Kitbag Conversations - Proto Kitbag 12: Book Talk with Meridian News

Episode Date: May 2, 2024

Welcome back everyone, this week I sit down with Meridian News (@meridiannews). Meridian is a project dedicated to sharing and aggregating open source intelligence, stories from individuals experiencing history, and amplifying underreported global news. As an avid reader on both ends, we discuss multiple books that we have read and recommend, as well as several geo-political topics such as:  - China's indirect colonization of Africa and Asia - How armchair news agencies stay relevant in a increasingly censored world  - A peek into the Russo-Ukraine conflict through both Aiden Aslin (Ukrainian Marine, @Cossackgundi) and Anatoly Dryomov (Russian Solider, @Drema_Di)

Hello, everyone. Welcome back to the Cro-A-Tone Report, a podcast dedicated to delivering quality information at the community level. This week, I'm joined by Meridian News, a page that I'm a big fan of, who I talk to quite regularly, and I was very interested in seeing what he had to say on certain topics, as well as honestly just have a conversation for the sake of conversation. So how you doing, man? I am doing fantastic. Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here. I'm an avid listener of the Crotone Report podcast. So it's a dream come true to finally be a guest here. Yeah, episode seven, big numbers here. All right, yeah, so just let's start off with your background.

I mean, you're a news page, but what is your experience? What's your background, I guess, if you just want to like build on that and take it from there? Yeah, for sure. So basically, I started the account. I don't even know now. I guess it would be probably four or five months ago and actually had the account for a while. I made it and didn't do anything with it for three months. Well, I milled around and tried to decide if it was actually something I wanted to try to build more, I guess, about myself and what happened before that. So basically, born and raised, I live on the East coast of the US in Florida specifically and grew up with a family who's super into history specifically

and always kind of in the background. Obviously news was always on seeing stuff around that like that in the house growing up and just kind of wondering specifically why we were in the Middle East and North Africa, we being the US military, what was so prevalent because that we had to be there for such a long time. And it was always kind of something that interested me. I remember when I was about, I guess, around 15 at the time, 2010, when the Arab Spring first started over in Tunisia, kind of watching as different countries

had these, well basically had revolutions all across North Africa, all across the Middle East, and it kind of snowballed from there, is probably the best way to put it. That was really one of the first pieces, I don't know how much you know about the Arab Spring, but- I'm pretty well read up on how that went down and everything about it. And you know that a lot of it was driven by social media essentially, from organization to everything between. And I kind of realized that as a young person

with unfettered access to the internet, I could sort of follow along in real time, which was a bizarre thing being a teenager in Florida, being able to follow along with revolutions in North African and Middle Eastern countries. And from there, basically, life continued for me and sort of kept an eye on the region. And then once everything kind of started in Syria specifically, and I learned more about the YPG and the Free Syrian Army and ISIS and the dynamics there, I was blown away by the I can't hear you. I'm going to be straight up.

Is it working okay? All right, yeah, you're back. All right. I'm back. Sorry about that. I don't know what that was. Not a problem. Yeah. So was basically as everything started happening in Syria in around like 2012 to 2015 with ISIS and Iraq and watching everything, well, the horrible basically crimes against humanity that were being committed, I was bothered by the lack of coverage that everything received and read more up on that. Got more interested in the region as well and just kind of built from there.

Went to college, got an English degree, which I'm very proud of, as well as the fact that I had so many credits in basically history and I took Arabic in school as well, that I earned myself in Middle Eastern or the African studies minor and graduated and basically just kept reading more and more about the region and as well as just everything in general about the world and need an outlet for it. So Meridian News was formed and it's just kind of grown legs at this point and have a really cool community

happy to be doing it. Sorry, I hope they're a little bit rambly, but that's how we got here. That's totally fine, man. Why didn't you settle on the name Meridian? Is there any kind of lore behind that? Yeah, so I said this earlier, but my father is a huge history buff,

specifically when it comes to naval history. And I don't know what you know about cartography or navigation, but meridians are essentially like a bisecting line on a map and on the globe. So I felt it would be a really good name essentially, because it functionally means right down the center, which is my goal to basically be unbiased or when I have opinions on things to just make them known as I share information around. So that's where the name came from and news pretty much. I'll ignore you there. And we'll be honest, I do miss your picture of your original picture of the the slob dog with the tracksuit on. The tracksuit doge. Yeah, it was pretty cool.

I was like, yeah, every time I saw that little pooch pop up, I was like, yeah, I know exactly who's posting. So I've gotten that feedback a lot and I think I might actually have to bring it back. I was working on getting some actual branding stuff built for the page because I'm having a blast with it now and I know a few few graphic designers so I was working with them. I might have to reach out and ask that the uh the uh the track suit doge is built into to everything from there on because I get DMs way more frequently than you would think about how people miss the old profile picture. Like yeah yeah yeah Ukraine's cool where's the dog? Where's the dog in the Adidas tracksuit? That's what I came here for.

That's fun, man. So what's your end state? What's the goal here? Because I know a lot of different pages on Instagram or Twitter have, they do this passively. I don't think it's mostly a part-time or a full-time job for them. But what's your end state? What are you trying to do with this? That is a great question. And something I think about because I don't know, you're probably in the same situation. I'll ask you this question next. I'll turn it on you. For me, it's like I started the page as kind of like I said, just an outlet because my friends were tired of hearing about me being like,

oh my God, did you hear about what's happening in Ukraine or South Africa or in the Congo? So it's kind of where it started. It's definitely a hobby for me. It's part-time. I mean, I love doing it and it's things that I'm coming across anyways, but I'd love to take it as far as it wants to go.

And of course that's somewhat nebulous. But whether it means starting to do more video content, maybe narration, maybe analysis, things like that. But at the end of the day, all I wanna keep doing, and whatever state this comes through is, I'll be very happy with, is I wanna keep sharing what's going on around the world as best as I can.

I should say another, I guess, impetus for starting the page was I was bothered by lack of coverage for a lot of things. And being able to share things to my community and because we have a really great community of other page administrators that share everyone's content, it really helps get the word out there. For example, the flooding in South Africa that's happening right now. I've not seen any single mainstream news source

have any type of airtime for it, I'll say, on television or on those channels. Whereas, been able to basically share that's happening. I think we're at like the death count to like 300 people with an estimated 40,000 displaced last I saw. And obviously that's a huge deal. People's lives are being uprooted. So being able to share information like that,

I think is just a really beneficial thing. As long as I can do that, I'm happy, happy as could be. But how about you? What is your end state? Where are you moving with it? Oh, my end state. Well, like I said, offline, but I started this when I got out of the military,

just because I wanted to keep my analytical writing up. I was an Intel analyst in the Marine Corps and thought like, yeah, I spent all these years getting really dialed in to what's going on in Russia, what's going on in China, what's going on in the Middle East, what's going on in Africa. And then I got out and thought, well, now I have all these skills and nothing to do with it.

So it's almost on one hand, selfish to keep this information close to the chest, where if everyone's going, why is Russia invading Ukraine? I went, well, they've been doing that for eight years and everyone just kind of forgot. But it's stuff like that I thought was really interesting. And I've been following Atlas News since he was the war blog in 2014. Like he had like 10,000 followers and I found him real early on. And then a big fan of Jake Hanrahan for a few years now.

I thought like, I really like what these guys are doing but I think it could be taken a step further. I think it could be not so much news but more like analysis for the average person. Because if there's a war in Ukraine, everyone's going, well, why? Like mainstream media is going to build it in this real big, sexy narrative. So they get likes and subscribes and all that bullshit. But also some people are just very, they want, they call it the bluff.

They're like, they just want the info right up front in one sentence. I'm like, I think I could do that and then put an analytical twist of, okay, well, this is why we're here and this is what's going on. And this is where it's gonna go next. What I think is gonna happen next.

So it's, maybe it's a storefront, maybe it's a YouTube page, maybe it's a media empire. I don't know. I've been doing this since about October. I started the page when the withdraw in Afghan was going on. It was like July last year, but like I said, it was a way to just kind of write and just store my information somewhere. But the withdraw in Afghan happened and I thought, yeah, I know people there.

I know what's going on. I know why it's so disaggregated and uncoordinated. And I thought, yeah, I might as well just write about this because I know the average American or the average Westerner, the average reader anywhere really wants to know what's going on in a real simplified way. So they have both the background, the context, and then the projected future all in one little package.

So it's, I'm not really sure where this is going in the big term, but yeah, it's pretty fun. Well, you're doing a great job with it. And it's, it's interesting that you bring up basically the, the plot of Afghanistan. And I only say this because first off, I think I would bet you money, a large amount of money, and every single person you have on this podcast, maybe make this a running thing if you're into it. I don't know. If you ask them who helped them, inspired them to get their pages started, Jake Hanrahan with Popular Front and Atlas News are probably going to be on everyone's list with

a few other names. Yeah, you're one. Yeah, you're absolutely right. And then you have some of the other pages, like, like, just like, hey, yeah, we're in a group chat. Let's ask these other pages why they started the page or their own little community. And they go, yeah, I was really bothered by the withdrawn Afghan. It's like that seems to be a catalyst for a lot of why people jumped on the bandwagon. Yeah, absolutely. And it's I I would have, it's gonna go back to that. So one of my, I guess, personal here is a journalist named Ben, Ben John Anderson, who, preview, I believe he's still working with vice right now, but he was previously BBC

and filmed a phenomenal documentary in, I'm going to get the date wrong probably, but I'll just say it's called This is What Winning Looks Like, and it's about Afghanistan and what it was like working with partner forces and basically navigating that. He wrote a phenomenal book as well called No Worse Enemy. And on the, it was published in, if I remember correctly, on that one, published in 2011. He ends the book by saying that it seems pretty clear that the Afghan army won't be able to last a few weeks, let alone a few days against the Taliban, which published in 2011. And I just think that that is something worth calling out about that as we watch the pullout happen at the end of what was it? Twenty twenty one here. So, uh, that's real interesting.

You mentioned that because there's a book that was written by a Afghan advisor to the US military in 2000, like in the late nineties, but he worked with the CIA back in the eighties when they were fighting the Soviets. And he was talking about how to understand the Afghan, how to win a war in Afghanistan. He's like, you don't, you just leave them alone and they'll figure it out. And this book, it kind of goes in different directions, but it talks about how to win a populism. They're like, well, there's the Indian method where you can go peaceful after, you know, independence and you can sit down and go, yeah, we got to get, we have to have a central cause and then we have to get the people behind the cause and then we can take that into a new

direction for future of government. And then there's the Chinese method where after the communists took over, they did the same thing but opposite. And he's like, their central figure was Chairman Mao and took that and they were like, we just got to retake Taiwan. That's our issue. But they were like, you can't apply any type of government oversight to Afghanistan. It just won't work. And this book could have been written in 1962, in 1992, in 2002, in 2012, or 2022. And everything I've seen is this book is the most dialed in focus of how the war should have gone. And it was published in like 2001 or 2002. And it came out right before the US started going into Afghanistan. He's like, don't do it. It's not going to work. And then he was like, of course he worked with the US. He's like, I know how you work. You guys really want to be this little peaceful policeman,

but it's not going to work. And then, but yes, it's funny you mentioned that because it's one of the best books I've ever read. And it's just so in your face and direct. It's like, this is how Afghanistan is. Yeah and it's one of the most interesting things as well is as you sort of work through getting an understanding of all these different regions that have been unstable for so long or under authoritarian political regimes or basically far-left political regimes, there's all sorts of different dynamics, but you can still draw parallels between all of them, so, and how everything works. Last book I'll call out, I'm a huge reader for all the listeners,

so I apologize that I just keep referencing books and saying that you should go dump 12 hours into reading. Actually, I'm not sorry, you should read more. But- I'm on the page all the time. Did you read today? I did read today. I mentioned reading a book about the Taliban right now. But the last one I'll call out is called

The Accidental Gorilla by David Kilcullen, who is one of the most decorated basically gorilla warfare experts in the world. He's Australian, worked for the US government for a long time and has worked for different militaries around the world. Phenomenal book on basically theory for how large states create guerrilla warriors and guerrilla militias just by their presence in different regions and how essentially how every action you take is going to have two, three, four, five implications down the road. And I'm sure that's something you dealt with all the time in your position in the Marine Corps. But incredible read, highly recommend it. We can move on from books now, though I'm sure I'll find a way to to worm them in as we go. I don't mind sifting over books for the next 40 minutes. I obviously. We can continue with it. I can draw parallels everywhere with them. We can start. You want to jump into Ukraine and kind of what's going on there?

Yeah. I talked about this with Daphne Wesdorf. She's a Dutch journalist on episode three of the podcast. And then again, on episode five with Carla, or she runs those in peril, the Instagram page. And we talked about how the war's been going on for almost for over 50 days now. And it seems like media attention is really sort of looking somewhere else. They're like, Oh, the war in Ukraine is not sexy anymore. We don't really want to talk about that. Let's talk about something else. And so it's, I can see it just based on the analytics of the page itself where war porn essentially is not really like nobody cares.

And so I thought it's, it's some kind of like cultural zeitgeist where it's almost like a timeline of the viewerships attention span to certain conflicts. They're like, wow, oh yeah, there's a war in Ukraine. Anyways, yeah, that's been going on for how long? Yeah, we know this already. So it's on on one hand, really annoying, because it's the largest war in Europe since World War Two. And honestly, if you want to pull some strings, it's the largest war

in Europe since the 90s, because the Yugoslav war was a mess. But it's everyone completely overlooks that. But honestly, since we mentioned the Yugoslav war, I think the fact that NATO and the UN have drugged their feet so much on addressing the situation in Russia, in Ukraine, is because they fumbled it so bad in the 90s that they indirectly supported and promoted ethnic cleansing between various groups, and they armed the wrong parties on several occasions. And they were like, yeah, well, we'll just figure it out. So what do you think?

Let's see what you got to say. So I want to jump back to the first part, which is how it seems like things are kind of dropping off with coverage on Ukraine, which is I think you're definitely right. First off with coverage on Ukraine, which is, I think you're definitely right. First off, I'll start by saying that, but it's, it's interesting because it seems like it's kind of coming in phases, phases of interest when there are large, I guess I'll call them developments. So when the initial troop buildup was, was

starting on the borders for the, this is a podcast, so quote, military exercises in Belarus and Russia, end quote. I think there was something that initially everyone thought was extremely interesting, both online and then when it comes to the more mainstream media. But as that built up continued over weeks and weeks, all that kept happening is that the number of troops on the border was, it would get announced that it was increased by 10,000, 20,000, whatever at the time. And people basically got tired of seeing videos of APCs moving around Russia and trains carrying vehicles and kind of moved on from it. As soon as the

invasion started, everything snapped back and was looking at Ukraine. And I think we've had moments throughout the conflict. I should call it a war, throughout the war in Ukraine. Yeah, it is a world, so I should call it what it is. Where that basically happens, where public attention, you and I live in this world, so we're watching everything. And I would imagine a lot of people listening to this are similar, where they're watching everything and searching through everything at a magnified level. But the biggest pieces that capture the attention basically of the, of the Moskva has any effect on that. That could be another major moment where it kind of snaps things

back to Ukraine. But I would hate for, I shouldn't say I would hate, I would hate it, but I would also be really disappointed if it just becomes another war where people essentially lose interest in what's happening over there, especially after the massive support that we've seen for it. Though I don't think it's like the war in Afghanistan. I'm pretty sure that a majority of Americans specifically thought the war was over and they went, oh, we're still there. Oh, there's a withdraw. It's been how long? It's been 20 years. It's like I said earlier, there's probably like a timeline and how much focus people have for certain areas. And on one hand, they

probably just don't want to see it anymore, where it's gore in the streets of Ukraine. Nobody wants to see that, but it's real, but nobody wants to see it. So they're just going to turn a blind eye and go, Yeah, we'll get back to that. Or on the other hand, they're really focused, they really want to talk about it, but they're probably going to get told to shut up. So that's really interesting. Yeah. It's like, I get it. People only have so much time in their day. You only have so much bandwidth to take information, especially if you've got a life, you've got kids, you've got a job, you've got friends, you've got to cook dinner, take care

of yourself, everything in between. It's hard to got friends, you've got to cook dinner, take care of yourself, everything between it's hard to tune in and pay close attention to that. But I will say I think that's actually where our community does really, really well. Because you don't have to listen to a talking head, you don't have to listen to Don Lemon talking about the war in Ukraine, knowing that you have to sort of through what he's saying, it's probably not true or probably a half truth might be a better way to phrase it.

You can go online and scroll Instagram and alongside pictures of your friends and family and other things you're interested in, you can get flash news updates, which I think is a really, really valuable thing. And something that, like I said, makes me really proud to do what we do. And I think we do a good job at it.

So. I really appreciate our community. It's definitely, like we said earlier, like Jake Hanrahan and Atlas News are definitely the catalyst for why most of us start reporting on what's going on. But it's the way, I'm probably going to touch in a different area here. The way censorship works on Instagram, where you, you could just get reported very quickly and just taken out where I mentioned this before, but I kind of

want to focus on this a little bit where we talked about the Afghan witcher earlier and you couldn't say anything about that on Instagram because Rose warfare got banned, I think twice and got his account back. Atlas News got flagged. Our wars today got flagged. Filthy Americans account was deleted because he was talking about the war or the withdrawal in Afghanistan. But now the narrative's completely changed. You're like, you can't say anything bad about Ukraine, but you want to talk about a burnt out Russian BTR, go right ahead. It's, it's kind of weird to see how the focus for our platform has really dialed into these certain areas going, yeah, it's okay to talk about this, but not about this. So, yeah. Yeah, it's, it's the censorship problem is a really interesting thing. I'm fortunate in the sense where I haven't had to deal with it yet. And I should probably knock on wood as I say that. I haven't, nothing's been throttled. I don't think I've been shadow banned. So I haven't,

I'm not as close with it as a lot of others, but I have seen a ton of other, basically pages that I talked to that are massively affected by it. You include it. It's really interesting how the, I used to some combination of the like court of public opinion, alongside Instagram trying to figure out what is okay and what is not okay to talk about. I'm extremely anti censorship as an individual. I think it's, I don't think there are situations where censorship is a good thing for, I would say almost without exception. And I think especially alongside the news,

that is one thing where you want to show the realities. Bucca is a great example where you're seeing the bodies of civilians who were executed essentially, and which is of course a war crime, things like that, bodies of civilians who were executed essentially, which is of course a war crime. Things like that, despite the images being horrifying, they are something that need to be shown and need to be seen. And in the case of Ukraine, that's happening.

But there's so many other places around the world where you don't get that accurate look in. And actually, I'll say this as well. This is why I'm a huge fan of photojournalists specifically. And if listeners follow my page, I try to repost powerful images all the time because I think an image can tell a story in a way that words cannot,

which is a really cool thing as well. And power the part, great part of Instagram on top of it. Well, what's really interesting is because there's, and that's like my buzzword, interesting, but we have mainstream media who have been talking about Ukraine since the invasion started, but almost immediately they went, yeah, this kind of happened overnight. There was no indication or warning that the Russians were going to invade. You're like, OK, one, the US State Department has been publishing information about how the Russians are planning this to the Ukrainians.

I've been talking about this three. The Russians have been doing a buildup for nine months. You think one hundred and twenty thousand guys showing up on the border is kind of, you know, average everyday work. It's it's just on one hand shows the incompetence of mainstream media, because they went, Wow, this war just happened out of nowhere. Who saw this coming? But on the other hand, you're like, Okay, but it happened. So let's just talk about how bad the Russians are. So it's fun stuff. And you're absolutely right about reposting photojournalists

pictures on Instagram, because those are the ones where they're on the ground. They're seeing what's happening. I think Jake Hanrahan said it the best where he said, fuck you, I'm on the ground. You're behind a computer. Like I'm here. So it's, there it is again, interesting.

It's definitely interesting. And I don't think there's anything wrong with that being a buzzword. It's a good one because it,'t think there's anything wrong with that being a buzzword. It's a good one because it will. A lot of what we do is basically, I don't know about you, but I see something and when it I think that it's interesting, that's the type of thing that I want to share for the sole reason of if I think it's interesting, I'm sure someone else will too. And there's some things that I don't think are interesting and I still share that as

well because they need to be shared. But regardless, yeah, it's really interesting how now that word is gonna burn a hole in my head every time I use it. But it's something to see when everything kicked off over in Ukraine and a lot of mainstream media was saying, wow, this came out of nowhere. It exposes, I think, a deeper issue in media as a whole,

where the people that are actually sharing information on that scale, or on the largest scale possible, are not actually in touch with what's going on. They're relying super heavily on analysts, on producers, and also having to work in the, basically entertainment portion, as they're sitting as a talking head

and sharing their 45 second sound clip of what their opinions are on something that maybe they've only received briefs about. An issue, don't mean to cut you off, but I think that issue is because of the censorship on Instagram, censorship on Twitter and Facebook is because you have these massive corporations like CNN, Fox News, BBC, Al Jazeera. Everyone knows what their bias is going to be simply by looking at the name. They're like, cool. And so almost at this point, it's degraded the quality of the work they put out because they don't need to work hard to be right. Everyone knows they're going to get their listeners based

on the stigma and the previous opinions of others. So like, if you have a CNN article, everyone's going to go, yeah, they're pretty left leaning kind of like center left. Anything they say, I'm probably going to listen to that. So they don't even have to try hard at all, because they went, yeah, it's, I'm CNN and yeah, you know who we are. And so when it comes to smaller pages like ours on Instagram, trying to talk about what's really going on, they're going to get crushed because it kind of goes against the narrative of, we can't really put you in a box because what you're want to be vice news from 2000 doesn't really belong here today. So we really need to kind of shove that somewhere else. So for sure. And one of the other things that I think is

important to touch on too is that these are giant businesses. And the thing that you do when you have a large, long-standing business, your job is to reduce risk, which I understand. But it also means I understand from a business perspective, but that also means that you don't get to post about things that may not fit whatever narrative is being shared. I don't mean that you have to self-censor essentially, which thankfully I don't think that we really have to do. Of course we can risk losing our page, losing our following. At the end of the day, I think we have a strong enough community

where if that, when that does happen, because it will continue to, I have no doubt, we can bill each other back up and go from there. But we're also allowed to post things that they might not be able to share. Because a producer says either that it won't get enough views or that it won't have viewership the same way that another story might, or simply because some things

they just don't wanna touch with a 10 foot pole because of a PR, or it could be a huge PR problem for them. And that's also why a lot of times they're sending their correspondence to places that aren't necessarily as dangerous, or they're sending freelance journalists to places that are extremely dangerous, because they don't have to take on the risk the same way. If they have a guy in Dnipro wearing a bulletproof vest for some reason, or if they're sending a young freelance journalist directly into Odessa that doesn't have their name on it,

it's risk aversion either way. And I won't go into what I think about it ethically, but I don't think it's a great thing. Well, it's night and day compared to the 03 invasion of Iraq. That was constant coverage, that was very dialed in and focused journalism, and they were delivering important information that people needed to see. But that just to see them in 20 years, just almost get lazy and just put themselves in certain corners. We're like, yeah, it's we'll just hire some freelance kid and whatever happens, happens. It's. It's weird.

It's interesting. It's a bizarre thing. And I think we'll see kind of as time goes on, how that dynamic shifts, because I think it is shifting. I think the reason that people are interested in following pages like ours is because they're tired of that. I don't know where it's going. I'm going to keep doing what I'm doing either way. And I imagine you will too as well as well as most of our community will because it's something that I enjoy and that I'm really proud of. But I do think there will be changes and only time will tell exactly what those look like. Maybe this is a shot in the dark. Kostya Gundy was the only western voice out of Ukraine for years. Yeah. And everyone knew that

when the war started, they're like, they're the Russians are going to look for him first. So it's like he's number two behind Zelensky. So it's, I think people just might be afraid because like Kossyagunny was just doing his job. Just he's like, I'm a Ukrainian Marine. I was in Syria and here I am talking about the war. And then I think people don't want that kind of target above their head. Journalists specifically where it's like, yeah, if you focus so much on Armenia or Iran, you're automatically going to be known as the go-to guy.

So on one hand, it's really good because like, yeah, you know what you're talking about, but on the other, sorry, man, it's we really don't want to directly contact with you and honestly, it, I'm sure you saw the video, Tesseron news posted it, the full RT news interview with Aidan, but he was definitely reading his script. There was no way that what he was saying was his personal opinion, because they went, oh, Ukraine's the bad guy, right? Is it because you fought for Ukraine, you're a mercenary, you're a war tourist, right? He's like, the way they look at it, yes, he is. So they're definitely gonna use him as a mouthpiece

and a propaganda piece, but, and we've already seen it happening, so. Yeah, it's hard to speak directly on Aidan, I would say, just because I understand the situation. I don't know him personally, and I should make that I feel like I should make that very clear. I followed his account for a long time. And like you just said, he's been a major source of information for basically everything

going on in the Ukrainian frontlines for years and years. But watching that RT video is first off, absolutely heartbreaking. For whatever good it does, keeping him in my prayers and sending my best to everyone who knows him and him himself, of course. But it's disheartening to have to watch things like that. And it's unfortunate, I think just a kind of reality It's disheartening to have to watch things like that. And it's unfortunate, I think, just a kind of reality of war and what happens.

Also in this situation, I've seen a ton of people online, and I'm sure you've seen this as well, is people love to hit up the comments on any post about him saying that he would have been better, or he should have fought to the death or things like that, which is an absolutely absurd thing to say, in my opinion, given the situation or the circumstance that he was in. And he's basically doing his best. So he will, I'm sure continue to be used as

a propaganda piece for RT, which is Russian state media, as the war continues, it's gonna be, it's disheartening and disappointing, but I think it's just the way it is. And I understand why he's handling the situation as he is as well. Yeah, it was definitely disheartening watching that video because I remember seeing the first, one of my followers sent me a picture through Reddit where it was leaked on Reddit before it was even published on RT.

They got them. And so it's yeah, it was rough to watch. Yeah, I will say another really cool thing that has come out because he's been so vocal on social media about first off when he was in Syria, but also when after he left Syria and or I should say when he was in Rojava, and after he left and went to Ukraine, super vocal source of our form of information. Before the war was starting, he was saying, if you want to enlist in the Ukrainian Marines, or come join, he was sharing information on how to do that. And he's been, I would say, basically kind of found himself in the position of a modern day folk hero, as he's kind of one.

100% has. He's St. Johnny. They're already having those thrown around. He is definitely folk legend over there. For sure. And the coolest part about it too is it's completely organic in the sense that he's obviously doing and has done everything he has because he's a genuine principal guy who wants the best for people for himself, but also for people that are under, whether it be oppressive regimes or under massive instability, or he's a good dude. It's essentially what it comes down to, which is really, really cool to see.

So certainly wishing him safety. Yeah. During the initial days of the war, I was getting a lot of messages asking how they can support, how they can join. I would just refer him. I had his post about how to join the Ukrainian military, just in the safe.

I would just send them that and like, here you go. This is what you need. Here's all the steps. It's better than I could have done. So. Yeah, it's a really cool thing. I think that's going back to what you need. Here's all the steps is better than I could have done. So. Yeah, it's a really cool thing. And I think that's going back to kind of what you were saying earlier about whether it's journalists that focus on a specific region or people that have basically made their made their focus around the world. That's a while you do kind of gain that unwanted gaze of

while you do kind of gain that unwanted gaze of governments and states, you do a really, really valuable thing. And I think that's why people do it. Like Armenia, it's really, really hard, or I should say it was really, really hard to get good information out of Armenia. But then you have someone like Finn, Finn, shout out. He's helped sort of spread that massively. And I would bet you, despite I'm sure being looked down upon by certain States around the world, his information is well, extremely valuable and it helps expose kind of what's going on,

at least at the bare minimum, just give some light to it so that there is a source if someone looks for it, which is a really, really cool thing. And I want to, I guess, clarify in no way was I saying what they're doing is bad. It's just in the bigger companies, your, your Fox News, your BBC's, it seems like they don't want to touch it because they don't want to put their journalists out there because they went, yeah, we don't really want our guys having targets. For sure.

Sorry. I definitely understood it as that. I should have clarified it as well. Yeah, they don't want to have targets. They don't want to damage. Maybe they have some business relationship with someone somewhere and they don't want to damage that because it will affect the long-term feasibility of the business or their reach or whatever. And it's not being able to take risks like that, I would say is in the antithesis

of journalism as a whole. Yeah, 100%. If I can meet one person, it's Intel Slava. I want to talk to him. What would you say? I would love to know what top three questions for Intel Slava. I want to talk to him. What would you say? What would you I would love to know what top three questions for Intel Slava for those of you don't know Intel Slava is basically a an information aggregator on

Telegram. I think he's on Twitter as well. He's on Twitter and Telegram. He had an Instagram. I think it was banned. But his Intel Slava, you know, glory to Intel. And then being upfront going, I am very pro Russia. Yeah.

Kind of an oxymoron, but. But yeah, I would love to know top three questions. Maybe that's too many top two questions, top one question, whatever. What is it you love to ask? Top three. Number one, can you overhead press your bodyweight? Number two, what's your go-to cheat day meal? And number three, what kind of mental gymnastics did you go to to train for this? It's so funny. Honestly, if I just want a good laugh, I go to his telegram

and I just start scrolling because there'll be an RPG that I bounce off a T 72 and he goes, the this demonstrates the resilience of Russian engineering. He went, no, it didn't. 327,000 subscribers on Telegram and people think this is true. I want to just sit down and go, like, have a beer and go, go hey man where is your mental state at with a lot of these claims because every single day saying that NATO is on copium and then the next day going I never said that but you could just scroll back and go yes yes, you did. Right. Hey man, is everything okay? Um, yeah, it's, it's really interesting to watch, uh, as. Uh, really pro Russian source, like Intel Slav is working through everything going on and, um, in some cases, I think reading into it more, this is entirely my

opinion reading into things more, uh, far more than he needs to, uh, but I guess that's what happens when you're overtly, extremely pro one side or the other. Well, he also doesn't back up any of his, and this you're pro-Russia and you're saying that, you know, you captured 135 Ukrainian soldiers, but there's no footage or source about this. What are you talking about? You have to back that up. Yeah, it's definitely-

Deserves a gold medal in mental gymnastics. He's doing a very good job at what he is. I would agree. He's definitely towing the line on, actually, I would say he's crossed the line on just being propaganda with more posts than a few. There's also a Siloviki. It's a Russian page who reposts a lot of Intel Slava's content. And Siloviki is like Russian for security forces. But that one's just 100% like we are the military, this is what we're doing. And then they will repost Intel Slava. So on one hand, I think,

is Intel Slava in the Russian army? Or is he just some basement dweller on Reddit? Because there's different ways to look at it. And while I'm talking about this, I just remembered another one where like in the West we had Cosette Gundy's Instagram account to be our portal or our lens into Ukraine. There's a Russian account called a Deremedy where it's a Russian soldier doing the same thing that Aidan was doing just on the other side. And he has a telegram and he has an Instagram and he has not been on Instagram. People found his VK and he's like some 20 year old kid. He's like, what do you want to know? I'm in the Russian. I'm in the trenches. Here we go. So it's, and it's kind of fun to just honestly, I've sent him a few

texts or messages. I'm like, dude, where are you getting this information? But, you know, he does not reply. But I think he got wounded recently. I think he got blown up. So. Interesting. That is, well, I, I, I'll send you his page.

Yeah, I don't know enough about this, but I'm, I'm, I would love to learn more. I think he was banned. Hold on, I'm looking it up right now. Here it is. Yeah, he usually does live streams. I'm sending it to you on Instagram right now. He usually does live streams

and just talks about what's going on and it's pretty wild to watch because he stores all the live feeds on his Telegram and it's wild to watch his, the tone of his voice and just the way he looks in the live feeds on his telegram and it's wild to watch the tone of his voice and just the way he looks in the first few days going hell yeah Slavoj Rusija and then today's going yeah it's pretty fun. I'm excited to look over it after this and yeah actually that's it's interesting that basically we still have access to this after places like RT media have like I can't get access to RT media anymore the same way that I did prior which um going I guess this is back to that

censorship conversation not to jump too far back but I don't know about you I think that's a really bad thing. I would love to still receive updates from RT media because they're obviously extremely biased. It's Russian state media, but they're going to be almost entirely substantiated claims to, which is going to be the opposite of someone like Intel Slava, which is really good because it allows you to see what information is there as well as to actually go in understanding there's a bias and building out from there. I think all information is good because it's going to allow us to work through and make our own decisions essentially. So that's how I feel. I don't know if you have an opinion on it. I think I've mentioned this topic on every single podcast so far, but banning Sputnik and TASS in RT News was such a bad idea because on one hand, and I always, that's like another

trigger, on one hand, the Russians are only getting one source of info now. They're only getting Kremlin sponsored updates. We're like, we're winning the war, we're fighting Nazis, we're killing Ukrainians. We're like, hell yeah, dude. And then, but for the West, we can't see what they're telling their people, because like, we just closed off 175 or 143 million people from viewing the outside world. It's canceling companies and entire countries is, I can see where they're coming from, but it's not smart because if you draw the line in 10 years, all these Russians that have been for the last, so I guess like a little history lesson, the Russian education system has really put a hard sensor on talking about anti-Soviet and Russian ideas. And so if they've been taught that for

20 years and they're in the trenches in Ukraine right now, fighting for those ideas that they were taught, and then the West shuts them off from any sort of outside narrative, we're just going to have this for another generation. It's, the Russians are going to continue to play the it's everyone versus me, Slavodorosia. It's they don't like us. They want us, they want to keep us out of Europe. We're European. They don't like us, they want to keep us out of Europe, we're European, they don't like us. So it was very dumb to cancel them.

I agree. I think it was a short-sighted approach. And like you're saying, I have no doubt the implications will be felt as time continues. So we'll see, that's another one. It's, I don't know, I don't love theory crafting. So I don't want to say that it'll end up one way or the other. All I can say is that we'll see. Yeah, we'll see. I mean, it's been, Putin's been in power for 20 years

and just kept telling everyone what he was going to do and everyone brushed it off. So maybe it really won't damage anything because they'll tell you what they was going to do and everyone brush it off. So maybe it really won't damage anything because they'll tell you what they're going to do. It's completely different than how the Chinese run their media narratives. It's the Russians are more direct, but far more. And I think that's it's some combination of I'm sure culture alongside, it's some combination of, I'm sure, culture alongside, well, actual intentions behind everything. So yeah, and it's especially considering the fact

that they work, are not only neighbors geographically, but work relatively closely together. I would be curious to be a fly on the wall for any meeting between Xi Jinping and Putin. You look at pictures of them standing side by side, and it's eerily similar to Stalin and Chairman Mao standing there like, Yeah, man, this is our this is our this is our side of the world. Eastern, you know, it's I don't think they like each other because I think Putin

said, okay, I'll give you the Olympics. We won't invade another country during the Olympic season as long as you help us some way. And the Chinese went, we'll see what happens. Oh, you're losing. I want nothing to do with this. So actually something I'd love if you have an opinion on I'd love to hear your thoughts, but as far as Chinese expansion in terms of whether it's building islands in the South Pacific or in Africa building infrastructure in exchange for extremely basically high debt loans

that will only be paid off by essentially giving up land. What are your thoughts on Chinese expansion? Do you think there is like, obviously there's a master plan behind it, but I'd just love to know what your feelings are about it. It's the same thing the Russians were doing in the 60s, where they are essentially colonizing Africa and nobody wants to use that word because it has such a nasty narrative to it.

But yeah, the Chinese have gone to poorer countries along the Indian Ocean is where they started. So they went to like Sri Lanka and Pakistan and Afghanistan to some degree, and they were just buying up lands. They went, yeah, we understand that you have all these natural resources and you want to build stuff. So we'll just give you the materials and we'll help you build a hotel. Oh, the ground you built it on is hosed home to oil. Oh, well, we bought this. So it's our land. And they, how am I trying to put this intelligently? The way the Chinese do it is they give out loans at a hundred percent interest rate and enslave

these little countries until they strong on them into doing what they want. So they already got Pakistan. You can kind of write Pakistan off for whatever you want, whatever corner you want to put them in. But you have these smaller African nations who are still developing and they can't afford to pay back these debts. And so I think it was Uganda. It was a Eastern African nation that had to give up its only airport because the Chinese built the infrastructure and the runway.

And so they went, oh, well, we want this back because you can't pay your debts, fine. And then of course, we're just gonna use that for a military hub here soon, because they went to Djibouti and they built that Navy base when they said they wouldn't. But as soon as the election season was going on, they started pumping their Marines

and their Air Force elements into that area and said, okay, well, now we have our first overseas base. And then a few months ago, it came out that they also were talking about putting bases in Western Africa, and what's it called? Equatorial Guinea, I think, I think the Times or the New York Post, one of those came out said that the Chinese were in bed with one of these Western African nations and essentially they're just recolonizing the sphere of influence that the old NATO powers had for so long. But if France is getting kicked out of Mali for not winning their counterinsurgency with the Sahel

G5, they really fumbled it. So they started calling the Russians and said, hey, can you clean up this issue? And then if the Chinese are going into the bed economically, and then I think they're also probably going to start jumping over to the central and South American countries, because like Venezuela 100%, you know that that's a target. That's a money pot for the Russians and the Chinese, they just want to counteract the US narrative, the Russians, I think, jumped the gun. Putin was definitely lied to about how we could win this war. He definitely fumbled the Russian agenda for the next, I don't know, probably 50 years.

But the Chinese, they're more slow. I don't know if you read the book, 100 Year Marathon, but it just talks about how the Chinese, they don't want to win tomorrow because they know the US government goes through changes every four years. They just got to wait. They're like, yeah, I mean, I don't like the current president, but soon I'll get one that's more lenient towards my policies. So Chinese are they're very they play the I'm here to help card, but if you heal the layer back one, one, maybe two layers, you're like, oh, wow, you were very not good for this area. Just economically ruining all these little countries

and pumping in their own little, because they do it with companies. So they're like, yeah, we need to build this infrastructure in Western Africa. And we're going to buy it, put the infrastructure on the land where you make cell phone chips., and we're gonna buy it, put the infrastructure on the land where you make cell phone chips. And so we're gonna have to put in our own workers because we don't really trust your guys because if you trusted your own workers, you would have used them.

So that's kind of their logic. And then they also just get into bed with Australia, New Zealand and all these Pacific countries because they go, oh yeah, the US they're in decline. They just left Afghan and all of their friends for they go, oh yeah, the US they're in decline. They just left Afghan and all of their friends for the last 20 years, they don't like you. Why don't you start talking to us? So they definitely have a lot going on.

And it's interesting to see how shady they play their game, but they're also very open about what they want. So I don't know. Do you have any opinions on that? If you read a little into that, the Belt and Road Initiative as they call it. So I think we're pretty well aligned on it. So I won't go in too far depth on it.

I do think it will be interesting if they get over to Venezuela, South America, and even maybe Central America, because it is so reminiscent of what the, basically Banana Republics went through with the US, how we did very similar things in those countries, kind of building out infrastructure and slowly having these, at the time,

large corporations taking over more land, more infrastructure. I should say it was corporations doing it, not directly the US government, but at which point the US government did get involved and gave them the support that they needed these companies to slowly build out and take over large parts of Central and South America. So I'm wondering if those governments will be more sensitive to it if China does try to make their way over there. That's the biggest... I'm not sure because South America is definitely a part of the world that nobody talks about.

Yeah, that's true. I don't think unless you know Spanish or Portuguese and get really dialed into their local news and how they're doing things. But I don't know what their opinion on it is because Brazil is also in bricks with the Russians and the Chinese and the Indians and the South them up and counteract the Western-led way of running the world. But I'm not sure if, because I know a lot of the African nations have woken up and said, yeah, we really don't want to get into bed with the Chinese because they're going to ruin us. But it's, I don't think the South African or South Americans have said much about it. Venezuela is definitely one of those areas where as soon as the revolution kicked off, the Russians were there with peacekeepers and they just didn't leave. And so I'm sure we'll see some Chinese popping up here soon to check out the real estate

to build a hotel or something. So I'm curious to see how how everything develops there. One way or another, it's another one. We'll see what happens with it. On the topic of China as well, so we do know they kind of have a, obviously the state is involved in pretty much everything on the business side.

I know you're saying that we're talking a little bit about that. What is your opinion on that being, or if you even have one, is that healthy for long-term basically economic development in China or abroad? But for Chinese-run companies, obviously it seems like they might have a bit of an advantage, given the fact that, well, the state is working with manufacturers directly and producers directly to help basically push products broad.

Do you think that gives them an advantage? The economy is so fragile though. They are, they bought up all those companies that made toothpaste lids and, you know, wife beater shirts and super expendable things that everyday Americans or Westerners or the world in general goes, yeah, I mean, I kind of need a light bulb. I kind of need a toothpaste cap. I kind of need a picture frame. But their economy is built on such a fragile system where if you build a factory in Pittsburgh or Colorado and decided to go, yeah, let's just build these things here, it's cheaper. That would ruin the Chinese economy. So I think they may have some foresight into what's going on there. And so that's why they want to start reaching out to these African nations going, okay, well, where are cell phone chips made?

Oh, in the Horn of Africa. Okay, I'll just buy all the land in the Horn of Africa. I think they want to get ahead of the game. And they're definitely using those companies to be their voice. But you know for a fact that the Chinese companies are all in bed with the CCP. Yeah, exactly. And I guess that's my biggest question right now. So China is obviously playing the long game. And when I say long game, we're talking 50, 100 years out. I'm wondering if companies being in bed with the CCP is going to be a short-term advantage basically,

and not quite play out the way that they anticipate if it moves them past as an economy, moves them past the USA for example, or if in the long-term having the CCP involved is actually gonna cause way more harm than good to just having free market or running a free market. So, well, let's just look at how they treating, how they treat Shanghai and Beijing. They got 20 million people just locked up in rooms and they're going door to door saying,

give me your dogs. They have coded. It's if that's how they're treating their people, I think they're going to be ruthless with all these international companies. It's I don't think they're going to be ruthless with all these international companies. I don't think they give a shit. Like I said earlier, they had that 100-year plan where they went, yeah, we're going to be in charge in 100 years. The US, they can do their own thing. They're going to eat themselves and decline sometime soon. But yeah, we'll just wait. Oh, they left Afghanistan? Cool. We're going to go to Afghanistan. We're just going to be a peacekeeper.

Oh, they're in a, they mucked up Somalia. We're just going to send our guys to Somalia and be peacekeepers and really just help build them, build them up economically. And it's definitely all in their favor and not for the recipient. So. Yeah, it'll be, it'll be interesting to see how it develops as a whole. And yes, when it comes to the way that they're currently treating everyone in Shanghai who's being aggressively quarantined for, well, for everything that's going on with the pandemic, I don't imagine that people are generally happy with the CCP. I don't think so. And they also know how to weaponize social media a lot better than NATO states, where they do the same thing

the Russians do. Where I'm sure, remember the hashtag stop Asian hate that came out during the pandemic? I do, yeah. It was pretty big. Everyone was jumping on. And it came out during the pandemic. I do. Yeah. It was pretty big. Everyone was jumping on and it came out around the same weekend of that huge joint Chinese US summit in Alaska, where they were essentially saying like, Hey, here's President Biden's new administration. This is what we're doing. Everything that the last guy did. We're going to try to take it in a different direction. And the Chinese just ran through. But then nobody talked about that.

Nobody really heard about how that went down because the Chinese were like just flooding the market with hashtags. And they went, yeah, we know how to we know how short the attention span is for the Westerner. So we know how to keep them entertained. We'll make TikTok and we'll make it very entertaining and very addictive. So nobody will care if we, you know, buy Zimbabwe because, oh, it's just Zimbabwe. Everyone thinks that Africa is a mess. No one's really going to care. So it's, the Chinese are very mischievous. That's really interesting. I did not know that. 100%. Yeah. They, Russia does the same thing, or they did rather, where every time there was a NATO exercise in Norway Which is kind of, I don't really see the end

state there because if it's a military exercise, that's kind of the military's business. But for a major geopolitical summit and mapping out the next four years at least and drowning that out by weaponizing short attention spans, that's very clever on their part. And honestly, hats off because they're doing a better job at that than NATO is. Yeah, and it's one of those things where it's a hats off to them. I might be a little bit happy that NATO is not doing

a great job at the same type of thing, but they're doing it well, I suppose, nonetheless. You can see that now on Instagram. Yes. Yes. They're like, you can say anything you want about the Russians. We don't care.

And so the Russians or pro-Russian pages started that stop hating Russians hashtag. And it went nowhere. That just did not work. They went, no, we know what you're doing. So it's weird. It's a weird world. There's so many interesting dynamics.

It's literally impossible to keep up with all of them, but we do our best. Did you read the book, Confessions of an International Hitman or Economic Hitman? I have not, but I would be interested to. I'll add that to that. Yeah, it's really good. It's about a, just a, like a low level businessman

in an American businessman who was getting sent to Middle Eastern and just developing countries in the 60s, 70s and 80s. And they were like, it's the same thing that Chinese are doing where the US said, oh, hey Iraq, I understand you have this real weird neighbor, Iran, yeah we're going to fund, we're going to give you these WMDs and as long as we could just put up our oil refineries on your land because we know you don't have the

technology to do this yourself. Oh okay so Iran's out, you guys fought that little war, it's kind of crazy. So what we're going to do now is. They just, it's the same thing. They just start economically enslaving, especially the central Asian country or central American countries with a, you mentioned it, the banana Republic's. The same thing is one of those guys. And it's just his confession of here's how I fit in the cog. Here's how the system works. Here's how the CIA is in bed with everybody.

So it's really good. I will absolutely be adding that to the list. I'll shout myself out right now too. For anyone listening, every book that I read that's somewhat relevant to my page, I have a story highlight, and they're all in there with ratings. And you can see the cover, you can see the author, as well as a short one or two sentence summary of how I felt about it. So if I've shattered anything out and it's interested you, it'll probably be on there. And I keep that updated as I read.

Yeah, that's definitely fun. I definitely look out for your, did you read today while you're sitting on a mountain top or something? So. It's, I think everyone should read. It's a cheat code for life is the best way I can say it. You are getting the distilled knowledge from someone who has done things or learned about

things or knows about things at a level that they've decided to dedicate part of their life to writing about it. It's been through who knows how many iterations and edits. You can literally get years of knowledge, if not decades of knowledge from a quick 150 page book that you would never get from anything else. That is why I'm such a huge advocate for reading. Plus you better yourself. Reading makes you a better writer, makes you a better communicator. If you can communicate better, you can convince people to do things that you want, you can convince them to do whatever you communicate effectively. So not to get on too much of a soapbox, but literally one of the most valuable things you can do in my opinion, so you should do

it. Yeah, on that. I know if you, myself included in a few other pages like yourself for Tesseron News has his literature Fridays, where he'll say like, yeah, this is the book I've been reading and it's really cool to see that our little community as long as like before we even sort of talking to each other got to know one another was almost like a very similar thought process of okay, we're talking about the news is going to be unbiased, we're gonna have book recommendations, we're all going to the gym. It's kind of cool. I haven't done one in a little while, but reading is definitely what you call it, a cheat code. It's a cheat code for life.

All right, since we're on the topic of books, if you had one book to recommend to all the listeners right now, what would it be? Oh, that's, that's a tough, because my mind immediately goes to wanting to cheat and recommend multiple books. Um, just do one, like just a casual, what someone would get the most information out of in any walk of life. So I think one of the best possible things that you could read, I think it would be interesting. I think it says a lot about

human nature is actually a book called Dispatches by Michael Herr. It might be Michael Herr. I apologize, Michael, if I'm mispronouncing your last name. If you're listening. who he was a photojournalist in Vietnam. And it explores essentially his entire journey there about things that he saw, things that he did and what it's like to be there as an individual as well as the effects of war on people who, a lot of them did not want to be there and were living in some of the most horrendous

possible circumstances due to the draft. So I would highly recommend that one. I am also going to shoot a little bit a huge fan of Shakespeare. I think Shakespeare. Has figured out a lot of life already. If you can stomach the obnoxious language and take some time to really focus on what's being said, you can learn a lot about human nature from Shakespeare. So those are my two. That's good. That's good. What about you? Is the do you have a recommendation a a book at the top of the pile? Yeah, 100%. It's A Spy Among Friends by Ben McIntyre. It's about Harold Kim Fielding,

the most notorious defector from the British intelligence who worked for the Russians. He was working for the Soviet Union for 30 years. And because he was so goddamn British, nobody suspected him. So we worked his way up from MI5 to MI6, worked his way right to the top. And the American director of the CIA, what was his name? James Jesus Angleton was half British, half American. So he was like, yeah, I really like the Brits, but there's something

weird about this, this Kim guy, we really got to look out for him. And it's just, it reads like a thriller. It's the way Van McIntyre writes a lot of his spy novels are they are historic texts, but he writes them like a James Bond novel. So it's there's no drive portion and talks about Philby's entire life and about how his father was in World War I. He fought in the Middle East with Lawrence of Arabia and helped draft the outline of the Middle East for how the British and French empires carved up the Middle Eastern countries and why the British got Iraq and why the French got Syria and those kinds of things. And it's kind of cool to see that these two individuals, his father and son,

really directed the course of British history just by the fact that they were in the right places at the right times. And so after Philby got found out by the British intelligence, it was in Libya or Lebanon and he defected, went to the Russian consulate and then went over to the Soviet Union and they sent him to Berlin to train the Stasi, the then East Germans top spy agency. And he said to betray you must first belong. So that's something like a lot of you'll see it if you go to the spy museum in DC, that's the slogan thrown right up because he figured out how to be a spy and he wrote his own book. I guess I'm gonna have to cheat here. Let me look up the name real quick. He wrote his own book about the account and

how he was getting caught by all these, he was getting caught by spies but they were like, are you Russian? I'm kidding. No, you're not. Like it's crazy. It's called My Silent War and it's written by Kim Philby himself and it's like 120 pages, but it talks about how, yeah, I was in bed with the Germans, the Spanish and the Spanish Civil War. I was a reporter for BBC and I could kind of do anything because everyone trusted me and I was very confident. So it's, you learn a lot about psychology, people, how the world works, geopolitics, how some countries will kind of turn a blind eye to what's going on in their intelligence agencies, just because they know that this guy is pretty good. They're like, we're gonna hold on to them. That's definitely my recommendation. Got it. It's going on the list.

It's a really good one. Ben McIntyre is a phenomenal writer. But, all right, unless you have anything else to plug, I think this is going to wrap up this episode. Oh, good. Yeah, we've been chatting for a while. I've had a blast. Thank you again so much for having me. I guess the obvious thing for me to plug will be, please, if you don't, go ahead, follow me at Meridian.News on Instagram. I would love to have you as part of my community, but also the greater community. And I've told Crotone to do this before and he never has. So I'm gonna say, make sure you follow him as well. If you don't, I know a lot of people

share these podcasts around, but also go ahead and follow him on Spotify and on Apple, wherever you get your podcasts from to help make sure that not only the podcast can grow, but so you can get every new episode and listen to the incredible people like myself. Okay, well, thank you for coming on and I'll see you around.

Take it easy.