The Iran War Explained: History, Lies, and Global Consequences

The Iran War Explained: History, Lies, and Global Consequences | Rethinking Freedom

What is really happening with the Iran war—and why should you care?

In this powerful episode of Rethinking Freedom, we go beyond the headlines to unpack the history, hidden agendas, and global consequences of the Iran conflict. From the 1953 coup to present-day escalations, this is a conversation about power, propaganda, and the real cost of war.

Joining us is Adesoji Iginla, host of African News Review and author of Africa Illuminated, bringing a sharp global perspective that challenges dominant narratives and connects the dots between Africa, the Middle East, and Western influence.

This is not just about Iran.
This is about truth, accountability, and the world we are all living in.

📅 Airs Monday, March 23 at 7:00 AM (Central Time)
📺 Watch on YouTube: Rethinking Freedom Channel
📻 Also airing on 98.5 FM & 104.7 FM

In this episode, we explore:
• The historical roots of the Iran conflict
• The role of U.S. and global powers
• Media narratives vs. reality
• Economic impacts—oil, inflation, and global instability
• Why this war affects YOU, no matter where you live

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Stay connected. Stay informed. Rethink what you’ve been told.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Well, good morning. And welcome to it's springtime, finally. Um, at least here in Texas, the sun is out, and um hopefully we're done with our bad weather. I'm your host, Aya Fubarinelli, and with me is a guest who is not a stranger to Rethinking Freedom. Can't count how many times he's been a guest on here because of his wealth of knowledge. And we thank you for your time again. And um, I would like to take the moment now to welcome Adesa J. Igenla all the way from London in the UK. How are you?

SPEAKER_01 0:35

I'm fine, thank you. And uh thank you for having me again. Um becoming uh part of the furniture. Might have to move in.

SPEAKER_00 0:44

Part of the family. Now, talking about family, I understand that there is a major feast that is going on around this time. What are we celebrating?

SPEAKER_01 0:53

Uh so we're celebrating Eid at the moment in the UK and all over the world anyway. Uh the culminating in the end of Ramadan.

SPEAKER_00 1:01

So the culmination of the end of Ramadan. And for many of you who are based in the Christian faith, we tend to think that Christianity is the only religion or the main religion that is um practiced around the world that is actually not true. There are more Muslims worldwide than there are Christians. Um, so um happy Eid.

SPEAKER_01 1:23

Yeah, thank you, thank you, thank you.

SPEAKER_00 1:25

Well, today we have a really important topic. All our topics are really important, but today is one that is should be on the tops at the top of all of our minds, and that is this war that the United States has started with Iran and emphasis unstarted because Iran posed no imminent threat to the United States of America before um Trump and his regime decided to join arms with um Netanyahu, who has been um accused of war um um war crimes already, wanted by the International Court of Justice to link arms with um Netanyahu and is um the um Israeli regime to attack Iran. And in my neck of the woods, it seems like our newspapers aren't really talking much about it. We are a little concerned about, and many some of us may be very concerned about the rising gas prices, the rising cost of food, but not really thinking of much else. And I wanted to take a moment for us to really talk about what the history, at least in the last 70 or so years, has been with between the United States of America and Iran, and just give our listeners an opportunity to get a fuller picture of what is going on and the devastation that people are currently experiencing, even if we're not feeling it directly in the United States. Although I think that as unfortunately as soldiers start to come back in caskets, um, we might feel it a little bit more. But even that I understand is being camouflaged because now in the United States, the the Trump regime has decided that we will no longer see the bodies of US servicemen and women being returned like they have been in the past. So, what is your understanding of this history between the US and Iran?

SPEAKER_01 3:35

Okay, so to understand how the United States came into entanglement with Iran, one has to go back to the early 1900s. Uh, we're talking about uh the Sico, uh the Sikh Picot agreement. And for those who don't know, uh Sykes was an English man, uh Picot was French, and these two men sat in uh office in London and basically drew lines on a map in the Middle East. So the agreement was they would split up the place between themselves, provided Russia bearing that in mind, agreed to the plan, which Russia did. And what was the plan? The plan was essentially to get the Arabs to rise up against the Ottoman Empire, to fight the Ottoman Empire. So, but the caveat was to the Arabs that provided you fight them, you can then have your country of choice. But so they did. They rised up, fought the Ottoman Empire, the place was then carved against the earlier agreement. You will see where all of this is going. Against the earlier agreement, and France basically took part of what we now know as the Middle East, which is essentially West Asia. Uh, so two parts of the Middle East, and they left a tiny bit, which was Palestine. The Palestine was then agreed to be administered as um a zone of which nobody has dominion over. And so, where am I going with this? The fallout of that agreement, the PICO agreement, was Palestine would not have a flag, it will exist as a territory, but then what is next to Palestine? You have Iran. And so, where does Iran come into the picture? Iran came into the picture with regards to the United States specifically in 1953. That date is key. Why is that date key? Um Iran had an election in earlier in the year, and that election brought to power Mohammed Mussadek. Yes, Mohammed Mussadek um part of his uh claim to fame was his campaign was on the fact that the Anglo-Iranian oil, that term is key. Anglo-Irani oil was discovered in Iran, but it was being administered by the British. The British the colonizers, yes, essentially kept uh the large chunks of the profits. Where have we seen this being done again? And the entire thing was moved over to London with little or nothing to show in the Iranian territory. So his campaign was he was going to nationalize the oil when he came into power. So when he came into power, the first thing he did was put this idea of nationalizing the oil before the parliament. So it wasn't him that essentially said, I'm nationalizing it. He put it to the vote in the parliament, and the parliament passed it. So essentially, the people of Iran said, Yes, we agree with what you've brought forward, and this is going to be ours. Who will kick up against it? None other than Winston Churchill. Winston Churchill then called the Americans to help. Uh, as he puts it, nobody can take British oil, it's our oil. Remember where it is? It's in Iran. So nobody's gonna take our oil, and then uh the CIA, the Central Intelligence Agency led by Alex Dolas, uh, with his older brother, is he older or junior brother in the State Department, then colluded with MI6, which is the British arm of what you consider to be your CIA in the British, and they began to quote unquote foment trouble in Iran, which led to the overthrow of the democratically elected Mossadegh later in the year in 1915. So they had a democracy, yes, they had a democracy.

SPEAKER_00 8:11

Remember, one of the things the Trump regime said, one of the many reasons that they have given for why they started this war is regime change.

SPEAKER_01 8:21

Change, yes.

SPEAKER_00 8:22

So this idea of I don't like who is in power in another country, and I in my own country, because I have all these weapons of mass destruction, will now use my force like a bully on the playground, yeah, and I'm going to forcefully make these people subservient to our whims.

SPEAKER_01 8:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:44

So when we talk about we are purveyors of democracy, no, we just want to have the people in power that can get us what we want, that can us in power. We don't really want the people to have a government of the people for the people, by the people. Okay, yes.

SPEAKER_01 9:04

So essentially, what you've just talked about there is the reason why most Americans probably would not bat an eyelid when the government says we're going to do this. The term is American exceptionalism, it's that we do not do bad things, other people over there do it. Our job is to bring freedom to the people. So uh back to the Iranian thing. Um, they had they had a ceremonial head called the Shah. Yes, the ceremonial head effectively then took over power backed by Western interests, the British and the American, and then went about to create what was then known as the Savak. Uh the Savak is essentially a secret police which control even more uh vitriolic than ice, they controlled virtually everything, you know.

SPEAKER_00 10:08

You get family spying on family and opposition figures disappeared, disappeared, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 10:17

Yes, so all of that, all of that for all of that state.

SPEAKER_00 10:22

And the Shah is armed and trained and supported by the United States.

SPEAKER_01 10:26

By the United States. So you essentially allow the United States cobblanche with regards to the oil, so everybody was making merry. The British and the Americans were making merry with Iranian oil. So obviously, there's agitation. Students, clerics, uh trade unions, um you name it, the average man on the street. And then that culminated in what we now know as the 1979 Islamic revolution, which brought to power um the exiled cleric uh Rahula Khomeini, not Khomeini or Khomeini, and when he came to power, he seized not only American uh the oil, but he also seized the American embassy. Now you remember this is where the Iran Contra affair comes into play. Now, what is the Iran Contra affair? It's like um, as uh Ronald Reagan would say, we did not pay any money for hostages, but they did. So, which Oliver Knott took the fall for. So, why is that important? Why is that particular aspect of the history very important? It's important that despite what America plays to uh the medium at home, uh it's that they do deals that sometimes to you and I would not make sense. Essentially, you fighting an enemy, but then giving the enemy what the enemy needs to fight you in inverted commerce. So that's uh culminated in the Americans and the British then looking to say, we need to get back into Iran. What do they then do? They turn to another puppet just up the street in Saddam Hussein and armed him to the teeth. So the Iran-Iraq war started in 1980 and lasted for the better part of eight years up to 1988, so essentially eight years, and the kind of atrocities that were carried out in that war goes to show the extent to which the Western interest tried to get back Iran. In fact, to the point that they were used chemical weapons.

SPEAKER_00 12:50

People can look up the incident of um uh um haluja in Iran, so where chemical weapons was used on the general population, and we're and we're talking about hundreds of thousands of people died, yeah, died, you know, because of the use of chemical weapons.

SPEAKER_01 13:11

The chemicals were provided by the Germans, and we all know they have a history with uh chemicals. So fast forward, Saddam eventually beat the hand that fed him, they went into Iraq.

SPEAKER_00 13:27

Well, before before that, yes, in 1988, we had the Navy, um, the US Navy cruiser USS Oh, yes, that shut out that shut down the air flight 655, I believe. Yeah, 290 civilians dying, men, women, children, children, basically shot out of the sky. Yes, and it was oh, it was just a tragic mistake, yes. So you that is just like bombing the school with 1600, then it's like it's like oops, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:01

So again, all of this is not um is not to bash the American government, but is to show the duplicity uh nature of what the government does, but shows back at home. Like when you were talking earlier about the censorship of the pictures of possible body bags and uh caskets being coming home, it used to be a thing of honor that the transfer, which is the uh the the bringing home the repatriation of the dead, was a thing for the country to understand someone had paid the ultimate sacrifice. Now it's being done in secrecy. Yes, so you can read into that two ways. One, it's either the numbers uh are so high that it defies explanation. Why? Because the the act of war means the entire government, the people must agree to it. And in this case, we don't have that, which in itself is a violation of the Nuremberg Accord, which is you cannot start a war of aggression, it's a war crime, and whatever happens thereof uh thereafter just adds to the number of crimes that you tag onto the first war of uh a crime. Now, let's come away from the theater of war itself and then look at a broader picture of what the implication would be for the action within uh Iran, uh, outside of Iran, rather. In terms of its strategic location, it sits at the mouth of one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world, which is the Strait of Omoose. Now you're talking about an area that provides 20% of the world's oil on a daily basis. The fact that the strait has now been blocked means not only oil but gas, but more importantly, more importantly, urea. And for those who don't know what that means, that means fertilizer. So we're we're in spring now, which is the planting season for all over the world. The fact that fertilizer is not going to be available, think of what happens when people cannot have food. You then see the migrants coming to the doors of the United States because your table is plentiful and people will naturally go to where the food is. So you begin to see that we have uh what's it called? We have an issue with this war in itself being part and part of the picture.

SPEAKER_00 17:16

Yes. So as I look at that, it's not for me, not just the war itself, but it's also the sanctions that then the United States put on Iran for all from the 90s all the way up to 2015, really.

SPEAKER_01 17:40

Yeah, correct.

SPEAKER_00 17:41

Yeah, and the impact of those sanctions. So there were financial sanctions, there were oil sanctions, there were banking sanctions, yeah, the assets were frozen, they were locked out of the global financial system. So life becomes very difficult. Getting medication, doing trade with other countries, and all of that, and all of this done to make things so tough financially within the country that the people will rise up against their own government without maybe always understanding that it's really not your government trying to make life difficult for you, yeah, it's the imposition of all of these sanctions. And of course, we see that that same tactic has been used on Cuba for what 50, 60 plus years now to get and and and and now even tightening that grip. So by going in and kidnapping um Maduro from Venezuela, unprovoked again, trumped up charges, and then now controlling their oil. And by the way, America is still United States of America is still controlling Iraqi oil after they decimated Iraq, killed Saddam Hussein, killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians, that so many of the old artifacts are gone, stolen. They'll show up on some market somewhere.

SPEAKER_01 19:17

Of course.

SPEAKER_00 19:18

Um when you look at what has been done to um Cuba, some people call it Cuba, the idea is to strangulate the the economy to the point where the people rise up against their own government and then say to America, okay, yes, please come in and save us. And that saving comes with now we have control over your resources. And so now you see even countries in the Caribbean who are canceling 50-old agreements, 50-year-old partnerships, yes, yes, Cuban doctors who have saved them time and time again because of the pressure that they're being put under by the Trump regime. Yeah, meanwhile, the payments that those doctors were getting outside of the country was actually helping to address some of the economic umbalance burdens that they they they had in Cuba. And so I think it's really not, I think, I know it's really important for us in a country where we're often not teaching world history, we're often not talking about what's happening in the world. When you listen to news in America, we're just very myopic. We think everything starts and ends in this country, and America has some really great aspects to it. But this part of being the world bully, to the extent now that the president of the United States is openly calling the NATO allies cowards because they are refusing to go into war in Iran with him after he chose to go into this war with Israel without ever consulting them. So it's also, I think, important for people to understand that in 2015, Iran signed the joint comprehensive plan of action, a nuclear deal, under the leadership of um President Obama and JCPOA. Yes. And at that point, many of the sanctions were lifted against Iran, their frozen funds were released, and it gave them a moment to kind of regroup and to start to rebuild their own economy. Businesses reopened, foreign investments began returning, families could really start planning long term again. And what happened in 2018? The deal was abandoned. Abandoned by whom?

SPEAKER_01 22:00

President Donald Trump J. Trump.

SPEAKER_00 22:02

You're very generous. I don't call him president. He's a dictator, and he's a 34-time convicted felon, and he is the most mentioned name in the Epstein files. And we're going to get to that later because I'm not sure.

SPEAKER_01 22:16

He's also the face of the United States.

SPEAKER_00 22:19

Well, I don't know about that, but and so once he abandoned that deal, claiming that it was unconscionable, it should never have been entered into, the sanctions came back harder. The Iranian currency crashed, inflation skyrocketed. Of course, life became really difficult. And what you're really doing again is fomenting disagreement within the population.

SPEAKER_04 22:48

Oh, at least that's the intention.

SPEAKER_00 22:50

Yes, that's the intention. And then you turn around and say, hey, go into the streets and overthrow your government so that we can and we will back you and we will support you. Why? So that you can put into power the person that would allow you to continue to siphon off the resources and the profits from these countries. We see the same playbook all across Africa. We see the same playbook all across the Caribbean. It is not new. And so now we fast forward to where we are today. What are you seeing in terms of the impact of this war so far? Okay, so um no, actually, we can go to 2025 and talk about the so-called obliteration of all the nuclear. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 23:44

I mean, that's one element of it. But then the more insidious nature is this. When uh the JCPOA was cancelled, uh, sorry, when it was cancelled, um, effectively what the Iranians were doing, what was being done with to the Iranians was one, it was money they've already earned. It's their money, it's not the United States giving them money, free money, it's the money from their oil that is effectively seized, right? So that's the nature of that's the nature of shanks, uh, sanctions. But at that time it was supposed to be about 1.6, 1.7 billion, give or take the odd hundred million that were supposed to be going to the Iranians, but only yesterday it transpired that the uh Department for Treasury has temporarily lifted sanctions on Iranian oil. Yes, and guess how much they will be earning from the sanctions being lifted in light of the fact that the price of oil is now 10 times the price, so they're effectively getting 10 billion as opposed to 1 billion. Think about someone who calls himself a master negotiator that goes in and crafts a deal where your so-called enemy, you are actually funding them to fight you. That is the sort of leadership you have in uh what's it called? That you have in uh the in the White House at the moment. So that's one. That's one aspect of it. The second aspect is this, and it's to do with the notion that the Western um the US hegemony can basically go into any country and say this is what I want done, and this is what would happen, and once that is the case, then clearly nobody can question it. So, what this war has thrown up is it's shown that sometimes the idea that you have power, it's power in itself, but if you go around showing your power every time, people will start planning for any eventualities, which is what the Iranians have done in the last 16 days. That effectively they said if the Americans come, this is what we'll do, and they've done it. They've taken out radio, uh radar stations, listening posts, uh uh bases, uh you name it. And then we're now on the ask on the idea that we might actually put put um boots on the ground, that in itself is not uh is not credible to you know for any government uh or Mr. Uh Hexet to say this is not how we're running a war. Or to which the experts had already told him that this is what would happen if you go in.

SPEAKER_00 27:10

I mean, the not you and you heard Trump at his press conference saying who who knew this would happen, who knew the Iranians would do this? And it's like, are you serious? Anyone who has studied this and your own experts would have told you if you had not purged, if you had not purged the experts from your regime, from your cabinet, and instead of being the department of defense, change it to Department of War. And under this regime, this country has bombed eight countries to date, yeah, and on their way to the ninth, if they decide to set their their sights on Cuba, which it it appears that they have.

SPEAKER_01 27:52

Yes. I mean, again, bringing the Cuba thing into question is this the United States has uh what is hold on, hold on.

SPEAKER_00 28:03

Before we go to Cuba, can we just talk about what the impact has been for the Gulf states in terms of this war? The human carnage, the infrastructure. Yes, can you talk about that a little bit and then we'll we'll go over okay?

SPEAKER_01 28:19

So, in terms of the human carnage, um to the censorship idea, uh censorship laws in place, we can't really know what the definite number is. But if we look at infrastructural uh displacements, we can sort of guess uh the Dubai airport is one of the busiest in the world. It handles at least 30 to 70 million passengers every month. So if we break that down on a daily basis, that's three million people. Wow, so three million people basically have just sort of disappeared. Three million people are not showing up. You're talking about staff who walks in who work in those airports, they're not showing up for work because the place is basically a ghost down. And across the Middle East, the we're talking about oil installations. Most of the oil installations are being hit. So even if the Strait of Omuz were to open today, there will be no ships going through with loaded cargo because there is no way to move the cargo onto the ship because uh the terminals, the ports have been destroyed. So you now begin to see that when you go up against an enemy that has nothing to lose, you you basically, you know, you're digging, as they would say, you not only dog a grave for your opponent, you've actually dog one for yourself. Because your opponents have said, listen, we're playing for we're playing for all the marbles now.

SPEAKER_00 29:59

And if we go by what because we were at the negotiation table with you, yes decided unilaterally and without any warning to disengage from that negotiation and to start this war. Of course, for me, seeing um the bombs going off, the missiles falling all across the Gulf states, yeah, seeing the devastation in Tehran and around Iran. Yeah, we of course know about the school and the 160 school girls that I already mentioned. Yeah, we're seeing hospitals being hit.

SPEAKER_01 30:40

Correct.

SPEAKER_00 30:40

We are the war crime. We we can talk about Israel's um attacks on Lebanon, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:50

Uh yeah, southern Lebanon. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:53

So we guess the southern and the displacement over of over a million people. I just want for a second, for those of us who are in the safety of our homes, maybe you're in the UK like you are here in the United States as I am, and we are raining devastation on other people, even though we are still just going about our regular lives. But this morning, as I saw some of the images of just buildings just imploding, I was thinking about what it would feel like to all of a sudden start hearing bombs drop in my area. What do you gather? Yeah, like what do you quickly carry? Where do you go? Where do you what direction do you run in? Because you don't know what direction the bombs are going to come in. Um, I happen to have children who are all around the the country, so we're not all in the same place. How do we even maintain?

SPEAKER_01 31:52

Communicates, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:54

And and just in that moment of me just imagining that, I'm thinking of the absolute terror and fear that and trauma that we are raining down on people. And here's the issue: for no good reason, and I know there's some of you listening who may be listening to what I will call the American propaganda because we do not have a media anymore that tells all the facts. But even the people on the inside, some who have just resigned publicly, um, Joe Kent, for instance, is saying there was no good reason for America to go into war, except that Israel said, hey, let's go and let's do this. And all these other American presidents have resisted the urge urge, except for Trump and his narcissistic self. But the reason I bring this up is that we have an obligation here in the United States, and for those of you listening wherever in the world, to hold your elected officials accountable, correct? To decide who it is that you want representing you, and once they are elected, to stay in conversation with them. Because as I am looking at how we are destroying so many places across the world, I'm thinking of the amount of money right now. Hexeth has asked for an additional$200 billion to fight a war that should never have started. At the same time, when you are cutting, taking people off of their health insurance, when you are cutting back on access to food, and through these wars, you are creating what they have estimated will be an additional 42 point something million people who are now going to be facing hunger across the world. Not to mention all the increased prices and the businesses that will close because they simply cannot keep up with what it is that they need to do based on how you know how high the cost of running their business has become. And so it behooves us as we get into the election season, we're really already in the election season, we've already had our primary elections here in the state of Texas to do your homework and to stop being lazy or um um apathetic and to go out and to cast an informed vote. Here in Texas, one of the reasons why um Jasmine Crockett is not the Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate, even though we know she would have fought, she is a fearless, courageous leader, she would have fought on the side of humanity, is not just because so many Latino voters voted for Talawico, but more so because so many black choose not to exercise their vote. Choose not to exercise their right to vote at all. And when you sit it out, when you sit out these elections, you are basically saying, I am fine with paying my taxes every year. And for those for my tax dollars to go towards funding four million dollar ballistics and missile heads and warheads and all of that, as opposed to actually building infrastructure, providing social services that are helpful to humanity. And all we are doing is creating more chaos around the world, and then when people now are fleeing their countries that we have made uninhabitable and trying to flee to the United States because they too are buying into the propaganda of American exceptionalism, then we also want to get upset, and then we're locking up them up in these detention centers, which are which should be a whole other crime on its own. But please carry on.

SPEAKER_01 36:20

Okay, so uh I was gonna mention you mentioned the cost. Um, let's look at the sanctions, the idea of regime of sanctions. The Lancet, uh, which is a medical journal, um did an uh did an article on the cost of sanctions. So they looked at the sanctions imposed by the United States between 1971 and 2022 and came up with listen to this. The cost of those sanctions to the human population in the world has been 38 million dead bodies. I repeat, 38 million have died as a result of sanctions being imposed by the United States across the world. So sometimes it's not even the bumps, sometimes it's the slow death. Now, in any other civil society, that will in itself is a war crime, the deprivation of essential helpful people, and sometimes I think in a way we um when I say we, we as humans have somewhat in order ourselves to think when we hear numbers like that, it doesn't really count. And why would it count? Anyone can remember uh Madeline Albright in an interview where she sat and she was asked about the cost of uh sanctions on Iraq, which was the death of about half a million kids, and she said it nonchalantly that it was worth it. That's what she said. It's worth it.

SPEAKER_00 38:11

So again, I know we tend to dehumanize other people, yes, nobody else is human except us, us, yes, but consider so the city that I live in, I think we might be somewhere between 175 and 200,000. So you are talking about two and a half times my city population, correct, correct.

SPEAKER_01 38:35

So you you just wiped off the face of the earth, just that's it, and not a care in the world, so and for what purpose? Power for power for control. I mean, when we're talking about control, people will be shocked that following the invasion in the 2003 invasion of the United States and its allies into Iraq, despite the numerous elections that have been held in Iraq, the budget, the proceeds from Iraq's oil is dictated by the whim of the US State Department of Treasury. So essentially, the United States controls the poor strings of Iraq. I repeat, the United States Department for Treasury controls the poor strings of Iraq.

SPEAKER_00 39:32

And so again, I like to I like to really bring this to a place where people can feel it themselves. That would be like I'm working, and everything that I make gets paid into someone else's account, yeah, and then they decide whatever you want to spend money on is just feel is I should have to live on. That's it, but I keep working, that's it. So if you can imagine how unfair, how unjust that is, and ultimately how inhumane because now we turn around and we look at some of these countries and we're like, oh, they're third world countries, and we are a developed nation, but what is the basis?

SPEAKER_01 40:24

I mean, oh okay, so let's even bring it closer to home. Let's come to Cuba. Yes, the United States says every human being has the right to self-determination. Is that not the case?

unknown 40:37

Right.

SPEAKER_01 40:38

So when the Cubans decided post the Cuban Revolution of 1959 that this they want to practice socialism, one would expect the United States to agree with the general feeling of the people that we are going to practice socialism. But what do they do? The big stick again comes out sanctions. So following the sanctions put in place by the Kennedy government in 1962, up till yeah, and the Bay of Pigs invasion and all the other you know machinations to get rid of Fidel Castro. Let's just look at the economics alone. The mainstay of the Cuban economy prior to the Cuban Revolution was sugar. The based on the sanctions placed on Cuba, the sanctions has cost Cuba between 1959, 1962 and now a hundred and forty-four billion US dollars. Think of what a hundred and forty-four billion dollars can do to a country that despite that has produced more amount of doctors, yes, you know, and what have you. Think of what that could have done to you then. So sometimes it's not so much as the sanctions, it's the idea that you should not succeed. Because if you do, you don't give us a reason to inflict the same thing on our people back home. And you know what they say. Whatever uh imperialism goes to do outside, it will eventually bring back home. So you see ice on your streets. Those are the kind of things they encourage outside with regards to governments, dictatorial governments, and again, let's go back to the Middle East. There's this notion of a democracy governed by the people for the people of the people, right? In the Middle East, Iran is the only democracy, yeah. They have a body of experts appointed by the people, who we then pick the leader. That's how it's run. Nobody imposes themselves on the people. So, this notion that uh we've been informed that oh the Iranians are under subjugation, and another thing, one final point. We understand that um when the following the February 28th invasion, 165 girls were killed. And the the premise for the war was we're going to free women who have refused to wear the headscarf. So you kill 165 people. And Maita also add that the law.

SPEAKER_00 44:00

Men in the United States. Okay, I got it.

SPEAKER_01 44:01

Yeah, ha. So here is the that's the irony. So in Iran, the literacy rate amongst women is 93.6%. I repeat in Iran, the literacy rate amongst women is 93.6%. What's the literacy rate amongst women in the United States?

unknown 44:27

No.

SPEAKER_01 44:28

They have there you go. So it's sometimes it's the noise. We need to step away from the.

SPEAKER_00 44:41

And as we talk about this, of course, I'm in the United States of America. I'm a citizen here. And so I, you know, just like you feel like, hey, I can talk about my parents, I can talk about my family. That's how I feel. Like I can talk about what's going on in this country. Um, and anyway, I'm a citizen of the world as well. Um, but so as I criticize this Trump regime, all his grifting, total lack of humanity, the fact that the American people have allowed him to be in office in this, re-elected him, um, have allowed him to run roughshod all over so many of uh aspects of the Constitution. Um, I don't want us to um give Israel a pass as we have this conversation.

SPEAKER_01 45:30

Of course not.

SPEAKER_00 45:31

Because Israel is definitely um the instigator. And in my opinion, and that this this might be taken off the airwaves, what I'm about to say, when you define what terrorism is, yeah, go and look up the definition of terrorism. I don't know how you don't look at what Israel is doing as acts of terrorism, but let's talk about Gaza really quickly. Yeah, because all of this is tied together. So the world sat back and watched first of all an open air prison of 3.0 million people. Yeah, then we watched them be talked like like you got mice in a barrel, basically, yeah, and the entire place raised, which is what Netanyahu said he was gonna do. And then we have Kushner, Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of Trump in the Middle East with no qualifications, suddenly the one who is the US envoy who is making all of these um deals, so to speak, while he also has a private company that is intent on building condos, yeah, oceanside condos on Gaza, right? But let's talk about what has happened in Gaza.

SPEAKER_03 47:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:06

390 UNRWA staff have been killed. The AP says more than 650 Palestinians. Actually, I was looking at the rec the numbers today. I think it's up to 683 Palestinians have been killed by the Israelis since the October 2025 ceasefire. Adding that to the 72,000 who were killed when they first started, you know, in that whole term when they were attacking um the Palestinians. Let's not talk about how many millions have been displaced over the decades. Let's look at what's happening in Lebanon. Now, right now, they're saying over a thousand deaths, over a million people displaced. And the attacks continue on civilian sites, not military sites in Lebanon. In Iran, they're um they're reporting over 1,300 deaths, over 9,000 injuries, and over a hundred and thousand people, a hundred thousand people already relocated. And of course, in Venezuela, we have seen, first of all, in the Indian Ocean, innocent people just being bombed from the air.

SPEAKER_01 48:33

War crimes.

SPEAKER_00 48:34

No, nothing, just war crimes. Yes, war crimes. And then the UNICEF is now saying that Venezuela's severe economic crisis is leaving families unable to find food, afford food, medicine, and other essentials.

SPEAKER_01 48:49

This it comes back to the sanctions regime we're talking about earlier.

SPEAKER_00 48:53

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 48:54

So with with Israel, with Israel, Israel has managed in two years to upend all the wins, and I use that word in inverted commerce, all the wins, since the end of the second world war, all the conventions, human rights, women's rights, education, culture, legal, everything has basically been uphended because the world stood by and watched that genocide. The good thing to come out of it, however, is this. When South Africa brought that case to the ICJ and the IC um ICC, yes, and the ICC. What they did was effectively say you can look for humanity in Africa. So it's a win. And what has come out of that since has been this since um uh the uh Republic of South Africa has brought that case, eleven other countries have now joined South Africa to push the case for a genocide against Israel, and Germany that was going to surprise on behalf of Israel has now joined the case, but there is a reason Germany joined the case, exactly the reason being Namibia, another African country, another African country, which was a subject of a genocide, had claimed that it was going to bring a similar type case against Germany. And so, what did Germany do? Germany quickly jumped on the side of South Africa.

SPEAKER_00 50:53

So, what so what you're saying is that when we look at Europe and these NATO allies that and and the Canadian um prime minister said the quiet part out loud, they are making decisions not based on the humanity of people, but really again on what they feel are in their best economic interest.

SPEAKER_01 51:17

Yeah, what they can get away from.

SPEAKER_00 51:18

While the UK is right now is allowing, or I understand is going to allow the United States of America to launch attacks on Iran. It is allowed basis.

SPEAKER_01 51:33

Yeah, it is allowing, yeah, yeah, it is allowing, even though they know that this is an illegal war. And here is where it gets uh closer to home. Yesterday, the uh the Iranian uh forces launched uh uh two rockets towards a base in Diego Garcia. I saw that, but here I mean, here's the hidden message the thing fell short, so it went as far as 4,500 miles and then dropped into the ocean, or at least they said one dropped and the other one was intercepted, be that as it is may the 4,500 kilometers range is instructive, yes, it is, because London is 4,000 miles away from Tehran, Germany is 4,500 miles away from Tehran.

SPEAKER_00 52:38

So you can read in between the lines, like if we want to touch you, were they really were they really aiming for Diego Garcia, or were they just trying to make a point?

SPEAKER_01 52:48

They were trying to make a point that if we really want to touch you, just look at what we can do, and that's it.

SPEAKER_00 52:56

You know, so you begin to so so we we we just have a few minutes left. There are some people who are going to say, yes, but we've heard that what we're trying to do is to prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons. President Trump has said, under no circumstances should Iran get nuclear weapons. What is your response to that argument?

SPEAKER_01 53:16

Okay, so that um that argument is mute, and the reason I'll say that is the last uh Ayatollah Hamini passed an Islamic edit known as a fatwa, that it was on Islamic to create a weapon that would destroy humanity, and so all they were interested in was the commercial use of it, which is electricity and what have you, and even based on the very uh stringent inspections, it was highly improbable for them to have enriched it to the point where uh they can do so. But guess what? The two countries they were hell-bent on ensuring that the United uh Iran quote unquote does not get the nuclear bomb, specifically, uh Israel has at least, according to experts, 400 nuclear warheads.

SPEAKER_00 54:24

Why do we and nobody knows exactly how many because they have not been required to be inspected in that way, they have not had to declare what they have.

SPEAKER_01 54:33

Yeah, and the only reason why we know this was in the early 1980s, one uh gentleman by the name of uh Modekai Vanunu left Israel and spoke to the Times of London, where he revealed the extent of Israel's uh nuclear capabilities. And then he was subsequently lured, you know, untrapped to Italy, where he was then kidnapped and taken back into Israel. He was released a couple of years ago, but he's basically been under house arrest. He cannot travel. So, again, that's how we know all of this. So it's not that the information is not out there to come back to your original question as why it is that the Americans are not fed the information, is that the media, media class in the United States are two things. They're way too subservient to power.

SPEAKER_00 55:39

Well, they're all they're almost completely owned by the oligarchs now.

SPEAKER_01 55:43

Yes, I mean, so they're subservient to power, which you know you can clearly see with the LCN takeover of the CBS and subsequently now CNN. And then finally, it's that if you just take a cursory look at the media reporting, it's the one where war in itself has just been marketed to Americans. Why? In order to manufacture their consent so that they can go out and carry out destruction.

SPEAKER_00 56:20

And and what has been mind-boggling to me, and very hurtful to my spirit, is the casual language around this war, yeah, calling it an excursion.

unknown 56:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 56:34

Now I've gone on excursions, and excursion is usually like a pleasant outing, and you explore and all of that, but people aren't harmed. Um, talking about this as though we're playing video games, yeah. Obliterated cost to the Americans as well, to the United States of America. When you're talking about drones that Iran is is manufacturing for what$20,000, the equivalent of$20,000, and your anticeptors, interceptors. Interceptors are costing what four million dollars. And it's not guaranteed doing with that with those resources, yes, in this country, and for the betterment of humanity, period.

SPEAKER_01 57:25

Oh, on the issue of um what's uh you can be doing the resources. One five one last take. Yesterday it transpires that uh Iran shot and wounded uh F-35.

SPEAKER_00 57:42

Yes, plane.

SPEAKER_01 57:43

Okay, so the F-35 plane is considered next gen next generation fighter. And according to uh experts, it's supposed to be invincible. You're not supposed to see, even radar cannot see it. So the the Iranians, using what they have, shot at it, and it basically linked to back to wherever it came from. The point is this, which is the use of resources in the same vein, that 1.3 trillion that was used to develop that fighter aircraft is the same amount China has spent to lay 60,000 tracks of fast trains across China. Think of what you could have done without me.

SPEAKER_00 58:34

Think of what we could have done. So, to all our listeners and our viewers, first of all, thank you so much for your faithfulness. Some of you are always on the face on our Facebook, on our YouTube channel. Please like, please continue to share. If you haven't subscribed, hit that subscription um notice and then hit for the notification bell as well. We every day are working hard to curate stories and bring guests that you can hear once a week on this channel to elevate your mind, to make sure that we're really pushing towards freedom. And these kind of discussions, quite frankly, you are not hearing on the regular airwaves. So I want to thank our guest, um, Adesoji Ginla again for joining us today and for helping us get a better understanding of what's going on. And it's up to us, the rest of us, to continue to do our homework and then to take action. So, thank you so much for being with us today.

SPEAKER_01 59:33

Thank you for having me.