Gaza Aid Finally Happening & Counter Insurgency vs Counter Terrorism | EYES ON GEOPOLITICS - The Team House

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, everybody, Welcome to another episode of Eyes on Geopolitics.
I'm here with Mick mulroy today. I'm Dmicha con tacos.
A lot happening as usual, some good stuff. Humanitarian aid

(00:21):
UH is starting to be allowed into Gaza, which is great.
I think they opened are opening up some food truck
routes and also air drops and a slew of other things. So,
I mean, usually we're always talking about doom and gloom.
This is actually I mean, it's not perfect, but where
it's kids are gonna hopefully stop starving, hopefully they can

(00:43):
get the medical aid that they need. I think a
lot happened over the last week with like the picture,
more and more pictures of like kids it's severely emaciated
being shown and kids dying. I think that's kind of
what turned the tide. And I hope, glad, you know, happily,
like hope, not happily obviously, but thankfully some food, medicine

(01:06):
and supplies are getting into Gaza to the people that
really need it. So make what's going on? What are
you tracking with this?

Speaker 2 (01:13):
First Greetings from the Nation's capital of Washington, DC, where
it's hot as hades out there. I got to tell
you it's a little bit of Montana appreciation for me
right now because man achievement. But yes, there is some
doom and gloom unfortunately, I think in some of our
discussions today. But like you said, it certainly a good

(01:36):
sign that He's humanitarian corridor is going to be opened up,
These tactical pauses is going to happen, and all these
countries have stepped up to get food into people who
are in desperate need. Right now, I think every adult
around the world, or even non adult, but certainly adults,

(01:56):
should find it completely unacceptable that's children starving to death,
no matter where they are, no matter when it happens.
But to step back a little bit, you know, we
had the breakdown of the ceasefire negotiations with both Israel
and the United States withdrawing our negotiation teams. That's a batside.

(02:18):
It seems to me that Hamas is not going to
get to a place where they agree to a ceasefire
without the complete withdrawal of the Israeli defense forces. And
that's simply not going to happen until there is some
kind of suitable security arrangement for Israel. And I don't

(02:38):
think any country would leave a place to attack them
like they did in October seventh without guarantees of their
security once they withdrew. So we're in a very difficult
position there. But I would say, if you haven't figured
it out already, Hamas could care less about the civilian
population in Gaza, right. They simply don't even put that

(03:01):
in their calculations. They're trying to stay in some form
or fashion after this conflict is over. But that said,
it is the obligation to every country under many international laws,
Geneva conventions. I've looked these up, by the way, fifty

(03:21):
five fifty seven article, the protocol one that came thirty
years after that, and then several other declarations which most
countries are part of, to not allow a civilian powerpulation
to starve, to not to not use it as a

(03:43):
element of warfare starvation, let the audience decide for themselves.
But this is clear that this is something that is
going to be looked at and people are going to
be held responsible for their own actions. But to your point,
D we have a good sign. I think the powers

(04:06):
it be have seen this. I think that the US
administration has seen it. I think certainly internally to the
Israeli administration has seen it. The IDF, apparently ac or
to New York Times, are the ones that have leaked
the report on Hamas not being a big factor when
it comes to the diversion of aid. And let's remember

(04:28):
there's two million plus people in Gaza. Hamas is probably
down below ten thousand now thanks to the good work
of the IDF, they've been reduced substantially. So it's important
to point that out, just on the calculations just how
much aid could be diverted to them. I'm sure they're
doing everything they can to tax it, steal at all that,

(04:51):
but ultimately it's important that food comes in by all
means available to the population who's on the verge. We've
already seen I think in the last forty eight hours
one hundred and twenty seven people die of starvation, eighty
five of them or children. This is only going to
increase substantially, almost exponentially, because pop when this starts, that's

(05:15):
when everybody starts going. So I would agree with the
aid community. I agree with them on almost all of this,
but the ground corridors are by far the most efficient
and cost effective way to get aid into gaza. But
air drops can be supplemental, they can get to isolated

(05:38):
populations and quite frankly, if you or your kids were starving,
you don't really care how the food gets there. So
if countries are willing to step up and even though
it is more expensive, do these I would argue that
they should be at least commended. Perhaps because they have
done this, they have put pressure to open these corridors,

(05:59):
to have these tackles. So we're not out of the woods,
but I agree with you d that we are moving
into a place where we are We're starting to address
absolute critical need in Gossam, which.

Speaker 1 (06:13):
Needs to be done immediately. Question how long does it
take board Like, let's say trucks start going in all
all means available are being used, right and people are
getting food, water, medicine. My question is like, how do

(06:33):
we turn it around? Like how long does it take
for a kid that's malnourished or on the brink of
starvation to like turn around, right, Because it's not like
here's a couple like crackers and you're ready to rock.
You know.

Speaker 2 (06:47):
Yeah, that's a very good question. So when you're at
a certain I'm not an expert or as certainly not
a medical professional, but when you hit a certain stage
of malnutrition, you can only eat certain things. So there's
special stuff that the World Food Program and other aid
agencies use. Plumpy nut is one of the products. They

(07:08):
have a certain mixture of vitamins and minerals and they're
digestible and you can't just feed them regular food, is
my point. So a lot of that needs to get
in there. Then a lot needs to get in there
to essentially flood the zone, to fill up the storehouses
that are empty, so that people can see that there's

(07:29):
food and they're not going to run out, because that's
when the desperation kicks in. That I mean before the conflict,
there was about five hundred trucks a day of aid
food aid going into gaza. I think that was an
addition to regular food that comes in and sold commercially,
so at least five to six hundred trucks a day,

(07:50):
and I think last month was six hundred trucks in
the month. So that needs to happen, and it needs
to be continuous, and we need to restore the foodstocks
in the country to the point where the civilian populations
can see that that they're they're there, and I think
that would there's huge distribution problems. The distribution needs to

(08:14):
be conducted in a means that is consistent with the
principles of a humanitarian aid, which means that the the
NGOs need to be allowed in to do this. The people.
There's been NGOs that have been on the ground for years.
They know how to do this, they are most familiar
with it. They just need the food to do it,
and that needs to happen also. But then, of course,

(08:35):
long term, this is an immediate crisis, so I understand
why everybody is rightfully focused on it, but there has
to be I think a way to get to a
place where the war is over. It should be I
think I saw another analysts a it should be an
all for all, So every hostage should come out, every
every bit of food that needs to go in needs

(08:57):
to go in, and this needs this war needs to
stuck with a security guarantee for Israel and a path
forward for the people of Gaza and the Palestinian people.
I know it's easy to say on a podcast, but
ultimately we're just going to talk about the daily crisis.
If this isn't something that not only the US pushes,

(09:20):
but our partner are Key Ali and Israel and everybody
that has any kind of influence on the people of
Palestine minus Hamas, which seems to be completely incapable of
looking at anything other than their own interest.

Speaker 1 (09:39):
Of question, so, like for the food trucks and stuff
like that, where does most of that come in from?
Is it come in from Israel or come in from
like the Ratha, like from Egypt? Like how does he
This is more logistical question, I guess, but like what's
the Yeah, go ahead.

Speaker 2 (09:57):
Yeah, there's they have st were quite a bit of
aid and of course once once it was cut off,
it piled up.

Speaker 1 (10:06):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (10:06):
So I don't know the details of that, but the
aid is there, I think. Is the answer to your question,
d in It's miles away in many cases, which is
another reason why this crisis is so hard to watch.
This isn't a drought. This is enough you know, a
typhoon that came in and took out crops and the
ability of people to feed themselves, just like in Sudan

(10:29):
and other areas of the world. This is a man
made catastrophe. When it comes to the humanitarian, a human crisis,
the food is there. It can get in, It can
get in relatively quickly.

Speaker 1 (10:44):
It just needs to happen, and probably a matter of hours,
right because like Gaza, ship's not that big.

Speaker 2 (10:50):
Yes, only twenty five miles long, like six seven miles wide,
and you know both from the ground corridors and the
air corridor. I mean think about it, if they fly
out of Jordan or Egypt, it's like a twenty minute
or less flight, right, So this is int the horror

(11:11):
fault place to reach. We need to get the situation,
the humanitarian situation in Gaza taken care of, and quite frankly,
that will I think, you know, help Israel when it
comes to its efforts to get this war over with
and to address their very valid security concerns and how

(11:31):
this goes forward. The humanitarian crisis needs to be dealt
with immediately.

Speaker 1 (11:38):
Yeah, and hopefully in the next couple of weeks we
see it, we see it turning for the better. I
go into the ceasefire or like the lack thereof, or
like the negotiations that are ongoing are not ongoing. Where
we at with that? What's the big rub hamas wants
to stay in power?

Speaker 2 (11:58):
Yeah, so we're really in a bad place. Now there's
no negotiations. They've withdrawn their teams. I don't think we
know the details of what Tamas rejected, but it's been
pretty clear that Hamas doesn't want to accept anything that
doesn't end with the complete end of.

Speaker 1 (12:16):
The war, right with if out of godz.

Speaker 2 (12:20):
Right, which means the end of the war right So,
and that's before they even release all the hostages. So,
I mean, think about it from the perspective of Israel's
that's a maximalist point of view. In my opinion, you
should be able to have a humanitarian pause, a tactical
pause with the fighting stops. Humanitarian aid, which I think
should be free flowing anyway, but would come in in bulk.

(12:43):
And these hostages, who I mean, there is reporters that
are starving in Gaza right now, there's doctors that are
nurses that are starving in gods everybody in Gaza is
starting right now, which also means the hostages are in
the same scenario and may be worse. So they need
to come out immediately immediately. Obviously shouldn't be there in
the first place, but it is. It is in the

(13:04):
interest of the hostages to get humanitarian aid in there,
but it's also in everybody's interested to see this work.
I'm doing it.

Speaker 1 (13:11):
My understanding was that the like as the negotiations were
going on in uh Doha, the political wing in Doha
of Hamas was like obviously more willing I think, to
like cut a deal, and they either couldn't get in
touch with or the actual on the ground military wing

(13:34):
of Hamas was not going for it, right, So that
does seem to be a little bit of like either
it's miscommunication or non communications. I mean, I don't know,
I mean, but I'm sure whatever communications are being had
are completely penetrated, and Israel and the US is likely
listening to it. I would assume, I mean, if we're
any good at our fucking job.

Speaker 2 (13:56):
I would make I would say that's a safe assumption.
And the question is there really a political military wing
or is there essentially a spokes person for Hamas that
is doing the negotiations. So what I mean by that
is if the military leadership of Hamas in Goza doesn't
go for it, then it doesn't matter what the individuals

(14:18):
in Doha are saying, right, So they're not they don't
really they're not really the political wing in the sense
that they have any authority, And of course Israel's done
a heck of a job killing the military capacity of
a terrorist capacity of Hamas in leadership in Gospel, which
is a good thing. But I don't even know who's

(14:39):
in charge right now, so which we need. We need
to have somebody who's in charge for the purpose of
the negotiations that has the authority to say, yes, we're
going to stop fighting, and then stop fighting. We need
that simply for the need of the negotiations. I would
hope that they would take what I think would be
an offer of Israel to leave Gaza. You can catch

(15:02):
them later right in this conflict, if we could get
the leadership of Hamas in Gaza to depart, and then
we can do what we do later down the line.
But right now, for the sake of the hostages and
for the sake of the innocent civilians in Gaza, that
would be a good solution. But I don't know, and
I haven't read, and I haven't heard exactly what the

(15:25):
breakdown is. I do think it's been. It's probably the same,
which is Hamas wants the whole war to in and
the Israelis to leave and Israel is not going to
accept that without obviously some protection for their own security.

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Even if, oh, here's my thought was, wouldn't it make
more sense for like, if the IDF were to withdraw

(17:07):
its and you know, make a deal hostage deal and
stuff like that, get the hostages back, make a deal
where the IDF does withdraw Hamas kind of reconstitutes itself
and you take them out more strategically in Gaza, right
with air strikes or what special operations what have. I mean,
it's not exactly far away, so you don't really have

(17:28):
to worry about exits and entrances, right like, or logistics
in that way. I'm obviously not a military expert or
a covert operations expert, but you know, I mean, if
they had more kind of freedom of movement where they
thought they were safe, where they reconstitute and like kind
of poke their heads up, it would be easier for

(17:51):
the IDF to take them out and Mussad to take
them out strategically at least like they're the head guys,
the top management.

Speaker 2 (18:00):
Yeah, and I think that that would certainly be on
my list, my task list of things to do once
once the war was over. It's just a continuously on
the on the black side of things, as you said,
the covert side of things. Take out terrorist leaders that
are wanted to do harm to my country and my people, right,
just like the United States is doing right now. Right,

(18:21):
we don't talk much about the global war and terror. Yeah,
but it's right, it's still cooking. And you know what,
the enemy gets a vote, So you know, one day
we wake up and there's a large terrors STAC in
the United States and it's on. But it never went away, right,
So there's a lot of hard working, quiet professionals in
the background right now that are that are doing just that.
I think Israel, who has proven they are exceptional at it,

(18:43):
will continue this even after and so would we and
so are we. So I think that's going to be
part of it. We just have to get to a
point where the actual hot war, the overt war over, Yeah,
and it's extraordinarily taxing on the idea. If right, there's
you know, a lot of the idef, especially in the
war that goes on this long and relies on reservist

(19:05):
So uh, these these folks, uh, and I know a
lot of them have put their life on complete hold,
complete hold, like their their ambitions, you know. And you
can say, okay, what does that matter?

Speaker 1 (19:14):
What does matter?

Speaker 2 (19:15):
Man's everybody right, you wanted to be a doctor? A
lot of them have decided, well, I guess I'm not
because I've been doing this for over two years. So
I've missed them. I've missed it. So there's a lot
of internal pressure on the political leadership from their civilian
population who has dedicated the last two years of their
life and sometimes their lives, uh literally to this. That's

(19:38):
going to keep pushing for this to come to an end. Uh,
in addition to the you know everything else that is
a reason for this to come to an end.

Speaker 1 (19:47):
Yeah, I mean, I hope it fucking does. Again, going
back to the good thing is that there is aid
going in because I mean, I don't give a shit
what you are Muslim, Jewish, Christian, Hindu or whatever. Martian
kids starving is no boyo anywhere? Right?

Speaker 2 (20:06):
Like, Yeah, last time I was in New York City,
we were up there talking to the un well not
just all the all the issues of the world when
it comes to UH famine and humanitarian aid delivery. And
I didn't know this, which might surprise you, but the
person who was talking to obviously uh I knew my

(20:28):
name and said, hey, by the way, have you ever
gone to Battery Park and see the saw the memorial
to the Irish famine?

Speaker 1 (20:37):
Right?

Speaker 2 (20:38):
Like, No, I never heard of it. So I literally
left there and walked straight to it there. I recommend
everybody going to it, not not because of my ethnic background,
but because it is a horrible example of and you know,
people say, oh the plate the potato blight. That wasn't
about the potato blight. They were still exporting food, lots

(20:59):
of it. We eat everything else out of Ireland at
a time when one million people starved to death of
a population that was three million. Think about that. And
it went on from I think you know I know
this from by family stories like eighteen forty five to
almost eighteen sixty and two in a million people left

(21:22):
over a million to try to save the population that remained.
And I bring it up because again, it was caused
by man. It was caused by man, and I think
that is something that people and it's almost always a conflict.
In that case, it was more just about colonials and

(21:43):
domination and serious bias against the Irish. But this has
gone on. It's well past that, but it is. It is,
It still goes on in the world, and I think
everybody should remember these lessons and try.

Speaker 1 (21:59):
It very interesting how history kind of repeats itself a
little bit. It's kind of scary also talking about like, yeah,
like the US getting busy in SNGCOM, getting busy in
the agency, getting busy. You know, they swacked swacked a
couple of ices people in Syria recently last week or so,
and you don't really hear much about it, but you know,

(22:19):
you see that like Jaysack ground branch and you know,
the one hundred and sixtieth they're all like still working right.

Speaker 2 (22:29):
On the job, absolutely wide professionals that are, you know.
And I think the idea that where we're gonna, I hope,
so get get out of this war against terrorists, people
who you know, have this doomsday cult. It's just not
gonna happen, and and and quite frankly, you know, you

(22:50):
don't see cops sitting around talking about the end of crime, right,
but they don't spend a lot of time talking about
should we declare you know, the success against all. They
just accept the fact that they're going to have to
fight criminals in perpetuity. So I think we need to
accept the fact that as long as there's still a

(23:11):
terrorist organization that wants to harm our citizens, we're going
to fight him. And maybe it's a good thing we
don't talk about it too much because that means it's
not they haven't been that successful, right because if there's
another nine to eleven, that's all we're going to talk about. So,
you know, God blessed the men and women that are
out there in Jaysak and the CIA and and everybody else.

(23:32):
It's out there doing what's needed. So that we aren't
talking about it every.

Speaker 1 (23:39):
Day is an interesting debate to be had to I'd
love to have it on this show or even on
Teamhouse where we get a bunch of like professionals, like
you know, guys who've been in the gyt yourself included,
where uh, you know, the g wat kind of went
a little astray a little bit right when we went
into Iraq and stuff like that, where it went from

(24:00):
like a counter terrorism you know, bias to a counterinsurgency
bias and nation building and stuff. And there was this
debate too when Obama came in, right, like I remember
Obama's first term about like what do they do in Afghanistan?
Do they like they'll add some troops but focus more
on the counter terrorism aspect or do you actually pull
you know, more into the counterinsurgency, And they unfortunately decided,

(24:24):
I think more encounterinsurgency. There is a because terrorism, terrorism
has been around right forever. It's not it didn't just
happen in nine to eleven. So I'd really love to
have that debate with you guys, like where you guys,
who's who's because in my opinion, I don't think counterinsurgency
and I don't have a I'm not an expert. I

(24:44):
just see what happened in Iraq and Afghanistan, Like, counterinsurgency
unless you have literally generations five fifty one hundred years,
will not work. And I don't think any country really
has that kind of political will to do it.

Speaker 2 (24:59):
Yeah, So I think The issue is essentially the concept
of nation building. So if you think that even as
strong as and as wealthy as the United States, and
you're going to go in and you know, change a
dictatorship to a Jeffersonian democracy and then rebuild or actually

(25:20):
build in the case of Afghanistan, all these institutions from
scratch that are somehow going to commediately duplicate how we
do business. You're going to have a massive counterinsurgency effort
because they're going to push back against it. So if
you have, if you find yourself in a massive counterinsurgency effort,
then it should tell you that your nation building efforts

(25:42):
aren't going to work. Right, they go together, they go together.
So and it's not it's not I mean counterinsurgency. There's
there's key tenants to counterinsurgency. They're not wrong. But again
it's the nation building part that you know that I
think we're getting wrong that requires us to then pull
out all these you know, doctrines on insurgency or countering it.

(26:06):
That's the issue is actually what ours overall intent? I
think you know, I mean, it's what are It's not
what are the bridge for a lot of people, it's
still very very raw. But if the US would have
went in safe to Afghanistan or acts another animal, right
it actually enough thing to do with UH September eleventh,
But we would have gone replaced the regime which is

(26:27):
not back, and focused our efforts simply on mitigating the
threat from al Qaeda. We could have used far less people,
primarily the groups we already talked about, and then we
could have just contributed, like every other country, foreign assistance
for Afghanistan, but not trillion dollars of US taxpayer adults,

(26:47):
which have now proven to be completely thrown away. Yeah,
completely thrown away. So you know, people are entitled to
the lower opinion, but not their own facts. That's the fact.
So it turned out to be a really bad decision
to do that. But we could have maintained the ability

(27:10):
to mitigate the threat emanating from them, just like we're
doing in Syria right now, right with much fewer people.
We had very few few people relatively speaking than other
times at the end when we withdrew right and we
were not losing people. We're basically enabling the Afghanistan forces

(27:32):
that we put together. So I hope they do a
real a political assessment and I'm sure the pedagog will,
but it needs to be more than just you know,
the military. It needs to be military intelligence covered actions.
Sureency usaid at the time, you know, aid how that
all fit in what we did right, what we did wrong?

(27:54):
And it needs to be honest because you know, sugarcoat
and that stuff is not going to help anybody in
the future. It needs to be a real you know
what we call after action review, but on branch scale.

Speaker 1 (28:05):
Yeah, I found it like super fascinating, Uh, like where
it all kind of went wrong. And I get it,
like some guys want to be in the history books, uh,
turning a nation around, But it's like, this isn't theory, right,
this is like real fucking life. I'm talking about David
Petraeus to be completely honest. Uh, it's anyway, we're getting

(28:29):
off topic. I would love to do a fucking yeah,
like you know, a bunch of guys talking about it
who like were practitioners in both. You know, I'm assuming
you're more counter terrorism because like you're a paramilitary officer.

Speaker 2 (28:42):
So yeah, well there's no I mean counter terrorism kind
of insurgency all part of irregular warfare. It's not right
at all, Right, it's the policy. Right, So if there
was an insurgency in the United States, let's god, hope
is like, there's not, Yeah, are insurgency doesn't believe you

(29:02):
believe in countersurgency.

Speaker 1 (29:03):
You see what I mean.

Speaker 2 (29:04):
It's not an ideology, it's a it's a it's a
tactic and technique. It's what what political decisions did you
make that you have to then use counterinsurgency techniques? And
if you're trying to nation build and and you have
a sizable portion of the population that wants you to
hell out, you see what I mean. It's the policy.

(29:26):
It's the policy. It's not it's not the you know,
the the theory, the theory under irregular warfare, you got
to be able to do all of it. And it's
the it's the policy. It's the political decisions made by
political leaderships primarily.

Speaker 1 (29:40):
Not the generals.

Speaker 2 (29:41):
Not the generals. Not blame it on them.

Speaker 1 (29:44):
It's kind of you know, well, he kind of got
I guess betrays kind of got tagged as a kil
Coin guy, you know what I mean?

Speaker 2 (29:51):
Uh, yeah, but that's yeah, yeah, And I'm friends with
David kill call it. He was just in Whitefish last week.
I was hanging out with him and his his wife
Janaye Davidson, also very very accomplished in her own right,
super smart on counter surgency. If I had to do
counter insurgency, I'd called David kill call it. Yeah, but

(30:14):
you're not responsible for the decisions necessarily that got you
in the place that you have to use counterinsurgency.

Speaker 1 (30:20):
Sure, there's another great debate I'd love to have, especially
with you and some like maybe case officers not paramilitary,
a very espionage versus paramilitary. Uh, And I know it
works hand in hand and it should be a like
symbiotic relationship, but like who gets who should get more

(30:42):
of the the lion's share? Right, Like, because that's also
been like a debate that I've heard come up every
once in a while where it's like espionage versus paramilitary
and like what's the CIA's role should be in like
the world and stuff like that. They definitely have to
have both in their bag, right, like both tools in
their bag.

Speaker 2 (31:02):
But totally yeah, I kind of feel like that's a
Washington debate. Yeah, Like you know, it's like you take
the oh, is it China or Russia? No, man, it's both, right,
Like it's kind of a fault. No, we should send
everything to be in a Pacific Oh really, So if
Busha beats Ukraine, you think that's gonna make China less

(31:23):
likely to want to take to Wan Taiwan. So it's
just a debate. So d CIA, which obviously I am
an alumni of, very proud of that, can and should
and will do both.

Speaker 1 (31:36):
So it's good.

Speaker 2 (31:36):
There's gonna be times when it's gonna be skewed toward
one or the other, but that's that's what leaders do.
They go, Hey, this is what we're facing now, so
we're gonna take more of our our resources and put
it toward that or that, and then they adjust, just
like the Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff when it
comes to military resource, looks what's going on in the

(31:57):
world and sends assets to But there's never the argument
should be we have to be able to do both
because certainly our enemies and I think one of the
things I want to talk about with Ukraine is all
the covert stuff that DRESS is doing. We have to
be able to do both. So it needs to be that.
And the other point I would make on covert and

(32:20):
I wrote an article for ABC a long time ago.
It needs to be completely integrated to the national security
strategy and defense strategy of the United States. I think
oftentimes covert operations are like, oh man, we can't figure
this out diplomatically, we can't do this militarily. It's a
it's you know, it's a it's a dumpster fire handed

(32:43):
to the covert guys. Yeah, so the problems that nobody
else can fix and we're at the verge of collapse
get handed. It needs to be integrated with everything.

Speaker 1 (32:52):
So just I know, sandwich like nuts, you're right.

Speaker 2 (32:57):
Right, it's like, ah, this is it needs to be
integrated in part of the entire strategy for the US
when it comes to national security and then there's stuff
that people can't know that they are involved in that,
but there needs to What I propose is a covert
at covered action annexed to the national security or national
defense strategy, so that there's an integration where everybody knows

(33:20):
how we're driving to get where we want.

Speaker 1 (33:23):
Strategy is yeah.

Speaker 2 (33:26):
Yeah, I think I think that needs to be a
lot more done, and it's a it's a huge part
of what the agency does. It's by the way, it's
not just paramilitary folks, my tribe. Uh, there's everybody in
the agency, particularly on the on the do O that
your operations to include operations officers, case officers, all term

(33:46):
they're all involved in. So it's not it's not just like, hey,
that's that their guy stuff. We do a lot of that,
as you know when it's publicly out there, but it's
it's a collective effort. But it I think it's just
a false argument to say, you know, should it be.

Speaker 1 (33:59):
A That's a fair point. I mean because over the
last twenty years or so, I understand like the CIA's
you know, basic like not mean, but like what everyone
was really talking about was more their military side. I
would say, like that's been more in the news and
in the headlines where like, and it's probably grown exponentially

(34:21):
since like the mid nineties, probably rightfully so, and like
what you needed to do when you were in Afghanistan
and Iraq and other places. So that's a fair point.
And like you said, like there needs to be both
tools need to be in the tool bag, you know
what I mean, Like you can't just.

Speaker 2 (34:38):
You don't say, okay, so we're going to war. We're
doing a lot of you know what you call paramilitary stuff.
So we just need to have a bunch of paramilitary hammers,
right right, Like you actually need to have the screwdriver
that collects critical intelevisions on Russia, China intentions and ran
North Korea all that stuff one hundred percent all the time. Yeah,

(34:59):
because you fail that, you've got you know, you've got
catastrophic consequences. But you also do need to be able
to And the agencies proved really good at and we've
already talked about this eliminating the threats. Yeah, and they
that never go away to our country, whether it's terrorism
or the enemies version of us, because they have it too.

Speaker 1 (35:21):
Yeah, this is another question that has nothing to do
with topical stuff. I mean, I guess it does. But
you were talking about how having like a covert like
kind of annex where you can kind of synergize like
information and stuff like that and make it like so
there's a coherent strategy between all like you know, military
and you know all national security agencies or fiefdoms or whatever.

(35:44):
Do you run into a problem doing that where like
there are these fiefdoms right like where people are going
to protect information And I'm not saying obviously give stuff
that they don't need to know, but like overall strategy,
right where like how do you make it where it's
more seamless in terms of like being able to share
informations with other parts of the government, to be able

(36:07):
to work together easier and get you know, react faster
and stuff like that and be better.

Speaker 2 (36:13):
So obviously the covert nature of what our government does
is one of the most highly classified and security station
so it would likely have to be at the deputies
and above level that would have a general and maybe
even detailed knowledge and input on what the XANAX would be. Yeah, right,

(36:37):
but you know, because there's a Treasury aspect, there's a
law enforcement aspect, there's obviously a military and then of course
a diploma you should lead. They come up with this
is what we hope to do, you know, our strategy
and our objectives. This is how each component of our
national security apparatus can play a part. They don't have

(36:58):
to know all the details, but at that level, you know,
if you can't trust the you know, the deputy Secretary
of Defense or the Treasury, we think you're all the
system and they at least get to see how all
this and of course the President of United States, who's
who's who's at the top. They can see all this
like this is how this is going to work together

(37:19):
to accomplish our our strategic aims in China or wherever
it is. And it's integrated and it's not all action, right,
there's influence component. There's all sorts of things that go
into this on the COVID side that need to be included.
And you know, not everybody needs to know everything, but

(37:40):
I think at that level and above uh and you know,
you get them the right security clearances and you get them,
you know, they periodically are checked for fidelity to that information,
which we are. That is that is important. But you know,
I'm talking in general. So the other thing I was
bringing up, we're looking at Ukraine right. So Ukraine right now,

(38:04):
the Russians figure, okay, we've got fifty days. I think
we're at thirty seven days left just to do everything
we can't So it's proven ineffective to give them this
long fifty day period. But it's a poor to point
out when Russia went into Ukraine they did obviously overtly,
which we can all see the horrible damage they've done

(38:24):
trying to take over a country for themselves. But they
also had a giant covert program right against NATO, and
it was assassinations. It's political influence and manipulation, Attacking critical
infrastructure by cyber means covert basically paramilitary means sabotaging undersea cables,

(38:48):
cyber to screw up grid systems. You know, I don't
know what we're doing or are. We be talking about
it and the government for a long time, not only
the US, but now I'm proposing that all of our
NATO partners, if they don't have this capacity, they need
to get this capacity. It can't just be about tanks
and aircraft, which is important, but it has to be

(39:11):
you gotta fight the enemy the way the enemy fights you,
or you're going to lose in that arena. And if
they're not, they need to because that's the way the
Russians fight. They have no problem, you know, throwing bags
of money to get somebody elected in some of these
Eastern European countries that's gonna basically be their puppet.

Speaker 1 (39:31):
They need to and I.

Speaker 2 (39:31):
Don't again, I have no idea if they Maybe they're
all doing it and all they they're all going mixed.
You don't know a way time. Because we're all doing
it's great. I hope, I hope I'm right. But if
we're not, this needs to be a collective, holistic effort
to push back against our enemy, in this case Russia
and their enemy that's right on their doorstep.

Speaker 1 (39:51):
That's right on their door. I mean I have to.
I mean, listen, places like Estonia, Lithuania, all those little
satellites that used to be in the Soviet Union they
are now in NATO. I don't know if Lithuania is,
but Estonia is. Uh, you know, they don't have massive militaries, right,
so it's like they're one thing where they could probably

(40:11):
be pretty effective is likely intelligence, and I would hope,
you know, covert operations and stuff like that, because they're
not dummies. They have pretty advanced economies and stuff like that.
So and Poland too, like Poland, we all know Poland's
getting down So which is good? Which is you need
that because they're like literally right on the fucking doorsteps

(40:34):
of Russia and Belarus and stuff. So when did you
When did you retire from Cia?

Speaker 2 (40:41):
Not twenty seventeen, That's when I went to the Pentegon.

Speaker 1 (40:44):
So he dabbled a little bit in the when Primeia
popped off the first minute about what was happening.

Speaker 2 (40:51):
I'm I'm impressed with the Ukrainians and was then and
am now, but that you know, and they are very good,
I mean, they prove they're very good. Yeah, on the
on the covert front, right, uh. And a lot of
the innovations that we're seeing are being integrated into that,
you know, with the with the drones popping out of
the back of you know, trucks the truck driver didn't

(41:13):
even know was in there, right, and then taking out
you know, substantial amounts of strategic aircraft for example. But
this is it's it's an all. It's it's not a
one or the other, right, it's not a You need
to have a very strong conventional military, a very strong
special operations military, and a very strong cover capacity action

(41:36):
in your intelligence services, which doesn't mean intelligence services don't
collect intelligence. That's our primary mission, but you it needs
to be all. Any any argument where it needs to
one needs to go away is seriously underestimating the world
situation right now and looking at it from the perspective
of our adversaries. One. Uh, well, I think I grew

(42:00):
up with the phrase, but you know, turn the map around,
which means you have to look at the world from
your enemy's perspective, not just your own, or you will
miss a lot.

Speaker 1 (42:12):
Yeah yeah, really well said. I mean, so, yeah, thirteen
days left till this the fifty day whatever deadline thing
is for what to talk about a ceasefire? I mean,
are they even talking because all I see is Russia
bombing the shit out of Ukraine.

Speaker 2 (42:27):
The last three I read or was told was forty minutes.
So they Russia is not interested in ceasefire. So what
needs to happen? You know, almost a broken record on this.
Russia doesn't really bend to the economic pressure, which is
not me saying that we shouldn't put economic pressure. Sure

(42:49):
we should. We should do secondary sanctions. That is what's
going to cut off some of the money that they use,
most of the money because if people don't buy their energy.

Speaker 1 (42:59):
Yeah, how arey going to on this thing?

Speaker 2 (43:00):
Right? But military pressure, military pressure would be sell whatever
our NATO allies, especially if they're buying it. I mean,
there's no reason not to. I mean, I think a
lot of it should be donated by the United States.
But however, it gets to the Ukrainians. They need defensive
offensive weapons. They need to be unrestricted. Unrestricted. You can't

(43:20):
tie Ukraine's arm behind their back and expect them to
be able to win against an enemy that's four times
their size and supported by China, North Korea and Iraan. Unrestricted. Right,
they're not putting any restrictions. Russia focuses on killing civilians.
They focus on civilian targets, so we need to take it.

(43:44):
We should not, because you know the best thing is
to not be like your enemy, allow them to use
our weapons systems against civilians, but to be able to
strict military targets wherever they might be in Russia. That
should have been done a long time ago.

Speaker 1 (44:00):
Greenlight. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (44:01):
The other thing that combines the economic and military pressure
is start releasing this this frozen assets in tranches. It
puts pressure on them to be able to buy these
weapons that we're talking about right now. That's a military
and economic pressure that comes together with the impact or
We just basically gave Russia fifty days to try to

(44:23):
make every bit of advancements by any means necessary against Ukraine,
which only puts Ukraine in a worse position for negotiations.

Speaker 1 (44:32):
Yeah, so like those secondary sanctions, right, I'm assuming I
know I read that, like Russia is selling majority, not
a lot, probably a majority of their oil to China,
and I think India's right, right, so that those secondary
sanctions would hit those like that money that's been there.

Speaker 2 (44:54):
Yes, And like I'm not an economist, so if there's
an economist out there, maybe they can add to our
podcast the consequences. I'm told there's serious consequences, like this
could have a big global disruption. So I'm not I'm
not ignorant to that, at least not that angurd. But
we have eighty five plus senators that have signed on

(45:15):
to the Sanctioning Russia Act, which will put a five
hundred percent tear off on those that buy energy. I
think the best case scenario is they stop buying the.

Speaker 1 (45:24):
Energy, right right right.

Speaker 2 (45:26):
I think that would not cause the global disruption. Maybe
it will with the oil prices. The smart folks on that,
I hope they they add to you.

Speaker 1 (45:36):
Know, the comment section.

Speaker 2 (45:37):
But that is what the plan is, and from a
perspective of how to counter Russia, it should have a
big effect. Like they just can't make money, and there's
a whole fleet of by the way, they're not just
selling it to Indian China feet black fleet covert side,
it's run by the covert to Europe.

Speaker 1 (46:00):
Park in like the Laconian Bay, like where my dad
is like at Liz. He sent me pictures of like
these fucking tankers that are just parked over there, and
those are like all Russian tankers.

Speaker 2 (46:11):
All Russian tankers. So Europe needs to do a lot
better to win himself off of you know, they're funding
the war that they're obviously against.

Speaker 1 (46:20):
Yeah, there's a lot of there's a lot that needs
to be done. Can't somebody just shoot Putin in the
face and get this done with? I mean, whoever comes
after would be who knows? Right, Like there's probably you.

Speaker 2 (46:30):
Know, that's the theories that's an issue on these political assassinations.
They can be a domino effect, of course, but you
never know who places him, and I think Putin probably
spends most of his time ensuring that he stays around,
right It is security apparatus, which is obviously he's very
good at. Is there From the Ukrainian perspective, he's a

(46:55):
he's a valid target. I mean he's the commander in
chief of the Russian forces, and they avoid him, they
invade Ukraine, and I'm sure they view President Selenski for sure,
we know this as a valid military target.

Speaker 1 (47:08):
I remember last year, I think it might have been
last summer he was somewhere in the east in Ukraine
with the Greek Prime Minister and a rah, like a
missile hit like maybe one hundred meters away from them.
I wonder what would go down if like a NATO
allied leader gets clipped in the same kind of strike

(47:29):
as like Zelenski, Like what does that mean? How does
that play in terms of like Article five and like
what you know the queen there right.

Speaker 2 (47:39):
Because I think even President Selenski was joking that he
was going to give Lieutenant General Kellogg, the Special Envoy
for Ukraine, a passport so we'd stay in Ukraine because
essentially is when he's there talking, you know, there's no
strikes on Kiev where he is, right, Because I mean,
if if you kill a you know, Lieutenant General Kellogg,

(48:02):
who's I think doing a very good job, you've essentially
attacked the United States. That's how I view it. So
Article five is Article five? Well, I mean we don't
even need Article five because he's he's our guy.

Speaker 1 (48:16):
Right, he's part of the administration. Right, He's like a
full blooded member of the administration. So it's not like
some guy who's a contractor who's there. You know, he's
actually doing official works. Oh man, I don't know, it's
just going to be like dragged. I feel like it's
just going to keep dragging out with Bootin right, Like

(48:36):
he doesn't give a fuck how many people of his
own people die, certainly doesn't give a shit about any Ukrainians.

Speaker 2 (48:43):
Doesn't give a shit about his own people. He literally,
I mean, there are eight hundred and fifty thousand casualties.
They're taking, like fifteen hundred a week. I don't know
how they can keep sustaining and keep up with it. Yeah,
they simply don't care. You would hope that the Russian people,
what if they're going to lose an entire generation of males,

(49:04):
I mean.

Speaker 1 (49:04):
Even the guys that come what do you think the
guys that come back are going to be, Like, do
you think they're going to be well adjusted human beings?

Speaker 2 (49:12):
Missing arms and legs and no no no choice of
whether they go and fight. Right, So let's not turn
it all against the Russian people. It's the Russian regime.
It's not turning against the Russian people. The Russian regime
that's making these calls. And if the Russian people need
to step up and say, well, never should have happened
started in the first place, but can't unchange that. You

(49:34):
can change whether you continue continuously to send your young men,
specifically to these meat grinders. That is is the war
on e grant.

Speaker 1 (49:46):
Yeah, all right, So you want to touch on like
the space race, that's what we'll be tracking with that.

Speaker 2 (49:51):
Yeah, I know we've been going for quite a bit,
but you know this week we saw that it was
four thousands leaders from NASA. The investment in science and
technology is something that benefits the United States, in my

(50:11):
opinion as an analyst, not only every aspect of our society,
you know, health, welfare, the ability to produce energy, for example,
safely and cleanly. But it is definitely a part of
our national security strategy, right. I mean, we created the
Space Force for a reason, and we have spent a

(50:33):
lot of time, effort, and resources making sure the United
States should be first and foremost in the space.

Speaker 1 (50:42):
Environment.

Speaker 2 (50:44):
Why are we cutting four thousand highly experienced NASA personnel?
It makes no sense to me. It's countering your own
efforts to say that the US is going to be
successful in our competent with other countries in space or
our competition with us ourselves. I mean, space just by

(51:06):
itself is enough of a challenge, and you know, colonizing
other planets certainly, all of that. That needs to be
something that is bipartisan or nonpartisan. We need to be
successful in that, and we need to be able to
defend ourselves because I don't think we should weaponize space.

(51:29):
But also I'm not into unilateral disarmament. So if our
enemies are going to unfortunately, we need to be just
like we are on Earth. We've got to be better
than that. Right, So, investment in science and technology everywhere,
but certainly in space, investment in our ability to explore

(51:49):
space and lead it. It needs to be a priority,
and at least that indicates it's not a priority. It
just you know, put your money where your mouth was,
put your resources, which includes funds and personnel.

Speaker 1 (52:03):
Or the trippy thing is is like four thousand people
from NASA. It's like in the scale of what the
federal budget is, you know, does that really make an
a dent it's a fucking rounding error. You know. It's
not like you're doing list to like cut spending to
a point where we're going to be in a surplus
and be able to pay down the debt. Like what
are we talking about? You know, it's such as a

(52:25):
minor part.

Speaker 2 (52:26):
Of our expense, and that's I agree with you, the
minor part of our overall expense. I think it is.
Maybe we could ask Senator Kelly our previous guests, but
I think it has actually a big impact.

Speaker 1 (52:38):
On NASA because that is not that big, right, yeah,
not too. Their budget's not this massive budget that's cut too. Yeah. Right.

Speaker 2 (52:45):
So at a time we're talking about doing the you know,
the Golden Dump, right so that the senators they talked
about this. You know, it was built as one hundred
and twenty five billion, Senators from both sides saying, oh,
it's kind of be trillions. Yeah right, So yeah, you know,

(53:06):
it's unclear whether it work. I'm not saying I'm against
the concept, but we need to really balance. What we're
doing is we need to be successful and if our
enemies are going to weaponize space, bad, but if they are,
we need to be better at it than that right,
just like we are on Earth and it requires resources
and experience personnel to do that.

Speaker 1 (53:30):
Yeah, I totally agree. Make this is great. I know
you're super busy, so get you the hell out of here.
Mike always works, even Sundays, he works, So I think
do us a favor like and subscribe. Don't forget to
check out mixed stuff. All the links are in the
description uh and Patreon dot com, slash the teamhouse, make
you got anything else. I think we did a good

(53:51):
job too. I want to get some of you former
spooks in our room to like start yelling at each
other about I really do counter it counter espionage versus paramilitary,
who should get the who should get the bigger piece
of the pie and stuff? Because I know that happens,
and it has to happen like at budget.

Speaker 2 (54:11):
But also, to be frank, both sides play a part
in the other side. It's like I think if you
shut the door and there wasn't anybody listening, they'd be like, yeah, yeah, whatever,
let's let's just do what we do and do it
better than we did before.

Speaker 1 (54:24):
Yeah, it's well said. All right, bro, we'll talk next time.
All right, my friend, have a good risk you guys.

Speaker 3 (54:32):
Hey guys, it's Jack. I just want to talk to
you for a moment about how you can support the show.
If you've been watching it, enjoying it, but you'd like
to get a little bit more involved and help us
continue to do this, you can check out our Patreon
It is patreon dot com slash the Teamhouse, and for
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(54:55):
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(55:18):
are what continues to help this thing going even as
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(55:40):
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Thank you,

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Gaza Aid Finally Happening & Counter Insurgency vs Counter Terrorism | EYES ON GEOPOLITICS