Episode #229 -- Xoaquin Flores and a Trump and Putin Post-Mortem

Geopolitical analyst and commentator Xoaquin Flores comes back to the podcast to discuss a number of topics in the wake of the Trump/Putin Summit in Alaska on August 15th.  From Turkey's unfocused aggression to the repeated attempts to isolate Serbia, there are no shortage of responses from the "usual suspects" in City of London and Brussels.  Xoaquin breaks these things down in granular detail for us which, to me, is required listening.

Show Notes:
Atlantic - Did the White House Not Understand What Putin Was Really Offering?
Xoaquin's New Resistance 
Xoaquin's Patreon

Tom on X
Gold Goats 'n Guns Patreon

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:20):
Hello, and welcome to the Gold, Goats and Guns Podcast
for August twenty ninth, twenty twenty five. My name is
Tom Lawongo. We have a lot to talk about. It's
episode two twenty nine, and you know, we've been doing
a lot of heavy finance. We've been doing a lot
of interesting stuff from that perspective. But this episode post Alaska,
post well, the everything that's been going on geopolitically. I

(00:44):
set up a conversation with my good friend Walking fours,
who's with us this morning, and uh, we're going to
talk about those things. But before I bring Walking in,
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how are you. How's it going?

Speaker 2 (01:44):
Tom? Good to be with you this morning.

Speaker 1 (01:46):
It is good to catch up. We were chatting before
we hit record about all the things that all the
little chaos and everything that we're both having to deal
with and like it's going to be interesting. So but
it was funny, you know when the Trump Putin's Summit
came down team together so quickly in Alaska, which was awesome,
by the way. You know, the one of the things

(02:07):
that everybody and their brother had an opinion on what
happened is clearly there was shaping operations that were happening
in the mainstream media or I call the Debogean catamites
of the mainstream media. You know, my my community is
really good at keeping up keeping me up to date
with the sailing points that you put on a regular
basis simply because you know, I'm it's hard to do

(02:30):
so and every time I read all these other people's
opinions and then I go and then there's a short
post by Joaquin about what he saw happening, and I'm like, huh,
so that guy's, as always Joaquin is correct about So really,
what I want you to do, and I mean this
sincerely because when there are very there's very few people
whose opinions on these things I trust nearly implicitly at

(02:54):
this point. And what I like you to do is, I,
you know, I know what I think I saw an
anchoring and then subsequently in Washington, but I'd like you
to just go over it, and because I think it
would be good in many ways to do a kind
of post mortem now that we've had a couple of
weeks to see the reactions and see how everybody went
home and have now decided what their course of action

(03:16):
is going to be.

Speaker 2 (03:17):
M Right.

Speaker 3 (03:19):
So the setup going in, of course, is Russia is
winning on the battlefield, right, That's what's.

Speaker 2 (03:24):
Kind of the background, and the.

Speaker 3 (03:28):
Kiev or whatever, you you know, I think we're really
talking about the Europeans and the British. There's divisions there
of course, but you can say the European side of
NATO so to speak, including the UK, definitely is having
a problem articulating a very basic term and concept that's
been around for thousands of years.

Speaker 2 (03:48):
It's called suing for peace, suing for peace.

Speaker 3 (03:51):
And they just can't get this fucking word off their tongue.
They just it's not coming off their lips or what
have you. They're calling it. They want to push for
a cease fire, which is kind of strange. And then
they they're manipulating the fact that you know, peace sells.
Everybody wants peace. People want peace in the Middle Least,
they want peace in Ukraine, peace, peace, peace, right, So
no one can say that they're against peace. So like

(04:13):
Putin can't say they're against peace, Lenski can't say they're
against peace.

Speaker 2 (04:17):
So that's this sort of underlying pressure.

Speaker 3 (04:20):
But in contrast with that is the fact that Russia's
perfectly fine pursuing the military conflict. I mean, they're going
to achieve their aims militarily, and that was true with
Biden in there, and even if you know, I don't
know how, but even if Kamala Harris had won the presidency,
this is not about like Trump's deciding to be friends

(04:43):
with Putin, or they'd have a friendship and now there's
not a conflict or there's less conflict.

Speaker 2 (04:48):
It's you know, no, the United States is.

Speaker 3 (04:50):
Out of one hundred and fifty five millimeter shells that
they can give to anyone else. They're out of many things,
and they can't produce many things. You've got the drone disparity,
like we talked about, the Artiller disparity, the manpower disparity.
You've got probably you know, three to one, four to one,
you know, numbers favoring Russian troops on the front in
most places, and Ukrainian positions are being overwhelmed every day,

(05:14):
every day. If you follow the conflict closely, if you
follow a couple of these even deep state UA.

Speaker 2 (05:21):
Pro Ukrainian war tracker, you.

Speaker 3 (05:24):
Know, if they admitted it definitely happened, and they are right,
and so that's like the lowest common denominator and they're
they're showing, you know, just dozens of kilometers lost every day,
settlements being surrounded.

Speaker 2 (05:37):
The Russian line moves.

Speaker 3 (05:39):
There's been since May or June, an unrelenting, you know,
increase of Russian artillery and missile strikes deep into Ukraine,
hitting Kiev, hitting levav hitting military industrial complex sites, training,
military training, places where NATO commanders are living and working

(06:02):
that are off schedule or you know, clocked out of
being in the army, you know, for that year on
prolonged leave or whatever. But they're operating there in Ukraine,
and they're getting decimated and worse than decimated. They're being
have they're being you know, so we're going into Alaska,
and as you will recall, like the coming out of

(06:22):
the Trump administration, you know, Ukraine is kind of this
inevitable thing that people might not realize how inevitable it is.
For the Trump side, they're interested in having normalized relations
with Russia. Investments, you're talking about energy, You're talking about
res you know, rare elements. You're talking about of course

(06:43):
nuclear too. You know, there's Iran, there's the Russians are
going to build eight nuclear facilities in Iran.

Speaker 2 (06:50):
The Americans can probably be invested in or on.

Speaker 3 (06:53):
The board of directors of the company which has a
subsidiary in Iran, and so forth.

Speaker 2 (06:58):
So this is like right, why.

Speaker 3 (07:00):
So it's actually it's like everyone's on the same side
except for the spectacle, the simulacrum, right, and yet you
have going into Alaska. It was understood by anyone that's
really following this that they're going to be talking about energy.
They're going to be talking about the Arctic and Arctic exploration.
I mean, the symbolism of the place you're having it

(07:21):
there in Alaska. And it's also saying like, look, Russia
and the US border each other, we don't need to
go through Europe to talk, and Europe is excluded, not
just symbolically but geographically.

Speaker 2 (07:34):
Right, They're not right? And how is the lens he
going to show up in Alaska?

Speaker 3 (07:37):
Like he can show up and Riodd, he can show
up and you know in Dubai, he can show up,
you know, in Turkey in the wrong city like he
did last time. That was hilarious for the headlines, like
you know, just just so the headlines and people that
just follow the headlines like, oh he went he was
in Turkey for the talks. Well, yeah, he was in
Turkey while talks were happening, but he was in Ankara

(07:59):
and talks were in is Well kind of a big difference.
So you know, but he goes and hangs out or whatever,
and then his press team reports that he was there,
he held a couple of important phone calls, which I
suppose you have to be in Turkey to use the
phone to talk to Turks on the phone.

Speaker 2 (08:13):
I don't know how that works on.

Speaker 3 (08:14):
But so we go into Alaska and.

Speaker 2 (08:21):
We're going to Alaska and uh and then you're we're.

Speaker 3 (08:25):
Hit with you know, they're talking about Ukraine's talking about Ukraine,
and we were talking about I'm sure you told your
folks and we were telling our folks. They're talking about
many other things. And then it came out. Then it
came out from the Russian side, from Russian journalism.

Speaker 2 (08:40):
They're like, Ukraine.

Speaker 3 (08:41):
Will probably compose less than twenty percent of the subject
matter of this talk.

Speaker 2 (08:46):
And we were like boom receipts.

Speaker 3 (08:47):
Like we're talking about energy, we're talking about exploration, we're
talking about sanctions, we're talking about you know, setting up
a joint joint interest. So and so then we had
Alaska and there was you know, everyone was flipping out
because it was it was a red carpet event and

(09:07):
it was it wasn't.

Speaker 2 (09:09):
And I don't even understand.

Speaker 3 (09:10):
Tom how the media are talking about like NBC or
CNN or any or whatever, like like you were supposed
to be mean to him, Like what are you fucking
talking about?

Speaker 1 (09:19):
You would fight it into your house and you're going
to then and then and then you're gonna shot on him,
like are you right?

Speaker 2 (09:25):
And it was like what, Yeah, it just makes no sense,
you know.

Speaker 3 (09:27):
And and it's just it's like these people are children,
and they're trying to expect you to be a child.

Speaker 2 (09:32):
So they So.

Speaker 3 (09:33):
Then we have this meeting and as as forecast that
they talked about all these other things that we understood
that they would and but it did. They did also
talk about what a outcome of Ukraine would look like.

Speaker 2 (09:47):
And what I think people don't.

Speaker 3 (09:48):
Really understand is that these are two men talking about
the gravity of the situation. They're not talking about their
fucking drugs or their fantasies or you know, all these
other weird things that you get from Atlantiss media press
about Ukraine. They put these strange you know, what would.

Speaker 2 (10:06):
You call them?

Speaker 3 (10:08):
I know there's a word for it, but they put
out these strange maxims, so to speak. They put out
these strange demands or like these are statements of principles
and these are just lines that can't be crossed, and
it's like, who fucking says, like, what do you It
doesn't even make sense on the face of it.

Speaker 2 (10:23):
These are just they have to talk. They're going to talk.

Speaker 3 (10:25):
There's a kind of a known outcome about Ukraine, and
it kind of goes like this, like Russia is gonna
take all the fucking Ukraine, So any deal in which
they don't take all of Ukraine is good for the
other side, whatever that other side is, whoever thinks that Ukraine,
you know, whatever. So then we get into this understanding that, okay,

(10:49):
if Ukraine can agree to these things that Trump and
Putin talked about, then you have the basis for maybe
Zelenski and Putin to meet, maybe with Trump, maybe without,
But then we can have this this Putin Zolensky meeting
right now.

Speaker 2 (11:07):
Reliably, the media has been lying.

Speaker 3 (11:08):
To us about that that was just supposed to be
a given, like that was just like somehow that was
earned by Zelensky by the fact of his fucking breathing
or whatever. And then you write, you know, and as
if their side, Bankova, you know, is supposed to not
respond positively and appropriately to Russia's concessions, and I don't

(11:32):
think people really understand that what Russia proposed there. You know,
they actually were very reasonable in terms of they went
in saying, look, we're not interested in a ceasefire. We're
interested in framing the direction of things towards a peace,
a lasting peace. In other words, these are our demands.

Speaker 2 (11:51):
For the war.

Speaker 3 (11:53):
You can, you know, buy your way out of this
by making a deal with us, and we're still going
to achieve our objectives, but at a lower cost to you.
Maybe a lower cost to us too, but a much
lower cost to you, right in terms of you know,
blood and treasure, and if you pursue the war, you're
going to lose all of Ukraine.

Speaker 2 (12:11):
Potentially within three years.

Speaker 3 (12:13):
It's all gone, right, So if you're going to have
any Ukraine, you can say that you've gone.

Speaker 2 (12:18):
Home winning something on the Ukrainian side.

Speaker 3 (12:21):
And what the Russians did is they went and they
did something very interesting with the proposal. So they said like, well,
you will recognize as part of Russia, and we're never
going to argue about this again, primea Lugansk and donuts,
and we will probably entertain pulling out completely from.

Speaker 2 (12:41):
From Sumi and.

Speaker 3 (12:46):
Kharkov and as far as Apodosia and Kersen, we can
agree that you don't have to recognize.

Speaker 1 (12:53):
It as Yeah, that makes sense.

Speaker 3 (12:56):
So that's actually kind of like a ceasefire concept with
those So it's like peace on these regions and cease
fire on those regions, right, So it's kind of a hybrid.

Speaker 2 (13:06):
I called it a peace fire.

Speaker 1 (13:08):
Right, that's interesting. I hadn't I hadn't actually heard that,
because it was interesting to me waking and thank you
for all of that. It was great. What I what
it's clearly obvious is that no one wants on the
dovog inside for lack of a better term, wants to
sign any kind of peace deal, any kind of treaty,
because then you have a legal transfer property and then

(13:30):
any aggression from that point forward puts the moral responsibility
for the aggression back on NATO, and NATO never wants
to play that game. They always want to blame the
other guy by walking up and doing the I'm not
touching you, I'm not touching you thing. No, really, I'm
not touching you. And then's like, you know, two kids
fighting in the back seat and while dad's not looking

(13:50):
and thing, and that's what they do, and they know
and the Brits know this game because that's all they
ever do, and you can't have that area, which is
why I think the Russians why Putin was willing to
come to Alaska, because he also got a guarantee from
Trump at that point that he's not going to put
the Trump's lack of troops in to Ukraine either, and say, look,

(14:11):
we do this, you get legal certainty over you know
what you've earned, right, and then they have to then
figure out a way to make you into the bad
guy again. Meanwhile, we open up the we start to
open up the process of normalizing relations, which is going
to make it much much much harder for them to

(14:32):
open up the conflict again without looking like the bad guys.
And what did Trump do. He brought them to Washington
to struggle session them publicly, and so they all had
to wear their I Don't Kick Puppy shirts. As my
friend Extra White would put it, like they're all part
of the I Don't Kick Puppies club, right, But everywhere
to your point about everybody wants peace like that, it's

(14:53):
like that, It's like that moment from Miss Congeniality with
Sandy Bullock. You know what do you wish for stiffer
sentences for repeat offenders and world p and.

Speaker 3 (15:05):
World peace right at boilerplate man, So yeah, and then
coming out of this, so then we have now the
what came out from Yermak and Zelenski was just you know, nonsense,
and they're being told by the British like you have
to keep this nonsense line, and then you have to
kind of deconstruct like, actually, who is Zelenski valuable for?

(15:27):
Right Like, in other words, his brand is ruined, you know,
like he's he's the worst possible person to be in
charge of Ukraine right now from the point of view
the British or the Europeans who need to rebrand this
war and reframe this whole conflict because we understand that
Zelenski's mandate has expired. The force mobilizations aren't popular. People

(15:49):
are kind of tired of his stick by the way
as well, and there's a lot of complaints about Yermak
and others and how you know, their attitude and their
ego and stuff. And they've been they've been under advice
from another country in the Middle East whose name I
won't mention, but they've been under strong advisement from them
about how to do this sort of you know secret

(16:11):
you know, how to manifest you know, talking points, how
to manifest results based upon saying something at odds with reality,
and it's a it's a it's like Rhonda Burns, you know.
And so they tie a little red string around their
fingers and they go in and they say, okay, like
now we're we're just going to say the opposite of reality,
and whoever believes us believes us. And that's who our

(16:33):
target audience is, right, it's you know, it's the old
pt Barning bit. There's a sucker born every minute and
you just have me walking along at the right time.

Speaker 2 (16:40):
And so you get to.

Speaker 3 (16:43):
This meeting Zelenski and Trump, and you know that doesn't
go very well. But Trump was very nice and there
was no crisis moment like in the first part. And
I think that really subverted the British expectation. The British
really expected Zelensky to receive another thrashing. See whenever's a
Lensky gets a thrashing from Trump, he's isolated and wholly

(17:03):
dependent on the British side of things.

Speaker 2 (17:06):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (17:07):
And what the British then did immediately see what they
had a script, and oftentimes what happens tom is elements
of the script still are fulfilled or work through, even
though some foundational piece of it didn't actualize, didn't materialize
in reality, Like we've seen that over the decades.

Speaker 2 (17:24):
You know, when Syria.

Speaker 3 (17:26):
Ukraine ten years ago is going back and forth, there
would be a false flag or a provocation, even though
that wouldn't materialize, they would still do the thing that's
supposed to be springboarded from that in Ukraine or back
in Syria.

Speaker 1 (17:37):
Right.

Speaker 3 (17:38):
So, you had the British press come out just as
we forecast saying.

Speaker 2 (17:42):
Elections in Ukraine, you know, should should we?

Speaker 3 (17:45):
And the British began to invest further into their electoral
commission in Ukraine. And there's lots of journalism right after that,
or editorials right after the Zelenski Trump meeting that there
needs to be or in between Alaska and that and
thereafter that, there needs to be elections in Ukraine. And
that's the pressure on Zelenski.

Speaker 2 (18:06):
I think that.

Speaker 3 (18:07):
Putin and Trump are very happy with Zelenski in there,
and Zelensky's happy about that too, right, I mean, because
he's he has his own reasons. He has no way
out but through like he needs this war to expand.
Tom this is project twenty twenty nine. This is to
restart the war in twenty thirty or twenty thirty one
in the US under a democrat or maybe Vance, I

(18:29):
don't know, but someone other than Trump, right, whoever, they
can get in there, right and to keep the war
going without recognizing anything that Russia has.

Speaker 2 (18:38):
So what I thought was.

Speaker 3 (18:40):
Crazy, man, was this total gaslighting the public about what
the terms and the concepts.

Speaker 2 (18:48):
Of the Jura and the facto mean.

Speaker 3 (18:51):
You know, Like what you're seeing bantied about from the
Ukrainian side is they're considering recognizing or handing to Russia
the facto recognition that they have these parts of Ukraine.
I'm like, no, the word the facto is not subject
to your interpretation, interpretation. This is like the tree fell

(19:14):
and made a noise, whether the fuck you were there
or not, you know what I mean?

Speaker 2 (19:17):
Like, this is the facto means the fact though?

Speaker 3 (19:20):
You know, like if you can't hand someone to facto recognition,
when do you fucking you can?

Speaker 2 (19:25):
You can hand someone d jire recognition for sure.

Speaker 3 (19:28):
But you know what is the fact though, is the
fact that they have Keersen, the fact that they have zappodosia,
the fact that they're right. So it's like, so what
we might consider so they're just going around in circles
and gas lighting the whole public, and the.

Speaker 2 (19:42):
Media's dutifully follow this duty, of this obligation.

Speaker 3 (19:45):
To to to pretend that these words have these new meanings.
It reminds me so much of like when they redefine vaccine,
when they redefine pandemic, when they redefine you know, we're like,
you know, we live in the age of euphemisms, where
like some generation of people that have lived in a
ca from a time of affluence when the empire was
solid and could afford all this stupidity. You know that
you had a generation that people just walk in and

(20:07):
start thinking that they were the first ones to ever
think to ever consider that if you use a euphemism,
that you've redefined the thing. You know, like I didn't
kill you, you know, I just accidentally manslaughtered you.

Speaker 2 (20:18):
You know, it's like, what are you talking about? Right?

Speaker 3 (20:21):
So this is like redefining words playing games, and obviously
what the Russians proposed made sense. You've got this retarded
piece coming out in the Atlantic the other day saying
it seems that Witcop was incompetent because he didn't really
understand what Putin was saying when he said that they

(20:41):
would freeze the conflict for Zappodosia and Keersen and agree
you know that that they're not going to pursue for
the time being, they're not going to pursue recognition of
that as dejure Russia, and that wit Cop was confused
because he that meant they were going to withdraw from

(21:01):
those regions, even though their conversation was silent on that,
even though no one was there in that conversation. But
that's according to The Atlantic, according to two people that
were familiar with what three other people thought about it
on condition of anonymity. And I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa.
So that's what you know. I mean, I don't know
about Utan, but like when I was in high school,

(21:22):
you know, and you're learning like and maybe ninth or
tenth grade English, and you're learning like journalism is who, what, where,
when and why? Right? You can never have an anonymous
source unless it's like a real, real national security thing
of a real and even that's questionable.

Speaker 2 (21:36):
But just like every fucking.

Speaker 3 (21:37):
Side theory now is anonymous and they just published them
like it's news, and oh that's legit.

Speaker 1 (21:43):
Yeah, that's well, this is the I mean, you know,
consider the source. Obviously, the Atlantic is the source. The
Atlantic is the message, which is that right, Yeah, I means,
which is ultimately that this is what they want you
to believe. And then they got to the shaping operations
waking have not have only intensified to the to the
level of absurdity. As you pointed out, My standard answer

(22:04):
to all of that as well, commedies all have to
play word games, because that's how they that's how they redefine,
you know, their revolutionary bent. And you know these are
Trotsky guys, these are neocons, and and that's their that's
that's their raise on detro They always operate under these
under these rules. And then so now, I mean, the

(22:25):
reality is is that, as you said, Russia has this
stuff on the ground. What Trump is trying to get
everybody to do is to accept reality that you've lost
these things if you don't want to lose more, but
all you have to do is come in and give
us and give us troops and we'll win. Yes, that's true,
and we don't want to do that, right, but but

(22:45):
but but but but we don't want to do that.
Why because we don't want to be enemies with Russia
and we don't want to start World War three and
we don't want to you know, we don't want to
see nukes fly. You're going to have to accept this
little terrier. That's just the way this works. Now, that
little terrier in Kiev who refuses to submit is back

(23:06):
by what he thinks is a big dog in London
and Brussels. The problem for Zelenski and for the problem
for everybody is that they have no influence. And interestingly enough,
Politico dot eu I just saw this this morning, matter
of fact, and let me see if I can find it,
because I tweeted it out, said this is a very

(23:28):
interesting thing admission from them this morning. They said a
week in Europe may find itself tomorrow as a hunted
animal after two centuries of the West, setting the tone
like that's Politico dot eu. Like they're admitting that they've
lost and that the help we're getting up at eat
and like that's the way this is working. And you know,

(23:51):
and so they're beginning to accept the fact and put
the and they're they're trying now to rally. Now they're
in rally the troops mode. How can we continue to
set this narrative going forward At the same time we
have all these other we have all these other conflicts
that they're stoking around the world, which is where I
want to shift things at this point. But I think
it's clearly obvious that Trump and Putin, we're on the

(24:13):
same page. Trump and Putin were trying to figure out
a way to create American approachment. The symbolism a will
Aska is absolutely overwhelming, the entire thing. And the only
obstacle to this is clearly the people who say they
want peace, because they were forced to say so and
then scheme for war the minute they left the room.

Speaker 3 (24:36):
Right, And the Russians are aware of this, so they're like,
we're not interested in the ceasefire.

Speaker 1 (24:41):
Right.

Speaker 3 (24:41):
There's there's it's they're very clear about this game. So, yeah,
I sent you along that Atlantic piece. But I know
we're not reading news here, but I just thought, you
know one thing that jumped out at me. But from
that Atlantic piece, So this is from uh, this is
from like to yesterday or something like that. And they're
saying that it's there, it's there's mostly confusion at this point,

(25:06):
a top European official told US officials interviewed for the
story spoke on the condition of anonymity because details of
the deliberations remain largely private.

Speaker 2 (25:16):
Well apparently not.

Speaker 3 (25:18):
It's not clear what what It's not clear what Plutin
told Witcoff or Trump or if they understood him properly.
It's a puzzle we're all trying to solve. I have
another idea, another proposal, Tom. I think that their job
is to not fucking understand what's going on, like the
more they can just you know, it's the it's the
comprehension fallacy, right, It's kind of like I don't understand

(25:40):
what you're saying, Like, well, that doesn't invalidate what's being said,
like you can, you know, playing dumb doesn't change the
logic of you know, I mean, it looks like you're
the one with the problem because you know, Russia is
not even asking for a ceasefire or piece. This is
not even this is not even on their radar screen.
This is like you you are trying to sue for
peace in the language of neoliberalism, which sounds like you
want to cease fire, but we already know that this

(26:02):
is you suing for peace, but you're unable to, right,
You're unable to suit for peace.

Speaker 2 (26:06):
Because you can't. You can't.

Speaker 3 (26:08):
They are they have a peer, They have a Basically
it's like an MLM, you know, fucking pyramid scheme, uh
to keep the war going. And as soon as as
soon as that's clear, it's like everyone's fucking broke, you know.

Speaker 1 (26:22):
So they so they're like now and that's the other thing.
You remember that the other angle on. You just brought
it up kind of obliquely. I don't know if you
are meant to or not, but that this is something
like you know, my friend Alex Craner and I have
talked about for a long time and Alex has some
very great work on it last year about about the
amount of debt that is tied to and who's and
who's on the hook for guaranteeing the debt that was

(26:43):
put into Ukraine. The other thing is is that any
any legal djuree transfer property ultimately to Russia invalidates any
old contracts or any secret agreements. And it's not like
the Brits don't have secret agreements with people all over
the fun in place like they do all the time,
that you know that they're on the hook for if

(27:05):
this property is transferred to Russia from Ukraine and they
have no legal basis for it, those contracts arell on
Nolan void and you know damn well that that means
that they're on the hook for the damages for those
contracts getting liquidated, because you know who, who in their
right mind would lend the British money to prosecute a
war in Ukraine and not expect some kind of you know,

(27:29):
some kind of offsetting risk for that right. And ultimately,
if the collateral goes away because the property is gone,
then the debt is bad. And that's what's And I
think that if you one of the things that's been
interesting to me. I've said this before and I'll say
it again, watch the US guilt bond spread, because the

(27:51):
market starts snipping these things out. Ultimately, this is the
lesson I've learned over the years from Martin Armstrong. And
you know, you start taking it to the bank and oh,
by the way, the US ten year US UK ten
years spread is now over fifty basis points. Well, here's
the number for you, And I said it before. When
that number reaches sixty, British governments tend to fail in

(28:12):
this trust Breachy Sunak both times the US UK bond
spread bumped out to about sixty basis points and somehow
government needed to be changed and we got That's how
we got Sunac in the first place, and then we
got Starmer. So now I have to ask the question,
you know, if everybody, if this is an open secret,

(28:32):
who's pushing on the spread, who's trying to make this happen?
Now we watch, Now we watch the other side of
the story of why Starmer is so adamant about destroying
British pride in themselves and why he's going after people
put flying the Saint George Cross and why And you're
starting to see this this upswell of English pride at

(28:55):
this moment in time that I hate to say it, folks,
but I and because I agree with this one, it
may this may just as well be an operation as
anything else. And someone's you know, and it's all kind
of coming together. So like fifty generational warfare can be
played by the good guys and the bad guys. And
this is one of the things that libertarians need to
get their fucking heads around. This is the way the
world actually works, and this is what we should actually

(29:18):
be be analyzing the world within. And you know, it's
it's it's an interesting thing. So moving off of Ukraine,
I just told you about a little bit about the
potential counter revolution over in England. But dude, I my my.
Every day I wake up and I get inundated by
my my, my, my community and and the people I

(29:42):
interact with about what's going on in the Balkans. And
no matter how much I try to learn about the
Balkans and people try, it's really simple. I'm like, no,
it's really simple to you. You're Serbian. Yeah, sorry, no offense.
But I don't get it. I mean I do get
it someway, but there's a lot going on, and if
I don't understand it, then certainly the audience doesn't understand it.

(30:06):
So it's clear that the EU and the Brits are
trying to, you know, gin up another front in this
war in that region. Do your best to try and
break down as much of it as you can into
bite sized chunks so that people can get a sense
of it. And I can get a sense of it
because I would really appreciate that.

Speaker 2 (30:24):
Sure.

Speaker 3 (30:25):
Yeah, So I you know, that's the reason that I'm
actually here in the region, and that really is my
area of specialization in security studies in ir and color revolutions,
and I in in coming here and you know, landing
on the ground, so to speak, to start my operation.
The my my understanding of things in my my own

(30:47):
my own forecast, so to speak, was not that the
conflict would begin in Ukraine, but that the conflict would
begin in the Balkans, in the West Balkans surrounding you know,
the former Yugoslav country involving them.

Speaker 2 (31:01):
And so I was wrong and that it didn't pop off.

Speaker 3 (31:03):
But as the mechanisms in Ukraine were then you know,
started in twenty late twenty fourteen fifteen, a lot of
the pressure on Serbia also.

Speaker 2 (31:14):
You know, was happening at the same time.

Speaker 3 (31:16):
So we you know, from my my analysis the time
was that that the collect that the Atlantisist would go
for the lowest hanging fruit, and mind you, at this time,
which would be Serbia, you know, not Russia, right, and
mind you at this time that the that what was
happening is there was no sense of a figure named
Trump on the horizon or on the scene, we're dealing

(31:38):
like purely with you know, Obama and then maybe fucking
Romney or somebody like so this never ending neoliberal shit.
So it really looked like Serbia was going to be
the military target, lowest hanging fruit. Europe at that time
certainly had the military potential to like take on little Serbia.
You know, how this Russia thing happened, We understand now

(31:59):
by I think it makes sense, you.

Speaker 2 (32:02):
Know how I was wrong.

Speaker 3 (32:03):
But that's where I am here in Serbia, and there
has been during the Biden administration all of the kind
of pressures that had eased a little bit under Trump,
they really did ease significantly under Trump. I mean it
was palpable the lack of tension in the air during
those four years. And I say, this is someone that

(32:26):
has criticisms of Trump about a lot of stuff. I'm
an American citizen, a lot of stuff going on. You know,
I'm not on board with everything. I'm definitely I don't
have TDS, but I don't have TSS. I don't have
Trump sippicancy syndrome either, right, But I'm clear about the
facts about what has happened in the Balkans. So there's
a you know, the main pressure there's three real strong

(32:52):
pressure points that are happening. Understanding that the war in
Ukraine is part of the overarching you know reality, and
that is where you have the Sarajevo government. You know,
Bosnia Herzegovina is one pressure point. Then you've got in
the south you have the Albanian Kosovo territory in the south.

Speaker 2 (33:15):
That's a pressure point.

Speaker 3 (33:16):
And then you have a liberal nationalist alliance, which I've
long described in my writing and works for the past
fifteen years as being the way that you do color
revolutions in post communist states. You need an alliance of
the liberals and the nationalists.

Speaker 2 (33:32):
Right so.

Speaker 3 (33:34):
And so in the country you have a liberal nationalist alliance,
and over that time, of course, you get what are
called neo movements, and you kind of have like a
kind of a liberal nationalism that emerged as a kind
of like hybrid of these pre existently two polls that
had to come together, although always discordantly with lots of contradictions,

(33:57):
because obviously the nationalists and the liberals want very different outcomes.
They just both want this government out. The truth is
that this government is also a liberal nationalist aliance, so
that just in other words, all the political sciences would
agree that the four square metric of political thought in
Serbian mind circulates around this liberal nationalism, so to speak.

(34:18):
So so you've had this, you had, of course, the
many different things that have come out about what's going
on in the country. That's the internal pressure that seems
to be. It seems that the US has almost no
role now in undermining the Serbian government today. From the outside,

(34:40):
the NGOs and groups that are working in Serbia are
tied to the British and to the Germans. And then
of course you have Ukrainians. We have about between six
hundred thousand and eight hundred thousand Russians and like liberal
Russians and Ukrainians that have moved to sir.

Speaker 2 (35:01):
Since the special.

Speaker 3 (35:02):
Military Operation began in Ukraine a couple of years ago.
So they're not supposed to be attending these protests. But
how would you always know. I mean, that's a lot
of people, and they're mostly all in Belgrade. I mean,
the population of Belgrade basically grew by about thirty percent
or twenty five percent almost overnight, so rents doubled and
tripled cost of living issues that create color revolution situations,

(35:24):
and the very migrants from Russia and Ukraine themselves are
the ones protesting about the conditions that they've created by
their arrival in part.

Speaker 2 (35:32):
You know, so it's like what the fuck?

Speaker 3 (35:34):
So, you know, but in terms of what you're hearing
from folks or maybe in your audience, maybe there's something
more pointed that you want to draw out for me, then.

Speaker 1 (35:45):
Yeah, it's it's it's what I'm what I'm getting out
here is it's clear that there's a there's a push
for this, that we have upcoming elections in Bosnia hook
Curser Gobino or they're trying to do snap elections there.

Speaker 2 (35:59):
Yeah, order to Yeah, so.

Speaker 1 (36:01):
If I understand correctly, and and I want you to
correct me if I'm wrong, But you have basically what
amounts to two different you have. You have a group
Republic Spirska that is mostly Serb and the way this
snap election is going to work itself out is to
dominate those Serbs and pull them away from Serbia the

(36:22):
other nationalities that exist within the other ethnicities that exist
within the thing within Bosnia Herzegovina. And that's a and
that's all being backed obviously, that whole process is being
backed by the British. So that's just one angle on this.
There's other things. Alex Krainer the other day brought up
Albania and you know, and the weirdness that the that
the Brits have entered into mutual defense agreements with all

(36:44):
these different all these different groups, none of whom like
each other. And you know, it would be like, you know,
Texans and California is getting together to go after the
Washington in a civil war, like they tried to shove
down our throats and pre programmers and dolast year. That's
not happening. It's the same as Yeah, so so I

(37:05):
kind of speak to what's going on in that let's start,
let's start with that part of it and then that
all makes they'll help make some sense.

Speaker 2 (37:12):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (37:12):
So, so the British and the Germans put together a
military alliance recently to confront Serbia.

Speaker 2 (37:20):
So this is how you know, by the way, this
is like not.

Speaker 3 (37:23):
An alternative history here, and this is not a conspiracy theory.
So there's the Albania, there's an Albania, Croatia Bosnia military alliance.
And then in response to that, you have the Serbian
Hungarian alliance with with obviously they're supported by Russia, and
then a soft partner in Slovakia. And so this is

(37:46):
how things are kind of facing, facing up, facing, yeah, yeah,
And and what happened is you had the date in
the cords in the middle nineties that was part of
the conclusion of that part of the conflict of the
Third Balkans War, the Yugoslav Civil War, and and the
date in the courts basically established what you have today,

(38:09):
the setup in in Bosnia and I and I think
one of the reasons that when people are reading and
trying to understand the way that these entities have been
named lends towards misunderstanding. It's like worse than Belgium, and
it's worse right like in other words, like you've got
the the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina does not refer

(38:33):
to the whole federation, which includes Republic of Cerpska, right
like the Federation of Bosnia Herzegovina refers to the what
historically is called the Muslim in Croatian or the Muslim
croat Federation, and that is Sarajevo and.

Speaker 2 (38:53):
Generally Sarajevo.

Speaker 3 (38:54):
It's Sarajevo's supposed to be neutral, but it's it's not.

Speaker 2 (38:58):
It really is.

Speaker 3 (38:58):
More the the Muslim Proat Federation.

Speaker 2 (39:03):
So these would be Bosnian Muslims.

Speaker 3 (39:06):
These are people that were historically, you know, in history
a Serbian Orthodox or Croatian Catholic or or Croatian Orthodox
or Serbian Catholics. You're talking about the Adriatic and it's
a mixed there. But obviously with the arrival of the
Ottomans and you know, you had Islamicization in this part

(39:26):
of Europe, so you have the you know what they
call them Bosniaks. And so the Muslim Croat Federation has
been trying to work to uh strip the the autonomous
Serbian Republic Republicserska of its autonomy and to put them

(39:48):
under a centralized government.

Speaker 2 (39:51):
And that's why they named it the republic.

Speaker 3 (39:53):
The whole thing is called the Republic of Bosnia Herzegovina
because the Republic can have a centralized form. The Federation
refers to not the federation. The Federation refers to the
Republic of the Muslim pro At Federation.

Speaker 2 (40:06):
So it's it's a.

Speaker 3 (40:08):
Mess linguistically and I think that gets in the way
of understanding because you read one word and you think
you're talking about the whole thing. So maybe you know,
clearing up the language and I'll just say, like the
Muslim Proat Federation and the Serbian entity, you know, like
that is easier than talking about Bosnia Bosnia all the time,
because there's Bosnian Serbs, there's Bosnia and everything, right, there's

(40:29):
Bosnian Proasers, Bosnian Muslim so it makes no sense to
talk about Bosnia, right.

Speaker 2 (40:35):
But what happened is.

Speaker 3 (40:38):
There was a UN Security Council resolution that that enshrine
the date and the cords and the language, and that
is about that in the transition post war like immediately,
like a small number of years immediately you were supposed
to the UN conceived of it that way, and you
can see they conceive it that way because of the
language of the UN Security Council resolution itself.

Speaker 2 (41:00):
There's going to be.

Speaker 3 (41:01):
A special a high commissioner that the UN Security Council
resolution itself named who that is going to be, and
they also created a body to help manage that because
it was only believed that this would be four year,
eight year, five year, seven year sort of thing. So

(41:23):
what happened is, well, it's gone on for since how
many decades is this now? Since ninety five, five, fifteen,
twenty Jesus thirty years?

Speaker 2 (41:32):
Wow? So the guy retired, you know what I mean,
probably you know dead now, you know, rest of soul. Like,
so the.

Speaker 3 (41:39):
Guy was like dead now and he retired, and they
used they violated the UN Security Council resolution and used
a body that was just to help govern the work
of that of that High Commissioner and use that to
select a new one although the language and this Security
Council resolution doesn't allow that. Right in other words, like

(42:03):
things that are that are that are that it's silent on,
you do not have the power to do it.

Speaker 2 (42:07):
This is not like you have the power to do
things that it's silent on. Right, So.

Speaker 3 (42:13):
This has resulted in the guy there now is Christian Schmidt,
and he was just basically picked by the German government.
And there's no there's no agreement with the U four forces,
there's no there's there's no agreement with the structure of
the Security Council resolution, which would include Russia and others. Right,

(42:34):
it's the whole UNSC. So this guy just basically has
the power to override any judge, any legislation, or any
president by writing a letter and saying what the law
shout be. And as Dodick recently said, you know, no
one in history, in recent history, in Europe's last two
hundred years, has ever had this power except for Adolf Hitler.

(42:58):
You just like one man, make a law, no judiciary,
no legislature, no voting, nothing, no review, no appeal.

Speaker 2 (43:07):
So this is right.

Speaker 3 (43:09):
And so they invented the story that Dodck did something wrong.
This is really about energy markets.

Speaker 2 (43:14):
Right.

Speaker 3 (43:15):
We understand that that that you have a pipeline from
Hungary that goes into Serbia and from Serbia into Republica Cerbska,
and that energy into Republica Cerbska. It's capitals Banya Luka,
So that's Dick Bonie Luca is the capital. So Banya
Luka and Dodick then funnel that in. That energy is

(43:37):
what powers the Muslim proat federation.

Speaker 2 (43:40):
Right. So, as you picked.

Speaker 3 (43:43):
Up and learned from the Russia Ukraine conflict, the side
that wants to actually sabotage it begins their attack by
accusing the other side of wanting to cut them off.
Like think about how the nord Stream too. Thing happened, right,
So they're doing a basically a political nord Stream to
right now by trying to remove Do Dick while accusing

(44:03):
him of threatening to cut them off. Like that's the
reason they want him out because he's threatening to cut
them off. That threat has never emerged. He's never articulated
that threat. That's not how this game works. Like the
more people that use Russian gas the better, right, this
is that this is why it was.

Speaker 2 (44:20):
Russia that didn't destroy nord Stream.

Speaker 3 (44:22):
This is why the Ukrainians that have been attacking Ukrainian
infrastructure and attacking the oil refinery and so or gas refinery.
So this is like, so this is the background. This
is the real reason they want do Dick out.

Speaker 2 (44:37):
Is that clear?

Speaker 3 (44:37):
Is that like is that cohesi or coherent enough or
that you think, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (44:42):
It's fascinating and and and it's more detail than I
was I was even hoping for. But that's good. It helps.
Like I mean I was literally like at the territorial
and ethnic level that I did that did I not
understand what was going on? But this But but you're
tying it back to the idea of Okay, so we
need to end our reliance on European energy because Putin

(45:04):
will threaten to cut us off when he's never done
a thing to ever want to do that, other than
make more pipelines into Europe in order to stitch everybody
together so that would preclude war. Right, And so they're
doing the same thing, and they're using the same playbook
that since people understand that playbook with North Stream two
and South Stream and everything else, this makes sense to
understand why they're doing what they're doing there in the Balkans.

(45:28):
And you know, it's it's funny. They they cannot allow
any of this. They cannot allow Hungary and Slovakia and
now even Poland. I mean, I don't know if you've realized,
but just how much these countries have basically said no

(45:51):
to NATO to an expansion of the NATO's more in Ukraine,
including now a split between the Polish price new president
and Donald Tusk, the prime minister. Right, So there's that angle.
I think the attacks from the Jeruzbe pipeline, which is
the one that's that provides oil from Russia to Slovakia

(46:15):
and Hungary has been bombed multiple times. The point of
all of this is to stop the Russian flow so
that you punish them for their you know, lack of
vision as it were, to invoke.

Speaker 3 (46:33):
Is Ukraine, that's not a NATO country that is engaged
in terrorist attacks on NATO countries, Like at this point
in time, yeah, Hungary can invoke Article five on Ukraine,
like if we want to talk about Article five and
you know what I mean.

Speaker 1 (46:47):
No, you're absolutely right, and they have they absolutely could
do that. And of course it's the Europeans are basically saying,
you know, these attacks on your energy infrastructure and the
cost of energy will end the minute you you know,
give us what we want. And they're like rorism, it's
absolutely terrorism. And and you know this is like.

Speaker 2 (47:07):
The quick pro po part makes it terrorism.

Speaker 1 (47:10):
Absolutely absolutely, I mean, and you know your point about
your point about you know, Ukraine attacking the Jerusalem pipeline
and then Zonskys smirking about, you know, publicly about how
Hungary needs to you know, fall online. Like dude, Like,
if I were Victor orbon I'd go to NATO. I'd
go to the go to the next NATO medium, Like

(47:31):
I'm invoking Article five against Ukraine. That's what I would do.
And if Trump were there with Marco Rukio and the
rest of them. You're like, yeah, sounds good.

Speaker 3 (47:40):
And the funny flip side of this, Tom is that
although this trans although this this UH pipeline transits through
through Ukraine to Hungary in the in the arena of
electricity production, Hungary produces electricity and then and then sells

(48:00):
it to Ukraine. And without Hungary's electricity, like the whole west,
like levav and the whole western part and Kiev too,
probably the whole western part of Ukraine would be a blackout.
I mean it would be I mean there's not even
the infrastructure. It's not even like oh, they'd have to
buy it from someone else. They would be six months

(48:20):
eighteen months away from people have electricity again if Hungary
cut them off. And yet they haven't done it, but
they've mentioned that they could, like if you want to
go crazy, and I'm looking at you know, there are
there are they had their they had their George Floyd
moment already in Hungary. You know, this is like connected
to the drama with the TCC guys who are the

(48:42):
mobilizers on the streets in Ukraine that people probably on
telegram have seen tons of you know, thousands, millions of
videos of guys being brutalized. You know, millions is an exaggeration,
but certainly you've seen tens of thousands of these cases
over the past two three years. I mean there's ten
of them almost every day, like fresh ones. There's channels
that just track them because all these Ukrainians just have

(49:04):
their little smartphones that under recording these things happening, and
citizens are jumping in trying to bite these guys. This
is like the you know, brown shirts or black shirts,
you know, forcing guys into the army. And there was
a report that went to the Radha in Ukraine that
of the reported cases of violence between the recruiters and

(49:24):
the people that were reported, So this is not as
big of a number as it might sound, but twenty
percent of those people died in the con like twenty
percent of the people they were trying to mobilize in
reported major conflicts died. So it's probably more like one
percent or five percent because you have unreported you have
sculps that are less serious or whatever, but of the

(49:46):
major altercations, you have a one in five fatality rate,
and those guys don't even get to the front like
they get killed by the TCC. So you've got broken necks,
broken arms, you've got and you're seeing reports of the
front line in Ukraine right now being reinforced. They're sending
in reinforcements, and it's actually the guys that are injured

(50:07):
from other parts of the front You've got reports of,
like we're sending in reinforcements and it's it's the guys
that should be sent back to hospitals and they're being
sent to be finished off at this other location.

Speaker 2 (50:18):
So you've got guys.

Speaker 3 (50:19):
That with you know, triage, their legs, splint whatever, you know,
tied up, and they're mobilizing mentally ill people, they're mobilizing,
you know, people that are slow, they're mobilized. And it's
it's heartbreaking to see as a human being, like some
poor retarded man who's.

Speaker 2 (50:37):
Got, you know, a mind of a five year old.

Speaker 3 (50:39):
He just wants to play with toys or something, and
they've got him in a fucking you know, helmet and
shit and he's you know, gonna die tomorrow.

Speaker 2 (50:46):
You know, this is so I.

Speaker 3 (50:48):
Don't want to get too personally, but you know, but
but obviously one cannot not be invested when you are
looking at this conflict every day like I am. And
the brutality of these the brutality of the recruiters of
the TCC is going to be like the undoing of
the whole regime. I mean, this is a huge piece
in Zolenski's undoing, in the key of regime. And so

(51:09):
they mobilize this guy who is Hungarian, and they killed
them in the mobilization. They killed them in the mobilization,
and that's been what the what the Hungarians have been,
you know, pushing on and so that's their George Floyd.

Speaker 2 (51:21):
They're using like this.

Speaker 3 (51:22):
This, this, this one guy symbolizes you know, this whole phenomenon.
And at the end of this, Ukraine might lose some
regions in the west to I.

Speaker 1 (51:33):
I I from the moment this thing started, I said,
Transistory is going back, not Transistory, Transcripathia is going back
to Hungary. Love Office going back to Poland. You know,
if if they play this out to the bitter end,
you know, the Russians will sweep all the way to Odessa.
And you know, and this is the part that this is,
this is why I'm like, they cannot let this go.

(51:58):
The and I mean they meaning Dabos. They can't let
this go because what they're really doing waking. And this
is the part I think everybody needs to wrap their
heads around. There are two I think there are two
competing forces at work here. There are the Davosian old
European colonialists, the City of London call it which you will,

(52:21):
I don't care. You have that faction that need that
knows that the whole system is about the collapse. They
need a war to cover the collapse. And they are
saying and they are under pressure realizing that the United States, Russia,
and China are out of this type of empire building
where they get to determine how empires rise and fall,

(52:41):
that they get a seat at the new high table
that's being set by Russia, China. In the United States,
they see that and they have turned into they have
moved into burn it to the fucking ground mode. Right.
They are now the joker. Some men just want to
watch the world burn because if I can't have it,
you're not going to have it either. This is what

(53:02):
you're seeing in England. This is what you're seeing in Ireland.
This is what you're seeing in France. This is what
you're seeing in Italy. This is what you're seeing all
over the It's why. That's why they're bombing churches, that's
why they're killing that's why they're activating kids on SSRIs
to kill Christians in Minneapolis. It's why they're doing all
of this, every bit of it. And we've covered all

(53:24):
of these areas. Now let's talk about the replay of
World War One that we're seeing in fucking Syria with
the Neo Ottoman lunatic urtigant. Because what I'm beginning to
see and I and I want you to either confirm
or tell me I'm crazy that what I say in
the brand scheme of things, since Turkey moved in, since

(53:45):
Turkey moved into Syria, for all intents and purposes, they've
moved into Damascus. And I saw a report I don't
remember where I saw it, might have saw it on
your telegram feedoms somewhere like that that the Russians gave
the order to Assad to just leave and let Turkey
have it as a trap. Because the other competing narrative is,

(54:09):
in order to stop World War III from actually happening,
you have to liquidate the armies that were built over
the last thirty years and the infrastructure built over the
last thirty or forty years to fight World War Three,
and the last major army left in the region is
the Turkish military. So you so you you sucker them

(54:30):
into an expansionist war that and police action that they
cannot maintain. That's the my thirty thousand foot level take
on it. And this morning we get the report that
India that the that the Turks have cut off basically
all relations with Israel over quote unquote over Gaza, and
you know, and the Israelis attacked you know, Damascus the

(54:52):
other night, so you know, the whole thing is being
ginned up. And I think that the Brits are on
both sides of the UH, on both sides of the
both sides of this in order to try and get
Trump to come in to save Israel's ass from the terms.
That's what I'm seeing. Tell me I'm.

Speaker 2 (55:09):
Crazy, I you know, I think, Okay, you're crazy, No,
but you're not. But you asked no, but no, I know.
It makes it makes more, it makes for more.

Speaker 3 (55:19):
Compelling, It makes some more compelling podcast. If we could
disagree on this, but I you know, what you're sharing
have been my own opinions as well.

Speaker 2 (55:29):
And it's clearly you have.

Speaker 3 (55:33):
Look, the Russians and the Iranians there in Syria going back,
you know to before the fall of Damascus, did have
the wherewithal to put up a fight, and you would
still have fighting just north of Damascus to this very
day right now if the Russians and Iranians went.

Speaker 2 (55:52):
That direction with it and but at what cost?

Speaker 3 (55:56):
And that was really the gambit, that was really the
thought that the Kirks and their backers and others had,
that that the Russians would be compelled to do that,
and instead they became victims of their own success.

Speaker 2 (56:09):
That the Turks, like, in other words.

Speaker 3 (56:11):
By not putting up the fight, then you had They're
now right up against Israel, right and now you see
Jiulani al Sharab whatever he's going to go by tomorrow. Uh,
you know, he's totally in over his head. He was
not prepared for this. It was it was, this was
never supposed to happen, and he you know, walked into this.
Now he's like in the palace in Damascus and he's

(56:34):
you know.

Speaker 2 (56:34):
He's getting he's getting fucked up by Israel.

Speaker 3 (56:37):
And and that was supposed to be a very This
was supposed to be more of an Afghanistan type of
thing for Russia. There to be squeezed between these conflicting forces.

Speaker 2 (56:48):
And you know, Russia has.

Speaker 3 (56:51):
You know, not very good relations with Israel these days,
but their general posture is to have normal relations with Israel.
And although they're not very good these days, and Israel's
been very involved in Ukraine on the wrong side and
a few other arenas as well, like Russia isn't an
anti Israel state as a state, you see, and and

(57:13):
they but for yeah, the Turks, you see, they they
have the largest army in NATO. And so much of
what you've seen between NATO and Russia and Ukraine has
been about demilitarizing.

Speaker 2 (57:29):
It's about powering down so much of.

Speaker 3 (57:31):
This, I mean a lot of the the Israel Iran
twelve day war depowered Israel considerably. And they had been
building building up force potential for decades and you know
how much force potential did Israel expend on in twelve
days on Iran, like pretty considerable on the whole. And

(57:52):
they've got billions and billions of damage and Tel Aviv
it no one's even talking in the news about you know,
the craters and Tel Aviv and the destruction of the
of the of the Diamond Exchange offices and the Stock
Exchange and and the Ministry of Defense offices and the
and the Shinbette headquarters and any number of things, and

(58:13):
their underground bases. Uh Iran wasn't missing and hitting parking lots.
Those were you know, underground bases that also have just billions,
hundreds of millions and billions of damage.

Speaker 2 (58:24):
Where's that going to come from?

Speaker 3 (58:26):
And uh and there's it's they're not even having a
conversation about rect within Israel. It's like the hostages and
Gaza and and Yemen are serving as a weapon of
mass distraction from a from a from an internal conversation
about rebuilding. You know, billions of damage in Israel that
that Iran inflicted in twelve days. So it's you and

(58:50):
then you look at the model of like we said,
with Ukraine and depowering, demilitarizing, and yet all of this
has left Turkey, you know, and they've been he's been.
Aradwan has been quite the Machiavelian, I guess is the

(59:10):
word Machiavelian. And he's the one that has you know,
profited the most and lost the least so far, and
you know, middling in between. And he knew exactly what
he was doing in terms of being the better option
for Russia compared to you know, anyone else the you know,

(59:31):
that's why the that's why Putin kept him from getting
cooted out. That's why the Russians didn't go for the
provocation with the over the Sky's Assyria when the Turks,
when the Turkish air force shot down the Russian Air force,
right and you know, these are these are things that
clearly the Russians were like, this is the devil that we.

Speaker 2 (59:51):
Know better than the devil that we don't know.

Speaker 3 (59:54):
And and so Airdwan has very skillfully played this this
balancing act in this tension. But we saw just last
night that the Russians decided to destroy the Turkish drone
production concerns inside of Ukraine. So I think that's a

(01:00:15):
pretty definitive thing, you know.

Speaker 2 (01:00:17):
And of course you have.

Speaker 3 (01:00:18):
This corridor and Armenia, and you have the Azerbaijan and
Iran drama. And what's going on is are the reformers
in Iran trying to pivot again in some direction westward
and appease, you know, not recognize that Azerbaijan in fact,
probably was helping Israel in the conflict against Iran so

(01:00:42):
that they can avoid that, avoid confronting that, and avoid
the snap back sanctions that would be inevitable if Iran
were to be more transparent about what really happened with
Azerbaijan and to you know, have a politics that flowed
from that, then would have And of course the Azerbaijan

(01:01:03):
Israel relationship. I mean, if you were to look at
the Azerbaijani military, it looks like Turkey and Israel had
a baby, and in a sense, Azerbaijan is like the
love child of Turky and Israel at this point.

Speaker 1 (01:01:18):
Yeah, So.

Speaker 3 (01:01:21):
That's basically my read on things. So I think we're
I think we're looking at a lot of the same angles.

Speaker 1 (01:01:27):
Okay, the I did to add to that a little bit.
The uh, the color I want to put into this
is the the is Trump getting Azerbaijan and Armenia together
and in fact the United States taking control of that
corridor as opposed to the British having or and or
the Europeans having control of that energy quarter. Or if
I want you to think of it. I want you
to think of it in those terms. It's almost like

(01:01:48):
if if Trump and Putin are working together to try
and stabilize the entire region. Better the better this devil
UH in control of that corridor than the one that
is in cahoots with supplying energy to Europe. Like look,
I can make a cynical argument that Donald Trump wants
to control of that quarridor simply because he wants to control

(01:02:09):
the energy flowing from the Caspian back into UH into
the Europeans. Now, remember that corridor and the and the
Caspian pipeline that goes through there actually goes to Italy.
And remember and remember also that everything that's going on
in Libya and every and all of North Africa has

(01:02:30):
been done and North Stream too was done. Was built
by the Germans. They wanted it so that they could,
you know, cleave off Italy's ability to get gas from
North Africa and then force gas flows through Germany and
France into Italy and then have them bound down politically

(01:02:50):
through gas.

Speaker 3 (01:02:51):
Well that's right, yeah, because the Turk Stream goes the
Turk Stream goes to the Balkans, and the Turk Stream
was the compromise after the EU passed the third energy
that's destroyed the capacity of Blue Stream. So then it's
so the Russian stream connects with the Turk stream and
then goes through the Balkans and then forms the Transagiatic
pipeline into Italy, is what you're talking.

Speaker 1 (01:03:11):
And then there's also the Southern Gas Corridor that goes
from the Castle and the feats into the whole system
as well. Yes, and that and that gas that ten
that ten billion cubic meters a year goes directly to Italy.
So if you've got so the understand that the EU
has always wanted to control, to control the energy flow
into Europe in such a way that their power center

(01:03:32):
in Brussels has you know, ultimately, you know, the ultimate
lever over all of the member states, so that you
can't you can enforce unanimity and uh, you know, against
their will. And that's we're ready to. We just discussed
it with Hungary and Slovakia, we discussed it with Serbia
and quote unquote Bosnia Herzegovina. Now we're talking about it
with you know, with Italy. It's it's all the Italy, Turkey,

(01:03:56):
it's all the same thing. And note also that was
about two or three weeks ago Erdigan came out and
said it's a time now beyond time for the Turkey
to join the European Union. Did you not see that right?

Speaker 2 (01:04:13):
Right?

Speaker 3 (01:04:14):
I mean, you know you figure with the with the
Armenia Corridor and Azerbaijan and the US role in that. See,
there had been some weird things going on for a
number of years where Pashinian had been you know, the
optics look pretty anti Russian, but there were some things

(01:04:35):
that were going on more granularly that looked like he
was getting kind of pushed, you know, that he was
a little bit more malleable and and clearly with what
you're seeing is you know, Aliev and Erdowan do not respect, uh,
do not respect Pashinian because they understand that he is

(01:04:58):
you know, they they like what he's do in the
sense of it like works for them, but nobody respects
a traitor to their own people. You know, It's like
they understand that his project is anti Armenian and he's
attacking the Armenian Church and all these things. He's undoing
Armenian identity from the inside. And you know what project, like,
who is he working for Well, that's very interesting. But

(01:05:21):
then you look at this corridor and handing it over
to the Americans, and what does that really mean.

Speaker 2 (01:05:28):
Like, let's think about the.

Speaker 3 (01:05:30):
Rare earth elements in Ukraine and what it would mean
for the US to acquire those in the context of
actually having a decent relationship with Russia and looking at
what a post conflict Ukraine would look like. So for example,
the the Moneies that the that the City of London

(01:05:50):
and their European cohorts had put into Ukraine like that,
it doesn't work if they lose the war, right, But
if the US gets those, it works whether they win
or lose, you see, like they have it with the
Russians too. So why wouldn't why wouldn't the US acquire
this corridor? And why how how could it? How could

(01:06:11):
it wind up that the Russians benefit from this or
wind up wind up if there was a change of
government in Armenia that worked out better for Russia, then
the Americans could also hand this corridor to the Russians.
And you kind of kind of get back to where
you were, you know, ten years ago or fifteen years
ago with this.

Speaker 1 (01:06:31):
I agree, because you're it's It's very clear, and I've
said it from the beginning that Pashinion is absolutely a
source coll revolution. Yeah, and somehow this guy has been
able to stay in power even though you know he
should have been removed ages ago when and he's somehow
been able to survive like a cockroach. And so this,

(01:06:53):
all of these things that have happened recently have put
pressure on him again. Maybe this will be the time
we finally get rid of him, because I mean, what
the Russians really want is they want British influence ultimately
out of all of the quote unquote stands. They want
them out of Kazakhstan, they wanted out of out of Azerbaijan,
out of Armenia, they wanted to it was beca all
of it. They want the the They have to end

(01:07:15):
the strategy of of destabilizing Russia's southern border like Russia's underbelly.
And that's been their strategy going back before mckinder like
why why were the British in Afghanistan and eighteen in
the eighteen sixties, right like it's so you know when
the easy read this morning is oh, look, Ert again

(01:07:38):
is joining the side of the righteous by isolating the
evil Israel over there, over their you know, genociding the
Palestinian right. No, what this is really about is you know,
the British liquidating both of their assets in order to
try to get Trump to come in to save Israel
from the big bad Turks. And everybody gets it wrong

(01:08:01):
because everybody wants to juice Burg. Nope, you know, And
I'm so fucking over it, man, I really am.

Speaker 3 (01:08:09):
Yeah, people are not seeing people are not seeing that.
This is like aradon Wan has played this game so
many times. This happened during after the Second Intifada, this happened.
Turkey has been playing this game of acting like they
care about the Palestinians or that they're going to do
something about it. And and there there are you know,
because people are human beings and a lot of voters

(01:08:29):
in Turkey are decent people that care about Turkey and
also care about the region, and they don't want to
see Palestinians hurt, and so air to One plays at
that constituency. But but it's it's totally cynical, it's totally
it never materializes, and it should it won't materialize, and
yet it's being used as a boogeyman and this is
you know, I mean, if you want to get into

(01:08:50):
the history of how many times the British have played
both sides against the middle or whatever, this is like
in fact, in fact, you would have to find a
conflict in which they did not support both sides.

Speaker 2 (01:09:01):
You see what I'm saying, Like those are.

Speaker 1 (01:09:02):
Yeah, the last years it was like that. That's very
obvious and the most the most salient one to this
current conflict is the build up to World War One
and BRIDGERD. Poe's work talking about how you know, the
British the goal of World War One was to break
up both the Russian Empire and the Ottoman Empire, and
it was largely successful.

Speaker 3 (01:09:23):
Right right, I mean you had this was the game
that the British played, uh, you know, playing foot set
with Hitler, and I mean, you know, you had throughout
the twenties, the British head policy was, you know, very
similar to their policy leading up to World War One
with the Russians and the Germans, and they did the

(01:09:45):
you know, they they signed in nineteen twenty seven the
Anglo Soviet Trade Agreement while also pursuing very robust relations
with Wimar Germany. And then after you know what, thirty
two or so, they had very good relations with Hitler's
Germany and they continued this course for so long that

(01:10:07):
you know, many in the German Nazi establishment, as you know,
folks know this is something everyone knows. You know, we're
convinced that the English would be along with the Germans
and obviously didn't shape up that way. And obviously people
understand that the goal from the British perspective was to
have the Germans and the Soviets wear each other out
and to and to.

Speaker 2 (01:10:28):
You know, very similar to Iran Iraq.

Speaker 3 (01:10:30):
I mean, this was the Iran Iraq War, you know,
on a larger scale in World War two right in
the eighties.

Speaker 2 (01:10:36):
The British were, you know, and the Americans were.

Speaker 3 (01:10:40):
Providing support and intelligence and weapons to either or both sides.
And how many millions of Iranians and Iraqis died in
that war, like millions of soldiers. At a certain point,
the Iranians had to to recruit from teenagers.

Speaker 2 (01:10:57):
So this was this is.

Speaker 3 (01:10:59):
A again, Tom like like we're saying, you have to
show me the times that the British didn't do this
thing that we're saying that they're doing with with Israel
and Turkey.

Speaker 1 (01:11:09):
Yeah, now I agree, and it's so so very obvious.
I think that I think we I think we covered
most of the things that I I wanted to get
done this morning, and and uh yeah, and I want
to respect both my time, your time, and the listener's
time at a certain point. There's a lot to digest
in this podcast, a lot of moving a lot of
moving parts in this and I really appreciate you coming in,

(01:11:31):
jumping in doing the thing.

Speaker 2 (01:11:32):
Man.

Speaker 1 (01:11:33):
It's as always, you know, it's a it was a
it was a pleasure and an honor. So with that said,
let everybody know where you, you know, hang out these days.
You know, I like to call you the most, you know,
I like to call you the most canceled man in geopolitics.
That's still that's still uh, that's still set in the
friggin's like, guys, it's pretty fucking amazing actually.

Speaker 3 (01:11:54):
So yeah, it's a behind the scenes but you can
find me at New Resistance on Telegram, Patreon, Joaquin F
on Patreon. Just my name j O a q U
I n F for flotus and uh, you know I'm
doing I'm doing a live stream, much less structured and
planful or professional than yours. Tom, I have to say,

(01:12:17):
but I just kind of speak from the cup and
whatever's on my mind and you know, and then my
little kid running the room or something, and then I
have to deal with that.

Speaker 1 (01:12:27):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:12:27):
Yeah, So that's so, that's it, man.

Speaker 3 (01:12:30):
I appreciate you know, being on with you and being
able to dig into these It was like three, what
like three four very big subjects we did, so.

Speaker 1 (01:12:38):
Yeah, and I appreciate you you doing Sochus, And I
appreciate you you you sticking through all of it, man,
I really do, because at this point, at this moment
in time, trenchant and just passionate analysis of what's happening
is what we need as more than anything else, because

(01:12:58):
you know, the the um, the amount of chum that
are in that's in the waters out there in the
fifth generational mal miss and disinformation space that's only getting
worse with AI. You know, the only way we continue
to cut through all of that is to just have conversations,
whether we agree or we disagree. So with that said that,
I'MTFL seventeen twenty eight over on Twitter. You can follow

(01:13:21):
me a Patreon slash gold Goats and Guns to sign
up for the newsletter and all of that. And with
that said, we're out. So you guys be well. You
take care of o'clock soon. Keep your stick on the ice.