Larry Johnson critiques the US/Israel-Iran conflict, alleging false narratives regarding the 1953 coup and chemical weapons supplied to Saddam Hussein. He predicts an imminent US invasion of Karg and Keshm Islands involving SEAL Team 6 and Delta Force, dismissing reports of carrier damage as lies while highlighting Israel's intelligence arrogance and unique policy against carrying chambered rounds. Johnson argues that depleted PAC-3 and THAAD interceptors, costing millions per shot compared to cheap Iranian drones, signal a strategic failure where US sanctions backfired by aiding Russia and China, ultimately suggesting the war stems from flawed geopolitical maneuvering rather than genuine aggression. [Automatically generated summary]
I'm gonna adjust a bit, but uh, Larry, how you doing, man?
I'm well.
I'm sitting outside smoking a cigar.
I have a rule.
Any podcast they do after 7 p.m., it's a cigar.
Gotcha.
No, I don't blame you.
I don't blame you.
So, yeah, no, man, thanks for coming on.
I think you're live.
Guys, welcome to the stream.
I know it looks crazy right now.
I'm gonna adjust a bit.
But, Larry, how you doing, man?
I'm well.
What is that reverb?
Hold on one sec.
I'll fix it.
I have a rule.
Any podcast they do after 7 p.m., it's a cigar.
What the hell?
Reverb okay um, are we good now?
You can hear me right, Larry.
Oh yeah yeah okay, she's on the fight all along.
Yeah, there was some word weird reverb here.
I don't know what that was coming from.
That man I hate so much.
Uh, it's always.
It's always the comms yeah, and it's like always the, always the comms.
It's like the government employees can never figure it out.
Yeah no, oh yeah, there was a time back in 2000 2001, I was working at Fort Bragg on an exercise.
General Doug Brown was uh, he was the commander of Jsock at the time and uh, the.
The exercise involved the.
They had a new aircraft and they had a new uh tactical satellite, tactical satellite phone that was on on board the plane.
So we were to test to see if he could have communication in flight with uh.
You know, in this case I was role playing the ambassador to Colombia uh, Us and U.s ambassador in Colombia.
So you know, and we're, he's at, uh Pope Army airfield takes off uh, and then we, so we go to make the call and immediately it was like, so the bottom line, we never, we never did get the comms to work yeah, and so here i'm talking about, you know, we're talking about the, the head of the Joint special operations Command.
You know, the only thing above them is like the guy uh, joint chiefs of staff and uh so, even even the best stuff didn't work.
Yeah, it's like, and it always happens at the worst time right, it never happens.
When it's like oh, i'm doing a test or something right like, we just did a little mic check, everything was fine.
Now, you know, some weird reverb comes, but um, real quick Larry, I know who you are.
But um, for the people that don't know who you are uh, can you please introduce yourself?
Well, right now i'm an old guy uh so um, I started with the Central Intelligence Agency in 1985.
I was uh in the career training program, spent uh four years there, got fed up left, went uh, was invited to take a job at State Department in the Office of Counterterrorism, which I did.
I was uh deputy director for transportation security, anti-terrorism training assistance.
Uh, and it uh supported the special operations community, stayed there for four years and got out started my own consulting business.
Was this in the 90s?
Right, you were, you were with.
Yeah, so I was.
I was state a 89 to 93 okay, and then uh, with both CIA and and state Cia was 85 to 89.
Okay so, and and then I moved uh, moved from Uh State from Cia to state in october of 89.
okay gotcha and then you went private after that then i went uh private but uh started working in 1994 with a consulting firm Where we scripted exercises for the Joint Special Operations Command, U.S. Special Operations Forces.
Can you explain what that is for those that might not know what that is?
Yeah, it's based at Fort Bragg, and it oversees Delta Force, SIAL Team 6, Task Force 160, which are the Night Stalkers helicopters, and a number of other actually classified units.
Those used to be classified units, but now they've been all over television and movies.
Fort Bragg Special Units00:14:55
With internet and too.
Yeah.
And so I did a number of exercises.
My job was to script the State Department messages, simulating as if the Secretary of State was sending a message out or some ambassador was sending a message back to state.
And then it was all designed to test, create scenarios where the U.S. military, you know, Delta Force or SIAL Team 6 would have to deploy to a particular location and carry out an operation.
So I did that.
And I also did a product counterfeiting investigation overseas, money laundering investigations.
So I've done a variety of things.
Gotcha.
And now I spend most of my time as a firearms instructor.
Okay, nice, nice.
So obviously right now, we're in a very pivotal moment in American and Middle Eastern history, for that matter.
Some crazy things have happened over the past few weeks with the conflict with Iran.
And I know, obviously, you've been in the government for a while or a while ago, and even back in the 80s.
They're trying to start something with Iran.
So I'll kind of just turn it to you.
What are your thoughts on Iran in general?
What are your thoughts on the conflict, how Trump is handling it?
I'll just kind of leave it open-ended and you can kind of just go and break it down however you feel.
Iran has a, you know, has gotten a very bad rap from the beginning.
We're always told that they're the number one sponsor of terrorism.
They are not.
Not by nowhere close, not even in the ballpark.
So that's lie number one.
Lie number two is they've killed thousands of Americans.
Also not true.
The thing that, you know, I hear a lot of Americans say, well, God, they can't death to America.
What have we done to them?
Well, let me tell you.
So, you know, we overthrew a democratically elected government in 1954 with Teddy Roosevelt's son, Kermit, not the frog, Kermit Roosevelt, installed the Shah, who ran a pretty brutal regime.
And he was overthrown by a popular uprising.
It was not organized by CIA.
In fact, that's sort of what has pissed CIA off all these years.
That the people actually rose up, threw out the Shah, and established an Islamic Republic.
So then a group of students, they got mad at the United States when we brought when we took the Shah of Iran in California.
And so they captured our embassy in Tehran, took a bunch of people hostage.
And I knew a couple of them.
One woman named Anne Swift is an example.
Unfortunately, she's now dead.
And so in September of 1980, Jimmy Carter's president, Zabigny of Brzezinski's vice president, or his national security advisor.
And they decided to give Saddam, there's this guy, Saddam Hussein.
Don't know if you've ever heard of him.
No, I have no idea.
He was running Iraq.
And they said, hey, Saddam, you know, if you want to invade Iran, these new crazy mullahs, you got our backing, buddy.
And so Saddam did, started a war.
Ronald Reagan comes in in January 81, has a guy working for him named Don Rumsfeld.
And Don Rumsfeld travels to Iraq to meet with Saddam Hussein and to offer Saddam Hussein precursor chemicals, chemicals for what?
For making a chemical weapon, a weapon of mass destruction.
Sounds familiar.
And so in August of 1983, Iran, with our assistance, builds its first chemical weapon, launches it against Iran.
And then from August of 83 to August of 1988, Iran launched a total, I mean, Iraq launched a total of 20 chemical weapon attacks against Iran.
And what did those dastardly mullahs do in Tehran?
They did not build a chemical weapon.
They did not use chemical weapons in retaliation.
They stayed away from it because they viewed it as a sin.
Also during this time, there's a former, you know, calling a former friend of mine simply because he's deceased, Walter Patrick Lang, who set up the Arabic program at West Point in 1975, 76.
He was the defense attaché to Saudi Arabia and to Yemen.
He later went on to become chief of the Middle East Division of the Defense Intelligence Agency.
And lo and behold, 1987, 1988, his job was to hand carry U.S. government intelligence to the government of Iraq so they could use it to kill Iranians.
As a result of U.S. assistance to the government of Iraq, more than 300,000 Iranians died.
So when someone says, well, why do they can't death to America?
That's why.
That's one big reason why.
Another reason is in my former office at state, at the time it's called the coordinator for counterterrorism.
In 1997, they designated a foreign terrorist organization called the MEC, M-E-K, Mujahideen E-Kalk, as a terrorist organization.
Then when we invaded Iraq in 2003, because Saddam was now no longer our friend, we discovered that the MEC had set up a camp there in Iraq and they were attacking Iran.
So what happened?
The CIA took him under their wing, my old outfit, and then eventually moved him to Albania, provided him weapons, provided him training, provided him money.
And then the Mech was used to carry out terrorist attacks in Iran.
So my point is, the United States likes to play like it's the victim.
And by God, we're the terrorists, not Iran.
We're the terrorists.
And Americans are going, wait a second, guys.
I just, I'd show you the record.
You show me one terrorist attack that Iran is carrying out in the United States, just one.
And then you can't because it hasn't happened.
Yeah.
They'll say, well, what about the Marine barracks in October 1983?
Yeah, what about that?
They love that one.
What happened in September of 83?
Oh, U.S. battleships off the shore of Lebanon were shelling into the Bakaw Valley, killing Shia women, children, men who were not combatants.
And guess what?
People who lose family members that we've attacked, excuse me, my dog's marking.
No, you're fine.
People who lose family members as a result of U.S. military action, they might hold a grudge occasionally, and they carried out that grudge in October.
Again, it was attacking a military target, though.
It wasn't attacking civilians.
And that's a critical thing to remember.
Definition of terrorism, the use of violence against civilians for political purposes.
Because if you're using violence against guys in uniform, sorry, that's called war, okay?
You get to wear a uniform, carry a gun, you get to shoot back if you get the chance.
And if your luck's against you and you die, you die.
Sorry about that.
Yeah.
This entire thing, you know, now we jump ahead to December 26th meeting in Geneva.
The Iranians come out and say, that's a pretty good meeting.
We got some progress.
We think there's more to talk about.
We'll see you guys on Monday.
And that would have been Monday, March 2nd.
Yep.
Except on Saturday, February 28th, the United States and Israel, in a way like the Japanese did to us at Pearl Harbor in 1941, December 7th, launched a surprise attack that tried to decapitate the Iranian leadership.
And we killed 175 schoolgirls, ages 6 to 12.
And there was a three-day-old baby in the lot, too.
Just to, you know, so, and gee, for some reason, the Iranians got upset.
Can you imagine?
Yeah.
I mean, it's like, why can't they just sit there and take a beating from us without getting upset?
And so they turned around and said, okay, this is war.
And we've been at war now that the Israelis had convinced Donald Trump that, oh, we just kill these guys and piece of cake, we'll be over four days.
Yeah.
Like stock market will be back on Monday, Tuesday.
We'll be back recovered.
We'll get this thing done.
I think the Venezuela operation really increased Trump's hubris.
And he really thought I could get this done over a weekend.
We'll decapitate and everything.
And, you know, because I've been covering the war extensively, right?
And I've watched you on different other shows.
And you did an interview with my friend Suleiman, which I was like, oh, this is fantastic.
So, you know, and obviously getting good.
Yeah, he's a good guy.
So, and getting your insight would be great.
So, like, okay, so we've been in this quagmire for three weeks, right?
It looks like one day Trump is saying this, then he's saying this.
Price of energy has gone up ridiculously.
We're talking about 20, the straighter humus is pretty much closed unless you're paying 2 million bucks to get by.
Qatar's natural gas is pretty much cooked with LNG being down.
The Iranians have targeted intelligently the Gulf to put more pressure on the United States, et cetera.
Right.
And we're kind of like in a weird spot right now where I think it's pretty clear that air power is not, you know, accomplishing all the strategic objectives.
And now there's talk about this Kark Island, you know, invasion.
That's the latest with the conflict.
What are your thoughts about where we are now?
What are your thoughts about the MEU allegedly invading the Kark Island?
Or is that going to be a diversion for something else?
What's your thoughts on all that?
Okay, I'll get into that in a second.
I want to ask you a question.
Sure.
So think back to your time in high school, middle school.
What were you told?
How did the war in the Pacific against the Japanese in World War II end?
What brought that to an end?
The atomic bomb, as well as Stalin invading and getting closer to Japan on the ground.
I'm glad you added the last part because most Americans are brainwashed.
Oh, yeah, it was the atomic bomb.
No, actually, it wasn't.
It was the there have been a lot.
We'd killed over 700,000 Japanese, but the Japanese weren't ready to surrender until the Soviets came in and the Japanese tried to negotiate with them.
The Soviets said, yet, no, you get an unconditional surrender.
And that's when they cave.
Yeah.
So a lot of Americans don't know that.
So because I've had to say that many times when I tell people that you can't win a war by air power alone, they say, oh, we dropped two atomic bombs.
I was like, no, dude, it was the Soviets that made them really surrender.
Yeah.
So where are we right now?
I saw on, there's called the frog intel on X.
And it was referenced by someone called OSI Intel, you know, Open Source Intelligence Defender is the X account.
Oh, I think Rerum.
I think you're talking about Rerum, the one that does updates like every couple minutes, right?
Yeah, yeah, I think.
Yeah.
And they showed were uh 35 flights that have that have taken place since march 12th and they're they're going to all of these military bases and they list the number of flights that they made.
And um uh, I looked at those military bases, they're all special operations bases and so uh there, there's only in my experience, and this isn't based upon any classified information, but in my experience, When you get air movement out of those bases, you're doing one of two things.
You're doing an exercise or you're doing a deployment for real world activity.
What I saw, you know, so they've gone to Fort Bragg, where Delta Force is.
They've gone to Naval Oceania Air Station in Virginia, where SEAL Team 6 is and other SEAL teams.
They've gone to Hunter Army Airfield in Georgia, where the 75th Ranger Regiment, 1st Battalion, is.
They've gone to Joint Base Lewis-McCord in Washington, where the 75th Ranger 2nd Battalion is located, I believe.
They've gone to Fort Campbell, multiple flights to all of these.
Fort Campbell, where the And this is a plane you're talking just because I was looking at something.
You said it's a plane that's okay.
These are 35 different flights by C-17s.
C-17s do one of two things.
They haul either cargo, like helicopters, artillery pieces, even tanks, or they haul troops, 204 at a time.
And this has been going on since March 12th.
Like I said, there's only two reasons to do that.
It's either an exercise and there's no exercise.
So I conclude it's a real world.
And then on March 13th, Trump orders the Marine Expeditionary Unit, the 31st unit, it's called the 31st.
It's at Okinawa.
They load up ship, they start sailing for Iran.
And so on Monday, when Trump said, we're calling a ceasefire for five days.
What happens in five days?
Oh, the 31st Mew arrives.
So based on all this, and then I learned yesterday that Donald Trump was supposed to attend a charity event at Mar-a-Lago Friday night, and he's canceled.
And then he's supposed to go to CPAC over the weekend, and I was told he's canceled that.
Now, maybe if he reverses and doesn't, you know, do you know, cancel in the 10s, it's different.
But if he's canceling that, he knows that something's going to happen.
Yeah.
So here's what I think is going to happen.
I think the SEAL Team 6 is going to be used along with one of the Rager battalions to attack Carg Island to secure Carg Island.
And the Delta Force will take Kesham.
And it may be reversed.
One of the special ops units is going to take each one of the islands.
They'll be supported by the 75th Rangers.
And they may even be supported by members of the 82nd Battalion.
I think that came out publicly because I'm looking here.
I'm actually looking at rerun right now.
I think it said something about airborne is, yeah, because they put MEU airborne, but these other obviously more elite units, I didn't hear anything about them coming, but it makes sense, right?
Yeah.
Now, you said Kesham.
You said they're going to come in through.
Where's that?
Strait of Hormuz Contingency00:08:01
Kesham is there in the Strait of Hormuz.
It's another little island right off the coast of Iran.
Now, what makes this so dangerous?
Yeah, we can we can put troops in there and do what you know they're not going to be able to stop the Iranians from firing drones from firing missiles from shore.
Uh they're not going to be able to guarantee the safe passage of any uh ship.
Uh, and again, I'm looking at these are the only two logical targets if your goal is to, in some way, to try to affect the flow of oil and get and somehow try to get control of the Strait of Hormuz.
Um, because Iran can will start hitting those troops with uh drones, FPV drones, bigger drones, and missiles.
Uh, and it's going to be um it's going to be pretty, you know, potentially pretty brutal.
How many?
So it's it I was going to ask.
So, so you think, so we're not so we're basically talking about um more of an invasion of the Karg Island, these areas here right by the Strait of Humus to try to secure it.
How many, I know we're talking about 20 about 2,500 to 4,000 Marines.
How many of these special operators would you say are going to also be there if you had to take a guess?
How many would be probably an additional 2,000?
Okay, so we're looking at 6,000 at the most service.
Well, yeah, potentially.
Well, and then, but then when you get into, you know, if we're dealing with the full battalions of the 75th Rangers, and if we're dealing with the full, you know, battalion of 82nd airborne, you know, so these I'd say, you know, at a minimum, we're probably looking at 6,000.
Minimum.
Okay.
And it could be higher than that.
So this is 6 to 10, you would say?
Yeah.
Okay.
Maybe it may be a little higher.
But again, what are they going to do?
If anybody that's watched the videos, FPV videos out of Ukraine and the war there, you don't see the Russians or the Ukrainians standing around in groups of five or six people.
Because if they do, they get hit.
You see them scatter.
They try to be in ones and twos.
So, you know, we're putting some of our best warriors potentially in harm's way.
Now, the news right now is that, oh, you know, Trump's cut a deal with Iran and Iran's talking.
And Iran's saying, no, we're not.
Yeah.
We don't have anything to talk to you about.
But Trump keeps building that up.
And I think, you know, one thing he may be doing is building the narrative.
So come Friday after their markets are closed, because he's doing this positive nerve to try to push down the price of oil, push up the price of the stock market.
Come Friday after the close of the market, he'll say, oh, Iran's betrayed us.
They're not cooperating.
We're going to have to attack them.
And then the attack will be on.
So I sure hope I'm wrong.
Yeah.
I'd love to be wrong on this.
Well, you've been right on a lot of stuff.
I've seen some of your predictions.
So, okay.
So do you think this?
So they're basically going to focus on the islands around the Strait of Hormuz.
So we're not talking about like an actual interior invasion of the actual, like, you know, oh, that'd be that'd be that'd be suicide.
Exactly.
Yeah.
So, I mean, that they go through the mountain, you know, at a minimum.
And see, this is where the traditional notion of invasion goes off the rails.
You were, you were just a kid 20 years ago when we started the war in Iraq.
I remember vividly.
You spent the 11 months prior to launching it in March of 2003, 11 months building up troops in Kuwait and Iraq.
We had the luxury, we built up 165,000.
But you can't do that today because you've got the advanced intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance.
You got the drones, you got the missiles.
You know, all Saddam had back then were some crappy scuds.
But now Iran's got state-of-the-art missiles.
So and Chinese intel and Russian intel.
Yeah.
And Iran's total military force with its regular army, the Irish, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, and then the militia.
Yeah.
They're like equivalent of like their National Guard, the volunteer guys.
I know who you're talking about.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And they come to, it makes about a million.
So, you know, if you're going to attack that, you need a minimum of 3 million men, minimum.
Three to one ratio.
All we got in the army right now is about 452,000.
Man, so, okay.
So you think that, you know, the objective here is going to be to control Karg Island.
Now, my thing is, how are they going to get into a position to get over there without being attacked?
Like, that's where, how do you think they're going to actually make the drop?
I think they'll fly.
Right now, they assembled.
They're at two bases in Jordan, one base in Israel.
They'll fly from there on their helicopters.
So they're making it.
All the way to Iran?
They're going to fly in a helicopter?
No, they'll fly from there to Al-Udid Air Force Base, which is in Qatar, which is just across the Persian Gulf.
Or what's left of it, right?
I said, or what's left of it at this point, right?
Yeah, what's left of it.
Exactly.
So they'll be able to launch from there.
I mean, I'm just looking at, you know, if I'm doing the planning, that's how I do it.
Yeah.
So they launched from there.
Doesn't that make them extremely susceptible to like a counterattack or whatever?
Like in my head, I'm like, we're going to drop these guys off, you know, on this island.
And it's like, what, to contain it?
And then what?
Like.
Damn it, Myron.
You're being too logical.
Will you stop that?
You're being rational and thoughtful.
We can't have that in government.
Yeah, what am I doing?
That's why you didn't succeed in government.
They got rid of you.
You kept asking these uncomfortable questions.
But why?
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's literally, it's like, you know, get out of here, buddy.
What are you doing?
What are you talking about?
So it's just, it's just insane to me, man.
Yeah, you're exactly right.
You know, you're correctly identifying what the problems are.
Yeah.
And, you know, as a result of that, we're, you know, I'm afraid we've got to get some really good guys killed.
Yeah.
You know, I'll tell you this, man, because, you know, I was 13 when we invaded Iraq.
And, you know, I remember Iraq wasn't even really able to mount a real attack or, you know, threaten the U.S. until about five months into the conflict.
Versus here with the Iranians, like, I mean, within an hour of the Supreme Leader being killed, they were launching missiles at all of our bases in Israel.
You've got to give them credit.
Obviously, their mosaic defense works.
And honestly, I think at this point, even if we nuked them, it wouldn't matter.
The underground missile cities are, there's hundreds of them all across the country.
Yeah, you're definitely right.
They've prepared for that contingency.
They actually, I think they fully expect that Israel is going to nuke them.
Maybe not us, but Israel will.
And the problem they've got is that the problem that Israel has is small.
All Iran has to do is destroy two cities and they've destroyed, you know, Tel Aviv and Haifa.
They've now destroyed 55% of Iran's population right there.
Whereas you destroy, take out Tehran with a nuke, you've done about 11% of the population of Iran.
The rest of them are scattered around mountain villages.
There are like 10 other cities that are a million or around a million piece, 1 million, 2 million.
Yeah, that's another thing.
Iran will still be around.
And that's another thing that Americans grossly underestimate is the size of this country.
Like this is, this is not Iraq, right?
Kuwaiti Friendly Fire Claims00:14:40
And they can actually fight back and they've been doing it.
So it's time.
It's Texas times two, okay?
Twice the size of Texas.
Yeah, Texas is huge.
Yeah.
So we obviously are in this operation.
I agree with you that Trump made that announcement about the ceasefire more to calm down the markets because I've noticed anytime we start to creep into the 110, 120 range, he starts to just panic and like put out a true social post or do an emergency meeting.
I remember he was down here.
I think you're down here, you're in Florida as well.
He was in Dural.
Yeah, and he called like an emergency brother south of Tampa.
Okay, perfect.
So like, yeah, he was in Dural like a week or two ago when the prices hit about almost $120 a barrel.
And he had like an emergency press conference.
And it's like, okay, he's trying to, you know, stop the bleeding to some degree with a bunch of posturing.
But no, I mean, this is insane, man.
Uh, of what's going on.
And with all this, and I think there, I want to get your take on this.
Do you think the casualties are?
I think officially right now we're sitting at about 13 KIA.
14 now?
14 KIA.
14 KIA.
And then I've heard somewhere between 200 to 300 injured significantly.
Yeah.
What do you think?
I think the numbers are higher.
I think they're lying about it.
Okay.
They're trying to classify some that are combat casualties as accidents, et cetera.
So it's like, where are you in Florida, roughly?
I'm down in Miami.
Oh, okay.
So, you know, you see what's been happening to the price of gasoline.
Oh, it's nuts.
It's up at least a buck 10 in the last four weeks.
I got people in my chat.
I did a poll with my guys in my chat and they said, hey, give me the price of a gallon of gas in your state and what it was before.
Like some guys in California were telling me eight bucks.
Crazy.
No.
Yeah, I just, a former professional golfer who's a buddy of mine, Brad Adamotis, he just sent me, he's out in California playing in a senior tournament and he just sent me a picture of the gas.
It's eight, you know, it's eight dollars.
Wow.
Insane.
I can't remember.
Was there?
I remember gas was really high when we invaded Iraq.
I have like a childhood memory that scarred me for life about that, but I don't think I've ever seen a gallon of gas at eight bucks.
Have you?
No, at least not back here.
Now, tell you what, if we see eight bucks in Florida, oh, you know, we're the sign of the apocalypse.
Yeah, we're cooked.
And the crazy part is, you know, the thing that scares me the most about this, Larry, is we have Trump making these comments about, oh, we'll go ahead and escort you with the Navy.
Oh, we have this ceasefire in place.
We're going to release 400 million barrels of oil, right?
They've been doing all of this massaging to try to bring the price down, and we're still sitting well above $100 for Brent crude, which is like, you're doing literally, we're doing all of this and we still can't keep it under $100.
I can only imagine, you know, people are going to realize this isn't going to end.
It's going to keep going.
It's going to continue to go up.
Okay.
So you're the president.
We're going to, in fact, I wish we could elect you.
I'd have a lot more confidence in you than the current guy.
So you're going to impose sanctions on Russia and Iran.
Why would you impose sanctions on them?
To try to cripple their economies.
Yeah.
You want to hurt them, right?
Yeah.
And so why then when Iran starts punching back and closes the Gulf, do you lift all the sanctions on Russia and Iran?
Yeah, it's fun.
Larry, you're making too much sense.
Okay.
I mean, it's just like, hey, you're an Iran sympathizer.
Are you getting paid by the RGC?
Huh?
Yeah.
I wish.
You know, where's my check?
Yeah.
Cheap bastards.
Yeah.
You know, so that shows you that Trump and Bessett were panicked.
Yeah.
Now, some may differ with my characterization of that, but there's no other explanation.
The only explanation is you're 100% right, dude.
Tried to crash the real and it backfired too.
The protesting thing was crap.
Um, you know, they tried with the uprising in January and they failed monumentally.
Yeah, absolutely.
So, um, if you heard what's happened now to oil in Iran, you'll love this.
Uh, this is from Trita Parsi.
Um, before the war started, Iran was pumping 1.1 million barrels of oil, selling it at a net price of $47 a barrel.
Okay, now you know, three weeks later, Iran is pumping 1.5 million, though, so they're up 400,000 barrels per day, and they're selling it at 97 a barrel, more than double the price.
Wow, they uh and sanctions are temporarily lifted on them as well, which is crazy.
Oh, yeah, it's like this is such a this is so bad.
It's like in my head, I'm like, because and I'm sure you heard this too, Larry, right?
Oh, well, you guys need to just trust the plan.
Trump is playing 4D chess, him invading is you know, he took Venezuela, so now the Chinese have to go to the Iranians.
Now he's messing with the Iranians.
They're ready to get that oil too.
We're going to weaken them.
And it's like it completely backfired because China's still getting oil.
The Russians have been able to make money hand over fist because sanctions are lifted.
And then the people that we're in war with, you lift the sanctions on them.
This has like been, I don't think the general American public knows that this is what's going on here.
Like it's not.
And I know exactly what happened in Vietnam because my former business, I call him former business partner.
I mean, we're still great friends and we just got to the age where, okay, we're going to go off and do our own things.
He was the one that brought three guys who were part of Maduro's security detail.
And I won't get into how he came in contact with them, but let's just say they came in, they got in contact with him and they wanted to collect on the $50 million reward.
So basically, those three guys who had ran in all of Maduro's security in terms of they got they turned off all the weapons, all the air defense.
They turned it all off.
It was a cooked deal.
Yep.
That's how they pulled that off, not with our great military expertise.
And the real, the irony of the story, those three guys, when it came time to pay, Trump stiffed them, said, no, we're not paying any reward.
What?
Oh, my God.
Because you know what shocked me, Larry, right?
Because I know, obviously, you were in the CIA in the early 90s, right?
When we were starting to really build up the momentum with the war against terrorism, right?
We started to see mid-80s.
Oh, I'm sorry, mid-80s.
I was in state, you know, so in the Office of Counterterrorism.
Yeah.
We put out the first publication of Patterns of Global Terrorism in April of 1990.
That was the first one.
My bad.
I meant to say, yeah.
No, no, no, yeah.
So, State Department with counterterrorism there.
So, I lost my train of thought.
Well, I mean, at the time, look, that's where that was the start of al-Qaeda.
Yes.
The bombing of the World Trade Center, the first bombing, that was actually carried out by colleague Sheikh Mohammed was the mastermind.
KSMA.
And his nephew, Ramzi Yousf.
Ramzi Youssef.
He did the World Trade Center bombing in the early 90s.
Right.
And then he disappeared.
We were looking for him.
And then he showed up in the Philippines.
He got part of a plot called Bojinka.
Oh, I remember what I was going to say now.
Maduro's reward was more than bin Laden.
Insane.
Insane.
That's the highest I've ever seen ever.
Sorry, that was what I was going to say.
I forgot, but keep going.
Yeah, I was the one who started the terrorism rewards program and the advertising of it.
Really?
Yeah.
Wow.
Before they used to have this cheesy poster with, you know, some guy with a mask pointing a gun at some woman's head saying, give us money, you know, to report terrorism.
So we did a series of public service ads.
We produced them in the summer of 1990.
And I went to Hollywood.
We had three Hollywood stars, Charlton Heston, Charles Bronson, and Charlie Sheen.
Okay.
The Charlie campaign.
And it was called, are you the next hero?
And so the script went something like, hello, I'm Charlton Heston.
In the movies, I play a hero.
But in real life, heroes are.
And, you know, go on the pitch people, you know, rat out your buddy for a reward on terrorism.
Sort of a funny side story.
I was working with a couple of good friends in diplomatic security.
One guy's name, Brad, Mike Parks, the other, Brad Smith.
Brad later died of Lou Gehrig's disease.
But Brad, Brad was the one who came up with the matchbook, the concept of putting terrorist pictures and reward information on matchbooks, half sent them out in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
That led to the capture of Ramzi Yousap.
But anyway, I get this frantic phone call.
We're about a week away from releasing the ads and a frantic phone call from Brad going, oh my God, Charlie Sheen has just been admitted to Betty Ford clinic.
And I said, so what's the problem?
He goes, oh, my God, that's going to look bad.
I said, hey, as long as he didn't strap a bomb on and blow himself up, we're okay.
Because this is not a just say no to drugs campaign.
This is, you know, rat out your buddies on terrorism.
So that, but that's where the terrorism rewards program start, you know, really got its start.
So I, so that's crazy with the Maduro thing.
Um, because I knew with Maduro that like there was obviously people embedded in there that were spies.
Right.
And this doesn't mean that the Iranians don't have their problems.
I mean, they got attacked back in the 12-day war because they were compromised.
But, you know, I think Trump really underestimated the power of a theocracy, Shia Islam, and how, you know, these people are different, you know, than Venezuela.
And it's, it's a much bigger, more harder country to deal with than Venezuela would be.
So, so my, oh, so let's go.
What do you think about, what are your thoughts on the F-15s that were shot down?
They try to say that Kuwaiti friendly fire.
And I just, I can't buy that story.
And then also the F-35 that was shot down.
What are your thoughts on these air, these American stealthcraft getting shot down?
Allegedly.
Have you ever been, have you ever been shot at?
No, not on the job.
Thank God.
Oh, thank God.
Okay.
But if someone's shooting at you, would you consider that friendly fire?
No, not at all.
So the first, the first three F-15s that got shot down, they were shot down by a Kuwaiti pilot who basically was Shia and supported Iran.
Okay.
So they tried to frame it.
They tried to frame it like he was a part of the Kuwaiti military.
Yeah, he's just a confused guy.
Yeah, please.
You know, no, he got almost an ace.
I guess you got to get four down aircraft to become an ace.
But no, he shot, he shot him down.
Where was I think?
That's insane.
My chest go, Chris, like, what?
Yeah, that was the first week, first week, two weeks of the war.
Then we had the F-35 that was shot down last week.
What happened with that is the Iranians are using a heat-seeking missile.
So The F-35 is designed to detect an incoming missile that's using radar to find it.
It'll ping, and they'll go ding, ding, ding, and then they know they need to evade.
But this one, this was a heat seeker.
And once he realized that the heat seeker was getting ready to, you know, climb up his rear end, he fired off these, I call them flares to try that are superheated to try to just deflect the missile.
And the missile hit one of them, exploded, and the shrapnel from that explosion hit the F-35.
That's why it was damaged severely, but not knocked out of the sky.
So, you know, Iran's not out of the fight as far as air defense goes, not at all.
So, going back real quick to the F-15s, because obviously Pete XF and Kane have been saying, oh, yeah, we have air dominance, air superiority, right?
They were doing like a briefing at the Pentagon like every other day saying this.
And then, you know, next thing you know, these fighter jets are getting shot out the air.
Because I remember one had a female pilot, and the first three that they basically, I think they survived, if I'm not mistaken, it was three to four pilots.
Yeah, they all survived.
Nobody, nobody died that I know of.
But you're saying, because this is super important, you're saying the person that shot him down was a Kuwaiti citizen, but he wasn't necessarily a part of the Kuwaiti armed forces, which is allied with Kuwaiti military guy.
He was in the Kuwaiti Kuwaiti Air Force.
Oh, so he just affected, I guess.
I decided at the moment, you know what?
I'm pissed off at these Americans.
Wow.
Took him out of the, you know, shot them down, but didn't kill them, which is, you know, a good, good result.
How was he able to?
I know the F-15s don't have the same stealth capabilities as like a 35 or 22, but how did he do it?
Like, what the hell?
My understanding, he was flying an F-16.
So I guess the F-16's got a little bit of an edge over the F-15.
Oh, yeah.
No, I'm not an Air Force guy.
So I'll defer to any Air Force bubbas out there that want to weigh in and say, oh, no, this is how this works.
Okay.
So he was in his own fighter jet and he shot them down.
Yeah.
Oh, you know, people in my chat, I'm looking right now.
They're saying that he got arrested.
So they, because some people were saying speculation, but there's, he got the guy got arrested, I guess, right?
Yeah, yeah.
Oh, wow.
Okay.
I, that, you know, it's crazy that they didn't report that.
That's a very pertinent fact that no one really talked about in Western media.
So, yeah, you got to, so you got to sort of know how to read, you know, the advantage I have with, you know, now being a really old fart is, you know, I learned how to read both public information and, you know, like, like that Casey, remember the KC-135 that quote crashed?
US Government Missile Lies00:06:08
Yeah.
Killed the entire crew.
The tail of the crash one, allegedly.
No, no.
It got shot down.
Yeah.
Yeah, it got shot down.
It got shot down with a surfaced air missile.
That's what I say too.
Yeah, absolutely.
Because explain to me, how does a plane?
Okay, how do these two planes crash, collide?
Because they're not trying to refuel each other.
So that's what the official narrative is.
They said that it was a refueling mission and like one hit the other's tail and then they just crashed.
That's what that's the official story.
Yeah, that's the story they came up with.
Not a very good story.
Yeah.
So let me ask you this then.
Before the war started, I was looking at some of the upgrades the Iranians made to their military capabilities, right?
I'm going to get into weeds here a little bit with the nerdy stuff.
If you're familiar with it, awesome.
If you don't, then we can just go to the next question.
And there were some Chinese radars they purchased.
One of them is like the YLC-8B, and they had a service air missile that came alongside that.
And these devices basically, you know, counter-American stealth as we know the Chinese formulate their military based on, you know, trying to steal our technology.
We, we, me and you both work for the government, so we know how bad the Chinese are when it comes to stealing our technology.
So have those been put into play yet?
I know for a fact that the Iranians got them and they were obviously able to identify this F-35, but are they going to utilize them?
Are they waiting to use them?
What's the problem?
That I don't know.
I went with the assumption that the radars were put in place, and I thought that they would have been capable of identifying and shooting down missiles because the radars have to be integrated with an air defense system.
Yes.
Which is why they're too.
They got both.
They got the wild CNN that comes with a surface air missile as well.
So apparently that didn't, you know, the Chinese system didn't work.
Didn't work very that's what it would appear to me.
Now we know that at least in the first two weeks of the war, first three weeks, the spike claims that the U.S. had air supremacy and were flying all over Iran.
No, we weren't.
We were launching JASMs and some J-DAMs from outside of Iranian territory.
Can you explain, for my audience that's not military-minded, can you explain JDAMs and the other types of...
Yeah, so a JDAM is, let's call it a bomb with wings.
It can glide, it glides out, and the wings help keep it, you know, and can travel about 50 miles out.
The JASM is more of a rocket.
So you fire that and it can travel about 500 miles.
So that's why these planes, they didn't have to get inside.
And then you had Tomahawk cruise missiles that were being launched as well, air-launched.
Some were, you know, I don't think many were launched by the destroyers that were down in the Arabian Sea because I don't think they got close enough to shore because the Tomahawk has a limited range as well.
It doesn't have a limited range.
What are your thoughts on the Ford kind of leaving the region to get some repairs?
I know that they had been there significantly longer than they were supposed to since the Venezuela mission.
There were toilet plumbing issues.
There was a fire on board.
I heard speculation that the Iranians hit them and they're just using that as a ruse.
What are your thoughts on aircraft carriers?
Because they did push back significantly and we haven't heard as much about them.
Did they get struck?
Do you think the whole laundry thing was a lie?
What are your thoughts on that?
Yeah, I'm glad you're sitting down.
I don't want to shock you, but I think the U.S. government's lying about this.
Not telling the full truth.
So by way of comparison, I don't know if you know who Andrei Martyanov is.
Andre is a podcaster.
Smoothie 12X is his site.
He was a Russian naval officer that with the collapse of the Soviet Union, he and his wife and children came to the United States in 1992, I think, and he became an American citizen and worked at Boeing.
He was a very, very smart technical guy.
And he pulled up, he did a video presentation the other day.
He reminded me of what happened in 1967 off the coast of Vietnam with a U.S. aircraft carrier, the USS Forrestal.
The Forrestal was, there was a guy named John McCain.
Don't know if you ever heard of him, former senator.
He was a Navy pilot back then, and he negligently discharged one of his missiles into the deck, blew up, started a major fire on the Forrestal.
It took him 19 hours to put that fire out, killed about 19 sailors, injured well over 160.
Okay, now let's compare that to Gerald Ford.
The story is the dryers with Lent, I guess they hadn't cleaned out the lent filters, caught on fire, and it took them 30 hours to put the fire out.
Yeah.
You know, nuts.
That just doesn't pass the sniff test.
But the fact that the damage, you know, and it did follow up on when the whole plumbing system went down, you know, the salient ships in the 19th century, when they had the sails, they had a site on the back deck.
It was called the poop deck.
Now, most people assumed, oh, that's where the sailors went to take a poop.
No, poop was the French word for deck.
So it was a specific deck level.
But in this case, on the Gerald R4, they really had a poop deck.
I mean, they had decks covered with poop.
Yeah, it was bad.
So, you know, we spent $15 billion on this aircraft carrier.
Took six years to build.
And now, reportedly, it's going to be out of action for, you know, someone said 14 months.
I find that a little hard to believe, but, you know, maybe that is true.
Apparently it was emergency repairs and they're going right back.
That's what I heard.
Yeah.
It's emergency repairs now.
Gerald R Ford Poop Deck00:06:44
No, no, they're going back.
No, no, they're going back home, coming back to the States.
They're not going back into the Red Sea.
Okay.
No.
So what are your thoughts on Israel right now and how they're getting hit?
I've noticed a significant uptick in some of the damage they're getting, or have they could have been getting hit hard like this before, but obviously they had this, you know, significant censorship policy/slash law in place.
But we saw them hit Dimona.
We saw them hit Central Israel, I think, earlier today.
What are your thoughts on the damage of Israel, our relationship with Israel in general?
I'll kind of just turn it to you and what you're talking about.
You know, unfortunately, our government's, I'll call it Zionist-controlled.
And it's not just Israel.
We got Christian Zionists in this country as well.
So it's not a Jewish thing.
The best definition, I had a conversation the other day with Yakoff Ropkin.
If you don't know anything about names, he's a Jewish guy.
He was actually born in Leningrad right at the end of World War II, 1946, but then went to Canada.
He speaks four different languages.
He's a professor.
He's a retired professor emeritus.
But he gave me the definition of Zionism.
Zionism is this.
There is no God.
And that God gave us this land.
Yeah, yeah.
So it's like it's hilarious.
Yeah.
Most Israelis.
Most Israelis will sit there and tell you I'm atheist, but then at the same time, tell you that God promised them that land a couple thousand years ago.
And you're like, wait, what?
This doesn't make sense.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, you and I are tracking.
Let me ask you this because you come from the IC, right?
And obviously IC is significantly different than law enforcement.
I've had to explain this to my audience a bunch of times.
What are your thoughts on our relationship with Israel from the intelligence perspective?
Not necessarily what the general public sees with our relationship, but rather, what is our relationship with like Israel when it comes to the intel world?
Do we, you know, I've heard many stories where we don't let them come into certain buildings.
They are notorious for placing bugs, all this type of stuff.
What are your thoughts from that perspective?
Don't trust them.
They're not a, you know, there's no such thing as a friendly intelligence service.
You treat all intelligence services as if they're trying to, you know, steal your secrets, which is, I mean, that's your job.
You know, so John Kiriaku, who's a friend.
So John, John's got the best description of dealing with the Israelis.
They literally would not let the Israelis anymore into CIA headquarters there in McLean, Virginia.
They met them at an off-site.
So, you know, the Israelis, you know, I've dealt with the Israelis quite a bit over the years in different capacities.
And their biggest problem is their arrogance.
So, you know, when you were with HSI, you know, you took fire, you were trained to shoot a pistol, right?
Of course.
did you guys carry glocks uh the issue when i was on the job was a six hour 229 dack but you can get your own i carried a glock 19 every day and or 26.
all right yeah so i i like a sig 226 myself i hate it i hated it so i went and got myself a couple glocks and never looked back okay i i understand yeah well you know the the problem with with firearms is uh when you train people The most important thing is not the knowledge.
Now you need knowledge and not the skill.
It's the attitude.
If you don't have the right attitude, like if, you know, the right attitude with a firearm is you always treat it as if it's loaded.
You don't ever assume that it's not loaded until you verify and check.
What the Israelis do, and this is a sign of both their arrogance and their incompetence.
They train their soldiers and their intelligence people to not carry a chambered round.
Yes.
That means a round that's in the chamber.
They carry.
So when they draw, they draw and then they quickly reciprocate the slide.
Oh, fast.
Well, I've been out on the range and we've tested that drawing, firing with a chambered round, drawing, firing when you hit, and you can lose up to a second.
Yeah.
Well, you know, if you're in a life and death struggle, a second can, you know, leave you dead.
The reason the Israelis do it that way is they don't trust the people that they've trained to keep their damn finger off the trigger until they're pointed at something that they're ready to shoot.
Attitude.
Yeah.
No, I really like that you, that you said that because that's not many people know that.
I know that's like there's there's only certain elite uh individuals that can carry a chambered round.
But yeah, that's the normal policy with like the IEDF and everyone that's a gun toter in Israel is you got it you can't carry one in the chamber, which I remember when I was on the job, you have to carry one in the chamber.
It's against policy.
Like if I got in a shooting and I didn't like, they figured out that like I didn't like have one in the chamber or duty carry, that could, you could get in trouble for that.
So yeah.
Well, and again, it gets, it gets back to, you know, everyone that I, because I'm a firearms instructor and I train instructors.
The last thing, if I'm not going to let a single student go out of my class unless I'm confident that they know how to properly, safely handle the gun.
Don't point it at yourself.
Don't point it at anything you're not willing to kill or destroy.
And you keep your finger off the trigger until you're pointed at the targets you intend to shoot.
Simple.
You know, not complicated.
It's not like I'm asking you to do Pythagorean theorems or advanced calculus.
It's like keep it loaded, keep your finger off the trigger, and then when you're pointed at what you want to shoot, shoot.
Well, the Israelis don't do that.
So that's what, you know, the arrogance of the Israelis, they're really not, they're not what I'd call teachable.
And when I was at state in the counterterrorism office, I was the deputy director of the anti-terrorism assistance program.
So we actually had, and this, we would train police, everybody but military.
Military training was handled by DOD.
We found that the Palestinians, because we trained police for the Palestinian Authority, they had great attitude.
Man, they were wonderful to work with.
They followed directions.
They didn't cop attitude.
Israelis, on the other hand, you know, sometimes like talking to a wall.
You can't tell me I know what I'm doing.
You know, that kind of thing.
Palestinian Police Training Attitude00:14:36
Yeah.
The fact they even have that policy, I think it also, another reason is because they have so many ADs, which is another reason because everyone has to join the military there.
So you got like, you know, incompetent people, right?
That don't want to muzzle discipline, et cetera.
So go ahead.
Sorry.
I don't like the term AD.
I like ND.
Negligent discharge?
Negligent discharge.
Because it's not act unless, okay, unless you're carrying a SICK 320, it might be accidental, but otherwise it's negligent.
Yeah.
So we're, so I think we're like in a very pivotal time right now, right?
We're talking about a potential land invasion with the Carg Island, Carg Islands.
What do you think is going to happen from this point forward?
If you had to kind of speculate based on what's been going on so far, what's been transpiring, does Trump have an off-ramp?
Are we going to have to put boots on the ground?
What are your thoughts on where we go from here?
Yeah, unfortunately, I think Trump is going to put boots on the ground, which is just, you know, damn dangerous.
We're going to, I'm afraid we're going to get a lot of really good guys killed.
Do you think this minor invasion is a test to test the waters to see what a more, I guess, bigger ground force can do?
No, the bigger ground force get sucked up in the mountains.
Yeah.
Zagros Mountains.
Unforgiving.
Yeah.
Right.
So I just got a note from Doug McGregor.
Okay.
If you know Philip McGregor, he said that this is just in Iran has told the United States it will not resume talks with Witkoff and Kushner.
If they're going to talk to anybody, they'll talk to Vice President JD Vance.
You know, you know what?
You come from the State Department, so this is actually beautiful.
Let me ask you this.
I thought it was really weird that Witkoff and Kushner were the ones negotiating in the Middle East.
And I'm like, this is Marco Rubio's job.
Like, why are these guys over here having these nuclear talks, et cetera?
Like, you know, and both of these guys obviously have a, you know, it's a conflict of interest, a significant conflict of interest.
So how are these guys being the ones that negotiate?
And then another thing I also, and I'd love to get your take on this too.
I was watching on stream and I showed my audience how the negotiator in Oman, who was going back and forth between the rooms between the Iranians and Kushner-Witkoff, they basically had a deal in place that was better than what Obama had with the JCPOA.
So like, you know, what are your thoughts on that?
And then Kushner-Wickoff in general.
Again, we were sold to lie that, oh, the JCPOA was a terrible, terrible agreement.
Really?
So here's what Iran agreed to.
Iran agreed to limit enrichment to 20%.
It agreed that it would remain as a member of the non-proliferation treaty organization.
It would allow IAEA inspectors access to all of its nuclear sites to inspect to verify that they weren't building a nuke.
And then what the Europeans failed to relieve, that was all being done in exchange for sanctions relief.
Nope.
Europe and the United States refused to provide sanction relief as they had agreed to.
And then Trump tore up the agreement.
Yep.
Well, stupid.
Again, that set the chain of events that we're at now.
Like, it's ridiculous.
Him, Pompeo, labeling the IRGC as a terrorist organization.
Like, did they Abraham Accords?
All of these different factors, like, you know, led to what we're dealing with now.
Yeah.
Well, and, you know, people want to pretend that the religious commitment of something like the Ayatollah Khamenei, who's now dead, was, was not real.
But as I mentioned earlier, during the Iraq war with Iran, when chemical weapons were being used against Iran, you know, if somebody used chemical weapons against us, our inclination would be, well, damn it, we're going to use it.
We're going to use them back at you.
The Iranians never did that.
And the reason they didn't is because of, at the time, it was the Ayatollah Khomeini.
And he said it's a sin.
We are not going to commit that sin against God.
Yeah.
And it's the same thing that the Ayatollah Khamenei said, he issued the fatwa more than 20 years ago that Iran will not build a nuke because it is a sin against God.
And so who do we kill?
We kill the one guy that's saying it's a sin.
Don't do it.
Yeah.
We killed Khomeini to get Khamenei, but this new Khameni doesn't want nuclear bombs.
It's crazy, dude.
It's nuts.
Yeah, well, he made one.
I mean, look, look at what we did.
We killed his father.
We killed his mother.
We killed his wife.
And we killed his baby daughter.
Yeah.
Would you, if somebody did that to you, would you want to kill him back?
You bet your ass you would.
I know I would.
Yeah.
You know, and I got an argument with someone about this because I said, you know, I asked them, look, are you pro-2A?
Yeah, I am.
Okay.
Do you believe in the pursuit of happiness and the ability to protect your property, life and freedoms?
Yes.
And I was like, okay, so don't get mad at the Iranians for defending themselves.
I mean, look, this is just the reality.
You know, we are the aggressor here.
This is a war of choice.
And I love this country, but we have to be honest.
Like, you know, both of us are American patriots.
We serve this country.
We took an oath to this country.
And I think, you know, if we're going to truly be a better nation, we need to be honest about bad foreign policy.
And this is something that, you know, at this point, enough is enough.
Like these Middle Eastern wars are a waste, you know?
Well, you know, I was, you know, I grew up, I hate bullies.
And my father taught me to always fight against bullies.
And my heritage, you know, my family actually, my ancestors started showing up here around 1620.
Okay.
So we got well over 400 years in country.
And my fifth great uncle was a guy named Charles Thompson, who was the secretary of the Continental Congress.
And he was the one who kept the Declaration of Independence in his possession for 18 years.
Oh, wow.
Until Washington, D.C. was opened and it finally was delivered to what we now know as the National Archives.
So, you know, I consider myself a patriotic American, but what I have to step back and look at is how many countries has Iran invaded or attacked in the last 46 years?
And the answer is none.
How many countries have we attacked and invaded in the last 46 years?
Okay, get out your calculator.
Yeah, so many.
Talk to the people, Panama, Libya, Somalia, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq twice.
And now Iran and Syria.
Let's not forget Syria.
So at some point, we need to look in the mirror and say, you know what?
We may be the problem.
We keep finding excuses to attack other people.
Let's go back.
Vietnam.
Yeah.
You know, and then all the horror we ended up causing in places like Cambodia.
Yeah.
You know, let's mind our own business.
Do it, you know, do what your mom and dad told you when you were growing up.
Keep your hands to yourself.
You know, if you had brothers and sisters, you know, you start, you know, keep your hands to yourself.
Don't start smacking anybody else.
Yeah, intervention.
Sorry, go ahead.
No, I was just saying, I think that's a good, that's a good principle of foreign policy to follow.
Absolutely.
And not letting the Israelis dictate.
Let me ask you this.
I've been watching some of your videos as far as interceptors.
You've been really spot on with estimating how many each location has.
We know that the interceptors are significantly more expensive than obviously the drones and the ballistic missiles that the Iranians are firing, right?
This is kind of, you know, it's just a bad, this is really bad, you know, economics when it comes to warfare against us.
What are your thoughts on interceptors?
Because if I don't, if I recall correctly, about last week or the week prior, there was reports that the Gulf states probably had maybe another week or so of interceptors.
So what are your thoughts on the Gulf states stockpile right now and the Israelis?
Well, so let's deal with the two main interceptors that we have are the Patriot missile, which shoots a PAC-3 and replaced something called the PAC-2.
So the PAC-3 started being produced in 2015, and I didn't have to get classified information to figure this out.
It was simply, you know, the budgets, you know, when Congress passes a budget, there's a line item for how many of these we're going to produce.
So between the numbers were between 2015 and 2020 were roughly, it said 100 to 300 a year.
So I took the higher number.
Let's just, let's be generous.
Let's say 300 a year.
So that's six years.
That's 1,800.
And then from 21, 22, 23, 24, those four years, the number was about 550 a year.
So that's 2,200.
Okay, 2,200, 1,800, 4,000.
And then in 2025, we produced 620.
So we're now at 4,620.
That's the total that's been produced of that PAC-3.
And then when you sit down and do the math, if you've got a Russian Iskander missile coming at you or an Iranian Fatah missile coming at you, you're going to fire at a minimum two Patriot missiles.
So just do the math.
If you've got a total of 4,620, that means you can shoot down 2,310 missiles.
Well, guess what?
Iran's already fired over 2,000 missiles over the course of the last four weeks, four and a half weeks.
And we've given 1,000 of that 4,620 to Ukraine.
Oh, yeah.
No, Ukraine.
And they'll tell me how many we so the bottom line is we're out of missiles.
Yeah.
And it's not like, you know, not like you go flip the switch and say, yeah, let's start producing them.
So we have to run a 3D.
By your estimations, we have roughly 1,000 ones in Ukraine.
We got roughly 3,000 between the Gulf and Israel.
Yeah.
Okay.
Well, actually, less than that, because there are about 1,000 of those that are out at Indo PACOM, the command out of Hawaii.
So, you know, roughly, let's say that between, and we're not even counting what Israel fired last June.
Yeah.
They fired off a boatload last June.
So they lost 25%.
Oh, just off that, they lost 25%.
So we're depleted now on that.
The same with the Thad, the terminal high-altitude area defense weapon.
And you go back to the cost.
I've seen different, the cost for the PAC three was between $4 million and $6 million.
So you're going to fire two of those.
That's $12 million to bring down a $50,000 drone.
Yeah, it's just horrible war economics.
Yeah.
And the Thad, that is even more.
It's like $12 million, $12,000, $13 million.
Yeah.
What are your thoughts?
So based on the numbers and crunching everything, and by the way, for my audience that's watching, guys, I'm going to turn off YouTube here in a second.
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We've got roughly almost 4,000 or 5,000 people watching live right now.
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So Larry, with your, and let me know, Larry, if you have to go soon.
Well, I need to go in about 10 minutes.
Okay, in about 10 minutes.
Okay.
So, how much longer do you think the Gulf is going to be able to intercept?
And then, how much longer do you think the Israelis are going to be able to do it?
Well, they can't intercept anymore.
That's what I'm saying.
So, you think they're completely out at this point?
They're cooked.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah.
They're drained.
And that's why, in fact, you've seen Ukraine actually, you've seen Iran step up its missile launches.
Yeah, they're firing less, but they're still hitting really hard.
Now they're using bigger warheads.
It's like they're starting to cause some real damage.
And I think the Israeli censorship is going down.
So, well, that's why, why do you think the Israeli censors finally lifted the censorship?
Because they're taking such a pounding.
Yeah.
And now they're trying, now they're trying to get the sympathy vote.
Yeah.
Oh, look, they're attacking civilians.
Good God.
There's a couple.
That's all Israel's been doing.
There's a couple of guys that I follow.
And like, yeah, it's like clockwork.
They get hit.
They go to a civilian area and say, look, they're destroying a civilian structure, but they won't show you all the strategic locations that are getting hit.
Right.
So that's.
And so that's where I think Iran is focused right now.
They're doing the strategic hits.
We're going to see if I don't think Iran's not willing to sit down and negotiate.
They're not going to agree to a ceasefire.
Now, you can argue that one of the demands for Iran has been, okay, lift the sanctions.
Well, it looks like Scott Bessett lifted the sanctions at Donald Trump's direction.
Yeah.
So, you know, they're not having to worry about that now.
So as far as what do you think is, because I did see when they were getting bombed yesterday, I did see interceptors go out there, but it seems like, and I've seen a couple of videos where these ballistic missiles Iran are shooting, they're like literally going, I mean, I'm assuming they're probably the hypersonics, the FATSA one, FATSA two.
Like as the interceptors are coming up, I've seen videos of 10 interceptors and the ballistic missile from the Iranian still got through.
It's twisted and everything and it jumps them and then bam, it hits.
So maybe, so you would say that at this point, all the primary air defense is gone, Iron Dome, David Sling, Arrow.
They don't have anything left at this point.
Yeah, they're depleted, essentially depleted.
You know, the other day, Hezbollah launched a four-hour barrage that all of them got through and Israel wasn't able to intercept any of them.
Iranian Hypersonic Missiles00:00:13
So whenever you hear the story, oh, yeah, we've intercepted 90%.
I think they've got some problems with math.
Yeah.
What are your thoughts?
And real quick, guys, I'm ending the YouTube stream.