Dave DeCamp
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What's up? What's up? Welcome, everybody, to a brand new episode of Part of the Problem. I am Dave Smith, and today I am thrilled to welcome back to the show the great Dave DeCamp, who, of course, is the news editor over at Antiwar.com, and he's also the host of Antiwar Radio is the name of the show. Is that right?

anti-war news is the anti-war news i'm sorry anti-war news uh so somebody uh dave as i've said both to you and behind your back uh publicly and privately somebody who has been a like a tremendous resource for me over the years uh if you go to antiwar.com as i do every day dave is

always writing something, just about every day it seems, multiple things most days, to just kind of keep you up to pace with the latest of what's going on in foreign wars. And fortunately for you, business has been busy. So if you had the concern that you were going to be put out of business because there just wouldn't be too many foreign wars going on, that problem you don't have to worry about. But anyway, thank you so much for taking the time to join us once again. How are you?

I'm good, Dave. Thanks so much for having me. It's an honor to be speaking with the leader of the woke right. That's right.

It wasn't a job I was applying for, but sometimes they just find you. Yes, of course. Well, you're a valuable member of this woke right. We have these wild, woke views like don't go on government mass murder sprees unless you really have to, which is so it's basically critical race theory right there. So you had pitched me on the idea, which I very quickly jumped on, but that we should do an episode –

really kind of, you know, talking about what's been going on in Yemen, in Trump's campaign against the Houthis there. You had made the point just off air before we started here that it really is kind of amazing how little attention this conflict is getting. It's like, it feels like only if you live in the United States of America,

or Israel, perhaps, is it just kind of like a normal thing to go on bombing campaigns? It's not even like big news. You'd think for most countries, that'd be like a really big deal if you started dropping bombs on another country. For us, it seems to be very run-of-the-mill. Yeah, yeah. And what's been happening in Yemen over the past month for about a month and a half now has been some of the heaviest bombing that we've seen in the country over the past 10 years.

And this is a country, you know, I really liked your post when Trump started this bombing campaign again, because you said something that I thought was great, that the good news is there is a diplomatic solution, a ceasefire in Gaza. I mean, that's what this is all over.

But as we know, the U.S. has been bombing Yemen heavily for a long time, really starting in 2009 with Obama's drone wars. I believe the first U.S. airstrike was launched in Yemen under George W. Bush, but Obama really ramped things up against al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. And when people talk about Obama's drone wars and the extrajudicial killings and bombing weddings,

A lot of it is Yemen. A lot of the most horrific atrocities committed by Obama went down in Yemen.

And then in 2015, that was when the Saudis, the UAE, and other Arab countries formed this coalition to go after the Houthis, who are officially known as Ansar Allah. They took over the capital, and the U.S. backed them in this war, even though a few months earlier, as Scott Horton always likes to point out, the U.S. was cooperating with the Houthis against al-Qaeda. This is a familiar pattern that we see around the region, especially in Syria, where we end up siding with al-Qaeda.

So, you know, the background there is from 2015 to 2022 about the U.S. backed a horrifically brutal war bombing campaign, ground campaign blockade, you know, on scale with the barbarity that we've seen in Gaza. And this went on throughout the whole first Trump administration. I know it's an issue you've been very good on and talked about a lot. I remember there was a clip

you went on Joe Rogan and like the clip they put on YouTube was you talking about this history that I'm talking about now. So I know you're aware of this, most of your viewers are like, you know, what we're dealing with here, all this context, but most people just aren't. So then when Trump starts bombing them again, and they say, oh, it's to protect shipping lanes, and everybody kind of falls in line. And I mean, I even see libertarians saying, well, we got to protect the shipping lanes, you know, isn't that the purpose of the US Navy?

And so like the other important historical context here for what's happening now is that after October 7th, after Israel unleashed its brutal bombing campaign on Gaza, the Houthis started targeting Israeli shipping, essentially declaring like a blockade on Israeli shipping in the Red Sea. And in January 2024, President Biden launched a new bombing campaign in Yemen against the Houthis with the U.K.,

And as I predicted at the time, and it wasn't very hard for me to predict, anybody who knew anything about Yemen and the Houthis knew that a limited bombing campaign isn't going to stop them. If anything, it's going to embolden them and rally their supporters around them. They're trying to make a name for themselves as the only Arabs really standing up for the Palestinians. And so after a year of that, nothing stopped the attacks. In fact, they expanded their attacks to start targeting American and British shipping.

And then after a year, they did stop their attacks. Well, what got them to stop was a ceasefire in Gaza on January 19th. They stopped.

And in early March, when Israel imposed a total blockade on Gaza, not letting any food in, which that's still in effect, complete violation of the ceasefire deal, the Houthis announced that they're going to reimpose their blockade on Israeli shipping. And just a few days later, the Trump administration unleashes this really heavy bombing campaign, much heavier than what Biden was doing. And again, they're doing this instead of just making Israel

implement that ceasefire deal that it signed in January, instead of just cutting off the aid to Israel. I mean, that's the key here to the regional calm. So, I mean, that's, again, the important context here. So when we see people say, oh, they got to stop attacking US ships. Actually, the Houthis, a senior member of the Ansar Allah Political Bureau said,

told Dropsite News that they would be willing to agree to a ceasefire with the U.S. We'll stop attacking your warships if you stop bombing Yemen. I tried to get the State Department, the Pentagon, the National Security Council to answer that. Would you consider a deal like that? And I never heard back. And they do actually usually get back to me.

So, I mean, this is just the reality. You know, Hegseth and Trump say if the Houthis stop targeting American ships, we'll stop bombing Yemen. Well, here they are saying we will stop. But they're also saying they're going to continue the blockade on Israel. And that's what this is really about. Yeah, well, so it's like I really think that...

you know the the point that i've tried to make about this like more recently um you know like but when you mentioned you know me talking about this on joe rogan's podcast a few years ago i mean the point i was making at the time was like we should stop doing this like it was still going on and um i was like we should stop doing this this is horrible i mean it's just like you know horrifically immoral to bring this type of destruction on the poorest country in the middle east for no

strategic reason other than what Obama officials stated that it was like, oh, this helps our relationship with the Saudis or something like that, which is, you know, insane. But I think today when we bring it up, it's more important to understand the point that you were making in there, that this is not going to defeat the Houthis. I mean, I'm sure you're kind of like me in this, that when, you know,

When you first saw the Houthis enter this fight, when they made it clear that they were going to stick up for the Palestinians, there is part of you that's like, oh, God, no, because Jesus, like the people of Yemen have just been through so much. And you know, one way or the other, whether it's justified or not, this is going to bring even more destruction toward Yemen. But the point is,

is that if they made it through the seven or eight years of a Saudi invasion, a total blockade, these massive bombing campaigns, they made it through, I mean, you know, it was what was considered by the UN and many other humanitarian organizations to be the worst humanitarian crisis in the world through all of those years. And that didn't unseat the Houthis.

then it's just a joke to think that launching a few tomahawks is going to get them to wave the white flag. And so you have, on one hand, very clearly, there is not a military solution short of

Another war in Iraq. Like, I mean, I think certainly if the U.S. wanted to invade Yemen, we could overthrow the Houthis. As we learn from all these terror wars, we'd probably have other problems to deal with, insurgencies and whatnot. But yeah, I mean, if we want to go spend another $3 trillion and lose another, you know, few thousand U.S. soldiers and maybe have 10 or 20,000 more commit suicide in the aftermath, okay, we could do that.

That's one option. The other option would be the ceasefire that I mean, you just can't overstate this, that Trump's envoy negotiated or at least got done. I guess it was basically the same ceasefire that had been kicked around for quite a bit. But it just seems so obvious, like not that it's like.

Well, look, if it was any other country and Trump's envoy, Witkoff here, was able to work out this ceasefire and then one country started violating it and it causes more problems for us that they're not living up to, it'd just be so obvious what the answer is here. It's only because it's Israel that this is even the conversation goes to like, well, then I guess we got to fight this war for them.

Yeah, yeah. And I mean, as you mentioned, you know, the Trump administration, they took this as a big victory in the first few weeks that they got the ceasefire. Right now, Israel is completely abrogated that deal. And, you know, we see this daily slaughter happening every day and they're literally starving children now. I mean, there's no debating that they're not using starvation as a weapon of war now that they haven't let any food in in almost two months.

And what we've seen in Yemen, so you mentioned during the Saudi war, the Houthis survived that. They didn't just survive it. They actually got better at fighting. And the thing that really made the Saudis and the UAE sue for peace was the fact that Houthi missile and drones started hitting oil fields and oil infrastructure deep inside Saudi Arabia and in the UAE. They hit some targets there as well.

And we're seeing a familiar pattern here in the U.S. bombing campaign just in recent weeks. The Houthis have shot down seven U.S. MQ-9 Reaper drones, which are these big drones that are used for surveillance that can be used to launch airstrikes. And they've downed a total of 21 of these drones since October 2023, but seven just in recent weeks. And U.S. officials have been telling the media that they're actually getting better at targeting them.

And the U.S. also just lost an F-18 overboard off an aircraft carrier that apparently the aircraft carrier, the Harry Truman, had to make a hard turn to avoid a Houthi attack. So, you know, U.S. warships have incredibly advanced air defense systems, but it almost seems like, you know, it's only a matter of time before a Houthi drone makes it through. And then we might see some American casualties. And then what happens? So it seems like in response to this, to these airstrikes not working, they're just ramping them up.

The U.S. military or the Pentagon put out this press release on the first 100 days of the Trump administration, and somehow they were bragging about bombing Yemen. They said that they struck more than 1,000 targets in Yemen in just, again, like a month and a half, a little less than that.

And they've killed hundreds of civilians. These have been some of the most brutal airstrikes we've seen in Yemen. On April 17th, the U.S. bombed a fuel port in Hodeidah, the Red Sea province, and killed, according to the Yemen Data Project, which tracks this stuff, killed 80 civilians. And this is mostly port workers. I mean, this is a massacre on a huge scale. And barely anyone has noticed, in the U.S. at least. Obviously, people in Yemen are very aware of

And there's also just the other day on Monday, they bombed a migrant detention facility in northern Yemen and killed 68 people. And it looks like they're all African migrants. And the real, you know, what reason, why would the U.S. bomb this facility? I don't think the U.S. would intentionally slaughter a bunch of African migrants.

But how bad is their intelligence that they would bomb this? The really kind of egregious thing about it is that the Saudis bombed the same place three years ago in January 2022, right before the ceasefire between the Houthis and the Saudis. As I understand it, it was a different building, but it's like the same facility. And the Saudis killed 91 civilians in that strike, 91 African migrants. Three years later, the U.S. bombs the same place.

And they claim, oh, we're having incredible success. We're killing all these Houthi fighters and taking care of their air defenses and everything. But I mean, it's just, they have no way of knowing that. They don't really have

uh they don't have people on the ground um i saw at one point a statement from the centcom spokesman said something like oh we've killed hundreds of their militants uh you know based on open source reporting well open source reporting means it's just what you can find on the internet i mean it goes to show they just don't know what they're bombing and their solution is just bomb just bomb away

So, yeah, it's really criminal what's happening here. It's completely unauthorized. This is an important point here because you see people justifying it, saying, oh, the War Powers Act lets the president engage in military action for two months under an emergency if there's an imminent threat. Well, that signal chat showed us that there was no imminent threat. They were saying, J.D. Vance said, hey, maybe we should put these plans on the shelf for about a month, work on the messaging, and

Pete Hegseth, who wanted to do it right away, even said that if you wanted a pause, we could pause it. And he was the one arguing in favor of doing it. So that shows there was no imminent threat. So it's completely illegal. It's immoral. It's failing. And it's only being done to ensure Israel can keep killing Palestinians in Gaza. So this is really just, I think, one of the worst things ever.

happening right now under this new Trump administration. Sorry, I don't mean to smirk as you say that, but there was something in that that just seemed like almost what should be the tagline for U.S. foreign policy.

It describes all of it. It's illegal. It's immoral. It's not working. And it's only being done for Israel. That seems to kind of describe every military action that I can remember over the last 25 years. And, you know, it's wildly frustrating that...

Really, I mean, the only reason anyone's even talking about this on a when I say anyone, obviously, there are the there are people who who care about this. But broadly speaking, amongst the American conversation is because of this signal gate thing. And like still, it seems like the story there, the scandal is just that this Atlantic is

pack journalists happen to be added to the signal chat. And I've been saying from the beginning that exactly your point, the real scandal here was that portion of the, the chat where JD Vance offers the most impotent pushback, but I guess I should give him credit for being the only one who seemed to offer any pushback where he does kind of say, he does say, I think we're making a mistake.

I think this is everything against what we ran on, but then goes, I mean, Hey, I'll be, I'm totally on board if you guys want to do it. But then Heggs, right. You said Heggs Seth in response to him goes, I get your point. You know, I get what you're saying. And look, this isn't time sensitive. We don't have to do this right now. And so in other words, right. They, the look, the war powers act. And I'm, uh, uh, I think it was, I think Rothbard, but,

had a piece on this where it was like, look, the War Powers Act was horrible because it basically just gave the president the authority for two months or 90 days or whatever it gives you to start a war. It was already in the Constitution that you need the Congress, so we shouldn't have even added that. But

Even within the Wars Powers Act, it's like, yes, the threat has to be imminent. And so, no, you don't if you have the option to seek congressional approval, you don't have the right to just launch military operations. But like, it's crazy that that never even comes up as a thought. Nobody even thinks to themselves, oh, well, if we don't have to do this right away, then we have to go to Congress and get approval for this. Just not even not even a thought anymore.

Yeah, and I think that's a big risk here when we talk about the potential for war with Iran. It's not like they're going to have to do this big media thing like they did with Iraq and this buildup to get the public on board. They could just bomb Iran. I mean, that's just the way that the executive branch operates now.

So, yeah, I mean, this is something when it comes to Yemen that I think, you know, we've seen some like very mild pushback from some members of the Senate. I know Rand Paul said,

uh, joined a letter questioning the authorization. And there was another letter from like three Senate Democrats about the civilian casualties, but they didn't even say like challenge the fact that the U S was bombing Yemen. They were basically just saying you should try to limit civilian casualties. So, yeah, I mean the, the sad truth is, is that if they did go to Congress, they would get the approval, but still it is, um,

still illegal what they're doing right now in Yemen. And the next possible escalation is backing a ground offensive against the Houthis, which would essentially be restarting the war that the Saudis failed at. There's these factions on the ground saying that they have like 80,000 fighters or something, but I don't even think that would be enough because if you've seen what's happening in Yemen, the Houthi leader has been calling for these rallies and these pictures from the capital. It looks like hundreds of thousands of people come out

and a lot of them have ak-47s like they're this is again you know really emboldening the houthis and and making them this kind of resistance faction that they that they really want to be

So if we continue down this path of escalation, I mean, it's just going to be just such a disaster. But again, it just doesn't seem like anybody's learning this lesson in the administration, even though one of the best arguments against bombing Yemen when Biden started doing it was written by Mike Domingo, who right now is the head of Middle East policy in the Pentagon. So unfortunately, it looks like his views are not winning today, even though right now we still haven't had a strike on Iran. I think that risk is pretty high.

And it's just a shame that a guy like D'Amino doesn't seem to be steering the policy.

Well, or how about a guy like Donald Trump? I mean, Donald Trump said, I, I, I'm sure you've seen the clip, but when Tim pool had him on, um, he did get this amazing soundbite out of Donald Trump and it was right. Uh, it was right after Joe Biden had just bombed, uh, Yemen for the same reason. And Donald Trump went off on how stupid this was and how, Oh, this is all these guys ever want to do is drop a bomb on someone rather than pick up the

phone call and pursue diplomacy and this whole lecture. And man, we could use a guy like that to be president right now because it just seems like so obvious. But it just seems to me

And I know that sometimes, you know, it's funny because sometimes the speaking of Tim Pool, like the Tim Pools of the world will say there, you know, there's like, you know, there's the of the Trump kind of broad coalition. Right. There's like the people who are like.

total Zionists want to support Israel. There's the people who are, you know, huge critics of Israel. And then there's kind of the people in the middle or whatever. And people like Tim Pool will say like, oh, why are you guys so obsessed with Israel? Like, why are you just always talking about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? I mean, you know, what are you talking about? What's going on in sub-Saharan Africa right now or in Southeast Asia or, you know, like, why do you care so much about this conflict? But it's like,

you know, aside from it just being like something horrific is being done with my tax dollars. It's really this. It's like this is really what it's about. It's like now because we support Israel, we have to now be drawn into yet another war in the Middle East with an even larger war looming behind it, which it seems like there's this huge effort to get us into. And like this is the whole issue. It's not just like... It's not just like...

Israel can do this to the Palestinians with American money and that's it. It's like, oh, this also requires us constantly being at war with other Arab states or other Muslim states as a result of it. And this is what we are opposing here.

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Yeah. And when Biden was in, in 2023, when this all popped off, the U.S. bases in Iraq and Syria came under like constant like rocket and drone attack because the U.S. was supporting what Israel is doing in Gaza. And it culminated in three U.S. Army soldiers being killed in a

in a drone attack. So this is very much the reason for why the US keeps these bases in Iraq and Syria. I mean, there's been all these reports recently about the Trump administration. They're drawing down troops in Syria. Initial reports said they might pull out, but who was arguing against it? It was Israel. Israel wants the US to stay. Now it's under the pretext of keeping Turkey out of certain areas after they got rid of Assad, Iran's ally.

Now they're saying that the new government, they're justifying invading southern Syria and occupying it and bombing it.

So, yeah, I mean, this is the key kind of to everything, especially today. Like, again, with Yemen, this is just so obvious. It's more in your face with the situation in Yemen. I remember there was a report from Ynet, Israeli media, because so after the U.S. started bombing Yemen on March 15th, and they also preempted Israel completely breaking the ceasefire. It was March 15th that the U.S. first launched the airstrikes on Yemen.

And it was March 18th that Israel completely ended the ceasefire and killed like 400. I think it was like 470 Palestinians in the first 24 hours, including a lot of kids, like nearly 200 children. And so you look at the timeline here.

And after that, March 18th, when they started bombing Gaza again, then the Houthis started firing missiles at Israel again, kind of separate from them declaring a blockade. Now they're shooting missiles and drones at Israel. And there's a report on Ynet that said the U.S. told Israel, don't worry about these attacks. You know, you guys don't need to respond. We'll take care of it.

Because Israel did bomb Yemen, I believe, two or three times last year in response to these attacks. But so it is just blatantly in your face about this bombing campaign in Yemen is about Israel. Of course, there's other factors, including just the profit, the military industrial complex. That's always a factor. But this is very just so clearly about just ensuring Israel can continue to do whatever it wants.

And it's really shameful. I mean, again, I mentioned the blockade, like Trump has the ability to get on the phone and say, let the aid into Gaza or I'm going to cut you off. And every day doesn't do that. I mean, it's just it's just really shameful.

Yeah. And it seems like at least in, you know, when we'll see how that develops, but at least like in Ukraine, Trump is certainly willing to say like, hey, look, if you want our support and you're relying on us, then OK. But we have some expectations. We have some boundaries and conditions that come along with that. And yet it just almost never seems to be the case.

with the U.S. relationship with Israel. And, you know, to your point, this is something I've kind of been hitting on a lot lately, but I find this to be an interesting dynamic. But like, okay, if you know Israel

like what I know now, what you probably know better than I know. But like, if you know about the war in Iraq and you really know, you know, like, okay, you could go read through like the project for a new American century, or you can read the clean break memo, or you can read Netanyahu's old writings or whatever. And you could see that like, okay, the Likudniks in Israel and the neoconservatives, their counterpart in the United States of America, they wanted to overthrow Saddam Hussein, Saddam

since at least the 90s, okay? And they were very upset that they didn't overthrow him in the first Gulf War, and they wanted to have plans to overthrow him all throughout the 90s and well before 9-11. However...

That was not first off, there weren't podcasts and there wasn't social media and there were, you know, whatever. There were newsletters and stuff like that. But this was not something that was widely known. It probably was widely known within connected people in D.C., but it wasn't widely known by the American public.

people. And the propaganda, at least for going into Iraq was no, it had nothing to do with that. This has nothing to do with Israel. This was about 9-11. This was about nuclear weapons. And the fact that Saddam Hussein was in on 9-11 and now he has nukes. So he's friends with these terrorists. They could end up getting a nuke and nuking the United States of America. So there was at least

You know, there was some good old fashioned propaganda there where Joe Sixpack in America could very reasonably, seeing what was said on the TV, say to his friend, well, we got to go see about these nuclear weapons. I mean, we can't let that, you know, we can't let that go. But there just simply is no propaganda like this with the Houthis. Nobody is even attempting to make the argument that some aside from the fact that they could could be a problem for some of our ships, where as

I can't remember, was it JD Vance or Pete Hegseth? Or I think both of them acknowledged on the Signal chat, like a very small percentage of our trade even depends on any of this. But like, that's the best they got. It's just so obvious that this is about the conflict in Gaza. However you feel about it, that's what's going on here. And you do wonder, like, again, it seems to me like,

I guess two thoughts. Number one, it just seems like everything else, it seems so short-sighted by even the pro-Israel factions. And then, you know, just because I have, you know, been getting a lot of this heat thrown my way lately, it kind of seems like almost like I've gotten to the point in debating about Israel that nobody is even...

And nobody anymore is even saying like, oh, you got to go debate this guy or something like that. Like I was getting a lot of Douglas Murray was the one who everyone always used to throw at me. They used to go, well, you should debate those. He'll destroy you on this. And now they're like, OK, people said Josh Hammer was going to destroy me. Dennis Prager was. But now it's no one's even trying to debate that anymore. They're just basically saying that I am responsible for all of the Jew hatred.

online or something like that um and but i just go for all these people who like

Jew hatred on Twitter is their biggest concern. Like, well, what do you think? What do you think getting into another catastrophic war in the Middle East on behalf of Israel is going to make this country look like? What do you think the response to that is going to be? It almost, to me, seems like a call to their bluff. Like, you must not actually be that concerned about this because otherwise this is the last thing you would want to do. Mm hmm.

Well, yeah, yeah. I mean, people, they don't seem to really want to engage with, with that point. And this, uh, when it comes to Yemen, cause again, it's, it's more in your face. Like it's just, this isn't even part of the discussion. I mean, when do people say, Oh, debate me on whether or not we should be bombing Yemen or something like that.

And of course, the talking point when it comes to Yemen is that the Houthis are backed by Iran. If you read any mainstream coverage of it, they call them the Iran-backed Houthi rebels. They're the rebels, even though they've controlled Sana'a now for over 10 years. And an important point, because people, you could look at a map and you'll see the Houthi-controlled areas in the West are

And the rest is not controlled by them. But that's where 80% of Yemenis live. That's where most of the population lives. So it's an important point. And Yemen used to be North and South Yemen. It's basically North Yemen that they control the former country. But anyway, so the narrative is that they're Iran backed. And they certainly receive support from Iran. What level? We don't really know. Essentially, how I understand it is that Iran probably helped them develop their missile and drone program, giving them these like missile components and drone components. And, um,

But they make them domestically So it's not like they rely on Iran for weapon shipments And this is something Trump has said Oh Iran has to cut them off or we're gonna you know blame them for every attack and he actually said something recently like a couple weeks ago You just in a press conference. He said did you know who knew the Houthis make their own missiles and drones? You know, could you believe that it's like yeah I knew that a lot of people knew that before you started bombing them But anyway back to to your point so it is the narrative that it's like, you know, I

This is the axis, the anti-Israel axis, and I do think

Hezbollah is basically neutered at this point. Assad is out of Syria. They do really see the Houthis as a major thorn in Israel's side because they just keep getting better and better at being able to send missiles and drones in these long-range attacks. So that's a big part of this, is trying to take out another one of Israel's enemies in the region. And of course, the big one is Iran. And I also think part of this bombing campaign is kind of as a threat to Iran.

You know, because Trump's saying he's going to bomb Iran if they don't reach a deal. It's not an idle threat when you see him using two aircraft carriers and B-2 bombers stationed in Diego Garcia to bomb Yemen, to, you know, really bomb the crap out of the country. I mean, over a thousand airstrikes. It's just it's really insane. And yeah, I think the fact that the U.S. is doing this for Israel could increase anti-Semitism more than you saying, hey, maybe we shouldn't help kill babies in Gaza.

Even more than mentioning the name Paul Wolfowitz, you think? That was too much. Yeah, I know. It really was. It was the moment. One thing about this anti-Semitism stuff, I think, obviously, if you go on X, you see this stuff. You see these kind of anonymous accounts that Jordan Peterson was talking about on Joe Rogan, I guess. But

I think not talking about this stuff and pretending like Israel doesn't have this influence over our foreign policy, yeah, will add to that, fuel that fire more. But having people that can honestly discuss these things and aren't anti-Semites, but can discuss realistically what's happening, will lead less people down that path. So that whole talking point is just nonsense.

Yeah, I, right. I completely agree. And there's something, you know, there's like, I mentioned this a lot on the show because it's, I don't know, I think it's, it's important and it's important particularly to me, but like, so, you know, what pulled me into the libertarian world and set me on this trajectory to be whatever I am now was the Ron Paul Giuliani moment.

And that Ron Paul was just making this, what I found to be at the time. And then since obsessively reading about this for many years, I've just been more and more convinced is the truth is that like, you know, there is a consequence to certain military actions and that leads to creating a lot of hatred in the world. And that, you know, there's all these different kind of like, uh,

Different people have noted this. Of course, obviously, General McChrystal's insurgent math, 10 minus 2 equals 20. You keep killing people, and there's a lot of innocent people who get killed in the process, and then more and more people join up to the resistance. But

It is even as you're saying that, you know, and of course, as Scott Horton points out and demonstrates in his book Enough Already, you know, on September 11th, bin Laden and all of his men were like a few hundred people. And then at the height of the global war on terror, it's like tens of thousands.

thousands of bin ladenite islamists who are fighting like it's just it's right in front of you that you're not eliminating them you're creating more of them but as you say this it's maybe even like the first time i'm i'm thinking about it exactly in this way but imagine you could zoom out like go back 20 years

And you were to say, or it made 25 years to keep all of them in, but like in terms of like Israel's enemies in the region, because again, this really was, anyone can go read the clean break memo. Like this was the strategy. Their strategy was like, listen, we're going to have a break from the peace process. We're going to have a break from this idea that we have to settle the Israel-Palestine issue in order for Israel to make peace with the broader Arab and Muslim world. And instead of settling that issue, we can just take a break

take out Israel's enemies in the broader Muslim and Arab world. And imagine you were to say to Israel, hey, you know your big enemies? All right, Saddam Hussein, gone. Muammar Gaddafi, gone. Bashar al-Assad, gone. Hezbollah's leadership, totally annihilated. Like all of that. And they go, ah, shoot, now we got to go see about these Houthis.

and you're like oh it's it's just kind of proof it's like yeah you can never whack a mole enough to get them all got you just can't keep doing this to the palestinians and think that there's not going to be resistance against that and it's like in the same sense that like even just within the israel palestine conflict like israel's been dominating and occupying them for for 60 years and they're still dealing with resistance you can never put it out enough because people do not

much like to be brutally oppressed. And there's going to be resistance to that. It just seems so obvious to me. Yeah. And when you talk about insurgent math and all that stuff, I mean, this applies, I think, so much with Yemen, with kind of who the Houthis are, like what their identity is. For the background on them, you know, something Douglas Murray said in your debate was he was like, oh, Iran colonized these countries. He said that they colonized Yemen.

And it's just such an absurd. It's funny for like a British guy to say that in the first place, but for like to say that Iran colonized Yemen. I mean, again, it's just, it shows he has just no understanding of the situation in Yemen, who the Houthis are. They're a specific sect of Shiite Islam. They're Zaydi, Zaydi Shiites and,

The area of North Yemen, like their kind of stronghold, Sadat, and most of the area that they control now, was ruled by Zaydi Shia Imams for a thousand years until the 1960s. And the Houthis, they started, I believe they were called the Believing Youth. They started as like a religious movement, kind of as a pushback to the Sunni Wahhabism that the Saudis were pushing in Yemen. So they started as a religious movement, but they have very deep roots in the country.

And yeah, they're allied with Iran politically because they ended up being on the same side of certain things. But this idea that Iran, you know, because people, again, if you read the media every day and you see Iran back, Iran back, Iran's proxy, the Iranian proxy, you would think that Iran like plucked some Shiites out of its own country and dropped them in Yemen. But it's just not true. And again, their whole identity is, you know, part of this resistance against Iran

Israel against U.S. imperialism, against the Gulf monarchs. And you do what the U.S. is doing now, bomb residential buildings full of civilians to kill a guy, one guy. And then, you know, you think that's not going to, you know, you talk about the insurgent math. I mean, this is just,

really building up their support. And my hope is that the reality is, because we see this talk about the US backing a ground campaign, but what I'm also hearing is that the other factions in Yemen, some of them have rallied behind the Houthis now in response to them being the ones, you know, really the only ones sticking up for the Palestinians at this point. So it's like, it really just kind of building up their whole,

Like just their whole thing, their whole identity, their whole narrative. And if you're a Yemeni, just a regular guy in Yemen living in these conditions, I mean, you just got to put yourself in their shoes. We see what's happening in Gaza every day. Oh, well, that's why we're being bombed now by the Americans, because we're standing up for all those dead children you see on the news every single day. We're the only ones, you know, standing up for that. And that's why the Americans, you know, the evil empire is bombing us.

I mean, it's just fertile ground for more recruitment for the Houthis, like to kind of a ridiculous degree.

Yeah, no, that's that's exactly right and it is the I know like, you know, certainly I I do know that Right like Iran was arming Hezbollah for a while I think there's a part of the major part of the reason why they wanted Bashar al-assad gone, but it is interesting first of all like with any time Hamas Hezbollah or the Houthis any of the H's Get written about it's always Iran back

back and yet this logic never seems to apply like it's not like if jordan ever does anything they must be referred to as the u.s backed jordanians do this or the u.s backed egyptians or the u.s backed saudis or the u.s backed israelis or the you know what i'm saying like it's it's just they never like apply this standard across the board by the way i mean again you know

a point I love to make, but you could also call Hamas, the Israeli backed Hamas militants launched October 7th. You know, like if you were to say it like that, it would, first of all, it would actually be much more accurate and, and, and much more damning and eyeopening to the whole situation. But it is an interesting tactic that they use that you're never, you know, it's, it's funny because if I,

let's say I were to argue with someone like maybe on Joe Rogan with someone with a Polish British accent, I were to say that like, hey, you know, the National Endowment for Democracy and the USAID poured $100 million into the Maidan revolution. Well, that now I'm denying agency.

You're denying agency if you bring that up. And yet referring to every militant group in the region as an Iranian proxy is somehow not denying agency. And so you're not even saying that Iran hasn't been political allies with some of these people, but they are their own groups with their own motivations as well.

Yeah, yeah. And as I understand, you know, Iran has a lot of sway over Hezbollah. You know, they're very closely aligned with them over the Shiite factions in Iraq that the U.S. helped put in power. And but when it comes to Yemen, I mean, the Houthis are like known as being much more their own thing.

So yeah, it's just and I've seen people say the opposite, but it's just not true like so but whenever we see You know what little mainstream coverage there is of the situation. It's like Oh US airstrike in Yemen killed 65 migrants the Iran backed Houthis say like they just kind of acting like everything's not really a big deal What's happens like oh, it's just the Iran backed Houthis that that we're bombing, you know, don't worry about all these civilians and

So, yeah, it's just and you talk about the consequences of blowback and everything for what's happening now. It just it's just there's such a better way to approach the whole region at this point. And I don't even think like Trump wouldn't be like I think if Trump really wanted to bring peace, he has the ability. I mean, again, it's all Gaza's the key, but it just doesn't seem like he wants to do that.

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All right, let's get back into the show. Do you what do you make of Donald Trump, who appears to have at least temporarily thwarted the Israeli plans to to launch attacks on on Israel? Excuse me, on Iran. And now over the last couple of weeks, Netanyahu has been saying they're about to do it anyway. They're you know, but.

but it does seem like the plans that they had laid out involved the U.S. helping them because, of course, they can't actually do any of this stuff without our help. Do you think... I mean, like, this does... Seems to me like a small temporary win, at least, given a bad situation. But do you think he's, like...

Like you said, I mean, he could be pushing for peace in this region, and he doesn't seem to be using any of the leverage he has, which is substantial. What do you make of that? Where do you see this all going? Yeah, I mean, I think the fact that he's even just saying, like, oh, if we don't reach a deal, we're going to bomb them, is not...

You know, that's not good. You don't need to approach these negotiations like that. And I mean, when he was asked about this report recently and somebody said it was in his time interview, they said, oh, do you think Netanyahu is going to drag you into war? And he said, I he said, I'd go willingly. Basically, he said, I could go into it willingly.

And that if we do attack, Iran will be leading the pack. So he's really making these threats. And a lot of people kind of point to his first term, like the threats against North Korea. But again, we're talking about a situation where in the same region, the U.S. has all this firepower that's bombing another country. And a big part of the buildup, sending the bombers, sending the aircraft carriers, and also sending air defenses actually to Israel to prepare for this potential war with Iran. Like the U.S. has the military posture to do it.

So, I mean, the fact that he chose not to bomb Iran, I mean, I don't it's hard for me to give him credit for that because like it shouldn't even be a possibility in the first place. But it's just concerning. You know, it does seem like he wants a deal. He does keep saying that. And while he makes these threats and it looks like the negotiations are advancing, I mean, they've had three rounds and they both sides say they're going well.

On the other hand, you have the Trump administration officials like Marco Rubio and Mike Waltz saying publicly that any deal must dismantle Iran's nuclear enrichment program altogether, which that's just not even that's just a nonstarter for Iran.

But it looks like that's not the demand that they're making behind the scenes. So, I mean, it's tough to say where this is going to go. There was recently over the weekend, a huge port explosion in Iran that I believe killed 60 people. And with things like that, I mean, the Iranians haven't made the accusation that it was an attack or sabotage, but.

Israel has a history of sabotage attacks inside Iran and of doing them to sabotage diplomacy between the U.S. and Iran. They detonated an explosive in an Iranian nuclear facility in April 2021 when Biden started negotiations with Iran. But again, so far, no Israeli sources have taken credit for that or in the Iranians. There's like an Iranian member of parliament who accused the Israelis of being behind it. But the fact is, we don't really know at this point. But something like that, like a sabotage attack, you know, we might see

things like that that Netanyahu might do to try to sabotage the diplomacy because I think he sees this as the time. This Trump administration is his chance, possibly his last chance, to get that war with Iran that he's always wanted. And then imagine if the U.S. and Iran are engaged in a war. He could just do whatever he wants to the Palestinians in Gaza. There's not going to be nearly as much attention on it. They could advance their designs in the West Bank more freely. Yeah.

So, yeah, it's you know, he has a lot of motive to make this war happen in Yahoo. Do you think the way I've always felt about this as I've been paying attention to it over the last couple of decades is that it seems to me that the Iranians, you know, much like Iran,

I think this is kind of the way it always works with governments in general, but governments are, they kind of have to at least pose as your protectors.

in order to preserve any perceived legitimacy amongst their, their people. And so the, the Iranians, like for example, um, when they, uh, responded to the Israeli attacks, uh, back last year and they sent those rockets or they sent those missiles at Israel, but they gave the U S warning and they didn't really send everything they had. They essentially, it seems like it similarly to after, um, uh,

Donald Trump killed Soleimani and they kind of sent like some rockets at U.S. bases but didn't kill anybody. Like they want to, you know, they basically want to act as if

act as if they've responded to kind of save face with their own people. But then at the same time, they don't really want this fight because they know, I mean, you know, if you could picture where Iran is, like if you could picture a map of them, like their neighbors are Iraq and Afghanistan. They've seen what the U.S. military has done to their two neighbors while threatening to do it to them for these entire 20 years. And it does almost seem like they're, you know, they're,

They don't actually want this fight. They want to, you know, posture as if they're not pushovers and that they will respond. I think what a lot of the, um,

You know, it's like I almost think about, you know, like an analogy. It would be that like, you know, it's imagine you're like walking with your wife and your two kids down the street or something like that. I think we both got the same amount of kids. You're walking with your two kids and your wife and you're surrounded by much tougher guys and they're like talking shit and they're disrespecting you. And you're almost like, all right, OK, just take it. Let's keep walking. Like, I don't want anything to happen to my family here. But like at a certain point, if they if

if they cross the line you're gonna be like well i guess i gotta fight these guys and land as many punches as i can i'm probably gonna lose but i have to do something here and it does seem like the trump administration and the war hawks are presenting this as if

It is an option to just take out the Iranian nuclear sites, like to just have a massive bombing campaign in Iran, and then that's it. We don't have to do like a full invasion like we did in Iraq. We could just do that and then go back to life as normal.

I my guess would be there is no way that Iran could allow that to happen without some type of response. And they have a lot of responses available to them. But what do you think about that? Like, do you think is it possible for the Israelis and the American military to just take out the Iranian nuclear program? And that's that?

I do not think so. But that is the talking point we hear. Like, I remember Tom Cotton said that recently in a hearing. And you see people who support this idea of bombing Iran, acting like it'll be no big deal. But I think it's very clear, you know, if they take that step, because, you know, what it would take to try to destroy Iran's nuclear facilities would be dropping the U.S.'s heaviest nuclear

bunker busting bombs that are like 30,000 pounds because they built these facilities deep underground in anticipation of something like this happening. So if the U.S. goes out and drops those bombs on that, I mean, they're going to respond. And the fact is, is that they have advanced ballistic missiles that can hit, I believe, about 10 U.S. bases in the region, probably more.

And as you know, this is something Tucker's been talking about a lot lately. The Pentagon assessments are like hundreds or thousands of American casualties. And then what happens? Is Trump just going to be like, oh, well, that's that.

no then it's going to become an even bigger war i don't really see a situation where the us like tries to invade iran i mean it's just not realistic like nobody has the will none of the people in the us have the will the us military doesn't have the will where are they going to invade from but i could see just like really heavy bombing maybe some ground fighting in like iraq or something um until somebody says all right enough i guess we just gotta negotiate here or something but

Like, yeah, it's just there's no way that the U.S. just takes out the nuclear facilities and that's it. The other thing is that Iran does not have a nuclear weapons program. That's what U.S. intelligence has said. That's been the consensus since the early 2000s.

But they use their nuclear program essentially as leverage, and they kind of use the threat of it turning into weaponization as leverage. And the conversation has changed inside Iran. You're seeing more calls for the Ayatollah to reverse his ban on making nukes. An advisor to the Ayatollah said that if the U.S. and Israel attack, then we could change our position on nuclear weapons. They want there to be consequences for bombing them. And that New York Times report

It was interesting. It said that the plans to attack Iran could set back their nuclear program by a year. So suggesting that, oh, they actually can't completely destroy it.

which makes sense. So, yeah, it would be like bombing a country under a phony pretext of them having a nuclear weapons program, and it could actually create one. So the whole thing, for every reason, it's just would be a very foolish thing to do. And there's just no reason to be this hostile against Iran right now, except for Israel.

Yeah, no, that's right. And, you know, it's it reminds me even right. Like Douglas Murray said to me when I pointed out that the war in Afghanistan was not just about taking out al Qaeda, but that we launched a 20 year regime change war against the Taliban. And he goes, well, you got dragged into the quicksand of war. And it's like, right. Yeah, that's right. That sure can happen. Not like if you.

If you look at the original authorization of use of military force against Iraq, it was very narrow to take out Saddam Hussein. We took out Saddam Hussein very quickly, but then we were there for another two decades. I guess still have some military forces there today. Even at the beginning of the Ukraine war, Joe Biden was very clear that the Ukraine can win with sanctions.

that we could support them just with sanctions that was supposed to be the extent of american involvement and you just see this all over the place so the idea that right like we're going to that we're going to just bomb the crap out of iran but that'll be it man you want to talk about risky games that is a risky one and as you said it just seems like it would

you know, it would be a situation where they would have to really respond. And if they really responded, then how the hell are we not going to really respond to that? I mean, you know, again, just try to try to even imagine, you know, they, they,

There was, after Trump killed Soleimani, there was some restraint showed on both sides of that. And look, you could say killing Soleimani was probably one of the worst things Donald Trump ever did just in terms of how risky a move it was. But then you could also say that one of the best things he ever did was just leave it at that.

and not respond any further. But if you could just like run a counterfactual in your head and imagine that like the Iranian retaliatory strike had killed 10 US servicemen,

Is it possible that Donald Trump would have... I certainly don't think so. I don't think there's any world in which Mr. Tough Guy, Donald Trump, with all of his Miriam Adelson money and all of the neocon hawks that he has around him, would possibly be able to say, you're going to just let them kill Trump?

10 US soldiers and not have a bigger response to that. And so this is, you know, the quick sound of war as even neocon Douglas Murray would call it. You just see it right in front of you. And, and again, for what benefit are we even playing with this game so that the country of Iran that poses no threat to any of us might continue to pose no threat to any of us. It's just, it's, it's madness.

Yeah. And fortunately, it seems like the lesson Trump got out of the Soleimani thing was that he could hit Iran hard and not really suffer any consequences. That seems to be. And you see this kind of talking point from him and like his supporters like, oh, you know, Iran didn't do anything after that, after we killed Soleimani. Well, they killed Soleimani under the pretext that he was helping plot attacks on U.S. bases in the region. A U.S. soldier was killed a few weeks earlier in Kirkuk, Iraq. And we don't really know who launched that rocket.

And then in March of that year, more American, I believe two, one or two, or maybe some British soldiers, I forget exactly the number, but at least one American was killed.

Like just a couple months later. So the whole talking point is, oh, Iran didn't, you know, nothing happened after we killed Soleimani. It kind of solved all the problems, but it's just not the case. So, but that is, you know, you hear Trump whenever, you know, how he always says, oh, this would have never happened if it was me. Iran was broke. He touts his first, you know, administration's Iran policy, even though it was a complete failure, as like this great thing that like brought peace, which is just not the case. So unfortunately, it seems like that's his thinking.

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All right, let's get back into the show. So do you, I mean, if you had to, you cover this stuff, you know, for a living and in much more detail than I do, if you had to guess, where do you think happens from here? Man, it's tough. You know, I think one big risk here, when we talk about American casualties, is the Houthis, they're full of surprises. I wouldn't be surprised if we see one of their drones or missiles hit a U.S. warship.

Or maybe they'll try to target a base across the Red Sea in Djibouti or something. Or who knows? I mean, you just never know what they might be able to hit. There's a risk there and then of the U.S. really escalating in Yemen and trying to back a ground invasion. And but what you know, obviously, the big thing is Iran.

And a few weeks ago, I was much more pessimistic. I thought it was like inevitable. You know, when he started bombing Yemen and was making all these threats and Israel's just unleashing in Gaza again, it's just like, oh, wow, this is we're actually just going to go into war with Iran, aren't we? But since the negotiations started and the fact that they seem to be, you know, there's progress happening. They've even had some direct engagement.

And it looks like obviously Iran doesn't want a war with the US. And I think they're making that very clear to Trump. So that I think the risk is a little lower. But it's so hard for me to imagine them signing a deal with Iran. It's like that was like the Iran that was like the JCPOA that Obama negotiated. Because like every Republican is going to be against it. Even, you know, it's just hard for me to imagine like an Iran nuclear deal happening right now.

And that is the thing it seems like will is the only thing that will prevent war. So I think the chances are still pretty high of this turning into the U S and Iran launching some strikes, sorry, the U S and Israel launching strikes on Iran. I think there's a good chance of that still, uh, happening here. And then who knows where things escalate from there, but it's just, you know, I just don't see, you know, I follow the stuff in Gaza every day, the negotiations it's like,

You saw Trump the other day saying, oh, he told claiming that he told Netanyahu he's got to be good to the people in Gaza. And, you know, we're taking care of the aid situation, but there's no aid. There's no food going in there. And they're just killing dozens of people every day. So it just doesn't seem like he's willing to put any pressure on Israel to stop that right now, even though, you know, the American, the Israeli hostage with American citizenship has apparently, according to Hamas, has gone missing after an Israeli airstrike. I mean, you think that would be enough if that was his priority?

to get them to stop this, but it just goes on. It just goes on and on. And everybody's focused kind of more on the domestics up here in the U S I mean, for good reason, there's a lot of stuff happening, but it's just, you know, one thing really kind of showed how the media, uh,

views all this stuff after the signal gate thing, Trump was in the Oval Office talking to reporters and they were like grilling him about them having this conversation and signal and including the Atlantic reporter. And he was trying to deflect in the way he was trying to do it. He's like, I don't get why nobody asked me about the, uh, the airstrikes against the Houthis. They're going great. We're launching all these, we're bombing them. But, and like, nobody's saying, well, actually they're not going great. Like nobody challenged him on that. They just kept asking him about the thing. So it's like,

Yeah, and this is the issue. I mean, even with all this going on with Iran, it's like a lot of Americans don't just don't really follow it. And that if this does lead to the US and Israel bombing Iran, Iran hitting back with missiles, killing Americans, then then that's it. You know, we're at war with Iran. And, you know, however, that will play out. So there's just a real risk of this unless something really changes.

Yeah. Yeah. And man, it's, it probably can't be overstated how as disastrous as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and Libya and Syria and Somalia and Yemen, as bad as they were, Iran is biting off a lot more than any of those. I mean, by far, and they're much more formidable. And that's not to say that there are more powerful military than the United States of America, but like neither was the Taliban and they're there. They outlasted us in that war. So,

Yeah, it's dangerous times. I tend to agree with your assessment. I would love to think that these negotiations could lead to a deal, but just looking at the people just around Donald Trump,

I mean, it just seems like every one of them is going to oppose this. And so we'll we will see. But I do appreciate, as always, Dave DeCamp, you coming and helping us understand this stuff better. Please let people know where they can find your work or anything else you want to promote. And yeah, let them know. Yeah, all my writing is at antiwar.com. If you look at the news section at the top, there's usually a few articles by me there.

And I have a show called Anti-War News with Dave DeCamp where I basically go over the daily news stories five days a week. It's on YouTube. So if you're watching this on YouTube, you could go subscribe to that. Also on Rumble, Odyssey, and most people listen to the audio of the podcast. It's great to kind of just throw on. It's like 30 minutes a day to get updated on the foreign policy stuff. It's kind of for foreign policy nerds and it's

Can get pretty depressing to listen to it every day, but people seem to like it. So, but yeah, that's it. And follow me on X at the camp. Dave is my handle over there.

Yeah, absolutely. Listen, I can't, uh, I can't recommend Dave's work highly enough. If you do want to stay informed on what's going on and yes, it is depressing, but you know, it's, uh, it's always better to know the truth than to bury your head in the sand. Um, so anyway, thank you again, brother for, uh, as always. And, uh, I look forward to talking to you soon. Uh, and thank you to everybody for watching. Catch you next time. Peace.

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