#104: 20 Countries and Counting, WW3 Possibilities, Attacks on the U.S. w/ Scott Horton

THIS IS OUR OFFICIAL 100th EPISODE! For such occasion, I am very happy to welcome back author, speaker, podcaster and founder of the Scott Horton Academy, Scott Horton! We go over the Iran War after nearly 2 weeks, and talk the possibilities of the future of the war.

We discuss Iran striking US military bases, starting the war with an OK City bombing on steroids, how we are to expect people to react to war (in other countries), what would happen if bombing events occurred in the US, becoming a martyr, whether Russia and/or China will step in directly, when it becomes a WW3, and we stay updated in real time on a crash/shooting that took place earlier today at a Detroit synagogue - one of many on the Jewish people around the world (Oslo, Toronto, etc.)

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Welcome back to Divulgence, everybody. Today I am very, very excited to have Scott Horton in the house, author, podcaster, and founder of the Scott Horton Academy. His most uh recent book, Provoked, is now available, and his uh most recent podcast has been going for uh I think close to 30 or more episodes now. Also called Provoked. Um Scott, so glad to have you here, man. Thanks for being here.

SPEAKER_02 0:28

Thank you very much for having me. Good to be with you.

SPEAKER_00 0:30

Um I obviously uh I think the uh big topic today will be the uh the war going on with Iran. Um so I guess my first question just to jump into it would be um we had we had a little bit of talks uh before this, but I mean this is kind of your ball field. So are uh did things did things start as you expected? Are things going as you expected? Uh any general comments on what's been going on with this war or conflict?

SPEAKER_02 1:02

Yeah, I mean it's completely terrible. It does look a lot like what I thought it would look like if they truly threatened the regime that they would fight, that they would you know, give up everything they had. The only um kind of counter argument to that was the old Ayatollah was a pretty conservative and cautious guy, despite all the hype and propaganda about him. And previously when Trump had bombed him, uh he had essentially given only limited responses and you know would fire at an empty corner of an American base somewhere, give America a heads up, shoot my missiles down, I'm firing a couple of dozen now, and then kind of leave it at that. He had done that in Trump's first term after he killed Soleimani and after strikes against uh Iranian you know proxies in Iraq and all of that on a couple of different occasions. And then last June, he Trump essentially let him get the last word. You might remember Trump even tweeted that thanks for calling ahead and warning us about the missiles you were gonna fire. He wrote that on Truth Social.

SPEAKER_00 2:05

Um, yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:06

In a way, you know, we're here the Ayatollah is just barely saving face, and Trump won't even really give him that. But he does let him get the last word in, you know, and says, Okay, fine, the war's over now. Um, so the Ayatollah was trying to not get his country carpet bombed off the face of the earth. But once the Israelis and the Americans came again with the stated goal of carpet bombing them off the face of the earth, then at that point, any you know, real appeasement or bluff is over. And at that point, their obvious deterrent comes into play. It's the only deterrent they have, and it's not any good as a deterrent if they don't use it, and that's their conventional missile and drone force. And, you know, just like in the funny meme about why did Iran put their country so close to all of our military bases? Well, they are close, and Iran can reach out and touch every single one of them, and they have they've hit, you know, I don't know the exact number, but it's you know, 20 or something military bases throughout the region. In uh Iraqi-Kurdistan, in Kuwait, in Bahrain, in Qatar, Saudi, UAE, and Oman, they've hit American military bases, uh, done a gazillion dollars worth of damage on billions and billions of dollars worth of damage to all these sophisticated radar systems, which they overwhelmed and hit economic targets, just as I've worn all these years. All up and down the Gulf, of course, is all that oil. They can just set those refineries on fire. Like, I don't know, I'm an 80s kid, I grew up on Iron Eagle, like, oh, wrong answer. You just lost your refinery, and then all it takes is like one bomb. You're talking about bombing a pool full of oil. What do you think happens if you do that? It's a massive, easy, soft target to destroy. And so they're reaching out and touching, you know, American and Allied resources all throughout the region. Now, thank goodness there have not been massive casualties on the American side. Although they admit now that they covered up how many people were wounded in some of those strikes in Kuwait, where seven people were killed. And um Americans. Americans, yeah, to be clear. Um, and I don't think any other foreigners, I don't think any Kuwaitis died in that one. It was just Americans that were killed in that. But um, yeah, not to play down Iranian deaths, which are well over a thousand, you know, now and including civilians. Um, and um, and you know, just you know, last night they uh set American or you know, flat American-flagged oil tankers on fire near Kuwait. So it's not even just about closing the Straits of Hormuz, they're proving that they can hit whatever they want in the Persian Gulf. Uh, they've closed the Straits of Hormuz. Um, and look, it's not like they can defeat the United States of America. The question always was: how well can they fight back before we're done whooping them? And how far are we willing to go to whoop them? It's a huge country, it's like two and a half times, three times the size of Iraq, and it's all mountains. And um not all of it, but much of it is mountains. And so it's obviously extremely easy territory to defend, even if it's a much weaker state that controls that territory. And so, for example, in all the 25 years or 30 years of talk about war with Iran, nobody ever said invade Iran, right? John McCain's saying bomb, bomb, bomb Iran, not let's put the Marine Corps in there and see what happens. You know, let's march the third infantry division in, because they know that they'll be killed, that they will not be able to take over that country. Um, there's no way that for them to invade from any border or any shore to get onto that land. And and they don't even talk like that. So what they've done is they escalated a war over a bogus pretense, a nuclear threat that was completely illusory, uh, just completely conflating them having nuclear technology at all with them having nuclear weapons or being in the process of making nuclear weapons, which is not true. And launched this war that now they don't really have a solution to because attacking their nuclear program, it did really set them way back by years and years, but it did not get them to agree to capitulate and not make not have nuclear technology and not have a nuclear program, civilian nuclear program anymore. Um, and although they were willing to climb way, way down on the ladder, you know, as a clearly as a result of the bombing of last June. And what did happen, I mean, they they were set back severely there. Um, they're not willing to just give up their nuclear program entirely. So now what do you do? Well, you can bomb them, but you're not gonna really get a regime change if you bomb them. You take out the Ayatollah, but you're not gonna be able to take out every last what Shiite cleric in the country? As long as the Shiite cleric is willing to say that he's the supreme leader, you're gonna kill him and the next guy, and the next guy, and the next guy until what? Until they stop believing in heaven, stop believing in martyrdom, and stop volunteering for the job. That doesn't sound right. That's not a very good plan. And then by what armed force on the ground are you going to dislodge them compared to Libya, where America and NATO took the side of extremely well-armed and battle-hardened Al-Qaeda forces on the ground just home from Iraq War II, where they had been our enemies in Iraq War II. Now Obama took their side and flew as their air cover as they marched west on Tripoli. That all made sense at the time. It took nine months, but it was inexorable, and you could see it. This is happening. There at some point Qaddafi will be cornered. At some point, they'll get to Tripoli, as long as NATO doesn't give up, and they have this armed force of terrorists who are absolutely willing to fight like pit bulls in this thing. Then yeah, and then they did win. After nine months, they cornered the dictator, lynched him on the side of the road, and moved on and sacked the capital city. Of course, it's been civil war since then. Um, but they were able to accomplish that that force. But uh, as Robert Pape, the air power uh academic theorist of air power said on my show last week that the hammer's no good without an anvil here, and the air power's no good without an armed militia force. And you heard the rumors that, oh, the Kurds are invading, and then they weren't invading. That was Barak Ravid at Axios that they're invading. No, they weren't invading. And they said, Oh, yeah, it's Barzani and Taliban, the leaders of the Iraqi Kurds are doing it. No, they're not willing to do it. If anyone's gonna do it, it's gonna be Pjack or whatever they call themselves. No, I think they dropped the J, but it's the party for free life in Kurdistan who are essentially Kurdish communists allied with the PKK in Turkey and the YPG in Syria. And there ain't nearly enough of them to overthrow the Ayatollah. And now we're replacing a Shiite theocracy with some kind of communism. Like, what? And which ain't happening anyway. There's no organized Sunni Arab force or Aziri force or Baluki force or whatever. The Shiite Persians are the majority of their country. It doesn't mean there's 100% consent of the governed popular sovereignty for the supreme leader in his ruling council of mulas. But you know what? There's not popular sovereignty in hardly any country anywhere in the world. You know what I mean? Certainly, you know, whatever you want to name a percent, but there's no indication whatsoever that this regime is about to completely fall apart, or more importantly, that it's about to lose the support of its people that it already had. And that as Netanyahu promised, all America had to do was just hit them really hard and they'll fall right over because they had no support, and everyone hates them, and everyone will jump up to replace them with a new democratic, wonderful pro-American, pro-Israeli, whatever, you know, S he was shoveling at us and at Donald Trump to convince him to do this thing. But of course, that's not true. They killed Ayatollah and a bunch of his family and left his son sitting in his chair with a dead wife and a dead baby and a dead brother and a dead father. How might you feel if somebody just done that to you? And then they handed you the chair. Now you all shots, you survivor of nine. And look, you know what? Let me emphasize this for just one second, real quick. Sure. Sorry, man. And I'm lucky on this because it's been 15, 16 years now. So it's much easier for me to remember this after all this time now. But I remember how absolutely devastated I was when my auntie died. And she was in her late 70s and she was sick as hell. And man, these things happen, right? My little old auntie, she was gonna die someday, and she finally did die in a hospital of her illnesses, and it was just terrible, it was just unbelievable. And then just because this is my job, is the kind of thing I think about all the time. Well, okay, so how would I feel if somebody had exploded her to death with a bomb drop through her ceiling? Well, I wouldn't just be sad then, right? I would be in a homicidal rage and one that can't be turned off until I've got my satisfaction. Simple as that. You know? Um, so how do we expect other human beings to feel and behave? And in fact, one more thing here at the launch of the war, they launched on a Saturday morning. One of the first things they did was kill a school full of little girls, a bombing the size of the Oklahoma City bombing. 168, they said 175 people killed. So imagine the Oklahoma bombing only, it's all the daycare, it's all little girls that died. Um, and and think about the trauma for those of you who are too young. Trust me, before 9-11, the Oklahoma bombing was 9-11, dude. It was insane. And it was insane. And the reaction among the people of the country was just out of this world. Okay. Um, and that was American homegrown, you know, mostly FBI informants that did that. But compare that to a foreigner dropping a bomb on that building and killing those people, and the building is all kids. The whole Murrah building is a daycare. I mean, the the American people, like you know, the the figurative uh H-bomb going off over everybody's head or whatever, the level of absolute rage and Armageddon that we would wage against the world if somebody had done something like that to us. Or think about Pearl Harbor and the Japanese sneak attack on us there. If they had hit a school and killed almost 200 little girls. 200, 175 little girls torn to shreds. Think about how what an important part of the story of Pearl Harbor that would have been on December 8th when FDR gave his Day of Infamy speech. And you know what those Japanese did? They killed 175 little girls in their dastardly sneak attack, too. Can you imagine? Day of Infamy would have centered around that, and we would still have not forgotten it at all. It would have been a major part of the story as we remember that anniversary every December 7th, 85 years later. 85, we'd still be talking about, we still talk about Pearl Harbor, and no little girls were killed. And we still talk about Pearl Harbor and we'll never forget it. But with an atrocity like that, on as part of like the opening ceremony, as they're killing the Ayatollah and his family, they're blowing up a school, and then from there, the rest. I mean, imagine if this was happening in the United States of America, the way that we would react to that. And as Ron Paul said, we, and he said the royal we because he was in Congress at the time and he was quite unfairly taking a share of the responsibility for the rest of his colleagues' actions there. But he said, if we, you know, the US government thinks that we could just go around the world bombing people like this and think that we won't suffer consequences from it, that we do that at our own peril. This is the kind of thing that'll get your towers knocked down. This is the kind of thing that'll get your people killed. And our government acts like no, like we're just completely untouchable. They can do whatever they want. And yet, and I'm sorry because I only I was I'm sorry, I I spaced and I should have looked this up before your show. But I was just being interviewed by another guy on his show right before you, and during the show, the story broke. A guy attacked Jews, crashed his uh truck into a Jewish uh uh school of some kind, I believe, in Michigan, and killed some people in a terrorist attack today. Right? And the first terrorist attack here happened that Saturday. They killed those little girls Saturday morning that night, two weeks ago. That night, a terrorist went down to the Sixth Street on Austin, Texas, killed three people and wounded 15 more in my hometown on Sixth Street. Where boy have I spent a lot of my life being a cab driver down there. I'm not much of a drinker, but I spent a lot of time on Sixth Street. Um, I mean, this is this is my town has already been attacked in a blowback terrorist attack from this. And then, oh, do you have the headline there? Let me see. Oh, I can't see it.

SPEAKER_00 15:17

I got uh Michigan synagogue attack, police response, uh shots fired, crash, uh truck crash.

SPEAKER_02 15:30

So, you know, uh this is just terrible. We should not be doing this. We should not be doing this. Um it never had to be this way whatsoever. And it's just unforgivable that this is the kind of this is the position our government puts us in. They're really threatening us with with blowback terrorism. I mean, they're absolutely it's almost certain, right? So actually certain that more Americans are gonna die in blowback terrorist attacks over this. And you know, as I'm sorry, I keep ranting the same thing to everybody. You know, people are probably getting sick of hearing me say this all the time, but I'm really afraid of the Shiite Fatwa, man. You know, all this time that we've been fighting in the terror wars, it's been against the bin Ladenites. Well, sometimes it's for them, but the enemy in the terror wars has been the bin Ladenites. And when the Shiites were in the worst of their war, it was in Iraq War II, and we were on their side against the Sunni insurgency led by the bin Ladenites in Al-Qaeda in Iraq. So even though the Shiites have been part of the war and a lot of what we'd done was meant to spite Iran, what we've really done has mostly been on their behalf this whole time. And then when Obama built the caliphate so badly in uh the early 2010s and it blew up into the caliphate in 2014, the Ayatollah Sistani, he ordered all good religious, faithful Shiite men to grab a rifle and go fight the caliphate. And they did. This is what we now call the popular the popular mobilization forces of these wide and vast array of Iraqi Shiite militias that were raised up and are allied with the government we installed in power there in Iraq War II, and they were raised up to fight against the caliphate. And essentially, you ever see the um Denzel Washington movie of Malcolm X with the spike Lee movie? And you know the scene where he he like lines up all the guys out in front of the jail because he wants to make sure that his guy goes to the hospital and gets treated and they don't kill him in jail, and and he's got all his guys lined up in suits, and then Malcolm and then Malcolm X goes and they all march, and then the cops are like, Oh my god, that guy can just point a finger, and all these people will do what he says. What's going on here? And they kind of freak out about that. That's kind of how that's what I picture about this. Where Sistani, he's a he sometimes stays out of politics, he breaks ties when people demand it, you know what I mean? But he has an extraordinary amount of influence, and really he is the grand winner of Iraq War II. They don't call him the supreme leader, but he basically is the grand Ayatollah of Iraq, even though he's Iranian and he's the highest ranking Shiite cleric in the world. And if he says, All right, that's it, this is holy war, that's he commands potentially commands legions that bin Laden could have never dreamed of. That bin Laden had no way in the world. He could pound his fist and say, Everybody join me, and they just didn't. Even you know, when they created the caliphate, it was Bush and Obama that built that damn thing. Bush that turned Western Iraq into bin Ladenistan, and then Obama that turned Eastern Syria into bin Laden Stan until it became the caliphate of 2014 and all that. And then what did Baghdadi do? Baghdadi, who was, you know, bin Laden Jr. basically up there declaring himself the caliph, he said, all good Muslims come and join the Islamic caliphate. And nobody did. Like at their height, their entire regime was like 200,000 men, and most of them were Iraqi conscripts. As far as like people coming from around the world, there were literally low tens of thousands, maybe not even 20,000 people came from around the world and Europe and wherever to come and join and be part of the great jihad or whatever. Because everybody was like, no, first of all, this is stupid. And second of all, the the vast Sunni Muslim population of the world, they owed no allegiance to these people. Just because some guy says that he's the caliph, that doesn't mean that they're all now whipped into shape or this or that. But if Sistani says, if you believe in God, you have to fight the West now, the potential danger there is basically limitless, right? For Europe and for the United States. And I don't know how many Shiites are in the United States or exactly, you know, I'm not trying to scare monger against them. I don't know how many of them might actually commit an act of treason and an act of terrorism here. But like this guy that attacked the bar in Austin, he was some guy from Sierra Leone, you know, living in this country for however many years. And on that the day they started a war, he decided to identify with the enemy instead of with this country. And decided, like, as far as I know, you know, he left things around saying he sided with Iran at his house and whatever was wearing a pro-Iran shirt or whatever. But I see anything that said, and I don't I don't have any reason to even suspect that anyone on the internet even told him to do it, right? He was just some guy, he's like, I own a rifle and I'm upset, and decided to go and was able to hit 15 people before he was killed. And that was because he attacked a target covered in cops. I mean, there's cops everywhere on Sixth Street, dude. Um, and he decided to go and do that to get the headline and whatever, and died trying. But he killed three and wounded 15 more. So I should have said he got 18. Um, in a moment, in a moment with a semi-automatic rifle, he's able to do major damage. And I don't know how many guys there are, but like you just think about it's funny. I'm such a broken record on this. I'm sorry, but like we've been warning about this for decades. That one, we are terribly open to terrorist attacks by bin Ladenite types, like what happened at Orlando and Fort Hood and um Little Rock and Pensacola and Corpus and uh all the Boston bombing and all those. But um overall, we're still just wide open to terrorism. And so if that is Shiite terrorism at the behest of foreign Ayatollahs demanding loyal Shiites fight, then it any one of us, you, me, or anyone listening to this show, assuming I don't know about women, but certainly men could tell you a thousand ways to hit soft targets, right? To just grab some gasoline and set something on fire, just to burn down a building or blow something up, start a forest fire. Grab a firearm and get some people cornered and surprised and do just terrible damage. It happens all the time, right? With people who are basically motivated by just whatever insane idiocy and too much riddling or whatever you know thing going on. Like take any one of these school shootings, for example, and now put together like a Columbine. Now you have a team of guys. You have two. What if you have two, three, four guys that go in, or or you have simultaneous attacks by teams of just one or two men in six or seven places in one city one day, or these kinds of things. Like you don't have to exaggerate too much. I'm not trying to get crazy, but like if you just have five guys attack, some guys are in charge of the perimeter and some guys are in charge of massacring innocent people. You don't need anything special to do that. What you need to do is not motivate that kind of terrorism against the American people. It's the only way to protect from it. And you could say, yeah, and not let them all into the country by the millions while you're bombing their brothers and countrymen back home. Fair point. You know, bomb the world, invite the world is a really stupid policy. And yes, we need to stop both. You know, um, you can have again, one, I'm so pissed off that the Israelis turned this guy against us this way, right? That serving Israeli foreign policy got Austinites killed in this way. But I'm more looking at it like, beware, take warning of what is going on here and how dangerous this is to do. And I'm sorry, is there an update on the on the Michigan story there? Does it say how many people were hurt, or do you know? This is unbelievable. And this is and it's such a god damn it, it really is like W. Bush in Iraq War II, where just dude, you did not have to do that. You just didn't have to do that. It's and same for Obama in Libya and Syria. It's just the biggest unforced error in the world. Um, so it's just god damn it.

SPEAKER_00 23:59

So we got so we have uh the uh active shooter situation, but no um no injuries have been reported as of yet.

SPEAKER_02 24:08

Huh. Yeah, maybe that's a false alarm, do you think?

SPEAKER_00 24:12

Uh report was crashed into the temple. Um there was gunfire. Okay, yeah, nothing yet. And uh yeah, okay, I should tell fuck yourself. That's about it.

SPEAKER_02 24:34

So deliberate shots were fired, the building caught fire, yeah. Looks intentional, active situation. So maybe he just like fired some pot shots and ran off. I mean, great, it could be worse than that, yes, but it's absolutely horrible, and you can see the potential there.

SPEAKER_00 24:55

Yeah, man. The potential there is like man I think they blew up a synagogue in Oslo too a couple days ago, and there's been uh right, right. I think in Toronto, there was a sho a shooting at a synagogue, and yeah, it's it's definitely starting. It's definitely starting for sure. Um, and I I wanted to add about um I'm gonna probably butcher his name, but uh Mukabi Kemeni, the son, who's supposedly taken over. Apparently he's in a you know, you you were talking listing all the things that happened to him, his wife, his dad, that and now he's in a coma, apparently missing a leg. Yeah, that's those are reports that I've uh I don't know about that that I've seen. Yeah. Um and he um yeah, so uh I what are your and I've also read like oh he's he's deadlier than his father, and I actually had a conversation with an Iranian girl, uh lovely, lovely lady that lives here. Um and when I mentioned him, she just kind of rolled her eyes and said, like, oh, I think that's propaganda that he's even taking over to begin with. Um like how do you see how do you see that? I mean, as people keep getting picked off. So, like, how do you see them settling on like a leadership? I mean, I guess they're not gonna necessarily be able to do so during wartime, right? Unless, unless well, no, they're all prepared for this.

SPEAKER_02 26:31

No, no, no. They planned for this for a very long time. They have what they call their mosaic defense, which is just layers and layers of authority already pre-planned. So the Ayatollah knew that he was a likely target in the event of a real war, that they would go after him. So he already had at least you know some designated successors. Trump says they took out the whole ruling council. Well, they found another ruling council to decide, right? You know, that's a bottomless pit, right? You're not gonna dig to the bottom of that. It makes no sense whatsoever to think that you can stop them from appointing new guys just by killing them. You know, by the way, you know, I'm not an expert on Islam, but I do know that, particularly in Shiite Islam, you know, the culture has a huge kind of identity crisis around martyrdom and the importance of dying for God. And the thing is, it's not a matter of even like being willing to risk your life. It's like you're supposed to die trying in a hopeless cause, like this is the best thing that you can do against the the evil enemy. And um there's a a real like persecution complex that goes along with that, you know what I mean? Maybe not unlike Israeli Jews, for example, that like, oh, it's it's always us, and then um, you know, in Western culture, I don't know about in Europe, but like where I'm from, you know, people say, like, oh, don't be such a martyr, or something like that. Like, if some girl is carrying on about something, they'll be like, Oh, you're being such a martyr. Yeah, no, or the only time that someone is actually considered a martyr that's not in a cynical way, is if it really is a sincere person that's then murdered, right? Um, something like that, where they be they become a martyr. Maybe it could be George Floyd. He wasn't that sincere, but he still became a martyr because he was the way that he was killed, something like that. Um, we don't use the phrase in a cynical way for that, but it's always someone who like involuntarily died, right? Because maybe they were being brave and like knowingly risking their life somewhat by saying or doing the right thing, but they weren't nobody who jumps in front of a bullet is called a martyr here. You know what I mean? Or well, to protect someone else, yes, but like you know what I mean, no one who's just like trying to get their head beat in or trying whatever. Anyway, you understand what I mean. But like cultures where there is no like cynical use of the term martyr, there is no, oh, stop being a martyr. Like being a martyr is the single most important thing, you know, it's the highest achievement or to to happen, or something. Someone showed me a clip of a little boy saying to the Ayatollah comedy, I want to be a martyr. Like this is something he's being taught. And the Ayatollah says, Well, you should grow up. And no, it was actually not war propaganda, it was actually someone who was like pro-Iran, I guess. Maybe show this to me. And the point was, here's the Ayatollah says to him, No, you should grow up and become a doctor or a scientist and do great achievements and then become a very, very old man like me, and then become a martyr, right? Like, but the point being that like this three or four-year-old or whatever has already been inculcated. This is and not like by fringe kooks or whatever. This is a crucial part of their culture, right? Is this this status of martyrdom and the status of victimhood on the part, you know, from their their bad oppressors. This is just like that one time in the battle of what's it called, where the bad guys did the terrible thing to us. And so now you know what we got to do. You know, it's the same way the Israeli Jews talk.

SPEAKER_01 30:12

And um, so right, right.

SPEAKER_02 30:15

You know, uh, I'm a I'm a natural-born uh, you know, early student of the branch Davidian crisis, you know, in Waco, Texas. And one of the lessons of that is that, like, hey, don't play into these people's fears, man. If they think that everything you do is prophesied horrors out of the book of Daniel, then don't act like that. Surprise them by being courteous, for example. I don't know. Give them a give them a little something to make them wonder whether maybe this is not the prophecy after all. You know what I mean? Don't want you don't want to play into people's like most dire religious convictions. And you know, I don't have any reason to believe this is true, but just hypothetically, it is in the paper they say that this new Ayatollah that he's way more hell-bent on the apocalypse than his dad ever was. Yeah, that's you know, like, look, we know from being Americans that there are people like that who, you know, nobody wants to die alone, but some of us would like to see everybody all die the same day as us in one great big nuclear war, and then we all get raptured up to heaven or whatever kind of crazy thing. There are people who are completely convinced that that's true and can't imagine that other people don't understand and believe the truth of it all and whatever, who are absolutely convicted in those beliefs. So I don't have any reason to doubt that there are some Shiites who very much uh would like to see the 12th Imam come and join up with Jesus to fight the Antichrist or whatever exactly it is, how it's supposed to happen there. Um and I don't know whether any of them are trying to force that to happen on their own timetable, like these Texas Baptists, but maybe. And I I don't want to play with that kind of fire. You know, it's completely ridiculous that we're gonna in this in the 21st century that we're really talking about religious wars between ancient tribes fighting over grudges to some degree rooted in their ancient texts. I mean, you have the Israelis continually referring to their enemies as Amalek, and they started this war on Purim, and they ran, they had an Israeli Jewish lady write an article for cnn.com saying, Yeah, we launched this war on Purim. This is when we celebrate our holiday of that one time that we wiped out all the Persians. We celebrate it every year. It's a cornerstone of our religion. It's not exactly Christmas and Easter, you know what I mean? Um and but you know, and so you know what I mean? Like, what do you think about this war, Scott? Well, we didn't have to do this, there was no imminent threat. There was nothing that had to be done right now, except oh, we it had to coincide with the Israelis holiday.

SPEAKER_00 33:05

That's that is ridiculous. That is insane. Too much Israel, man. Absolutely, too much Israel. That's what I'm saying, man. Also, um, update on your shooter here. Uh, if you've read here, you got he's dead. So they got the guy, uh, and he's dead. Um I wanted to ask you also quickly about the um so no one else hurt then, in other words, right? Still, still, still no, still no other injuries. Uh let me just confirm that. Man, it's not supposed to be yeah, at this time, at this time, still no injuries or deaths. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 33:44

I think anybody could see why we should not be doing this on behalf of a foreign nation. You know, even the president, even every all the major papers, everybody agrees, the Israeli press agrees, everybody agrees. This is for Israel, this isn't for America. This is because this is what the Likud wants.

SPEAKER_00 34:00

Now it's just blowing up the Middle East, man. It's ridiculous. Um, oh, I that's what I wanted to confirm. Is it true that uh, or like based on what you've read, that uh the Iran the Iranian women's soccer team actually.

SPEAKER_02 34:16

I only saw like one little headline. I don't even know that narrative. I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_00 34:20

Um no, that's okay. So for those listening and watching, I was just wondering because there are some saying that the Iranian women's soccer team uh are now living in danger uh and being labeled traitors because they leaked the safe house location.

SPEAKER_01 34:36

Um yeah, no, I'm sorry. Cannot comment.

SPEAKER_00 34:40

No, that's okay, man. That's okay. There's just there's so there's uh we're at what day 13, and it's just there's still so much going on.

SPEAKER_02 34:48

Uh you know what I'll tell you, I'll tell you who's really great to read, man, is um Larry Johnson, the former CIA officer. He writes at a website called Sonar21. Okay, and he's really sharp, man. And you know, I was reading his article this morning, Larry Johnson.

SPEAKER_00 35:03

Okay, thanks.

SPEAKER_02 35:04

And um one of the things that uh is really great about him is he's just so on top of everything. And so, for example, in his article this morning, he has this long rundown of American military properties in the Middle East that have been hit. And it's just he already knows the name of every military base in the region. He already knows what equipment they have there, he already knows so much, you know what I mean? So then, as all this is happening, he just understands it was such a great depth. Um, and so he has like the laundry list. I was trying to get him on the show today on my show, so I could ask him, just give me the laundry list, man. What did they hit? I want to know like what it all means to what extent um they got what they were after and and how bad it's looking.

SPEAKER_00 35:50

Uh what about I really wanted to ask you because there's a lot of horizontal warfare, it seems like, in the sense that they're you know, reaching out, like I just like you you were saying at the start of the show, they're reaching out to US military bases, hitting other countries. Uh Dubai's having a really tough time. You know, a lot of places are having a tough time. Um at what point does it I guess two-part question? Um what point does this become World War III? And I mean, I know Russia's not directly involved, they're kind of indirectly involved based on reports. Uh but you know, is do you think Russia's gonna be stepping in soon? And and I mean, I think if they step in at that point, it's seems like it would be a world war, right?

SPEAKER_02 36:40

Yeah, look, I mean, Putin is a very cautious guy, he doesn't want to fight the United States, he and the United States, uh especially under Trump, does not want to have a war with Russia. Yeah, um, they're they're willing to risk one over some idiotic stuff sometimes. Um, but uh no, no, there is no real war party in the United States or Russia who's determined to get us into a war with each other. It could happen as the result of bad decisions being made. But I think in this case, uh the Russians are probably content to give Iran a little bit of help, maybe you know, help them survive, help extend the war a little bit longer, and it's sort of a cheeky return of uh what Joe Biden tried to do to them with this so-called strategic defeat plan in Ukraine, encourage them to get bogged down in a long-term war there at great expense to themselves, and they could return that favor. There's been reports of that already. I don't know how true they are. Okay, um, there's been reports of that obvious motive to do so. Um, you know, the Chinese people talk about how dependent on Iranian oil China is and all that. I think probably a lot of that is overblown. They got some of their own oil, and plus they import a ton from Russia, and um, you know, I'm I'm sure they're prepared for some contingencies. It's really America's allies in East Asia who are more dependent on Middle East oil. And we like to hold this threat of control of the oil resources over their head. Um, so they're gonna be the ones who probably suffer more than the Chinese here anyway. So I think the Chinese, you know, they've already published, for example, high-quality photographs and coordinates of all American military bases in the region and told the Iranians, hey, look where they parked their jets. You might want to aim right there, you know, that kind of thing. That's pretty bad already. And they did it open source too, they just published it. Um, hey, you guys might want to take a look at this, that kind of thing. That's that's pretty bad already. It goes to show Chairman She is willing to piss Trump off pretty badly by doing that. Um, they supposedly gave these long wave radars that apparently didn't make much of a difference. Um and I don't know what overall uh you know military resources the Chinese have shared with Iran are sold to Iran. I don't think it's much. I think I you know the thing is, man, I think people kind of um well look, it is true that a huge part of America's motivation for controlling the Middle East is uh being able to turn that spigot on and off, control those resources. As I said, hold it over our allies' head, and yeah, hold it over the Chinese head that we can turn off their resources. In one way, America's Middle Eastern wars uh over the last generation could be seen as a continuation of the Cold War, not against communism as much as just Russia and China that are these two nations that are big enough to resist us, powerful enough. They have nuclear weapons and they're they're kind of own giant internal empires already, and they're just strong enough to be independent from us. And so you could look at sort of you know America's quest for dominance in the Middle East in general as you know, a card essentially that we're playing in the game of hegemony versus Russia and China. Um, at the same time, though, you also have policies that are agitated for by the Israelis that really don't have much to do with that and could even you know jeopardize whatever you know American strategic planners had in mind for how to dominate the energy resources of the region and whatever else, and also for the benefit of American companies, but mostly for international strategic reasons, you know, uh reasons of Pentagon strategy. Um and I think uh in this case, it's really the tail wagon the dog, man, or as my friend Adam Heyman says, the flea wagon the dog. Uh in the case of Israel having the United States do this for them at our expense. And um, but see what happens is I think people kind of assume maybe oversimplify and say it's all about China. We're that's why we're doing this, is we're doing it to screw them. And then they kind of assume, well, then China will be doing everything they can to screw us back in the same theater and maybe even go to war against us. And maybe, you know, they're gonna have this alliance that's really willing to fight and kind of extrapolate all that out when ultimately I don't think Russia or China care that much who rules Iran. You know, the Russians, you know, they have a friendship with them, but not really an alliance. And they're resource competitors, you know, they're both resource exporters and competitors in that way. And, you know, Russia's allied with China, but they also have some concerns about China as well. So, you know, seeing China more dependent on them and having less access to Middle Eastern oil would maybe not be necessarily against their interests, as long as they're not helping, you know. Um, so you know, I don't know. I I hope maybe this is wishful thinking. I hope that the um the Russians and Chinese don't really follow up with much more help than they've given. I don't think they really need to or have a major interest in doing so. Um, and so uh, you know, I don't know, man. The bricks and all of that, this is an attempt by all these countries to try to get out from under American hegemony, right? It's not really like a military block that's willing to take us on. They don't have the wherewithal to do it, and nobody wants to get age-bombed. So, you know, I think the best they can do is bide their time, probably. And and and really, you know, I I have no real crystal ball into this and how this all plays out or whatever. But I guess I would not be surprised at all if the Russians made pretty good hay out of this war in terms of recruiting more nations into the bricks, and that look, the Americans talk a real good game, but when it comes down to it, they won't protect you. And you know, like for one example, it was a huge controversy when America twisted the South Korean government's arm to let them put the THAAD missile interceptors in South Korea, and they it was a huge thing politically, and it caused a huge controversy with China, where they got their car companies kicked out of China, they got all these tariffs and all these restrictions on trade and all these things, basically just killed South Korea's access to China's markets, which is obviously a huge thing to the companies of South Korea that they can sell to the Chinese um billion and a half population country next door. And they it cost them unlimited money to go along with the Americans and put that missile system in there. As soon as the Israelis started running low on interceptors, what'd they do? They just immediately cannibalize that entire system out of South Korea, load it on ships, and they're moving it to Israel to protect Israel. And so if you're South Korea, if you're Japan, and same thing in the Middle East, in Bahrain and Qatar and UAE in Saudi, they pulled missile forces out. Maybe not all of those. Certainly like three out of those four. I said, they pulled interceptors out and moved them to Israel. So they're not only abandoning Saudi and UAE and Qatar at that point, but they're banning our soldiers that are there in order to move these defensive systems to Israel. So all Putin has to do is give a speech in four weeks called, You see how they do. You know what I mean? Sign up for the BRICS here. These people claim they got your back. They ain't got your back. They'll sanction you to death. They'll destroy your country, but they won't protect you. And they'll get you into a fight and then abandon you. Speech rights itself. You know? So I, you know, they'd be fools. For Putin or Sheik, they would be fools to adopt a high time preference now. They ought to just sit back from their perspective. I'm not saying this is what I want to happen, but I'm saying from their perspective, they ought to stay the hell out of the way and let America continue to make these mistakes. You know, that was what Sun Tzu advised, right? When your enemy is making a mistake, do not interrupt him. And so there's a, or as the onion put it, Al-Qaeda sits back to watch America destroy itself and then just shows like this Arab, like on some dirty couch in some dirty apartment, just watching TV, laughing. He's just sitting there like some bum, just like watching America suicide bomb its own self. So why would Al-Qaeda need to get involved in that? And I think um, you know, there's World War III, right? Just self-inflicted pain.

SPEAKER_00 46:07

Right. Yeah. Fair enough, man. Well, I know you're uh you have a really busy day, so I'm gonna let you go for now. Um, until next time. Before you go, though, can you let every know everyone know, please, where they can find you?

SPEAKER_02 46:20

Yeah, just you know what, go to the factsaboutiran.com. Everybody you know is wrong about all this stuff. Go to the factsaboutiran.com and get caught up. What a crappy way to for me to ruin your show here. The facts about Iran.com.

SPEAKER_00 47:00

Sorry, the facts.

SPEAKER_01 47:01

Oh yeah. My bad. Okay scratch that part and we're back. Yeah, there you go. The facts about Iran.com.

SPEAKER_00 47:13

Nice. Is this part of your yes, nice, part of the Scott Horton Academy, right on beautiful Scott Horton slowed down, so you all can catch up. I uh I'm gonna uh I'm gonna have a word with with the audience and everything about about the academy and everything. Um, but before I let you go, is there anything else that uh you want to share with people? Um anything else you want to promote or anything like that?

SPEAKER_02 47:40

No, no, just um, you know, if you want the truth, go there. And as far as like overall attitude, I would just encourage people to listen to their gut when their gut says that they're being lied to. You know, the war party lies about virtually everything. And if you feel like pressure of any kind to go along with it, then just remember there are plenty of people who don't believe in this stuff, and you do not have to be any kind of hippie or any kind of leftist or for that matter, any kind of right winger or anti-Semite or any kind of thing to not believe in this stuff. It's a minority of the country supports the war, and the number ticks up when the war is actually on, and people feel that pressure to go ahead and you know support our troops and that kind of thing. But the people of this country do not want this war. It was not launched for us or for our national interest whatsoever. And we should absolutely resent the hell out of that. And and we ought to be able to all of us easily resist any pressure from our friends or neighbors, co-workers, family members, or anybody who thinks that, like, oh yeah, no, you've got to support this thing. Like, no, you do not either, man. And just read antiwar.com, read the American Conservative Magazine, the Libertarian Institute, and so many more. Look at watch Judge Napolitano's great show on YouTube and Dave Smith and Ron Paul, and there's so many great people out there, Tucker Carlson, of course. Um, give you all the cover for your right flank that you need to oppose this idiotic foreign policy. We should not be doing this, and I think most people really know in their hearts that, like, yeah, no, we should not. Well, you're right, you're right.

SPEAKER_00 49:17

Beautiful, man. I appreciate that. I appreciate you. Um, until next time, Scott, um, all the best, man. Absolutely. Thank you, man. Peace and love, brother. All right, guys, Scott Horton. Uh, always a great discussion with him. Um, as we were saying, the Scott Horton Academy. Make sure to please check that out because uh that is just a great transaction tranche of resources. You can get a discount if you are a listener or viewer of the show. Um, go to Scott Horton Academy.com slash divulgence. You'll get a discount on either the full year or the full lifetime subscriptions. Uh, the lifetime subscription is a much better deal and just makes a lot more sense. Uh, I am just started personally, I have just started the The Truth Behind the War on Terrorism by Scott Horton. Um, as you can see, it uh this is just an example uh of a course before I started. So as you can see here, it tracks your course uh progression. Um, it has all different set sections uh and it tracks your progress of those. Uh and you can start those individually um within the curriculum. And uh yeah, so there's I mean, there's there's a lot there. Um Scott isn't the only one who um creates classes there. Um he's got a few other people that do, but um, yeah, I mean Scott's a fucking G. So um, I mean he's good enough for me. So um, and again, the the lifetime subscription makes more sense because he's gonna be adding more over time. Uh yeah, so I'll I'll let you guys know uh once I once I get through some of that, how how that goes. Um but I appreciate all Scott's work. I love all of Scott's work, his books, his podcasts, his interviews, his speeches. Um so uh yeah, I'm very excited for this, and I have been for a while. Um, so make sure to please check that out. Also, we're affiliated with Ollie Demigard. Please check the description in the uh link detail. Uh sorry, please check the description for link and details on that. Uh, I think he's offering a uh discount for his freedom retreat in April. Uh they're going to Bali, so uh definitely check that out. It's a uh it's a workshop on um spirituality and investigations, so it's kind of cool, really cool uh combination. Um, so uh yeah, I wish I could afford to go check that out. Um, but yeah, maybe maybe next time. Also, uh, before you go, before I go, make sure to please subscribe to the Divulgence podcast on YouTube as well as Rumble. We're trying to build up the Rumble numbers a little bit. Also, we're trying to get to a thousand subscribers on YouTube. Uh, we're getting pretty close, also, although uh we did hit a little bit of what we we thought was a shadow banning patch, uh messing with our numbers a little bit, but I think that's over with. Um, so please, if you haven't subscribed yet, um if you could please do that, that's much appreciated. Also, if you want to throw in some nice comments, uh five-star reviews, thumbs up, anything like that. Uh, you can also get us uh audio versions on Spotify, Apple, all that. So, again, you know, five-star uh reviews, follows, thumbs up, all that stuff. It uh it really helps um to help me build up the show because uh I'd really like to build it up to something great for you guys. Um, you know, I take uh input and uh criticism from you guys, and uh yeah, I try to put it to work. So um yeah, thanks to everyone in the audience, viewers, listeners, subscribers, all that stuff. Um, I just I'll just throw it out there on Rumble. The tip chair is available. Um don't feel any necessity there. And then we've um we've hit a nice milestone or landmark or whatever you want to call it on YouTube. We've got enough hours and stuff that where we can monetize and earn super chats. Um, so that should start in a few days, but uh yeah, again, that's not really a necessity, it's just more of a kind of a nice little milestone and uh update announcement. Um, but yeah, I think that's it for now. We've got some really great shows coming up in the next few days. Uh, Ryan Dawson's coming back. We have a four-way uh Epstein panel with Adam from the Truth Desk, Hadsburg, and William Ramsey. Um, let's see what else. Uh, yeah, I I can't remember off the top of my head right now. It's been such a busy day, but um, yeah, I'll let you guys know next time. But yeah, please uh take care, please subscribe, and all the best to you guys. Take care.