The Hot Zone with Chuck Holton

Episode 20 - What To Do With 1200 ISIS Prisoners? Somalis Brave the Alps, and Snowflake Recruiting?

Italy has enough with migrants, more violence in Gaza and what to do with 1200 ISIS prisoners in Syria?

 

Howdy folks!  Chuck Holton here with another great episode of the Hot Zone for your entertainment and edification.  I can't believe we're on episode 20 already.  Thanks for your support and feedback.  I want this podcast to get better and better at giving you the news and commentary that really matters.  See here we're not going to obsess for days about celebrity breakups or inside the beltway shenanigans.  There are millions of real people out there around the world who could care less about Kanye or Pelosi because their lives are being turned upside down as we speak.  And I don't just want to bring you their stories, I want to give you a way to reach into their lives and help them directly.  It's a new kind of news gathering that really hasn't been tried, and you get to be a part of it.  Just go to Patreon.com/hotzone and subscribe for three bucks a month and soon (as in within a couple of weeks) I'll be off on my first big trip of the year to Syria, and we'll not only get the ground truth about what's going on there, we'll help some people in need.  It'll be fun!

 

Now speaking of Syria, it's come out that the US is sitting on over 1100 ISIS fighters in Syria, who are being held in camps guarded by Syrian Defense Forces (who are overwhelmingly Kurdish).  The SDF Fighters are saying, however, that without US support, they won't have the ability to keep guarding them and will have to set them free.  

 

Many of these terrorists are foreigners - they reportedly represent 32 countries, many of which are in Europe.  Their home countries certainly don't want them back, for very good reason.  So what do we do with them?  

 

Well, Mark Theissen of the Washington post floated the idea of sending them to Gitmo.  The US base on the island of Cuba just celebrated it's 115th year in operation, and has been used as a detention facility for all sorts of baddies since 2002.  

 

What happens if these guys get set loose?  Remember, ISIS started with just a few hundred fighters in the aftermath of another precipitous pullout - of iraq by US forces in 2011.  In 2014, ISIS took over a third of Iraq with only about 700 fighters, although the area they took over was Sunni area, so it was essentially friendly territory for them.  The move to withdraw before the war was truly over by the Obama administration led to ISIS, which led to hundreds of thousands of murders and millions displaced across Iraq and Syria.  So it would behoove the Trump administration to learn from history and be very cautious and intentional about the signals we are sending in that region.  

 

Now I'm not saying we need to stay there forever.  Well, I HAVE made the point recently on CBN that a permanent base in Kurdistan makes sense.  Check this out:

 

[cbn kurdistan piece]

 

The bottom line with these 1200 ISIS terrorists that nobody wants?  Maybe instead of sending them to Gitmo, we should just skip the PC answer and send them straight to hell where they belong.  That's just my opinion.

 

Well North Korea lost it's ambassador to Italy a couple days ago...literally.  Jo Song-gil, the acting North Korean ambassador to Rome just kinda went *poof!* the other day, apparently decided the West had more to offer than the hermit kingdom.  He's apparently asking for asylum and hiding out in hopes Kim Jong Un won't send an assassination squad to bring his head home in a bag.  Probably a good move.  

 

It's not really surprising that a North Korean diplomat would choose cinque terra over Pyongyang.  And he's not the first one to get the idea.  North Korea's ambassador to London skipped out in 2016.  What's really surprising is that any North Korean who is blessed to travel outside his home country would ever go back.  The residents, or should I say, prisoners who live in North Korea are kept quite literally in the dark about what the rest of the world is like.  In fact, they are indoctrinated to believe that the rest of the world wants to be North Korea, if you can believe that.  But once they have their eyes opened - I'm surprised anyone would ever return.

 

Well Italy might be okay with letting a North Korean diplomat claim asylum in their country, but they've had it up to here with asylum seekers in general.  Because of their location, Italy has tended to be the first stop for many of the millions of third world denizens who brave the Mediterranean, paddling north for a better life.  Unfortunately for them and for the Italian Citizens, there aren't enough jobs to go around, and what's worse, there isn't enough tax money to pay for social welfare programs to feed house and clothe all these North Africans, Syrians, and Afghans.  Add to that the sharp rise in the crime rate in Italy and you are seeing a major political shift among the population.  

 

[Italy gun store]

 

Italy's new government has taken a decidedly unfriendly stance toward illegal migrants, and has even started turning away migrant ships that arrive on their shores.  But there are still over half a million migrants in Italy.  Mostly from North or West Africa.  We saw tons of them this summer when my daughter and I were traveling across the continent.  Many live in crowded apartments with dozens of other migrants, and sell cheap chinese trinkets on the street.  

 

The new crackdown on migrants in Italy has led to more and more of them making a dangerous trek across the alps to France, which is for the moment marginally friendlier to their plight.  The problem is the weather.  This time of year those areas in the dolomites can have many feet of snow and it's easy for these migrants to get hypothermia and stagger off a cliff...in fact thousands have died on the trek, and many aren't found until springtime.  

 

The people who live in that area are pretty unhappy about the hordes of half-frozen africans knocking on their doors at all hours of the day and night, and some are making efforts to help these migrants get through and are being charged with crimes for doing so by the Italian police.  I talked about this yesterday.  Walking illegally into someone else's home should not be easy.  It's not loving to make something easy that should not be easy.  We should have compassion for our fellow man, but assisting him in breaking the law is not compassionate.  But it's a complicated and thorny problem, and it's not going away anytime soon.

 

I think part of what has caused this massive wave of migration is the internet.  Before the world wide web people who lived in third world countries had only the vaguest idea what the rest of the world was like.  Most probably figured it was a lot like where they were born.  But the advent of the multimedia information superhighway has served to shrink the distance between countries and cultures.  Now, some poor goatherd in Ghana can watch Beyonce shake her tushie in trafalgar square, and then maybe decide he'd like to go see that in person.  Faced with the choice of following the back end of a goat around for the rest of his life, the trek to Europe might not seem that bad. 

 

Israel is facing more violence on it's border with Gaza - the Palestinians there have been demonstrating violently at the border wall for the past forty fridays, and every time they get rowdy - by throwing rocks and firebombs, among other things, Israel doesn't hesitate to defend it's frontier.  Two weeks ago several Palestinians were killed in the riots and this last friday one was shot in the head.  The Palestinians are threatening to launch rockets and use snipers if the Israelis don't stop defending themselves, to which the Israelis are probably saying, "So...business as usual then?".  

 

Look, The Israelis have learned one lesson very well over the past sixty years.  The Palestinians only speak one language - the language of violence.  It's the only way they know to communicate.  So if they are forced into a confrontation, the Israelis don't waste their breath trying to negotiate.  They've tried that many times.  But it's pretty hard to negotiate with someone whose first and only demand is that you cease to exist.  So the violence there will continue, I'm afraid.  Pray for peace.  It's the most we can do.

 

Okay, one last story that cracked me up when I saw it.  The British military is facing a shortage of soldiers much like the US military.  Recruiting last year was reportedly short over five thousand troops.  This could be because of another study I saw recently that said the average British man watches 11 years of television in his lifetime.  Plus they have the same millenial problem we do here in the states.  Kids who have been treated like toy poodles their whole lives are saying "Meh" to the selfless service required by the military.  Besides, who wants to carry all that heavy...well anyway, the MOD in England now has an answer to their recruiting problems!  The "we want snowflakes" campaign.  That's....thats great.  Aside from the fact that if someone is a snowflake they probably won't make the kind of soldier that  you know, wins battles and stuff...somebody might want to point out to the Ministry of Defence that snowflake is a pejorative term, as is "phone zombie" and "class clown."  So insulting the people you are trying to recruit before they signed up might not be the best way to fill the ranks.  Just saying.

 

Okay, that's it for today's show.  Please like and share this podcast, and subscribe over at patreon.com/hotzone, and you'll get free books, bonus content and more.  I'm Chuck Holton, and I'll see you back on Monday right here on the Hot Zone.

 

End Notes:

 

https://www.dailyindependent.com/opinion/is-fighters-to-guantanamo-bay/article_19843cac-0a25-11e9-9341-8f239ffbc090.html

 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5907241/Desperate-migrants-trudge-Europe-icy-Italian-ALPS-head-France.html

 

https://www.indy100.com/article/british-army-snowflake-millennials-advert-campaign-reaction-phone-zombies-baby-boomers-8709466

 

Episode 19 - Brazil's Bolsonaro, Oil Woes, and Border Battles

Oil Prices threaten Iraq's recovery, Border Battles over the New Year and the Media has it's panties in a wad over Brazil's new President.  We'll break it down in fifteen minutes here on the Hot Zone.

 

Hi Everybody.  I'm Chuck Holton.  It's thursday, the 3rd of January, and the new year is already off to a great start.  Two presidents took office in Latin America - in Mexico and Brazil, and they are pursuing two radically different agendas.  In Brazil, former paratrooper Jair Bolsonaro was inaugurated monday and is immediately ready to make a decree that will make it easier for Brazilian citizens to protect themselves with a firearm.  He is also committing his administration to eradicating what he calls the marxist influences from brazilian government and academia.  All of this is causing the liberal media to practically set their hair on fire.  The Huffington Post is running an article which claims that democracy has failed in Brazil, even though the elections there were free and fair and there are no claims otherwise.  

 

Brazil has suffered under marxist ideology in the past - it's recent left-wing president Luis Ignacio Lula de Silva is currently serving a twelve-year sentence for corruption, and under his administration the government pursued the policy we see so often from the left of making it's citizens more vulnerable and then claiming that doing so makes them safer.  Under Lula's administration hundreds of thousands of legally-purchased guns were confiscated and destroyed, which left only criminals armed and led to one of the highest murder rates outside of an active war zone anywhere on the planet.  Gangs took over the poorer communities and extracted a terrible price on the people who live there.  Medical clinics closed in many communities because the streets were too violent for doctors to get to work, and tourism suffered greatly.  I visited Rio De Janeiro last april and this is what I found:

 

[rio beach stand up]

 

Brazil was really the poster child for all of the restrictions on private gun ownership that are routinely called for here in the United States.  All those "common sense gun laws" like universal background checks, age restrictions, standard capacity magazine bans and high taxes on ammunition failed to stop the bloodbath that has become the norm on the streets of Rio de Janeiro.  Now, Brazilian citizens have been rushing to get firearms training in anticipation of finally being able to protect their families from the out of control crime in their neighborhoods.  But they are going to need some new gun ranges with some new guns - I visited a gun range outside of Rio de Janeiro when I was there.  Here's what that looked like.

 

[gun range stand up] C0004.MP4

 

One would hope that once President Bolsonaro loosens restrictions on gun ownership in Brazil, he'll also make it easier for guns to be imported, because the high cost of the guns in circulation means that currently guns are a rich man's sport - that is, only people with plenty of disposable income can afford to purchase one.  Whether or not that was the intent of the previous administrations, the upshot is that the people  who most need self-protection - the single mothers and people who live in poorer neighborhoods - are least able to get a gun for self defense.  

 

One interesting side note is that one of the architects for Brazil's failed gun confiscation scheme was a guy named Pedro Abramovay, who served as the Brazilian minister of justice under the corrupt administration of Lula da Silva.  It's worth pointing out that Abramovay's new job is working for none other than George Soros, the billionaire financier whose open society foundation funds lots of left-wing causes, from unfettered migration to gun control in the United States.

 

President Bolsonaro has committed to eradicating the Marxist influence from Brazilian society.  But those Marxists aren't going away.  Instead, they appear to be, at least in some sense, setting their sights on the United States and other countries in the Western Hemisphere.

 

Now let's turn to Mexico.  Their new president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, is a mirror image to Jair Bolsonaro.  While he's also a populist, but on the other side of the spectrum.  AMLO is the first leftist president Mexico has elected in almost 70 years.  And he ran on a pro-migrant platform, raising the minimum wage and going easier on criminals accused of drug trafficking.  From what I understand about Mexican politics, that last one might just be why he was allowed to win.  There are a lot of experts who believe that the Mexican government is in reality just an arm of the drug cartels.  At any rate, AMLO has had his hands full with tens of thousands of Central American Migrants camped out on both his southern border and his northern border.  On New Year's eve there was a different kind of fireworks show in Tijuana as another group of migrants tried to cross the fence illegally into the US, then threw rocks at border patrol agents when they were unsuccessful.  The Border patrol then used tear gas and pepper balls to discourage the rock throwers.  And a good time was had by all.

 

Really, I think the Border Patrol should sell tickets to these events.  Like hunting permits, only with pepper balls.  I know a bunch of good old boys in West Virginia who would pay real money to go to the border and play "tag" with Honduran migrants trying to enter this country illegally.  I'm not advocating injuring anyone, but paint balls with a little extra zing to it sounds like good clean fun, and maybe it'd help pay for the wall!.

 

No in all seriousness, it's a really unfortunate situation these migrants find themselves in.  I traveled with them for a couple of days, and most of them were sold on the idea that it'd be an easy thing to hop the fence into the United States and get a job paying fifteen bucks an hour.  There were many Christians who helped this group on their way, and without their help, these migrants could not have made it to the US southern border.  This is why I believe Christians especially need to be very thoughtful about who we help and how we employ that help, because we have to ask ourselves whether it's actually loving to help someone do something that will likely break up their families, perhaps cause their children to die on a dangerous trek, and in the end, facilitate someone's breaking the law.  I don't believe that is loving.  Sometimes love has to be tough.

 

Okay, Lastly, real quick let's talk about the middle east.  Iraq is slowly trying to recover from almost two decades of war, and that recovery isn't going very well.  Not only has the country paid a tremendous price because of the precipitous pullout of US troops in 2011 which gave rise to ISIS, now plunging oil prices have cut the government's budget by almost a quarter.  So while low gasoline prices might be a boon for American travelers, they could lead to further instability in the middle east, venezuela, and even hurt the job market in Texas.  

 

Donald Trump has done a great job of encouraging job growth in the oil sector in the United States by approving pipelines and making strides to help fracking take off.  Most people think that Saudi Arabia and Venezuela hold the world’s largest oil reserves.  But the United States is actually number one.  The problem is most of that oil is too costly to get out of the ground at current prices, and  so the lower prices go at the pump, the more pain is being felt in the US oil industry.  But while that might lead to some fracking companies laying people off or even going bankrupt, those low prices could lead to government instability in Iraq, which gets more than 95% of it's budget from oil revenues.   That leaves the country more vulnerable to influence by countries like Turkey and Iran, because it can't cover even it's basic budget to run the country, much less begin to address the colossal challenge of reconstruction after years of war. Some 1.8 million people in Iraq are still internally displaced from their homes, according to the United Nations, several of it's major cities, like Mosul have been left in ruins by ISIS, and so low oil prices - today below 44 dollars a barrel, down from over 75 in October.  

 

It will also be interesting to see how this affects two other hot zones, Russia and Venezuela.  Russia has huge oil and natural gas reserves, but it's petroleum infrastructure is in serious need of repair and that won't happen at these prices.  Venezuela is already a complete clown show, so maybe the silver lining here is that it's government will just do everyone a favor and collapse more quickly as their main source of income suffers.  We shall see.

 

That's all for today.  I'd love to get some feedback from you if you are liking the podcast.  What would you like to hear more about?  Should I have more guests on the show?  Please like and subscribe wherever you get this podcast and head over to Patreon.com/hotzone to subscribe and support what we are doing.  We've got some great things in store this year.  I look forward to sharing them with you.  I'm Chuck Holton, and you are listening to the Hot Zone.

 

 

 

 

End Notes:

 

https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/people/pedro-abramovay

 

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/01/02/oil-markets-us-crude-production-global-economy-in-focus.html

 

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/01/01/border-agents-fire-tear-gas-into-mexico-stop-rock-throwers/2460370002/

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroleum_industry_in_Russia

Episode 18 - The Top Ten Hot Zones I Want To Visit This Year!

It's a new year, and we'll be here to cover every crisis around the planet.  2019 is going to be LIT.  I'm not even sure what that means, but it's got to be good.  We'll find out here, on the hot zone.

 

Thanks for being with us.  Happy New Year everyone.  Hope your celebrations last night were safe and memorable.  Mine were - we drove up to the rim of the valley overlooking our little town and watched thousands of fireworks - It didn't come out too well on my phone but trust me, it was spectacular.  Very memorable.

 

Well I've got big plans for the coming year, and today I want to make a list of the ten hot zones I'd like to cover most in 2019.  

 

One of the frustrations of being a journalist is that you are always beholden to whoever is paying the freight.  If I'm working for FOX, for example, they might not be interested in the plight of the Hill Tribes Christians in Burma, or might not have the budget for it.  This has always been a problem, and normally it just comes with the territory.  But I have a mind to change that this year.

 

Since I have relationships with various different agencies as a freelance war correspondent, I'm going to try something new.  My idea is to go wherever I want, then sell packages and media to as many agencies as possible.  This makes it cheaper for them because none of them have to pay for the travel, and still makes it profitable for me.  While I'm there (wherever there is) I can take photos, shoot packages, do live interviews, and even write articles for various outlets, and hopefully all of them put together will pay for the travel and still allow me to put food on the table.

 

You can help with that if you want - head over to Patreon.com/hotzone and subscribe - you'll get signed copies of my books, bonus content and more for just 36 bucks for the entire year.  And we can crowdfund not only the news, but you'll also get to see your contributions helping people directly, whether it's hurricane survivors or Syrian refugees.  Let's partner together to make the news, shall we?  And in the process, we'll make the news good for the people we meet.  People like Zaina, who I met the last time I was in Iraq covering the fight against ISIS.

 

Okay, here's a list of the places I'm hoping to cover this year.

 

Syria:  It's the largest scale humanitarian crisis of our time.  Now in it's eighth year, with over 12 million people displaced, as many as half a million dead, and the effects being felt literally around the world, but especially in neighboring countries like turkey and Jordan, and of course in Europe.  I've got tickets to head to Erbil in the end of January, and will be spending a couple of weeks in Syria with my friend Dave Eubank of the Free Burma Rangers.  So pray for us, and for the people suffering after eight long years of war.

 

In reality the mass exodus from Syria started a much wider and deeper crisis as tens of millions of people from poor countries across africa and the Middle East realized it would be possible to follow the Syrian refugees into Europe and take advantage of their generous social welfare programs, to include free housing, food, medical care and education.  Which is like winning the lottery for people who live in Africa.  

 

Without a doubt, the worldwide epidemic of mass migration from the third world to the first is not only an indicator of crisis zones pushing people to seek a better life, it's also creating new crisis zones as millions of destitute, desperate people push into western countries uninvited and oftentimes bring their problems with them.  What I mean is this:  If you've lived in a failed state for most of your life, you have no concept of the rule of law, or even the golden rule for that matter.  So when you arrive in a civilized country, you are going to have a really difficult time assimilating to the morals and values that made that country the kind of place people want to get into.  We are seeing this across europe, as masses of military aged males who successfully make it to the continent are contributing to a wave of crime, sexual assaults and violence - which is then causing the electorate in countries like Italy, Austria and the UK to lurch to the right and elect populist and nationalist leaders who promise to crack down on the flood of migrants.  I mean, it's pretty clear that Brexit would not have been a thing if it weren't for the civil war in Syria.  A great example of chaos theory at work, I think. 

 

And there's no shortage of Chaos.  For me, that's job security.

 

The second country I'd like to cover is Londonistan and the UK.  There are lots of stories to tell there - acid attacks at epidemic levels to the point where the government is cracking down on the purchase of bathroom cleaners.  Knife attacks at historic highs, in london especially, and the hordes of desperate migrants who are braving death in the English Channel to get in before  the UK is scheduled to leave at 11pm UK time on Friday, 29 March 2019.  I could easily spend ten days or so covering all of this and jump over to Calais, then down to Normandy to report on the preparations for the upcoming 75th Anniversary of D-day in June.

 

Number three is Ukraine.  I hope to go to Crimea in March and report on the fighting, which has been going on since 2014 when the Russians said "mine" to the region.  Fighting is still happening as we speak in the Donblas region of Eastern Ukraine, and it's pretty clear the Russians are intent on extending their influence further in that area and all the way to the black sea.  I'm not sure I can get in at the moment, but I have some contacts who are planning a trip and I may be able to tag along.  We'll see.

 

Number four, Afghanistan.  We still have thousands of US troops there, and later this year one of them will be my oldest son.  I haven't been to that country since 2013 or so, so it will be interesting to go back and see how much it's changed.  From what I hear, not much, except that the US troop presence is much smaller now, and is slated to be reduced even further.  President Trump is getting a lot of flak from his generals over his decision to pull troops out of both Syria and Afghanistan, but some of my sources say that the real reason for doing so is because Trump plans to privatize bigger chunks of what we are doing in those places - hiring more military contractors to do the jobs US troops were there doing.  There are some very valid arguments for the efficiency and effectiveness of using PMC's, and so it will be interesting to see how this plays out.

 

Number five South Africa.  The media has really failed miserably in it's reporting on this particular crisis.  Racial violence is nearing genocidal proportions there, but not against blacks.  No, it's White Farmers who are being murdered and driven off their land at an absolutely horrifying rate, and reportedly the government of South Africa is actually sanctioning this violence.  I've spoken with multiple White South Africans who say at the rate things are going all the whites will either be killed or driven off within a few years.  I want to go and see for myself just how bad it really is, and I hope to get there in May or so.

 

Number six is Venezuela.  it's the Syria of the Western hemisphere, and has already led to wave after wave of refugees escaping the crushing poverty, hyperinflation and despair of that socialist paradise.  Riots and violence are about the only things not in short supply in Venezuela, and I want to do some more reporting on it.  Now Venezuela is one of only a couple of countries my wife says I can't actually visit.  But I'm planning to go to Colombia where there are over 1 million Venezuelan refugees and report from the border areas about the deepening crisis.  If that corrupt and evil government does not collapse soon, or even if it does, I believe this could be one of the biggest stories of the year.

 

Number seven is Nigeria.  Like the UK, there are multiple amazing stories to tell in this region.  Boko Haram, the ISIS -inspired terror group is still killing, raping and kidnapping Christians in the North and in neighboring Niger, the internet scams which have become a huge growth industry there, and even the epidemic-level growth of trafficking in humans and their body parts.  I could spend weeks there, but we'll see.

 

Number eight is Congo.  I would really like to do some reporting on the rise of illegal cobalt mining - I've seen some reporting that children as young as seven are being worked nearly to death in what amounts to modern day slavery, digging for cobalt, which is an important mineral for batteries used in electric cars.  Maybe those vehicles are "earth friendly" but they certainly don't seem to be human friendly if you are a poor family in sub-saharan Africa.  There are also stories to be told there about the insidious growth of islamic fundamentalism across Africa...in fact, I might try to get an embed with US troops somewhere in Africa 

 

Nine is  Nicaragua.  I talked about this issue a few episodes ago, but that country has all the makings of another venezuela, and it has seen an explosion of violent protests and riots over the past year and a half.  Plus, it's an easy trip for me from Panama, so I could do that story in just a few days.

 

And ten is Honduras.  I'd like to do some investigative reporting into the source of the recent migrant caravans, and how the people left behind feel about the situation.  I believe there are place in Honduras where people could move if the poverty or violence got too bad in their own neighborhoods, and I'd like to show them to you.  There are nine million people in that country, and the most recent caravan out of there is over fifteen thousand people.  I'd like to investigate the things that make people leave, and find out if it has more to do with the pull factors from the United States or the push factor from their own country.

 

Every year I make plans like this about the places I'd like to visit, but as you all know, there are alway unseen disasters, wars and terror attacks that come without notice, and I end up heading off with a few hours notice to cover those events.  Wherever I go, however, there are always people who need help.  I want to bring you their stories and give you the ability to reach directly into their lives and help, and see how your generosity changes their lives.  One of the worst things about watching the news is that you are usually so helpless to do anything about the tragedies the media tells you about, and it's been proven to be stressful.  Well I'm determined to change that.  Join me, won't you?  It'll help a lot if you'd like and share and subscribe on youtube, podbean, itunes, facebook or wherever else you get the podcast.  But in light of the rampant censorship and attempts by the big social media companies to stifle conservative voices, I'm going to be moving more and more over to Patreon.com/hotzone to post content.  So please go check that out and while you are there subscribe for three dollars a month to support what we're doing.

 

I'm glad you are here.  Let's make 2019 the best year ever for a lot of hurting people.  That's what we do here on the hot zone.  See you tomorrow.

 

https://www.travelpulse.com/news/features/report-names-most-dangerous-countries-for-travel-in-2019.html

 

https://www.kyivpost.com/ukraine-politics/ukraines-military-says-russian-led-forces-broke-new-years-truce.html?cn-reloaded=1

 

https://au.news.yahoo.com/britain-sends-ships-tackle-migrant-crossing-surge-193851060--spt.html

 

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-46473801

Episode 17 - How I set New Year's Resolutions and Why You Should Too

Setting goals for 2019.  How I do it, and why you should too.  Coming up on this special edition of the Hot Zone.

 

Hi everyone!  Thanks for spending a few minutes with me today…we’re going to talk about a very important tradition that gets a lot of shade thrown at it this time of year - New Year’s resolutions.  

A lot of people say it’s not worth setting goals for the new year because people never keep them.  Well if you aren’t keeping your resolutions, in my opinion that is no reason to stop setting them - it just means you need to work to find a way to get better at keeping them.  After all, getting better is the whole point of goal setting.

 

I love the week between Christmas and New Years.  It’s my time to evaluate the previous twelve months and measure myself as a human being.  Am I becoming more of the man I want to be? Or did I float through the last year and just exist?  I like to take this time to reevaluate my priorities, refocus my values. And plan.  Plan for how to be a better person by this time next year.  

 

A lot of my goal setting comes down to rooting out passivity.  If you’ve read my book Making Men, you’ll know that this is a very big part of the core precepts that define manhood.  A passive man is weak, dishonorable, useless, and unable to affect the world around him in a positive way.  And the opposite of passive is POWERFUL.  An engaged man will wield incredible power to help others, improve the world around him and ultimately reflect the glory of the God who made him.

 

So I want to be engaged in every area of life.  And like I always say, what gets measured gets managed.  So first let’s define seven key areas of life that we want to measure:

 

Those seven areas are:

 

• Spiritual
• Relational
• Physical
• Financial
• Academic
• Business
• Social

 

I take a few minutes and write a summary of how I feel I did this year in each of those areas.  I keep a sort of journal throughout the year on a spreadsheet where I track things like how many days I’m away from home, my prayer life, what I’m reading, my workouts every day, and how much content I’m producing at work.  I go back and look this over and pull out some stats on my life over the past year.  For example, in 2018 I was home 53% of the time, but was with my family (because they sometimes travel with me) a total of 319 days, So I feel pretty good about that.  I worked out 194 days last year, and achieved my goal of taking each of my non-married kids along on at least one trip.  I only finished sixteen books last year, which is a fail for me, since my goal was to read at least twenty.  But I was able to exceed the goals I set in the area of content produced for my work.  So that’s good.

 

So once I’ve gone through those seven areas and written a little summary of how I did, then I start a new goal sheet and personal progress spreadsheet for the coming year.  I then try to set clear objectives for each area.  So for example, in the area of Spiritual, I plan to finish the Old Testament, since last year I only managed to read the New Testament and about half of the old.  It probably won’t take me all year to complete, so I’ll put “Finish Old Testament, set new goal when reached.”

 

I will also set a goal for my prayer life, and consider how I can be more focused on gratitude in the coming year.

 

Under Relational I’ll set a couple of goals that will hopefully help me keep from getting my priorities out of whack - it’d be easy to just travel all the time and never see my family. But especially at this stage of my life, when I only have a couple years left with my kids in the house, I want to make it a high priority to schedule time and activities with my kids that will build those memories that last a lifetime.  Last year I got to take my youngest, Amy on a trip to Europe, and while it wasn’t cheap, I have to say that paragliding in the Swiss alps with my sweet fifteen year old daughter made it worth every penny.  

 

I also make a point to schedule a getaway with my wife once or twice a year.  It gives us something to look forward to and scheduling it now makes sure it won’t get forgotten in the craziness of our everyday life.

 

Physical goals at this point in my life have to do with function over form.  I’m not trying to look like a Greek God.  I just want to make sure everything keeps working as long as possible.  In my line of work, I need to be able to lift heavy bags and run for the chopper, so to speak, so I focus mostly on mobility and my large muscle groups.  When it comes to me personally, I’ve learned that what motivates me physically are tough but attainable short-term goals.  General objectives like “lose weight” or something don’t get me into the Gym.  So for example, on my birthday last year I decided to try and run 100 miles in 100 days.  I don’t do a lot of jogging anymore but figured I still need to be able to run five miles if the need arises.  And I accomplished that goal.  It wasn’t shooting for the moon, but just an incremental improvement that would make sure I didn’t get too busy to take care of my body.  In the month of December I decided to try and do 1000 reps of six bodyweight exercises like burpees and box jumps and pushups, six thousand reps total.  It was harder than I thought it would be, and I made it with only one day to spare.  

 

The first week of the new year I take the US Army PT test - 2 minutes of pushups, 

 

Under physical I also write down how I intend to eat - I find that when I’m on the road I often don’t have much choice and I just have to eat whatever I’m served.  But when I’m at home I try to be very regimented about my diet to keep that weight off.  I also try to fast for 24 hours at least once a month, just as a discipline exercise.  Because discipline in one area makes it easier to be disciplined in all areas.  Self-discipline is a muscle you have to keep fit.

 

My Financial goals have changed over the years.  I used to set goals for how much I want to make, but now I try to focus on how much I want to give.  I found that if I focus on generosity, the income takes care of itself.  Also in this category would be paying off debt or saving for a big purchase.

 

Under Academic, you might say well, that doesn’t apply to me because I finished school a long time ago.  But we should always keep learning, wouldn’t you agree? So whether it’s getting better at a foreign language, reading a certain number of books, or picking up a new skill, I always try to set some goals in this area.  This year, I’m going to try and learn to build iPhone apps, just for fun.

 

Business goals for me take the most time.  I own several companies, so I have to sit down with my managers and look at how last year ended up, then talk about how to make ourselves more efficient, look for places to save money, and set goals for production for the coming year.  If you aren’t a business owner, you can use this section to look for ways to save money at home - you might be surprised how much money you are actually spending on things you no longer use.  Subscriptions, insurances, etcetera.

 

And finally Social.  Take a few minutes and think about what impact you are having on the world around you.  How could you better engage with your community?  Get involved? Keep in touch with old friends?  Could you have people over for supper once a week?  Our lives are made more meaningful through the relationships we build, and so building them needs to be intentional.  

 

Once I’ve written down a couple of bullet points under each of those seven topics, I send that document to one of my most trusted friends.  That kind of accountability is the secret to actually sticking with your goals for the new year.  I also save that document on my computer and plan to look at it once a month so I don’t forget what I planned to do.  Also, since I’m setting a lot of short term - that is, 1-3 month goals, looking back at my sheet throughout the year gives me a chance to see where I need to work, and celebrate the small victories.

 

I also start a new personal progress spreadsheet and try to spend one minute every night before bed recording where I’ve been, what I’ve done, etcetera.  It makes measuring and goal setting so much easier at the end of the year.

 

So that’s my New-years’ tradition.  What’s yours?  Wherever you are, I hope 2019 finds you healthy and engaged in purposeful work that will make life better for the people around you.  That’s what the Hot Zone is all about.  I’m not just reporting the news, I’m going to places where people are hurting and letting you have a direct hand in making their lives better.  If you want to be a part of what I’m doing, head over to patreon.com/hotzone and subscribe.  It’s literally cheaper than a cup of coffee, and it's a fun way we can crowdsource loving people on their worst days.  So I hope you’ll join me!  2019 is going to be amazing. I’m Chuck Holton, and thanks for being a part of the Hot Zone.

 

 

 

 

Another Caravan, 2018 Lookback and Goal Setting!

20 countries, a lot of news, and a lot of sitting on airplanes.  We’ll say goodbye to 2018 today on the Hot Zone.

 

It’s the last day of 2018.  Episode sixteen of my new show, and I’m so grateful for you.  Your support has been amazing, and we may soon have some great news about the show for 2019.  But  Today we’ll look back at some highlights of the past year.  

 

A couple of short items I wanted to talk about first.  According to newsweek a new migrant caravan of over 15000 Hondurans, Guatemalans and El Salvadorians is making its way north into Mexico.  According to the report, the group is not planning to go all the way to Tijuana, where there are still thousands of migrants languishing in camps as they wait for an asylum hearing.  At least two of those migrants have been murdered in Tijuana, but you aren't hearing much about them anymore in the press because they've already served their purpose, which was to try and embarrass the Trump administration.  The only ones you are hearing about are those the media can make political hay out of, such as the two children who have died in Border patrol custody after being dragged across Mexico by their parents, who planned to use the children to help them enter the United States more quickly.  

 

This new caravan apparently plans to cross into mexico and stay in Chiapas state and look for work.  The new Mexican President, (they call him AMLO, which stands for Andrés Manuel López Obrador) has called for the construction of a high speed rail network to connect some of Mexico's biggest tourist destinations.  I guess this mass of humanity from Honduras thinks they'll all get jobs working on the railroad.  We'll see how that goes over with the unemployed mexican laborers in that area.

 

In related news, four German nationals were assaulted on 27 December by a group of armed men in Puebla Mexico. The victims were driving when the assailants robbed them; the attackers reportedly had placed nails and stones along the motorway, causing the commuters to stop their vehicle to investigate.

 

There are a few rules I always try to follow when driving in a foreign country:  I try to be inconspicuous.  I try not to drive at night if I can help it.  And I have no problem ignoring people who try to get me to stop for any reason.  Whether it's a car broken down by the side of the road or a pretty girl hitchhiking, or even a place where traffic is backed up, I'd rather be moving, even if it means taking the long way around.  It's not always possible, but keep in mind thieves will often prey on your nice, polite American manners to take advantage of you.

 

Another tragedy in Mexico:  an 84-year-old swiss tourist was also killed in Acapulco last week - stabbed to death by unknown assailants in a robbery.  His wife was also injured in the attack.  

 

If the Mexican government is unable to get a handle on  the violence that has become such a blight on that beautiful country, AMLO probably should put his resources into law enforcement, rather than building a railroad for tourists.  That's just my opinion.  In reality, Mexico is either at war with the cartels, or controlled by them.  Sometimes it's hard to tell which.

 

Now here's a little look back on my 2018 - I meant to get to this yesterday but ran out of time. When I went back and started collecting this footage I was amazed at how many places I actually get to in a year, and as my job goes, 2018 wasn't even all that remarkable.  This year I visited about twenty countries and flew only a little over 100,000 air miles.  That's partially because I spent more time reporting IN the United States this year, on stories such as the violence in Baltimore and Chicago, the Austin Bomber, and the various marches and protests we saw across our very divided culture.  Personally, I'd rather report from a battlefield than attend another one of these protest marches.  They are really getting tedious.  Anyway, here's 2018 in two minutes:

 

Looks really exciting when you put it together that way, but what that didn't show you was all the overnight airplane rides stuck in backpacker class next to an obese mouthbreather with a screaming baby.  Happens more often than I'd care to recall.  

 

Now before we go I want to share with you my choice for the most amazing interview I did this year.  That's a tough choice too, because I get to meet so many amazing people every year, but this one really stands out.  He's Marine Sergeant John Peck, an American Hero.

 

[John peck interview 7 min]

 

Looking back is fun, but looking forward is even better.  What’s your habit when it comes to goal setting for the new year?  Well I’ll share mine real quickly - I write out seven important facets of my life:  Spiritual, Relational, Physical, Financial, Academic, Business and Social, then sort of rate how I feel I did this year in each of those areas.  I track things like my giving, the number of books I read, how many days I spent away from my family, etcetera.  Then I set a goal in each area for the coming year.  What gets measured gets managed, so if you want to be better at the end of the year than you were at the beginning, it’s important to keep track of things and make plans to improve.  Bettering yourself is all about execution - what I mean is everyone knows what they ought to do, but actually getting yourself to do it is the key.  So to get better at execution, I try to find ways to embrace hardship and discomfort throughout the year, like taking cold showers, or reading a book in Spanish.  Life is hard enough, and I’m not a masochist, but I realize that I can keep my mind tough by choosing to do hard things on a regular basis, so when the real hardship comes, I will be strong enough to persevere.

 

Maybe I’ll do an extra video about how I set goals and share it on the Hot Zone patrons page.  If you’d like to get access to all our bonus content and get to correspond with me personally in the coming year, go subscribe on Patreon at Patreon.com/hotzone, it’s only thirty six bucks a year and you’ll get a signed copy of one of my books, all our bonus content and more.   

 

This coming year I’m going to do more than just make the news.  With your help, we’ll make the news GOOD for a lot of people.  I hope you’ll join me.  I’m Chuck Holton, and I want to wish all of you a very happy new year, and may God’s purpose be clear for your life in 2019. Thanks for watching the hot zone.

 

 

http://therivieramayatimes.com/yucatan-peninsula-mayan-train-project-is-back-on-track/

 

https://www.newsweek.com/new-migrant-caravan-15000-hondurans-arrive-mexico-coming-days-1272963

Episode 15 - Trump in Iraq, Murders in Morocco

Trump visits the troops - and the media covers it in the most ridiculous way possible, as usual.  A terrible tragedy in Morocco, and a look back at where 100 thousand air miles took me in 2018.  Coming up on the Hot Zone.

 

Thanks for being with us, I'm Chuck Holton.  So the troops in Iraq got a nice surprise the day after Christmas - a visit from the First Lady and her husband.  Trump's first visit with US troops in an active conflict zone was the normal dog-and-pony show with lots of selfies and group photos, a few meetings and a speech.   This all happened while news outlets...and I use that term loosely... like MSNBC and the Huffington Post were posting articles criticizing the President for not visiting the troops this holiday season.  When they found out he HAD, in fact made a secret trip to Iraq, they shifted their reporting to criticize Trump for taking photos with the troops.  Some tried to make a scandal out of the fact that he posted a video of himself taking photos with a troop of US Special operators - and called it a violation of Operational Security.  

 

So let's think about this with more than two brain cells, shall we?  How, exactly is this a breach of Opsec?  Is anyone surprised to find there are Navy Seals on duty in Iraq?  These men were not wearing any recognizable name tapes or insignia.  So no problem there.  They aren't giving away any TTP's or top secret equipment.  Heck their faces are barely recognizable.  And Donald Trump is their commander in chief.  If there's a problem here, I just don't see it.  The reality is that most of the people calling this an opsec violation wouldn't recognize a true opsec violation if it were handed to them.  

 

The other issue I saw bandied about on CNN by, who else, Jim Acosta, was that Trump was somehow causing the troops to go against military regulations by signing their MAGA hats.  Seriously.  His assertion was that troops are prohibited from campaigning for any political party.  What?  How is getting your hat signed by the commander in chief campaigning for a political party?  That's a stretch, even for CNN.  I mean heck, the commander in chief has the power to amend or change military regulations if he wants.  But this is just crazy.   There is no reality where this was inappropriate.  But CNN doesn't deal in reality.  It deals in spin.

 

Now, what do I think about the President's visit?  Well, the President needs to go see the troops, and it's generally good for morale when he does, although it sometimes causes a mountain of busywork and late nights as the troops whitewash everything in sight before he arrives.  In this case that probably didn't happen because it was a surprise visit.  Which is good.  From a political standpoint, it's generally good for the President's image too.  The media crowing about the President using the troops as campaign props isn't an outright lie, but every politician uses visits to the troops to improve his image.  Barack Obama did it, George Bush did it, Everyone does it.  

 

The President's speech to the troops was the only thing I take issue with.  He used the speech to double down on his decision to pull troops out of Syria.  

 

[excerpts from President's speech]

 

I've been saying this all along...the President is wrong to pull troops out of Syria, and his reasoning is shoddy.  To hear him explain it, it seems he believes that we are out there putting American blood and treasure on the line to simply be the world's policeman.  That's not true.  If that were the case, we'd have troops in Burma and Venezuela, to pick two easy examples.  We deploy our forces in our own national interests, and until the compelling reason for deploying them goes away, we should not pull them out.  I keep saying this:  You can't just stop a war.  You either win it or lose it.  This should make us exceedingly careful about the wars we get into, and 100% all-in it to win it once our troops are committed.

 

I understand where the President is coming from here, because as I've also said before, we are very good at defeating the enemy.  But very bad at nation building.  Our forces are not equipped to go from warrior to diplomat on a dime.  So once the enemy is defeated, we need to look very carefully at our reasons for staying.

 

In the case of Syria however, there are still very compelling reasons to stay.  My friend Dave Eubank made a really good point about this.  We have a moral commitment to stay in Syria to support the Kurds, the Christians, Druze, Yezidis and other disaffected minorities who have only genocide to look forward to if we pull out now.  

 

There are also tactical and strategic reasons to stay, beyond the imminent collapse of ISIS.  

 

The president spoke to the troops as if they would be in total agreement with him that they'd rather be back stateside.  Now it's not their place to say what they would prefer - their job is to follow orders and go where they are sent.  But if you did ask US troops whether they'd prefer fighting terrorists or practicing drill and ceremony back stateside, I'd wager most of our warriors would rather be busy killing bad guys.  Nobody wants to spend their entire enlistment training for the superbowl and never get to play.

 

Now, let's turn our attention for a second to a terrible tragedy in Morocco.  Two Scandinavian young women, backpacking in the Atlas Mountains were attacked and brutally murdered by a group of extremist muslim men on December 16th.  The story has gained worldwide attention, which is always the case when two pretty white girls are murdered on holiday.  Arrests have been made, and the perpetrators linked to a muslim terror group, which the authorities refused to identify.  

 

A lot of ink has been spilled over this story and I don't want to rehash the whole thing for you.  I do want to point out a few items that you should take into consideration for your own personal security when travelling.

 

Let me make this crystal clear:  I am in no way blaming these young women for what happened to them.  The guilt here lies solely and exclusively with the monsters who murdered them.  

 

Having said that, let me point out a few things, because I see things like this all the time.  European twenty-somethings are some of the most intrepid travellers I've ever met.  I run into them on holiday in places like El Salvador, Vietnam, Jordan, and yes, almost every day here in Panama.  Very often these groups are made up of pretty young women traveling alone or in pairs, looking to save money by camping out or staying in the cheapest hostals they can find. 

 

That's all well and good.  But very often these kids - and I'm almost fifty so I get to call them kids - are taking risks they don't even understand.

 

It's super important when you travel to be intentional about the image you are presenting in light of the local culture and customs.  I like to put it this way - do you want to look like a bunny or a wolf?  Very often these young women don't understand the culture where they are traveling, and so they inadvertently walk around oblivious to the fact that they are presenting an image of vulnerability and maybe even promiscuity they certainly don't intend to portray. 

 

Remember the point I made about this in regards to the refugees flooding into europe this spring:

 

[sexual politics video]

 

Now, this is doubly true when a western woman travels to a majority muslim country, even one that's supposedly modern and liberal.  

 

I think there are a couple of important takeaways from this story.  One, when traveling, you should think hard about the image you are portraying, and be intentional about making yourself look less appealing to the predators that are out there.  

 

Two, you should be careful about the risks you are taking just to save a buck.  Sometimes it's worth paying a little more so you can sleep safely at night.

 

And lastly, don't underestimate your value.  If you had a fifty-carat diamond necklace, you'd probably be careful about walking around the streets of San Salvador or Caracas flashing it about.  I say this especially to young women.  Like it or not, as a woman, you are walking around with one of the most valuable assets on this planet - your body.  Ask any red-blooded male if he'd rather have a diamond necklace or a willing female body, and for most their choice would be clear.  You might hate the fact that the world works this way, but you won't change it.  Wherever you go, many men are looking at you like sex on a stick.  You can either feed their fantasies or foul them by the way you dress, the way you carry yourself, and the places you choose to go.  I'm not blaming the victims here, I'm just pointing out the hard reality of the world we live in.

 

In 2014 I happened to see two scandinavian girls with backpacks on waiting for a bus here in our little town of El Valle.  They were young and cute, and caught my eye.  A few days later the news reported two girls missing in boquete, another tourist town here in Panama.  Months later their remains were found on a hiking trail in the mountains outside that town.  Their bras and at least one pair of pants were found separate from their remains.  No definite conclusion of foul play was ever reached, however.  

 

Whether or not these women were murdered, it's another chilling reminder that there are unseen risks to travel even in countries that are considered safe.  That shouldn't keep us from traveling, but it should make us want to be intentional about our security.

 

Okay, enough about that subject.    We're going to do a lot of good for a lot of people in 2019, and you can be a part of it.  Just visit patreon.com/hotzone  and subscribe for three dollars a month, and when I run into people in need, you'll get to help them directly and see the effects of your generosity.  So this coming year, don't just watch the news, get involved in it!  With me, Chuck Holton, here on the Hot Zone.

 

 

 

 

Nicaragua and China, Two Marxist Threats to the World

 

Is Nicaragua the "other" Venezuela?  And is your teapot spying on you?  All that and more coming up on the  December 27th, 2018 episode of the Hot Zone.

 

I'm Chuck Holton.  Rising allegations of espionage against China have people asking if spies are listening in on their phone calls...and they very well may be.  But before we get to that, lets talk about Nicaragua.  It hasn't been covered much in the US press, but this is one hot zone that has already claimed more than 500 lives this year.  

 

Let me give you a little background, and I apologize ahead of time that I don't have a lot of background footage for these stories, so you'll just have to watch me talk today.  Sorry about that.  Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega is on his second go around as the leader of that country.  See, he was President from 1979 to 1990, then took a break, and came back to power in 2006 and has had a stranglehold on the government ever since, even installing his wife as vice president last year.  

 

Ortega is a straight up marxist, and was the leader of the brutal Sandinista movement back in the 80's when my friend Oliver North was trying to help out the Contras during the Nicaraguan Civil War.  The Sandinistas were known for such things as mass extrajudicial executions and other fun human rights abuses while in power.

 

Ortega won the election in 2006 by promising massive welfare programs to the nation's poor.  When Ortega took office, he immediately started cozying up to Venezuela, and for a period of years received hundreds of millions in aid from that country, until Venezuela's corruption and socialism, (but I repeat myself) decimated that country's finances and it was no longer able to shovel cash at it's latin american neighbors.  

 

and that's when the wheels started to fall off for Daniel Ortega.  See, when you promise people lots of free stuff, it doesn't take long for them to come to believe they are entitled to all that free stuff.  And when you run out of other people's money, the thin veneer of civility that covers a society wears out very quickly.

 

So for the last ten months or so, there have been massive violent riots in the streets across Nicaragua.  Students, workers and business owners have banded together to call for Ortega to step down.  And in true despotic dictator fashion, Ortega has dealt with the crisis by sending troops to quash the protests, jailing journalists and kicking NGO's out of the country.  Ortega claims he will stay until the end of his eighth term in 2021, when rumor has it he plans to rig the election so his wife can become president after him.

 

During his reign, Nicaragua has mostly been a safe, peaceful place to visit.  Totalitarian countries often seem clean, safe and tranquil on the outside.  But it stays that way out of fear.  If a despotic dictator will make  your family disappear if you scare off some tourists, you're probably going to be as nice as you can.  But when the government can no longer care for  people from the cradle to the grave, watch out.  That's what's happening in Nicaragua.

 

We've seen this in the United States with even localized disruptions in entitlements.  Protests, sit-ins (remember the occupy movement?) and walmarts get pillaged - like they did in October 2014 when EBT cards in mississippi temporarily stopped working.

 

Many of the protests I've covered in the US over the last year contained some element of socialists -and they literally wear signs around their necks that say "socialism is the answer."  Well if socialism is the answer, I think you are asking the wrong question.

 

Okay, let's move on to another fun socialist paradise - the people's republic of China.  The Chinese government has been full court press on both spying and espionage around the world for many years.  In Russia a few years ago, they found thousands of tea kettles (Tea is pretty popular there) that had wifi sniffers built into the plastic handles.  So I guess you bring the teakettle home, it automatically hacks into your router and starts sending all your personal data back to Beijing.  Isn't that lovely.  

 

But that's just the tip of the iceberg.   The Red Army has hundreds of thousands of hackers working for it, breaking into anything and everything they can around the world.  Their targets don't even have to have any military or strategic importance - they'll hack into Taco Bell as eagerly as they will the Pentagon.  

 

A few months ago a memo went out in the US defense department warning us service members NOT to own any phone made by ZTE or Huawei, among others.  Because those phones come with a special feature - they send all your location, call and browsing data back to China to feed their insatiable appetite for information.  

 

Those two brands are huge here in Panama...as a matter of fact I own a huawei phone.  Oops.  So you can imagine how excited I was to hear the Chinese President, Xi Jinping was coming to Panama to meet with the Panamanian President.  

 

[Stand up in downtown Panama City] 1 min

 

Well I went to the embassy hoping for an interview and got stiffed.  Such is the life of a journalist.  But suffice it to say the Americans aren't exactly jubilant that the Panamanian government is cozying up to China.  Especially when Panama has access to at least a little bit of US intelligence which helps them catch drug traffickers coming through the country.  But the closer countries in Latin America get to China, the further away they are from US influence.  And that has major implications for US national security.

 

 And side note: NO, China does not own the canal.  That's an urban legend that won't die.  A Chinese company called hutchison wampoa has had the contract to manage the ports in Panama for more than a decade.  But Panama runs the canal.  

 

What's most concerning is that China is taking HUGE strides in the development of artificial intelligence, and AI runs on data.  So much of what China is doing by scooping up information about your phone records and netflix purchases and uber rides has to do with helping china beat those companies at their own game, with the ultimate goal of making China the sole superpower on earth, and the United States merely an afterthought.  

 

So to sum up, the FBI said earlier this month that Chinese spying doesn't just threaten the future of the Untied States.  It threatens the future of the world.  So there's that.  

 

In a congressional hearing earlier this month, E.W. Priestap, assistant director of the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division, testified to the severity of the threat.  I'm going to read this to you because frankly, it's frightening.

 

“Make no mistake:" Priestap said. " The Chinese government is proposing itself as an alternative model for the world, one without a democratic system of government, and it is seeking to undermine the free and open rules-based order we helped establish following World War II,”

 

At an earlier meeting called the Aspen Forum, another FBI official named Michael Collins said this:

 

[quote from Michael Collins]  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYmNS2TfK6M

 

So it's not so much that China sees us as their enemy...they see us more as prey.  They are hunting our technology, our economy, and they will be absolutely ruthless in surpassing the United States every way they can.  

 

Ask yourself this - how much of the electronic technology you use every day comes from China?  If you're like me you probably have no idea, but can imagine that the majority of the electronics you interact with - from televisions to security cameras to electric toothbrushes - all come from that communist country.  China is perfecting the art of using that technology to spy on it's own citizens and control their behavior through a social credit rating.  Scary stuff.  And they aren't keeping it in China.  Many of these same technologies are seeping into American culture.  From facial recognition scans at airports to creditors mining your facebook contacts...This great article in defense one yesterday asked the question this way:  How far will societies pursue security along paths paved by dictators?

 

So basically, you should be very concerned about the Chinese surveillance state.  Because it's not staying in China.  It's already here.  And frankly we have no idea how it will change our lives in the coming decade.  

 

Well that's all for today folks.  Thanks for being with us.  Back again tomorrow - see you then.  I'm Chuck Holton, and this has been the Hot Zone.

 

End Notes: 

 

https://www.ibtimes.com/russia-accuses-china-spying-imported-tea-kettles-irons-1450390

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiL_rSgdxO8

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Jhf525QVgk

 

http://humanevents.com/2013/10/14/food-stamp-riot-at-wal-mart/

 

https://www.defenseone.com/politics/2018/12/nicaraguas-deepening-crisis-will-send-more-refugees-northward/153190/

 

https://www.defenseone.com/technology/2018/02/chinas-surveillance-state-should-scare-everyone/145718/

Episode 13 - Soldier Leaving Syria, Lawless London and a Christmas Adventure!

The President gets massive pushback from his decision to pull troops out of Syria.  London is looking more like the Wild West, and come along with my kids and I on a Christmas adventure!  It's December 26, 2018.  And this is the Hot Zone.

 

Hi Everybody, I'm Chuck Holton.  Hope you had a great Christmas.  When President Trump announced last week that the US would begin pulling it's troops out of Syria immediately, it caused an uproar even among some of his staunchest supporters. Secretary of Defense James Mattis even went so far as  to resign his position over the move.  And it's left a lot of people asking why...what caused the President to make this move so suddenly, and why now?  

 

Well I'll never pretend to understand the mind of Donald Trump, but he claimed on twitter that the pullout was something he'd been wanting to accomplish for a long time.  As I said last week, however, you can't end a war just by stopping it.  And ISIS is most certainly not defeated in Iraq, Syria or anywhere else.

 

In Iraq, for example, there are still attacks by ISIS fighters on an almost daily basis, according to an intel briefing I get every day from a security company based in Erbil.  Estimates in Syria are that ISIS has at least 2,000 men under arms, and some estimates range as high as 30,000.  That's because much of the southern part of Syria as well as North western Iraq are Sunni areas, and ISIS is a Sunni organization.  That means ISIS still has at least some support by the people who live in that area, and those citizens could at any time take up arms for ISIS if they felt they had a good reason to do so.  The US leaving the region might just give them that reason.

 

Without a doubt, the people who will be most hurt by this move are the Kurds.  

 

 

I was asked on Christmas eve to brief a well-known public figure who is hoping to have a meeting with President Trump soon to ask him to reconsider his move in light of the effects a pullout will have on the Kurdish people.  Here's some of what I told him based on information from my sources inside Iraq and Syria:

 

THE REASON the Kurds, Turks, Syrians, Iraqi PMU's (controlled by Iran) are fighting in the region is NOT to defeat ISIS.  They are fighting over control of that area.  Iran is very determined to assert control there in order to more easily supply Hezbollah with the arms they need to attack Israel.   If the US leaves, it creates a vacuum that WILL be filled by someone.  Ask yourself who we'd want to fill that void.  The only reasonable answer aligned with American interests is the Kurdish Peshmerga.

 

The Kurds number some 36 million people, the largest ethic group in the world without it's own state.  they've been trying to become an actual nation for over 100 years.  

 

- The Kurds are made up of dozens of disparate political parties.  The Kurdish Worker's Party (PKK) is aligned with Marxism and has been at war with Turkey since the early 80's.  They are an officially designated terror group by the US and Turkey.  They recently claimed responsibility for a car bomb in the Syrian town of Afrin which killed 4 people.  This is part of the problem, since the PKK sort of give all the Kurds a bad name with Turkey, Syria, and by proxy Russia, Iran and even the United States.

- The YPG is a more moderate arm of the Peshmerga, which are part of the Syrian Defense Forces the US troops have been supporting in the fight against ISIS.

- ISIS IS NOT DEFEATED.  There may be as many as 2,000 active fighters left in Syria, and they are trying to reconstitute in West Mosul, which was never completely pacified.  They still have broad support from the Sunni majority there.  Remember, ISIS took over Northern Iraq with 700+ fighters.  And defeated the Iraqi army in the area.

 

- The US presence there is VITAL to our interests in the region - for the sake of Israel and for the sake of whatever Christians, the Yezidis, the Druze and any other non-muslims that are left in that region.  A free Kurdistan would be the only safe place for those minorities to live.

- Kurdistan has borne much of the costs of the refugee crisis caused by the war in Syria, there are still hundreds of thousands of refugees living in Kurdistan, and every dollar spent caring for refugees there saves Europe and the US about $13.  We should support this as much as possible, because it will allow the refugees to return home quickly and easily once things calm down in Syria.

 

- A permanent US air base in Erbil would be a very good thing.   In fact, the President ought to announce that he is closing Incirlik air base in Turkey and moving it to Erbil.  That would send a strong statement.

 

- The Kurds feel very abandoned by the US now, and feel like this isn't the first time we've left them hanging.  The Obama administration abandoned them too in 2014 when ISIS first came into Iraq.  So the Kurds are suspicious of America, but remain hopeful.  They have a saying in Kurdistan:  "The Americans will always do the right thing...once they have expended all other options."

 

They are calling it "Lawless London".  The capital of Great Britain has seen a constant rise in crime and violence since the current mayor, Sadiq Khan took office in 2016. The numbers are astounding.  Two acid attacks per day, more than 40,000 knife attacks last year alone.  Murders up 12%, Violent crime up 22%.  Robberies off the charts.  Even seizures of automatic weapons are up dramatically, which is kind of strange since even the majority of police don't have guns at all, and firearms ownership by civilians is basically prohibited.  

 

The mayor blames the problem on budget cuts which have affected the police and on easy access to weapons.  In the past two years we've seen a push for age restrictions on household cleaners, a knife ban and even a push for people to file the pointy ends off of their kitchen knives.  Nothing seems to be working.

 

Sure, more police might serve as a deterrent, and of course the police need to be empowered to actually enforce the law and arrest perpetrators.  but The reality of what is causing this spike in bad behavior is much more complex.  I'd chalk the crime wave up to four main reasons.

 

 

1. A flood of cocaine - the last several years have seen major increases in the amount of cocaine flooding into the UK.  And since the vast majority of murders in that country (actually in almost every country) are somehow connected with the drug trade, more drugs means more violence, more crime, and more mental illness - which takes me to my next point.
2.  The National Health Service:  Stats out of the UK show 40% of all visits to a general practitioner in the UK had to do with mental illness.  But long wait times and poor treatment options mean many people aren't getting the help they need.  The UK is touted by the left in this country as a model for socialized medicine.  But in reality, that "free" healthcare in the UK isn't free by any means, and the care isn't that great either.  
3. Ultra-high taxes.  Did you know that the top tax bracket in the UK used to be 99 and a quarter percent?  That number has dropped since the 80's but Londoners still pay absolutely crushing levels of taxes on income, miles driven, purchases (the sales or value-added tax can be as high as 20% all by itself).  They pay taxes on property, services and just about everything else.  It's just my opinion, but I think that these kinds of tax rates amount to a kind of government-sanctioned slavery that leads to more poverty, despair, and resentment among the population.  And we are seeing it in London in the suicide rate among young men especially, who have very little hope of ever becoming upwardly mobile in a society that punished the hardest workers and rewards illegal migrants and criminals.
4. Church attendance.  Less than five percent of people in Great Britain are members of a local church.  And that indicates many people have nothing bigger than themselves to live for.  And it's been shown again and again that when you are the end-all and be-all of your own existence, it brings loneliness, bitterness and I'd say dramatically increases your chances of becoming mentally ill.  We all need other people, and social media really isn't that social.  People do much better when they are other-focused, not me-focused.  By comparison, church membership in the United States is more than ten times higher, and even that number is down sharply, which is not a good sign for American culture either. In the nineties American church membership was about ninety percent, and has declined almost every year since.  

 

I think you can learn something from everyone you meet...either learn things you want to emulate, or learn what NOT to do.  Countries can learn from each other too.  As usual when it comes to Europe, America can learn a lot about what won't work in making our streets safer.  I worry most about my last point with regards to the UK - church attendance.  American culture is awash with so many forms of media that we are in real danger of entertaining ourselves to death.  John Piper's excellent book, "Don't waste your life" makes a good case why we should be on guard against entertainment.  He submits that it cheapens our lives, and can make it harder for us to think deep thoughts, feel deep emotion and establish deep relationships.

 

That's one reason I started this podcast.  Not only to give you a concise rundown on world events and crisis, but to allow you to take a deeper role in it, rather than just being a spectator.  I want to help you make the news good for people who are affected by world events.  

 

We did this for Christmas with a young single mother from Honduras named Yuri.  She joined the caravan in November and made her way across Guatemala and into Mexico carrying her precious 2-year-old Noely Monserrat.  When I met them, little Noely was sick, dehydrated and exhausted from nearly 2 weeks on the road.  And her mother had had enough.  So I offered to give them a ride back to the Guatemalan border, where they could catch a bus back to their hometown of San Pedro Sula.  

 

Well, they made it back home, and I've kept in touch with Yuri on Social media since then.  You all pitched in, and I was able to send some money to her to buy Christmas presents for her daughter.  She sent me these photos of the clothes she bought, along with her thanks, and even asked me to be her daughter's godfather.  

 

You had a hand in that.  Perhaps we didn't change that little girl's life, but we sure as heck gave her a bright Christmas this year.  

 

I'm proud to partner with you guys in helping those less fortunate.  It's a great way to start the new year, don't you think?  So if you want to have a part in what we're doing, click on the link below this podcast and go to http://www.patreon.com/hotzone and subscribe.  For thirty six bucks a year you'll get access to a bunch of extras and your money will get put to good use when I head to Syria next month, for example.  

 

I'm planning to bring you along with me.  2019 is going to be amazing.

 

Before I leave you, I want to share a cool adventure I had with my kids this weekend.  As many of you know, we live in a volcanic crater in the mountains of Panama for much of each year.  Well a few months ago during the wet season, I was flying my drone into the mountains that ring our valley, and found a very high waterfall, which might just be the tallest in Panama.  It’s not visible from our town, and the old timers I asked about knew nothing of it.  So my kids and I decided to go find it.  Check this out:

 

That's it for the Hot Zone today.  We'll be back again tomorrow!  I hope you will be too.  Please like and share us on facebook, youtube and wherever else you find us! It will really help us out.

Thanks for being here.

 

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-46597369

 

https://www.foxnews.com/world/scandinavian-hiker-murder-suspects-arrested-may-have-ties-to-isis-danish-intelligence

 

https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2018/08/13/britain-suffers-15-acid-attacks-a-week-with-three-quarters-taking-place-in-london/

 

More than 40,000 knife attacks per year

 

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/5251268/london-stabbings-2018-clapham-shepherds-bush-crouch-hill-kingsland-hammersmith-latest/

 

 

 

 

 

 

Episode 12 - The Speech I Would Give if I Were President

The Speech I'd love to see the President give.

 

My fellow Americans,

 

There is a crisis in America.  A cultural crisis.  One manifestation of this problem is the number of senseless mass killings we have seen over the last few years.  Whether it's a school shooting, a synagogue attack or workplace violence, each new incident brings into painfully sharp focus something that most of us have felt for some time: that there is something very wrong in our culture. The mourning and soul-searching that follows these tragedies is normal and necessary, and should lead us to ask the hard questions, and seek substantial changes in order to put a stop to the senseless murder of innocents.

As the leader of this great country, I have the solemn responsibility to shepherd our people through times of crisis, and this is a duty I am determined to uphold to the best of my ability, so help me God.

We need solutions, not rhetoric... and so that is what I come before you today to offer: a real solution that, with your participation, will put a stop to these demonic mass killings and begin to heal our culture.

 

Many have tried to lay the blame for these killings on the tools used to carry them out – Guns or knives, or what are commonly called “assault rifles.. I believe, however, that the problem goes much deeper than tools, to the heart and soule of every American.  and the solution won’t be as easy as simply banning any particular weapon. Because making good people more vulnerable never made them safer.

 

If I thought passing a law banning firearms from this country would put a stop to these senseless acts, I would be advocating the destruction of every firearm in America. Unfortunately, this has been tried in other places - London and Venezuela come to mind, and it's abundantly clear this is not a solution, but a mad wish, a pie-in-the-sky panacea that would never accomplish our goal so long as EVIL exists in this world.

 

The sad fact, my friends is that evil does exist. There are twisted and sick people who live among us; people who regularly take advantage of the liberty guaranteed our citizens in order to sow chaos in our midst. Whether they are deranged, demonic or just ill, the reality is that they are here, and sick men will pursue sick ends with NO regard for law or justice. Passing laws only limits the abilities of the law abiding, not the law breaker. 

 

So No, more laws are not the answer. Fortunately, I believe that for every depraved criminal in our society, there are tens of thousands of good decent people. 

 

This will be the secret to solving our problem.

 

Instead of legislating, I intend to lead. I hope you will give my ideas a chance.

In the past few years, millions of you have purchased guns and applied for permits to carry them in order to protect your homes and families. I understand your concern and applaud you for doing something active in order to take responsibility for your own safety. It is my sincere belief that if every law-abiding citizen who owned a gun were to actually carry that gun, within the limits of their state’s statutes, the cumulative deterrent effect would be overwhelming. I encourage each of you to get trained on how to handle a firearm safely, and to carry your weapon with you wherever you go.

 

In addition, today I am calling for the formation of a new National Volunteer Police Reservist corps who will help keep America’s streets safe. As you are no doubt aware, our country is in the midst of a budget crunch. Rather than spend more of your money on this program, I am asking the states to partner with the National Rifle Association to implement a thorough training program to enable this new classification.

 

Initially this program should be open to retired law enforcement, military veterans, teachers and flight attendants who can pass a basic physical fitness and aptitude test and complete the training and qualify with a handgun. These reserve police officers will be asked to carry their weapons at all times, and will be granted very limited and specific powers to stop active shooters and other criminals they encounter. They will be there to support and augment our traditional law enforcement agencies, that is all.

 

Next, I intend to sit down with the leaders and CEO’s of our fourth estate- the media, and will ask them to make a commitment to America to stop glamorizing and making celebrities out of mass murderers and criminals. If they will agree to never again report the name or likeness of a murderer, I am convinced that much of the impetus that drives these suicidal cowards to seek glory on the way to hell will be removed.

 

Finally, I am going to call for a national conversation on violence in media. My mother used to say “you are what you eat.” I believe that concept holds true not just for what goes into your mouth, but for what goes into your mind. Parents, I am begging you to stop allowing your children to consume copious helpings of mayhem and meaninglessness through their movies and video games. While many call it simple entertainment, it is difficult to see how these hyper-violent forms of media add anything positive at all to our culture.

 

Ultimately, what we have is a heart problem. We have spent years teaching our children that they are nothing more than an accident of billions of years of evolution, then we wonder why they have no self-respect. We have pretended that right and wrong were like flavors of ice cream – whichever truth suits you is okay, but nothing is actually true or false. Then we wonder why these kinds of tragedies occur. We’ve created a culture that glorifies violence, whose heroes on the big screen regularly steal, kill and destroy. Then we wonder why some take those lessons literally.

 

The book of Proverbs, chapter 14, verse 34 says this: Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people.”

 

I’d like to see America exalted again, wouldn’t you? Then how can we continue to glorify sin and mock righteousness, and then blame the result on guns – inanimate objects that cannot hurt anyone on their own. Perhaps it is because we aren’t willing to look in the mirror and then take the responsibility on ourselves.

 

But I believe there are good men and women across america who are willing to stand in the gap and save this country.  If you are one of them, please go to volunteerforamerica.com and apply for volunteer police reservist in your state.

 

God Bless you all, and God bless America.

Episode 11 - US Leaving Syria, Is North Korea Our Friend and Military Recruiting

 

The US is pulling out of Syria. What does that mean for Israel? And is North Korea REALLY our friend now?  And US Military recruits - too Fat to Fight?  All this and more on today's Hot Zone.

 

[intro]

 

Thanks for being here.  I'm Chuck Holton.  So the US is leaving Syria.  The sudden announcement came wednesday from the pentagon that all 2000 US troops stationed in that country are claiming victory and leaving.  ISIS has reportedly been reduced to just a few hundred fighters near Afrin.  I think the Trump administration saw this as a good opportunity to disengage our forces, rather than end up having them in Syria, where they cause lots of friction with Russia and Turkey and of course, the Syrian Government.  But for some, this feels like an attempt to do what Obama did in 2009 when he precipitously pulled US troops out of Iraq before the war was over. 

 

See this is how it works with wars.  You can't declare victory if the enemy hasn't declared defeat.  If you do, the war might stop temporarily, but it won't end.  We've seen that for more than 50 years on the Korean Peninsula, which we'll talk about later.

 

Two things about Syria though:  This is not a pullout in the same sense that our departure from Iraq was in 2009.  Because we still have 6,000 troops in Iraq, and they are there for the foreseeable future.  So I'll give Trump the benefit of the doubt here, but the real question is what does this mean for our best friends in the region - the Kurds and Israel.

 

Yesterday the Israeli government agreed to support our withdrawal, but made it clear they will continue to take a zero tolerance policy on the Iranians establishing a foothold in Syria.  The Israelis have tried to stay out of the morass in Syria as much as possible, only bombing places where the Iranians were trying to set up shop, and helping wounded Syrians who come to the border with the Golan Heights.

 

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04JX0wy0tjA]

 

So if the commanders on the ground in Syria are saying this is the time to leave, then I believe a good presidential administration would allow them to do so, regardless of the political ramifications.  And the defense department is making clear that while we might be packing up in Syria, we're not leaving the region, and if needed, we'll be back.

 

 

The Kurds are worried, though, and I think it would be a good move for Secretary of State Pompeo or someone to go to Erbil and give assurances that we will have their back.  Because it wasn’t all that long ago that the Kurds and Yezidis in that region were literally being exterminated, and they have always made it very clear how badly they need our help, as they did during the fight for Mosul two years ago:

 

[https://vimeo.com/194295723] 2 1/2 minutes

 

 The Kurds ultimate goal is to have their own country,  but that's something that neither the Syrians, the Turks nor the Iraqis are willing to allow.  So don't expect a marked decrease in violence in that area anytime soon.

 

Now let's talk about Korea.  Sanctions remain in place on North Korea as the US waits for concrete evidence of nuclear disarmament by the rogue state.  But while we are waiting, the South Koreans are negotiating baby steps toward peace.  

 

Some really historic things have been happening between the two Koreas, as they demolish guard posts along the Demilitarized zone, and have even started talking about opening a railway between the two countries, something that would have been absolutely unthinkable ten years ago, or even earlier this year.   Check out this report I filed eight years ago from South Korea after the North bombed a south korean Island.

 

[https://vimeo.com/17553835] [1 min]

 

 So while we still probably can't trust Kim Jong Un any further than we could throw him, it appears Trump's dealmaking in the region is truly paying off.  But regardless of the show North Korea is making in demolishing some of it's nuclear testing sites, the likelihood of that country actually disarming completely is still somewhere between slim and none.

 

Okay, let's talk about the US Military.  I've been reporting for some time that US military recruiting is in shambles as so few Americans are fit enough to even qualify for service.  But now leaders are saying those who do get in are so undisciplined that they are having to extend basic training to teach things like respecting authority and following orders.  I spoke with an expert on this recently - Retired Lieutenant General Jerry Boykin.

 

[Boykin Package 4:30]

 

friends, please don't treat your children like pets.  Give them measured doses of hardship and misery as they grow up - your job as a parent is to produce character, and your boys won't develop manly character by sitting on the couch staring at a screen.  Our country is desperate for more good men.  Men who are courageous and disciplined and selfless.  Don't leave it to the schools to train your kids.  The schools might be able to make them smart, but only you can make them good.  We as a society need you to be disciplined enough to discipline those under your care.

 

That's all for today.  Thanks for being here.  If you are listening to this podcast, maybe head over to youtube and check out the video version sometime.  You'll get a lot more out of the show.

 

I'm Chuck Holton and I'll see you back here Monday on the Hot Zone.

 

End Notes:

 

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/11/north-korea-wont-denuclearize-reconciliation-moon-kim/576745/

 

https://www.military.com/daily-news/2018/02/09/low-discipline-new-soldiers-prompts-army-redesign-basic-training.html

 

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