In what sense, like, would you say that the security state will, will get to that unprecedented level?

Technology has always been used during imperial conflicts, like Vietnam.

That's when we saw the precursor to the modern internet, called ARPANET.

It was monitoring and tracking Viet Cong on the Ho Chi Minh Trail, while also monitoring climate activists, Black Panthers, student organizers, labor organizers that were against the war.

We saw the expansion of that during the global war on terror with the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, the Patriot Act, ICE, all with the justification of national security interests.

Over the past two years, we've seen weapons testing in what we call the Palestine Laboratory.

So in defense circles, it's kind of like a marketing tool.

I'm not doing anything crazy." Like, what do you think their endgame is?

What are your thoughts on this story and what it kind of portends about the military preparedness to this Iran war?

It's absolutely insane.

Um, even in the days of the British Royal Navy in the 19th century, it's pretty much unheard of to spend more than six months at sea without a port call.

Uh, absolutely unhinged, and even when the British Navy in the 19th century, which is like the worst, most brutal, freaking, one of the, to be in, uh, they still, if they were at sea for like seven months, eight months, they would have resupply ships if they were trying to impose a blockade, which we're doing.

But we're not sending supply [laughs] ships either.

So, uh, basically ju- just to get a timeline of how insane this was and how if I was w- a sailor aboard this specific carrier strike group attached to the USS Abraham Lincoln, I'm not re-enlisting.

I'm getting out.

Yeah.

My partner's running for Congress.

So my name's Greg Stoker.

I am a former US Army Ranger.

I did four combat deployments to Afghanistan during the ill-fated and completely illegal war in Afghanistan during the, uh, global war on terror.

I'm now an anti-imperialist activist and, uh, military analyst.

Currently running for, uh, Congress in congressional, Texas Congressional District 31, where they're building a new AI data center super highway coming down from Dallas through Austin and into San Antonio.

Right, right, right

... being like, "Fuck Charlie Kirk.

What's your response to that?

a whole a whole lot to unpack there right uh also in that same in that same speech he says we have like four weeks of strategic reserves left i'll note a small supply chain problem like since there hasn't been a lot of traffic through the strait of hormuz like it doesn't just magically open and these like thousand hundred thousand ton um amphibious cities just like instantly deliver it to the refineries.

There's going to be like a six-week to 60-day backlog, which is the same amount of time potentially as the memorandum of understanding.

Then you have to refine it.

Then you have to do all this.

So yeah, oil prices might look okay today.

futures or whatever, but there's still massive, gonna be like third and fourth order supply chain ramifications from this.

So what's your response to this? Again, there's so much to unpack here.

I was curious your thoughts on like the veterans role in the movement more broadly, considering that is some, you know, something that you represent.

Yeah, I'd first like to say that, you know, we're still trying to figure it out.

You know, we are less civically engaged as a polity than we were like during the Vietnam backlash.

Right.

And also people aren't being like actively conscripted and drafted to a war that nobody wants.

Like Iran is as stupid and strategically disastrous as it was, was still a distance conflict.

So it didn't really touch a lot of people.

And that's, that's what piques my interest right away because how, how likely is it exactly do we think that like our rabbit attack dog in the middle East is going to, is going to be constrained by us in any meaningful fashion?

That's a, that's a, that's my tip for them, too.

Yeah.

Well, see, Ben-Gvir does say a lot of nonsense, but they are def- definitely concerned.

Israel, you know, doing a threat analysis, uh, for the Security Council for this, uh, global Samud flotilla.

You know, it's easy to find via open source information that Israel has a very small navy, 49th, 50th largest or smallest, however you want to take that, in the world.

They only have 60 vessels, five of which are sub- submarines.

Uh, most of them, I would guess, are, um, stationed or posted out in the Persian Gulf to do signal intelligence collection on Iranian assets in the region.

This has written all over it.