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Ilana Rachel Daniel sat with Robert Spencer for a fascinating discussion on Jihad in Islam. Here we covered aspects of Muslim theology well outside the radar of the Western mindset that are rarely, if ever, discussed. You will find this conversation as compelling as did we. We are living in a world where Islamic Terrorism threatens nine million people and the entirety of the state of Israel - but hardly us alone. It threatens the 90 million Iranians who roar out of their chokehold with the death of the Butcher of Iran, former President Ebrahim Raisi this week. And it threatens the free world in its entirety and the civilization on which it was built. That means you and me both. The religious ideology that defines the Islamic Republic of Iran for example, along with their proxies in Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis and their many various branches is foreign to us on an elemental level. In increasing frequency, we witness acts of savagery that we do not wish upon our worst enemy - acts that go against not only our myriad of cultures but go against the humanity which we believed to be shared by us all. Robert Spencer is the director of Jihad Watch and a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. He is the author of twenty-eight books, including the New York Times bestsellers "The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades)" and "The Truth About Muhammad" and the bestsellers "The History of Jihad From Muhammad to ISIS" and "The Critical Qur'an: Explained from Key Islamic Commentaries and Contemporary Historical Research". His forthcoming book is "Muhammad: A Critical Biography".Spencer has led seminars on Islam and jihad for the FBI, the United States Central Command, United States Army Command and General Staff College, the U.S. Army's Asymmetric Warfare Group, the Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF), the Justice Department's Anti-Terrorism Advisory Council and the U.S. intelligence community. He has discussed jihad, Islam, and terrorism at a workshop sponsored by the U.S. State Department and the German Foreign Ministry. He is a senior fellow with the Center for Security Policy.* https://www.jihadwatch.org/* https://x.com/jihadwatchRS* https://www.amazon.com/s?k=robert+spencer&i=stripbooks-intl-ship&crid=2O6LYQQHW09RT&sprefix=robert+sp%2Cstripbooks-intl-ship%2C380&ref=nb_sb_ss_ts-doa-p_1_9 Get full access to Ilana Rachel Daniel at ilanaracheldaniel120.substack.com/subscribe

Show Notes and Transcript The current Israeli-Gaza war has sparked much debate focussing on geo politics and historical land disputes.  But few dare ask if Islam is the root cause of the ongoing tension.  Robert Spencer has studied Islam for 3 decades. His dozens of books and the Jihad Watch website are all go to sources of background information on Islam and the history behind it.  He returns to Hearts of Oak to ask if this is a religious problem and we start by looking at what Islam actually says about the Jews.  The aggression and vitriol throughout Islamic text and the history of behaviour towards the Jewish people is an eye opener to all of us.  Armed with this deeper understanding Robert then touches on how the term Palestinian was invented. The history, leader, flag and culture had to be invented as it was all non existent before.  His short book "The Palestinian Delusion" goes into much more detail and is a recommended read.  Enjoy the interview and get ready to see this current conflict in a whole new light. 'The Palestinian Delusion: The Catastrophic History of the Middle East Peace Process' on Amazon https://amzn.eu/d/cPigAab Robert Spencer is the director of Jihad Watch and a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. He is the author of twenty-seven books, including the New York Times bestsellers The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam, The Truth About Muhammad and the bestsellers The History of Jihad From Muhammad to ISIS and The Critical Qur'an: Explained from Key Islamic Commentaries and Contemporary Historical Research. His new book is Empire of God: How the Byzantines Saved Civilization. Spencer has led seminars on Islam and jihad for the FBI, the United States Central Command, United States Army Command and General Staff College, the U.S. Army's Asymmetric Warfare Group, the Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF), the Justice Department's Anti-Terrorism Advisory Council and the U.S. intelligence community. He has discussed jihad, Islam, and terrorism at a workshop sponsored by the U.S. State Department and the German Foreign Ministry. He is a senior fellow with the Center for Security Policy. Connect with Robert and Jihad Watch... X                                x.com/jihadwatchRS  @jihadwatchRS WEBSITE                   jihadwatch.org/ Interview recorded  26.3.24 Connect with Hearts of Oak... WEBSITE            heartsofoak.org/ PODCASTS        heartsofoak.podbean.com/ SOCIAL MEDIA   heartsofoak.org/connect/  SHOP                  heartsofoak.org/shop/ TRANSCRIPT (Hearts of Oak) It's wonderful to have Robert Spencer back with us again. Robert, thank you so much for your time today. (Robert Spencer) Always good to talk to you, Peter. Thank you. Great to have you on. Always good to have guests on talking about their books. We'll get into a book that I've been delving into and got a couple of months ago, but only picked it up recently and have read it. We'll get into that in a moment. But obviously, you can find Robert: that is his Twitter handle, @jihadwatchRS. And obviously jihadwatch.org is the website. You can find everything in the links below. Make sure and use it. Make sure and sign up to it. One of the latest, I think the latest piece on that, and we're doing this just two days before the video goes out, is the U.S. Supreme Court gives Hamas-linked CAIRE a 9-0 thumbs up. And CAIR obviously is the Council on American Islamic Relations. I encourage you to delve into that, which gives some of the geopolitics, I guess, that lies behind some of the difficulties that the U.S. Faces as it engages and grapples and understands Islam, which is a massive subject. But the book that I've been delving into and enjoying is The Palestinian Delusion. Short book, 200 pages. And if you want to understand what is happening at the moment in the Middle East, I would encourage you to get a hold of a copy. Available US, UK, wherever you are. The links are in the description. Grab it. And I know you'll want to get it after this interview. But , I do want to get into modern day; what is happening? But right at the beginning, chapter two; chapter one is about the formation of Israel. If we just go on to chapter two, does religion, specifically Islam, lie at the root of the problem? What are your thoughts, Robert? And of course, you delve into this in chapter two. Yeah, absolutely, Peter. Islam is what the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is all about. If you look at the messages from Hamas, from Palestinian Islamic Jihad, from Fatah, from the Palestinian Authority itself, they are all about Islam all the time. Yet that is the one aspect of this conflict that is universally ignored by policy analysts and by policymakers in the West. Every attempt at a negotiated settlement initiated by the President of the United States or any other entity over the last 50 years has completely ignored, 100% ignored, Islam as a factor in this conflict. And yet, from the standpoint of the Palestinian Arabs, that's what it is all about, and we ignore it to our own detriment. Now, chapter two is entitled The Roots of the hatred of Israel. Hatred is a very strong word, Robert, is it not? Yes, but it's entirely accurate in this case, because what we are dealing with is not only a hatred, but what has been termed the longest hatred, that is the hatred of the Jews, which of course is not solely the province of Muslims or Islam, but, many people in the West don't realize that there even is such a thing as Islamic anti-Semitism. Yet, it is very real and it is at the roots of the problem between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs today. Now, we all hear the term Islam being one of the great Abrahamic religions, and yet there doesn't seem to be a lot of love for the Jews in Islam in the text and the history. Do you want to just let us know; because that is a different side that many people will certainly not hear in the legacy media. Yes. Islam, the Quran teaches that Islam is the third revelation after the revelation of the Torah and the Gospel. That is the core scriptures of the Jews and the Christians, and that it confirms the message of the Torah and the Gospel. And that Moses and Abraham before him, and Jesus after him, and all the other prophets in the Bible, in both the Jewish and the Christian scriptures, are people who taught Islam. Islam was the original religion of all the prophets. We can see this particularly in chapter 3, verse 67 of the Quran, which says Abraham was not a Jew or a Christian. He was a Muslim. And you might wonder, well, this doesn't make any sense. How could Abraham be a Muslim when Muhammad is the originator of Islam in the 7th century and Abraham is many, many centuries before that? The Islamic answer is that Islam is the original religion of all the prophets and that it was their followers who twisted their teachings to create Judaism and Christianity. The only legitimate expression of the true teachings of the prophets is Islam. And that being the case, the orthodox mainstream understanding among Muslims of Judaism and Christianity is that they have no legitimacy at all. Now, this is a very important point because, then the Quran commands Muslims to fight against and subjugate the Jews and Christians, among others. And it's in part because of their rejecting the true faith and corrupting their scriptures, although that part comes from Islamic tradition. Now, the difficulty that people have with this arises from the fact that Islamic spokesmen in the West very deceptively, frequently, refer to how much they as Muslims revere and respect figures such as Abraham and Moses and Jesus himself himself. And so Jews and Christians who are uninformed about Islam hear this and they think, isn't that wonderful? How generous and open-minded and ecumenical they are. And we should do the same. We should reciprocate by acknowledging Muhammad as a prophet. And they don't realize that the Muslims do revere and respect Abraham and Moses and Jesus and the rest of them, but as Muslims, not as they are portrayed in Judaism and Christianity. I mean, everything seems to be on the terms of Islam. I knew your book: Did Muhammad Exist? Actually, I think we need to remind ourselves of the world that Muhammad, if he did exist, was born into, which wasn't an Islamic world as we know today. It was a very different world. Yes. North Africa, the Middle East, what we think of today as the heart of the Islamic world, those were Christian lands. They were 99% Christian from Morocco all the way across North Africa and throughout the Middle East. And so it was the conquest initiated by the Arabs beginning in the 630s that ultimately led to the Islamization of those various nations and the steady diminishment of the Christian population. But, it's important to keep in mind, Peter, that the Christian population did not decline because the Christians were gradually convinced of the truth and beauty of Islam. Rather, they were subjugated, as the Quran directs, under the hegemony of Islamic law and denied basic rights in the societies that had been conquered. And the only thing they had to do to free themselves from the oppression of living with this denial of rights was to convert to Islam. And so many people did over the centuries, such that, for example, Egypt was 99% Christian when the Arabs invaded, and now it's about 10% Christian. The Christians didn't all leave. They just converted to Islam over time, because of the pressure placed on non-Muslims. Well, maybe as the world talks about repatriations, especially in the BLM movement, maybe Christians need to get some of that from Egypt. Yes. If there were real reparations for slavery and for oppression, then yes, the Christian population of the entire Middle East and North Africa would be owed an immense amount of money. But nobody's talking about that. I guess we hear the term anti-Semitism and we're told that any feeling of anti-Semitism from Islam is purely misplaced and doesn't lie at the heart of it and this seems to be this distinction between kind of rogue Islamic preachers, but actually key text and that seems, I think commentators seem to want to make a wide gap between that. Yet, as you point out, this term anti-Semitism, it lies right at the basis of Islam from 1300, 1400 years ago. Yes, absolutely. The Qur'an says in chapter 5, verse 82, that the people who are most intense in hostility to the believers will be the Jews, as well as the polytheists. Now, what this works out to in practice is that the Jews are the recipients of the most hostility from the Muslims. This is also because this is not an isolated passage, but the Quran is full of passages depicting the Jews in a negative light, depicting them as schemers who plot against the plans of Allah himself and try to foil them. Who crow about the limits on the power of Allah, saying Allah's hand is chained. That's chapter 5, verse 64. They were transformed into apes and pigs by Allah for their disobedience. That's chapter 2, verses 62 to 66, rather. Chapter 5, 59 and 60, and 7, 166. and many, many, other passages all the way through the Quran depict the Jews as being rebellious against Allah and essentially enemies of Allah. Then the Islamic tradition is even worse and the Jews are depicted as plotting against Muhammad, trying to kill Muhammad, being massacred by Muhammad and punishment for their plots to kill him. Jewish woman poisons Muhammad and this ultimately leads to his death and so on. They're the real villains of the entire tradition. And this carries through to the modern age where Judaism and Jews are so stigmatized in the Islamic world that several ex-Muslims have spoken about moving to America or moving to Europe and encountering actual Jews for the first time and being shocked that they were not evil, horned creatures, devils in human form, trying to disrupt human society in every way, but just ordinary people like everybody else, some good, some bad. And they had no frame of reference to understand this, because Islam is so unanimous and monochromatic in depicting them as evil. I think if someone is watching this as a Christian, they will understand the Bible as the text that they live by, which is full of stories, explains things, not really chronological, but actually, you can read it and you can grasp a lot of its meaning. And that stands by itself outside the Christian traditions, really. Islam seems to be quite different. It seems to be not not only is the Qur'an actually impossible to understand, but actually seemingly is only supposedly, understandable. With a wealth of other writings, which seems to confuse things massively for anyone coming from a Christian background or from the West. That's right, Peter. The Qur'an in the first place is written, in many cases it tells the stories that it tells. In a way that makes it clear that it assumes that the hearers have heard them before and are familiar with the general outlines of the story. So, it leaves out important aspects of the stories, and many times it is speaking about incidents, and events, and not explaining what incident or event is involved. It's as if you were talking to a friend and I walked up and I didn't know either of you very well and didn't know what you what incidents you were talking about, and you didn't pause to explain it to me. I would have no idea what you're what you're discussing, and that's what reading the Quran is like in many ways. So, you have the voluminous hadith literature: hadith means report and it's the reports of Mohammed's words and deeds. In the hadith literature you find what is known as the Asbab al-Nuzul which is the circumstances of revelation that tells the stories of what was going on at the time among the early Muslims. And Muhammad that led to the revelation of this or that passage of the Quran. And that's all very well, but this material comes from a couple of hundred years after Muhammad is supposed to have lived. And there's no trace of it existing before that. And so, it's an open question as to whether these things really give the circumstances of revelation and the Quran passage follows from that, or if these stories were put together in order to explain what is essentially a gnomic, elliptical, incoherent text. And that seems, the latter seems to be more likely. Some philologists like Christoph Luxemburg have noted that if you strip out the diacritical marks that distinguish many Arabic letters from each other, because there are 22 letters in the Arabic alphabet, but 16 are exactly the same character, just with different combinations of dots above or below. And so if you take out the dots and repoint it as if it were Aramaic, then suddenly it's a whole different text and a Christian text in many cases. And so, Luxembourg contends that it was actually a Christian text that was repurposed by the early Arab conquerors in order to create the religion of Islam. And they did this because this is actually the fundamental thesis of my own book: Did Muhammad Exist? They did this because in those days, religions were what cemented political unity. There were no parliaments or constitutions in this era when Islam arose. And you had two great powers in this region, the Byzantine Empire, which was Christian, and the Persian Empire, which was Zoroastrian. They were held together by those religions. The idea was that to be a Roman citizen at this time, a citizen of the Byzantine Empire, meant that one was a Christian and adhered to the tenets of Orthodox Christianity. Consequently, the non-Christians were not considered to be fully citizens of the empire. And this is another story, but it was the Christian identity that was the cement that held the empire together. So, the Arabs amassed a great empire, conquering massive expanses of territory, and then they developed a religion to hold it all together. And because these were warriors who wanted to expand and defend and strengthen their empire, they made their religion belligerent, aggressive, martial, warlike, expansionist, and so on. I think in chapter two, you talk about that we all know of Muslims praying to Mecca, and only then Allah can really hear the prayers properly. But you talk in the book about initially it was facing towards Jerusalem. So, was this just Muhammad wanting to be accepted? and then later on, of course, or at that time, Muhammad wanting to be a prophet. Kind of, in my thinking, that's sheer arrogance, thinking you can be a prophet to a religion you come across. Those concepts of him wanting to be a Jewish prophet, but also praying towards Jerusalem, those are two facts that seem to be missing in any dialogue today. Yes, well, it does seem as if, at least according to the canonical traditional Islamic story; that is of questionable historical value. But there's no doubt that Muslims believe it; that Muhammad taught that he was a new prophet in the line of the prophets of the Bible. And that consequently he was the new prophet of the Jews and a new prophet of the Christians. And both groups said, you're not. The Jews said, you're not Jewish. You can't be a Jewish prophet. And the Christians said, Jesus said: it is finished on the cross. We're not looking for a new prophet. And so he was rejected by both. And this has led to the kind of cognitive dissonance that the Quran says that the Jews and Christians, the Christians in particular in chapter five of the Quran will be rightly guided if they follow the gospel. And yet the Gospel does not confirm the teachings of the Qur'an as the Qur'an insists, and it insists that it confirms the teachings of the Torah also. And so Islamic spokesmen, Islamic scholars throughout the ages have accounted for this discrepancy by claiming that the Jews and Christians corrupted their scriptures. And so, they maintain that Muhammad is indeed a prophet in the line of the biblical prophets, but that it's the Jews and Christians' fault for not recognizing him. They twisted their scriptures to erase the congruence so, that people would not see that the Quran confirms the Torah and the gospel. A s a result, the Jews and Christians are portrayed as these incredible renegades and rebels against God who have dared to tamper with the very word of God that he gave them, and created false religions of their own making. And so here again, they have no legitimacy. I do want to get on to current day but, I want to there there's another concept that comes out in your book which is a widely misunderstood word and that's the word jihad, and we are told jihad is inner struggle. It's a spiritual struggle between yourself trying to be right and to be good and live correctly. Yet, jihad is a term that's used in violence all across the world. What is this term, jihad? The primary understanding of jihad in Islamic theology is warfare against unbelievers in order to bring them under the hegemony of Islamic law. The confusion arises from the fact that jihad means struggle, and there are as many things that are referred to as struggles in Arabic as there are in English. And so you can have great struggles and small struggles. You can struggle to be on time for appointments when you're chronically late, but you can also have a great struggle between civilizations, such as World War II or something. Now, in the Islamic realm, it's the same thing. The Islamic Republic of Iran has a department of agricultural jihad, which doesn't involve blowing things up on farms. It involves trying to struggle to increase the efficiency of the farms and their fruitfulness. Whereas in Islamic theology, the principal meaning of jihad has to do with this warfare against unbelievers. So, here again, Islamic spokesmen in the West frequently confuse people. They're trying to confuse them and make them complacent about the jihad threat by saying jihad just means struggle. And it's about struggling to better yourself. And they don't tell you that Muhammad said the warfare against unbelievers is the highest understanding of jihad, that there's nothing greater than jihad in which one loses one's life and then is rewarded with paradise. In the book, you use a number of examples of what we would call hit preachers. This is in 45, the Hamas deputy minister of religious endowments on Al-Aqsa TV 2010 said: the Jews suffer from a mental disorder because they are thieves and aggressors. A thief or aggressor who took land or property develops a psychological disorder and pangs of conscience because he took someone that wasn't his. And then the next page, you have a from 2018, a program on Palestinian Authority television saying people could be deluded or think that they have no way out with the Jews. The liberation of this land is a matter of faith, which will happen despite everyone. And then the next page up, the Jews are treacherous and conniving cheaters. But again, the argument, many of the guests I have on would not look at Islam as an issue, as a problem. And they would simply say those are misguided, radical preachers, and they don't understand the true, beautiful nature of Islam. How do you speak against that criticism, I guess, that you're maybe picking things out and you're looking at these preachers that actually don't understand Islam, really? Well, in the first place, I find it difficult to believe that people who have committed their lives to understanding Islam correctly would not understand it correctly. While non-Muslims who've never picked up a Quran or have any idea what it says, they understand it perfectly well. Islam is kind of funny in that way that the more you know about it, the less you understand it. And the less you know about it, the more you understand it. We see this with non-Muslim politicians all over the West who assure us with immense confidence that Islam is a religion of peace that has nothing whatsoever to do with terrorism. Those are actually the exact words from Hillary Clinton a few years back, but many, many other politicians say exactly the same thing. And I know that Hillary Clinton doesn't have the first foggiest idea of what the Koran teaches, whereas I, who have read the Koran dozens and dozens of times, committed a great deal of it to memory. Published a translation and commentary of it that's my own, and have studied Islamic theology for 40 years, now. They would say, well, you don't understand Islam at all. And even more to the point, these Muslim clerics who've attended Al-Azhar or other prestigious Islamic institutions and and spend their whole lives trying to understand the Quran and the Islam properly, and they don't get it at all. So, in the first place, it's absurd. But in the second place, what these people said that you quoted, like the fellow who said the Jews are treacherous, conniving, cheaters, that's just Quranic theology. If you read what the Quran says about the Jews, just get a Quran, don't even read the whole thing. Get one with a good index and read all the passages about the Jews. And you will see that every last one of them is negative. Every last one of them portrays the Jews as scheming and conniving and cheating the righteous people. And so this is the prism through which these clerics see the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. They understand it through the lens of the Qur'an, because they believe that the Qur'an is the perfect word of the perfect being that is valid for all times and all places in all situations. They see the world today and they see Israel and the Palestinians. And the first place they will go to understand all that is the Quran, because they would trust Allah over any human authority, telling them what the conflict is all about. The Quran tells them over and over that the Jews are evil and enemies of Allah. So, they see Israel and they think, here are the evil Jews who are enemies of Allah. Even, the fact that they refer to Jews and not to Israelis or to Zionists or some other term of that kind indicates that they're seeing this through theological principles. And those theological principles are deeply anti-Semitic. Well, bringing us up to the present day, for over 2,000 years, the Jews did not have their homeland there in the land that is Israel. And it was under all different, we'll not go into the history, all different, I guess, occupying forces or other forces. And then 1948 happens and the Jewish homeland, modern day Israel, is founded again. And immediately, and this is chapter three, you talk about the jihad of 1948,which is an interesting term. Why that title? Well, the whole thing is a jihad from 1948, from before 1948, when the Zionist settlement began in the late 19th century. Even before that, because there there were always Jews in the Holy Land, and they were always subject to sporadic, periodic attacks. Now, after the Zionism began, these attacks intensify because in the first place, the Ottomans were alarmed when they owned the land that the Jews were moving in, because they thought that it would threaten their hegemony over it. Then when the Ottoman Empire fell, the League of Nations, the precursor to the United Nations, gave Britain the mandate for Palestine to establish a Jewish national home. Now, why did the Arabs object to a Jewish national home? There were already large Arab states right there neighboring this territory. And so it should have been and could have been. A relatively peaceful and orderly process once the Jewish national home was actually founded. After World War II, Germany lost massive territories in the East because it fought a war of aggression and lost. And for reasons of national security, the Poles, the Soviets, and the French in the West took various territories from the Germans. The Germans who who lived in those areas, were sent to what remained of Germany. Nobody complained. Nobody raises, nowadays, some right of return or speaks about occupied German territory in Poland and Russia. It would be absurd even to think about. But it's the exact same situation with Israel. The Arabs of Lebanon, of Syria, and of Jordan are identical ethnically, culturally, linguistically, and religiously with the Palestinian Arabs. There has never been a distinct Palestinian nationality. That's a propaganda creation that was designed to be a weapon to use against Israel. So, when you have Arabs who leave, they did not actually get kicked out. They left because the Arab League told them to leave in 1948, because the Arab states neighboring Israel were going to crush it within weeks. Then they would be out of the line of fire and could return home after Israel was destroyed. It didn't work that way, because Israel actually turned out to win the war. The Arab states, after that happened, could have easily absorbed these populations. And there would be no problem today, just like there's no problem in Europe today, in regard to the German refugees after World War II. And yet they did not do that because they they wanted to keep the Palestinian refugees as stateless, as refugees, as a weapon to beat Israel with. This is what became the linchpin for what I referred to as the Jihad of 1948. The Jihad, because the Quran says in chapter 2, verse 191: drive them out from where they drove you out. It's a myth, as I just noted, it's a myth that the the Israelis drove the Arabs out. It's not a fact, but it's what the Arabs all over the Middle East and the non-Arab Muslims are taught about what happened. So, that is because it triggers the divine command, drive them out from where they drove you out. They have to have been driven out for that to kick in as being applicable. So, now millions of Muslims, Arab and non-Arab, are taught that they must drive out the Israelis, because the Muslims were driven out. It's a divine command, no less than the Ten Commandments for Christians. Consequently, it is a jihad because if it were not for these religious principles that are rooted in Islam and the Quran, the problem would have been solved by negotiations decades ago. But no negotiated settlement ever succeeds, because you don't negotiate away divine commandments. Well, that negotiated settlement, two-term, two-state solution is the phrase that comes up, and you touch on that in that chapter. And we're told this is the way to fix all the problems, if only we can come up with this mythical two-state solution. Why is that then not the solution to the issue that the world faces in the Middle East? A two-state solution would require two states. That requires at least ostensibly that the Arabs have to acknowledge that a Jewish state of some size has a right to exist there and they will never accept that, because the divine command has driven them out from where they drove you out. That does not admit of half measures. It might admit of partial fulfilment that they take over half of Israel and then the other half later. But it doesn't allow for the recognition of the right to exist of any non-Muslim entity on that land. Consequently, the Jewish state could be the size of my office here. The Jewish state could be the size of a postage stamp, and it would not be acceptable, because they have have to drive them out from where they drove you out without any exceptions. The negotiation, the two-state solution would quickly become, or even eventually, even slowly become, a one-state solution. The Palestinian state would make war against what's left of Israel and ultimately destroy it. There would never be two states in that land on an indefinite basis. In your book, one of the chapters talks about the naivety of Carter. Seemingly, every U.S. president has accepted this. Even Trump has accepted; has stated that actually he sees that as the best solution. Is that simply an absolute misunderstanding that this is a religious ideology that lies at the root of all this? Yeah, absolutely. It's because nobody in Washington knows or wants to know about the power and influence of Islam over political issues. They underestimated and misunderstood Khomeini when it was the time of the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979. And since 1948, they have misunderstood the Israeli-Arab conflict, because they don't understand Islam. They routinely discount it as having anything to do with this conflict. And yet, it's right there in the Hamas charter. Israel will arise and will remain until Islam obliterates it. Islam obliterates it. And yet, no policymaker, no president, not Carter, not any of the others. Not Trump. None of them have ever pondered. What does that mean until Islam obliterates it? How can Islam obliterate a country? That doesn't even make any sense to the policymakers in Washington, because they think of Islam solely as a religion, and they think of it because they come from Judeo-Christian backgrounds. The way Christianity operates in the West. They assume it's like that, and so, they have no idea of its political, aggressive, expansionist, and supremacist aspects. In chapter four, you say the Palestinians are invented. That's a very strong statement. Surely, we've had the land of Palestine back in the Roman era. That's surely 2,000 years old. So, there must be all this history and people: the Palestinians. Well, I'll tell you, Peter, you're right, and yet not. And I know you know. It's true. The Romans renamed the land of Judea, that is, land of the Jews. They renamed Judea Palestine in 134 AD. And they officially expelled the Jews from the area, although many of them stayed all the way through to the modern age. Now, Palestine was a name they had taken from the Bible, from the Philistines, the ancient enemies of the Israelites, in the Jewish scriptures. And they named it Palestine. They named Judea Palestine as a yet another taunt against the Jews as they were expelling them from the region. They renamed the region against their extinct enemies. But, there were never any Palestinians. And I would ask you, you know. You can find on YouTube, for example, the men on the street interviews, and people are even Palestinians are asked, name a famous Palestinian from history. And they all say Yasser Arafat. Okay, name another. If they were Palestinian since 134 AD, then, okay, name one. Give us one from the second century or the fifth or the 10th or the 15th or the 19th. There weren't any. It was the name of a region. It's like Los Angeles. Los Angeles is a city in the United States. And there are citizens of Los Angeles, but if we start talking about a distinct Los Angeles nationality that deserves its own state, people would laugh. It's the name of the city. And Palestine was the name of this region, but there were never any Palestinians. It was just the name of a place. The idea that it's a distinct nationality was invented by Arafat and the KGB in 1964. And they did it as a propaganda weapon because the whole world in those days was sympathetic to Israel. The Israelis, because they had faced off and defeated massive nations. Arab and non-Arab Muslim nations, and had stood against them even though they were vastly outnumbered and outgunned. They gained the sympathy of the entire world. And so, the KGB in Arafat in 1964 renamed the Palestine Liberation Organization, the PLO, the Palestinian Liberation Organization. Very small change and nobody even noticed, but it was a momentous change, because it indicated for the first time in history that there was a people called Palestinians. And now the whole world accepts it and takes it for granted, but this is an invented nationality that was designed to create an even tinier people that was menaced by the massive Israeli war machine. And that would take the wind out of the sails of Israel, the tiny underdog Jewish state facing off against these massive Arab states. And it's worked very well. Even the Israelis have admitted or accepted the existence of Palestinians as a distinct nationality when there has never been such a people in history. You can go to 1948. Go to the library, read the newspapers from the day. Read the United Nations deliberations when they offered the Arabs half of the area of Israel. We're going to establish yet another Arab state and a Jewish state. And the Arabs said no, because they wouldn't accept a Jewish state of any size. Nobody ever mentions Palestinians. It's funny, because they're the center of the conflict now. And yet, in those days, it was the Israeli-Arab conflict. There was not a single mention anywhere of Palestinians. I mean, Islam does seem to have a trend of rewriting history. And in the book you talk about a number of statements and articles referring to Jesus as a Palestinian. That would be news to Jesus, because I'm sure I read in my Bible that he was Jewish. Yeah, well, obviously this is another propaganda point that's designed to curry favour among non-Muslims with the Palestinians. Even from a historical standpoint, Jesus was not a Palestinian because it wasn't until a hundred years after Jesus that the Romans renamed the area of Judea Palestine. The Gospels are very clear. Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea. That Galilee was right there next to Judea, where he grew up in Nazareth. And he says salvation is from the Jews. A very ignored statement of his. This is very clearly someone who was operating within a Jewish framework, a Jewish culture surrounded by Jews. And even the theology of Christianity is based on the theology of Judaism, that the temple Judaism before the destruction of the temple in 70 AD was based on animal sacrifices for atonement for sins. And then Jesus is presented as being, as God become man, the eternal sacrifice and the perfect atonement for sins that opens the way of heaven for the people. This is something that really doesn't even make any sense apart from Judaism. And I think Christians nowadays are getting very carried away in this Christ is King controversy that's been going on in regard to Candace Owens and the Daily Wire and so on. It risks ignoring or denying the Jewish roots of Christianity and the fundamental kinship that Judaism and Christianity actually have, despite the undeniable antagonism and the Christian anti-Semitism that was certainly operative in Europe for centuries. Well, you're right. Without Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and all the stories of the Old Testament, God's promised there would be no New Testament and Jesus would not be there. 100%, Robert. Just to finish off with, the last chapter is what is to be done. And it seems from this discussion that what the conflict that we see at the moment between the Palestinians in Gaza and the Israelis is just part of the wider issue of Jews and Muslims, of Islam and Judaism. So, when you say what is to be done, how do you see looking ahead? Well, looking ahead, it doesn't look good, because the American government, which is essentially the principal, if not the sole ally of the Jewish state, is betraying Israel because the Biden regime is very afraid that it's going to lose the Muslim vote, which could lose it several swing states in the November election. And end up with Biden being defeated for re-election. So, they've decided to betray Israel as a result. They're pressing for a Palestinian state. If a Palestinian state were founded, that would, as I discussed earlier, become a new jihad base for renewed attacks against what's left of Israel. They don't seem to know or care that if Israel is destroyed, then the jihadis all around the world will be emboldened like never before, and will step up their attacks in Europe and the United States. This is what we're looking at in the future unless Israel is able to destroy Hamas despite the international pressure to get it to surrender and by surrender. I mean accept a ceasefire that would allow Hamas to live and if Israel can do that then all bets are off and the post-war picture will be radically different. But right now it looks like it's going to be very tough times ahead head, both for Israel and for the West. Well, I would encourage people to get: The Passing Delusion. It's a great book and will help explain what is happening. And of course, Robert's latest book is: The Empire of God, How the Byzantines Saved Civilization. A wonderful endorsement by Victor Davis Hanson. So, if you're not sure about Robert, go to Victor David Hanson. Robert, really appreciate you coming along. Love your work over the many decades with Jihad Watch, certainly one of my go-to places on the geopolitics and deeper. Thank you so much for your time today. Thank you. Pleasure.

José de San Martín gained his military experience serving Spain and fighting the French, sometimes with the British,meeting Wellington, Beresford, and Napoleon. Having served for 22 years in the Spanish Army, Jose de San Martin brilliantly led the armies that overthrew the Spanish to liberate the southern countries of South America. With naval experience, in coordination with former British naval officer Thomas, Lord Cochrane, he worked out how maritime and land forces could support each other, catching the Spanish colonial forces between simulated naval attacks on the one hand and land attacks on the other, forcing them to divide their forces. With technology no different from that available to Hannibal, San Martín crossed the Andes, a mountain range far higher than the Alps (admittedly with horses and mules, not elephants!). Joining us to talk about this national hero of Argentina, Chile and Peru is Lt Gen Diego Luis Suñer, Chief of the Argentine Army from 2016-2018. General Suñer joined the Army in 1979 and retired after 40 years' service in which he commanded multinational troops in Ecuador and Peru, attended the United States Army Command and Staff Course and was a professor at the Argentine Army's Higher School of War.

Explore the extraordinary journey of LTC Oak McCulloch, a seasoned Army veteran and accomplished leader, in this captivating video. Born in Loudon, Tennessee, and raised in Kirkland, Illinois, Oak's path led him through the prestigious United States Military Academy at West Point, where he began his military journey.Over a 23-year career, LTC McCulloch served in various leadership roles in the Infantry and Armor branches, contributing to disaster relief efforts during Hurricane HUGO and Hurricane ANDREW. His operational deployments took him to Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Bosnia, and Kosovo, shaping his expertise in military strategy.Following his retirement from the Army in 2009, Oak transitioned to civilian life, making a significant impact as the Associate Director at the Bay Area Food Bank during the BP oil spill. His commitment to service extended to roles as Vice Chair for Military Affairs at the Mobile Area Chamber of Commerce and as a member of the Mobile Rotary International Club.In 2010, LTC McCulloch took on the role of Recruiting Officer for the Eagle Battalion Army ROTC program at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. Over 15 years, he transformed the program, earning recognition as the top recruiting officer in 2019 out of 274 recruiters.Beyond his achievements, Oak McCulloch is the author of "Your Leadership Legacy: Becoming the Leader You Were Meant to Be," published in February 2021. His educational background includes a Bachelor of Science in History from Northern Illinois University and a Master of Military Arts and Science from the United States Army Command and General Staff College.Throughout his military career, LTC McCulloch earned thirty-one military service awards, including the Bronze Star, eight Meritorious Service Medals, and the Humanitarian Service Medal. Join us in celebrating the remarkable life and accomplishments of LTC Oak McCulloch, a true leader and inspiration to many.

Join The Voices Of War at https://thevoicesofwar.supercast.com/. Can't afford the subscription? Email me for an alternative solution. Universities and educational institutions can always reach out for full access to episode files. **** In today's episode, I sit down with Dr. Jonathan French Flint, an Inamori Research Associate at Case Western Reserve University with a focus on military ethics and strategic theory. Dr. Flint has a background in teaching in the UK and has presented his work at a range of academic venues, including the United States Army Command and General Staff College. He has also made contributions to military ethics literature, notably with the International Committee of the Red Cross, and has appeared on the Canadian CTV Network as an expert discussing the war in Ukraine and broader issues in military and international affairs. Our conversation aims to explore the complexities of Strategic Theory, particularly its role in informing decisions about war. Dr. Flint brings a unique perspective to this subject, advocating for the inclusion of ethical considerations in strategic planning for conflict. Here are some of the key topics we cover: **Pathway to Specialisation**: Dr. Flint shares how he entered the niche field of military ethics and Strategic Theory. **Unlocking Strategic Theory**: We examine what Strategic Theory entails and the problems it seeks to solve. **Defining 'Victory'**: We discuss the often-ambiguous term 'Victory' in the context of warfare. **'Wars of Choice' Conundrum**: Dr. Flint elaborates on the difficulties tied to defining victory in wars of choice. **Ethics vs. Interests**: A look into the tension between moral values and geopolitical interests in 'wars of choice'. **Moral Injury**: An exploration of the concept of 'moral injury' as it relates to ‘wars of choice'. **Ethical Frameworks**: We discuss General McChrystal's concepts of 'Courageous Restraint' and 'Insurgent Math'. **Moral Compass**: The conversation turns to defining the difference between morals, morality, and ethics in warfare. **Case Studies**: Dr. Flint briefly outlines his thesis, examining the Falklands and Kosovo conflicts through an ethical lens. **Accountability**: We close with a discussion on the responsibility of senior political and military figures for unethical actions on the battlefield. This episode provides a nuanced exploration of the ethical considerations in Strategic Theory and warfare. It's a thought-provoking listen for those interested in going beyond surface-level discussions about conflict. **Join the Conversation** For listeners looking to engage with this discussion further, follow us and comment: https://www.thevoicesofwar.com https://www.twitter.com/twitter.com/thevoicesofwar https://au.linkedin.com/company/the-voices-of-war https://www.facebook.com/facebook.com/thevoicesofwar https://www.youtube.com/youtube.com/thevoicesofwar **Thank You for Listening!** We invite you to share, comment, and subscribe. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/the-voices-of-war/id1551498657 or your preferred podcast platform.

A graduate of the Royal Military College of Canada in Engineering, Lieutenant-General Jennie Carignan was commissioned into the Canadian Military Engineers in 1990. Since then, she commanded two Combat Engineer Regiments, Royal Military College Saint-Jean and the 2nd Canadian Division, where she led more than 10,000 soldiers and spearheaded crisis operations during the flood relief efforts in the spring of 2019 in Quebec. More recently, she led NATO Mission Iraq from November 2019 to November 2020. LGen Carignan participated in three previous expeditionary operations in Bosnia-Herzegovina, the Golan Heights, and Afghanistan. Along the way, LGen Carignan earned a Master's degree in Business Administration from Université Laval and a second Master's degree from the United States Army Command and General Staff College and the School of Advanced Military Studies. She is also a graduate of the National Security Studies Programme from Canadian Forces College in Toronto. LGen Carignan has been invested as Commander of the Order of Military Merit and is the recipient of the Meritorious Service Medal. She received the prestigious Gloire de l'Escolle medal which recognizes graduates from Université Lavalwho have distinguished themselves professionally and in service to their communities. She was recently awarded an honorary doctorate in Business Administration from Université Laval. LGen Carignan was promoted to her current rank in April of 2021 and appointed as Chief of Professional Conduct and Culture, a newly created position in the CAF.  Married, Jennie is the mother of four children, two of whom proudly serve in the Canadian Armed Forces.  https://www.canada.ca/en/department-national-defence/corporate/organizational-structure/chief-professional-conduct-culture/biography.html ------------------- Merchandise: ⁠https://shoot-like-a-girl-podcast.square.site⁠ Instagram: ⁠@shootlikeagirlpodcast⁠ Contact: shootlikeagirlpodcast@gmail.com

We had an excellent discussion on the threat posed to Western Civilization & the world in general with Robert Spencer who is the director of Jihad Watch and a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. He is the author of twenty-five books, including the New York Times bestsellers The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) (Regnery Publishing) and The Truth About Muhammad (Regnery Publishing) and the bestselling The History of Jihad From Muhammad to ISIS (Bombardier Books). His latest books are The Critical Qur'an: Explained from Key Islamic Commentaries and Contemporary Historical Research (Bombardier Books) and The Church and the Pope (Uncut Mountain Press). Forthcoming is The Sumter Gambit: How the Left is Trying to Foment A Civil War (Bombardier Books). Spencer has led seminars on Islam and jihad for the FBI, the United States Central Command, United States Army Command and General Staff College, the U.S. Army's Asymmetric Warfare Group, the Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF), the Justice Department's Anti-Terrorism Advisory Council and the U.S. intelligence community. He has discussed jihad, Islam, and terrorism at a workshop sponsored by the U.S. State Department and the German Foreign Ministry. He is a senior fellow with the Center for Security Policy. For more information on Robert Spencer & JiHad Watch please click the following link: https://www.jihadwatch.org/about-robert To Subscribe To My Patreon For Exclusive Content: https://patreon.com/conservativeatheistpodcast?utm_medium=clipboard_copy&utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/conservativeatheist1970/message

It is a pleasure to welcome Robert Spencer back to Hearts of Oak to discuss his book, 'Did Muhammad Exist', which is his only work that has been updated and revised. Is there any sound historical evidence that the prophet of Islam actually existed, or is the entire story of Muhammad fable or fiction? It is a question that few have thought—or dared—to ask. Virtually everyone, Muslim and non-Muslim alike, takes for granted that the prophet of Islam lived as a prophet, as well as a political and military leader, in seventh-century Arabia. So this episode Robert shares the findings from his meticulous research of historical records and archaeological findings and we think you will be fascinated by this exposé. Everything you thought you knew about Islam is about to change, buckle in and get ready for a roller-coaster ride as we tackle the prophet's origins. Robert Spencer is the director of Jihad Watch and a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. Robert has led seminars on Islam and jihad for the FBI, the United States Central Command, United States Army Command and General Staff College, the U.S. Army's Asymmetric Warfare Group, the Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF), the Justice Department's Anti-Terrorism Advisory Council and the U.S. intelligence community. He has discussed jihad, Islam, and terrorism at a workshop sponsored by the U.S. State Department and the German Foreign Ministry. He is a senior fellow with the Center for Security Policy. Robert is the author of twenty-five books, including the focus of this interview, Did Muhammad Exist? An Inquiry Into Islam's Obscure Origins, the New York Times bestsellers The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) and The Truth About Muhammad and the bestselling The History of Jihad From Muhammad to ISIS. Follow and support Robert and Jihad Watch.... GETTR https://gettr.com/user/jihadwatchRS Twitter https://twitter.com/jihadwatchRS?s=20&t=hGQ2Kg2h7lK0zHDheD0EfQ Website https://www.jihadwatch.org/ Books https://www.amazon.com/Robert-Spencer/e/B001JPACI0?ref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scns_share Interview recorded 12.9.22 *Special thanks to Bosch Fawstin for recording our intro/outro on this podcast. Check out his art https://theboschfawstinstore.blogspot.com/ and follow him on GETTR https://gettr.com/user/BoschFawstin To sign up for our weekly email, find our social media, podcasts, video, livestreaming platforms and more go to https://heartsofoak.org/find-us/ Please like, subscribe & share!

We had an excellent discussion on the threat posed to Western Civilization & the world in general with Robert Spencer who is the director of Jihad Watch and a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. He is the author of twenty-five books, including the New York Times bestsellers The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) (Regnery Publishing) and The Truth About Muhammad (Regnery Publishing) and the bestselling The History of Jihad From Muhammad to ISIS (Bombardier Books). His latest books are The Critical Qur'an: Explained from Key Islamic Commentaries and Contemporary Historical Research (Bombardier Books) and The Church and the Pope (Uncut Mountain Press). Forthcoming is The Sumter Gambit: How the Left is Trying to Foment A Civil War (Bombardier Books). Spencer has led seminars on Islam and jihad for the FBI, the United States Central Command, United States Army Command and General Staff College, the U.S. Army's Asymmetric Warfare Group, the Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF), the Justice Department's Anti-Terrorism Advisory Council and the U.S. intelligence community. He has discussed jihad, Islam, and terrorism at a workshop sponsored by the U.S. State Department and the German Foreign Ministry. He is a senior fellow with the Center for Security Policy. For more information on Robert Spencer & JiHad Watch please click the following link: https://www.jihadwatch.org/about-robert --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/conservativeatheist1970/message

In this episode, guest host Jayson Geroux is joined by retired Lieutenant Colonel Louis DiMarco, a professor of military history at the United States Army Command and Staff College. Dr. Di Marco is the author of the influential 2012 book Concrete Hell: Urban Warfare from Stalingrad to Iraq. In the conversation, he discusses how he became interested in urban warfare and describes the urban warfare history course he developed and continues to teach at the Command and Staff College. He also highlights a number of historical urban battles while also noting the themes that have consistently featured throughout urban operations history.

The Truth About Muhammad by Robert Spencer. https://youtu.be/oiVFGmCKEAA 169,352 views Premiered Feb 2, 2022 In his book, 'The Truth About Muhammad: Founder of the World's Most Intolerant Religion', Spencer discusses the earliest Islamic sources about the life of Muhammad the prophet of Islam, and shows how the violence, intolerance, and oppression that has marked the Islamic culture are not violations of Islamic principles, but are rooted in the teachings and example of Islam's founding figure. ABOUT THE SPEAKER ROBERT SPENCER is the director of Jihad Watch, a program of the David Horowitz Freedom Center, and the author of ten books, including the New York Times bestsellers The Truth About Muhammad and The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades). Spencer is a weekly columnist for Human Events and FrontPage Magazine, and has led seminars on Islam and jihad for the United States Central Command, United States Army Command and General Staff College, the U.S. Army's Asymmetric Warfare Group, the FBI, the Joint Terrorism Task Force, and the U.S. intelligence community. TOPICS COVERED 0:00 5:12 The earliest available Islamic resources 7:00 Muhammad's strange reactions to Angelic encounters. 11:01 When Muslims were a small band, they preached peace and tolerance, when they grew in number, 21:15 Violence in Islam 16:18 Right age for marriage for girls? 17:52 Sexual enslavement of non-muslim women/ Love Jihad, Raid of Khyber 21:44 Beheading is specified in the Quran, Chapter 47, verse 4., Muhammad practiced beheading. 22:56 Muhammad taught to kill who ever left Islam e.g. fatwas against Waseem Rizvi 27:49 Zainab bibi- when Muhammad married his own daughter-in-law 36:30 The deception of calling it a peaceful religion 46:57 Islam and communism 59:02 The deobandis 1:00:22 Conversion to Islam   About the book- The Truth About Muhammad: Founder of the World's Most Intolerant Religion by Robert Spencer  Muhammad: a frank look at his influential (and violent) life and teachings In The Truth about Muhammad, New York Times bestselling author and Islam expert Robert Spencer offers an honest and telling portrait of the founder of Islam-perhaps the first such portrait in half a century-unbounded by fear and political correctness, unflinching, and willing to face the hard facts about Muhammad's life that continue to affect our world today. From Muhammad's first "revelation" from Allah (which filled him with terror that he was demonpossessed) to his deathbed (from which he called down curses upon Jews and Christians), it's all here-told with extensive documentation from the sources that Muslims themselves consider most reliable about Muhammad. Spencer details Muhammad's development from a preacher of hellfire and damnation into a political and military leader who expanded his rule by force of arms, promising his warriors luridly physical delights in Paradise if they were killed in his cause. He explains how the Qur'an's teaching on warfare against unbelievers developed-with constant war to establish the hegemony of Islamic law as the last stage. Spencer also gives the truth about Muhammad's convenient "revelations" justifying his own licentiousness; his joy in the brutal murders of his enemies; and above all, his clear marching orders to his followers to convert non-Muslims to Islam-or force them to live as inferiors under Islamic rule. In The Truth about Muhammad, you'll learn - The truth about Muhammad's multiple marriages (including one to a nine-year-old) - How Muhammad set legal standards that make it virtually impossible to prove rape in Islamic countries - How Muhammad's example justifies jihad and terrorism - The real "Satanic verses" incident (not the Salman Rushdie version) that remains a scandal to Muslims - How Muhammad's faulty knowledge of Judaism and Christianity has influenced Islamic theology--and colored Muslim relations with Jews and Christians to this day. Recognizing the true nature of Islam, Spencer argues, is essential for judging the prospects for largescale Islamic reform, the effective prosecution of the War on Terror, the democracy project in Afghanistan and Iraq, and immigration and border control to protect the United States from terrorism. All of which makes it crucial for every citizen (and policymaker) who loves freedom to read and ponder The Truth about Muhammad

I'm so honored to have Oakland McCulloch on the podcast as he shares his decades of wisdom navigating leadership in the military and beyond! Oakland McCulloch was born in Loudon, Tennessee, and raised in Kirkland, Illinois.  After graduating from high school, he attend the United States Military Academy at West Point for two years.  He then graduated from Northern Illinois University and received his commission as an Infantry Officer through the Reserve Officer Training Course in 1986.       In his 23 year career in the Army Oak McCulloch held numerous leadership positions in the Infantry and Armor branches.  He assisted in disaster relief operations for Hurricane HUGO in Charleston, South Carolina and Hurricane ANDREW in south Florida.  His operational deployments include Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm in Saudi Arabia and Iraq as a Generals Aide-de-Camp, the Congressional Liaison Officer in support of operations in Bosnia and the Operations Officer during a Peace Keeping deployment to Kosovo.  He held instructor positions at the US Army Ordnance School, the US Army Command and General Staff College, the Australian Command and Staff College, University of South Alabama, and Stetson University.  His last position in the Army was a three-year tour as the Professor of Military Science at the University of South Alabama where he led the training and commissioning of Lieutenants and tripled the size of the program in his three-year tour. LTC McCulloch retired from the Army in September 2009 with over 23 years of active service and joined the staff at the Bay Area Food Bank as the Associate Director.  He was also the Vice Chair for Military Affairs on the Mobile Area Chamber of Commerce and a member of the Mobile Rotary International Club.  LTC McCulloch left the food bank in December 2010 to become the Senior Military Science Instructor and recruiter for the Army ROTC program at Stetson University in DeLand, Florida. In his 9 years at Stetson, the program grew from 15 Cadets to over 100 Cadets.  In October 2013, he became the Recruiting Operations Officer for the Eagle Battalion Army ROTC program at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University where he has more than doubled the size of the program in 6 years.  Cadet Command selected LTC McCulloch as the top recruiting officer, out of 274 recruiters, for 2019.  LTC Oak McCulloch published his first book in February 2021 – “Your Leadership Legacy: Becoming the Leader You Were Meant to Be”.       LTC McCulloch earned a Bachelor of Science degree in History from Northern Illinois University in 1987 and a Master of Military Arts and Science in History from the United States Army Command and General Staff College in 2002.  He received thirty-one military service awards including the Bronze Star, eight Meritorious Service Medals, and the Humanitarian Service Medal.You can find his book here - https://www.amazon.com/Your-Leadership-Legacy-Becoming-Leader/dp/1952037107

General Bipin Rawat (63), India's first Chief of Defence Staff, his wife Madhulika, and 11 other military personnel were killed in a helicopter crash on Wednesday. The Russian-made Mi-17V5 helicopter crashed near Coonoor municipality, in the Nilgiri Hills, in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu. The exact cause of the crash, which happened in foggy weather around noon, isn't clear yet, and an investigation is on. After taking off from the Sulur air force base in Coimbatore, where the General had arrived from Delhi, the chopper was on its way to the Defence Services Staff College in Wellington, where he was scheduled to deliver a lecture. The crash happened only 10 minutes from the destination, according to news reports. Air Force officer Group Captain Varun Singh is reported to be the sole survivor of the crash. The heavily wooded hilly terrain of the crash site made rescue operations difficult, with the nearest road several kilometres away. Rescuers had to trek to the site, and there was no access to fire engines or even piped water. Locals helped, carrying water in buckets and pots, according to various news reports. The Indian Army confirmed that Brigadier LS Lidder, Lieutenant Colonel H Singh, Wing Commander PS Chauhan, Squadron Leader K Singh, Junior Warrant Officers Das and Pradeep A, Havildar Satpal, Naik Gursewak Singh, Naik Jitender, Lance Naik Vivek, and Lance Naik S Teja were the other defence personnel killed in the crash, according to The Hindu. Wing Commander PS Chauhan, Commanding Officer of the 109 Helicopter Unit (the Knights) at Air Force Station, Sulur, and Squadron Leader Kuldeep, piloted the crashed chopper, according to The Hindu. “I am deeply anguished,” India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Twitter. “Gen. Bipin Rawat was an outstanding soldier. A true patriot, he greatly contributed to modernising our armed forces and security apparatus. His insights and perspectives on strategic matters were exceptional. His passing away has saddened me deeply. Om Shanti,” the prime minister said. Defence Minister Rajnath Singh is expected to make a statement in the parliament on Thursday. Condolences have come in from around the world. In a Pentagon statement, US Secretary of Defence Lloyd J Austin III, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Mark Milley and Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby said they were “deeply saddened” by the general's death. “As India's first chief of defence, he made a lasting impact on the Indian military and reinforced our strong military-to-military relationship between the US and India," they said. General Bipin Laxman Singh Rawat (63) was born in a family of military officers. His father, Laxman Rawat, was a lieutenant general in the Indian Army. Bipin Rawat attended the National Defence Academy and the Indian Military Academy, where he received the ‘sword of honour.' He was commissioned into the Indian Army as a second lieutenant in 1978. In 2016, he was appointed India's 27th Chief of Army Staff. He was the third officer from the Gorkha Brigade to become the chief of the Army Staff, after Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw and General Dalbir Singh Suhag. In January 2019, he was named India's first Chief of Defence Staff. That same year, during a visit to America, General Rawat was inducted to the United States Army Command and General Staff College International Hall of Fame. The general's highly decorated distinguished service included several strategic military initiatives in India, along our borders, and on international peace-keeping missions in Africa. The mortal remains of the General and his wife are to be brought to New Delhi today, and the funeral is to take place on Friday. They are survived by two daughters.

Author Robert Spencer discusses his new book The Critical Qur'an: Explained from Key Islamic Commentaries and Contemporary Historical Research. https://www.amazon.com/Critical-Quran-Commentaries-Contemporary-Historical/dp/1642939498 ROBERT SPENCER is the director of Jihad Watch and a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. He is the author of twenty-three books, including the New York Times bestsellers The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) (Regnery Publishing) and The Truth About Muhammad (Regnery Publishing) and the bestselling The History of Jihad From Muhammad to ISIS (Bombardier Books). His latest book is Did Muhammad Exist? An Inquiry Into Islam's Obscure Origins July 2021— Revised and Expanded Edition (Bombardier Books). Spencer has led seminars on Islam and jihad for the FBI, the United States Central Command, United States Army Command and General Staff College, the U.S. Army's Asymmetric Warfare Group, the Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF), the Justice Department's Anti-Terrorism Advisory Council and the U.S. intelligence community. He has discussed jihad, Islam, and terrorism at a workshop sponsored by the U.S. State Department and the German Foreign Ministry. He is a senior fellow with the Center for Security Policy. https://www.jihadwatch.org/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Author Robert Spencer discusses his new book The Critical Qur'an: Explained from Key Islamic Commentaries and Contemporary Historical Research. https://www.amazon.com/Critical-Quran-Commentaries-Contemporary-Historical/dp/1642939498 ROBERT SPENCER is the director of Jihad Watch and a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. He is the author of twenty-three books, including the New York Times bestsellers The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) (Regnery Publishing) and The Truth About Muhammad (Regnery Publishing) and the bestselling The History of Jihad From Muhammad to ISIS (Bombardier Books). His latest book is Did Muhammad Exist? An Inquiry Into Islam's Obscure Origins July 2021— Revised and Expanded Edition (Bombardier Books). Spencer has led seminars on Islam and jihad for the FBI, the United States Central Command, United States Army Command and General Staff College, the U.S. Army's Asymmetric Warfare Group, the Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF), the Justice Department's Anti-Terrorism Advisory Council and the U.S. intelligence community. He has discussed jihad, Islam, and terrorism at a workshop sponsored by the U.S. State Department and the German Foreign Ministry. He is a senior fellow with the Center for Security Policy. https://www.jihadwatch.org/

Oakland McCulloch was born in Loudon, Tennessee and raised in Kirkland, Illinois. After graduating from high school, he attend the United States Military Academy at West Point for two years. He then graduated from Northern Illinois University and received his commission as an Infantry Officer through the Reserve Officer Training Course in 1986. In his 23 year career in the Army Oak McCulloch held numerous leadership positions in the Infantry and Armor branches. He assisted in disaster relief operations for Hurricane HUGO in Charleston, South Carolina and Hurricane ANDREW in south Florida. His operational deployments include Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm in Saudi Arabia and Iraq as a Generals Aide-de-Camp, the Congressional Liaison Officer in support of operations in Bosnia and the Operations Officer during a Peace Keeping deployment to Kosovo. He held instructor positions at the US Army Ordnance School, the US Army Command and General Staff College, the Australian Command and Staff College, University of South Alabama and Stetson University. His last position in the Army was a three-year tour as the Professor of Military Science at the University of South Alabama where he led the training and commissioning of Lieutenants and tripled the size of the program in his three-year tour. LTC McCulloch retired from the Army in September 2009 with over 23 years of active service and joined the staff at the Bay Area Food Bank as the Associate Director. He was also the Vice Chair for Military Affairs on the Mobile Area Chamber of Commerce and a member of the Mobile Rotary International Club. LTC McCulloch left the food bank in December 2010 to become the Senior Military Science Instructor and recruiter for the Army ROTC program at Stetson University in DeLand, Florida. In his 9 years at Stetson, the program grew from 15 Cadets to over 100 Cadets. In October 2013, he became the Recruiting Operations Officer for the Eagle Battalion Army ROTC program at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University where he has more than doubled the size of the program in 6 years. Cadet Command selected LTC McCulloch as the top recruiting officer, out of 274 recruiters, for 2019. LTC Oak McCulloch published his first book in February 2021 – “Your Leadership Legacy: Becoming the Leader You Were Meant to Be”. LTC McCulloch earned a Bachelor of Science degree in History from Northern Illinois University in 1987 and a Master of Military Arts and Science in History from the United States Army Command and General Staff College in 2002. He received thirty-one military service awards including the Bronze Star, eight Meritorious Service Medals and the Humanitarian Service Medal. LTC Oak McCulloch is married to the former Kelly Smyth of Wauconda, Illinois. They were married at Fort Sheridan, Illinois in 1987 and they have two children, Oakland Vincent McCulloch and Caileigh Nicholson. They also have a granddaughter, Ryleigh Jade Nicholson and two grandsons Christopher Bryce Nicholson and Oakland Maverick McCulloch.

On this special Veteran’s Day episode of Banking on KC, Lt. General James Rainey, Commanding General, U.S. Army Combined Arms Center, and Michael Hockley, Civilian Aide to the Secretary of the Army for Kansas (Eastern), join host Kelly Scanlon to discuss the work of the Command and General Staff College at Ft. Leavenworth and its global impact. Ft. Leavenworth is the oldest continuously operating military installation west of the Mississippi River. It is home to the United States Army Command and General Staff College, established in 1881, which educates, trains, and develops military leaders, including such notable generals as Omar Bradley, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Douglas MacArthur, George S. Patton, David Petraeus, Colin Powell, and many others. This episode covers: The holistic approach to leadership training the CGSC provides. The CGSC Foundation and how it supports the college and provides outreach to civilians. Why the CGSC admits approximately 100 international officers each year. The skills that veterans bring to the workforce. The growth in the number of veteran-owned businesses. The impact of Ft. Leavenworth on the Kansas City metro economy. How civilians can help to support the CGSC Foundation and the officers who train at the college. Country Club Bank – Member FDIC

In this episode of Battle Rhythm, Steve and Stef provide updates on their research projects and recent travel. Discussing the news, Steve offers perspective on the political challenges of current Canada-China tensions and Stef highlights the recent appointment of Brig.-Gen. Jennie Carignan to command the NATO training mission in Iraq. In the emerging scholar segment, Stef speaks with Andrea Lane about her research examining the experience of female combat soldiers in Canada. This episode's featured interview is with Brig.-Gen. Jennie Carignan who talks about leadership and affecting change in the military. Finally, in Steve's Peeve's, a plea about force. Battle Rhythm is part of the CGAI Podcast Network, © 2019, all rights reserved. Subscribe to the CGAI Podcast Network on SoundCloud, iTunes, or wherever else you can find Podcasts! Bios: - Stéfanie von Hlatky: Associate Professor of political studies at Queen's University and the former Director of the Queen's Centre for International and Defence Policy (CIDP). Her research focuses on NATO, armed forces, military interventions, and defence policy. - Stephen M. Saideman: Paterson Chair in International Affairs, as well as Director of the Canadian Defence and Security Network – Réseau Canadien Sur La Défense et la Sécurité, and Professor of International Affairs at Carleton University. - Andrea Lane: a PhD Candidate in Political Science at Dalhousie University. She holds a BA (Hons) in Political Science from Dalhousie, and an MA in International Affairs from Carleton (NPSIA,) with previous studies in English Literature and Classics. Her MA thesis tested a theory of differential mobilization into non-Islamic terrorism, while her undergraduate thesis explored civil-military tension in the Auditor General's review of defence procurement in Canada. Andrea's research interests include maritime security, military cultures, civil-military relations, defence policy and procurement, gender in security, and Canadian foreign policy. - Brigadier-General Jennie Carignan: currently the Commander 2nd Canadian Division and Joint Task Force (East) and was recently promoted to Major-Gen. and will take over the command of the NATO training mission in Iraq this fall. Commissioned into the Canadian Military Engineers in 1990, hercommand appointments include Commanding Officer of 5 Combat Engineer Regiment, Commandant of the Task Force Kandahar Engineer Regiment and Commandant of the Royal Military College Saint-Jean. Overseas, she served in deployments to Bosnia-Herzegovina, the Golan Heights, and Kandahar (Afghanistan). BGen Carignan earned a Master's degree from the United States Army Command and General Staff College and the School of Advanced Military Studies. She is a graduate of the National Security Studies Programme and earned a Master's degree in business administration from Université Laval. BGen Carignan is the recipient of the Order of Military Merit and the Meritorious Service Medal. She received the prestigious Gloire de l'Escolle medal which recognizes graduates from Université Laval who have distinguished themselves professionally and in service to their communities. She was recently awarded an honorary doctorate in Business Administration from Université Laval. Related Links: - CDSN-RCDS (www.cdsn-rcds.com/) - NATO SHAPE (https://shape.nato.int/about) - NMI (https://jfcnaples.nato.int/nmi) - ERGOMAS (https://www.ergomas.ch/) - EISS (https://eiss-europa.com/index.html)

Even now, eighty years after its beginning in Europe, the Second World War continues to exert tremendous cultural and social influence on American historical writing. Perhaps one of the best testaments to this phenomenon is the increased interest in biographies of the war’s primary and secondary army commanders. Remarkably there are still quite a number of misplaced or even “lost” personalities who exerted tremendous impact on the course of the war. The guest for this episode of New Books in Military History, Mark T. Calhoun, directly engages the mysteries and legacies of one such individual in his book, General Lesley J. McNair: Unsung Architect of the U.S. Army (University Press of Kansas, 2018). In this pioneering study of one of the World War Two era US Army’s primary architects of victory, Calhoun presents a portrait of a deeply intellectual and loyal commander who took on responsibility for many unpopular doctrinal and ToE choices. From his early career as a young first lieutenant before the First World War, through to his sensationalized death in one of the war’s most infamous friendly fire incidents, McNair is presented first and foremost as a dedicated civil military servant, devoted to the institution and the welfare of the enlisted men and junior officers who depended upon his expertise and judgment. Mark T. Calhoun is currently attached with the United States Army Command and General Staff College, where he is an associate professor at the School of Advanced Military Studies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Even now, eighty years after its beginning in Europe, the Second World War continues to exert tremendous cultural and social influence on American historical writing. Perhaps one of the best testaments to this phenomenon is the increased interest in biographies of the war’s primary and secondary army commanders. Remarkably there are still quite a number of misplaced or even “lost” personalities who exerted tremendous impact on the course of the war. The guest for this episode of New Books in Military History, Mark T. Calhoun, directly engages the mysteries and legacies of one such individual in his book, General Lesley J. McNair: Unsung Architect of the U.S. Army (University Press of Kansas, 2018). In this pioneering study of one of the World War Two era US Army’s primary architects of victory, Calhoun presents a portrait of a deeply intellectual and loyal commander who took on responsibility for many unpopular doctrinal and ToE choices. From his early career as a young first lieutenant before the First World War, through to his sensationalized death in one of the war’s most infamous friendly fire incidents, McNair is presented first and foremost as a dedicated civil military servant, devoted to the institution and the welfare of the enlisted men and junior officers who depended upon his expertise and judgment. Mark T. Calhoun is currently attached with the United States Army Command and General Staff College, where he is an associate professor at the School of Advanced Military Studies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Even now, eighty years after its beginning in Europe, the Second World War continues to exert tremendous cultural and social influence on American historical writing. Perhaps one of the best testaments to this phenomenon is the increased interest in biographies of the war’s primary and secondary army commanders. Remarkably there are still quite a number of misplaced or even “lost” personalities who exerted tremendous impact on the course of the war. The guest for this episode of New Books in Military History, Mark T. Calhoun, directly engages the mysteries and legacies of one such individual in his book, General Lesley J. McNair: Unsung Architect of the U.S. Army (University Press of Kansas, 2018). In this pioneering study of one of the World War Two era US Army’s primary architects of victory, Calhoun presents a portrait of a deeply intellectual and loyal commander who took on responsibility for many unpopular doctrinal and ToE choices. From his early career as a young first lieutenant before the First World War, through to his sensationalized death in one of the war’s most infamous friendly fire incidents, McNair is presented first and foremost as a dedicated civil military servant, devoted to the institution and the welfare of the enlisted men and junior officers who depended upon his expertise and judgment. Mark T. Calhoun is currently attached with the United States Army Command and General Staff College, where he is an associate professor at the School of Advanced Military Studies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Even now, eighty years after its beginning in Europe, the Second World War continues to exert tremendous cultural and social influence on American historical writing. Perhaps one of the best testaments to this phenomenon is the increased interest in biographies of the war’s primary and secondary army commanders. Remarkably there are still quite a number of misplaced or even “lost” personalities who exerted tremendous impact on the course of the war. The guest for this episode of New Books in Military History, Mark T. Calhoun, directly engages the mysteries and legacies of one such individual in his book, General Lesley J. McNair: Unsung Architect of the U.S. Army (University Press of Kansas, 2018). In this pioneering study of one of the World War Two era US Army’s primary architects of victory, Calhoun presents a portrait of a deeply intellectual and loyal commander who took on responsibility for many unpopular doctrinal and ToE choices. From his early career as a young first lieutenant before the First World War, through to his sensationalized death in one of the war’s most infamous friendly fire incidents, McNair is presented first and foremost as a dedicated civil military servant, devoted to the institution and the welfare of the enlisted men and junior officers who depended upon his expertise and judgment. Mark T. Calhoun is currently attached with the United States Army Command and General Staff College, where he is an associate professor at the School of Advanced Military Studies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Even now, eighty years after its beginning in Europe, the Second World War continues to exert tremendous cultural and social influence on American historical writing. Perhaps one of the best testaments to this phenomenon is the increased interest in biographies of the war’s primary and secondary army commanders. Remarkably there are still quite a number of misplaced or even “lost” personalities who exerted tremendous impact on the course of the war. The guest for this episode of New Books in Military History, Mark T. Calhoun, directly engages the mysteries and legacies of one such individual in his book, General Lesley J. McNair: Unsung Architect of the U.S. Army (University Press of Kansas, 2018). In this pioneering study of one of the World War Two era US Army’s primary architects of victory, Calhoun presents a portrait of a deeply intellectual and loyal commander who took on responsibility for many unpopular doctrinal and ToE choices. From his early career as a young first lieutenant before the First World War, through to his sensationalized death in one of the war’s most infamous friendly fire incidents, McNair is presented first and foremost as a dedicated civil military servant, devoted to the institution and the welfare of the enlisted men and junior officers who depended upon his expertise and judgment. Mark T. Calhoun is currently attached with the United States Army Command and General Staff College, where he is an associate professor at the School of Advanced Military Studies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This episode is like NONE other- raw, real and DEEP! I had the honor of talking with Lieutenant Colonel Adrian Massey of the United States Army. I am humbled to share space with him as he shares his personal grit story and profoundly life changing moments that forever shaped his life path. He speaks on his experiences as a soldier, in leadership in the military, and how his perspective has developed as a result of it. We talk gratitude, spirituality and religion, and what kind of human being we aspire to be in this world. Adrian is truly an evolved soul and I hope you gain as much as I did from this conversation. Enjoy! About Adrian Massey: He is Lieutenant Colonel in the United States Army.  He was born in Detroit and raised in Inkster, Michigan.  Upon graduating from Eastern Michigan University (EMU) in 2002 he was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the U.S. Army.  While attending EMU he studied abroad at the University of Groningen, the Netherlands.  He also, holds a Master’s Degree from Webster University in Information Technology Management and lastly, a Diploma from the United States Army Command and General Staff College class 14-01.  Adrian has served in the U.S. Army for nearly 17 years, has lived in Europe for 8 years of his adult life; served in prestigious units, such as the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, North Carolina and the Second Calvary Regiment in Vilseck, Germany.  Adrian deployed to Iraq for Operation Iraqi Freedom III and Operation Iraqi Freedom 07-09 as a Company Commander, providing communications for over 4,000 Infantryman throughout Baghdad. He was awarded the Bronze Star Medal for excellence in combat.  Currently Adrian is deployed to Kuwait for 12 months.  Adrian is also published author of a collection of poetry, a book entitled “A Soldier’s Poetic Response: A Slice of His Life” To support and purchase his book -> http://marketingnewauthors.biz/products-page/educational-books/a-soldiers-poetic-response-2/

Robert Spencer has led seminars on Islam and jihad for the FBI, the United States Central Command, United States Army Command and General Staff College, the U.S. Army's Asymmetric Warfare Group, the Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF), the Justice Department's Anti-Terrorism Advisory Council and more. He is a New York Times best selling author and operates the web site Jihad Watch. He joins Tim to assess the current threat going into the new year.

Join us this coming Wednesday, August 15, at 9 pm, eastern time with Robert Spencer, is the Director Of Jihad Watch, and Author Of the new book, The History of Jihad: From Muhammad to ISIS. Spencer has led seminars on Islam and jihad for the FBI, the United States Central Command, United States Army Command and General Staff College, the U.S. Army’s Asymmetric Warfare Group, the Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF), the Justice Department’s Anti-Terrorism Advisory Council, and the U.S. intelligence community.  Call in to speak with the hosts: Cisco Acosta, Luther Mays, and guest at (646) 915-8117 Show sponsor: Studentsforabetterfuture.com  

PUBLIUS GUEST AUTHOR: Robert Spencer, is the Director Of Jihad Watch, and Author Of the new book, The History of Jihad: From Muhammad to ISIS. Spencer has led seminars on Islam and jihad for the FBI, the United States Central Command, United States Army Command and General Staff College, the U.S. Army's Asymmetric Warfare Group, the Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF), the Justice Department's Anti-Terrorism Advisory Council, and the U.S. intelligence community.

Conventional wisdom has long held the position that between 1945 and 1949, not only did the United States enjoy a monopoly on atomic weapons, but that it was prepared to use them if necessary against an increasingly hostile Soviet Union.  This was not exactly the case, our guest John M. Curatola argues in his book, Bigger Bombs for a Brighter Tomorrow: The Strategic Air Command and American War Plans at the Dawn of the Atomic Age, 1945-1950 (McFarland & Company, 2016).  Curatola is a professor of history at the United States Army Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.  He presents the story of an ad hoc, frequently chaotic, strategic defense posture at the opening of the Cold War.  Inter-service rivalries, inter-agency bickering, and deficiencies in equipment, morale, and training all left the United States Air Force and the Atomic Energy Commission to pursue their own strategic plans, which Curatola notes were unrealistic, and in some cases, almost ludicrous. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

PUBLIUS GUEST AUTHOR: Robert Spencer, is the Director Of Jihad Watch, and Author Of the new book, The History of Jihad: From Muhammad to ISIS. Spencer has led seminars on Islam and jihad for the FBI, the United States Central Command, United States Army Command and General Staff College, the U.S. Army’s Asymmetric Warfare Group, the Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF), the Justice Department’s Anti-Terrorism Advisory Council, and the U.S. intelligence community.

Conventional wisdom has long held the position that between 1945 and 1949, not only did the United States enjoy a monopoly on atomic weapons, but that it was prepared to use them if necessary against an increasingly hostile Soviet Union.  This was not exactly the case, our guest John M. Curatola argues in his book, Bigger Bombs for a Brighter Tomorrow: The Strategic Air Command and American War Plans at the Dawn of the Atomic Age, 1945-1950 (McFarland & Company, 2016).  Curatola is a professor of history at the United States Army Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.  He presents the story of an ad hoc, frequently chaotic, strategic defense posture at the opening of the Cold War.  Inter-service rivalries, inter-agency bickering, and deficiencies in equipment, morale, and training all left the United States Air Force and the Atomic Energy Commission to pursue their own strategic plans, which Curatola notes were unrealistic, and in some cases, almost ludicrous. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Conventional wisdom has long held the position that between 1945 and 1949, not only did the United States enjoy a monopoly on atomic weapons, but that it was prepared to use them if necessary against an increasingly hostile Soviet Union.  This was not exactly the case, our guest John M. Curatola argues in his book, Bigger Bombs for a Brighter Tomorrow: The Strategic Air Command and American War Plans at the Dawn of the Atomic Age, 1945-1950 (McFarland & Company, 2016).  Curatola is a professor of history at the United States Army Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.  He presents the story of an ad hoc, frequently chaotic, strategic defense posture at the opening of the Cold War.  Inter-service rivalries, inter-agency bickering, and deficiencies in equipment, morale, and training all left the United States Air Force and the Atomic Energy Commission to pursue their own strategic plans, which Curatola notes were unrealistic, and in some cases, almost ludicrous. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Conventional wisdom has long held the position that between 1945 and 1949, not only did the United States enjoy a monopoly on atomic weapons, but that it was prepared to use them if necessary against an increasingly hostile Soviet Union.  This was not exactly the case, our guest John M. Curatola argues in his book, Bigger Bombs for a Brighter Tomorrow: The Strategic Air Command and American War Plans at the Dawn of the Atomic Age, 1945-1950 (McFarland & Company, 2016).  Curatola is a professor of history at the United States Army Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.  He presents the story of an ad hoc, frequently chaotic, strategic defense posture at the opening of the Cold War.  Inter-service rivalries, inter-agency bickering, and deficiencies in equipment, morale, and training all left the United States Air Force and the Atomic Energy Commission to pursue their own strategic plans, which Curatola notes were unrealistic, and in some cases, almost ludicrous. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Conventional wisdom has long held the position that between 1945 and 1949, not only did the United States enjoy a monopoly on atomic weapons, but that it was prepared to use them if necessary against an increasingly hostile Soviet Union.  This was not exactly the case, our guest John M. Curatola argues in his book, Bigger Bombs for a Brighter Tomorrow: The Strategic Air Command and American War Plans at the Dawn of the Atomic Age, 1945-1950 (McFarland & Company, 2016).  Curatola is a professor of history at the United States Army Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.  He presents the story of an ad hoc, frequently chaotic, strategic defense posture at the opening of the Cold War.  Inter-service rivalries, inter-agency bickering, and deficiencies in equipment, morale, and training all left the United States Air Force and the Atomic Energy Commission to pursue their own strategic plans, which Curatola notes were unrealistic, and in some cases, almost ludicrous. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Robert Spencer, is the Director Of Jihad Watch, and Author Of the new book, The History of Jihad: From Muhammad to ISIS. Spencer has led seminars on Islam and jihad for the FBI, the United States Central Command, United States Army Command and General Staff College, the U.S. Armyâ??s Asymmetric Warfare Group, the Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF), the Justice Departmentâ??s Anti-Terrorism Advisory Council, and the U.S. intelligence community.

Robert Spencer, is the Director Of Jihad Watch, and Author Of the new book, The History of Jihad: From Muhammad to ISIS. Spencer has led seminars on Islam and jihad for the FBI, the United States Central Command, United States Army Command and General Staff College, the U.S. Armyâ??s Asymmetric Warfare Group, the Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF), the Justice Departmentâ??s Anti-Terrorism Advisory Council, and the U.S. intelligence community.