The Next Forever War Will Be In The U.S.

0:00 Greg Stoker is an Afghanistan war veteran who served in the US Rangers.

0:05 He's running for Congress in Texas and was recently arrested

0:07 for protesting the war in Iran alongside dozens of other veterans,

0:12 including elderly ladies, veterans in wheelchairs.

0:16 He also was one of the veterans detained in the Gaza

0:19 flotilla by Israel when he was attempting to bring aid to Palestinians.

0:24 His campaign slogan is this.

0:25 On behalf of my fellow Texans, I will not accept this[ __] Greg Stoker,

0:31 I also reject[ __] That's why I wanted to meet you.

0:34 Thank you for joining me.

0:35 Oh, thanks so much.

0:36 I guess my campaign team updated the tagline,

0:38 so I'm I've been traveling now, so I guess that's the new one.

0:42 But yes, I am sick of it.

0:43 And it's absolutely insane.

0:45 We've got a whole new series of wars that whose

0:48 dimensions uh can't really be contained at this point.

0:51 So, yeah, thanks for having me on.

0:52 It's good to be here.

0:53 Yeah.

0:53 So, I guess let's dissect the[ __] shall we?

0:56 Uh, specifically the anti-war[ __] Uh, can you tell us about your platform?

1:01 And it does seem, I think we should say this early,

1:04 that you are not aligned with the right or the left, are you?

1:08 I'm aligned with people across the political spectrum.

1:11 Um, I I I I'm more on the left, which is more like not a liberal.

1:17 Um, and I work and organize a lot with uh

1:19 mainly conservatives because I'm running in Texas District 31.

1:23 It's a district that I think is assailable for me.

1:26 Um, and it's one of the only two districts in Texas that's

1:29 never been represented by a Democrat and I have no problem with that.

1:31 So, I I don't say I I don't deal with the left or the right.

1:35 I would say I'm nonpartisan at all.

1:37 Okay.

1:37 We just focus on issues,

1:38 mostly workingass issues and which really brings the war

1:42 into question because it's a war on all of us, not just the Iranians.

1:46 Absolutely.

1:46 I reject those labels in general.

1:48 We cannot really define them.

1:49 I just wanted to see if people, you know, sort of could lob on to one side.

1:53 We shouldn't.

1:54 So, let's not even speak like that.

1:56 So, yeah, why don't we um start with the anti-war[ __]

2:00 So, basically, um my entire platform or what I really focus

2:05 on um I I did four combat deployments in the 75th Ranger Regiment.

2:09 Uh that's kind of what radicalized me into the radical position

2:12 of hey we shouldn't do these interventionist wars that accomplish nothing.

2:16 Uh get a bunch of people killed on all sides

2:18 and enrich the 0001% of the uh defense contracting apparatus.

2:24 Washing taxpayer money out of the public sector

2:27 that should be going to you and to fund

2:29 social programs for all Americans and washing

2:32 in a moneyaundering scheme essentially into the private sector.

2:35 Um, so that's kind of what we're seeing with all these wars.

2:38 And over the past 20 years,

2:40 our military has been absolutely degraded because it's completely for-profit.

2:45 We are completely de-industrialized.

2:47 We have massive munition stockpiles.

2:50 We spend most of the defense budget

2:52 on these like exquisite projects that are completely unnecessary,

2:56 like the F-35 project that went over budget year after year after

2:59 year and is now almost irrelevant or kind of becoming more irrelevant.

3:04 um as a fifth generation fightercraft.

3:06 Some of that has to do with uh Israeli meddling.

3:08 Some of that has to do with they're not as stealthy as we once thought.

3:11 Um but you know these massive R&D projects are how they jin up so much cash.

3:16 Wait, what do you mean that there's Israeli interference in the F-35 project?

3:20 I don't know anything.

3:21 Well, um so we we kind of suspect that, you know,

3:24 they've uh um engine reversed like engineered um and messed

3:29 with some parts and they're producing their own stuff.

3:31 So, uh, it's actually endangering, uh, you know,

3:35 other contracts with Turkey and other nations that we usually sell with.

3:38 So, um, but

3:39 but are you talking about a product, the F-35 is a fighter jet,

3:44 and you're saying it's manufactured in the United States and some

3:49 Well, yeah, Israel has a um, long history of uh,

3:54 collecting and modifying our products and stuff, you know, with Jonathan Pard.

3:59 He was a a uh spy from Texas by Ale and you know

4:04 when you're uh in the defense sector

4:07 or the intelligence sector of special operations

4:09 you learn very quickly you get counter

4:12 intelligence briefings on who are the most

4:13 adversarial collectors against US personnel and diplomats

4:17 overseas you know if you go

4:18 through the foreign area officer course if you get right on to a top

4:21 secret security clearance and stuff like that it's is it China is it

4:25 Russia no it's it's the Israelis and if you talk to certain members

4:28 of the CIA and in Langley they don't even let them into building anymore.

4:31 They use a third party offsite because they're

4:33 just completely untrustworthy and metal in everything we do.

4:36 But um

4:38 to what effect?

4:39 Why would they do that?

4:40 And I'm sorry.

4:41 I'm asking I just really want this laid out like I'm in the fourth grade

4:43 because I don't understand what we're talking

4:46 about and what why would they do that?

4:47 This is shocking to me, but I'm super interested.

4:49 Oh.

4:49 Oh, really?

4:50 Okay.

4:50 Sorry.

4:51 I I live in these circles where this is like pretty well known

4:53 and I came out of JC and into the realm of uh uh political commentary.

4:58 Yes.

4:59 Uh the Israelis are the primary

5:03 adversarial collection threat against uh US personnel.

5:07 That's in all the briefings.

5:09 Uh that includes blackmail, leverage, um cash for secrets.

5:14 Uh they're uh they create and do a lot

5:18 of corporate espionage against companies within the continental United States.

5:22 Uh the FBI tracks Israeli agents throughout the country.

5:25 This is all open- source stuff that you can easily research,

5:28 but it's too um it's too cumbersome

5:31 and our relationship with Israel is too intertwined

5:34 for a lot of different reasons that there's

5:35 not really much we can do about it except,

5:37 you know, brief some people on counter intelligence and be like,

5:40 "Hey, you know, operational security,

5:42 especially when dealing with um the Israelis."

5:46 So, what would they do with information on the F-35?

5:50 would they sort of make it a less safe

5:52 product or they would be engineering their own or

5:57 yeah they they they want to get around US patent laws

6:00 and be able to do um what they want to do with it

6:03 and build it inside of Israel something similar

6:06 certain parts certain mechanical parts and and modify it too.

6:09 So like when it comes when it comes when

6:10 it comes to these like equipment and weapon sales contracts,

6:13 there's there's they're pretty labyrinth on what you can and cannot

6:17 do with like US products and how to modify them and where where they're sourced.

6:22 Um so there there's for example there there have been huge

6:25 like snafuss where Iran has been under sanctions and somehow because

6:30 they have old US had old US fighter craft you know

6:34 some of those supplies from the US supply chain went to Iran

6:37 while they were under complete full pressure sanctions and it

6:40 was a whole uh whole scandal so uh yeah these uh

6:45 these laws are completely labyrinthine and or these contract laws completely

6:49 labyrinthon and of course the Israelis don't want to bound by anything.

6:52 So, uh that includes corporate espionage with US defense

6:57 contractors and trying to reverse engineer things as well.

7:00 So, this is there's been a long history of this.

7:02 They're our greatest strategic ally

7:04 and they're incredibly adversarial towards us.

7:07 So, when the American public is told, hey,

7:11 we need this allyship with Israel because they buy our weapons,

7:15 so that's good for us, and they provide us with intelligence.

7:20 That is propaganda spin because you're saying higher-ups

7:23 in the military know they're trying to not buy our weapons.

7:28 They would very much like to not, right?

7:30 Is that what you're saying?

7:31 No, not at all.

7:32 They they want our weapons.

7:33 They um they they just don't want to be constrained by how

7:36 we give them our weapons or how they use our weapons.

7:39 Um and so uh whereas let's say Ukraine is I'm sorry if this is okay.

7:48 Oh yeah, sorry.

7:50 Uh I I was completely not prepared to talk about this subject.

7:53 I was just made like a throwaway comment.

7:55 But yes, um the Israelis, it's not just the defense sector.

7:58 They rely on the United States in every respect.

8:02 You know, they couldn't sustain

8:04 their project without the unconditional military,

8:06 economic, and diplomatic support of the United States Empire.

8:11 And they they know this.

8:13 They've known this for generations,

8:14 which is why they've built this massive propaganda

8:16 and influence operation with inside the continental United States.

8:20 And Apex just the tip of the iceberg.

8:24 Uh sometimes uh when when the conversation comes

8:26 down to like is Israel controlling the United States,

8:30 is the tail wagging the dog?

8:32 No, it's just it's just the entirety of the dog.

8:35 Um, from my perspective as an analyst, Israel,

8:38 while having an undue amount of influence for what could

8:42 be classically considered as a quote unquote colony in some ways,

8:46 um, it it exists as our base in the Middle East, uh, to destabilize the region.

8:52 And even though they're trying to do the Abraham Accords,

8:54 it's still a destabilization operation in order to redraw borders and, uh,

8:59 create vassal states that will allow Western

9:01 imperialists to exploit their people and resources.

9:04 So, you know, they're not our only ally in the region.

9:07 There's a lot of other subimperial states like the UAE and Saudi Arabia.

9:11 Uh, but Israel is really important and this is

9:13 kind of like a bipartisan national security idea.

9:17 Biden said it himself when he was like

9:19 a younger senator that if Israel doesn't exist,

9:22 we would need to create an Israel to to um

9:26 force and expand our influence within the region.

9:29 During the cold war, it was about keeping the Russians out

9:31 of West Asia and now it's just about absolute

9:34 hegemony over resources and governments throughout the most

9:37 one of the most strategic locations on earth.

9:39 It sits at the intersection of three

9:41 different continents and has a massive oil supply.

9:43 So, one of the reasons why um these wars keep happening again

9:47 and again and again and we keep losing again and again and again,

9:50 learning absolutely nothing.

9:52 Well, that's an interesting way to look at it because it's not quite

9:56 so simplistic as we would be beautiful

9:58 and perfect without Israel because you're right,

10:01 it's a part of a larger machine that actually

10:03 really likes the osmosis of this waring nation.

10:08 And one of the the things that I I often get

10:10 in debates with uh with people and people are free to disagree.

10:14 Um I I think just blaming everything on Israel is a way to simplify an immensely

10:20 complex information environment and geopolitical um environment um

10:26 in a way that's kind of easy to understand.

10:28 It's a good starting point.

10:30 But I often ask, okay, so we have all these problems here domestically.

10:33 We have all these foreign interventions.

10:35 We have operation total uh total extermination which

10:39 is a bombing campaign in Ecuador that's not even

10:42 being reported on that Israel has nothing to do

10:43 with it uh has nothing to do with.

10:46 What what if Israel stopped existing?

10:49 Right.

10:49 Would we stop torturing South America?

10:52 Yeah.

10:52 I mean would it would it stop intervention in Cuba?

10:54 Would it stop um a future conflict over the Strait of Taiwan with China?

10:59 Um I don't I don't see that happening at all.

11:01 And then it wouldn't solve our problems here at home.

11:04 um you know at all right I mean the Israeli influence on the current war

11:10 in Iran which we're calling epic fury is undeniable but you

11:17 can read 40 years of influence in Israel that didn't

11:23 have anything of like perversion of diplomacy from US presidents bipartisan

11:31 that may or may not have been led by Israel.

11:33 It's been nonsensical for decades, this obsession with Iran.

11:38 Uh, so what is your position specifically on on this war and the the way

11:43 that it's being sold to the American public in a in my opinion failing way?

11:48 Well, unfortunately, the the American public has no concept of history.

11:53 You know, they they want to blame the Iranian revolution for, you know,

11:57 overthrowing this nice guy named the Sha and, you know, that ruined everything.

12:01 Well, actually Iran has been trying to create uh to complete its

12:06 democratic revolution for over a hundred years now and they got really close.

12:10 They got close in the 50s when you

12:12 know they elected Muhammad Mosedc and the big problem

12:16 he had or what he did was nationalize

12:19 the oil which British Petroleum believed belonged to them.

12:22 So that precipitated a whole MI6 CIA joint operation to overthrow him

12:27 and then install a boogeoa dictator named the Sha uh in his place.

12:33 And it was, you know,

12:34 despite the revisionism that you hear from uh Iranian diaspora voices that are

12:40 platformed on CNN and Fox News to gen up consent for this war.

12:44 You know, we got to save the women heard the same thing in Afghanistan.

12:47 Um it was a brutal regime that emiserated the working

12:55 class and um they there's this idea that oh

12:58 because you know they were able to wear bikinis

13:01 you know uh and there was adult films playing

13:03 in tan that means that these people were free

13:06 no the the savvac were a brutal secret police regime

13:11 that you know we tolerated because it served our interest

13:15 you know he it was a bull work against, you know, uh, communist influence.

13:19 And he did whatever I want he wanted

13:21 and let us pillage the resources of his country.

13:24 And he was so bad that all

13:27 these different minorities and religions and ethnicities got together

13:32 from conservatives to actual communists inside of Iran

13:36 and overthrew the sha and a popular revolution,

13:39 which never would have happened if we just let them be a democracy.

13:43 But we cannot leave that alone because we say we're the champions of democracy.

13:47 But we have overthrown just about every democratically elected democratic

13:53 socialist or social democracy that has been in Latin America.

13:56 Chile, Nicaragua, like Panama, it Panama, name it.

14:01 So, um I think it's time and one of the reasons why we wanted to do this action

14:06 is because we believe that we are the most

14:09 propagandized population or at least I do on earth.

14:12 I've lived in other countries, India, Greece, like all over.

14:16 Um I I haven't seen this level of political complacency and just

14:20 buying in narratives generation after generation

14:23 when they've been proven to be disastrous.

14:25 Like we should have learned all this after Vietnam,

14:27 but somehow we're still repeating the same amount

14:30 of imperial insanity again and again and again,

14:33 fighting an asymmetrical force with mainly air power,

14:37 expecting different results.

14:39 Well, famously Bush won launched the first Gulf

14:42 War to combat what he called Vietnam syndrome,

14:47 which was a hesitancy to go to war again because that was brutal and pointless.

14:53 And he's like, "Well, we got to have we got to we need

14:55 to win so that they know that war is the answer.

14:57 That's why we've been dragged through this." Um,

15:00 you make a great point about Iran.

15:02 I think that I should point out that Iran has one of the lowest

15:06 poverty rates despite decades of sanctions

15:09 for any other large population country.

15:13 They have a really high participation in voting.

15:15 So they do in fact have a participatory democracy

15:19 higher their participation in voting is higher than ours.

15:22 Their women have higher rates of literacy and education and also they have

15:26 longer maternity leaves as well which

15:28 is resulting in higher rates of breastfeeding.

15:30 So I I wonder what it is that we have

15:34 as American women that we want them to have so badly.

15:38 Like a bad hair day.

15:40 That's what we want.

15:41 I don't It's all the same.

15:43 Like you look at these patterns that are meant to jin up consent for war.

15:45 Like we have to save these people from an oppressive regime.

15:48 Look at Cuba.

15:49 The highest rate of like exporting doctors globally.

15:53 like they took a peasant like almost plantationbased society

15:57 during the revolution where there was like a zero

16:00 literacy rate everyone can read you know um everyone

16:04 like incredibly literate well educated population they're just cut

16:07 off from the world because of US sanctions

16:09 and it's a it's worth talking about diaspora politics right

16:14 now wi specifically with regards to which voices

16:18 from a diaspora are platformed and which ones are not.

16:21 So

16:22 like in 2010 there was a lot of plurality um

16:26 and heterodoxy within the voices coming out of the Iranian diaspora.

16:30 You know there was ones who didn't like the government.

16:32 There were some like leftists who wanted like more of a socialist

16:36 revolution and then there was people who still like the sha.

16:39 But this level of ideology that's almost like handinand

16:43 glove with Zionism has been building for a long time.

16:48 And I know plenty of Iranians in the diaspora

16:50 who aren't the biggest fan of the government,

16:52 but they also don't want US intervention.

16:54 Those will not be platformed on mainstream media

16:56 because they do not jin up consent for war.

17:00 Um only only certain parts of these diaspora communities, be they Cuban,

17:05 be they Venezuelan, be they Iranian,

17:07 are only platformed if they're serving the imperial narrative.

17:11 Case in point, what is one diaspora that is

17:14 never platformed on anything because it serves no imperial purpose?

17:19 Palestine.

17:19 The Palestinian diaspora.

17:21 There there is no with the exception of a couple crazy guys.

17:24 I was going to say Russians, but yes, that too.

17:27 Yeah.

17:27 Also, yeah.

17:28 So, um, case in point.

17:31 So, we need to be very careful in interrogate

17:34 like when we interrogate who these speakers are,

17:36 who these voices are.

17:38 And generally what when I ask especially because there's

17:41 a lot of Cubans um where I live I was

17:43 like okay you hate you hate the revolution and Castro

17:46 and all that just question what did your father do?

17:50 What did your grandfather do?

17:52 Oh he was a batista loyalist and he was a plantation owner who owned slaves.

17:57 Okay.

17:58 You know

17:59 Yeah.

18:00 So that didn't go well for you.

18:02 Yeah.

18:02 And you can you can ask the same thing about like

18:04 with a lot of these Iranians that are in the diaspora.

18:06 their grandfathers had to flee.

18:08 It's like what were you doing?

18:10 They were part of the violent bgeois administrative state a lot of the times.

18:14 So, it's just something to ask because it

18:17 informs like the ideology where these speakers are are

18:21 coming from and they're incredibly important for manufacturing

18:25 consent for all of these interventions across the globe.

18:30 Right.

18:30 And I read it a lot of times, especially when you hear the Zionists,

18:34 like we really care about Iranians because I have this one Persian friend.

18:39 It it's very much like, you know, like a white supremacist being like,

18:43 well, I h I have a black friend, so that doesn't make me racist.

18:47 You know, it it doesn't it reads completely tonedeaf.

18:51 And you know, do you really think a BMW driving Lululemon wearing,

18:57 you know, Beverly Hills Iranian is representative of real life in Iran?

19:04 You know, you have to take it from Sure,

19:06 they can tell you about culture and food and language,

19:09 but beyond that, you have to study for yourself.

19:11 So, you they don't they don't really understand the government, too.

19:14 And, you know, just because you're from a place

19:17 doesn't necessarily mean you understand how things work.

19:20 Like there's plenty of Americans I can ask

19:21 like hey how does the US government work?

19:24 What what is the function of the police?

19:26 Like and they have no idea at all.

19:29 And it's the same for other people across the globe.

19:31 So

19:33 right but also I think there's

19:34 this undeniable like expat attitude when you leave

19:39 your country you are constantly trying to validate

19:42 yourself that it was the right choice.

19:43 I know this because I lived in Europe for 5 years and you know for the first

19:46 couple years I'm like man this is we have

19:48 healthcare this so much better we have this kind

19:50 of food you know you just talk yourself into it so then you are naturally kind

19:55 of a a critic of the place you left

19:59 and so you have to understand what that comes from.

20:01 So, um, you but what do do you think that right now

20:06 the Trump administration understands the risk of the war that it has escalated?

20:13 Yeah.

20:13 And it see there there is no plan.

20:15 It's completely floundering.

20:17 Uh they're just buying for time to hope the regime collapses,

20:20 which is not going to happen.

20:21 It's stronger than it was before the war began.

20:24 And in fact, they killed a lot of the old guard

20:26 who were more hesitant and more in awe of, you know,

20:29 the the myth of US military supremacy.

20:32 No, they're a younger generation now.

20:34 Uh all of these IRGC commanders uh watched the global war on terror unfold.

20:39 We did not perform well either in in Iraq or Afghanistan.

20:43 We're not doing so well um in Iran.

20:45 Uh we have massive readiness problems,

20:47 power projection problems, morale problems, stockpile problems, name it.

20:52 Um and we're not really able to do anything militarily.

20:56 We can't bomb them into submission.

20:58 That's never worked.

20:59 again should have learned that in Vietnam.

21:02 And we can't do a ground invasion.

21:04 It's way massive, more massive than Iraq.

21:06 It's a garrison state.

21:08 There's not just the IRGC, the regular military, but there's also the besiege,

21:12 a bunch of decentralized uh militias,

21:15 which would be a nightmare to deal with from a counterinsurgency perspective.

21:18 The terrain is an absolute nightmare,

21:20 dust storms, mechanical malfunctions, helicopter crashes.

21:26 It's just it's it's not viable.

21:27 And everybody knows it's not viable.

21:29 This is why we're going slowly rung after rung

21:32 up the uh up the threshold of potentially nuclear escalation.

21:36 There was rumors that Trump asked for the nuclear codes last weekend.

21:39 I don't know if there's any veracity to it.

21:41 I try not to be a sensationalist about these things,

21:43 but yeah, uh if if the United States backs down,

21:47 that is going to only accelerate the decline

21:51 of US military power projection against across the globe.

21:55 Because there's no way to spin this into a narrative of victory.

21:59 Our strategic goals were at the beginning

22:01 to dismantle the Iranian nuclear program.

22:03 Not possible because even if you destroyed everything,

22:06 you can't destroy the knowledge that they have.

22:09 Yeah.

22:08 And so they'll always be able to rebuild it.

22:10 Second, destroy the its ballistic missile program.

22:13 A lot of its capacity is manufactured underground

22:16 in places we don't even know and can't hit.

22:18 Uh and then what was it?

22:19 To overthrow to implement a regime change.

22:22 There is nothing in place for a regime change.

22:25 You know, the sha resolve is not in exile drafting a new constitution,

22:29 setting up a a a shadow count uh uh government in exile.

22:34 And there's no van popular vanguard element inside Iran

22:37 that's organized that's ready to seize the institutions of power.

22:42 So the the government in exile can come

22:43 in and there'll be like an orderly transition.

22:45 There's nothing in place for a regime change at all.

22:48 the one in Venezuela worked because Deli Rodriguez wanted to play ball.

22:52 Um, you know, she's a political animal.

22:54 She start started off as a comm's director

22:56 and now she's the head of state of Venezuela.

22:58 So, they thought it would kind of be like that.

23:00 You know, you you do a couple operations,

23:02 you know, you you you batter the leadership into submission.

23:06 Why they thought that, I have no idea.

23:09 U, there's always been this narrative in Washington

23:12 that Iran is this fragile postrevolutionary state.

23:17 And that's kind of why we nudged Saddam

23:19 into invading uh Iran right after right after the revolution.

23:23 And it was a devastating war that killed millions of people.

23:26 And Iran's still standing.

23:27 The government was still standing.

23:29 And it's in a stronger position now than it was then.

23:31 So this is absolutely invented.

23:34 People, the policy makers in the Trump

23:36 administration are absolutely inventing their own reality.

23:40 Leaked tapes from the White House.

23:42 I think it was Reuters that first published them.

23:46 Trump says explicitly, you know, I don't know what's going on.

23:49 I thought this was going to last three or four days.

23:51 We hit them hard and then they're done.

23:53 U completely detached from reality or any sort

23:56 of like military science or theory or experience at all.

24:01 Uh but this is kind of what you get when you have a secretary

24:06 of war who is basically firing every general who's not a yes man.

24:10 So he's just going to keep firing everybody until

24:12 you get the guy who just says yes to everything.

24:14 and that is not the person you want in charge for military planning.

24:18 So, it's it's just a whole systemic cascade failure of a mess on every level.

24:22 But again, we can't back down.

24:24 There's like from the imperial perspective, we can't because then what?

24:27 Like we'll be militarily banished.

24:29 Well, we're going to saber rattle at China after this.

24:32 No, it'd be absolutely devastating.

24:34 So here we're kind of stuck in this position where

24:37 we either have to concede defeat impossible for the United

24:40 States or just keep this thing going and hope

24:42 something or there's some sort of offramp in the future.

24:47 Right?

24:47 I have this naive idea that the US will learn

24:51 its lesson and stop this because it got a bloodied nose.

24:54 I don't wish any deaths in any side but some kind

24:59 of hard lesson like well you failed you shouldn't do this anymore.

25:03 What I think is probably more likely is like

25:06 when the bad guy is losing in a Bond film,

25:08 he becomes more dangerous and more reckless.

25:11 And so, what is the eventuality of that for us?

25:18 So, of course, everybody goes to like the nuclear option.

25:21 I think that's that's less of a threat for us

25:23 than it is for the Israelis maybe doing something.

25:26 But, uh I don't think we're there yet.

25:28 There's still a lot of rungs left on the escalation

25:30 ladder uh in terms of exhausting like all options.

25:34 For now, I think we're just going to watch the uh the state of Hormuz kind

25:40 of at least get locked into a stalemate

25:43 until like the quote unquote minds get cleared, which is not going to happen.

25:47 But like what what are you going to do?

25:49 Um like what what what is Trump supposed to do?

25:52 The straight was open before the war started.

25:55 None of our strategic objectives got achieved.

25:59 There was a really sketchy,

26:01 very bizarre combat search and rescue operation that happened uh where we had

26:07 to blow and place a bunch of different aircraft on the ground in Iran.

26:10 And now the Straight of Hormuz is closed

26:11 and now Iran in conjunction with Oman who also owns

26:15 some territory around there is now in complete control

26:18 and it's now saying in perpetuity this is ours now.

26:21 So, we've essentially bungled this operation so poorly that we've given Iran its

26:26 own Suez canal and it's effectively bypassing sanctions in a number of ways,

26:31 but specifically because it's charging tolls.

26:34 It's absolutely absurd.

26:35 And the fact that they're trying to spin this as any

26:38 sort of like victory or this is going well

26:41 is just a testament to how gullible some Americans still

26:44 are and also the utter like shamelessness shamelessness of this administration.

26:49 Well, the way this is supposed to work in theory,

26:53 we have these bad guys in leadership on both sides.

26:57 They keep leading us into pointless wars.

27:00 So, we vote them out and we vote in good guys.

27:02 But the way it has worked in practicality over the last

27:06 40 years is that it's what Glenn Greenwald calls rotating villains,

27:11 villain rotation, right?

27:13 It's like the right brings war, the left brings war, the right.

27:15 So then here you are trying to say, "Hey, I'm not going to play this game.

27:20 I'm going to tell you the truth.

27:22 Pay attention Americans and then elect people in." So you have a very

27:26 uphill battle though because you have to compete for attention in a busy world.

27:32 And so you know maybe can you can tell I'm cynical

27:36 about this idea that we can vote in guys who stop this.

27:39 So why don't you absolutely not.

27:40 No, I I would love to talk about this point.

27:42 First of all, the idea that a few

27:44 congressional representatives out of like over 400 are going to get in and like

27:49 turn this whole franchise around is patently absurd.

27:53 You know, naive.

27:54 Yeah, it's it's absurd.

27:56 Reform politics.

27:57 That's kind of like what the the idea

27:59 of American democratic institutions are are built on.

28:03 You know, you get people in office, they represent you, they vote,

28:06 they fix a broken system,

28:08 and everything's reform politics is what got us here, you know.

28:12 uh the Democrats vote someone in and you think,

28:14 "Okay, the liberals now believe that, you know,

28:16 we're going to turn this whole thing around." And then

28:18 the conservatives freak out because of all these uh culture war,

28:22 social programs that get put in and then

28:24 the conservatives take over and gut uh every institution.

28:28 Then the Democrats freak out, get back into power,

28:31 try to and it's just this rotating again, rotating villain works.

28:35 I I I don't know.

28:37 I I would say they're building off of each other, though.

28:40 Um, yeah, cuz Bush, okay, let's get like Bush started the global war on terror.

28:46 Obama expanded it.

28:48 Not only did he not exp uh only expand it uh in the foreign area,

28:53 but he also expanded it domestically.

28:55 Uh, you know, he he talked about repealing the Patriot Act.

28:58 No, he expanded ICE in the Department of Homeland Security.

29:01 He's the one who um made it so that ICE detentions could be 90% forprofit.

29:10 So he not only expanded the war state but the prison industrial complex which is

29:14 for money which is a war on our own citizens and then Trump came expanded it

29:19 then Biden came um you know start basically

29:22 facilitated the genocide in Gaza started that whole

29:26 like it weren't when he could have absolutely

29:28 stopped it but that's not what he did.

29:29 and then Trump's coming in and expanding these conflicts.

29:33 So when my position is it's 2026,

29:36 if you're still talking about Democrats and Republicans who have the same donors

29:41 who swear allegiance to the same

29:42 multinational corporations and magnates of finance capital,

29:47 uh I don't think you really understand what's going on in this world.

29:50 It's theater and yeah, we we see

29:53 the only way they win right now is culture wars.

29:56 if I'm worried about, you know, race issues, gender issues,

30:01 that kind of stuff, which, you know, I have been in a lot of ways in my life.

30:05 And so, you don't seem to play that game.

30:09 Like, you're not out there trying to pretend that you Yeah.

30:14 I don't I don't know from what I see of your online platform.

30:17 Yeah.

30:17 Well, we're not What I say is we're not going to agree on everything,

30:20 but the house is on fire.

30:21 We can we can we can deal with the culture war stuff later.

30:24 Um, and a great way to look at look

30:26 at the how we're manipulated through like divided

30:29 emperor divide and rule or like the bread

30:31 and circuses is these Super Bowl halftime shows every year,

30:36 you know, um, every just about every NFL

30:39 team is owned by a billionaire these days.

30:41 And you if you don't think the selection

30:44 for who plays the Super Bowl halftime show is selected,

30:47 oh, it's absolutely carefully crafted.

30:49 So, um, for for Democrats, for like traditional classical liberals,

30:53 like representation equals like liberation and justice.

30:58 So, like

31:00 when the genocide in Palestine was going on, that's when the Kendrick Lamar

31:05 was cho was asked to do the Super

31:07 Bowl halftime show because we were talking about racism.

31:09 We were talking about wars abroad.

31:12 And by choosing him and like his his platform,

31:17 it was able to put the conversation about racial injustice,

31:20 which is actually totally real and valid

31:23 in the United States back in more familiar footing.

31:26 You know, we're talking about white black relations.

31:28 We we don't want to be talking about Palestine stuff and genocide.

31:32 So, this is more about this.

31:34 And then the next next year, uh,

31:37 when ICE was just killing US citizens in the streets, let's have Bad Bunny on.

31:42 Um, you know, because we need him we we need

31:46 the Hispanic population to be represented so they can feel like,

31:50 you know, they're getting empowered

31:51 when when they're being legitimately targeted,

31:54 racially profiled by um this kind of extrajudicial police force.

32:00 And yeah, what happened?

32:02 The the uh a bunch of people in the MAGA

32:05 movement freaked out and made their own Super Bowl halftime show.

32:08 And we got all these wars and inflation's creeping up.

32:12 We have massive supply chain issues.

32:13 Farmers can't even get fertilizer because of the tariffs.

32:16 But yeah, we're talking about having a Turning Point USA halftime show.

32:20 Good job, guys.

32:23 Stupid.

32:22 Good job.

32:22 We're so We're peasants.

32:24 I can't keep our eye on the ball.

32:26 So, yeah.

32:27 I I don't I don't I don't deal with it.

32:29 Um, I don't I was thinking about this this week when Anne

32:33 Hathaway said inshallah in an interview and people freaked

32:38 out because that's an Arabic phrase that means God

32:41 willing and I thought is this because Hollywood is

32:45 trying to court the Arab sympathizers and Arab supporters

32:50 of you know Arab-speaking nations which I know are

32:53 not a monolith because there's an increasing call

32:57 for boycots And so let's show them the same way,

33:01 you know, the Super Bowl halftime show is to get a certain population

33:05 to think that they're on their or is it just something she said?

33:09 But it it always feels like, okay, what's why, you know, why this?

33:14 Why now?

33:15 And you're saying it's purposeful so that we can just like,

33:19 you know, follow the flashlight like a cat.

33:22 I I I see something like I look at things like structurally

33:26 like the Super Bowl halftime show and that process and how it's orchestrated,

33:30 how it's advertised as something very intentional and structural.

33:33 When it comes to like Anne Hathaway or celebrities saying

33:35 random things I mean maybe they're just trying to like

33:38 grow their own following or be like you know what

33:40 I I've been silent about this genocide for three years.

33:42 I don't want to address it directly.

33:44 So maybe I'm just going to say inshallah so I can be

33:47 on like the right side of history you know three years later in retrospect.

33:50 though I look at things

33:52 wow so brave really I mean come back off that limb an haway please.

34:00 Yeah.

33:59 Okay.

33:59 Um so maybe you can tell me a little

34:02 bit about your experience on the Gaza flotilla and whether

34:06 or not the United States State Department actually represented

34:09 you when you were detained by a foreign nation.

34:11 Well, out of 44 different consulates,

34:14 uh ours was the last to arrive to the to the uh

34:20 uh concentration camp out in the Nagav desert.

34:22 So, first of all, I was approached to uh organize a veterans delegation.

34:26 I was going to be attached to the global Simude

34:28 flotillaa and I agreed to it because I I when

34:32 I put on my activist hat um I have a very

34:35 simple message um as you know a four-time combat veteran.

34:38 It's that whatever violence we do overseas,

34:41 whatever forms of repression and policing uh we do I guess on the periphery,

34:46 be it Iraq, be it Afghanistan,

34:47 be it in Palestine, always always comes back home.

34:52 There's a social uh theory,

34:53 it's not really a theory because it's so easily provable

34:56 called the imperial boomerang um which basically states just that.

35:00 So one great example of this is uh

35:03 in the defense sector what's called the Palestine laboratory.

35:08 It's it's a parlance term used in uh contractor circles to talk

35:14 about weapons production and testing inside the occupied West Bank and in Gaza.

35:20 So the West Bank has a lot of surveillance.

35:22 It's like the mo one of the most heavily surve surveiled places on earth.

35:26 all this spy techch, AI, facial recognition software, smart shooter,

35:30 which is like the super cyberpunk dystopian

35:34 uh autonomous biometric uh gun platform that tracks

35:40 your face and was able to engage targets

35:41 based on facial recognition software without a human.

35:44 Scans your social media like, "Oh, there's Natalie Morris.

35:47 She posts this kind of stuff online." Yes, shoot.

35:51 Yes, that's what it is.

35:52 You're right.

35:53 So all of this is tested in in the periphery

35:57 and it always comes back to the core.

36:00 So everything that's being used to enforce occupation and apartheid

36:04 and repression on Palestinians is at a local police department.

36:07 I'm not even kidding near you.

36:09 Palunteer is currently monitoring all phone traffic

36:12 and GPS coordinates of everybody in Gaza

36:16 so that they can see how people move and mass migrate during disaster events.

36:21 And that's for here.

36:23 You might not believe in climate disruption in the future,

36:25 but the billionaires do and your insurance company does.

36:29 So, what's going to happen with mass

36:30 displacement events in the continental United States?

36:32 Well, Palanteer is working on that and they've got an algorithm for it.

36:35 So, it's incredibly dystopian.

36:38 And my fear is that, you know,

36:41 the Americans aren't going to wake up and it's going to be too late.

36:45 And I don't think it's going to work

36:47 this this them trying to turn collapse into control,

36:50 but it's gonna make it a lot harder if we

36:52 don't get involved and start like learning basic things like this.

36:55 So that's why why do you think it won't work?

36:58 I mean it worked because it didn't work in the p pandemic enough.

37:03 It didn't work during the pandemic.

37:04 We've also come to a player scarier place with AI

37:07 and police militarization has increased more than during the pandemic.

37:11 Uh but I would say none of this is coming from a position of strength.

37:17 You look at these indicators of what's going on.

37:19 You know, uh the amount of warehouse fires

37:22 that have happened recently is kind of crazy.

37:26 And it's all about wage and wage theft and things like this.

37:29 And this guy burned down this factory.

37:31 What it was in Ottawa or something?

37:33 I I forget.

37:34 Um I it was it was the social media videos like you could have just paid us and

37:39 they're charging him with like a life sentence for property destruction.

37:45 It's insane.

37:46 Uh because you know violence in my perspective

37:50 is something you do to living things

37:53 um you know like humans, animals, the environment,

37:56 but violence against like billionaire private property it's insane

38:00 that someone's getting a life sentence for it from my perspective.

38:02 And that's not coming from a position of strength.

38:05 Uh, you know, uh, they're scared.

38:08 You know how scared they got?

38:09 Um, after, I'm not condoning any of this, but you know how scared like all

38:12 of these CEOs and Peter Teal shortcircuited on Piers

38:18 Morgan after Luigi Man allegedly shot Brian Thompson.

38:23 They're they're building bunkers.

38:25 They're trying to designate any sort of like anti-government speech,

38:29 anti- capitalist speech as Antifa.

38:32 Um, none of this looks like it's coming from a position of strength.

38:36 And the bottom line is like when when all these things happen,

38:41 there's never enough cops and there's never enough soldiers.

38:44 And this is why they're really leaning into AI because it is a force multiplier.

38:48 All these predictive policing algorithms that they, you know,

38:50 they were field testing in New Orleans and other cities throughout the country,

38:54 it's because it's a force multiplier.

38:56 that means uh from a military perspective

38:59 is it's something that gives you the presence

39:02 of actually having more troops on the ground

39:04 without having more troops on the ground.

39:05 And an example of this would be mobility.

39:08 Uh the ability you that where you're so mobile you're able

39:12 to conduct two operations in a night instead of just one.

39:15 It's a force multiplier.

39:16 You don't have more troops, but it allows you to have that presence.

39:20 So all of these AI things that they're doing,

39:23 especially uh predictive policing models are force multipliers.

39:26 You know, where where is the next hot spot going to come up?

39:29 Where is the most income inequality?

39:31 Where is the most likely place for an urban in insurgency?

39:35 That's why they're building all these cop cities in every state,

39:38 which are counterinsurgency warfare training centers based

39:42 off of little Gaza um in Israel,

39:45 which is where the IDF trains for urban combat operations.

39:48 another example of the Imperial Boomerang as well.

39:51 And I can talk more about why it didn't work,

39:54 but that's why that's the message and I wanted to use the flotilla

39:57 and the veterans boat uh which we

39:59 organized in order to platform that message consistently.

40:02 Of course, the flotilla had their own other messages,

40:04 but like as veterans, we've seen it.

40:06 Like I I've field tested equipment back in like 2012,

40:11 uh when I was in JC in the 75th Ranger Regiment that for some reason

40:16 line police officers have like we were a special operations unit in a war zone.

40:21 Why do why do our police need that unless

40:24 they're trying to wage a war on our own citizens?

40:27 Like Right.

40:28 Yeah.

40:29 And so it just to remind everyone of how that ended,

40:34 your aid did not get to Palestinians.

40:36 Israel said, "Oh no, we can't trust this.

40:38 We got it.

40:39 We're feeding them anyway." And you were just shoveled home.

40:44 Yeah.

40:44 Well, we were uh interdicted,

40:45 which is intercepted by force about 20 nautical miles off the coast of Gaza.

40:50 It took took them all night because they have

40:52 a very small navy and we had like 40 something ships.

40:55 Um, so we were one of the last to get um,

40:58 intercepted and then we were taken uh to an immigration facility

41:03 in Ashdodport where Ben Gave showed up with his camera crew

41:06 to cut some propaganda about how they've detained all the terrorists

41:10 which is rich coming from him seeing that he's been charged with

41:15 uh charged with abetting terrorism by the Israeli government

41:19 which is a really really high bar to clear honestly.

41:22 And then we were uh we were in detention for about five days.

41:27 Um yeah, the the they didn't treat us like Palestinians because they couldn't.

41:32 It was very clear that they couldn't use

41:36 uh the amount of coercive force that they

41:38 wanted to with us and they kind of didn't know how to deal with that.

41:42 Like the no training and deescalation, no um like anything really.

41:48 And they weren't happy to have us.

41:51 So they threw out everyone's medication.

41:53 We had some diabetic people.

41:54 There was like 400 people, like hundreds of people detained.

41:56 I forget the exact number.

41:58 Um, so we had to go on like hunger strike and we like uh until like they

42:03 were able to see a medic because people were

42:04 like getting really close to not being around anymore,

42:09 especially the uh the diabetic patients and stuff.

42:11 And when I was interviewed about it,

42:14 I actually declined a lot of interviews to talk

42:15 about the prison experience because yeah, it was bad.

42:19 you know, it was an Israeli like military detention camp,

42:23 but it's really not that different from, you know, American prisons.

42:28 Oh, throwing out diabetes medication.

42:31 Department of Correction does that all the time.

42:33 Uh my Well, if you had darker skin, you could have been raped,

42:38 you know, so good thing for you.

42:41 You're not their type.

42:43 Yeah, I know.

42:43 Um now, uh the women had a a completely different experience.

42:48 They separated the men and the women.

42:50 So um yeah, they they used uh Israeli female prison guards,

42:56 but apparently they were just an absolute nightmare

42:58 to deal with more so than the men.

42:59 Like sending in like raid squads with dogs

43:02 throughout the night so no one got any sleep.

43:04 But yeah, eventually we got out.

43:07 So um yeah, I don't think that despite the fact that I regularly

43:16 reject mainstream narratives and you were accused of pulling this stunt,

43:21 an anti-semitic stunt.

43:24 Your message about the imperial boomerang was hidden, was suppressed.

43:28 I mean, if someone like me didn't get it and can I mean,

43:32 I didn't I never thought it was a stunt,

43:34 but that's a real that's a real dissonant

43:38 message that the rest of us needed to hear.

43:42 Yeah.

43:42 Um, I mean, most of my platform is really just hammering

43:46 down on that and demonstrating all the different ways that that's true.

43:50 And what I generally say is there is no distance or difference

43:53 between the police state and the war state or the national security state.

43:57 It's all bound up together.

43:58 You can see that like now we have ICE

44:01 agents with no training who are like 42 years

44:04 old and divorced having the same gear walking around

44:07 the streets with the same gear that freaking Rangers,

44:10 Green Berets, and Seals were running around with like 15 years ago.

44:14 It's like why why do they need this?

44:16 It's so expensive, too.

44:18 Like what?

44:19 So, night vision, dual nods.

44:22 Are you serious?

44:23 Uh and so yeah, it's what what I also

44:26 say is like there will always be another forever war

44:29 and we don't have the power projection to put boots

44:31 on the ground in in Iran or even maybe Cuba.

44:37 So the next forever war is going to be here.

44:39 Um you know and and I don't really care what

44:42 what people think about like deportation or immigration or border policy.

44:48 The bottom line is this is a for-profit industry.

44:50 ICE operations and the detention system owned by Geog Group and Core Civic,

44:57 which Obama paved the way for it.

45:00 It's it's a racket.

45:02 The prison industrial complex, the military-industrial complex,

45:05 they're all bound up together.

45:08 So, yeah, you can say um immigration's a problem.

45:11 Fine.

45:11 You know, every country has a deportation apparatus.

45:15 and we were deporting people just fine with the INS before

45:18 the Department of Homeland Security was

45:20 founded in conjunction with the Patriot Act.

45:22 Everything that came out of 911 was a nightmare for civil liberties and right.

45:28 So, um yeah, and when when we when we talk about immigration,

45:34 just remember no matter where you stand on the issue,

45:37 this is making a lot of already rich people a lot more rich.

45:42 Bottom line.

45:43 Yeah.

45:44 Well, I really appreciate you being so generous with your time.

45:47 I hope you'll come back on Redacted and uh you know, where can people find you?

45:52 I want to say that you have the Colonial Outcast podcast.

45:55 You have strong social media following.

45:57 Uh where else would you like to direct people?

46:00 Okay, so yeah, uh Colonial Outcast, I've been so busy with this campaign that I

46:05 haven't been able to do a lot of episodes,

46:06 but it's the anti-imperialist podcast that your problematic uncle will hate.

46:11 Um, I'm also on social media on all platforms.

46:14 Uh, greg.j.stoker where I do like short form content.

46:18 And I'm running for Congress.

46:19 If you want to check out my third party campaign, it's stokerforex.com.

46:24 Yes, we have to break our partisan mentality, you guys.

46:29 So, listen to more candidates like this.

46:31 It's been a pleasure to talk to you.

46:32 I hope we get to talk again.

46:34 Yeah.

46:34 Thanks for the free form episode.

46:35 Thanks.

46:37 Thank you so much for watching Redacted.

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