The Enemy Gets a Vote episode artwork

EPISODE · Jul 17, 2026 · 12 MIN

The Enemy Gets a Vote

from Podcast – The Castle Report · host Darrell Castle

Darrell Castle discusses war once again because it seems that the more we are told a political solution has been reached, the more missiles and drones are fired at more targets. Then retaliation has to come so, no solution. Transcription / Notes: THE ENEMY GETS A VOTE Hello, this is Darrell Castle with today’s Castle Report. This is Friday the 17th day of July in the year of our Lord 2026. My beat today is war once again because it seems that the more we are told a political solution has been reached more missiles and drones are fired at more targets and then retaliation has to come so no solution. The president is in a difficult position but it is apparently of his own making. He is not an Eisenhower with many years of experience commanding vast armies in some of the biggest campaigns in human history. He instead is forced to rely on his team of advisors and so they tell him where he should go and what the consequences will be. They must have told him that Iran was ripe for the taking and would fall just like Venezuela but Iran is different and any experienced military person should have been able to see that. Power unhinges people and people who seek it are often unhinged to start with. That is part of the reason Mr. Jefferson told us that every 20 years or so we should have a revolution to reset things such as personal liberty. He reminded us that government agents are not saints or angels but they are instead ordinary humans with all the vices and weaknesses of other ordinary humans. President Trump started rearranging his group of military advisors as soon as he was elected because having no real military experience himself I suppose he wanted people around him who would put the best spin on what he wanted to do. Do you think I can force Iran, a real and very large country, to surrender and concede its own desires using only naval and air forces. Oh yes, Mr. President, Iran will crumble when attacked and the people will rise up and overthrow the government and that will be it except that you will be an international conquering hero. To get the team of advisors who would tell him that certain changes had to be made. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs who is supposed to be his top military advisor announced his retirement one month after the inauguration. The Secretary of Defense was changed which is normal for the new president but then the Department of Defense became the Department of War. I admit that is a more honest name and cuts out some hypocrisy but it sends a very bellingerite message. So, this war, this attack against a country that was apparently no threat to the United States was supposed to resolve problems standing in the way of the Greater Israel Project but it had the opposite effect. Israel is much weaker and in a more tenuous position and Iran is much stronger and in a more commanding position because of the war. When I say Israel is weaker I mean that it literally has no friends except the United States and is for the most part hated around the world. A nation that has sponsored terrorism through proxies across the Middle East is now seen as the heroic barrier to Israel’s genocide. The United States has suffered a humiliating defeat or at least it is unable to keep the Strait of Hormuz open with its navy. U.S. bases across the Middle East have been repeatedly attacked by Iranian missiles and drones as have U.S. allies in the region. Just the other day Jordan which has tried very hard to stay out of the struggle and says it has no foreign bases had 10 or 12 missiles fired at its bases and suffered considerable damage. The bottom line for U.S, interests is that Iran has proven to the world, the U.S,. Israel and other allies that the promises of protection cannot be met. If one of the Gulf States, for example, responds to an Iranian attack it is swarmed by Iranian missiles and drones and much of their military bases have been severely damaged already. The bottom line for Israel, well let’s look at it. Israel has no political way out of this that I can see. Israel’s goal from the beginning has been the destruction of Iran which would leave Israel in complete domination of the Middle East south of Turkey. Israel simply cannot accomplish its goals without the U.S. but its leadership acts as if it doesn’t care what the U.S. president wants. I can tell you what he wants with a fair degree of certainty. He wants out of this debacle before it creates a worldwide depression. Bibi apparently cares nothing for the United States and its people or its survival. For example, last week reports are that Bibi and the president had a lengthy phone conversation and President Trump asked him to leave southern Lebanon so he could meet one of the Iranian demands before peace. Bibi has still not complied with that request and perhaps has no intention to comply and if so Trump has no way out. Israel is not interested in peace right now, only war. Israel has not let go of its original goal and that was the complete destruction of Iran. Bibi said when it started that he had been waiting for this war for 40 years. So, let’s get this straight. The United States started bombing Iran because Israel wanted and demanded it. The bombing only hurts the U.S. and makes it weaker and it is now threatening the world economy with depression. Israel will not do the basics that would allow the U.S. to escape and so Trump feels trapped, blames it all on the Iranians and restarts the bombing on an even more massive scale. Why would Donald Trump, an obviously proud and even vain man, put up with such shabby and embarrassing treatment by this ally of 9 million people which could not continue to exist without the U.S. That is the question of the day isn’t it. Could it be revelations from the Epstein files. Possibly, but I don’t think so because the Democrats had those files before his election and they didn’t use them. Could it be money. I’m sure there’s money involved but I don’t think its pure greed for Trump because he is already a multi billionaire. Could it be something as simple as nuclear blackmail. That’s pretty horrible to contemplate but I suppose it’s possible. How would that work, who knows for sure, but maybe something like this. If you don’t help me destroy Iran I will do it myself with nuclear weapons. Or maybe we have planted dirty bombs all over Washington just in case. Let me be clear folks that I have no information at all to suggest that has happened I’m just wondering where the control comes from. When Trump was campaigning in both 2016 and 2024 he ran on an antiwar promise. He said he would be remembered for the wars he didn’t start and that was a very appealing message to me. All I know for sure is that after the assassination attempt in Butler Pennsylvania he emerged a completely different man. First he ordered a halt to the investigation which raises all kinds of red flags. Why would you order the FBI and Secret Service to stop investigating an attempted assassination. He became close friends with super war hawks like Lindsey Graham and many others. Trump is apparently trying to get a little distance from Bibi by using Turkey and putting the Turks forward as the next rising power which could replace Iran and hopefully control Syria and Lebanon which of course includes Hezbollah. Years ago, Turkey, although a NATO member agreed to buy S-400 air defense systems from Russia. NATO was outraged because that would give Russia inside knowledge of NATO aircraft, radars, etc. The U.S, congress sanctioned Turkey and delisted it from the F-35 program. Now trump says despite the congressional ban he will sell the F-35 to Turkey as well as selling them or allowing their purchase of Taal engines for the new stealth fighter they are trying to build so if they have those engines they can make their own 5th generation fighter. The U.S. congress is not the only group outraged by the deal. Can you imagine what Israel thinks about it. I’m pretty sure Bibi would want the U.S. to destroy Turkey after it destroys Iran but I’m just guessing folks. This is not how diplomacy has been conducted in the past folks. One party never releases partial information about any deals until the paper is signed. In other words, there should be no release of information that we have a deal, the Iranians called me begging me to stop bombing, but that is what he has been doing. There is indeed something really weird about this war and the negotiations. I’ve lived awhile and I’ve been a student of history during most of that and I can’t remember the U.S. attacking a country for no obvious reason, not even a bogus one that could be used as cover, so it’s quite a departure from the American way. Or maybe we were born from war. We fought wars of expansion and a war that freed enslaved people, wars to help out friends in Europe and now wars apparently to maintain military control over the earth so maybe it’s not such a departure. In conclusion, since the enemy gets a vote as the generals like to say, and the enemy votes to continue the war one side can’t just make it all go away by proclaiming that it has. Ther is no political solution but there are a few military solutions one of which makes sense. Number one the U.S. and or Israel could destroy Iran with nuclear weapons. That would be the most catastrophic disaster in the history of man’s time on earth. Number two the U.S. could invade, conquer and occupy Iran with ground troops. That solution would be very bloody and costly in terms of human destruction but also would severely damage the world economy and would probably provoke a worldwide depression. The only solution that makes any sense is the simplest one and that is to disengage. Not only from Iran but from the Middle East itself. Just come home from there and announce that the Project for a New American Century has been flushed. Announce that the U.S. will feed its own people, rebuild its own infrastructure, and bandage its internal wounds for a while. Finally, folks, I see the Castle Report not as reporting the news which you have probably heard but just giving you my take on it. Ron Psul has been doing that for 30 years. At least that’s the way I see it, Until next time folks, This is Darrell Castle, Thanks for Listening.

Episode metadata supplied by the publisher feed · Published Jul 17, 2026

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The Enemy Gets a Vote

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Darrell Castle discusses war once again because it seems that the more we are told a political solution has been reached, the more missiles and drones are fired at more targets. Then retaliation has to come so, no solution. Transcription / Notes:...

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