknowledgment too
of the contours of where this war is at this
point that basically, like you know, you're in this somewhat
of a stalemate or Russia is starting to gain the
upper hand. And one of the key questions here is,
(04:00):
you know, how can your economy perform, how can you
spin up as much defense production as possible? And as
as Sager is about to talk about, there are a
lot of signs that you know, the Ukrainians, not only
because there's been a lull in their support from the US.
That role has now been filled. Don't worry, guys, all
the stuff is coming to you. But because they have
so little of their own defense production capabilities that you know,
(04:23):
over the long run, if Russia is focused on being
able to spin up their own production and using that
to bolster their economy and also keep people happy in
terms of wages and jobs, et cetera, they're going to
be They're going to be in a much better position.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
No, and they are in a better position. So let's
go to the next part. We've just got sign after
sign after sign that this is just catastrophic news at
every turn for the Ukrainians. Here we have major offensive
in the Kharkiev regions.
Speaker 3 (04:47):
Quote.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
According to their own commander, the Russians simply walked in.
This is the commander of the Ukrainian Special Reconnaissance Union
who fought in the Karkiev offensive. And yet what is
he talking about here? He says, quote, Now his men
are facing the prospects of doing the exact same walking
in all over again. Because Russian forces have made small
but significant gains right along the border of the Kharkiv region.
(05:10):
Their advances quote are only a few miles deep, but
have swallowed up nearly one hundred kilometers already of Russian territory,
and that in the more heavily defended east of Ukraine,
it has taken Russia months to achieve the same. So
they're trying to consolidate as many of their gains as
possible before major aid begins to flow from the west.
But even if the aid does begin to flow, you're
(05:31):
going to see that the Russians have really mastered of
attritional warfare on the ground. They know what they're doing
now at this point, let's put this up there. For example,
Russia's bombardment of Ukraine is more lethal than ever. And
what you see is that the Russians have now had
two years to test NATO missile defense systems and ones
that the Ukrainians have, and have developed custom strike packages
(05:54):
that are maximized penetration and so that they can hit
all of the targets that they want. They say, in
the past six months, Ukraine has intercepted only forty six
percent of Russian missiles, compared with seventy three percent in
the preceding six months before. The interception rate has fallen
to thirty percent now and the interception rate for these
long range Iranian drones has fell one percent to eighty
(06:17):
two percent in the past six months. So drones, you know,
remain relatively easier for them to shoot down. They seem
to have mastered that. But missiles, which are you know,
frankly something that Russians, any highly advanced nation state would
be able to develop, has largely been able to use
and employ them. And it's something that the Ukrainians themselves
has been one of the biggest strategic problems for them
(06:37):
that is happening on the ground. I would also show
you this a very recent interview with the Ukrainian top
Ukrainian General General Sbitsky. This is from the economists. I'll
read you directly what he has to say. He does
not see a way for Ukraine to win the war
on the battlefield alone. Even if it were able to
push Russian forces back to its borders quote an increasingly
(07:01):
distant prospect, it wouldn't end the war. Such wars can
only end with treaties, he says. Right now, both sides
are jockeying for the most favorable position ahead of potential talks,
but according to him, meaningful negotiations can begin only in
the second half of twenty twenty five at the earliest.
He says, by then Russia will be facing serious headwinds
(07:23):
because their military production has expanded, but it will reach
a plateau by early twenty twenty six due to shortages
and material and engineers. Frankly, this is all cope and
it's bs. You know, their artillery production, all of their
military production, has no signs that it's going to plateau
anytime soon. If anything, they're making exponential games year over
year and crystal. If they're going to admit that even
(07:44):
if they were to achieve their so called military objective
and push the Russians all the way back to their borders,
that they still wouldn't win the war, then what are
we doing here? Why are we spending all of this
money except you know, increasing the risk of nuclear war
and or a serious problem in Eastern Europe, which the
last thing that we all need right now.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
I mean, I can tell you what we're doing. It's
just pushing the problem off to you know, after the election,
and pushing it, kicking the can down the road because
there's no real possibility of ending the war at this point.
There's you know, effort to secure some sort of negotiation.
As we've discussed before. Anytime that American presidents actually you know,
draw down troops which offer am area, they get take
(08:24):
help from the news media. I mean, you could imagine
if there was some actual concrete deal and Ukraine had
to give up the Dunbas or.
Speaker 4 (08:32):
Crimea or whatever.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
Officially, Biden would be killed he I mean not literally, guys,
but in the press they would. It would be wall
to wall negative coverage, just like we saw with Afghanistan.
So it's just like, we'll keep funding it, We'll just
try to preserve the status quo, kick the can down
the road at the cost of you know, courting disaster
and at the cost of decimation of generations of Ukrainian
(08:56):
men and you know, future possible instability years and years
to come. So that's the phase we're in at this point,
and no one even denies that. I mean, there's not
even a plan. You don't even hear this. It's not
even talked about in the media anymore. We're entering that
phase as well, you see. You know, obviously we've pulled
some Wall Street journal reports and whatever, but when's the
last time you heard them talking about this on cable news?
Is very much slid from the front page. It's just
(09:19):
this sort of perpetual, ongoing conflict that they're working hard
to push to the back of Americans memories and you know,
attention span and hope that something undefined potentially one day.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
Changes absolutely and last but not least, just to highlight
why this remains dangerous, let's put this up there. We
still see a lot of actions from Putin and from
Russia which we don't want in a stable world. Putin
orders tactical nuclear weapon drills quote to deter the West,
which was only a week or so ago. He said
on Monday that it would practice their deployment of tactical
(09:52):
nuclear weapons after what Moscow said were threats from France,
Britain and the United States. This is because the insanity
of all of this is that as the Ukrainians do
worse and worse on the battlefield, and as the West
realizes that AID alone it will never be able to
prop them up. We have two choices. We can force
them to cut a deal and we can just wash
our hands of an irrelevant conflict. Or what the British
(10:14):
and the French want to do is, hey, maybe we
send some troops there on the ground special forces and others. Immediately,
the Russians were like, yeah, if you do that where
we will kill them. We will strike and kill soldiers
who are deployed onto Ukraine. And now what you know,
we're an Article five territory. We're in a whole other disaster.
And that's why the tactical nuclear weapon drills are not
(10:34):
all that far away. I mean, we talk about this
too with Israel and Iran, just because it didn't go
hot that one time. It's just all about tension and
tension and tension. When you read history, it's very rare
that a single event just happens in a vacuum. It's
easily predictable if you go back and you look at
all the signs, some of which can take years. I mean,
you know, ten to fifteen years of tension and build
(10:55):
up and all that before something eventually explodes. So recency
bias is far too high. This is still a very
very dangerous conflict.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
Yeah, I think that's absolutely the case. Let's turn to
the latest out of Israel. CNN actually spoke to an
Israeli whistleblower about the extensive program of torture of Palestinian
detainees This was quite a report, especially coming from CNN.
Let's take a listen to a little bit of what
they found.
Speaker 5 (11:21):
Away from the military facility near the beaches of Tel Aviv.
One young Israeli Army reservist agreed to speak about schools
of detainees at Seti to Man. He says are kept
in cages or pens, constantly shackled and blindfolded, many for
weeks on end. We've hidden his identity and voice to
(11:42):
shield him from prosecution.
Speaker 6 (11:44):
We were told they are not allowed to move and
must sit upright. They're not allowed to talk or peak
under their blindfolds.
Speaker 5 (11:50):
And what happened if they if they did do that,
what punishments would meet it?
Speaker 6 (11:54):
At we were allowed to pick up problematic people and
punish them, having them stand with their hands above their
heads for an unlimited time. If they didn't keep their
hands up, we could zip tie them to the fence.
Speaker 5 (12:04):
The Israeli military says detainees are handcuffed based on their
risk level and health status, but the account talies with
photographic evidence obtained by CNN of Palestinian detainees inside Seti
to Men, and with hand and wrist injuries shown to
CNN by dozens of Palestinians released back into Gaza. It
(12:29):
was zip tied and blindfolded, says this former detainee, and
tortured in a way I never imagined. One source telling
us the restraints were so tight they had to amputate
a man's hand.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
And this is not an isolated report. We had heard
previous reporting from doctors that it was relatively routine that people,
because of the way that they were handcuffed, would have
to have limbs or hands amputated. You know, the Israelis
obviously claim like these people are all under suspicion of terrorism,
(13:02):
but we know the way that they have interpreted any
quote unquote military age male as a potential Hamas terrorist.
We've even also talked about how they were planning on
setting up checkpoints around Rafa to not allow any military
age male, regardless of whether they had even a purported
tie to Hamas or other terrorist groups, to leave that area.
(13:22):
And so this is absolutely horrifying. Like we remember Abu Grab,
we remember the massive international backlash over that scandal of it,
the way that the media was covered. Kudos to this
whistleblower who is incredibly courageous to come forward to CNN,
and thank you to CNN for doing this report. But
it's very limited what you hear ultimately about the treatment
(13:44):
of these Palestinian detainees. And we even SAGA recently had
a report of a prominent doctor in Gaza who died
from torture in one of these facilities. So it's an
outrageous and unacceptable situation.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
There's just all there's these things are just like on
the news every day, and I guess, you know, look
again as somebody who's not like the lefty Kefia where
and all that all I ever asked for is honesty
and for people to just be real about what's happening,
and these are all selectively ignored. I mean, the next
part Crystal works, We're about to get to the you know,
videos of these Israelis rampantly destroying AID inside or inside
(14:25):
of Israel headed into the Gaza strip with the police
just sitting there and standing by. I'm like, how, you know,
how in the world does this get not one ounce
of media coverage here? And then also for all okay there,
you know, because do the show with you and others.
I see so many people who are left as very
sympathetic to the Palestinian cause. And every time they're always asked,
(14:47):
they're like, hey, do you condemn? And they're like yeah,
And it's like, well, how many people who are out
there on social media and who are basically working as
a fifth column in our country? Why are they not
you know, asked, do you condemn like this violence? And
you know, saluting of all of this aid like why
it's the most basic and simple one and that's why
it's ignored completely. Yeah, where's Dana Bash's segment about it.
Speaker 4 (15:10):
Such a great such a great point.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
When you have, i mean, the number of statements and
the actions coming from the Israeli government, it's you know,
it's insane. And we're going to get to Lindsay Graham
in a minute calling to New Gaza, like do you
condemn that? Like you, we're very concerned about what a
nineteen year old might have chanted on a college campus.
But what about when Lindsay Graham goes on Network News
and says, hey, maybe we should New Gaza, let's go
(15:32):
ahead and put up on the screen what soccer was
referring to. Now, this has been going on for months,
but these are right wing psychos in Israel who are
blocking and destroying aid.
Speaker 4 (15:46):
These are new images.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
The Gaza Strip is in obviously dire humanitarian crisis. You
can see here the amount of AID that was supposed
to go into the Gaza Strip that was completely destroyed.
Speaker 4 (15:59):
Here here are the trucks.
Speaker 1 (16:01):
Now this is entirely and this shows you how this
is an Israeli government policy.
Speaker 4 (16:05):
These are all the trucks that are lined up at
the Egypt border.
Speaker 1 (16:10):
And by the way, Egypt has also said since the
Israelis seized the Rafa crossing in violation of their treaty agreement,
that they are not going to cooperate at the Rafa border,
So that has exacerbated the humanitarian crisis. But you know,
it's easy to like, obviously these psychos are responsible for
their own contribution to genocide, but it's also very clear
(16:32):
that this is the Israeli government policy number one, because
they're allowed to block the state and no one ever intervenes,
no one arrests them, etc. The Washington Post reported on
how the police in the Israeli military were there and
they were like hanging out together and like sharing food
and whatever, and you know, telling them you're good to go. Meanwhile,
protests against the BB government, you know, much more aggressive
(16:54):
response there. So we know that from you know, we
know this is tacitly, if not actively supported by the
Israeli government, and we also know the official policy, which
from the beginning was announced We're going to have a
complete siege. They then opened up the tiniest trickle. But
you have extraordinarily dire circumstances which are being exacerbated by
the day because you now have a complete cutoff effectively
(17:15):
of aid, especially into the Southern Gaza Strip. Northern Gaza
Strip is already under famine conditions. And just to emphasize
what a dire circumstances is at this point, Ryan Graham
are on Ryan Graham doing some fantastic reporting about put
this up on the screen. American doctors, about twenty of them,
(17:38):
are trapped in a hospital in Gaza, in the Southern
Gaza Strip and they are facing death by dehydration as
the entire population clings to life. So let me read
you a little bit of this report. This is from
Ryan Grihm and Hind Kudari who is there in Gaza.
She's a Palestinian journalist. Upward of twenty American doctors are
(18:00):
trapped in Gaza as a result of Israel's post invasion
closure of the Raffa border crossing into Egypt, Israeli has
blocked fuel, food, and water from entering Rafa for over
a week, leading to severe dehydration among the general population
as well as among the doctors on mission. Relatives of
the doctors were told by the State Department rescue efforts
were underway, including through coordination with the UN and the IDF.
(18:22):
Yet on Monday, the Israeli military fired on a UN
vehicle that was traveling to that hospital in Conunis near Rafa,
killing a UN employee and injuring another. So, just to
underscore what's being said there, you've got twenty American doctors
suffering from severe dehydration who are trapped at this hospital
(18:44):
in Conunis. The UN is supposed to be helping them
in coordination with the State Department. They send a rescue
mission vehicle, and the Israelis. It appears we know that
a UN vehicle was targeted in UN aid work are
killed by these reelies. It appears that was the vehicle
that was headed to rescue these American doctors. Now keep
(19:08):
in mind, you can only imagine if these are the
conditions that American doctors in Gaza are suffering through. Imagine
what ordinary Palestinians are suffering through living in a tent
for monthson and having no resources available to them whatsoever.
It really underscores for you how dire the circumstances are
(19:29):
for absolutely everyone involved. Ryan was able to attend the
State Department briefing yesterday and ask the spokesperson there about
this report and about what the State Department was going
to do about these Americans who are trapped in the
Gaza strip and with their lives online.
Speaker 4 (19:46):
Let's take a listen to what they had to say.
Speaker 7 (19:48):
Citizens, doctors who are at the European Hospital and comunists
facing de hydration. At least one of them is on
an IV drip. Now is our understanding is that relatives
have been in touch with the State Department, usministrations or
anything you can say about efforts to get them out,
And was the UN vehicle that was on the way
to the European hospital part of those efforts?
Speaker 3 (20:08):
So let me start with the second part.
Speaker 8 (20:10):
I'm not sure of the operational and logistical specifics of
what was involved in those specific efforts or not, but
I can say is that we're aware of these reports
of US citizens, doctors, and medical professionals currently unable to
leave Gaza. As I've said before, we don't control this
border crossing, and this is an incredibly complex situation that
(20:33):
has very serious implications for the safety and security of
US citizens. But we're continuing to work around the clock
with the government of Israel, with the government of Egypt
to work on this issue, not just to address the
very serious humanitarian assistance concerns that I just talked about,
but as you so pointed out and Matt have addressed before,
(20:53):
RAFA is a conduit for the safe departure of foreign nationals,
which is why we continue to want to see it
get open as possible.
Speaker 7 (21:00):
And what does it say about conditions more generally in
rothen and in Conunis If American doctors only arrived there recently,
are already suffering from the hydration and maltnutrition.
Speaker 8 (21:11):
So look, we have not been unambiguous about the humanitarian
situation in Gaza. It is a crisis.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
So if you ever were under the illusion, if you
were traveling abroad and you got into some sort of trouble,
your government would move having an earth in order to rescue.
You should disabuse yourself of that notion right now, because
it depends very much on the politics of taking such
an action. And so here you see this very bland,
non plus language from the State Department. And by the way,
(21:40):
Sager Ryan posted an update that one of the doctors
that is trapped there by israel siege is Adam Hamaway,
an Army veteran who famously saved the life of Senator
Tammy Duckworth after her helicopter crash in Iraq. So these
are American doctors, one of whom you know, I think
you can very much say an American hero. And this
(22:03):
is the sort of non plus reaction you get from
the State Department.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
Yeah, it's crazy. I mean yeah, like you said, I mean,
there used to be a time the whole the sun
never sets on an American citizen whenever they're traveling abroad.
I'll admit I used to think that too, whenever i'd
travel BI go out. Fine, and some of the sketchier places.
Not so sure about that one, especially now, kudos to
Ryan for doing the report on that. Yeah, you also
found this and I actually did some reading on this
is very interesting. Let's put this please up on the screen.
(22:28):
This is from Haretz and it's an analysis. It says
why Israel's generals are now openly briefing against Neta Yahu.
They say Israel's military commanders should have confronted Neton Yaho
about the lack of strategy for the Day after Hamas
before entering Gaza in October. Now, they may be right
to blame him for squandering their tactical gains, but they
should also shoulder some of the blame. And what's happening,
(22:51):
Crystal is that there is a glowing acknowledgment from the
military establishment, both in Israel and actually here in the US,
that the Day After plan and the inability to even
think about that before tactically going in was a total disaster.
One of the reasons that I know that the elite
opinion is turning is it's kind of hard to explain,
but back in the mid two thousands there was a
(23:11):
big counter insurgency revolution in the military about strategy in Iraq.
It was led by David Petraeus famously and a bunch
of other guys like John Nagel and a few other
scholars who kind of took over US military strategy in Iraq,
and it worked for a period of time until there's
debates around it, but it did certainly work, at least
in what they were trying to do in a very
narrow scope from two thousand and seven to twenty ten. Well,
(23:34):
these people whose fundamental insight is that you have to
separate terrorist population from the civilian population and at times
even expand at that time US lives to protect the
civilian population to create a more stable environment in place,
was the insight that should have been brought by the
Israelis into what was going on in Gaza. Well, Crystal,
Now they are all being quoted in the Washington Post
(23:54):
being like, yeah, that was a mistake. They clearly haven't been,
you know, making any of that effort. That's what they
if you were going to do this from they begin.
Of course, this is all very couch, but if you
know enough to read between the lines, you can see
that both in Israel and here we are beginning to
set the stage for the blaming of what will eventually follow.
We're now in the Iraq five years where it's like, oh,
(24:15):
things are starting to actually get bad. Turns out the
mission wasn't accomplished a little bit of an insurgency popping
off in Gaza city and communists, oh, we have about
this little rafa thing dangling. As soon as all of
that is resolved and we get to see the real
not destruction, but the full probably either resuscitation or whatever
the hell, you know, insurgency comes next inside of Gaza,
we will be having this debate, so you know, you
(24:37):
can mark your calendar. It'll be a year from now,
maybe six months from now. But the ground is being
set by people in the know, and they're like, we
got to throw these people onto the bus.
Speaker 1 (24:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:45):
And obviously all of these people we're talking about here
with the IDF top brass, Baby nine Yang, the entire
war cabinet, like, these people are.
Speaker 4 (24:53):
All extremely pro war.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
They have zero qualms about the incredible level of devastation
and civilian massacres that have occurred, you know, ever since
the first bombs were dropped post October seventh in the
Gaza strip. And so the significance of this, though, is
that you can see these divides starting to emerge for
these generals in coordinated fashion to brief to the media
(25:18):
against Bebe Net and Yahoo. That is a very stark
domestic political situation that is worth taking note of now
in terms of like thereands certainly aren't clean here in
terms of a quote unquote day After plan either because
they're the ones who came up with the plan of
we're not going to.
Speaker 4 (25:37):
Do targeted strikes, We're going to do this overall.
Speaker 1 (25:39):
Mass campaign of annihilation, even knowing that there was no
quote unquote Day After Plan.
Speaker 4 (25:46):
Like they knew that from the beginning.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
They were expressing concern about it from the beginning, and
yet they still push this plan which was ultimately adopted
of the total and complete annihilation. So you can't really
sell they you know, it's all Bebe's fault, its etcetera. No,
everyone was in this together. Everyone signed off on this plan,
knowing that Bibi didn't want to actually say what his
(26:08):
plans were for the Gaza strip because he wanted to
keep his hold on power. He didn't want to alienate
either the you know, extreme right wing terrorist psychos that
are in his government coalition or the quote unquote moderates
that are in his coalition, none of whom were actually moderate,
and so he wanted to keep it vague. And at
this point, I mean, they're really scrambling the latest thing
you sent this, I think this morning. They're like trying
(26:30):
to talk the Palestinian Authority into taking control of the
Rafa crossing, but they don't want them to say it's
the Palestinian Authority. They want them to do it like
in disguise, which of course the PA is like, oh,
why would we do that? BB had previously said he
didn't want to work with them. A Also, it's a
complete obviously it's a cluster from a military perspective, they're
having to go back into Gaza City, having to go
(26:51):
back into Jibali, a refugee camp because of course, because
of course, because the idea they were ever going to
completely decimate Hamas is preposterous. And now you have top
administration officials we played for you, Tony Blinkin, but Jake
Sullivan and let's see, there was another one who said
the same thing in the past couple of days, like, no,
you're not going to defeat Hamas, So what are we
doing here? We're just destroying civilian life in the Gaza strip,
(27:14):
which has been really quite apparent from the very beginning.
So absolutely, you know, extraordinary divisions that are starting to emerge.
Blame game starting to emerge all amidst the backdrop of
continuing deterioration and die your humanitarian circumstances as Israel has
begun that invasion in Tarafa. That's right, all right, guys,
(27:37):
wanted to share with you a little atrocity denial, fake
news being perpetrated from Joe Scarborough over at MSNBC, among others.
But he was one of the most high profile spreaders
of this completely false nonsense.
Speaker 4 (27:50):
Let's put this up on the.
Speaker 1 (27:51):
Screen, so he claims here, UN has estimates of women
and children killed in Gaza. Apparently the Hamas figures repeatedly
cited are false. Now, if you were anywhere online yesterday
in proximity of in Israel, no matter what type of person,
you very likely heard a similar claim made. Let me
(28:14):
show you what this was based on. Let's put this
up on the screen so the UN change it changed
the way that they were reporting fatalities. You can see
here on May sixth they have the overall number of
Palestinians killed thirty four thousand, seven hundred and thirty five
you can see on the right. Two days later, on
(28:35):
May eighth, very similar number. It goes up a little
bit thirty four thousand, eight hundred and forty four Palestinians killed,
so total numbers thirty four thousand n climbing.
Speaker 4 (28:47):
However, when you look below.
Speaker 1 (28:50):
In the May sixth one they say more than ninety
five hundred women and more than fourteen thousand, five hundred children.
In the May eighth one they say these are the
individuals who are identified, nine hundred and fifty nine women
versus seven seven hundred and ninety seven children so identified.
(29:12):
So the difference here is whereas previously there were assumptions
made about how many were women how many were children
based on the overall numbers and some identifying information. The
Ministry of Health in Gaza has since said that some
roughly ten thousand of the individuals don't have complete identification information,
so they're changing the way that they are reporting on
(29:35):
these fatalities. The number of fatalities did not go down,
in fact, it went up. In fact, if you look
at the bottom, you can see that in addition to
these thirty four thousand, you also have more than ten
thousand who are reported missing or under the rubble, which
means they are also likely dead. But this was used
to claim that the UN has now decided the hamas
numbers were wrong and have the number of women and
(29:57):
children killed not.
Speaker 4 (29:58):
True at all.
Speaker 1 (29:59):
In fact, you and spokesperson yesterday, in response to Joe
Scarborough and many others spreading this fake news, decided to
clarify just exactly what was going on here.
Speaker 4 (30:11):
Let's take a listen to that.
Speaker 9 (30:12):
Thanks Varhan. There's some reporting that's come out that says, quote,
the UN has half halved the number.
Speaker 10 (30:19):
Of casualties has It's a hard word to.
Speaker 9 (30:23):
Say you know what I'm talking about, though, yes I
do know. Cut in half, cut in half. Thank you.
The casualties from Gaza, is that true?
Speaker 10 (30:33):
It's it's not quite the case.
Speaker 2 (30:35):
No.
Speaker 10 (30:37):
What I can tell you is this the overall number
of fatalities that's been tallied by the Ministry of Health
in Gaza, which is our counterpart on dealing with the
death tolls. That number remains unchanged and it's at more
than thirty five thousand people since the Since October seventh.
What's changed is the Ministry of Health and Gaza has
(30:57):
updated the breakdown of fatalities for whom full details have
been documented. So what they recently published was that they
gave figures for twenty four thousand, six hundred and eighty
six out of three hundred out of thirty four thousand,
six hundred and twenty two overall fatalities recorded in Gaza,
(31:17):
and those twenty four thousand, six hundred and eighty six
people are the ones for whom full details have been documented,
in other words, people who have been fully identified those.
Speaker 2 (31:28):
Out of those, then, out of that.
Speaker 10 (31:31):
Smaller number that subset of identified bodies, you have seven
seven hundred and ninety seven children, four thousand, nine hundred
and fifty nine women, nine hundred and twenty four elderly,
and ten thousand and six men. And the Ministry of
Health says that the documentation process of fully identifying details
(31:52):
of the casualties is ongoing. Meanwhile, as you can see
if you do the math, that there's about another ten
thousand plus bodies who still have to be fully identified,
and so then the details of those, which of those
are children, which of those are women, that will be
re established once the full identification process is complete. We
(32:15):
are teams in Gaza are unable to identify, unindependently verify
these figures given the situation on the ground and the
continuing combat and the sheer number of fatalities, and so
we cite the Ministry of Health as the source for our.
Speaker 9 (32:29):
Figures, and do you have any reason to believe that
the Ministry of Health numbers are incorrect based on the
years that the UN has worked with the Ministry of
Health for Kaza.
Speaker 10 (32:37):
Unfortunately, we have the sad experience of coordinating with the
Ministry of Health on casualty figures every few years for
large mass casualty incidents in Gaza, and in past past
times their figures have proven to be generally accurate.
Speaker 1 (32:54):
So important there at the end too, because this has
used a lot of like, oh, well, you're just going
to trust us, and says, well, listen, first of all,
we can't in this war zone, with Israel, by the way,
providing limited access, we can't independently verify. And second of all,
based on historical record, actually the Ministry of Health has
been quite accurate, and in fact, this change in the
(33:17):
identification of the data is really an indication that they're
being quite careful and trying to be very meticulous in
the way that they record and identify these Palestinians who
have been killed.
Speaker 4 (33:30):
So, you know, the thing that's.
Speaker 1 (33:32):
So gross, Sager is, first of all everybody was telling
Joe Scart like this is just wrong, this is not true,
and the tweet is still up.
Speaker 4 (33:42):
There's no community known on it.
Speaker 1 (33:43):
You know, the UE comes out and says, no, no,
that's a lie, that's not what happens, it's not true.
And yet you just know that this talking point is
going to be used, even though it's thoroughly debunked everywhere,
It's going to be used over and over and go
over again. The same way that there's still Mike Johnson's
still out there talking about people plural getting stabbed in
the eye with a palasinating flagging though that never happened.
(34:04):
The way that you still have people who are out
there talking about babies being baked in ovens even though
that never happened, and baby's beheaded even though that never happened.
Like it gets debunked, but it doesn't matter, because it
still persists. The claims still persist, and it still gets
weaponized to dismiss, to dehumanize, to undercut the severity of
what has been done in the Gaza strip. And it's
(34:25):
just such a gross episode and so characteristic of the
dishonesty that has been endemic to you know, the way
that this confliction has.
Speaker 2 (34:34):
Been trust you want to don't trust mass and don't
trust is real. I don't need to trust all those
people because I got two pairs of eyes. So whenever
I watched the Battle of Mosul, we saw ISIS being like,
they're killing civilians, they're massacring civilians. Independent sources. ISIS his
own videos and the Iraqi videos all show the same thing.
What Iraqi security forces engaging with isis ICIS and uses
(34:54):
them as human shields, and that in the many cases
they went to extraordinary lengths coalition forces uprate the civilian population. Okay,
that's all it took. It's like the numbers eventually came
out just validated what we saw at the time. What
do we see right now, Well, you got videos coming
about bombing a refugee camp. You got the IDEF coming
out and saying, well, we're doing to hit one persons,
we killed one hundred and fifty rubble that's collapsing all
(35:15):
over the places. You got and this is actually again,
all I need is you go into Gaza and to
communists into Gaza city. We're like, we're going to destroy
all the terrorists, and then you leave and then there
are a bunch of terrorists that are still left there,
and including rocket attacks and insurgent attacks, and the idea
of death toll people haven't taken notice OF's starting to
take up there even with these limited operations in Rafa,
(35:38):
which tells us what that you've got a maximum amount
of defense and that all of your strategy and all
that hasn't been working. And so whatever the death toll is,
whatever it is, it's not about the number. It's about
the proportion, and it's about what lengths that you have
gone to. We're going to talk with Arjun about this
Lindsay Graham quote about why we should new Gaza. And
there's a lot of talk always about resident and all
(36:00):
those other things, and even today at are very controversial
about why they are. But what everybody forgets is that
the extraordinary links that were gone to both for Japan
and for Germany to avoid ever having to make that
catastrophic choice about trying everybody's best, from the highest sessions
of the US military to including strategic bombing and trying
(36:21):
to knock out different areas in places to minimize civilian casualties.
And only when the Nazis and the Japanese Empire basically
made it a choice of complete unconditional surrender and actually
ramping up their defense and making surrender and victory as
difficult as possible. Did they resort to the mass civilian
casualty strategies of Drusien of Hiroshima and of the fire
(36:44):
bombing campaign onto Tokyo, and those were peer competitive enemies.
Israel basically just came out the gate without ever trying
any of those steps. And what I would say is
it because of the power and balance of that enemy
they did not try and even do what the US
did in fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, which it's not
even about morals, strategically and militarily backfired and is not working.
(37:07):
You can see right now it's very clear.
Speaker 1 (37:09):
I mean, it's just it's just disgraceful. And yeah, to
your point also, I mean, there's a reason why after
World War Two the world community came together and said
we got to have some rules to protect civilians, because
this is you know, what we just saw unfold is outrageous.
It's unacceptable, and that's what we're seeing right now. It's
(37:30):
clearly outrageous. It's clearly unacceptable. And so if you're seeing
those things on their face. It's very difficult to defend.
It's very difficult to deny the obvious horrors that are.
Speaker 4 (37:45):
Being done in our name with our dollars.
Speaker 1 (37:49):
And so that's why they pick up these lies and
they run with them because the truth, the truth doesn't
work for them anymore. It's nothing even approximating the truth
works for them anymore. So, you know, I hope, but
I don't really have any aspiration expectations of this. I
hope this is a mark of shame against Joe Scarborough
and other people who shamelessly spread this lie forever. This
(38:13):
is a very problem that we played for Reied Zakaria earlier,
one of Biden's favorite angers. This is Biden's other favorite
anchor who is spreading this abject lie that you have
thousands of people telling him this is a lie, This
is not true. The un itself comes out and says,
this is a lie, this is not true. And you know, soccer,
the reality is given the level of devastation, given what
(38:34):
we've seen, given the humanitarian situation, given the lack of sanitation,
the starvation, the dehydration. American doctors who are on the
brink of death right now because they don't have clean
water to drink.
Speaker 4 (38:47):
Given what we know about that.
Speaker 1 (38:49):
I don't think that there's any way that these numbers
even accurately reflect the full death toll caused by this war,
because you know, how how could they how could they
possibly know all of the individuals who have perished as
a result of direct Israeli strikes and of the Israel
(39:09):
Israeli siege policy. And we may never know, it may
take years for us to have a more complete toll.
But to try to lie and pretend like, oh, actually,
you know these have been halved based on the changing
and the reporting of some data is.
Speaker 4 (39:22):
So it's just so disgusting. It's just so utterly repulsive.
Speaker 2 (39:27):
All right, Well, we've got a good guest standing by
Argent saying of lever Time podcast. We're going to discuss further.
Let's get to it.
Speaker 1 (39:35):
So, our partners at Lever News have re upped, new
and improved their podcast, which is called lever Time. We're
really excited to be joined this morning by that podcast producer,
Arjine saying, who is the Lever's senior podcast producer and
has a fantastic new episode that I really recommend you
guys check out going inside the Biden Administration's internal discussions
and policy viz a Vi Israel Arghene.
Speaker 4 (39:57):
Welcome, great to have.
Speaker 2 (39:58):
You, Good to see you man.
Speaker 3 (39:59):
Thanks for you guys.
Speaker 1 (40:01):
So before I get into this podcast, I just want
to sing your praises.
Speaker 4 (40:05):
You know.
Speaker 1 (40:05):
I've told this to David. I've been talking to Sager.
You're doing such an excellent job in terms of the
quality of these podcasts. I've enjoyed all of them. I'm
a big fan. So let's go ahead. Why don't you
break down for us this particular episode and some of
the things you learned about who's most influential behind the
scenes in terms of Israel's quote unquote bear head hug
of net Nyahu.
Speaker 3 (40:27):
Yeah, absolutely so. In this episode, we began by looking
a little bit at why Israel means so much to
the United States, and in particular to President Biden, who
has long considered himself one of Israel's strongest allies in
the US government. Inside of the White House. During What's
Happening Right Now, though, I spoke with Akbar Shahida Hmed,
the Huffington Post diplomacy reporter, and he illuminated me to
(40:50):
the fact that there are really three people inside of
this administration who have consolidated power and taken control of
Israel policy, and that is his Secretary of State Tony Blincoln,
national Security Advisor Jake Sullivan. But most importantly is someone
who many people have never heard of. He's a gentleman
named Brett McGirk. He's an advisor to President Biden. He's
(41:12):
been a staffer for his entire career. He has gone
between the Bush administration, the Obama administration, the Trump administration
now to Biden, and he is the one who has
really pushed Biden to take up things that people who
have observed Biden were surprised at, such as a normalization
deal with Saudi Arabia, which would involve a mutual defense
pact including sharing civilian nuclear technology. Brett mcgirk's career, though,
(41:36):
really started during the Iraq War, when he was tasked
with more or less the Bush administration schoal of rebuilding Iraq,
and I would say that was really not a successful,
beneficial or humane policy. Yet he has continued through government
government as a staffer, and being a staffer, he rarely
(41:57):
gives interviews. He fits kind of behind the scenes, and
I think that is something that has alarmed State Department officials.
People inside of the diplomatic community say that they've been
felt locked out. And Okbard told me a lot of
that has to do with Brett McGirk, who really seems
to have idea of ego and kind of his own
desires that he's pushed Biden on on these issues.
Speaker 2 (42:19):
Yeah, I know brekfas McGurk. Actually I don't know in personally.
I've covered him for many years for you know, like
you said, for Iraq Syria, he was at the heart
of that. Famously resigned from the Trump administration, but come
back he's kind of the pre eminent. It's almost like
a World War two esque type figure, like the bipartisan
foreign policy connoisseur. But you're very correct to point that out.
(42:41):
So one of the things that we wanted to get
your reaction to was not only the kind of evolution
of the pro Isra policy inside of the Biden administration,
but also of broader Washington, where there does seem to
be a complete coside really of Israeli military strategy, perhaps
best exemplified by Senator Lindsey Graham. You can see both
(43:05):
the emotion and the support here he has and clearly,
you know, obviously there's at least a taste of this
inside the Bide administration as well. In a recent interview,
he suggested that there should be nukes employed against Gaza
by the Israelis. Let's take a listen to what he said.
Speaker 7 (43:21):
Can I say this, why is it okay for America
to not to drop two nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and
Nagasaki to end their existential threat war?
Speaker 2 (43:31):
Why was it okay for us to do that? I
thought it was okay to Israel do whatever you have
to do to survive as a Jewish state. Senor again,
military officials say, ever you have to. She has changed.
But let me ask you about how.
Speaker 4 (43:44):
These military officials that you're talking.
Speaker 2 (43:46):
About, let me ask you something or crap. So what'd
you make of that?
Speaker 3 (43:51):
The shuffling on the papers emphasize at that point. But
I mean that I think, as you said, Sarger, that
underscores how emotional this issue is. And also that someone
the Lindsay Graham feels completely comfortable to say that as
a sitting senator. I mean, that's a pretty ridiculous comparison.
On the one hand, World War two was a completely
different issue than Israel and Gaza. The machinations that had
(44:15):
to go into World War Two, where largely are surrounding
will one of the worst wars in human history continue,
you know, and I'm not justifying what they did in
World War Two, but to use that as an example
to justify completely one sided war. I mean, Israel is
clearly on the dominant side of this war. Over thirty
(44:35):
five thousand Palestinian civilians have died. The numbers are nowhere
near in comparison, even taking into what happened on October seventh.
So I think for Lindsay Graham to say that we
should just go in and drop a nuclear bomb, it
shows how comfortable the bipartisan consensus is that you can
make such an extreme statement. If Lindsay Graham had said
(44:57):
we should drop a nuclear bomb in a rock or Afghanistan,
I do wonder would that have gotten the same level
of acceptance. I mean that clip that you just showed,
I didn't see that registered in New York Times Washington Post.
If Lindsay Graham had said, Hey, we should just go
and drop a giant in nuk on, North Korea, I
imagine that's something that you would see the mainstream media
absolutely jumping on top of But it does seem like
(45:20):
that kind of a comment, is hey, part of the
course from Washington, even if it sounds absurd.
Speaker 1 (45:25):
I mean, he's not even the first member of Congress
to suggest such a thing like that's what's so crazy
is or you know, a member of official in Israel
they've also, some of them have suggested nuking Gaza, and
it just sort of goes by as a blip. Meanwhile,
I saw pictures this morning of college student protesters who
are being charged with felonies under some like nineteen fifties
(45:47):
era rule against masking that was put in place to
combat the KKKA. They're being charged with felonies for protesting
and you know, rally chants that people don't like, and
you've got a sitting senator who had actual power suggesting
you nuke the gods of Strip and it's it's barely
a blip.
Speaker 4 (46:05):
You barely hear about it.
Speaker 3 (46:07):
Yes, someone who's considered a statesman by people his own.
Speaker 4 (46:11):
Right, great point. That's such a great point.
Speaker 3 (46:14):
You know.
Speaker 1 (46:14):
I wanted to ask you about another development in terms
of the Biden administration and their policy, which is, while
you have, and Biden has always operated this way where
he has a very small group of advisors and they're
basically the only ones that count, and every any newcomers,
anyone from the outside's very difficult to break through. I mean,
he's been in Washington for what freaking fifty years and
(46:37):
very locked into his ways. Not to mention, it seems
like he personally has a deep ideological commitment to the
Israeli cause, grounded on you know, a visit he had
with Gold in my Ear in the seventies or whatever.
But it's not uniform across the Biden administration. There are
some individuals who, especially in positions in the State Department,
(46:57):
who really do dissent from this jur and that's been
manifested in a number of ways. You've had some of these,
like anonymous letters of Biden staffers or Kamala Harris staffers
will say we're very upset about this, but very anonymous.
You've had a few different resignations, and this is the
latest one, which I think is quite extraordinary and quite powerful.
We can put this up on the screen. The letter
that was written. This was from sorry, just pause this
(47:23):
for a second. This is from US Army major Harrison Man,
and part of what he said is that he felt
so alone going about business his business. He was disturbed
by the footage from Gaza. But he talks about how
he had, you know, all of this sort of rationalizations
of well, if it wasn't me, someone else would be
(47:45):
doing this job, and my work here doesn't really matter
that much anyway. But he says, I now realize the obvious.
If I was afraid to voice my concerns, you were too.
I've always known what kind of people you are, and
I should have had more faith in this team. So
I am deliberate not sending this to the entire agency.
I'm writing to people I know who might value hearing
the reasons I chose to walk away. He also talks
(48:08):
about how, as someone who is Jewish and was raised Jewish,
how this moral imperative of never again and the inadequacy
of just following orders was really impressed upon him from
a young age, and so because of those moral conscious reasons,
he resigned from the Biden administration. You know, do you
(48:31):
have a first of all, just react to this letter
in this resignation, and do you have a sense of
how widespread this dissent from the Biden administration. Top line
policy is among sort of rank and file individuals such
as this.
Speaker 3 (48:45):
Yeah, I think what's really remarkable about this letter, and
even thinking about Aaron Bushnell, who you know, did the
self immolation in front of the Israeli embassy. These are
not people who come from the traditional anti war constituencies.
These are not activists. These are people who signed up
(49:06):
for the US military, many of them in the wake
of what we've seen in Iraq and Afghanistan, and you know,
they had convictions that they believed in what the military
was doing, they believed in the United States government. And
it says something to me that what they saw in Gaza,
what they saw as a lack of ability to dissent,
which inside of government usually you have traditional dissent channels.
(49:28):
They didn't feel that they were able to properly dissent
to the point that they went back on what they
believed in and they decided to resign. In Aaron's case,
very sadly, he committed a self immolation. And I've heard
that from State Department officials too. I spoke with one
State Department official in January. He had worked on a
RACK policy. He had worked on Ukraine policy. This is
(49:50):
not someone who had an issue necessarily with the fact
that the United States arms different nations. He said that
in arms transfer as you start the goal of how
how do you not do harm? But with how do
you do harm reduction? He didn't necessarily debate the idea
that you would be sending weapons. But what he saw
happening with Israel was this rapid acceleration of getting weapons
(50:14):
over there, the complete squashing of descent. And he told
me that he felt the debate was stifled and that
similarly to Man, he was not able to adequately speak
out against these things. And these are the people who
are going public. But when I spoke with that official
in January, he said there were many many more people
who privately said I completely agree with you. And when
(50:34):
I spoke with Uckbart, he said something similarly to me.
And so I do think that this is a very
widespread problem within the State Department, especially for people who
feel that in areas they've traditionally been able to provide descent.
In this policy, there are communications and there are directives
coming down from the top. The State Department officials said
it was coming from White House, in top level State Department,
(50:57):
Blincoln Sullivan McGirk, and they were not able to push
back on this. They weren't even able to debate the
righteousness of this policy, much less the speed of which
things were happening. So I do think that what we're
seeing is very remarkable within the United States government. For
government officials, it takes a lot to resign, particularly in
(51:18):
the case of the person we saw a couple of
weeks ago, eighteen years at the State Department, Josh Paul,
more than a decade at the State Department. These people
built entire careers and they left, And that is just
absolutely astounding to me in the way this administration is
carrying this out.
Speaker 1 (51:34):
Arjenne, what's your sense of whether there is a realization
that the quote unquote bear Hug strategy has utterly and
completely failed, And what's your sense of whether there is
an actual policy shift going on right now with the
Biden administration versus a rhetorical one. Of course, I'm referring
to the fact that he said, listen, if they do
a quote unquote major invasion of RAFA, we're going to
(51:57):
cut off some weapons shipments. But they have so are
deemed what is the invasion that has already happened in
Rava doesn't cross that red line for whatever reason. So
it really does leave it open to interpretation whether this
is an actual shift or whether it's an attempt to
sort of pacify a left and young cohort in the
party that is outraged over the atrocities that they see
(52:19):
being committed.
Speaker 3 (52:21):
Yeah, I think in terms of this being a successful policy,
it's not been a successful policy, and it is something
that for Biden has politically failed for him, he has
given a lot of his administration's re election chances to
as you said, bear hugging Benjamin Netanyahu. Net Yahoo is
quickly becoming isolated on the world stage, Akamar told me.
(52:41):
Foreign allies are consistently saying to Tony blink In, the
Secretary of State, why are you doing this? Why are
you allowing this to continue? You have control over the situation.
And there is a moment that I saw where India's
Foreign minister actually said during a speech that he felt
that the Palestinians had been denied sovereign for a homeland,
and India under Mody had been and has been one
(53:04):
of the strongest allies of Netanyahu. Mody and net Yaho
are very close with each other. And that's again another
remarkable statement to show that even a very strong ally
who believes in this idea of what Israel is trying
to do create this religious dominant state, they feel the
need to have to speak out and tell their allies
(53:24):
in their region that, look, we don't agree necessarily with
all of these full objectives. As far as is this
something that is really a change, I'm skeptical of that,
to be honest, Crystal, this is a pause on a
certain package of bombs. It feels a little bit mealy mouthed.
And you know, I haven't seen Biden give a really
forceful statement. He's given very taciturn comments saying I told
(53:48):
them that if they went into Rafa, we would not
provide these weapons. We've told them, We've told them. There's
leaks to you know. Peter Baker the New York Times
that he had a tough conversation with net Nyahu. He
privately told I'm considering changing my mind. Yeah, that is
not a strong change of heart to me. I think
a real change of heart would be a reconsideration of
(54:10):
the historic policy of arming Israel, and also a reconsideration
of whether the United States should be supporting Israel in
no matter what kind of policy. That I have not
seen a change of heart. And Josh Paul, who was
one of the first people to resign from the State Department,
he said something similar. He said it was a good sign,
but it doesn't portend a long term shift.
Speaker 4 (54:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (54:33):
I think that's all very well, said Arjine. Great to
talk to you. Congrats again, guys. I can't recommend lever
Time enough. It really is an excellent product. You'll learn
a lot from it, and you guys have tackled a
lot of really important and interesting topics, including airlines which
lever News had a big hand in forcing some changes through,
including the oil price fixing, which we covered here as
(54:54):
well with Matt Stoler. So definitely check out the podcast guys,
and great to meet you arjin Man.
Speaker 3 (55:00):
Great to meet you guys.
Speaker 2 (55:01):
Thank you, it's our pleasure all right. Thank you so
much for watching the Counterpoints. Have a great show for
everybody tomorrow and we will see you all later.
Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here
and we here at breaking points, are already thinking of
ways we can up our game for this critical election.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
We rely on our premium subs to expand coverage, upgrade
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it just means the absolute world to have your support.
But enough with that, let's get to the show. Let's
move on to Ukraine. This was also a very important story.
This is one which we've been tabling for a little while.
(00:30):
There's been no immediate developments with the biggest news that
really came out from just two days ago. Let's put
this up there on the screen is you can look
view it in two ways. President Putin of Russia has
replaced Sergei Shogu, who was the longtime defense Minister, one
of his closest allies in the Russian government, in a
major security shakeup. Allegedly Crystal he had. He's been nominated
(00:54):
and given a promotion. But I guess they call this
promotion a promotional firing in the best way possible. But
what's fascinating is that he did not put a military
man to replace him. He actually put a former deputy
prime minister quote who specializes in economics to replace Shogu. Now,
the reason why that's so important is that this shows
(01:15):
basically that the Russian economy post sanctions, the way they've
been able to survive is to fully ramp up their
entire military industrial complex. It's the way that they've been
able to pump so much money into their economy. They
become one of the major employers. Obviously, they've drafted and
or recruited hundreds and hundreds of thousands of Russian citizens
into the military. They've got artillery production which is coming up.
(01:39):
So economic management and a fusion of the war industrial
complex tells us actually that Russia is in a more
robust and actually self sufficient place than it was prior
to the war. Sergei's firing really comes on the heels
of obviously his failed invasion of Ukraine and some of
his embarrassing It just revealed the oligarchic corruption that was
(02:00):
inherent to the system. Hiring somebody like this, especially on
the heels of the many Russian victories recently that have
been happening. It tells us where things are going in
that they're coming at this from a total position of strength.
Their economy is doing better than the Eurozone according to
the IMF, you know, the international molitor fun You've got
putin basically more popular than ever, more of a stronger
(02:22):
hold on power. The oligarchs themselves all have not deserted
him despite all of these sanctions, And now you're putting somebody, frankly,
even more competent who's in charge, which, if you think
Russia's an adversary, is not necessarily something that you want.
So by all means, their military is much more powerful,
their new leaders are much more efficient, and they're showing
(02:42):
us that their war footing is actually on more of
a basis today than it was before, and that any
attempt to degrade their capacity has not happened, despite the
two hundred billion dollars or whatever that we've spent so far.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
Yeah, so reportedly, there's a few things going on here.
To start with, Shoigo is the guy who thought that
they would just roll into Kiev and knock off the
Zelenski government and it'd be over like this and no problem.
And obviously that didn't work out. And you'll remember the
early phases of this war went very badly for Russia.
I mean, it was really a truly a catastrophic, like
disastrous showing from the Russia military. There's also you know,
(03:19):
all these I'm sure justified allegations of corruption in the
sense that he's like, you know, corrup dude, who's feeding
off the teat of the state. So there's that, and
then the i think bigger picture here is that they
describe this economist I'm going to go with Belusov as
his name. They say he's a fan of military Kanesian Kanesianism.
(03:39):
He believes in the supremacy of the government in the economy,
government first, then business. And so it's an acknowledgment too
of the contours of where this war is at this
point that basically, like you know, you're in this somewhat
of a stalemate or Russia is starting to gain the
upper hand. And one of the key questions here is,
(04:00):
you know, how can your economy perform, how can you
spin up as much defense production as possible? And as
as Sager is about to talk about, there are a
lot of signs that you know, the Ukrainians, not only
because there's been a lull in their support from the US.
That role has now been filled. Don't worry, guys, all
the stuff is coming to you. But because they have
so little of their own defense production capabilities that you know,
(04:23):
over the long run, if Russia is focused on being
able to spin up their own production and using that
to bolster their economy and also keep people happy in
terms of wages and jobs, et cetera, they're going to
be They're going to be in a much better position.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
No, and they are in a better position. So let's
go to the next part. We've just got sign after
sign after sign that this is just catastrophic news at
every turn for the Ukrainians. Here we have major offensive
in the Kharkiev regions.
Speaker 3 (04:47):
Quote.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
According to their own commander, the Russians simply walked in.
This is the commander of the Ukrainian Special Reconnaissance Union
who fought in the Karkiev offensive. And yet what is
he talking about here? He says, quote, Now his men
are facing the prospects of doing the exact same walking
in all over again. Because Russian forces have made small
but significant gains right along the border of the Kharkiv region.
(05:10):
Their advances quote are only a few miles deep, but
have swallowed up nearly one hundred kilometers already of Russian territory,
and that in the more heavily defended east of Ukraine,
it has taken Russia months to achieve the same. So
they're trying to consolidate as many of their gains as
possible before major aid begins to flow from the west.
But even if the aid does begin to flow, you're
(05:31):
going to see that the Russians have really mastered of
attritional warfare on the ground. They know what they're doing
now at this point, let's put this up there. For example,
Russia's bombardment of Ukraine is more lethal than ever. And
what you see is that the Russians have now had
two years to test NATO missile defense systems and ones
that the Ukrainians have, and have developed custom strike packages
(05:54):
that are maximized penetration and so that they can hit
all of the targets that they want. They say, in
the past six months, Ukraine has intercepted only forty six
percent of Russian missiles, compared with seventy three percent in
the preceding six months before. The interception rate has fallen
to thirty percent now and the interception rate for these
long range Iranian drones has fell one percent to eighty
(06:17):
two percent in the past six months. So drones, you know,
remain relatively easier for them to shoot down. They seem
to have mastered that. But missiles, which are you know,
frankly something that Russians, any highly advanced nation state would
be able to develop, has largely been able to use
and employ them. And it's something that the Ukrainians themselves
has been one of the biggest strategic problems for them
(06:37):
that is happening on the ground. I would also show
you this a very recent interview with the Ukrainian top
Ukrainian General General Sbitsky. This is from the economists. I'll
read you directly what he has to say. He does
not see a way for Ukraine to win the war
on the battlefield alone. Even if it were able to
push Russian forces back to its borders quote an increasingly
(07:01):
distant prospect, it wouldn't end the war. Such wars can
only end with treaties, he says. Right now, both sides
are jockeying for the most favorable position ahead of potential talks,
but according to him, meaningful negotiations can begin only in
the second half of twenty twenty five at the earliest.
He says, by then Russia will be facing serious headwinds
(07:23):
because their military production has expanded, but it will reach
a plateau by early twenty twenty six due to shortages
and material and engineers. Frankly, this is all cope and
it's bs. You know, their artillery production, all of their
military production, has no signs that it's going to plateau
anytime soon. If anything, they're making exponential games year over
year and crystal. If they're going to admit that even
(07:44):
if they were to achieve their so called military objective
and push the Russians all the way back to their borders,
that they still wouldn't win the war, then what are
we doing here? Why are we spending all of this
money except you know, increasing the risk of nuclear war
and or a serious problem in Eastern Europe, which the
last thing that we all need right now.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
I mean, I can tell you what we're doing. It's
just pushing the problem off to you know, after the election,
and pushing it, kicking the can down the road because
there's no real possibility of ending the war at this point.
There's you know, effort to secure some sort of negotiation.
As we've discussed before. Anytime that American presidents actually you know,
draw down troops which offer am area, they get take
(08:24):
help from the news media. I mean, you could imagine
if there was some actual concrete deal and Ukraine had
to give up the Dunbas or.
Speaker 4 (08:32):
Crimea or whatever.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
Officially, Biden would be killed he I mean not literally, guys,
but in the press they would. It would be wall
to wall negative coverage, just like we saw with Afghanistan.
So it's just like, we'll keep funding it, We'll just
try to preserve the status quo, kick the can down
the road at the cost of you know, courting disaster
and at the cost of decimation of generations of Ukrainian
(08:56):
men and you know, future possible instability years and years
to come. So that's the phase we're in at this point,
and no one even denies that. I mean, there's not
even a plan. You don't even hear this. It's not
even talked about in the media anymore. We're entering that
phase as well, you see. You know, obviously we've pulled
some Wall Street journal reports and whatever, but when's the
last time you heard them talking about this on cable news?
Is very much slid from the front page. It's just
(09:19):
this sort of perpetual, ongoing conflict that they're working hard
to push to the back of Americans memories and you know,
attention span and hope that something undefined potentially one day.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
Changes absolutely and last but not least, just to highlight
why this remains dangerous, let's put this up there. We
still see a lot of actions from Putin and from
Russia which we don't want in a stable world. Putin
orders tactical nuclear weapon drills quote to deter the West,
which was only a week or so ago. He said
on Monday that it would practice their deployment of tactical
(09:52):
nuclear weapons after what Moscow said were threats from France,
Britain and the United States. This is because the insanity
of all of this is that as the Ukrainians do
worse and worse on the battlefield, and as the West
realizes that AID alone it will never be able to
prop them up. We have two choices. We can force
them to cut a deal and we can just wash
our hands of an irrelevant conflict. Or what the British
(10:14):
and the French want to do is, hey, maybe we
send some troops there on the ground special forces and others. Immediately,
the Russians were like, yeah, if you do that where
we will kill them. We will strike and kill soldiers
who are deployed onto Ukraine. And now what you know,
we're an Article five territory. We're in a whole other disaster.
And that's why the tactical nuclear weapon drills are not
(10:34):
all that far away. I mean, we talk about this
too with Israel and Iran, just because it didn't go
hot that one time. It's just all about tension and
tension and tension. When you read history, it's very rare
that a single event just happens in a vacuum. It's
easily predictable if you go back and you look at
all the signs, some of which can take years. I mean,
you know, ten to fifteen years of tension and build
(10:55):
up and all that before something eventually explodes. So recency
bias is far too high. This is still a very
very dangerous conflict.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
Yeah, I think that's absolutely the case. Let's turn to
the latest out of Israel. CNN actually spoke to an
Israeli whistleblower about the extensive program of torture of Palestinian
detainees This was quite a report, especially coming from CNN.
Let's take a listen to a little bit of what
they found.
Speaker 5 (11:21):
Away from the military facility near the beaches of Tel Aviv.
One young Israeli Army reservist agreed to speak about schools
of detainees at Seti to Man. He says are kept
in cages or pens, constantly shackled and blindfolded, many for
weeks on end. We've hidden his identity and voice to
(11:42):
shield him from prosecution.
Speaker 6 (11:44):
We were told they are not allowed to move and
must sit upright. They're not allowed to talk or peak
under their blindfolds.
Speaker 5 (11:50):
And what happened if they if they did do that,
what punishments would meet it?
Speaker 6 (11:54):
At we were allowed to pick up problematic people and
punish them, having them stand with their hands above their
heads for an unlimited time. If they didn't keep their
hands up, we could zip tie them to the fence.
Speaker 5 (12:04):
The Israeli military says detainees are handcuffed based on their
risk level and health status, but the account talies with
photographic evidence obtained by CNN of Palestinian detainees inside Seti
to Men, and with hand and wrist injuries shown to
CNN by dozens of Palestinians released back into Gaza. It
(12:29):
was zip tied and blindfolded, says this former detainee, and
tortured in a way I never imagined. One source telling
us the restraints were so tight they had to amputate
a man's hand.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
And this is not an isolated report. We had heard
previous reporting from doctors that it was relatively routine that people,
because of the way that they were handcuffed, would have
to have limbs or hands amputated. You know, the Israelis
obviously claim like these people are all under suspicion of terrorism,
(13:02):
but we know the way that they have interpreted any
quote unquote military age male as a potential Hamas terrorist.
We've even also talked about how they were planning on
setting up checkpoints around Rafa to not allow any military
age male, regardless of whether they had even a purported
tie to Hamas or other terrorist groups, to leave that area.
(13:22):
And so this is absolutely horrifying. Like we remember Abu Grab,
we remember the massive international backlash over that scandal of it,
the way that the media was covered. Kudos to this
whistleblower who is incredibly courageous to come forward to CNN,
and thank you to CNN for doing this report. But
it's very limited what you hear ultimately about the treatment
(13:44):
of these Palestinian detainees. And we even SAGA recently had
a report of a prominent doctor in Gaza who died
from torture in one of these facilities. So it's an
outrageous and unacceptable situation.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
There's just all there's these things are just like on
the news every day, and I guess, you know, look
again as somebody who's not like the lefty Kefia where
and all that all I ever asked for is honesty
and for people to just be real about what's happening,
and these are all selectively ignored. I mean, the next
part Crystal works, We're about to get to the you know,
videos of these Israelis rampantly destroying AID inside or inside
(14:25):
of Israel headed into the Gaza strip with the police
just sitting there and standing by. I'm like, how, you know,
how in the world does this get not one ounce
of media coverage here? And then also for all okay there,
you know, because do the show with you and others.
I see so many people who are left as very
sympathetic to the Palestinian cause. And every time they're always asked,
(14:47):
they're like, hey, do you condemn? And they're like yeah,
And it's like, well, how many people who are out
there on social media and who are basically working as
a fifth column in our country? Why are they not
you know, asked, do you condemn like this violence? And
you know, saluting of all of this aid like why
it's the most basic and simple one and that's why
it's ignored completely. Yeah, where's Dana Bash's segment about it.
Speaker 4 (15:10):
Such a great such a great point.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
When you have, i mean, the number of statements and
the actions coming from the Israeli government, it's you know,
it's insane. And we're going to get to Lindsay Graham
in a minute calling to New Gaza, like do you
condemn that? Like you, we're very concerned about what a
nineteen year old might have chanted on a college campus.
But what about when Lindsay Graham goes on Network News
and says, hey, maybe we should New Gaza, let's go
(15:32):
ahead and put up on the screen what soccer was
referring to. Now, this has been going on for months,
but these are right wing psychos in Israel who are
blocking and destroying aid.
Speaker 4 (15:46):
These are new images.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
The Gaza Strip is in obviously dire humanitarian crisis. You
can see here the amount of AID that was supposed
to go into the Gaza Strip that was completely destroyed.
Speaker 4 (15:59):
Here here are the trucks.
Speaker 1 (16:01):
Now this is entirely and this shows you how this
is an Israeli government policy.
Speaker 4 (16:05):
These are all the trucks that are lined up at
the Egypt border.
Speaker 1 (16:10):
And by the way, Egypt has also said since the
Israelis seized the Rafa crossing in violation of their treaty agreement,
that they are not going to cooperate at the Rafa border,
So that has exacerbated the humanitarian crisis. But you know,
it's easy to like, obviously these psychos are responsible for
their own contribution to genocide, but it's also very clear
(16:32):
that this is the Israeli government policy number one, because
they're allowed to block the state and no one ever intervenes,
no one arrests them, etc. The Washington Post reported on
how the police in the Israeli military were there and
they were like hanging out together and like sharing food
and whatever, and you know, telling them you're good to go. Meanwhile,
protests against the BB government, you know, much more aggressive
(16:54):
response there. So we know that from you know, we
know this is tacitly, if not actively supported by the
Israeli government, and we also know the official policy, which
from the beginning was announced We're going to have a
complete siege. They then opened up the tiniest trickle. But
you have extraordinarily dire circumstances which are being exacerbated by
the day because you now have a complete cutoff effectively
(17:15):
of aid, especially into the Southern Gaza Strip. Northern Gaza
Strip is already under famine conditions. And just to emphasize
what a dire circumstances is at this point, Ryan Graham
are on Ryan Graham doing some fantastic reporting about put
this up on the screen. American doctors, about twenty of them,
(17:38):
are trapped in a hospital in Gaza, in the Southern
Gaza Strip and they are facing death by dehydration as
the entire population clings to life. So let me read
you a little bit of this report. This is from
Ryan Grihm and Hind Kudari who is there in Gaza.
She's a Palestinian journalist. Upward of twenty American doctors are
(18:00):
trapped in Gaza as a result of Israel's post invasion
closure of the Raffa border crossing into Egypt, Israeli has
blocked fuel, food, and water from entering Rafa for over
a week, leading to severe dehydration among the general population
as well as among the doctors on mission. Relatives of
the doctors were told by the State Department rescue efforts
were underway, including through coordination with the UN and the IDF.
(18:22):
Yet on Monday, the Israeli military fired on a UN
vehicle that was traveling to that hospital in Conunis near Rafa,
killing a UN employee and injuring another. So, just to
underscore what's being said there, you've got twenty American doctors
suffering from severe dehydration who are trapped at this hospital
(18:44):
in Conunis. The UN is supposed to be helping them
in coordination with the State Department. They send a rescue
mission vehicle, and the Israelis. It appears we know that
a UN vehicle was targeted in UN aid work are
killed by these reelies. It appears that was the vehicle
that was headed to rescue these American doctors. Now keep
(19:08):
in mind, you can only imagine if these are the
conditions that American doctors in Gaza are suffering through. Imagine
what ordinary Palestinians are suffering through living in a tent
for monthson and having no resources available to them whatsoever.
It really underscores for you how dire the circumstances are
(19:29):
for absolutely everyone involved. Ryan was able to attend the
State Department briefing yesterday and ask the spokesperson there about
this report and about what the State Department was going
to do about these Americans who are trapped in the
Gaza strip and with their lives online.
Speaker 4 (19:46):
Let's take a listen to what they had to say.
Speaker 7 (19:48):
Citizens, doctors who are at the European Hospital and comunists
facing de hydration. At least one of them is on
an IV drip. Now is our understanding is that relatives
have been in touch with the State Department, usministrations or
anything you can say about efforts to get them out,
And was the UN vehicle that was on the way
to the European hospital part of those efforts?
Speaker 3 (20:08):
So let me start with the second part.
Speaker 8 (20:10):
I'm not sure of the operational and logistical specifics of
what was involved in those specific efforts or not, but
I can say is that we're aware of these reports
of US citizens, doctors, and medical professionals currently unable to
leave Gaza. As I've said before, we don't control this
border crossing, and this is an incredibly complex situation that
(20:33):
has very serious implications for the safety and security of
US citizens. But we're continuing to work around the clock
with the government of Israel, with the government of Egypt
to work on this issue, not just to address the
very serious humanitarian assistance concerns that I just talked about,
but as you so pointed out and Matt have addressed before,
(20:53):
RAFA is a conduit for the safe departure of foreign nationals,
which is why we continue to want to see it
get open as possible.
Speaker 7 (21:00):
And what does it say about conditions more generally in
rothen and in Conunis If American doctors only arrived there recently,
are already suffering from the hydration and maltnutrition.
Speaker 8 (21:11):
So look, we have not been unambiguous about the humanitarian
situation in Gaza. It is a crisis.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
So if you ever were under the illusion, if you
were traveling abroad and you got into some sort of trouble,
your government would move having an earth in order to rescue.
You should disabuse yourself of that notion right now, because
it depends very much on the politics of taking such
an action. And so here you see this very bland,
non plus language from the State Department. And by the way,
(21:40):
Sager Ryan posted an update that one of the doctors
that is trapped there by israel siege is Adam Hamaway,
an Army veteran who famously saved the life of Senator
Tammy Duckworth after her helicopter crash in Iraq. So these
are American doctors, one of whom you know, I think
you can very much say an American hero. And this
(22:03):
is the sort of non plus reaction you get from
the State Department.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
Yeah, it's crazy. I mean yeah, like you said, I mean,
there used to be a time the whole the sun
never sets on an American citizen whenever they're traveling abroad.
I'll admit I used to think that too, whenever i'd
travel BI go out. Fine, and some of the sketchier places.
Not so sure about that one, especially now, kudos to
Ryan for doing the report on that. Yeah, you also
found this and I actually did some reading on this
is very interesting. Let's put this please up on the screen.
(22:28):
This is from Haretz and it's an analysis. It says
why Israel's generals are now openly briefing against Neta Yahu.
They say Israel's military commanders should have confronted Neton Yaho
about the lack of strategy for the Day after Hamas
before entering Gaza in October. Now, they may be right
to blame him for squandering their tactical gains, but they
should also shoulder some of the blame. And what's happening,
(22:51):
Crystal is that there is a glowing acknowledgment from the
military establishment, both in Israel and actually here in the US,
that the Day After plan and the inability to even
think about that before tactically going in was a total disaster.
One of the reasons that I know that the elite
opinion is turning is it's kind of hard to explain,
but back in the mid two thousands there was a
(23:11):
big counter insurgency revolution in the military about strategy in Iraq.
It was led by David Petraeus famously and a bunch
of other guys like John Nagel and a few other
scholars who kind of took over US military strategy in Iraq,
and it worked for a period of time until there's
debates around it, but it did certainly work, at least
in what they were trying to do in a very
narrow scope from two thousand and seven to twenty ten. Well,
(23:34):
these people whose fundamental insight is that you have to
separate terrorist population from the civilian population and at times
even expand at that time US lives to protect the
civilian population to create a more stable environment in place,
was the insight that should have been brought by the
Israelis into what was going on in Gaza. Well, Crystal,
Now they are all being quoted in the Washington Post
(23:54):
being like, yeah, that was a mistake. They clearly haven't been,
you know, making any of that effort. That's what they
if you were going to do this from they begin.
Of course, this is all very couch, but if you
know enough to read between the lines, you can see
that both in Israel and here we are beginning to
set the stage for the blaming of what will eventually follow.
We're now in the Iraq five years where it's like, oh,
(24:15):
things are starting to actually get bad. Turns out the
mission wasn't accomplished a little bit of an insurgency popping
off in Gaza city and communists, oh, we have about
this little rafa thing dangling. As soon as all of
that is resolved and we get to see the real
not destruction, but the full probably either resuscitation or whatever
the hell, you know, insurgency comes next inside of Gaza,
we will be having this debate, so you know, you
(24:37):
can mark your calendar. It'll be a year from now,
maybe six months from now. But the ground is being
set by people in the know, and they're like, we
got to throw these people onto the bus.
Speaker 1 (24:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:45):
And obviously all of these people we're talking about here
with the IDF top brass, Baby nine Yang, the entire
war cabinet, like, these people are.
Speaker 4 (24:53):
All extremely pro war.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
They have zero qualms about the incredible level of devastation
and civilian massacres that have occurred, you know, ever since
the first bombs were dropped post October seventh in the
Gaza strip. And so the significance of this, though, is
that you can see these divides starting to emerge for
these generals in coordinated fashion to brief to the media
(25:18):
against Bebe Net and Yahoo. That is a very stark
domestic political situation that is worth taking note of now
in terms of like thereands certainly aren't clean here in
terms of a quote unquote day After plan either because
they're the ones who came up with the plan of
we're not going to.
Speaker 4 (25:37):
Do targeted strikes, We're going to do this overall.
Speaker 1 (25:39):
Mass campaign of annihilation, even knowing that there was no
quote unquote Day After Plan.
Speaker 4 (25:46):
Like they knew that from the beginning.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
They were expressing concern about it from the beginning, and
yet they still push this plan which was ultimately adopted
of the total and complete annihilation. So you can't really
sell they you know, it's all Bebe's fault, its etcetera. No,
everyone was in this together. Everyone signed off on this plan,
knowing that Bibi didn't want to actually say what his
(26:08):
plans were for the Gaza strip because he wanted to
keep his hold on power. He didn't want to alienate
either the you know, extreme right wing terrorist psychos that
are in his government coalition or the quote unquote moderates
that are in his coalition, none of whom were actually moderate,
and so he wanted to keep it vague. And at
this point, I mean, they're really scrambling the latest thing
you sent this, I think this morning. They're like trying
(26:30):
to talk the Palestinian Authority into taking control of the
Rafa crossing, but they don't want them to say it's
the Palestinian Authority. They want them to do it like
in disguise, which of course the PA is like, oh,
why would we do that? BB had previously said he
didn't want to work with them. A Also, it's a
complete obviously it's a cluster from a military perspective, they're
having to go back into Gaza City, having to go
(26:51):
back into Jibali, a refugee camp because of course, because
of course, because the idea they were ever going to
completely decimate Hamas is preposterous. And now you have top
administration officials we played for you, Tony Blinkin, but Jake
Sullivan and let's see, there was another one who said
the same thing in the past couple of days, like, no,
you're not going to defeat Hamas, So what are we
doing here? We're just destroying civilian life in the Gaza strip,
(27:14):
which has been really quite apparent from the very beginning.
So absolutely, you know, extraordinary divisions that are starting to emerge.
Blame game starting to emerge all amidst the backdrop of
continuing deterioration and die your humanitarian circumstances as Israel has
begun that invasion in Tarafa. That's right, all right, guys,
(27:37):
wanted to share with you a little atrocity denial, fake
news being perpetrated from Joe Scarborough over at MSNBC, among others.
But he was one of the most high profile spreaders
of this completely false nonsense.
Speaker 4 (27:50):
Let's put this up on the.
Speaker 1 (27:51):
Screen, so he claims here, UN has estimates of women
and children killed in Gaza. Apparently the Hamas figures repeatedly
cited are false. Now, if you were anywhere online yesterday
in proximity of in Israel, no matter what type of person,
you very likely heard a similar claim made. Let me
(28:14):
show you what this was based on. Let's put this
up on the screen so the UN change it changed
the way that they were reporting fatalities. You can see
here on May sixth they have the overall number of
Palestinians killed thirty four thousand, seven hundred and thirty five
you can see on the right. Two days later, on
(28:35):
May eighth, very similar number. It goes up a little
bit thirty four thousand, eight hundred and forty four Palestinians killed,
so total numbers thirty four thousand n climbing.
Speaker 4 (28:47):
However, when you look below.
Speaker 1 (28:50):
In the May sixth one they say more than ninety
five hundred women and more than fourteen thousand, five hundred children.
In the May eighth one they say these are the
individuals who are identified, nine hundred and fifty nine women
versus seven seven hundred and ninety seven children so identified.
(29:12):
So the difference here is whereas previously there were assumptions
made about how many were women how many were children
based on the overall numbers and some identifying information. The
Ministry of Health in Gaza has since said that some
roughly ten thousand of the individuals don't have complete identification information,
so they're changing the way that they are reporting on
(29:35):
these fatalities. The number of fatalities did not go down,
in fact, it went up. In fact, if you look
at the bottom, you can see that in addition to
these thirty four thousand, you also have more than ten
thousand who are reported missing or under the rubble, which
means they are also likely dead. But this was used
to claim that the UN has now decided the hamas
numbers were wrong and have the number of women and
(29:57):
children killed not.
Speaker 4 (29:58):
True at all.
Speaker 1 (29:59):
In fact, you and spokesperson yesterday, in response to Joe
Scarborough and many others spreading this fake news, decided to
clarify just exactly what was going on here.
Speaker 4 (30:11):
Let's take a listen to that.
Speaker 9 (30:12):
Thanks Varhan. There's some reporting that's come out that says, quote,
the UN has half halved the number.
Speaker 10 (30:19):
Of casualties has It's a hard word to.
Speaker 9 (30:23):
Say you know what I'm talking about, though, yes I
do know. Cut in half, cut in half. Thank you.
The casualties from Gaza, is that true?
Speaker 10 (30:33):
It's it's not quite the case.
Speaker 2 (30:35):
No.
Speaker 10 (30:37):
What I can tell you is this the overall number
of fatalities that's been tallied by the Ministry of Health
in Gaza, which is our counterpart on dealing with the
death tolls. That number remains unchanged and it's at more
than thirty five thousand people since the Since October seventh.
What's changed is the Ministry of Health and Gaza has
(30:57):
updated the breakdown of fatalities for whom full details have
been documented. So what they recently published was that they
gave figures for twenty four thousand, six hundred and eighty
six out of three hundred out of thirty four thousand,
six hundred and twenty two overall fatalities recorded in Gaza,
(31:17):
and those twenty four thousand, six hundred and eighty six
people are the ones for whom full details have been documented,
in other words, people who have been fully identified those.
Speaker 2 (31:28):
Out of those, then, out of that.
Speaker 10 (31:31):
Smaller number that subset of identified bodies, you have seven
seven hundred and ninety seven children, four thousand, nine hundred
and fifty nine women, nine hundred and twenty four elderly,
and ten thousand and six men. And the Ministry of
Health says that the documentation process of fully identifying details
(31:52):
of the casualties is ongoing. Meanwhile, as you can see
if you do the math, that there's about another ten
thousand plus bodies who still have to be fully identified,
and so then the details of those, which of those
are children, which of those are women, that will be
re established once the full identification process is complete. We
(32:15):
are teams in Gaza are unable to identify, unindependently verify
these figures given the situation on the ground and the
continuing combat and the sheer number of fatalities, and so
we cite the Ministry of Health as the source for our.
Speaker 9 (32:29):
Figures, and do you have any reason to believe that
the Ministry of Health numbers are incorrect based on the
years that the UN has worked with the Ministry of
Health for Kaza.
Speaker 10 (32:37):
Unfortunately, we have the sad experience of coordinating with the
Ministry of Health on casualty figures every few years for
large mass casualty incidents in Gaza, and in past past
times their figures have proven to be generally accurate.
Speaker 1 (32:54):
So important there at the end too, because this has
used a lot of like, oh, well, you're just going
to trust us, and says, well, listen, first of all,
we can't in this war zone, with Israel, by the way,
providing limited access, we can't independently verify. And second of all,
based on historical record, actually the Ministry of Health has
been quite accurate, and in fact, this change in the
(33:17):
identification of the data is really an indication that they're
being quite careful and trying to be very meticulous in
the way that they record and identify these Palestinians who
have been killed.
Speaker 4 (33:30):
So, you know, the thing that's.
Speaker 1 (33:32):
So gross, Sager is, first of all everybody was telling
Joe Scart like this is just wrong, this is not true,
and the tweet is still up.
Speaker 4 (33:42):
There's no community known on it.
Speaker 1 (33:43):
You know, the UE comes out and says, no, no,
that's a lie, that's not what happens, it's not true.
And yet you just know that this talking point is
going to be used, even though it's thoroughly debunked everywhere,
It's going to be used over and over and go
over again. The same way that there's still Mike Johnson's
still out there talking about people plural getting stabbed in
the eye with a palasinating flagging though that never happened.
(34:04):
The way that you still have people who are out
there talking about babies being baked in ovens even though
that never happened, and baby's beheaded even though that never happened.
Like it gets debunked, but it doesn't matter, because it
still persists. The claims still persist, and it still gets
weaponized to dismiss, to dehumanize, to undercut the severity of
what has been done in the Gaza strip. And it's
(34:25):
just such a gross episode and so characteristic of the
dishonesty that has been endemic to you know, the way
that this confliction has.
Speaker 2 (34:34):
Been trust you want to don't trust mass and don't
trust is real. I don't need to trust all those
people because I got two pairs of eyes. So whenever
I watched the Battle of Mosul, we saw ISIS being like,
they're killing civilians, they're massacring civilians. Independent sources. ISIS his
own videos and the Iraqi videos all show the same thing.
What Iraqi security forces engaging with isis ICIS and uses
(34:54):
them as human shields, and that in the many cases
they went to extraordinary lengths coalition forces uprate the civilian population. Okay,
that's all it took. It's like the numbers eventually came
out just validated what we saw at the time. What
do we see right now, Well, you got videos coming
about bombing a refugee camp. You got the IDEF coming
out and saying, well, we're doing to hit one persons,
we killed one hundred and fifty rubble that's collapsing all
(35:15):
over the places. You got and this is actually again,
all I need is you go into Gaza and to
communists into Gaza city. We're like, we're going to destroy
all the terrorists, and then you leave and then there
are a bunch of terrorists that are still left there,
and including rocket attacks and insurgent attacks, and the idea
of death toll people haven't taken notice OF's starting to
take up there even with these limited operations in Rafa,
(35:38):
which tells us what that you've got a maximum amount
of defense and that all of your strategy and all
that hasn't been working. And so whatever the death toll is,
whatever it is, it's not about the number. It's about
the proportion, and it's about what lengths that you have
gone to. We're going to talk with Arjun about this
Lindsay Graham quote about why we should new Gaza. And
there's a lot of talk always about resident and all
(36:00):
those other things, and even today at are very controversial
about why they are. But what everybody forgets is that
the extraordinary links that were gone to both for Japan
and for Germany to avoid ever having to make that
catastrophic choice about trying everybody's best, from the highest sessions
of the US military to including strategic bombing and trying
(36:21):
to knock out different areas in places to minimize civilian casualties.
And only when the Nazis and the Japanese Empire basically
made it a choice of complete unconditional surrender and actually
ramping up their defense and making surrender and victory as
difficult as possible. Did they resort to the mass civilian
casualty strategies of Drusien of Hiroshima and of the fire
(36:44):
bombing campaign onto Tokyo, and those were peer competitive enemies.
Israel basically just came out the gate without ever trying
any of those steps. And what I would say is
it because of the power and balance of that enemy
they did not try and even do what the US
did in fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, which it's not
even about morals, strategically and militarily backfired and is not working.
(37:07):
You can see right now it's very clear.
Speaker 1 (37:09):
I mean, it's just it's just disgraceful. And yeah, to
your point also, I mean, there's a reason why after
World War Two the world community came together and said
we got to have some rules to protect civilians, because
this is you know, what we just saw unfold is outrageous.
It's unacceptable, and that's what we're seeing right now. It's
(37:30):
clearly outrageous. It's clearly unacceptable. And so if you're seeing
those things on their face. It's very difficult to defend.
It's very difficult to deny the obvious horrors that are.
Speaker 4 (37:45):
Being done in our name with our dollars.
Speaker 1 (37:49):
And so that's why they pick up these lies and
they run with them because the truth, the truth doesn't
work for them anymore. It's nothing even approximating the truth
works for them anymore. So, you know, I hope, but
I don't really have any aspiration expectations of this. I
hope this is a mark of shame against Joe Scarborough
and other people who shamelessly spread this lie forever. This
(38:13):
is a very problem that we played for Reied Zakaria earlier,
one of Biden's favorite angers. This is Biden's other favorite
anchor who is spreading this abject lie that you have
thousands of people telling him this is a lie, This
is not true. The un itself comes out and says,
this is a lie, this is not true. And you know, soccer,
the reality is given the level of devastation, given what
(38:34):
we've seen, given the humanitarian situation, given the lack of sanitation,
the starvation, the dehydration. American doctors who are on the
brink of death right now because they don't have clean
water to drink.
Speaker 4 (38:47):
Given what we know about that.
Speaker 1 (38:49):
I don't think that there's any way that these numbers
even accurately reflect the full death toll caused by this war,
because you know, how how could they how could they
possibly know all of the individuals who have perished as
a result of direct Israeli strikes and of the Israel
(39:09):
Israeli siege policy. And we may never know, it may
take years for us to have a more complete toll.
But to try to lie and pretend like, oh, actually,
you know these have been halved based on the changing
and the reporting of some data is.
Speaker 4 (39:22):
So it's just so disgusting. It's just so utterly repulsive.
Speaker 2 (39:27):
All right, Well, we've got a good guest standing by
Argent saying of lever Time podcast. We're going to discuss further.
Let's get to it.
Speaker 1 (39:35):
So, our partners at Lever News have re upped, new
and improved their podcast, which is called lever Time. We're
really excited to be joined this morning by that podcast producer,
Arjine saying, who is the Lever's senior podcast producer and
has a fantastic new episode that I really recommend you
guys check out going inside the Biden Administration's internal discussions
and policy viz a Vi Israel Arghene.
Speaker 4 (39:57):
Welcome, great to have.
Speaker 2 (39:58):
You, Good to see you man.
Speaker 3 (39:59):
Thanks for you guys.
Speaker 1 (40:01):
So before I get into this podcast, I just want
to sing your praises.
Speaker 4 (40:05):
You know.
Speaker 1 (40:05):
I've told this to David. I've been talking to Sager.
You're doing such an excellent job in terms of the
quality of these podcasts. I've enjoyed all of them. I'm
a big fan. So let's go ahead. Why don't you
break down for us this particular episode and some of
the things you learned about who's most influential behind the
scenes in terms of Israel's quote unquote bear head hug
of net Nyahu.
Speaker 3 (40:27):
Yeah, absolutely so. In this episode, we began by looking
a little bit at why Israel means so much to
the United States, and in particular to President Biden, who
has long considered himself one of Israel's strongest allies in
the US government. Inside of the White House. During What's
Happening Right Now, though, I spoke with Akbar Shahida Hmed,
the Huffington Post diplomacy reporter, and he illuminated me to
(40:50):
the fact that there are really three people inside of
this administration who have consolidated power and taken control of
Israel policy, and that is his Secretary of State Tony Blincoln,
national Security Advisor Jake Sullivan. But most importantly is someone
who many people have never heard of. He's a gentleman
named Brett McGirk. He's an advisor to President Biden. He's
(41:12):
been a staffer for his entire career. He has gone
between the Bush administration, the Obama administration, the Trump administration
now to Biden, and he is the one who has
really pushed Biden to take up things that people who
have observed Biden were surprised at, such as a normalization
deal with Saudi Arabia, which would involve a mutual defense
pact including sharing civilian nuclear technology. Brett mcgirk's career, though,
(41:36):
really started during the Iraq War, when he was tasked
with more or less the Bush administration schoal of rebuilding Iraq,
and I would say that was really not a successful,
beneficial or humane policy. Yet he has continued through government
government as a staffer, and being a staffer, he rarely
(41:57):
gives interviews. He fits kind of behind the scenes, and
I think that is something that has alarmed State Department officials.
People inside of the diplomatic community say that they've been
felt locked out. And Okbard told me a lot of
that has to do with Brett McGirk, who really seems
to have idea of ego and kind of his own
desires that he's pushed Biden on on these issues.
Speaker 2 (42:19):
Yeah, I know brekfas McGurk. Actually I don't know in personally.
I've covered him for many years for you know, like
you said, for Iraq Syria, he was at the heart
of that. Famously resigned from the Trump administration, but come
back he's kind of the pre eminent. It's almost like
a World War two esque type figure, like the bipartisan
foreign policy connoisseur. But you're very correct to point that out.
(42:41):
So one of the things that we wanted to get
your reaction to was not only the kind of evolution
of the pro Isra policy inside of the Biden administration,
but also of broader Washington, where there does seem to
be a complete coside really of Israeli military strategy, perhaps
best exemplified by Senator Lindsey Graham. You can see both
(43:05):
the emotion and the support here he has and clearly,
you know, obviously there's at least a taste of this
inside the Bide administration as well. In a recent interview,
he suggested that there should be nukes employed against Gaza
by the Israelis. Let's take a listen to what he said.
Speaker 7 (43:21):
Can I say this, why is it okay for America
to not to drop two nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and
Nagasaki to end their existential threat war?
Speaker 2 (43:31):
Why was it okay for us to do that? I
thought it was okay to Israel do whatever you have
to do to survive as a Jewish state. Senor again,
military officials say, ever you have to. She has changed.
But let me ask you about how.
Speaker 4 (43:44):
These military officials that you're talking.
Speaker 2 (43:46):
About, let me ask you something or crap. So what'd
you make of that?
Speaker 3 (43:51):
The shuffling on the papers emphasize at that point. But
I mean that I think, as you said, Sarger, that
underscores how emotional this issue is. And also that someone
the Lindsay Graham feels completely comfortable to say that as
a sitting senator. I mean, that's a pretty ridiculous comparison.
On the one hand, World War two was a completely
different issue than Israel and Gaza. The machinations that had
(44:15):
to go into World War Two, where largely are surrounding
will one of the worst wars in human history continue,
you know, and I'm not justifying what they did in
World War Two, but to use that as an example
to justify completely one sided war. I mean, Israel is
clearly on the dominant side of this war. Over thirty
(44:35):
five thousand Palestinian civilians have died. The numbers are nowhere
near in comparison, even taking into what happened on October seventh.
So I think for Lindsay Graham to say that we
should just go in and drop a nuclear bomb, it
shows how comfortable the bipartisan consensus is that you can
make such an extreme statement. If Lindsay Graham had said
(44:57):
we should drop a nuclear bomb in a rock or Afghanistan,
I do wonder would that have gotten the same level
of acceptance. I mean that clip that you just showed,
I didn't see that registered in New York Times Washington Post.
If Lindsay Graham had said, Hey, we should just go
and drop a giant in nuk on, North Korea, I
imagine that's something that you would see the mainstream media
absolutely jumping on top of But it does seem like
(45:20):
that kind of a comment, is hey, part of the
course from Washington, even if it sounds absurd.
Speaker 1 (45:25):
I mean, he's not even the first member of Congress
to suggest such a thing like that's what's so crazy
is or you know, a member of official in Israel
they've also, some of them have suggested nuking Gaza, and
it just sort of goes by as a blip. Meanwhile,
I saw pictures this morning of college student protesters who
are being charged with felonies under some like nineteen fifties
(45:47):
era rule against masking that was put in place to
combat the KKKA. They're being charged with felonies for protesting
and you know, rally chants that people don't like, and
you've got a sitting senator who had actual power suggesting
you nuke the gods of Strip and it's it's barely
a blip.
Speaker 4 (46:05):
You barely hear about it.
Speaker 3 (46:07):
Yes, someone who's considered a statesman by people his own.
Speaker 4 (46:11):
Right, great point. That's such a great point.
Speaker 3 (46:14):
You know.
Speaker 1 (46:14):
I wanted to ask you about another development in terms
of the Biden administration and their policy, which is, while
you have, and Biden has always operated this way where
he has a very small group of advisors and they're
basically the only ones that count, and every any newcomers,
anyone from the outside's very difficult to break through. I mean,
he's been in Washington for what freaking fifty years and
(46:37):
very locked into his ways. Not to mention, it seems
like he personally has a deep ideological commitment to the
Israeli cause, grounded on you know, a visit he had
with Gold in my Ear in the seventies or whatever.
But it's not uniform across the Biden administration. There are
some individuals who, especially in positions in the State Department,
(46:57):
who really do dissent from this jur and that's been
manifested in a number of ways. You've had some of these,
like anonymous letters of Biden staffers or Kamala Harris staffers
will say we're very upset about this, but very anonymous.
You've had a few different resignations, and this is the
latest one, which I think is quite extraordinary and quite powerful.
We can put this up on the screen. The letter
that was written. This was from sorry, just pause this
(47:23):
for a second. This is from US Army major Harrison Man,
and part of what he said is that he felt
so alone going about business his business. He was disturbed
by the footage from Gaza. But he talks about how
he had, you know, all of this sort of rationalizations
of well, if it wasn't me, someone else would be
(47:45):
doing this job, and my work here doesn't really matter
that much anyway. But he says, I now realize the obvious.
If I was afraid to voice my concerns, you were too.
I've always known what kind of people you are, and
I should have had more faith in this team. So
I am deliberate not sending this to the entire agency.
I'm writing to people I know who might value hearing
the reasons I chose to walk away. He also talks
(48:08):
about how, as someone who is Jewish and was raised Jewish,
how this moral imperative of never again and the inadequacy
of just following orders was really impressed upon him from
a young age, and so because of those moral conscious reasons,
he resigned from the Biden administration. You know, do you
(48:31):
have a first of all, just react to this letter
in this resignation, and do you have a sense of
how widespread this dissent from the Biden administration. Top line
policy is among sort of rank and file individuals such
as this.
Speaker 3 (48:45):
Yeah, I think what's really remarkable about this letter, and
even thinking about Aaron Bushnell, who you know, did the
self immolation in front of the Israeli embassy. These are
not people who come from the traditional anti war constituencies.
These are not activists. These are people who signed up
(49:06):
for the US military, many of them in the wake
of what we've seen in Iraq and Afghanistan, and you know,
they had convictions that they believed in what the military
was doing, they believed in the United States government. And
it says something to me that what they saw in Gaza,
what they saw as a lack of ability to dissent,
which inside of government usually you have traditional dissent channels.
(49:28):
They didn't feel that they were able to properly dissent
to the point that they went back on what they
believed in and they decided to resign. In Aaron's case,
very sadly, he committed a self immolation. And I've heard
that from State Department officials too. I spoke with one
State Department official in January. He had worked on a
RACK policy. He had worked on Ukraine policy. This is
(49:50):
not someone who had an issue necessarily with the fact
that the United States arms different nations. He said that
in arms transfer as you start the goal of how
how do you not do harm? But with how do
you do harm reduction? He didn't necessarily debate the idea
that you would be sending weapons. But what he saw
happening with Israel was this rapid acceleration of getting weapons
(50:14):
over there, the complete squashing of descent. And he told
me that he felt the debate was stifled and that
similarly to Man, he was not able to adequately speak
out against these things. And these are the people who
are going public. But when I spoke with that official
in January, he said there were many many more people
who privately said I completely agree with you. And when
(50:34):
I spoke with Uckbart, he said something similarly to me.
And so I do think that this is a very
widespread problem within the State Department, especially for people who
feel that in areas they've traditionally been able to provide descent.
In this policy, there are communications and there are directives
coming down from the top. The State Department officials said
it was coming from White House, in top level State Department,
(50:57):
Blincoln Sullivan McGirk, and they were not able to push
back on this. They weren't even able to debate the
righteousness of this policy, much less the speed of which
things were happening. So I do think that what we're
seeing is very remarkable within the United States government. For
government officials, it takes a lot to resign, particularly in
(51:18):
the case of the person we saw a couple of
weeks ago, eighteen years at the State Department, Josh Paul,
more than a decade at the State Department. These people
built entire careers and they left, And that is just
absolutely astounding to me in the way this administration is
carrying this out.
Speaker 1 (51:34):
Arjenne, what's your sense of whether there is a realization
that the quote unquote bear Hug strategy has utterly and
completely failed, And what's your sense of whether there is
an actual policy shift going on right now with the
Biden administration versus a rhetorical one. Of course, I'm referring
to the fact that he said, listen, if they do
a quote unquote major invasion of RAFA, we're going to
(51:57):
cut off some weapons shipments. But they have so are
deemed what is the invasion that has already happened in
Rava doesn't cross that red line for whatever reason. So
it really does leave it open to interpretation whether this
is an actual shift or whether it's an attempt to
sort of pacify a left and young cohort in the
party that is outraged over the atrocities that they see
(52:19):
being committed.
Speaker 3 (52:21):
Yeah, I think in terms of this being a successful policy,
it's not been a successful policy, and it is something
that for Biden has politically failed for him, he has
given a lot of his administration's re election chances to
as you said, bear hugging Benjamin Netanyahu. Net Yahoo is
quickly becoming isolated on the world stage, Akamar told me.
(52:41):
Foreign allies are consistently saying to Tony blink In, the
Secretary of State, why are you doing this? Why are
you allowing this to continue? You have control over the situation.
And there is a moment that I saw where India's
Foreign minister actually said during a speech that he felt
that the Palestinians had been denied sovereign for a homeland,
and India under Mody had been and has been one
(53:04):
of the strongest allies of Netanyahu. Mody and net Yaho
are very close with each other. And that's again another
remarkable statement to show that even a very strong ally
who believes in this idea of what Israel is trying
to do create this religious dominant state, they feel the
need to have to speak out and tell their allies
(53:24):
in their region that, look, we don't agree necessarily with
all of these full objectives. As far as is this
something that is really a change, I'm skeptical of that,
to be honest, Crystal, this is a pause on a
certain package of bombs. It feels a little bit mealy mouthed.
And you know, I haven't seen Biden give a really
forceful statement. He's given very taciturn comments saying I told
(53:48):
them that if they went into Rafa, we would not
provide these weapons. We've told them, We've told them. There's
leaks to you know. Peter Baker the New York Times
that he had a tough conversation with net Nyahu. He
privately told I'm considering changing my mind. Yeah, that is
not a strong change of heart to me. I think
a real change of heart would be a reconsideration of
(54:10):
the historic policy of arming Israel, and also a reconsideration
of whether the United States should be supporting Israel in
no matter what kind of policy. That I have not
seen a change of heart. And Josh Paul, who was
one of the first people to resign from the State Department,
he said something similar. He said it was a good sign,
but it doesn't portend a long term shift.
Speaker 4 (54:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (54:33):
I think that's all very well, said Arjine. Great to
talk to you. Congrats again, guys. I can't recommend lever
Time enough. It really is an excellent product. You'll learn
a lot from it, and you guys have tackled a
lot of really important and interesting topics, including airlines which
lever News had a big hand in forcing some changes through,
including the oil price fixing, which we covered here as
(54:54):
well with Matt Stoler. So definitely check out the podcast guys,
and great to meet you arjin Man.
Speaker 3 (55:00):
Great to meet you guys.
Speaker 2 (55:01):
Thank you, it's our pleasure all right. Thank you so
much for watching the Counterpoints. Have a great show for
everybody tomorrow and we will see you all later.
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