Stand on Guard with David Krayden - March 04, 2025


UK and Zelensky Double Cross the USA. I break it down w⧸ Neil Oliver | Stand on Guard


Episode Stats

Length

52 minutes

Words per Minute

149.4019

Word Count

7,881

Sentence Count

500

Misogynist Sentences

3

Hate Speech Sentences

11


Summary

In this episode of Stand On Guard, I'm joined by Neil Oliver to discuss the latest news regarding the deal between the UK and Ukraine over rare earth minerals, and President Trump's reaction to it. We also talk about how the EU should be honest with the US about what they're really trying to get out of the deal.


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Welcome back for another episode of Stand on Guard.
00:00:04.880 I'm your host, David Creighton.
00:00:06.660 My pleasure today to have Neil Oliver back in discussion and conversation.
00:00:13.280 This is the guy, the pundit, archaeologist, author, and YouTuber supreme.
00:00:20.520 Always a pleasure to talk to Neil.
00:00:22.140 We'll be back in a minute with that conversation.
00:00:30.000 We need, but it's a change.
00:00:41.800 But we also need to resolve to resist.
00:00:53.380 Yes, please like the station right now if you can.
00:00:56.960 It helps us beat the YouTube suppression, which we're all being victims of right now.
00:01:02.400 We fight back, though.
00:01:03.880 Resolve to resist.
00:01:05.140 That's what the station is all about.
00:01:07.320 So it's my pleasure to welcome my friend and colleague, if I can be so impertinent to say I'm a colleague.
00:01:16.200 I think you're way above me in terms of your achievements to Neil.
00:01:19.700 And it's always a pleasure just to have you on the show again to talk about the issues of the day.
00:01:24.360 Oh, I always enjoy our conversations, David.
00:01:28.340 It's a pleasure.
00:01:31.040 Genuinely, I take part in a lot of podcasts, but yours is one of my absolute favorites.
00:01:37.780 Oh, that's so nice of you to say.
00:01:40.360 Thank you.
00:01:41.380 So I wasn't even going to discuss this today because yesterday I wasn't even aware of it.
00:01:45.760 But this is a news release from the UK government, supposedly from February.
00:01:52.980 For some reason, the U.S. State Department, Donald Trump, none of the U.S. media noticed this until yesterday.
00:02:03.040 And this talks about, and I'm going to play this interview with a guy who actually found it, Lieutenant Colonel Tony Schaefer, who actually dug this up.
00:02:12.160 We're not sure whether or not this was actually put up on the day it was announced or they neglected to put it up until recently.
00:02:19.220 Because this, of course, completely nullifies all of President Donald Trump's aspirations to get these rare earth minerals from Ukraine.
00:02:29.340 Because Ukrainian dictator Zelensky has given them all to the UK, an 100-year partnership declaration.
00:02:38.120 So let's just watch this interview with Tony Schaefer here, where he talks about this happening.
00:02:43.940 Just incredible. Just incredible.
00:02:45.900 Well, first off, they've got to change the fact that on the 17th of January, the British signed an agreement with Ukraine to have exclusive rights to those deals.
00:02:55.980 This is a battle of dueling narratives. You can go check it out.
00:03:00.760 This is on the British UK website. It talks about this 100-year Ukraine and UK signed a 100-year deal over security guarantees and economic development.
00:03:15.560 So what happened is that I believe President Trump and his team found out that they were being played.
00:03:20.640 So this has become a set of dueling narratives.
00:03:25.420 The BBC just said today there's massive protests here.
00:03:29.360 Zach Andrews just said all the European leaders are behind Zelensky.
00:03:33.960 We are being played.
00:03:35.600 We, the United States, are trying to be signed up to a deal that we provide security guarantees to a economic development deal that Keir Stalmer has already signed them up to do.
00:03:47.600 So the first thing it has to do is people have to take a step back and be honest with what's really going on.
00:03:53.780 And so I think what happened here, I don't know the details.
00:03:56.200 It wasn't in that meeting.
00:03:57.780 But Kirshen, the president was trying to play a straight-line deal to sign an agreement with them over this minimal rights deal,
00:04:05.660 knowing full well that the British had already signed on this three days before his inauguration.
00:04:10.560 So where we go from here is both sides, if this is going to work, if the Europeans really want our help,
00:04:18.140 they're going to have to take a step back and start being honest with the United States about what's really going on.
00:04:24.680 Now, I thought when I watched that Friday news conference, it was so surreal at times,
00:04:32.000 because you have this literal breakdown in front of your eyes that starts off as a friendly conversation with Zelensky and Trump.
00:04:41.000 Slowly, you have J.D. Vance, Vice President J.D. Vance, joins the group.
00:04:45.240 Secretary of State Marco Rubio is already there.
00:04:48.240 And suddenly, the conversation becomes very ignited.
00:04:53.580 And Trump is obviously not happy.
00:04:56.340 He had just joked about Zelensky doesn't have to wear a suit.
00:05:00.100 You look just fine in your combat fatigues.
00:05:03.140 And suddenly, he's looking at him like, how the hell did you get away with this?
00:05:09.160 And you have no intention of delivering on this offer of rare earth minerals.
00:05:16.740 And you're playing this game with me because you've already signed the agreement with Prime Minister Keir Starmer of the UK.
00:05:25.300 What do you make of this?
00:05:28.280 David, I looked on at it.
00:05:30.960 And my first reaction is, I don't know what to make of it.
00:05:35.380 I suppose my gut instinct was to wonder the extent to which it was some sort of performative, you know, you say this, I'll say that.
00:05:44.440 It was so bizarre, the way they all interacted.
00:05:48.140 I thought, is this actually what these people are instinctively and organically thinking and saying?
00:05:53.640 But there are so many things to wonder about.
00:05:59.960 I mean, this idea of a hundred-year deal, in what universe does it make sense to believe that that which prevails now will still prevail in a hundred years' time?
00:06:12.800 That you can sign up to something that lasts for a century, you know, when administrations and regimes, you know, come and go in a matter of a few years.
00:06:24.260 And it's also, it has that feel about it of the way that there are these, you know, the companies out there that sell you gold, but, you know, you don't take possession of the physical gold.
00:06:35.820 And for that reason, the same ounce of gold can be sold a hundred times to a hundred different people, even though it's just the same one ounce of gold.
00:06:44.160 It's got that feel about it as though Zelensky has, who knows who else thinks they own Ukraine's mineral resources.
00:06:54.380 Maybe the most glaring point is that it would appear that these fabled mineral resources reside in that eastern part of Ukraine that's occupied by Russia.
00:07:08.900 So that's...
00:07:10.380 Keir Starmer or President Trump or whoever else would really more logically have to be making a deal with Vladimir Putin's Russia about who gets access to what.
00:07:22.440 I've even heard geologists debating the extent to which these rare earth minerals and metals are actually in a geological condition that makes them usable in the way that I think non-geological people might be assuming.
00:07:43.860 I mean, don't take my word on this.
00:07:45.460 I'm only relaying that which I have read about people who seem to have a much deeper geological grasp than I do.
00:07:52.620 It's a bit like, you know, given a few million years of geological time and the right kind of conditions and pressure, coal might turn into diamonds.
00:08:01.320 Do you know what I mean?
00:08:02.020 But just because you've got stuff that's on the way to being uranium and lithium or whatever else it is, I don't know that it's necessarily as readily accessible as it might be.
00:08:11.960 But so there's a huge amount to unpack here.
00:08:14.740 But yes, it looks like a bait and switch.
00:08:19.520 Well, I'm just going to play a brief clip from that incredible news conference.
00:08:24.860 And once again, it's almost like they forgot the entire Washington press corps sitting there in the same room with them because the masks came off.
00:08:35.700 I know Trump is just, he probably despises Zelensky almost as much as he despises Justin Trudeau.
00:08:43.720 And there's nobody in the world he despises more than Justin Trudeau.
00:08:47.560 But he really had his fill of Zelensky, of him coming out always with his hands outstretched asking for another 10 billion, please.
00:08:57.020 Another 100 billion, please.
00:08:58.580 And we'll get the job finished for you.
00:09:00.700 And Trump is just so sick of this.
00:09:03.020 And you could just see the mask come off.
00:09:05.720 And he just, especially when Zelensky said, you're going to feel it.
00:09:08.780 You're going to feel it.
00:09:10.080 And Trump said, how do you know we're going to feel?
00:09:12.640 You have no right to tell how we're going to feel about this.
00:09:16.420 But here's a brief interaction here, as well as a couple of other anecdotes.
00:09:21.320 You're gambling with the lives of millions of people.
00:09:23.840 You're gambling with World War III.
00:09:26.340 You're gambling with World War III.
00:09:30.700 You're gambling with World War III.
00:09:33.020 He's all dressed up today.
00:09:36.580 Here.
00:09:39.420 Mr. President, Mr. President, with respect, I think it's disrespectful for you to come into the Oval Office to try to litigate this in front of the American media.
00:09:46.640 Right now, you guys are going around and forcing conscripts to the front lines because you have manpower problems.
00:09:52.960 You should be thanking the President for trying to bring an end to this conflict.
00:09:56.140 Have you ever been to Ukraine that you say what problems we have?
00:09:59.440 I have been to.
00:10:00.580 Come once.
00:10:01.320 I have actually watched and seen the stories.
00:10:04.860 And I know what happens is you bring people, you bring them on a propaganda tour, Mr. President.
00:10:10.320 Do you disagree that you've had problems bringing people into your military?
00:10:14.340 We have problems.
00:10:14.920 And do you think that it's respectful to come to the Oval Office of the United States of America and attack the administration that is trying to prevent the destruction of your country?
00:10:23.600 A lot of, a lot of questions.
00:10:25.280 Let's start from the beginning.
00:10:26.400 Sure.
00:10:26.640 First of all, during the war, everybody has problems.
00:10:30.440 Even you.
00:10:31.320 But you have nice ocean and don't feel now.
00:10:34.240 But you will feel it in the future.
00:10:36.920 God bless.
00:10:37.440 You don't know that.
00:10:38.040 God bless.
00:10:38.680 God bless.
00:10:39.600 You will not have the war.
00:10:40.860 Don't tell us what we're going to feel.
00:10:42.360 It's seen the stories.
00:10:43.980 And I know what happens is you bring people.
00:10:49.120 Do you ever, why don't you wear a suit?
00:10:51.540 Have you said thank you once?
00:10:53.160 There's a lot of times.
00:10:54.640 No, in this entire meeting, if you said thank you, you went to Pennsylvania and campaigned for the opposition in October.
00:11:01.360 Offer some words of appreciation for the United States of America and the president who's trying to save your country.
00:11:09.180 This is what I was told.
00:11:10.860 The president has kicked Zelensky out of the White House.
00:11:14.960 His delegation right now is telling him that he's got a very cold.
00:11:18.220 The federal office was disrespectful.
00:11:19.960 And I don't know if we can ever do business with Zelensky again.
00:11:24.720 He either needs to resign and send somebody over that we can do business with, or he needs to change.
00:11:30.960 All right, here's, this kills me, Neil.
00:11:35.500 We've got Senator Lindsey Graham, Rhino from South Carolina.
00:11:40.180 He has been out there every day undermining President Trump's foreign policy, saying, we are standing with Ukraine.
00:11:47.500 We're standing with Zelensky.
00:11:48.760 Suddenly, he does this incredible, absolute overturn.
00:11:56.340 And he's now, we can't trust Zelensky.
00:11:58.780 Obviously, I think what happened was Lindsey Graham got word that day what Zelensky had been up to with his rare earth.
00:12:06.320 Because it's, all you've heard from Lindsey Graham in the past month is all the trillions of dollars the Americans are going to get out of Ukraine from these rare earths.
00:12:16.320 And as you point out, Neil, they always seem to forget that most of these rare earths are in the eastern, southeastern part of the country, which is occupied by Russia.
00:12:24.800 And it's going to stay occupied by Russia.
00:12:27.160 I think anybody with any sense of what's going to happen with that peace treaty can understand Russia is not going to evacuate all of the land that's occupied.
00:12:36.720 There'll probably still be Ukraine at the end of this.
00:12:40.580 But it's not going to go all of Ukraine's way.
00:12:43.200 There's no question about that.
00:12:44.340 But I found this absolutely fascinating that even Lindsey Graham decides, hey, you know, we got rucked here.
00:12:53.500 They, this guy was double dealing.
00:12:56.500 And how did not, how did nobody notice this going on?
00:13:02.200 And I don't know if Trump was just feeling very embarrassed on that Friday and it came out with this, with this hostility.
00:13:09.040 But to me, it's, it's an incredible moment of diplomacy.
00:13:14.060 And I don't think we've ever seen anything like this before.
00:13:17.400 Can you imagine if the cameras had been there at Yalta or Potsdam recording all of these, these secret conversations?
00:13:25.820 These are the sorts of things that used to be said totally in privacy, but we had the national press court, Washington press court.
00:13:34.140 But they're watching it all.
00:13:35.720 And it's, I find the whole thing absolutely fascinating.
00:13:39.540 Apparently, one of the main things that people would be, would not have seen because the cameras weren't at Yalta was the massive amounts of alcohol that were consumed all round.
00:13:50.080 It always amuses me.
00:13:51.580 Huge amounts of vodka and brandy and champagne and everything else.
00:13:54.520 But I think they were all, you know, they were all very well oiled by the time, you know, any agreements came to pass.
00:14:01.880 My, another of my, my gut reactions to watching that, that event in the White House was, it just seemed unseemly for all concerned.
00:14:12.420 I've, like you say, I've certainly never seen anything.
00:14:15.160 I don't remember seeing anything remotely like it.
00:14:17.800 You know, we can all imagine that there are heated debates that happen behind closed doors as these, you know, characters discuss things.
00:14:24.800 But it didn't, I don't think it showed anyone in a, in a gentlemanly light.
00:14:30.780 It didn't, it didn't give an aura of, you know, of diplomacy or maturity.
00:14:37.400 It had, it just had all the attributes of, of a fight around a family dinner table that was about to end up with people throwing punches.
00:14:46.300 It just didn't seem appropriate for heads of, two heads of state and a, and a, and a vice president to be relating to one another in that way in front of the world's cameras.
00:14:57.600 My thought was, what are you all thinking?
00:15:00.280 I thought it was, it's really ill-advised, surely, of Vladimir Zelensky.
00:15:06.620 Obviously, his English is great.
00:15:07.980 I'm sure he's, you know, he's, he's obviously, you know, multilingual, but you could tell from listening to him that he didn't have English at the point where it was nuanced in, in that, for that kind of highly public, highly inflammatory situation.
00:15:25.020 You know, and I, and I felt that in many ways, you know, you often, usually see Vladimir Putin works through a translator, which apart from anything else, gives them time to think.
00:15:35.040 You know, they're, they're, they're getting time to listen to the question relayed to them by their translator in their own idiom so that they can, you know, and make sure and then reply in their own language.
00:15:46.360 You know what I mean, it can, I think that, but I thought, why are you doing this in, in a, in a secondary language that you're clearly very, very competent in?
00:15:56.640 I'm not saying he's not conversational, but he wasn't quite on that same language level as the other two men.
00:16:03.080 I, I don't really, I do wonder, after all this time, watching the events of the last several years unfold, the extent to which we're watching theatre, to some extent, I don't know, Vladimir Zelensky doesn't have any cards left, as Donald Trump gets on saying, you don't have the cards, you know, we would have to give you the cards to play this game.
00:16:28.040 But it is, it's, it's demonstrably the case that Zelensky now finds himself extremely vulnerable between the meshing teeth of two of the three great superpowers on the planet.
00:16:43.520 What, what is he going to do? Because he doesn't have, he doesn't have anything unless somebody else gives it to him.
00:16:49.560 So he's incredibly vulnerable. And we know that even, even Donald Trump has his backers and his, and his people behind the scenes that have leverage of one kind or another, to move the ship of state in one direction or another.
00:17:08.240 The likes of Keir Starmer in the UK, the French President Macron, you know, Olaf Scholz, I don't really see them credibly as people who are actually making the decisions anyway.
00:17:22.520 And we know, we've seen them working already in that, in that way that we learned to spot during COVID, of them working from one script, as though there was a laminated card getting sent through the post every day, these are the talking points today, make sure you get these words into your speech in this fashion.
00:17:41.020 We saw it with build back better and window of opportunity and, you know, three weeks to flatten the curve and save the NHS.
00:17:48.400 And it was just, there was this thing that these lines that everybody involved was saying, and it's already kicked off again with, with Ukraine, you know, cheering for Ukraine is the, is the latest version of, you know, here in Britain, they wanted people to go out on the streets every Tuesday night and bang saucepans with wooden spoons in an act of support.
00:18:07.900 You know, this was, you know, this was the obeisance, this was the kind of ritualized, you know, getting down on your knees and genuflecting to the NHS that was this performative stunt that everyone was supposed to take part in and, you know, waving the blue and yellow flag and saying Slavia Ukrania is now the new, you know, save the NHS.
00:18:28.780 It doesn't look, it's not real, it's not real, it's choreographed.
00:18:31.900 It is so much, this is so, so theatrical, but of course the Dems, Democrats in the States immediately jumped on this to say that this was some kind of ambush and poor Zelensky set up for this.
00:18:45.080 And in fact, as you point out, we'll get to your slide in a second here, but interesting, the mainstream media in the U.S. dug up people like Susan Rice, who hasn't been on camera now in years.
00:18:59.400 This is an Obama holdover.
00:19:01.940 She was the, I believe, Obama's Secretary of the United Nations, or Ambassador to the United Nations.
00:19:07.780 But here's Susan Rice.
00:19:08.620 Joining our ongoing coverage, former United States Ambassador to the United Nations, former National Security Advisor to President Obama, Ambassador Susan Rice is here.
00:19:17.680 Ambassador, your reaction?
00:19:21.240 Well, Nicole, obviously it's a very sad day and an embarrassment for the United States on the world stage.
00:19:29.300 But let's step back and analyze what's happened here.
00:19:33.260 I think there's no question that this was a setup.
00:19:38.620 Yeah, but as you point out, who set them up?
00:19:43.620 And as you posted on X, you know, this was the same script all over Europe.
00:19:50.220 It's like they were waiting for this.
00:19:52.000 They were reading the talking points and in this case, posting the talking points.
00:19:56.960 Incredible.
00:19:58.360 I think Trump was legitimately blindsided by this.
00:20:03.460 I don't think there was any intention of this degenerating into this sort of surreal news conference.
00:20:10.500 I do think the Dems had a lot to do with it, though.
00:20:12.280 I think the Democrats were playing a very, very dangerous game because they are literally undermining U.S. foreign policy in a way that is very close to treason at times.
00:20:24.700 And, of course, that potentially could be prosecuted.
00:20:29.420 But I found your observation fascinating.
00:20:33.620 Obviously, there is some design here.
00:20:37.400 Oh, well, it surely, if it can't be accidental, you know, that's only some of the people that were using that exact form of words at the same time.
00:20:48.560 And, you know, and there's no way.
00:20:50.340 And that happened over and over again.
00:20:52.900 You know, and it happened before.
00:20:54.620 There's all sorts of fascinating montages on, you know, on the Internet, on social media and so on, you know, where you can see news broadcasters and anchors all around the world saying things like, you know, regardless of the propaganda, it cannot be denied that Ukraine is going to win this war.
00:21:12.280 And that form of words exactly was trotted out by one journalistic mouth after another.
00:21:21.480 Surely.
00:21:22.380 So then you start playing five dimension, 5D chess with it because you think, well, surely they realize that it's nowadays with the way that the social media is operates, that this is this patterning is going to be picked up on in femtoseconds.
00:21:38.060 And people are going to, you know, people are going to observe this, this synchronicity.
00:21:43.780 So is that deliberate?
00:21:45.580 You know, do they, do they want us to see that they're synchronizing behind closed doors?
00:21:50.960 Because surely they couldn't imagine that it wouldn't be noticed if not in five minutes, you know, at least in 10.
00:21:58.680 I just, I look on at it and it makes me panicky at a fundamental level that I've never been anxious about before.
00:22:06.160 Because either a very clever game is being played that we, that we're not seeing, or it's this clumsy.
00:22:15.240 And if the people with their hands on the levers of power are this clumsy, then in many ways that's worse than if they're as Machiavellian and sophisticated as some of us like to think.
00:22:29.420 If they really are this lame, we really do have a lot to worry about when it's World War III that's the sword of Damocles hanging over everyone's heads.
00:22:38.300 Well, exactly.
00:22:40.880 And I was so encouraged to hear Donald Trump lay that on the line with Zelensky saying, you're gambling with the world, you're gambling with World War III.
00:22:51.420 And of course, I think in November, we may have reached the fever pitch of that.
00:22:56.420 We came so close to a nuclear war breaking out.
00:22:59.780 And yet the most of the national media in Canada, UK, and the US was completely blase about it.
00:23:07.700 After decades of always reminding ourselves that nuclear war is insanity.
00:23:14.700 Nobody wins.
00:23:16.280 There is only losers.
00:23:18.080 We might not have a civilization or a world after it.
00:23:21.920 And it's something we always have to strive to avoid.
00:23:25.080 But for months, for years, we have been talking like a nuclear war is not only inevitable, but desirable.
00:23:33.740 And I was heartened to see finally a president saying, no, we cannot have a nuclear war.
00:23:39.520 And you, Zelensky, are not going to push us into one.
00:23:43.220 So I think that's good.
00:23:44.800 Yeah.
00:23:45.120 And I'm going to ask you a question, David.
00:23:48.140 Make sense.
00:23:48.960 Make this make sense for me.
00:23:51.100 You know, we've got Keir Starmer, Prime Minister in the UK, talking glibly about putting boots on the ground.
00:23:59.580 I love when these completely untrained, non-military people, you know, jump on the squaddy jargon and stuff.
00:24:09.160 But, you know, there's boots on the ground thing.
00:24:11.060 Now, 30 seconds on the internet lets you establish that the Kremlin, Putin, whatever, has made it plain that any foreign forces, however they're badged, whether they're called NATO or UN or British or French, whatever, they will not be welcome on the battlefield, in the theatre, because of the way the battlefield is.
00:24:37.760 And America, the Trump regime, has backed that up and said, that cannot happen.
00:24:44.500 The Kremlin is right to say that.
00:24:46.580 So, when Keir Starmer and his diminutive chums across Europe echo his sentiments, who are they going to deploy a force against?
00:25:01.180 I don't understand what the two sides of the equation don't balance.
00:25:06.740 No, no, they don't.
00:25:09.920 Well, here's Keir Starmer at his warmongering best.
00:25:13.260 And I think he uses that phrase, boots on the ground.
00:25:16.600 And by the way, I had boots on the ground in 1996-97 when I served with NATO over in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
00:25:25.180 That's when NATO's mission really started to go askew, when it just was looking for any excuse to stay as an organization, despite the end of the Cold War.
00:25:35.100 It needed something.
00:25:37.180 And now, of course, it reaches for anything.
00:25:39.460 But here's Keir Starmer.
00:25:40.940 And this guy really gets under my skin.
00:25:43.660 I must say, I can't think, even more than Boris Johnson used to.
00:25:47.360 He really gets under my skin.
00:25:49.300 First, we will keep the military aid flowing and keep increasing the economic pressure on Russia to strengthen Ukraine now.
00:26:00.220 Second, we agreed that any lasting peace must ensure Ukraine's sovereignty and security.
00:26:08.100 And Ukraine must be at the table.
00:26:11.540 Third, in the event of a peace deal, we will keep boosting Ukraine's own defensive capabilities.
00:26:19.300 To deter any future invasion.
00:26:22.980 Fourth, we will go further, develop a coalition of the willing to defend a deal in Ukraine and to guarantee the peace.
00:26:33.300 Not every nation will feel able to contribute.
00:26:37.180 But that can't mean that we sit back.
00:26:39.420 I just have to break in here, because does Keir Starmer have a death wish for Great Britain?
00:26:50.100 It's one thing to be a warmonger and to talk about taking on the largest nuclear power in the world.
00:26:56.300 And it's another thing when you don't have a military anymore.
00:27:01.060 And I don't know if you ever watched Mark Fenton productions.
00:27:04.220 He's a really, really good YouTube historian.
00:27:07.520 He recently did a great little video on there being more horses than main battle tanks in the British Army.
00:27:16.940 There are 497 horses.
00:27:20.600 213 tanks.
00:27:22.120 They would be gone in an afternoon of fighting.
00:27:26.340 Apparently, only 40 tanks are able to be deployed.
00:27:33.000 Russia's got 9,000.
00:27:35.100 9,000 tanks.
00:27:37.080 As if, I mean, it's so anachronistic.
00:27:39.220 It beggars belief.
00:27:41.920 Anyway, and yes, we've got something, I think, like something under 80,000 personnel in the army.
00:27:49.680 And less than, you know, less than, much less than half of that is a fighting, are fighting soldiers.
00:27:57.820 You know, the rest of it is everything else that keeps the army, the army.
00:28:01.200 And at any given point, that 30-odd thousand fighting troops, only something like 25% of that entity is not available to fight at any given moment.
00:28:12.320 Now, I shouldn't have a laugh in my voice when I do it, because every single one of those is a mother's son who is potentially going to be put into an unsurvivable, a potentially unsurvivable situation at the behest of somebody who seems so disconnected from the realities, or what we all understand as the brutal realities of the situation in Ukraine.
00:28:36.720 I mean, he's less of a kind of a prime minister.
00:28:39.420 He's more like the nutter on the night bus that gets on and starts shouting the odds, and everyone's praying that he won't come and sit beside them and engage them directly.
00:28:48.700 He doesn't seem bolted to reality at this point with these proclamations that he's making.
00:29:00.460 This is why I keep turning it back towards you to see if you have any, can you distill any logic, any thesis from what he's saying?
00:29:13.700 Well, clearly the British military has gone the way of the Canadian, because similarly, we have less than, I think it's 60, less than 65,000 full-time regular force personnel.
00:29:29.100 We've virtually given away all of our leopard tanks to Ukraine, and this is something most Canadians aren't even aware of.
00:29:35.240 They're gone, blown up on the battlefield.
00:29:37.660 We gave them all away.
00:29:39.160 We just gave 30 more light-armored vehicles to Ukraine, or they're on their way, just in time either to be blown up on the battlefield or sold to some criminal cartel, which we now know the Zelensky regime is doing.
00:29:52.900 They're selling military hardware outside of the country and getting money from it after it's been given to them.
00:30:00.300 The hypocrisy and the greed is just incredible coming from this country.
00:30:06.000 But I wonder if Keir Starmer is even thinking in ordinary terms, or if he's even capable of doing that.
00:30:14.700 The Royal Navy was once, of course, the largest navy in the world.
00:30:18.560 It was the pride of the British Empire.
00:30:22.200 It's now barely afloat.
00:30:24.000 It has more admirals than ships, which is incredible.
00:30:28.460 There are more air marshals in the Royal Air Force than there are fighter jets.
00:30:32.860 It has gone in a steep decline under both conservative and labor governments.
00:30:39.660 There's been no difference.
00:30:41.000 They have both, just as in Canada, conservative governments can be just as bad as liberal governments and completely ignoring the needs of the military, but very good at pretending they're very, very concerned at the same time.
00:30:54.840 And we saw that nine years of Stephen Harper, marginally better than his predecessor.
00:31:01.860 But when a push comes to shove, no, it's not there.
00:31:06.440 And what worries me...
00:31:08.300 We've probably got more giant pandas in Britain than we've got serviceable aircraft carriers.
00:31:12.880 Yes, you probably do.
00:31:18.460 But it's when these people talk this way, and they really think what they say doesn't matter, and they can somehow put their countries on a war footing when they haven't got the resources to even follow through with their threats.
00:31:35.660 And they expect Putin somehow to nod and say, well, yes, I know you're not really serious, Kier, but just keep on talking.
00:31:43.540 We'll just ignore you.
00:31:45.220 There does come a point where Putin and others are just throwing up their hands and saying, look, if you really want a war, go ahead, make my day.
00:31:54.800 But I don't think you're going to get very far.
00:31:57.040 And certainly that's the case throughout NATO countries.
00:32:01.600 Now, I do think Donald Trump wants to get American troops out of Europe.
00:32:08.040 He has mused about that over the years.
00:32:11.300 He hasn't said it lately.
00:32:13.280 But you have to look at Donald Trump as somebody who has said things for the last decade, and he might not repeat them as often today as he once did, but I think he still believes it.
00:32:23.100 He wants to get Americans out of Europe.
00:32:25.480 I think he would like to withdraw the United States from NATO because he sees it as an organization that is way past its due date.
00:32:36.360 It really fulfills no other purpose today except to incite potential war on the European continent.
00:32:44.200 And God help us elsewhere.
00:32:46.560 It's even looking to Asia now.
00:32:48.900 So, do you really think NATO could survive without the United States?
00:32:56.160 Because the United States overwhelmingly pays for NATO, overwhelmingly contributes to the largest material military resources.
00:33:04.600 Is this a pipe dream for the European Union to say we can sustain NATO without the United States?
00:33:10.500 Well, NATO is the US.
00:33:13.760 And the US is NATO.
00:33:15.720 Without them backstopping, without them writing the checks and all of the rest of it, anything that a Keir Starmer or an Emmanuel Macron says is, you know, they don't have the, you know, they can't, they don't have that in their account to honour the checks that they're metaphorically writing.
00:33:33.000 They can't do it without the bank of mum and dad, which is, at the moment, it's Donald Trump and JD fans.
00:33:39.660 So, it goes to something, I think, that might even be an unintended consequence of the globalist project, which, you know, we can all clearly see that the likes of Keir Starmer and Macron and Schultz and Ursula von der Leyen and all of the rest have bought into and preached and pushed and so on.
00:34:09.120 And it was predicated upon, you know, the redundancy of nation states.
00:34:17.520 And in the case of certainly the UK, I can't really speak to what the zeitgeist or what the atmosphere was elsewhere in Europe.
00:34:25.140 But we've been being told that our history is shameful, you know, that our culture is anachronous at best, you know, or just shameful.
00:34:34.000 You know, that our heritage is best forgotten, along with our great grandparents, you know, whose culture you might say it was.
00:34:41.800 But that erosion, that deracination of peoples away from feeling that they belong to anything and that they're the descendants of and indeed the guardians and caretakers of something that might then be handed on to coming generations.
00:34:59.040 Having achieved that, that part of the globalist project has worked, not to mention the uncontrolled, the deliberate mass immigration into Europe, into Britain, you know, which has turned upside down and diluted and irremediably altered the demographic of one nation state after another.
00:35:22.420 However, for the incumbent heads of state in these places now to play to some kind of patriotism, to try and suggest that their people, their young men in the main might want to defend something, to defend a notion like democracy.
00:35:43.820 When anyone with their heads screwed on, even remotely straight, can see that democracy, if it ever existed, is a meaningless concept now.
00:35:53.600 Now, I do wonder if it's an unintended consequence of the success of the globalist project in undermining everyone's sense of self and belonging, that now inevitably, when someone like Keir Starmer talks about boots on the ground and there's even the, you know, the C word is out there, conscription and the necessity thereof.
00:36:12.280 There ain't no way you're going to get that flag to fly in the climate of the third decade of the 21st century.
00:36:23.880 That ship has sailed.
00:36:27.060 Well, precisely, I know you pointed this out on numerous other occasions.
00:36:32.380 How can you expect young men or women to defend the realm when you have been telling people that realm is horribly, obscenely corrupt and is racist and doesn't respect women, is misogynistic?
00:36:49.400 And that's how they have sold British history.
00:36:52.800 And yet you expect these same people to fight for this country.
00:36:56.980 Look at Germany.
00:36:59.120 Germany, I mean, Germany has been prostrating itself to the world since 1945.
00:37:08.500 You know, and the young there have been raised in this kind of, you know, if not self-loathing, this necessity for obeisance to make amends for the 20th century.
00:37:21.080 And by now, Germany, which was once, you know, an intellectual superpower and, you know, the beating heart of the European economy and a once proud culture, it's now emasculated.
00:37:36.200 It's on its knees, its sense of self, goodness only knows what remnant appendix of what was once the German sense of self still prevails.
00:37:48.180 And that's been a consequence of the abiding philosophy of the last, you know, lifetime.
00:37:52.920 And now we are where we are.
00:37:58.260 We're in this situation where the peoples living in these countries, in large part, they could be living anywhere.
00:38:05.120 And their sense of belonging has been so undermined, if not erased, that you can't motivate, short of coercion, you know, the kind of like, you know, the spirit of 1916 and the, you know, and the great conscription that put the, you know, the flower of a generation into the charnel house of Flanders.
00:38:25.700 And, you know, God bless and, you know, the tragedy, the unforgivable tragedy of all of that.
00:38:31.800 However, that was possible then because that, that, that those people believed in something and belonged to something.
00:38:38.700 And again, and again, in 1940, people believed in something and they, they recognized a concept like democracy and freedom.
00:38:49.000 And they believed that they had a share, a small percentage share in democracy and freedom and what it was to be British.
00:38:57.220 They felt that they had that.
00:38:59.040 I mean, that's all gone.
00:39:01.660 So short of just like they do in Ukraine now, turning up at people's, you know, in car parks and on street corners and dragging unsuspecting lads into the backs of vans and driving them off to the front line.
00:39:14.240 You're not going to get that.
00:39:15.580 That's so, but it's the anachronistic nature of the saber rattling.
00:39:21.120 I mean, you still have to fall back on these outmoded terms like saber rattling, you know, because the, we don't even have the vocabulary properly to express the situation in which we find ourselves.
00:39:32.540 When you've got stuffed shirts like Keir Starmer standing behind podiums pretending to be wartime leaders, it's, they don't even fool themselves.
00:39:41.940 Yeah, that's, that is, that's, that's so true.
00:39:46.320 And when you think of the losses in this war in Ukraine to the Ukrainians have lost at least a million, perhaps as much as 1.8 million.
00:39:55.720 Those are first world war fatality figures.
00:39:58.980 Those are the kind of numbers you saw from countries like Serbia or Germany lost 4 million.
00:40:05.720 But the British, Britain lost less than a million.
00:40:11.060 If you, if you include Australia, Canada, New Zealand and all, it was probably about, about a million.
00:40:16.340 But if these are horrendous numbers and they're also fighting in trenches.
00:40:21.600 But of course, none of this ever gets on the evening news.
00:40:26.380 We don't have any shared imagery.
00:40:29.500 We don't have any shared visuals of this war.
00:40:32.580 Why isn't this war televised?
00:40:34.900 World War II, Korea, Vietnam were more televised than this.
00:40:39.660 Now there's got to be a very straightforward and probably very unpalatable explanation for why we're not being shown what's actually happening there.
00:40:46.120 Because I would say it's because what we're being told is happening would be, it would be made, it would be laid bare that that is not what is happening.
00:40:52.980 And you're right.
00:40:53.740 I mean, we can talk in the 21st century about one, possibly 1.8 million dead.
00:40:59.240 And you're right.
00:41:00.380 Britain lost shy of a million.
00:41:02.960 But even at that, Fabian Ware, who established what became the Commonwealth, you know, the War Graves Commission, because he was so upset about the mass graves and what was happening to the dead.
00:41:12.860 He calculated that if Britain's dead were to march four abreast down Whitehall, it would take them three and a half days to pass the senator.
00:41:22.400 Marching night and day.
00:41:24.280 You know, France, by the November of 1914, was a million casualties down with four years of the war still to go.
00:41:32.680 These countries bled themselves white.
00:41:35.140 And it's only just out of living memory.
00:41:37.340 At Versailles, there were serious conversations had to be had about whether or not France even still existed.
00:41:45.320 You know, there was general acceptance that something was going to have to stand up and be France.
00:41:50.220 But they had lost two million down.
00:41:52.960 And there was some serious conversations among these dreadful, ghoulish old men that had stayed safe behind the lines while the young men went off and got turned into pink mist in places like the Somme and Passchendaele and all of the rest of it.
00:42:05.880 But there was conversations that had to be had about whether France could still exist.
00:42:10.240 And yet here we are, apparently having learned those lessons.
00:42:14.680 And we've got a man who's never got his hands dirty, far less bled in a trench, daring to acquire unto himself language like boots on the ground.
00:42:25.220 And it's astounding.
00:42:29.680 But, you know, I'll leave us with this because we both alluded to the fact that these, you know, these rare earth minerals, which is a concept I don't think I even was aware of six months ago.
00:42:43.640 And suddenly everybody's talking about rare earth.
00:42:46.460 But Vladimir Putin had a little offer for the United States.
00:42:49.880 We, by the way, are we ready to propose to our American partners, when partners, I'm talking about administrative and government structures and companies, if they could have an interest in a joint work.
00:43:07.180 So there is an offer and I think Donald Trump might pick him up on it.
00:43:32.260 And it's interesting because these are the conversations really, you know, it's the saying the quiet but out loud, as we've learned to say ad nauseum now.
00:43:42.760 But when someone like Vladimir Putin is saying that, it's the, what you take from that is the corporatisation of and the tokenisation of the world and everything that's in it.
00:43:58.400 I mean, let's get down to, you know, sort of brass tacks and acknowledge that it's BlackRock and Vanguard that are in control of this situation.
00:44:08.660 They are the best, you know, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, Boeing, all the rest of it.
00:44:14.580 It's BlackRock and or Vanguard that control.
00:44:17.700 They're calling the shots.
00:44:19.040 They're making the decisions.
00:44:20.480 And it's about economics.
00:44:21.840 All sorts of people are standing ready to, you know, to launder through the trillions that will be passed off as the reconstruction of Ukraine.
00:44:29.940 And the cash registers will be tinging, you know, you know, for decades to come as the usual suspects.
00:44:37.440 More of these, you know, barely spotted ghouls, you know, will profit from the aftermath of war in the way that these dreadful old ghouls always do out of sight and largely out of mind.
00:44:50.560 You know, every blade of grass, every tree in the rainforests, you know, has already got a price on it.
00:44:56.460 The running water, the air that we breathe, the planet that we live upon is being tokenised, ready to be asset stripped and broken up and sold off by BlackRock and Vanguard and the banks and the vast transnational corporate entities.
00:45:12.980 You know, and you catch, you catch glimpses of it from a Putin or a Trump or a Starmer.
00:45:20.700 But this, that's the conversation.
00:45:23.380 I'm glad you played that clip.
00:45:24.500 I didn't know that clip was coming.
00:45:25.960 But that's the kind of conversation we ought to be paying attention to because there they are, you know, after their proxy war and, you know, two million dead.
00:45:36.700 Let's be partners.
00:45:38.620 Let's make lots of money.
00:45:40.120 Yeah, and after we made billions of dollars blowing the country up, we'll make billions more putting it back together again.
00:45:48.920 And that's how often has this happened, though?
00:45:53.020 And, you know, just the First World War analogy, people did not know what it was like at the front lines in the First World War.
00:46:02.060 The newspapers printed rubbish.
00:46:04.160 And I remember reading some of these stories.
00:46:08.180 It's the same, same story day in and day of.
00:46:11.880 Big push, big push.
00:46:13.900 You know, Jaime on the run.
00:46:17.460 It's the same nonsense every day about how the war was going, advancing just as it was, as the generals had planned it to advance.
00:46:26.260 And the banks, the banks, the banks, the banks, the banks, the banks of the same banks that are still, that are still in operation now, the same entities funded all sides in World War I, and they funded all sides in World War II.
00:46:40.900 Now, that, and that trick is as old as, you know, that's been on the go since Adam was a boy.
00:46:46.260 So that they can't, they can't not profit.
00:46:49.980 It doesn't matter who wins.
00:46:52.140 You know, the First World War likely happened because the time had come to repatriate and get control of the gold.
00:46:59.140 You know, because you've got 1913 and the foundation of the U.S. Federal Reserve, which is neither federal nor a reserve of anything.
00:47:07.540 You know, these massive cataclysmic global conflicts, they happen because they happen at the behest of the same transnational corporate entities that make money.
00:47:21.880 You know, where there's, you know, where the blood flows, so does the money.
00:47:26.020 And that is so true.
00:47:30.980 And anyone who has served in the military has that dawning realization sooner than later that there's somebody pulling the levers here behind the scenes that sometimes there's no need for that war.
00:47:44.680 We didn't need that war.
00:47:45.960 Certainly, we should never have sleptwalk into the First World War, and we've sleptwalked into so many others.
00:47:51.420 But people leading us, guiding us, those military-industrial complex and the transnationals, as you point out.
00:48:00.500 But no one's going to get me to start cheering for a war with Russia under any circumstances.
00:48:07.700 That would be insanity and would ultimately lead to another, to a nuclear war, which would lead to the catastrophe on this planet, which would not survive.
00:48:19.500 And I think that's, if anything, Donald Trump said last week, I say that again.
00:48:25.320 Thank God there is a president who finally acknowledges that nuclear war is a bad thing.
00:48:29.580 It's been far too long since we've had U.S. presidents acknowledge that nuclear war was possible.
00:48:37.000 But it was a horrible, horrible idea.
00:48:39.980 And it should be discouraged at every level.
00:48:44.840 And I'm happy saying that.
00:48:47.000 I, you know, I'm just, you know, I'm just offering my opinion.
00:48:50.300 But I always doubted, really, or very quickly began to doubt that there was anything real circulating in the form of a pathogen that they called COVID.
00:49:02.620 It's just the flu rebranded.
00:49:04.680 You know, flu disappeared and COVID came in.
00:49:07.920 How convenient was that?
00:49:09.560 But I didn't really think that they, the entities, would have released something that was, you know, as dangerous as they were pretending it was.
00:49:18.560 Because ultimately, they or their children breathe that air.
00:49:21.480 And for that reason, I've always suspected that really what has kept us safe from mutually assured destruction is the fact that while they like us to live in fear of it, to be absolutely discombobulated by anxiety about the possibility,
00:49:40.600 I don't think they'll do anything that would smash their windows and scratch their limousines, far less put mushroom clouds above the cities that they live in.
00:49:48.140 So, I have my doubts.
00:49:50.760 I think that's a, I think that's a game of chicken with, not between superpowers, but between power and the, and the people.
00:49:58.880 And I don't think, I don't, I think what stops them doing it is because they won't do anything that hurts them.
00:50:06.180 They've got too much money, too much money to spend and too many views to enjoy from their penthouse windows.
00:50:11.680 They're not, they won't, they're self-preserving bastards.
00:50:15.160 It's a lot of, that's what it comes down to, doesn't it?
00:50:18.680 Well, Neil, thank you so much for joining me today.
00:50:21.240 It's been a pleasure, which we could go on and on, but we'll do this every month like we promised.
00:50:26.000 And it's, your analysis is amongst the best out there on YouTube.
00:50:31.620 I don't know anybody else who is so consistently good with analyzing world and domestic affairs as you are.
00:50:41.420 I love your show.
00:50:42.760 I love what you're doing.
00:50:44.540 And sometimes I even forget what a fantastic archaeologist you are because you're one hell of a great pundit and a great speaker.
00:50:54.080 Well, David, it's an absolute, it's an absolute pleasure.
00:50:57.780 You know, you know, I look, I look forward to conversations with you.
00:51:01.160 I find yours a very open, easy forum in which to just exchange views.
00:51:04.880 And I find myself getting into a mindset where I'm just talking to a friend.
00:51:08.280 So I long may it continue.
00:51:11.680 Great.
00:51:12.160 And we'll see you next month then, Neil.
00:51:13.580 And God bless and we'll see you soon.
00:51:16.020 God bless you too.
00:51:16.760 Bye for now.
00:51:17.140 That was Neil Oliver, friend and colleague, one heck of a nice guy who I really enjoyed talking to again today.
00:51:28.560 And it's been a pleasure to get to know Neil.
00:51:30.960 I really have a lot of admiration for this man.
00:51:33.880 And he is exactly what he appears to be.
00:51:37.220 Somebody who is completely honest and completely analytical in the way he understands the world.
00:51:45.040 And we'll be back again tomorrow.
00:51:48.680 My guest will be Christine Anderson, European Union Member of Parliament.
00:51:55.300 And I know you're all looking forward to that.
00:51:57.580 It's going to be a great week.
00:51:59.280 And Wednesday, Maxime Bernier joins the show.
00:52:03.760 And we're going to talk about tariffs, Pyrapaliev, and that next election.
00:52:10.400 Thanks for joining me today.
00:52:15.040 Thank you.