John Brennan, always the key man in the FISA investigation, allegedly used a separate slush fund to investigate Trump during his initial campaign. Could this be the “gotcha” moment for the former CIA director? One can only hope… Brad Johnson analyses this new development out of the U.K. from his perspective as a former CIA Station Chief. Now retired from the agency after 25 years in the field, Brad dedicates his life to his non-profit Americans for Intelligence Reform. Brennan’s involvement in politicizing the intelligence community is just another example of how politics neglects our national security.
https://youtu.be/pjWAD_9I9bw
[expander_maker id=”8″ more=”Click for entire transcript” less=”Read less”]
brad johnson it is september 11 of 2020
00:03
and uh the the
00:06
the action never stops in turkey um what
00:09
is the current situation there please
00:12
well a couple of interesting reports
00:13
coming out in the in the media
00:18
right now it’s kind of russia and turkey
00:20
heating up i would say
00:22
and uh there’s a lot of other players in
00:25
this this is a
00:26
mess that we’ve been talking about for a
00:28
while the center of all of this
00:30
is always turkey and right now the
00:33
the turkey is talking about closing the
00:35
boss for us now
00:37
uh understand that’s stunning
00:40
threat uh and essentially that’s where
00:42
it’s a little
00:44
narrow space that where the black sea
00:47
connects up to the rest of the
00:48
mediterranean sea
00:50
now the importance out of that is that
00:52
this would
00:53
target russia russia at the same time
00:57
has at least 14 or 15 warships
01:00
off the coast of syria and this is
01:02
something we’ve talked about before
01:04
so uh syria being on the mediterranean
01:08
side of the bosphorus and the black sea
01:11
fleet
01:11
up for the russian fleet of course being
01:13
on the north side of it so
01:15
they have to go back and forth through
01:18
that
01:18
so for turkey to threaten to close that
01:21
it is a
01:22
huge threat against billions of dollars
01:25
worth of commerce because many of the
01:27
important ports from countries in that
01:30
european countries and
01:32
and east uh east well that certain asian
01:36
countries can
01:36
can go through that so it’s it’s
01:39
significant
01:40
economically but it’s also significant
01:42
militarily
01:43
so that threat by turkey that’s now
01:45
floating out there
01:46
to close that is a big deal it
01:50
i don’t think would be taken laying down
01:52
by anybody
01:54
it is essentially i think could be
01:57
interpreted
01:58
as the start or an act of war
02:02
and uh a russia at a minimum is not
02:05
going to be boxed into the black sea
02:07
so i think russian ships would
02:09
immediately move to
02:11
go through and if fired upon by turkey
02:14
would would be prepared to fire back
02:16
so like i say the 15 ships they’re
02:18
keeping ships moving
02:20
off the coast of syria there’s a and of
02:23
course there’s the other front
02:24
in libya which is on the southern shore
02:28
of the
02:29
mediterranean sea and uh
02:32
so all of that activity with united arab
02:35
emirates
02:36
and egypt and other countries being
02:38
involved in libya with russia being
02:40
involved
02:41
in off the coast of syria and backing
02:43
the regime in syria
02:45
we’re seeing turkey begin to get serious
02:48
pushback on all of these things that
02:50
they’ve been doing that’s so aggressive
02:52
in libya in syria in armenia uh
02:55
azerbaijan armenia border there and
02:56
nagorno-karabakh
02:58
these things are all starting to get
03:00
pushed back as the world
03:01
sees how out of control uh erdogan in
03:04
turkey’s becoming
03:06
and how he’s pushing aggressively in so
03:08
many different areas
03:09
and as i said uh in a previous interview
03:12
the head of the
03:13
israeli mossad their intelligence agency
03:16
has just come out and said
03:17
turkey used to be an ally now they’re a
03:19
strategic threat to the region
03:21
and this is becoming very important and
03:24
each time
03:25
we look at this it gets ratcheted up a
03:27
little bit mainly by
03:29
turkey i would say they’ve begun the
03:31
process
03:32
and as i’ve mentioned many times they
03:35
view these resources around them in
03:37
these areas
03:38
as legitimately theirs and many of the
03:41
arab countries are now pushing back as i
03:43
mentioned
03:44
uae and egypt in particular and they’re
03:46
supporting certain things going on in
03:48
lib in libya for example
03:50
and so that makes turkey then come back
03:53
because
03:54
erdogan views it as his legitimate right
03:56
he
03:57
responds in kind the problem with this
04:00
scenario is
04:02
erdogan and everybody else view
04:05
themselves as fully justified
04:07
so as one of the as as each side kind of
04:10
goes up one notch it it just continues
04:13
to
04:14
heat up and if this threat becomes real
04:16
of the boss first i would say that’s the
04:18
first shot of war
04:19
what would turkey do to enforce it they
04:22
only have one option to enforce it
04:24
because
04:24
you can sail through it they can’t like
04:27
right you know put a net across it or
04:29
something i don’t think so
04:30
even if they did that could be blown out
04:32
of the water pretty easily
04:33
so uh their only option then is would be
04:36
to enforce it with
04:37
with kinetic energy you know take out
04:39
anyone that doesn’t have permission to
04:41
go through take them out and as i said
04:43
i guarantee you i know how the russians
04:44
are for this sort of stuff first thing
04:46
they’ll do is sail ships through to push
04:48
that button
04:49
and see what happens but they will be
04:50
prepared to respond in kind
04:52
if fired upon and you would then have a
04:54
shooting war
04:55
between turkey and russia which you know
04:57
i
04:58
i you know would be not a direct threat
05:01
to the united states of america
05:03
but i don’t know what would turkey then
05:06
try to call upon nato would nato respond
05:09
i mean
05:09
the number of problems and ripple effect
05:12
that would come out of that are enormous
05:14
in essence russia would be in the right
05:17
turkey would be in the wrong
05:19
so would nato support turkey in a case
05:21
like that we’ve already got
05:23
a couple of countries like france in
05:26
particular
05:27
supporting movements against turkey
05:29
we’ve got discussion in nato
05:31
by the european countries going you know
05:34
not so sure if turkey belongs in nato
05:36
anymore
05:36
and they’re certainly nowhere near
05:38
they’re they’re not going to get eu
05:39
membership and they’re not under
05:41
consideration anymore so it’s becoming a
05:43
mess and as i said
05:45
erdogan is not going to back down on
05:47
this he’s going to insist upon getting
05:49
what he wants
05:50
and i don’t think anybody’s going to be
05:52
willing to give it to him
05:54
therefore he’s going to feel the need to
05:56
take it
05:57
and once he moves into that mode of
05:58
taking it what is it what’s the solution
06:01
besides
06:02
uh you know the use of kinetic energy
06:04
which is
06:05
like you know more better known as war
06:07
so again i would say this is ratcheted
06:09
up another notch
06:10
and this is the main hot spot in the
06:13
world
06:14
around turkey that i see right now
06:16
already lots of shooting going on
06:18
and how do you stop that shooting from
06:20
expanding and spinning out of control
06:22
remains to be seen but this is i hope uh
06:25
one of
06:25
the places the most important places
06:28
right now that’s getting a lot of
06:29
attention from national security
06:31
elements here in the united states
06:32
because of the risk
06:34
that’s represented here it makes me
06:36
wonder if part of the
06:38
reason that president trump was able to
06:40
broker these amazing peace deals
06:42
is that people in the region recognize
06:44
that israel
06:45
is a necessary strategic ally with a
06:48
nate like a re-emerging ottoman empire
06:52
in the region
06:53
right makes you wonder i would say even
06:56
without
06:57
this now emerging neo-ottoman empire
07:02
uh issue even without it i mean i think
07:04
the basic question always needs to be
07:05
here in the united states of america
07:07
is the united states safer with a
07:11
democratic stable israel in that
07:14
area and i just i don’t see a scenario
07:17
where you can paint it
07:18
that our national security is worse off
07:21
so it’s just
07:22
and now with this issue this is one of
07:24
this is a perfect example of
07:26
why we’re better off with a stable
07:28
democratic israel
07:29
in that region this is a perfect example
07:31
of it and we’re beginning to see a lot
07:33
of
07:34
uh countries kind of coalesce and
07:37
willing to get along with israel and i
07:39
i speculated previously that one of the
07:41
reasons was we’re seeing these peace
07:43
treaties like uae
07:45
one of the reasons there’s others but
07:46
one of the reasons is because of the
07:48
growing threat of turkey
07:49
and i think the arab countries around
07:51
turkey recognize
07:52
that that’s a direct threat to them
07:54
because arabs were always looked down
07:56
upon by turks during the ottoman empire
07:58
days and so they they know that that’s
08:00
where it would be headed back to
08:02
which is kind of an interesting thing
08:03
since arabs originated islam
08:06
not the turks but uh this is this is the
08:09
world we find ourselves in so
08:11
a headed interesting direction but it is
08:13
certainly a flash point that
08:14
has got to be watched and this could
08:16
turn ugly at the drop of a hat
08:38
so
08:44
you
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