Kash’s Corner: China Getting a Free Pass for Genocide; Is Putin Using Ukraine as a Diversion?
“For some reason, we have given China … almost a free pass to commit these atrocities.”In this episode of Kash’s Corner, we discuss the Chinese Communist Party’s genocide of the Uyghurs and the Falun Gong, and the recent announcement of a U.S. diplomatic boycott of the Olympics. Is it enough?And we also take a look at Russia’s troop movements to the Ukrainian border. Could this be a diversion?“While you and I and the media and the world are all talking about the possibility of war, Putin is taking advantage of that situation, saying they’re focused on X, I’m going down Y,” says Kash Patel.
Cash, this week we're seeing a lot on the international scene that's happening.
I've been thinking a lot about this, you know, ostensibly what looks like is going to be a diplomatic boycott of the Olympic Games upcoming in China.
I I have a lot of thoughts about this.
What are your thoughts?
Well, what do I think about China?
I don't think we have enough time in the world to get all my thoughts across on China.
But for a diplomatic boycott, what is that?
Let's start with the basics.
We, the United States, as a government, will not be sending any officials as a government over to China for the winter Olympics in 2022, which is just a couple of months away.
Now, so what?
What's the big deal?
Um I think it's a very half-measure quarter measure by the administration that's currently in power to deal with, and we'll get to this, what you know, what everything that China's doing to the United States.
But all it means is that no congressmen, no senators, no cabinet officers, no deputies, no ambassadors, certainly not the president or vice president, will go to the Beijing.
It's not Beijing, but the winter Olympics in China.
What what does this say?
I think it doesn't say much at all, which is why I called it a half-measure, and I believe that's being too generous.
In my opinion, it doesn't have any real consequences for China.
The winter Olympics are still going on.
Every country is still going there.
China is still causing harm to America, Americans, and American interests.
China still has modern-day concentration camps in China.
American companies still produce products made either in some of these and around these areas or at the behest of the same government that sanctions this type of behavior.
And I just think, why are we putting up with this as America if we're supposed to be the leaders of the free world?
And it's a very, very weak attempt to address China and Xi Jinping.
Well, I'm gonna build on this a little bit.
Um, and you know, I just had uh on on American Thought Leaders, I just had a uh guest, Robert Destro, the past head of DRL in the Trump administration.
We were talking about, you know, ostensibly there's three genocides happening in China right now, right?
The genocide against the Uyghurs, of course, that's the one that most people know about, but the same as essentially a very similar thing that's been happening against the Tibetan people for a long time, and same with uh the Falongong spiritual group.
This is I mean, one genocide is is is enough to realize that there's a serious ish that you're dealing with.
It's hard to treat, you know, a country or a government that's basically committing genocide and with good in good faith.
I think this is the heart of the matter because there we can talk about many other grievances and many other problems from a national security perspective that China does.
But we're talking human lives, we're talking human capital.
And I'm not sure when it became okay for a government to sanction one area of genocide, let alone the the three that you've outlined, the Uyghurs, the Fuangong, and the people in Tibet.
And it's not like this started happening yesterday.
This has been going on for years and years and years.
And almost no one has called them out for their genocide.
I remember at the end of the Trump administration when we were still in, we finally sanctioned the Chinese government and called them out officially for the modern-day genocide of the Uyghurs in the Northwest uh China territory and also the modern day concentration camps and other problems associated with it,
like the forced marriages between the Uyghur populations and Chinese and other Chinese officials in an attempt effectively to breed out what the Chinese government thinks is uh uh a population that basically shouldn't exist.
I mean, I don't know where else in the world we would accept such a regime.
Certainly not in Africa and Europe in the Middle East and Southeast Asia or anywhere else that I can think of, but for some reason we have given China, I believe, almost a free pass to commit these atrocities against these people, and we're gonna say, okay, thanks for hosting the Olympics.
We're gonna send Us, the US is going to send our uh athletes to Beijing.
I think there's just a complete disconnect between this administration and our policy towards China and the genocide is just one component of it.
I, in my opinion, I think it's the most severe that needs to be addressed, but it's not far, not far behind is the national security problems that that China's causing the US.
Sure.
You know, one of the things that that strikes me here is, you know, I I keep thinking about this.
Okay.
I keep thinking about the 1936 Olympics in Berlin.
Yeah.
You know, in Nazi Germany.
It was a massive propaganda coup for Hitler.
I actually, uh, my great-great-uncle was actually part of the IOC for those Olympics.
So it's it it it it hits close to home, right?
And this was a time when we didn't know, the West didn't really know they knew that that what Germany was racist.
They knew what their position on the Jewish people was.
They didn't know there was what was going to happen subsequent to 1936.
But it kind of enabled it, you know, basically it's kind of we're gonna give them, we're gonna give them a free pass here, right?
Now, something that did this is here we actually know that there is there are one, if not three genocides happening in China.
We know that.
Yeah, right, and we're and we're still going.
Now, another thing I'm thinking of, there were people, right?
There were athletes during those Olympics that took a stand.
Right?
And I don't think people are interesting.
I don't think many people, if any, remember that.
And I think that's a great comparison of what's going on now, because the only re uh people that I have read about taking a stand against these Olympics are the women's tennis association in the United States, and uh this guy named Enos Cantor Freedom in the NBA.
He's a pretty major uh star in the National Uh Basketball Associate uh League, and he's originally Turkish, and he took a stand recently, and he said, I think we should boycott the Chinese Olympics because of the activities you and I have just discussed, amongst other things.
I think the NBA as an institution is representative of the problems the US government is creating by putting on a weak boycott, diplomatic boycott of the Chinese games.
The NBA makes millions and millions of dollars in China through the Chinese basketball league that they have affiliations with in China.
That's just not even to bring in the endorsements from products that are made in China, i.e.
Nike and LeBron James and how much money they make off the backs of these genocides that we're talking about.
I'm glad I don't even know much about this guy, Enos Cantor Freedom, because I don't really follow the NBA, but I was excited to see a prominent star who has wide reach internationally take a stand.
And I thought more athletes would do that.
But I haven't seen any.
And I firmly believe it's because money is the only thing that matters to some of these professional sports leagues.
It matters so much to the NBA that, and I think rightfully so, took a stand against racism when that was uh a heightened issue in America the last couple years, right?
And a lot of athletes came out against racism.
That's great.
That's awesome.
If you're coming out that strongly by wearing uniforms against racism and talking about equality and having your basketball games advertised, rightly so, anti-racist behavior, why did that pattern of behavior stop when we went to China for the Olympics and we're talking about genocide?
The Olympics are gonna be stocked with NBA athletes, not just from the US, from Europe, for their respective countries, from Africa, from Southeast Asia, from China.
And the only thing that happens to the NBA is they get richer off the backs of these atrocities, and I think it's one of the most disgusting things I've seen, and the biggest point of hypocrisy I've seen amongst so many athletes like LeBron James and Lyka Nike.
So something really interesting happened, you know, talking about athletes in 1936, you know, Jesse Owens, who was unmistakingly black, was the most successful athlete in the 1936 Olympics.
And just by virtue of that fact that he was at the top of the podium, I think four times.
Um, you know, that naturally repudiated Hitler's, you know, essentially Aryan Aryan policy in a kind of a massive way.
But at the same time, so you know, for Americans watching this, they could be proud of this, right?
On the other hand, what we had is was a situation where Hitler's propaganda machine, which was using these Olympics to of course justify Hitler's existence, the whole suite of Nazi Nazi policies, kind of a very similar thing that the CCP is doing today.
You can bet that they didn't focus very much on Jesse Owens winning those medals.
No.
They were able to manufacture their narrative.
And that's what China wants to do.
China getting the Olympics is a propaganda machine.
China having the Olympics in the face of genocide and in the face of hurting American security interests, be it in the South China Sea or through their intelligence apparatus or through their interference in our election process, or by interfering with American capabilities overseas, period, i.e.
at any US embassy around the world.
The Chinese and Xi Jinping, who just got a mandate essentially for life, I believe, um, has made it a priority to take on the United States, especially during the advent of this administration.
And for better or for worse, whether you like sports or dislike sports, I know people across every political spectrum and walk of life that watch the Olympics.
They just do.
It's an event where people spend their whole lives trying to represent their country, like Jesse Owens did at on a world stage.
And it can't be anything but um one of the most high honors you can achieve in sports.
At the same time, you get to represent your country, and it's also inner international news the second it happens.
And I don't know if we're gonna have a Jesse Owens type moment in China, but I agree with you, it would be nice if our athletes, us, the US athletes, would go there and call out the Chinese for the genocide that we talked about in China.
Uh certainly the policies of Xi Jinping would not come down on them and arrest some of our US athletes should they take a position against the Chinese in China.
And maybe it's our best way of doing it because diplomatically, this administration is unwilling to do it.
This administration won't go there.
That's why I've said I think a diplomatic boycott is a soft, weak move that shows how tepid the United States is currently towards China.
And I'm with you.
I hope our our athletes, if they go, should they go, and it sounds like currently they will, will take on anti-um anti-Chinese measures, and maybe they'll wear ribbons or pins like so many people do.
Maybe they'll call out American companies like Nike who profit off the backs of these Chinese uh measures that are so anti-American and anti-democratic.
Uh I'm gonna mention something.
So, you know, I see this actually.
You mentioned sort of, you know, the you you said anti-Chinese, and I think of it as anti-Chinese Communist Party, but actually pro-Chinese.
You're right, you're right, right?
And that's no, but it but it's interesting, it's very easy, and this is one of the biggest kind of you can call it propaganda coups in my mind that the CCP has achieved.
They keep conflating to the Chinese people and to the world.
The CCP is China.
The CCP is your your your mother, you know, the CCP.
And if you're, you know, do something against the government, you're hurting the feelings of the Chinese people.
If you're doing something against the Communist Party, which technically is kind of above the government, is is literally above the government, you're hurting the feelings of the Chinese people.
You know, diplomats hear this sort of thing all the time and are actually deathly afraid of it.
No, you're right.
And I've served with a lot of Chinese Americans who you're you're 100% right, who have said, I love China, I just dislike the CCP.
And that's the distinction that I think you're right that China has conflated on the world stage to just make it one cohesive unit when it in fact is not.
If we went to China and we talked To the people, I'm sure there are many, many Chinese uh individuals that would say we disagree with the CCP if we're able to talk to them quietly because you can't publicly attack the CCP in China without some serious consequences.
And I believe it's about 380 million plus have quit the Chinese Communist Party or its related organization.
So there's a it's of course it's not everybody, but it's a sizable portion of people over the United States.
At least internally, because they don't they haven't needed to do this.
This is the quit the CCP movement I'm talking about here.
They haven't needed to do it publicly, but they did it kind of at least internally.
But so let's talk about this menu.
Now, I've actually been talking, I talked to a congressional member today who said, no, no, no, I think I think we should go to the Olympics.
I think it's a great idea.
I except just like you said, I think the uh athletes have an opportunity to actually call out the regime when they are a center stage.
Right.
That's interesting.
That's an interesting, there's a whole menu.
I mean, you know, in my opinion, I think a diplomatic boycott is better than nothing.
In fact, it's I think it's a lot better than nothing, but it still gives the CCP this the this kind of propaganda victory.
And the thing with with China is we already know from 2008 what the result of giving an Olympics to China is, which of course was given to China with the promise, right, that things would change, that it would become, you know, better for all the basically minorities, the different groups that were effectively dissident because the regime was, you know, pressuring them or acting against them, or actually, I would argue even then committing genocide against them.
Um that didn't happen.
No.
Right.
So why would it suddenly happen in 2022?
I don't think I agree with you.
I don't I don't think it will.
And I think the menu of options as we're talking about, not just diplomatically, I don't think that's strong enough by any means.
Um, I think there are other menu of options.
And look, we could do a full-on boycott of the Olympics and not send athletes' periods.
That's the harshest um option that we have.
And that's, I get it.
That's um a very difficult decision to make and especially harsh on the athletes who have worked basically their entire lives to earn a spot on the U.S. Olympic team and sort of a dream of their life to go over there and represent our country.
I'm not saying we should necessarily do that.
I think we should keep it on the table because it may end up being the option we need to take.
But Congress and the White House can take separate actions against China.
And so the White House has just done the diplomatic uh chess move here to say no officials coming.
But like we did in the Trump administration, um, we can exact a high number of tariffs on the Chinese government.
And what does that do?
It affects their economy monetarily.
And we can get into all their you know intentional devaluation of their currency and whatnot, and they can always do that, but China's biggest market to the world is the goods they export from China all over the world.
And what President Trump did, and I think rightfully so, is enact tariffs on them until the Chinese government started treating the United States better.
So that's an option that has been tried in the past and work, but this administration has not employed that option.
Uh we could also ask Congress to do something legislatively.
I don't know in this environment uh uh of the day that we're in now that we could get members of Congress from both sides of the aisle to agree on anything, but I think China might be the one thing.
I think China is kind of the one thing that there seems to be some sort of bipartisanship around at the moment.
And so they could, as the elected representative, get together and issue legislation that calls for harsher sanctions, not just tariffs, but sanctions against the Chinese Communist Party.
And we could also talk to our allies and say, we the United States are providing you with capabilities in defense and intelligence and in national security, but we see that you also have relationships with the Chinese Communist Party.
We need you to stop those relationships, otherwise we are going to cut off our assistance to you, and you are one of our allies.
And I think our allies would act with us because I think our allies see the CCP the way we see the CCP, and they see the genocide the way we see it, which is genocide.
I think if you ask the CCP, and I'm sure we can't, but they basically deny that there's any genocide in China.
That There aren't any concentration camp.
There is no force breeding.
In fact, they're they're talking about how the the great democracy China has, actually.
Right?
I mean, that that's what we're hearing as this, you know, democracy summit is coming into play here.
Yeah, and I just think that's the propaganda arm that we were talking about earlier, and the ways we can confront it are through the White House and Congress.
And there's other ways we can do it, but those are our two biggest sticks.
And I I don't see the White House acting any further, and I haven't heard anything from Capitol Hill that they're gonna take this on.
Um so I think you're right, it's left to our athletes when they get there.
Will the men's basketball team, who are inevitably sponsored by Nike, take a stand?
Will LeBron James finally call out China for the concentration camps?
Well, will Enas Cantor Freedom be on the team?
Well, he would probably be representing Turkey, I believe, as a Turkish national, but I think he has other problems which we can get into.
His government views him as a Fatula Galan supporter, and so uh Erdogan in Turkey is not a fan of Enus Cantor Freedom.
But I think you're right, Enos Cantor Freedom could be on the US men's basketball team because he's now also a U.S. citizen.
He just took his oath of citizenship and changed his last name to freedom, which I thought was pretty cool.
So will he be on the US men's basketball team?
I don't know.
Will they allow that?
But I think that's a great point.
Keep we what we're we haven't talked about is the social media campaign, these stars have.
They have more reach than most governments in the world.
Individuals in the NBA, individuals in pro sports like tennis or ice hockey um or skiing.
You know, these are massive worldwide uh corporate sports, and millions and millions and millions of millions, if not billions of people follow these things.
And they could do that.
They could get on social media right now and say, I want to do more than just boycott the Chinese Olympics.
I want to call them out for the actions that you and I have talked about.
I have not seen an athlete do that.
I have not seen an American company take that position against China.
Um, but I would love to see that.
I think that would be a strong message.
Okay, so you just made me think of this.
One of the pieces of the puzzle that fits into these genocides in China is the murder for organs industry.
And this is something we've discussed a number of times uh on the show.
It's state-sanctioned, you know, on this happens, this type of thing happens in other places in the world, but not never kind of under the auspices of the state or of the communist party as it does in China.
So there's this the coalition to end transplant abuse in China that has actually kind of launched this initiative, which they asked me to participate in, which I gladly did.
And it's simply the make a pledge and say, I will never get an organ from China.
That's amazing.
And this is actually running, you know, this is in social media, so this I I want to promote it, you know, right here.
I let this is something everybody can do, as something very simple.
And I think frankly, it actually does play into thinking about the Olympics, because like why would I have to make a pledge like this, you know, right now, uh when we're going to a country which actually does this sort of thing.
Well, we should publicly float and offer every US athlete that's going to represent America, and maybe not just America, Canada, European countries that are our allies, take this pledge.
I'll take it with you.
I think that's something that our viewers would support.
I can't speak for them, Jan, but I'm pretty sure they would get behind that.
And I didn't know that was I was happening.
Now, while we're you know, we've spent this entire time talking about things in China.
I just want to raise one point that we could also do to call out the Chinese for their actions.
China and the C CP, when they take on these big construction projects overseas, where I've been on the ground investigating on behalf of the US government, the CCP leaves these Chinese workers there without their passports when the projects are complete.
What why isn't anyone talking about a government who sh who takes their own citizens, exports them to a foreign country to con to develop and construct roads, bridges, tunnels, ports, and then leaves them there.
Why should we celebrate a government, a regime that treats its own citizens overseas Almost as bad as it treats a portion of the citizens within their borders.
And I think that's something that people just don't talk about.
Well, and keep, you know, keep their passports as a form of control.
They never get them back.
That's why they can't leave.
These Chinese workers have no ability to go to the embassy of the Chinese government in country X in Africa, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, where I've been and seen it firsthand.
They don't have an ability to get that's where you and I would go is to our foreign embassies overseas if we got stranded, and they would let us in and provide us documentation and a way to get home.
Their government shuts them out.
And I just don't think that that's something that should be celebrated.
And the Olympics are a global celebration, by definition.
Almost every country on planet Earth, it's the only place outside of like the United Nations that has something of that magnitude.
And like your pledge, which I will definitely take, I think some I think athletes can call out the Chinese government for that.
And also, how are all the stadiums built that are going to host the uh winter Olympics in China?
Why don't we hear about the labor pool and the treatment by the CCP of their labor pool in country to build these huge projects that are going to house um the world's Olympic games?
I think they they, I believe and know from my investigations in government that they treat those workers within China almost as poorly as they treat the workers they export overseas.
Quickly back to this the menu idea.
So what is specifically with respect to the Olympics?
What do you think Congress could do?
Because I I there is a bipartisan opportunity here, right?
They could send legislation to President Biden's desk, which issues a wide range of sanctions against the government, against the CCP individually, against companies that do business with these individuals and their companies.
We already know as a government which companies are arms of the CCP.
We can start issuing sanctions against them immediately.
We can raise that call.
And we did a lot of sanctions work under President Trump, and it's doable.
And you all sometimes you don't even need an act of Congress to do it.
You just need the interagency to move with that guidance from the administration.
That signal can come from Capitol Hill in the form of a new sanctions program that they legislate or just calling for the administration to implement those sanctions against these companies.
And they should also look to implement them against American companies that do businesses with these individuals and these companies overseas in China.
We do that with other countries, why we're not doing with China is beyond me.
That's just one example of what Congress can do.
Congress can up and pass a law and take it to President Biden's desk that says every athlete going to the Chinese winter games has to do X, Y, or Z when representing America.
They could.
I don't think that's going to happen, but what more powerful statement can you have than that your government and your private citizens getting together, calling out China in China?
We can't do that as a government.
That would be, I think, a great message.
And I think most of our athletes, maybe not LeBron James, but most of our athletes would sign up for that because it seems like a unifying campaign against genocide and the treatment of by the CCP of its citizenry.
And you know, and even kind of let thinking about individual athletes, you know.
I I mean, I can imagine, you know, you're an athlete, you're thinking about, okay, I'm gonna do something, it's gonna cause a stir, right?
Maybe I'm gonna have trouble, you know, basically being in these international organizations.
I can't imagine why that would have to be the case, but I can I can imagine you thinking that to yourself.
But I mean, gosh, wouldn't you be remembered as someone with like a really stiff spine, you know, to stand up to this.
It's it's interesting.
Look, the world sports uh organizations in Europe and across some across the US are taking a knee to combat racism.
Now, whether you agree with that or disagree with that, what if these star athletes did that in China, not to combat racism, but to combat the CCP?
And I'm sure you can come out with a memorable band or wrist uh paraphernalia to wear to show that.
And once you put it on social media, the world's gonna know about it instantaneously.
The news will be talking about it, politicians will be talking about it, we'll be talking about it.
It's almost something that doesn't cost anyone anything.
And as long as you don't commit an actual crime, the Chinese government is not going to arrest and detain United States athletes representing the U.S. That is one measure they won't take.
And that is why those athletes have that big sounding board that you are talking about.
And there are even organizations that have actually, you know, taken a stand, the WTA.
Yeah.
Right?
Recently.
And that's, you know, it's again, it's incredible to think to say how remarkable.
You know, I'm sitting here saying, how remarkable is it that what the WTA did, it is remarkable, because nobody else is willing to do it.
But everybody else should do it.
But it's but but it it's it's it's the obvious right thing to do, right?
Yeah, I think so.
And we're what, three months, two months, three months out from the winter Olympics.
It'll be, I'm sure we're we will revisit this uh matter and and see what happens.
Yeah, very, very curious to see what happens.
Let's talk a little bit about, you know, there's there's been this whole buzz.
Uh the president had a meeting with uh Putin recently, um, you know, discussing Ukraine.
These you all you would almost think from looking at the coverage like, you know, war is imminent.
I don't think that's quite correct.
But but it is a big question.
There are Russian troops massing on the Ukrainian border.
What's the what's going on?
Look, this reminds me of when I was in the Trump administration in senior national security roles, we had to deal with the you know, the annexation of Crimea by the Russian government.
So it's not too dissimilar, and it's not something that the United States as a country hasn't taken on before.
Um I think that situation was handled a little differently than we are this administration is currently handling uh the uh the troop movements to the Ukraine.
So what Russia has done for people that are following is basically Putin has sent in upwards of a hundred thousand plus soldiers to certain geographic locations along the Russia-Ukraine border to basically say that's mine.
You know, in short, Putin speak, right?
And what the United States has done, or not done, actually, is much of anything.
And I'm not saying that we need to go over there and drop in the 101st airborne and start a war.
That's not what I'm saying at all.
But having a video conference with Putin that doesn't resolve anything.
The only thing that I took away from that conference was President Biden said he was going to be harsher than President Obama.
And I don't even know exactly what he meant by that.
And I also wholly disagree with these news outlets when they're saying war is imminent.
I have a different take on all this, and I haven't actually discussed this with anyone.
I think Putin is smart enough to realize he can gain a lot of publicity and shame America and put Russia in a peer in a position of superiority through his propaganda machine by saying look where we are, look where the US isn't.
And while the United States and our current administration is so occupied with what's going on in the Ukraine, Putin is going to continue to attack us on the cyber front, on other global fronts in this in space and underwater.
And I think he's smart enough to take advantage of this situation and do just those things.
Because he knows we're not going to war with Russia over the Ukraine.
The Americans are not going to send troops there for that.
And I don't think he, Putin, I don't believe he's going to instigate an actual war.
Because he knows the real consequences of that.
If the United States military were forced to act, you know, I firmly believe, and I think Putin knows we would win.
And so at that stage, it's more than just a chess game, and I think he's using it like he did circa the elections of 2016, where Putin utilized the propaganda that was created, the optic that was created of his massive infiltration.
It's in the United States electoral process, which multiple investigations found in the in the United States that they couldn't find evidence of a vote was changed.
But Putin was smart enough to say, what's the most disruptive thing I can do to the United States, interfere with their elections, and it's not going to cost me a lot of money.
Now Putin is similarly in Ukraine, he was going to move these troops there anyway.
And he's probably thinking, how can I damage the United States the most, make them focus on this issue that I'm not really going to do anything on?
Nobody's going to start a war.
And how else can I attack them?
If the Department of Defense, the intelligence community, and the administration are focused on Ukraine, what are they not focused on?
Everything we're doing in space, everything we're doing underwater with submarines, and everything we're doing with intelligence collection against hard targets like Russia.
Well, Putin did, you know, basically annex Crimea without pretty much much response whatsoever.
So, you know, why would we expect that he really would do nothing?
I mean, I to explain this to me.
I expect that do nothing in the sense of war.
He's not going to start an actual war.
What does Putin want more land?
Of course.
But that's that's what he does for Russia is expand Russian interests and Russian geography.
So I think he will try to get more land, but I don't think he will do it in a fashion that will instigate a war.
And I don't believe we are going to, we, the United States, should take any bait from him that causes him to do so.
But what I'm saying is while you and I and the media and the world are all talking about the possibility of war, Putin is taking advantage of that situation and saying they're focused on X, I'm going down Y. And he's done that in the past.
Putin is an intelligence officer by trade, and he has infinite sums of money, and also he doesn't abide by the laws that we abide by in the US and Western democracies.
He just doesn't have to.
So your expectation is just a lot more misdirection, but no kind of you know direct challenges.
Not from uh our administration, or not from President Biden's administration, and I don't believe, I don't believe Putin is going to cause any military conflict in the region, actual fighting.
And in order for the United States to even contemplate, you know, having coming out of my time at DOD a troop movement to take on whatever Putin is doing in the Ukraine region, requires massive amounts of planning.
You have to move ships and aircraft carriers and submarines and thousands of troops.
You have to provide logistics for these troops to eat and sleep and change and be clothed.
And you have to provide a security posture for the region.
This requires massive, massive, massive amounts of planning.
And from the indication we got from the Putin Biden video chat, I don't see any reason to believe that we've undertaken any of those efforts.
One of the things I've seen a number of commentators talk about is Putin is testing, might be testing what he perceives is a US that's simply not willing to respond strongly to a strong move of his.
That's a great point.
And I think that's something that Putin and Xi Jinping have in common.
I think our I have always said and maintained that two of America's biggest rivals, enemies, are China and Russia, or Russia and China, depending on the specific subject you're talking about.
The thing that Putin and Xi Jinping have in common is they have been and have always looked for ways to flex their superiority over America.
And Putin specifically in this instance is choosing the Ukraine to show his dominance over what he believes America should or shouldn't be doing.
And I think Xi Jinping is doing the same with the Chinese Olympics, with the Olympics, the winter Olympics in China.
Right.
And as a you know, kind of small gesture, but as I mentioned, one that can speak volumes, people could sign this pledge to never ever get an organ in China.
Well, I think we should put that pledge out to our audience 100%.
I will sign it, and I will ask um those uh that watch Castro's Corner to sign it as well.
And so I guess it's time for our shout out.
Well, yeah.
So for our shout out this week, um, thanks so much to Diane Hamilton.
I appreciated your lovely comments, your kind comments to Jan and myself, and we appreciate that you watch the show so regularly.
