Having been conveniently reinstalled on the NBC/MSNBC payroll in time for the 2024 presidential election stretch run, Deep State scion/former CIA Director John Brennan joined Thursday’s Today to tag-team with co-host Craig Melvin to smear Israel for their unacceptable “form of warfare” with its “fire and forget” exploding pagers and walkie talkie operations against Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Melvin and Brennan first stated the obvious that the operation was “something out of a — out of a spy movie” and “something that intelligence services over the years have tried to do in terms of trying to compromise supply chains” of their enemies. That’s where the sanity ended.
Melvin then lobbed this lament: “It’s sort of — I think it does beg the question though, director, is — is detonating a wireless device — is that an acceptable form of warfare?”
Brennan — who worked in the pro-Tehran Obama administration — obviously knocked Israel, saying “I don’t believe” it was acceptable behavior by Israel because they indiscriminately had “some children and others...killed” as collateral.
“It’s basically almost a fire and forget mechanism that the Israelis engaged in here. So, it’s going to tactically disrupt Hezbollah’s communication capabilities...but you have to question whether or not this is a strategically wise in terms of...emboldening Hezbollah’s interest in trying to lash back against Isarel...Hezbollah is a very, very capable organization,” he added.
Melvin used blaming Israel to pivot to his last question, arguing it’s the Jewish state who’s going to create a wider war, completely ignoring the fact of Hezbollah firing missiles across the border into northern Israel since October 7, keeping roughly 60,000 Israelis out.
Brennan put the onus on Israel to de-escalate, fretting they may have “plan[ned] some type of large military operation to follow these disruptive activities” and smeared Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (and not any of the Islamic terrorists) as the irrational actor:
[C]learly Netanyahu, Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel wants to vanquish not just Hamas but also Hezbollah and, quite frankly, I wish that he would use more time and effort to try to see whether or not there’s a way to bring down some of the tensions as opposed to using the military and violence to lash out against his enemies.
To see the relevant NBC transcript from September 19, click “expand.”
NBC’s Today
September 19, 2024
7:06 a.m. Eastern[ON-SCREEN HEADLINE: New Questions About Device Explosions]
CRAIG MELVIN: Let’s bring in John Brennan, the former director of the CIA, now an NBC News senior national security and intelligence analyst. Director Brennan, good morning to you. Let — let’s start there. What more can you tell us about precisely how they were able to pull off this kind of operation because it really does look like something out of a — out of a spy movie.
JOHN BRENNAN: Well, it does, Craig, and I must say that the Israeli intelligence and security services have tremendous technical capability as well as creativity in terms of how they put together such operations. And so, as The New York Times is reporting, it was a shell company that apparently was set up by the Israelis that fabricated these pagers and included the explosive material inside of them that could be detonated with some digital signal that was sent. So, again, this is something that intelligence services over the years have tried to do in terms of trying to compromise supply chains. Usually, it’s for surveillance or collection capabilities so you can listen in on conversations or something along those lines, but the scale of this really is quite unprecedented. But again, it just demonstrates that Israel’s ability to reach into the supply chain of one of its arch enemies, Hezbollah.
MELVIN: It’s sort of — I think it does beg the question though, director, is — is detonating a wireless device — is that an acceptable form of warfare?
BRENNAN: Well, I don’t, I don’t believe so because there’s no way the Israelis would have known who was going to have these pages at the time, which is why we see that there were some children and others who were killed. It’s basically almost a fire and forget mechanism that the Israelis engaged in here. So, it’s going to tactically disrupt Hezbollah’s communication capabilities and in terms of their ability to communicate with one another, but you have to question whether or not this is a strategically wise in terms of what it might do in terms of just further emboldening Hezbollah’s interest in trying to lash back against Israel, including on the international terrorist front because Hezbollah is a very, very capable organization in terms of launching terrorist attacks outside of the region. They’ve done it over the years and so I — I do think that Hassan Nasrallah, the head of Hezbollah, is going to feel quite a bit of pressure from his organization to lash back at Israel and sooner rather than later.
MELVIN: What — what do you say about the possibility after these attacks, the possibility that something like this does in fact lead to a large scale conflict between Israel and Lebanon?
BRENNAN: Well, the big question is whether or not the Israelis plan some type of large military operation to follow these disruptive activities over the past two days if a um an army, a military is going to launch a military operation. They’ll try to degrade the communication systems of the enemy first. So was this some type of preparation of the battlefield to allow the Israelis then to be able to strike against Hezbollah and Hezbollah not being able to defend itself? So, I do think we — this is a greater potential now for escalation. A lot depends on how Hezbollah responds, but clearly Netanyahu, Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel wants to vanquish not just Hamas but also Hezbollah and, quite frankly, I wish that he would use more time and effort to try to see whether or not there’s a way to bring down some of the tensions as opposed to using the military and violence to lash out against his enemies.
MELVIN: Former CIA Director John Brenan. Director Brennan, thank you, sir. Thank you.
BRENNAN: Thanks, Craig.
