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BACK STORY WITH DANA LEWIS
Dana Lewis is a veteran World Affairs Correspondent. He's been everywhere. From global war zones to the streets of London where he is based.
He has been based in Jerusalem, and Moscow.
And he loves talking to people about whats behind the headlines. Award winning. "A real in the trenches reporter". Great interviewing skills and easy to listen to.
BACK STORY WITH DANA LEWIS
Hostage Release Gaza, and Ukraine Warfront
Join us Host Dana Lewis on journey into the heart of ongoing conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza. This episode arms you with insights from US Army (Ret) Lieutenant General Ben Hodges and security analyst Zoran Kusovac, unpacking the tenuous nature of the Gaza ceasefire and hostage exchange agreements.
Our conversation with Lieutenant General Ben Hodges brings into sharp focus the stark realities of the Ukraine-Russia war and the brutalities of urban warfare. Delve into the unvarnished truth of the US's support for Ukraine, the painstakingly slow delivery of essential munitions, and the far-reaching implications of these actions.
And there's supposed to be no shooting during any of that time. What could possibly go wrong?
Zoran Kusovac:Anything could possibly go wrong. These things are very, very sensitive because they depend on people on the ground, the big bosses. They make the big dates and they say okay, we are going to stop fighting and we are going to exchange the captives. And that sounds very good. Even if the intention indeed is sincere, as we hope it is, it still has to be translated on the ground, Do you believe?
Dana Lewis :that they're actually getting what they need, and you've been a fierce critic of the fact that the US has put this on a slow drip in terms of the munitions that they could have sent and can send to Ukraine, and it's been it hasn't been forthcoming a lot of it.
Lt. Gen Ben Hodges :Yeah, I was very disappointed with Secretary Austin's message. Why does it have to be a marathon? I mean, this is our choice, this is American policy, that this is a marathon instead of a decisive victory for Ukraine.
Dana Lewis :Hi everyone and welcome to another edition of Backstory. I'm Dana Lewis Coming up the insightful, no-nonsense lowdown on Russia's war on Ukraine from US Army Lieutenant General Ben Hodges. Are we witnessing a complete deadlock in the fighting? Hodges says he just got to say that Ukraine needs to win and that's lacking in the discussions in the strategy on arming and funding Ukraine. And security analyst Zoran Kusovac on the Gaza war. Will a pause become a ceasefire? I doubt it, but let's talk through what's happening with the Israeli hostages and what tomorrow holds. Zoran Kusovac is a geopolitical and security analyst, a war correspondent, a producer, somebody I've worked with over the decades, and you can't find anybody who's sort of more experienced and I wouldn't say war weary, but war Zoran, what would we say? Just, you've been everywhere and you've seen it all and you're very good at kind of looking at today's situations and being able to reflect them into yesterday's and what could possibly go wrong.
Zoran Kusovac:Thanks for singing my praises, dana. I would settle for war savvy. I think that explains it.
Dana Lewis :Let's go with that. Look, as I was waiting for you to come online, I was watching the Qatari foreign minister speak about this deal to release the hostages in Israel and it seems like there are so many unanswered questions. But essentially, starting at 4 pm on Friday, 13 hostages are going to be released. But the truce, the ceasefire, if we can call it that, or the cessation in hostilities is a better way of saying it is supposed to start at 7 o'clock in the morning. Aid trucks are supposed to start moving into Gaza and then the Red Cross will facilitate the first batch of hostages to be transported over the Gaza border into Israeli hands the first day. And this is supposed to go on for four days, while the Israelis are supposed to stop Nothing in the sky, you know, turn the drones off, ground their aircraft, and there's supposed to be no shooting during any of that time. So let me go back to the first question that I said to you, and that is what could possibly go wrong.
Zoran Kusovac:Anything could possibly go wrong. These things are very, very sensitive because they depend on people on the ground, the big bosses. They make the big deeds and they say, okay, we are going to stop fighting and we are going to exchange the captives. And that sounds very good. Even if the intention indeed is sincere, as we hope it is, it still has to be translated on the ground into some very sticky things like what route are they going to use?
Zoran Kusovac:Those on the ground first of all have to meet, and that is not always easy. Imagine they've been fighting each other now in the last Gaza offensive for almost a month on the ground. They wanted to kill each other. They wanted to kill as many of their opposite side soldiers and officers, and now somebody had to pick up a radio. They actually talked to each other on the radio.
Zoran Kusovac:In all wars, the enemies town each other. When there is a quiet moment, they call each other names and they threaten each other, but they know where they are. They use the same channels on walkie-talkies. So somebody on one side or another picked up a radio anytime from Wednesday until today, probably already on Wednesday, saying my commander wants to talk to your commander, and then the two of them start talking and say hey, you and I have to find out a safe route for these guys. We have to work out who and how is going to clear the rubble, who is going to guarantee that there are no land mines? Which is going to be our change over point, and this is very important. You are responsible up to this stone and I'm responsible from that stone onto my side.
Dana Lewis :Two sides did still want to kill each other, just haven't been bent on it in the past. I mean, they hate one another and they want to kill one another. So who do you think, as Israelis are still in place in Gaza in their tanks, in buildings, in their overwatch positions, hamas is still in tunnels. They are still everywhere, spread around, able to hit and run, who do you think, with all these different factions in Gaza, might want to torpedo a deal?
Zoran Kusovac:torpedo the truth. We don't need to go that far. We can ask one even simpler question Are we 100% certain that both sides, on every point on the battlefield, exercise full and complete control 24-7? It's enough for one soldier to be angry, to be drunk, to be frustrated and to say who are they to tell me not to fight when I lost this person or that person, and it's enough for someone to start shooting to trigger domino effects. So there are many dangers. One thing that I don't like, and I have to mention it immediately, is that the initial exchange has been set for 4pm Now. The window on light is very short 4pm in Gaza, the sun is already going down and it's almost dark. As it happens very fast and without any delay, and it's very efficient, they're going to run into dark hours and, as you know, it's never a good idea to conduct any business on the battlefield of the sunsets. So this worries me very much.
Dana Lewis :Can I ask you? There are a lot of people sitting back applauding this because they just wanted the bloodshed to end. The former Mossad chief, ephraim Halevi, did an interview in Israel and he said that quote I think this deal is the first stage. If this process of exchange of prisoners is carried forward to the end, it will be much more difficult to renew the military campaign until the collapse of Hamas. That's the former head of Mossad saying. We may not see a resumption of hostilities at all if and you and I both agreed, there's a huge if here if the hostage release is successful and continues.
Zoran Kusovac:Absolutely. He is definitely somebody who knows all things that are involved, who has experienced, who has battlefield experience, who has experienced in determining what the enemy thinks. So, yes, this is one of the things. That is quite a logical development. People will say not just people on the ground, but it starts from them. The Palestinians and the Israelis will say wait a second, if we had four days without any fighting, without people getting killed, without anything getting destroyed, without buildings in Gaza being destroyed and the covering people under rubble, without rockets being fired at Israel and killing people in their homes, why can't we have 40 days or 400 days?
Dana Lewis :And the political pressures will be extreme on Netanyahu. Right, Because, okay, 50 people released, it's a huge number of hostages out, but there are still potentially almost 200 others that will still be held and the pressure on the Israeli government, which at first seemed to draw a horizontal bar between removing Hamas and the war and also releasing the hostages they've been under a lot of pressure to say hostages being released are the number one priority now.
Zoran Kusovac:Well, most people in Israel asked for that from the very beginning. But of course it just fell on deaf ears because Netanyahu and his hawks they, were very warlike and they kept saying we're going to destroy Hamas. Of course people who really know something about wars Israelis who know about wars and they do they must have told Netanyahu from the very beginning. It's not that easy to destroy Hamas. You can kill many people, hoping that some of them will be Hamas. But singling out Hamas and destroying Hamas is not going to be easy militarily. By now many people realize that.
Zoran Kusovac:So in a way, stopping the fighting, getting some kind of political securities after they got all the hostages out, would be an honorable way out for everybody. But that would cost Netanyahu his political skin. I don't think he can survive this in any way. His popularity, or actually his level of tolerance for his politics, went up and down like Kiyoya, which was absolutely rock bottom, and then when the deal was announced, he immediately tried to spin doctrine into I will free some hostages. Yes, that helps him a little, but I don't think it can help him in the long term. I think he's doomed one way or another. So a lot of strategic decision making around. The Israeli position in Gaza will be determined by Netanyahu's tactical political game of survival.
Dana Lewis :Do you want to make a prediction? I'll make a prediction. I would tell you, after covering Hamas since the 1990s. This truth will not hold. They will want to, I think, torpedo any cessation of hostilities at a certain point. I don't know what that point will be. Once they get a certain amount of aid into Gaza, they will not release some men of military age and some of the hostages very easily. That can go on for months. Israel will begin to pull the trigger again, depending on how many hostages are released and how quickly. But how does this conflict end? Does it end with the Israeli army staying in Gaza? Or do you think that behind the scenes, there is anything in the works in terms of an international effort to try to replace Hamas or bring in the regular Palestinian authority or somehow to set Gaza back on some of the rails of self-rule in some form that the Israelis can live with? Sorry, I know there's a lot in that question, but do you see an endpoint here?
Zoran Kusovac:No, I don't see an endpoint. I don't see a logical endpoint. And I don't think that Israel sees an endpoint, which is even more important because, from the moment all hostages are released, there is no win situation for Israel, whatever it does. If it stays in Gaza, it's bad. If it tries to occupy the whole of Gaza, it's bad, because that means pressure on the inhabitants, who will then have to press on Egypt to get into Egypt, and Egypt doesn't want them.
Dana Lewis :No country wants them and pressure on Israeli soldiers, who will keep dying in there, by the way, too, because they cannot. Just that's why they left Zoran right.
Zoran Kusovac:Exactly exactly. They will keep getting.
Dana Lewis :Drive by shootings at night. They will keep getting picked off. There will continue to be armed conflict in there. Israel may think staying is the lesser of a number of evils, but I don't think Israel wants to stay on the ground there and the Israeli public won't accept soldiers coming home dead every week, more and more and more.
Zoran Kusovac:The only thing I beg to disagree is when you say Israel will not accept that Israel is never going to be unified on this. The time when Israel was a responsible society that behaved like we don't challenge our government while we are at war has definitely passed. So from now on, there will be two Israels. There will be the war hawks, there will be the doves in Israel, there will be the realists, and those who engage in wishful thinking will say well, it's worth staying in Gaza because, even if our soldiers will be killed, our civilians will not be killed, and Israel is going to have a very, very tough internal debate as to what it wants and what it can do in and around Gaza. So this is not going to be resolved very easily and very quickly.
Dana Lewis :Now take months and months and maybe a couple of years, although a lot of people would say that's looking way too far in the distance. Zoran Kusavach. Thank you so much, my friend. It's good to hear you, good to see you.
Zoran Kusovac:Just to add, Dana, somebody we know very well, US General David Petraeus, the former military commander and head of CIA, said exactly that this war is not going to be finished in weeks. It's going to take at least months.
Dana Lewis :Yeah, that's from a guy who predicted Afghanistan would be a 20 year insurgency and he was pretty close to that. Yeah, I don't think he predicted the end of that very well, but he predicted the last of it.
Zoran Kusovac:Thank you, sir. Yes, thanks, dana. Bye-bye, nice talking to you.
Dana Lewis :Lieutenant General Ben Hodges is a frequent guest here. He's a former US Army commander of Europe. Terrific insight on the Ukraine-Russia war. Welcome back, sir.
Lt. Gen Ben Hodges :Dana, thank you very much for the privilege.
Dana Lewis :Thank you. And, of course, the first thing I'm going to ask you about has nothing to do with Ukraine. So Russia, let's put Russia aside for one minute. As we speak, Israel has negotiated with Hamas, through Qatar, as you know, for the release of 50 hostages over four days, for a pause. It's not officially a ceasefire, but you call it what you want to you. The first time I met you was in Iraq, as you were commanding forces as a young lieutenant colonel with 101st Airborne through urban areas. I mean, they're a lot different than Gaza, but there are similarities. How would you feel if you were a commander on the ground being told stop for a minute, hold and wait while we try to get some hostages out? A very complicated situation.
Lt. Gen Ben Hodges :Yeah, well, obviously, if this hostage deal does come to pass, it's great news for those 50 people, as well as their families. But this comes with a cost, and you allude to that. The Israeli Defense Force, I would imagine, will be frustrated that they're having to stop because they clearly are pounding Hamas. I mean, that's the only reason Hamas would have agreed to any sort of thing like this is because they are suffering and they need the benefit of a break of some sort. The part of the agreement that struck me is most. What would be most annoying to me is the agreement to stop any sort of drone ISR flights overhead, that kind of thing.
Lt. Gen Ben Hodges :Now, the Israeli Defense Force has many other means for collecting intelligence, but that one in particular. That would have been annoying. Having said that, the Israeli Defense Force is very professional. They understand that what is most militarily expedient is not necessarily what's most important. It's accomplishing the political objective, and I think Prime Minister Netanyahu has been under enormous pressure from his own population, as well as from the United States, to try and get these hostages out. So that's kind of why we are where we are.
Dana Lewis :What would you say about the kind of urban warfare that we're witnessing and that the world is reacting to in Gaza, and a lot of people think that Israel has to decrease the number of civilian casualties.
Lt. Gen Ben Hodges :You know, of course, I've never, personally never had experience, intensity and the scale of what they're doing there now. I mean thousands of Hamas fighters in their home turf, if you will. So the challenge for Israeli Defense Forces, from a purely tactical standpoint, is significant, Although I would say that I have been impressed with the tactic that they used to first isolate Gaza City and then they'll continue to work the way further south, but doing it in a way that probably reduces some of their casualties by not just rushing in. So I think they've done that quite well. They're doing it quite well, also having to keep an eye on their border with Lebanon and on the West Bank.
Lt. Gen Ben Hodges :But you know, the problem for me with this is what is the end state for Israel? I mean, the mission from Prime Minister Netanyahu was destroy Hamas. Okay, that's not achievable. You can't destroy an insurgency or terrorist organization unless you can destroy the root cause. So is there a Hamas? And you also have to be able to isolate it from external support, whether that's money or weapons or people.
Lt. Gen Ben Hodges :And I think that Hamas and Iran knew that Israel would respond the way that they have. In fact, they wanted them to respond the way that they have, which is why the attack of October 7th was so particularly savage. This was not typical terrorist action where they blow up a building or blow up a bus or something like that. I mean the 1,200 deaths. So many of them were so horrific, savage and done in a way that we listened.
Lt. Gen Ben Hodges :It's such a strong emotional response from Israel and, of course, this was designed to create a situation where it would be almost impossible for Arab countries to embrace Israel or continue implementation of the Abraham Accord, which would have been one of the objectives of Iran.
Lt. Gen Ben Hodges :They did not want to see the Abraham Accord implemented in Arab countries and Israel achieving some sort of normalized relationship. So I think the tactics that they've used were intended to achieve that purpose. On the Israeli side, what I think needs to be there is something in the mission statement that talks about the end state, that the end state has to be where Israelis and Arabs can peacefully coexist. Easy to say, very difficult to achieve. But the way the Israelis do not even pretend to restrict illegal settlements in the West Bank, the way that those settlers treat the Palestinians there and the destruction that we're seeing in Gaza, all of this contributes to the narrative fair or not, accurate or not, that the Israelis are the bad guys, and so that's why there's so much pressure on the Israelis to stop doing what they're doing. You hear very, very little pressure from Secretary General of the United Nations, for example, about Hamas and what they're doing.
Dana Lewis :And Netanyahu certainly would be one of the chief authors of unraveling. When you talk about end state, a possible two-state solution that was agreed to 30 years ago when the Oslo Accords and Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Netanyahu just poured it, put the pedal to the metal in terms of expanding settlements, in terms of even strengthening Hamas and weakening more moderate Palestinian groups. There's so much there to unravel. Look, can I switch you over to Ukraine. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was there this week and he tweeted Ukraine's fight against Putin's aggression is a marathon, not a sprint. The US will keep working with allies and partners to ensure that Ukraine has what it needs to succeed on the battlefield. So obviously an important message that the US continues to support Ukraine. But do you believe that they're actually getting what they need? And you've been a fierce critic of the fact that the US has put this on a slow drip in terms of the munitions that they could have sent and can send to Ukraine, and it's been. It hasn't been forthcoming a lot of it.
Lt. Gen Ben Hodges :Yeah, I was very disappointed with Secretary Austin's message. Why does it have to be a marathon? I mean, this is our choice, this is American policy, that this is a marathon instead of a decisive victory for Ukraine. And when I see references, you know we're helping Ukraine fight for their freedom. That's strategically. That's not what this is about. This is about helping Ukraine defeat Russia for the stability and security of Europe. It's about defending these things from which the United States benefits so much Respect for sovereignty, respect for international agreements, respect for freedom of navigation, respect for human rights, owning, owning, owning and uninterrupted flow of grain and energy and all of these things. That's what's at stake here. This is to put it, to frame it as this is about helping Ukraine fight for their freedom. They were already free until Russia invaded back in 2014. And now Russia, after nine years, still only controls nine excuse me, about 19% of Ukraine, and that's without us delivering any sort of decisive weapons that would accelerate the departure of Russians from Crimea.
Lt. Gen Ben Hodges :So I don't understand it. I don't understand why they keep saying this ridiculous where with you for as long as it takes. I mean, what does that mean? That is nothing that helps defeat Russia, and so, and, of course, what we were just talking about, the Hamas attack on Israel. Who's the biggest beneficiary of all that? I mean I think there should be a spot in man Putin, because significant reduction in things that are we're going to go to Ukraine are now being delivered to Israel and it creates a sort of tearing, if you will. We heard the new speaker of the House talk about Israel's higher priority Ukraine, not so urgent. I mean, that's a gift to the Kremlin.
Dana Lewis :Wall Street Journal editorial pretty remarkable this weekend by Carnegie. The headline is Time to End the Magical Thinking about Russia's Defeat. Essentially, the article says that the war is deadlocked. The article calls for a rethink of strategy to contain Russia because a goal of defeat is not working. I know you will respond to that.
Lt. Gen Ben Hodges :Well, of course it's not working if we don't give them what is required for it to work. I mean, this has been a self-fulfilling prophecy by the DOOMers, whether they're in the Pentagon or elsewhere in the administration. Or these so-called geniuses like the ones you just cited say well, we can't defeat Russia, we haven't tried, we haven't really tried by giving Ukraine number one, the unmistakable commitment to. We want them to win If we say that. But that's our policy, united States policy, recognizing that it is in our strategic interest, it is in the strategic interest of Europe and Canada that Ukraine defeats Russia, ejects them back to the 1991 border. That would have such a powerful impact not only on Ukraine but also on the Russians.
Lt. Gen Ben Hodges :When they see articles like that they just kind of chuckle like, ok, the Americans don't have the political will. This nonsense about Ukraine fatigue. Nobody should be fatigued. They haven't done anything. The only people that have the right to be fatigued are people inside the boundary of Ukraine. If we've given them, if we've made a commitment, we want Ukraine to win and then we provide decisive effect. There is no one weapon, it's not about F-16s or every Tachyms, but it's the effect that would help Ukraine accomplish their task of liberating Crimea, the decisive terrain, this would be a different conversation. If we did all that and they still failed, then I would have to acknowledge that, ok, this is not working, but we haven't actually tried.
Dana Lewis :Well, I mean, a lot of people would say that there's been a lot done. Billions of dollars I don't have to tell you, sir, with respect, but just to remind people who are listening billions of dollars in aid, everything from American M1, abram tanks, the British, german have supplied armor, all of the anti-aircraft systems. There have been limited attack shipments, which I think probably you would chiefly criticize because the attack arms would give and that feeds into what you were just saying that that would give Ukraine then the range to really go after the bases and the supply chain of the Russians all the way into Crimea. Is that the main problem when you talk about not giving them what they need to win?
Lt. Gen Ben Hodges :Well, first of all, yes, we gave 31 Abram tanks. How long ago was that commitment finally made? After months and months of deligdaling? And now they just are arriving on the battlefield. And we're talking about 31 tanks. Ok, there's about 4,000 Abram tanks in America. So the number of what's provided is not the important metric. It's the percentage of what's required to win. That's the only metric that matters.
Lt. Gen Ben Hodges :And yes, of course, we have provided a lot of things that have helped Ukraine stay in the fight. And is that really, is that the objective? Just prolong this war for as long as it takes? I mean that's. And when I hear the administration talk about we want them to be in the best possible negotiating position. Ok, the best possible negotiating position is to defeat Russia and eject them back to the 1999 border. So you're right, a lot has been provided, but, keeping in mind, a lot of what has been publicly stated has not actually been delivered yet, and we're talking about things that were. Either it's not like we're cutting off our own arm to give it to Ukraine. This is stuff that was either going to be decommissioned or we're sitting in storage somewhere. So very little of what we provided came out of hide, if you will Now the reason we focus on long range precision capability.
Lt. Gen Ben Hodges :The Ukrainians have already proven the concept. With just three, just three storm shadows they destroyed a dry dock in Sevastopol which had a submarine and a logistic ship sitting in the dry dock. So that was brilliant targeting. Because if you want to, if you want to force, if you want to make Crimea untenable for the Russian Navy, destroy their maintenance capability and then the Navy can't operate out of Sevastopol, not long term. So they destroy that and then they destroy the Black Sea Fleet headquarters.
Lt. Gen Ben Hodges :Whether or not the guy, the Admiral, is absolutely irrelevant. What matters is that they probably killed about 30 staff officers. That's much more difficult to replace. So just three storm shadows that they accomplished all that and the Black Sea Fleet is beginning to reposition further to the East. So imagine if Ukraine had 50 or 100 attack arms, 300 kilometer range unitary warhead. There would be no place in Crimea that the Russian Air Force or Navy could safely operate, because all of them would be within range. The Ukrainians don't need attack arms to hit targets inside Russia, although I would never be against that. They certainly have the right to defend themselves. But the objective is to liberate Crimea, the decisive train of the war, and you do that by making it untenable for the Russians.
Dana Lewis :Do you believe now that we are entering a new conversation where the political elites in America are kind of reading comments from, you know, the commander in chief of the armed forces of Ukraine, zaluzhnyi, where he's saying we're deadlocked on the battlefield and that the American administration entering you know, fiercely entering an election year is probably recalculating and that it would seem that the momentum now and I have to be careful how I characterize it, but it may be that the momentum now is towards some kind of negotiation to give Russia part of the Donbass and give them the Crimea, cut off a slice and try to bring about some kind of ceasefire? Do you think that that's where we're heading now?
Lt. Gen Ben Hodges :Well, of course, this is not new direction. It's only now becoming clearer, though, that that was always the administration position, that they've never talked about. When I'll take that back? One time, after the very first meeting of the so-called Ramstein group, the Secretary of the House of Representatives said we're going to help Ukraine win and we're going to damage Russia so much that they won't be a threat to anybody. When I heard that, I thought hell, yeah. He never said that again because I'm sure the administration told him absolutely not. That's not what we're going to do, and that's why, for 22 months, we have drip, drip, drip, incrementally delivered bits and pieces of what was needed.
Lt. Gen Ben Hodges :Some allies, of course, are the ones who live closest to Russia and know what the outcome will be if Ukraine fails. They have given it everything, but the United States. We have not done that. I think this is a failed policy thus far and it's a huge missed opportunity. I think you're right. There are people that are saying, okay, it's obvious now what we should have been obvious all along. There have been several of us that have been very critical of the administration for never declaring what is our objective, and so that's how you end up with bad policies if you don't have a clear, defined objective.
Dana Lewis :Why, general Hodges, do you think that that's naive, that you can make some kind of deal with Russia, cut off a piece of Ukraine, try to negotiate some geography and ceasefire, and it's all going to go away.
Lt. Gen Ben Hodges :All right. So listen to what you just said. I mean, this sounds like the 18th century, where Russia, russia, austria and France would make a decision about carving up smaller countries. Here you can have this part, you can have this part. Here we are in the year 2023, and there are serious people talking about come on, let Russia have Crimea.
Lt. Gen Ben Hodges :People who say that don't understand geography or history. I mean, if you look at the map and you see where the Crimean Peninsula sits, russia occupying Crimea will forever be able to threaten Ukraine all along its shoreline, all of its ports. Ukraine will never be able to rebuild its economy because Russia doesn't want them to, and will be able to block access into Azov Sea where, even after Barodansk and Mariupol are liberated, russia would still be able to block any shipping coming in and out of there. So those two ports will never be rebuilt, and then Odessa, herson and Mikhailov also will forever be under the shadow of Russian drones, ships, planes as long as Russia occupies Crimea. So from a practical standpoint it's totally infeasible From a moral standpoint.
Lt. Gen Ben Hodges :Who are we to carve up to tell Ukraine go ahead, let them have it? I mean, why don't we tell Germany come on, for the sake of peace. Let Russia have back the part of former East Germany that they used to occupy, or tell Italy to come on. Let them have. Let them have Lake Como I mean it's but yet people are willing to tell Ukraine go ahead. Let them have this for the sake of peace, guaranteed. That will not lead to peace.
Dana Lewis :And the Baltics would say we're next. Yeah, of course they would.
Lt. Gen Ben Hodges :I mean the Russians talk openly about it, and so I mean, how many times do we have to keep learning the same lesson about you? Know what is the price of appeasement? It always, always, always, always, always invites further aggression.
Dana Lewis :Attorney General Ben Hodges. Thank you so much for your time, sir. I took more than your 20 minutes, but I wasn't much over, and I wish you a very happy American Thanksgiving.
Lt. Gen Ben Hodges :Thank you very much. You're very thoughtful and I always enjoyed the chance to speak with you.
Dana Lewis :I appreciate that, sir, and I'm going to keep that in and not edit it out, because you are so popular on social media that when I have interrupted you in the past, you can't imagine the feedback that I get. It is almost like you're you know, some kind of royal of heritage that you should never be challenged. So I'm very, very careful.
Lt. Gen Ben Hodges :No, please don't you know what I think, no.
Dana Lewis :I'm singing in jest, but there's a see. I interrupted again, but I'm singing in jest, but there's a lot of people, I think, that appreciate your views on Ukraine and they don't understand why the American administration cannot cut through the fat and see it as clearly and as simply as that.
Lt. Gen Ben Hodges :Well, of course, you know the administration to be fair. They have other things that they're dealing with and I have the privilege, the luxury of being able to focus on just a couple of things, so they're not stupid. I just think you know we're going to look back on this as an unbelievably, unbelievably missed opportunity to change the security situation for generations. And of course, the Chinese are watching all this. And then, if you really want to help Israel defeat Iran's best ally, russia, I mean Iran will be a lot less capable if it doesn't have Russia helping it.
Dana Lewis :It's a bigger, much bigger picture than some people imagine when they're just looking at these things in isolation. General Hodges, thank you sir.
Lt. Gen Ben Hodges :Okay, then have a nice day.
Dana Lewis :And that's backstory this week. But a time you hear this, the pause in fighting in Gaza may have already collapsed. I hope not. Those Israelis women, children, fathers, brothers deserve to come home now. All of them and Palestinians deserve peace. But Hamas is the problem everybody needs to solve before there can be real quiet and peace. Otherwise, it's just a matter of time until the next round of violence kicks off, whether it be in the West Bank or Israel, or in Gaza or elsewhere. I'm Dana Lewis. Thanks for listening to Backstory, share the podcast and I'll talk to you again soon.
