4/15/26: Lebanon Invasion Doomed, Scientists Go Missing, Professor Pape On Iran Ceasefire

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1:08Joining us now is Shael Ben-Efreim. He is a geopolitical analyst and has put out a lot of interesting stuff on this new meeting between the Israelis and the Lebanese for a potential ceasefire. Shail, thank you so much for joining us. We appreciate it. Sure, always a pleasure. So let's go and put this up here on the screen, D1. The Lebanese and Israeli diplomats held this face-to-face meeting here in Washington. It was the first of its kind in many, many years. But you are very skeptical of some sort of a ceasefire. Could you maybe set the table for some of the history leading up to this moment and what you make of the development so far?

1:44Yeah, well, this is the first face-to-face meeting since the 1980s, when also violence, extreme violence in the region led to a series of meetings under American pressure and through the mediation of other Middle Eastern countries. And that's again what happened here. The United States has put a lot of pressure on the Lebanese government and on Israel to discuss a ceasefire. But there's absolutely no chance of it succeeding because Israel has plans to dismember Lebanon completely, take over a security zone all the way up to the Letani River. And what the Lebanese want is just a ceasefire just for Israel to stop firing.

2:41But Israel wants part of the country and wants Lebanon to try to dismantle Hezbollah. Now, the public opinion in Lebanon is wildly against any kind of deal with Israel because the kind of deal that Israel and the United States are looking for involves normalization of the relationship and peace while Israel takes away part of Lebanon's land. And even if the normalization involved giving up no land, there is very few people in Lebanon who are for normalization. 70 to 80 percent, depending on the poll, are against normalization without giving up land. With giving up land, you probably wouldn't find a single Lebanese person who would be willing to normalize.

3:29And meanwhile, Israel is demanding that Lebanon dismantle Hezbollah, which there's no support for whatsoever in Lebanon, especially with this invasion. Before this invasion, there probably would have been some support for it, but much less now. But even if Lebanon wanted to dismantle Hezbollah, they couldn't. Israel can't dismantle Hezbollah with its massive army, and Lebanon couldn't. Lebanon's also on the verge of becoming a failed state since 2022. Lebanon has been involved in an almost complete economic collapse. Their currency has almost no value. They've lost 15 % of their population leaving, and that's mostly liberals and moderates who might want normalization.

4:10So the whole thing is a farce. Yeah, we can start rolling some of this footage in D2. This is recent strikes in southern Lebanon. And Chell, can you help us understand, to your point about support previously for dismantling Hezbollah, defeating Hezbollah, how significant these strikes have been and basically how they may have undermined the cause of actually squelching Hezbollah in Lebanon? Yeah, well, I wouldn't want to oversell the prospects of anything happening regarding belching Hezbollah before all this happened. But as you can see, Israel is committing all sorts of war crimes and atrocities in Lebanon, the kind of atrocities that no country could put up with silently and that in public opinion absolutely will not allow for the government to facilitate.

5:10You know, not only has Israel killed all these people, a large portion of which are children, as usual, and not only is Israel operating deep inside Lebanon, but it's destroying entire villages. The first three lines of villages, and what you're seeing in that footage is the first line of villages. The first three lines of villages above Israel are slated for complete and total destruction. Every single building is going to be destroyed. And instead of those villages, Israel is going to build a network of military bases. There is a big debate in the IDF over whether to continue to destroy the next levels and the next levels and where these bases will be.

5:57The occupation Israel's planning is permanent. Every single person in Lebanon is very aware of that. And no matter what your feelings are about Hezbollah, no matter what your feelings are about the West and normalization, no one is willing to countenance this complete destruction of the Lebanese nation. And even people who hate Hezbollah the most and hate the Shiites the most can't imagine allowing this sort of thing to happen. Hezbollah is the only force in Lebanon that is standing up to Israel, and that will increase their popularity among neutral people. And this isn't the first time this happened.

6:36This happened also in the previous conflict and in much greater magnitude of order in the second Lebanon war. and also in 2000 when Israel withdrew from Lebanon that was also a big boon for Hezbollah's popularity put Hezbollah on the verge of controlling the entire country and now with the Shiites being an even larger part of the population for demographic reasons because people from other sectors are leaving and because they have a higher birth rate this will possibly once again turn Hezbollah into the leading political force in the country, and that's due to Israeli policy. This is very important to underscore, Shail.

7:22And one of the reasons we wanted to get into the nitty-gritty is that this is vital to the success, or at least it seems, of any sort of deal between the United States and Iran. A core tenant of that was a ceasefire with Lebanon. Now, as you're explaining it, because I don't think people may understand all of the details, is that these talks are between the Lebanese government and the Israelis. But it is to resolve, fundamentally, a Hezbollah problem, which they have at least a limited amount of control over from the Lebanese government, or maybe no control at all because the Hezbollah has rejected this.

7:53So for some sort of tenable ceasefire to occur from the Israeli side, it would effectively mean that the Lebanese government would have to agree to de facto annexation, occupation, and control of half of this country. Is that correct? That is correct. Yes. Lebanon would have to completely surrender the sovereignty of part of the country. That is an Israeli demand. They're giving Lebanon a map. And they're saying in the south, there's going to be three different zones, one where we completely directly control and destroy everything. Another one where we have joint control and one where Israel has the ability to operate freely.

8:33There's no government in the world that can agree to that formally, even if they agree to it de facto, which is also unlikely. Agreeing to it formally is like committing suicide for the government of any sovereign nation. And you hit on another very important point, which is that even if Lebanon wanted a ceasefire, they can't have a ceasefire because the Lebanese government and Lebanese army are not fighting against Israel. Hezbollah is. The Americans and Israelis know this perfectly well. So Lebanon can't deliver what Israel is asking for, even if it wanted to. And it wouldn't want to because they want Israel to leave its territory as any sovereign nation would.

9:14So this is really one of the most ridiculous negotiations imaginable between a government that not only is not the one firing but also isn't able to stop the firing but also doesn't have the legitimacy to reach the deal that the United States and Israel wanted to. So the only reason Israel is agreeing to this is because it gives it cover to continue its operation in Lebanon with some American support. Because Americans have been pressured into stopping this from some of their Arab allies. And that's the only reason it exists. It's a fig leaf. And people are talking about how historic it is, and the whole thing is a joke.

9:56I was just going to say Reuters headline coming out yesterday. U.S. hosts rare Israel-Lebanon talks, quote, progress unclear. And then as soon as we're done with that headline, we can put the BBC headline from a couple of days ago up on the screen. Quote, Israel steps up strikes on Lebanon and Hezbollah attacks continue as talks loom. So to your point, Shael, that's stunning. I mean, if you're reading the tea leaves, and I'm curious for your take on what we've heard after the meetings that were hosted here in D.C. yesterday, brokered by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, it confirms your suspicion, or it seems to really confirm your suspicion that this is a fig leaf, that this is a cover to continue with U.S.

10:41tacit backing strikes in southern Lebanon. on. Is that what you're reading after coming out of the last 24 hours, hearing from Israelis seeming to double down on their position after they left the meeting? I mean, that's what it seemed like to me, but I'm curious as an expert what you made of it. Yeah, so regarding American motivations, to be frank, sometimes it seems like the American officials making the decisions, Marco Rubio maybe doesn't fall into this category, sometimes are too clueless about the Middle East to really understand what they're doing. Sometimes what seems like being nefarious is actually complete ineptitude on their part.

11:16From the Israeli point of view, they know exactly what they're doing. They have no intention whatsoever of stopping or slowing down. And yes, the level of strikes that we're seeing in Lebanon greatly increased once the United States reached a deal with Iran in order to try to derail it. They wanted this war anyway, and this isn't the reason for the war in order to derail it, but that's a great bonus that they can get to derail it. So a fig leaf is even being charitable. Israel is using this war and these negotiations as a means of sabotaging the wider Iranian deal. and they are offering Lebanon basically what they are going to enforce either way, which is carving up their entire country.

12:15So yes, the whole thing is a fig leaf and it's a joke. And I am almost surprised that Lebanon is agreeing to this. They must be under a lot of pressure from other countries, France, the United States, some of their Arab partners to do this because they're fully aware of what Israel is doing. The only country that benefits from the existence of these talks, aside from the United States, is Israel. Lebanon is basically legitimizing what Israel is doing, even if they're not agreeing to it, just by talking to them. That's an important point. Now, Shail, here's the big question. If they agree to some sort of a ceasefire, which is occupation, control of half of the country.

12:59How would Iran view that? Because ultimately, they have to see it as a ceasefire, not just on Hezbollah, but of not de facto occupation control. Is that acceptable to them? Is this such a long-term problem that any tenable solution either would include Israeli withdrawal or the continuation of the war? How do you see that? Well, to the Iranians, they absolutely can't agree to Israel achieving these goals officially. But unofficially for Iran, this is a good thing. Unofficially for Iran, this strengthens Hezbollah and the grip that they have on Lebanon at a time when they were very, very weak. You know, after the last round of conflict, Israel had won that round.

13:52They managed to get a cisfire that was very much on American-Israeli terms. And they managed to convince a lot of people in Lebanon that, of course, Israel is aggressive towards Lebanon. But Hezbollah brought on Israeli aggression by getting involved in a war when Israel was at its most vengeful point after October 7th. So it looked like a terrible strategic mistake for Hezbollah and for Lebanon, what had happened. But Israel squandered that by breaking the ceasefire repeatedly and by now trying to completely destroy, it appears, the state of Lebanon. This is all great for Iran. You know, Iran was really on the rocks before this war, but this war has paradoxically revived their fortunes in the Middle East.

14:49Right now, between demographics and what Israel is doing, Hezbollah are set to become once again the most important force in the country in a way that they haven't been since 2023. And that really allows Iran once again to rebuild its network of proxies. And with the support they now have from China and Russia, we actually could see Iran be the strongest that it's been in several years. They have other problems because Syria is now also starting to invade Lebanon. Israel is invading Lebanon. But that will make Hezbollah the resistance there to all this imperialism against Lebanon. People will either support Hezbollah or leave increasingly.

15:37That's all very good for Iran. So Iran is going to want to see this through. They don't necessarily actually want to cease fire in Lebanon. They'll say that they do, but this is a process that plays into their hands. Makes sense. Well, Shail, thank you very much for your time. Really enlightening and very interesting. Thank you. Thank you so much. Always a pleasure. Good to see you. This is Saigon, the story of my family and of the country that shaped us. The United States will not stand by and allow any power, however great, take over another country. From iHeart Podcast, Saigon. Please allow me to introduce Joseph Sherman.

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17:00Joining us now is Lauren Conlon. She is the East Coast contributor for LA Magazine. Lauren, thank you so much for joining us. We appreciate your time. Sure. Thank you for having me and covering this story. Yeah. So let's talk. I mean, we've had a great amount of interest, a lot of inquiries around all of these missing scientists and some of these mysterious circumstances. Let's put this latest one up here on the screen. We have a missing nuclear official becomes the 10th person tied to this dark pattern surrounding US secrets. So top line, Lauren, you've actually dug into the circumstances of these.

17:30Is this a real story or is the Daily Mail or the tabloids, are they are they making it more out than it should be? Or should we all really be paying attention? I mean, I think we should all be paying attention. I think this is very important that this is coming to light. So I think the people that say, oh, well, you know, it's a coincidence because this happened in 2022. This happened in 2019. No one was paying attention then. But we're paying attention now. And what we're seeing is a pattern. And I don't want to sound cliche here because I think what's going on beyond some of the mysterious circumstances of these deaths or of these disappearances, you know, we're seeing names like Michael David Hicks, who was a NASA scientist.

18:12And, you know, off the top of my head, I'm like, well, I don't necessarily think that it's so odd that there's no cause of death listed. He didn't have an autopsy. You know, we don't know his religion, et cetera. But then when you see a pattern, you know, someone else whose death kind of echoed that, like Frank Maywald, you have to wonder, is it one, possibly, and I'm speculating, you know, they did take their own life. And this is because out of respect for the family, they don't want this out there. Or is it the elephant in the room here? Is it something bigger? Is it something connected to the government where these people have a lot of classified information?

18:53You know, and I don't even want to. I've gotten a lot of heat for saying that. And I want to be clear. I don't have proof of anything, but I am just saying the elephant in the room. The government is not above this and it doesn't always go through the president. The president doesn't always know what the hell is going on. Right. Exactly. And so I go back to saying, you know, Tim Burchett, love him, love the guy. But he's like, President Trump will disrupt. He will do this. OK, go for it. We'll all be waiting. I just don't see that happening. President Clinton said he wanted to release the JFK files, you know, also the UFO files.

19:32That never happened. Obama, you know, really wanted to release the UAP files. Talks very highly about Area 51. Nothing happened there. There's a reason for that, guys. And I know that whistleblowers have come out and said that we might be ready, right? As a society, we might be ready. I think it's twofold. I think it's a tough answer. What I will say, why we want more transparency now and why the House Oversight Committee is demanding these 46 UAP videos is because we are at war, guys. I mean, it is very important because if you look at this list of videos, you know, they do indicate some videos or I'm sorry, some UAPs are flying over Iran in 2022, Syria, one shaped like a cigar.

20:20We're talking about conflict areas. So we are not able to tell in real time if this is a drone, if this is a UAP, or if this is some kind of enemy defense. And so I think that, you know, us getting transparency, it'll be a big, big difference in whether or not we face disaster or defense. Well, let's get this next headline up on the screen. This is from the New York Post last week on the case of Michael Hicks. Another mysterious NASA death as ninth scientist linked to secret programs dies. Now, in the case of Michael Hicks, this death was in July of 2023. The Post reports, quote, it is unclear if there's any foul play linked to Hicks's death, but his obituary asks for donations in his memory to go to Alcoholics Anonymous.

21:03He joins eight other scientists or top officials who have died or disappeared recently. A couple of things I just want to zero in just from that last paragraph. First of all, evidence of foul play limited in this case. Looks like they're asking for donations to Alcoholics Anonymous. Secondly, when they say, quote, recently, this is a death back in 2023. People are going into the records, doing what journalists should do and trying to connect the dots, see if there are any more dots to be found, frankly. So are there similarities that stand out in these cases? I have seen a couple of them where it seems like maybe there's a substance, pre-existing substance condition, but that doesn't, or substance abuse condition, but we don't have any confirmation.

21:46We don't know what that actually could mean in the context of the deaths and disappearances. Even that question of which of these are deaths and which of these are disappearances, now that we're up to 10, it's sort of all hard to wrap your head around. So maybe help us find patterns that you've noticed. Yeah, you're right about that. And we don't have enough info. I am in the process of reaching out to certain family members that I can find some of these deaths. So and I'm talking specifically about the deaths that we are 100 percent confirmed on, like Carl Gromare. These are very fresh. I don't feel, you know, as a human being, just, you know, comfortable reaching out to a widow right away.

22:25Right. But, you know, Michael David Hicks, it's been a few years and I go back to saying, I don't necessarily think that his death is, is directly connected to let's say general McCaslin's death. I think Michael David Hicks's death could be more connected to Frank Maywald and, and possibly, yes, they were dealing with substance abuse, um, issues and, and that could be connected to everything that they were working on. Everything that they knew. And, and I don't have proof of that, but yeah, go ahead. So can you just explain a little bit, if people aren't super familiar, like General McCaskill, and we, you and I are familiar, Frank Maywald as well, what were they working on?

23:03What's the possible connection? Cause you've done a great job of actually highlighting the suspicious circumstances around these. Yeah. So Frank Maywald, he was a NASA JPL scientist. Um, he was a principal researcher at NASA's jet propulsion lab. And so he was trying to detect signs of human life on other planets. I obviously don't know what he found, he knows what he found. I'm assuming a handful of people know what he found. I don't think Congress knew what he found, but I don't know. And Carl Grillmare, what I will say about his death, I connect Carl Grillmare's, or I'm sorry, let's go back.

23:38I will say Neil McCaslin's death. General Neil McCaslin, he was a retired Air Force general, and he retired a number of years ago, but he was stationed at one point at Wright-Patterson. That's in Ohio. And if you're not familiar, reportedly they hold extraterrestrial debris from the 1947 Roswell crash there. Again, I've never seen it with my own eyes, but he also worked with Monica Reza there. And she was a rocket science. She co-patented the Mondelez or co-invented the Mondelez. So she was very, very intelligent, as was General McCaslin. And Monica Reza disappeared while hiking in June of 2025 in California.

24:22And Neil McCaslin disappeared in February of 2025, just walking out of his house in Albuquerque, New Mexico. So these are months apart. Monica Reza gives me chills. Number one, she seemed to have disappeared into thin air. She was behind a friend or two while hiking about 30 feet. It's kind of like they look back and they're like, Hey, and then a second later, or I don't even know, you know, a minute later, she's gone, vanishes into thin air. There's very little known about this search, but what I could find was that they had a canine dog. They were sniffing around. They found a hat. Her scent stopped at this hat.

25:00I mean, what? And she was actually marked deceased and had like some kind of biodegradable burial. And I know that anybody can go online and do this. You know, I understand how that works. But that's very odd that someone would do that when there was no body and there was no statement from NASA. No, nothing. We just kind of skimmed over this. And what I'll say is, and again, I don't have proof, but former FBI agent Chris Swecker, he has a lot of great information and a lot of great intel about what happens when these people are possibly kidnapped and tortured for intelligence. And he's not saying it's by our own government, right?

25:38We don't know who it is. We're not saying that it's not. Yeah. Right? But there's all these options. And then Neil McCaslin, this is very similar to the 10th person missing, the 10th official, Stephen Garcia. Both of them were last seen in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I mentioned General McCaslin walked out of his home. At the time, his wife didn't know if any guns were missing from his gun safe. but officials from the sheriff's office later reported that he was missing a revolver. He didn't take his phone, didn't take his wallet, nothing that he would need, not his glasses. And Stephen Garcia, and I think I mentioned this was February of 2026.

26:20Stephen Garcia, he is another official tied to, he worked, he had top security clearance at KCNSC out of New Mexico. He was in charge of all of the classified equipment and assets, tens of thousands of dollars. And, you know, this is through a source. I do not know his job description, you know, verbatim here, but he also was last seen walking around New Mexico with a handgun. And so, you know, with Steven Garcia, it was stated by officials, he could be a danger to himself. Neil McCaslin, there was a silver alert and his wife in this very, in my opinion, disturbing 911 call kind of indicates that, quote, he may not want to be found.

27:05She said he deliberately changed his clothes before he left. She said he was experiencing this brain and mental fog. And this is one of the reasons that he retired. And she just said he was getting frustrated. But she never would have thought that it would have meant this. And she's been criticized about this 911 call. And I don't want to criticize her because she called immediately when she realized he was gone and everybody reacts differently. I don't think that she would have thought that it would have been anything like this. She just said he was kind of frustrated. The last thing I'll say, the last thing I heard from authorities was that they found an Air Force sweatshirt a couple of miles away, but they have not confirmed whether or not that belongs to General McCaslin.

27:51So I've got to make some calls. And then lastly, I know I am blabbing so hard right now. One of the depths that I am very, very invested in, and I think this is, this kind of crosses over into some other things we're mentioning in society right now, but Carl Grillmare, he was a Caltech astrophysicist, reportedly a genius who's doing amazing work in finding water on other planets. He lived in Lano, California, in a very isolated area. I mean, you can pull up the map and you can just see his house very isolated. So in December of 2025, he sees a guy walking on his property, who we now know as Freddy Snyder, carrying a rifle.