43 - KERVIN AUCOIN - GEOPOLITICAL INTELLIGENCE EXPERT - World Ablaze with George Fontes

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
You are listening to a fonts media network, but.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Like you just let me in my ways.

Speaker 1 (00:17):
Welcome home to the Blaze listeners. I'm excited to have Curvin. Sorry,
I'm just gonna mispronounce it. Can you just pronounce it yourself?

Speaker 2 (00:24):
We keep going over that, Curvin O quick?

Speaker 1 (00:27):
All right, Curvin, Sorry to do that to you, but yeah.

Speaker 3 (00:32):
We could stick with first names. I'm good with that.
Uh my my first my last name has gotten me
in and out of trouble for for many years.

Speaker 1 (00:41):
So you and I were kind of introduced through John
and another podcaster, and he's he's been around a while,
but yeah, we got a little chat on next He's like, hey,
you guys should actually get together and do an episode.
So definitely wanted to thank him for that, and then
I I started listening a little bit more to yours.
Actually it was funny is I came across your podcast

(01:03):
before that interaction on X and listen to you and
your wife, and I thought it was interesting on how
you're able to take so much information and kind of
like just explain it in a way that people can grasp,
you know, while not trying to be too over the
top or you seem to be in the middle on

(01:24):
most things. I noticed. You know, I'm not going to
ask your political leaning so much. If you want to
give it to me, great, But I do like I
try to take a neutral position to really just explain
what's going on then you know, letting people form their
own opinions. So I really liked that. I thought that
was cool because there's very few of those type of shows.
I tried doing that in the beginning, but it got
harder as time went on for me.

Speaker 3 (01:45):
Anyway, Well, the world makes it harder right to kind
of try to stay neutral. But first of all, I
want to say thank you for that, because that's the
hope that I have that comes through and I get
back last on both sides of the political isles. I'm
not a very political person. I used to be when
I was younger, and then I got disillusion to it,

(02:08):
became very a political and started to do this sort
of neutral thing that you're talking about, where something happens
right in a certain side. I know, we'll get into
Israel and the Middle East and what's going on there,
and that's really highlighted this kind of divisiveness. Right, So
if somebody says something about Israel in a positive aspect,

(02:31):
and I push back in a negative not really a
negative aspect, but just saying, well, to understand what the
people in Gods or the people in Lebanon are going
through right now. You know, they'll say, oh, you're you know,
a left wing Hamas supporter, and then the same thing
for Palestinian supporters. I will push back and say, well,
Israel's the only Jewish nation, Jewish state, surrounded by Arab

(02:54):
states that have been calling for the entire destruction of
the Jewish people. I think they have a right to
defend themselves, and so what they're doing, maybe they're carrying
it out in the wrong way, but they have a
right to do what they're doing. And then I get,
you know, pushed back on on both sides of that.

Speaker 2 (03:09):
It's tough.

Speaker 1 (03:10):
Well, that's that's that's a particular topic. We're too hard
to be neutral because there's such and we're talking about
a land with so much history, I mean history in
regard to you know, everybody argues that it's their land
number one, no matter how far back to go, And
a lot of people dismissed the fact that there were

(03:31):
multiple people's displaced in that land and dispersed throughout the
world and forced to do so, and then coming back
to try to claim it again, and then it's there's
just so much going on. Then from what I understand,
I'm not and you can definitely correct me on this
is it seems like a lot of it outside of
the land is really centered around a faith or religious belief,
and in the in the issue that I see is

(03:53):
it's such a closely related belief, but there's always those
little differences that just for some reason just lead to
so much bloodshed and it almost makes you scratch or
hit us and like, why can't they just shake hands
and really get along? But I think it goes beyond that.
It's really about the claim to the land and the
fact that hey, you killed my ancestor, my grandfather, whatever,

(04:15):
and then the revenge cycle just began and just never
ended and kept going and going and going. And I
might be slightly off on that, but.

Speaker 2 (04:23):
Now you're you're absolutely right.

Speaker 3 (04:24):
And it's and also we're talking about history, right, We're
talking about ancient history, and so what ancient history do
you actually believe? Because there is so much we know
so little about our ancestors and the ancestral history. So
do you trust biblical history? You know where Abraham started

(04:47):
all of this. You know, he came from Er, which
is a city south of Baghdad. You know, I deployed
to Baghdad. If you take a plane and fly a
mission around that area, you will see Er, one of
the original settlements in the area. You and Abraham was
supposed to have walked from there and entered what was then.
You know, the people not even called the Jewish people

(05:10):
of that time, but the tribes of Judah entered into
Israel and they were told that God gave them this land.
We're talking thousands of years ago and then more recently.
And I say more recently, but we're still talking about
a thousand years ago to fifteen hundred years ago. You've
got a man in Mohammad who was a was a

(05:31):
prophet or claimed to be a prophet, depending on how
you and I always say it's depending on how you
interpret the history. So he claimed to be a prophet,
and by force he came in and claimed these lands
for his own people. It's the people, the people of
the Arab lands, and he claimed these lands. And so

(05:52):
what you know, when people say, well, this is the
land of the Palestinians or this is the land of
the Israelis. How far are we going to go back?

Speaker 2 (05:59):
Right?

Speaker 1 (06:00):
That's always been kind of my take and stance on that.
And I'll throw I'll throw them out there, and it says,
you know, and I don't mind bringing up certain other
personalities and podcasters only because some of these guys are
very public and they're very openated. But you know, you
take Dave Smith for example, who I do listen to
and I respect because he's a pretty smart, intelligent person.

(06:20):
He does read books, which is great, but it's a
pretty hard line about you know, it's not Israel's land
never you know, they were not there, and you know
it was really Palestinian land, and you can't just drive
them out and claim that you now have claimed to
this land. And I get it, but I think I
think even with him, and the problem with someone like

(06:40):
Dave is he's super intelligent, but he'll never stop arguing
until he feels he's right or he's bored of the
conversation literally, and so he can go forever trying to
argue that point. But I think when he makes a point,
he deliberately omits that it was a tribal land that
did belong to the then Jewish people at the time
who were displaced. And you can say, hey, the land

(07:01):
was conquered. Great, if we use that argument, then conquerors
own and rule that land, just as we did in
America here with the Native Americans, you know. And unfortunately,
every country in the world has been developed and made
and borders have been set based on being conquered. That
that was just a bloody history of humanity, and that
is exactly what happens, is just how the world was shaped, unfortunately.

(07:22):
And the thing with the Jewish people from what I understand,
from what I researched, and like again you can correct me,
is they were displaced back then, you know, I mean,
come on, the Ottoman Empire came in. They ruled most
of the world back then, and they helped drive the
Jews out. And at the time, the Palestines before they're
considered Palestine, sided with the Ottoman Empire so that they

(07:44):
can remain in the land and live in the land
and support the Ottoman Empire. What do you think the
native tribal Jewish people were going to do? Just forget
about it, and they never did. And so there's that
part of that history that nobody really talks about. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (08:01):
I mean, look, the Jewish people have been conquered their
entire lifetime. Yes, right, the Egyptians brought them in, and
we're learning more about that history because there was a
brief time where historians thought, well, no, that wasn't Jewish
people that the Egyptians brought in to Egypt to work
and do certain things. And now we're finding out through

(08:23):
certain tablets that have been and scrolls that have been found,
that the words that they were using for the people
that they brought in were the same words that were
used for Jewish people throughout throughout history. And listen, the Romans.
You know the Jewish people. Yes, it's a very tribal religion,
but the tribes were there in Israel when Rome had

(08:45):
their empire and they taxed the Jewish people, and it's
written record. I mean, you can debate history in ancient history,
but we have written record of the Jewish people living
on that land being controlled by the Romans. Like you said,
you're exactly right. The Ottoman Empire came in, they laid
waste to that land. People had to either leave or surrender.

(09:07):
Jewish people said they would not surrender. They left, and
the Palestinian what are now the Palestinians or where the
Palestinians then sort of broke her to deal and said,
if we can just get this sort of land carved
out right here, there's not really much in it, we'll
stay here and we'll abide by your rules, which is
really what the Jewish people said to the Romans. We'll

(09:28):
abide by your rules, pay your taxes, and then you know,
that'll be it. Then the Roman Empire started to put
the fist down on the Jewish people. They had uprisings
in the early first century, went to war with the Romans,
and the Romans thought they could defeat them very easily,

(09:48):
and the Israelis were able to push back on them. Now,
the Palestinians didn't have to do that because they just understood, Hey,
the Ottomans are going to let us live here and
we're going to remain here. Now, if you want to
go more recent history, and we talk about, you know,
after World War two and the Holocaust, which was such

(10:10):
a tragedy, and I want to put that out from
the very beginning. What happened in the Holocaust and what
is factually documented that US and British soldiers found as
they got into the concentration camps was absolutely horrific, and
millions of people died in World War Two. And so

(10:31):
they understood that the Jewish people needed, they needed a place.
They didn't want to go back to Europe. They didn't
want to go back to their homes because there was
still a large part of society that didn't want them there.
You know, they were they were indoctrinated to hate these
people for their religion, for where they came from. And
so nations got together and decided, you know, apart from

(10:54):
everyone else, right, they just said, hey, let's put these
people back into what we think is the land that
they deserve. They were put in that land, and immediately
the Arab nations went to war with Israel because they
didn't want the Jewish people there. And that I don't
think that's something that gets highlighted a lot, especially among

(11:15):
like pro Palestinian crowd, is that the Jewish people went
there and they said, hey, we're going to live in
this land, and we're just this is where we're going
to be settled. They put us here, they were invaded.
They went to war with places like Egypt and Lebanon
and Syria, and they won those wars. And when you

(11:36):
went to war, you get to decide what you're going
to do, so they kept that land. Then the Palestinian
question came up, what are we going to do with
all these Palestinians because they don't want to be ruled
by the Jewish people, so they need.

Speaker 2 (11:51):
Their own rule, their Arab rule.

Speaker 3 (11:53):
So the Palestinian people got their own government up, their
own military. A two state solution was brought up. The
Israelis agreed to the two state solution. The Palestinians and
the other Arab nations said no, we want all of
that land because it's our land. And so another war
kicked off, and so we just have a cycle of wars.

(12:15):
And it's not just that one side won't agree with
the other side, it's the israel The Israelis were put there,
where do you want them to go? The Palestinians say,
we've been here, where are you going to put us?
And so now we have a land of just people
going where are you going to put us? And I
think if you just took the people and put them

(12:36):
together and ask them, you know, do a little to
do a meeting with everybody and say, hey, what do
you guys think we'd probably find a solution. Our problem
is we have governments who just don't like each other
and don't care about the people who want to go
to war, and they want to put down their fist
and make this a complete victory for one side or another.

(12:58):
And that's what we're seeing right now now with with
Israel and Hamas. Right, Israel now has a choice, right
because they just killed Yahya Sina Sinhwar. He's the leader
of Hamas. Hamas is in shambles. There is a chance
if you're a if you're part of the ceasefire, you're

(13:19):
pro ceasefire in Palestine, that you can have a ceasefire.
And Hamas is completely dismantled right now. That's something a
lot of people said would never happen. And they're completely dismantled.
And the Israelis could say, okay, let's do the sea.
Spire Net Yahoo has just said if you release all
the hostages, release all your arms, everything will be fine

(13:41):
and we'll have a ceasefire. And the Hamas is saying,
we don't trust you, we don't trust the Israel, we
don't trust Israel. We don't trust the Jews, and they don't.
You know, there's the history of not trusting the Israelis
for right reasons. You know, they say one thing, some
nen Yahoo especially says one thing and does another and
and so Israel has a choice do they do. Do

(14:03):
they try to broker that deal or do they do
the knockout punch and say we'd because they've said their
whole goal is the annihilation of Hamas, and so unless
Hamas is completely annihilated, every single member is gone, they're
not going to agree to a peace deal which is

(14:24):
separate from a ceasefire, you know, a full peace deal
that kind of sets boundaries. So that that's where we
stand right now. And it's just god be a never
ending cycle.

Speaker 1 (14:32):
It's the truth of It's kind of an unfortunate truth
of the situation because the classic example of how the
people suffer because governments disagree. You know, the problem is
everybody in the world just wants to live, like literally live,
you know, food, shelter, enjoy their life, and governments disagree

(14:53):
and they pull everybody in with them. I mean, why
can't we just put the leaders of every government in
the ring and have them just find it out and
then whoever walks out watch out right. I mean, it's ridiculous.
I was going to go back to that two state
solution though. That does come up a lot, and nobody
can understand why it's unacceptable, and it's always put on
the Palestinians. Really lately Hamas, who has the governing body

(15:17):
so to speak, of the Palestinians, even though unofficial.

Speaker 3 (15:19):
So Egypt has denied a two state solution up until recently.

Speaker 1 (15:23):
But what I was going to say is it's been said,
just to argue the other side, that that agreement originally
when it was put together or that proposal was kind
of not equal to where I think it was sixty
percent of the land or maybe more. I might be
off on that. I think it was at least sixty
percent really did go to the Jewish people or Israel

(15:44):
as it is today, and less of it went to
the Palestinian side. And also you know, cut off routes
to you know, the access to the ports and everything
as well. Yeah, and there's that side, and I can
see that, but at the same time, you're correct, and
we're like, yeah, no, it's all or nothing, you know,
is their response, which is not really negotiating, you know,

(16:07):
a deal, and I'm sure that they could have came
to an agreement. But do you know, do you happen
to know what? Because well I was reading your back
when you sent me you were you were in intelligence
right in the army. Is that correct? Yep? And so
being that that was your career what you did, and
you were deployed and you worked with uh special operations,
is that also correct?

Speaker 2 (16:28):
Yes?

Speaker 1 (16:28):
Okay, So what what from your experience just being in
the area and dealing with all this and just analyzing everything,
and I think today you still are in intelligence correct,
and in your own business.

Speaker 3 (16:40):
So yeah, my my company, Open Analytics is a private
intelligence company that provides intelligence to the everyday consumer as
opposed to your C suite and Fortune five hundred companies.
So I've kind of cheapened, not say cheap, and I've
lessened the price of intelligence for people. It's not cheapening

(17:03):
this way to tell, it's more accessible. Yeah exactly.

Speaker 1 (17:09):
Yeah, Well, you know, being that's what you do, why why,
in your opinion, does I don't know if it's all
the person people or just just the governing bodies of
the time, why are they denying any kind of deal
when it could have been done. Yeah, it's and now
it seems too far away for some reason. But at
the time I think it could have been done.

Speaker 3 (17:28):
I think there was a chance. Even so before like
October seventh of twenty twenty three changed the entire landscape
of the Middle East. Before that, I think there could
have been a two state solution. But there's another thing
that I say, and then I'll answer that question. We're
trying to fix Middle Eastern problems with Western solutions and you.

Speaker 2 (17:51):
Can't do that.

Speaker 1 (17:52):
That's exactly right.

Speaker 3 (17:53):
Yeah, we our ideals are very different from their ideals,
and no one is right or wrong in that. It's
just a certain culture. And and so I'm also an
Arabic linguist, or was an Arabic linguist. I'd have to
I'd have to think for a second to see how
my language is now, but I haven't used it in

(18:14):
quite a while. And with that, so I was at
the Defense Language Institute learning Arabic. With that, I had
to learn the the Arab culture and the religion of Islam,
And I learned a lot about the Arab people and
and the things that So before Islam even came about
the Arab people were some of the smartest individuals in

(18:38):
the world. They created mathematics and algebra, things of you know, poetry.
Some of the great poems are great Arab poems, and
so we have that in history of these great minds
that focused a lot on this. And then not to
disparage religion, and I don't do that. Every religion, I

(19:03):
think has its pros and cons But as the religion
of Islam you started to become widespread in the region,
the leaders in that timeframe started to crack down on
more education. And it's it's sort of like when you

(19:24):
think of certain aspects of Christianity in history, where the
Enlightenment period was kind of they wanted to crack down
on it because the more you learn about the world
and history and all of this stuff, it's possible that
you're going to call out the religious leaders for certain
things that they're saying that just don't make sense. And

(19:44):
that happened and they lost a lot of their history
and a lot of their education because of this. And
so starting there, getting into right now, there is a
trust issue between first of all the Arab community and
the WA but more pervasively the Arab community and Jews.
And I saw that during my education for Arabic. You know,

(20:09):
we'd have to watch news every day in Arabic because
you want to immerse yourself in the culture and kind
of understand these level three four five dialogues that are
going on. And so you watch a lot of even
Al Jazeera in Arabic, not the English language version, but
the Arabic, the Arab version, or a more conservative, i

(20:32):
would say, or far right kind of Arab TV station
like Memory Memory TV. It's sort of a far right.
It closely aligns with like RT Sputnik TV. And I
remember a moment where Egypt there was an earthquake in
Egypt and I'm watching I can't remember if it was

(20:52):
Al Jazeera or another news organization, but the headline that
they kept going with that was that it was the Jews.
The Jews created this earthquake to destroy parts of Egypt.
And so this is major mainstream news in Arab countries
that are being that's what's being promoted, and that's what

(21:13):
you know, kids are seeing and families are seeing. And
there's a history of that and a history of not trusting,
not trusting Jewish people, not trusting America because the United
States has done some terrible things to Arab communities, especially
in the Middle East. Not going to deny that, and
so we have a trust issue here.

Speaker 1 (21:33):
I think we can.

Speaker 3 (21:34):
Yeah. I always say, you know, I know what I
did as far as in my time in uniform and
my time working in the Middle East, and I had
a lot of issues with what some other people were
doing to Arab people just because they were Arab. You know,
everybody's a terrorist. We had people coming in saying walking

(21:55):
while Arab, and that's why we picked them up. And
I was a human collector. I'm an intelligence analyst, and
they said I was like, so why'd you get this guy?
And he was like, he's Arab, He's got to be
a terrorist. And it's like, no, that's that's not the
right answer. Yeah, no, it wasn't everywhere, but these pockets, right,
And so that's where the trust issue comes in.

Speaker 2 (22:17):
And it's so bad that so if you fly.

Speaker 3 (22:21):
Into Israel and let's say someone like myself, I have
visas and stamps from countries like the uae, Iraq, Kuwait,
all the Arab countries I go into Israel, they will
first of all, tell me do you have another passport

(22:41):
because they don't want to stamp that passport because if
an Israeli stamp is on that passport, you're not allowed
in another Arab country with that passport, and they will
deny you.

Speaker 1 (22:51):
Not allowed in any of them.

Speaker 3 (22:53):
As far as I know now, the Gulf States and
then Saudi Arabia might be a little bit different. But
go into a place like Kuwait or Iran, God forbid,
at this point, you know you'd be you'd be rolled
up and questioned and interrogated. That's not true for for
Israel if you go in now. Israel does so something

(23:17):
we don't do in the US because it's it's probably
rightfully considered racist or you know, sexist or whatever. Is
We don't target individuals based on the way that they look.

Speaker 2 (23:30):
The Israelis do. They will.

Speaker 1 (23:33):
They're heavily profiling individuals.

Speaker 3 (23:35):
Yes, they so they profile they're with in the UK
is CCTV or surveillance cameras and stuff. They are heavily
watching people that they know and listen. They're in the
culture all the time. So they see a person and
they can tell you this person's from Iraq, this person's
from Iran or Syria, and and they're they're targeting and

(23:57):
profiling these people based just off of what they love,
and then they go and question them, and then further
dialogue happens whether they'll release them and send them along
on their way or they'll send them to secondary questioning.
So there's a difference there. I would say Israelis really
don't trust the Arab community, really, but there's a little

(24:18):
more trust to that. And for all the conversation about
Hamas controlling Gaza and that's the government and the military
wing of Gaza in Palestine, Israel actually supports a lot
of the infrastructure in Gaza. That also causes problems because
if you have a trust issue, every rolling blackout is

(24:40):
Israel's fault, Every collapsed building is Israel's fault. The fact
that no one can work their way up in life
and that they're poor, that's Israel's fault. And then on
the Israeli side, every time there's an Arab strike, that's
the fault to the Arab community. And so that's why

(25:02):
I go back to fixing Middle Eastern problems with Western solutions.
We would see that and go, we'll just stop it, right,
you're human, like have a conversation with each other, and
they would go no, because when Abraham did this, it
started a process, a historical process that got us to
where we are today. And we cannot stop that.

Speaker 1 (25:23):
Yeah, we cannot forget it, and we're not going to
let it stand. And the whole thing. There's a lot
I want to go back to in that. But when
you were when you were talking about how Israel actually
supported a lot of the infrastructure in Gaza, You're right.
I don't think people realize that, like power, water, and
they would always point the Hamas, I believe, would always

(25:48):
point the finger, Oh, look, you know we don't have
water because they're shutting it off on us, or you know, they're,
like you said, killing our electricity. Maybe something that's true.
It could be what they were using try to control
and you know, stifle whatever was going on with Hamas
and what they were trying to do in terms of
trying to attack Israel. But I'm not gonna I'm not

(26:10):
I can't sit here and except that Israel is innocent
in all of us, I'm not saying that's what you're
saying at all. By the way, I'm just making a statement.
I don't I don't believe they're innocent in all of
this at all either. And I understand you know, the
long history and how they were mad as a people
being driven out of land and you know, dispersed, and

(26:30):
then you know they were they were persecuted by the
Pagrums years years ago and being hunted and literally killed
on the street, like basically like you said with profiling,
they would see, uh, a Jewish person and literally hang them,
hang them in the street, you know, and uh, they've
they've gone through a lot, but I think a lot
of everyone in the Middle East has has gone through

(26:52):
so much because it's like it's just it's just constantly
just a crazy circular vehicle of of of seems like
just hatred, to be quite honest. And we don't understand
it though, like you said, as Westerners, we can't get
her head around why like why can't we move past?
Why can't we why can't we get around I think
I think the biggest thing that needs to be defined though,

(27:12):
because everybody seems to, at least the western side of
the world, seems to equate terrorism with Islam. I would
love to know if it can truly be explained the
difference between Muslims, you know, people of the Islamic faith
because I'm kind of confused in where I see, you know,
as a Westerner that you know, a woman can't show

(27:34):
herself be full. They closed the whole deal stone of death.
Then you see other Muslims where they're just on Instagram
and you know, and whatnot, and just yeah, I'm confused.
It's like, wait a minute, which is it, do you so?

Speaker 2 (27:46):
Terrorism? Yeah?

Speaker 3 (27:48):
So, terrorism, I would say, first of all, is not
just It's not a Muslim issue or an Arab issue. Right,
We've got Eastern European and terrorists. We've got homegrown terrorists
in our own country on on the right and the left,
so far right and far left, And so I would
break it down for a Western audience much like evangelicalism

(28:12):
in the United States. What I mean there is you see,
so you go if you go to let's say you're
in Seattle, Washington, and you go to a church in Seattle, Washington,
and you're probably gonna see flip flop shorts, women, maybe
not dressed provocatively, but regular, normal, normal dress. Right, if

(28:34):
you go to maybe a evangelical church in Missouri or
where I'm originally from in Louisiana and especially in the
northern Louisiana area, you may see a more a church
that's more aligned with purity laws. Pentecostal. You'll see dresses.
Women can only wear dresses. Men have to wear this

(28:57):
this certain thing. So and so that's an stream view
of a particular religion, and I think that's what's pervasive
in the Muslim religion, the religion of Islam. So when
people say, well, Islam is a peaceful religion, and for
the most part it is, did it always start that way?
If you read the history of Muhammad, it did not.

(29:18):
I mean he was he was basically a war lord.
I'll get a lot of flag from the Arab community
for that because he's the prophet Mohammad, you know, peace
be upon him, But he really was. He decided at
a very early age that he was going to take
over and create this religion, become the prophet, and he

(29:38):
went to war with other nations in order to spread Islam.
And the whole point was in the whole point of jihad,
if you hear jihad, which is just holy war, is
that Islam is the only religion. So from an extremist
point of view, Islam is the only religion that should
be allowed and in if that's true, then we have

(30:01):
to fight in order to make Islam the only And
that's that's why the Muslim you know, Islam very early
they fought the Spaniards who were Catholics. They took over Constantinople,
made it Istanbul. So they conquered a lot of the area,
a lot of that region in order to spread the religion.

(30:26):
And so that's part of it. Especially so if you're
talking about the US, the United States, we talk a lot,
especially right now, because you can't talk about Donald Trump
and Kamala Harris without talking about being far left woke
person or a far right Christian nationalist. And people are

(30:46):
very scared about Christian nationalists because they are viewing that
in some points rightfully so as what's happening in Islam. Right, So,
there is a far right sect of is that's isis,
that's al Kaied, the that's that's Hamas and Isbellah and
the IRGC, which is the umbrella, that's the peak to

(31:09):
the umbrella of all of this. And so it is
a select group of extremists that are making the most
amount of noise. So I wouldn't say, especially in the
United States. And I've met tons of Muslim people within
the United States, and no one that I know is

(31:33):
an extremist there. And that's usually true because they kind
of try to hide, hide in plane site and they
probably would not interact with me on most occasions. But
for the most part, every Muslim I meet is just
a man, woman, or a child trying to make it
in America. And so the their view is, yeah, I'm
a Muslim, but I am also an American and I'm

(31:55):
here to be a part of this community.

Speaker 1 (31:59):
Are you. I think I think most people have a
problem separating the fact that they're they're extremes. And you know,
we can even just take take the Christian Bible. You'll
have you'll have You'll have some denominations of Christianity or
or believers for example, that just believe the Old Testament,
you know, I for and eye that whole bit. Yeah,

(32:22):
and then there's the New Testament believers that are like, hey,
you know, that was the past, that was a history
that has written. Those are the lass set. But the
world changes and here we are now, and this is
how we have to move forward as a people. And
we're nicer and we're forgiving, right, I think that's the
same thing with with Islam. I personally need to do
more research on it, and I've always wanted to just
I just don't have the time right now, but I

(32:43):
really need to dive into it because I want to
understand why, why, there's why, there's just you know, all
we see is the bat and right away it's like
we don't need that here regardless. But then you know,
like I've met many people who are Muslim and it's
like they don't live that way, that's not their believe
Are they reading from the same book? That's my question,
you know, like I don't know, I don't know.

Speaker 3 (33:05):
They are reading. So they're reading from the same book, right,
the Qoran. But it's all about interpretation. Yeah, and look,
Christians read, we're reading from the same Bibles. We because listen,
we're in the West. It's the majority Christian reading from
the same Bible. Why do we have so many different
sects of Christianity because we've all interpreted different ways. You know,

(33:31):
the best way to interpret it is to go so
there are two ways, not two ways. You've got a
couple two things together. When you're reading ancient texts, especially
like the Bible, and the Qoran. First, you've got to
read it in its own language, and that's very difficult.
Some of the languages like Aramaic, not many people can
can read that. There's very few studiers of Aramic or

(33:52):
Greek or or you know, the ancient Hebrew. So you've
first got to read it in the langue which of
that it was written in. But it's not just that,
you've also got to understand the time that it was
written in. So when was this written and why was

(34:12):
it written at that point. If you don't understand that,
you can read a text out of context and say, oh,
that's that's really what they mean, and then you understand time.

Speaker 1 (34:22):
Period is the big context issue though, right.

Speaker 3 (34:24):
Yeah, and but we go back to we don't we've
lost so much of our history over time. Yes, we have,
you know, not to bring a Kamala Harris line in,
but the passage of time is the passage of time.
Every year that we are removed from those historical points,
we we lose what actually happens, so we lose context

(34:46):
of the text that we are reading, you know. It's
it's why stoicism right now is so pervasive, is because
especially among young men, because I think that, Okay, it's
it's language. It's written in a language that some people
can can be trained on and understand and read and

(35:08):
translate it correctly into English. But those Stoics wrote so
much about the history of their time that we understand
almost everything about what was going on in that timeframe.
We've lost bits and pieces, But you talk Marcus Aurelius,
we can probably go through his entire lifetime and understand

(35:30):
the wars that he was a part of the history
of his family because they were very they wrote a
lot about it. Now the Hebrew people or the Jewish
people did the exact same thing. The problem goes back
to being conquered. A lot of the ancient texts were destroyed. Yeah,

(35:50):
you've got the look at the Library of Alexandria right
in Egypt that was destroyed, that had anything.

Speaker 1 (36:00):
Who knows it? Yeah, who knows? I mean I think
about that sometimes, honestly, when you when when you when
you talk about people being conquered over the years, and
how the conqueror would suddenly be like, I don't need
your history or your bullshit. I'm just wiping it out
and it's all about me now and my people and
it's like you lose so much, so much, you know,

(36:23):
it's it's almost like I can say, I know, I'm
getting away from what we're originally discussed. Was kind of
I kind of believe, I kind of believe in the
fact that, well it's not a fact, but I believe,
my opinion anyway, that civilization over time has probably peaked
and and has has gone the way of being technologically
advanced in different forms and then wiped out and rebuilt
over time, because it seems like almost every year, especially recently,

(36:47):
it's it's getting they're uncovering more and more of that, like,
wait a minute, how did this happen? And then as
you said, you know, like the Library of Alexandra, you know,
how it was like burn done gone. Who knows what
was there that could have probably explained a lot of
what we're seeing when we're when we're finding these new
artifacts and whatnot. I think, I think the abolition of
knowledge is horrible, and that's probably one of the worst

(37:09):
things you could do in humanity in my opinion, you know, well,
outside of torturing and you know, may mean, you know,
causing holocausts against you know, fellow man, but still that's
one thing that I've always hated and and it really
just causes confusion and hatred for no reason, because then
we lose understanding and like you said, context.

Speaker 3 (37:30):
Yeah, and I have gone. Every year I have it,
I get closer to the opinion that you know there
were ancient there's a first of all, there's ancient civilizations
that we've never heard of. I'm not a conspiracy theorist.
I'm very much, like you said, a moderate intelligence I'm
an intelligence analyst. I try to figure out what's going on,

(37:53):
but within that, I take information and try to assess
what actually happened or what is going to happen. And
the more I read about history, there are ancient cultures
that we have no idea who they are and what
sort of technologies that they have. And I see how
we're using technology right now, and I could very much

(38:15):
be far off. But I have fun with this. It's
something that really helps my mental health a lot because
I can research into this stuff and I'm not I'm
not married to it, so if I'm wrong, who cares?
It was just fun to research it. But the more
technology we get, the closer we get to wanting to

(38:35):
go back to those ancient times, and we see it
all the time. I'm on X, you're on X, Instagram,
all these things, and every day it's like, why do
I even do this? Don't why don't I pick up
a book or a newspaper. Let's go back to newspapers,
let's let's help go back my wife. All the time,
I feel like every year I just keep getting dumber
and dumber. Yeah, I mean I used to be very,

(38:57):
very studious and just reading and just soaking. I mean
I was out a point.

Speaker 1 (39:01):
I'd be reading a five six hundred page novel whatever,
and I'm done in a few hours. And now I
fall asleep if I write to read a book, you.

Speaker 3 (39:09):
Know, And there is a huge difference too, because you
could read the same amount of words in a day
through news articles or posts on Instagram and Twitter. But
for the most part, a book, a novel, or a
historical text is supposed to be completely researched, backed by editors, true,

(39:33):
backed by historical documents, and it's not allowed to be
released until every until you're sourced out every single thing.
A post on X is just a post on X,
and it could be four pages long. Now, if you
have a blue check Mark. You can write as many
words as you want and it could be the dumbest
thing you've ever read. And the problem is a lot
of times, and it happens to me as well. If

(39:54):
it aligns with your worldview, you're going to keep reading
it and it's gonna infuriate you from time to time
because you're going to go, I knew that that that's
what they were going to be doing. I knew that's
what's going to happen. And this guy, this girl, this
whatever is saying would I say it? I'm not saying
whatever in the context in a negative context. I'm just saying,

(40:15):
whoever it is it's posting it that agrees with you.
You're going to read everything and you're going to go,
that person's right. Anybody who's in the comment saying they're wrong,
those people are wrong.

Speaker 1 (40:25):
Well, everybody likes affirmation in their belief They want to
be they want to feel that that that what they
believe is correct, and they want that reinforcement. And the
problem is, now we start creating these echo chambers for
ourselves because we feel comfortable in our beliefs. I gotta
step back and question myself sometimes, where you know, I
just start doom scrolling. You're just like and after a

(40:46):
while I'm like, wait a minute, what's the other perspective,
what's the other side saying about this? You know, you
got to be able to break yourself free. But it
was it's funny what you said about about that, because,
as you said, you know, books, novels, articles us to
be fact check. You couldn't release them until they were
they were cited. You knew exactly where the information came from.
I came across this. It's been said before, but Jay

(41:09):
Van I think is Babel or Babel PhD. He put
a post out there. I want to read it because
this is totally relevant. He's talking about how social media
distorts perceptions of normser point one percent of users share
eighty percent of fake news, yea, which is a tiny
portion of bad actors. You saw that, right, Yeah, and
it has this whole article. I didn't go into the

(41:30):
whole thing yet, but it's it's so true. It's a
tiny percent is just viewing all the nonsensical bullshit. And
the thing is with social media, like, let me get
back to civilization real quick, because it's going to tie
into what I'm trying to say The point I'm trying
to tick across is that I feel for advance as
we are now, I don't think we're as advance as

(41:52):
we've ever been. And I'm not sure if that makes
any sense to you. But you know, just because we
have an iPhone doesn't mean we're you know, far in
a way from where we could have actually possibly been
as a species. Absolutely, And the thing that I see
with social media is it's nice. I'm just social media.

(42:13):
Let's just say, just having the World Wide Web at
your fingertips is all about access. But the problem is
you can't. It's hard to filter true information versus false information,
or information that might not be completely false but done
in a way to guide you and manipulate you to
fall on either side of the aisle, so to speak.

(42:34):
And I think that's a big issue, and it's really
hard to especially these days, it's so hard to decipher
what is right what is wrong. I always say sometimes
on my show, to be quite honest, is you know,
I usually like to give all the facts and say
here's where I got it from. But there's times where
I'm like, you know, what, do your own research If
you don't believe that what I'm saying is correct, and
prove me wrong. Go find it, you know, because I

(42:55):
think it's important for people to start to be that
type of person where you start to question, go, hold on,
is this guy saying the truth or is he just
speaking out of his ass here? And I think everybody
should start to start to do that, get back to
actually fact checking for themselves and not just believe the
first thing you read.

Speaker 3 (43:13):
Yeah, and you've got people.

Speaker 1 (43:15):
You know.

Speaker 3 (43:15):
There was a show on ESPN a while back called
Numbers Never Lie, And as an intelligence analyst, I can
tell you that that's false. Numbers numbers can lie. You
can manipulate data to make it say what you want
it to say. And I say that listen the So
the FBI just came out, So they came out a

(43:35):
month or two ago saying that extreme crime was down
a certain percent, right, familiar. They just changed that recently
in the last week that it's actually up by four
point eight percent. So they and the way this all
came about was that I believe it's the Institute of
Criminal Justice Studies had they do their own data, and

(44:00):
they were actually saying that violent crime is on the
rise in the United States, has been on the rise
since twenty twenty and twenty twenty four, it increased year
over or twenty twenty three, it increased year over year
from twenty twenty four and twenty twenty four. Is on
the same trajectory. And then the FBI released and said no, actually,
it's it's going down. And they both used different types

(44:22):
of They use the same data, but they also use
different pieces of data that they can collect. There's a
lot of pushback to the FBI saying, you're saying it's down.
I'm witnessing with my own eyes certain things that kind
of tell me that it's up. So you know what,
say you? And so now with all that pushback to

(44:44):
the FBI tried to quietly push out, no, you know
it really is. We read, we redid the data, and
it the numbers are actually up by four point eight percent. So, yes,
data can lie as long as you can manipulate it
in a certain way.

Speaker 1 (45:00):
Well, was that manipulation or suppression of information from the
get go?

Speaker 3 (45:04):
Well, so the FBI would tell you they didn't have
all the data that they needed in order make the assessment,
and I tell that to people when I'm doing my assessment.
So if somebody asked me, can you do an intelligence
product and assess a certain thing.

Speaker 2 (45:19):
I've done for.

Speaker 3 (45:23):
Cross border with Ukrainian people, getting them to safety. I've
put out some products for nonprofits to help them move
out there. And at the end it will always say
all this is all the data that I have, and
new data may change my assessment, and that's part of
the intelligence cycle. The last part is it used to

(45:48):
be just called dissemination, but it's always dissemination and reevaluate.
So give it to the customer, but continue to evaluate
what's going on.

Speaker 1 (45:59):
Okay, So not disagreeing with you because this is what
you do, so I can't. I mean, you're at the experts,
not me in this, but I agree in the state
in that in that statement, and you know, hey, this
is based on basically you're saying, this is based on
the information at hand, which is the only way that
you can can give information making assessment on what's going

(46:22):
on your your your conclusion is only as good as
the info that you have understood. But are we to
believe the FBI really didn't have the information?

Speaker 2 (46:32):
No, I mean they did an organization.

Speaker 3 (46:34):
Maybe they didn't have it, they had access, they have
access to it. It's the FBI, it's the Federal Bureau
of an Investigation. If they tell a police force that
they need the data, the police force is going to
give them the data. I didn't work in the FBI
or on the police force, so I don't know sort
of the doctrine that.

Speaker 1 (46:53):
Or how that works, how they interact.

Speaker 3 (46:55):
Yeah, so there could be, like I said, I don't
know this, so I'm just going to say this as
a blanket statement. They there could be requirements that if
the FBI reaches out, the police force has to give
up that information, so that that would then mean the

(47:15):
FBI didn't go out searching for that stuff, and their
blanket statement would be, well, we just didn't have access
to it. You have access to everything. You're you're the FBI.
It's like the CIA saying we didn't have access to
the intelligence. Yeah you did, right, you're read on everything
you have need to know.

Speaker 1 (47:33):
Yeah, what don't they know?

Speaker 3 (47:36):
Right, that's what we're trying to figure out.

Speaker 1 (47:38):
Right, Well let's let's uh, we kind of went went
veered off. Yeah, but that's fine. You know, I I'll
sometimes I'll do that because I have my mind. Just
my wife will tell you she thinks I have add
but it just never stops, and I'll say, hey, wait
a minute.

Speaker 3 (47:52):
You know, so I think there should be a study.
I think our whole generation, uh we just go we
have ADHD. It's like there's probably a reason for that.
Oh on how we were brought up.

Speaker 1 (48:04):
Now we're gonna get go down a different roads if
we keep talking about that, and then I'll just start going
into the food. But anyway, well, I was going to
try to get back to Israel. So here's my question,
because you helped establish the history and you gave us
a lot based on your knowledge and your experience from
the area in which you did in the military and

(48:24):
and intelligence and analyzing all that data. But fast forward,
I believe Israel had a right to respond. Any country
should respond the way they were attacked on that October seventh, okay,
last year twenty three. So do you think at this
time though, are they going too far or are they

(48:44):
not going far enough? Or what does your opinion on it?
I mean, at some point when do you have to say,
you know what you kind of you kind of proved
your point, or is it correct for them to believe
in the total destruct and extermination of not the Palestine
is by the I don't think that's their end game here. Obviously,

(49:06):
they want to get rid of Hamas has blow any
anyone they consider a terrorist to their state. So do
you think they're going too far? Or do you think
they're approaching this rationally as any other nation would.

Speaker 3 (49:18):
I So, all right, this is my opinion. Okay, I
just want to I do that on the podcast as well.
When I'm going to give my opinion on something, I
want to state it. And that's a point where if
you as an individual listening, can hear my opinion and
then you can go research the facts and form your
own opinion off of that. I will say, so, this

(49:41):
is what Israel did immediately after October seventh is and
I'm going to say this. I'm not a supporter of
Russia and what they did in Ukraine, but from a
military standpoint, they did what Russia should have done if
they really wanted to take Ukraine, which is what I
what the US is called with the US did in
Iraq and Afghanistan, which is shock and awe, Okay, you

(50:04):
do shock and all. That's what Israel did. The problem
that I have is that they're still doing it they're
still taking and they go, well, we can't go in
because of the tunnels. And I understand that. You it's
a tough decision for a commander on the ground to
make to tell his forces you're going to go in
this tunnel. There could be twenty Hamas fighters in there,
and those Hammas fighters have the advantage because they know

(50:26):
you're coming, they can hear you. You don't know where
they're at, where they're at, and they know exactly where
you're at. So you're sending those troops to die, so
they couldn't do that. You can do a ground war
in Gaza, I believe. Like I said, it's my opinion,
once the shock and all was over with, you can

(50:49):
send troops into Gaza and go just like the US
military did, door to door, house to house and root
out those individuals. Now, the problem that the US military
had was, if you remember, George W. Bush went on
the aircraft carrier and put mission accomplished back in two

(51:11):
thousand and five or two thousand and.

Speaker 2 (51:13):
Six, I believe.

Speaker 3 (51:14):
I believe so in Iraq you said mission accomplished, and
he got a lot of flak for that. It was
two thousand and five because there was an election prop
the election process was going on, and he got a
lot of flak for that. The truth of the matter
is it was true. Mission was accomplished. We got Saddam usin.
We crippled the entire Saddam government. Had the US left

(51:36):
and told Iraq, hey, this is now yours, you do
with it what you want, we'd probably still be in
the same situation we are now, but we would have
lost a lot less US troops. What happened was we said,
the international communities going to call us bullies and they're
going to hate us if we don't do peacekeeping in
this region.

Speaker 1 (51:57):
So with that, do you think the US felt all
it was like obligatory for them to stay there.

Speaker 3 (52:04):
Absolutely, And then you know that's the al Qaeda uprising
started and a lot of Iranian proxies popped up in
Iraq just based on the fact that US troops were
staying there, and so the people of Iraq very disillusion
to US troops as the war went on because of

(52:26):
things that I've mentioned before, walking while Arab and having
certain people in US military uniforms. Look, the Abu Gharab
prison pictures came out showing that we put in US
interrogators put Iraqis that were in prison on top of
each other and stripped them of their clothes and took
pictures with them and did all of these despicable things.

(52:49):
All of that would never have happened. We would have
just left and said, this is now your country. You
formed the government do whatever. What we wanted to do
was force them to start a government that's pro us
so that we can influence Middle East operations, that's oil,
that's you know, other services and goods.

Speaker 1 (53:11):
Tried that time and time again, and it never and
it failed, never works because that just because like you said,
Western view versus you know, Eastern view.

Speaker 3 (53:21):
Now, Israel is more attuned to Middle Eastern society, right,
so they understand this. But to just keep it is
it is targeted, right, the destruction of buildings because a
terrorist is inside of it, that's targeted. But there are
also families in there. Well, those families are dying, and

(53:42):
you're creating new terrorists. Every time that happened.

Speaker 1 (53:45):
Absolutely, every time someone's father or brother dies, you know,
another one will uprise, uprises or rises up to take
their place. And I hear what you're saying. You know,
I personally think enough enough, enough is enough. But I
know I'm so sometimes I'm fumbling.

Speaker 3 (54:01):
Well, it's been a lot where I want to I've
been thinking about this in like a football analogy, like
American football.

Speaker 2 (54:08):
You know.

Speaker 3 (54:09):
So I'm a Saints fan. That's not good this year, but.

Speaker 1 (54:12):
I've watched Actually I'm liking what the Saints have been doing.
I've been supporting them, you know. Ever good, So yeah,
we're definitely watching them as one of our teams this year,
for sure. Good deal.

Speaker 3 (54:24):
I just I know, I've sat down so many times
and watched a game and seeing a team be up
forty to fourteen in the by halftime, right, and that's
the arbitrary number or whatever, And then I go check
the score at the end and it was forty two
to forty, and you go, what happened? It was like, well,

(54:45):
they had their foot on the throat and they took
it off and they decided to let the other team
come back. Now that analogy does not speak anything to
the humanitarian crisis or anything like that. It might be
sort of a dumb down analogy. But what I'm trying
to get to here is Israel can take their foot

(55:06):
off the throat of Hamas. Hamas is going to re establish, reorganize,
and get bigger. That's what Israel thinks. So that's where
it comes into you have to annihilate.

Speaker 1 (55:17):
I can't blame that way of thinking, though. I mean, realistically,
I think that Israel has gotten to the point with
all of this that they're like, you know what, screw this,
we this time, let's just really end it. And that's
they're trying to do. People don't like it because it's
messy and it's warning. It is what it is. Unfortunately,
you know, innocence die. But Israel also approached it very

(55:42):
messy from the get go by just targeting towns, villages
and cities and saying, oh, well, you know their tunnel
underneath and we couldn't decipher who was who, which, to
be honest, was bullshit, you know, and they made it
very evident when they were able to suddenly blow people's
pagers up, Well, that seems pretty precise and you know
to me. And and so now after that, I think

(56:05):
that there they've been better at targeting exactly who they
want to go after. But you know, how do you
how do you explain them, you know, going ahead and
just telling you know, NATO memory, and I know they're
not a NATO nation, but you know members of NATO
who are also allies of the US like, hey, screw you,

(56:25):
I don't care what you say. We don't need you.
We're gonna do what we want. They blew up that
French gas company, well company, I believe, whatever it was,
and France didn't respond, you know, not militarily anyway, They
were stern to say, hey, we're no longer going to
support you, and then Israel just raises their middle fingers like, well,
we don't need you. At what point is Israel not

(56:47):
going like they're not realizing I'm not saying they don't
have a right to what they're doing because we went
after bin Laden, we didn't care. We went after everybody
we wanted to go after, and that's what Israel's doing.
But at what point does Israel or net net to
Yahoo not take a step back and go while we
are doing what we have to do, what are the

(57:07):
consequences of this with everybody else in the world. All
it takes us for them to do the wrong thing
and get one of the NATO members involved because they
have to, and then we're in a very messy situation
with Article five, right.

Speaker 2 (57:25):
And yeah, if so, what's your host five?

Speaker 3 (57:28):
Like you mentioned, is is the NATO article that says,
if one NATO nation is attacked, all NATO nations have
been attacked and they have to come to the defense
of that one NATO nation. Article five has only been
invoked once, and that is after nine to eleven. So
the United States was attacked for nine to eleven, all

(57:48):
the NATO nations came together. The Iraq War was not
a NATO war. We had NATO nations that did not
decide to go with us on that. But here's what
I'll say, Yeah, so sorry. Here Here's what I'll say
about the Israel conundrum is that at some point, and

(58:11):
you asked, and I don't know if I said definitive
you you asked if I thought they've gone too far definitively.
What I will say is, at points they have gone
too far. In my opinion, the nations that are supplying
goods and services militarily to Israel, the United States being
the key one there, is going to have to decide

(58:33):
when enough is enough, because right now they are it's hey,
don't do this, Israel. Just like you said, Nan Yaho, says,
screw you, I'm going to do it anyway. They do it,
and the US just goes, well, don't do it again,
and then don't do it again. And so when I
when I was a human intelligence analyst out in Iraq,

(58:53):
I had another analyst. This was years ago, and I'm
still study I still studying Israel at that time, and
he was educating me on some things. And you know,
Israel in the United States, Israel's like that friend at
the bar you always go to the bar with that
gets too drunk and then starts a fight, and then
you have to get into the fight.

Speaker 2 (59:12):
And you keep going to.

Speaker 3 (59:13):
The bar because you like the guy and you guys
have a great time, but sometimes he takes it too
far and then you have to get involved. And at
some point you have to tell that guy either you're
gonna stop doing that or I'm not going to be
associating with you anymore. And so we're close. I don't
think we're at that level. We are very close to

(59:33):
that level. The response that Israel is going to take
on Iran is going to say a lot about future
dialogue with the United States.

Speaker 1 (59:42):
Yeah, I look, Spain's already announced they're cutting him off
France cutting him off in terms of support for all
of this. What I see is, I think this is
an opinion, but I think most people from NOLASA looking
and can probably agree with this assessment that Israel does
what they do because they know the US is behind them.

Speaker 2 (01:00:03):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:00:03):
I believe that I do, and we have a long history.
We'll get off this topic soon because I wanted to
go into you know, your neck of the woods of
Witch you specialized, and I think it was like Russian.

Speaker 3 (01:00:14):
I've got a few more minutes.

Speaker 1 (01:00:16):
Okay, We'll move out out of this pretty soon. But anyway, Yeah,
I think they just they just do do what they
do because of because we're behind them. And then if
you look at the history of what they have done
over the years, all over the years, they have been
told to calm down, and more than one one occasion
throughout the years because of how they've approached certain situations

(01:00:39):
and gone after other nations. So they do have a
history or a pattern of doing this. Now we can
argue whether all of that was justified. But still I
don't know. There's I just hope all this ends soon,
you know, and and it ends in a way that
doesn't drag everybody into a world war. And then with that,

(01:00:59):
I I kind of want to move. Let's quickly go
over a few other things. So just got just came
out and I think you saw this. What do you
think about North Korea sending troops over now? Oh yeah,
in the world.

Speaker 3 (01:01:11):
Over about twelve thousand North Korean troops going out to
Ukraine to fight. So, first of all, for a big picture,
is now you're seeing what we would consider in World
War two the Axis Alliance, which is and Iran has
called their own group the Axis of Resistance. I think

(01:01:32):
that's going to be coined for this entire axis, which
is Russia, China, North Korea, Iran. So those groups are
coming closer, and now you've got twelve thousand to thirteen thousand.
I've seen some say as much as seventeen thousand North
Koreans moving to Russia because they need more fodder. And
it's very interesting that all those troops are going to

(01:01:54):
the Curse Region. And if you haven't been following that
war recently, the Curse Region is where Ukraine successfully did
a counter offensive and took over Russian land in Kursk
to push back those Russian munitions. So they can't hit
places like Kievan Leviv areas within Ukraine. So Russia is

(01:02:15):
not only conscripting these North Koreans, they are going to
one of the bigger hotbeds where Russia wants to show
force and push back Ukrainians back across the border. So
that's very interesting.

Speaker 1 (01:02:29):
Do you think this is something that may pull China
into the fold on this.

Speaker 3 (01:02:36):
I think China's going to be So. China's got their
own thing that they want to do with Taiwan, and
I think they're going to stay out publicly, out of
everything until they can do that. Now, China's got an
issue with manpower. You know, we see China. They've got
millions to throw at this war. They've got to do
it very quickly. When I say very quickly, within the

(01:02:57):
next five years, because a lot of them in the
men's male service members in China are aging out of
being able to fight.

Speaker 1 (01:03:07):
They are, so.

Speaker 3 (01:03:08):
They're not going to send I absolutely do not think
I have it as unlikely that China is going to
send p l A into Russia to help that battle.
What they're going to hope so they're gonna they they're
helping monetarily, They're helping with you know, certain missile defenses,
things of that nature, militarily on the through back channels.

(01:03:31):
They won't publicly state that they're doing this, but they are.
I think that's where it's going to stay. The country
I'm looking at getting heavily involved as Belarus.

Speaker 2 (01:03:41):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (01:03:42):
And the problem with Belarus is it's right there with Poland,
and there could come a time where Russia says, screw it,
we're going full on Belarus. You've got the nukes. So
Russia last summer sent nuclear weapons believe it was last summer.
Timeline could be all off, but the Russia is nuclear

(01:04:02):
weapons to Belarus to store them along the border there,
and so now Belarus has it. There could come a
time in the near future where Putin says to Lukashenko
and Belarus, hey, all bets are off.

Speaker 2 (01:04:20):
Go into Poland.

Speaker 3 (01:04:22):
We're going through Ukraine and we're going to get into
Poland and we're going to war with NATO because we're
at odds and this is this is going to be
a full war. So Belarus could be very important. Lukashenko
was put in place by Russia, so he has certain
obligations to the Russian state and the Russian military that

(01:04:43):
he is going to have to accept once Putin says
Belarussian forces, even if it's just put them in Ukraine,
that's going to happen.

Speaker 1 (01:04:52):
What a mess, man, it is, it really is. I
know you're going to have to go here soon, so
I'm gonna I'm just gonna quickly go over a few
other things. So let's let's go back to the USA itself,
I mean.

Speaker 3 (01:05:06):
And always if you want me back on, we can
spend some more time. When I have more time, you
gotta go there.

Speaker 1 (01:05:12):
Let's let's really quickly election opinion. What do you think?
And how's that going to go? And then I would
like you to talk more about your podcast, so everybody
knows you know where to find that and listen to
you and your wife and you know, go over all
that as well. So let's start with your opinion. What's
going on with the election?

Speaker 3 (01:05:30):
Yeah, look, so I've said it. I was recently on
a podcast with some people that I say are very
good friends of mine. It is called Songs and Stories.
It's by the band Emery. I was on there and
I talked heavily about the election. I don't give I'm
not going to give who I'm going to vote for,
but I will give how I'm assessing things are going

(01:05:52):
to go. And so right now everything flows through Pennsylvania.
You can run twenty twenty thousand simulations. The person who
wins Pennsylvania wins the presidential election. We all know that
we can agree with. That's evident. That's why Trump and
Harris both have been going into to Pennsylvania recently. What's

(01:06:14):
been happening that's been interesting to me is Michigan and
Wisconsin have sort of turned over to Trump. Something has
happened within Michigan and Wisconsin that has made them more
palatable to Trump. And if he can win Wisconsin and Michigan,
he doesn't need Pennsylvania. I didn't see that coming a
couple of months ago. That's another key one to go on.

(01:06:37):
So depending on who you trust the polsters. The polsters
still have Kamala Harris winning at least the national vote
by one point eight percent. They still have her favored
in Pennsylvania and a couple of other states, including Nevada,
which I think is trending more towards Trump. So do
you trust the pollsters or do you trust Vegas? Meaning

(01:07:00):
people are putting bets on the election, and Vegas doesn't lose.

Speaker 1 (01:07:03):
I think I think I at this point, I don't
trust the polls. I'm I think I'm leaning more towards
how Vegas is going to be, Yeah, judging how this
is going to go. Yeah, Well, we'll see how this
all unfolds. Well, let's let's talk about your uh, your
podcast really quick before you have to head off, and
then you know, whatever else you want people to know
about you, and we'll get you out of it.

Speaker 3 (01:07:25):
One more thing on the election. Yeah, and now I'm
extending my time a little bit, but yeah, so one thing,
one more thing on the election. My hope is that
it's not a hotly contested election either way. Whoever wins,
it probably will be because Pennsylvania is one of those
states that can't assess the election right after the polls

(01:07:45):
are done, so it's going to go through the night.
But I hope someone wins with more so than the
last election or the one before that, because that's what
China wants. Honestly, that's what they've been trying to do,
is hotly contested election that no one approves of, and
we have a civil war in this country. So that's

(01:08:06):
my hope. So I said, I don't care, like I'm
not going to support one candidate or another, but my
hope is somebody wins by a lot.

Speaker 1 (01:08:13):
I'll just try. I believe what that post was that
came out about the UK Labor Party sending one hundred
people over here to campaign for Harris. But anyway, Yeah,
let's let's go over your podcast here and what you
offer and you're scheduling and when that comes out and
how that came together.

Speaker 3 (01:08:32):
Yeah, so the podcast is this week explain it's a
geopolitical intelligence podcast, just based off of my history, my
experience as an intelligence analyst. And you set it up
perfectly at the beginning. We try to break down these
big events and we don't get technical, we don't get
bogged down. And so that's if you know anything about

(01:08:54):
intelligence analysis. The reports have to be concise and they
have to be easy to understand. I say for a
fifth grader. Usually we'll usually say a two star general
needs to understand it. That's a fifth grade education level.
Sometimes on these big picture things, that's just a dig
at the at the officer corps. But that's what we're

(01:09:15):
really trying to do, is everybody's talking about these these
big picture things in a very technical sense, and so
no one really understands it except for the people who
are in these certain technical things. So you talk about tanks,
people who understand tanks, they're gonna be able to speak
very fluently about it. But not everybody understands that, and

(01:09:37):
every I think everyone needs to understand these big geopolitical events,
so we try to break it down. And I was
gonna do it by myself when this all started and
I started, I did what everybody tells. You want to
start a podcast, you start recording. So I hit record
and I started talking Ben Shapiro type of kind of
thing where it's just me and I'm just talking and

(01:09:58):
you can say whatever you want about that guy, but
he's got to be brilliant to be able to talk
for an hour and a half by himself.

Speaker 2 (01:10:04):
I could not do that.

Speaker 3 (01:10:07):
So I said, man, I can't do this, but I
think it's important. I think what I'm doing is very
important and people want to hear it. So I went
to my wife and I was like, I really need
to somebody else, and I don't have any like I
have friends and stuff, but that would kind of get
bogged down into stories about our past and kind of
goofing off and things like that. And I was like, Tinna,

(01:10:29):
you know, we we have these conversations all the time,
Like we sit at the dinner at the dining room
table or in our bed and we just talk about
this stuff and we bounce things off of each other
and we go to one side and the other. Let's
do that as a podcast, and we set up and
we hit record. And I won't say those early episodes
were the greatest, but it's set the foundation for it

(01:10:55):
where we could sit and it's become a part of
our relationship and our marriage where Thursday nights we sit
down and we have a conversation and that's the podcast
and then Fridays it gets released.

Speaker 1 (01:11:07):
I like that you too can come together and have
these conversations about politics and you know, major events are
going on in the world. Not too many couples can
actually do that, to be honest.

Speaker 3 (01:11:18):
And we get bogged down sometimes, especially Israel Israel Hamas
Israel has blog. I mean, this episode was his real
So yeah, it's a tough one.

Speaker 1 (01:11:26):
A lot going on out there, and how how do
people find you outside of that? I mean, I know
your podcast is built everywhere. I've heard a few times
already myself.

Speaker 2 (01:11:35):
I like it. I appreciate that.

Speaker 1 (01:11:37):
And then anything else in terms of socials, websites, anything
like that.

Speaker 3 (01:11:40):
Yeah, So our our Instagram at Open Analytics, we post.
So if you listen to the podcast, if you're on
that Instagram account, you'll see a lot of the posts
leading up to it, just talking about big events that happen.
So the way we do it is put out the event,
have a headline, kind of give you a basis on

(01:12:00):
it as a screenshot there, and then within the caption
I will have an assessment. I think that's very important.
Don't just put out what's going on, like you know,
Israel bombed this area, killed twenty civilians. We want the assessment,
why did they do? What are the secondary and tertiary
repercussions of that? And that's what we're trying to do

(01:12:20):
on Instagram, you know, X and Facebook could find this
everywhere on the socials except for TikTok, just because through
my experience, I don't I don't trust TikTok at.

Speaker 1 (01:12:33):
All and I don't do it either.

Speaker 3 (01:12:35):
That probably gets a lot of people to not see
what we're doing. But I'm going to sleep well at
night knowing that I am not a part of that album.

Speaker 1 (01:12:44):
What I can tell people are finding you, and uh,
I think from what I can see, you're growing and growing.
So whatever you're doing, you're doing it right, you know,
and you're presenting you're presenting the info in a way
that you know that everyone could consume. Like on my show. Yeah,
I'm sure it can get one sided, and I have
a certain audience. I get it. But at the same time,

(01:13:06):
you know, we need we need people like you who
can just stay correct me, correct others. They go, Nope,
this is where it's at and this is the facts,
and that's an important thing. So anyway, I appreciate you,
and yes, I would like to have you back if
you ever have the time. I know you're super busy.
So with that being said, hey, let's get you ad
here so we could do what you got to do,

(01:13:27):
and next time, hopefully we can spend more time together
and have a longer conversation.

Speaker 3 (01:13:31):
Yeah, let's go for two to three hours, right, once
I have some time, I think I think there's enough
in the world that you and I could have a
conversation for three hours and it would feel like two minutes.

Speaker 1 (01:13:42):
Oh yeah, and I love learning. So you know, you
have a bunch of knowledge that I don't, and so
I'm yeah, very happy to ask questions and get get educated.

Speaker 2 (01:13:50):
Same here.

Speaker 3 (01:13:51):
I love bouncing ideas off of smart people like yourself.

Speaker 1 (01:13:54):
That's debatable. Thank you. Have a good night there, Ran. Yeah,
let's definitely stay in touch off of this.

Speaker 2 (01:14:02):
Okay, thank you so much for having me. As I
always say, stay safe out.

Speaker 1 (01:14:06):
There days your content, you feel attention, devils high, if
be high, redemption

Speaker 3 (01:14:16):
Hug stands on my get

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43 - KERVIN AUCOIN - GEOPOLITICAL INTELLIGENCE EXPERT

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}43 - KERVIN AUCOIN - GEOPOLITICAL INTELLIGENCE EXPERT