PART 3 ANTI-ANTI-NAZI BARBARIAN HORDES ARE KNOCKING DOWN THE

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USS Lincoln in FATAL Mutiny, Iran FORCES US Navy to TURN on Itself | Larry Johnson
Danny Haiphong
Streamed live 2 hours ago #iran #usslincoln #usnavy

Former CIA analyst Larry Johnson discusses Iran exposing a massive revolt on the USS Lincoln and Iran's involvement as the war takes an unexpected turn.



Transcript

Welcome back to the show everyone. As you can see, former CIA analyst, geopolitical commentator Larry Johnson is here with me to break down the latest developments. First, we begin with a shocking Iranian report. This comes from a military source close to Iran that says seven are now dead on the USS Abraham Lincoln after a brawl occurred amongst crew members and their superiors.

uh it broke out uh after the carrier spent months in the region nearly one year and and 200 plus days without port. Now US sources are saying something different. The Military Times are saying that multiple crew members on the USS Abraham Lincoln have tried to go overboard, indicating a a severe mental health crisis that families have made uh superiors in the US Navy aware of, but has received zero attention from the Trump administration. Now, in other news, the United States and Iran are reportedly supposedly from Pakistani mediators agreeing to extend a so-called 60-day ceasefire brokered by Pakistan uh with the current agreement supposedly ending August 17th.

But Iran has actually rejected these reports outright saying no such ceasefire exists because theou is not being abided by at this time and is essentially dead. Donald Trump today instead of addressing the naval crisis or this he has taken a a true social saying that the United States controls a straight of hormuz and uh will keep it saying that Iran is completely defeated has no money has no troops has no military. Larry, let's begin with what's happening aboard the USS Lincoln. What do you make of these reports?

Oftentimes in this war there's always been two conflicting truths. Now, uh, a lot of families are saying it's hard to get information on offboard the USS Lincoln right now. What's your understanding of what's going on and what do you make of these two reports that have come out from the Iranian side and from the US side? There is a crisis in the in the US military, but particularly in in the US Navy.

[clears throat] Um, I received a friend of mine, recently retired officer um and um he he he sent me the following today. He was just um he he was sort of livid. Uh he says with respect to this reported incident, he said, "And finally the truth. This is making the rounds.

If the Lincoln has 5,000 people uh on it and it hasn't seen land in 38 weeks, they are starving, no packages, rationing coffee, waiting to die. Uh they say the number is six attempts, nearly a year at sea, no land, etc. The real number of attempts is likely fivefold or tenfold. In other words, 30 to 60.

You have more attempts on a normal carrier operation. It's just normal, a factor of statistics. That's before being sent to your death on a purely political mission from someone who openly hates military members being hurt or dying. Six attempts sounds like a lot, but that number is way, way too small.

As an officer like them, I've had to do a number of Army Regulation 15-6 command investigations on soldiers committing. All officers have. It's a normal function, a real and stable number, too. And that's why you're still in.

They have no clue what's waiting for them the first night they return home for wherever. And they have time to spend alone thinking about it alone with nothing to distract you except your only friends Jim and Jack. You know, Jim Beam, Jack Daniels, referring to whiskey. Did you know they do roving patrols on all Navy ships called fire guard?

That term has become blanket use for all services. It means a rotating schedule to monitor the perimeter to make sure there are no quote fires. Wrong. The guard is to prevent people from cells on the spot.

Not dissimilar to phone factories in China. Fire guard still happens today in the army basic training. When you go to the field, when you go on an exercise or deployment, etc. It has nothing to do with preventing a fire.

part of the daily life in the military. Here's another example. In the big units such as the 82nd Airborne, the 101st Airborne, if the unit makes 82 or 101 days without a DUI, everybody gets a 4-day weekend. Well, they never got over three weeks without one regularly.

So, they had to increase the denominator to suicides. Everyone gets a long weekend if we make it to 82 days without his own unit. Guess how many days off there were? None.

So, we had to change the denominator again. Honestly, I think it was actually drugs. We may have made it to 82 days without someone caught and charged with using drugs in the barracks or whatever. Couldn't make it to 82 82 days without a DUI or a suic.

Um uh and then then he goes on to describe you know mentions his age when he was born. Uh and he says uh I I've had 24 years of PTSD from actually killed West in those days of divorces a few attempts mostly big wave surfing in Hawaii where you don't really expect to come back in. Granted, I was enlisted in the invasion of Iraq then, but but then I attended West Point and that started an entire successful officer career after that, including more combat deployments. If I've mentioned before, I'm the class president of my West Point class and have been for several years.

Uh, and so I have the numbers from day one of West Point until now. Committing at West Point is very regular. The preferred method since everyone is in pretty good shape and runs a lot is a run to Bare Mountain Bridge and then jumping. We had at least five commits while I was there.

And keep in mind, you can't just quit and go home uh for the most part. And then we lost some in combat particularly in 2009 2012 whenever everything heated up again post surge etc. But we've lost many more due to suicide as officers with families. You know what the one more you know what one more of the fun decisions I get to make as the class president?

Where do we place their names? How do they get uh bend or placed on the board? We have three demographics of dead classmates. Combat, su or non-combat injuries.

I get to listen to and deal with every single one of my dead classmates families argue about should their names be on the list of fallen in combat, if the majority fall deployed in combat, shortly after coming home from combat, or many years later. You can imagine how emotional those conversations are. So, six of 5,000 in a tinder box of rage called the Abraham Lincoln frustration and waiting for death for an for an multiply by multiply by five minimum. Then they end up just telling direct line supervisors, if you're sailor or self, it's on you.

Wow. How's that? How's that for How's that? Wow.

Now that's that is I mean that is indicative of of a major crisis. And Larry, the United States, Trump administration, they [clears throat] made this a naval war. They said that the Trump administration has relied so deeply, not just on the Iran war, but every single theater, Cuba, Venezuela, so deeply on on the US Navy. Now with Iran, there's absolutely no I mean the oil markets are reflecting this.

Uh what Iran is saying is reflecting this. There's no end to this war right now in sight. So what does this mean then moving forward given that uh the these problems that are arising on the USS Lincoln, they have consequences uh be even beyond uh the the horrific uh personal consequences for those on board. Yeah.

Yeah. No, it is. Well, it's a failure of leadership from the top. Failure by Donald Trump, failure by Pete Hgsth, failure by Admiral Brad Cooper, failure by the Chief of Naval Operations, failure by the Secretary of the Navy.

Like I said, failure across the board. Yeah. Yeah. Defin Total failure.

um you know what do you make of Iran's report that they say do you believe that there could also be of course the the anguish uh that these sailors are going through uh that lead to self harm and self-injury uh certainly verified now but do you believe that there could be some kind of also uh confrontations and clashes happening on the ship as things get incredibly uh uh dire and dangerous in this manner. Absolutely. You know, it's not out there. Yeah.

I mean, you're dealing with 5,000 people. It's not one big happy family. You know, they're going to be there. There there's, you know, I'm sure you've been in situations where a group of people and there may be some people you just don't get along with.

Um and then when you get under under this kind of pressure uh you know both uh the the the physical physical shortages, lack of food, lack of sleep, uh yeah, I I wouldn't be surprised if they if they had actually had some outbreaks of violence. This is this is uh bad. Yeah. Yeah.

That's that's what Iran is saying. Nobody else is reporting it. Nobody else wants to pick up the story, but Iran is saying that they have been informed that there was violent clashes on the ship uh this past week. But Larry, what are some of the other consequences too?

Because USS Lincoln is supposed to be one of of course uh the uh few aircraft carriers that the US has in its possession that make up the uh the real uh heavyweight strength of the US Navy. But being out in the Indian Ocean area that long also has some military effects and also technical effects on a ship like that, doesn't it? Like what how what do you believe the condition of the actual ship is? And is it even able to hell if you don't have crew uh uh ready to fight, then that's a whole big issue.

But what about the ship itself? Well, it's not so much the the ship. I mean the physical plant on the ship, you know, is going to require more maintenance just like anything that's mechanical where you get a lot of use. The maintenance is going to be critical.

Uh then you've got the aircraft on board the carriers. Uh and the the the F-35 is a hanger queen to start with. You know, a plane that needs lots of extra special care and can you know, frankly, not uh you know, be uh not not be readily operational. Uh so uh you know they've got that to deal with.

Um but it's not just the aircraft carrier. So you know as I've mentioned in other broadcasts you know I I I was contacted by the mother of one sailor uh now three weeks ago. uh and he was on the USS Tripoli and she was I mean she was furious that and she's a she a former u enlisted person in in the Navy I think as well said her son lost 30 pounds he came home gaunt you know when you got a when you got a normal 21 22 year old kid uh who's who's not a fat body and they they don't necessarily have 30 pounds to lose u but but that's what He did. Um I can I can show you a picture of me uh back when I was 22 uh going on 23.

No, actually I was 23 and I got a meic dysentery in Honduras and I I lost I lost like 25 pounds and you know I you know I was never even that skinny in high school. So that's what the you know he the food was awful but it wasn't just the food and and she sent you know I had photographs I had text messages email messages between mother and son so it was this wasn't just a fabrication this was she was reporting real life well um then last week ago Saturday in Chattanooga at Robert Barnes uh conference u which I was privileged to participate did uh I met the mother of a Marine and she began talking about her son had just come off deployment and I mentioned was was it food an issue and she said oh my god was it an issue and she launched into a a tirade about how bad the conditions were on board I think it was the boxer so you've now got the you got the parents of the Abraham Lincoln um carrier who were had a meeting last Thursday I believe in San Diego with the Secretary of the Navy. And boy, they lit him up like a Christmas tree. They were so angry.

So, you know what what we're looking at here is a complete breakdown in the in the in the leadership, the logistics, the support uh for these for these sailors and marines that are on board these ships. Now, what do you I'm sure I I I mean, I was hearing in some of these reports like in Stars and Stripes and Military Times that it's actually quite hard to get information from what's happening on the ship unless they're getting it directly, even from some who had to save uh some of these sailors from actually jumping overboard. Uh what do you make then of how uh people especially families of of these uh sailors and and crew members uh are feeling about the reports that uh there are consistently across the board. There's no continuity in the message about what's happening with the war.

Iran is saying absolutely no ceasefire. The war is going to continue. Iran is saying they're going to continue going till 2029. They haven't even met all their objectives yet.

While the Trump administration through Pakistan is trying to say that there's a ceasefire that's going to last 60 days. But what does this even mean to those who are responsible now to for uh for delegating this war and for uh conducting it under the current conditions of it which are are quite ambiguous to say the least. What are your thoughts on this? Well, I mean you're going to fight a war, you got to have an objective.

What's the objective? That's what Trump has failed to define. And so now now they're they've got these people stuck in a hole. What what is their mission?

Okay. So they're the the they're running a blockade. Well, they don't have enough ships to actually fully blockade the Indian Ocean. They can they can stop an occasional ship, but even if they stop that ship, are they going to take control of it?

If they have to take control of it, you have to detail a ship to sail with it. We don't we don't have an unlimited fleet by any stretch. We're extremely constrained. So um and and and it's haphazard.

You know, they're stopping son and not stopping the others. So this is um and then you get Trump's declaration like his true social today. " Really? Well then, and so the shutdown, the global shutdown of of liquid natural gas, helium, ura, and sulfur and oil, that's the fault of Donald Trump.

Okay, that's what he's admitting. He shut it down. Or or but then he in the in another breath he'll claim, oh, no, no, it's it's it's open. Straight of Hormuz is open.

We control it. Really? Then why aren't there any ships coming out? So it's just one lie upon another.

That's the problem. Yeah. Maybe you can help explain to uh what it means. All the ships that are actually coming out of the straight of Hormuz are going through the Iranian uh uh controlled or what it's being called Iranian delegated corridor.

Uh none through that so-called Omani corridor. What what is that? What does that effectively mean? And uh how does it how does it contradict the statements that Trump made today which appear as according to Iranian sources they're saying that uh it's just simply market manipulation and there's no reality to it.

But what's the uh what does it mean for uh the only ships that come out to be coming through Iranian controlled areas? Well, Iran made it very clear uh back uh I guess it was end of April or 1 of May when they introduced the Persian gay Persian Gulf Strait authority protocols and and they said they created a website. They created an online forms that you fill out. So if if you're a ship contemplating going through the straight of Formoose, you've got to provide the Iranians with ship's cap name of the ship, country of uh that flags the ship, name of the captain, destination of the ship, the cargo on board the ship, and the sixth and last thing is the the nationalities of the sailors on board the ship.

And yeah, essentially, you know, what Iran is doing is to make sure that no ship aligned with Israel coming through the straight. It is a it's a form of a blockade. Uh but they're also wanting to use that as a way to raise money uh for the for Iran that they're going to charge a fee in order to enter the strait. Uh now it remains to be seen the negotiations with Oman.

Uh they'll say okay we'll u you know we'll we'll uh put a toll or tax on every ship that comes in and then what you do with them leaving that's your choice. You can charge them, you cannot charge them, but we're going to collect our money up front. Uh so that'll put uh Oman I mean uh yeah it'll put Oman in in a fairly unique position to either let them all go without a charge or to get in on the money said hey there's a you know you're going to have to pay a users fee here. So um you know a lot of that is still up in the air to be um as far as what Oman's role official role is going to be.

They reports are that Iran and Oman have had positive talks, but we've seen no firm agreement and no no final announcement. Yeah. Yeah. It's been taking quite a while.

It feels like it's been a while since we heard those initial reports that it's very close the Iran Oman technical talks. Uh nothing yet and doesn't look like it's going to happen today, tomorrow. Uh Larry, help interpret what this means then because uh this was reported yesterday that lowest in 40 years the US strategic petroleum reserves are currently sitting. Mhm.

What does it mean for for this war? Because Donald Trump has said he's going to be relying now lowkeying it, relying on economic pressure of Iran. What kind of economic pressure does this place on the US and the world economy given that uh this situation isn't set to get better so long as everything about the war other than the strikes remains in place? We're on the edge of catastrophe.

So, um let's understand that I guess now the numbers down to around 290 million barrels. Is that is that the number you're seeing? Yeah. Let me pull it back up actually.

Here it is. Boom. Yep. About It says I think this was it 300 about uh it's got it's got to be less than 300 now.

It was 300 a few weeks ago. So of that of that let's of that 290. Uh, you've got to keep 140 45 million barrels. 145 million barrels minimum in the caverns in the salt caverns total.

You know, each each salt cavern is going to have a different level depending upon its volume, what it's capable of holding. But the reason you've got to keep, you know, roughly now 50% of what's left in storage is if you pump it out, the only way you can pump it out is you have to pump water in and oil's lighter than water. So the oil rides on the water to the top and then the oil sucked out. Uh but the problem is with all that water and if you if you're basically draining the last drop, you're going to create uh a crisis, a structural crisis for the salt cavern.

The water mixes with the salt, weakens the wall, the salt cavern collapses in on itself, and then you you no longer have a salt cavern to store that in. That's number one. Number two, uh, of that oil that's being drawn out, I'm not sure what the mixture is between sweet crude and sour crude. The the US refineries, particularly in the Gulf, 70% of the US refineries across the country, uh, are set up to deal with sour crude, heavy crude.

That is, it's high, that means it's high in sulfur content. And these these refineries, they're built to handle particular types of oil. It's not all oil is not created equal. It it differs.

So depending upon what percent of that oil that 145 million barrels that they can draw out, what percent of that goes to diesel and aviation fuel? Um so you now have a global shortage of diesel and aviation fuel because previously when the oil was flowing from the Persian Gulf at the rate of about 20 million barrels per day u about 2 million of those barrels would make their way to the United States to be processed. Now 2 million barrels may not sound like a lot but it's still it is still almost 10% So it's not inconsequential. But uh then the other refineries that were getting that oil out of the Persian Gulf were one's in India or a an area in India.

The others in China and the last the fourth one you know after US India China was Japan and South Korea. They get 90% of theirs out of there. So there there there now is a genuine shortage of diesel and aviation fuel which means the price of it climbing and going to continue to climb. So we're on the cusp of a genuine world economic crisis.

[sighs] Yeah. Yeah. That that definitely seems like where things are going. Yet the United States, Donald Trump is seems, as I've been saying for weeks now, whistling past this graveyard.

This is what Iran is reporting. The Persian Gulf Straight Authority denies US claims that the Straight of Hormuz is open, will not be reopened until conditions are accepted. And here is the numbers of what they are saying is occurring in terms of number of ships. But all of these ships are being approved of by Iran through their channel.

And so, Larry, uh, what does it mean to be approved of from their channel? Is Iran taking fees right now? Uh, Iran reported that they've lost quite a lot of money from the blockade, uh, in in many respects. Uh, are they recouping this from the straight form moves?

What's what's going on there? Uh, to my knowledge, not yet. um when when it comes time to collect funds, the money is going to be collected in Chinese renew. Uh so it'll be Chinese currency uh going into banks connected to China out of the reach of the United States.

So the United States can no longer seize Iranian assets or take steal Iranian money. Yeah. Yeah. Well, uh, I mean that's that's a game changer.

I'm wondering, Larry, maybe talk about because they put up the Baba mendup straight there as well. Any updates on the situation now with Yemen? Uh, surprise attack happened in the last on Saudi forces. Uh, Yemen has been pounding uh Saudi positions inside of Yemen uh supportive of the so-called uh southern government.

And I'm wondering if you could uh give an update on what's happening there and why is that situation escalating despite the fact that the Trump administration is trying to at least put the Iran war on some kind of ambiguous pause as it is or as it as they're trying to do now. You know there there are some fundamental truths in life. You know, you hear about like if you're in a hole, first first rule of crisis management, if you're in a hole, stop digging. And the Saudis forgot sort of correlary to that is like if you live in a glass house, don't get in a rock fight with a guy that lives in a quarry and has a brick house, okay?

Because they got plenty of rocks to throw. and and that's that that's the mistake that uh the Saudis have made in going after the Houthis. You know, the Saudi has a rich number of targets that are sensitive economically and that if hit or destroyed can can make uh Saudi Saudi life very very difficult, really hurt the economy. Um but uh the Houthies by contrast they don't have a lot of infrastructure.

Uh so just just dropping bombs on Houthy land isn't going to get you anywhere. So this is uh this is a case where the Saudis decided to pick a fight that they can't win. And like I said, if you're in a glass house, don't go throwing rocks. You're just setting yourself up.

And uh where would you uh how would you consider in terms of this uh regional war Larry? How how would you see this going if it continues on in this manner? Uh like what what is the fate then of Saudi Arabia? Uh the UAE I saw reports from certain geopolitical analysts saying the UAE and Israel now are in some kind of now uh alliance so to speak.

We have the Middle East [clears throat] that new the new pact in the Middle East between Turkey, Pakistan uh as well as Saudi Arabia. Uh what do you make of all this shuffling and what does it pretend for the regional situation as Iran, Yemen, and the various flash points uh begin to take shape in their outcomes? Yeah. Um there's the you know me Ryan and her quote partner they've been in a relationship for good god 45 years 40 years never been married.

Well I I draw that as a parallel to Israel and the UAE. They're just announcing their relationship for God's sake. It's been in place for what 20 years or more. So, [laughter] you know, it's it's laughable.

Oh, they've got an alliance. Well, no kidding. Sun rises in the east. You got any more news flashes for me?

You know, the And my sarcasm is not directed at you, Danny, but it's just directed at the the cluelessness of these news organizations that write stupid stuff like this because uh it it has been uh um or you know it it has been the case uh for for quite a while that UAE was seen as a tool of Israel openly. Um and I I forget I did the wrong cultural reference. It was Goldie Han, not Me Ryan, but you know, still the the point is you take something that's publicly known, it's visible to the public, everything, and then you come out and report it as news. It doesn't make sense.

Where did the Saudis go? The Saudis got one out here. Negotiate, settle, surrender, because otherwise um the the Houthies are going to keep breaking them up all day. They're going to keep knocking out ships that try to come through BL Mandab.

They're going to force the Saudis to use the Suez Canal. And you know, you're not going to see the Egyptians bitching about that because every Saudi ship that comes through the Suez Canal pays a fee. In fact, you know, you could almost maybe make the case that actually the real alliance here could be between the Houthis and and and the guys in Cairo that control the Suez Canal that they got a backdoor deal. Yeah, we'll give you 10% of everything that comes through.

So, um the Saudis militarily cannot defeat the Houthis. They've tried that. They've tried various methods. They certainly don't have an army of sufficient size to do it.

And their their whatever they have in terms of air power is offset by the Houthi's enormous uh stockpile of of missiles. Now Iran has reported Larry that their missile capabilities are only growing. They've updated their missiles essentially all of them to have the capability of evading air defenses changing uh I I think almost toward the end of their trajectory uh to evade uh air defenses but also uh that they are producing missiles at uh such a high rate that uh they are highly confident that they can go until that 2029 period and beyond should they need to use them. I'm wondering about Yemen though in Ansarala.

What are their capabilities? Are they just getting started? The Baba Bend straight is partially closed to Saudi shipping uh and commercial shipping, but there is activity going through it. Is this phase one?

Is this step one? Do they have the capabilities of closing it all together? What do you know about that? Yeah.

No, I I think they do have the capability to close it all together, but they're not going to. They're going to allow ships, particular ships related to China and Russia to pass. Um, but you know, they've already proven that they can't be beat. uh or to to beat them, it's going to require uh it's going to require a level of, you know, military investment and risk that, you know, the United States certainly wasn't willing to pay or or or risk.

You know, they we saw the we had two two carrier strike groups at one point in the Red Sea trying to shut down the Houthis and they failed. You know, it was over a 7-week period and they absolutely failed to shake the Houthis. So, you know, and the Houthies, I mean, these battle I look, they've been fighting these battles for centuries, and you know, the they they don't give up. So, it is, you know, this is one of the cases where the Saudis have they picked a fight with the wrong critter.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, uh that's for sure.

Now, I I don't believe I've had you on since Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Pakistan signed this uh defense pact, and I'm wondering your opinion on it. Some aren't taking it so seriously. Some are believing Iran made statements to the effect that they view any kind of act of sovereign defense as a a positive development. Others are questioning whether it's sovereign at all given the uh very contradictory situations that all these countries find themselves in.

Uh so what are your thoughts on it and what kind of impact does it make on the regional situation especially in regards to Iran and Yemen and the the regional wars that have been uh you know absolutely escalating. Well, I' I've come up with a name for it. It's, you know, it's the Middle East Treaty Organization. The shorthand for that is Me Too.

So, this is the Me Too movement. Um, I I I I would call it performance art. That's about, you know, it's not going to in any any foreseeable future convert itself into some sort of entity capable of acting militarily with any kind of force. Uh, you know, number one, the Saudis bring nothing to the table militarily.

Saudis are useless. Uh, you know, they've got a 250,000man army. uh supposedly uh but they can't even beat the damn Houthies uh and they've and they tried for 10 12 years u so you've got u you've got the that uh you have the the Turks who have a large army but u they're they're not real good at projecting force sending those troops outside of their country. And then you got Pakistan which provides in on at least in theory a ballistic umbrella over Turkey and Saudi Arabia.

Now the fact that they signed it in Mecca, I think that's important. That was that was symbolic making sure they're making a declaration about the Islamic nature of this accord because if it was really secular, they would have signed it in Riad. But they made a point that Erdogan and Sharif the the foreign min prime minister of Pakistan were on hand to sign it in Mecca. So there was basically saying to the world this is a Muslim thing.

Uh that said they also reportedly pledged hey an attack on one is an attack on all. Okay let's walk through what has happened. uh Pakistan and Saudi Arabia had already made that agreement back in September of 2025 and since then Saudi has been attacked by Yemen and what did the Pakistanis and do nothing. They said not our problem.

So now in the wake of the signing of this meto agreement at at Mecca last week that within hours of said that being signed there was an attack in Saudi Arabia by by Yemen. So right off the bat that should have triggered hey we've been attacked. Come on. They attacking me.

They're attacking you. And the Saudis and would have been calling on Pakistan and Turkey. Come on guys. Let's go.

What happened? Nothing. Uh it is you know words no action. So um the uh the question about what does this agreement mean?

It's up in the air. Uh as you put right rightly noted about the reaction of Iranian authorities. " Um, now it does raise a question uh in the last few days Turkey has made some threats directed at Russia, at the at the Russians. So, do do you believe that if Russia and Turkey come to blows that the Saudi that the Saudis and the Pakistanis are going to rise up and join uh Turkey in a fight against Russia?

I don't think so. Uh so it was like I said this this is more like a performance in an art studio without any real substance. Hello. Sorry.

Sorry. I was muted. Uh, one comment before moving on to uh to finish the program on the Ukraine situation. The I believe Saudi Arabia and Pakistan also have supposedly a mutual defense pact.

Yeah, they they have a signed last September. I referenced that. And but throughout the throughout the Iran war, throughout the war in Iran, I mean Saudi Arabia was a party to the war was struck by Iran many times and then Pakistan ended up being a mediator with uh Iran these negotiations and uh and Iran having at that at this point taken advantage of this and built even closer ties to to Pakistan. So yeah, I nothing is set in stone it looks like with this uh defense pact expanding beyond bilateral ties.

But uh Larry, what do you make of the reports uh now that Russian strikes are getting more numerous, more consistent all over uh Ukrainian positions, military positions, Kiev, Zaparogia, uh these these aerial strikes, these missile strikes. Now there are reports that DPRK North Korea is more deeply involved according to Ukrainian sources mostly Valer Zalinski but Ukrainian intelligence. And then today I believe uh there were reports coming out of Japan that DPRK did test a ballistic missile as well. I believe there were some missiles being tested by China that the United States was very unhappy about uh saying that they wanted warning next time that China tests their advanced missiles.

um out at sea. Larry, what do you make of uh what's going on um with like what does this actually say about where the world is going? Uh it it seems like this indicates that these countries are very much not only coordinating and collaborating but that the world is changing quite dramatically. Your thoughts on it?

Well, yeah. No, you're absolutely correct that there is coordination, collaboration, China, Russia, Iran, uh you know, why why is North Korea employing troops and equipment in the war zone? What better way to find out if your stuff actually works? And you know they're they're not under the kind of political pressures you'd face in you say in the United States if Trump tried to deploy US troops to Ukraine to find you know to get combat experience.

But uh for the for the North Koreans getting combat experience is a good thing. uh you know they got to their attitude is these soldiers got to be trained anyway so might as well put them into the real deal where they get to find out if they you know how it works and so you've got you've got that going on u as as a dynamic uh in this entire process. Let's not forget that apparently yesterday when Putin was uh attending some ceremony with the uh Pac Russian Pacific Fleet, he gave them permission, gave them the green light to uh go after European ships, commercial vessels that are sailing in the Sea of Japan, Sea of China, in the Pacific that uh Russia was now going to retaliate against the European ships for the very thing that they've been punished trying to punish Russian ships for. So this you know this throws up, you know, a whole new dimension here.

Yeah, definitely. Definitely. And and you know what does it say too about where the US is at in this uh major what is a major conflict between uh the growing coordination of these countries China, Russia, North Korea, DPRK, Iran and uh US uniolarity especially on the military front because in many respects what we're talking about is coordination that doesn't exist for the United States and their so-called allies as well as the fact that uh Russia, China, Iran, even DPRK are moving ahead technologically in uh the realm of the military which is supposed to be the US's really the last remaining advantage it's supposed to have in the world to keep uniolarity. So, what do you make of this?

Well, um I put up an article last night that highlights uh the contradictions, inherent contradictions in US military planning and execution. So, the Pentagon has moved very rapidly to get money out there to to send it to Lheed Martin and General Dynamics say, "Hey, come on, man. We need to quintuple really dramatically expand the production of Pack 3 missiles. Here you go.

Here's the money. So, they got the money. The only one little problem. To produce those Pack 3 missiles, [snorts] you need two types of specialty magnets made out of rare earth minerals that are controlled by China.

And there's the Chinese have told the United States, "Yeah, you want uh you want these rare earth minerals? you want these parts, forget about it. You know, we're not going to arm you so you can turn around and use those weapons on us. We're not going to do that.

And that's exactly uh, you know, the United States now finds itself in a situation that we're out of missiles. We need to build more missiles, but we can't build more missiles because China controls the supply chain. Yeah, great points, uh, Larry. Now, uh, I wanted to close the program with some audience questions.

There's one here. Why is the US sending B-52s to train with Chile and Argentina? Is it a message to leftwing government Brazil or something worse? Yesterday, the US said they would make clear they are in control of all of the Americas.

Yeah, this is coming with a lot of developments, Larry, in this part of the world in the Western Hemisphere. But what do you make of that? I haven't even heard that report. I I think it's just looking for an excuse to send these guys on training missions where it'll buy him some goodwill and but uh won't put him at risk.

So yeah, I you know, we're not going to attack Brazil. Hell, we like I said, we can't even handle the Houthies. Yeah. Well, there's certainly something a foot all over Latin America.

Venezuela is restoring some ties now with Israel. Um, and of course, there's lots of talks even of uh attempting to manipulate elections in Brazil coming up, similar to what happened in Colombia earlier. Yeah. This summer.

Yeah. I mean that look the um the appeal of making a a turn to the right curring favor with Washington you know that's been done for years and then it ultimately leads to a backlash in those countries just a matter of how long to wait. Yeah. Yeah.

I was I say I to put it as like seasons. uh right now it uh it's their their season the return to the right in the US back forces and then you know where where the next period however long that is uh port or tends it usually isn't favorable uh to the United States it usually as you said it's a it's a backlash and that's coming well Larry you know in the last five or so minutes or so that we have together uh uh maybe you can talk about what what is actually happening for the Ukraine conflict right Now, uh there are reports that Ukraine supposedly hit uh critical shipping [snorts] for Russia in the Black Sea. Uh there's of course almost daily attempts to lob drones at Russia into Russian territory and then there were the strikes we said earlier and of course the battlefield which gets uh less attention these days uh by the western mainstream media. So what's what's happening there and uh where is it heading?

Uh it's heading for the complete utter defeat of Ukraine uh potentially as soon as the end of this year. Uh the destruction, the shutdown of trade coming out of through the Black Sea by uh you know vessels entering or exiting Odessa or Nicollay. That's closed off. That's that's no longer an activity that's g that Russia is going to allow.

Russia can continues to destroy critical infrastructure in Kev and other major cities including Lav. Uh and this is having a cumulative effect on reducing uh Ukraine's readiness. Uh so uh it is a um it's a situation that when you compile the the closure of the economic gateway to the south basically choking off Iran or choking off Ukraine then you the ground operations are such that you're attacking on at least seven axes of attacks. In previous years, the most uh the Russians would in do are two axis of attacks, but now they're doing at least seven.

So it's uh up in Chernig, Sunumi, Kiv, uh Daetsk, Zaparisia, Neprop, Petros, uh and Odessa. So that'd be seven. So yeah, this is um you know it is it's it's a level of activity that uh Ukraine can't can't can't stop. And so they're they're losing on they're losing through the air war, they're losing through the naval war.

They're losing through the ground war. It's just it's a matter of time before they're fully cooked. And is it a matter of time before the the narrative war? Because the narrative war right now uh because I mean in large part because of the western mainstream media has so much dominance over the information uh that comes out of this conflict for viewers who watch this program and people who live in our part of the world in the west.

But nevertheless, uh how long until the narrative war ends up turning given well yeah that facts are facts that the the narrative war doesn't care about facts. So uh we're going to see see this continue for uh you know the narrative war will continue I think even weeks or months. I just saw an example today. Some friends sent me something from a Ukrainian source talking about how the Russia still failed to take Pakovsk and I wrote back, "They took the damn thing four months ago.

What are you talking about? " Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you you just do a general search on the internet about what's happening in Ukraine and it's almost wallto-wall.

It's wow, Ukraine is pounding Russia in the Black Sea. Ukraine is hitting Russia with all these drones and that's really the extent of of what you get coming out of this conflict at this point. There really is no attention to the battlefield as well as to uh the effectiveness of what Ukraine is doing on on Russia. Well, any final words, Larry, before we close out at the top of this hour on uh the current situation worldwide?

Nope. I think we covered it and like I need to jump anyway. So, thanks, Danny. All right.

Well, Larry, thanks so much for joining me today. Everybody hit the like button. Yeah, Larry, I'll talk to you soon. Um, everybody hit the like button before you go.

That helps boost the show in YouTube's algorithm. Be sure to check out Larry's work in the video description, too. His uh blog as well as the YouTube channel, Transition Protocol, is there. You can subscribe to that.

All the ways to support this channel are in the video description below as well where you can support me on Patreon, Substack, and so much more. I want to thanks thank you to Christa for being an incoming new member. Thank Fragmat Frackmatic for that. Thank you.

I I asked your question to the member here uh Soberano Brazil 9370. Thank you so much also for the super chat. Thank you DJ369 Miami with the cloud and chief. Nothing is surprising.

Thank you so much. and Regina uh Perez do Santos, thanks so much for your super ticker. All right, everybody. That's it.

Tomorrow at uh What am I doing tomorrow actually for a program? m. Eastern time. How could I forget?

Uh Scott Ritter is coming on the program. We're going to continue our daily updates of the geopolitical situation. So, be sure to tune in to that. m.

Eastern, I have Alistair Crook coming on the show. So, two great shows coming up in the next two days. Everyone hit the like button before you go. That helps boost the show on YouTube's algorithm.

And until next time everybody, I will see you

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Part 1 of 2

Scott Ritter: Iran Ass*ssination Plot BLOWN by Israel, 5,000 US Navy Sailors JUMP SHIP
Danny Haiphong
Streamed live 116 minutes ago #iran #iranwar #usslincoln

Former UN Weapons Inspector & US Marine Intel Officer Scott Ritter discusses the shocking developments in an alleged Iranian attempt on Trump's life plus new details emerging on the crisis aboard the USS Lincoln as 5,000 US Sailors face the brink of catastrophe.



Transcript

Welcome back to the show everyone. As you can see, I am joined by Scott Ritter to go over the latest developments. First, we begin with I know you have covered this on other programs, Scott, but there have been updates on the catering cart escape of Donald Trump during the NATO summit where he took another flight and left essentially the whole White House press staff and the rest of his administration staffers on the Air Force One which was said to be targeted by Iran, an Iranian cell inside of Turkey during the NATO summit armed with man pads. ready to assassinate Donald Trump.

While Turkey is now saying they suspect Israel fabricated this assassination plot to derail US Iran talks and a deal. Well, there's more to this now. The CIA today reported in the Washington Post that they had low confidence in this Iranian threat before Trump switched planes in that humiliating fashion last month, saying that this was an Israelder derived communication and plot with absolutely little reality to it. Well, in other news, uh this story keeps on getting worse.

uh the USS Abraham Lincoln, the 5,000 Marines and sailors on that aircraft carrier have faced a uh self harm, self-injury, and uh a major crisis on the ship where unrest uh shortages uh deteriorating conditions, endless shifts, and now a 200 plus day deployment is set to end after a brawl. According to Iran, there was a brawl on the ship uh after a Sentcom adviser visited. There were water bottles thrown. There was skirmishes that led to actually, they say, seven dead.

No confirmation of that. But now, after all this pressure and all of the talk about what's happened on the USS Abraham Lincoln in the last several days, the USS George Washington is going to replace the USS Lincoln at sea, and that will take about eight days to happen. Scott, uh, how about first start with the sto news about this Israeli now, it seems like plot to, uh, hype up an assassination threat on Donald Trump. What do you make of what's happened in the last few days with this and the revelations about it?

And then we can get on to the Abraham Lincoln, your thoughts. Well, I mean, this is one of the most humiliating um episodes in the history of uh an American president. Um you know, the the United States is supposed to be a superpower. Presidents of the United States don't travel casually.

Um I know firsthand when for instance the president of United States comes to New York City uh to you know speak at the United Nations the security arrangements are beyond comprehension. um [clears throat] you know and and most of which you don't talk about. It's it happens uh you know because he's the president of the United States. You have to keep this man secure.

But you know he the US intelligence community is singularly focused on detecting threats to uh the president of the United States. Uh and when the president of United States travels abroad uh it's not a spur-ofthe- moment thing. We will have coordinated extraordinarily closely with our Turkish allies. Um Turkey has a vested interest in ensuring that the president and all other uh participants in a high-profile event like the NATO summit um are secure in their work.

Um and and you know, we weren't born yesterday. We know the threats we're looking for. We know how they operate. Um we've been looking at them for a long time.

And we also understand that we, you know, that the president is traveling in a time of conflict and that there are um, you know, nations out there that could possibly uh, be seeking uh, to to do harm to him. Um, and so the the idea that the president traveled to Ankura and suddenly out of the blue uh, a threat emerged of such gravity that the president humiliates himself. uh in this just ridiculous, you know, catering cart caper. Um and and it's a disgrace to leave his secretary of state on an airplane together with staffers, White House staff and um you know, a press pool leaving them exposed to this threat.

What kind of coward does that? It's not a matter of opsac either. You know, this isn't a wartime contingency. Um, you know, one can make the argument, for instance, in World War II that um when in the leadup to D-Day 5 minuteswhen we found that the Germans had broken uh they were going to attack uh using Eboats attack a exercise um you know, we didn't stop it because we didn't want to let the Germans know that we had detected that we had broken their code.

So, we allowed the attack to take place and um you know, hundreds of Americans lost their lives. Um it was determined that that was a price we were willing to pay to preserve the codes, but we weren't preserving anything. This uh this if if this was a threat, there are ways that you can secure the president without this top secret stupidity. Um you know, Turkey has a base near Ankura.

Um the Merrted base, uh we used to have American nuclear weapons stored there. We know this base inside and out. uh you take the president to Merrt um a secure facility um re Air Force One uh relocates or this other aircraft relocates there. Uh if it's too dangerous for Air Force One to fly, then you find another aircraft to come in.

Um there's just so many different things that could have been done that were correct that this was done is shows that this was a uh a gimmick. Um it was you know this president has been guilty of relying upon almost exclusively Israeli intelligence in the past. In fact we went to war against Iran because of Israeli intelligence in his his insider you know group in the White House are all pro-Israeli you know syphants. Um and so here what you have is a a case where Israel manufactures something out of thin air.

Um feeds it bypasses the normal security protocols uh intelligence protocols feeds it directly to uh Trump's insiders who hatched this this horrific plan. It was all theater designed to create the impression that the president was a wartime president, that there was great threat, that Iran is a threat to the United States, to get the United States stopped talking about peace and going to war. Um, all it did is is show once again that Israel is not our friend. I hope everybody understands that Israel is not our friend.

They're our enemy. They behave like a hostile power feeding false information in. And the president's one of the most uh disgraceful cowardly human beings on the face of the earth. Uh no president would have approved of this.

No president would have approved it. You know the president can tell the secret service no just say no that's not happening. Where was the chief of staff whoever came up with this idea and said do you understand you're talking about the president of the United States the office of the presidency the commanderin-chief of the American military. He doesn't escape in a catering cart.

Um, you know, he walks out with his head held high, uh, because he's the world leader. Donald Trump showed himself to be a disgraceful coward of the most despicable kind. And this is a condemnation, not just him, but it shows you the character of the people advising him. These are sneaky liars.

These aren't honorable people. We'd like to believe that the people that do public service are doing it because they love their country and they want to serve their country. These are people that serve as part of a cult of personality and um they don't care about their country. They don't care about, you know, what what what image this sends to the world.

You know, the Lego guys in Iran, you know, they're the most effective propaganda outlet have seen in modern times. They're having a field day for this. An absolute field day. Um, and you know, their their movies resonate greatly amongst the American population because they found a way to identify with the American people through, you know, Legos, sort of America.

It doesn't get much more American than that, the Lego movie. Um, but also music and the language. Um, and and so this president once again has just opened himself for 9 minutesfor humiliation. This is uh there was no threat to the president of the United States whatsoever.

and um he he's just proven himself to be um the most despicable coward imaginable. Um I'm [clears throat] ashamed of him. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, here's some of that footage of some of the videos that have been circulating uh from explosive media about this uh about this incident, which Yeah. I mean, Scott, even let's say 100% everything Israel was saying was true, the very uh the very information that we're being reported on in the Western mainstream media about what Israel said is quite interesting because they said a cell inside of Turkey with armed with man pads was solely prepared to strike the Air Force One, which uh you know the scandal was was it doesn't have any of the fixtures needed to protect from any kind of uh you know any kind of striker or or targeting of of that plane. But the fact is is that Iran I was I was reading wet recently and the Israelis were complaining about how there's infiltration all up and down the Israeli defense forces from Iran. They found all kinds of willing participants to do this.

What? Who? Why? Why wouldn't Iran think that this could also be a scenario where he would try to escape on a decoy?

It's It's so ridiculous to think that this was such a to get fed that information and then buy into it and go through this whole song and dance, which only makes you look uh really stupid and it's really humiliating to say the least. Uh your your comments on this before moving on. [snorts] Well, the other thing we have to understand is the Iranians, you know, what what's happening here is a lot of projections. Um, and the United States is guilty of this and Israel knows this, so they exploit it.

Um, we tend to project onto our opponents our behaviors. Um, we're the ones who assassinate world leaders. We're the ones who, you know, uh, use assassination as a tool of diplomacy. Um, you know, we we undermine negotiations by assassinating people.

And so um you know having conditioned the American public to the normaly of assassination as a matter of public policy um the American public is likely to believe when we project our behaviors on to others whom we deem to be of an evil character like the Iranians. We say that the Iranians are position himself to assassinate the president of the United States while he's in Turkey. But nobody ever had stepped back and said why why would they do that especially at this time. Um Iran just won the war.

I mean when when the president showed up in Ankura the war was over. Um we lost. We ran out of ammunition. We we ran out of you know we we have no ability to project our you know military power meaningfully into the region.

We can't seize the straight moves. can't seize [clears throat] Car Island, we can't seize Isvahan, we can't do anything. Um, except the longer this war dragged on, the more Iran was able to damage us with ballistic missiles um that we couldn't stop. So Iran, having won the war, was now in a position of trying to negotiate the best conflict termination event possible.

Understand that that is the priority of Iran. They're not going to surrender their sovereignty. They're not going to um you know give in to the United States, but they don't want this war to continue. They're looking to bring this war to an end.

That's their strategic goal and objective. So why kill Trump? It makes no sense. " But there's a time and a place.

The Iranians are strategic thinkers and they're not going to assassinate a president at the moment he just lost a war by killing the president. What you guarantee is America will rally around the martyrdom of an American president and bring the wrath of America down on Iran. The last thing Iran wants is America to strategically shift the totality of its capacity to the destruction of Iran, which we would do if they killed our president. And the Iranians know this.

So, right off the bat, there has to be an intelligence officer inside the inner circle that says, "This doesn't make any sense. " And where's the intelligence come from? Let's look at it. let's parse it out.

But that wasn't allowed to happen because Israel was the source of this. And Israel went 14 minutesstraight to the president's inner circle who cocked up this stupidity. No real intelligence officer worth their salt would have said this assassination plot makes sense. It doesn't make any sense.

And therefore, you have to dig deeper into the source of the intelligence. And now that it's coming from Israel, you have to demand, this is a threat against the life of the president. You demand access to the primary intelligence information. I want the sigant hit.

I want to know everything about it. How you collect it? What frequency? Where were these people at?

What's going on? You got a human source. Give me the damn name. This is my president.

Oblivion if you don't respond. Because you're talking about the security of the commander-in-chief of the United States. It's not a game anymore. and that we treated it like a game, a stupid game, a game of hide-and-seek.

It's humiliating. This is st I I'm just here to tell you that real intelligence professionals, real security professionals would never have allowed this to happen. Not and and 15 minutesyou can bring them in. Bring in the Secret Service, they'll tell you the same thing.

Real Secret Service officers, what a horse of crapload of garbage this was. I mean, because you actually made the president less secure [laughter] because you're violating all sorts of protocols to to for what? Put him in a cart so he can get on another airplane. You know, what happened to the other threats?

I mean, was this what a C38J suddenly uh you know, not vulnerable to uh Iranian man pads? I What the hell was going on? This is just it's just a horrible thing. Uh humiliating for the United States.

It shows we're an amateur country. Literally, we're a banana republic. Well, in uh the other news, Scott, that I know is uh dear to your heart, which is the uh condition of those who have been forced to spend 9 plus months uh out toward the Indian Ocean just outside of the Persian Gulf uh because of this ongoing permanent blockade, which Pete Hexf said is going to go on as long as it takes. Now the USS Lincoln, the crisis aboard where those 5,000 Marines and sailors are going through such a crisis that several have tried to take their own lives.

Now it's being replaced by the USS George Washington almost seemingly to repeat this process all over again. So what have been your thoughts on on this crisis? Iran went so far as to say there was a big skirmish, a big brawl on the ship that could that led to deaths unverified for now. But your thoughts on what's been going on in the USS Lincoln and US Navy in general?

Well, first of all, we don't know if any of these stories are true, so we have to be careful about this. Um, you know, it's in Iran's interest to um to put emphasis on things that make the United States and the United States Navy look bad. Um there's a lot of information warfare going on right now and you know what what it would be in Iran's benefit to get the United States public enraged over you know the extended deployment of the Abraham Lincoln and the horrific uh you know state of affairs on board for the crew. Um if I were the Iranians I'd want to promote this kind of story.

So we have to take a step back and be careful on the sourcing of this uh data. Um but what we do know is this. Um the we are not in a state of war. No war has been declared.

Fact is according to President Trump there's no we're not even in a military operation anymore. That ended. Um so here we we we have to look at you know what the US military has become in recent decades. Um we're not the expeditionary fighting force that um we used to be.

You know, when I joined the Marine Corps, um the junior Marines weren't allowed to be married. I think you had to wait till you're like a sergeant. Um if you want to get married before sergeant, you had to get permission. You had to go and uh and and talk because Marines belong in the barracks and Marines trained hard and there was no time for a wife.

There was no time for families. Um Marines lived in open bay squad bays and quanset huts. Uh not the glorified little hotels that they live in today called, you know, their barracks. Uh squad bays.

Um, this was hardcore. [laughter] The the Fleet Marine Force was no uh was no joke. Um, but when you deployed, you deployed hard. Um, I mean, you were going on a six-month pop.

Um, and you knew it. And you also knew that contingencies could arise that extended that and you were ready for it. You you actually prayed for it. Uh, you prayed for war every day.

Every morning, Marines woke up and prayed for war because that's what they were training for. Um, today we we we everybody's married. Um, not not against the institution of marriage, but understand that that's not conducive to a professional fighting force. Uh, because now, uh, people have priorities that aren't learning to close with and kill the the enemy.

Um, priorities like u, you know, I got to get my kids to school on time. U, I need more money, so I have a second job. I got to go work at Home Depot doing the night shift once I finish doing my marine thing during the day. I'm sorry.

when you join the US military, you're a soldier, sailor, airman, marine, coast guardsman, or guardian a day, seven days a week. Um, you don't get a second job. But today, they do. They all do.

And commanders tolerate this. Uh, because of course you have to take care of your people. Um, and when we deploy now, we, you know, there's a timeline. We talk about it.

" When I was in when I was a kid, my dad was career air force. Uh we moved when we moved. I left in the middle of a school year every single time I went to school. I mean, I'd start a school year and next thing the government says, "You're out of there.

" They don't care. They don't care about my my friends. They don't care that I'm in a school play or I'm playing football or anything. You're gone.

Unplug. Go plug in. Um and you just bid it. [laughter] And every two years, and we didn't move in the summer.

We moved in the middle of the freaking school year every [laughter] single time. That's just the way it was. But today, everything has to be balanced. You know, uh families relocate.

They get, you know, uh they they they, you know, things are done, vacations are planned on when you're coming home. Um all this kind of stuff. All these plans are made that are centered around family life and around the emotional well-being of the service member and his or her family. Um, and then when war comes, everybody's shocked when people are like, "Wait a minute.

" Well, no kidding. Um, of course it is. But this is a leadership failure because you didn't prepare your sailors for this eventuality. Um, that you didn't prepare them for their families.

And when this happened, you didn't have the leadership programs in place to brief your sailors effectively. And and they're saying that there's shortages of food. What kind of leader lets these shortages happen? Again, we're not talking about a nuclear war where there's no milk and everything's gone and you got to, you know, take your own urine and, you know, boil it up to get water and all that.

No, no, no. This is the United States of America. All right? If you're the commander of an aircraft carrier and you're out of milk, you get on the phone and you say, "Give me some goddamn milk now.

I don't care what it costs you. Put it on a freaking airplane and fly it out here. I want milk for breakfast tomorrow because the morale of my sailors depends upon it. These are the guys.

Remember, aircraft carriers, they're they're cities and the work they do. You don't want people screwing up. This is why you take care of your sailors on board. You know, you keep them you got to get that mindset focused on the mission.

So, you know, you feed them well. We always fed our troops well. Always on a ship. You the sailors ain't good.

Um, and you don't run out of food. There's no excuse for this. There's zero excuse for this. Uh, you and the the Navy knows this.

The Navy knows how to they we've been supplying food to ships for forever. Um, so this is just an abysmal [clears throat] leadership failure. And you know, this happens when you have a Secretary of Defense that has lost control of the of of the department that he's responsible for overseeing. He spends more time running with idiots, bench pressing, and doing things like this instead of sitting down and making sure that the basics are done first.

You know, every military leader knows, you know, it's bullets, bandage, and beans, beans, beans. You feed your freaking troops on time, on target. Um, there's no excuse for this. Isn't war.

The Japanese didn't sink your resupply ship. " But this can't happen that you can't have uh discipline like this falling apart on on a ship. This means that the Navy's lost control of the Navy. Um you know, because again, the military isn't meant to be, you know, a convenient lifestyle 9-to-five job.

You join the military because you're prepared to go to war. in war as hell on earth. You don't get to sit there and and moan. War is about dying for your country, you know, which is a hell of a lot worse than not getting cold milk for breakfast.

Um, but, you know, so you got to be hard. You got to be willing to drink water uh and and and and eat bread if that's what's needed. Uh, you got to be willing to gap a meal. You know, Marines were on Guadal Canal when the Navy sailed away because the Japanese were putting too much pressure and the Marines were abandoned on Guadal Canal.

Did they sit down and and moan and cry and surrender and whail? No, they dug in and they fought until the Navy decided to come back and get them supplies. Um, you know, this 24 minutesmilitary is just soft as hell. Soft as hell.

I don't have any sympathy for the sailors on the Abraham Lincoln. None whatsoever. Yes, they have a leadership failure, but you know what? Be a professional.

Be a professional. You signed up for this. This is what you when that raised that hand, this is what you said you wanted to do. And now it got real.

You know what? You're complaining because you've been to sea. You know, World War II, they those guys were out there all the time. They didn't get to go home.

But the the fault again is the system. The system softened these sailors up. And this is just a horrific lack of discipline across the board. This ship should be brought back to port and everybody should be subjected to review.

And if anybody has if there's a leader failure from the captain or admiral in charge all the way down, they should be relieved of command and relieved from the military. This isn't how we win wars. This is how we lose wars. This has to be a lesson.

I know that's probably not the answer people want to hear. They want to hear me talk about the sympathy for the poor sailors. No way. None.

You signed up. You took the oath. It's a volunteer military. You knew what you were getting into.

So I have no sympathy for him whatsoever. It's a It's another disgraceful act. They I don't believe they should be there. I don't agree with what they're doing.

I don't agree with the mission. But that's no excuse. You're in You're in the damn Navy. [laughter] You know, do your damn job.

And Scott, what if the job too, you said you don't agree with the mission and all of this, then wouldn't also an option be, similar to what I've heard others say as well, and I believe you said how you've said this as well, uh don't follow illegal orders, don't follow orders that uh you know are, you know, counterintuitive to the interests of of the United States, which you said you're defending. No, no. There's no such thing as don't follow an order that's counterintuitive to the interest of the United States. the sailor doesn't get to make that decision.

Okay? And when you say don't follow illegal orders, you have to be very careful here because an illegal order is, you know, don't torture a prisoner of war. That's apparently illegal. Don't murder children.

Don't, you know, do this. But, um, launch this plane. " None of your business, sailor. Launch the damn aircraft.

load that bomb on that plane. Well, sir, I have to know where that bomb's going. No, you don't. Ordinanceman, do the damn job.

See, we have to be really careful about here because the every order given by the military is presumed to be legal at face value unless it's facially illegal. We don't get to have constitutional discussions at the tactical level. And just because you don't agree with war, I don't think we should be bombing Iran. Tough you join the Navy, put the bomb on the airplane, launch the airplane craft on time, or you're going to be court marshaled for failure to obey a lawful order.

War sucks. Straight up sucks and you're not going to get the perfect war every time you go out there. Bad stuff's going to happen. But to sit here and say this is illegal, you don't get to make that decision as a sailor unless it's so patently.

" No, sir, that's an unlawful order. You get to do all that. Get up at 5:00 in the morning. Sir, that's some that violates my constitutional rights.

No, it doesn't. Get up at , uh, have breakfast by , be on the flight deck by six o'clock, ready to rock and roll, and obey every order I give you. And you know what? I can give you all sorts of orders you're not going to like.

You're staying up for 48 straight hours. Sure, that there's no constitutional right to sleep. You're in the military in a time of conflict. You know, people need to understand the military is hard duty.

It's not meant to be easy. and get this constitutional crap out of there unless it's flagrant. You don't get to question the orders of your superiors. I'm sorry, that's not how the system works.

You don't get to become, you know, your homemade constitutional scholar and say, I I think this war with Iran is const is violation of the Constitution. Really? You want to have that conversation right now, Corporal? You want to have that conversation?

Tell me how it's a violation of the Constitution. Let's get into it. Really, all the people in there are saying it's unlawful. The Congress of the United States gave the president of the United States war powers authority.

The president of the United States can go to war for 180 days without the approval of Congress. So nothing he did was unconstitutional. Do you guys understand that? Do you understand that Congress abregated its constitutional responsibilities for war a long time ago with the Pore Powers Act?

So don't sit here and pretend that you all are constitutional scholars. The president can order the military to bomb anybody at any time without congressional authority and it's a lawful freaking order unless he's murdering civilians and things of that nature. So, we have to be really careful about, you know, invoking the Constitution here. " Um, you only get to say that if it's a straight up flagrant violation of the law of war, executing prisoners, torturing prisoners, killing civilians, but doing your job.

I'm [laughter] sorry, you don't get to say it. I'm not going to do my job because it's unconstitutional. I know people that, but this is this is reality. This is the hard truth, right?

No, I mean, it is certainly the reality as as you said, Scott, as how 30 minutesthe system actually works. And I guess I'm curious then because what does this say then about you said you know you don't agree with the mission uh why they're there in the first place. What does it say about that? because it seems like you said that there's this contradiction between uh you know um not being at war but yet being permanently deployed with you know and the conditions are getting worse and worse and yet there is no war footing but there is a blockade and Iran sees the blockade as a war and that's why they're there right they're there to enforce the blockade so I guess my question is then what does this say about overall the US's military posture because now Iran is saying they're going on the offensive.

They're going to wait this out until 2029. Uh they don't have any problems with the US continuing to pretend like it's at war or not at war, any of this. But it seems like it's having a really big effect on the morale of the US uh uh military forces, navy, etc. So, your thoughts on this?

Well, now we get a different scout. Okay. Because now we're you're you ask me a different question alto together. Um, why do you serve?

What What motivates you to serve? I can straight up tell you that I I volunteered to serve. Uh, I enlisted in the summer of 1979 because I truly believed that the Soviet Union was an evil force. I lived in West Germany.

The the the the Soviets were over there in East Germany. And I truly believe they were wanting to come over and end democracy as we knew it. And I was serving to defend my country, defend my way of life, to defend democracy. And I truly believed it.

I mean, now that I'm a little bit older and studied history a little bit more, I realize it was all croc But, um, at the time, I truly believed it and I was I joined ready to die for my cause. Um, I believed in it 100%. And later as I transitioned the Marine Corps, I continued to have this belief system that we were on the side of good. Now, you know, you begin to see things and realize that not everything's perfect, but you believe overall I'm serving.

I'm in service of good, of justice, of righteousness. Um, and and you let it balance it out. Um, today, what good are we doing? What what are we serving today?

If you wanted to join, you know, I've always struggled with this because I've had people come up and say, "Scott, my my son, my daughter wants to join the Marine Corps. " And I I would say, you know, they got to have a long hard conversation with themsel understanding that uh you you give an oath to the Constitution that you serve the nation, not the president, but you have to obey the president's orders. You can't join the military because you're happy with the president you have because in four years while you're still in, you might get a president that you don't support. And you have to be willing to obey those orders from that president because that president is the commander-in-chief.

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Part 2 of 2

So you you have to be honest with why you're joining, what service you're providing, what you believe in, is this a cause worthy of your life. Um, and if it's about economics, I'm doing this for the money, you're making the wrong damn choice. Because believe me, your paycheck doesn't matter a hoot. " No, no, no, no, no, no.

Now you're into a whole different environment. Why are you there? What are you doing? Um I just had a you know I wrote an article about um a statement made by a German uh journalist u Michael Martins uh uh when he talked about killing Russians and uh you know in the article my response I I brought up uh David Gman's book on killing uh which talks about you know because let's just be straight up guys war is about killing.

It's not about anything else. War is about man killing man. That's why it's the worst thing in the world. That's why you should never want war.

It's humankind acting as basis moment. Um it's the ugl it just makes mankind ugly as hell. Um and what Gman said is, you know, and this is sort of the good news. The vast majority of soldiers in World War II didn't fire their weapon.

Uh and then when they did, many of them didn't aim. Why? Because they didn't want to kill. Killing's hard, and that's good.

You should make killing hard. But today, we made killing easy. We've we've changed up our training. we've we've done.

But the the end result of making killing easy is that um understand that when we make people kill, they're broken for life and then they come back and and it's it's done. This is all the reality of going to war. So I keep telling them that you understand if you join the Marine Corps and you go to war and you kill um you're never going to be the same. And the parents need to understand that little Johnny will never be the same.

That doesn't mean little Johnny's broken forever, but little Johnny will never be the same. Little Johnny is going to have some bad happen in his brain and uh it's going to affect him for life and he may become an alcoholic. He may become a wife beater. He may become a drug addict.

He may become a criminal. Um it's going to break him. Little Johnny. Johnny went up marching off.

He's not coming home. [snorts] Um but even then sometimes you have to say, okay, that's the price I'm willing to pay for the greater good. I'm defending the greater good. What greater good are you defending today?

And this is the question. And the answer is there is no greater good in America today. The oath you take, the oath of service is to the constitution. But right now, if the American people can't tell me what the damn Constitution is, that means we aren't a constitutional republic.

Because we can only be a constitutional republic if we the people of the United States of America um have read the Constitution, absorbed the Constitution, lived the Constitution, hold others accountable to the Constitution. Then we're a constitutional republic. The vast majority of American citizens couldn't take a test on the Constitution. They pass it.

they couldn't pass the citizenship test, you know. So, if you become a citizen, you take a test. I think the passing grade is 100%. And if you fail, you don't become a citizen.

Well, imagine if every year every American citizen had to take a citizenship test. We wouldn't have any American citizens. Um, so right off the bat, the people joining the military today are serving what? Not a damn thing.

Because this isn't the United States of America. This is something else. This is a diseased society that has been taken hostage by a cult of personality that has said straight up he doesn't believe in the Constitution. And we have a Congress that isn't doing a damn thing about it.

We have a judiciary that's basically said the president can do anything he wants in office and it's not a crime. And so the president is doing everything in office that is a crime like fluctuating the market and insider trading making billions of dollars. This is what you would be dying for if you joined the military today. So my answer today to anybody saying would you advise anybody to join the military?

I say hell no. Hell no. This isn't a country worth dying for today. It's not.

And until we fix this country and that needs to be our number one priority, I wouldn't advise dying for this country. And I would advise everybody on the Abraham Lincoln, the George Washington, every ship out there that when your enlistment expires, get the hell out. And I would advise everybody thinking about joining this military to think long and hard and don't because all you're going to be doing is servicing a broken society. It's not the job of the military to save America.

It's the job of the citizens to save America. And when we, the people of the United States of America, get our act together and fix this thing and make a society worth defending, then I'll say join and serve. But right now, I wouldn't die for this country. Not not for this country.

This country is broken. Yeah. Well said, Scott. Um then you know your your thoughts on right on now Iran's uh particular posture how they have been reacting.

You know Iran I believe it was Archi who said you know they didn't really have any plans to assassinate Donald Trump because Trump is already uh killing the United States. There was no almost like the do nothing and win mentality weapon that Iran has [laughter] just let him be Trump. So your thoughts on on Iran's posture right now because they're saying they're just going to keep going that they haven't met their ultimate objective anyway. Uh they're not even talking about any kind ofou talks anything like this.

Uh things have really and this is now reflected in the oil prices. We see those either staying steady or ticking up and up and up. Uh so and not not to mention the fact that perhaps as you said broken society, broken military, you have also in the United States every single month more and more people dis have disdain for this war don't think it's worth fighting that there are no objectives that the United States is actually going to meet in it. So your thoughts on Iran's position given these factors on the ground?

Well, first of all, we we just have to just be again honest. Iran didn't start this war. And if you want to get into it, Iran was actually doing everything possible to avoid this war. You know, Donald Trump had articulated Iran's nuclear program as being a threat worthy of war.

Um, but at the time, see, in order for a threat to be imminent, it means that no steps can be taken to remove the risk of conflict uh the the threat. But we were actually actively negotiating with the Iranians. And indeed on February 27th, we had a deal that was in the hands of the Omani foreign minister who was flying to the United States to finalize the deal which would have resolved all of the outstanding issues regarding Iran's nuclear program which Trump said represented the existential threat worthy of war. So there was no imminent threat when we launched a surprise attack, which means we committed an act of perity.

Um, and the reason why I want to bring this up is not only did Iran not start this war, but the way this war started was, you know, an act of of infamy carried out by the United States. Uh, again, look at the history of the United States. December 7th, 1941, a day that will live in infamy, according to Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the Japanese launch a surprise attack against the American fleet in Pearl Harbor. A surprise attack.

And we called it an act of cowardism. It is. And the same thing when they attacked us in the Philippines and elsewhere. Um, we did this.

Now, we know here we are a nation that was raised I was raised with the notion that what the Japanese did on de Sep or December 11th was or December 7th was a horrible thing. Um, I lived in Hawaii. I went to the Pearl Harbor memorial and uh it resonates with me. So now my country has become that which we have which we have condemned, despised.

Uh, we are a nation that carries out surprise attacks using diplomacy as a as a cover act of perity. Um and and so the reason why I bring this up is that, you know, Iran is the wrong party, the agrieved party here. Um the good news for Iran is that they sort of knew this was coming. They expected this.

Uh and they had prepared for it 41 minutesand they were better prepared for war than we were, the United States and Iran prevailed in this conflict. The Iranian position now is that they u that this has to end now. This can't be something that is sustainable. They can't allow a repetition where the United States simply comes back in 5 years and bombs the the next supreme leader and kills them and and rolls in with a bombing campaign.

U Iran is saying this is over now. Now that the United States has taken this to an existential level. Then Iran is saying we're all in. They've pushed all the chips in.

We're all in. You know, Trump can sit there and go, you know, call, pass, fold. Iran's all in. Uh that's it.

this is the only hand that's going to be played and Iran's holding, you know, a [clears throat] straight flush. Um, ace high. So, it's it's over. Uh, they're they're going to ride this thing out now.

They're not they're not going to commit suicide. They're not stupid. Um, as you as we sort of joke, but it's it's the truth. The best weapon Iran has is Donald Trump, which is why Iran just said, "We're not going to talk to Donald Trump.

We're going to let this weapon of mass destruction uh loose on the people of the United States for two more years and on the world for two more years and we're just going to sit back and say screw you. Do what you need to do. We're done. We're not playing this game anymore.

Um because the problem is the United States. Iran needs the United States out of the Middle East. The United States is a cancer in the Middle East or it's, you know, a subset of the greater cancer which is Israel. Um, but Iran wants the United States out and is not going to accept anything other than that and Iran's holding all the cards, which is why we have a situation today where the president is desperately looking for an off-ramp.

Um, you know, this whole thing about the the the the steel wall that he talks about, the blockade, there is no steel wall. Understand that. people, please look at a map of the um Arabian Sea. Um and um imagine 16 ships on picket duty.

What's their span of control? Even if you put give them helicopters doing patrolling and you have other airplanes, how can 16 ships represent a steel wall? They can't. Um especially when they get close to the Iranian shore, the Iranian ships will sink them.

So they have to stay away from the Iranian shore which creates a giant buffer zone where ships can skirt the coastline and get past the steel wall. So um there it is. I mean just imagine that. Take a look at you know right up there where the street Yeah.

It's vast. I mean that is so you know what they're saying is you know I can't I mean it's hard to point but you see where Oman is. Um, and you go, you know, off that little tip of Munan up to the border of uh Iran and Pakistan right there. And uh, you know, that that would be an area where you you could say, okay, you have a steel wall there.

But now understand that Iran has missiles that will project, you know, deep into that. So our our our steel wall is only halfway up there. And and as it gets closer, it's not really half. It's sort of maneuvering because you can't stay still because the drones will come and get you.

So there's a half of that water there is a path for shipping to bypass. So you get through the straight or moves, you hug the coast of Iran and next thing you know you're in Pakistan offloading a port or making a swing around India going to China. Um we don't have a steal anything. Uh this is this is the reality.

But the president can sell this to an American public. This is dumber and dirt and uh they'll buy it. Um and so that's what the president does. " Now, that's a lie, but the American people aren't smart enough to recognize the lie.

So, he can solve the straight hormuz problem. Who controls the straight ruse? He'll tell the American people, I control it. And u therefore, I can walk away as long as I got my blockade in place.

The Iranians are like, "Well, your blockade sucks, so keep it in place. We'll keep doing what we do. " Um, you know, so you can claim you won. We know that you didn't and we'll just keep doing it to survive it.

On the nuclear thing, the president was kept saying, you know, you gota you got to give me everything. I got to control it all. And the Iranians kept saying, pound sand. And now the president has come to the mind where somebody came to him and said, hey, just say you won.

Stop talking about the need to get American hands on the nuclear dust. The following should come from your lips. I have destroyed the totality of the Iranian nuclear program. I, Donald J.

Trump, through midnight hammer and other military actions, I am the greatest leader the world has ever seen. I command the most powerful military the world has ever seen. And my magnificent bombers with their massive forces have destroyed the com and completely the Iranian nuclear program. I am declaring victory and I'm going home.

And the Iranians will be like, "Okay, we don't care. You could say anything you want to say. " And I think that's the direction we're heading right now. um where the president is going to declare victory in the straight hormuz by this you know imaginary steel wall and he'll say that the uh nuclear program has been annihilated and that uh there's no need to go forward um and he'll he'll leave and that's the status quo we'll have for two years and uh eventually what's going to happen is um nobody's going to give a damn the US Navy will come home because we can't maintain I just again hate to you know give war stories and things like this.

When I was a weapons inspector in Iraq, uh you know, we we served uh you know, for the pleasure of the security council, security council resolution 687, the chapter 7 resolution, which means military force was authorized to be used if the Iraqis didn't comply. And I know that for instance, in February, March of 1992, um I took an inspect in March, I took an inspection into Iraq that we thought we were all going to be taken hostage because we were confronting Iraqi lies. and the US Navy surged aircraft carriers and everything into the Persian Gulf and we were ready to go to war and the the Iraqis saw the light and uh cooperated and the fleet went home. Uh in the summer of 1992 uh we had a crisis at the agricultural ministry where we surrounded what we believed to be the archives of the weapons of mass destruction.

The Iraqis surrounded us. We had violent confrontations. The fleet surged back in. Aircraft surged back in.

the the the Iraqis backed down. The fleet went home. Um in the fall of 1992, the fleet came back. Boom.

Came home in 93. The fleet came in. The fleet came back. And eventually the the the military went, we can't do this anymore.

This is too damn expensive. We, you know, when we surge a fleet forward, it's ready for combat. That costs a lot of money. When we bring it back, all these things go away.

We have to redo it. So, we're spending billions of dollars going through a cycle that uh never achieves decisive moment. The right now we have no operational budget anymore. We've blown through our operational budget.

This is why the Pentagon's asking for $350 billion more because of this war. Right now, we have units that aren't training because the training money is being allocated to, you know, keeping these forces deployed. This is an unsustainable model. Pete Hgsth should be fired for what he's doing here.

Unsustainable model. We have to get these ships home and we have to get back to you know what passes for normaly and uh because you know that's that's how we afford it. We don't this is why we have such a high defense budget because we wasted on stupid things like this. Uh this is an unsustainable model.

So eventually, I would imagine that sometime after the midterm elections when the president doesn't have to keep the um pretense of victory up, uh the Navy will just quietly come home and one day we'll wake up and there's no more steel wall and nobody will care. Nobody will care because it never really mattered to begin with. Um and the Iranians will just keep doing what they do, strengthening their ties and eventually United States will just quietly leave the Persian Gulf. And I think that's what you're going to see.

It's just going to be one of these things that just Look, how many people understand that right now um the American military is withdrawing completely from Iraq on September 30th. It hasn't been [clears throat] broadcast everywhere. Not, you know, most Americans are like, "No, no, we got Americans there. We got Americans up there in Urbil and Kurdistan.

" On September 30th, every American soldier in Iraq is leaving. Is gone. Finished. It's just happening.

We're already out of Syria. How many Americans know that? We're out. Finished.

Goodbye. We didn't have a big ceremony. It just happened. And one day, we're going to wake up and we're going to be out of the Persian Gulf.

Gone. We're not going back to Bahrain. We're not going back to Kuwait. We're not going back to Qatar, United Arab Emirates.

We're leaving. And this is going to quietly happen. And that's what Iran wants. Iran doesn't need to have a, you know, an in-your-face moment.

Iran just needs the results and this is what Iran's going to get. Yeah. Yeah. And uh what's quite stunning about what you're saying, Scott, is that uh what what's so interesting is Trump has and the United States has throughout this entire war, throughout all the blunders and all the setbacks and all the the losses, the defeats, the and how all of it's come out.

Throughout the whole time, there has been a discontinuity even in just the messaging of explaining the war, why the United States is in this war when what you just said as the possible offramp could have been the narrative from the start to the f to the start to the end and made this process seemingly even that much more easy. Now, what you're suggesting is a lot more difficult in the sense that uh uh there are a lot of uh holes of history that can be shot through. And it seems that there are still forces inside of Washington that surround Trump uh maybe even Trump himself in his very uh deranged mind that keep the door open to some kind of renewed hostilities which to me and to a lot of our audience would be seeming really stupid and counterproductive and probably will only uh get the United States further into trouble but nevertheless uh there are holes and so I'm wondering what you think about that in terms of how this this uh off-ramp which is obviously so needed uh will run into any kind of trouble in the coming days and weeks. The problem is the people that are advocating for a continuation of this conflict mainly the pro-Israeli crowd because Israel you know sort of feel sorry for the Israelis.

Not really but I mean just think about it. They they spent decades trying to get an American president to go to war with Iran. you know, decades and they finally found one dumb enough to do it. And um and it didn't work [laughter] and and now now he's going to leave and they're never going to get an American president go to war around with again.

Uh it's over. The door is closed on this thing. So they're desperate to keep uh Trump actively engaged in Iran. They're desperate to do this.

Um and so that desperation now because they own Congress and they they own the Trump inner circle, you know, they're going to keep doing this stuff. The the problem is the people that count. Um remember Donald Trump disregarded the advice of his secretary of state. Uh he disregarded the advice of the CIA director uh the secretary of treasury um and others um regarding starting this war with uh Iran.

Uh the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, they all said bad idea. Don't do it. Uh only Pete Hegth, who um you know, I don't know what substance he was under was like we got this one boss, we can do this. I can bress 315 pounds.

I can kill Iranians. You know, and the president went, "Oh, good. " Go. Well, it failed.

So, HGith has zero credibility. He the president's called him out for his lies about munition stockpiles and and things of that nature. As we speak, General Kaine's telling the president, "We can't do this. I don't know what you think you want to do, but we can't do it.

" Um, Marco Rubio saying, "We lost everybody in the Persian Gulf. " Saudi Arabian saying hell no. Kuwait saying hell no. Bar we're not going to be able to use any of their bases.

You got to fly out of Jordan, which complicates things now because the Iranians have missiles that can defeat our missile system. Everything's going to be concentrated Jordan. And uh it isn't going to work, Mr. President.

Um Secretary Treasurer is like, you know, none of this will work. And so [laughter] the CIA director, same thing. We're not going to be able to overthrow the the government right now. They've sort of rounded up all of our cells and um they're dead.

And so you have all the people that matter saying no. Now this is important because we got a midterm election coming up and you know some of these people can be hauled before Congress and uh and asked questions. So the president can't just be dismissive of the uh advice of his inner circle right now. And I'm not talking about the inner inner circle, you know, the uh the insanity of uh you know Steve Miller or uh Sebastian Gorka.

Why is Sebastian Gorko allowed anywhere near the president? I don't know. But um you know these guys are there but the the people that count the big boys they're saying no and the president can't um you know can't can't go against them. So I I I think that we're in a situation right now where this uh you know there's not there's nothing the United States can do right now.

Um there there there's no chance for him to go to war. " But the American defense industry is so dysfunctional that even if you pour all the money in that you're talking about pouring in, you're not going to get these weapons for years, for years. So, and by then, we should have a change in political leadership and hopefully one that goes back to saying, uh, going to war against Iran's a really bad thing. Indeed.

Well, Scott, uh, it was a great show today. com, your website, and Substack are in the video description below where they can support you. I'll pull up one. Uh, there was one question from super chats and I'll pull up the rest of the super chats as you talk about it quickly.

Um, oh, this is another question. Wow. Okay, so there are two questions. Uh, Black Sea, will Turkey get involved against Russia, especially Odessa?

Will they blockade Russia? [laughter] No, not on your life. Turkey might get involved uh diplomatically, but um again, I just want to remind people that a blockade is an act of war. Um and um Turkey is not going to commit an act of war against Russia.

What Turkey will try to do is negotiate some sort of um you know renewal of the um the the grain deal, you know, the the the access to the Black Sea uh ports and all that, but Russia's done with that. Uh and Turkeykey's got no cards to to play on this one. So, no, Turkeyy's not they'll they'll sit there and talk and all this stuff, but they're not going to do anything about it. Yes.

Uh thanks, Scott. And then, uh one last question. " They do actually. They have uh they have um you know facilities in um the major cities.

Moscow has a big one. St. Petersburg has a big one, but every military district has military hospitals that take care of the uh the wounded. And my understanding is that the uh the health care um you know, at least the immediate healthc care is pretty good.

Russia has to wake up to uh when I was there in u August of last year, I talked to a veteran of the Afghan war and um he said, you know, they did a really horrible job uh taking care of the Afghan veterans. They were sort of forgotten uh people, especially when the Soviet Union went away because the Afghan veterans were Soviet soldiers. And now Russia was like, "That's not our war. " But then they had the old Chetchin conflict and they didn't do a good job with the Chetchin guys and it creates, you know, dissension.

But both wars are relatively small compared to what's going on in Ukraine right now. In Ukraine, you have a significant number of um of wounded that need help and a significant number of people who have served and Vladimir Putin has gone out of his way to say that those who served in the special military operation are the future of Russia. of it. So there's a political empowerment for veterans and I think you're going to see that Russia is going to do a better job of taking care of their veterans than they ever than Russia ever has done in the past.

U except for after World War II. I mean the veterans were very revered. Uh but you know and I also think the Russians will do a hell of a lot better job taking care of their veterans than we will taking care of ours. That's one of the saddest things we can get back to Abraham Lincoln.

you know, these these people coming off these deployments um you know, they're they're not going to adjust well to society. They're not. And um they're not gonna there's no normal for them to get back to. And many of them are going to fall victim of alcoholism or drug addiction.

Um they're going to lose jobs. Families are going to abandon them and they're end up on the streets. When I was a firefighter here with Delmare, uh I drove the ambulance um you know, when I wasn't doing firefighting. And uh you know every winter we we'd go out we had frequent flyers the uh the Vietnam veterans who were homeless and you just pick them up freezing on the street.

You take them to the VA hospital where they thaw them out, get a hot meal in them, then they have to release them and then next thing you know two weeks later we're picking them up and you keep picking them up until one day you show up and they're dead. Um and that's how we take care of our Vietnam War veterans. Um it's it's just sickening. And uh we're doing the same to these Gulf War veterans, to these uh war on terror veterans.

You know, after 911, everybody, you know, oh, God bless our troops. We love our troops. Well, then we found out about, you know, improv improvised explosive devices, IEDs, and things called tmi, traumatic or tbi, traumatic brain injuries. And um and suddenly the veterans became inconvenient because see the veteran be sitting there at the bar staring at his beer, not blinking.

And uh you want to come up and say, "How many guys you kill? " And he just staring because he's broken. He's done. And uh and then he stumbles out.

Nobody follows. Nobody asks, "Hey, are you okay? Can I talk to you? Let's have a conversation.

Uh what do you need? Uh you know, can can I get you a place to sleep? Can I You know, we just abandon these guys. And these are young kids now that are just going through society, disappearing in society.

We we're a disgrace. This is another reason why I would say don't join the military because your your country doesn't appreciate you. Your country mocks you behind your back. Many of them uh and the ones that claim to support you won't.

Ask yourself who's going to change your colosy bag when you come back. Because this is what going to happen to you guys. You're going to go out there, you're gonna get gutshot. It's going to go right through your spine.

So, you're going to be stuck in a chair and um you're going to be pooping into a bag and uh peeing into a bag. And who's going to change it? Ask yourself that. And if you can't answer that question, um don't join the military because you know who's going to be changing your classroom bag?

Nobody. Except you. And you're going to it up. Next thing you know, you're going to have a pile of on the floor and that's your life.

Don't join the military. On that note, Scott, uh, everybody hit the like button. Make sure you do that because that helps boost the show after we are done here. com.

His substack is in the video description below where you can support all of his work and find all of his work as well. In the video description also, you can find all the places support this show, Patreon, Substack, and much more. There is also thank you all of to all the members and all the super chats and to everyone who moderated today and everyone who viewed. Scott, any final thoughts before I hit endstream here?

No, just thanks for the support. I would ask people to go to my Substack and uh you know read what I post there and um if you can support, subscribe with a paid subscription or donate. I got a trip coming up at the end of September. Um and I'm still uh in need of uh of some funds to help make that trip happen.

So, uh, any any support would be great, greatly appreciated. Yes. Great. Well, everyone, you heard him.

Video description below after you hit that like button. m. Eastern time, I'm back with Alistair Crook. So, catch you tomorrow morning.

All right. m. I'll see you then. Until next time.

Bye-bye.

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Thousands Of U.S Troops DEAD': Former U.S Marine Reveals REAL U.S. Casualty Numbers in Iran War
Oneindia News
Aug 10, 2026

A former U.S. Marine is making explosive claims about the true human cost of the conflict, arguing that the real U.S. casualty numbers could be far higher than publicly acknowledged—potentially reaching hundreds or even thousands. Ken O'Keefe has also delivered a blunt message to Donald Trump, declaring “STOP DYING FOR ISRAEL” and accusing the Trump administration of misleading the American public.

His comments are fueling a heated debate over U.S. military involvement, casualty figures, government transparency, and America’s relationship with Israel. Are the publicly reported numbers telling the full story, or is there more being kept from the public?



Transcript Search transcript Search transcript as a marine who has been deployed to foreign lands and based on ships and so on and so forth. It's in the hundreds. I believe the numbers are in the hundreds and possibly even a thousand. And if they're not those numbers yet, they're going to be much bigger than those numbers.

Aloha from Tehran. You know, I just wanted to share some thoughts here. Number one, I know that they're lying about the death count of American service members. There is no doubt of this.

The figures of Americans now dead. It's impossible to know the actual number, but my guess is uh based on empirical evidence, eyewitness accounts, uh military uh experts, and just an overall understanding developed as a Marine who has been deployed to foreign lands and based on ships and so on and so forth. It's in the hundreds. I believe the numbers are in the hundreds and possibly even a thousand.

And if they're not those numbers yet, they're going to be much bigger than those numbers. So, this is number one. You know, I burned my passport in Baghdad 22 years ago with a sign saying, "Support your troops. " Why would I do that if I hate America?

that I don't want you to die for the Jewish state of Israel. And the fact that many Americans are learning to dislike the Jewish state. I'm telling you one more thing that none of the experts even the ones that I respect massively honestly many good commentators are all getting it wrong on this one thing that they're not telling you. These policies being carried out by Donald J.

Trump. These policies are not the folly of a narcissistic, horrendous, horrible, ghastly representative of America known as Donald Trump. It isn't that he is the egotistical narcissist on steroids that is behind the insanity and stupidity and the cannon fodder reality of sacrificing American sons mostly but daughters as well. Here's the truth.

It isn't him or his delusions or his ignorance or any of that. It is because the chosen ones have decided long ago that once America served its purpose as a goyam slave state that after America was done serving its purpose to die for the chosen ones that then America your beloved America would have to be sacrificed. Yes, your nation is being bled dry, flushed down the toilet purposely, willfully so that Pax Americana can be replaced by Pax Judea, greater Israel. I have been saying this for decades, but now it's reality.

So just know that as the entire economy of the world sits on the precipice of a cliff and falls off the edge resulting in the death of millions, tens of millions, literally willfully chosen by the chosen ones. They will die of starvation and related diseases from the lack of clean drinking water, the ability to grow food and all of the things that will come from this 1929 crash on steroids here in 2026. The chosen ones own Donald J. Trump and my birth nation and they are setting in the light and setting up the stage for a civil war and an anarchy.

Here is my advice to you, America, since you did not listen for all this time that I have been shouting from the rooftops. Maintain the republic. Maintain the Constitution. Arrest the traitors now and put them on trial with due process of law for treason.

And then let us celebrate their convictions. And hanging according to the law, I swore an oath to protect and defend. I say this from Iran because Iran is against the Epstein class. It is against the Jewish state of Israel and has supported the Palestinian people which have been Makum, my adopted family.

That is why I'm here. This country is on the side of God. I am on the side of God. And I pray that my birth nation finds the way of God, truth and justice.

Subscribe to One [music] India and never miss an update. Download the One India app now. [music]

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Larry Johnson: Trump in PANIC as USS Lincoln COVER UP Backfires, Iran DESTROYS US Navy
Danny Haiphong
Aug 16, 2026 #iran #usslincoln #usnavy

Former CIA analyst Larry Johnson discusses a bombshell revelation of direct evidence that the US Navy hiding the truth about the crisis of the USS Lincoln and what it means for Trump’s war on Iran.



Transcript

Welcome back. As you can see, former CI analyst Larry Johnson is with me to break down the latest developments. Now, Larry, I wanted to get right to it and show you this tweet by Sentcom. Now, the USS Lincoln is going to be replaced by the USS George Washington after all of the reports in the mainstream media, in the military times about how horrendous the conditions were on the USS Lincoln.

you covered that here on this program. So, people should check that out after the show on our last live program. But here's what Senscom said. USS Abraham Lincoln has maintained among the highest crew crew in reinlistments of all aircraft carriers on the US Navy.

5 million pounds of ordinance expended. No service members aboard have died. and one sailor fell over who fell overboard August 3rd was quickly and safely recovered. So this is all being framed as fake news.

Uh what's been reported about the USS Lincoln and this comes amid a larger exhaustion not just in the morale of sailors and US personnel but also in military hardware. Larry, so talk about what what do you make of this response by Senscom? This so-called fact check. They even had to admit that somebody did go overboard.

Of course, they didn't say why or how. Yeah, he slept he slept. He slept. He was He slipped off that big city.

That big city in the water, but uh uh Larry, your thoughts on this? It's It's a lie. Look, um I'm in I'm in contact now. I I I've been I've had three different mothers.

uh mothers of two sailors and the mother of a marine. They've been on different ships. Um one was on the Tripoli, one was on the Lincoln, one was on the Boxer. They're all telling the same story.

This isn't confined to this ship. This is a problem throughout the Navy. And um and for for Sentcom basically, oh no, this is fake news. My ass is fake news.

The the only fake news here are the denials by Sentcom that oh everything's great, morale couldn't be better. It's just the opposite. Uh and you know the look soldiers, sailors, marines, they complain, you know, enlisted personnel that's you know comes with the territory. We're talking about something different here.

And this is not confined to the Navy. This is a this is throughout the military. The uh after 25 years of fighting quote wars on terror and uh and and multiple operational deployments, combat deployments. The we have we have stressed our military to the breaking point.

the there are some irrefutable facts that Sentcom ought to be, you know, smashed in the face with. One, since 2001, uh there have been 147,000 now approaching 148,000 deaths from among soldiers, sailors, marines, airmen at for suicide. That is a larger number than the combined deaths from Vietnam, the Korean conflict, and all the other shitty little wars the United States has been engaged in since we left Vietnam in 1975. So, think about that.

In fact, we've got more people uh the the number that have died that suicide. This is larger than the number that died in the European theater for the United States, Europe, and North Africa in World War II. Think about that. So, this is this is a significant number of casualties.

And yet, they want to pretend that this is nothing. This is fake news. Uh so last November, November 25th, Army Secretary Dan Driscoll, who himself is a former Army Ranger, he issued orders to all officers and non-commissioned officers, you know, sergeants, [snorts] that they were to do daily checks, not once in a while checks, daily checks on the soldiers under their command. So that would mean like in a company of 150 soldiers.

Uh let's say that that 5 minutescompany is divided into uh four uh let's say uh five platoon and 30 soldiers per platoon. So that meant each platoon's so it was the the uh sergeant major's job to oversee each of the staff sergeants job and each of those platoon and each of the staff sergeants had to go out and make sure that the privates and corporals under their command weren't killing themselves. They issued an order to that effect. You wouldn't issue an order to that effect if it wasn't a problem.

Cyber Command uh just acknowledged or was outed as having had several I think five to six suicides in one month among its personnel. And we're not talking about kids that are out on the front line shooting people in the head. We're talking about kids get to sit in Barka loungers with joysticks and fly drones or sit in front of computers. But you've had suicides there.

" And he he said he guarantees that the number on the Abraham Lincoln thinking about committing suicide or you know it wasn't six it was more like 30 or potentially even 60 much higher number. So the US military has throughout a a problem of morale. It it stems from lack of leadership and pro sending them on missions with insufficient resources. that that combination of factors have created a crisis.

7 minutesAnd Larry, [snorts] what you just uh said there is also verified by others who have been in touch as well with families. And here is one message which says that uh my brother and fiance are both in the Navy and I can confirm what you have been hearing. Aaron is another reporter. His fiance is on the George W.

Bush, HW Bush, not the Lincoln, and was recently back in the US for a family emergency. So, we're able to talk to her. She told us how they virtually have no food, water, or soap. They may not seat 136 days with no ends in sight.

Morale is low. Everyone is miserable. It's heartbreaking. Um, and this comes in the context, if you could comment on this part of it as well.

Uh, this was, uh, written in TRT, Turkish media. how the Iran war is taking a growing toll on the US military, placing these strains, exhausted troops aboard deployed warships to the mounting pressures on weapon stockpiles, missile production, and Pentagon spending, a lot of this having come to a major head during the war on Iran. Uh Larry, how big of a crisis then is the US military in especially visav this war in Iran which while some have noted that Trump may be trying to find an exit ramp and offramp certainly there are major forces both inside of Washington and of course in Tel Aviv that have other uh ideas. Yeah.

Um so the the problems you facing the US military effort in Iran, one is this morale problem, the mental health crisis problem that we just talked about. And uh there is no immediate solution to that. And the the only way they can begin to deal with it is if they acknowledge it exists. And so far the the Trump administration has been pretending that it's not a problem.

So until they come to grips with that, they won't address it. Then you've got the weapon shortage problem. So 78% of US Department of Defense weapons are rely for fashion on five four rare earths and another metal called tungsten. So without those uh without those rare earth minerals and that tungsten, those weapon systems don't get produced.

And who controls that supply chain of those four plus tungsten? China. And China has cut the United States off. So now the United States is giving orders to all these defense contractors to uh pony up um new weapons, increase production, and they're giving them more money, but they can't produce it.

Just like if you know if I if I told you, hey, I'm going to I'm going to give you, you know, normally you'd make $1,000 for making a a birthday cake. Danny, I'm going to give you I'm going to give you $10,000. The only problem is you don't have access to flour, sugar, or eggs. And without flour, sugar, eggs, you ain't making a cake.

So that's what they've they're asking Lucky Martin to boost production of Patriots pack three missiles. There are two critical rare earth minerals that are involved with magnets that are critical to the guidance system that China holds controls 99% of it. So Loheed Martin can't get it and they won't be producing that. Yeah, that is uh that's that's incredibly dire.

And and then on the Iranian side, maybe you can help understand there have been so many announcements from Iran. It's actually quite astounding uh when one puts it into perspective. The first being that Iran has upgraded all of its missile stocks, every one of its versions of its missiles with the ability to evade air defense in particular at a a very uh low trajectory. Meaning that as it's about to uh strike, it changes trajectory.

in a rapid fashion. Could you explain how they did this and also at the same time that they announced this, they also said uh according to their commander uh Mr. Nakti, he said that they have produced more missiles uh over the course of this war now than they have fired, which is uh shocking Israel especially as Tel Aviv uh through the Jerusalem Post noted. So your thoughts on all this?

How how did Iran do this? And uh is this part of some kind of incredible miscalculation on the part of the US and Israel? Well, let's start with your last question. Yes.

Uh it's an int intelligence failure. So back in 2003, uh Iran took the decision based upon watching what the United States was doing in Iraq that you know what, we're going to have to put our missiles or drones, you know, drones weren't a big thing then, but we're going to have to put our military u facilities underground. Otherwise, if they're above ground, they're easy targets for the United States, and the United States can destroy them, and then we're out of luck. So they embarked upon a massive construction campaign that was shifting above ground factories and missile factories in particular.

But you know this also applied to the nuclear industry to shift it all underground and make it uh you know basically protect it against nuclear blast and make it very difficult to attack. And that's exactly what they've done. So now they're, you know, they're able and they were able to during the entire, you know, start of the war on February 28th, uh, during the first six weeks of that war, they were able to continue producing missiles underground. And then they didn't have to worry about bringing the missiles above ground to fire because they could fire them from underground from hidden hidden uh, tunnels um, or hidden silos.

So the, you know, Iran, uh, as the Israeli intelligence acknowledged, they they're rebuilding and they're going to, I think even Israel is missing. They they say they'll be back to the strength they were prior to February 28th by next year. They may be back there already or maybe by November at the latest. So, um, Iran is militarily equipped and capable of retaliating against anything that the Israelis or the United States decide to launch.

Yeah. Well, uh I wanted your assessment of you know Iran has also mentioned that they are going on a kind of offensive now toward the United States in order to get what they have demanded from the US uh in particular in the signed agreement that theou which both sides are supposed to be abiding by at the moment uh but one the United States is not. Now uh there have been reports that Iran says that they could take this directly to the enemy meaning even on US soil. What could be even meant by that?

Because of course the US loves to portray Iran as some kind of terrorist, a terror nation, one that uh you know Trump says it all the time, right? 47 years and all these various events, these terrorist attacks. It's all Iran. It's all Iran even though all of it is not Iran.

Yet Iran is also saying that they have the capabilities of engaging in warfare that will directly hit the United States. What is what is being meant by this if if not falling into the Trumpestablishment narrative? Well, I actually I don't think it dealt with actual attacks on US soil in the, you know, continental United States. Um, [clears throat] I think the Iranians were referring to, at least when I heard Nakti, General Nakti say, uh, US economic interests in the region.

So, I think they'd be targeting because I think, you know, Iran does not have cannot easily reach out and attack the United States. Uh that that's one of the problems with or one of the benefits the United States has is its geographic location makes it difficult to attack. The only way it'd be easy to attack is if Canada and Mexico fell under the complete control of the government that wanted to attack us or if they decided to start attacking us. So, uh, Iran's recognizing it can hurt US economic interests around the globe.

It's much easier for them to hit the US and Asia and Africa, uh, than worrying about crossing the Pacific to get to, say, San Francisco or Oregon or Washington, right? Yeah. , which uh Iran was very methodical about uh addressing now and hitting during those 40 days of hostilities. uh causing major damage but at the same time leaving a lot open and left for uh potential future escalation should it need it.

Now uh Larry talk about Iran's global role. It's about to join the new development bank. Many are talking about Iran as a rising superpower, a regional power, a a fourth superpower as Robert Pape, Professor Pape has said. But uh maybe you can help understand uh just how how much more powerful is Iran now than it was before the war on this global stage because this seems to be the big uh elephant in the room that the United States is not addressing.

Yeah. Uh well, Iran previously was [clears throat] isolated. If you go back with the signing of the JCPOA in 2015, um both Russia and China agreed with West, you know, the England, France, Germany, and the United States that uh sanctions should be levied on Iran to make sure that it complied with the limitations on its nuclear program. Where are we today?

Today, Russia and China, they've said with respect to continuing sanctions on Iran, not going to happen. No, we're done. And they they are openly trading and dealing. They've brought Iran directly into bricks.

Iran is a full member of bricks and an active participant. And then on top of it, Iran is no longer cut off economically like it was previously. Uh is it's able to receive goods. Even if the United States has the coast of Iran 100% blockaded, there is Pakistan and the border shared border which six trade routes over that border into uh Iran.

Uh plus Iran is no longer dealing in US dollars. So they are moving all their commercial activities out of the realm of the US dollar into the realm of uh rembi the Chinese currency as well as dealing with you know if they sell to the Russians they tra exchange rubles for their currency. So they are move they're they're moving towards more independence not more dependence. Yeah.

And uh how then does this also translate to uh you know Iran's capabilities of uh beating this economic war which the United States says now is the focus. Uh you probably saw JD Vance [clears throat] say that the number one priority is getting oil prices down not going very well but that's number one priority according to JD Vance. And number two is of course the whole nuclear deal fiasco which seems to be incredibly out of sight and uh really out of reality when it comes to the actual situation in the war. So how has Iran then been able to weather this storm?

Because uh you know while sanctions this blockade obviously have some impact it obviously not only has it not been enough to affect the Iranian political situation but Iran is becoming even more bold in what kinds of actions it takes to uh achieve its own objectives. " You know, just symbolic. Um, and he's ignoring the fact that Iran's economy is becoming less integrated with the West, not more integrated with the West. Now, they may try to punish any country that deals has dealings with Iran and you know the principal ones of that will be Russia and China and they'll say, you know, they'll tell the United States to kindly off.

So, uh, this is this is desperation mode on the part of the United States with this kind of statement by Bessant. You know, they're they're really eager to get the pressure. The reality, you know, they it was telling that they brought out, hey, gas and diesel. Well, wait a second.

You've been saying the straight of Hormuz is open. You've been saying you've been bringing out almost uh 75 80% of the oil that used to flow through there. So, what's the problem? Why the shortage?

Well, it's because they're lying. It's because the shortages are real. The the the drop off in supply out of the Persian Gulf is significant. You know, previously it accounted for, depending on who which data source you're looking at, 20 to 25% of the global supply and only a fraction of that has come back online.

if that. So the you've got right now a global shortage of diesel and aviation fuel and that's not going away anytime soon. That is going to get worse and worse. Particularly, it looks like the oil that they were counting on uh from Venezuela is not materializing.

And Canada, who used to be a major supplier of the sour crude that is needed to produce diesel and aviation fuel, Canada's telling the United States to screw off. It's going to start selling the to China. So, United States is we're we're living on the edge of a major major energy and financial crisis. Yeah.

And uh you know all of this seems to point to uh a deep and desperate need for the United States to cease uh this uh war on Iran. But yet we had reports from uh you know coming out of Israel channel 13 saying that Bradley Cooper Sentcom's top man uh top general said that he wants to push and urge Washington to approve of meaning the Trump administration approve of strikes on Iranian energy and infrastructure again. " What's going on here? Is the United States really preparing to escalate once again despite all of the myriad of problems you just outlined from the beginning of this program?

Jesus. It looks like we're watching that Saturday Night Live skit with Will Frell and Christopher Walkan, you know, where uh the Freer was pretending to be a member of Blue Oyster Cult and they're playing and he keeps he's playing the cowbell and walking keeps walking out going more cowbell. That's what we more cowbell. So Bradley Cooper now is Christopher Walkan calling for more cowbell.

So let's let's sit back and look at the what has happened. The first six weeks of the war were an intensive campaign of missile and bomb strikes uh cruise missiles, tomahawks, jasms as well as JDAMs uh in in in Iran and after six weeks called a ceasefire in part because we were running out of missiles. Then uh June or somewhere early July uh Trump declared theou dead and the ceasefire over and the United States recommenced three weeks of bombing in the Persian Gulf to degrade Isra's ability to block the straight of Hermoose failed. And again, the US called called it off because the the shortage of offensive weapons had gotten even worse.

And so now he wants he thinks in another two weeks that's going to tip the scale. these these people around Cooper need to step back and and consult uh the the analysts at you European Command Yukon and get them to provide a briefing on the amount of ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, drones, artillery, and glide bombs that Russia has dropped on Ukraine over the last four and a half years. The the number it just it it is so in excess of what the United States has done to Iran. It's not even, you know, it's not even in the realm of comparison.

And let's remember that Ukraine is onethird the size of Iran. So if the Russians can unleash this massive, massive, unrelenting campaign of missiles and drones and glide bombs, etc. And that didn't force Ukraine to collapse. What in the hell are they thinking that a two week campaign is going to force Iran to go, "Oh, stop.

" Oh my god. just I mean the stupidity on this is incredible. Yeah, it certainly is uh incredible and uh I you know I wanted your take then also on the Israeli role in this now uh given that it's Israeli media that's often leaking either it's leaking exactly what Bradley Cooper said or making it up alto together. It all comes as there was a major scandal uh that now has taken u much attention from uh the mainstream 27 minutesmedia even where Trump was paraded out uh in a catering cart to a another plane at the NATO summit, leaving the NATO summit using White House personnel uh his own administration and journalists, presser uh you know the press corps that followed him there as a decoy for some Iranian plot that uh uh the CIA was told by Israelis was going to happen with some ragtag cell in Turkey armed with man pads was going to fire at his jet and take him out.

That was the story. And now it's all being revealed that uh the Israeli intelligence even from the CIA perspective was worthless. Essentially had no basis in reality. yet they still went along with it, Larry.

So, I'm What do you make of the Israeli role in all of this? Because it appears that their stamp is on it no matter what role they're playing, whether it's a leadership role or just a cooperation role or or maybe a leading role. Your thoughts? Yeah.

No, they figured out one way to try to get Trump to act against Israel is convince to act against Iran. Convince Trump that uh Iran is trying to assassinate him. What a coward. Donald Trump is a bonafide coward because they they quote face this threat.

Well, okay. Number one, if I'm the head of the Secret Service delegation and we get this intel, okay, there's some uh some guy's going to try to launch a surfaceto-air missile uh against the aircraft as it takes off. You number one, you immediately get in touch with the Turkish security service. Okay, guys.

We need to establish a perimeter at outside uh the airport. Uh and you you be in and that perimeter you go within it and patrol. You find out is there anybody standing around with a surface air missile. So there's a way that you could have secured the takeoff route against such a missile.

Plus the plane is supposed to have uh counter measures on board. It can shoot off chaff and other things to distract a surface there or missile particularly one that's heat seeking. U but you know the other thing that makes this sort of ridiculous uh is uh the yeah the engines are have they've heated up at takeoff but they're not nearly as hot. They don't give off the same heat signature that they do when they're landing because they've been flying for a while and that heat builds up over time even though it's passing through cold air.

So trying to you know down a plane on takeoff is sort of a you know not a impossible mission but it's just not optimal. You know there's a lot of things they could have done from a security standpoint to secure it. They didn't do it. And so you got to ask why.

And then as you said, he left uh he left the rest of his um folks on board to be bait. You know, uh I don't know if you've seen one of the one of the [clears throat] spoof movies they did showed that they made made sure that Melania stayed on board. Oh, the president wants you to be here, you know, and Marco Rubio. It's just, you know, it's ridiculous.

It really is. I I always, you know, I've been saying about Trump is uh his policies are very much aligned with predecessors. Uh there really is not much deviation unless it's doing things uh more intensely, escalating things like certain kinds of wars. But ultimately you get a lot of the same more of the same from prior administrations except for the fact that you [clears throat] will get far more open humiliation as well as uh just kind of strange and uh maybe unprecedented antics which I think only magnify the crisis and also make it so uh I I think this morale crisis in the military also is reflected in the general population.

I mean, people are very sick and very tired of of the impact of this war. And now the the the top leader of the entire project, Donald Trump, is uh engaging in these humiliating acts. Uh which he doesn't in doesn't inspire confidence, you know. Not not leading from the front, not leading the charge, man.

He's hiding. Hiding hiding. Yeah. with the with the chicken pot pies.

[laughter] I just did not understand why any of that had to go down. But nevertheless, um time and money well spent, I guess. Uh Larry, now uh maybe we can, you know, spend the last bit of this program on how has this war on Iran changed the global uh geopolitical landscape. You know, I remember not too long ago, let's say the beginning of the first Trump administration after Obama, you know, there were real concerns that the United States maybe was capable of building up to war on multiple fronts.

massive buildup around Russia, massive buildup around China, and then of course in West Asia, Northern Africa, there was they were active and and relatively, you could say, effective in the sense that they got rid of Gaddafi and and made Syria almost an unlivable place to be. But now with this war on Iran and everything that happened before and up to where we are now, uh do Russia and China find themselves in particular uh more I guess assured of their own position and uh maybe have fewer concerns about the threat of the United States now than maybe in in years prior to this war. Well, I I think the combination of the attempt to open freedom of navigation in the Red Sea a year ago, June or May, by the Trump administration, continuing Biden's Operation Prosperity Guardian, and then the result of the US failed attack to destroy and collapse Iran. It's been I I call it the Wizard of Oz moment when the great and powerful Oz was revealed to be just an old itinerant drunk alcoholic preacher from Kansas.

Uh in other words, previously there was still sort of the belief I think even in Russia and China that the United States had more strategic depth, was much more formidable foe, had much more advanced technology, had some secret tricks that it could pull out of its bag. And then they watch and realize that, you know, they've watched the United States squander so-called wonder weapons in Ukraine over the past three years. And now they watched the United States basically fall on its face with respect to Iran unable, having promised protection to Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates failed to do so in every single regard. So the the situation now is, you know, the the perception of the United States as a giant, they're looking at it more like a a shriveled uh a shriveled old man that has, you know, is not quite the powerhouse that they once thought.

And now Iran says it's on the offensive and Russia has made indications that it is ready to uh move further and deeper into its campaign uh against Ukraine and NATO. Um and China seems to be sitting very pretty uh in regards to its position technologically, economically and militarily. But uh do you see these countries then uh taking an even more offensive posture in the future given that uh this might be the time to seize on uh what you just mentioned there which is the decrepit state of of the empire. Well I I don't see Iran launching any they're not going to initiate any offensive operations at this point.

I don't think so. [clears throat] Unless uh US Navy ships start coming in closer to shore and are engaged in sabotage or other activities, then yeah, those ships could be taken out. Uh but we do clearly see that uh Russia has upped its game and Putin has now put the Europeans on notice. you know, you start interfering with our ships again in the Mediterranean or in the North Atlantic, we're going to take your ships out in Asia.

And he gave those orders to the Navy, the Russian Navy just two days ago. So, and then Russia has stepped up its blockade of Odessa and Nikolia, two critical ports on the Black Sea, basically cutting off uh Ukraine's access to the Black Sea and its access to foreign imports of, you know, weapons as well as other critical items for their industry and preventing them from exporting any grain. So this is uh Russia hasn't just turned up the uh economic pressure on Ukraine. I mean it's it's gone from a small fire to a nuclear blast in terms of the kinds of intensity that they're now applying to Ukraine.

And then then what's happening on the ground militarily both in terms of missile strikes in Kev against critical logistics and manufacturing sites as well as the attacks against Ukrainian units all along the line of contact in Ukraine. Uh [clears throat] well, I'm glad you mentioned that because Sergey Lavrov uh recently told the media uh BGTRK, he said that Russia has no intentions of stopping at the current line of contact because our grandfathers fought against the Nazis and promised that they will be intensifying their methods, Russia will uh in this war. But what do you think he means by that? what what can we expect uh in you know in the now and of course the near future in this conflict as uh uh Russia intensifies and and and comes up with new methods to uh to fight this war.

Yeah, it may may up include striking targets and NATO countries where they are clearly providing uh material support to Ukraine in the terms of weapons. uh and and drones in particular. So they could do that. Uh they're [clears throat] going to put more troops into the mix, apply greater pressure all along that line of contact.

And it's important to understand while they're doing this, they're not doing human wave attacks. They continue to engage in a combination of artillery strikes, missile strikes, uh strikes with uh glide bombs. Uh then, uh then they'll do assaults. But what what they try to do is not only soften up the positions, weaken the positions of the Ukrainians, you know, by, you know, killing as many as they can before they launch their own attacks in order to minimize their own casualties.

So I I see much more of that coming. And it's going it's being done. they're able to mobilize and deploy more resources and at the same time they're going to they're going to make Kev unlivable that Zalinsky is going to be forced to by December abandon Keev and moved to the capital to Lavv. you know, Donald Trump, maybe to close, Larry, Donald Trump has about two years left in his administration, the second 40 minutesone now since 2016.

And Iran has said that they can wait him out and continue to pressure uh toward their demands that they have to uh rightfully end this war just uh with with a modicum of justice. And obviously Russia uh has abandoned and and said straight up that there was no real uh Alaska what were they saying it was the um uh in reference to what happened at the Alaska summit the uh anyway so they failed I mean they Trump failed to fulfill the what he had agreed to at the Alaska summit. Yeah yeah yeah. So, uh, so obviously Russia is seemingly doing the same thing, uh, essentially ignoring the Trump administration as a as a party that is worth negotiating with.

So, how will Donald Trump then be remembered uh, in terms of foreign policy if it were to end today? Obviously, there's two years left. We don't know what's going to happen, but if it were to end today, how would he be remembered? is a complete failure.

Someone who [clears throat] endangered America, didn't make America more secure, more powerful. He weakened America, ruined America's image in the world, and contributed to an as on his way to becoming the Herbert Hoover of the 21st century. [snorts] Spirit of Anchorage is what I was looking for. Uh where Russia, who was at Ushakov, who said, "What's that?

" Uh but uh uh and that's exactly what you just said, not being remembered as Herbert Hoover. I believe that's exactly what Donald Trump has told uh people close to him. He does not want to be remembered as. Uh and yet here we are.

Larry, any final thoughts on the world situation? You know, my friend, I wish it would get better, but the the good news for you is you're always going to have something to talk about for the foreseeable future. Yay. [laughter] No, I mean that's exactly I agree with you.

We we hope it gets better. It seems like when the world situation moves in a positive direction, the United States, Israel, and of course anyone who follows along with them, uh Saudi uh they uh they try to make the world uh as as worse as possible to protect what they believe they're losing. But [snorts] nevertheless, we'll have many more conversations to come. Everybody, make sure you follow Sonar 21 Transition Protocol on YouTube.

Obser 21 Larry's blog.

[admin]

Vijay Prashad:IRAN Just Threatened to CUT the INTERNET,Who Is Really Making Iran’s War DECISIONS Now
Transition Protocol
Aug 16, 2026 #IranUS #Hormuz #Trump

BREAKING: Iran's newly elevated security chief has quietly approved a plan to cut the undersea cables running through the Strait of Hormuz and Bab al-Mandeb — a move that could plunge parts of Europe and the US into digital darkness if the Trump administration follows through on threats against Tehran. In this urgent Transition Protocol dispatch, Zulfiqar Ali is joined by globally recognized analyst Vijay Prashad, live from Santiago, Chile, to break down why Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and the UAE are quietly building a new regional security order that cuts Washington out of the Gulf, why the UAE has reportedly moved two tons of gold and three billion dollars to Tehran, and why the United States may have no face-saving way to end this standoff.
Vijay Prashad is the executive director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research and a widely published analyst of global power shifts, multipolarity, and the Global South. Zulfiqar Ali is the host of Transition Protocol, a source-driven geopolitical and economic analysis channel covering de-dollarization, BRICS, the multipolar world order, global finance, and great-power rivalry.
This reporting draws on privileged sourcing on developing matters and is clearly flagged throughout as CONFIRMED, DEVELOPING, or UNVERIFIED/SPECULATIVE — watch the full episode for the complete picture, timestamps, and sourcing context. Transition Protocol / Power Shift is a serious, source-driven geopolitical and economic analysis channel focused on evidence-based reporting and high-signal breakdowns of global power shifts and their financial consequences.