On this intense episode of Dialogue Works, Larry C. Johnson and Col. Larry Wilkerson analyze the latest global flashpoints 🌍.
⚠️ Yemen shoots down a second warplane, signaling rising Houthi military capability.
🇮🇱 Israel faces strategic isolation and mounting global pressure.
🇺🇸 Meanwhile, Donald Trump folds on key foreign policy stances, raising questions about Washington’s next move.
A hard-hitting conversation you don’t want to miss!
#DialogueWorks #LarryCJohnson #LarryWilkerson #MiddleEastConflict #YemenWar #IsraelCrisis #TrumpPolicy #HouthiResistance #Geopolitics #USForeignPolicy #MilitaryAnalysis #JetDowned #IsraelIsolation #YemenUpdate #TrumpNews #GlobalTensions #StrategicCrisis #InternationalPolitics #ConflictZone #TruthInMedia
⚠️ Yemen shoots down a second warplane, signaling rising Houthi military capability.
🇮🇱 Israel faces strategic isolation and mounting global pressure.
🇺🇸 Meanwhile, Donald Trump folds on key foreign policy stances, raising questions about Washington’s next move.
A hard-hitting conversation you don’t want to miss!
#DialogueWorks #LarryCJohnson #LarryWilkerson #MiddleEastConflict #YemenWar #IsraelCrisis #TrumpPolicy #HouthiResistance #Geopolitics #USForeignPolicy #MilitaryAnalysis #JetDowned #IsraelIsolation #YemenUpdate #TrumpNews #GlobalTensions #StrategicCrisis #InternationalPolitics #ConflictZone #TruthInMedia
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NewsTranscript
00:00:00Hi, everybody. Today is Friday, May 9th, 2025, and our friends Carl Wilkerson and Larry Johnson
00:00:12are back with us. Welcome back.
00:00:14Glad to be here.
00:00:16Let's get started. Carl, we talk about what has happened between the United States and
00:00:22Yemen and in the early moments of what Donald Trump put out about the conflict with Yemen.
00:00:30And right now, to your understanding, what has happened that Donald Trump has decided
00:00:36to withdraw or make some sort of deal between the United States and Yemen?
00:00:41I can only surmise. I have a few facts, but I can only really surmise. And I think it's a double
00:00:49or triple pronged affair with Donald, if I can attribute any kind of reason and purpose to him.
00:00:55One is he wanted to stick his finger yet again, and he's doing it right now, this moment, as he
00:01:01wings his way, I guess, towards the Middle East, in Bibi's eyes. So he divorced the United States from
00:01:09the Yemen conflict, even though the Al-Ansar might not have had anything to do with it. He just said,
00:01:15we quit, we quit, we're not going to do it anymore. Second reason, I think, is because the Pentagon was
00:01:20telling me that it was grossly expensive. And in two ways, it was expensive in terms of expending
00:01:27those items that we might need, really, in a war. Very expensive items. We were losing drones,
00:01:35we were losing F-18s. No, I've told many people, we lost aircraft off of Vietnam quite frequently.
00:01:44It's not uncommon to do that sort of thing when you're in heavy carrier operations,
00:01:49especially multi-battle group operations. So it's not something that doesn't happen.
00:01:54People just don't realize that being in the military is dangerous. At the same time,
00:01:59that's very expensive. And the drones add to that expense, $30 million a pop. And the military
00:02:06was probably telling him some of the things that we've discussed here that confining a carrier or a
00:02:11carrier and its escorts in such a narrow water is not a really good thing to do. You're really looking
00:02:17at possible real problems in the future. Another reason is because I think assessment of the Pentagon
00:02:26was essentially that if you want to put it in these stark terms, we were losing.
00:02:35And Larry, before commenting on what has happened, here is what Donald Trump mentioned about it.
00:02:41Some very good news last night. The Houthis have announced that they are not,
00:02:45or they've announced to us at least, that they don't want to fight anymore. They just don't want to fight.
00:02:50And we will honor that. And we will stop the bombings. And they have capitulated. But more
00:03:03importantly, we will take their word. They say they will not be blowing up ships anymore. And that's
00:03:10what the purpose of what. Yeah. I love that term. Capitulated. Capitulated. Yeah.
00:03:18I can see my head of our looking in his English dictionary.
00:03:23This is, you know, this is sort of Donald Trump's equivalent of Gerald Ford going on television
00:03:29saying, hey, you got a phone call from those North Vietnamese last night. They've capitulated. So
00:03:34we're leaving Saigon. Everybody run for the helicopters. Yeah. You know, this, this is Trump's
00:03:41equivalent of April 30th, 1975 in Saigon. Look, Trump, the Saudis made it clear that the Trump needed to
00:03:54stop this. Number one, that was also a role. And the fact that the Omanis got into the middle of it,
00:04:01brokering it, uh, suggested to me that this was actually broader than just, uh, stopping the
00:04:07bombing of the Houthis that, uh, you know, maybe, maybe they're going to come to a deal with Iran.
00:04:14Uh, Trump would be, you know, it'd be in his, to his, uh, credit if he goes through with it. But,
00:04:22but as, uh, Colonel Wilkerson noted, this, this was a, just in terms of aircraft loss between,
00:04:28you know, predator drones and the F eight eight teams, you're looking at about a billion dollars
00:04:33right there. And then they, they flew over a thousand sorties. Well, you know, God knows how
00:04:41much each one of those costs in terms of, uh, ordinance that was dropped plus the, the maintenance
00:04:47on the aircraft. Um, you know, and many of us predicted this at the outset, it was like,
00:04:54it's like trying to punch a bag of jello, you know, the, the Houthis aren't going to be defeated
00:04:59with conventional means and United States exposed the limits of U S military power. So, you know,
00:05:06Trump, uh, he is putting that lipstick on a pig, putting a blonde wig on it and calling
00:05:12the Maryland Monroe. But you know what? It was still the U S withdrawn.
00:05:16And you know, what Larry said there about demonstrating the limits of U S military power
00:05:22is such a potent statement. Look at what Afghanistan did. Look at what Iraq did.
00:05:27Look at what all of our excursions basically, since the first Gulf war or that little,
00:05:32you know, no, no, no, not drug bust in Panama called just cause. We haven't had a success in
00:05:38two, three decades. And it's all because not all, but it's a large part because we take on things that
00:05:45military power is not appropriate for. Yeah. Very, very true.
00:05:52What's going on, Larry, in the Trump administration? It seems that
00:05:57he feels that Netanyahu is manipulating his administration in, in the favor of Israel.
00:06:04You think? Yeah. What, what was your first clue?
00:06:07No, it's important that he perceives that up in the New York times this morning,
00:06:15even a blind pig will find an occasional acre on an acre.
00:06:21You know, I like to say even Helen Keller could see this one, you know,
00:06:27you know? Yeah. That's unkind to Helen. I know. I know. Good Lord. This is, you know,
00:06:35it, well, it's, uh, if true, I always put if true, you know, uh, because I, sometimes I get my hopes
00:06:43mixed up with reality. Um, but if this is true, it's a good sign that, you know, Trump, uh, or,
00:06:51you know, there's only enough room for Donald Trump in the room and he can't have another
00:06:56pretender to take center stage. Uh, and so, yeah, I hope, I hope the BB has overstepped
00:07:04and that Trump has finally said, look, you know, we're not going to tie ourselves to him. This,
00:07:09you know, it goes along with the explanation that was given for getting, uh, uh, getting rid of Mike
00:07:14Waltz, you know, you know, demoting him to the United Nations of all places. So, yeah, I, I welcome.
00:07:24Colonel, I would wonder what has happened between the Trump administration and the Israeli one and the
00:07:32Netanyahu administration in terms of the decision on the part of the United States to find some sort
00:07:38of common ground with Houthis or maybe a peace or some sort of deal between the two parties.
00:07:45Here is what the U S ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, we know how pro Israel he is.
00:07:51And he said that we don't, we don't need Israel's permission to conclude an agreement with the Houthis.
00:08:00And if one of the 700,000 American citizens inside Israel is hurt by a Houthi attack,
00:08:08then we'll respond. Otherwise we have nothing to do with it. What does that mean for you,
00:08:17Colonel? Well, you know, this is, this is growing into a realization by a lot of people,
00:08:25even in this circus administration, that, um, we're not gaining any points whatsoever on the face of
00:08:33the earth with this business in Gaza. In fact, we're losing many. And one of the things I think
00:08:40brought it home to the Pentagon, for example, was this, what he actually did with the Knesset
00:08:47with full approval, apparently, and then, uh, post Knesset, the cabinet again, full approval called,
00:08:55he's called into this, a sustained military operation. Well, what that means is essentially
00:09:01CPA Iraq in Gaza. What it means is what Sharon evacuated Gaza for in 2005, shut down 21 settlements
00:09:13and evacuated every single IDF person. Because he knew if he stayed, there'd be an insurgency that
00:09:20would bleed the IDF interminably. That's what he's asking for now. Netanyahu is asking for that.
00:09:26And oh, by the way, the Gaza terrain, which wasn't all that conducive to such an insurgency then,
00:09:34is maximally so. Now, there are 250, 500 pound bombs buried all over the place that are inert,
00:09:41didn't go off, duds, in other words. They make IEDs out of them. They used one the other day and blew
00:09:47a Makava tank off the face of the earth. That's what's going to happen to the IDF. And it's already
00:09:53hurting badly. Its PTSD count is now over 10,000. It's got 7,500 additional that are on the margin
00:10:02of PTSD. Lots of reservists are not answering the call. The problems are just manifest throughout
00:10:10the ranks. And he's taking on even, he hasn't honored a single day of the ceasefire with Lebanon.
00:10:15He's bombing the hell out of it again. He's bombing in Syria. He's protecting the Druze. He's doing all
00:10:21these things that are overextending him. But this sustained military operation in Gaza is going to
00:10:27finish him, going to finish him. And I'll be amazed if we let him start it.
00:10:33Yeah. Go ahead.
00:10:37No. The situation with Israel, they didn't learn the lessons of Stalingrad.
00:10:52You know, what made the battle of Stalingrad so difficult for the Germans was they went in and
00:10:57they bombed, they leveled the whole city. And they created all this rubble. And so actually,
00:11:03the tanks couldn't really maneuver through the streets. So they were forced to fight on foot. And
00:11:10all of that rubble creates places for what's called cover and concealment where attackers,
00:11:17you know, soldiers who are fighting and can hide or they can ambush and it turned into a bloody mess.
00:11:25You know, there's another parallel as well with World War II. The Wehrmacht, when they went into
00:11:35Poland and into Ukraine, and they were killing civilians, that the regular army was the commanders
00:11:45who were writing back to higher command said, look, this is destroying. We're getting some real
00:11:52psychological problems because people, you know, normal people with a conscience
00:11:58don't get, you know, break down when they're killing women and children.
00:12:04And what this is showing in Israel is that they're not all monsters,
00:12:08that there are many that are in, you know, these reservists that they themselves have children.
00:12:14And when they're seeing these bodies starting to stack up and pile up, it's causing real emotional distress.
00:12:22So, you know, Netanyahu's entire objective in all of this has been to try to save his own ass
00:12:32from legal jeopardy. And in doing so, he's literally just, he's destroyed Israel's reputation,
00:12:43uh, making Israel a pariah now among, among many, many nations. And it's growing, not diminishing.
00:12:50And, and now he's managed to alienate Donald Trump.
00:12:55I mean, I can't, you know, I shouldn't laugh, but it is, I think it's hilarious that, uh, you know,
00:13:04Trump, Trump wants to be liked, you know, that, that's sort of what his weakness, he wants to be liked.
00:13:12And in these, I think, come to the realization that hanging out with Bibi makes him unlikable,
00:13:17and he doesn't like that.
00:13:23Colonel, if you were to assess the situation of IDF and Israeli army today, compared to what it was
00:13:32before October 7th, how do you see the way that they're, they are right now, the situation they're
00:13:39in right now? In very bad shape, very bad shape. Let's face it. One, they were not designed to be
00:13:46this kind of military. They were designed to be by the original sort of creators. Moshe Dayan comes
00:13:53to mind. They were designed, Sharon comes to mind. They were designed to be a blitzkrieg military,
00:13:58a military that just struck, won, and departed. And there, take that. Deterrence is reestablished.
00:14:06Do it again, and I'll hit you again. Like in Operation Cast Lead, which was a precursor for what's
00:14:12happening right now. Because they went out and killed everything that moved, men, women, children,
00:14:16and everything else. And then said after a few weeks of operation, now, you see what we can do?
00:14:22We'll do it to anybody who challenges us. So take that lesson. And it was taken for a while. This,
00:14:27of course, was reestablishing deterrence after they had their butts kicked by Hezbollah back in 2006.
00:14:34So that's the way they operate. And the second thing that's playing on them right now is they haven't
00:14:40had a real conflict since 1973. And so they've been doing police duty. And they've become, in many
00:14:49cases at checkpoints and other places, kind of draconian in that police duty, and not very
00:14:55respective of human life. So that degraded them somewhat. Now they're in a situation, as I said,
00:15:02if they go ahead with this sustained military presence, where they're going to get defeated.
00:15:08And that's unusual to the max for the Israeli IDF. And morale and such, I'm told, is plummeting
00:15:17accordingly, especially amongst the reservists, not so much amongst the professionals. But then you
00:15:25think about PTSD like this for a moment. And we had this problem in Iraq, big time, especially around
00:15:32Fallujah and Anbar province in particular.
00:15:36When you take people off the battlefield for TBI, PTSD, or whatever, PTSD in particular,
00:15:44you're taking those people off the battlefield who have a conscience. Otherwise, they wouldn't have
00:15:50gotten post-traumatic stress, what we used to call battle fatigue. What you're leaving are your killers,
00:15:58your murderers. That's what you're leaving on the battlefields. And that's what phenomenon is affecting
00:16:04Israel right now, too. That's why you get things like a buried ambulance, and everybody killed in the ambulance.
00:16:11This is not good for professional military. And you want those killers, if you're in a big war,
00:16:18you want them. Because as S.L.A. Marshall said after World War II, one out of every 11
00:16:23infantrymen really killed 90% of the enemy, because they were killers. And they did well at it. And the
00:16:30others kind of protected them. And that's the way the military works. Well, now you've got out there
00:16:35for Israel a lot of these killers and murderers. And that's just a recipe for more disaster for Israel.
00:16:42Their reputation is in tatters throughout the world, in tatters. They have no reputation
00:16:48other than brutality, murder, and genocide. Larry, when Donald Trump has decided to go to the Red Sea
00:16:56to fight Yemenis, I was thinking, what's the logic behind it? And right now he's somehow leaving the Red Sea
00:17:05without achieving anything. Do you think that, do you see the possibility that he's going to get back again?
00:17:11Or you see a deal done? You see something that Donald Trump would never repeat it again?
00:17:21Oh, no. I can't rule out that he'd, you know, they certainly could do it again. But, you know,
00:17:26they didn't understand. You know, number one, they hadn't paid attention to what happened under the
00:17:33Biden administration with their start of Operation Prosperity Guardian. They assumed that, but the Biden
00:17:45folks really weren't trying, that they were just only doing pro forma attacks. And by God, we're going
00:17:54to show them. It just, it really shows sort of a failure to understand both US capabilities,
00:18:03and the nature of trying to dismantle what was going on in Yemen with the Houthis.
00:18:12This, you know, and I attribute this to having just too many civilians that have had no experience
00:18:19working with trying to target mobile systems. You know, we didn't take down a single scud during the,
00:18:27you know, the first Gulf War, you know, despite, oh, we're gonna go get them.
00:18:31And there's, I guess there's this assumption about our intelligence capabilities that we were able to,
00:18:39you know, write the eye of Sauron from Lord of the Rings, can see everything and know where it's
00:18:44located. And that's not how it works. And particularly, if you're trying to track anything
00:18:51that's out in the open, open sea, track ships like that, it's very difficult. And when, when you're
00:18:59trying to track missiles that are on land, that are in mobile launchers, there is not instantaneous,
00:19:05it's not instantaneous, the closest we come to instantaneous communication.
00:19:13Yeah, it seems that we've lost. We shot down, why they shot down so many, you know,
00:19:21they, they were shooting down one a week. Prior to that, they'd been shooting down like one a month.
00:19:27So, you know, it was, they figured out, okay, yeah, we see that predator, we're going to take it out.
00:19:33So, Trump's failure to understand the military dimensions of this, because he's, you know,
00:19:41he may understand how to build a hotel or a casino, but he doesn't know a, you know,
00:19:45really a damn thing about this. And I don't think he's learned anything from it.
00:19:49And Neiman, let me, let me just say that, uh, I agree with what Larry just said, and let me add this
00:19:55particular aspect of my own experience. And I think I've read of much more experience in this regard.
00:20:05The blue suitors think that bombs will solve every problem.
00:20:09Yeah. They think that all you got to do is take off a carrier or take off out of Whiteman Air Force Base
00:20:14or battery out your deed or wherever and drop bombs on people. And the more you drop, the more success
00:20:19you're going to create. And the more success you create, the more bombs you're going to drop.
00:20:23That's their philosophy. They have been proven wrong since their original disciples laid this crap out.
00:20:29And yet we don't pay any attention to it. We still listen to them. I had a three-star Air Force general
00:20:35in the Pentagon tell me when I questioned him about his 80% of the targets in North Korea would be
00:20:42destroyed in the first hours by the Air Force on the peninsula and the Air Force reinforcing
00:20:48from the United States. And I challenged it. I said, why are you saying that? These cannon,
00:20:56these howitzers are in caves. They roll out, they shoot, and they go back into the cave.
00:21:01Well, we know where every one of them is. And you're going to pinpoint every one of them.
00:21:04How many are there, General? And, you know, we just got into an argument.
00:21:08And colonels don't get into an argument with three stars. They get kicked out of the Pentagon.
00:21:12And I was subsequently kicked out. But it's absurd to say that you're going to get 84% of the cannons
00:21:19the North Koreans are going to shoot at Seoul in the first 30 hours.
00:21:23Yeah.
00:21:25Larry, part of the war, the conflict with Yemen is this psychological war.
00:21:32You put yourself in the shoes of your enemy to understand where they stand, what do they think about you.
00:21:41And when you look at Yemen, earlier today I talked with Pepe Skobar. He recently was in Yemen.
00:21:48And he said these people, you have to be there to understand their sort of objectives.
00:21:54They don't care about the United States bombing their only airport just to destroy everything.
00:22:00They're going to fight back. And it doesn't seem this sort of understanding can be achieved on the part of the Trump administration
00:22:10or whoever making the decision in the United States.
00:22:14That's one of our biggest failures as a country.
00:22:20That we are incapable. We're not incapable, but we rarely take time to understand both the culture, the mentality, the point of view of those that we perceive as either enemies or someone we need to attack.
00:22:37Look, I saw this right after 9-11 because, you know, back at the time I was directly involved with JSOC and SOCOM scripting exercises called 0300, 0400 exercises.
00:22:51And so here you're dealing with the most elite forces in the U.S. military.
00:23:03We're not just talking Delta Force and SEAL Team 6.
00:23:06You got the folks out of Belvoir.
00:23:08You've got a bunch of covered air, you know, a whole, I mean, I'm talking the very, very pointy end of the spear.
00:23:14Got the guys who did Nord Stream.
00:23:16Yeah, yeah.
00:23:19And the ignorance about, they didn't know Sunni from Shia.
00:23:26They had no, you know, as far as just a Muslim, and that's who we're going to kill without, and no appreciation for whatever our role had been in helping create this situation.
00:23:42No memory going back to what we did with, you know, training up terrorist groups in Pakistan that were used against the then Soviets in Afghanistan.
00:23:54You know, zero understanding.
00:23:57So all I'm saying is, you know, what you're seeing now with Yemen, it's consistent.
00:24:02I mean, one of my friends and mentors, Pat Lang, Pat had, he had been defense attache in Yemen.
00:24:10He understood it.
00:24:11He had been, you know, he knew the culture.
00:24:13Yeah.
00:24:14It seems that.
00:24:23Come talk.
00:24:24Yeah.
00:24:25There we go.
00:24:26Come talk to me.
00:24:27You know, I had this experience with Jerry Bremer.
00:24:29Because, you know, I was friends with Bremer before, you know, that friendship became broken over the whole mess in Iraq.
00:24:38But I had literally had lunch with him two days before he was asked to take on the job of being the, you know, the poobah in Iraq.
00:24:50And so I called him up because I, you know, I knew he didn't, I said, hey, Jerry, I said, you know, I started off.
00:24:56I said, boy, who did you piss off?
00:24:58And he goes, well, you know, when the president calls, you got to say yes.
00:25:01I said, okay.
00:25:02I said, let me help you out.
00:25:05Let me introduce you to Pat Lang.
00:25:07Because I gave him Pat's resume.
00:25:09You know, Pat, Pat set up the Arabic program at West Point.
00:25:13Pat was defense attestated Saudi Arabia and Yemen.
00:25:16But most importantly, he had been the one that hand carried intelligence to the government of Iraq during the Iran-Iraq War.
00:25:23And he was the head of the Middle East Division at the Defense Intelligence Agency.
00:25:29And Jerry goes, no, I don't need to talk to him.
00:25:32That's Jerry.
00:25:33How did that work out, Jerry?
00:25:38Yeah.
00:25:39Yeah.
00:25:40So you wouldn't talk to Sergio either.
00:25:43Yeah.
00:25:44It was absurd.
00:25:45Sergio had to move out there where he later died.
00:25:48Yeah.
00:25:50Colonel, the other dimension of the conflict in the Middle East is what's going on between Iran and the United States.
00:25:57Let me just say one other thing.
00:25:59Go ahead.
00:26:00Go ahead.
00:26:01Just pour it into my head as he would say that.
00:26:04You know, the Houthis, ala Ansar, are a different sect than most of Yemen.
00:26:13And they don't like the fact that most of Yemen, which cares, and I suspect most of them don't care, but those who do care, say the Mullahs and others, are oppressing them all the time.
00:26:24So I don't know that the Houthis actually worry about Sana'a being hit or any other target that takes out mostly other people in Yemen than they.
00:26:37Yeah.
00:26:38That's a good point.
00:26:39Because they're different sects.
00:26:41And getting to the conflict between the United States and Iran, here is what Tulsi Gabbard said about who's pushing for war and who's pushing for some sort of negotiations with Iran.
00:27:00Those who are co-opted by the military industrial complex, abusing their position to feed or manipulate intelligence, as we saw with the Iraq war, to start a new war.
00:27:15So this intelligence community, the work that gets done in places like this every single day, has that power to be the fodder, the fuel, the seed that can lead to yet another unnecessary war.
00:27:32The New York Times article was a result of an unfortunate, unauthorized, and illegal leak of a very private conversation between the president and his advisors.
00:27:47I won't get into the details, but it was a very robust discussion that really speaks to President Trump's care and thoughtfulness as he makes his decisions around these very serious issues of war.
00:28:01And peace.
00:28:02You know, ultimately, what we are doing is providing the president with the facts, the intelligence.
00:28:09Here is what the intelligence is telling us as the secretary of defense.
00:28:15Here are the options that are on the table and the likely outcomes that could occur if you go with course of action A, B or C.
00:28:22And ultimately, it's the president who makes the decision.
00:28:25And he has made it clear time and time again that his goal with Iran, first of all, they cannot be in a position where they can develop or have a nuclear weapon.
00:28:35And that he believes and is confident in the opportunity that this moment provides to be able to achieve that outcome through peaceful means, through diplomacy and through negotiations.
00:28:48And he knows that that's what's in the best interest for the American people and for the world.
00:28:55Coral, your take.
00:28:56I couldn't have said it better.
00:28:58I mean, I couldn't believe she started with the military industrial complex and the vicissitudes thereof.
00:29:04But she's telling the truth and she's telling the truth basically about the other aspects of it.
00:29:10I don't know about Donald Trump.
00:29:11I'm not in his head, but that's the way the system is supposed to work.
00:29:16The president is supposed to be presented with the intelligence without any bias whatsoever, just the intelligence.
00:29:22It can be interpreted.
00:29:23It must be interpreted by professionals, not by vice presidents, for example, like Cheney did in the run up to the Iraq war, by professionals.
00:29:31And they will usually say, I have a 90 percent surety on this or an 85 percent surety on this or this source is very reliable or this source is brand new and not reliable.
00:29:41So you get the intelligence and then you make the decisions based on the courses of action that if it's military, the secretary of defense gives you along with the chairman in terms of courses that you can pursue.
00:29:53And Trump then says, as she was intimating, I don't want to pursue any of those.
00:29:58I want to pursue diplomacy.
00:30:01You keep those in the door until I'm ready to use them if diplomacy fails.
00:30:05But I'm going to try diplomacy first.
00:30:07That's a smart move as far as I'm concerned.
00:30:09If that's what he's done, I applaud it.
00:30:12Larry?
00:30:14Well, I don't know if you noticed, it was a day yesterday, two days ago, the news was filled with, oh, we got this imagery of this secret nuclear plant in Iran that's just been discovered.
00:30:29It's been there for 10 years.
00:30:31And then he looked, it was provided by this Iranian opposition group, who I guarantee is being paid for by the CIA.
00:30:40So what this tells me is the reason they're putting that out now is that I think there actually is some serious movements by Trump to negotiate a deal with Iran to that will not require Iran to give up all of its missiles and drones and to dismantle and disarm.
00:31:00But we'll put an end, a definitive end to any suspicion that they're building a nuke.
00:31:07You know, Iran wants that if they can get back to some sort of normal economic activity.
00:31:13Because, you know, Iran's not the one that's been rampaging around the region invading other countries.
00:31:22Because, I mean, we go back to the start of the Iran-Iraq war.
00:31:26That was with U.S. encouragement to invade Iran.
00:31:31You know, we put Saddam up to that, basically.
00:31:34And so, you know, they do want peace.
00:31:38And it's, again, it gets back to whenever you look at some of the news and the information comes out, you always got to start peeling back the layers.
00:31:49Because there's, it's never quite what it seems.
00:31:52Because, you know, I've had some friends, oh, look at this.
00:31:55This is proof that Iran's building a nuke.
00:31:57I had to go back and say, just look at the source of the information for starters.
00:32:02And you know right away that it's in the male bovine excrement category.
00:32:08One other thing, Nima, I would say, after agreeing with everything Larry said.
00:32:14I got the inclination there to believe, and I've gotten it in other places, too.
00:32:20I've been disabused of it in other places, too.
00:32:23That she really wants to do something about the very insidiousness of aspects of the CIA and other elements within the intelligence community, too.
00:32:35And she hadn't figured out exactly what to do yet and exactly how to go about it.
00:32:40But I would say one of the most insidious things I saw in my time in government was how we were using, through the CIA, the idea of liberal democracy to establish in country after country after country color revolutions, or the equivalent thereof, that were not in the interest of that country, its regional partners, or in many cases, us.
00:33:07And yet we went ahead and did it.
00:33:12Larry, how do you feel about the concept that Colonel put out the she tries to do something, but she's not a hundred percent sure where should she start with?
00:33:25Well, she's dealing with, number one, a huge bureaucracy.
00:33:30Yeah.
00:33:31And she hasn't had the, you know, she didn't grow up in it.
00:33:35She hasn't had to deal with it from inside.
00:33:39And, you know, I was fortunate, you know, early on getting, you know, when I started CIA, I got put into what was called the career trainee program.
00:33:48You know, previously to my joining, that program was restricted only for case officers, people who were going to be going overseas to recruit foreign spies.
00:33:59But, you know, Bob Gates, one of the few things he did to his credit that I agreed with was he opened this program to the analysts, to the people who were in science and technology, and who were in the admin branch.
00:34:15And what we got in that one year was a full exposure to all aspects of that intelligence community within the CIA.
00:34:28And then in my next jobs at state where I worked with FBI and with other elements of the intelligence community.
00:34:38And then when I got into doing the military exercises with JSOC, you know, I was dealing with the whole panoply every, you know, all 17, you know, they keep counting.
00:34:48They keep hearing now it's 18, eight intelligence agency, supposedly it was 17.
00:34:52See, but, you know, I, I was able to acquire experience over that course, seeing sort of how the whole sausage is being made.
00:35:01And that include, I was read into a lot of saps that are not, that go beyond the top secret program.
00:35:08Well, she, she didn't have that background, you know, and, and it's easy to come in and just, you know, the, the, get the mushroom treatment.
00:35:16They can, they can, you know, cover, cover you with manure and keep you in the dark.
00:35:21And you don't necessarily know that that's what's happening to you.
00:35:24So she's learning.
00:35:26And, you know, I hope she's tried, starts to hold these people accountable because there've been lots of lying going on.
00:35:35Yeah.
00:35:36And I would just throw into that too, something that I learned big time when I was at State.
00:35:41Dana Priest's article, two part article in the Washington Post sort of exposed this when she talked about 800 plus thousand top secret code word clearances.
00:35:50There are a lot of civilians, hundreds of thousands of civilians now embarked on this intelligence business and sometimes doing as much damage as those inside.
00:36:01Yeah.
00:36:02Yeah.
00:36:03Colonel, by the way, it seems that the case of Iran is much more serious for Donald Trump and his administration,
00:36:10because we see that Lindsey Graham together with Tom Cotton prepared a document in that says no agreement with Iran unless they have to dismantle the enrichment of uranium totally without any sort of exception.
00:36:29All of any sort of article being mentioned in that they have to destroy everything in their capability to enrich uranium unless we're not going to abide by.
00:36:40We're not going to accept it.
00:36:41This.
00:36:42Do you think this panic comes from Lindsey Graham and Tom Cotton?
00:36:48Tom Cotton is something comes from Netanyahu and Israel?
00:36:52The latter, but probably with a cord on the part of both Cotton and Graham.
00:36:58And let me say two things about that.
00:37:00I could be kind and say that that's his bad cop.
00:37:06That's Trump's bad cop.
00:37:07And he's got them doing that sort of thing.
00:37:09I won't be kind and I'll say that look at what Marjorie Taylor Greene just said and affected with others in defeating that lousy piece of legislation that was unconstitutional as hell and was coming out essentially to say,
00:37:27if I say you're an anti-Semite, I can jail you tomorrow morning without any due process whatsoever and things like that.
00:37:34They're losing their own party.
00:37:36Congressman, Senator by Senator, they're losing their own party.
00:37:40I watched a budget hearing two days ago and I was astounded at what some of the things the Republicans on that committee.
00:37:48I think it was the Budget Committee because I didn't recognize a lot of the people and it's big.
00:37:52So it probably was the House Budget Committee.
00:37:54And when AOC spoke up and talked about having 800 bases and China only had one, I wanted to say, oh, no, they probably have about eight to 10.
00:38:03Depending on what you count a base.
00:38:05But you're right.
00:38:06We do have between 750.
00:38:08I didn't hear that kind of word.
00:38:10And I know I didn't hear any Republicans accept it and say, yeah, that that is a drain on the Treasury.
00:38:16So he's losing some Republicans.
00:38:19We're losing Republicans.
00:38:20The country is losing Republicans.
00:38:22Good, I say, and I'm a Republican because of the stupidity of what we've been doing for the past 30 years.
00:38:29You just can't be that stupid consistently and sit in the Congress.
00:38:36I think we're going to see more of them deserting.
00:38:39Yeah.
00:38:40Yeah.
00:38:41Larry, do you think that Lindsey Graham and Tom Cotton are that much important to Donald Trump care about them?
00:38:49You know, Trump, I still don't understand why Trump plays golf with Lindsey Graham as much as he does, you know.
00:38:56Playing with the enemy.
00:38:58Yeah.
00:38:59Yeah.
00:39:00But Trump, you know, Trump is still, as Colonel Wilkerson has frequently said, Trump always comes to a conclusion based upon the last person he talked to.
00:39:14You know, so it's whoever, you know, so that's why he's, you know, can be wildly flip flopping on issues and say one thing one day and then the exact opposite thing, you know, two days later.
00:39:27But, you know, I think Trump's desire to secure a victory.
00:39:34I mean, look, look at how desperate he was yesterday touting this big, big trade agreement with Great Britain.
00:39:42You know, apart from scotch, I can't name another major import from Great Britain, you know, that, you know, it's like they're not an economic powerhouse by any stretch.
00:39:59But by God, man, when Trump was talking about it, you would think it was like China's competitor.
00:40:06So, you know, Trump's desperation to score some wins, some political wins, I think is real.
00:40:14And to that end, if he's got a chance that he can go out and say, hey, I have put an end forever to Iran's program to build nuclear weapons, I've accomplished it.
00:40:27And he's not going to say, basically, I've gone back to JCPOA, I just haven't put a 10 year limit on it.
00:40:35You know, I think in that case, he would ignore Lindsey Graham and Tom Cotton, because, you know, the danger Iran faces with this is they can make an agreement with Donald Trump.
00:40:47But if it's not going to go to before the Senate's approval as a treaty, the next president can come in and trash it just like Trump trashed JCPOA.
00:40:58In light of what Larry said about the volatility of Trump's character, I can't wait until he's been shown, probably by exit, videos of the Russian parade in Moscow.
00:41:09Oh, yeah.
00:41:10And the meetings with Xi Jinping and 29 other leaders, including Vietnam.
00:41:17Yeah, I stayed up late to watch that thing.
00:41:21It was really something.
00:41:22It was.
00:41:23And I had the exact same thought.
00:41:25I said, boy, Trump, man, this is going to eat at him.
00:41:30Because no matter what he pulls off in June, you know, he's going to have this big parade in June.
00:41:36It's not going to come anywhere close.
00:41:38I mean, just, if nothing else, the magnificence of Red Square.
00:41:43You know, I've been there and walked around it in wintertime and, you know, and also in springtime.
00:41:53It is, it's iconic.
00:41:56And, you know, the Washington Mall doesn't even begin to compare.
00:42:01And so Trump, oh, yeah, Larry's right.
00:42:06This is going to eat at him.
00:42:09I wouldn't be surprised if he doesn't cancel his parade.
00:42:13You don't want to be shown up.
00:42:15Since you've mentioned, Karl, the case of Russia, and we know that they're trying to do a 30-day ceasefire with Russia,
00:42:29and which consequently, later on, leads on to some sort of permanent ceasefire and agreement between the two parties.
00:42:38Here is what Keith Kellogg said in that term, Karl.
00:42:42To what happened, actually, in the Baltics after World War II, where we never recognized the fact, by du jour, recognition of the Baltics, that they went to then the Soviet Union.
00:42:53We said that over time, things will change.
00:42:55And that's what we kind of tell the Ukrainians.
00:42:57The same thing when you look at what happened in Germany.
00:43:00The Germans always wanted to unify Germany after World War II.
00:43:03They didn't get it right away, but eventually they got it.
00:43:06So you tell the Ukrainians, look, this is one of those things that's going to be evolving over time.
00:43:09And if you do a ceasefire in place, the ground that you own, the ground that you fought for, that that's your ground right now,
00:43:15what happens five or ten years down the line is different.
00:43:18And you don't have to basically freeze everything in place.
00:43:20Right.
00:43:21And we've got that right now.
00:43:22The Ukrainians are willing to do a freeze in place, what I call a ceasefire in place.
00:43:26And then for a period of time, they're willing to set up to the militarized zone.
00:43:31What they basically said is, we'll back up 15 kilometers, you back up 15 kilometers to the Russians.
00:43:35So you know, it gets a 30 kilometer, 18 mile zone that you can actually observe.
00:43:39And you can actually say, okay, are there any intrusions?
00:43:42Yeah.
00:43:43I heard the rest of that yesterday, too, where he says the Germans will be there and the French will be there.
00:43:49Yeah.
00:43:51This guy is smoking some cheap stuff.
00:43:54Yeah.
00:43:54And by the way, he should have been in the conversations with Helmut Kohl and H.W. Bush
00:43:59and Colin Powell and a number of other people, Jim Baker, when Kohl was very reluctant to reunify Germany.
00:44:07Very reluctant.
00:44:08Things were pretty good in bond.
00:44:10And $80 billion U.S. was the estimate for just starting it.
00:44:16$80 billion.
00:44:18And he knew what Russia would think about a reunified Germany.
00:44:21Helmut Kohl had to be persuaded by Francois Mitterrand and John Major and George H.W. Bush, most formidably.
00:44:30Not like everybody wanted Germany to be reunited.
00:44:34Larry, Keith Kellogg and what he has said about Ukraine.
00:44:42I don't see a teeny tiny possibility for that in the mind of Russians.
00:44:47Yeah.
00:44:47There's two ways.
00:44:48You know, no way and no way in hell.
00:44:50Okay?
00:44:51I mean, I applaud Keith Kellogg for having a rich fantasy life because, you know, he lives in this delusional world that, of course, the Ukrainians would love to have a ceasefire in place
00:45:08because Russia is moving all along the line of contact, at least up until they impose the, you know, the three-day ceasefire.
00:45:17Now, even though they put in place a three-day ceasefire, still in those areas where Ukraine continues to attack, the Russians are fighting back.
00:45:25But the Russians have built up their forces, and I think, you know, right now, like at one spot in the Donbass, they're within like four or five kilometers of the border with Nipropetrovsk, which is the next oblast to the west of Donetsk.
00:45:47And once the Ukrainians don't have any defenses built up in there, so basically Russia can roll to the Dnieper River and take control of that as well.
00:45:59So they're going to start adding territory.
00:46:02So, yeah, 30-day ceasefire, the Russians are not going to accept a ceasefire.
00:46:09They've made that very clear.
00:46:10And it all boils down to, again, we talked about it earlier, the failure of people to put themselves in the Russian shoes and understand why they think like they think, why they see the world as they do.
00:46:26Just let me give you one simple statistic.
00:46:29In World War II, the Russians, 20% of the Russian people died in that war, 20%, one out of every five.
00:46:38In the United States, in terms of a number of our people that died in the war in Europe, North Africa, and Italy, one-tenth of one percent.
00:46:50That's why we don't remember victory in Europe.
00:46:54We didn't pay a price at all.
00:46:57And, you know, we've been inundated with the Steven Spielberg, Tom Hanks, oh, the greatest generation, man.
00:47:05And, yes, the guys have fought.
00:47:08I honor their service.
00:47:10But let's not pretend that losing one-tenth of one percent of our population corresponds to one in every five dying.
00:47:22That's why the Russians remember.
00:47:25And they see the world through that lens.
00:47:27And the failure on our side to understand that, because every damn war we've been in since then, we don't pay a price in blood.
00:47:39Yeah, we lose 50,000 in Korea, 58,000 in Vietnam, but that's stretched out over 15 years.
00:47:46Now, for the families who lost a loved one, yes, it's devastating.
00:47:51They remember.
00:47:52But the bulk of the population doesn't.
00:47:56All we do is end up feeding these military, industrial corporations that make more money, get wealthier, all of it, and, you know, we can pay some disability payments.
00:48:07I mean, sorry to be that cynical about it, but that's the fundamental problem with us.
00:48:14We simply do not understand and appreciate.
00:48:16And that's why the Russians, they're not going to budge.
00:48:24Carl.
00:48:25Ask Napoleon.
00:48:27Yeah.
00:48:30Here is what J.D. Vance said.
00:48:33He thinks that Russia is asking for too much.
00:48:38And I have criticized the full-scale invasion, but you have to try to understand where the other side is coming from to end the conflict.
00:48:45And I think that's what President Trump has been very deliberate about, is actually forcing the Russians to say, here is what we would like in order to end the conflict.
00:48:54And, again, you don't have to agree with it.
00:48:57You can think that the request is too significant.
00:48:59And certainly the first peace offer that the Russians put on the table, our reaction to it was, you're asking for too much.
00:49:06But this is how negotiations unfold.
00:49:09And I wouldn't say, I'm not yet that pessimistic on this.
00:49:12I wouldn't say that the Russians are uninterested in bringing this thing to a resolution.
00:49:17What I would say is, right now, the Russians are asking for a certain set of requirements, a certain set of concessions, in order to end the conflict.
00:49:26We think they're asking for too much.
00:49:28Okay?
00:49:28What's too much, in your opinion, Karl?
00:49:33Well, first of all, I disagree with that, quote, full-scale invasion comment.
00:49:39That Russia wanted to mount a special military operation that was a full-scale invasion, in the terms that J.D. Vance meant there, it had been quite a different affair, I think.
00:49:49They might have still had some initial problems, but it had been quite a different affair.
00:49:53I think he's basically speaking the truth with one exception, and it is a glaring exception, and that is that Putin has absolutely no reason to concede anything that he wants.
00:50:07None whatsoever.
00:50:08When you look at who started this war, who the war was really between, Washington and Moscow, and NATO and Moscow, the proxy relationship Ukraine assumed in that, regardless of the blood she shed, and that's a crime for us, not a crime for Russia.
00:50:26And regardless of the fact that he crossed borders and, you know, violated the UN charter and all that kind of stuff, what did we do in 2003?
00:50:34I'm sorry very much.
00:50:36Kofi Annan said that was an illegal war, and he was right.
00:50:39So, I mean, he didn't do anything that was that egregious.
00:50:43He just did something to protect in an existential way, he believes, and I think he's right, what might have been a real threat to Moscow and to Russia and the CSTO.
00:50:53So, J.D., no matter what you say to gain posture in the negotiations, you're going to have to, if you want this to end on some kind of reasonable basis, you're going to have to concede almost everything, if not everything, that Putin wants.
00:51:11So, that's the reality of it.
00:51:13Now, he's not going to say that because he wants to be president when Trump is gone, and he knows he's got to run against Rubio.
00:51:19And they're both getting ready to, you know, mount their campaigns, as it were.
00:51:24That is if Trump surrenders.
00:51:27But, you know, it was a reasonable comment for him to make as a part of the negotiations, but I've got to give him credit for that.
00:51:35But, on the other hand, it shows, and they're not willing to admit how much of this that they could admit politically, I think, and get away with it.
00:51:44Because the American people, 62% now, almost of all stripes, are for this war shutting down.
00:51:51He could probably get away with more, like admitting to some of the complicity that I guess Trump doesn't want him to because he had complicity in it, too, from 2016 to 2020.
00:52:01So, there's no one with no guilt on them here.
00:52:06None.
00:52:06On our side, there's no one with no guilt.
00:52:12Larry, do you see Donald Trump being able to change the rhetoric if he meets with Vladimir Putin?
00:52:23Because they're talking about they're going to have a meeting in the near future.
00:52:27Is that going to change the tone on the part of the United States?
00:52:30Yeah, I think the thing it will.
00:52:32I mean, Trump, you know, Trump's bombast in public, he's a completely different guy in private.
00:52:39And I have that from someone that's had several meetings with him over the course of the last year and a half.
00:52:46Completely different personality.
00:52:49You know, not given to this kind of bombast.
00:52:54Much kind, if you will, much kinder, actually.
00:52:56You know, the problem we have in the United States, and it's not just confined to Trump.
00:53:03It's confined to our entire political class, our media, our educational institutions.
00:53:11We're like an Alzheimer's patient.
00:53:14We have no memory of how we got to where we are.
00:53:18And in contrast, you know, go back to, let's call it the birth of Vladimir Putin.
00:53:26In 1999 was really the pivotal year that has shaped, I think, what Putin is today.
00:53:35Because on March 12th of that year, Bill Clinton brought in Poland, Czech Republic, and Hungary into NATO.
00:53:44Expanded it to the east.
00:53:45Something that the Russians have been told we wouldn't do.
00:53:49Two weeks later, NATO invades Serbia.
00:53:53And Serbia at the time was seen as an ally of Russia.
00:53:56And, in fact, the United States took some actions to prevent the Russians from providing any resupply and support to the Serbians.
00:54:06Then, in August, August 7th, and remember, during this entire period, Yeltsin's president.
00:54:12August 7th, the Chechen, Second Chechen War starts.
00:54:17You got an invasion of radical jihadists, Sunni extremists.
00:54:21I guarantee you, they were funded by the CIA.
00:54:25The CIA had a hand in this invasion.
00:54:28So, this was part of a Western plan.
00:54:31They were really in the process of humiliating Russia.
00:54:35Two days after that invasion, on August 9th, Boris Yeltsin names Vladimir Putin as prime minister.
00:54:44And then it's four months later that Yeltsin just all of a sudden resigns.
00:54:48And Putin becomes president.
00:54:50So, right at his birth, at that outset, he understands Russia is under attack by NATO on several fronts.
00:55:01It's under economic attack because of the oligarchs that they were doing raping Russia at the time.
00:55:06And it was facing this radical Islamic insurgency that was killing, literally killed thousands of Russians.
00:55:14And so, he came out of that and somehow, I think it's almost miraculous what he's done in 26 years, to completely turn that country around, to rebuild the armed forces.
00:55:29Even though he had made repeated attempts to try to placate NATO, to join NATO, to work in peace and harmony with the West, and has consistently faced intelligence operations designed to destroy Russia, up until even the start of that special military operation.
00:55:50That's what Trump and the American, that's what we don't get on this side.
00:55:54We think that we like to create this narrative that, oh, Vladimir Putin wants to recreate the Soviet Empire.
00:56:01I mean, if I hear that crap one more time, if I'm with somebody that says that, I'll punch him in the face, you know, just to wake him up.
00:56:11That is so stupid.
00:56:13Remember, we pushed building NATO at the time where the Russian army shrank from 3.5 million to 1.3 million over a 20-year period.
00:56:24I mean, if it was going the other way, yeah, I'd say you could make the case, we've got to build up NATO, but it was just the opposite.
00:56:31So, sorry, this is your fault, Nimi, you got me on this rant.
00:56:36I blame you.
00:56:37I've got to say, my educated guess is Donald Trump knows none of that.
00:56:40Yeah, none.
00:56:41He knows none of that.
00:56:43So, he's at a disadvantage going into any kind of country.
00:56:46Where I, Putin, and I was looking out of Moscow towards Western Europe and Eastern Europe and across the Atlantic, I would never deal with us again because we lie, cheat, and steal, and he has prima facie evidence of all of those things, and it's a threat to him.
00:57:08Yeah.
00:57:10Amen.
00:57:10We've forced him in the other direction.
00:57:12Colonel, do you find it the last chance between the United States and Russia to get along with each other?
00:57:21Because Putin, as Larry pointed out, for more than two decades was trying to make some sort of arrangement between the United States and Russia to get along with the West, to be part of the West, which he was, he, I'm talking about he, it means Russia, was rejected.
00:57:41To be in that position.
00:57:44Do you see this sort of attempt to achieve something in Ukraine would be one of the final chances to get there?
00:57:53Well, you know, what I've been saying is this inexorable movement of power that's shifting from the West back to the East, where it came from 3,000 years ago.
00:58:04What I've been saying is, you can't do anything about it, it's happening, and the meetings around Putin in Moscow have demonstrated that conclusively.
00:58:15It's just going to grow in that regard.
00:58:17The Global South, I don't know why they call it the Global South, it's three-quarters of the world that's gathering to the banners of China and Russia.
00:58:25In that discussion, in my paper that I wrote on that, I said Russia is in both worlds, always has been, and has always found that a very difficult position, but has repeatedly, since Catherine the Great anyway, leaned more towards and tried to get into Europe and been rebuffed every time.
00:58:44This latest time is us, and the leaders in Europe right now.
00:58:48Russia has to make a decision.
00:58:50I think Putin is going to make that decision.
00:58:52He is going the other way.
00:58:55Yeah.
00:58:56Yeah, fully agree.
00:58:58They're looking, this relationship with China is not superficial.
00:59:05It is profound.
00:59:07It's deep.
00:59:08And despite the cultural differences, the language differences, I think both Putin and Xi have had an awakening over the course of the last three years
00:59:18to realize how not only capricious but dangerous the United States is, that, you know, it comes bearing flowers and candy, but, you know, it's carrying a gun,
00:59:36and all we're doing is trying to lull you into, you know, into submission, and then we can take advantage of you.
00:59:46That's been the Western model.
00:59:49And, you know, Putin, I firmly believe that Putin understands that, and that's why, you know, both Russia and China now represent such a threat to the, you know,
01:00:02to the United States and its position as, you know, its pretend position as the world leader because we're not, we're not, we're really,
01:00:11we're no longer leading anything because we've been so guilty of abusing so many other countries and taking advantage of them
01:00:21that we haven't built up the relationships where people love us and welcome our friendship because, man, our friendship, it comes with a lot of baggage.
01:00:32And there are a lot of codicils attached to our agreements that, you know, basically, hey, we get
01:00:41It seems that the internet connection, yeah, you're back there.
01:00:57Yeah, I'm back.
01:00:58We're all back here.
01:01:00Yeah, so it's just, you know, the United States is, we've worn out our welcome, and we don't realize it yet,
01:01:07but the world is changing, as Colonel Wilkerson correctly pointed out.
01:01:12It is, you know, when I was at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum a year ago, you know, 38 other countries were there,
01:01:21but it was, the place was packed.
01:01:26That is a very good metaphor that Larry used there.
01:01:30When the United States comes in with that gun under the cake, as it were.
01:01:34Yeah.
01:01:35And this is a sad commentary.
01:01:37That gun is liberal democracy.
01:01:39That's what we've done to liberal democracy, using it as a gun to punish people, to have orange revolutions from Tbilisi, you name it.
01:01:50It no longer has a positive patina to it, to much of the world.
01:01:56Liberal democracy is anathema because it isn't liberal democracy.
01:01:59It's the United States of America and its empire.
01:02:02Yeah, you know, and one of the other things is this whole narrative, you know, and, you know, Colonel Wilkerson and I are both, we're products of the Cold War.
01:02:13I mean, we grew up in the 50s and 60s that, and I posed a sort of a question to the American people.
01:02:25I said, let's reverse the roles.
01:02:27Let's assume that as a result of World War II, the Germans killed 20% of our people.
01:02:32And then at the end of that war, the Russians, who were our ostensible allies, turned around and basically rescued senior German officers and scientists, people that had been involved in killing us, and used them as well as to build intelligence organizations to collect information on us.
01:02:53Do you think we'd react in a negative way towards Russia, that you're asked we would?
01:03:02Well, that's exactly what we did to Russia.
01:03:05And so we want to pretend that this, the communists, they were taking over the world.
01:03:09It was all a lie.
01:03:11And we created this hostility with Russia instead of welcoming them and recognizing from the outset what they sacrificed.
01:03:22You know, the entire history of the last, really, 80 years could have been so different.
01:03:28And it wasn't the Russians that caused that.
01:03:31It was us.
01:03:31You know, I don't normally do the one-man theory of history, but if I did, I'd point a guilty finger at Alan Dulles for all of that.
01:03:43Yeah.
01:03:43Because he was central, central to it.
01:03:47And fundamentally, he did it for money.
01:03:49If, Colonel, if they fail to achieve something, a Ukrainian settlement, how is that going to influence?
01:04:02We know that today is a very important day for Russians, for everybody on the planet, in my opinion.
01:04:10And Xi Jinping is there, Lula is there, and the global south, the global majority is there.
01:04:17And how do you see the behavior of the global south and the reaction coming out of if Donald Trump and his administration finally is not able to get something in Ukraine, or I'm talking about a Ukrainian settlement, how is that going to influence the situation in the Middle East and with Taiwan?
01:04:39In so many words and simply, it is going to tell them that they are right to be worried, and that they're in the right place, and that if they stay in that place and solidify that place, the empire will go away.
01:04:54Or the empire will, and this is my great fear, be so pressed existentially, it will think and believe, and probably so, that we'll start something big, and we'll use nuclear weapons.
01:05:09And the place where that is looming large right now, and has a confidant in the process is Taipei, because we've got a president there again, like Chen Shui-bian was during my administration at the State Department, who wants to be independent.
01:05:28He's not going to go out and be stupid enough to, as CSB did, you know, almost declare a vote for independence, red line with Beijing, big red line, but he's doing things right now, every day, that put China on the Quivi Bay for military operation against Taiwan.
01:05:47And there's no way we're going to win that, so that could be the ultimate denouement of what we're doing right now in our stupidity.
01:05:57I hope not, but that really worries me.
01:06:02Larry, how about you, about China and Taiwan?
01:06:07Well, again, we've manufactured China as an enemy, which is, you know, the irony here is,
01:06:1752 years ago, 53 years ago now, Nixon goes to China to open it up, and the purpose, it was nefarious.
01:06:27We wanted to use China as a wedge against Russia.
01:06:32We wanted to weaken the Soviet Union at the time.
01:06:36Okay, and so as a result of that, we end up building up China economically.
01:06:42And then the Chinese, not being stupid people, you know, they find a variety of ways to make money.
01:06:53They do, you know, yeah, they've engaged in what I call some nefarious capitalist activity.
01:07:00Good God, the United States has done the same.
01:07:03You know, we had a whole generation of what they called robber barons, okay?
01:07:07So let's not pretend that we're some sort of innocents in this process.
01:07:12And so we actually build up and help China become what China is.
01:07:17And now that we've enabled them, we want to destroy them.
01:07:21We've made them now our fixation.
01:07:23Oh, God, we've got to stop China.
01:07:26China's taking over the world.
01:07:28They're in Panama.
01:07:30We've got to stop.
01:07:31You know, they've been in frigging Panama for 30 years.
01:07:34And they were there during Trump's first administration, too.
01:07:37He didn't say a thing about it then.
01:07:40This is all put on.
01:07:42The China, we now need the China as an enemy to justify a trillion-dollar defense budget.
01:07:52Because if we cut that defense budget, the economy of the United States is going to collapse.
01:07:59You know, it's being artificially kept inflated or kept alive because of our endless wars.
01:08:09You know, that's the sad truth about this.
01:08:12Karl, just to wrap up this session, the conflict between India and Pakistan, it doesn't seem to be that much important for the mainstream media.
01:08:23They're not talking that much about it, but it's so much sensitive and important when you consider that both countries possess the nuclear bombs.
01:08:36And it can happen any moment by some decision in Pakistan or in India.
01:08:42Do you think that the international community is doing whatever is at their disposal to do in terms of the conflict that is happening there?
01:08:54I know China and Russia are doing things.
01:08:56I hope we're doing things.
01:08:58I don't see it in the news, but I hope we're doing things like we did in 2002.
01:09:02As I recall, they weren't very much in the news at that time until Powell's trip was sort of exposed when we went to lecture both Islamabad and Delhi on escalation theory and so forth.
01:09:17But I watched that.
01:09:18I thought you were going to play that video.
01:09:19I watched that Indian Air Force General yesterday.
01:09:22And I was reminded of both Islamabad and Delhi when he finished his first peroration, which essentially said, as Air Force generals are wont to do, Nima, that we are going to, he said, Pakistan is a little country, little country, little country.
01:09:41India, a big, big country.
01:09:43We drop 100 bombs on Pakistan, disappear.
01:09:46They drop bombs on us if they can get them out and fired, insinuating a first strike.
01:09:54We won't, you know, like Mao Zedong said, I'll destroy Los Angeles and Houston and New York and you'll destroy a couple of cities and I'll still have 800 million people, 800 million people left.
01:10:04So, you know, that's my deterrence.
01:10:07I will destroy you if you shoot one at me.
01:10:10I don't need many to do that.
01:10:12This is really a cavalier attitude.
01:10:14So, I have to assume one of two things.
01:10:17This is the same way it was in 2002, maybe with a little bit of experience behind them now.
01:10:24And that guy is just out there for the Delhi government who are never going to turn him loose to do what he was insinuating Delhi was going to do.
01:10:31That is, fire 100 nuclear weapons in Pakistan and eliminate the threat just like that.
01:10:36And not take much themselves because they wouldn't be able to fire much.
01:10:40Oh, but if they were, it wouldn't hurt any of that much because they're vast and deep.
01:10:46These are stupid words unless that's what they are.
01:10:50And even then they're stupid.
01:10:52The civilians authorized him to say that just to get the, you know, pucker factor up.
01:10:56If they are genuine words and the civilians have unleashed him, we've got a serious crisis.
01:11:03The other aspect to this, and now I have to say thanks to the Pakistani Defense Minister, Asif.
01:11:14I could have made a case, it would have been a conjecture, that the United States has been playing a critical role along with British intelligence
01:11:25in funding, stirring up radical Sunni terrorist activity in Pakistan.
01:11:34But people would say, well, actually, where's your proof, Johnson?
01:11:37I said, well, I don't have a document.
01:11:39I just, knowing how the system works, that would be my conclusion.
01:11:42Well, now I don't have to be conjecturing anymore because the Defense Minister came out the other day
01:11:50and initially he said, well, look, this terrorist attack in the Kashmir, this was, this was a, this was state.
01:12:04Let me.
01:12:05I have my own concerns about that because I know how plugged into the ISI the CIA is.
01:12:10Because, Larry, you said they're staying and then you got, can you hear us, Larry?
01:12:27Example, this is an example where we're saying the wrong thing and NSA is going, hey, we can't have that.
01:12:32But, you know, what it's, I really think that the Western intelligence was behind this initially in order to do two things.
01:12:41One, to create further friction between India and China, as well as to weaken and destroy bricks.
01:12:48I think that's part of what was behind all of this.
01:12:52And as Colonel Wilkerson correctly noted, this idiot Air Force general in India has fallen into the trap.
01:12:59And again, blue suitor, blue suitor, you know, Pakistan, little country, we destroy it.
01:13:11We big country.
01:13:12We take lots of hits.
01:13:14Yeah.
01:13:16Thank you so much, Carmel and Larry, for being with us today.
01:13:20Great pleasure as always.
01:13:22Always enjoyable.
01:13:23Yeah.
01:13:24Thanks, Neiman.
01:13:25Watch out down there in Brazil.
01:13:27You're next.
01:13:27All righty.
01:13:32Bye-bye.
01:13:33Bye-bye.
01:13:34I don't know.