The Future of Predictive Diplomacy

From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies, history is riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now. or learn this stuff they don't want you to know Production of IiHarR radio Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt. Our colleague Noel is on an adventure and will be returning soon. They call me Ben. You can too. We're joined as always with our super producer Dylan, the Tennessee Pal Faggan. Most importantly, you are you. You are here. That makes this the stuff they do to know now, this has been a long time in coming for us. I asked Dylan and Matt before we were rolling if either of them had ever been jammed up in a prison or a jail or another detainment facility. And thankfully It turns out we're all pretty good boys except for one incident in a mall. So Dylan can you tell us a little bit about that? I got framed for pushing people off at escalators when I was in seventh grade. wasasn't me crooked mall cop A we talking all the way all the way down an escalator? What what? What? Sounds like a real crime. physics don't even make sense They don't, they don't. And a lot of people as we know do get do get jammed up unfairly in these United States and indeed across the world, but gets me about this you guys, is if you have ever been held against your will you know that there is a complex, deep and unspoken culture of negotiation invisible to outsiders. And if you luckily our good kid or a fortunate son, there we go. You have probably heard a few like there and gone reports over the years about what we call prisoner swaps or prisoner exchanges. They're usually going to be prisoners of war, POWs or spies or political detainees. And these are flash in the pen headlines, you know You get you get a name and if it's not a celebrity, then those names get tamped down as soon as the media reports them. What's what's really going on? What's your take on this, Matt? Well The one that comes to mind Most. Frequently most recently is the Brittney Griner thing because it was being talked about so much, reported on so much in the standard news outlets, right? And just the idea that, oh, there's a There's an athlete that is being detained for one reason or another and now there has to be intense negotiation. Well, first there has to be a desire to have intense negotiation because Yeah I guess the big takeaway for me, Ben in looking at this, is that The concessions that a country generally makes to get some people of theirs back from another country that's holding them captive are immense the things that will be given up or like They seem to be a bigger deal than it than is especially made on the news.. I agree with that. And there're often these prisoner exchanges are often controversial because they involve things that the public would probably not agree to. We're going to take a pause for a word from our sponsors and we'll dive into the hidden world of prisoners swaps This is an IiHart podcast. guuaranteed human I turned off news altogether. I hate to say it, but I don't trust much of anything. It's the Rachbit. feeles like it's trying to divide people If we got clear facts, maybe we could calm down a little NBC News brings you clear reporting. Let's meet at the facts. let's move forward from there NBC News reporting for America Mornings at my house would be impossible without Air Tasker. The two kids can't find their shoes and the sink decides it's leaking. So I post on AirTasker to get help with the to do list. Next thing I know, the sink's fixed and a tasker installs a robot litter box my cat hates Which means I'm spending less time juggling chores than back to juggling my kids Go to airTasker. com or download the app. AirTasker. G anything done When it comes to looking your best, Beachbum tanning does it better. Beachbum delivers advanced sun and spray tanning, luxury skincare, and an elevated salon experience designed around you. It's why so many guests trust Beachbum for flawless color and real confidence. And now Beachbum is expanding wellness services to many locations, with red light therapy and infrared sauna, with more on the way. Rcharge your body, refresh your skin, reset your day. Beeachbum isn't just tanning. It's full spectrum wellness. Visit beachbum dot com to find a location near you Tady to finally clean out your closet With trrashy, you can donate your clothes, reduce waste, and earn cash rewards. All in one simple step Just fill a take backack bag, send it in, and get rewards cash back for every bag. And now, with trrashy Unlimited, you get unlimited bags for just forty eight dollars your first year Clean out, donate, earn rewards Visit trashy. io to get started Here are the facts. I mean Mattts Tennessee, we know the game at this point. It's a pretty simple concept. You're at war with another social group. R You're beefed up. And in the course of that conflict, you and your enemies manage to take some people alive, right? The enemy may have some high value targets. Historically, these are going to be one of three categories. They're going to be military members, they're going to be criminals, or they're going to be aristocrats. and you you and the enemy. don't like each other at all are still actively in conflict, you say, okay We're not going to end O war with each other you know, in Ukraine or Yugoslavia or any insert any two countries, honestly, but we will catch a little gentleman's agreement and will hand over captured individuals to wit, you might be you might be a ruler in the Middle Ages and you would say, hey, we have the duke's son We'll give him back to you unharmed if you return the nephew of our caliph stuff like that Yeah, arerenn't there also instances way, way back We're talking like some of the earliest recorded instances of this kind of thing where Children end up being a bargaining piece, but not in the way you may imagine, so not like getting your child back but more like Something you have to give up are your children? Yeah, yeah. Notable nototable things in the historical record that show us how ancient prisoner exchanges can be or stuff like the Romans when they were conquering various tribes during their conquest they would go back and say, hey We want those concessions to our empire and then we will release your holy figure, your tribal head. The stuff we're talking about there as far as capturing children is called hostage diplomacy. and hostage diplomacy what what was a practice where you're a dominant empire and you have a couple vassal or puppet states, right? They swear feealty to you, but they're very far away. So the best insurance policy you can have to guarantee their loyalty is to take their children. You're not necessarily abusing these children.'re killing them, they're in a gilded cage. you're probably giving them an education in many cases. m that's one of the things we've talked about in the past. a strategy when you are a conquering force that is going forward and perhaps colonizing an area or taking over land that is occupied by people. is to assimilate some of the population into your culture, into your way so that you've got essentially, what would you call that, Ben? almost almost these diplomatic liaisons that you can use in the future that you've customized their education and their upbringing kind of function for your purposes as the colonizer. in the population of those you're trying to pay on We have no statements about the Iranian gentleman educated at Harvard You know what I mean That's that's a modern version of this Yeah, we're just saying there, that is one strategy. that is not the whole goal, right? That's not the big picture of it, but that is one thing that has been used and continues, as you said. Yeah, hostage diplomacy is really interesting to me. and I hope to all of us becausecause if you if we put the ethics aside This is a brilliant way to ensure that your vassal states don't get, you know, donon't get a hankering for sovereignity because communication lines and travel across vast harsh terrain is impractical So imagine saying, you know, I'm the sultan. I have your child H name is Vlad Dracou. And that's a reference a few folks will get. But yeah, you're absolutely right, Matt. If we fast forward a little bit further, we see things like the Treaty of Paris from seventeen sixty three. This was something that hodified internationally. for a few countries, it codified a structured approach for exchanging prisoners of war. And this led us to the current civilizations ems at agreeing to basic human rights during conflicts. and obviously You know in hostage diplomacy and the post Treaty of Paris A lot of these prisoners were treated Horrifically, They were tortured, they were abused, they were murdered. This leads us back to the related concept of diplomatic immunity We have a three part series on diplomatic immunity. and folks, I'm going to be honest with you The best part is the third chapter, shadow diplomacy, but Yeah. for my money, that was the best one of the series. It's really great. If you are watching this on Netflix and you're used to watching it on Netflix, you will have to find our audio feed to listen to those episodes. And we encourage you to do that. And diplomatic immunity just like hostage diplomacy did not always work, by which we mean it didn't always have the intended outcomes. You can find no shortage of stories throughout history, shout out to Jenis Kod, where somebody sent a courier or diplomat to the court of the C and his reply was to send back their head. You know, likeike it didn't always work. It's not the best way to go about things, guys Your messengers that that That saying is around for a reason. You don't have to kill the messenger Or decapitate her or him? Yeah He did it though. He did it pretty often. but it wasn't until fairly recently in history, as we know. That the world overall What we call the modern world today said we're going to lay out some standards for the treatment of POWs and the big watershed moment for this comes courtesy of what we call the Geneva Cventions pulled the Geneva Conventions in a burst of creativity because they were signed over and over again. in the town of Geneva H Man, these conventions, you guys they're I mean, the paperwork is so crazy. L story short. They date back to eighteen sixty four The modern version you have now is four international treaties and a handful of addendums that were enacted in nineteen forty nine. They were forged in the bloody wake of World War two. Yeah, you can maybe imagine why there needed to be some kind of codification of how to treat other combatants and especially non combatants in a wartime, a standard that everyone would be held to, right? And if someone discovers any side discovers that you are not holding up these conventions, you will be targeted by everybody or at least looked at by everybody as, hey, somebody is doing some heinous crap It makes sense. It makes sense Yeah, yeah Uh What is it? bad poo, old son? that kind of thing? Yeah Would you get just a shame thing or strongly worded letter, or would we invade you, which is always in the cards Yes. And that's why international courts exist to hold these kind of standards as a law and to say, hey, there are punishments for breaking these laws. But we do see We have seen in the past Those international courords work let's say one percent of the time no that's not real. That's not a real percentage. We've just seen that those courts Um can be shrugged away if you're powerful enough. Yeah. as as we said in a previous episode This is This is a true story and I'm laughing because it's Gallows's humor The United States has a law on the books that says we will literally invade the Hague any of our high valed targets, AKA politicians and business tyrants, if any of them are captured or accused of war crimes That is still nuts that we have the thing that the U.S that played such a huge role in instituting these international norms and agreements also went back and said Yeah, rules for the, but not for we. It is kind of weird bit of an admission when you start saying, hey, that law that's supposed to call out the evildoers is the one that you're so Agst being enforced? Right. Yeahah. it's your chain smoking uncle telling you that he's going to kick your butt if he catches you with a camel light which is a brand of cigarettes A so That joke would have been better. That analogy would have been better without overexplaining cigarettes. But we do know, like you werere saying, Matt, we do know the Geneva Cventions are a huge deal. And if everybody followed the letter of the law on paper, this world would be in a much better place That's objectively true, you know, but it like it allowed for bunch of nations to say If you have a prisoner of war byy which we mean a uniform offfficial soldier a member of a military and they are ill or they've been injured and you know that they're not going to be Skidadline over the border to wage more chaos then you have to send them back to their home country. R? You have to treat them with a modicum of respect, provide for their basic physical needs And then you know, you can call them persona non grata or PNGM as you wish But you gott to ship them off This is a matter of basic rights in times of conflict for not just prisoners but also people who were shipwreck. or lost at sea and civilians. Those are like the big things. Yeah, we don't think about the shipwrecks so much anymore just doesn't happen as often as it once did Oh gosh, I just watched a movie you guys where H the two people get shipwrecked on an island and it's like the CEO of a company and um like a technology expert in the company and It was called Send Help And it just made me think of That movie right now we're talking about shipwrecks was pretty great M And Nonquter doesn't we don't need this at all. take this. Oh no, it matters. We got to keep it in because Being shipwrecked can happen to anybody, right? One of the biggest flashpoints for global conflict now is the Strait of Hormmuz. So if we're talking about the Geneva Conventions, this means that if Tennessee, if you are Iran R You're running the strait of Hormuz and you find people But even if they're U. S sailors and they're flailing around in the water, the Geneva Cventions say you have to rescue them. Right? And you could take them into detainment And then you should give them back because they're POWs unless you can do a little Chabalon plot twist, right? and call them spies or call them another term we'll get to, which is where the US sowed its own chaos. You hit on something massive that we're going to get into a little further in the episode that excuse that someone is spying is used so often as a way to just snatch somebody up who happens in your territory that you don't want to be there or you know, is just a member of a group that you are at war with or ideologically opposed to That thing is so sneaky because how do you prove it You had to do a whole trial to prove that they were spying? Nah, you can just say it Right, rightight, exactly And you can have such a a flimsy fig leaf of an excuse with this kind of stuff. For instance, if you like here in the United States You can take photographs of any place or any person in a public sphere That leads to good and bad things, especially in you know, the age of social media in many other countries It is not only considered impolite can get you in jail. So for instance, if you're in Santiago, Chile, or you're in the DPRK, or pretty much any of the stands and you take a photograph, without explicit permission That can be enough to jam you up. That can be enough for the militia or the police or even the state level authority to say, hey this guy's spying, why else would he be taking photographs of, you know, this really sick P And again, yeah, again, the scope of me. Chile So let's taking a picture of the planes makes me think about the brand new Qatari jet That's now Air Force one Yes, yes, which is oh, that's an interesting That's an interesting deal, is it not? We also know like we're say, that Prisoner swaps have led to historical controversy that only seems to accelerate in the modern day. becausecause when these prisoner exchanges When they occur, folks, you have to realize it's not like all angel farts and trumpets and hashtag Free ar booys and kumbaya For the last one hundred or so years of modern statecraft This practice has been riddled with ethical boundaries acccusations of corruption, accusations of conspiracy. We're going to get into some specific examples. But before we do that, we're going to pause for a word from our sponsors and let everybody take a deep breath in Be you're going to need it. We're going into the deep water This is Janna Kramer from Wind Down with Janna Kramer. So why do they call it a dishwasher? Well, don't worry, it's not a trick question or anything. It's just because it washes dishes. If the filter and the dishwasher itself are dirty, those dishes aren't actually getting clean. That's why you need Cascade Platinum pllus, powered by two times the cleaning power of dawn, Cascade pllatinum plus doesn't just remove one hundred percent of grease and residue from dishes It cleans your dishwasher and filter too. So you get clean dishes and a dishwasher that keeps washing. Just scrape, load, and done. findind Cascade Platinum pllus at your local retailer. Cascade is a proud sponsor of the Elton John Impact Awards, honoring those who have helped shape a more inclusive and compassionate world with their artistry, advocacy, and unwavering commitment to equality. Cascade would like to take this opportunity to congratulate all of this year's deserving honorees. Don't miss the Elton John Impact Awards podcast available on june first on the Iart R radio app Everywhere, podcasts are heard Chris. He's handy with tools and tech, and likes turning his skills into extra income. That's why he joined Arir Tasker One day, he's assembling furniture. the next, he's setting up a podcast studio or editing photos for a small business Every job's different And that's what he loves about it. He chooses which tasks to take, when to work, and how much to charge With AirTasker, you're in control, earning flexibly and on your terms o Download the AirTasker app or go to airTasker. comot AirTasker. Did anything done When it comes to looking your best, Beachbum tanning does it better. Beachbum delivers advanced sun and spray tanning, luxury skincare, and an elevated salon experience designed around you. It's why so many guests trust Beachbum for flawless color and real confidence. And now Beachbum is expanding wellness services to many locations, with red light therapy and infrared sauna, with more on the way. recharge your body, refresh your skin, reset your day. Beachbum isn't just tanning. It's full spectrum wellness. Visit beachbum dot com to find a location near you Ready to finally clean out your closet? With trashy, you can donate your clothes, reduce waste, and earn cash rewards. all in one simple step Just fill a take back bag, send it in, and get rewards cash back for every bag. And now, with trrashy Unlimited, you get unlimited bags for just forty eight dollars your first year Clean out, donate, earn rewards trrashy. io to get started Here's where it gets crazy. Okay, Matt, you know this, I know this, Tennessee, you know this, I know this. The big issue is that these exchanges are not always one to one swaps of POWs, you know, it's not like Uh it's not like the World War two stuff where you would say, hey, we got three guys from your infantry. you have three from ours you know, let's just call it even and then reset for more tomorrow They It's often unbalanced and the decision makers in every country that make the calls in these negotiations They're not talking to the public about it, not usually, unless it's a celebrity. Instead they're going behind publics back and the public is paying for this and that gives prisoner exchanges a sour reputation because you are probably not going to know the full details of whatever negotiation took place. Even if you're one of the people being rescued like Brittney Gryder Phenomenal Olympic athlete, US national. We'll get to them in a second did not know the full details of their release. The only people who know what actually happens, how the sausage gets made There's the neegotiators. They're the experts directly involved. They're your creepy professor of international relations who just occasionally And hear Dylan off for four months. And then comes back and gives everybody a be. Well this Think about how strange that must feel for Brittney Griner who now knows the exchange was I'm so sorry. Let's just take a moment to think about how strange it must be for Brittney Griner to now know that she was exchanged An athlete, a star, someone who was well known But she was exchanged for a convicted arms dealer likeike a a scary individual that causes death with his line of work Just knowing that you as an entertainer ultimately, are being exchanged for a person that sells literally death and is massively important to a country for those strategic things and for like We've talked a lot about how the United States, one of the biggest things we export is culture, right? That's one of our biggest in a weird way, soft power weapons that we have to wield guess in some way it makes sense that an athlete entertainer gets exchanged for an arms dealer. But I can't imagine what that feels like. ally to know that's who you got swapped with. Yeah, ye. and we'll get into the specifics of that case folks. So stay tuned. I'd love for us to step back and talk about something that speaks to the quandaries of that specific example The first is that yes, we said Countries often never acknowledge the details to the public at large, domestic or international But we have to add to that Countries also increasingly disagree on what makes somebody a civilian, a POW, or a straight up criminal. You know, we know the state of modern warfare. has shifted in the wake of september eleventh and the war on terror People are still fighting over what fighting, Jesus. Jesus Hubert Christ. peopleeople are still fighting over what qualifies someone as a soldier versus an enemy combatant. as we all recall In the wake of september eleventh, the George W. Bush administration started using The term enemy combatant as u a euphemism or another fig leaf to describe what they called law what they saw as unlawful combatants And that means if you're an unlawful combatant, if you're not part of a state military You do not qualify for POW status under the Geneva Conventions This is a hugely controversial perspective because the Bush administration argued that even though everyone earlier agreed that unlawful combatants still have some rights under the Geneva Conventions. enemy combatants Bush administration had no rights whatsoever So they could torture the heck out of you or excuse us enhance their interrogations. Hm. It reminds you of that documentary from Alex Gibney Taxi to the Darkide from Right eight hundred seven, something like that We're just discussing who could be Who could be considered an enemy combatant Is it just your age and where you happen to be Right? doeses that make you an enemy combatant? And, you know, you then you've got White House attorneys and you know, U. S. attorneys looking at how how what's the best way to make sure anybody we happen to pick up and don't like we get torture. I mean, enhance their interrogations. Right. Yeah. And Uncle Sam was prettytty from the hip with this, from the US perspective, anybody suspected of or proven to be engaged in terroristic activities was a criminal, not a soldier. And that meant that they even if they're treated as a criminal you know, look no further than Guantanamo or the Black sites. these individuals evenven if they weren't convicted, they were not given the few rights that even ordinary criminals get in the U. S judicial system. bag of legalistic, terrifying badgers, and it's just the beginning because You and I know this and I'm not sure how many of us in the crowd know this as well But sometimes, another controversy is that prisoners are not exchanged for other people at all Instead, you negotiate a release in return for like quid pro quo policy agreements, you might see relaxed sanctions. Your funds get unfrozen. There might be promises of ceasefires will'll give up a little territory or we promise you guys Scouts honor, we're not going to escalate a conflict further And that doesn't even count the backroom stuff, which is where we see well connected private companies gettinget in and setting up shop in an area.idn't that kind of thing happen pretty recently with Iran before we attacked Iran So like Biden administration in exchange I think there were I think there were civilians on either side There were ten. Yeahah, we've got a specific example of that, right But the thing the big deal in that exchange was relaxing a billions of dollars of money that Iran had controlled before that was being like iced out, right? Six billion coming via the Republic of Korea South Korea. So the best way for us to But for you fellow conspiracy realists to understand the full scope of the forest here is for us to get into some specific examples. So let's step back to one tease a little bit earlier onn december eighth of twenty twenty two Russia and the United States, who have never been super friendly with each other after World War two, they conducted what we would call a quid pro quo or one for one prisoner exchange One of these people? is a U. S. national Brittney Griner, super famous Olympic athlete Basketball star, Griner had been detained in Russia earlier that year. on charges of smuggling and possessing cannabis Reiner was convicted. in a Russian court and sentenced to nine years in Russian prison. But on the other side of the negotiation table, we've got a very different dude. His name is Victor Bout B O UT like I'm about to. He's a Russian national. He's an arms dealer who was quite successful in Africa. associated with the kleptocracy and the oligarchy of post Soviet Russia and he was known and is known in international circles as Get this folks The merchant of death And he earned that name. It's not an ironic nickname at all. It's not like littleittle John. Didn't we mention this guy is person upon which the Lord of W was based or like loosely This was the dude Farms doers like him. Yeahah The Nicholas Cage. I wantan to see Nicholas Cage movie. You're correct. yeah. Okay U But legitimate. Oh, there's also a merchant of Death movie from ninety seven. M H don't know about how that one is related, sorry, just found that b. Yeah, this guy is a legitimate human being that is the kind of dude that sells AK forty seven' s to a group that wants to start An uprising in a country, let's say, in Africa. E about Our guy Viictor Baout got apprehended in Thailand in two thousand eight And he he already had every warrant, you could imagine out for his arrest internationally. So it was only a matter of time that he got clocked or went to a non extradition country. he was transferred to the US where he was tried on charges of terrorism and money laundering and a lot of other countries wanted to get in the game as well He was convicted in a US court. He was sentenced to twenty five years in prison and Now we're seeing that these are two very different individuals, right being proposed for this trade originally When this is all going down, this is under the administration of former President Joe Biden Originally, they were also pushing for the release of a US Marine named Paul Whelland And that guy had been held in Russian prison since twenty eighteen, I want to say, on some pretty serious charges of spying, espionage. Rusia. said They said, no. One of them is a basketball player broke our drug laws. The other guy is a straight up spy So we will release This marine if you The United States will release someone who is worth as much to us And there's a guy in Germany We want you to release an exchange for Wayland thing is. Oh, fellow conspiracy realists. The guy they wanted out of Germany is a convicted assassin named Vadin Klrazikov and Vadib definitely did all the stuff that Germany sentenced him to life for doing. Yeah, he's aSB You know, he this dude is, um I imagine mostost of this comes through windows of fiction depictions of things, but then you were imagining real human beings who do the actual thing. L in any hitman movie, you imagine someone casing A human being locations following someone, waiting for an opportunity to murder that person. That is the kind of stuff this guy did successfully, unfortunately In broad daylight, like in broad daylight, in Berlin, a very populated, very busy place, Vadi shoots fatally a Georgia national and we're not sure what else he did in between. so Imagine if we could exercise empathy, We're the diplomatic team from the United States and we want to keep this out of the news. So we quietly go to Germany hat in hand and we say, hey Can you help us out here and Germany very reasonably says Vat Nove and this guy murders people in broad daylight. The good news is eventually ourur marine, Wyan is released with several other people in another deal from August of twenty twenty four. It's called the Ankara Prisoner Exchange. And it was the biggest prisoner exchange that we know of since the end of the Cold War No. eventually got out, there's other stuff like all wrapped up in this Russian peopleople as currency thing There was an American named Mark Fgel He was detained in Russia for possession of cannabis like again seventeen grams or something. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's an easy way to get people And especially if they don't respect the laws of a country. and he's a good dude. He's a teacher. he's not doing any shenanigans U He was not included in the exchange because Russia wanted to save him. just like trading Pokemon or baseball cards. They wanted to save him for a separate deal in February of twenty twenty five when they released this guy who is not famous, just a good dude who's a teacher who likes to a little bit, right They released him in exchange for the release of a very serious cyber criminal Russian national named Alexander Venik So Russia feels like they got the better end of the deal on both sides They're probably still mad They didn't get their assassin back, but you know That's why have more than one Uhuh That a h I wonder what did Vinnk do? I don't know anything about this, dude Yeah, he he pled guilty to money lauery. That's technically what they got them for because he ran a cryptocurrency exchange Which is an easy way to move money past sanctions Yeahes, Centter smugg a lot of money out of other people's bank accounts Yes, absolutely. And the guy did it Just to be clear, he definitely did that stuff. Another thing that gives us a little bit of a backdoor peek here is the case of Sarah Krivenk. who was a U. S. national detained and imprisoned in Russia on domestic violence charges She was not officially part of the Bout Grinder deal. She was deported from Russia on the very same day that Griner was released Can you imagine, folks if I mean, all of us who saw it, we know. C you imagine how controversial This is Political opponents of the Biden administration said, hey This is like paying blackmailers, dude if you do this if you play this game with the Russians They're going to be incentivized. They're going to arrest more U. S. nationals on BS charges and then they're going to keep jamming them up and they're going to use them for political gain. The current president of the United States, Donald J. Trump, said this exchange is a quote. Stupid, unpatriotic embarrassment for the USA And boom I mean They were kind of Look, I know we're in a politically divided time, but they the critics are making some good points, which is I think the most disturbing thing is Griner who definitely should have been released. I agree with that Did Griner get prioritized for release because she had a celebrity athlete status? and also evenven more disturbing What's our boy Victor, the merchant of death bout going to do once he's back on the prowl And if he's not building drones, it's not really going to matter. At least as far as the war goes Right. That's all that matters now guys. explosive suicide drones And with that, we're going to pause for a word from our sponsors and return to some more examples of prisoner exchanges, which takes us to Iran, Venezuela and beyond This is Janna Kramer from Wind Down with Janna Kramer. So why do they call it a dishwasher? Well, don't worry, it's not a trick question or anything. It's just because it washes dishes If the filter and the dishwasher itself are dirty, those dishes aren't actually getting clean. That's why you need Cascade Platinum pllus. Powered by two times the cleaning power of Dawn, Cascade Platinum plus doesn't just remove one hundred percent of grease and residue from dishes, it cleans your dishwasher and filter too. So you get clean dishes and a dishwasher that keeps washing. Just scrape, load, and done Find Cascade Platinum Plus at your local retailer. Cascade is a proud sponsor of the Elton John Imact Awards, honoring those who have helped shape a more inclusive and compassionate world with their artistry, advocacy, and unwavering commitment to equality. Cascade would like to take this opportunity to congratulate all of this year's deserving honorees. Don't miss the Elton John Impact Awards podcast available on june first on the IHart radio app Everywhere, podcasts are heard Chris, He's handy with tools and tech and likes earning extra income on his own terms With Air Tasker, he chooses which tasks he wants, when to work, and names his price. Download the Air Tasker app or go to airtasker d. com Air Tasker G anything done. When it comes to looking your best, Beachbum tanning does it better. Beeachbum delivers advanced sun and spray tanning, luxury skincare, and an elevated salon experience designed around you. It's why so many guests trust Beachbum for flawless color and real confidence. And now Beachbum is expanding Mon' services to many locations, with red light therapy and infrared sauna, with more on the way, Rcharge your body, refresh your skin, reset your day. Beachbum isn't just tanning. It's full spectrum wellness. Visit beachbum dot com to find a location near you Ready to finally clean out your closet With trashy, you can donate your clothes, reduce waste, and earn cash rewards. All in one simple step Just fill a takeback bag, send it in, and get rewards cash back for every bag. And now, with trrashy Unlimited, you get unlimited bags for just forty eight dollars your first year Clean out, donate, earn rewards Visit trashy. io to get started Journey with us folks to september eighteenth, twenty twenty three The U. S. and Iran who famously are not super close these days They struck a deal that we were teasing earlier. They traded five U. S. nationals in Iranian custody for five Iranian prisoners in U. S. custody And Sks billion dollars of frozen Iranian oil money. This This is crazy. This is a very controversial one even now becausecause the critics again, it's always politically divided in the United States, but the critics said Look, we've got our usual complaints about releasing spies or war criminals. but our big concern now is Why did you give these guys six billion dollars? You were going to strengthen their complex, effective proxy network terrorists and secessionists throughout the Middle East. And More importantly billion dollars is a huge alley op and any for anybody racing to build a nuclear weapon But Ben, according to the waiver that was signed because it was a waiver, I guess that allowed it to happen and the funds went from South Korea to Qatar and then Iran The waiver says they're only permitted to use the funds for food, medicine, and humanitarian items allowed under U. S. economic sanctions. Yeah, yeah. My centrifuges are so humanitarian dog. but It's crazy to imagine this happening in twenty twenty three Right? when there there were active negotiations about all of that stuff before bombs fell again on Iran in the next, you know, administration that came through Diplomacy was happening, but I guess this is a part of diplomacy where you have to make that kind of concession I guess what I'm saying is if it truly was for humanitarian aid, right? That's six billion dollars That's not a big deal probably strengthening Whatever you're building in at those tables when you're having discussions, that's strengthening something in goodwill probably And that's I would say a positive thing It is weird though that that's on the table. att the same time, there's an equal exchange number of human beings. Yeah, ye. And in addition to that, first off, we have to say I feel like we need to say this every time the The government of a country is never the people of the country not in practical terms. like the public members of a country, if you just walk around You're going to see people incredibly similar to where you reside tonight They're going to want, you know, Oh drinking water, right? They're going to want to know where their next meal' coming from. They want their their kids' lives to be better than their own lives There are universal things that happen, right withith ordinary people. But these controversies come into play in the case of the twenty twenty three Iran US deal It gets studied pretty often now Um One thing that really put the public off is that we don't know the identity of two of the five Americans released. They are listed as quote unnamed businessman and unnamed woman and former UN employee So that raises some pretty considerable questions about graft. Yeah I can imagine it would also make most human beings in the United States a little bit angry Can can we get six billion dollars in humanitarian aid, please Raise. Yeah, that would be cool What happened to social security, right U six billion would be a drop in the bucket. Yeah. Help us? Right Come on, like I voted for you. had you were so sweet during the campaign season What's with the switch We just It feels imbalanced as imbalanced as that deal that was struck there. It feels like there's an imbalance when that kind of thing, again, this isn't US dollars going for aid, right? This is money that was frozen that is being unlocked via waiver but it still feels as though U We're losing something more than we're gaining. Yeah. they held the money hostage. And we see this we see these similar imbalances in other cases, you know, I think All three of us are very interested in the specific interactions between Venezuela and the United States. It was just last year, the Associated press broke a story about how in July of twenty twenty five, so a little little less than a year ago now, Venezuela agreed to release ten U S. citizens and permanent residents in exchange for two hundred and fifty something Venezuelan migrants making it back to Venezuela because the U. S had originally taken these folks in multiple plane looads and two plane looads. They have deported these folks on what I think are Trumped up charges to a notorious prison in El Salvador Big win for Maduro for everybody playing along at home Maduro was still in charge of the country in July of twenty twenty five. It was not until January twenty twenty six that he would be captured and himself incarcerated in a beyond controversial raid by U. S. forces That was so crazy. Looking at the CNN article now from july eighteenth itle of is El Salvador, releases hundreds of U S. deportees from notorious prison in U S. Venezuela swaps And just looking through here. It is crazy that this is, as you said, Ben Almost a year ago It feels like this kind of like this thing just happened, some of these huge things So many so many things occurred in twenty twenty five that required all of our attention t feel that way. like massive things like this. Wait, you're telling me there's a system in the United States where Human beings are being deported to other countries, like third countries that they don't live in and where they're not from to go to notorious prisons That's just a thing that's happening. and that is somehow being used to release American hostages held in third or for like fourth or fifth countries H what Okay This is a thing that's just happening. and if you go through the article here, it's just astounding to me. Yeah. agreed You know, and you and I talked about this a little bit off air. We're looking at two hundred and fifty two Venezuelan nationals were deported from the United States to C Cot C E C O T in El Salvador. Look it up if you want to ruin your day personal safety is imperiled here. SCot is infamous for gang activity, the denial of basic human rights. These detainees are largely civilians and the rationale for their mass deportation was the accusation that they were old members of a crime syndicate an international game called Trende Aragua. This This is strange. We also should mention it didn't get reported as much in the headlines, but in exchange for these two hundred and fifty two people The US got their ten Americans, but they also got the release of an unnamed number of Venezuelan political prisoners and detainees So again, the obscurity here, right, the hiding of those people's identities only lends more fire to accusations of espionage. Yeah Well, it's super weird that they were all declared by the U.S government to be in this gang, right? Yes, two hundred fifty people Makes no ses. With a little thing called the Alien Enemies Act of seventeen ninety eight where You can just declare, oh, no, this group, they're actually not a gang. They're not an affiliated organization. They are they are the state. actually of Venezuela. So we can treat them as those enemy combatants think. rememember how we talked about that earlier? All you got to do is make sure legally people are enemy combatants U and now we can do whatever we want with them. and goodbye Yeah, exactly. The Alien Eemies actct was u A very weird and dangerous flex for the administration because it means you can remove people with little to no due process. and Uncle Sam's legal beagles said, yeah, all two hundred and fifty two folks being hauled off to this hellish prison. definitely part of this gang. and Trende Aragua is a hybrid criminal state. They are actively invading America. This is war. Naturally, the families and the attorneys. go back and say, look These folks Maybe Venezuela nationals by birth, but they don't have any criminal records, the United States responded and keep in mind, folks, This is a verbatim quote. We're going to do it in an asshole voice Well, it is true that many of the gang members removed under the AEA do not have criminal records in the United States. That is because they have only been in the United States for a short period of time. The lack of a criminal record does not indicate they pose a limited threat Come on You're saying, okay We know these folks have not done anything, but based on what vibes We know that they will That's not how the law works crazy that you would have A legal degree. and think that's how the law works. I can't I thought do I thought law school was stressful. I thought you were supposed to pay attention. And it goes back to everything we've talked about in this show ever The folks at the top, all they want is precognition. They want to know what's coming, so they can react before it happens, right? And that's in all things fromr the modeling out of the entire globe and all the political systems and how if you change one thing, how does that affect the rest of the system? That whole thing we've talked about for years and all these other ways they want to just be able to be ahead of the curve. en I was looking on DARPa's website. this morning randomly. I just decided I haven't checked in on DARPA for a while here and looked at some of their R and D opportunities that you can find right now on dARpa. mill that's mIL. There are So many open contracts right now. All these companies just have to send in a proposal to like win that contract B there's stuff in here about Uh seen seeing a patients potential problems and all the ways that those problems can be fixed before the patient gets to the hospital So modeling out when there's a nine hundred and eleven call or something and then you have a first responder get there modeling that patient virtually before they arrive at a hospital So that basically either a human being or a quote future automated health care service member would be, let's say performing a lifeif saving surgery And that there's millions of dollars in contracts out there that are available for people that can learn how to do that stuff. And it just makes me think with all the palanter of it all, with all the predictive things that the government is trying to get into and governments across the world are attempting to do It's all about this thing, then. the potential of a limited threat that someone might pose orr in this the Darba thing, how to How to see the future and fix somebody before they're even really hurt Yeah. how to prognosticate. That's always been the the Golden grail, right? or Golden goose holy grail, right it's it's happening. It definitely is. It's going to affect The immense calculations of prisoner exchanges and we the public are not going to know Oh The ins and outs, right? We're never going to get under the hood of this stuff, right? There are countless other examples. DPRK or in the US, you hear it called North Korea. They had arrested an American national in twenty sixteen returned him in twenty seventeen in a vegetative state. H name, Otto Frederick Warm gear, unfortunately, he died shortly thereafter. As we record now Russian forces are negotiating with Ukraine u POWs from North Korea, DPRK released evenven though that's a death sentence Be a lot of those POWs want to defect. So if they get sent back home you know, just like u, just like getting caught on the Chinese mainland They're going to a death camp. Don't get us started on Israel. We don't have time for it right now. It's another episode Is it fair to say that we don't know how many prisoner exchanges actually occur Yeah, absolutely Sometimes you'll get something in the news likeike CBS posting may eighth, twenty twenty six, Trump announces Russia Ukraine prisoner swap as part of three day ceasefire. And in there you're talking about a thousand prisoners getting swapped. be as a way to bolster this ceasefire that was happening at the time, like a short term thing. Right? R Yeah. But Most of the prisoner exchanges that we have seen are like the Bridge of spies stuff, the nineteen sixties stuff where There's a bridge There' there are two opposing forces armed with guns. And literally Red Rover, Red Rover. Yeah That and it it can be quiet and it just happens And it's two people that are really important generally to the spy game And okay, hey, you got one ours. it's okay. We got one of yours. Let's just Just go to this bridge, we get this thing done, it'll all be over. Just nobody point their weapons at anybody else. Put your hand on it and we'll be good Yeah, and you know the weird thing is the Cold War got so strange that Multiple points in in those situations, the admins or the u Not the top spymasters, but you know, like the on the ground Shift lead guys they knew each other. You know, they were like, Oh Uh Hey Klaus Like, Ohh, hey, Bill, how's it going?, you know? St on my side of the bridge You should tell your boy to do that next time. And they're like, a classic bill. So they they did know each other, but Wait The reason we the public will never know the full extent of these prisoner exchanges is because neither of the countries involved want the public to know. These are off the books negotiations. They want plausible deniability. That's why like if you enjoy a rabbit hole, folks, start looking into Pakistan Pison breaks. The surface headline you're going to see is from a little earlier when two hundred something Pakistani prisoners escaped during an earthquake twenty twenty five. That story is true. But it is also possible that some factions of U. S. and Western allies new political prisoner terrorist actor releases would be to charge too sensitive For the public So what better way to frame a secret prisoner release than to have it look like a jail brereak. That way, your Pakistan, your U S, you can save face, but then It spins out, right? It always spins out in the game. So of Pakistan, wants to make nice with some of the U. S enemies in the terrorism industry, they make a prison break of their own. And later they could throw their hands up when they're talking to diplomats and say, oh my gosh, you guys, we're as upset as you. donon't you worry, We're gonna have some strong words for the warded We also keep in mind Pakistan is the same country that hid Osama bin Laden very well until it was diplomatically advantageous to discover is location Creepy, creepy. Isn't it a little weird that Alexe Navalni never got exchanged. I know he's Well, see I don't know To me He It always felt like there was more going on with Navalny and he wasn't, you know, just an opposition leader. there in Russia felt like there was more to him or there was something else going on with him and he would be an important bargaining chip. And maybe that is why he ended up getting killed. What I mean Why he died Sorry M U it's that kind of thing when there's somebody important enough U It seems like you wouldn't allow that individual to be released to the other side, right? You've captured somebody extremely important. You realize how important they are It feels like you wouldn't let that person go. It takes me back to this concept been actionable intelligence, right U If you pick someone up that has actionable intelligence, let's say someone in the spy game Isn't that person kind of useless now to the side they represented because now they're captured We've talked about that before in the spy game, how