Radio War Nerd EP #506 — World of Wars: Syria Pogroms + Strange Brew-ing Trump

More Mark Ames singing Deicide

I love the 5 eyes thing. As if 5 eyes doesn't exist largely for the US benefit.

Here are some headlines from the BBC over the past few days: 3 days ago: "Syrian security forces accused of killing dozens of Alawites" 1 day ago: "Syrians describe terror as Alawite families killed in their homes" 1 hour ago: "Syria says operation against Assad loyalists over after deadly violence" Someone made a phone call to get the people doing actual reporting in line.

Good luck my friend! you deserve the best 👊💯❤️

It's incredible that there's really a shameless hack named Carlotta Gall. That name would be too unsubtle for an Austin Powers character.

On Öcalan's message, it seems to ammount to actual to surrender without any guarantees at all. He denounced any kind of autonomy and even "culturualism" (which probably means Kurdish language rights) and there was no talk about amnesty either. I feel like the PKK has no actual intentions to just surrender. They already annouced that they would only disband after a party congress lead by Öcalan in person and I doubt Erdogan is going to let him do that. But Öcalan has about as much cloud as anyone can have, the PKK has a legitimate cult of personality around him and followed pretty much all of his orders until now, including after his capture when he shifted the party ideology from Marxism-Leninism (Maoist in practice) to his own Anarchist influenced ideology and told them to withdraw to Iraq (they probably lost thousands of fighters during that move). Even now they can't openly defy his orders and make at least a show of following them. Even if this doesn't lead to an actual disbanding of the PKK, this message did deliver a huge moral blow to them for sure. So as depressing as it is, Erdogan won either way with this.

As a German, I feel John was largely right on the AfD being like US-Republicans. I have a bunch of AfD supporting family members, they are mainly middle class (or upper middle class) people motivated by anti-immigrant sentiment. They also hate welfare programms because they think it's all handouts to immigrants. There's also a lot of resentment against urban leftists, college kids, enviromentalists etc. It's pretty similar to what I imagine the average Trumpist is like, looking at it from the outside. None of the people I talked to care about Russia-Ukraine at all, they only ever talk about domestic stuff. This is probably since they're all from Western Germany, the AfD in the Eastern states is much more openly pro-Russian, as is the population as a whole.

Another Brendon interlude! Always more of this where applicable!

As an American living in Canada, the most jarring thing to me, about Trumps belligerence toward Canada, is how thoroughly it has stoked a latent jingoism in liberals especially. (I don't know if it's just the fact that I'm part of the university class and haven't seen a conservative reaction). I think a good part of the upsurge comes from the fact that the liberals have long been the more nationalist side of Canada. They've held strong resentment at the trucker convoy for tainting the image of canadian nationalism, and tend to blame any right wing extremism on American influence (as if the orange guard hasn't had a strong hand in Canada's history), and this is the first opportunity they've been able to take to seize jingoism back from these supposed usurpers. It's honestly gotten me a bit spooked, and further cemented a deep suspicion I've developed of Canada being even marginally "better" than America. I've mostly gotten sympathy from the liberals in my life, so far, and for the most part a confused reaction when I respond that Canada isn't exactly some bastion on a hill, but I have to wonder how long that sympathy will last.

all the Ukrainians had to do was promise not to join NATO or allow the succession of their more russophone provinces as buffer state... now they are paying the piper for thinking the US would be a blank check

and on the debt break in germany: they basically wrote austerity into the constitution under merkel (morons) and now want to amend it to allow for more military spending. and theyre using the old parliamentary majorities bcs the left party which has gotten stronger has suggested it would not agree to more military spending in a sort of budget reconcilliation committee ... the centrists are splot between military+greenkeynesianists and military+austerity goblins

the EU (Kaja Kallas) made a statement condemning "pro-assad" forces for targeting the interim government ...

I used to know a very racist old Texan who would say, of men on tiny crotch-rocket motorcycles, that they "look like a monkey fuckin' a football"

Absorbing Canada into the USA will likely become more mainstream in the USA after trump is gone and the us world hegemony is weakened even more by then. By then the Anglo Canadian elite opinion would also have come around to it since it would not likely involve Musk purging most of them.

Please don't call them 'Syrian Sunni pogroms' - any sunnis that happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong ime are slaughtered too - mostly by Chechen, Uyghur, Turkmen, Turkish etc takfiri goons who are now part of the 'Syrian security forces', as the Guardian describes IS/Al Qaeda & co these days.

John’s nato pundit-prediction came true on the latest war on the rocks episode. They were looking forward to a future insurgency.

Mark the Germans have not changed the constitution. This is only proposed but it is not clear that the Greens will actually support it. I would bet they willl but this is not a done deal by any means.

I didn't realize Ocalan was still alive!

Didn't someone go to the hangman for retaliations on families of suspected regime opponents (like what is happening in Syria) for Lidice?

Sanctions are being taken very seriously in Canada. A business partner of mine told me that the huge automobile plants like GM and a few others have announced to their employees that if tariffs continue for 6 more weeks there will be severe layoffs. These plants keep large cities in Canada alive and the consequences of these layoffs would be massive.

Thanks dudes for making me feel like I’m not crazy about the Syria stuff I’ve been vexed/ranting about

Even more pedantically, I think the bikes are called crotch rockets. Pocket rockets are something else :))))))

Sorry to be a stickler, but it’s International Working Woman’s Day…Nancy Pelosi doesn’t get to celebrate the same day as my wife, mom and sister. They changed the name to make it more “inclusive” and less “effective”

Thank you for posting this when you did. I've been really worked up about what's happening in Syria and just hearing it discussed honestly is a little bit cathartic.

Military Keynesism works to a certain extent, since the final products don’t (usually) end up in the consumer marketplace and draws on a lot of skilled labor, it can stimulate an economy without overheating it. But, it doesnt work forever and the issue with it in the US is that most of the graft/profits go to a small group of rich people, so the money isn’t going into the pockets of workers who will spend most of it

Is there any chance that you guys could get Ben Aris back on the pod for a German/Russia update?

Your tax dollars at work! Just glad there's one less brutal dictator out there am I right guys?

Finger on the pulse