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This week's episode features Ray McGovern. Former CIA analyst and foreign policy advocate in Washington, DC. He join us to give some history and context on the Israeli/Hamas war.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
Connecting the dots with Dr. Wilmer Leon, where the analysis of politics, culture, and history converge.
Dr. Wilmer Leon (00:51):
Welcome to the Connecting the Dots podcast with Dr. Wilmer Leon. I'm Wilmer Leon. Here's the point. We have a tendency to view current events as though they occur in a vacuum, failing to understand the broader historical context in which most events take place. During each episode of this broadcast, my guests and I will have probing, provocative, and in-depth discussions that connect the dots between current events and the broader historic context in which they occur. This will enable you to better understand and analyze the events that impact the global village in which we live on today's episode. According to my guest self-proclaimed Zionist, Joe Biden, with no witts about him is assuring the destruction of Zionist apartheid Israel as corrupt US Intel leaders have unleashed the dogs of war. We cannot be bystanders, quote, indifference to evil is more insidious than evil itself. That's Rabbi Abraham Heschel for insight into this. Let's turn to my guest. He leads the speaking truth to power section of Tell the Word a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Savior in inner city Washington. He served as a CIA analyst for 27 years. His duties including chairing the National Intelligence Estimates and preparing the President's daily brief. And he also ran the Russia desk for the CIA. And in January of 2003, he co-created veteran intelligence professionals for sanity. He is Ray McGovern. Ray, welcome and let's connect some dots.
Ray McGovern (02:34):
Dr. Wilmer Leon (02:36):
Ray, you recently published a piece at raymcgovern.com entitled, can You give a brief synopsis of what's happening in Israel? And it's based upon a response to a question from, I believe your youngest daughter. She asked you to explain to her what's happening in occupied Palestine and it opens as follows. I was nine years old, 1948 when there was huge celebration in the Bronx at the founding of the state of Israel. No one told me that Arabs had lived on that land for centuries and were displaced by force. Tens of thousands of them crammed into postage stamped Gaza and now host to millions of Palestinians. Ray, I'll throw it to you. Why was it so important for you to write this piece?
Ray McGovern (03:30):
Wilmer? Frankly, I was really encouraged that one of my children, and we have five, was interested in knowing what I thought about this.
(03:43)
Prophets are without renown in their hometowns and sometimes in their own homes. So when Miriam asked me this question, I said, well, she wants a short, concise paragraph, so I'll try and I failed. I couldn't do it In one concise paragraph, I said, look, here's somebody who's genuinely interested. She has three young children. She's got a very busy life, but she knows that this is important. So let me explain some of the background to this. And so I started out first with the, so-called religious justification for what Israel did. Well in occupying lands already occupied by Palestinian people for centuries before I have been in the West Bank, I have been in Israel at one point, we went up a hill to a Jewish settlement. This is about eight years ago now. At the bottom of the hill, there was devastation. There was no running water, there was poverty of an extreme kind.
(05:03)
When we went up to the top of the hill, whoa, you look like a golf course for God sake, green lawns being watered, okay? And a rabbi from Cleveland telling us why he's entitled to be there as a settler. So one of my colleagues, we were on a little delegation, said, well, a rabbi, how do you explain the conditions right down at the bottom of this hill in Palestinian territory, and you're beautiful settlement up here. And he said, without hesitation. Well, God promised us this land. Now, I had heard that before and I know not enough about the what's so called the Old Testament, the Hebrew scriptures, but I knew this. I knew that they depend on Deuteronomy 15 four for that. So I basically, rabbi, please cite the part of scripture that justifies your settling on this land. And he said, that's easy. He said, Yahweh said to the Jewish people, you shall have this land flowing with milk and honey.
(06:22)
And I said, continue, rabbi, continue. And he said, what do you mean continue? I said, well, you're only giving us half of the deal, right? He said, well, what do you mean? I said, read the rest of the verse. So there shall be no poor among you. He said, oh, you forgot to. So it was a deal. It was, well, you might call it a covenant. All right. You shall have this land so that there shall be no poor among you. And I thought that Miriam should know this, that when she hears people say, oh, wait a second, I promised this stuff. It was a deal. And the Israelis, of course, have broken that deal in a scurrilous way. So that's the way I started out. I went into some of the more recent history. But go back to the Hebrew scriptures. It's very clear what God's promise was. Assuming you think this is important. And of course the settlers think it's important. That's why they always cited
Dr. Wilmer Leon (07:28):
Ray two things. One, it would be one thing if the scripture said, I will give you this land of milk and honey so that you will not be poor. But that's not what it says. It says so that there will not be poor among you. And there's also a reason why those individuals are called settlers. And there's also a reason why that region is called the occupied territories.
Ray McGovern (08:06):
That's right, Wilmer. And it's an embarrassing history we Americans have because we were settlers on the land, peopled by Native Americans, and we kind of pushed them aside just as Israel has pushed the Palestinians aside. So it's not a happy history. But when you're a settler, well, that's a nice way of putting that. You're coming from outside and you've displaced people who have a right to live on those lands. So as I said in the beginning of this piece, I came from the Bronx. I lived there for my first 22 years before I went in and served as an army officer. Now, when I was nine years old, 19 eight, oh man, it was sort of like the 4th of July, 10 times over Israel had a home, right? And as I noted at the beginning, well, nobody told me. Well, he told me that it was not a land for people, a land without any people in it.
(09:15)
Well, there were people in it. And that's the basic part of all this. And if you go more recent in the history, I was serving as a CIA analyst in 1967 when the Israelis attacked Egypt and Syria decimated their Air Force and enlarged Israeli territory to include parts of Syria, to include the West Bank, to include the Sinai, to include Gaza, lots of places to include, right? Okay. Now we thought, or we were told that Egypt was about to attack Israel. Well, that was the legends put forward for many years after 1967. But finally, man, be a former Israeli prime minister, got up before an audience in Washington in 1982 and call it chutzpah, call it honesty. Call it a cleansing of his conscience. But this is what he said. It's not long. I want to read it so that I don't mess it up. All right, man. Bein former Israeli prime minister quote, in June, 1967, we had a choice. The Egyptian army concentrations in the side eye approaches do not prove that SSO is already really about to attack us. We must be honest with ourselves. We decided to attack him.
(11:07)
It was duly reported in the New York Times and people in New York and elsewhere where I was living. Oh, isn't that interesting? So the Israelis said, well, that's called aggression. That's calling creating Libens home. Okay? Not terribly dissimilar from what happened in the thirties at the hands of the Nazis in Germany. And so that's the truth behind all this. Now, how did the UN react then back in 67 when all this happened? There was the unanimous security council resolution, resolution two, four, two, that call for Israel to withdraw from the occupied territories. Was it a close vote? It was unanimous. Okay. Did the Israelis do that? No, they didn't do that. Why didn't they do that? Because of chutzpah? Because the Israelis can always depend on the United States to defend them no matter what they do. And so they have occupied all those territories. They gave back the Sinai to Egypt when there was an agreement under Jimmy Carter, but the Sinai is not worth keeping.
(12:17)
Actually. Now the people in Gaza are bearing the brunch of this occupation, this oppression, and as I quoted Rabbi Heschel, one of my very favorite people who marched with Dr. King back in the late sixties, that we're not all guilty, but we are all responsible. How did I put it? How did he put it? Indifference to evil is worse than evil itself. That's what we have to measure up to this time. There's been evil in Gaza, and we have to make sure that we don't one sidedly accuse one side and give the other a free ride, so to speak. As has been the case since the US reacted to the UN resolution, it didn't do diddly, as we say in the Bronx to enforce it.
Dr. Wilmer Leon (13:23):
There's a lot of misinformation. There's a lot of disinformation and outright lies that are being used in support of the Zionist US narrative of this illegal occupation of Palestine, as well as the genocide of Palestinians. I want to read a brief statement and then show a map before I come back to you. Here's a statement. This is from the foreign office, the 2nd of November, 1917, and it reads, dear Lord Rothschild, I have much pleasure in conveying to you on behalf of his Majesty's government. The following declaration of sympathy with Jewish scientist aspirations, which has been submitted to and approved by the cabinet, his majesty's government view, with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object. It being clearly understood that nothing shall be done, which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.
(14:36)
I should be grateful if you would bring this declaration to the knowledge of the Zionist Federation, yours, Arthur James Balfour. Now this is known as the Balfour Declaration. The British government decided in 1917 to endorse the establishment of a Jewish home in Palestine, not Israel, Palestine. After discussions within the cabinet and the consulting with the Jewish leaders, the decision was made public. And we have this letter to that point. Here's a map from National Geographic from 1947 where you can see Lebanon, Syria, trans Jordan, Egypt, and Palestine. Israel is not on this map. Why? Because contrary to the dominant Western narrative, Israel did not exist. That's why we know now Israel is actually the occupied territories. Ray people will have a tendency to try to categorize this conversation as anti-Semitic, which is why if we can put the map back up one more time, I want to be sure that people see this map. This is history. This is not narrative. This is not rhetoric. This is history. Ray McGovern.
Ray McGovern (16:14):
Well, history can be very antisemitic.
(16:22)
I mean, it's hard to realize that most Americans are blissfully unaware of all this. The maps show the story. Now, the situation right now is different. How is it different? Well, the Soviets, I used to be a Soviet analyst analyst of Russians, foreign policy. The Soviets used to talk about a concept called the correlation of forces. Now, it's not rocket science, okay? It had to do with the balance of power in the world. Now, guess what folks? The balance of power in the world has shifted. People are now talking about a shift from a unipolar world, which is what the US was since World War ii, and particularly since the Soviet Union fell apart to a multipolar world where other countries are allowed to have a say in these things. Well, I look at it as a bipolar world, and I would refer more recently just to the yesterday's vote at the un, where the US was the only one to veto a resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, calling for the Israelis, not to ethnically cleanse Gaza as they apparently still intend to do.
(17:53)
So what's my point? My point is that everyone, not even the British voted with us this time, okay? 12 to one was there was two abstentions. So what am I saying? I'm saying that the Arab countries, well, here's an example. The Arab ambassadors in Beijing asked the Chinese, please get us all together. We would need to talk about what's going to happen in Gaza. And the Chinese did. The head of Iran calls up arch rival the head of Saudi Arabia and says, we got to do something about this. And they have a cordial conversation. Okay? Next thing you know, he is talking to the head of Hamas. He's talking to the head of Hezbollah, okay? So there are things that are happening here where it's where the deck is being stacked heavily against the United States, and it's sat traps like the UK and France and Germany. They're not very long for this world, those governments, okay? So what we have here is a condition where 20 years ago, the US could work its will. Okay? No longer can it. Hamas is well-equipped. I don't think that killing civilians is a good idea, nor do I. When you look at it or when you look at it, you say, well, was this unprovoked?
(19:31)
Unprovoked seems to be the adjective of choice here. Just as PCIs decision to defend his compatriots in the DBAs was not unprovoked, neither was Hamas' reaction here without making any moral judgements, which is something that intelligence analysts are not called to do. Actually, we can say you can understand this given the recent history and the more distant history that we've referred to earlier.
Dr. Wilmer Leon (20:07):
I'm very glad that you put it that way because a lot of times people misconstrue, and I'll just put this on a personal level. I'm not a former, not an intelligence analyst, but I am a political scientist, not a political operative. And so people have a tendency to misconstrue my explanation of events with my agreeing with the events, my saying, I understand why President Putin and Russia went into Ukraine. I understand it because I understand the history. I understand why Hamas took the actions that it did. I don't condone the killing of civilians. I don't condone the killing of children, but I understand why Hamas did what they did. If you could quickly, Tony Blinken, you were just talking about the shift from the unipolar to the multipolar world. Talk a little bit about Tony Blinken and this whole concept of the rules based order, because Tony Blinken in the Biden administration, they love to talk about the rules based order, but when you try to find a definition of it, you can't because it only exists in the mind of Tony Blinken. They rarely talk about international law. They always want to talk about the rules based order.
Ray McGovern (21:46):
You put your finger on it, the rules based international order, well, it's a contrived expression. It's meant to substitute for international law and the United Nations. It was invented by Blinken and Sullivan and Nolan, and I mean poin and Laro, the foreign minister have made fun of it. Well, tell us about this. We try to Google it, but could you please give us, can you give us a piece of paper to describe what the rules based into law? And of course they can. And what it means is what we say goes, we make the rules, and that's it.
Dr. Wilmer Leon (22:30):
And you follow our orders.
Ray McGovern (22:33):
People are getting wise to that increasing number of people witness the vote at the UN yesterday, 12 to one, the one being the United States. The saving grace here, as I say it, is that the UN is still being respected by China, by Russia, and by some of the other countries that are insisting that we abide by UN regulations. First and foremost in this context, security council resolution 2, 4, 2 of November 22nd, 1967 ordering is to relinquish control of the occupied territories that they seized in 1967. So what's the hope here? Well, the hope was yesterday. The US talks about Russia being isolated. Look,
(23:34)
And maybe just maybe these Zionists, and I'll use that word advisedly. I mean, Joe Biden has bragged about being a real dy in the world. Zionist, so has Blinken and Sullivan, the rest of them. Okay? What does that mean? That means the people that occupied the Palestinian Territories occupied by Palestinians for as just as Native Americans in our example, four centuries before, it doesn't make sense. And it's not going to make any headway no matter how much we invoke this rule space, international order. Thanks for raising that, because it's very telling how we thought that we could just invent a new phrase and substitute it for international law. And the UN
Dr. Wilmer Leon (24:29):
President Biden, when he went to the region on this, so-called Peacekeeping tour, wherever the heck he was supposed to be doing, he talked about peace. And to your point earlier on, not on this trip, but earlier on he was very clear, I am a Zionist. And then Tony Blinken goes and he says, I am here not only as the Secretary of State of the United States, but I'm here as a Jew. What message do you think that sends to the Arabs in the region who he allegedly is supposed to be trying to find some common ground with and bring about some type of peaceful resolution to this conflict?
Ray McGovern (25:18):
Well, I think the word is chutzpah and naivete. If blinken doesn't know how that goes over with the Arab leaders that he is talking to, he is hopelessly blind. Wait
Dr. Wilmer Leon (25:35):
A minute, wait a minute, Ray, does he care? Because what that I remember very clearly probably two years ago when Blinken went to Anchorage, Alaska to meet with the Chinese delegation, and the Chinese delegation got up and said, we're not going to sit here and let you lecture us. We're China. We don't have to sit here and listen to you. And they got up and walked out of the room. That to me, sounds eerily reminiscent or what just transpired with Tony Blinken in the Middle East sounds eerily reminiscent to what he tried to do with the Chinese.
Ray McGovern (26:17):
Well, Wilmer, you probably have seen President Biden reading from his little notes, even in a very short a session with Netanyahu. So who writes the notes?
Dr. Wilmer Leon (26:33):
Ray McGovern (26:33):
Blink. Well, Blinken writes the notes.
Dr. Wilmer Leon (26:36):
Ray McGovern (26:37):
Victoria Newland. Now, what does Victoria Newland have in common? What Jacob Sullivan have in common? They're all of Jewish extraction. Now, should that ordinarily matter? No. Does it matter? Now? It happens to matter. Now we're talking about a Jewish home land created at the expense of the Palestinian people. We're talking about Zionism, which is a political movement, not a religion. So the three top people at the State Department have traditionally been Zionists, not only Jews, but Zionists. Now, this is not lost on the Middle East leaders or China or Russia. And you could see their hold on Biden from the very first part of his administration. The first thing he did, we got up and he said, now China, China's going to be, has aspirations to be the most powerful country in the world, not only economically, but strategically. That's not going to happen on my watch.
(27:51)
Okay? Next thing he does is he lets himself be set up by Stephanopoulos George Stephanopoulos, who says, now, Mr. President, do you think Putin's a killer? And by, oh, he's a killer. Okay? And then they meet with the Chinese at Anchorage and read him the riot act about the rules. Basically, the Chinese say, we know all about this. We spent a century throwing off your predecessors, the British selling with the gun diplomas. That's all the folks. And as you say, they didn't put up with it. So you have at the very outset of his administration laying down the line, look, were all powerful, which is not the case anymore. We're Zionists, which happens to be the case anymore. Let me introduce one sort of comment that Biden made without reading from his little cards there, I think was on the plane coming home yesterday. He said, I made a note of it. He says, I can understand why people in the Middle East region would not believe the Israelis, or that maybe the bombing of that hospital was not intentional.
(29:17)
Well, I can understand why the people of that region would not believe the Israeli. The question is why you believe him, Joe Biden, and whether now Jacob Sullivan, I have to tell you, people object to my saying Jacob Sullivan, but that's his first name. Okay? Just like remember Scooter Libby who worked for Janie. His first was Israel Libby. So why does he go by Scooter? Why does Jacob go by Jake? I don't know, but I can make a little guess here. Okay. Jacob Sullivan is Zionist as the Newlands and the Blinken of this world, and of course the president who styles himself as the supreme Zionist. What does that mean? Well, it means that it's over the US and Israel. It's just going to take a couple of months. Now for people to realize that, and the fear I have Wilmer, the fear I have is that there's too much at stake personally for President Biden and for Blinken and Nod and Sullivan and Nolan and Hunter Biden, there's too much at personal stake for them to go away quietly and acknowledge the new correlation of forces.
(30:37)
If they lose the wars, if they lose the election, they could end up in jail. The evidence is there, and court documents in sworn testimony, bribery, impeachment proceedings may go forward. So I'm always saying, I don't give a rat's patooty about what happens in impeachment considerations. What I care about is how they are likely to react to save their own patootie. And that introduces an element of instability and personal stake that worries me greatly. And it doesn't matter what worries McGovern greatly, I'm sure it worries Russian and Chinese leaders greatly too, and has them on tenterhooks as to what will happen over the next year.
Dr. Wilmer Leon (31:29):
When you look at the surveys right now, when you look at the polling data, the race for 2024 between President Biden and former President Trump, by most polls, is a dead heat, one or two points. It's within the margin of error. History tells us that countries tend not to shift leadership or change leadership in the midst of conflict slash war. You mentioned if they lose the election, I'm sorry, you mentioned if they lose the war, if they lose the election, does Joe Biden need this conflict in his mind in order to save his administration?
Ray McGovern (32:19):
I don't think Joe Biden is Compass Menis. I think that Blinken and Sullivan, Nolan, they are extremely Compass mentors. They have a lot to fear. Let's say that Trump wins election, as I said before, the evidence is out there, not only of bribery and those kinds of things, and Hunter Biden's laptop and the inclusion of corrupt former intelligence officials and all that kind of stuff. But Blinken was personally involved in arranging for Biden to win via a subterfuge. What do I mean? Well, when Hunter Biden's laptop was revealed and the scarless repeat stuff on, and his dealings with calling his father's brand name into, well, how did they decide to handle that was three weeks before the election. Oh, what happened? Well, by testimony to Congress, by a former acting director of the CIA, his name is Mikey Morell. He said, I got a call from Tony Blinken, and he said, the best way to handle the Hunter Biden laptop is could you get former intelligence directors to say that it has all the earmarks of a Russian intelligence disinformation operation?
(33:56)
And Mikey Mell said, sure, I can do that. Three days later, Mikey Morell has rounded up 50 count 'em, 50 former intelligence directors and very high officials, speaks pretty poorly of them, doesn't it? 50 plus Mikey Morrell, and he says 51 former intelligence directors, including four or five former directors of the CIA, as if that enhances their credibility. Say, this has all the earmarks, Russian intelligence, disinformation operation. Now, was that consequential? Well, all I know is that two days later, Joe Biden had his last debate with Trump, and Trump raised this. Biden said, oh, don't you know that this is in all the earmarks of a Russian intelligence operation? Now, why do I go into that detail? I mean, that should not have happened. Okay? I don't know whether that won the election for Biden or not, but you don't do these things. They have to be illegal, in my view.
(35:09)
So Blinken himself is on 10 hooks. He could be prosecuted, he could be put in jail, and Jacob Sullivan, just the word about him, he invented Russiagate, the non-existent Russian hacking of the DNC computer for Hillary Clinton's emails and all that stuff that showed that she had stolen the nomination for Bernie Sanders. That was Sullivan. He was a big campaign manager for Hillary Clinton. So that's all out there. Now, I don't know if Trump came in, and I will not comment on what I think of Trump. If he came in, he's not loath to hold these people accountable, and on this case, he's got the law behind him. So again, there's great incentive on the part of all these people preparing their notes for Joe Biden to keep the war going in Ukraine and not lose before the election, and to help the Israelis to the degree the US can still not lose in Gaza. The last one is not possible anymore. Neither is the first one. So what am I afraid of? I'm afraid that they will react according to this personal stick they have, and it's to happen before when you have this kind of personal stake and you have advisors like these guys who are saying, Joe, look, if we lose this, look what happens then. You don't have to write notes to Joe. He understands this. He's a politician, and that's what worries me. Sorry to carry on at that point.
Dr. Wilmer Leon (36:52):
Ray McGovern (36:52):
Think this is an important aspect. It's not really covered elsewhere.
Dr. Wilmer Leon (36:58):
You are former intelligence official, and you understand the subtleties of diplomacy. And one of the things that I find very interesting is when you listen to President Putin, when you listen to President Xi, when you listen to Raisi in Iran, they speak in very subtle undertones. So when Donald Trump assassinated, general
Ray McGovern (37:29):
Dr. Wilmer Leon (37:31):
Soleimani, Iran said, we're going to retaliate, and a lot of people expected the retaliation to be coming shortly thereafter. It did not come well, as Tony Blinken was traversing the Middle East recently, the Iranian foreign minister was doing the same thing with his allies and released a statement saying, Israel, the time is up. Did that convey to you a not so subtle message that people need to be paying attention to?
Ray McGovern (38:17):
Well, it does, and that's really one outstanding aspect of what happened over the last week. The notion that the president of Iran would call up the leader of Saudi Arabia to coordinate on what they're going to do. I mean, that's a tectonic shift in the relationship between those two countries. And raci, the president of Iran has been traveling all around, and he's got, he talks to this area and he talks to the Egyptians, and actually the Egyptians and the Jordanians wouldn't even receive Joe Biden when he wanted to see them. So what we need to do is recognize,
Dr. Wilmer Leon (39:13):
And Mohammad bin Salman made Tony Blinken wait an entire day, actually overnight, because I guess he had gone fishing in somewhere in Saudi Arabia, and he was on a fishing trip in Saudi Arabia and couldn't be bothered. So he thinked Tony, again, from a diplomatic perspective, that's one of those not so subtle messages that says, I really don't feel I'd being bothered with you.
Ray McGovern (39:43):
And Saudi Arabia is very, very, very important, not only because of the oil, but because of the raro schmo that was going on with China and with others. So maybe the Saudi foreign minister was supervising some beheadings in the public square. You get pretty busy in Saudi Arabia when head start rolling, and I understand he did give Blinken access to a men's room there as he waited. So there's some niceties that were observed, but he gave away overnight. You don't do that with, at least you didn't use to do that with the Secretary of State of the United States of America, least of all. Would the Saudi Arabia's have done that? So that's just one little symptom of the tectonic shift in relations where us is no longer the unipolar power, but rather a bipolar with them with the United States. And I am an American citizen. I really mourn the fact that because they're own ineptitude and chutzpah that would put ourselves in this situation. And I dare say that the Israelis do what everyone thinks they're going to do. Now, it's going to be all hell to pay because the Iranians has Pua, Hamas, the Egyptians, the Hezbollah, the others, even the Saudis for are not going to sit around and tolerate the of 2 million people in Gaza.
Dr. Wilmer Leon (41:39):
Yemen isn't going to be too happy with this either.
Ray McGovern (41:44):
Dr. Wilmer Leon (41:46):
So people watching this, people listening to this, they may be saying, wow, Wilmer, you and Ray are spending an awful lot of time talking about foreign policy, talking about the Middle East. We have homelessness in the United States. We have abject poverty. We have all these declines in the standard of living in the United States. Why spend so much time talking about this instead of talking about that?
Ray McGovern (42:19):
Well, because they're connected. As you well know, every billion you send to Ukraine, every billion you send to Israel is at the expense of these people. The poor people in our country that need all that kind of help, there shall be no poor among you. Well, that's a universal. That's a universal, in my view. It doesn't have to be a Hebrew scripture. I mean, the Christian, the Christian, and I say Judeo-Christian attitude toward justice Wiler. We have this American concept of justice where you have this blind lady of all people holding these scales and the images impartiality image, no favoritism to one or the other. Now, lemme tell you something, and your listeners, the Judeo-Christian, the biblical concept of justice is unbalanced and biased to the core in favor of the poor. The hated poor as the Old Testament called the very word in pre Aramaic for justice, denotes not connotes, denotes showing mercy to the poor.
(43:46)
Now, that used to be kind of observed, FDR, my father's favorite president, he cried when FDR died. He knew in his heart what he needed to do, poor people. He brought us out of that depression. There used to be a Democratic party that cared mostly about the poor. When I asked my father, I said, dad, what's the difference between a Democrat and a Republican? He said, all Democrats care about people. Okay, care about poor people. Well, that ain't the case anymore. They're all joined at the hip. And what do they care about? Stuffing their own pockets. What was really a revelation to me was when Pope Francis came to Congress 2015, I think it was, and there was a joint section, and he stands up there, and to his credit, Pope Francis says, and I quote, the main problem today is the blood soaked arms trade. Okay? The main problem today is the blood soaked arms trade.
(45:04)
Now what do those congressmen, what do the senators do? Oh, they go, they, oh, yeah, right? And he stood up, and then they looked in their pocket ship envelope from Raytheon was still there, and it went from Lockheed over here. I mean, it was giving hypocrisy a bad name, okay? These guys know what the message was, but they're so soaked in this money and this power that it's going to take a lot of us, a lot of us who care about the poor, and a lot of us who can show opportunity costs is what the economists use.
(45:45)
For every 150 million you spend on creating an F 35, what could be done in your school district to pay the teachers a decent way? What could be do? What could be done in Iowa or Nebraska or any of these places which are being downtrodden? Okay? People need to make this very specific. This money is going to these high people that are making 20, $30 million a year as salaries, as CEOs or Raytheon and Lockheed general dynamics. That ain't sustainable. We need to get up and find out where these people live. Shame them into relenting a little bit and saying, look, maybe 10 million is enough for your salary, and maybe we'll give the balance to the poor. So round this thing up, I happen to be out of the Judeo-Christian tradition, and this reinforces my, what's the word, my imperative to honor the concept of justice, which is not balanced in favor of everybody because it's, it's not a level playing field. It's a unbalanced, it's biased and prejudice to the core in favor of the poor. Now, that's what I come out of as a faith perspective. I'll just add one other thing. I had a Jesuit teacher who was a real good friend of mine. I said, well, how would you describe your theology? I said, that's very simple. I can put it in one sentence. I said, what's that? He says, well, it all depends on what kind of God you believe in and how God feels when little people are pushed around.
(47:47)
And, okay, I'll say that again, and how God feels when little people are pushed around. Now, you don't have to believe in God. You can just believe in justice. I had agnostics and atheists tell me, look, Ray, you don't have to go into the Bible here. Human beings know that we're supposed to be fair, and that's true. Human beings used to know that we need to get back on the track here and do everything we can to make sure they realize that. Now, the more so since things are getting very, very perilous for us, not only in Ukraine, but in Western Asia as it's called now,
Dr. Wilmer Leon (48:29):
In mentioning Ukraine, you also have a piece at your website, Ray mcgovern.com entitled, fact Checking Putin on Ukraine. President Putin gave an interview right before he went to China for the Belt and Road Initiative Conference, and you say, media consumers should be permitted to learn what Putin said, particularly about Ukraine and Russia's problems dealing with various US administrations over the years. Readers who rely on the paper of record, however, will be shielded from his remarks, and thus, any temptation to ask if they might be true. And you went through a lot of what Russian President Putin had to say. You did your own fact checking. And what were some of the conclusions that you came to regarding President Putin's the veracity of his comments?
Ray McGovern (49:35):
Well, I checked them all, and there were two that I needed to consult others on because I wasn't a hundred percent sure. One had to do with when Soviet Russian forces went up there near Kiev and were abruptly withdrawn very early in the war in Ukraine, I always wondered about that. Putin claims that that was part of a deal, not a covenant, but at least a deal. Now, what was the deal? The deal was reached with Ukrainian officials in Glarus and in Turkey. There was a deal to stop the war, to have a ceasefire, to commit Ukraine, not to join NATO, and to bring Russian troops down from where they were threatening Kiev. That's what Putin claims. Now, I checked around because my memory is just one person, but I found out, yeah, that's probably why the Russian troops went down from that area. It's not because they couldn't have taken Kiev, although they didn't really have all that many troops there.
(50:54)
But the Russians, from the very outset of their special military operation, appeal to the Ukrainians, look, we'd like to have a deal here. All we want is some respect for our own security. We don't want NATO coming in as a bulwark against us. Now, what happened? Well, the Ukrainians talked and they reached an agreement in Ankara on the 31st of March, 2022, and it said these things that I just spelled out what happened? Well, the US in the person of Boris Johnson from the uk, he visited Kiev right away and said, no, no, no deal. You may be willing to deal with Russia, but we're not. We want to continue this thing. The object here is to give the Russians a bloody nose, a strategic defeat. Okay? And so what does Zelensky do? Oh, okay. Sorry. Sorry. I won't do that anymore. Okay. That's how that thing went down.
(51:58)
Now, I remember reading this in S, the official organ in Ukraine. I mean, that's pretty good. But when I had confirmation about this from some of the people that know the military situation a little better than I did, I said, yeah, well, that was correct too. Now, Wilmer, without belaboring this, I have to tell you that after fact checking all this and trying to offer this as an alternative view by somebody who had fact checked it, I couldn't get it published. I couldn't get it published on a very, well, what we shall say, a very anti-war website.
Dr. Wilmer Leon (52:46):
But Ray Ray, that's got to be impossible because Joe Biden has told us that we stand for democracy, that Putin is a dictator and that he's an autocrat, and we stand for the freedom of press in America. Ray, how could you not get something like that published?
Ray McGovern (53:07):
Well, I guess my point Wilmer here is that I've long since stopped trying to get something in The Times or the Washington Post. I used to be able to do that 10 years ago, like twice a year. But the alternative media, for God sake, the progressive media is now saying, oh, that sounds a little bit too. So here, I check these things. I double check with the people who know about things they're not quite sure about. I put it out there and say, well, that sounds a little bit too, we can't run that. So that's the alternative media. That's the binder where nobody wants to feel like they could be susceptible to criticism of being pro Putin, that my friend, is how bad it has become.
Dr. Wilmer Leon (54:02):
I was at dinner with some friends, and one of them asked kind of a generic question about this media and whose interests are being served, and this can't be some invisible cabal that is behind the scenes, being sure that a particular narrative is only being articulated. And I said, no, it doesn't really have to be a cabal, because when you look at Jeff Bezos, for example, and he owns the Washington Post, and he owns Amazon, and look at where Jeff Bezos has received most of his money from Amazon Data Systems, which is a defense contractor. I said, look at, what's his name, knowns Tesla, and he controls X, and where does he get most of his money from? SpaceX and starlink defense contractors. So it doesn't necessarily have to be a cabal as much as it is the confluence of interests that understand which side their bread is buttered on. Is that fair to say?
Ray McGovern (55:29):
Well, Wilmer, I have an expression or an acronym called the Mickey Mat, the military industrial Congressional Intelligence Media, academia think tank complex. It's in some dictionaries now. Okay, why do I say media? Because the media is controlled by the rest of the Mickey Mat. That's the situation we're in now. Now you mentioned Jeff Bezos, and you correctly pointed out he gets lots of money from the federal government, CIA, and others. Okay, but the people he picks, well, there was a fellow named Fred Hyatt who ran the editorial section of the Washington Post, like the op-ed section. Okay? And before the war in Iraq, about 90% of the op-eds were, oh, yeah, they're weapons of mass, weapons of, okay, so what happens after the war when there are no weapons of mass destruction? He goes up to the Columbia School of Journalism, and when a naive student says, Mr. Hyatt, you kept saying that there were weapons of mass destruction as flat fact, and it turned out not to be any. How do you explain that? And Hyatt famously said, well, if there weren't weapons of mass destruction, we probably should not have said that. There were,
(56:58)
My patron, Robert Perry of recent memory turned to me at that, and he said, Ray, that used to be sort of like a cardinal principle or journalism. If something's not true, you're not supposed to say it's okay. What happened to Fred Hyatt? He stayed in place for 20 more years running the op-ed section. So what's my point? No one, no one is held accountable for these things. That's up to us. We have to find ways to hold people accountable, and what that involves, I leave to people, but we have to start getting off to our rear ends. We have to put our bodies into it as I have in the past. They're not going to kill you. They'll beat you up, all put you in prison, but it's worth it because so much is at stake right now, and I've never seen, never seen a more tentative, a more dangerous time to include the prospect of the use of many nuclear weapons, which eventually would do us all in.
Dr. Wilmer Leon (58:01):
We have just about a minute and a half or so left, and I want to read, this is from M-S-N-B-C, and this is from the April 6th, 2022. In a break with the past US is using Intel to fight an info war with Russia, even when the intel isn't rock solid. What that means, boys and girls, is M-S-N-B-C is admitting that they are lying to the American people under the pretext of the noble line. They're lying to you. Boy, Ray McGovern American people, first of all, Ray, thank you so much for your time today, and where can folks find your work?
Ray McGovern (58:51):
Well, I'm sure that Plato and his noble liar kind of turning around in the grave right now.
Dr. Wilmer Leon (59:01):
Where can people find your work?
Ray McGovern (59:03):
Oh, where? Okay. Well, I am Twittering. That's @RayMcGovern. Okay. My website is raymcgovern.com. I'm also on Facebook and on Instagram, so I hope that you'll tune in. My son who runs my website always says, Ray, always say, always add. If you don't get it, you won't get it. You don't get it. But I'm too humble to say that.
Dr. Wilmer Leon (59:31):
Ray McGovern, thanks for joining me. Big shout out to my producer, melody McKinley. Thank you all so much for joining the Connecting the Dots podcast with me, Dr. Wilmer Leon. Folks, this is where the analysis of politics, culture, and history, converge talk without analysis is just chatter, and we don't chatter on connecting the dots. Stay tuned for the new podcasts every week. Also, please follow and subscribe. Leave a review, share the show, follow me on social media. You can find all the links below in the show description. I'll see you all next time, and until then, please treat each day like it's your last, because one day you'll be right. I'm Dr. Wilmer Leon. Peace and Blessings. I'm out.
