# CLASSIC: What was Operation Outside the Box?

An episode of [Stuff They Don't Want You To Know](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/732915228), 27 Oct 2026, 1 h 03 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/2e824128-fbd5-4c9e-9a57-ae2f0056b0c4/76acd0a4-8018-40ac-b2f6-b4ef015ed287/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=66d98a23-900c-44b0-a40b-ae2f0056b0db

As the guys continue exploring the strange, silent war over who gets to own nuclear weapons, they stumble across the little known story of Operation Outside the Box. When the Israeli military learned its regional rival Syria might be building a nuclear facility, they felt they had only one course of action -- and they were certain that, whatever the consequences, they must do anything in their power to prevent Syria from getting the bomb. Tune in to learn more about this real-life conspiracy, as well as the active cover-up that ensued for the better part of a decade. They don't want you to read our book.: https://static.macmillan.com/static/fib/stuff-you-should-read/ See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: Fellow conspiracy realist, we are back with something that is
[0:04] Speaker 1: literally outside of the box. That's right. In 2021, we
[0:09] Speaker 1: did an investigation into something called Operation Outside of the Box,
[0:15] Speaker 1: which is way less fun than it sounds.
[0:17] Speaker 2: Spoiler. We're talking nuclear weapons again, this time in Syria.
[0:24] Speaker 2: Who's allowed to have those nukes? If you got the nukes,
[0:28] Speaker 2: You can negotiate. If you don't, you do what we say.
[0:31] Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
[0:32] Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.
[0:33] Speaker 2: Yes. They also make a really good pretense into starting wars.
[0:36] Speaker 2: I'm just saying.
[0:37] Speaker 3: Of course.
[0:38] Speaker 1: Yeah. Aren't we like two weeks away from a country
[0:42] Speaker 1: getting nuclear weapons?
[0:44] Speaker 2: So I hear. It's usually two weeks.
[0:47] Speaker 1: 40 years. 40 years. And back in 2021, we looked
[0:51] Speaker 1: into a story that the Jedi won't tell you. about
[0:55] Speaker 1: the dangers of nuclear proliferation, and we get into some
[1:00] Speaker 1: pretty deep water.
[1:01] Speaker 2: We hope you enjoy it. What lengths would country A
[1:05] Speaker 2: go to to prevent country B from attaining a nuke?
[1:09] Speaker 2: What horrors could be wrought, you know, in the name
[1:13] Speaker 2: of good? The greater good, indeed. What horrors? Let's roll
[1:17] Speaker 2: the tape and find out.
[1:21] Speaker 1: Quick housekeeping note, a literal one. Matt and I were
[1:25] Speaker 1: so into the thunderstorms that were happening while we were
[1:28] Speaker 1: recording that, as we may mention on air, we left
[1:33] Speaker 1: doors and some windows open. So that is why you're
[1:37] Speaker 1: hearing some fuzz for the first few minutes on my end.
[1:42] Speaker 2: Oh, no, it's on my end, too. And just to
[1:44] Speaker 2: be clear, I was the one who suggested it, and
[1:46] Speaker 2: I am sorry, everybody. We use a software called iZotope,
[1:50] Speaker 2: which gets rid of background noise and stuff. I wasn't thinking. Sorry.
[1:56] Speaker 1: So please welcome our special guest, who's there for the
[1:59] Speaker 1: first 12 minutes, The Rain.
[2:01] Speaker 3: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies, history is
[2:06] Speaker 3: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now. Or
[2:10] Speaker 3: learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
[2:13] Speaker 3: production of iHeartRadio.
[2:25] Speaker 1: Hello.
[2:26] Speaker 2: Welcome back to the show. My name is Matt. Noel
[2:29] Speaker 2: is on an adventure, but he'll be back very soon.
[2:32] Speaker 1: They call me Ben. We are joined, as always, with
[2:35] Speaker 1: our super producer, Paul Mission Control Deccans. Most importantly, you
[2:39] Speaker 1: are you. You are here. And that makes this the
[2:42] Speaker 1: stuff they don't want you to know. Matt, it is.
[2:47] Speaker 1: Let's let's paint a little bit of a audio picture here.
[2:51] Speaker 1: It is a wonderful, wonderfully stormy, dark afternoon here in
[2:57] Speaker 1: our fair metropolis of Atlanta, Alabama. you and I have
[3:03] Speaker 1: survived a tornado to come to record today. Oh, yeah, man.
[3:08] Speaker 2: We fought through that tornado. I had my shield. It
[3:14] Speaker 2: was a bastard sword. It was a little arch to
[3:17] Speaker 2: wield for one hand, but we fought through it. No,
[3:21] Speaker 2: but we really are. We were under a tornado warning
[3:24] Speaker 2: as of just a little while ago, and it is
[3:26] Speaker 2: still storming like mad out here. And be forewarned, you
[3:31] Speaker 2: may hear the sounds of said storm in this recording,
[3:34] Speaker 2: as well as my dog Penny as she hyperventilates below
[3:39] Speaker 2: my chair.
[3:40] Speaker 1: Yes, and we've both got little parts of our recording
[3:45] Speaker 1: areas open so that you can get the full ambiance
[3:50] Speaker 1: of what happened. And, you know, that is... It is true, Matt.
[3:53] Speaker 1: When I say we survived the storm, it's kind of
[3:56] Speaker 1: like how when people are in the same room as
[3:58] Speaker 1: a celebrity, they say they met them. You know what
[4:01] Speaker 1: I mean? So we can say we were in the
[4:03] Speaker 1: same sort of room as a tornado. But luckily, to
[4:08] Speaker 1: our knowledge, there hasn't been a ton of serious destruction yet.
[4:12] Speaker 1: We'll see what happens at the end of this episode,
[4:15] Speaker 1: because just like us in Atlanta today, You might be
[4:19] Speaker 1: surprised by how many people and how many places in
[4:23] Speaker 1: the world are very close to destruction. Utter destruction. And
[4:29] Speaker 1: it's something that is existential. It's dreadful. We don't talk
[4:34] Speaker 1: about it all the time because it is scary stuff.
[4:38] Speaker 1: And it should be. In an earlier episode, though, Matt,
[4:41] Speaker 1: we talked about a guy named A.Q. Kahn, who is...
[4:47] Speaker 1: one of the most influential individuals in the recent history
[4:54] Speaker 1: of nuclear warfare. He is the guy who was terrified
[4:59] Speaker 1: that India would be able to take over his adoptive
[5:03] Speaker 1: country of Pakistan when they gained nuclear ability. So he
[5:07] Speaker 1: began a one-man mission to give Pakistan the bomb. And
[5:11] Speaker 1: then somewhere along the way, he experienced mission creep. started
[5:16] Speaker 1: selling nuclear tech to the highest bidder he cast a
[5:19] Speaker 1: shadow that's going to be with us long after many
[5:24] Speaker 1: of the folks listening to this recording today have passed
[5:26] Speaker 1: away it's just true and when we talked about that
[5:31] Speaker 1: we talked about what we called an often invisible war
[5:35] Speaker 1: that countries wage on one another to prevent a other
[5:39] Speaker 1: countries from getting nuclear weapons. And the long story short
[5:44] Speaker 1: is it's very much a do as I say, not
[5:46] Speaker 1: as I do kind of deal. It's very much some
[5:50] Speaker 1: rules for these, some rules for me. I'm loving this thunder.
[5:55] Speaker 1: Nations that have nuclear weapons in general do not want
[6:00] Speaker 1: other countries to have them, even if they're quote unquote friends.
[6:03] Speaker 1: I guarantee you they will do anything within their power
[6:07] Speaker 1: to prevent other countries from having This world ending ability.
[6:11] Speaker 1: And so if you're a country that unfortunately does not
[6:13] Speaker 1: have a nuke, you're going to feel threatened by these
[6:17] Speaker 1: nuclear capable adversaries. And if you're a rational actor, which
[6:21] Speaker 1: we always assume, then you are going to you are
[6:26] Speaker 1: going to conspire to get some kind of safety, whether
[6:29] Speaker 1: that's working in secret to make your own bomb or
[6:32] Speaker 1: whether that is buddying up as much as you can
[6:35] Speaker 1: with an ally that already has nuclear capability. You got
[6:40] Speaker 1: to do something. And today's story is about a little
[6:44] Speaker 1: known example of the lengths countries go to in this
[6:49] Speaker 1: invisible war. So we hope that you have had a
[6:52] Speaker 1: chance to check out our earlier episode on AQ Con.
[6:57] Speaker 1: And it's, you know, it's pretty good. The main criticism
[7:00] Speaker 1: we get is there is a lack of Matt Frederick,
[7:02] Speaker 1: which I, you know, I agree with on that one.
[7:05] Speaker 1: Have you seen the hate mail?
[7:07] Speaker 2: I've not. But as a listener of that episode, I
[7:10] Speaker 2: did not feel a lack of Matt Frederick. It was
[7:12] Speaker 2: really good. And the back and forth was was perfect.
[7:15] Speaker 2: It kept me engaged. So, hey, I loved that episode.
[7:19] Speaker 1: We cut out all the parts were like, where's Matt?
[7:23] Speaker 2: No, but don't believe you for a second. It was perfect.
[7:26] Speaker 1: Dude, all can confirm. Well, anyhow, to to establish the
[7:31] Speaker 1: roots of this conspiracy, today's conspiracy is We have to
[7:36] Speaker 1: start really like at the end of World War Two
[7:41] Speaker 1: is usually when these stories start. So here are the facts.
[7:45] Speaker 2: Yes, we will be describing to you this cat and
[7:47] Speaker 2: mouse game a little bit further of the struggle to
[7:50] Speaker 2: attain a nuclear force. And here's the deal. The desire
[7:57] Speaker 2: of countries that already have nuclear capability to prevent those
[8:01] Speaker 2: who don't have it from gaining it. It is so high,
[8:05] Speaker 2: there is so much incentive behind that, that often these countries,
[8:10] Speaker 2: whether it's the United States, whether it's Israel, name your
[8:13] Speaker 2: country with nuclear capability, they will often play on the
[8:17] Speaker 2: edges of the law, if not break the own law
[8:20] Speaker 2: of their land in order to stop it from happening.
[8:24] Speaker 2: It's often an argument of national security for whichever country
[8:28] Speaker 2: you're talking about and a play for the, quote, greater good.
[8:32] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[8:33] Speaker 1: When we think in terms of analogies, it's like imagine
[8:38] Speaker 1: that your neighbor owns a gun. Your neighbor owns a
[8:42] Speaker 1: couple of guns. And you think, well, I get along
[8:46] Speaker 1: OK with my neighbor. We're not celebrating each other's birthdays
[8:50] Speaker 1: or whatever, but we say hi if we both happen
[8:52] Speaker 1: to get the mail at the same time. Still, I
[8:56] Speaker 1: would kind of like a gun, too. And in the U.S.,
[9:01] Speaker 1: where guns are pretty easy to get, that's a very
[9:03] Speaker 1: simple series of steps. But imagine if you were in
[9:08] Speaker 1: a situation where your neighbor said, nah, I don't know, bro.
[9:12] Speaker 1: I've got a gun, so we're pretty much fine. And
[9:16] Speaker 1: I should, you know, if there's a problem, just come
[9:19] Speaker 1: to me, man. Don't do something crazy like try to
[9:21] Speaker 1: buy a gun because I might have to show up
[9:24] Speaker 1: to your house.
[9:25] Speaker 2: Yeah, and especially don't make a gun. Like, if you're
[9:29] Speaker 2: going to construct a gun from some steel and other
[9:32] Speaker 2: parts you've got, maybe some black powder you've got, we're
[9:35] Speaker 2: going to have a real problem.
[9:38] Speaker 1: Oh, and spoiler alert, Matt. Making Guns at Home comes
[9:41] Speaker 1: up in an episode down the line that we're going
[9:45] Speaker 1: to delve into later. Today for us, but in a
[9:48] Speaker 1: few days for everyone listening. Because of the magic timey-wimey
[9:52] Speaker 1: stuff about podcasting... You're absolutely right, dude. There is a
[9:57] Speaker 1: pattern at play and it's a pattern that a lot
[10:00] Speaker 1: of people pay attention to because some countries that were
[10:03] Speaker 1: on the path toward creating nuclear weapons, although they might
[10:07] Speaker 1: never say they're creating nuclear weapons, they later made international
[10:12] Speaker 1: agreements to stop pursuing nuclear tech at all. And in return...
[10:19] Speaker 1: They were obliterated. Libya is a great example of this. Well,
[10:24] Speaker 1: a horrific example of what happens. And of course, as
[10:27] Speaker 1: we said previously, the main Western reason for the Libyan
[10:31] Speaker 1: intervention was not human rights related at all. France wanted
[10:36] Speaker 1: to maintain control of the regional currency. It is a conspiracy,
[10:40] Speaker 1: not a conspiracy theory. Do check it out if you
[10:44] Speaker 1: are thinking, I wonder if I could be more depressed today.
[10:49] Speaker 2: I was recently visiting with some in-laws, one of whom,
[10:54] Speaker 2: he was in various intelligence fields. One of them dealt
[11:00] Speaker 2: directly with Libya, where he had a need to know
[11:03] Speaker 2: on a lot of stuff occurring there. And we had
[11:05] Speaker 2: a whole discussion about Libya. And what you just said, Ben,
[11:08] Speaker 2: very much holds up from personal experience, somebody I spoke with.
[11:13] Speaker 1: Yeah, it's better to know the truth, even when it's ugly.
[11:17] Speaker 1: Do not mistake this as a defense of Muammar Gaddafi.
[11:21] Speaker 1: It most certainly is not. I just feel like when
[11:23] Speaker 1: we talk about the billions of dollars spent and the
[11:27] Speaker 1: millions of lives irreparably affected, we should be honest about
[11:32] Speaker 1: why it happened. So with the nukes, let's say you're
[11:38] Speaker 1: the ruler of North Korea, right? You're the Ayatollah of Iran.
[11:42] Speaker 1: Any number of countries that have been considered antagonistic to
[11:46] Speaker 1: the Western order of the world or the way the
[11:49] Speaker 1: Western world wants everything to work. If you see what
[11:54] Speaker 1: happened in Libya, it's pretty easy to connect the dots.
[11:57] Speaker 1: watching that and you're the leader of North Korea, you're thinking,
[12:00] Speaker 1: I will absolutely never give up nuclear weapons. I know
[12:04] Speaker 1: the score. I saw what happened. You cannot trust these people,
[12:09] Speaker 1: which is reasonable. Whether or not you agree, the logic
[12:12] Speaker 1: is there. And then if you're, say, the Ayatollah, or
[12:15] Speaker 1: if you are in a leadership position in Iran, then
[12:19] Speaker 1: you might, again, very validly think, this is what will
[12:24] Speaker 1: happen to us if If we don't get across that
[12:27] Speaker 1: nuclear finish line. So there are regional hotspots around the world.
[12:32] Speaker 1: Leaders are playing some variation of this game all the time. And,
[12:36] Speaker 1: you know, like we said earlier, there are a lot
[12:38] Speaker 1: of countries, Europe, Western Europe's a great example. There are
[12:41] Speaker 1: a lot of countries that have been up to now
[12:43] Speaker 1: satisfied to to posse up to Voltron up with existing
[12:48] Speaker 1: nuclear powers under agreements like NATO and stuff like that.
[12:52] Speaker 1: and they're agreeing not to pursue their own nuclear warheads.
[12:57] Speaker 1: In exchange, they're saying, you, this country I'm agreeing with,
[13:01] Speaker 1: will step in and you will save me if something,
[13:06] Speaker 1: you'll have my back at least if something goes sideways.
[13:10] Speaker 1: But we can't assume this is a sustainable situation. Very
[13:14] Speaker 1: few things are.
[13:16] Speaker 3: No.
[13:17] Speaker 2: So, you know, when we're talking about the places in
[13:20] Speaker 2: the world where these kinds of conflicts are occurring, we
[13:24] Speaker 2: really look at the Middle East. It's by far the
[13:27] Speaker 2: region that has, let's say that is in the most
[13:32] Speaker 2: danger of experiencing some kind of nuclear warfare, actual hot
[13:37] Speaker 2: war with a nuke. And a lot of it just
[13:40] Speaker 2: has to do with the number of countries in the
[13:42] Speaker 2: region that want to have nuclear weapons versus the number
[13:47] Speaker 2: that don't. There's only one country that, in the Middle
[13:50] Speaker 2: East currently that officially has nuclear capability, although it's official
[13:54] Speaker 2: and unofficial, but that's Israel. And we've talked about it before,
[13:57] Speaker 2: how it's kind of a weird situation to talk about,
[14:02] Speaker 2: nuclearly capable Israel, because it's a bit of a weird situation.
[14:07] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[14:07] Speaker 1: You know what? Let's modify our analogy a little. Let's
[14:10] Speaker 1: go back to your neighbor, who's been getting really weird
[14:12] Speaker 1: for a while.
[14:13] Speaker 2: Okay.
[14:14] Speaker 1: So your neighbor has a garage. Everybody knows they have
[14:18] Speaker 1: a garage.
[14:19] Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
[14:20] Speaker 1: Your neighbor, it looks like a big garage. Your neighbor
[14:24] Speaker 1: may have a car, but they get super sketchy whenever
[14:28] Speaker 1: you bring it up. They say, maybe I have a car,
[14:33] Speaker 1: maybe I don't.
[14:34] Speaker 2: Well, I've never seen a car go in or out
[14:36] Speaker 2: of a garage. I've never actually seen it.
[14:39] Speaker 1: Tell you what, though, man, you don't keep an eye
[14:41] Speaker 1: on those trash cans. You might have to find out.
[14:43] Speaker 1: You don't want to find out if I have a car,
[14:45] Speaker 1: do you?
[14:47] Speaker 2: You don't have a car, right? You're not even thinking
[14:50] Speaker 2: about getting a car, right?
[14:51] Speaker 1: You shouldn't. The bus works fine, buddy.
[14:54] Speaker 2: Right?
[14:54] Speaker 1: We can agree.
[14:55] Speaker 2: Because we, you know, do not have a car. It's
[14:59] Speaker 2: really Schrodinger's car over here. But if you ever need one,
[15:04] Speaker 2: we can find a way. Anyway, it's just weird. But
[15:06] Speaker 2: it would be.
[15:06] Speaker 1: Better for you and I to agree that you and
[15:10] Speaker 1: none of our other neighbors need a car. Let's just
[15:14] Speaker 1: end it there. So, like, that's a really weird... In
[15:19] Speaker 1: this analogy on an individual level, this sounds really intense
[15:22] Speaker 1: and weird, right? But a car is not the same
[15:25] Speaker 1: thing as a nuclear weapon. And Israel's position is itself
[15:31] Speaker 1: by design somewhat conspiratorial. They have never– the government has
[15:37] Speaker 1: never officially– confirmed or denied that it has nukes. It
[15:43] Speaker 1: absolutely does. But they have a policy that's somewhat euphemistically
[15:49] Speaker 1: called deliberate ambiguity. So they'll issue statements that are incredibly
[15:57] Speaker 1: weirdly worded. The closest the official government has come to
[16:02] Speaker 1: admitting this is saying stuff like, Israel will not be
[16:05] Speaker 1: the first country to introduce nuclear weapons to the Middle East.
[16:09] Speaker 1: And that statement hinges on the word introduce. Introduce, I think,
[16:14] Speaker 1: means use. So you can see how it's weird and also,
[16:19] Speaker 1: you know, compounded by the fact that over the years,
[16:22] Speaker 1: various leaders of this country have essentially said, yeah, we
[16:27] Speaker 1: have nuclear weapons, but that's just them speaking in elusive
[16:32] Speaker 1: political tones. The other piece of the puzzle here, if
[16:36] Speaker 1: we're going to Pepe Silvia this a bit, is that
[16:39] Speaker 1: Israel has also refused to sign the Treaty on the
[16:42] Speaker 1: Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, meaning they're saying, look, we're not
[16:46] Speaker 1: saying we don't have them, but it wouldn't be good
[16:52] Speaker 1: for our national security if we signed you guys' agreement.
[16:56] Speaker 1: So I'm not saying there's a car in the garage.
[17:00] Speaker 1: I'm just saying– I feel like I'm not in a
[17:02] Speaker 1: good spot where I would sign something saying that I'm
[17:05] Speaker 1: not going to have as many cars.
[17:07] Speaker 2: I mean, who's to say I may not want or
[17:11] Speaker 2: need a car at some point? We have this garage.
[17:14] Speaker 2: I think we're just going to stay for a while
[17:18] Speaker 2: and maybe we'll take action later. That's kind of what's
[17:21] Speaker 2: happening because it really is. It's kind of silly. And look,
[17:25] Speaker 2: I can't confirm this personally, but it is kind of
[17:28] Speaker 2: just an open... secret slash just everybody is aware that
[17:34] Speaker 2: Israel does have nuclear capability. It's more of a question
[17:38] Speaker 2: of how powerful are the individual warheads? How many of
[17:41] Speaker 2: those warheads do they actually have? How many are deployable,
[17:45] Speaker 2: like readily deployable? How many are just sitting somewhere in
[17:50] Speaker 2: a garage and or, and or just large military facility? Um,
[17:56] Speaker 2: I don't know. It's, it's a, it's a weird situation.
[17:59] Speaker 1: It is, and it's something that's understandable because secrecy– for
[18:03] Speaker 1: two reasons. First, secrecy is key to a lot of
[18:06] Speaker 1: operations like this because it also allows for plausible deniability.
[18:10] Speaker 1: But then secondly, there may be a bit of a long-term–
[18:16] Speaker 1: in a way, a long-term greater good argument because as
[18:19] Speaker 1: we'll see, for that country in that part of the
[18:22] Speaker 1: world to go official with this could very likely set
[18:26] Speaker 1: off or exacerbate. nuclear arms race because being able to
[18:33] Speaker 1: lie to yourself and say oh there's nothing official that's
[18:35] Speaker 1: a very easy and somewhat stable position to take but
[18:41] Speaker 1: i love that you use the word silly matt this
[18:43] Speaker 1: is one of the silliest open secrets in the region
[18:48] Speaker 1: if not the world sure okay sure you have a
[18:52] Speaker 1: garage and don't have a car fine whatever just don't
[18:57] Speaker 1: drive into my house in The reason they're doing this
[19:00] Speaker 1: is because when you think about it, you remember that
[19:02] Speaker 1: game Jenga? Did you ever play Jenga?
[19:05] Speaker 2: Yeah, dude. There's a great version of it. It's like
[19:07] Speaker 2: the human-sized Jenga.
[19:09] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[19:10] Speaker 2: It stacks up above your head or right at your head.
[19:12] Speaker 1: I love it. I've never played that one, but I've
[19:17] Speaker 1: seen it. I think we were on a work trip
[19:19] Speaker 1: or something.
[19:20] Speaker 2: Oh, yeah. Hella bougie bowling alley that had one. That's
[19:24] Speaker 2: all I remember.
[19:26] Speaker 1: That's true. Maybe we could go back and give it
[19:28] Speaker 1: a try one day and then just be super cool
[19:32] Speaker 1: people and say, this is like an analogy for nuclear
[19:35] Speaker 1: weapons in the Middle East, because we're great at parties.
[19:38] Speaker 2: We'll just put up a little sign next to it. Yes, yes.
[19:41] Speaker 1: And now it's performance art. We need a grant for this.
[19:45] Speaker 1: So yeah, it's it's a good comparison because the situation
[19:49] Speaker 1: with nukes in the middle east well the situation the
[19:52] Speaker 1: middle east in general is like a carefully stacked very
[19:55] Speaker 1: precarious tower of radioactive jenga pieces and Because some countries did,
[20:01] Speaker 1: you know, to one level or another, they got close
[20:04] Speaker 1: to chasing nukes, only to have foreign intervention arrive in
[20:08] Speaker 1: a very brutal way. Because Iraq, for instance, was definitely
[20:14] Speaker 1: trying to get nuclear capability and may have done so
[20:18] Speaker 1: if it weren't for the U.S.
[20:21] Speaker 3: Invasion.
[20:23] Speaker 1: Other countries have done something a little trickier. they've placed
[20:27] Speaker 1: specific conditions on their position in the nuclear game, and
[20:31] Speaker 1: these may change in the very near future, actually.
[20:35] Speaker 2: Yeah. A couple of countries to talk about here. Turkey
[20:40] Speaker 2: has signaled it might be looking into getting some nuclear weapons,
[20:45] Speaker 2: and it's specifically in response to some actions that are
[20:50] Speaker 2: being put forth by the Biden administration. You know, hopefully
[20:54] Speaker 2: that doesn't actually occur, but Turkey's at least saying it's possible,
[20:59] Speaker 2: and Saudi Arabia just over and over and over has
[21:03] Speaker 2: done the same, signaling that it will bring itself up
[21:08] Speaker 2: to match any capability of any other group in the
[21:13] Speaker 2: Middle East or country or actor in the Middle East
[21:15] Speaker 2: that has nuclear capability. So it's like, we will see
[21:19] Speaker 2: you and call. We will call your... whatever you're playing.
[21:25] Speaker 2: That is interesting. I didn't even think about Saudi Arabia
[21:27] Speaker 2: when we were discussing how Israel is the only nuclear-capable actor.
[21:31] Speaker 2: I genuinely don't know, but I always assumed Saudi Arabia was,
[21:38] Speaker 2: or at least was close to it. But maybe it's
[21:42] Speaker 2: just a lack, or maybe it's just a hole in
[21:45] Speaker 2: my knowledge.
[21:46] Speaker 1: Yeah, they signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty, and they've They've been
[21:53] Speaker 1: accused of working on nuclear programs. Their official position is
[22:00] Speaker 1: that they right now have plans to create a domestic
[22:06] Speaker 1: nuclear energy industry. But again, if you have the setup
[22:12] Speaker 1: to be a nuclear energy capable country, then you have
[22:17] Speaker 1: the setup to become a nuclear weapons capable country. And
[22:21] Speaker 1: their specific trigger is Iran. It's like– I think we've
[22:25] Speaker 1: said this before in a very oversimplified way. The best
[22:31] Speaker 1: way to imagine international affairs or the way these countries
[22:35] Speaker 1: interact with each other across the world is let's say
[22:39] Speaker 1: 190-something people show up to a house party. And they
[22:43] Speaker 1: learn that there's enough beer for maybe 50 people. There's
[22:48] Speaker 1: enough pizza– For 60 people. But somewhere in this house,
[22:56] Speaker 1: there's all this stuff you need to build a gun.
[22:58] Speaker 1: And tensions are running high over the pizza and beer.
[23:01] Speaker 1: And Saudi Arabia is basically in one corner hanging out
[23:04] Speaker 1: with its buddies, keeping an eye on that Iran guy
[23:08] Speaker 1: they don't like. And they say, well, look, if this
[23:11] Speaker 1: guy gets, let's not call them guns, party favors. If
[23:15] Speaker 1: this guy grabs some party favors, then you guys can't
[23:19] Speaker 1: stop me. I'm going to get all of the party
[23:21] Speaker 1: favors because I hate that guy.
[23:24] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[23:25] Speaker 1: Oh, yeah.
[23:25] Speaker 2: I don't like that guy. Also, I'm going to go
[23:27] Speaker 2: so far as to dig a little hole in the
[23:30] Speaker 2: basement level, make a second sub-basement, and then start making
[23:34] Speaker 2: party favors down there. And you'll never know.
[23:38] Speaker 1: Because I'm telling you, I dislike that dude. So that's
[23:43] Speaker 1: what's happening in an overly simple way again. But the
[23:47] Speaker 1: important part here is that We are in a system
[23:51] Speaker 1: with any number of opportunities for shit to go horribly,
[23:54] Speaker 1: horribly wrong very quickly. And one change in domestic policy
[24:00] Speaker 1: in one country can have massive ripple effects across this region.
[24:04] Speaker 1: And stuff that happens in the Middle East can have
[24:07] Speaker 1: massive ripple effects across the world. No matter how you
[24:12] Speaker 1: personally feel, no matter how your government feels. Everybody knows,
[24:17] Speaker 1: based on clear examples of previous... Proven conspiracies that Israel
[24:23] Speaker 1: will not hesitate to do anything it can by hook
[24:26] Speaker 1: or by crook to prevent other countries in the region
[24:30] Speaker 1: from gaining the same capabilities. This is not the government
[24:34] Speaker 1: and the lawmakers of this country purposely just being like
[24:38] Speaker 1: jerks for the sake of it. They consider nuclear armed
[24:43] Speaker 1: countries in the Middle East, other than them, an existential threat.
[24:48] Speaker 1: So how far would they go? We'll tell you after
[24:51] Speaker 1: a word from our sponsor.
[24:58] Speaker 2: And we're back. And prepare yourselves because we're going outside
[25:02] Speaker 2: of the box in an operation that's titled the same way.
[25:06] Speaker 1: Yeah, we are.
[25:08] Speaker 2: So it's a bit of storytelling here. It's kind of exciting.
[25:11] Speaker 2: So here we go. So on September 6th, 2007, imagine
[25:17] Speaker 2: you're hanging out somewhere in Syria. Let's say it's just
[25:21] Speaker 2: after midnight local time. The Israeli Air Force is thinking
[25:27] Speaker 2: about Syria's growing possibility for nuclear ability. That was kind
[25:34] Speaker 2: of weird. It's like the same word twice, but not
[25:36] Speaker 2: really because you added a thing to the beginning. Sorry.
[25:40] Speaker 2: But Israel is thinking about doing something, like physically doing
[25:44] Speaker 2: something about this. And the way they're imagining going about
[25:48] Speaker 2: it is going to get around some of the negotiations
[25:53] Speaker 2: that are happening on an international level to prevent things
[25:56] Speaker 2: from happening like this, to prevent attacks from happening, to
[26:01] Speaker 2: prevent countries from developing nuclear capabilities. There's all kinds of discussion, dialogue.
[26:07] Speaker 2: There's red tape from all of the associations that all
[26:11] Speaker 2: of these countries have in the things like NATO, as
[26:14] Speaker 2: you mentioned there, Ben. Oh, what do they call these things?
[26:17] Speaker 2: These things that prevent you from doing something?
[26:18] Speaker 1: Oh, laws.
[26:19] Speaker 2: There are laws that are preventing this kind of action
[26:22] Speaker 2: from occurring. But it doesn't matter. Israel says we're going
[26:25] Speaker 2: to do something and we have to do something. So
[26:28] Speaker 2: they launch an airstrike on this one small little area
[26:34] Speaker 2: in Syria. It was a suspected nuclear reactor in this
[26:37] Speaker 2: place called the Al-Kibar site. Al-Kibar. K-I-B-A-R. And... This thing,
[26:45] Speaker 2: this area, it was called the cube. Okay. And it's really,
[26:52] Speaker 2: can we call out the Heretza article already just at
[26:55] Speaker 2: the top of this? Sure. There is an article you
[26:58] Speaker 2: can read if you want to get some of the
[27:00] Speaker 2: storytelling of this and see the cube. It's called No
[27:04] Speaker 2: Longer a Secret. Just type that in. I won't give
[27:07] Speaker 2: you the whole thing. type in no longer a secret
[27:10] Speaker 2: on Haaretz. Seeing the cube made a difference for me.
[27:13] Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. So to fill in a bit of the
[27:16] Speaker 1: picture here, it's in the middle of nowhere. In the
[27:20] Speaker 1: middle of nowhere, there's rubble around it. It looks kind
[27:24] Speaker 1: of abandoned. It's a weird place for a factory to be. Officially,
[27:28] Speaker 1: it's a factory. There doesn't seem to be a ton
[27:32] Speaker 1: of traffic to or from the place.
[27:37] Speaker 2: Where's all the infrastructure for... for you know sending electricity
[27:42] Speaker 2: or power generation stuff like that.
[27:45] Speaker 1: Very tom waits what's he building in there and this
[27:49] Speaker 1: airstrike uh what we're gonna do is we're going to
[27:52] Speaker 1: examine how the israeli government uh came to its conclusions
[28:00] Speaker 1: and why they also felt that uh a hot escalation
[28:06] Speaker 1: was necessary and why Why they also felt it was
[28:10] Speaker 1: necessary to hide this from the public and never admit
[28:15] Speaker 1: it for the better part of a decade. A little
[28:19] Speaker 1: bit of levity here, fellow conspiracy realists. It's something I
[28:24] Speaker 1: don't know if we mention often enough. But this conspiracy
[28:28] Speaker 1: started like many government conspiracies. You'd be surprised how many
[28:32] Speaker 1: of them start this way. It all began because someone, somewhere,
[28:37] Speaker 1: screwed up.
[28:39] Speaker 2: Whoops.
[28:40] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[28:40] Speaker 1: It's not like some crazy Monty Burns master plan. It
[28:44] Speaker 1: almost never is. Someone made a mistake and then other
[28:48] Speaker 1: people scrambled to fix that or address it. And then
[28:53] Speaker 1: while trying to fix it, things just like got more
[28:56] Speaker 1: and more wrong. It's like, if you're moving a bunch,
[28:58] Speaker 1: like you, if you're one of those people who, um,
[29:01] Speaker 1: when you get groceries, you try to carry as many
[29:04] Speaker 1: possible from the car, right? You And then you, like, one,
[29:10] Speaker 1: I don't know, what do people eat, Matt?
[29:13] Speaker 2: Mandarin oranges.
[29:15] Speaker 1: Okay, so one, like, mandarin orange falls out of the bag.
[29:18] Speaker 1: You've got both your hands full. You're like, oh, dang it.
[29:20] Speaker 1: And you try to, like, wiggle your way down to
[29:23] Speaker 1: pick up that orange to fix that mistake. And all
[29:26] Speaker 1: sorts of other stuff starts falling out of the bag.
[29:29] Speaker 1: And the next thing you know, you know, you've got, like,
[29:33] Speaker 1: half of your junk out there on your driveway.
[29:36] Speaker 3: Okay.
[29:36] Speaker 1: And your neighbor drops by and is like, just to
[29:38] Speaker 1: be clear, I never said whether or not I have
[29:41] Speaker 1: a car. And you're like, now is not the time,
[29:43] Speaker 1: Neil or whatever.
[29:45] Speaker 2: And Neil's like, why'd you put your junk on the driveway?
[29:50] Speaker 2: I thought we were just talking about groceries.
[29:54] Speaker 1: Well, Neil is asking the real questions in this, in this, uh, scenario.
[29:59] Speaker 1: So it's true though. You know, like a lot of
[30:02] Speaker 1: times it might surprise people. I think because in the
[30:05] Speaker 1: world of fiction, conspiracies are often presented as the, as
[30:11] Speaker 1: escalations on the part of a very powerful, very competent group.
[30:16] Speaker 1: And that is not always the case. The people at
[30:19] Speaker 1: the top are human beings too, for the most part.
[30:21] Speaker 2: So yeah, sometimes there's a mastermind sometimes.
[30:25] Speaker 1: Well, there are a ton of people who want to
[30:27] Speaker 1: be masterminds. You know what I mean? Uh, but there
[30:30] Speaker 1: are very few actual effective ones. And they're not all
[30:35] Speaker 1: good either, by the way. Like you could argue, you know,
[30:40] Speaker 1: you could argue various despots and dictators are quote unquote
[30:44] Speaker 1: good at their jobs, but being good at their jobs
[30:48] Speaker 1: is not necessarily good for other people.
[30:51] Speaker 2: Cheney. Okay. All right. Well, let's, let's move on. All right.
[30:55] Speaker 1: Yeah, you're right. Let's, let's talk about this cube. It's
[30:57] Speaker 1: a big, wait for it, cubicle building. That was, at
[31:01] Speaker 1: the time, it was still under construction in the middle
[31:04] Speaker 1: of the desert. It has an area of more than
[31:09] Speaker 1: 17,200 square feet, so it's really, really big. It's close
[31:14] Speaker 1: to 66 feet high. Here's how this got to this point.
[31:21] Speaker 1: The Israeli defense establishment had been paying attention to this
[31:25] Speaker 1: mysterious factory-looking structure since at least the end of 2006.
[31:31] Speaker 1: If you think the nickname The Cube is sort of uncreative, well,
[31:35] Speaker 1: that falls on them. They coined the term. That's fine.
[31:39] Speaker 1: They're the defense establishment, not the nickname squad.
[31:44] Speaker 2: Hey, I kind of dig it because it reminds me
[31:46] Speaker 2: of that, the film series, The Cube.
[31:48] Speaker 1: The Cube. I was thinking of that too. What is
[31:51] Speaker 1: the point of that? What's like the ultimate, what was
[31:54] Speaker 1: the motivation for sticking those folks in The Cube?
[31:58] Speaker 2: Mostly psychological torture of an audience, I think.
[32:03] Speaker 1: Of an audience forced to watch it? Oh boy. No, the,
[32:08] Speaker 1: so for anyone who's unaware, so the, it's just, Cube,
[32:13] Speaker 1: I think, the first one came out in the late 90s.
[32:15] Speaker 1: And the idea is that these people wake up and
[32:18] Speaker 1: they don't know one another from Adam or a can
[32:21] Speaker 1: of paint. And they have to progress through these series
[32:26] Speaker 1: of cubes that are rigged with traps. Not all of them,
[32:30] Speaker 1: but some of them are rigged with traps, lethal traps.
[32:36] Speaker 1: And I think at some point, it goes to several films.
[32:39] Speaker 2: Don't spoil it. Yeah, don't spoil it. I would just
[32:42] Speaker 2: say from an indie filmmaker's perspective, it is a brilliant
[32:46] Speaker 2: concept because you have one set, you just change that
[32:49] Speaker 2: set a little bit, and oh, you're in a new cube. Oh,
[32:52] Speaker 2: does it look the same even though we're switching from
[32:54] Speaker 2: one cube to the next part of the cube? Same room,
[32:58] Speaker 2: same set. Wow, this is perfect.
[33:01] Speaker 1: And it's supposed to be that way too for the story.
[33:03] Speaker 1: That's what they're telling us, right? That's a really good point. Yeah,
[33:09] Speaker 1: probably a lot of us in the crowd remember it today.
[33:12] Speaker 1: Without going back, I don't remember the entirety of why
[33:18] Speaker 1: those people ended up there, but I think they get
[33:20] Speaker 1: to it in one of the films.
[33:22] Speaker 2: They get to it.
[33:23] Speaker 1: They get to it? Okay. I'll have to check it
[33:25] Speaker 1: out too, but let us know what you all think
[33:27] Speaker 1: about The Cube. So it's the end of 2006. The
[33:31] Speaker 1: months are going by. We're getting into 2007. The Israeli
[33:36] Speaker 1: government grows increasingly suspicious and later certain that the cube
[33:41] Speaker 1: is not just some weird industrial flex in the middle
[33:45] Speaker 1: of the desert, that it is actually President Bashar al-Assad's
[33:51] Speaker 1: secret flagship passion project. They are telling their superiors, we
[34:00] Speaker 1: believe that this is in fact a nuclear reactor. They
[34:03] Speaker 1: got it from North Korea. Syria is working on the bomb.
[34:08] Speaker 1: This is important because if that happened in one fell swoop,
[34:12] Speaker 1: no matter what you think about who should or should
[34:15] Speaker 1: not have the quote unquote right to nuclear power, no
[34:19] Speaker 1: matter what would happen in that case, Syria with this
[34:23] Speaker 1: program would fundamentally change the playing field. It would remove
[34:28] Speaker 1: a huge part of Israel's military technological edge. And so
[34:33] Speaker 1: if you are the Israeli government, You're thinking this could
[34:37] Speaker 1: open the door to terrible, terrible things. And it's a
[34:43] Speaker 1: door we might not be able to close if we
[34:45] Speaker 1: don't act now. And this has been brewing for a
[34:49] Speaker 1: long time, right? They had known this for decades or
[34:52] Speaker 1: they had been keeping an eye on it for decades
[34:55] Speaker 1: and were having a tough time getting accurate info.
[34:59] Speaker 3: Oh, yeah.
[35:00] Speaker 2: It goes back to, I think 1990 or at least
[35:03] Speaker 2: the early, early 1990s. That's when the, the regime there
[35:08] Speaker 2: in Syria, it was known that there was an interest
[35:12] Speaker 2: in procuring at least not only weapons themselves, but the
[35:16] Speaker 2: ability to create weapons, especially through research facilities. So you
[35:20] Speaker 2: kind of have that cover, right? Uh, we're, we're doing
[35:23] Speaker 2: this for energy. Um, and that's, that's when the Western world, well,
[35:29] Speaker 2: The United States, Israel, probably England and a couple other powers,
[35:35] Speaker 2: the UK, they were just really paying attention to Syria
[35:39] Speaker 2: in particular. And Israel really then started paying attention, again,
[35:44] Speaker 2: because of just proximity and because how much it would
[35:48] Speaker 2: shift the playing field if it were to occur. But
[35:53] Speaker 2: this was only after there was a serious intelligence gap
[35:57] Speaker 2: in Libya. That's when that's when Israel is like, oh,
[36:00] Speaker 2: if we didn't know this specific thing about Libya, maybe
[36:05] Speaker 2: we don't know some specifics about Syria and we're missing
[36:08] Speaker 2: some info here. And what could they be doing in
[36:11] Speaker 2: that garage if there's no way for us to peek in?
[36:14] Speaker 1: Exactly.
[36:15] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[36:16] Speaker 1: So there's there's something really interesting that comes from the
[36:21] Speaker 1: guy who was the head of the intelligence division at
[36:25] Speaker 1: Mossad in 2003. And his name is Amnon Sufran. And
[36:30] Speaker 1: you can hear his surprise, frustration, and no small amount
[36:38] Speaker 1: of fury when he talks about how he figured this out.
[36:43] Speaker 1: He says, on December 19th, 2003, a Saturday morning, I
[36:48] Speaker 1: turned on the radio and heard on a news broadcast
[36:51] Speaker 1: that the Americans and the British had persuaded Libya to
[36:54] Speaker 1: dismantle its nuclear programs. The next morning, I assembled my
[36:58] Speaker 1: people and I said we had experienced two total failures here.
[37:02] Speaker 1: We had absolutely no idea that such a program, meaning
[37:06] Speaker 1: in Libya, even existed. And second, we didn't know that
[37:10] Speaker 1: the negotiations to dismantle it had been going on for
[37:13] Speaker 1: eight months. We started to back analyze the Libyan program
[37:17] Speaker 1: and try to figure out where else in the region
[37:20] Speaker 1: similar programs could be hiding. So imagine that. Your entire
[37:25] Speaker 1: job is to know as much as possible about stuff
[37:28] Speaker 1: like this. And you hear it, you know, on like NPR.
[37:33] Speaker 2: Yeah. What? I'm sorry. Wow. I'm not hungry anymore. Let's
[37:40] Speaker 2: get to work. Exactly.
[37:42] Speaker 1: You know, that's the thing that gets me because it's
[37:45] Speaker 1: like hearing that kind of stuff for an industry professional
[37:50] Speaker 1: through the news and having to be the first time
[37:52] Speaker 1: you've heard this. is is a recipe for a heart
[37:56] Speaker 1: attack that's not only is it highly unusual but it
[38:00] Speaker 1: means that you need you have hundreds of things you
[38:04] Speaker 1: need to have done by yesterday and we're going to
[38:08] Speaker 1: take a pause for a word from our sponsor or
[38:11] Speaker 1: turn to explore a little bit more about what sufran
[38:15] Speaker 1: did once he realized he had been like scooped by
[38:19] Speaker 1: cnn that's crazy.
[38:27] Speaker 2: And we are back. So, Ben, let's jump back to
[38:34] Speaker 2: Sufrin and Mossad, see what they were doing.
[38:36] Speaker 1: Yeah, so about a month's worth of investigations ensue. Sufrin
[38:43] Speaker 1: and the research teams over at Mossad say, okay, Libya...
[38:51] Speaker 1: Surprised us in a way that we did not care for.
[38:54] Speaker 1: And it looks like the problem is much closer to
[38:59] Speaker 1: home than we imagined. Syria at some point has entered
[39:05] Speaker 1: the race to build the bomb. They're not at drawing
[39:08] Speaker 1: board stage. It's not a series of like backroom conversations
[39:12] Speaker 1: at Davos or whatever. They're doing this. And it caught
[39:18] Speaker 1: us unaware because we, reasonably most of our investigations focus
[39:25] Speaker 1: on iran instead of our neighbor to the north and
[39:28] Speaker 1: then this is where sue talks a little bit more
[39:32] Speaker 1: about their discovery.
[39:33] Speaker 2: He says the Koreans and the Syrians built a camouflage
[39:36] Speaker 2: structure on top of the reactor that made it look
[39:39] Speaker 2: like a factory from the outside. You don't see what's
[39:43] Speaker 2: happening inside. It is far from any settlement. There is
[39:48] Speaker 2: no reason for anyone to be in this area except
[39:52] Speaker 2: for herdsmen. We began to suspect that there, in broad daylight,
[39:57] Speaker 2: a reactor was hiding.
[39:59] Speaker 3: Yep.
[40:00] Speaker 1: And in January of 2007, satellite photos revealed that there
[40:06] Speaker 1: was a pipeline leading directly from the cube to the Euphrates.
[40:10] Speaker 1: This is important because... If you're a researcher, you know,
[40:14] Speaker 1: you have to be very careful. You don't want to
[40:16] Speaker 1: read tea leaves. You know what I mean? You want
[40:19] Speaker 1: to have real proof. So they started to think, okay,
[40:25] Speaker 1: middle of nowhere, nobody really has any business being here
[40:29] Speaker 1: except for shepherds, herding professionals. So this is a cooling system.
[40:38] Speaker 1: And that's one of the big things you need for
[40:40] Speaker 1: a reactor. So even at that point, they're not saying,
[40:42] Speaker 1: this is definitely a reactor. They're saying, quacks like a duck.
[40:47] Speaker 1: I want to be too conclusive, but there's some definite
[40:51] Speaker 1: quacking going on. And then Mossad, or someone, excuse me,
[40:57] Speaker 1: had a breakthrough. This is a little dicey. So at
[41:01] Speaker 1: this point, I'm trying to think of the correct way
[41:04] Speaker 1: to say this. This is an event that occurs in
[41:08] Speaker 1: Vienna in early March of 2007, and what we know
[41:12] Speaker 1: about it is based on the work of an American journalist.
[41:16] Speaker 2: That's right, a journalist named David Makovsky, who was writing
[41:20] Speaker 2: in The New Yorker in 2012. A man named Ibrahim Othman,
[41:25] Speaker 2: who was head of the Syrian Atomic Energy Commission, had
[41:28] Speaker 2: gone to Austria– And he was participating, or he's doing this,
[41:33] Speaker 2: to participate in these deliberations of the International Atomic Energy Agency. And,
[41:40] Speaker 2: of course, Israel wants to know what's going on. So
[41:42] Speaker 2: a cell of Mossad agents from the Kashet unit broke
[41:46] Speaker 2: into the place where he was staying. It was an apartment.
[41:49] Speaker 2: It's where Hoffman was staying. And within less than an hour, they, quote,
[41:53] Speaker 2: vacuumed up the information that was on the personal computer
[41:57] Speaker 2: that this man was using. He's a Syrian official. And
[42:03] Speaker 2: it is so funny. Like this is, this is how
[42:05] Speaker 2: it works, right? He leaves the apartment for just a
[42:08] Speaker 2: little bit, for just a brief period of time, however
[42:10] Speaker 2: long it was. And like special agents from an intelligence
[42:14] Speaker 2: agency break into the apartment, access the computer and then
[42:18] Speaker 2: get out of there. It's just crazy to imagine that
[42:21] Speaker 2: that can happen and probably does happen all the time.
[42:25] Speaker 2: Can you imagine that's very common. Well, this is at
[42:29] Speaker 2: least according to the reporting from David Makovsky in The
[42:32] Speaker 2: New Yorker. This is what happened. Because Israel never officially
[42:37] Speaker 2: acknowledged that this occurred, that their intelligence agency had anything
[42:40] Speaker 2: to do with it, or even accepted responsibility for anything
[42:43] Speaker 2: occurring in that apartment.
[42:45] Speaker 1: And then we see another series of missteps, right? Someone
[42:51] Speaker 1: screws up, and that leads to this kind of situation.
[42:55] Speaker 1: Their hack found that Othman's computer usage definitely left something
[43:02] Speaker 1: to be desired. He had 35 photographs, at least, from
[43:08] Speaker 1: inside this building in the Syrian desert. And in the pictures,
[43:12] Speaker 1: everything the more paranoid folks in Mossad and intelligence were
[43:18] Speaker 1: saying is confirmed. There's a visible photograph of this reactor.
[43:24] Speaker 1: There are fusion cylinders and there are bars and there
[43:27] Speaker 1: are clearly non-Syrian people working who were later identified as
[43:34] Speaker 1: experts from North Korea, from the Korean Peninsula. And so
[43:38] Speaker 1: they say, okay, well, game on. We were right in
[43:42] Speaker 1: the worst way.
[43:43] Speaker 2: Can we just point out here, even in 2007, it
[43:47] Speaker 2: was possible to doctor some images and it was possible
[43:52] Speaker 2: to plant images of onto a machine, especially if you
[43:55] Speaker 2: are an elite intelligence agency that is broken into someone's apartment,
[43:59] Speaker 2: you could ostensibly place images or any files onto a
[44:04] Speaker 2: machine's hard drives or, you know, even virtually onto some
[44:07] Speaker 2: accessible virtual drive. It's possible. We just have to put
[44:11] Speaker 2: that out there. Doesn't mean that that's what happened.
[44:14] Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a really good observation, you know, because the
[44:18] Speaker 1: technology available might surprise a lot of people. So this
[44:22] Speaker 1: is 2010 But consider that Stuxnet, which disabled a lot
[44:28] Speaker 1: of Iranian nuclear research, it's an Israeli-U.S. system, that was
[44:34] Speaker 1: first uncovered in 2010, but people have been working on
[44:38] Speaker 1: it since 2005. So things are a little bit further
[44:41] Speaker 1: along behind the curtain than they might appear to the public.
[44:45] Speaker 1: It is possible. That's a very important point. But to
[44:49] Speaker 1: the non-intelligence– I'm not calling them dumb. I'm saying they
[44:52] Speaker 1: don't work in intelligence. To the non-intelligence members and leaders
[44:57] Speaker 1: of the Israeli government, this is a smoking gun. And
[45:01] Speaker 1: so Omer makes the decision– Ehud Omer makes the decision
[45:07] Speaker 1: to share this information with the US. And he was hoping, apparently–
[45:15] Speaker 1: that he could show these documents, these photographs to the
[45:19] Speaker 1: George W. Bush administration, which was the administration in power
[45:22] Speaker 1: at the time, and that they would say, holy smokes,
[45:27] Speaker 1: hold my beer. We're going to go destroy this on
[45:30] Speaker 1: our own. We cannot have this happen. But instead, what
[45:36] Speaker 1: they found was that after they met with President Bush, W. Bush,
[45:42] Speaker 1: with Vice President Dick Cheney, with the top people, the CIA,
[45:47] Speaker 1: the NSC, the National Security Council, the U.S. wasn't super
[45:52] Speaker 1: on board with this. The kind of pro-war hawks had
[45:58] Speaker 1: one idea. Their idea was, let's do it now. Let's
[46:01] Speaker 1: bomb it. Let no stone stand on another. Let's do
[46:05] Speaker 1: it publicly so we can set an example. And then
[46:08] Speaker 1: other folks were saying, well, I don't know if there's
[46:11] Speaker 1: enough proof for us. And then reportedly, the president at
[46:16] Speaker 1: the time himself said, you know, I'm not persuaded. We
[46:20] Speaker 1: need a lot more than this to justify taking unilateral
[46:25] Speaker 1: action on a sovereign state, because that's what we would
[46:28] Speaker 1: be doing. We can tell the rest of the world
[46:31] Speaker 1: whatever we want, but the fact of the matter is
[46:34] Speaker 1: we would just be deciding to fly over there, bomb something.
[46:39] Speaker 1: And that's usually, you know, there are channels for that, right?
[46:43] Speaker 1: There are international mechanisms and other steps. But this is
[46:47] Speaker 1: the ticking time bomb argument.
[46:49] Speaker 2: It is the ticking time bomb argument. And we have
[46:51] Speaker 2: to keep in mind that the Bush administration and American
[46:55] Speaker 2: intelligence agencies had learned a lot of, well, maybe they
[46:58] Speaker 2: hadn't learned a lot of hard lessons. They'd gone through
[47:00] Speaker 2: a lot of trials and tribulations because of actions they
[47:04] Speaker 2: had taken in the Four or five years prior to that,
[47:09] Speaker 2: just in, you know, the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan
[47:13] Speaker 2: and some of the other actions that were taken.
[47:15] Speaker 1: Right. Like, for instance, I mean, the big badger in
[47:18] Speaker 1: the bag here is the false reports of WMDs.
[47:23] Speaker 2: Or, you know, according to some listeners, some people, some
[47:26] Speaker 2: of you have written in that fully believe, especially some
[47:29] Speaker 2: of you who are deployed, believe that WMDs were found
[47:32] Speaker 2: and they were just hidden from the public for some reason.
[47:36] Speaker 2: It's a murky world in some of the discoveries or
[47:41] Speaker 2: things that didn't exist out there in Iraq.
[47:43] Speaker 1: I still wonder about that story about that pallet of
[47:46] Speaker 1: like a billion dollars in cash. It's just gone somewhere.
[47:51] Speaker 2: That one pallet. All them pallets, man. I'm telling you.
[47:55] Speaker 2: I know. Weird stuff.
[47:56] Speaker 1: We're never in the right time at the right place
[47:58] Speaker 1: for those kind of giveaways. Do you ever think about that?
[48:02] Speaker 1: I don't know.
[48:03] Speaker 2: Well, just make sure there's lots and lots of natural
[48:07] Speaker 2: resources directly beneath your feet, and they may just fall
[48:10] Speaker 2: from the sky.
[48:12] Speaker 1: I really should have checked the lithium content of that property.
[48:18] Speaker 1: But they were not unified.
[48:20] Speaker 2: The U.S.
[48:21] Speaker 1: Government, its leaders were not unified on what action should occur.
[48:26] Speaker 1: So apparently, after the last attempt at a pitch didn't work,
[48:31] Speaker 1: Omer told the U.S. president, look, if you don't do it,
[48:36] Speaker 1: we will. And what was George Bush's reply? This is
[48:40] Speaker 1: so weird.
[48:42] Speaker 2: Well, man's got to do what a man's got to do.
[48:46] Speaker 1: Which is what?
[48:48] Speaker 2: I get it. Trust me, I get it. There's a
[48:50] Speaker 2: cube out in the desert. Bomb it. I get it.
[48:54] Speaker 2: Take it out.
[48:55] Speaker 1: He's saying, you know, the U.S. is not leading this.
[48:58] Speaker 3: Yes.
[48:59] Speaker 2: So....
[49:01] Speaker 1: A man's got to do what a man's got to
[49:03] Speaker 1: do is a weird, weird answer. I mean, shout out
[49:05] Speaker 1: to Dr. Horrible. You guys remember that one? Do you
[49:10] Speaker 1: remember Dr.
[49:10] Speaker 2: Horrible? The sing-along blog, I think? Yes.
[49:13] Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. It's so good. Still holds up. Anyway, this
[49:17] Speaker 1: all leads.
[49:19] Speaker 2: I just want to make sure I was speaking as
[49:20] Speaker 2: that came in so we can really get the full
[49:22] Speaker 2: brunt of that thunder strike. Okay.
[49:24] Speaker 1: Oh, yeah. So we– so I think we've done an
[49:30] Speaker 1: okay job outlining the concerns that led to this conspiracy,
[49:34] Speaker 1: this decision to unilaterally strike this structure and Despite the
[49:40] Speaker 1: serious risk of Syrian retaliation, and it came from– the
[49:45] Speaker 1: rationalization came from something called the Begin Doctrine, which is
[49:53] Speaker 1: this term for the Israeli government's position that it's okay
[49:59] Speaker 1: to make preventative strikes, preemptive strikes– So long as in
[50:06] Speaker 1: doing so, you're preventing one of your enemies from gaining
[50:09] Speaker 1: access to any kind of WMD, but nuclear weapons especially.
[50:16] Speaker 1: And they had already done stuff supported by this doctrine
[50:20] Speaker 1: earlier in Iraq. Operation Opera, Operation Outside the Box is
[50:27] Speaker 1: another iteration of this. But Operation Opera got a lot
[50:32] Speaker 1: of bad press. Operation Outside the Box did not. It
[50:36] Speaker 1: is quite plausible that unless you have lived in some
[50:39] Speaker 1: aspect of this world, geographically or in your profession, you
[50:44] Speaker 1: would have not heard of this. But they sent some
[50:49] Speaker 1: major stuff, and they did some pretty impressive, just objectively impressive,
[50:53] Speaker 1: electronic jamming and signal intelligence work. They had 10... F-15s
[51:04] Speaker 1: or F-15Is fly along with an escort of F-16 jets
[51:10] Speaker 1: and then signal intelligence aircraft. Three of those fighter jets
[51:14] Speaker 1: get ordered back, seven continue into Syria, and then Israel
[51:19] Speaker 1: just doesn't say anything.
[51:22] Speaker 2: Yeah, just silence. And one of the main reasons that
[51:26] Speaker 2: the entire thing was kept so quiet is because Syria
[51:30] Speaker 2: did a– an excellent job at covering its tracks, covering
[51:34] Speaker 2: up its activities of what we're actually going down at
[51:37] Speaker 2: the cube. And, um, they also didn't cooperate with that
[51:42] Speaker 2: atomic energy, uh, group. So I don't know. It's weird.
[51:47] Speaker 2: It's almost like on serious behalf. It's almost like, Oh, okay.
[51:51] Speaker 2: You got us. Hey, no fair play. You got us. Okay. Well,
[51:55] Speaker 2: we just, we'll just be quiet. We'll just go over here.
[51:57] Speaker 2: We understand. I don't know. That's not exactly what happened.
[51:59] Speaker 2: But at least they knew that they had been caught,
[52:01] Speaker 2: that their clandestine nuclear program had been caught, if that's
[52:06] Speaker 2: in fact what was happening there.
[52:07] Speaker 1: Well, they also made kind of a bet, which was
[52:11] Speaker 1: an interesting bet, I think. They said, based on what
[52:15] Speaker 1: we know about how secret this is, how limited information
[52:20] Speaker 1: about this is, If we attack in this way, we
[52:24] Speaker 1: are going to force the president and government of Syria
[52:28] Speaker 1: into what they called the denial space. The denial space
[52:33] Speaker 1: is interesting because they're saying if this attack avoids embarrassing
[52:39] Speaker 1: and publicly humiliating Assad, there's a non-zero chance that he'll
[52:46] Speaker 1: decide to hold back and that he won't respond by
[52:49] Speaker 1: going to war. Because it's an event with a small footprint.
[52:54] Speaker 1: It's quiet. It's far away from where a lot of
[52:57] Speaker 1: civilians are living. Israel doesn't take responsibility for it. And
[53:03] Speaker 1: if we don't crow or call too loudly in the aftermath,
[53:08] Speaker 1: then that gives Assad this space, this denial space, this
[53:13] Speaker 1: opportunity to downplay the event. So we're going to launch
[53:17] Speaker 1: this surprise attack. And the trick is, not to take
[53:22] Speaker 1: responsibility immediately afterwards, and then just push ahead and have
[53:26] Speaker 1: this diplomatic effort. While we're not publicly saying we did it,
[53:31] Speaker 1: behind closed doors, we're going to go to other countries
[53:34] Speaker 1: and we're going to be like, check out these photos, bro.
[53:38] Speaker 1: You know what I mean? I told you so. So
[53:42] Speaker 1: this led to their calculation and their bet did work
[53:46] Speaker 1: because there were signals that Syria was obviously on high
[53:51] Speaker 1: alert after this. They put long-range missiles armed with chemical
[53:55] Speaker 1: warheads into play, but they didn't retaliate because they were
[54:03] Speaker 1: worried about that car that may or may not be
[54:06] Speaker 1: in the garage. And they thought, you know, if we
[54:08] Speaker 1: deploy something, this may be the excuse Israel needs to
[54:13] Speaker 1: take these weapons of mass destruction for a ride around
[54:16] Speaker 1: the block, which is a very real and very dangerous one.
[54:21] Speaker 1: So fast forward more than 10 years. On March 21st, 2018,
[54:28] Speaker 1: Israel officially acknowledged the operation. And when they did so,
[54:33] Speaker 1: they released more material to justify what they had done.
[54:38] Speaker 1: To say like, hey, we played fast and loose with
[54:41] Speaker 1: some laws, but we've been pretty clear that we felt
[54:45] Speaker 1: like we had a good reason to do it. And
[54:47] Speaker 1: depending on what you believe, this may have prevented a
[54:51] Speaker 1: much larger conflict in the future. This was a conspiracy.
[54:55] Speaker 1: Was it successful? I mean, maybe for a while. And also,
[54:59] Speaker 1: you know, it leads to the question, Matt, that we
[55:02] Speaker 1: were asking before. Like, this is clearly the shadow of
[55:06] Speaker 1: AQ Khan. You can trace the knowledge that he gained,
[55:11] Speaker 1: knowledge that he earned, and the knowledge that he disseminated
[55:13] Speaker 1: throughout the world. But who should have the right? To
[55:18] Speaker 1: possess nuclear weapons. I mean, we see a spectrum of answers.
[55:23] Speaker 1: A lot of countries that have them now take the
[55:26] Speaker 1: flying car approach. Like, it's really cool if I have
[55:29] Speaker 1: a flying car, as long as no one else has one. Otherwise,
[55:32] Speaker 1: there might be accidents. But then there are other, you know,
[55:35] Speaker 1: like nonprofits that say, oh, I've got the answer for you.
[55:39] Speaker 3: No one.
[55:41] Speaker 1: No one should have this.
[55:44] Speaker 2: Well, yeah, and some really are. The answer for some
[55:47] Speaker 2: people really is everyone. Like, literally, the only way to
[55:50] Speaker 2: stop it now is if everybody has nukes. Because you
[55:53] Speaker 2: can never confirm that any country has zero nukes. It
[55:59] Speaker 2: would be very difficult to fully confirm that any one country,
[56:05] Speaker 2: no matter what their capabilities outside of nuclear weapons, to
[56:09] Speaker 2: confirm that they don't have them.
[56:10] Speaker 1: Right. Yeah, that's the problem. It's tough to prove that
[56:14] Speaker 1: it's not around. And if you think about it logically,
[56:19] Speaker 1: the fewer countries that have nuclear weapons, the more valuable
[56:23] Speaker 1: they become. So if everybody officially agreed that, let's say,
[56:29] Speaker 1: over a period of, I don't know, 10, 20 years,
[56:33] Speaker 1: it would reduce the world's population of nuclear warheads down
[56:37] Speaker 1: to zero... immediately what would happen or somewhere between those
[56:41] Speaker 1: two decades, there would be this huge program, very well
[56:46] Speaker 1: funded by any country that could afford it to keep
[56:49] Speaker 1: some in secret, you know, just, just for us, just
[56:51] Speaker 1: for later, just.
[56:53] Speaker 2: Hide all their nukes, nukes across the Iowa and the heartland.
[56:58] Speaker 1: So put them on subs, put them on subs that
[57:01] Speaker 1: are hard to track and could be anywhere in the
[57:03] Speaker 1: world's oceans.
[57:04] Speaker 2: How about this? Everybody gets one.
[57:06] Speaker 1: Everybody gets just the one. You have to bring enough
[57:11] Speaker 1: for class, folks. I mean, that's a question, and it's
[57:16] Speaker 1: a tough question to answer. You can make the argument,
[57:19] Speaker 1: as we've stated before, that there are some groups that
[57:22] Speaker 1: might be better suited to have them and not do
[57:26] Speaker 1: destructive things, but nuclear weapons are designed to do destructive things.
[57:33] Speaker 1: They don't detonate and produce flowers. honestly. They produce arguably
[57:39] Speaker 1: one mushroom, and it's a deadly one. But this is
[57:44] Speaker 1: an idea the world still quarrels with, and the conversation
[57:47] Speaker 1: is very much led and run by the countries that
[57:52] Speaker 1: are currently nuclear powers. And those countries are at a
[57:57] Speaker 1: standoff that's been going on for a long time. And neither,
[58:03] Speaker 1: especially Russia and the US, neither are going to back
[58:05] Speaker 1: down because they envision a world where they may be
[58:09] Speaker 1: in the position in some ways that Libya was. It's
[58:14] Speaker 1: something that doesn't really have an answer. And so for
[58:18] Speaker 1: folks who agree with the policy of preemptive unilateral strikes,
[58:22] Speaker 1: there's a clear argument for the greater good. For folks
[58:25] Speaker 1: who disagree with it, there's the idea that this may
[58:29] Speaker 1: have been Despite the official lines, despite the later declassified stuff,
[58:34] Speaker 1: there's a gulf of Tonkin argument. Like, maybe this was
[58:36] Speaker 1: just politically convenient. Maybe this was an opportunity more than
[58:43] Speaker 1: an accident or an attempt to repair a cover-up.
[58:46] Speaker 2: I'm imagining a scenario where representatives from the DPRK, like,
[58:52] Speaker 2: struck a deal to start a factory somewhere in Syria,
[58:56] Speaker 2: and then secretly, just they, were... Building nuclear weapons or
[59:02] Speaker 2: starting to build the capabilities to have nuclear weapons created
[59:06] Speaker 2: in that facility. And this, you know, Syrians had no idea.
[59:12] Speaker 1: No one ever has any idea until it benefits them.
[59:16] Speaker 3: Right.
[59:16] Speaker 1: Like I had no idea.
[59:18] Speaker 2: Of course I knew that.
[59:19] Speaker 1: And then I knew it all along. Yeah. And that,
[59:22] Speaker 1: you know, that happens to everybody in their personal life too.
[59:26] Speaker 1: But this is, you hit on a crucial point, Matt.
[59:29] Speaker 1: I don't know if I told you this, but I
[59:31] Speaker 1: spoke with diplomatic representatives of the DPRK a number of
[59:36] Speaker 1: years ago for not something sketchy, I assure you. It
[59:41] Speaker 1: was for school. Come on, man. And it was strange
[59:45] Speaker 1: because I was surprised by how openly antagonistic the U.S.
[59:51] Speaker 1: forces escorting them were. And I was surprised by how
[59:54] Speaker 1: openly the DPRK representatives spoke about nuclear weaponry or nuclear
[1:00:01] Speaker 1: power or hydroelectric power to the point where some of
[1:00:06] Speaker 1: the U.S. State Department folks cut the lecture short. They
[1:00:12] Speaker 1: did not want the Q & A to continue. So
[1:00:15] Speaker 1: we have to be careful when we hear these varying
[1:00:18] Speaker 1: narratives and perspectives Of course, these kinds of things are
[1:00:24] Speaker 1: things that later historians have to suss out the truth of,
[1:00:28] Speaker 1: but we want to pass the torch to you folks,
[1:00:31] Speaker 1: or we want to pass the warhead to you. What
[1:00:33] Speaker 1: do you think? Was this the right or wrong action
[1:00:37] Speaker 1: to take? And perhaps even more importantly, what other countries
[1:00:42] Speaker 1: might be secretly working toward the creation of a bomb today?
[1:00:47] Speaker 1: And if you believe those countries exist, then how should
[1:00:51] Speaker 1: they be handled? Let us know. We try to be
[1:00:54] Speaker 1: easy to find online.
[1:00:56] Speaker 2: I've got my eye squarely on Jamaica, looking at you guys,
[1:01:02] Speaker 2: making nukes out there. I know it. No, I'm just joking.
[1:01:06] Speaker 1: I'm thinking Macedonia.
[1:01:08] Speaker 2: Oh, what?
[1:01:09] Speaker 1: Yeah, classic Macedonians.
[1:01:12] Speaker 2: No, I think we're joking.
[1:01:16] Speaker 1: We're joking. We are joking.
[1:01:17] Speaker 3: Sorry.
[1:01:18] Speaker 1: Apologies to Macedonia and Jamaica.
[1:01:20] Speaker 2: That's right. But please let us know what you think.
[1:01:22] Speaker 2: We'd love to hear your reasoning behind your opinions. We'd
[1:01:28] Speaker 2: love to just understand. And you can tell us those
[1:01:30] Speaker 2: opinions in all kinds of different ways. You can find
[1:01:33] Speaker 2: us on social media, where we are Conspiracy Stuff on
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[1:01:40] Speaker 2: If you don't want to do those things, hey, you
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[1:01:47] Speaker 2: leave a positive one. That'd be amazing. Leave a negative one.
[1:01:50] Speaker 2: Wouldn't be so amazing, but we'd appreciate it. No, we
[1:01:54] Speaker 2: wouldn't appreciate it. You know what? Just be nice if
[1:01:57] Speaker 2: you can.
[1:01:58] Speaker 1: And if you don't particularly enjoy sipping the social meads,
[1:02:03] Speaker 1: if you're a person who doesn't doesn't feel called to
[1:02:07] Speaker 1: review things, but you have a story to share, we'd
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