The China Summit, & the Terrible New CT Strategy | EYES ON GEOPOLITICS

In this episode, Dee and Marc Polymeropoulos analyze recent geopolitical events including the China Summit, Iran tensions, and the new US counterterrorism strategy. They explore the implications of diplomatic moves, military actions, and strategic failures, offering insights into current US foreign policy and military operations. GhostBed ⬇️ https://www.ghostbed.com/team FOR 10% off! Support the show on Patreon:⬇️ https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouse Subscribe to our newsletter!!!! https://teamhousepodcast.kit.com/join Jack's news outlet: https://thehighside.substack.com/ Find Jon Hackett here:⬇️ Jon's Twitter: https://x.com/jonathanhackett Jon's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thejonathanhackett Jon's books: https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B0C5L659N5?ccs_id=e11a2062-f8d3-498e-bfd7-7d2f3869caf6 Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thejonathanhackett Twitter: https://x.com/jonathanhackett Check out Mick's new podcast here:⬇️ Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/at/podcast/pub-and-porch-applied-stoicism/id1836955475 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1k3QPmkAMwnGJxMLDwUSSd?si=n6piIu8XRcag1Z0K43A3bQ Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@UCd0Hq6QFk8CoTu5j-VU0Ong Find Mick Mulroy here: Fogbow ⬇️ https://fogbow.com/ Lobo Institute ⬇️ https://www.loboinstitute.org/ Twitter ⬇️ https://x.com/mickmulroy?s=21&t=-Ze3F_Ix2vlJ18KFvORTCA LinkedIn ⬇️ https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-patrick-mulroy-31198b52/ Bluesky ⬇️ https://bsky.app/profile/mickmulroy.bsky.social Mick’s publications ⬇️ https://www.loboinstitute.org/publications/publications-of-michael-mick-patrick-mulroy/ Whitefish security summit ⬇️ https://whitefishsecuritysummit.com Find Marc P here: https://x.com/Mpolymer Find Andy Milburn here: Twitter ⬇️ https://twitter.com/i/flow/login?redirect_after_login=%2Fandymilburn8 LinkedIn ⬇️ https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewmilburn2023 Substack ⬇️ https://amilburn.substack.com/ Andy’s book ⬇️ https://www.amazon.com/When-Tempest-Gathers-Mogadishu-Operations Bluesky ⬇️ https://bsky.app/profile/andy-milburn.bsky.social Find Jason Lyons here: LinkedIn ⬇️ https://www.linkedin.com/in/jason-lyons-666873316?u Bluesky ⬇️ https://bsky.app/profile/bgsilverback73.bsky.social "Karl Casey @ White Bat Audio 00:00 Start 00:30 China Summit 07:05 Iran: The Looming Conflict 13:58 Counterterrorism Strategy: A New Approach? 27:06 The Flaws in Counterterrorism Strategy 32:08 The Role of Soft Power in Counterterrorism 38:02 Israeli National Security Post-October 7th 44:58 Media Representation and Accountability 51:08 Reflections on Military Ethics and Civilian Casualties Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 1:31Speaker 02

  Hey, everybody. Welcome to another episode of Eyes on Geopolitics. I'm joined today with Mark Palimoropoulos. Two Greeks for the price of one.

• 1:38Speaker 03

  Here we go.

• 1:39Speaker 02

  No Marines, thank God, finally. No, everyone's had a, everyone had a pretty eventful weekend, so we weren't able to record yesterday. So we grabbed one. We needed to get something out because it seems like it's been a bit of a wild news week. First and foremost, there's a ton of stuff we're going to talk about. First thing is the China summit. As far as all the reporting goes, like, seems like nothing really fucking came of it, frankly. The Iran war was looming the whole time over it. Obviously, China was still, you know, digging their heels in when it comes to Taiwan. President Trump's statements really like his like interviews and stuff like that with the press were not, you know, he was basically, I don't know, it sounded like he was spinning

• 2:22Speaker 02

  a little bit for China, which is kind of crazy. He has this weird thing where he, whenever he goes and meets a dictator, he like falls in love with him and like he becomes like their number one pal. So it was just an interesting thing. The news was covering like, you know, minute to minute and like nothing happened, more or less. Like there was a lot of like, yeah, we'll agree to talk about this. We'll agree to maybe talk about soybeans and Boeing, like in jets and stuff like that, AI chips or whatever, but nothing concrete came out of it. Also, we're looking at, you know, the Iran war is still going on. Strait of Hormuz is essentially still blocked. Inflation is creeping up here in America, slowly but surely. Gas is

• 3:02Speaker 02

  obviously a lot or higher. In Europe, it's like crazy, I've heard. And so, there's a word that the Iranians are thinking that like it's going to start up in the next 48 hours. EB had a phone call with Trump, I think over the weekend, to discuss next steps and stuff like that. So, you know, we're kind of in a waiting pattern. We're waiting to see. I was telling my friend of mine too, I was like, there's no way that we're going to start bombing Iran while we're in China, while Trump's in China with like 50 CEOs and like basically the whole cabinet. So we're back here, we're waiting to see. And also, I wanted to get your take on the, the new counterterrorism strategy, you know, because you worked in it for a couple

• 3:47Speaker 02

  decades. So, and how insane it reads and looks. But first, what are your thoughts on China?

• 3:53Speaker 03

  Well, okay, so we'll get to, we'll get these things. Definitely the CT strategy is something right up my alley. We talked about China second, but I like that we have two Greeks on right now. You're right. And this is actually Greek day because earlier today is actually cool. I'll mention this. I'm in it. So let me just say, I'm in a new state of mind now. I'm going to be positive. There's too much negativity. There's too much, I post on X nonstop. It's always negative. Not good, not healthy for me. I'm in my new health kick. And so today, it was actually a cool event. Good buddy of mine, he's on CNN all the time, Alex Plitzis, another Greek. Awesome, awesome friend, former Psyops guy for DOD, then worked on the civilian side in DOD. So we went and we talked to 150 college interns down in DC at the Washington Center.

• 4:36Speaker 03

  It was so cool about passing the torch to the next generation, all positivity. The kids were all fired up. I got fired up. I have a million emails, you know, after that in terms of just mentoring folks. And so there's got to be some good in the world. There's a, there's a guy, I don't even know who this guy is, maybe you guys, maybe you and Jack know. On Twitter, he's @actual1merf. I was just looking him up. I think he's a former SEAL, but it's all this motivational stuff.

• 5:01Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 5:02Speaker 03

  And I'm, you know, and, and usually I don't kind of get hooked into that, but it's all positive. Just it's about, you know, just taking care of yourself and forgiveness, but it's actual one merf. It's really good. Um, and anyway, so it's my new mood now, so I'm going to be positive. I'm not a little critical. I'll be, I'll give constructive criticism to the Trump administration.

• 5:20Speaker 02

  Are you starting this today? This is the first time?

• 5:22Speaker 03

  Yeah, I started today. Actually, I said last night to my wife, I said, I'm, I can't, I'm going down the dark road of negativity. It's not healthy, not good for me, not good for everybody. Everyone thinks I, you know, I, I'm a, I have total Trump derangement syndrome, which I do. But, but I have to kind of modulate that into saying now, instead of just criticizing, saying, hey, what should we be doing? So that's, I'm going to turn over a new leaf here. All right. So, so, so Dee, so anyways, Greeks are taking over the world today. I have my Greek event number one earlier today. Now I've got my Greek event number two. Marines can go kind of, you know, they're doing their like family celebration stuff.

• 5:57Speaker 02

  Right.

• 5:58Speaker 03

  Which is great. And they'll tell you about it. They'll tell us all about it next week. Really cool stuff happening to some of our fellow colleagues.

• 6:03Speaker 02

  Listen, I hope you do keep a positive attitude. I mean, it's not great for content really, but like. It's better for your mental health.

• 6:11Speaker 03

  It really is.

• 6:12Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 6:13Speaker 03

  You know, and it the funny thing is I was just on so I gotta be honest, I was just on a signal chat. Some buddies of mine, former agency, former DOD, and I was talking to them that the that were witnessing the fall. This is like the Roman Empire. America's committing super super power suicide. So I'm not taking my own advice.

• 6:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, you're not wrong either.

• 6:31Speaker 03

  But I might not.

• 6:32Speaker 02

  That's the sad part.

• 6:33Speaker 03

  So the China summit, interesting, and I don't know about some of our fellow colleagues, whether it's Mick or Jonathan, but like my TV appearances went to zero last week. So what does that tell you?

• 6:43Speaker 02

  Really?

• 6:44Speaker 03

  Uh, that means nothing happened in the China summit. A lot of pomp, you know, we watched the big ballroom. There was the really, actually, I thought it was funny, again, in my newfound positivity, Elon Musk's faces he was making while he was taking selfies with some of the.

• 6:58Speaker 02

  Ketamine face, yeah.

• 6:58Speaker 03

  Yeah, the ketamine face. So just, you know, but nothing really substantive happened other than, and D, you nailed it, that the the any kind of resumption of military hostilities would not occur, would never occur, was never going to occur while everybody was in Beijing. And so I think you you got that right. Um, but in terms of, you know, the the pomp and circumstance, sure. Um, I think the highlights only were that, uh, the Chinese, as they usually do, agree to some type of nebulous trade deals. We don't know the details. There's there's supposed to be hundreds of Boeing planes. There might be 200 ships. Like, nothing really is substantive. Um, if it was, we would have heard about it. Um, and then then the big thing was frankly, President Trump's interview with Sean Hannity on Fox,

• 7:43Speaker 03

  in which he said, yeah, you know, I'm not sure about this giant, you know, billion dollar weapon, billions of dollars of weapons package to Taiwan. I'll think about it, which, and and he discussed it with the Chinese, which goes against decades of US policy.

• 7:56Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 7:56Speaker 03

  That weapons deals to Taiwan were not to be discussed with the Chinese. And so now the Taiwanese, I'm sure, are freaking out. Guess who is, um, uh, going to China right now?

• 8:08Speaker 02

  Jared Wickel. Jared and, oh, I thought I thought Jared Wickel.

• 8:12Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 8:12Speaker 02

  I call them by the same one name. It's just.

• 8:14Speaker 03

  I know. I I got that. And so so ultimately, it was a summit of of not a lot of. Substance and now our allies in the Pacific are questioning us.

• 8:23Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 8:24Speaker 03

  And so, you know, and, and what it, but, but honestly, and again, this is certainly not about.

• 8:30Speaker 03

  Me at all, but it didn't in terms of things which put me in the media. Uh, I was not last week.

• 8:36Speaker 02

  That's interesting.

• 8:37Speaker 03

  But not, not, not a peep from MS Now and I, I, and of course I, I got on this morning because we're talking about the possibility of. Um, resuming the war, uh, uh, with Iran. The one, so, so just switching to that, it's fascinating and I just got a whole bunch of, uh, texts from some other reporters. Trump is now threatening all sorts of Armageddon again, but, uh, uh, uh, because the Iranians are not, uh, certainly adhering to any of our demands. But nobody's like, no one's panicking this time. No one's saying, cause no one, two things. One is. No one believes Trump anymore. You don't know if he's going to carry through on these threats. And number two is. And there's been a lot of really good, um, uh, military analysis done by this, by some former Israeli, uh, uh, military, uh, uh, uh, officials.

• 9:18Speaker 03

  Um, who are critical of the campaign, saying that there actually, there's really nothing militarily we can do now to cause the Iranians to capitulate. To what we need them to do, save. A hundred thousand, two hundred thousand US ground forces and a full on invasion of Iran, which is never going to happen. Additional strikes. What does that actually do? The Iranians think they can weather it. They think they can last Trump. Um, and so, you know, we're kind of in this box right now. And frankly, the only thing, you know, and, and might be a good thing. Uh, is that we're going to have to, to, uh, not cave, but we're going to have to compromise. To some of the Iranian demands and that's going to be a political problem for Trump and he doesn't want to do that. So we're stuck. So I, I don't know where this goes frankly. And that's, by the way.

• 10:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, it was interesting to see like both sides. I think drop site. I mean, drop site is, you know, Ryan Grim and Jeremy Scahill. So take it for what it's worth. They do good work. But, uh.

• 10:09Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 10:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, but they, I mean, they get. They're not pro-Israel and they, they are a little bit too much of like a, they're like the axials for the farce, like for Iranians. Uh, to be honest, um, but. You know, they posted something about the demands from both sides and it sounds like both sides are totally maximalist.

• 10:29Speaker 03

  Yeah, right. Exactly.

• 10:30Speaker 02

  And it's like. We're even farther apart than we've ever been.

• 10:35Speaker 03

  Yeah, you're nailing it. Right. So, so yeah, that that's not the way anything ever gets settled. Now, ordinarily, um, if we had kind of a, uh, uh, you know, a less kind of bombastic leader, um, uh, who has not put himself in a box, you would say, okay, we're gonna have to compromise. I think the American people couldn't give a rat's ass if we compromised. But politically, Trump has boxed himself in. So when he says now, you know, we're talking the details of this, and I'm not a nuclear expert, have to do with how much highly enriched uranium, how much, when do they have to, when do we, when was the moratorium on enrichment end? And, you know, the, you know, we said 20 years, the Iranians said 10, 5, whatever. There is a, there is a time period in there in which it would be okay. But Trump today said, nope, 20 years are, are, are nothing. And so, you know, he's,

• 11:21Speaker 03

  I don't know where this goes.

• 11:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 11:22Speaker 03

  Uh, because, you know, again, there's have to be compromise on both sides, and I don't see that happening yet. And, and, and the kind of the last point on the Iran thing, and because we could talk about it forever, but I don't even know if there's anything all that new is, um, i- is just the notion of, uh, uh, once again, that, that militarily, we can have tactical successes, but strategically, we have not been able to plan or execute anything that is even remotely coherent. Um, and, and, and on that note, and I've talked about it before on the podcast, you know, and I, I, God bless the American, the men, women, the American military, the airmen, the sailors, everybody, the Marines, everyone involved in this. Um, but I don't know if I or others, and perhaps D, you comment on this,

• 12:07Speaker 03

  you know, when I hear another Pentagon briefing, I'm not even sure what to believe anymore. Because, and I will tell you this, and here's a huge point. We talk, we've, we've, we've kind of hammered, you know, kind of the pro-Israel right, the freedom of defense, democracy folks, ever definitely pushing the war, pushing the administration's lines. Even Mark Dubowitz, who heads the whole organization there, and there's some good people there who actually are really smart on this. But he actually said the other day, well, because US intelligence now says only half of the, you know, the, the ballistic missile inventory, uh, has been degraded, we have to keep going. And I was like, well, hold on a second. The Pentagon said a couple of days ago that it was much more than that. So now even the most hawkish people are saying, well, maybe those assessments are not correct. And so, you know, is this even, I guess, D, here's a question for you.

• 12:51Speaker 03

  Is this even under, under the constraints we know the United States has? You know, if we're not going for 200,000 ground troops and full on regime change, um, you know, can we win this?

• 13:04Speaker 02

  I think we lost it.

• 13:05Speaker 03

  You know militarily, I don't know if what the answer is on that.

• 13:08Speaker 02

  Yeah. I mean, we probably need more than 200,000 troops, right?

• 13:11Speaker 03

  Whatever.

• 13:12Speaker 02

  Well, you know what I mean? It's a significant amount. Um, yeah, I think we strategically lost this the day we started bombing them. When we had another negotiation set up for that Monday where supposedly on the table was, you know, uh, digging up the uranium. And rich uranium ain't sending it to another country. Like, we're not gonna get that at this point, you know? So I think we're just gonna go back to this holding pattern. It's like, it's like a weird, deranged, like mowing of the lawn. You know, that strategy everyone fucking talks about, which is bullshit in my opinion, too. But I digress, like, it's like this weird, deranged version of Iran.

• 13:50Speaker 03

  No, don't, don't digress, because I think you're right. I mean, so when I talk to Israelis, a- and you know, I'm far closer to them than I think you are. Um, uh, and that's okay. We have to have different opinions on the show. Um, but I think they're coming to the realization that it's going to be a mowing the lawn strategy. Because, because there, it's because, you know, things are not going to kind of be settled militarily like many people anticipated. So I, so in some ways, and maybe this is what happens, is that nothing happens.

• 14:15Speaker 02

  Um, uh, is that? Straight or harm, Moose stays like that? They get 2 million a boat?

• 14:21Speaker 03

  But if, if Trump, I mean, you know, the, the, in some fashion, the Iranians are going to, so maybe, but the Iranians are gonna start cutting deals with other countries on the side. And maybe the US has nothing to, can do about it, and then it turns into a toll booth. Now, that's not good for us. Um, but I, again, I'm not so sure how we get out of this.

• 14:41Speaker 02

  And what about like the UAE, Qataris and stuff like that? Like sending their boats out with their Iraqi, I'm sure, whoever.

• 14:49Speaker 03

  People are gonna start cutting deals. I mean, already the UAE and the Saudis are at odds over this. There was all sorts of rumors over the weekend of some kind of, that the Saudis want to cut some kind of deal.

• 14:58Speaker 02

  I saw that supposedly the Saudis bombed the UAE. There's rumors of that, too. Yeah.

• 15:03Speaker 03

  I don't, yeah.

• 15:04Speaker 02

  Well, they got hit from drones, not from Iran, but from the West. Of them.

• 15:07Speaker 03

  I think it was not that there was Iraqi Shia groups.

• 15:10Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 15:10Speaker 03

  I would imagine, but but ultimately, um, uh, you know, it's a this is this is a tough one again. And so so going to the the McMulroy line line, which I believe in, hey, we want to win. This, you know, we're on Team America. I'm not just sure how we do so right now, how we get out of this.

• 15:26Speaker 02

  We don't.

• 15:26Speaker 03

  And that's and and again, unfortunately, so there's two things. One is we can criticize the the entry into this mess. That's fine. But again, if you were sitting at the National Security Council and if Dee was in the administration, probably something that would never happen. Um, uh, as a but, uh, and I I'd say the same thing for me. Um, what kind of advice would you give? I actually, you know, that that that would get us out of this. And aside from a compromise. Um, uh, I'm not in which which politically, I don't think Trump can can go through Lindsey Graham will have an aneurysm.

• 15:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 16:00Speaker 03

  I don't know.

• 16:01Speaker 02

  He was on the Sunday shows like going bananas again, like, you know, beating the drum Graham.

• 16:07Speaker 03

  You know, you know, at some point, and I hate to do this, is you kind of say to these folks, well, fucking sign up, go send your kids. Now, I don't think Lindsey has any kids. Um, but but, you know, or just Lindsey, go back into, I think he was a reservist at one point. But, you know, I mean, all these people who are beating the drums of war are fine. Sign your kids up for it. Um, because, uh, I'm not sure where this goes right now. So and and and frankly, um. You know, there's, there's, there's not that much more to to when I say to say on this. Um, you know, unless someone has some kind of, you know, magic bullet. I mean, what was Mick saying that that that's what he I think that was his thing or there's no, there's no, uh. Um, you know, magic wand to wave or whatever that makes this all okay. I I'm just not quite sure how we get out of this now. And that's a that's a tough one. And.

• 16:51Speaker 03

  You know, and again, if you're on the on the politics side of it. Um, you know, the American people clearly are not in favor of this and are not going to. I mean, you go fill up my truck and it costs over a hundred bucks.

• 17:02Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 17:03Speaker 03

  Gas is four fifty in Virginia. I think it's probably like eight bucks in California.

• 17:07Speaker 02

  I think it's like just over six, like six fifteen, six twenty in Cali in the West Coast.

• 17:11Speaker 03

  And that's that's what American people care about. I mean, no, the American people don't give a shit about foreign policy. We love this podcast, eyes on geopolitics.

• 17:18Speaker 02

  But they don't.

• 17:19Speaker 03

  It's not actually, let me change that. It's not that they don't care. They don't vote on it.

• 17:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's like fifth level, fifth thing down.

• 17:26Speaker 03

  And so, and they vote in their pocketbook and their pocketbook is not good. The pocketbook, by the way, is great if you invest in the stock market.

• 17:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 17:33Speaker 03

  Um, the stock market's at an all time high. My portfolio's crushing it. I'm as happy as can be. I'm gonna go out and buy another Jeep.

• 17:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 17:40Speaker 03

  Uh, but, but that doesn't mean that eighty-five percent of Americans are, are feeling good about things because they're not.

• 17:46Speaker 02

  Yeah. It is interesting to see how the stock market's going off and, you know, oil is higher, you know, especially in, in the, you know, in Southeast Asia, those, those countries are getting smoked. Um, in terms of how much it costs for a barrel. But the, like, the disconnect between the, the price of oil, what's happening in the Strait of Hormuz and the American stock market is something insane. I mean, it's all, it's all juiced up with AI money, essentially, and like the promise of AI money. Yeah.

• 18:17Speaker 03

  Yeah. And so, yeah, and so a lot of people are maybe getting rich in America, but not most Americans. Um, and that's the bottom line on that. And so it's a, uh, you know, there's, there's a, you know, that, that line. I mean, again, the, the, the Trump administration, you can't criticize everything that they do. Um, uh, uh, but, but, a- and I think often there are actions that the administration takes, which, you know, for example, we'll talk about counterterrorism. There's a couple of counterterrorism operations that I think were really good that, that occurred over the last seventy-two hours. The problem is Trump then goes on a TV interview and says, you know, um, uh, he doesn't really care that, that, uh, things are more expensive for Americans. I mean, it's a, it's a Marie Antoinette moment, you know, her famous line, let them eat cake.

• 18:57Speaker 03

  Uh, so Trump is like a walking campaign ad sometimes for the Democrats, when he doesn't have to be. It's, it's very strange. All you have to say is, yes, um, you know, American people are hurting. I understand that.

• 19:08Speaker 02

  Right. I mean, inflation's almost at four percent.

• 19:11Speaker 03

  Yeah. And so, so that, and, and I, and I think that probably is a lot of, uh, Republican members in the, in the House, um, who are very nervous about, uh, their standing now.

• 19:20Speaker 02

  If they're not nervous, they're fucking crazy. Yeah. Cause the numbers are on the wall and it may be even like the Senate might be in play as well. Um, which is insane to see that. Um.

• 19:31Speaker 03

  Just you never know.

• 19:33Speaker 02

  Listen, when you're promised getting out of wars and not being in forever wars and then you go and spend probably fifty to seventy billion dollars in six weeks in Iran. Thirteen service members die, you know, service folks die, over a couple hundred injured. One of our equipment fucked up and, you know, probably things that'll take years to bring back, like all those radars and stuff like that are at a different bases.

• 20:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, if I even, you know, make America great again, it's like, where's that? Because my, my, my eggs are fucking expensive.

• 20:08Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 20:10Speaker 03

  Um, he's never been on the team house or I's on, uh, uh, I don't think he would. He's, but he's former death group guy and his son's a SEAL too. And I remember I've been talking for a while, but I remember when I was, I asked him the first time around, why'd you go for Trump? And he said very clearly, he said, because I don't want my kid going into combat. Um, and so it just is, it, that, that, that kind of fundamental notion of A- America now embroiled in, in, in more conflict is something that is, you know, it is kind of head scratching, but. Um, uh, you know, to, uh, when I say to Trump, to Trump's credit, um, I think he's doing what he thinks is right. Uh, it might not be right, but, but ultimately, um, you know, he's a, you know, when, when he says, hey, he's the first American president to tackle Iran in ways that others have, that is correct.

• 20:53Speaker 03

  I just wish, and I go back to something that we've talked about a lot on the pod, is that we had people who knew what they were doing. You can have a president who's kind of, uh, out there a bit and, and, and, and, and an outlier, and that's Trump. But there's no James Mattis around. Um, there's no, there's no adults in, in actually executing a politic, political and military strategy that where we could have come out on top. Um, and absent that, this is not going to be a success.

• 21:16Speaker 02

  Was there everyone, man? I mean, like IRGC is pretty fucking well entrenched in that country. I mean, is there?

• 21:24Speaker 03

  The things I don't know about, I don't know the kind of covert action operations running beforehand, you know, certainly there are things we could do with our allies in the preparation before such a campaign that I, that we probably didn't do. I mean, there's a lot of operational prep of the environment that, that, you know, um, in order to kind of go after the Iranian. regime and I don't know if we did

• 21:42Speaker 02

  wouldn't that be good if there was like ground branch teams and SF teams in there already doing that?

• 21:47Speaker 03

  Or or other you know not not not even necessarily inside but just you know some type of covert activity and I don't know if we've done that or not. I just tend to think that we might not have only because they seem to have kind of concocted this on a napkin in the Oval Office and so.

• 22:05Speaker 02

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• 25:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, and it seems like just a lot of wishful thinking happening, man. And some CIA officer told me like the enemy of like everything is wishful thinking. There's something to that effect.

• 25:56Speaker 03

  Hope is not a strategy. I mean, there's, yeah, there's all these kinds of things.

• 25:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 25:59Speaker 03

  Right.

• 26:00Speaker 02

  And it's, it's... I don't know if there ever was a strategy unless you have three, four hundred thousand American troops ready to rock and you know, get you know, parachuting into Tehran.

• 26:12Speaker 03

  Yeah, and you know what? Um, uh, you know, with, with that not on the table as well, by the way, and that's going to horrify people, maybe if I say this, taking that off the table means the Iranians are not scared of us. Um, it would have been far better to have that on the table, but because Trump promised no more, you know, no more wars, he said that very, you know, he was very clear. I mean, they kind of nuanced it a little bit, said nothing's, they, you know, uh, there are no other, no, there's no options that, um, that we wouldn't consider, but everybody knew that that was not a possibility. It would have been better if the Iranians thought, holy crap, this crazy guy might send half a million Americans there. Now, again-

• 26:49Speaker 02

  Maybe it would be believable with Trump because he's such a wild card, like that, oh yeah, he would send a bunch, like, you know, hundreds of thousands of troops because like-

• 26:56Speaker 03

  But after that, the regime doesn't feel threatened.

• 26:58Speaker 02

  America's not interested in sending fucking regular kids.

• 27:03Speaker 03

  Right, right.

• 27:04Speaker 02

  So, like, me too, and I love the military, I love the intelligence community, I think they have roles to play. I'm a fan, but like, yeah, we can't do that shit again. Yeah, it was, it was a strategic blunder, I would say, doing this. Let me ask you this, before we get into the CT strat, the new CT strategy, like, um, let's say you were in the CIA, you know, if you were on the Iran desk or running it, um, and Ayatollah got smoked and like forty other top guys have gotten smoked, and now there's obviously like a vacuum and things are rearranging, are you guys like pulling your hair out at CIA to try and figure out who's making the fucking decisions here and like-

• 27:43Speaker 03

  Yeah, of course. So the key thing on this now, Iran is a hard target. It's a great question, Dee. Um, and it's something that I think I've raised here before. I don't know the quality of intelligence we have on Iran. You go back to, uh, back in 2011, 2012, and I would be very careful, this is as reported in the press, um, there were very significant compromises of CIA's agent networks. And so when I say Iran's a hard target, it's obviously we don't have a diplomatic presence there, the CIA officers are not on the ground, State Department's not on the ground, US military not on the ground. And so, uh, you know, and so, so, you know, do we have clandestine collection or even signals intelligence too, that tells us the plans and intentions? Of Iran's leaders and I don't know the answer to that and you know without boots on the

• 28:25Speaker 03

  ground without that kind of that level of granularity on intelligence you know that is it makes makes things a lot harder and so I think that you know the agency there's two parts of it one is what we call FI collection foreign intelligence collection and that's what are the Iranians gonna do what's the Iranian order of battle for the military what's their decision making you know what's the health of the Supreme Leader is the IRGC really kind of the dominant faction in control who's on top you know who's who's who in the zoo and then the other part of it would be more of kind of the the tactical part the pattern of life of individuals you know how to support US military strikes yeah but again I don't know the level of of intelligence collection that we have and and with that

• 29:06Speaker 03

  in mind it makes it hard then to even and so then you kind of and that's that's some types of collection then you have the covert action side is are there elements of any kind of Iranian opposition figures inside who we can be working with I mean President Trump has actually been complaining that there was some kind of aborted covert action effort where we gave arms to the Iranian Kurds and they stole all the weapons yeah yeah yeah which and he never should be talking about this in public at all but you know what does that even mean was there a covert action plan so lots of questions but but I don't know and I don't think there's enough scrutiny the national security media has failed on this but there should be much more scrutiny of the the degree of success that CIA has had in penetrating the Iranian regime

• 29:45Speaker 02

  Well I'm sure we I mean we had him clocked pretty fucking good right before you know you know in 2020 when we smoked Soleimani like we had him we knew where he was going his moves

• 29:55Speaker 03

  That's a way different type of collection that's pattern of life on an individual that's putting someone on the X that's not recruiting someone in the inner circle sure of the Supreme Leader and those are the decisions that that I mean right now so here's here's what we need to have I don't know if we have it and and and agents I've run in the past penetrations of foreign governments we did have this level of penetration we need the talking points that the Iranians were gonna use in Pakistan period the talking points yeah I'm holding up a check right now I don't even know what this is for

• 30:27Speaker 03

  We need, we need those talking points and if you don't have that, you know, we are at a, we are at a disadvantage diplomatically. So while we can put someone on the X for a kinetic strike, that's awesome. That's pattern of life. That's recruiting the janitor.

• 30:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 30:39Speaker 03

  That's not, uh, plans and intentions.

• 30:41Speaker 02

  Strategic long-term intelligence.

• 30:43Speaker 03

  That's hard to do. Yeah. So.

• 30:46Speaker 02

  Like someone's assistant or something like that.

• 30:48Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 30:49Speaker 02

  If anyone's listening out there and they want to make like a couple hundred thousand dollars a month.

• 30:53Speaker 03

  Hey, no, here's.

• 30:54Speaker 02

  Great opportunity.

• 30:55Speaker 03

  No, you contact D and D will be your front.

• 30:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'll totally be the middle man. I don't give a shit. Absolutely.

• 31:00Speaker 03

  Take a little cut. You got a little, get a little, little slice of the pie.

• 31:02Speaker 02

  America for God's sakes. I'm facilitating.

• 31:05Speaker 03

  Trump administration will understand that because I think that's what we do now.

• 31:08Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 31:09Speaker 03

  It's all about getting your slice, you know?

• 31:11Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 31:12Speaker 03

  You know, one of the funny things, what reminds me of the United, this is digressing a little bit. When I was in Jordan, I did several tours in Jordan and the Jordanians are amazing allies, but we'd always joke that some of the Jordanian security officials, when they came into positions of power, would have several years to make themselves as rich as possible before they got caught and fired. I think, I think we're there.

• 31:30Speaker 02

  The GID is no bullshit, right?

• 31:32Speaker 03

  No bullshit, but same thing. GID directors have been fired successively for corruption.

• 31:37Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 31:38Speaker 03

  And so, but they're a great ally, tremendous ally and great partners and, uh, and really helped in the, in the GWAT. And, uh, you know, that we always consider Jordan kind of our lily pad in the Middle East to do a lot of cool stuff.

• 31:50Speaker 02

  All right, moving to the new counterterrorism strategy. They, they haven't been coming out like usually there's a national defense strategy or whatever, like every year. Uh, this comes out like maybe once every four or five years. It's not exactly like every year thing. Um, so you'd think there'd be a little bit more thought that went into it slightly, but it's like 16 pages. You guys can take a look at it. Just go to like whitehouse.gov. You can read the bullshit that they, they put. It's extremely partisan.

• 32:16Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 32:16Speaker 02

  You know, Joe Biden's mentioned like a ton of times.

• 32:19Speaker 03

  Right, right, right.

• 32:19Speaker 02

  It's, it's why, you know, and like, we still have to go after the, you know, Islamic terrorists and stuff like that, you know, our bread and butter, what make Mark a millionaire. You know, why he made the big bucks over the last 25 years, but then we also have to watch out for Antifa and, um, some of.

• 32:36Speaker 03

  Gender, the transgender terrorists.

• 32:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly.

• 32:39Speaker 03

  Never forget those.

• 32:40Speaker 02

  No real mention about like, you know, far right wing terrorism or extremists and stuff like that, which we know exist like. Oh, sorry, guys. It's just the truth in, you know, America. Um, it was, it was just insane. It was an insane partisan document that like, aren't you supposed to have smart people work on this? Like, you know?

• 32:58Speaker 03

  Well, well, we don't because only one person worked on this and that's the director of counterterrorism at the National Security Council, someone by the name of Sebastian Korka, who is kind of this kind of member of the, the, the right wing. He worked in the first Trump administration for about five minutes before he couldn't get a security clearance and was removed. Um, uh, he's insane. Let's just be very clear. This is not right versus left. This is not Democrat versus Republican. He is totally unqualified for this. Um, and he wrote this on his own. Now ordinarily, the NSC document like this would be part of kind of an interagency process. Um, you know, the NSC is the coordinating body in the United States government. That's supposed to take input from the intelligence community, from the military, from Department of Treasury, from the diplomatic community, the State Department and others.

• 33:41Speaker 03

  Uh, uh, and, um, and put together a strategy and a whole of government strategy. Yet this was insane. Um, parts of it, okay, are fine. Uh, you know, do we have to go, uh, go after Islamic extremism? Absolutely. Um, but let's, let's go over the strategy, uh, uh, one by one, because this is something, because I read it and everyone is in kind of disbelief. There's nobody in the counterterrorism world who thinks this, this was anything other than a giant piece of, piece of a giant turd. Um, uh, and even those of my friends, kind of were the MAGA curious types and, and from the right, and that's fine. Um, uh, but they're like, oh my God, look at this thing. So it starts off with the notion that the biggest counterterrorism threat is narco traffickers. Now, are narco traffickers an issue for the United States government? Absolutely.

• 34:23Speaker 03

  Um, you know, traditionally we would go after them based on counter narcotic strategy, which had to do with law enforcement, the military, um, you know, liaison partners, uh, uh, public health as well. Um, but they're, but they're kind of now saying that this is the biggest terrorism threat because they're using terrorism authorities to go kill them as we're drilling people on boats.

• 34:43Speaker 02

  And also active on the ground.

• 34:45Speaker 03

  and active on the ground too and so and so I think that's a mistake I think it's apples and oranges um uh you know America has a demand for drugs uh America does not have a demand for terrorists

• 34:56Speaker 02

  right

• 34:57Speaker 03

  and so um that's not to say this is not an issue fentanyl is a massive issue but um the idea that this should be uh done under the CT uh uh uh authorities is I think is is is nuts and the problem with that is you then divert resources um uh as we have talked about I think on eyes on uh in the past but you know certainly members of the CIA uh have been diverted from the threat against Islamic extremism extremism they're down in Mexico in fact tragically two CIA officers were killed down in Mexico recently um not doing things that we used to do in the war on in the GWAT and so and so I think that uh I think that elevating narco traffickers to this terrorism uh you know uh under terrorism

• 35:39Speaker 03

  paradigm is not smart but the but the part of it which gets a little nuts Dean you noted it is the politicization and so I mean literally transgender ideology and Antifa two very nebulous groups um uh have transgender people been involved in terrorism sure but just think about if I was sitting in London station and I was going to my colleagues and the British Intelligence Service at SIS and saying let's talk CT and they're like alright let's talk you know Al Qaeda in the Raven Peninsula ISIL

• 36:04Speaker 02

  you're like no no no wait wait wait wait

• 36:06Speaker 03

  AQ yeah

• 36:07Speaker 02

  we gotta talk about the real fucking

• 36:08Speaker 03

  no no no no no yeah because the White House has said we're talking about transgender

• 36:12Speaker 02

  that's what I'm saying yeah like stop the

• 36:14Speaker 03

  and Antifa

• 36:14Speaker 02

  yeah

• 36:15Speaker 03

  and that we would be laughed out of the room so this is preposterous um uh alongside of that which is of course blatant politicization and it's just not it's gonna be ignored no CIA officer is gonna ever approach as foreign leaves on service on this but the other part of is they they don't talk about right wing terrorism and since 2001 85% of of terrorism uh uh domestically in US has been carried out by the right that's not to say there's not left wing terrorism it exists it should be investigated we should put the full power in the US government against it 100% and I'm for that but not even to mention right wing terrorism is insane uh because the data is very clear now you have high profile events like the assassination of Charlie Kirk undertaken by the left or whatever that person was I

• 36:59Speaker 03

  think that was the transgender thing that people freaked out about um but again the data shows that the majority of the terrorism comes from from the right and so just mention it by not mentioning it it's crazy I think the the last

• 37:11Speaker 02

  He was writing it for one guy, let's be honest.

• 37:13Speaker 03

  He was writing it for, but it just, it was, there was typos in it. I mean, it was just, it was nonsensical kind of blather. It was, it's almost fun to respond to. And there's people in the CT world, whether it's Colin Clark or Jacob Ware or others who are really smart on this, who immediately said, this is a big load of shit. And we're very vocal on it. And, and, but the last part of it, which I think is the most important part, and this, I think it will resonate with the audience here, is that, you know, there has to be a whole government approach and there has to be the use of what we used, what we had in the past, which was American soft power. You know, so you cannot kill our way out of this problem. Every CT expert, you know, if Mick was on here and him and I did CT stuff together, he'd say the same thing. Soft power means, you know, the US Department of State, it means what we used to have in the USAID, gone now.

• 37:59Speaker 03

  You know, General Mattis, who, and I'm going to botch his quote, but essentially he said, you know, if we don't have diplomacy, if we don't have soft power, I gotta buy more ammunition.

• 38:07Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 38:08Speaker 03

  And so ultimately not having a soft power, because terrorists thrive in places where there, you know, there's lack of kind of government, ungoverned spaces. Well, I'm sorry, terrorism thrives when there's, you know, you know, terrible poverty. And so the US government has had a huge role to play in that counter radicalization programs.

• 38:29Speaker 02

  Right.

• 38:29Speaker 03

  But, but, but the CT document basically says, we're killing our way out of this problem. And, and that's just, that's not, that's not a strategy. That's certainly not a solution. And this is coming from someone who did a lot of those things. And I believe in that, but I was a very small piece of the pie, an important piece. But there's gotta be other stuff too. So the whole CT strategy is just, is just comical and it's sad. And the problem is, if it was just a speech Trump gave, who cares? But, but it's not. It's the, it's the strategy that comes from the White House. And that means resources are, are pushed that way. And that's, that's the key part of this. I don't care what, what Gorka or the president really think. I care what, you know, how many billions, millions or billions certain entities in the US government get to tackle this issue, but resources are going to emanate from

• 39:14Speaker 03

  this document. Now with all that in mind, there were a couple of counterterrorism successes recently. We killed a senior ISIS member in Nigeria.

• 39:23Speaker 03

  El Manouki is his name. Of course, the administration, as only they can, exaggerated it. He said he was the number two ISIS guy worldwide. That's not true.

• 39:32Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 39:32Speaker 03

  But he's important and it's a great strike. At the same time, we arrested in Turkey, the leading figure in Qatib Hezbollah, which is an Iraqi Shia group supported by Iran. Great, great get. No doubt.

• 39:43Speaker 02

  What's he doing hanging in Turkey?

• 39:45Speaker 03

  Well, I think he was en route to Russia. That's kind of interesting. Qatib Hezbollah has been involved in the deaths of Americans and he was responsible for, and now it's coming out, all these kind of mysterious attacks against Jewish targets globally after the war in Iran started. And so that's a really good, a good operation that was, that was carried out. Interestingly, though, nothing in the document says, hey, by the way, because of our activities in Iran, terrorism may explode now, which is what was all of our worry. And so now we have this really big takedown that everyone is doubting, yet in the CT strategy, there's no mention that our actions in Iran.

• 40:22Speaker 02

  Right.

• 40:23Speaker 03

  Actually, will have kind of pushed, pushed such, such threats to the United States. And, and you know, one of the things is that, you know, and again, this D, this is going to go back to my, I cite the Israelis a lot, but I, when I worked with the Israelis and they would think about undertaking some type of kinetic operation and they would be very clear in their cost benefit analysis. They would say, if we do this, a Soleimani type thing, we're going to lose an embassy. We're willing to do that. This administration, ours, has never done that. They never said, you know what? Was there ever a document tasked the intelligence community saying, if we, if we go after Iran, if we launch this war, these are the things, Mr. President, that are going to occur. Americans are going to die in terrorist attacks overseas. And I don't think that happened. And

• 41:07Speaker 03

  that's the right way to look at these things because nothing comes free. There's no.

• 41:10Speaker 02

  It's not even overseas either. It's like we've had, it was like lone wolf guys.

• 41:13Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 41:14Speaker 02

  Guy in Austin who was inspired by the Iranian thing, the kid whose family members lived in Lebanon.

• 41:20Speaker 03

  And the Iranians spent years going back to this stuff. And so, so that's where, that's where I think, but the CT strategy is just, just a mess. And you just kind of shake your head. And because the problem is that in this. Administration, there are not people who served in the first Trump administration because they don't want to. And but Nick is a perfect example. Mick was in the first Trump administration. Great American did great stuff there, but there's, I don't think Mick would, would, I'm not going to speak for him anyhow, but. Um, uh, but you know, you don't have kind of experts there now. Um, uh, who would be able to, uh, uh, to help on such a C T strategy. And so you get this kind of, kind of piece of garbage as a document and, uh, and, uh, but it's there and they're proud of it. That's the other thing. There's no, and Gork is running around in the media saying how great this is.

• 42:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's unbelievable really. The cognitive dissonance that's like just, just plain, it's just plain as day. It's not even like they're not even trying to hide it. Um, I think it's fucking scary, you know, for fear an American citizen who maybe leans left. Or if you're a transgender person, like, come on, bro. What are we talking about?

• 42:23Speaker 03

  I would say if you're a centrist, I mean, just anything, or you're just a regular American, like, it's just weird. What are we doing talking about Antifa and, and, uh, and, and transgender ideology when it comes to counterterrorism? That's just kind of strange. Now, talk about left wing terrorism. Sure.

• 42:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 42:37Speaker 03

  Um, uh, uh, you know, and, uh, and, and of course, and the no mention of, of kind of terrorism through it, but that's just, you know, from the right, but that's just kind of, you, you have it like, all you have to do is write a normal document.

• 42:48Speaker 02

  Right.

• 42:49Speaker 03

  Like, why can't they just do that?

• 42:50Speaker 02

  I don't know, bro. I don't know.

• 42:52Speaker 03

  People like me who are from the center and are still critics of the administration would say, hey, that was pretty good.

• 42:57Speaker 02

  Right.

• 42:58Speaker 03

  I like that.

• 42:58Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 42:59Speaker 03

  You know, but that's, they can't even do something like that because it's so politicized. Everything is. And that to me is the kind of the tragedy this. I say to my Republican friends and I have millions of them. I'm like, you, how do you defend this? And they just kind of shrug. Um, you know.

• 43:14Speaker 02

  That's bad, bro. Let me ask you this. You mentioned like how the Israelis do like their calculus on like when they want to go kinetic. Do you think that calculus has kind of changed a little bit since October 7th and like?

• 43:24Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 43:25Speaker 02

  You know what I mean? Like in terms of like what they're expecting blowback to be, uh, uh, you know, are they even thinking of that anymore? Did they expect when? We us and them hit in on February 28th, Iran that they would, Iran would respond. So.

• 43:40Speaker 02

  Aggressively, frankly?

• 43:41Speaker 03

  So D, you're asking some, you ask better questions to me than you do when the other people are on the group.

• 43:45Speaker 02

  Thanks, yeah. Well, it's easier when it's one or two people.

• 43:48Speaker 03

  I know, I know. But, so, great question. I think October 7th changed the mentality of Israeli national security officials massively. You know, there is no more kind of tolerance for any kind of risk. And now, the problem also is that Netanyahu is also drunk on power and drunk on using the military. And Israeli diplomacy could actually be just as effective on some of these things and some, and deterrence as well. But Netanyahu, the second this war ends, is gonna face elections. And so, you know, there's no, so that is really kind of screwed a lot of things up. But my friends in Israel definitely are traumatized, understandably, from October 7th. And, and so, you know, the, the, the kind of the fallback on using the Israeli military or intelligence services. You know, I think the, the aperture is much wider now, the appetite for that.

• 44:33Speaker 03

  But, but it's also changing, because there's friends of mine too, who are like, you know what? We're exhausted, the IDF is exhausted. And, and all these promises that Netanyahu made about keeping us safer, you know, I'm not so sure now. And, and look, look exactly what, you know, the Israelis just killed the, the, the leading military official in Gaza, again. Great operation, but Hamas still controls Gaza, they are not dissolving. There's a ceasefire, sort of, but ultimately.

• 45:04Speaker 02

  They're still bombing, you know, kids, yeah.

• 45:06Speaker 03

  But, you know, so, so what has, you know, what, what has been the, the promises that the Israeli political kind of echelon have made to Israeli public have not been, have not, have not come, come forward? And, and so, you know, there is that notion, again, of, you know, it's the idea of military, you know, military operations, kinetic capabilities are really important, but it's just one piece of the pie. I mean, think about right now. If Netanyahu, and he can't do it because he's kind of, he is, he's reliant on the crazy right wing in Israel for his political survivor, survival. But if he actually said at any point after October 7th, yes, there will be peace with the Palestinians, there will be a Palestinian state, the Saudis would have signed on, this is before the Iran war, the Saudis would have

• 45:50Speaker 03

  signed on to the Abraham Accords, there would have been a peace treaty between Israel and Saudi Arabia. And you could, and that would have changed-

• 45:56Speaker 02

  Ben Gavir would have had him killed.

• 45:57Speaker 03

  No, but that would have changed the region if he had done these-

• 46:00Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 46:00Speaker 03

  So the Israeli government falls, but there's a peace treaty with the Saudis, that's unbelievable. And then you have this absolute, um, uh, kind of, uh, uh, alliance of the Sunni Gulf Arab states in Israel against who? Against Iran? And perhaps we would have been better off globally, right there, um, rather than what you have right now. Uh, uh, but you know, that's kind of just wishful thinking.

• 46:24Speaker 02

  For sure. I mean, yeah.

• 46:25Speaker 03

  But this, Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudis were ready. They just had to say something, give us something.

• 46:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, I get it.

• 46:33Speaker 03

  And, and, and, and Bibi couldn't do it for his political survival, but also I think there was a lot of trauma after October 7th. And it's just too bad, it's sad.

• 46:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, I guess, uh, you see Bibi's 60 minute interview?

• 46:46Speaker 03

  Yeah. Um, and that, that was designed for the American audience only.

• 46:49Speaker 02

  Fucking nonsense. Who would like that?

• 46:51Speaker 03

  But he doesn't say any of that stuff to these-

• 46:52Speaker 02

  The 70 year olds? The fucking 70 year olds? Who's gonna buy that bullshit?

• 46:55Speaker 03

  Yeah. So I do, I mean, ultimately the, the, you know, he does this for the US audience and, um, uh, and CBS wasn't really, uh, didn't come-

• 47:02Speaker 02

  Well, Barry Weiss gave him the choi- uh, choice of who to have as an interviewer.

• 47:06Speaker 03

  And they also edited a lot of stuff.

• 47:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's like, come on, man.

• 47:08Speaker 03

  It's a big deal because they, you know, remember they, that didn't Trump sue them or something like that?

• 47:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, Trump sued, yeah, correct.

• 47:14Speaker 03

  But here we are. We're, we're being positive, positivity.

• 47:17Speaker 02

  I was about to be very negative just now.

• 47:20Speaker 03

  The positivity. Let's see, what can we be positive about?

• 47:22Speaker 02

  Can I bring up one thing, you know, that there's, Israel is suing the New York Times for that article?

• 47:27Speaker 03

  The Kristoff, I didn't like, I mean, I'll be honest, I didn't like-

• 47:30Speaker 02

  Which was horrific.

• 47:31Speaker 03

  But I didn't, I didn't like the Kristoff article because it was an opinion piece. It wasn't written by the newsroom.

• 47:36Speaker 02

  But he spoke to 14 sources.

• 47:38Speaker 03

  Yeah, but they're also very kind of, so I, I'm, you and I might disagree on this. But, but first of all, Kristoff can write anything he wants. The New York Times can publish anything they want. Um, uh, Kristoff, I think has, uh, as, as a record of being, you know, um, very critical of the Israelis. You might agree with it, you might not. Uh, I didn't like the sourcing on it, but I don't care. It's an opinion piece. Who gives a shit? And then, of course, everyone went crazy after this. And the idea of the Israelis suing the New York Times is preposterous. We have First Amendment rights here. It's an opinion piece. It's not in the news section.

• 48:11Speaker 02

  Even if it isn't in the news section, it's well sourced. Fuck you.

• 48:14Speaker 03

  But it's not, it doesn't have to be well sourced. And I would argue that it's not well sourced because I didn't like the sources that are used. But again, the point on here is that it's not from their national security team, which has a much different fact checking process. It's an opinion piece. Nicholas Kristof can act and think anything he wants and they can write anything they want. And that's fine. The smartest thing for the Israelis to do would have been like, that's an opinion piece. Thanks a lot. And then, but by suing the New York Times, it's just, it gets to be kind of ridiculous. And so a lot of friends who are incensed about this, I'm like, sure, get angry at Nicholas Kristof. It's an opinion piece. The Washington Post has crazy opinion pieces too. And that's, I mean, that's the idea. Like you, you, you can have debates on stuff.

• 48:54Speaker 02

  Well, all right. So like Kristof didn't go to Gaza, right? He was going, he went to the West Bank because Western journalists aren't allowed in Gaza. Number one. Number two, that video that leaked out from the prison in Gaza was a guy getting gang raped. Uh, that those guys got let off the hook, like the soldiers that gang raped that guy.

• 49:11Speaker 03

  And that's, and that the point on that is.

• 49:12Speaker 02

  So like, I, I just don't want to hear the most moral army in the world when things like that are happening in prisons.

• 49:18Speaker 03

  The prison system in Israel has huge problems. No doubt. And so the right response on this would have been, yeah, there's, you know, the, the, this is not going to happen. But it's, it's the, the mature response is, yeah, the prison system is really messed up. You know, the, in, in Israel, it needs reform. But some of these, some of these allegations about training dogs for raping people are kind of ridiculous. Uh, and, and, but you know, we're looking into it because it's a big deal because we, you know, we want to have the right set of morals. You know, New York Times, um, don't agree with all of this. Uh, uh, but we're on it. Now that's in another, of course, that's not going to happen, but that's the right attitude. Like I'm not going to defend the Israelis or the Israeli prison system. I think training rape dogs, and that's been this trope that's been used by the kind of the, the crazy left, you know, who hates all counterterrorism activity all the time.

• 50:02Speaker 03

  You know, that there, there's been allegations of that forever. I don't even think that's possible.

• 50:07Speaker 02

  I don't know about the dog. I mean, but they didn't. It wasn't just dogs raping people. It was.

• 50:11Speaker 03

  Right. But that doesn't mean horrible abuses haven't occurred and they have. And so that's the way you tackle this. But, you know, I mean, suing the New York Times, just, I'm like, at this point, like, you can't defend. You can't defend that. That's just stupid. And they're just dumb. You sue the New York Times. What's that gonna do? It's gonna stay in the news for years.

• 50:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's fucking, it's so dumb. It's like.

• 50:31Speaker 03

  It's stupid. And if you're the Israeli Embassy in DC, I've said this to Israeli Embassy officials there. I said, you have a massive problem here. Because the American left and right have turned against you. And, uh, and so my advice would have been, don't sue the New York Times.

• 50:45Speaker 02

  Right.

• 50:46Speaker 03

  What are you doing? This is, I mean.

• 50:47Speaker 02

  Which is like New York, and frankly, the New York Times has had, like, has been called out and having a pro-Israel bias. As well. So let's, yeah, so let's like, I don't know if you should be suing the New York Times.

• 51:00Speaker 03

  Look, look, look, in the United States, we face the same things. There are allegations which were confirmed of torture at Abu Ghraib. Uh, the American military did some pretty horrific stuff. The American CIA did some stuff that's kind of messed up over the years. So you don't. You don't kind of, the, the reaction against it is not like, this is not true. Well, some of it's true. It's a lot of it's overblown. You know, we didn't waterboard hundreds of people. Um, but you, the, the right answer is, you know what? Um, this was done in reaction to September. This is what I tell college students all the time when they ask me, yep, we did some things that probably we shouldn't have. Um, but I'll tell you, the time was people were terrified and we had a lot, we had a big, big fucking menu of options and we chose them all. There was, you know, I, I, the analogy I use sometimes is a remote control on a TV. Yeah, we chose every fricking channel. We subscribed to everything.

• 51:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 51:46Speaker 03

  Looking back, like, shouldn't have done that.

• 51:48Speaker 02

  Um, also frankly, if you didn't get the direction from the fucking Bush White House that, uh, EITs are okay. You guys probably wouldn't be doing that.

• 51:57Speaker 03

  I don't know. There's, there was a lot. I mean, again, but.

• 51:59Speaker 02

  Maybe like a rogue fucking maniac would, but.

• 52:02Speaker 03

  No, we were bloodthirsty, just like the Israelis were after October 7th.

• 52:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, but do you think you guys, the CIA would have done that unilaterally without the fucking president saying, yeah, it's okay?

• 52:12Speaker 03

  No, I mean, you, you have to get the legal opinion that it was okay.

• 52:15Speaker 02

  Right, right. And there was a ton of beef over that too, like.

• 52:19Speaker 03

  But, but the bottom line is there were plenty of people who, who still think it's okay. And I'm, and I'm really agnostic on this whole thing because I remember that, I, I literally remember members of Congress from the Democratic Party from the left who were basically wanted us to kill everyone. I mean, hip hop is

• 52:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 52:33Speaker 03

  Whether it's, you know, from, from really senior members of Democrats who were just like, you know, why aren't you just cutting fucking throats everywhere?

• 52:40Speaker 02

  I remember after nine, like directly after nine 11 norm, everybody was saying, let's fucking nuke wherever we need to, you know, like just crazy shit.

• 52:48Speaker 03

  And so, and so that, but, but you have to have the maturity later on to say, yeah, I'm not, I'm, I'm not defending everything we did. You have to say, yeah, we probably shouldn't have done that stuff. This is the reason why we did. I don't think we'll do it again. Um, uh, no CIA officer is ever going to waterboard anybody ever again, period. Not because they don't think it works. Cause that's debatable. It's that I'm not fucking getting in trouble with this. I don't care what you tell me. Remember when Trump was, was running for president again? He said, I'm going to bring back waterboarding and everyone at the agency is like, good luck, man.

• 53:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 53:16Speaker 03

  I'm not going to jail for this shit. I don't care what kind of DOJ opinion you give.

• 53:20Speaker 02

  Right, right.

• 53:21Speaker 03

  Cause I'm, I'm not going down for this kind of crap.

• 53:23Speaker 02

  What does the agency do now? We just hand them off to like GID or somebody and they take care of it?

• 53:28Speaker 03

  I mean, no, I mean, there's, well, I mean, first of all, the CIA is not in the, in the, in the, uh, in the, what you call it? Well, sort of, we're not in the business of holding prisoners.

• 53:38Speaker 02

  Right, right, okay.

• 53:39Speaker 03

  That did not look, that did not turn out.

• 53:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, it wasn't great. No, it wasn't great for the PR, bro. I'll be honest, like even.

• 53:46Speaker 03

  The other thing too, like, I mean, I remember doing prison debriefs. I'm like, uh, in Afghanistan early on, like, I don't know what the fuck I'm doing. I'm not trying, I'm a case officer. I'm not trained. I'm not a debriefer. I'm not, you know, I don't know what I'm doing on this thing. Um, and so, yeah, so we're not in the business of that anymore. And that's again, it's, uh, but, you know, at some point, I hope for my Israeli friends sake, that they will come to the realization that there were massive excesses after October 7th. And, and my response to that would be, I understand your pain and your grief and the desire for revenge, but the government of Israel did some things they probably shouldn't have done. Uh, and I think at some point, people will come to that realization. Um, and you can be as hardline as you want.

• 54:23Speaker 02

  People in Israel?

• 54:25Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 54:25Speaker 02

  You mean? Oh, yeah.

• 54:26Speaker 03

  Yeah. I mean, you know, I think a lot of Americans were like, good Lord, but.

• 54:29Speaker 02

  Well, we're already there, Americans, the majority.

• 54:33Speaker 03

  Are going to come to their, come to their senses on this. Um, but the trauma of October 7th is, it is, you know, was, was so fresh and that's, and we have to remember the trauma that we had after September 11th. Um, and so that's kind of where I, where I stand on this. Having been involved in a lot of, a lot of crazy stuff that we did.

• 54:49Speaker 02

  Yeah. So was a couple dozen people, they CIA waterboarded or what?

• 54:54Speaker 03

  I can't talk about CIA and waterboarding and any kind of authority. Uh, and actually I didn't have anything to do with that, but. But but just, you know, it's this is all reported stuff.

• 55:03Speaker 02

  Right, right.

• 55:03Speaker 03

  You talk about testimony, I think it's it's the the numbers that have kind of come in public were far less than. And what is would have been alleged. And and the other part of it, too, I mean, I got in trouble in all these and all my podcasts, I did it with you guys, I did it like on the Sean Ryan show when I and I and I, you know, and and Jack Carr and others. When I just when people would ask me, what do you think about this? Do you have any regrets? I'm like, no. I mean, there was it was a different time. I just don't.

• 55:28Speaker 02

  Me, why? Yeah, I don't know.

• 55:29Speaker 03

  I'm just saying, you know, so yeah, did we do some stuff that was messed up? Sure. But it was after October 11, you know, 3,000 Americans died. There, you know, they asked us to take it to the enemy. And so, you know, in in retrospect, were some of these things a little wacky? Yeah, probably. But, you know, do I have any regrets? I mean, I I'd be a fucking hypocritical asshole. I could do it easily. I could go on MS Now. They'd love this. You know what?

• 55:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, but.

• 55:49Speaker 03

  So bad for what we did. I just don't. I'd be lying. Um, but again, you know, in retrospect, probably the US military and and the intelligence community did some things we we shouldn't have done. And the Israelis will eventually come to that realization. It just takes a lot of time.

• 56:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, we get we can go back and forth on this. A lot, a lot of time. I I feel like. I don't think any war is moral, really, when it comes down to it. Um, it's it's horrible all the way. But what we're seeing in Gaza is pretty fucking reprehensible.

• 56:21Speaker 03

  The civilian deaths are are and and the the notion of.

• 56:24Speaker 02

  Even Lebanon, too. I know Hezbollah sucks.

• 56:26Speaker 03

  Deaths in the Middle East and in Gaza in particular are far beyond anything that the US government would tolerate under the war on conflict. Andy and I have written about this. We got into fights with everybody about this.

• 56:37Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 56:37Speaker 03

  Um, uh, you know, I supported him with when he was doing stuff with War on Rocks. Um, against some kind of really kind of extreme, more more extreme pro-Israel folks. And so. Uh, uh, but it's just it's just a fact, like, you know, we know, we care about CivCast much more than.

• 56:52Speaker 02

  I mean, we lost a fuck ton of Marines in Fallujah that Andy was commanding some of them, you know what I mean? Like. Take clear house to house to avoid just, you know. Wholesale bombing the entire fucking neighborhood.

• 57:03Speaker 03

  You know, I've been involved in some CivCast incidents. It's really bad. Like, you don't want to be involved in that. And so the idea of like, we we shouldn't give a shit about civilian casualties. People in the the US military and intelligence community do.

• 57:15Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 57:15Speaker 03

  Uh, you just do. You don't want to be you don't want to be hurting innocent people. That's not a good feeling. And that's not that's something that's going to stay with you.

• 57:24Speaker 03

  And again, that's different than the conversation we just had about some of the more extreme things we did in the GWAT. These and the reason why I say I don't have a lot of regrets on on kind of the collective on what was done is because these are really bad people. Uh, and so, you know, but now was, should we still do those kinds of things? Yeah, probably not. But but that's way different than accidentally, you know, killing, you know, a non combatant.

• 57:48Speaker 02

  Right? Yeah. No, for sure. All right. This is good. I like it. We're supposed to go 20 minutes. It's been 52, 53.

• 57:56Speaker 03

  But but again, but you know, it's a it's fun talking to you on this. And I think I will say this to you. Sometimes, you know, the the other guests kind of dominate a lot of stuff, but you got a lot of good, a lot of good points and you got to be more vocal on these things.

• 58:09Speaker 02

  No, listen, we have so many. I, yeah, I appreciate that. But I mean, we have so many guys on. You guys are all experts. I don't really know. I'm running my mouth. I read the news like everybody else. So I'd rather. I'd rather have John Hackett like talk about like actual shit than me run my mouth like maybe I can learn something. I'll always jump in when I think the CIA ghouls are going too far. I'll always jump in.

• 58:33Speaker 03

  Well, uh, just remember you got a lot of good points to make. That was awesome. That was fun.

• 58:37Speaker 02

  Thanks, bro. All right. I want everyone to do me a favor. Check out Mark's stuff. The links are in the description. Um, and the best place to support the show is patreon.com slash the team house. You get both eyes on it geopolitics episodes and team house episodes ad free and early. And you help support the show. Mark a pleasure as always.

• 58:56Speaker 03

  Remember what I said before? We need team house slash eyes on coffee.

• 59:01Speaker 02

  Man, Scott, yeah, before we jumped on, Mark was, we were brainstorming on like, uh, ideas.

• 59:06Speaker 03

  Black Rifle Coffee. I was like, it's pretty good. We need team.

• 59:09Speaker 02

  I don't think another Vet Bro coffee company is in the mix needed in the market right now.

• 59:15Speaker 03

  All right, well, we'll do we'll do an audience poll.

• 59:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, there was actually a good coffee company we had as a sponsor called Redacted Coffee. And they had some really cool like, uh, cool, the coffee was good too, but they had some really cool like covers and stuff like that. It was like. Trippy like MK Ultra stuff. Yeah, it was a cool. It's a cool company. Check it out. It's Redacted Coffee.

• 59:35Speaker 03

  All right, cool.

• 59:36Speaker 02

  All right, Mark. Thank you.

• 59:42Jack Murphy?

  Hey guys, I want to take a moment to tell you about the Team House Podcast Newsletter. If you go and subscribe, it's totally free and what it will do is aggregate all of our data, all of our content that we put out, the things that are on the Team House, on our geopolitics podcast, Eyes On, things that I write journalistically with Sean Naylor on the high side, anything else that we have going on, books we recommend, upcoming guests that we have coming on the show, and also filtering in some fun stuff in there as well. If you go and check it out, we send it out just once a week. We don't want to spam you guys. It's just a kind of roll up of all of our content on a weekly basis.

• 1:00:26Jack Murphy?

  You can find our newsletter at teamhousepodcast.kit.com/join. Again, the website for that is teamhousepodcast.kit.com/join. So we hope to see you.

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  Gretzky, I got you. I've had so much luck on spinquest.com. They have all of my favorite games, slot games, live blackjack, craps, and bubble craps. You can even get a $30 coin pack for just 10 bucks.

• 1:08:51Speaker 05

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• 1:09:02Speaker 01

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• 1:09:38Speaker 00

  Ready to feel energized and in control again? At Orderly Med's, we have helped thousands just like you take charge of their health with a GLP-1. If you've tried dieting, exercising, and relying on willpower and nothing seems to stick, then it might be time to talk to a licensed provider about your options. That's what Orderly Med's is for. This fall, choose healthier habits for yourself with a visit to orderlymeds.com. You don't need to visit with a physician in person. To become eligible, Orderly Med's has a simple virtual process. Connect with licensed medical professionals who can determine whether a GLP-1 treatment may be appropriate for you wherever you are. Getting started from the comfort of home, online. Change your habits and consider a new approach to feeling your best. Visit OrderlyMed's.com to learn more.

• 1:10:22Speaker 00

  That's OrderlyMed's.com. OrderlyMed's.com. Gain confidence and choose better habits this fall. Compounded medications are not FDA-approved. Eligibility required and determined by a licensed provider. Individual results may vary. See website for details.

• 1:10:39Speaker 04

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• 1:11:01Speaker 05

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• 1:11:08Speaker 06

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• 1:11:41Speaker 00

  Ready to feel more energized and in control of your health? If you've tried diet and exercise but still aren't seeing the results you're looking for, it may be time to explore a different approach. At OrderlyMed's.com, you can connect with licensed medical providers through a simple virtual process, all from the comfort of home, and find out if a GLP-1 treatment may be right for you. Learn more at OrderlyMed's.com. That's OrderlyMed's.com. Compounded medications are not FDA-approved. Eligibility determined by a licensed provider. Individual results may vary. See website for details.

• 1:12:12Speaker 04

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• 1:12:35Speaker 05

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• 1:12:42Speaker 06

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• 1:13:19Speaker 05

  Ready to feel energized and in control again? At Orderly Med's, we have helped thousands just like you take charge of their health with a GLP-1. If you've tried dieting, exercising, and relying on willpower and nothing seems to stick, then it might be time to talk to a licensed provider about your options. That's what Orderly Med's is for. This fall, choose healthier habits for yourself with a visit to orderlymeds.com. You don't need to visit with a physician in person to become eligible. Orderly Med's has a simple, virtual process. Connect with licensed medical professionals who can determine whether a GLP-1 treatment may be appropriate for you wherever you are. Get started from the comfort of home online. Change your habits and consider a new approach to feeling your best. Visit orderlymeds.com to learn more.

• 1:14:04Speaker 05

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• 1:14:18Speaker 00

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• 1:14:43Speaker 05

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• 1:14:49Speaker 01

  Cash flow crunch? OnDeck's small business line of credit gives your business immediate access to funds up to $200,000 right when you need it. Cover seasonal dips, manage payroll, restock inventory, or tackle unexpected expenses without missing a beat. With flexible draws, transparent pricing, and control over repayment, get funded quickly and confidently. Apply today at ondeck.com. Funds could be available as soon as tomorrow. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 1:15:24Speaker 06

  Looking for a new way to take control of your health? If diet, exercise, and willpower alone haven't gotten you where you want to be, visit orderlymeds.com to learn about GLP-1 treatment options. With a convenient virtual process, you can connect with licensed medical providers from home and see if treatment may be appropriate for you. Visit orderlymeds.com today. That's orderlymeds.com. Compounded medications are not FDA approved. Eligibility determined by a licensed provider. Individual results may vary. See website for details.

• 1:15:55Speaker 00

  Hey guys, Lady Luck here. I just love the fall season. Cris Morning's Pumpkin Spice Latte. And it's the best time to cozy up and play Spin Quest. They have over a thousand different slots in all my favorite ...casino-style games. And they're running a deal for all new players. A $30 coin package for just $10. So this fall, grab your favorite blanket, visit spinquest.com and download the app today.

• 1:16:19Speaker 05

  Spinquest is a free-to-play social casino. Void where prohibited. Visit spinquest.com for more details.

• 1:16:25Speaker 06

  OnDeck is built to back small businesses like yours. Whether you're buying equipment, expanding your team or bridging cash flow gaps, OnDeck's loans up to $400,000 make it happen fast. Rated A+ by the Better Business Bureau and earning thousands of five-star TrustPilot reviews, OnDeck delivers funding you can count on. Apply in minutes at ondeck.com. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 1:16:53Speaker 04

  Ready to feel energized and in control again? At Orderly Med's, we have helped thousands just like you take charge of their health with a GLP-1. If you've tried dieting, exercising, and relying on willpower and nothing seems to stick, then it might be time to talk to a licensed provider about your options. That's what Orderly Med's is for. This fall, choose healthier habits for yourself with a visit to orderlymeds.com. You don't need to visit with a physician in person to become eligible. Orderly Med's has a simple, virtual process. Connect with licensed medical professionals who can determine whether a GLP-1 treatment may be appropriate for you wherever you are. Get started from the comfort of home online. Change your habits and consider a new approach to feeling your best. Visit orderlymeds.com to learn more.

• 1:17:38Speaker 04

  That's orderlymeds.com. Orderlymeds.com. Gain confidence and choose better habits this fall. Compounded medications are not FDA-approved. Eligibility required and determined by a licensed provider. Individual results may vary. See website for details. Hanging out at the pool is great. Relaxing and playing Vegas-style games on my phone at the same time. Drinking one hand and a blackjack in the other. It's all at Spinquest. Over 1,000 games, including your favorite slots and table games. Be cool with this summer special. New players get $30 coin packs for 10 at spinquest.com.

• 1:18:16Speaker 05

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• 1:18:36Speaker 04

  And getting your hands dirty for a clean finish. So give them a leg up by teaching them to keep their hands sharp. So they can cut through any challenge. Every day for generations to come. Case knives, everyday capable. Made by the good people of Bradford, Pennsylvania. Visit casenives.com today.