Radio War Nerd EP #6 — Reagan's loons in October 1983 + Najran's Shia

Very late to the convo; just subscribed. Jesus Fucking Christ. Reagan. I loathed that man. My dad worked for Caterpillar Tractor and he'd been on strike for months before Reagan sent in negotiators. We were fed by Salvation Army donations, and almost lost our home. When asked about that strike, he basically shrugged. When the NFL went on strike, negotiators were immediately sent in because that was important. I was in school during the Lebanon barracks/Grenada fiascos and could never understand why people thought the senile asshole was an effective leader.

What happened? We were almost at 2400 Dollars last time I checked. Did 3 of those 100 Dollar guys jump the ship all at once?

That stories about Reagan was absolutely incredible, I just sat there in horror for a while, then I burst out laughing uncontrollably, and then went right back to being horrified. The fact that this lunatic was not only president for years, but is deified today is nothing short of utterly insane. Not as insane as Saint Ronnie, but still completely insane. My dad, who used to attend college in UCLA (we're from Lebanon) would always tell me this joke whenever he could. An German doctor says: "Medicine in my country is so advanced that we can take a kidney out of one man, put it in another, and have him looking for work in 6 weeks." A Canadian doctor says: "In my country, medicine is so advanced that we can take half a heart out of one person, put it in another, and have them both looking for work in 2 weeks." An American doctor, not to be outdone, says: "You guys are way behind...... We just took an asshole, put him in the white house and now the whole country is looking for work! It's a cliche, it still always gets a chuckle out of me. Even tracked own the stories you and Mark had about him from your eXiled days, and now I need more! More tales of Ronald Reagan! More stories about the mother of all clusterfucks, the Lebanese civil war! More war nerd!

Just have to add one more thing, now that I've finished listening: There really is nothing "illogical" about Syria. The thing that is and have always been illogical is this weird "American" world order that was created after the Cold war; run on the romantic dreams of an isolated culture. The things you said about Reagan really, really scared me. Havn't been this scared since I watched Paul Bremer on the Iraqi throne. These sort of people terrify me alot more than all the Erdogans, Islamic State killers and Genghis Khans of the world. They're so genuinely stupid and unpredictable. With Syria, the thing I'm seeing is a world returning to its norml state. It's chaos, but chaos run by the sleazy realists of the regional powers involved, together with the sectarian killers. People like that, at least, know what they are and what they want. They won't have any revelations after watching "Day after"! It's a world that reminds me of the one from before the insane power-vacuum created by the double-crushing of Asia and Europe. A vacuum filled by what must be the most dangerous Empire the world has ever seen - a populist mob of American voters armed with nuclear weapons! This new world will be just as sleazy, dark and depressing as the last one. But at least it won't be run by fucking actors and lobbyists.

"Few hundred" Iranians seem to have reached at least a couple of thousand recently (if not before). This month alone I've counted at least thirty martyrdom-announcements from pro-Shia tweeters. Actual Persians this time, rather than Afghan or Pakistani auxiliaries. Seems like most of them were just normal soldiers (IRGC, of course), rather than advisors/officers. Also, good thing that you're putting Tamimis name out there. He really is one of the best.

Very good episode, as always, but of course too short, why MUST it only be 1 hour, why can't it be 10 hours? Or at least 2? @ The War Nerd, about the nuclear war, yes the southern hemisphere would have inherited the world BUT, they would have died as well within a few weeks, because a full scale nuclear war, would have created a nuclear winter that would have lasted anywhere from years to centuries. The blasts from the bombs would have thrown up so much particular matter into the atmosphere that all that dust would have blocked out the sun for many years thereby killing off almost all life on Earth. Then of course there is a chance the Earth would have cracked, and or moved out from its orbit, both options kills everyone, unless some fantastic technology is acquired to put the Earth back together, or move humanity off Earth or change back the orbit. @ Mark Ames the understanding that the nazis wanted to exterminate all Slavs is being lost by each day that goes by, mostly because of communism, they never told their citizens, and what little they did say is now all interpreted as propaganda, so there are lots of right wing Russians, and even more Ukrainians that have no idea that the nazis wanted to exterminate them all, and since neither Russia or the Ukraine are close to becoming democracies there is a chance that this piece of knowledge will be lost, unless of course some major intervention is done.

Very interesting to bring up Ronald Reagan, and how out of touch he was with reality, yet the Republican Tribe here in the USA venerates him. One of the most interesting points is that all politics is tribal in nature, and how being on the outside allows freedom from the established positions. Next week could you discuss how the Chinese are posturing in the South China Sea for long term advantage, and maybe throw in some of the Chinese African colonization for resources they have been doing for 20 years? I would find your viewpoint on some of the long term consequences interesting since they pacified the part of Sudan that pumps oil to them.

Good show this week. Let Ames know he's supposed to pronounce the 'th' in Houthi -- pronouncing that improperly is a shibboleth among the NatSec nerds on twitter for people who don't really know much about the conflict. Here's the VOA's Yemeni names page <a href="http://pronounce.voanews.com/browse-oneregion.php?region=Yemen" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">http://pronounce.voanews.com/browse-oneregion.php?region=Yemen</a>

Just to help keep your "street cred" up to standards, in the US military the TOW missile system is pronounced like "Toe." (Tube-launched, Optically-tracked, Wire-guided.) If YouTube videos are any indication, they are being widely supplied to anti-Assad factions of all flavors (Iran makes a reverse-engineered copy named "Toophan") and are being used to great effect against the SAA's armored vehicles.