EP 1,152 - John Spencer (Chair of Urban Warfare Studies of Modern War Institute at West Point) on Being In Khan Yunis, 400 Miles of Tunnels In Gaza, Where Is Sinwar? - I AM RAPAPORT: STEREO PODCAST

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:11):
Brandon Bang and I Am Rapport Stereo Podcast Special Special
Excellent I Am Rap Report Stereo Podcast. Today on the
im Rap Report Stereo Podcast, I am joined by John Spencer.
He is the chair of Urban Warfare Studies of the
Modern War at West Point and spent twenty five years

(00:33):
of active duty in the United States Army. His knowledge
and experience makes him a top expert in the field,
and he has joined us to discuss everything Israel, Hamas,
Gaza and beyond from a technical modern warfare point of view.
I am so excited to have him on the podcast.

(00:53):
I am so excited to share his knowledge, his studies,
his information with you guys. Please please take some time
and listen to this I Am Rap Reports Stereo podcast
and like always, but more importantly than a lot of times,
tell a friend to tell a friend about this particular episode.

(01:14):
With John Spencer of d im Rap Report Stereo Podcast,
Miles Jordan Ak the Bleach.

Speaker 2 (01:22):
Brother, is Ak the Just Brother. Start this puppy off
with something real nice.

Speaker 1 (01:26):
Start this puppy off with something real out, but most importantly,
start this I Am Rapp Reports Stereo Podcast off with
something real funky.

Speaker 3 (01:34):
Let's go.

Speaker 1 (01:38):
All right, I'm rap Wort stereo podcast with John Spencer.
I appreciate you taking the time to join me.

Speaker 3 (01:45):
John.

Speaker 1 (01:46):
I did a little explanation of who you are and
why it was so important and exciting and imperative to
have you on the podcast.

Speaker 2 (01:58):
But can you explain what you do and who you are?

Speaker 3 (02:03):
I'll try and, like my ex wife said, I can talk,
so you'll cut me off. So I researched war. I
spent twenty five years in the active Army myself, with
two combat deployments to Iraq. I did the invasion and
I went later at the height of the secretarian violence.
But I've been researching urban war as in combat happening

(02:27):
in urban areas for over a decade. Worked in the
Pentagon as an advisor for a four star stood up
a research center at West Point, the United States Military Academy,
where I was teaching strategy, but we also created the
Modern War Institute to go out and study modern wars.
In twenty eighteen, I retired from active duty but kept
researching war. Now that's all I do is I travel

(02:49):
around the world. I went into Nagarna Karabak in twenty twenty,
I went into the Ukraine, war four times since the invasion.
I've gone into Gaza three times since October seventh. I
research and then write about wars. I do a lot
of case studies, explaining to people what happened in the past,
try to help people understand what's happening now, as I

(03:12):
have kind of a I call it a dream job
for myself, because we actually don't have the profession of
going into war zones to understand them. There's a long
reason of why, but it's hard to summarize all I do.
I have my own podcasts as well because I'm a
lifelong learner, and one of the reasons that I've been
studying Israel for so long for years is because I

(03:34):
study urban war and underground warfare for tunnels. So I've
been going to Israel for years studying everything from the
Second Antifada, the Battles of Janine and Novelists, the seventy
three War, the Battle of Suwias City, and the unique
aspects of the idea tunnels in Northern Israel and Southern
Israel the whole gamut, because they're uniquely, unfortunately faced with

(04:00):
frequent occurrences of wars and very contested urban battles so
when the October seventh invasion happened, I already had connections,
already had an understanding of the idea and of the
challenges they were going to face.

Speaker 1 (04:16):
I usually don't. That's great, I mean, this is all fantastic.
I usually don't put a date when I'm recording a podcast,
but I am going to date this podcast. We're recording
this on August twentieth, twenty twenty four. And the reason
why I'm articulating the date, which I don't normally do,
is because everything is happening so fast and information, you know,

(04:41):
situations are moving at rapid speed, probably more rapid than
ever because of the news and the information and the
Twitter and the X and there's so many people sharing
information and disinformation. In the last few hours, the bodies
of six Israeli civilians who were kidnapped on October seventh

(05:05):
were recovered in Conunis. You mentioned that you were in Communists.
When you were in Conunis, what did you see, what
is it like? What did you witness? Describe what communist
is like? Because I've never heard of con Unists. I
never mentioned Conmunists before October seventh, So can you explain

(05:28):
what you saw.

Speaker 3 (05:30):
Sure, and this has been much of the world's basically
getting everything wrong, like literally everything from Gaza being the
most densest place on earth. And I study cities for
a living as well. And it's not even on you know,
it's not in the top one hundred, it's but even
understanding that it's not one continuous urban area, right, there's
twenty four major cities, con Unists being one of those hubs,

(05:53):
actually one of those central hubs for the Hamas leadership.
I went into Communists with interestingly, with the ninety eighth Division,
who is the division who did this operation that we're
talking about that recovered the six bodies and brought them home.
I was with them and with the general who is man.
They should make a movie about that general, a former

(06:15):
Israeli Navy seal who they made a division commander and
has been kicking butt since October seventh, to include on
October seventh, General Goldfuss. But I was there in Conunis
in February during some of the major operations to clear it.
I saw, I mean, just challenges. Even as a guy
who's walked the ground of many wars and battles, has

(06:40):
studied urban combat, I saw, you know, buildings eight stories tall.
Where I was actually at in Conunists. The division commander
took me out to talk to the brigade and company commanders.
They were searching for a tunnel, which is a tunnel
guy trying to understand, like the fact that you could
once you enter Gaza there is likely a tunnel underneath you,

(07:00):
you just don't know it. So we were actually in communists,
deep in Communists, and he brought me to a unit
and the engineer battalion was looking for a tunnel that
they believed was connected to this mosque, and we were
standing on top of this area where they were searching
for it by drilling into the ground, one of the
ways they do it, and a few hours later they

(07:21):
found the tunnel. So I was standing on top of
an enemy tunnel that they had not yet found. I
of course saw the remnants of the high intensity urban
battles that they were having with hamas the fact that
every other building was an explosive or used to fight
the ideaf In the in conmunists. I also talked through

(07:41):
the commander about all the measures they were doing to
prevent civilian harms despite the misinformation of the world how
they had cleared it, how they had used facial recognition
to get the HAMAS members trying to leave with the
civilians that they're trying to get out of harm's way.
I learned about how they were strict being their movements,

(08:01):
the Ideaf their day, do daily pauses like four hour
pauses since November when they entered daily pauses to allow
civilians to move, to allow humanitarian aid to get in.
I'm like drinking from a fire hose every time I
go into Gaza, not just for my own research, as in, like,
how are you doing this? How are you figuring out

(08:23):
a way despite this international condemnation where they're at this point,
This is when the US was saying, you know, the
appropriate number of civilian casualties is zero. So talking through
the division commander, like, well, how are you moving forward
and destroying Hamas with near zero civilian casualties? And he
talked about elements of surprise. One of the things that

(08:44):
blew my mind, and it really hasn't been reported. You
know the tunnels, right, So there's four hundred miles of tunnels, right,
so bigger than the New York subway system, the London
Metro all these how do you deal with That has
been a big chanceallenge for the IDEF and would have
been a challenge for any military, especially one without the

(09:05):
capabilities of the IDF, which have a more than the
US military have, like special units, dogs and what they
call the Yahalom, the weasels. But they were seding the
ground to the enemy because the enemy was just booby
trapping the tunnels that they found well a ninety eighth
division and other the IDEF figured out that they needed
to get into the tunnels before Hamas knew they were there.

(09:29):
So in conmunists, they were using these elements of surprise
to maneuver on the surface and underground at the same time.
But to be frank the balls, you had to have
to enter an enemy's tunnel and move on him without
him knowing it. At the same time moving on the
surface has never been tried before by no military. So

(09:52):
I kept getting my mind blown on how the IDEF
was figured out how still destroying the enemy taking what
they value, which is this ideal that they're going to
survive this war away from them despite all the constraints
that have been placed on the idea.

Speaker 1 (10:10):
So I knew this conversation was going to be challenging
because there's so much information and so many questions that
I have. You say, there's four hundred miles of tunnels, Okay,
Now I imagine that if somebody works in the subway system
of New York, they don't know every single route. I

(10:31):
mean maybe if they study it they do. How much
information knowledge details did the IDEF have of these four
hundred miles of tunnels and did they think it was
two hundred miles, Did they think it was one hundred
and fifty miles or did they always know it was
four hundred miles They just didn't know that or imagine
that they'd be fighting in these tunnels.

Speaker 3 (10:51):
So it's a great question. And as somebody who was
studying tunnels and writing about tunnels before this, I mean
I did an underground Warfare conference in Israel with what
used to be called idc Hrchileia now Reichman University, back
in like twenty eighteen. I went into Hesibal tunnels in
the north and Hamas tunnels in the south. No, they
did not know that there were four hundred miles. Much

(11:14):
of the estimates were like three hundred miles, both from Hamas,
who would publicly tell the world we have this much
and IDEF sources. But this is again going back to
the Israel did disengage from Gaza in two thousand and
five and because of Hamas coming to power the rockets
put up the wall. There is an element even though

(11:37):
Israel has immense amounts of intelligence collection capabilities that you
just can't know. So, yes, they knew Hamas was digging tunnels.
They knew where some of the tunnels that Hamas was digging.
There are many reasons for even in the operation in
two thousand and eight, twenty fourteen, twenty twenty one, which

(11:57):
I visited right after the operation to called Guardian of
the Wall twenty twenty one, where the IDEA were on
all these operations targeting the tunnels, and even in twenty
twenty one they thought they had destroyed a certain percentage
of Hamasa's tunnels through aerial bombardments. Hamas learned from that
and they put in more blast doors within the tunnels
that can stop the explosions. They put turns in their tunnels.

(12:21):
I think it might even be more than four hundred
at this point, Michael. But once the IDEAF moved into Gaza,
because some of this you just so. The tunnels ranged
from just below the surface, like underneath somebody's house, to
over two hundred feet underground, right about one hundred feet underground.
There's no way you can you can reach them, and

(12:41):
being able to detect them through aerial, through whatever, it's impossible.
So there is some of this element of no The
IDEAF didn't know how much tunnels were there. I mean,
I think I was there in December, and I think
I think you might have been there when they discovered
that the res tunnel right one that was two and
a half miles long, one hundred and sixty feet underground.

(13:05):
You could drive trucks through it, and it went all
the way back into Gaza City and came up right
before the wall, right outside the risk humanitarian crossing point.
They knew about a tunnel being around that area, but
they didn't know the huge actual size of the tunnel.
They found tunnels Michael, that go now underneath the Wadi Gaza,

(13:26):
which is that river basin that splits north and west.
Nobody thought that was possible, and they found two over
mile long tunnels connecting North Gaza to South Gaza. You
can basically go into northern Gaza and come out in
Rafa basically, and that system wasn't all like the IDEF

(13:46):
didn't know and to be honest, they still don't know, right.
So this is as of this week, they're finding mile
long tunnels because they're at a depth that is impossible.
Some of the combat had has covered up tunnel interests
or shafts as we call them. I mean they found
over fifty now along the border with Egypt in the

(14:10):
Rafa area, something you can drive trucks through. This has
been the challenge of how do you fight in this environment?
And then what do you do about the tunnels once
you find them, right, because that's been a huge challenge
as well, like how do I even destroy these tunnels.
They've tried everything from you know, pumping in seawater and
fresh water to try to flood the tunnels using explosives.

(14:33):
It's a what we'll call a wicked problem. There's no
solution and the IDEAF are still searching daily for tunnels
and they have found many of the big important tunnels,
but they're still discovering them.

Speaker 1 (15:02):
The bodies, I know, you probably don't have an answer
for this. The six civilians who were kidnapped and their
bodies were recovered in the last couple of hours.

Speaker 2 (15:12):
I believe it was last week.

Speaker 1 (15:13):
Another body was recovered and the body had been found
in a tunnel, but it was buried behind a wall.
How do they find these bodies? From what I understand
the one I mentioned about the one person civilian whose
body was recovered, someone who they had captured. Actually they
brought him there and he showed them where. Like, you know,

(15:38):
how are they getting this information? Are they getting it
from people they've captured? Is it just you happen upon it?
I know, you can't say for sure, but what is
the communication, Like, how is it working?

Speaker 3 (15:49):
I can't say, you know, just like you understand, and
I only do what we call open, you know, unclassified research.
But the idea of and Israel has said that almost
all of the discoveries have happened through human intelligence, so
through information provided by Hamas combatants that have been captured

(16:11):
that they are told, well, you might want to go
back and look in this area, in this one, even
this one which there are some initial reports that wear
in communists. If you remember when the Humanitarian Zone the
album Waste Humanitarian Zone was expanded that this tunnel was
within the Humanitarian zone. So you get to like, why

(16:34):
do you why are we still discovering things? Because there
are areas that the idea of have not cleared because
Egypt said screw you to the world and he's not
going to let a single refugee into Egypt. That this
humanitarian zone is quite large, actually, and it was expanded
in order to allow the idea to evacuate temporarily evacuate

(16:59):
Rafa to be able to attack those combatants. But mostly
Mike was through human intelligence. It's not like discovery. Although
they've discovered thousands of tunnel shafts, but some of these
are so deep and so hidden that it takes being
on the ground and staying there like I was in
I just got back in July from the Netcherine Corridor,

(17:20):
which is this area near the Wadi Gaza that they're
creating through Central Gaza, and there's there's lots of tunnels
there that they know are there, but they haven't. They
have to exploit them and to determine the true depth
and then decide whether they destroyed them. It's a it's
a multi year process. But human intelligence, well all intelligence

(17:42):
drives operations, and people just seem to think that we
have this all seen eye above the world and you
know Israel space lasers and they can just figure it out. No,
it takes human intelligence in other forms of intelligence.

Speaker 1 (17:55):
I first read an article that you had written or
was written about you, or is an interview with you
about the casualties, and it was like mind blowing because
the numbers that are being thrown around, they're not detailed.
They'll say at one point it was twenty thousand people
were killed in Gaza. Then they say it was twenty
five thousand people were killed in Gaza, and then they'll

(18:17):
say thirty thousand civilians were killed in Gaza, or sometimes
they'll just say forty thousand were killed in Gaza.

Speaker 2 (18:25):
That's the most recent number.

Speaker 1 (18:27):
And when you were articulating and asking for and discovering
the details and explaining the details of those numbers, it
like it was like, of course, Hamas has been killed.
Of course there's been civilians killed. Of course there's been

(18:48):
people that are not officially in Hamas that have been killed.
Of course old age has a factor. So can you
explain the myths, the misinformation, the disinformation of where we
are today in August twentieth and what you know about
the amount of casualties, who they are, what they are,

(19:09):
and how it's being distributed.

Speaker 2 (19:11):
Because I have.

Speaker 1 (19:14):
Articulated as much as I can that anything that comes
from Hamas is a lie, just like anything that would
come from John Wilkes Booth, Jeffrey Dahmer, Saddam Hussein or
any psychopathic person is going to be a fucking lie.
And it's impossible to believe the Ministry of Health from Gaza,
the Hamas Ministry of Health, which is the Gaza Ministry

(19:38):
of Health, it's impossible to believe. So can you explain
the casualties as of far as what you know today
August twentieth.

Speaker 3 (19:45):
Yeah, I mean it's been a real big challenge because
unique to this war. Right, my business is studying war
and especially urban battles, and I can say very definitively
there's never been a battle or war in the history
of war where any nobody has had a civilian casually
account down to the single digit daily. But this global

(20:06):
terrorist organization has figured it out and is able to
give a daily death count and nobody asked, nobody asked
the question that you're asking me now, and I have
to explain it often because the world doesn't ask and
you have leaders of nations parenting the number from a
Hamas terrorist organization, and you can have your own opinions,

(20:29):
you can't have your own facts. Gaza Health Ministry is Hamas.
Hamas was the political wing controlling all institutions. And I
can say with also clarity that nobody in Gaza is
going to publicly make statements without knowing that Hamas has
to approve it or you're going to get swacked. But

(20:49):
the number has taken this its own momentum, unquestioned. What
is the number, Where did it come from? Who gave it?
How verified?

Speaker 2 (20:57):
Is it?

Speaker 1 (20:58):
So?

Speaker 3 (20:58):
Yes? As of today, the Gaza Health Ministry of Hamas
or the Hamaski, however you want to say, it says
there are forty thousand Palestinians that have been killed and
that's what the international media say killed in Gaza since
October seventh. Well, that's a lie just by fact, even
if you well, if you're going to be accurate. One

(21:21):
did the numbers not accurate? We know that and I'm
going to tell you why. But to say forty thousand
people have died in Gaza since October seventh, but what
does the number include? Well, The number includes everybody who
has died for any reason in Gaza or Israel. Let's
be clear that the number actually includes Hamas and Palestinian

(21:41):
civilians who crossed into Israel on October seventh and did
all those horrible things. The number, if you don't know,
includes anybody that died on October seventh, committing in, raping, burning, mutilating,
everything that's part of the numbers. Set that aside. The
number includes anybody that's died for any reason. Yes, anybody
who's died of a natural cause goes on the list.

(22:03):
The actual what they say, the majority the number is
provided through the Gaza Health Ministries digital amazing impressive digital infrastructure,
which from the hospitals identifies a body in all its
information from the body and puts it on the list.
But actually the number includes way more of that, and
it doesn't say how the person died. Right, So if

(22:25):
you say Israel is the cause of all deaths and Gaza,
then you're a lying as well. Since of the thirteen
to fifteen thousand rockets that Hamas, Palatinian Islamic Jihad and
others have launched into Israel's civilian targeting civilian sites, all
war crimes. Over twenty percent of those rockets have landed

(22:45):
inside of Gaza, killing lots of Palestinian people. They're on
the list. Hamas themselves have killed a lot of people.
They're on the list. If it was just the number
of bodies, then then we could have that conversation. But
the list of forty thousand doesn't. It includes a lot
of double names, so people that are counted twice, people
who died a long time ago are on the list.

(23:07):
It includes which is really the thing that people try
to discount or they actually want you to believe that
there's more than forty thousand. Is that Hamas about three
months ago put out on their own messages in the
God's Health Ministry that of these numbers at the time,
it was like twenty five or thirty five thousand, eleven

(23:28):
thousand of these are unverified people as in not bodies
that have been seen. They believe that they're under the rubble.
The United Nations verified that as well. Like we say
about ten thousand, yes, we believe around the rubble. So well,
how do you know they're dead, Well they do it
through social media post So you're talking over ten thousand

(23:52):
plus names of this are people that they've collected off
of social media somebody has reported missing. The number also
includes they have Google shared drives where you can go
on as in a Palaestine, you can go on insert
your martyr here and put the name of somebody. They
don't know where they are. They go on the list
as debt. So this is the element of but what

(24:15):
also goes on the list is of course Hamas combatants.
Like you talked about, there is no distinction distinguishing between
a HAMAS militant and a civilian. Even if it's a
civilian who is not formally on the named list of Hamas.
It also doesn't have the name of civilians who are
partaking in the hostilities.

Speaker 1 (24:34):
That's what's really really frustrating that part there is that
they're acting like and I always say they, whether it's
the Ministry of Gaza Health, the media, whatever it is,
by not acknowledging any Hamas deaths, they're acting like Hamas

(24:54):
doesn't exist. They're not acknowledging that they even exist. Because
they're not acknowledging any deaths, they're like clamping them into
innocent civilians. And it's really really frustrating and it's confusing
and it's so misleading. I just wanted to just point

(25:18):
that part out, but keep going what you're saying.

Speaker 3 (25:21):
Sorry, John, Yeah, I mean I think that's a huge point,
of course, But then people kind of discount that, like, yeah,
but it's still this many tens of thousands that have
been killed. Like let's be words have matters. If you
believe the terrorist numbers, then you're saying have died, Okay,
how many were died of natural causes, how many were
killed by hamas, how many? But literally you'll have international

(25:44):
news say idea of kill forty thousand in Gaza, which
it's just not true.

Speaker 1 (25:50):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (25:50):
And the thing that I've written about this as well
is like, Okay, I studied war. In war, there are
combatants and non combatants, and you can be a civilian,
non combatant protected and actually there's not one bit of
evidence of Israel targeting civilians period, not one bit of evidence.
But you can be a civilian and you can turn

(26:11):
yourself into combatant. And this is in the complexity of
urban warfare, where you have a a combatant like Amas
who wears civilians, uses human shields, and wants to get
as many civilians killed as possible to achieve their goals.
You can have civilians who are die that are you know,
actual non combatants, but are dying because of Hamas. But

(26:34):
you can also have civilians who turned themselves into combatants,
like the crazy story of Israel's wild hostage rescue operation,
Like you seene out of Fulda, historic entering enemy territory,
they know you're coming, and they rescue you know, the
four living hostages, and the media ran with one hundred

(26:56):
and five civilians killed, like, well, if you're a whole
a hostage and you you were a civilian, you're no
longer civilian. You're a combatant and I can kill you. Period.
That's I mean, these are very simple things to understand
in war, but the number has created and becomes its
own thing now right, take them completely out of context

(27:20):
of in lie. I mean, there is not forty thousand
people that have been killed and is highly highly unlikely
since there are double names on the list. There is
just missing people on the list. It's all a lie.
But at least if these people were honest, whether it's
mainstream media or political leaders, at least put the caveats

(27:43):
on there, say, you know, according to Hamas, God's of
health mystry or forty thousand reported dead or died or
whatever puts the caveats on there, but they'll do worse.
I'll say that Israel caused all these deaths, and if
Israel just stop all the Killian would stop.

Speaker 1 (28:03):
POA. This is a two part question in regards to
this misleading misinformation over the casualties. Have you ever witnessed, understood,

(28:30):
studied anything like that? And the second part of the
question is how is this urban war different from other
urban wars that you've studied, like with Russian Ukraine? Are
they able to keep track? Is that part of the
reporting of Russian Ukraine? How many people have died? You know,

(28:52):
I don't understand, like you said, I don't understand how
they have You know, they'll have seven people died, one
hundred and nine people and they have it immediately. And
there was that report I didn't even remember when it
was in November the hospital was bombed and immediately, while
the fucking place is still on fire, five hundred people
died whatever they reported, And it turns out it's never that.

(29:15):
But has that been part of another war that you
that you're aware of. No.

Speaker 3 (29:21):
I'll give you an example where there's one instance, and
oh weird, it was Al Jazeera. But there has never
been a war that you knew the number daily down
to the single digit or where there's never been a
war that I've ever studied where the world asked, well,
what's your civilian to combat and ratio? Because we haven't
talked about that yet, right, so you know the fact

(29:43):
that Israel says they've killed seventeen thousand combatants of your
fake number that you have, Israel says they've killed seven.
If we're going to take a terrorist number, why can't
we take Israel's number? But nobody's ever asked an a
war while it's happening, what's your civilian to combat and ratio?
And that really means whether we should allow you to continue?
Basically never happened because of the context of the way

(30:05):
the law of war works, proportionality, necessity, all of this.
It isn't quantitative, It isn't a number. Is are you
doing everything humanly possible to prevent civilian casualties? And I've
written those, as you know, articles on showing all the
things that the idea of and Israel are doing that
no military in the history of war have ever done.

(30:27):
To prevent civilian harm. But your question is has it
ever happened before? Not at this speed for sure. Now
we're getting down to and it's after that a Ali.
I can't say the name that hospital you're talking about,
where you know there was a report that Israel bomb
the hospital and it was a parking lot and it
was the palsying jihad. But and you think that the

(30:48):
world would learn when the Gazza Health Ministry emptied the
hospital Morgan and I don't know if you've seen this picture,
and it held a press conference that night with bodies
to include men holding the body of children all around
this doctor of Hamas saying that the number was in
the five hundred, seven hundred and winter around the world.

(31:10):
That you think the world would learn, But now it's
actually gotten worse because now every day you see and
they know the number within hours that's never happened where
you have a strike or an operation and from within
the combat area you know the exact number of civilian casualties.
And they're all civilians right there. None of them are
combatants that somebody was targeting. Israel is targeting nothing. So

(31:34):
it's now we're in a new space where they know
the number within hours, and it runs around the world
by international news. There's no fact checking, and they might
say Gaza sources report, like who is your Gaza source?
It is Hamas. There was one instance back in the
day in the First Battle of Fallujah. I don't know
if you remember that in April of two thousand and four,

(31:57):
four American citizens contractors were killed, burned, dismembered and hung
from the city bridge and went around the world. So
the US did an operation to get those who did
the attack, and Al Jazeera was sitting at the hospital
airing photos of children that had gotten harmed and coming
up with a number a number of civilian casualties, and

(32:21):
it caused the US military to be defeated in the
First Battle of Lujah, and the six days into the
battle they had to stop because politically the Iraqi government
was going to disband and a bunch of issues. I
call that the Fallujah effect. But what we've seen on Gaza,
it's a whole different level to in clue. Which is
really messed up is that the world. I was hearing

(32:43):
it last night. It's a very big conference that the
world just parrots the number provided by Hamas. No matter
what it is the fact that it has tens of
thousands of missing people, double names, people died of natural causes,
and they run with it to invoke emotion that Israel

(33:04):
is doing something intentionally illegal, disproportionate when it's all a lie.
So let me answer the second question, Mike on the
urban battles that happened in Gaza, has enba ever had
I've written this too, is like where everybody wants something
to compare it to. There's nobody that has faced the
challenges that the idea have faced in Gaza. Let alone.

(33:27):
This Israeli standard that they're held to, it's not a
law of war standard, it's an Israeli standard. I've come
to find that out, like it's not a standard that
Western militaries are held to. It's just crazy Israeli standard.
But just the context of the military challenge, So over
two hundred and fifty hostages, a combatant of forty thousand

(33:48):
plus militants who had prepared urban defenses for fifteen years,
with four hundred miles of tunnels or launching rockets over
the heads of the military. Nobody has faced this challenge
at the scale and complexity that the idea had to
face to achieve their goals. I found one example that

(34:12):
I talk about often from the Battle of Vanilla, but
really nobody has faced this level of a militant military.
This is again, Hamas is not a resistance force. For
damn sure, it's not an insurgency, it's not. Yes they're terrorists,
but it's not a terror force in somebody else's land.

(34:33):
It was a military who had prepared its cities for
war for over fifteen years billions of dollars, rather than
investing in you know, water, desalination, sewage, anything for the people.
It's spent billions of dollars because we didn't that How
much does it cost to build a four hundred mile
tunnel network underneath your civilian cities? It costs billions of dollars.

(34:57):
And this is the other aspect difference with other wars.
And you ask me, like Russia Ukraine numbers, no nobody knew.
In the matter of fact, we still don't know how
many people died in like the Battle of Mariopal because
Russia doesn't give access to people and they're not going
to give you a number. But the one element is
that in other wars, civilians So this is the ideal

(35:17):
that we think Hamas are some type of good guys. Right,
if you're one of these pro Hamas waving the flag
in America, people, you think that Hamas just wants you know,
it just wants self determination, it wants freedom, it wants
its own, you know, for its people to have equal
rights and prosper like you live in La la land.
Because Hamas never has said that. And one of the

(35:40):
examples is that of the two point two million Palestinian
people in Gaza at the start of Hamas's war when
it invaded Israel, all two point two million could fit
in Hamas's tunnels with ease. And in other worlds you
see that, right, Why does Israel have bomb shelters? Why
does the s in Ukraine go into the tunnels as

(36:02):
Russia is attacking because it's where you stay protected. And
not one civilian well, actually there are a few civilians
that have been allowed in Hamas's tunnels that they're actually
the family members of this rat Yaar Sinmoar. But other
than that, not a single civilian is allowed in masses tunnels.

Speaker 1 (36:18):
Do you think that the IDF knows where Sinoar is?
I mean, with all these tunnels it's been ten plus months,
all the information they've been down there, do you think
they know? My theory is that they know where he is.
This is what I hope that is happening. That they

(36:40):
know where he is and they just can't eliminate him
because he's surrounded by hostages. Is that like hopes and dreams,
like you know.

Speaker 3 (36:49):
It could be? I think it's so. I don't deal
so I try to deal with like likelihoods because you know,
we just don't know. I think it's highly unlikely. Understanding
even with the the crazy operations that the idea of
have been able to pull off on killing Muhammad deaf Right,
the founder of Hamasa's military guy who has been hidden

(37:12):
for decades, and to be able to get to and
kill that guy, to kill you know, Haniah, you know
whether it was done or not. I personally my opinion
is that they don't know where he's at, that he's
hiding within the humanitarian zones. I think he's still in Gaza.
I do believe, yes, that he is protecting himself with hostages,

(37:34):
but I don't I personally understanding how this is the
the ideal of how powerful you think the idea and
israel is an intelligence. While they have done some crazy
historic stuff, I personally don't think that they have that level.
They don't know right now. This is like the example
of even though they're there right So this is, you know,

(37:54):
if you count up all the divisions currently in Gaza
for many reasons, to include inter national condemnation saying you
can't go into Rafa, you can't use that much force. Technically,
if you count up all the divisions, there's only about
three divisions actively in Gaza right now. That's thirty thousand soldiers.
And again how you count it up? But three divisions

(38:16):
thirty thousand and if you drive as you have like
the two five to two, and how the stretch of
Gaza which is twenty five miles. But when you go
in there again that's when I went into communist and
look around at the density of the urban areas in
some areas, it's like the idea that you could have
this all seen eye with that limited amount of force,

(38:38):
even though you can see stuff from above. But this
is again four hundred miles of tunnels. Why can we
have a video of yah Yah the rat walking through
the tunnels of con Unis back in like October November
Time Primer. I don't know if you've seen that video, but.

Speaker 2 (38:54):
Yeah, I did.

Speaker 3 (38:55):
I think he's he is surrounded by the humanitarian zone,
has hostages with him. But I don't think the idea
of know where he is exactly, but I could be wrong.

Speaker 1 (39:07):
The term human shields has been You've mentioned it already,
you know, when we're talking about Israel, we're talking about Hamas.
You know, it keeps coming up. Hamas uses human shields.
Hamas uses human shields, and some people, you know, think, oh,
what do they do? They you know, like actually have
like a person in front of them, Like, what does

(39:28):
that mean?

Speaker 2 (39:29):
They use human shields? What does it mean? In every
single way possible.

Speaker 3 (39:33):
Yeah, So I actually teach a course, the only course
in the world at a certain level, to teach the
military's urban warfare and large scale operations. And I was
using Hamas as an example of human shields, as in
it's a practice of where a combatant who doesn't follow
the law of war will put civilians in front of

(39:53):
them like a shield, but not like physically in front
of them, although they do that as well, but put
them in front of them because they are a protective population.
So that the attacking military has to constrain itself where
it goes, what weapons it uses, what tactics is uses,
because the combatant is hiding behind or underneath, in Hamas's case,

(40:14):
behind the civilians. It's usually combined with what we call lawfare,
where you know, in the law of war you have
protected population as the civilians. You can't target civilians. You
have to do what it's called a proportionality assessment of
even if you know the enemy is there, it has
the amount of civilians that become cloudal damage has to
be proportionate to the military advantage of the military thing

(40:37):
you're targeting. But there's also protected sites like why did
Hamas turn every hospital everyone in Gaza into a military
headquarters because they're protected and the idea of can't strike
them without doing these you know, notifications and taking all
these precautions. That whole practice is what's called human shields,

(40:59):
where they're put the humans, their populations in front of
them so that the other military can't target, can't use
certain tools. You know, has to constrain themselves find a
different way. It's a war crime. But Michael, I want
to explain to you that yeah, isis al Qaeda. You
just name the terrorists, shithead. They all use human shields.

(41:23):
But Hamas does something that I've never seen a combat
and do, and that's to use human sacrifice. Because even
when you're using a human shield, you're not physically holding
them in front of you. Sometimes they will in like
a mass protest or like humanitarian aid delivery, so you
can't target the guy that's shooting at you. But what
Hamas is doing is using human sacrifice. As in they

(41:45):
say not my words over and over, and they keep
telling the world, I need as many of my people
to die as possible. So it's not just by words,
by intent, but also by the actions that they do.
They're trying to get as many of their population killed
to achieve their political goal, which is the destruction of
Israel and the death of all Jews. Again, not my words,

(42:07):
their words. I've never seen a combatant who uses human
shield and human sacrifice. The Japanese didn't do that, The
Nazis didn't do that where they say I need all
of my population to die, so I achieved this, you know,
sick religious ideology of martyrdom that achieves my goal in

(42:28):
the afterlife, where Israel's destroyed later. But this is why
you know, every hospital, every school, every UN facility has
Hamas underneath it, and they do things like keep civilians
from evacuating. They are trying to get their populations. They're
not trying to I actually heard it yesterday too. You know,

(42:50):
if Hamas really cares about the people, they'll do this.
When has Hamas ever said they care about the Palestinian people.
Matter of fact, they have publicly rem pedialy said that
do not care. It's not their problem. They actually said,
you know, that's the UNS problem. I need as many
of these people to die. That's different, Michael, So human

(43:10):
shield very very unfortunately, war crime but very common, let's
say with terrorists. But human sacrifice that's unique. And this
is where you get to an irrational actor and all
these ideals of what can be done in Gaza. The
only thing that can be done is to cut that
cancer out of that area so that you can have

(43:32):
something that actually does care about the people be put
in place.

Speaker 1 (43:51):
What does I know you said you don't deal with probability.
I know you don't deal with probability. What does winning
the war look like for Israel? And what does winning
the war look like for Hamas. I know there's been
discussions in this negotiations about Hamas raising a flag near

(44:17):
the Egyptian border, and that's a sign of winning. What
is winning and losing? And what is winning and losing?
A war in general look like it's not a basketball game,
it's not a football game. You know, how does Israel
declare winning this war? You know, we've obviously, you know,

(44:39):
done destruction and neutralize so many different things. But what
does winning look like for Israel? What is not winning
look like for Israel?

Speaker 3 (44:47):
Yeah, it's a great question, and actually it is something
that people struggle with, even within militaries and governments. And
I taught that that was one of the classes of
strategy was what is winning? And we have called decisive victory,
and we have all these definitions. I have a Foreign
Affairs article coming out where I'm trying to argue that

(45:08):
Israel is absolutely winning in Gaza, but that doesn't mean
they're going to win. And by definition, we have to assess, Okay,
we have a war. It has a start date. So
I don't care what people say that this started on
October seventh, when Hamas invaded Israel and committed its atrocities
and took costagers back into Gaza. On October eighth, Israel
formally declared war against Hamas. Hamas never actually publicly stated

(45:34):
its goals of the war. Right, this is how I'm
going to tell you. Who's winning is based on the goals,
strategic goals, we call them the goals of the nation,
or in Hamas's the political apparatus. His war is the
pursuit of political goals. In this war, you have to
assess who's winning based on both sides goals. Right. So
Hamas has a grand strategy to destroy Israel. Right, what

(45:57):
it was trying to do on October seventh was to
destroy Israel. And it thought that a lot of people
were going to join, Come on, guys, and some did
and some didn't. And it was defeated because of a
lot of brave Israelis who stood in the door. But
the war. On October eighth, Israel said, I need, I
want to return to hostages, I want to secure the border,

(46:18):
and I want to destroy Hamas. And these are the
three metrics of Israel on Hamasa's side on October eighth.
When now it's Israel is declaring war against them, their
goal of the war, which is really easy to define
in the measure. Hamas's goal on October eighth was to

(46:38):
survive Israel's counterattack period. That's it survive it. So if
they survived the war, as in they remain in political
or military power in Gaza, they have won the war.
So on the other side, for Israel to win the war,
it has to return to hostages. So how's it going. Unfortunately,

(47:00):
so one hundred and forty six hostages have been returned,
one hundred and five remained in gazam Securing the borders.
Israel secured the border rapidly, but also is building a
massive buffer zone around Gaza, and they've uniquely to war
as well. Israel has secured the complete area around the

(47:22):
war zone, as in the Rafa crossing, the Egypt to
Gaza crossing, where majority of the weapons that built this
Hamas military came from. Even in the past you talk
about the US in Iraq, Afghanistan and Vietnam other places,
sealing the enemy from that external support was never achieved
and it became one of the reasons that they became

(47:44):
drawn out protracted fights is because they had constant, even
state backed support being able to flow into them. Israel
has secured the border. But then you get to this
last thing. It's like, well, are they being successful at
destroying Hamas and what does that look like? That allows
people that think they're smart to get into You can't
destroy an ideology, like nobody said that was the goal

(48:07):
of the war. The goal of the war is to
definably destroy Hamas, remove them from power. That can be
further defined though as removing their capabilities militarily like rockets, tunnels,
manufacturing capabilities, large weapons, cachets, all of this. Hamas leadership
of the military, they're actually organized formations. Israel has destroyed

(48:32):
Hamas's military wing toward it's a fraction of itself. It's
a gorilla force now that is much weaker every time
Israel goes back into places. Hamas is still a political
power though even though it's governing. The people of Gads
are from the shadows, but through force to include distributing
the humanitarian aid that the world. It's a big but

(48:54):
that's one of the ways they have powers. They're taking
the humanit aid and giving it out, which is a
form of power for Israel to win. So I think
Israel is winning like they've they've destroyed the military, They've
returned over half the hostages, they've secured the borders. Hamas
is on the run, you know, the rat is in
his tunnel and they're pursuing the goals despite the constraints

(49:17):
that have been put on it. Right, wars never fought
without constraints in the world, and Israel's you know, the
complexity of hez Blood attacking on October eighth, Iran attacking
on October or April thirteenth, the Huthi's attacking. So there's
a lot of complexities here. So the fact that Israel
has achieved what it has so far is actually quite impressive.

(49:38):
But in order to win, Israel has to replace Hamas
with another power, because destroying something means that you not
only make it so it can't do it's assigned mission
military like attack or defense. It can't reconstitute it self.
So that will be the definable metric of is Israel winning.
If Hamas plays the insurgency game, right, may be come

(50:00):
an insurgency. And there's this thing that in insurgencies where
they say you have the watchers, I have the time,
kind of like the Taliban did when hid into Pakistan,
would come across the border, fight for fighting seasons and
go back, and then once the US gave up, they
seize power. We were defeated by definition because what we
were trying to remove quickly return to power. So if

(50:23):
in Israel, for some reason, and there are many reasons,
Israel decides that it cannot main consolidate the gains that
they have achieved, they would have to in place a
different power, and it probably won't be good guys like
the Palestinian authority or something else that keeps Hamas from
ever gaining political or military power, which some people don't understand.

(50:46):
Even Hamas has come about like, well, we might let
a technocratic government come in here and be the political power,
but we want to maintain some military power, which is
some people call it the Hesbla model, right, because blow
is a force in Lebanon which is also a part
of the political party, but it's separate than the government,
although it's a big part of government as well. But

(51:08):
in order for Israel to win, it has to make
sure that Hamas never governs the Gaza strip again and
never gets military power to conduct attacks again, rockets, suicide bombers, nothing.
For all that Hamas has to do at this point
is survive as in survive as either a military or

(51:29):
political power. And it can say we attack Israel and
through Israel the United States and we survived. It will validate.
It will also win because it will validate Iran's strategy
of using its proxies to attack Israel and the United
States through this proxyes you know, Hamas, Hezbala, Huthi's back

(51:52):
Shia backed groups in Iraq. It will validate Iran's greater
grand strategy to eventually destroy Israel through Hamas and its proxies.
So pretty clear for me where you get all these
so called academics who say that the you know, you've
you've driven up the support for Hamas in the Palestinian people.

(52:16):
One that has nothing to do with the definition because
I can guarantee you and they're just using the wrong models, right.
So I would use like a World War two like
German Nazi army, German the Nazi government, or the Japanese.
I'm sure if you pulled the Japanese people during World
War Two you had one hundred percent support for the emperor.
The support of the people really matters encounter insurgencies. This

(52:40):
war is not a counterinsurgency. There's no other power that
Hamas is resisting within Gazla. The idea of is attacking
as the military who who is fighting a self defense
war against Hamas. So this is where people say, well,
you can't destroy terror this way. Yes, afters is defeated,

(53:02):
Israel will also have to be a part of backing
the new power, whoever it is, if it's the Palace
and Authority or somebody else that has a different name.
They'll have to back them with power. They'll have to
start deradicalization, as you know, and I know, and it
freaks me out when I watch like a Palestinian media

(53:22):
sesame street teaching the children of Gaza to be terrorist.
I mean it's wild. So all this post conflict stuff, deradicalization, disarmament, demilitarization, reconciliation.
There will be members of the Hamas institutions that will
have to be put into the new government, but they

(53:43):
won't be Hamas. The world's kind of lost its mind
or forgotten what war is. Israel is winning, but it's
up to Israel whether it ultimately wins.

Speaker 1 (53:53):
Man.

Speaker 2 (53:57):
That's a lot, a lot, it's a lot. It's a lot,
it's a lot.

Speaker 1 (54:02):
It's a lot and we're fighting Hamas, we're fighting in Gaza.
Israel is being attacked daily by Hesballah, which is a
proxy of Iran.

Speaker 2 (54:18):
Is there an end to this?

Speaker 1 (54:20):
And you know, I mean, I feel like the end,
I mean I feel like I mean the end is Iran.
Iran is in control of this. Iran is funding this.
Iran is the pulling the strings. You know, if you look,
remember the poster of the movie The Godfather, you know,
the puppet strings.

Speaker 2 (54:37):
Iran is, you know, pulling all those strings. Is there
an end?

Speaker 1 (54:42):
And how do how does the world get to the end,
because I feel like it's it can't just be all
placed on Israel to deal with Iran. They have so
much money, there's so many people there. They're sniffing around
a nuclear bomb. They're causing havoc. They have been causing havoc.
They've been funding havoc, funding terror, funding destruction for so

(55:06):
many years.

Speaker 2 (55:08):
How do we the world, the.

Speaker 1 (55:12):
Civilians, the civilized people, get to the end, which is
somehow squalching Iran once and for all and getting them
into twenty twenty five, you know, and focusing on life
and prospering and living as opposed to destruction.

Speaker 3 (55:33):
Yeah, Michael, if I had the answers to everything, I
would probably have a different job, but we did. You
did ask me about the war against Hamas and Gaza,
but you can't separate that from the fact that Hesba
is which is a massive military is attacking since October eighth,

(55:53):
that you have eighty to one hundred thousand Israelis homeless
the last ten months in northern Israel, and the fact
that Israel needs to be able to say that it's
ended the war against in Gaza in order to give
Hesba the option to mess around to find out since
they say they're only doing it because Israel's fighting this war,

(56:14):
which really means Israel needs to be able to say
it's transitioning out of high intensity combat into this post
conflict operations we just talked about. But you're right, is
that the head of this snake, the tentacles are all Iran,
And in this aspect, it's like a better question for
me is how do you re establish de trance because

(56:37):
this is what this has all been a part of,
and through many reasons, Iran has been allowed to be
the global exporter of terrorism, building this network to attack
Israel and through Israel to attack the United States. Is
that it's going to continue until we stop the cycle
of violence, which I actually like that term. I agree

(56:59):
we should stop the cycle of balance. But this country,
these groups understand power, they understand the threat of power.
It's called deterrence theory. Iran is going to keep doing
this until they're stopped and there are repercussions for its actions.
But this is the complexity of geopolitics, or even for

(57:21):
Israel just its security, as in I have to make
very hard decisions on priorities of threat, and of course
this terror Mulah regime getting a nuclear bomb is the
number one threat, so I have to act with that
as the primary because again not my words, Iran's wants
nuclear weapons not for its own survival, but to attack

(57:44):
Israel and other people. How do we get out of this?
How do we end this? It's through steps. Step one,
I can say the very first step is to destroy
Hamas because that is the stepping stone, and if you don't,
then the cycle of violence will continue forever. If Israel
is cut from destroying Hamas, then that that gives a

(58:07):
win to Hezebel as well, because Hesbela says they helped
Hamas survive by attacking Israel. So this it will continue
the cycle of violence. Of course, Israel has to do
a lot. In October seventh changed Israel forever changed the world.
Israel will have to do a lot and its both
defense and offense and everything in its security. But there

(58:28):
are also lots of positives here. The ideal of Arab
nations coming to the aid of Israel wallet's under attacked
is unheard of, right, so I think that's an actual
sign of there is a path to a better world here.
But it starts with the destruction of Hamas, and it starts,
I agree with you with stop using a foreign policy

(58:51):
of insanity with the Mulah regime, the Islamic regime of
Iran and doing the same thing hoping for a different
outcome that it will. You know it has human rights
as its center of its goals. No it doesn't. And
you have to use power. These Iran or the Islamic
regime of Iran, all its proxies only understand power, and

(59:14):
they understand the threat of power, which is called deterance.
So if we keep and this is how we got here,
and we have to change course. And we have seen
some of that, but yes, you have to deal with
Iran eventually to include never letting anything get a nuclear weapon.
But Israel in the world to be Frank has to
do it in steps step one. This irrational evil entity

(59:41):
of Hamas cannot be allowed to survive or the cycle
of violence. Absolutely. So, I can't tell you the future,
but I can tell you with strong certainty if Hamas
survives this war, the cycle of violence will continue forever.

Speaker 1 (59:55):
Some people say, the people of Israel, We'll find a
place to go.

Speaker 2 (01:00:01):
America will let him in, this place, will let him in.
Just let him have it.

Speaker 1 (01:00:06):
Just let Iran have it, Just let Egypt have it,
Just let Siria have it. It'll be so much easier
if Israel doesn't exist. Aside from the heartfelt reasons, aside
from the logical reasons, why is it imperative that Israel

(01:00:28):
actually exists? You know, Biden said something, he said, you know,
if there wasn't Israel, we'd have to build another Israel.
And what I got from that was something needs to
be there. Why is it imperative that this must be
stopped and that Israel exists?

Speaker 3 (01:00:52):
Yeah, it's the only homeland of the Jewish people it is.
I mean, there are lots of reasons, and I know
that you cover a lot of them. It is the
home of the Jewish people. It is a sovereign nation
under the construct in which the entire world works under.
So all these people that try to rewrite history of

(01:01:13):
what happened, Israel was the sovereign nation given to the
Jewish people for a Jewish state, just like every other
sovereign nation in its history, in its complex histories. You
can't go back and rewrite history. It is Israel is
the nation of the Jewish people. It will always be
the nation of Jewish people. And despite Iran, it ain't

(01:01:36):
going nowhere. And all these useful idiots that are trying
to push all this that to me is almost like
that's ridiculous. And the fact that Israel is so strong,
I think it should be, you know, put in the
face of these people. If you think Israel's going anywhere,

(01:01:59):
then you have a very sad life. But it's a
sovereign nation of the Jewish people. It ain't going nowhere.
It survived many empires, the Roman, you name it. It
ain't going nowhere. And it's actually stronger than it's ever
been in this life, and we've seen that since October seventh.
So if that's your hope, that is, like these evil terrorists,
that your hope is that Israel is erased off the

(01:02:21):
map and you're going to lead a sad life for
the rest of your time on this earth because it
ain't going nowhere. It's stronger than it's ever been. It
has the right to be the home of the Jewish people.
You're not going to go back and rewrite history. It
has sovereign borders. There are complexities of it, but all
that freaking noise, to me is ridiculous. And this is

(01:02:45):
why you've seen the strength of Israel despite the times
it has been attacked by five seven nations at one time.
And I actually got this from studying Israel. It's like
it's survived many empires, many attempts to raise it and
the people from the planet. It ain't going nowhere, and

(01:03:05):
it's actually stronger than it's ever been. So I feel
really bad for those idiots.

Speaker 2 (01:03:11):
John.

Speaker 1 (01:03:12):
The last question I'm gonna ask you is, I know
you're always studying your learning, you're explaining, you're sharing what's
most pressing next that you're trying to figure out or
decipher about this war with Hamas currently as of August twentieth.

Speaker 3 (01:03:33):
Yeah, it's a great question actually, and just to be when.

Speaker 1 (01:03:36):
You say it's a great question, because you get asked
so many great questions, so I get I'm honored every
time you say that, Like I feel like I got
I put one up on the board, Like I'm like
one point.

Speaker 2 (01:03:46):
To wrap up.

Speaker 3 (01:03:48):
It's such a big topic, right, so to be able
to really narrow down, like, oh, that's a good one.
Respect So for me as a student of all urban warfare,
what's next for me is to capture despite the noise,
despite the information, is to capture like how the heck

(01:04:10):
just like we did? So if you don't know from
during the nineteen seventy Young Kippur War, the United States
sent study after study, like commissioned like twenty seven studies
like how did Israel survive that? How did they turn
the tide and become do the unthinkable. I'm currently in
that mindset of what Israel has been able to do

(01:04:30):
the idea specifically in Gaza, despite this world that Hamas
built for fifteen years, is still able to achieve its
military goals with very low civilian casualties. Dealing with a
tunnel network that nobody's ever dealt with. I mean, even
the paradigm shift, so I do underground warfare. Before October seventh,

(01:04:50):
Israel also had an inversion of tunnels, like don't go
in them unless like a soldier's being taken into a
tunnel like last resort. They have had a com plee
paradigm shift where that's not Hamasa's tunnel, that's my tunnel,
and they're using the tunnels to attack Hamas at the
same time and completely dominating this enemy. I'm trying to

(01:05:14):
capture that and I learned every time I'll be back.
I'll actually be there for the anniversary on October seventh,
I'll be back studying, like, how the heck are you
doing this? How are you still achieving these goals despite
the constraints which always there in urban warfare, because I'm
the urban guy and I've been telling people for over

(01:05:34):
a decade, like this is the future, because like we've
seen with Hamas and other groups, it gives them an
advantage to be in the urban area. It shouldn't give
them an advantage to violate the laws of war, and
we should uphold the laws of war. But this is
the future of wars. Because of the population growth of

(01:05:56):
the world, the urbanization of the world, the fact that
all milteries are smaller than they've ever been in history.
We're going to see more and more of this urban battles.
Hopefully we never see anything like Hamas again with this
human sacrifice tunnel based strategy. But I'm trying to capture
how the heck did you figure it out so that

(01:06:17):
other militaries, because I honestly believe that what the idea
of have achieved, the innovations, the tactics, everything will save
American lives in our next battles and wars because they've
figured out things that we've never faced, these challenges, and
we would not have figured it out the way they have.
I mean, just like the risk that they're taking to

(01:06:40):
inter tunnels at the same time, like it's mind blowing,
but I think they will save American lives in the
near future.

Speaker 2 (01:06:48):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (01:06:49):
All right, John Spencer, I appreciate you taking the time.
I really really appreciate all the information that you've shared
on your own, that you've shared on other podcasts and obviously.

Speaker 2 (01:07:00):
Sharing with me.

Speaker 1 (01:07:01):
It really means a lot to me and hopefully It
means a lot to the people that get to listen
to this, because I think it's imperative to have this
this knowledge that you have. So I appreciate you joining
the podcast and you know, and I'll talk to you soon.

Speaker 3 (01:07:15):
I'm man, thanks brother, I really appreciate it. Boom.

Speaker 1 (01:07:20):
I want to thank again John Spencer for joining me
on the I Am Rap Report Stereo podcast. Make sure
you tell a friend to tell a friend about this
very very important episode. I'm done. Thank you again, John Spencer.
Follow him, read all his work. Get informed. Miles Jordan
ak The Bleach Brothers aka the Dust Brothers. Take me

(01:07:40):
at it with something real nice, take me out of
it with something real out, but most importantly, take me
out of here.

Speaker 2 (01:07:45):
With something real fun. It's im rap Port Stereo podcast.

Speaker 3 (01:07:47):
I'm done.

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EP 1,152 - John Spencer (Chair of Urban Warfare Studies of Modern War Institute at West Point) on Being In Khan Yunis, 400 Miles of Tunnels In Gaza, Where Is Sinwar?

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