S9 Ep6: Espresso Martini | Gaza After a Year of War, Iran’s Criminal Alliances, Russia’s Arctic Intrigues, and Tom Clancy’s Legacy

[00:00:04] [SPEAKER_00]: Secrets and Spies presents Espresso Martini with Chris Carr and Matt Fulton.

[00:00:49] [SPEAKER_04]: And I've been really super busy with work, and then on top of that I've been recording loads of interviews.

[00:00:54] [SPEAKER_04]: You've been in a sort of similar situation. Then I'm traveling in November, and so Espresso Martini's kind of gone a bit all over the place,

[00:01:01] [SPEAKER_04]: and I need to sit down and maybe plan hours again and figure out what we're doing, because we've got quite a few interviews lined up.

[00:01:09] [SPEAKER_04]: But I'm conscious that in early November I'm away when we should be doing one of these.

[00:01:15] [SPEAKER_04]: So I might have to... I don't know quite what we'll do. I'll probably put an interview in its place, and then we'll push this back a week,

[00:01:21] [SPEAKER_04]: or just pick up the second half of the month. But yeah, I've got a lot of traveling going on at the moment.

[00:01:27] [SPEAKER_04]: I've got America in November, and then I'm going to be going away again over the Christmas break.

[00:01:33] [SPEAKER_04]: So yeah, all over the place, which is not a bad thing to be. I enjoy traveling, so it's all good.

[00:01:40] [SPEAKER_04]: Mr. Worldwide.

[00:01:41] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, exactly. So, oh dear. But no, how are things your side though? Things going all right?

[00:01:46] [SPEAKER_04]: You're avoiding hurricanes and terrible storms that seem to be hitting the US at the moment.

[00:01:51] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I know. Well, that's one thing. I mean, by the time this airs, this storm will have already passed.

[00:01:58] [SPEAKER_01]: But if there's any listeners in Florida, or especially around the Tampa Bay area, you are in my thoughts.

[00:02:08] [SPEAKER_01]: And if you happen to live in evacuations, then I hope you got out. This seems like not one to be brave or stubborn for.

[00:02:19] [SPEAKER_04]: No, something like once in 100 years or something. The last time it was a storm this bad.

[00:02:24] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[00:02:24] [SPEAKER_04]: So yeah, yeah, my thoughts with people too. I've got some friends in Florida, I've just checked in on them today,

[00:02:29] [SPEAKER_04]: and they are apparently not in the zone that's in danger, which is a good thing.

[00:02:33] [SPEAKER_04]: They do have some relatives who are.

[00:02:35] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[00:02:36] [SPEAKER_04]: So everybody could be careful.

[00:02:37] [SPEAKER_01]: My aunt and uncle have a house down there, and they've come back up here now. They're up here, so they're okay. But yeah, actually, I was there the last episode we recorded together.

[00:02:50] [SPEAKER_04]: Yes, you were. Yeah.

[00:02:50] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[00:02:51] [SPEAKER_04]: And is that the place? Is that in danger, that place?

[00:02:54] [SPEAKER_01]: If you look at the cone of uncertainty, like the line that goes right through the middle of it, pretty much goes right over there.

[00:03:02] [SPEAKER_01]: Wow.

[00:03:03] [SPEAKER_01]: Wow.

[00:03:03] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. I mean, they're not like right on the water, and they're not on one of the barrier islands or anything, but yeah, definitely a good time to get out of town.

[00:03:12] [SPEAKER_04]: Have you seen footage of that plane? I forget which office. Is it the National Reconnaissance Office? You fly those planes through the hurricane?

[00:03:19] [SPEAKER_04]: That's NOAA.

[00:03:20] [SPEAKER_04]: That's it. Yeah.

[00:03:20] [SPEAKER_01]: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Yeah, they're hurricane hunters.

[00:03:26] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, they were flying like a look like a P3 Orion through the storm yesterday. I've seen the Hercules because it came to the an air show went to last year.

[00:03:35] [SPEAKER_01]: That's a really good photographs of the Hercules. The Hercules, the Air Force. That's a, I think it's an Air Force Reserve squadron out of Keesler Air Force Base in Mississippi.

[00:03:50] [SPEAKER_01]: It does like the hurricane hunting and stuff for the Air Force. But that P3 you were looking at, that's NOAA. That's civilian under the Department of Commerce. How those guys go out there and do that? I don't...

[00:04:04] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, it looked very intense and I'm amazed as... I don't know enough about it, but the stress on the airframe can't be good.

[00:04:11] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I don't know either and I haven't really like looked into why, but that was my thought too. Like how does it not crash?

[00:04:19] [SPEAKER_04]: I'm assuming, is it because it's above the storm and not kind of in, sort of on the edge of the storm rather than in the middle of it? I don't know.

[00:04:27] [SPEAKER_04]: I don't know.

[00:04:27] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah. There's one to look into.

[00:04:29] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I'll Google that.

[00:04:31] [SPEAKER_04]: It didn't look fun being on that plane though.

[00:04:32] [SPEAKER_04]: No.

[00:04:32] [SPEAKER_04]: And I was surprised they had quite a few free floating objects in the cabin.

[00:04:37] [SPEAKER_04]: It looked like there was a bit of a, like, you know, have you not considered what you're about to fly through?

[00:04:41] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:04:42] [SPEAKER_01]: That's what I was thinking.

[00:04:43] [SPEAKER_01]: Just a little turbulence.

[00:04:45] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[00:04:46] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[00:04:46] [SPEAKER_04]: Well, hurricanes aside and, you know, I don't say that lightly.

[00:04:50] [SPEAKER_04]: I hope people are safe and well listening to this.

[00:04:53] [SPEAKER_04]: So today we are looking at quite a few weighty topics.

[00:04:58] [SPEAKER_04]: We're going to be looking at that infamous survey in Gaza that came out last year where it alleged that most citizens were very supportive of Hamas.

[00:05:09] [SPEAKER_04]: And there's some new information that's come to light about that survey, which may challenge that.

[00:05:14] [SPEAKER_04]: Then we've got Iran using criminal gangs to target critics abroad.

[00:05:18] [SPEAKER_04]: And in the UK in particular has been a bit of that.

[00:05:22] [SPEAKER_04]: And then we've got Russian espionage in the Arctic.

[00:05:24] [SPEAKER_04]: And then we have the 40th anniversary of the book, The Hunt for in October being published, which is really cool.

[00:05:31] [SPEAKER_04]: So I'm looking forward to that.

[00:05:32] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[00:05:33] [SPEAKER_04]: Then on Extra Shot, which is our Patreon only show, we're going to look at the collapse of a cybersecurity firm that was headed by former intelligence officials who should have known better.

[00:05:44] [SPEAKER_04]: But there we go.

[00:05:45] [SPEAKER_04]: Then we've got the growing threats against Elon Musk.

[00:05:48] [SPEAKER_04]: And then we've got a secret satellite caught on camera.

[00:05:52] [SPEAKER_04]: So some very interesting topics there to get access to Extra Shot.

[00:05:56] [SPEAKER_04]: There's a link in the show notes.

[00:05:57] [SPEAKER_04]: All we need to do is click on that and it'll take you straight there.

[00:06:00] [SPEAKER_04]: Then you can choose the subscription level that works for you.

[00:06:03] [SPEAKER_04]: And depending on which level you pick, you will get a free cup or coaster.

[00:06:07] [SPEAKER_04]: So, Matt, I think I'll move us into our first story, which is the one about that survey in Gaza.

[00:06:12] [SPEAKER_04]: So listeners may remember that last year was sort of the latter part of the year.

[00:06:16] [SPEAKER_04]: I was trying to find the exact date and I can't find it now, unfortunately.

[00:06:20] [SPEAKER_04]: But the latter part of last year, there was an infamous survey that was taken in Gaza.

[00:06:24] [SPEAKER_04]: And it claimed that something like 70% of the population was supportive of the actions of Hamas on October the 7th.

[00:06:33] [SPEAKER_04]: So there's an article titled Hamas is monstrous.

[00:06:37] [SPEAKER_04]: Most Gazans agree, which was in the dispatch by Ahmed Fuad Al-Khatib.

[00:06:42] [SPEAKER_04]: And in this article, he talks about how the Israeli defense forces recently uncovered evidence that Hamas has been falsifying public opinion polls to inflate perceptions of its popularity among Gazans.

[00:06:57] [SPEAKER_04]: The poll, which was conducted by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, which is the PCPSR.

[00:07:05] [SPEAKER_04]: And it originally suggested widespread support for Hamas's violent actions, including the October the 7th massacre.

[00:07:11] [SPEAKER_04]: The documents that were discovered showed that these results were manipulated with Hamas inflating approval by up to 40%.

[00:07:18] [SPEAKER_04]: This distortion fed into Israeli and international narratives that Palestinians were fully aligned with Hamas, which then justified harsh military responses.

[00:07:29] [SPEAKER_04]: The manipulated data painted a false picture of Gazan support for the group, obscuring the reality that many Palestinians actually oppose Hamas and its destructive agenda.

[00:07:38] [SPEAKER_04]: The IDF says that the documents do not prove that the PCPSR was cooperating with Hamas, but rather that the terrorist group was conducting clandestine actions to fraudulently influence the results of the polls.

[00:07:52] [SPEAKER_04]: A recent survey conducted by Zogby for the Tony Blair Institute reveals that only 7% of Palestinians in Gaza support Hamas's rule, with 87% blaming the group for the ongoing conflict.

[00:08:04] [SPEAKER_04]: These figures reflect the deep dissatisfaction and resentment many Gazans feel towards Hamas, despite the group's claims of widespread support.

[00:08:14] [SPEAKER_04]: Many Western pro-Palestinian activists continue to champion Hamas's resistance against Israel, often unaware or dismissive of the fact that the majority of Gazans do not support the group.

[00:08:26] [SPEAKER_04]: These activists, who are safely removed from the conflict, frequently overlook the suffering Hamas inflicts on his own people.

[00:08:32] [SPEAKER_04]: Most Gazans see Hamas's actions as a source of endless violence, poverty and hardship.

[00:08:38] [SPEAKER_04]: The Islamist group's governance has led to severe restrictions on freedoms, economic collapse and ongoing bloodshed.

[00:08:46] [SPEAKER_04]: Despite this, activists abroad continue to amplify Hamas's narrative, further entrenching misconceptions about what the people of Gaza actually want, which is peace, stability and the end of Hamas's brutal rule.

[00:08:58] [SPEAKER_04]: So, Matt, I thought this was a very interesting article.

[00:09:02] [SPEAKER_04]: And I think we even talked about the infamous survey last year, which I expressed some caution about when it was published.

[00:09:09] [SPEAKER_04]: So I don't know what your thoughts were on this piece.

[00:09:11] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it was good to see those numbers reflected, of course.

[00:09:17] [SPEAKER_02]: Mm-hmm.

[00:09:17] [SPEAKER_01]: I think it's still, I don't know what methodology Zogby used for that.

[00:09:25] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:09:25] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know how you would conduct some sort of a scientific poll like that in Gaza, given the state of how it is right now.

[00:09:35] [SPEAKER_01]: Yes.

[00:09:35] [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I'm not saying that it shouldn't, that the poll shouldn't be, you know, taken seriously or anything.

[00:09:41] [SPEAKER_01]: I just find it interesting how that really could be done either way.

[00:09:45] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, this is it.

[00:09:46] [SPEAKER_04]: I've got a similar thought too, because I think even though it is Zogby and the Tony Blair Institute, I don't want people to think that we're saying, oh, well, that absolves everything and changes everything.

[00:09:56] [SPEAKER_04]: I mean, I'm hoping that that poll is accurate, but how do we-

[00:10:01] [SPEAKER_01]: It's a counter data point.

[00:10:02] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[00:10:02] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, exactly.

[00:10:04] [SPEAKER_04]: Exactly.

[00:10:04] [SPEAKER_04]: And polls are, you know, I've personally become very wary of polls over the last few years, especially in relation to US and UK politics, because to properly understand a poll, you need to know who the sample of people are and under what circumstances that information was gathered.

[00:10:21] [SPEAKER_04]: So to your point, do we know that?

[00:10:24] [SPEAKER_01]: I think it's also worth noting with the other poll that, you know, Hamas is not a reliable narrator.

[00:10:31] [SPEAKER_01]: And that's just something to just, you know, to take, take at heart whenever something's discussed that they've had their hand in.

[00:10:40] [SPEAKER_01]: I think overall, for me though, it really, it, this article, it was a beautiful article, really reflects the tragedy of the Palestinian people and their cause being hijacked by a nihilistic death cult that's been propped up by a corrupt, revanchist regime.

[00:10:58] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:10:59] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:10:59] [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, like, we're, we're a year out now.

[00:11:02] [SPEAKER_01]: I just, I mean, Sinwar and, and his lieutenants knew full well what the Israeli response to October 7th would be when they were planning for it, when they were rehearsing for it.

[00:11:14] [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, was it for the Iranians maybe more so a case of catastrophic success?

[00:11:21] [SPEAKER_02]: Sure.

[00:11:21] [SPEAKER_01]: But that doesn't discount that.

[00:11:23] [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, they, they, they knew what the response would be.

[00:11:26] [SPEAKER_01]: And I think that was certainly calibrated and done on purposely because they knew what the response would be.

[00:11:31] [SPEAKER_01]: Right.

[00:11:32] [SPEAKER_01]: They knew Israel would flatten the place and they went ahead with the attack anyway.

[00:11:36] [SPEAKER_01]: And when they came back across the fence with over 200 hostages from Israel, they, um, they made all 2 million Gazans in their hostages as well.

[00:11:46] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:11:46] [SPEAKER_01]: Half of them children.

[00:11:47] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:11:47] [SPEAKER_01]: Um, overall, I just, I just looked at the situation.

[00:11:50] [SPEAKER_01]: It's, um, it's, it's hard to not just feel kind of numb and just defeated about the whole thing.

[00:12:00] [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it's a, it's a colossal failure of U S diplomacy and, and, and the international community and indictment of Israel's government that there still isn't a plan, at least on paper anyway, for say a pan Arab, um, force with UN backing to go in secure and administer Gaza for at least, you know, the time being until a, um, an actual credible, stable Palestinian.

[00:12:30] [SPEAKER_01]: Authority can be stood up to take its place, you know?

[00:12:33] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:12:34] [SPEAKER_01]: Um, it's like everyone save for BB and a few of his far right ministers and Sinwar is ready to start rebuilding and turn the page on this.

[00:12:44] [SPEAKER_01]: Um, I know it's almost like you think like BB and Sinwar should get like some flintlock pistols and, and, and duel at dawn and just, you know, settle it that way.

[00:12:53] [SPEAKER_01]: And I don't know.

[00:12:54] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:12:54] [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, whoever won that will be great for them politically.

[00:12:56] [SPEAKER_01]: And that's apparently all that matters, um, for them.

[00:13:00] [SPEAKER_01]: Uh, everyone else is just kind of in the way.

[00:13:03] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[00:13:03] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[00:13:04] [SPEAKER_04]: I mean, Netanyahu has been compared to, he's been kind of, um, it's been said he's sort of the Israeli Trump is one way to look at him.

[00:13:13] [SPEAKER_04]: Sure.

[00:13:13] [SPEAKER_04]: Um, I don't know how fair that is, but he certainly, I feel he, his actions tend to be a bit more about his political future than they are about the good of the country.

[00:13:22] [SPEAKER_04]: Right.

[00:13:22] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, I think that could be said of him and Sinwar as well.

[00:13:27] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, I think is, is, is BB a one to one comparison with Trump?

[00:13:33] [SPEAKER_01]: No.

[00:13:34] [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, they're, they're very different in, in many ways and alike.

[00:13:38] [SPEAKER_01]: And some, I think something that stands out to me in a way that makes them alike is they are, um, at least most recently with BB is entirely seems to be self-motivated by his own political fortunes, his own political survival.

[00:13:52] [SPEAKER_01]: Um, and everything else, all the other interests of, you know, the rest of, of Israel, of, of the Middle East of the world just sort of seems to come, um, second to that.

[00:14:02] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, it's, it's like sort of whatever he needs to do in the moment to just hang on for a little bit more and see if he can ride the wave here, um, and dig himself out of the hole that he got in.

[00:14:13] [SPEAKER_01]: Uh, you know, he'll, he'll do whatever it takes to do that.

[00:14:16] [SPEAKER_01]: And that's if, if he is, if he is to be compared to Trump in any kind of way, I think that's, that's definitely the one that, that, that stands out to me.

[00:14:25] [SPEAKER_01]: It's entirely, um, their own survival, their own interests, their own success first and everything else, all the other responsibilities of that job, their responsibility to the peoples that they lead.

[00:14:37] [SPEAKER_01]: And I say that with Bibi in terms of Israelis and, and Sinwar in terms of Gazans too, it all comes second to that, you know?

[00:14:44] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah. Yeah, definitely. I mean, it all happened on Netanyahu's watch, this terrible attack and obviously the intelligence and failures and everything like that seemed to be a reflection of a terrible failure within the system.

[00:14:56] [SPEAKER_04]: And, and, you know, the women who were monitoring the border, it sounds like they were largely ignored.

[00:15:02] [SPEAKER_04]: And certainly there's been some pieces coming out where they expressed that feeling.

[00:15:06] [SPEAKER_04]: Um, and it's just seems to be, there was something sort of rotten within the culture of the, um, Israeli military with regards to listening to these women that led to this attack being allowed to happen.

[00:15:21] [SPEAKER_04]: And really, um, quite a few people should have been held responsible for that and should have been gone.

[00:15:26] [SPEAKER_04]: And I think Netanyahu's one of those people who should have been gone as well.

[00:15:30] [SPEAKER_04]: Um, and I think that the problem is when you become a, we said this, I think after the attack about, um, a few episodes after the attack, that the problem is once you become a kind of war president, it's very hard to, um, to push that person out because you need some sort of continuity of government because of all the things that are kind of going on.

[00:15:48] [SPEAKER_04]: And it would be very hard to brief in a new president whilst in the middle of a very complicated, uh, military action.

[00:15:56] [SPEAKER_04]: And it's one of the points reflecting what you were saying.

[00:15:59] [SPEAKER_04]: I think the people of Gaza tend to be this pawn, um, in this conflict between Hamas and Israel.

[00:16:04] [SPEAKER_04]: And, you know, it's clear that not enough is being done by both Israel and Hamas to prevent civilian deaths.

[00:16:11] [SPEAKER_04]: And as you said earlier as well, Hamas obviously planned October the 7th.

[00:16:15] [SPEAKER_04]: They knew full well what Israel's response would be.

[00:16:17] [SPEAKER_04]: Well, they knew it would be devastating.

[00:16:20] [SPEAKER_04]: They might not necessarily known to what level it would have been devastating, but they knew civilians were going to die.

[00:16:25] [SPEAKER_04]: And Hamas did not create any bomb shelters for civilians.

[00:16:29] [SPEAKER_04]: They did not set aside any food for civilians, nor any medical supplies.

[00:16:34] [SPEAKER_04]: All of that went to their fighters who've been living in these tunnels whilst these airstrikes have been going on.

[00:16:41] [SPEAKER_04]: And, you know, this is the picture of what Hamas is.

[00:16:45] [SPEAKER_04]: And it seems to be Hamas is more about kind of power and creating money for itself through donations than it is about actually looking after the people of Gaza.

[00:16:54] [SPEAKER_04]: And this is the bit that I feel is missing in a lot of the discussion today about the October 7th and Israel's response to it.

[00:17:04] [SPEAKER_04]: Because at the moment, it keeps getting simplified into the oppressor and the oppressed.

[00:17:10] [SPEAKER_04]: And I think that especially with students and people on the protests at the moment, I just think the oppressor oppressed things is just too narrow for it to really work with this situation.

[00:17:24] [SPEAKER_04]: Because Hamas are also oppressors.

[00:17:27] [SPEAKER_04]: And so, like, people seem to want to ignore that, as the author of this piece says, and that's not helping anybody.

[00:17:35] [SPEAKER_04]: And Hamas needs to go.

[00:17:36] [SPEAKER_04]: And I've said this, you know, from day one.

[00:17:39] [SPEAKER_04]: And, you know, and if we are talking about a two-state solution down the line, you know, what is this second state going to look like?

[00:17:48] [SPEAKER_04]: Who's going to govern it?

[00:17:49] [SPEAKER_04]: And it can't be Hamas.

[00:17:51] [SPEAKER_04]: It can't be Hezbollah.

[00:17:52] [SPEAKER_04]: It's, you know, who's it going to be?

[00:17:55] [SPEAKER_04]: And this is the thing.

[00:17:56] [SPEAKER_04]: If the Palestinians, you know, I wish them a prosperous, peaceful future.

[00:18:02] [SPEAKER_04]: And I really hope that there can be some sort of diplomatic solution to this situation.

[00:18:07] [SPEAKER_04]: Because it's gone on a very long time.

[00:18:09] [SPEAKER_04]: And I fear, you know, when we are much older than we are now, we'll probably still be talking about this situation.

[00:18:16] [SPEAKER_04]: Unless something happens that guarantees Israeli security concerns, but also deals with the kind of legitimate concerns of the Palestinian civilians as well.

[00:18:27] [SPEAKER_04]: And they have their right to live, you know, as they wish.

[00:18:32] [SPEAKER_04]: Which, you know, obviously, as they wish in a sort of peaceful way, not in a way where Hamas are trying to then just buy time to then attack Israel again.

[00:18:40] [SPEAKER_04]: So it's a very complicated thing.

[00:18:42] [SPEAKER_04]: And somebody needs to do something.

[00:18:44] [SPEAKER_04]: And I wish I knew what the answer was.

[00:18:46] [SPEAKER_04]: But many a smart person beyond us has tried to come up with a solution.

[00:18:51] [SPEAKER_04]: But it's definitely bombing the place to hell is not the solution.

[00:18:54] [SPEAKER_04]: Definitely not.

[00:18:55] [SPEAKER_01]: I felt for a while that there's a strand in the left and how they talk about it.

[00:19:04] [SPEAKER_01]: That's pretty infantilizing to Palestinians.

[00:19:08] [SPEAKER_01]: And I think what they do then is they, in their championing for the rights of Palestinians and for, you know, and speaking out against their great human suffering that they've experienced in the last year.

[00:19:22] [SPEAKER_01]: Right.

[00:19:22] [SPEAKER_01]: They tend to include Hamas as a legitimate actor in here and sort of lump Hamas and the rest of all Gazans and Palestinians together.

[00:19:34] [SPEAKER_01]: Which I think doing so infantilizes Hamas, which is wrong to do.

[00:19:42] [SPEAKER_01]: As we've said, they planned and executed the attack and like they did the thing that ultimately started this whole, you know, recent year.

[00:19:55] [SPEAKER_01]: But at the same point, I think it also accepts Hamas's theory of the case.

[00:20:01] [SPEAKER_01]: That they are the avatar of the Palestinian people.

[00:20:03] [SPEAKER_01]: That they speak for the Palestinian people.

[00:20:05] [SPEAKER_01]: That they are the sort of natural and rightful rulers of Gaza and the Palestinian people.

[00:20:10] [SPEAKER_01]: And that's exactly the theory of the case that Iran would like to be adopted.

[00:20:17] [SPEAKER_01]: And I think there's some parts of the left where there's that strand there that in doing that, in how they go about championing the Palestinians.

[00:20:32] [SPEAKER_01]: Even though I think, I mean, there's been a lot of anti-Semitism in that movement for sure.

[00:20:38] [SPEAKER_01]: And that's part of it also.

[00:20:40] [SPEAKER_01]: But I think there's a lot of it that's also very well intentioned and definitely coming from a right place.

[00:20:49] [SPEAKER_01]: From a sort of real moral outrage.

[00:20:53] [SPEAKER_01]: And in doing so, they fall into a trap of accepting Hamas's theory of the case.

[00:21:01] [SPEAKER_01]: And sort of by default, at least by not in their language or whatever, separating Hamas and the Palestinians.

[00:21:10] [SPEAKER_01]: They fall into the trap of sort of, I guess, by default, accepting the view that Hamas is like the rightful ruler of Gaza and all Palestinians.

[00:21:24] [SPEAKER_01]: And I think that's just a fundamentally really, it's wrong.

[00:21:28] [SPEAKER_01]: And it's just a flawed argument.

[00:21:31] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't think it's a good argument to make.

[00:21:34] [SPEAKER_04]: No, and a similar thing happened during the war on terror with Al-Qaeda and also members of Al-Qaeda or suspected members of Al-Qaeda who were incarcerated in Guantanamo Bay.

[00:21:47] [SPEAKER_04]: And obviously, you know, just to put it out there, I'm not a fan of Guantanamo Bay.

[00:21:52] [SPEAKER_04]: I thought it was a total human rights disaster and played into all sorts of terrorist sort of propaganda by America behaving lawlessly.

[00:22:00] [SPEAKER_01]: Bad, bad lawyering.

[00:22:03] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, you have people sitting there 20 years later and you can't do anything with them in the regular civilian justice system.

[00:22:10] [SPEAKER_01]: They would have, yeah.

[00:22:11] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, the case against Khalid Sheikh Mohammed totally ruined.

[00:22:14] [SPEAKER_04]: I mean, he could theoretically, if he were prosecuted properly under law, he could probably walk free because of all the torture and bad behavior that's been directed in his direction.

[00:22:25] [SPEAKER_04]: And this is the thing, when the people who are supposed to abide by the law break the law, they then lose the moral authority.

[00:22:31] [SPEAKER_04]: And that's sort of where this sort of terrorist trap falls in.

[00:22:35] [SPEAKER_04]: And I find that, like, with the left, there's a lot of people who rightly are outraged by the way these people were treated in Guantanamo Bay.

[00:22:44] [SPEAKER_04]: But then they kind of go a bit too far and end up championing some of these people who are quite questionable figures.

[00:22:50] [SPEAKER_04]: And some of them hold very abhorrent views like, you know, of stoning gays or oppressing women or other things like that.

[00:22:59] [SPEAKER_04]: You know, no religious freedom, etc.

[00:23:01] [SPEAKER_04]: And if they were given the opportunity to be put in the position of power, they would probably create a Taliban-esque type situation.

[00:23:11] [SPEAKER_04]: And this is the problem, really.

[00:23:15] [SPEAKER_04]: But there was this sort of battle in the 2010s of allowing Islamic extremists or apologists or Islamic extremists to talk on stage at university,

[00:23:23] [SPEAKER_04]: whilst then people who, particularly Muslims, who kind of said that those people are bad, were then deplatformed.

[00:23:30] [SPEAKER_04]: And it was absurd.

[00:23:32] [SPEAKER_04]: And so suddenly the left was supporting the oppressor in that situation.

[00:23:37] [SPEAKER_04]: And, you know, this is where the Double Bind comes in, which was the first ever podcast I ever did,

[00:23:44] [SPEAKER_04]: was interviewing the late author of the Double Bind about this sort of thing where the Anglo-American left make this mistake of supporting the Muslim right

[00:23:53] [SPEAKER_04]: when really they're trying to sort of deal with human rights abuses and kind of challenge, you know,

[00:23:59] [SPEAKER_04]: what the West were doing in Iraq and Afghanistan.

[00:24:01] [SPEAKER_04]: But it kind of just go way too far.

[00:24:03] [SPEAKER_04]: And it's a cocktail of kind of good intentions with a bit of cultural ignorance, I think.

[00:24:08] [SPEAKER_01]: I think what many of them, again, the anti-Semitism and all that kind of stuff aside, like throwing that out the door,

[00:24:16] [SPEAKER_01]: shutting it, locking behind me, not talking about that, a lot of it, the rest of it,

[00:24:22] [SPEAKER_01]: is well-intentioned and I think comes from a just place.

[00:24:27] [SPEAKER_01]: But, as you said, they end up, you know, arguing for the wrong people or using those values to champion people who do not share those values themselves

[00:24:39] [SPEAKER_01]: and have, you know, worked tirelessly to deny those values to anyone unlucky enough to be ruled by them.

[00:24:50] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah. And, you know, I find deeply disappointing.

[00:24:53] [SPEAKER_04]: Obviously, the problem is when looking at the protests, you tend to only see the negative side of the protests and the press,

[00:25:00] [SPEAKER_04]: obviously the anti-Semitism, the people waving Hamas or Hezbollah flags,

[00:25:05] [SPEAKER_04]: or those women who were walking around in London with pictures of the microlights that were used by Hamas to attack the Noah,

[00:25:14] [SPEAKER_04]: the music festival. Is it the Nova? Nova festival?

[00:25:18] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:25:18] [SPEAKER_04]: The Nova festival. Yeah, yeah.

[00:25:20] [SPEAKER_04]: So they use these microlights and these women, like literally 48 hours after attack were in central London wearing,

[00:25:26] [SPEAKER_04]: like, printouts on their t-shirts of these microlights.

[00:25:29] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know how you not know what you're doing in that case.

[00:25:33] [SPEAKER_04]: Oh, they knew what they were doing.

[00:25:34] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[00:25:34] [SPEAKER_04]: I think those individuals knew what they were doing.

[00:25:36] [SPEAKER_04]: And what disappoints me, not only do people do stuff like that,

[00:25:40] [SPEAKER_04]: but what really disappoints me is then people within the protest group themselves don't then call those people to account.

[00:25:48] [SPEAKER_04]: They don't hold those people to account saying, hang on a minute, you are not helping here.

[00:25:52] [SPEAKER_04]: You are, you know, displaying pictures of these people who've just murdered people.

[00:25:59] [SPEAKER_04]: And you're displaying it in a way that kind of implies you celebrate it.

[00:26:02] [SPEAKER_02]: Right.

[00:26:03] [SPEAKER_04]: And that is wrong.

[00:26:05] [SPEAKER_04]: And I had this issue many years ago when you'd get left-wing politicians who would stand up in front of pictures of Mao and Lenin and things like that

[00:26:14] [SPEAKER_04]: and not consider the implications of standing up in front of a banner, at least in your speech, saying, well, this banner is problematic, but I believe in whatever cause.

[00:26:24] [SPEAKER_04]: You know what I mean?

[00:26:24] [SPEAKER_04]: And it's just like I find just something really irritating about the fact that people within these protests, and we've had many of them now,

[00:26:32] [SPEAKER_04]: there aren't people within those groups calling those other people to account.

[00:26:36] [SPEAKER_04]: And so, A, then obviously those bad people get picked up by the media, and then it discredits the whole thing.

[00:26:45] [SPEAKER_04]: Because then people can say, well, look at those protesters, because they're all celebrating Hamas.

[00:26:50] [SPEAKER_04]: And I'm sure many are not, but there are a few who are.

[00:26:54] [SPEAKER_04]: And the problem is they get all the visibility.

[00:26:56] [SPEAKER_04]: And I don't see the people who are not supporting Hamas kind of holding those people to account.

[00:27:01] [SPEAKER_04]: And then you get those terrible, like with universities and things, where you've had Jewish students who've been attacked or threatened

[00:27:09] [SPEAKER_04]: and feel like they can't go on campus to continue on their education.

[00:27:12] [SPEAKER_04]: And that's appalling.

[00:27:13] [SPEAKER_04]: And it should never be allowed.

[00:27:14] [SPEAKER_04]: And the fact that then the people who run those institutions seem to be ill-equipped to deal with that as well is deeply disappointing.

[00:27:21] [SPEAKER_04]: So, I think in the West, I feel like there's certain aspects of the liberal left and the far left that have got kind of combined and made a real mess of things

[00:27:33] [SPEAKER_04]: when it should have been relatively straightforward how you deal with this, and they've made a real mess of it.

[00:27:38] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, I think any winning political movement, any winning protest movement, I think fundamentally has to be a movement that is focused on addition.

[00:27:49] [SPEAKER_01]: Bringing people to your side, even if people who do not, are not an ideological carbon copy of you,

[00:27:56] [SPEAKER_01]: who may agree with you on some things, very important things, but may disagree with you on others,

[00:28:01] [SPEAKER_01]: or even disagree with you on, you know, the messaging, like how you go about arguing for this cause, right?

[00:28:09] [SPEAKER_01]: And I think when you have, you know, folks like that in your movement who, you know, show like the paragliders and stuff and the Hamas flags and everything,

[00:28:23] [SPEAKER_01]: or, you know, ripping down photos of the hostages and stuff, which I just don't see.

[00:28:29] [SPEAKER_01]: How is that?

[00:28:31] [SPEAKER_04]: How does...

[00:28:32] [SPEAKER_04]: How is that pro-humanity in any way?

[00:28:34] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[00:28:35] [SPEAKER_01]: How does...

[00:28:35] [SPEAKER_01]: Right, right.

[00:28:36] [SPEAKER_01]: How does being pro-Palestinian and championing for their rights and speaking out against the humanitarian catastrophe,

[00:28:44] [SPEAKER_01]: how does that come in conflict with, oh, and also we got to get these people home,

[00:28:49] [SPEAKER_01]: and here's a poster, like, reminding people of that.

[00:28:54] [SPEAKER_01]: I see how those two things are not in conflict at all, right?

[00:28:59] [SPEAKER_01]: So when you have people in the movement doing stuff like that and the rest of them, you know, don't forcefully speak out and say,

[00:29:07] [SPEAKER_01]: no, you're not a part of us.

[00:29:08] [SPEAKER_01]: You don't speak for us.

[00:29:09] [SPEAKER_01]: We don't want you here.

[00:29:10] [SPEAKER_01]: There's a lot of people on the sidelines or sort of, you know, a few ticks over to the side.

[00:29:18] [SPEAKER_01]: I think my...

[00:29:20] [SPEAKER_01]: I would count myself as part of this, that, you know, would I be inclined to go to a protest in Philly or something here and, you know,

[00:29:30] [SPEAKER_01]: speak out against Bibi Netanyahu's policies and the catastrophic humanitarian toll that's been visited on ordinary Palestinians since October 7th?

[00:29:41] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, but I'm not going to do it if I'm going to be standing next to a guy in a Hamas flag, you know, saying that they had a comment on October 7th.

[00:29:52] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm not going to associate with that, you know?

[00:29:55] [SPEAKER_01]: It's...

[00:29:55] [SPEAKER_01]: What they're doing is not a movement about addition.

[00:30:00] [SPEAKER_01]: And I think for many of those far-right movements and stuff, I think in the West at least,

[00:30:05] [SPEAKER_01]: that's why they're always going to be out yelling in the streets instead of actually in power, affecting the change that they wish to create.

[00:30:18] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, yeah.

[00:30:19] [SPEAKER_04]: No, well said.

[00:30:20] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[00:30:21] [SPEAKER_04]: I think just reflecting on that, I think, you know, my question is, where are the adults in the room for this situation?

[00:30:29] [SPEAKER_04]: You know, where are the slightly older, wiser people in these movements who should be steering people away from supporting Hamas?

[00:30:37] [SPEAKER_04]: That's the thing that I want to know.

[00:30:40] [SPEAKER_04]: Where has...

[00:30:41] [SPEAKER_04]: I feel like there's something has gone wrong a little bit in university education about this topic,

[00:30:46] [SPEAKER_04]: and it's led to people kind of supporting terrorist killings and kidnappings.

[00:30:52] [SPEAKER_04]: And I've always been brought up to believe that purposely targeting civilians for a political cause and using violence is bad.

[00:31:00] [SPEAKER_04]: Murdering people in cold blood, I believe, is bad.

[00:31:03] [SPEAKER_04]: And I think also kidnapping people is bad.

[00:31:06] [SPEAKER_04]: And I don't understand why there are people on the streets of London, Washington, etc.,

[00:31:14] [SPEAKER_04]: who seem to think that that's not bad.

[00:31:17] [SPEAKER_04]: And they just change the word to resistance, to justify it.

[00:31:21] [SPEAKER_04]: And likewise, you know, the appalling civilian death toll by, you know, the Israeli military that's a professional military

[00:31:33] [SPEAKER_04]: and considered a first-class military, and that there wasn't a better way to deal with this situation.

[00:31:42] [SPEAKER_04]: Because I feel like that by doing what they've done, they've played into Hamas's hands.

[00:31:48] [SPEAKER_04]: And I think in the long run, at the moment, they've not won any new hearts and minds with this tactic,

[00:31:54] [SPEAKER_04]: the way they've dealt with things.

[00:31:56] [SPEAKER_01]: No, they've diplomatically destroyed themselves for a generation easily.

[00:32:01] [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, Netanyahu's speech at the UN General Assembly, the day he ordered Hassan Asrallah to be killed,

[00:32:10] [SPEAKER_01]: the hall was nearly empty.

[00:32:13] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, yeah.

[00:32:15] [SPEAKER_04]: And everybody remembers the photograph of him at the UN on his phone, probably ordering the airstrikes.

[00:32:22] [SPEAKER_04]: That's the bit most people talk about, not the speech.

[00:32:24] [SPEAKER_04]: And this is the problem.

[00:32:25] [SPEAKER_04]: That's the image of Israel at the moment.

[00:32:27] [SPEAKER_04]: And I think in the long run, there's a whole generation of people who will be the future politicians

[00:32:32] [SPEAKER_04]: of Britain and America who are seeing that as Israel.

[00:32:38] [SPEAKER_04]: And obviously, Israel is reliant on American support, and to some extent, British and European support.

[00:32:47] [SPEAKER_04]: And I think certainly if it loses American support, I think Israel would be very vulnerable.

[00:32:53] [SPEAKER_04]: And I don't know about European and British support, because I think a lot of European people have been quite anti-Israel for a very long time.

[00:33:03] [SPEAKER_04]: But certainly, I think if Israel lost American support, I think they'd be in a lot of trouble.

[00:33:09] [SPEAKER_04]: And I don't think Netanyahu's actions has really helped that case.

[00:33:12] [SPEAKER_01]: I think this past year, for sections of the left, not even the far left, I would say, just like the solidly progressive young left,

[00:33:28] [SPEAKER_01]: I think for parts of it, this last year was deeply radicalizing in ways that we haven't quite seen yet.

[00:33:36] [SPEAKER_01]: Does that mean that kids on TikTok are going to be like, hey, Reben Laden, he kind of has some points.

[00:33:40] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm not saying that.

[00:33:41] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't think it's going to be like that.

[00:33:43] [SPEAKER_01]: I just think this past year was activating for them in that will affect itself in ways elsewhere and in other issues,

[00:33:57] [SPEAKER_01]: not just foreign policy, not just the Middle East, in ways that we haven't quite seen yet.

[00:34:02] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's my prediction there.

[00:34:05] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I feel you're right.

[00:34:07] [SPEAKER_04]: Right. And interesting with that prediction, I will just quickly jump over to something else to bring up.

[00:34:15] [SPEAKER_04]: So just changing topics a little bit.

[00:34:17] [SPEAKER_04]: So the head of MI5, Ken McCallum, gave a speech just on Tuesday about the kind of current threats at the moment.

[00:34:25] [SPEAKER_04]: And one of the things he mentioned in particular was, and it kind of links into our previous episode,

[00:34:31] [SPEAKER_04]: that young people are increasingly being drawn into online extremism.

[00:34:36] [SPEAKER_04]: 13% of people who investigated under terrorism in the UK were actually under the age of 18.

[00:34:41] [SPEAKER_04]: That's quite a lot of people.

[00:34:43] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[00:34:43] [SPEAKER_04]: So it's, yeah, there's definitely a big issue there.

[00:34:47] [SPEAKER_04]: And then counterterrorism work itself at the moment remains split between 75% Islamic extremism and 25% extreme right-wing terrorism.

[00:34:56] [SPEAKER_04]: So, yeah, there's definitely, I think, unfortunately, what's happened in the Middle East is definitely going to inspire someone,

[00:35:05] [SPEAKER_04]: whether it be on the far right or of, you know, ISIS, Al-Qaeda, Hamas inspired.

[00:35:13] [SPEAKER_04]: But something somewhere, if we're not careful, could lead to some bloodshed on the streets of Britain or America.

[00:35:21] [SPEAKER_01]: I think there's a strand of belief amongst young people in Gen Z, in the West, I think in the U.S. especially,

[00:35:30] [SPEAKER_01]: that given that they're very much predisposed to like nihilism and like doomerism, right?

[00:35:38] [SPEAKER_01]: And I think a lot of that is just because of the world that they've been brought up in,

[00:35:43] [SPEAKER_01]: a world that I think is honestly very much failed to do right by them.

[00:35:47] [SPEAKER_01]: They see the climate crisis spinning out of control with no real sort of,

[00:35:56] [SPEAKER_01]: no real serious solutions being offered by the adults in the room, you know,

[00:36:01] [SPEAKER_01]: constantly being told, you know, from older people,

[00:36:05] [SPEAKER_01]: hey, you know, we're counting on you, the next generation to save the world.

[00:36:09] [SPEAKER_01]: And I mean, I definitely feel this.

[00:36:10] [SPEAKER_01]: I know people younger than me feel it.

[00:36:12] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, how about y'all fucking start now and not just leave it for us to clean up whenever you all drop dead?

[00:36:17] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, how about you start now and help us?

[00:36:20] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:36:20] [SPEAKER_01]: It's that.

[00:36:21] [SPEAKER_01]: It's the school shootings.

[00:36:23] [SPEAKER_01]: It's social media making everyone depressed and just a little bit crazier and angrier.

[00:36:29] [SPEAKER_01]: It's seeing the economy collapse multiple times and the people responsible for it just sort of just getting their check again

[00:36:36] [SPEAKER_01]: and going on like nothing happened.

[00:36:37] [SPEAKER_01]: It's, you know, living through a once in a century global pandemic and all sorts of weird traumas and disruptions that as a society as a whole,

[00:36:47] [SPEAKER_01]: we haven't even begun to sort of actually do the work of coping with.

[00:36:51] [SPEAKER_01]: I think you mix all of that together.

[00:36:52] [SPEAKER_01]: And yeah, younger people are way more disposed to doomerism and nihilism.

[00:36:58] [SPEAKER_01]: Like, you know, whatever the system is fundamentally broken.

[00:37:00] [SPEAKER_01]: Like we're all screwed.

[00:37:02] [SPEAKER_01]: We're cooked, as they would say.

[00:37:03] [SPEAKER_01]: And I think if that's how you feel, if that's the soup that your peers are swimming in as well,

[00:37:12] [SPEAKER_01]: I think the barrier to entry to falling into real radical ideologies and beliefs like the kids who plotted to attack that Taylor Swift concert in Vienna were,

[00:37:24] [SPEAKER_01]: I want to say they were teenagers, quite young.

[00:37:28] [SPEAKER_01]: I think the barrier to entry to that is a lot lower than it would be otherwise if society was doing right by them.

[00:37:37] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[00:37:38] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[00:37:38] [SPEAKER_04]: And recruiters are looking for disaffected people to, you know, to kind of become a part of their movement.

[00:37:47] [SPEAKER_04]: So it's, yeah, it's, it's, yeah, we do live in a very, yeah, there's a sort of lack of hope in the end, a lack of aspiration now,

[00:37:55] [SPEAKER_04]: because it feels like the world is ending in some way or another because of global warming.

[00:38:00] [SPEAKER_01]: That's absolutely how they feel.

[00:38:03] [SPEAKER_01]: They don't see much of a future for them.

[00:38:05] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:38:06] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:38:06] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[00:38:07] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[00:38:07] [SPEAKER_04]: I certainly, you know, I don't plan to have children because I don't think, you know, one of the reasons why I don't want to have children is because I just don't think there's going to be a particularly great world for them.

[00:38:18] [SPEAKER_04]: You know, I think about where the world's gone in my relatively short lifetime at the moment.

[00:38:24] [SPEAKER_04]: You know, went from this period where in the 80s and 90s where it felt like everything was growing and, you know, there was this big world to look forward to.

[00:38:31] [SPEAKER_04]: And now since the crash in 2008, et cetera, just feels like we're going in a downward spiral.

[00:38:36] [SPEAKER_04]: Mm-hmm.

[00:38:37] [SPEAKER_04]: Um, and it just doesn't feel like things are getting better.

[00:38:41] [SPEAKER_04]: And then, you know, with the coming issues around climate change and potential conflicts over resources, um, and, uh, an increasingly fractured political world,

[00:38:53] [SPEAKER_04]: rather than a world coming together and cooperating, it does, it is becoming easier to paint a very negative picture, which I'm painting right now.

[00:39:03] [SPEAKER_04]: Um, please don't worry, uh, listeners.

[00:39:05] [SPEAKER_04]: Um, I do have a therapist.

[00:39:06] [SPEAKER_04]: So, but it's, it's certainly on a dark day, which of us I'm going into now, um, can feel quite heavy, um, and feel like that the, there isn't much to look forward to.

[00:39:19] [SPEAKER_04]: Um, and I could be wrong in that feeling.

[00:39:23] [SPEAKER_04]: Um, and certainly there are some days where I feel rosier than others, but certainly when you look at, it's interesting because I remember Obama in his, there's this documentary about Obama's like last year in office.

[00:39:34] [SPEAKER_04]: And there's a bit where this book comes out by, I think it's Steve Pinker, where it's all about, oh, statistically the world is better than it's ever been.

[00:39:42] [SPEAKER_04]: And statistically, in some respects, it might be the case, but the problem is you had the Syrian war going on and people dying there.

[00:39:49] [SPEAKER_04]: You now have the war in Ukraine.

[00:39:51] [SPEAKER_04]: You've got obviously what's going on in Gaza with Gaza and Israel, um, and the Middle East sort of slowly igniting again.

[00:39:58] [SPEAKER_01]: If you're, if you're economically blessed, I think it's easy to think that it's better than it is, than it's ever been.

[00:40:05] [SPEAKER_01]: And in many ways it has been, but if you were not economically blessed, um, it's, it's definitely hard to, I mean, that's just an objectively false thing to think.

[00:40:15] [SPEAKER_01]: Hmm.

[00:40:15] [SPEAKER_04]: Well, I think the world on fire always looks better from sitting on your yacht.

[00:40:20] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[00:40:21] [SPEAKER_04]: Especially at night.

[00:40:22] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[00:40:23] [SPEAKER_04]: It's very pretty, you know, not coming from experience, just imagination here.

[00:40:28] [SPEAKER_04]: But, um, but it's, yeah, I remember once, oh God, sitting on a mountain in 2009, uh, in Spain, looking at a thunderstorm that was going on in Africa.

[00:40:40] [SPEAKER_04]: And it was such a bizarre little moment there.

[00:40:42] [SPEAKER_04]: And I wonder if that's what wealthy people feel like when they watch the world falling apart.

[00:40:51] [SPEAKER_04]: Well, I think we probably should have a quick break and, uh, and then we'll be back.

[00:41:03] [SPEAKER_03]: Elon Musk is one of the most powerful men in the world.

[00:41:08] [SPEAKER_03]: A billionaire, a free speech champion, and to his critics, a far right rabble rouser.

[00:41:14] [SPEAKER_03]: But for someone so public, there's one part of his life that's less well known.

[00:41:19] [SPEAKER_03]: So he told people that Elon Musk had put private investigators on him.

[00:41:24] [SPEAKER_03]: From Tortoise, this is Elon's Spies, a journey into Musk's private world.

[00:41:31] [SPEAKER_03]: Listen wherever you get your podcasts and follow the feed to make sure you don't miss an episode.

[00:41:44] [SPEAKER_04]: Well, welcome back, everybody.

[00:41:46] [SPEAKER_04]: So we're now going to be looking at how Iran is using criminal gangs to target dissidents abroad.

[00:41:53] [SPEAKER_04]: So, Matt, uh, this is one you picked out.

[00:41:55] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, this is a great article in the Washington Post by, uh, um, Greg Miller, Swad Mechonet, Kate Brown, um, great reporters.

[00:42:02] [SPEAKER_01]: Uh, really sort of putting a spotlight on how, uh, this new tactic Iran has been using to, um, reach out and touch its, uh, its, its dissidents overseas.

[00:42:13] [SPEAKER_01]: Um, so Iran has found a chilling new way to silence its critics abroad by hiring criminal gangs to do its dirty work.

[00:42:20] [SPEAKER_01]: We're seeing a religious theocracy partnering with unlikely allies, hell's angels, biker gangs, and Eastern European mobsters to carry out assassinations on Western soil.

[00:42:30] [SPEAKER_01]: The scale is staggering.

[00:42:31] [SPEAKER_01]: Iran has orchestrated 88 assassination or kidnapping plots in just the last five years, more than in the previous 40 years combined.

[00:42:39] [SPEAKER_01]: Of these recent plots, at least 14 involved criminal organizations rather than Iranian operatives.

[00:42:45] [SPEAKER_01]: At the center of this web is an Iranian drug lord named Nazi Sharifi Zindashti, described as a Pablo Escobar-type figure.

[00:42:53] [SPEAKER_01]: He acts as the crucial middleman between Tehran and criminal networks across the West.

[00:42:58] [SPEAKER_01]: After legal troubles in Turkey, he returned to Iran, where he now appears to operate with the regime's protection.

[00:43:03] [SPEAKER_01]: A recent attack in London perfectly illustrates how this works.

[00:43:07] [SPEAKER_01]: Despite extensive security measures, including safe houses and police protection, journalist Puriya Zarati, who runs the TV news outlet Iran International, was stabbed outside his home by Eastern European criminals.

[00:43:20] [SPEAKER_01]: The attacker simply flew into Heathrow Airport, carried out the stabbing, and were out of the country within hours.

[00:43:27] [SPEAKER_01]: This strategy helps Iran avoid detection rather than sending their own intelligence officers who would be closely watched.

[00:43:33] [SPEAKER_01]: They recruit local criminals who can move freely in Western countries without drawing attention from security services focused on foreign operatives.

[00:43:41] [SPEAKER_01]: The tactic is spreading.

[00:43:43] [SPEAKER_01]: Both India and Russia have started this playbook, as I think we've talked about on here recently or previously,

[00:43:48] [SPEAKER_01]: with India allegedly using criminal groups in a plot to kill a Sikh activist in Canada last year.

[00:43:55] [SPEAKER_01]: That's a new normal in transnational repression.

[00:43:57] [SPEAKER_01]: Traditional security measures are proving inadequate.

[00:44:00] [SPEAKER_01]: In the London case, Zarati had installed monitoring devices, used safe houses, and surrounded the TV station in, like, blast walls.

[00:44:08] [SPEAKER_01]: Despite all this, a would-be assassin approached him, asked him for money, then stabbed him in the leg as a warning.

[00:44:14] [SPEAKER_01]: A surge in these attacks appears directly tied to growing unrest in Iran as protests escalate inside the country,

[00:44:21] [SPEAKER_01]: especially after the deaths of Masha Amini.

[00:44:24] [SPEAKER_01]: The regime is aggressively trying to silence critics who can reach Iranian audiences abroad.

[00:44:29] [SPEAKER_01]: The going rate for these crimes is significant.

[00:44:32] [SPEAKER_01]: One plot offered Canadian Hells Angels $350,000 to kill a former Iranian military officer who defected to Maryland.

[00:44:41] [SPEAKER_01]: In encrypted messages, the hitmen discuss making sure to erase his head from his torso, I say in quotes, to send a message.

[00:44:49] [SPEAKER_01]: This shift represents a major challenge for Western security services.

[00:44:53] [SPEAKER_01]: They spent decades getting good at tracking foreign spies,

[00:44:56] [SPEAKER_01]: but local criminals who are already embedded in Western society are much harder to detect and stop.

[00:45:01] [SPEAKER_01]: As one British official put it, Iran now sees the battlefield as being without borders.

[00:45:07] [SPEAKER_01]: Chris, what did you think of this one?

[00:45:08] [SPEAKER_04]: Well, just to refer back to the MI5 speech,

[00:45:11] [SPEAKER_04]: apparently there have been 20 Iranian-backed plots that MI5 have disrupted in the UK.

[00:45:19] [SPEAKER_04]: That the head of MI5 said potentially had lethal, you know,

[00:45:23] [SPEAKER_04]: potentially had lethal threats to British systems and UK residents.

[00:45:26] [SPEAKER_04]: And 10 of those plots were targeting Iranians in particular.

[00:45:31] [SPEAKER_04]: And he mentioned obviously that the Iran International News Building in West London

[00:45:35] [SPEAKER_04]: that was under police protection for some time.

[00:45:38] [SPEAKER_04]: And then they were asked to, well, they were encouraged to relocate to Washington DC,

[00:45:43] [SPEAKER_04]: which is what they did for a while.

[00:45:44] [SPEAKER_04]: And I think now the agencies moved on again to somewhere else.

[00:45:49] [SPEAKER_01]: They're in Jerusalem.

[00:45:51] [SPEAKER_01]: They moved to Jerusalem.

[00:45:52] [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, they're in Jerusalem now.

[00:45:52] [SPEAKER_01]: Interesting.

[00:45:53] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:45:54] [SPEAKER_04]: That is interesting.

[00:45:55] [SPEAKER_04]: And so what's coming out of this picture is it sort of appears that in Britain,

[00:46:00] [SPEAKER_04]: we're not able to protect people maybe in the same way that in America you can.

[00:46:05] [SPEAKER_04]: Because even the – I've been told or I read somewhere that the Scripples post-poisoning

[00:46:12] [SPEAKER_04]: have now been relocated to America as well.

[00:46:14] [SPEAKER_04]: And I'm assuming they're probably part of the WITSEC program or the CIA equivalent of that.

[00:46:19] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know who that would – if that would fall under the FBI or the CIA.

[00:46:23] [SPEAKER_01]: The CIA has a national resettlement operations center that all they do is – yeah, what the name says,

[00:46:31] [SPEAKER_01]: they resettle defectors and people who are, you know, taking shelter in the U.S. with new identities and stuff.

[00:46:38] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[00:46:38] [SPEAKER_04]: And there's an inquiry going on related to the Scripple poisoning,

[00:46:41] [SPEAKER_04]: and it was deemed not safe for them to come back to the UK to testify in that inquiry.

[00:46:46] [SPEAKER_04]: So it is making you wonder why it's so difficult for the British authorities to protect people,

[00:46:54] [SPEAKER_04]: because Zarati himself was under some level of police protection.

[00:46:59] [SPEAKER_04]: And apparently the road he got stabbed on outside his house didn't have any CCTV surveillance or any extra measures,

[00:47:10] [SPEAKER_04]: whilst all the measures seemed to be more in his house.

[00:47:12] [SPEAKER_04]: He had like a panic button and things like that.

[00:47:15] [SPEAKER_04]: So that's kind of worrying.

[00:47:18] [SPEAKER_04]: And then, interestingly, using criminal elements – I'm always interested in sort of like how regimes like Iran, etc.,

[00:47:26] [SPEAKER_04]: have a relationship with organized crime.

[00:47:28] [SPEAKER_04]: And, you know, they were using this Hells Angels chapter that was connected to the Russian mob,

[00:47:36] [SPEAKER_04]: which they were called the thieves in law.

[00:47:39] [SPEAKER_04]: And they distribute heroin, etc., to make money.

[00:47:43] [SPEAKER_04]: And so, yeah, I find that really interesting that they've kind of got this sort of relationship with this group.

[00:47:47] [SPEAKER_04]: And obviously those criminals, not only are they sort of semi-local and have maybe a better sense of the place they're going to operate in,

[00:47:56] [SPEAKER_04]: but they also have that inbuilt cover.

[00:47:58] [SPEAKER_04]: And they have a degree of deniability that can, you know, protect the Iranians from accusations.

[00:48:05] [SPEAKER_04]: But what's interesting, actually, like with regards to Russia, they don't seem to care about being accused anymore.

[00:48:12] [SPEAKER_04]: Because when I was thinking again about the scripple poisoning just the other day,

[00:48:16] [SPEAKER_04]: their operatives came to London.

[00:48:19] [SPEAKER_04]: They didn't need to come to London to go to Salisbury, by the way.

[00:48:21] [SPEAKER_04]: You could have done it a very different way.

[00:48:23] [SPEAKER_04]: But they decided to come to London, which is the most, you know, got the most CCTV in almost anywhere in Britain.

[00:48:28] [SPEAKER_04]: They then get on public transport, quite a few modes of public transport.

[00:48:32] [SPEAKER_04]: They get on the Docklands Light Railway, then the London Underground, then on an overground train to get to Salisbury.

[00:48:38] [SPEAKER_04]: And they do it twice.

[00:48:40] [SPEAKER_04]: Also, they pass through, I think it was Stansted or Heathrow Airport twice, in and out,

[00:48:46] [SPEAKER_04]: when they probably could have come on a diplomatic plane.

[00:48:48] [SPEAKER_04]: So the Russians don't seem to care about blowing their operatives and having somebody directly connected back to them,

[00:48:56] [SPEAKER_04]: connected to this plot.

[00:48:58] [SPEAKER_04]: They just then use silly denials, etc., to kind of cover up the fact.

[00:49:02] [SPEAKER_04]: So I find it almost a little bit old-fashioned that Iran decide to use a cutout.

[00:49:08] [SPEAKER_04]: There's something very interesting in that.

[00:49:11] [SPEAKER_04]: So yeah, yeah, it was.

[00:49:13] [SPEAKER_04]: And then with regards to the assassination attempt against Zerati,

[00:49:16] [SPEAKER_04]: well, the police believe it was a warning, because when he got stabbed,

[00:49:21] [SPEAKER_04]: they targeted his leg rather than any other part of his body.

[00:49:24] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think at first he thought it was a mugging, and then he realized they didn't take anything from him.

[00:49:28] [SPEAKER_01]: He sort of figured out what it was.

[00:49:30] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, yeah.

[00:49:31] [SPEAKER_04]: And that could still be fatal if you get the wrong artery, etc., or don't, you know, stop the bleeding fast enough.

[00:49:39] [SPEAKER_04]: And just on how it happened, obviously there was a two-man team.

[00:49:43] [SPEAKER_04]: So one was dressed as a sort of beggar asking him for money.

[00:49:47] [SPEAKER_04]: And whilst he was interacting with Zerati, another man came up behind him and grabbed his arms.

[00:49:52] [SPEAKER_04]: And then the man who was talking to Zerati stepped forward and stabbed him, I think it was three times in the leg.

[00:49:57] [SPEAKER_04]: And then they ran off and got into a car park nearby.

[00:50:00] [SPEAKER_04]: So it sounds like already there's like three people minimum involved in this sort of operation.

[00:50:05] [SPEAKER_04]: And they flew out the country only hours after this stabbing took place.

[00:50:11] [SPEAKER_04]: So there are multiple places where they could have been picked up on CCTV.

[00:50:17] [SPEAKER_04]: And with all of that, the interesting thing as well is like they studied him because they found a predictable point in his routine,

[00:50:25] [SPEAKER_04]: which I believe was on Fridays at 3 p.m., when he would get in his car to drive off to the radio station to do his broadcast at 5.

[00:50:33] [SPEAKER_04]: And that was the predictable point in his routine that made him vulnerable.

[00:50:36] [SPEAKER_04]: So there's a lesson.

[00:50:37] [SPEAKER_04]: If you're ever concerned about being a target of hostile surveillance or assassination, it's always good to be unpredictable and mix up your routine.

[00:50:46] [SPEAKER_01]: Change your routine.

[00:50:47] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[00:50:47] [SPEAKER_04]: I've read many a book about like the Secret Service, etc., where they talk about like it's always having a predictable moment in your routine.

[00:50:54] [SPEAKER_04]: That's usually the thing that's where the assassins will be waiting for you.

[00:50:58] [SPEAKER_04]: So bear that in mind as you do something predictable this weekend.

[00:51:03] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, definitely.

[00:51:04] [SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, very, very interesting piece.

[00:51:05] [SPEAKER_01]: The article goes into this as well.

[00:51:07] [SPEAKER_01]: It talks about, you know, instances with India and Russia as well doing similar things.

[00:51:13] [SPEAKER_01]: It's definitely part of a growing trend of autocratic countries reaching into democracies quite boldly to silence their critics,

[00:51:27] [SPEAKER_01]: where I think people perhaps even these critics would think that, you know, they're safe in these democratic countries.

[00:51:33] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, like we've talked on here before a couple of times, I think a while ago, a couple of years ago, about China setting up police stations.

[00:51:40] [SPEAKER_01]: I say that in course as well.

[00:51:42] [SPEAKER_01]: In Western cities to harass and spy on their Chinese diaspora communities.

[00:51:48] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, it was reported recently that, you know, Victor Orban has opened the door for China to set up these police stations in Hungary, you know, to like right in the heart of the Schengen zone so they can move through the rest of Europe at will.

[00:52:05] [SPEAKER_01]: So it's, you know, it's hard to keep the burglars out of your house when your roommate deliberately leaves the back door open so the burglars come in and rob you.

[00:52:17] [SPEAKER_04]: No, indeed, indeed.

[00:52:19] [SPEAKER_04]: It's, yeah, and this sort of increasing use of sort of violence to make your political point is just very concerning.

[00:52:26] [SPEAKER_04]: And it's not just on a state level.

[00:52:28] [SPEAKER_04]: It's obviously, you know, we've talked about it before on an individual level too with sort of assassination attempts, politicians getting stabbed or murdered.

[00:52:37] [SPEAKER_04]: You know, it just seems to be this sort of growing level of using violence to make your point is becoming more and more, I don't know if the word is acceptable, but people seem to be willing to take the risk more because there's no actual real tangible consequence to it.

[00:52:53] [SPEAKER_04]: And this is the possibly one of the issues maybe why in America it's safer for hiding people in America is maybe because it's easier to access a firearm and the police are more likely to be armed.

[00:53:07] [SPEAKER_04]: So which means there's a maybe an increased risk of.

[00:53:10] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, and it's bigger.

[00:53:12] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, maybe there's the increased risk of coming up against the force that could stop you lethally.

[00:53:19] [SPEAKER_04]: Maybe.

[00:53:19] [SPEAKER_04]: I don't know.

[00:53:21] [SPEAKER_04]: It's an interesting one.

[00:53:23] [SPEAKER_04]: But I think the problem is as Iran, Russia, etc. are able to kind of keep getting away with things like this, it's sort of setting an unfortunate precedent that means that, yeah, that people, there's no real consequence.

[00:53:37] [SPEAKER_04]: There's no real consequence to bad behavior.

[00:53:39] [SPEAKER_04]: Unfortunately, people then carry on committing said bad behavior.

[00:53:43] [SPEAKER_04]: So, yeah, somebody needs to be charged for something like this.

[00:53:49] [SPEAKER_04]: And, yeah, be made an example of in some way.

[00:53:52] [SPEAKER_04]: But there we go.

[00:53:53] [SPEAKER_04]: Absolutely.

[00:53:54] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:53:55] [SPEAKER_04]: Wow.

[00:53:56] [SPEAKER_04]: Is there anything else you want to add to that?

[00:53:58] [SPEAKER_04]: No.

[00:53:58] [SPEAKER_01]: You want to go to Norway for a bit?

[00:54:02] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[00:54:02] [SPEAKER_04]: Let's go to some chillier area here.

[00:54:05] [SPEAKER_04]: So, there's a really interesting article from the New Yorker about Russian espionage in the Arctic and in Norway, in particular, in a town called Sherkines, which is on the Russian border.

[00:54:15] [SPEAKER_04]: And it's seen a notable increase in sort of Russian fishing vessels.

[00:54:20] [SPEAKER_04]: And I say fishing vessels.

[00:54:21] [SPEAKER_04]: Particularly the ARCA-33, which is raising suspicions of military activity linked to the Russian security services.

[00:54:31] [SPEAKER_04]: And, yeah, Norway has been experiencing an ongoing kind of low-grade hybrid warfare from Russia, including cyber attacks, espionage.

[00:54:39] [SPEAKER_04]: And Russian commercial vessels are believed to be a part of a strategy for intelligence gathering and preparing for a potential larger-scale conflict.

[00:54:50] [SPEAKER_04]: And Sherkines and the Barents Sea are kind of crucial for Russia's strategic defense, especially regarding its northern fleet and its nuclear capabilities.

[00:55:00] [SPEAKER_04]: The area is a focal point of tension between NATO and Russia as the Kremlin seeks control over the territory and public sentiment in that area as well.

[00:55:10] [SPEAKER_04]: Because Sherkines actually shared a border with Russia for many years until somewhere in the mid-1800s, where it suddenly became officially part of Norway.

[00:55:19] [SPEAKER_04]: So, covert Russian activities include attempts to obtain Norwegian military IDs and also cyber attacks during military exercises.

[00:55:31] [SPEAKER_04]: And it indicates an ongoing kind of espionage efforts on behalf of the Russians.

[00:55:36] [SPEAKER_04]: And additionally, individuals have unknowingly become involved in espionage due to evolving relationships between Norway and Russia.

[00:55:43] [SPEAKER_04]: So, some Norwegians have been sort of used by the Russians to help them sort of make their point in some way or another.

[00:55:51] [SPEAKER_04]: And so, obviously, there's rising tensions now between Norway and Russia, particularly regarding historical narratives from World War II.

[00:55:58] [SPEAKER_04]: And Norwegian officials have increasingly resisted Russian influence in that area.

[00:56:02] [SPEAKER_04]: And it's culminated in sort of protests against memorial displays and claims over Norwegian land.

[00:56:08] [SPEAKER_04]: Since Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, its military and intelligence services have been experimenting with hybrid warfare and influence operations in Sherkines, treating the area as a sort of laboratory.

[00:56:22] [SPEAKER_04]: And Russian hybrid operations that have been tested in Sherkines have now been replicated at scale all over Europe.

[00:56:28] [SPEAKER_04]: The FSB apparently rounded up migrants from Africa and the Middle East and pushed them across the border into northern Finland, into sub-zero temperatures.

[00:56:37] [SPEAKER_04]: Then Russian electronic warfare units have started jamming GPS signals in the Baltic Sea.

[00:56:44] [SPEAKER_04]: And tens of thousands of civilian flights have been affected by this GPS jamming with alarms blaring in the cockpit and passengers blissfully unaware of what's going on.

[00:56:53] [SPEAKER_04]: And we've talked a little bit about that GPS jamming on past episodes.

[00:56:57] [SPEAKER_04]: So, it does seem to be heating up in chilly Norway at the moment.

[00:57:01] [SPEAKER_04]: So, Matt, I don't know if you have any kind of thoughts on all of that.

[00:57:04] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, this is a really fascinating and just a great article to read.

[00:57:08] [SPEAKER_01]: I would definitely encourage listeners to go check it out.

[00:57:10] [SPEAKER_01]: It's a longer read, but it's totally worth it.

[00:57:14] [SPEAKER_01]: Really cool place.

[00:57:17] [SPEAKER_01]: It paints a really interesting picture about this, you know, cross-border community with these, you know, Norwegians and Russians who up until Crimea were seized.

[00:57:27] [SPEAKER_01]: Or I should say after the Cold War and then up until Crimea was seized were sort of very much just like back and forth and in each other's lives and really didn't see the border as much of like a hard line in the ground.

[00:57:41] [SPEAKER_01]: And how, you know, recently that's all just been changed.

[00:57:45] [SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, the how the article describes how you mentioned this.

[00:57:52] [SPEAKER_01]: It's being used by the FSB and presumably the GRU and the Russian Northern Fleet is sort of like a laboratory to test bits of, you know, hybrid warfare that they like to do.

[00:58:05] [SPEAKER_01]: And almost like micro targeting this specific town, like this community and like throwing this stuff at them or their cyber attacks or all kinds of weird low grade kind of, I don't know, harassment.

[00:58:21] [SPEAKER_01]: It really reminds me of what they faced in the Baltics for years in Estonia, especially.

[00:58:32] [SPEAKER_01]: Very much the same playbook.

[00:58:34] [SPEAKER_01]: So I found that interesting to see now in Norway.

[00:58:37] [SPEAKER_01]: The other thing that really stood out to me was the descriptions of how the Kremlin has really co-opted the Russian Orthodox Church.

[00:58:49] [SPEAKER_01]: As kind of like intellectual and spiritual Zambonis to like, you know, gentrify their, their sort of like nationalistic propaganda.

[00:59:00] [SPEAKER_01]: Their sort of, their sort of weird revanchist way of, of, of seeing the world and how they, I couldn't even remember all little details off the top of my head to go through and sort of pick apart what they were arguing.

[00:59:15] [SPEAKER_01]: But how, um, uh, the way they sort of use the Orthodox Church to, in, in their argument, sort of, um, uh, uh, negate the border itself.

[00:59:29] [SPEAKER_01]: To sort of argue that this Norwegian town, this, this side of, of Norwegian territory is actually Russian.

[00:59:38] [SPEAKER_01]: Historically should be Russian.

[00:59:39] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, it's the same, it's the same kind of bullshit, um, that you see, I don't know, anywhere on a map that they look at, you know, that's sort of adjacent to where, where a Russian border is already.

[00:59:53] [SPEAKER_01]: Like, I guess there's no part, like 30 miles in beyond that border.

[00:59:58] [SPEAKER_01]: They're not like, oh, that's actually ours too.

[00:59:59] [SPEAKER_01]: And they just drew the border wrong a couple hundred years ago and we should fix that now.

[01:00:03] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, it's the same thing throughout the article.

[01:00:07] [SPEAKER_01]: They all, uh, it, it's brought up repeatedly of how, you know, it, it feels like the cold war again.

[01:00:13] [SPEAKER_01]: Um, they, uh, the, the author goes up, um, in a, in a P8, uh, U S reconnaissance plane on a, on a mission up in, in the Barents Sea in the, in the Kola Peninsula area.

[01:00:28] [SPEAKER_01]: Um, yeah.

[01:00:29] [SPEAKER_01]: And just, just everyone says how much this sort of reminds them of what the cold war was like.

[01:00:35] [SPEAKER_01]: And that's sort of how, how we're in.

[01:00:37] [SPEAKER_01]: There's a one quote in here that says, uh, we're back in the cold war and I think it's going to be like this for the rest of my life.

[01:00:42] [SPEAKER_01]: I think it's true.

[01:00:44] [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I've said it on here a couple of times in nineties, we're an aberration, um, not a new norm.

[01:00:50] [SPEAKER_01]: The thing is though, we survived the last cold war and I think we can definitely survive the next.

[01:00:55] [SPEAKER_01]: Um, Putin's Russia pales in strength to the Soviet military of the seventies and eighties.

[01:01:02] [SPEAKER_01]: Um, we just have to play the game again.

[01:01:03] [SPEAKER_01]: I think they win when we, when we infantilize them, they win when we ignore them because, um, I mean, I think it's, it's probably like having a really, uh, awful neighbor.

[01:01:20] [SPEAKER_01]: And you just rather just go in your house when you get off work and not have to, you know, they're trying to pick a fight with you and you'd rather just go in and just ignore them and just go about your life.

[01:01:30] [SPEAKER_01]: Um, I think that's, that's probably definitely how it, how it feels for a lot of those, um, countries on Russia's periphery there on NATO's Eastern flank.

[01:01:40] [SPEAKER_01]: Um, but yeah, they win when we ignore them.

[01:01:43] [SPEAKER_01]: Um, and like we did in the cold war, we just can't, we just can't do that anymore.

[01:01:47] [SPEAKER_01]: Um, the, the, the situation has changed.

[01:01:50] [SPEAKER_01]: The game has changed and we have to play it.

[01:01:51] [SPEAKER_01]: We can't choose not to play it anymore.

[01:01:54] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, no, definitely.

[01:01:55] [SPEAKER_04]: Definitely.

[01:01:55] [SPEAKER_04]: Well, thank you for that.

[01:01:56] [SPEAKER_04]: Um, I was just going to add that we've never really looked at the Norwegian intelligence services.

[01:02:00] [SPEAKER_04]: So I just took this as an opportunity to quickly, um, find out who does what.

[01:02:04] [SPEAKER_04]: And so they've got two main agencies.

[01:02:06] [SPEAKER_04]: You've got the NIS, which is Norway, uh, Norway's foreign intelligence service.

[01:02:12] [SPEAKER_04]: And that reports to the chief of defense of Norway and it covers both civilian and military matters.

[01:02:17] [SPEAKER_04]: And its main job is to warn of external threats to Norway.

[01:02:21] [SPEAKER_04]: Then you've got the PST, which is Norway's domestic intelligence service.

[01:02:25] [SPEAKER_04]: And it's a subordinate to the ministry of justice and public security.

[01:02:29] [SPEAKER_04]: And its job is to prevent and investigate serious criminality directed against national security.

[01:02:34] [SPEAKER_04]: And so in that, in that town of Sherkines, it's the PST who mainly are responsible for monitoring what the Russians are up to.

[01:02:41] [SPEAKER_04]: And there's an interview in that article.

[01:02:44] [SPEAKER_04]: There's some great comments from the PST officer who, I don't know really how you pronounce his name, but I'm going to go for Roald Senes.

[01:02:51] [SPEAKER_04]: Yes. Um, and he considered, he was sort of, uh, the head of sort of counterintelligence there.

[01:02:56] [SPEAKER_04]: And he, um, and he was weighing up whether the Russians were planning for an attack or something else.

[01:03:02] [SPEAKER_04]: And he said after a decade in the PSD, um, he considered it professionally important to never fully make up his mind.

[01:03:10] [SPEAKER_04]: He said counterintelligence is like playing tennis without seeing your opponent or whether it's actually a ball being served at you.

[01:03:18] [SPEAKER_04]: It might behave as a ball, but when you get close, it could be an orange.

[01:03:23] [SPEAKER_04]: So that was, that was a very interesting little kind of quote and gives you some idea of the, uh, the mindset of some of these PST counterintelligence officers who are up against this.

[01:03:34] [SPEAKER_04]: Um, and the other interesting note as well, Sherkines is only three hours drive from Mamanst, which is where, which is the naval headquarters for Russians, Russia's Northern fleet.

[01:03:43] [SPEAKER_04]: So I can understand, um, not that I can condone this, but I can understand why the Russians strategically wouldn't mind having Sherkines as their territory.

[01:03:52] [SPEAKER_04]: Sure.

[01:03:52] [SPEAKER_04]: Because it's one less place for NATO to be able to kind of monitor their movements of their ships, et cetera.

[01:03:58] [SPEAKER_04]: Um, and, um, yeah, so it's, it's, it's interesting how this sort of little town is sort of becoming this sort of, as somebody put it earlier, laboratory, um, for kind of, uh, hybrid warfare.

[01:04:10] [SPEAKER_04]: And now how then what they're doing is kind of being played out on the streets of Europe at large now.

[01:04:16] [SPEAKER_04]: So it's definitely, definitely something to keep an eye on.

[01:04:19] [SPEAKER_04]: And I'd love to, I would love to actually go to this town one day, but maybe when our Patreon numbers are up, we can probably afford to do a secrets of spies excursion to Sherkines and hang out in Norway.

[01:04:31] [SPEAKER_01]: They're eating lots of reindeer in this article.

[01:04:34] [SPEAKER_04]: Ah.

[01:04:35] [SPEAKER_04]: Repeatedly.

[01:04:35] [SPEAKER_01]: They repeatedly mentioned they were eating reindeer at such and such a thing.

[01:04:40] [SPEAKER_04]: Oh, wow.

[01:04:41] [SPEAKER_04]: I've not tried reindeer yet.

[01:04:42] [SPEAKER_04]: So it's, yeah.

[01:04:43] [SPEAKER_04]: I haven't either.

[01:04:44] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[01:04:44] [SPEAKER_04]: But I wouldn't, no, it'd be interesting.

[01:04:45] [SPEAKER_04]: Maybe it's good with chestnuts.

[01:04:47] [SPEAKER_04]: I don't know.

[01:04:48] [SPEAKER_04]: Maybe.

[01:04:48] [SPEAKER_04]: It's like a good sauce, but.

[01:04:52] [SPEAKER_04]: Maybe.

[01:04:52] [SPEAKER_04]: But there we go.

[01:04:53] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[01:04:53] [SPEAKER_04]: I think you drink, do you drink red wine with reindeer?

[01:04:55] [SPEAKER_04]: I think you probably would, but yeah, it could be good.

[01:04:58] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[01:04:59] [SPEAKER_01]: I could see that.

[01:05:00] [SPEAKER_01]: I could see that.

[01:05:00] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[01:05:01] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[01:05:01] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, speaking of Russian submarines, um, coming from the Russian Northern Fleet and up on the Kola Peninsula and everything, uh, the last article I very self-indulgently picked, um, because I wanted to.

[01:05:13] [SPEAKER_01]: Um.

[01:05:13] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[01:05:13] [SPEAKER_01]: So there's this, uh, really interesting article, um, in the, in, in the Washington Post out looking at Tom Clancy's legacy, uh, 40 years, the author of Tom Clancy for anyone who, I don't know why you're listening to this.

[01:05:26] [SPEAKER_01]: If you at least haven't heard of him, um, his legacy 40 years after, um, the hunt for red October was published.

[01:05:33] [SPEAKER_01]: And I'm sort of angrily just realizing that my copy, my signed first edition copy is over on the other side of the room.

[01:05:43] [SPEAKER_01]: Um, and I'm not, I don't, I don't feel like getting up right now to go all the way over here to get it, but I wanted to sort of have it here to hold up.

[01:05:48] [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, well.

[01:05:49] [SPEAKER_01]: Um, um, so this, uh, article, yeah, it talks about how, um, Clancy's the hunt for red October.

[01:05:55] [SPEAKER_01]: His, his debut novel, um, was published 40 years ago this month.

[01:05:58] [SPEAKER_01]: And it looks back at, at his legacy, um, the 11th anniversary of his death.

[01:06:02] [SPEAKER_01]: So in 1984, uh, Clancy, then a 37 year old Maryland insurance salesman with no formal writing experience became a stellar success with his debut novel, a gripping tale about a defecting Soviet submarine captain.

[01:06:16] [SPEAKER_01]: The book marked the beginning of Clancy's prolific career as a master of military fiction.

[01:06:21] [SPEAKER_01]: The story was inspired by the 1976 Washington Post article about a mutiny on a Soviet frigate.

[01:06:27] [SPEAKER_01]: Clancy expanded on the true events and sought advice from U S Navy officers to add authenticity to the novel.

[01:06:34] [SPEAKER_01]: A glowing Washington Post review called the book breathlessly exciting, helping put Clancy on the map.

[01:06:39] [SPEAKER_01]: His status with, his status was further amplified when president Reagan praised it as a perfect yarn, launching Clancy to national fame.

[01:06:47] [SPEAKER_01]: Clancy helped pioneer the techno thriller, blending detailed military technology with intense narratives.

[01:06:53] [SPEAKER_01]: His books like red storm rising dominated bestseller lists in the 1980s, capturing the patriotic zeitgeist of the cold war and feeding the public's appetite for military themed entertainment.

[01:07:04] [SPEAKER_01]: His novels quickly caught Hollywood's attention with the hunt for red October's film adaptation, topping the box office for three weeks in 1990.

[01:07:13] [SPEAKER_01]: However, Clancy often clashed with filmmakers over accuracy and famously criticized casting Harrison Ford as Jack Ryan.

[01:07:21] [SPEAKER_01]: He said that, that he was, that Harrison Ford was a little too old to play Jack Ryan.

[01:07:25] [SPEAKER_01]: I see that, but I feel like he did it.

[01:07:27] [SPEAKER_01]: He did a good job anyway.

[01:07:29] [SPEAKER_04]: I thought he was, I think he and Alec Baldwin are my favorites.

[01:07:32] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[01:07:32] [SPEAKER_04]: Um, and I actually think Alec Baldwin was brilliant.

[01:07:35] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[01:07:36] [SPEAKER_04]: Um, Hunter October is such a, it's one of my favorite sort of spy films.

[01:07:39] [SPEAKER_04]: And I think he's so good in it.

[01:07:40] [SPEAKER_01]: Alec Baldwin is, I think the truest to his character.

[01:07:45] [SPEAKER_01]: Um, but Harrison did, Harrison did, did, did, did, did good in the part.

[01:07:49] [SPEAKER_01]: He was fine.

[01:07:50] [SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, I think Alec Baldwin is definitely truest.

[01:07:53] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[01:07:53] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[01:07:54] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[01:07:54] [SPEAKER_04]: Because Harrison Ford was just a very solid act.

[01:07:56] [SPEAKER_04]: You kind of know what you get.

[01:07:57] [SPEAKER_04]: He kind of, it was just doing, um, you know, in many ways he felt very similar to quite

[01:08:02] [SPEAKER_04]: a few characters.

[01:08:03] [SPEAKER_04]: He played it over the years from frantic to the fugitive, you know?

[01:08:06] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[01:08:07] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[01:08:07] [SPEAKER_01]: And that same kind of time period for sure.

[01:08:10] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[01:08:10] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[01:08:11] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[01:08:12] [SPEAKER_01]: Not to say that.

[01:08:12] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[01:08:13] [SPEAKER_01]: I know what you mean.

[01:08:14] [SPEAKER_01]: So Clancy's books brought him immense wealth commanding a $25 million advance from

[01:08:19] [SPEAKER_01]: his publisher in the late nineties for a new book.

[01:08:22] [SPEAKER_01]: That was, I didn't know that.

[01:08:23] [SPEAKER_01]: That was like my jaw dropped yet.

[01:08:27] [SPEAKER_01]: His personal life contradicted his conservative public persona with a high profile divorce leading

[01:08:32] [SPEAKER_01]: to legal battles over the rights to his characters and his fortune.

[01:08:35] [SPEAKER_01]: I think if there's one thing I would have added to this article, I think it, it, a bit too

[01:08:41] [SPEAKER_01]: willingly paints him as a conservative in that, in this sort of 2024 sense.

[01:08:46] [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, he went on PBS on TV right after nine 11 and defended Islam, um, which is not a thing

[01:08:54] [SPEAKER_01]: that, that you would think of just describing someone that way doing now.

[01:08:59] [SPEAKER_01]: Um, anyway, uh, Clancy's brand, um, endured through movies, video games, and new books published

[01:09:07] [SPEAKER_01]: under his name.

[01:09:08] [SPEAKER_01]: Even after his death, Jack Ryan remains a pop culture icon.

[01:09:11] [SPEAKER_01]: He's been president for about 30 years in the, in the, in the novels.

[01:09:15] [SPEAKER_01]: Um, and his universe continues to captivate fans worldwide.

[01:09:19] [SPEAKER_01]: The Hunt for Red October alone has sold over 500,000 hardcover copies, proving the enduring

[01:09:24] [SPEAKER_01]: appeal of Clancy's detailed action-packed storytelling.

[01:09:28] [SPEAKER_01]: Chris, what do you, what do you think?

[01:09:29] [SPEAKER_04]: Well, the first thing was when I heard the books 40 years old, that made me feel ancient.

[01:09:34] [SPEAKER_04]: It's like, oh my goodness.

[01:09:35] [SPEAKER_04]: It's like time is flying.

[01:09:36] [SPEAKER_04]: So I, I remember the movie of The Hunt for October.

[01:09:38] [SPEAKER_04]: I have a, I think I have a close relationship with the movie The Hunt for October than I

[01:09:41] [SPEAKER_04]: do the book.

[01:09:42] [SPEAKER_04]: I've only ever read the book once and I was quite young, so I need to revisit it at some

[01:09:45] [SPEAKER_04]: point.

[01:09:46] [SPEAKER_04]: Um, but no, Tom Clancy, amazing.

[01:09:49] [SPEAKER_04]: And, and The Hunt for October is one of my favorite spy films.

[01:09:52] [SPEAKER_04]: And I was actually just watching it on Friday last week.

[01:09:55] [SPEAKER_04]: Um, my wife has dubbed the film Joyless and is like, what?

[01:10:01] [SPEAKER_04]: This is brilliant.

[01:10:02] [SPEAKER_04]: This film is so good.

[01:10:03] [SPEAKER_04]: I don't know why she thinks it's Joyless.

[01:10:05] [SPEAKER_01]: Doing his Sean Connery thing in a Soviet captain's uniform doesn't spark joy.

[01:10:10] [SPEAKER_01]: Apparently not.

[01:10:11] [SPEAKER_01]: No.

[01:10:12] [SPEAKER_04]: So, so, uh, yeah, no, no ping for her from facility, but.

[01:10:16] [SPEAKER_01]: Damn.

[01:10:18] [SPEAKER_04]: But no, I think it's brilliant.

[01:10:20] [SPEAKER_04]: And, and the thing I've always appreciated about Clancy was his attention to detail and

[01:10:26] [SPEAKER_04]: the early movies I thought caught that pretty well.

[01:10:29] [SPEAKER_04]: I'm sure there are things still within those movies that are not quite right, but I feel

[01:10:33] [SPEAKER_04]: like the filmmakers to a reasonable extent respected his, um, commitment to detail whilst

[01:10:40] [SPEAKER_04]: I feel the modern TV show and the John Clark movie did not, uh, they didn't seem to care.

[01:10:47] [SPEAKER_04]: And in fact, in the article, they even mentioned that Jack Ryan's, um, commute to work would

[01:10:52] [SPEAKER_04]: really annoy, uh, Tom Clancy because he, he geographically was doing things that weren't

[01:10:57] [SPEAKER_04]: possible. Um, and it's such a shame because I think that there was a lot of really great

[01:11:02] [SPEAKER_04]: material, um, that kind of, I always like spy fiction. It kind of gives you the sense of

[01:11:08] [SPEAKER_04]: you're peeking behind the curtain. I think Clancy did that really well. And I always feel a lot of

[01:11:13] [SPEAKER_04]: modern spy fiction is just a bit lazy these days because it's sort of just trading off kind of

[01:11:18] [SPEAKER_04]: film cliches and, and very, um, kind of hammy drama over something that if you, you know,

[01:11:25] [SPEAKER_04]: try and portray it more accurately can lead to some different territory. Um, so that's always been my

[01:11:31] [SPEAKER_04]: bugbear with the more recent adaptations of his stuff. Um, and I've been very lucky in my, um,

[01:11:37] [SPEAKER_04]: time to meet a colleague of, of Tom Clancy. So I met, uh, uh, Royal Navy captain called Doug

[01:11:44] [SPEAKER_04]: Littlejohns, who was a captain of, um, HMS, uh, Scepter, uh, a Cold War submarine. And, um,

[01:11:52] [SPEAKER_04]: and I, I spent the night at his house one day, I was working on a project with, um, Ian Ballantyne

[01:11:58] [SPEAKER_04]: for Warships magazine. And I, I signed this guest book and in the same guest book is Tom Clancy's

[01:12:04] [SPEAKER_04]: signature. And I was like, wow, this is so cool to somehow be in the same book as Tom Clancy.

[01:12:10] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah. Um, so that was a huge honor. Uh, so yeah, no, no, Tom Clancy, you know, uh, it's been 11

[01:12:16] [SPEAKER_04]: years since he died as well. So it's quite amazing.

[01:12:19] [SPEAKER_01]: Also surprised me here. Yeah. Yeah. I remember that day vividly. Yeah. Yeah. And did you, have

[01:12:25] [SPEAKER_04]: you, did you, so you've got a signed first edition, have you ever, did you meet Tom Clancy or did you

[01:12:30] [SPEAKER_04]: buy that or?

[01:12:32] [SPEAKER_01]: No, my, my, um, my friend bought that for me as a gift years ago.

[01:12:36] [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, wow.

[01:12:37] [SPEAKER_01]: It's, it's sort of like it sits on the shelf and we look, we don't touch, you know, I have a, if I,

[01:12:42] [SPEAKER_01]: I have another copy that I would read, I would open that one up and read it. Um, yeah. Uh, yeah.

[01:12:48] [SPEAKER_01]: Signed first edition, um, printed from the, um, Naval Institute, um, to his best wishes, Tom Clancy.

[01:12:55] [SPEAKER_01]: Um, I did, I don't know, have I, I don't know if I told you this story offline. I don't think I told

[01:13:01] [SPEAKER_01]: it on the podcast before how I, I have spoken with him.

[01:13:06] [SPEAKER_04]: I don't recall this.

[01:13:07] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[01:13:08] [SPEAKER_04]: Tell me.

[01:13:08] [SPEAKER_01]: So, um, so our ages didn't really overlap that well in a way that would, you know, like I would talk to him

[01:13:16] [SPEAKER_01]: like I would now. Um, but so I, um, I got really into the whole genre and like espionage and foreign

[01:13:24] [SPEAKER_01]: affairs and stuff in general. It was the, um, it was the Ben Affleck, uh, some of all fears movie.

[01:13:31] [SPEAKER_01]: Um, I was, you know, what, like I was like 12 when that came out and it was just sort of, it was,

[01:13:37] [SPEAKER_01]: it was very cool. Like I really liked it and I just got sort of interested in the whole thing.

[01:13:41] [SPEAKER_01]: And then I picked up, um, books and all that. And you know, the rest is history, as they say.

[01:13:45] [SPEAKER_01]: Um, and I remember, yeah, I must've still been 12 and I found his email on a message board,

[01:13:55] [SPEAKER_01]: like an old, yeah, circa like 2002 and old message board. And he was talking, he was on there

[01:14:01] [SPEAKER_01]: talking about, I don't think this site's even online anymore. He probably took it down afterwards.

[01:14:05] [SPEAKER_01]: Maybe once. Yeah. Once he saw, I got ahold of it. Um, yeah, no 12 year old me saw on this message

[01:14:12] [SPEAKER_01]: board, it was an email from him on, on there talking about, um, uh, his, something that came up in his

[01:14:21] [SPEAKER_01]: research for Cardinal of the Kremlin. Um, so he not to spoil the plot, but there's a lot of it sort

[01:14:28] [SPEAKER_01]: of hinges around this, um, Soviet like star Wars, uh, uh, missile defense, like laser project called

[01:14:38] [SPEAKER_01]: bright star. And it's this, um, like secret facility that the Soviets are building up in the mountains

[01:14:43] [SPEAKER_01]: in Tajikistan. I believe it is, um, off, off, off the top of my head based on a real, um,

[01:14:49] [SPEAKER_01]: Soviet missile defense radar, uh, that I believe the Russians still, still use today.

[01:14:54] [SPEAKER_01]: Uh, but anyway, back in, you know, late eighties when he was researching, um, Cardinal of the Kremlin,

[01:15:00] [SPEAKER_01]: he got ahold of, he bought, um, satellite imagery of, of the facility that he was thinking of,

[01:15:07] [SPEAKER_01]: of using, you know, for this fictional Soviet program, um, in his book. And he talked about

[01:15:13] [SPEAKER_01]: on the forum, how I think it was the FBI, um, had questions over how he got this satellite imagery

[01:15:21] [SPEAKER_01]: of this very kind of classified Soviet military facility. Um, and they, they came out to his,

[01:15:28] [SPEAKER_01]: to his house out on the Chesapeake Bay and they talked to him. And I mean, it was Tom Clancy,

[01:15:32] [SPEAKER_01]: like you knew what he was doing and he's Tom Clancy talking to the FBI. So like it was fine.

[01:15:37] [SPEAKER_01]: Um, but I saw on there his, his email and it was, I shit you not. It was, it was, um,

[01:15:43] [SPEAKER_01]: it was Tom Clancy at AOL.com like that kind of obvious. Um, now that, I mean, mine is kind of,

[01:15:49] [SPEAKER_01]: of a similar obviousness, but yeah, I was like, oh wow, that's, that's actually his email. I don't

[01:15:54] [SPEAKER_01]: know why I was surprised by that. Yeah. 12, Matt was surprised by that. Um, and I sort of already

[01:15:59] [SPEAKER_01]: knew that like I wanted to write in the genre. Um, I had already sort of like,

[01:16:06] [SPEAKER_01]: very early days of like the proto versions of, um, the characters that became, you know,

[01:16:13] [SPEAKER_01]: the, the protagonists of, of active measures of my series of novels. Um, so to show like how long

[01:16:19] [SPEAKER_01]: they've been with me. Um, and I just emailed them out of the blue. Um, and, uh, we talked for a

[01:16:27] [SPEAKER_01]: little bit. I remember this was in the very early lead up to the Iraq war. Cause I, I recall asking him

[01:16:35] [SPEAKER_01]: about like the UN weapons inspectors. Um, I don't recall exactly what I said, but I know we, we

[01:16:41] [SPEAKER_01]: talked about that a bit. And I mean, something, something that I really liked about this article,

[01:16:45] [SPEAKER_01]: um, in the post, and again, granted I was 12 when this, when this went down. Um, I think this article

[01:16:52] [SPEAKER_01]: really definitely touches on Clancy's contradictions and sort of personal shortcomings. It kind of

[01:16:59] [SPEAKER_01]: humanizes him in that way. Um, I mean, he was, he was a genius. I wouldn't, I wouldn't be sitting

[01:17:04] [SPEAKER_01]: here talking to you without him. Um, but that genius definitely fostered a sharp ego. Uh, I remember

[01:17:13] [SPEAKER_01]: in one of the emails I spelled Wednesday wrong and he replied to it and he said, where'd you go to

[01:17:22] [SPEAKER_01]: school? You know? And it's the reason to this day, whenever I, I write the word Wednesday or something

[01:17:30] [SPEAKER_01]: or spell it out in my head, I'm going Wednesday, Wednesday. That's it's still with me. And, um,

[01:17:38] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know, it just sort of put 12 year old Matt on his heels. Um, and I thought I just didn't,

[01:17:44] [SPEAKER_01]: I didn't, I didn't respond. Um, I don't know.

[01:17:48] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't, I don't, I didn't email him. Yeah. Um, I, I don't know. I, I don't say this story to,

[01:17:57] [SPEAKER_01]: um, you know, like tear him down or scare people off or anything. It's just my,

[01:18:02] [SPEAKER_01]: my interaction with him. And I definitely sort of see now, you know, however, 20 some odd years in

[01:18:08] [SPEAKER_01]: the future, there's like a kind of poetry to that story and that interaction. I think, um, I mean,

[01:18:15] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm indebted mind and soul to Clancy and his work is ghost looms over my shoulder. Uh, every time I sit

[01:18:24] [SPEAKER_01]: down to write, but I'll, um, I'll honestly always remember my emails with him as a time I learned that

[01:18:31] [SPEAKER_01]: lesson, never meet your heroes, to be honest. Um, I think it was good to like, have that image of him

[01:18:40] [SPEAKER_01]: from as this author or the picture on the back of the book or something or on the inside of the dust

[01:18:45] [SPEAKER_01]: jacket and just sort of leave that as my reality. And I, I've definitely kept that lesson the rest of

[01:18:51] [SPEAKER_01]: my life. Sometimes it's good to just sort of have your, your power social idea of someone than to see

[01:18:58] [SPEAKER_01]: them in person. I don't know. Um, that said, I, I, that said, I too would feel compelled to write,

[01:19:04] [SPEAKER_01]: um, a 14 page single space letter to a producer. If they adapted my novel and had characters looking

[01:19:11] [SPEAKER_01]: east at the sunset over the Chesapeake, um, which on this part of the Atlantic one cannot do.

[01:19:17] [SPEAKER_04]: Well, I started to hear that Matt about, uh, Tom Clancy, but I'm, I'm glad you've not let that

[01:19:22] [SPEAKER_04]: ruin your kind of, uh, enjoyment of his work. Uh, cause yeah, there, there is that sort of difficult

[01:19:27] [SPEAKER_04]: debate in there about sort of separating the artist from the art, but, um,

[01:19:32] [SPEAKER_04]: which is complicated, you know? Yeah. So difficult one that one. Yeah.

[01:19:35] [SPEAKER_04]: Well, anyway, well, thank you very much for all that. And thank you for your time on the show today,

[01:19:39] [SPEAKER_04]: Matt. So, uh, we're going to move now over to extra shot, which is our patron only show. Um,

[01:19:45] [SPEAKER_04]: and on that, we're going to be looking at the collapse of a cyber security firm that was headed

[01:19:51] [SPEAKER_04]: by former intelligence officials. You should have known better. Then we've got the growing threats

[01:19:56] [SPEAKER_04]: against Elon Musk. And then a really cool story about secret satellites that have been caught on

[01:20:01] [SPEAKER_04]: camera. So all you need to do is click on the link in your show notes now, and that will take you

[01:20:06] [SPEAKER_04]: through to extra shot on Patreon. Um, and if you're not already a subscriber, you just need to pick the

[01:20:12] [SPEAKER_04]: level that works for you. And, uh, with that, you'll get either a free cup or set of coffee coasters,

[01:20:17] [SPEAKER_04]: depending on which level you pick. So, uh, without further ado, we're going to move over to extra

[01:20:21] [SPEAKER_04]: shots. So those who are not joining us, thank you very much for listening. And for those who are

[01:20:25] [SPEAKER_04]: joining us, we look forward to seeing you on extra shot. Take care. Bye. Bye for now. Thanks for

[01:20:46] [SPEAKER_00]: listening. This is secrets and spies.