Radio War Nerd EP #492 — The First Time America Tried "Reshaping The Middle East" 1947-58 (pt. 1)

This makes you kinda miss guys like Nasser. Aspirational almost compared to what leaders we have.

Awesome. You should consider getting Brandon Wolfe-Hunnicutt on, or at least listening to his interviews on American Prestige. He goes through a lot of this same era from the Iraqi perspective.

🫡 love the pod, how can I subscribe and check out the collections? Heard wonderful things about the US Civil War series! Apologies if I missed this being shared already.

So, on the topic of the New Year’s attacks: Two former green berets who were both stationed at Fort Bragg use the same app ‘Turo’ (have you heard of it before?) to rent out cars to carry out big spectacular attacks at roughly the same time in the two biggest party cities in the US on the biggest party day of the year. Then, the LV attacker’s ‘manifesto’ (of questionable authenticity; we don’t even have a copy or a picture of the original email) turns up on some incredibly spooked-up podcast that seems to appear out of thin-air, on which CIA officers suddenly appear in order to push the crudest, cheapest, caricatured 9/11 style propaganda about Iranian ( and ‘ISIS’ apparently? Best friends?) terrorists and weapons systems coming across the MEXICO BORDER? Then, an ultra-Zionist NY Post reporter is invited by federal authorities to do a TikTok realtor-style walkthrough of the NOLA attacker’s home, an active crime scene (with no gloves or accompaniment by any type of lead-investigator figure) with evidence strewn about willy nilly and ‘bomb making equipment’ (CPU processor thermal paste spread on a piece of paper and a store receipt) visible in a neatly organized fashion on the guy’s desk? She conveniently finds 7 new copies of the Quran on his bookshelf, and a Keffiyeh prominently and conveniently displayed in the bedroom? What kind of Hollywood bullshit is this? This stuff puts Clarissa Ward from CNN to shame for sheer brazenness and chicanery. And all you guys wanna do is speculate about these guys’ individual neuroses and *Dun dun dun* … “living in Houston?” Come on guys, let’s get real. We are in the midst of an American Years-of-Lead, and the Feds are getting sloppier and more brazen and bizarre than any time in the past, including the 60’s-70’s period of domestic counterinsurgency. I hope we get to hear you both grapple with these possibilities; I believe they are highly consequential to our moment, esp as we move into another crazier, more openly fascist second Trump term. Maybe a GLADIO throwback episode with Annibale?

That's very funny that the Americans just mindlessly deferred to the British on intelligence during the Cold War. Ira Hirschmann wrote in "the embers still burn" that US diplomatic staff in germany circa 1946/47 were laughing at the brits behind their backs because the brits thought every single anti-colonial rebellion was being controlled from Moscow, when anybody with half a brain could tell you the rebellions were entirely homegrown. Once we started depending on them for intelligence, we got the same brain virus that the brits had. Well, long before then probably.

Re: Zionist bombings of the Jewish community in Baghdad in the 40-50’s. The historian Avi Shlaim, himself an Iraqi jew, proves the accusation of Zionist involvement in his latest memoir, Three Worlds. His family fled Baghdad for Israel after the bombings. It’s a great read and he would be a fascinating guest!

I live in Houston and also get nervous at night when my wife is away. I feel like this was made for me.

Houstonian here — swamp ass almost year round.

If anyone is interested what Mark is saying around 48:30 in regard to FBI fabricating evidence to justify their existence there is a great book recommendation. Its called “Strength of the Wolf” by Douglas Valentine and is primarily focused on the FBN (federal bureau of narcotics) which has to do the same thing to justify its existence. Great book I highly recommend!

From what I’ve heard, isreal has slipped through the cracks of accountability in part due to high level connections within the cia (Angleton in charge of the “isreal account”?) and iirc, there was a similar level of Zionist influence at the top of British politics at least with Balfour and others at the turn of the century

In the 40s-60s, If your last name wasn’t Dolan, you could fall out of window, land in a hay cart, topple out of that into a rain barrel, and come out of the barrel with the equivalent of a six figure job, if your handshake was strong enough and you looked the guy in the eye, or whatever bullshit

More like miles coupland ii

What are the odds the Syrian Kurds take Israel's bait and become their client like the Israelis have been very publicly offering? Has an Israeli/Turkish proxy conflict already begun?

Anyone who calls a spree or mass or whatever killer crazy is either stupid or lying. Crazy people do not kill others. They harm themselves and they are disproportionately the victims of physical violence. It’s a cop out or a deflection or bad faith and every time someone even well intentioned (i.e. liberals) says we need to improve mental health or some bullshit after some attack, they are just feeding into this. People aren’t sick. Society is sick. Treating individuals isn’t going to do anything.

The psychology of the American ruling class would make a fascinating case study. They set out to align the Middle East towards the United States' sphere of influence. At the time they started, the region was neutral to friendly towards the U.S.. There was a real opportunity there to build some positive relations, especially since we could strike a contrast with the European imperialists. We managed to do that in places like the Philippines, after all. But as Nasser pointed out to those dopey, deluded guys from Washington, we allow Israel to define our whole Middle Eastern agenda, to everyone's detriment. I try to look at things through a materialist lens, but I think the relationship between the U.S. ruling class and Israeli zionists can really only be understood in terms of psychological pathology. It's like a toxic codependent relationship, but between nations instead of people. From a realpolitik perspective, it really doesn't make much sense, at least on the American side. The zionist agenda is completely insane and unrealistic, but if you take it for granted then I suppose they're relatively rational actors. But I have no idea what the American ruling class thinks they want from Israel or what they think they get from their diehard support for this genocidal rogue state. Even if the goal was just to sow chaos in the region, we hardly need Israel for that.

Something to add to the discussion of Israel’s status early on: ETA and its Basque separatist supporters looked to Israel in the late 1950s and early 1960s as a model of a successful separatist movement battling powerful militaristic states. By the end of the 1960s they shifted to the PLO and especially its leftwing rivals.

I brought up the deep weirdness of the Copeland family on Twitter one time, and then I started getting DMs from a woman who described Miles Copeland III as "the most evil person [she'd] ever met," and who showed me a load of insane political screeds attributed to The Children of God + The Family International that were actually written by Miles III. He's apparently not so keen on publicizing his links to an apocalyptic End Times rape cult, but people who have escaped the CoG/Family nightmare are real familiar ol' Miles

einsturzende neubauten 💯💯💯

Re: getting jumpy at fireworks I generally like fireworks but during covid lockdown I lived in a fifth floor apartment in Brooklyn. Turns out the fifth floor is exactly the height that the mortars bored teens shoot off explode at. A few weeks of that every single night and I got real jumpy at the sound.

You guys need to do a War of 1812 episode given the incoming administration’s foreign policy. Maybe an episode on “Filibusters” too

Thank you for associating fireworks with neubaten, maybe I can finally enjoy them now

At the very small liberal arts college I went to, there was as student many years before my time, a math prodigy, who had self-immolated on campus down by the waterfront in a very beautiful spot. There was a shrine to him in some of the maintenance tunnels under the dorms, maintained so that his legend endured.

War Nerd flexing on us by mentioning that he doesn't sleep alone. Meanwhile we plebs sleep alone, and have no one interested in hearing about the small arms advantages of the PAVN