Daniel Davis Deep Dive

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Extra special and happier with the return of retired Lieutenant
Colonel Daniel Davis what we call what he calls a
Daniel Davis Deep Dive. You can follow that alliterative podcast.
Just find out you go where you get your regular
podcasts and search for Daniel Davis Deep Dive. Always some
excellent conversation throughout the week, and I always look forward
to our conversations on Tuesdays at this time. Welcome back, sir.
It's a pleasure as always to have you on.

Speaker 2 (00:22):
Always my pleasure to be here, Brian. I always look
forward to this myself.

Speaker 1 (00:25):
I'm glad you do. It's a great segment and I
always end up learning a lot and sort of always
adjust my position because you really have an excellent way
of well maybe restating what we are fed in the
mainstream media's and that's it's a welcome, refreshing thing. So
it's the second it's two years since the attack on Israel.

(00:46):
They have twelve hundred people killed and two hundred and
fifty hostages taken. It's reported they have forty eight and
Israel says, well, we only think twenty of them are
still alive. But a critical negotiation point as we enter
the sit down discussions, or rather in for ones, you
can tell us what's going on with that. I thought
the initial predicate was, well, we'll stop fighting when you

(01:06):
release the hostages. Is some us presented with a stumbling
block because maybe a lot of them, maybe all of them,
are not even alive. I know the family members would
want the bodies returned, but do they do they have
anything to really turn over anymore? Now?

Speaker 2 (01:22):
I think they do. That's certainly been the case. They've
been pretty open about how many are alive and how
many you're not, so I at least I certainly hope
that's the case. That would be a pretty cruel twist
if there was really not alive at all, But you know,
you couldn't hide that, so if you want the war
to come to an end, that would be a problem.
And by having some alive that's always been there, one

(01:44):
of the are very few, if not only, negotiating cards
that they could play. If they didn't have those, then
once that became apparent, then there would be no reason
for Israel to do anything except just you know, put
the floor of the gas of the floor, etc. And
drive in militarily. So I don't think that they would
do that, but we'll find out pretty soon. In fact,
right now there is meetings going on in Egypt for

(02:06):
the second day in a row to try to bring
it into this And to your point a minute ago,
there was no specific connection to the fighting will stop
as soon as the hostages are release. In fact, President
Trump has repeatedly asked since he made this announcement a
couple of days ago, that he wants Israel to stop
shooting right now wild the negotiations to get the hostages

(02:27):
back and all the other terms so that we can
bring it into the war. But Israel has not done that,
and so the fighting continues to go on as well,
and the negotiations continue simultaneously.

Speaker 1 (02:38):
Well, I hate to attempt to draw parallels with Russia
and Ukraine, but Israel has made some I know, it's
been bloody, and some may argue it's immoral or whatever,
whatever your position is relative to Israel going after God.
They've obviously taken over a lot of land, They've recaptured some,
they've destroyed some of the infrastructure. Their quote unquote winning

(03:00):
I mean, noting the civilian casualties. They're winning and making
progress in guys and much in the same way Russia
continues to win and make progress in Ukraine. Considering you
mentioned the hostages are about the only bargaining chip Hamas has.
Are we looking at kind of a comparable thing. They're
in a sense of maybe denial about the relative strength.

(03:20):
I mean, are they planning on fighting till the last
man is standing? What are their options for Hamas?

Speaker 2 (03:26):
Yeah, I think that in some ways the parallels are there,
as you mentioned, I mean, there is one side has
a decisive advantage over the other, and one wants to
have negotiations while they're spotting. One wants to have no negotiations.
But other than that, there's some pretty big differences too,
in that I don't think that there's anything militarily left
to accomplish for Israel. They're just blowing stuff up, and

(03:50):
I'm not sure how that's useful to their objectives, because
you can't literally kill your way to victory in here.
They remember they went from the north, you know, shortly
after ten seven, which is today's the two year anniversary,
that all the way down through Rafa, all the way
down to the Egyptian Gate, and then they kind of
started over. So now then they're moving south again, and
there's almost nothing. But you know, whatever's left of not rubble,

(04:13):
they're turning that into rubble now, but there's no like
actual combat actions going on, so it's kind of just
blowing a bunch of stuff up. And listen, you know,
the Palacinian people are the huge losers in all of this.
Whether it's Hamas doing stuff that's it's you know, dragging
their feet on a negotiation, whether it's the Israeli defense
forces firing into stuff that has no apparent military value,

(04:36):
I don't know, but I do know that those people
are suffering, and I hope for everybody's sake there this
war comes to an end very very quickly.

Speaker 1 (04:44):
Okay, Now, if Israel continues down its current path, and
you know, Achieese, you said, they've already achieved military victory,
but you know, they do whatever they think they need
to do in the in the area. But does that
mean they're gonna be an occupying force on a going
forward basis? And what's that going to look like for
Israel going forward?

Speaker 2 (05:02):
Now, that's one of the big sticking points that's actually
preventing the accomplishment right now is the definition on what
these points mean. These twenty points that President Trump's team
came up with that Israel says they agreed to. But
then when you heard what Benjaminatanya who said after the
press conference with Trump, there's some pretty big differences, and
you just touched on one of them. Where As the

(05:23):
Trump plan said that there would be an independent force,
possibly an Arab force, that everyone would agree to, that
would provide security, that would train a new Palestinian police
force to keep civil security, et cetera. But then the
Benjamin Attanyah who said we will provide security indefinitely, he
didn't even put a potential endpoint on it. He just

(05:45):
said that's what we're gonna do. So those are huge,
huge differences, and I think part of what the Hamas
negotiators are trying to figure out right now and to
try to assess what actually is the definition of who's
going to do, what will be the withdrawal lines, what
will be the withdrawal time lines, et cetera. Because Hamas
has categorically said we will stop fighting, we will return

(06:05):
all the hostage, and we will leave and lay down
our arms. So they have said yes to the major issues,
but the execution of the other details is a big
sticking point so far.

Speaker 1 (06:15):
Well, and being a member of Hamas and saying okay,
we'll vacate the territory doesn't mean that the ideas that
are shared that Hamas has the idea that Israel's evil
from the river to the sea. The concepts that, you know,
are that really make up what Hamas is all about.
The hearts and minds of the people might still be
wed to those philosophies. We've talked about this before. You
can't kill your way into winning the hearts and minds

(06:36):
of people.

Speaker 2 (06:38):
Well, listen, there's there's some some pretty hard things that
everybody's gonna have to face here. Number one, it's the
term Hamas is just the tag that we use, right,
But when you as a people have been starved, have
been bombed, and have the entire infrastructure raised to the ground,
that's not going to engender a lot of positive thoughts
towards the occupying power, the power that did that. So

(06:59):
I don't know how you erase that. That's one of
the things that Benjamin and Nyah who said is a
prerequisite for all of this, is that there be a
basically a re education program and retraining, you know, to
teach the new Children, from the Hamas, from the Palestinians,
et cetera. But honestly, that's that's I think an impossible
ask that you can't call it. People don't feel bad

(07:21):
about what we did because of all this stuff.

Speaker 1 (07:23):
I don't know how you square this circle. Maybe subject
everyone to a mind control experiment. I'll of like a
clockwork orange where you tie them down and you brainwash
them and then they submit to your ideology. There's an answer,
But no, that's not going to happen. All right, Well,
I guess real quick on if Israel is not the
one providing this security, they have an army. We must

(07:46):
acknowledge they're at least in a position to make an
argument that they're capable of doing that. And I understand
all the objections to it. Don't get me wrong. Who
would be that force, because it seems to me that
you're going to have some the necessity is going to
be some sort of peace keeping force like law enforcement officers.
Who's going to do that. The blue hair the light

(08:08):
blue hats aren't going to do that.

Speaker 2 (08:10):
No, And that's one of the things they're talking about
right now. And there is a path here that could
be positive and it could help out because one of
the President Trump's you know, signature ideals and things that
he wants as well as Israel then yahoo, is that
they want the expansion of the Abraham Accords. Right, So
this could be an opportunity to say, hey, some of

(08:30):
these countries that we want to have good relations with
and some that we already do, let's have some of
the troops from THEIRS who would be you know, honest
brokers between and respected by both parties. So there is
a possibility here as opposed to the blue hats you mentioned.

Speaker 1 (08:44):
You know what, that's the sound and logical proposal as
it initially hits me. I like that. You know, you
have fellow Middle Eastern countries providing the stability they need.
And they're not pro Israel or pro Hamas. They just
live in that area and they want some peace and
sensibility and trading partners so they can all live happily
ever after. Right, let's keep that in mind as a
potential solution to the problem. Pivoting over, Donald Trump said

(09:06):
he hasn't quite decided about sending Tomahawk missiles. I suppose
he'd give them the NATO, and NATO would hand them
over to Ukraine. Is there anything different between that and
US giving them directly to Ukraine? Russia says, listen, that'll
be the end of any relationship we have left if
you do that. Because apparently the Tomahawks have a range
that might allow Ukraine to hit Moscow.

Speaker 2 (09:24):
Yeah, they have some variants. There's different variants have range
of up to one thy five hundred miles, which is
like three or four times longer than even the a
tackms that we have for the regular long range missiles.
But this one is a bit more problematic. You can't
just give these missiles to Ukraine. They require to be
fired from either strategic bombers that Ukraine doesn't have, from

(09:48):
hard silos or systems that they're called the typhoon that
only we have and there's only a few of them,
or ballistic missile submarines, so Ukraine didn't have very many
of those, as I recall. So for these to be used,
it could only be done expressly by American military, which
is why Russia is reacting much more strong to this one,
because only American military in all fast facets of the

(10:12):
launch cycle would be doing this, and then it would
be a direct attack by the United States into Russia.
And that's why they are saying, no, this is not
like F sixteen's or attackems or hamars or any of
those other things. This one's different and this is not
some place we need to go. It will not. Let
me just categorically state it will not change the course
of the war, but it could be a provoca provocation

(10:33):
for escalation. Not a good move.

Speaker 1 (10:35):
It is rather disturbing because I've heard you make comments
like that before, and I've heard others make the same comments.
It's just not a pervasive point. People just talk about
are we going to give Tomahawk missiles either indirectly or directly,
and you think it's just like a shipment of a box.
You give it to them and they can launch them.
The fact that it will absolutely require American military personnel

(10:56):
and American military hardware, that Ukraine does not operate that
clearly implicates us directly. It's like boots on the ground
kind of activity. How do you think Russia would respond
to that? I know, World War IIE is certainly a possibility,
but short of like declaring war on the United States,
what would there sort of militarily appropriate action be Daniel Davis.

Speaker 2 (11:17):
One of the things we've seen pretty consistently from Russia
throughout is that things that we would ordinarily consider acts
of war, and if people did to us, we'd lose
our minds and we would be attacking somebody the next hour.
Russia has shown much more sober viewpoint on this, and
they have not taken action that would then precipitate an

(11:37):
expansion of the war directly into NATO. Too Many people
in the West, I think, say, because Russia never has
up to that point, then there's literally anything we can
do and there will be a catastrophic response. I'm not
sure that that's going to always be a safe bet,
because we just never know how far we can push
Russia until finally there is a red line beyond which
they won't And they're being pretty pretty aggressive on talking

(11:59):
about this one. But I don't know if even this
would result in it, because they would see it's not
going to change the outcome and they still have a
path to a military victory over Ukraine. So I would
wager that they probably would not start a war with
US because then that would undo nearly everything that they
have done and put them into this massive fight. It
would be horrible for us because now then we would
be targets when we haven't been before, So it would

(12:21):
be stupid to the highest degree. But I would bet
that Russia is not going to start a war even
if we do this, But they may do something else indirectly,
like against our interest elsewhere in the world, which won't
be good.

Speaker 1 (12:32):
Well, and there always is at some point a straw
that will break the camel's back. So whether or not
this is going to do it or not, I guess
the most important point on this is giving the Tomahawk missiles,
whether you and I are operating them or they can
operate them on their own, is not going to help
them militarily. It's a pointless effort.

Speaker 2 (12:51):
That is my frustration. Why take the risk? Why I
find out? Is this the redline beyond which they won't
be pushed or will they go past this one too?
When it won't change the outcome, It won't make Ukraine win,
it won't make Russia lose, but it will put us
at risk, and so then what is the point doing?
And by the way, we don't even have too many
of these our own. Why do I want to dwindle
down my own stockpile when we could really use those

(13:13):
if we get into a war, say with China or
Russia in the future, we need to hold onto those.

Speaker 1 (13:19):
Another outstanding point, which is pretty much the case with
all military hardware we're talking about. Daniel Davis Deep Dive
finding where you get your podcasts? Retired Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Davis.
Great food for thought today. As always, a love you man.
We'll talk next Tuesday. Have a great week.

Speaker 2 (13:32):
Pleasure have a good one, Brian.

Speaker 1 (13:34):
Take care brother. Coming to eight forty two fifty five
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Breast Cancer Awareness Month.