The Darrell McClain show
Independent media that won't reinforce tribalism. We have one Planet; nobody's leaving so let’s reason together!! Darrell McClain is a Military veteran with an abnormal interest in politics, economics, religion, philosophy, science, and literature. He's the author of Faith and the Ballot: A Christian's Guide to Voting, Unity, and Witness in Divided Times. He was born and raised in Jacksonville FL, and went to Edward H white High School,l where he wrestled under Coach Jermy Smith and The Late Brian Gilbert. He was a team wrestling captain, District champion, and an NHSCA All-American in freestyle Wrestling. He received a wrestling scholarship from Waldorf University in Forest City, Iowa. After a short period, he decided he no longer wanted to cut weight, effectively ending his college wrestling journey. Darrell McClain is an Ordained Pastor under the Universal Life Church and is still in good standing. He's a Believer in The Doctrines of Grace, Also Known as Calvinism. He joined the United States Navy in 2008 and was A Master at Arms (military police officer) He was awarded several awards while on active duty, including an expeditionary combat medal, a Global War on Terror medal, a National Defense Medal, a Korean Defense Medal, and multiple Navy achievement medals. While In the Navy, he was also the assistant wrestling coach at Robert E Lee High School. He's a Black Belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu under 6th-degree black belt Gustavo Machado, Darrell Trains At Gustavo Machado Norfolk under the 4th-degree black belt, and Former Marine Professor Mark Sausser. He went to school for psychology at American Military University and for criminal justice at ECPI University.
The Darrell McClain show
Nuclear Claims and Regime Change: The Same Song on Repeat
Welcome to the Darrell McLean Show. I'm your host, Darrell McLean. Independent media that won't reinforce tribalism. We have one planet. Nobody is leaving, so let us reason together. We have to come here on this particular episode to discuss a very serious topic, which is the Drumbeat of war Not what we want to talk about on this day, but nonetheless we have to do it and we have to start with what is going on with the Israel and Iranian conflict. Let's get into the episode.
Speaker 2:I don't know the population, you don get into the government. Why is it relevant whether it's 90 million or 80 million or 100 million?
Speaker 3:Well, because if you don't know anything about the country, I didn't say I don't know anything about the country?
Speaker 2:Okay, what's the ethnic mix of Iran?
Speaker 3:They are Persians and predominantly Shia.
Speaker 2:Okay, this is huge. No, you don't know anything about Iran.
Speaker 3:Okay, I am not the Tucker Carlson expert on Iran.
Speaker 2:You're a senator who's calling for the overthrow of the government. You don't know anything about the country.
Speaker 3:No, you don't know anything about the country. You're the one who claims they're not trying to murder Donald Trump. No, I'm not saying that.
Speaker 2:You're the one who can't figure out if it was a good idea to kill General Soleimani and you said it was bad. You don't believe they're trying to murder Trump? Yes, Because you're not calling for military strikes against them in retaliation. If you really believe that. We are carrying out military strikes today.
Speaker 3:You said Israel was Right, with our help. I said we, israel is leading them, but we're supporting them.
Speaker 2:Well, you're breaking news here, because the US government last night denied the National Security Council spokesman Alex Pfeiffer denied on behalf of Trump that we were acting on Israel's behalf in any offensive capacity.
Speaker 3:We're not bombing them.
Speaker 2:Israel's bombing them. You just said we were, we are supporting.
Speaker 3:Israel. This is high stakes here.
Speaker 2:Senator, if you're saying the United States government is at war with Iran right now, people are listening.
Speaker 1:Think about how ridiculous and immature that sounded from the perspective of you don't know anything about the country. Oh, you don't know anything about the country. Oh, you don't know anything about the country, as you sat there and weren't able to answer the basic questions. You should know about a place if you're trying to, I guess, drone up support to kill people. By the way, the voices you heard there was from the former Fox News TV host, tucker Carlson, and the sitting United States Senator from Texas, juan Ted Cruz, talking about Iran, because the nation of Israel has started a bombing campaign against Iran's what they would say nuclear programs and Iran has responded and has been bombing the state of Israel. And, of course, israel has that famous iron dome. So, for the most part, israel has been somewhat protected. But this is basically what I could say, which was a Cold War, a lot of proxy fights going on there. That has turned into a hot war, as now they are trading missiles into each other's country. And how did we get here In this immediate conflict? We have to remember there was a deal on the table. The United States made a deal, the Iranians were keeping the deal and a new administration came in, did not like the deal and tanked the deal, ripped it to pieces. So Iran started to do everything they could to, I guess we would say, enrich uranium. They said it was not for nuclear purposes. Israel said it was. What makes this even more complicated is that the head right now the United States Intel Agency Head right now the United States Intel Agency, tulsi Gabbard that came out and said there was no evidence that Iran was doing anything inappropriate Basically pretty much saying Israel was lying and she's the head of our Intel community. But yet and still, here we are.
Speaker 1:Tulsi Gabbard, of course, is the US Director of National Intelligence and she delivered a concise verdict during a congressional testimony just in March. The intelligence community continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and the Supreme Leader has not authorized a nuclear weapons program that he suspended back in 2003. But a scoop that came out was that President Trump had a lengthy Camp David strategy session with the top team on Iran and Gaza. In Gaza, despite being the director of national intelligence, the Trump team is icing out Tulsi Gabbard. Now I say that again, despite being the director of national intelligence, she was excluded from last week's high level war talks at Camp David. Why? Because of her professional obligation is to speak truth, that Iran isn't building a nuclear weapon and there's no legal basis for the war Statement. We can report via the US officials that the DNI, tulsi Gabbard, was not invited to last week's Camp David retreat, where the President of the United States convened senior national security officials to discuss the Middle East. As Director of National Intelligence, tulsi is obligated to back every assessment with evidence and Gabbard has a reputation of always bringing receipts. She made it clear that there is no credible intel that Iran is building a nuclear weapon. Trump did not want that. On the record, tulsi holds the rank of Lieutenant Colonel in the United States Army Reserve. She joined the Army National Guard in 2003, deployed to Iraq in 2004, to Kuwait in 2008, and was appointed to major in 2015 while serving in Congress.
Speaker 1:And this is what always frustrates me and people like me is that a lot of times, people who foam at the mouth about these wars are the people who never been like Ted Cruz, who never even served like Ted Cruz, and this type of foolishness is what always happens a lot of times in countries like ours. People gin up these wars based on ideological worldviews and they have no penalty because they are not going to fight it themselves. Their families will not be fighting the wars. So it's very easy for them to spew propaganda a few years later, be seen wrong. Sit at the table again like respected members of society, when they have caused the deaths of thousands, caused the deaths of thousands, caused the death of thousands.
Speaker 5:It needs to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and Supreme Leader Khamenei has not authorized the nuclear weapons program that he suspended in 2003. The IC continues to monitor closely if Tehran decides to reauthorize its nuclear weapons program.
Speaker 1:Insane voices in this conversation. Somebody who's regularly makes sense on issues like this is the Republican Congressman, thomas Massey from Kentucky. Thomas Massey is actually introducing a bill to prohibit Americans' involvement in Israel's war. Thomas Massey wrote on the platform formerly known as Twitter, now known as X this is not our war, but if it were, congress must decide such matters according to our Constitution. I am introducing a bipartisan war powers resolution tomorrow to prohibit our involvement. I invite all members of Congress to co-sponsor this resolution. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who said she will be signing on to the bill and is in support with Massey of not allowing this war to happen without congressional approval. So there you have Senator Cruz on one end of this and you have now Thomas Massey on the other side. And we have to point to the fact which I'll go through a bit later that Israel has kind of been saying that Iran is going to have nukes since way back in the early 2000s Way back in the early 2000s.
Speaker 6:Nukes got invaded. Saddam Hussein gave up nukes, got invaded and executed. Gaddafi gave up chemical weapons, got invaded, raped and killed Again. If you're the Iranians, are you not looking at this? Thinking this means we need nukes? I would rather not give them an incentive to go get nuclear weapons. I'm anti-nuclear weapons for anyone, so I don't want Iran to have nukes. But the best way for Iran not to have nukes is not to attack them. That makes countries want to have nukes more. It's just rational to go oh, the countries who have nukes, like North Korea. They don't get invaded, so why give them an incentive to get more nukes? Why not actually have a weapons of mass destruction free region? You know which country does have nukes in the Middle East Israel, in violation of UN Security Council resolutions. You know which country doesn't allow IAA inspectors into the country Israel. You know which country hasn't signed the NPT, unlike Iran, Israel. We should talk about Israel's nuclear weapons, which actually incentivize others in the regions not just Israel, Turkey, Saudi Arabia to think about nuclear weapons of their own. I'd rather not have more nukes in the Middle East with anyone.
Speaker 6:You and I oppose Russia's invasion of Ukraine. We agree on that right. Putin claimed that Ukraine would one day attack Russia with NATO support. That's why I'm doing it. That was a argument. You and I rejected Putin's argument in Ukraine. You and I have rejected the Israeli argument now in Gaza. You don't believe what they're saying about Gaza. I don't know why you're believing them on this. When you were rightly calling out the from the uk and the us in 2003 over iraq, saddam hussein was not an imminent threat and iran was not an imminent threat and israel attacked them illegally last week while there were nuclear negotiations going on. One last point if israel cared about stopping a nuclear weapon, you would go back into a nuclear deal that prevents iran from a weapon. And guess who they killed on Thursday night? Not just generals Piers, they killed Ali Shamkhani, the lead nuclear negotiator, who was supposed to be in Oman yesterday with the Americans.
Speaker 1:The last voices you heard were from on the show Piers Morgan, uncensored. That was Mehdi Hassan discussing the topic with Piers Morgan. This is something that we have, look, we've been having to talk about this for a very long time. There has been several voices saying Israel wants this war, whether it was John Mersheimer, the American political scientist, saying this. Whether it was Jeffrey Sachs, the very famous Jewish American political analyst. Whether it was Douglas McGregor, who was an American colonel. Even Marjorie Taylor Greene came out against it.
Speaker 1:Tucker Carlson has been speaking out against it. Steve Bannon has been speaking out against it. Congressman Ro Khanna has been speaking out against this. Uh, you know, congressman rokhana, uh, has been speaking out against this. Uh, owen schirmer, uh, another vocal american commentator, dave smith, a jewish american commentator. I'm. We've seen this type of stuff before, uh, and so we have voices now trying to come out, and they've they've been vocal before now trying to come out, and they've been vocal before, but trying to say this is madness, this is madness, and so we're going to hear some of that right now. Fight each other.
Speaker 7:Neither Iran or the United States want to fight each other. It's the Israelis who have been trying to pull the Iranians and the Americans into a fight. Netanyahu's greatest dream in life is a war between the United States and Iran. Netanyahu will drag him into the abyss. He wants this war in the Middle East, come hell or high water, and it's not in their interest. What war? The war with Iran.
Speaker 4:We don't want to go to war against Iran. I don't think we should be fighting wars on behalf of Israel.
Speaker 3:Make it clear to Netanyahu that he should not be dragging America into war with Iran.
Speaker 2:You go fight Iran. We are American people.
Speaker 7:It's not our problem If they start talking to you about fighting a war with Iran. You treat them like an enemy that they are.
Speaker 9:We should not go to war in Iran on behalf of Israel.
Speaker 2:Against the war with Iran. It's not in America's interest and many Americans will die and billions will be spent on a war we don't need to fight. Everybody wants peace except Israel.
Speaker 9:It will not be because Tehran actually threatens America. It will be because Israel and its powerful lobby in the US have succeeded in creating an essentially false Casa's belly to mandate such action. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who once commented that 9-11 was good for Israel, has repeatedly sought to commit our government to draw red lines that would narrow options for the White House and de facto require it to take action with the military against Iran. I also would not doubt that Israel, accustomed to behaving with impunity towards its alleged friend and patron in Washington, might manufacture a pretext to draw the US into a new conflict, something reminiscent of the Levant Affair in Alexandria, egypt, in 1954, or the false flying attack on the USS Liberty in 1967.
Speaker 1:The last voice you heard was the former CIA officer, Philip Giraldi. Of course, I'm beating a certain drum here and I'm going to let you listen to everything that's been said. Think about it. But here's the problem about this Iranian threat, etc. And there's a montage and I did put this on the Darrell McLean Instagram page, but it's just a small montage of how long we hit that the Israelis have been saying this about Iran and trying to get the United States into these conflicts, and it's been a very long time, unfortunately.
Speaker 10:Twelve months to enrich enough nuclear material for a single nuclear weapon. This is 2023.
Speaker 2:Secretary of State, antony Blinken, is warning that Iran is potentially just months away or less from nuclear break 2021. Iran is two months away from a nuclear weapon and it's a victory to get them one year 2015.
Speaker 1:Take Iran about sorry, let's do this again. Rich enough uh nuclear material this is 2023 again.
Speaker 2:United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken is warning that Iran is potentially just months away or less from nuclear breakpoint. Iran is two months away from a nuclear weapon 2015 2021.
Speaker 11:2015. 2013.
Speaker 6:2012.
Speaker 11:2001., the year I entered high school. The terrorist states of Iran and Iraq acquire nuclear weapons and this, I think, has been a wake-up call from hell. It is telling us you have the power now to act.
Speaker 1:So just so I can be clear again from 2001, all the way till 2025, Benjamin Netanyahu has been saying the same thing. Iran is months away from getting a weapon. Why we keep taking Benjamin Netanyahu and Israeli intelligence seriously is because we are wanting to be fools. Fools they are lying to us.
Speaker 7:As an American Jew, I have no sympathy for Israel's policies at all. I find them abhorrent. I find them disgusting because they have prevented peace. In 2001, the so-called neocons, who are also the so-called Zionist part of the US government, produced a document that called for seven wars in the Middle East on Israel's behalf, and those seven wars were to take out Israel's enemies. And those seven wars were Lebanon, syria, iraq, somalia, libya, sudan and Iran, and there have been six of those wars fought so that's historian, political analyst, jewish commentator, jeffrey Sachs.
Speaker 1:And, of course, when we talk about the history of this, it's not at all complicated, even though it is history. So that's a long ago. We remember way back, at least, when I got knowledge of this, just to give you my political understanding of how I started to think about this issue, of how I started to think about this issue. This was way back when Ron Paul was running for president and he on stage talked about Iran and how there was this obsession with bombing and going to war with Tehran, and he brought up a particular history that we didn't start to have a problem with Iran until the United States overthrew the Shah and basically we overthrew their leaders. We installed the Shah as the leader is actually what I meant to say and, um, it has been a downward trajectory in our relationship with Iran ever since then. This history does has been a very, very long one. The United States and Iran were basically allied, partnered countries until that event happened, and it is fascinating to me in a sad way, a sad sort of fascination, that the United States regularly creates problems that it then years later has to go and deal with, and it happens over and over again, even if you were to look at the current administration. A previous administration, which was the Obama administration, put a deal in place to try to stop Iran's nuclear program. Iran was keeping up with the inspections, doing everything the agreement said. A new administration, which was the first Trump administration comes in and tears the deal apart. And now here we are with Trump telling Iran to make a deal. Why the hell would they want to make a deal with the United States when they were keeping the first deal with the United States and the United States tears it up?
Speaker 1:We are not a trustworthy negotiating partner at the table because our foreign policy is not consistent. They elect a democratically elected leader. We don't like them. We have the CIA murder them. We install a dictator who brutally rules the country with an iron fist. The country rebels and then we say, oh, look at them, just a bunch of religious fanatics. How many wars are we going to be fighting in the Middle East, where we keep playing this regime change game? How many forever wars do we need? How many Afghanistans? How many Iraqs? How many Kuwaits? How much in Libya? How much in Egypt? How much? And there are so many conflicts going on, bombs flying from country to country, and not all of them are. The United States is fault, but a lot of them are because of our murderous, meddlesome policies in these countries. The isolationist wing of the Republican Party, this is your time to stand up and say not in our name, not again, no more of this.
Speaker 7:It was a democratic country in 1953. Not again. No more of this. A very weird idea, because the British knew it belonged to the British. The Americans expected that it belonged to the Americans in the new age, and so CIA and MI6 overthrew the Iranian democracy. Then we installed a police state known as the Shah of Iran, iran and Sabak, it's supposed intelligence and enforcement authority from 1953 to 1978. When the Shah was dying of a figure in Iran, jimmy Carter was talked into taking him into America, into the United.
Speaker 1:States, I mean. So what do we do with this? Now? We know the history, A lot of us have known the history for a very long time, and so, for what it's worth, the US Congress has had 22 House progressives who introduced new legislation to impose restrictions on the United States for basically sending aid to Israel to help with this type of stuff. It was led by Ramirez, and members co-sponsoring were, like Ramirez, jayapal, popekhan, balint, carson, cesar Doga, escobar, frost, garcia, jackson Johnson, lee Ocasio-Cortez, omar Presley, szyzynski, simon Talib, vasquez and Watson-Solman.
Speaker 1:So, look, you have a small remnant of people saying this is insanity. This is insanity, and I remember the propaganda. I remember the propaganda when the Iraq War was going on, and I don't know if we're going to be able to stop us being involved in this war, but the little voice that I do have, I will highlight the voices and try my best to say this is not a fight that we should be having. It is not even a fight that israel should be having, but it is a fight that the israel has wanted that they did, especially, especially the, especially the Likud party. They have been foaming at the mouth, uh, to try to have this fight with Iran.
Speaker 1:They see enemies everywhere and you you have to ask the question of who uh uh, um, how does this stuff in? What is the Israelis actual in game here? What is their game in Gaza? And it just seems like uh did a denomination, and and and uh, taking everything in the name of um uh, peace, I suppose we'll kill you all. Uh uh for peace. Peace, I suppose We'll kill you all for peace. The late Gore Vidal wrote a book once about Iraq and it was actually titled Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace, and I think that's the state that we have sadly walked right into over and over and over again.
Speaker 8:There's no part of the Constitution that's more important than the Article One provisions making plain that the United States should not be at war without a vote of Congress.
Speaker 8:And yet the news of the day suggests that we are potentially on the verge of a war with Iran.
Speaker 8:When I was elected to the Senate in 2012, having served as a governor from 2006 to 2010 during a tremendous upsurge in the two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, I visited our troops multiple times in the Green Zone in Baghdad and in Afghanistan.
Speaker 8:I went to the deployments and the homecomings, I went to the wakes and the funerals and I told myself when I came to the Senate that if I ever had the chance to stop this nation from getting into an unnecessary war, I would do everything I could to stop us from getting into an unnecessary war. I happen to believe that the United States engaging in a war against Iran a third war in the Middle East since 2001, would be a catastrophic blunder for this country. I think there are some in this body who have a different point of view than me on that point, but I think we should all be able to agree that the fundamental constitutional principle that says we shouldn't be in a war if Congress doesn't have the guts to debate it and vote on it, we should all, having taken an oath to the Constitution, at least support the principle that war is something that should be for Congress to declare.
Speaker 1:That was the Virginia representative, tim Kaine, former governor. You heard his profile and we've heard these type of arguments before about going to war. I was talking to one of the show listeners this morning who's still active duty in the Marines. His name is Nick and he was basically saying he agrees in principle about not going into these regions, but he's still said that the chance that a regime change with one of the stated threats in the NDS may be too good of an opportunity to pass up. And I stress to him you have to go back and look at the history of the United States involvement in this crisis since 1953. We are the ones who started this mess with Iran, the United States and Britain. And, yes, started this mess with Iran, the United States and Britain. And yes, just as you heard Jeffrey Sachs say, it was over who owned the oil. And this nonstop involvement with us and these entanglements in the Middle East is nothing more than American imperial thought processes that we somehow know more than the people living in those areas. This mind game we play over and over again that it didn't work in 1953, let's try it in 1992. It didn't work, then let's try it in 96. It didn't work, then let's try it in 2001. Let's try it in 2003. Let's try it in Iraq, let's try it in Afghanistan, let's try it in Kuwait, let's try it in Lebanon. Over and over and over and over. It does not work.
Speaker 1:The entire foundation of the United States of America was what was taxation without representation. It didn't work and we rebelled over our taxes being raised a bit. And when you go look at the history, it was to pay the British back for a war that George Washington had started before he was president, and the British came in and helped us in the war. He was president and the british came in and helped us in the war and the tax was actually to pay to get the money back that they had used to help us win the seven years of war that george washington had started. And when you look at the economics, especially if you look at it from a british historian perspective even newt gingrich admits this now you know the American historian who became the Speaker of the House America would have saved more money in the long run. But Americans said, oh, we're being taxed. And they went to war, rebelled against their founding, their founders. You know the colony. You know. And here, we sit yeah.
Speaker 1:So if we didn't allow it to happen when it was reasonable and that was our own country at the time, even though we're a colony why would we think that it's going to work anywhere else? Time it actually has worked is when we bomb them to smithereens and take over the country and we declare it as part of the united states, as an official state. And the last time that happened was hawaii. And yes, we did it because we say so. The democratically uh went in there, took over everything, toppled the leaders. Now we have Hawaii. Nobody thinks about it, it's a vacation place, et cetera, et cetera. Colonialism 101.
Speaker 1:But that is very different than the United States toppling a government because it won't give it its resources, propping up a puppet government and then, years later, complaining that we don't like the leadership there and trying to topple the government again in the hopes that what we're going to bring in Jeffersonian democracy, our Madisonian democracy, our Adamsonian democracy, our Washingtonian democracy it is not going to happen. We are not the kings and the police of the world. It doesn't work. In my lifetime I have seen this. It does not work. It is not going to work. Work, it is not going to work. I said in the conversation. We allow it here. We allow it here. It's bad foreign policy. It is nothing more than a fantasy that the United States has that you can topple the leader of another country who is not yours and that the people are just going to silently allow the next government to be legitimate. That doesn't work. What normally happens is you topple one government and they elect a more radical government, and then you have to topple that one, and this game never ends.
Speaker 1:You know, what, ultimately, the president of the United States is going to decide. What, ultimately, the president of the United States is going to decide. I've been reading the reports that we are now eyeing a direct conflict with Iran, maybe not by having boots on the ground, but by United States ships shooting Iranian missiles out of the sky, which would obviously have to elicit some type of response missiles out of the sky, which would obviously have to elicit some type of response. All I could say is is, while I'm reading these reports, that Trump has even now started weighing options on bombing Iran, and this is coming out of the Hill this morning. I am just asking that the uh, I'll put it this way. I am just asking that the I'll put it this way. I want to go back to this, donald Trump.
Speaker 13:They lied. They said there were weapons of mass destruction. There were none, and they knew there were none. There were no weapons of mass destruction. Obviously, the war in Iraq was a big, fat mistake. All right, now you can take it any way you want. And it took Jeb Bush, if you remember, at the beginning of his announcement, when he announced the president, it took him five days. He went back. It was a mistake. It was a mistake. It took him five days before his people told him what to say and he ultimately said it was a mistake. The war in iraq. We spent two trillion dollars, thousands of lives. We don't even have it. Iran is taking over iraq with the second largest oil reserves in the world. Obviously it was a mistake. So george bush made a mistake. We can make mistakes, but that one was a beauty. We should have never been in iraq. We have destabilized the Middle East. So you still think he should be impeached?
Speaker 2:I think it's my turn.
Speaker 13:You do whatever you want, you call it whatever you want. I want to tell you they lied. They said there were weapons of mass destruction. There were none, and they knew there were none. There were no weapons of mass destruction.
Speaker 1:That is the Donald Trump that we need right now, the one that will look the intel agency in the face and say you are lying. He was clear and concise in that debate talking to the brother of the president, jeb Bush, that debate talking to the brother of the president Jeb Bush. He needs to be clear and concise when he's talking to Peef Hexit, when he's talking to these. Whoever the hell is ginning up this madness? And the AP this morning dropped his wing in on joining Israel and bombing Iran, perhaps one of the most consequential decisions of his presidency a direct US involvement in a Middle Eastern war. The president on Tuesday signaled he is considering joining in Israel and bombing Iran and deal a permanent blow to its nuclear program. It marks a major shift for the president, who only days ago insisted the US would not join Israel in the attacks on Tehran. Following a Situation Room meeting and a conversation with the Israeli Prime Minister, of course, benjamin Netanyahu, trump is now considering strikes among a range of other options, hours after he publicly oppressed iran to accept his terms for a nuclear deal. Why? Why would they accept the terms for a nuclear deal when we didn't keep the last damn deal that they accepted? Israeli officials said tuesday that israel will achieve its obligations against iran within a week or two, and it continued to pound tehran with airstrikes overnight. Iran, meanwhile, is preparing missiles for potential counterattack on the US bases in the region. Meanwhile let's say that again Meanwhile, iran is preparing missiles for potential counterattacks on United States bases in the region.
Speaker 1:The road ahead is complicated, as the Hill's Neil Strange writes in the memo, not least because there are stark differences within Trump's base over the merits of getting involved in foreign conflicts, in Iran or everywhere else. The end goal of the US strikes is also unclear. Would the White House limit itself to striking Iran's nuclear sites or seek to provoke a wide-ranging regime change by targeting Iran's supreme leader, ayatollah Khomeini? On Tuesday, trump calls for Iran's unconditional surrender and raise the possibility of US strikes against Ayatollah Khomeini. Trump went on to say he's an easy target, but he's safe there. We're not going to take him out, at least not now. Trump broke that on social media, of course, because that's the age we live in. Now. However, he shifted on Iran under pressure from our great ally, israel. As the us military positions itself to potentially join israel's assault.
Speaker 1:Perhaps the biggest question facing trump is whether the us will drop a nuclear bunker buster bomb, known as a gbu-57, on iran's uh fertile nuclear site, a move iranianks say is necessary to eliminate Tehran's nuclear threat. Israel does not possess such a bomb, and the Hill's Lauren Kelly reports believe that they would be the only armament capable of destroying the highly protected nuclear plant, which is buried deep in the Iranian mountain, nor the US B-2 stealth bomber to drop it from. Trump has publicly urged Iran to accept his terms for a nuclear deal, but Netanyahu has shown no interest in negotiating after launching Israel's largest military operation ever against a regional rival that has a former, current Israeli official praising the pressing the US to enter the conflict. Former Defense Minister Yavig Galat told CNN on Monday that Trump has the option to change the Middle East and the influence of the world. Civilians in both countries are reeling from repeated missile barrages. In Israel, people have taken shelter in stairwells and bomb shelters, and they are coping with Tehran's ability to penetrate the country's sophisticated defense shield. The US embassy in Jerusalem remains closed until Friday.
Speaker 1:Many Iranians reacted with fear and dismay at Trump's instruction to immediately evacuate Tehran and look and there's even some other shocking reporting coming out of this region that the Israeli government is trying to stop American citizens from leaving the country. There are 700,000 people there that are American citizens and it looks like and this was a had a had a screaming match between Netanyahu and a former governor of Arkansas, mike Huckabee, who is now the, who has now been sent over there as the ambassador to Israel from the United States, because Netanyahu wants the Americans to stay 700,000 and as some sort of protection. A lot of people use the term human shield, actually and President Trump wants the Americans out of Israel, and this is the only word I can say over and over again is madness, madness. We have to stop playing this little game here. And this is not even in the Middle East, where we try this regime change stuff. This happens in Latin America and it never works. It makes the countries always verifiably worse, unequivocally worse, and then what happens?
Speaker 4:those people then flee to america, and then we complain about our uncontrollable immigration why do you believe that the united states so violently tries to overthrow other forms of government, such as socialist governments, such as what happened in Chile in 1973 and in Cuba? Why is the United States responding to such moneyed interest?
Speaker 11:Excellent, everyone hear the question. But if you check American history, you know sometimes the president will tell you well, we are always defenders of freedom, we believe in freedom. But if you check history, what you will find is that in many years, especially in Latin America, which way back from when President Monroe developed his Monroe Doctrine, we have the right to own Latin America and we will tell any government there what we want to happen. That's the simple truth. So throughout our history we have overthrown many, many governments. We didn't like their form of government.
Speaker 11:In the case of Chile in 1973, what you had is an election in which a guy named Salvador Allende won. The election. Problem is Nixon and his friends didn't like him. Why? Because Salvador Allende fought for the poor people and the working people of their country. He believed that the resources of Chile, their copper mines and so forth, should belong to the people. And he won a free election. No one denied that for a second. It was a tough election. He didn't win by much, but he won a free election. There was another election. His party got more support.
Speaker 11:He was overthrown by the CIA and corporate interest, because corporate interest preferred, of course, that the United States companies dominate that country, and a lot of what politics is about, going way, way back to the 19th century to England, france, is the domination of colonies, so that big companies in a given country can take the resources of those countries for their own use. So I think that's what happened and it was a very unfortunate day in American history. The end they won in a democratic election was popular, was overthrown and eventually killed. And it is place. A guy named General Pinochet took place, ran that country with an iron fist, killed many, many people, but it was okay. He was a good guy. Why? Because he was a friend of corporate America.
Speaker 1:Now Chile is an example that people often bring up when people constantly ask questions like oh, where has socialism ever worked? Or something like that. And a leftist center government has never been elected outside of Western Europe without being immediately targeted for overthrow by the United States. Chile is one of literally a dozen of examples. Nixon was so pissed when Allende won the election he told his American advisor to make Chile's economy scream. The United States imposed crippling economic sanctions before backing up an assassination and organizing a military coup After extolling the brutal dictator Pinochet. The United States added insult upon injury by setting the Harvard Boroughs loose on the country. This group of neoliberal economists, led by Milton Friedman, unleashed a brutal austerity program, known as the shock doctrine, on the country of Chile. Country of Chile. Gdp dropped, inflation rose and inflation skyrocketed, and so did inequality, and this type of thing just continues to happen.
Speaker 1:Now it's sad that we see it going on in Israel because we were just having a discussion about Gaza and that's still happening. You can go look at the pictures of now what's in Gaza and go look at how it was before this war started, just to see, and it is shocking sad. There's basically for all, basically for all intent purposes, nothing left. Um, I was listening to chris hedges, you know, a prolific writer, um and uh, who was discussing gaza recently, and he, he basically said there is nothing left. There is nothing left, and this is somewhat a sad reality. And again, this is coming at the hands of the Israeli government, and it's not just at the hands of the Israeli government per se. It's with our tax dollars, in our name, etc.
Speaker 12:Etc 1.9 million Palestinians have been displaced. Officially, 50,000 are dead, but it's far larger than that, because anybody buried under the rubble is not counted as dead. I have Palestinian friends. They have families that were killed. They're not even counted on the list of the dead. I mean, the numbers are probably, I would guess, a couple hundred thousand at least dead. Just on March 21st they blew up the Turkish Donator Cancer Hospital in a controlled demolition. They blew up Israel University in a controlled demolition. There are no universities in Gaza. Every single one has been destroyed. There's nothing left in Gaza. I don't even know how one could even argue this. That's incontrovertible, I'm not making it up. And for three weeks there's no food. Nothing is getting in. We're beginning to see mass starvation. It's a genocide. A genocide is about the extermination of not just a people, but their culture, their history, their habitat, everything. There's nothing there. I mean, even Trump admits there's nothing there.
Speaker 10:Prime Minister came here today and said that Israel is surrounded by those who want to destroy it and enemy. We're here, members of a Muslim Arab committee mandated by 57 Arab and Muslim countries, and I can tell you here very unequivocally all of us are willing to right now guarantee the security of Israel in the context of Israel ending the occupation and allowing for the emergence of a Palestinian state, independent state along the TAB preference that you all agree. He is creating that danger because he simply does not want the two-state solution. And if he does not want the two-state solution, can you ask Israeli officials what is their endgame other than just wars and wars and wars? I'm telling you, all of us in the Arab world here, we want a peace in which Israel lives in peace and security, accepted, normalized, with all Arab countries, in the context of ending the occupation, withdrawing from Arab territory, allowing for the emergence of an independent, sovereign Palestinian state on June 4, 1967, lies with occupied Jerusalem's capital. That is our narrative, that is, and we will guarantee Israel's security in that context.
Speaker 10:Can you ask Israelis what's their narrative other than I'm going to continue to go to war, I'm going to kill this and kill that and destroy this and this, that the amount of damage that Israeli government has done, done 30 years of efforts to convince people that peace is possible. This israeli government killed it. The amount of dehumanization, hatred, bitterness will take generations to navigate to, to navigate through. So, ultimately, the question is we want peace and we've laid out a plan for peace. Ask any israeli official what is their plan for peace. You'll get nothing, because they are only thinking of the first step. We're going to go and destroy Gaza, inflame the West Bank, destroy Lebanon and after that they have no plan. We have a plan. We have no partner for peace in Israel. There is a partner for peace in the Arab world and that's why the international community is doing it.