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Radio War Nerd EP #80—Spring Cleaning & Toxic Media Spills (Patreon)

Published:
2017-04-16 12:37:44
Imported:
2026-06

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Content

More questions on sarin gas attack . . . the false "proxy" argument . . . Russians/Soviets have not had a great track record "controlling" their alleged "proxies" in the MENA . . . The Nazi history of sarin gas & its blowback into Middle America . . . Shane Bauer & David Simon lose their liberal marbles . . . The Mother Of All Bullshit . . . Thomas Friedman is back! . . .  

Total time: 1:46:12

Direct link  to this episode's mp3 here.

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Comments

Darryl Cooper (edited)

Comment edits

2026-09-07 15:00 You couldn't possibly be more wrong about The Wire. Please watch it.
2017-04-16 17:18

Darryl Cooper (edited)

Comment edits

2026-09-07 15:00 What Spicer said about Hitler and chemical weapons was stupid, but are we really all reduced to pretending not to understand what he meant, or to imagining that he's either never heard of, or is denying the existence of Nazi gas chambers? It's a stupid comparison to make at all, but pretending it's something it's not neutered the criticism.
2017-04-16 17:30

Darryl Cooper (edited)

Comment edits

2026-09-07 15:00 BTW, our 15 MOABs were built in 2003 and have 15 year operational lives. So we've got 14 more to burn through by next year.
2017-04-16 18:13

Michael P

but are we really all reduced to pretending not to understand what he meant, or to imagining that he's either never heard of, or is denying the existence of Nazi gas chambers? It's a stupid comparison to make at all, but pretending it's something it's not neutered the criticism." More than that, it actually reinforces the Assad=Hitler rhetoric on a subconscious level, and instead of asking for proof that the SAA gassed civilians, everyone is now yammering about the Nazis.

Ronald Dahlgren

Regarding white phosphorous: I was a forward observer with the 82nd airborne. Our instruction was that (artillery delivered) WP was not to be used against personnel, but instead should be used for marking or screening as a smoke round. Regular smoke has a different dispersal pattern than WP.

Darryl Cooper (edited)

Comment edits

2026-09-07 15:00 Ronald, can you verify or reject: I've heard the WP we and Israel use for marking and screening is a lower concentration not even designed to take out personnel. True or no?
2017-04-17 00:23

Doug Cartel

Chemie Gruenenthal shemmy-groonen-tall and roll the r hard if you can

Patrick Conner

Thanks for covering that bizarre "Rhania Khalek is a Druze!" incident. Normally these pro-Jhihad intervention guys don't slip up that badly, so pointing it out when they do is always worth it.

S.L.

Via the Wikipedia entry for "2009–11 detention of American hikers by Iran"[1] - in both the main Article and the Talk page - there appears to be a fair amount of information on Shane Bauer's pre-detention time, collected by friends and family working for the release of him and his two traveling companions. Due to link rot, the relevant links need to be accessed at archive.org. The most relevant is for SB himself [2], though the homepage for that site campaigning for the release of the three hikers may have some additional relevant information.[3] I haven't dug any deeper than these sites themselves (e.g., I haven't verified the listed pieces linked in [2] for SB's writings). But this stuff does appear to account for how he spent much of his time in the short interval between his college graduation and his capture. He appears to have been a genuine lefty activist; either that, or his pre-capture list of activities served as one hell of a good cover for whatever else he might have been doing. [1.] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009%E2%80%9311_detention_of_American_hikers_by_Iran" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009%E2%80%9311_detention_of_American_hikers_by_Iran</a> [2.] <a href="https://web-beta.archive.org/web/20110720162116/http://freeourfriends.eu/shane" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://web-beta.archive.org/web/20110720162116/http://freeourfriends.eu/shane</a> [3.] <a href="https://web-beta.archive.org/web/20110720163407/http://freeourfriends.eu/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://web-beta.archive.org/web/20110720163407/http://freeourfriends.eu/</a>

Shawn van Leeuwen

On Shane Baur's bizzare "Druze sectarian" bit, it was so bad his Berkeley ME professor tweeted his utter shock that he'd say such a thing, and asked him to imagine it as "Jew" instead of "Druze".

Benjamin Glover

I forget if you've done an episode on this, but have you considered doing an episode on the Easter Rising?

David O'Kane

Given the charming naivete of Gary's podcast about the conflict in the north of Ireland, I'm not sure whether to laugh or cry at the thought of him doing an Easter week 'cast.

Dan Shechter

Jesus get over yourself with the apologetic groveling to your political allies in picking the side of what you perceive as the truth in the sarin attack. You throw out much more unfounded accusations at the side you clearly don't like without 1% of the carefulness you are dancing around this thing. I've heard now 45 minutes over two episodes of apologizing that you believe that "assad dun it" in fear that one of your twitter friends will wag their finger at you. Can we get on?

Kevin Walsh

Re: humanities as troublemakers, I recall in Geoffrey Parker's Global Crisis that when the age of absolutism started, it was common for monarchs to shut down existing universities, on the basis that the wars and revolutions of the previous several decades had basically been caused by having too many unemployed academics, particularly theologians, around.

Ben Hosen

I don't see anything like truth about the Sarin attack yet. Didn't make sense on the face of it, but I have an open mind. I presume no good faith from any actor in this awful, shitty war. Loved the segment on VICE.

Ronald Dahlgren

Cannot verify unfortunately :-/ I was just trained on when to call for which munitions

Alex Dichead

Love the show, any chance for an episode on Kurdistan in the near future?

realBriannaWu

Hey Alex, not sure if you've already found it, but they talk about Euphrates Shield quite a bit in Episode 78.

michiganpizza

US mainstream media is mostly corrupt fake news, so that's why your audience seeks your perspective. More info about conflicts please.

Brian

That VICE guide really is a piece of work. Great episode.

Cameron Green

Not related, but I was wondering if there might be a backcatalogue of newsletters for late recruits?

S.L.

I also noticed the hosts' angst-ridden reluctance to acknowledge possible use of CW agents by the Syrian government (whether by order of Assad or by a senior official or Army officer with his own agenda). But I assumed the reluctance was an indirect consequence of the hosts' strong opposition to foreign interventions by the U.S., rather than fear of pissing off allies; that is, by acknowledging - even tenuously - that the target of a U.S. intervention may have done a bad thing, you are somehow providing aid and comfort to your pro-intervention opponents. Civilian victims are always inconvenient in this way to those taking one side or another in an armed conflict, at least for those conflicts that are not one-sided slaughters. Rania Khalek runs into this when she reminds people that there are innocent civilians under the rule of a monster who serves to protect them from other monsters. I saw the same thing on twitter with people volunteering at refugee camps in Turkey for Syrians escaping Assad: they were called CIA agents and stooges, the mirror image of Khalek being called an Assadist. [And by the way, one of the Syrian refugee advocates who came in for particularly strong dragging was a woman, mirror-imaging what Khalek has been put through. This extra intense dragging of women seems like more than coincidence to me...] Of course, the civilians just want to be left the hell alone, or at the very least not killed, raped, tortured, starved, or shaken down for their very last coin. It should be no surprise that they'll go in with whomever gets them the best deal on that score. And I'll tell you who could address the possible culpability of the Syrian government with the utmost dispassion and detachment: Gary Brecher. Listen to the brief aside in the episode on Sinn Fein (#75) that starts at about 24m30s for more on that.

Sham Bob

That vice article is from 2012

Ghu Ribun

I thought too it was very recent... Still very bothering.

Ghu Ribun

Still, David Simon is a douche. Sadly.

tong

You gotta be kidding me! 😂😂😂

radiowarnerd

I got nothing against The Wire. We don't have a TV.

radiowarnerd

Yeah, ol' Shane needs to shut up about Syria.

radiowarnerd

We need a guest. If you have any nominees, tell me. Or ask them to write to radiowarnerd@gmail.com

radiowarnerd

Hi Cameron --just send your email to radiowarnerd@gmail.com and we can send you some back issues.

radiowarnerd

You're right. Should've caught that. Still pretty gross though.

Cameron Green

Thank you. You already sent them to me a few weeks back.