WEBVTT

1
00:00:00.160 --> 00:00:03.040
Hey, folks, I just want
to take a minute to ask you to

2
00:00:03.160 --> 00:00:07.519
go in rate this podcast, let
the Team House know how you think we're

3
00:00:07.519 --> 00:00:11.119
doing. Go and rate us on
whatever platform you're listening to this on,

4
00:00:11.439 --> 00:00:16.320
whether it's iTunes or Spotify or whatever
else. Those ratings really help us out

5
00:00:16.359 --> 00:00:19.640
and we really appreciate the feedback to
let us know what you like and what

6
00:00:19.679 --> 00:00:23.760
you don't like. And if you
do like the Teamhouse and you'd like to

7
00:00:23.800 --> 00:00:27.320
support us, go check out our
Patreon page and you can actually support the

8
00:00:27.359 --> 00:00:32.799
stream and well as get access to
our bonus segments and bonus episodes. Yeah,

9
00:00:32.840 --> 00:00:35.520
if you're gonna give us a great
review, please do. And if

10
00:00:35.560 --> 00:00:37.600
you're going to give us another secret
review, why don't you just send us

11
00:00:37.600 --> 00:00:51.159
an email. We'll talk about special
operations covert. Ask me in the Team

12
00:00:51.200 --> 00:01:03.280
House with your hopes. Jack Murphy
and David Park. Hey everyone, welcome

13
00:01:03.280 --> 00:01:07.400
to episode two hundred and thirty four
of The Team House. I'm Jack Murphy

14
00:01:07.879 --> 00:01:11.560
here with David Park and our guest
on tonight's show is David Mukoloski. He

15
00:01:11.760 --> 00:01:18.719
is a reformer CIA analyst. He
is the author of Damascus Station. This

16
00:01:19.400 --> 00:01:23.040
one was very well reviewed came out
a lot like two years ago. Two

17
00:01:23.079 --> 00:01:27.480
years ago. Now this is the
new one that's coming out in October Moscow,

18
00:01:27.799 --> 00:01:30.879
X. So next month this one
will be out. I read an

19
00:01:30.920 --> 00:01:36.079
advanced copy that your publisher was nice
enough to send me really good book,

20
00:01:36.640 --> 00:01:40.120
and so we're excited to talk to
you about your work and your career in

21
00:01:40.159 --> 00:01:42.159
the intelligence community as well. So
thank you for joining us, David,

22
00:01:42.599 --> 00:01:49.000
and I gotta let people know about
our sponsor upfront, Augusta Precious Medals.

23
00:01:49.519 --> 00:01:53.560
If you guys text Team to six
eight five nine two or go to Augusta

24
00:01:53.640 --> 00:01:57.560
Precious Metals dot com. They are
one of our sponsors. I hope you

25
00:01:57.599 --> 00:02:01.640
guys will check them out. So
thank you for doing that. So,

26
00:02:02.239 --> 00:02:07.480
David, I want to jump right
into it with you. Tell us a

27
00:02:07.480 --> 00:02:09.800
little bit about sort of like what
you're upbringing was like, and what your

28
00:02:10.280 --> 00:02:15.919
career track was like, what took
you towards a you know, the intelligence

29
00:02:15.919 --> 00:02:20.159
community. Yeah, sure thing,
and thanks for having me, guys.

30
00:02:20.240 --> 00:02:24.800
It's fun to be here. So
I grew up in the Midwest, mostly

31
00:02:24.800 --> 00:02:32.520
in Minneapolis. I as a kid
just read tons of thrillers and spy fiction

32
00:02:32.800 --> 00:02:38.439
and you know, devoured all kinds
of non fiction books about the world,

33
00:02:38.599 --> 00:02:42.479
and you know, I kind of
had it from an early age. I

34
00:02:42.479 --> 00:02:45.039
think, a sense of like and
there's no sense that I wanted to join

35
00:02:45.159 --> 00:02:46.759
CI, but the sense of like, I'm interested in the world, I

36
00:02:46.800 --> 00:02:52.919
want to travel, I want to
understand how things work. Right. I

37
00:02:52.919 --> 00:02:59.319
went to college at a small place
outside of Chicago, and we had a

38
00:02:59.360 --> 00:03:02.199
guy come through who at the who
ran at the time the Middle East Analytics

39
00:03:02.240 --> 00:03:07.719
shop. So he was like coming
through the University of Chicago doing recruiting stuff,

40
00:03:07.759 --> 00:03:09.960
and he was in a lum of
my school. It's called Wheaton College,

41
00:03:10.199 --> 00:03:14.479
and he came through kind of just
to like talk to an IR one

42
00:03:14.520 --> 00:03:19.520
oh one class, which I was
in, and I ended up kind of

43
00:03:19.520 --> 00:03:22.759
getting in in a way that I'm
sure would make a lot of our you

44
00:03:22.759 --> 00:03:25.879
know, oss Fourbears turnover in their
graves. But it was basically a guy

45
00:03:25.960 --> 00:03:30.680
showing up at a small liberal arts, you know, midwestern school and saying,

46
00:03:30.719 --> 00:03:32.800
hey, you know, here's what
the CIA is, here's what a

47
00:03:32.800 --> 00:03:38.439
CIA analyst does, and talking to
a class, and I thought it sounded

48
00:03:38.080 --> 00:03:45.039
awesome. I mean it felt at
the time like literally my work experience was

49
00:03:45.479 --> 00:03:50.120
I've been I've been digging holes for
a sprinkler system company, and I had

50
00:03:50.120 --> 00:03:53.879
been a cashier at Wendy's. Like
that was literally the resume, like no

51
00:03:53.000 --> 00:03:57.759
joke, that was the resume that
got turned in. And so in the

52
00:03:57.759 --> 00:04:00.479
CIA comes to campus, it's like, all right, this seems pretty interesting.

53
00:04:00.520 --> 00:04:02.960
I'm sure I won't get in,
but let me just apply. And

54
00:04:03.439 --> 00:04:05.560
I ended up going through the process
and I think, you know, it

55
00:04:05.560 --> 00:04:10.080
turns out one of the things that
if you go into a small liberal arts

56
00:04:10.080 --> 00:04:14.039
midwestern Protestant school, you know,
you're pretty good at passing polygraphs because you've

57
00:04:14.080 --> 00:04:16.800
got like you haven't done anything really
wrong, and you've got this kind of

58
00:04:16.839 --> 00:04:20.560
baseload level of guilt going that's really
helpful for the polygraphers, so they know

59
00:04:20.600 --> 00:04:27.399
you're not a sociopath. And I
got in. So I actually joined as

60
00:04:27.439 --> 00:04:31.399
an undergrad intern, so I took
the poly and the full lifestyle poly and

61
00:04:31.439 --> 00:04:34.360
all the medical and all that kind
of stuff, the psych exams, interviews,

62
00:04:34.360 --> 00:04:39.720
all that at nineteen. I showed
up the summer when I was twenty

63
00:04:40.399 --> 00:04:44.839
as an intern and they threw me. You know, I kind of describe

64
00:04:44.879 --> 00:04:46.480
it this way, like the CI, at least from an analytic standpoint,

65
00:04:47.079 --> 00:04:51.759
basically hires for kind of two major
profiles, again oversimplification, but helpful.

66
00:04:53.600 --> 00:05:00.319
One is like somebody who is extremely
knowledgeable on a particular topic, like they

67
00:05:00.360 --> 00:05:03.920
lived in Russia for fifteen years and
they did their dissertation on blah blah blah

68
00:05:03.920 --> 00:05:08.319
and like that. That's they speak
the language, and okay, bring that

69
00:05:08.360 --> 00:05:13.040
person on, put them on Russia, and then the agency goes after really

70
00:05:13.319 --> 00:05:16.199
you know, pretty young people who
they think they can you know, make

71
00:05:16.279 --> 00:05:20.360
into good analysts and get them pretty
pretty early. Right, So I fell

72
00:05:20.399 --> 00:05:25.759
into that group, got in and
you know, quickly realized that it was

73
00:05:25.800 --> 00:05:29.839
a pretty big step up from Wendy's
and I was. I loved it.

74
00:05:29.920 --> 00:05:32.519
I worked the first summer they put
me on Syria. Still to this day,

75
00:05:32.560 --> 00:05:35.920
I don't really know why. It's
pretty random, I think, and

76
00:05:35.959 --> 00:05:40.319
mostly just because the guy who came
to recruit was you know, running the

77
00:05:40.360 --> 00:05:44.240
Middle East shop at the time.
And the first summer I was there was

78
00:05:44.319 --> 00:05:47.839
the thirty four day war between Israel
and Hezbollah, which you know, this

79
00:05:48.079 --> 00:05:53.279
was two accounts two thousand and six, that's right. So the account you

80
00:05:53.319 --> 00:05:56.199
know, at that time it was
pretty small. There just weren't that many

81
00:05:56.240 --> 00:06:00.199
people working on Syria or on Lebanon, and so I had the opportunity to

82
00:06:00.360 --> 00:06:02.160
you know, participate in a lot
of briefings and to write stuff that like,

83
00:06:02.480 --> 00:06:05.399
you know, I probably had no
business doing. But it's one of

84
00:06:05.439 --> 00:06:09.399
those things where you've got a team
of like five or six and you're short

85
00:06:09.480 --> 00:06:12.839
on people and there's a war on. So you know, the intern is

86
00:06:13.120 --> 00:06:15.519
a member of the team, right, And I was fully cleared in working

87
00:06:15.560 --> 00:06:17.399
So got hooked on it dead And
then the next summer I came back,

88
00:06:17.439 --> 00:06:20.120
so I go to school, you
know, come back for my second summer,

89
00:06:20.519 --> 00:06:24.759
and that was the run up to
when the Israelis bombed alkey Bar,

90
00:06:25.240 --> 00:06:29.800
and so I was thoroughly hooked.
After those two summers, it felt like,

91
00:06:29.800 --> 00:06:31.680
man, this is exciting. I
kind of am getting a sense of

92
00:06:31.720 --> 00:06:34.600
like how does the world actually function, how do government's work, how does

93
00:06:34.600 --> 00:06:38.920
this how does this region work?
Right? And that was really addictive to

94
00:06:38.920 --> 00:06:42.319
me. So did deaf for two
summers, got the full time offer and

95
00:06:42.720 --> 00:06:46.399
jumped in and I pretty much worked
on Syria the whole time I was there.

96
00:06:46.480 --> 00:06:50.399
That is like pretty wild. I
don't think I've heard on this show.

97
00:06:50.439 --> 00:06:54.680
I don't think we've heard of somebody
who like walked through the door quite

98
00:06:54.680 --> 00:06:58.079
that young. Yeah, I was, I was very young. Yeah,

99
00:06:58.120 --> 00:07:00.560
A lot a lot of people who
are like they had graduate degrees, or

100
00:07:00.600 --> 00:07:04.480
they had a military career, or
they had a law a law career,

101
00:07:04.600 --> 00:07:09.560
or their lawyers or something. I
mean coming in as a as an internet

102
00:07:09.560 --> 00:07:12.959
What did you say nineteen when you
first started. Yeah, that's wild,

103
00:07:13.199 --> 00:07:17.120
Yeah, but great. Yeah,
it felt it felt like you know,

104
00:07:17.160 --> 00:07:19.920
it was one of those things where
even at that age, I was kind

105
00:07:19.959 --> 00:07:26.079
of thinking, this seems like a
mistake too. You know, I'm too

106
00:07:26.120 --> 00:07:29.240
young to be doing this. But
you know, I think I think there's

107
00:07:29.240 --> 00:07:32.600
a logic to getting people in the
pipeline young get Frankly, they are looking

108
00:07:32.639 --> 00:07:35.079
back on it. You know,
there's an element here if like, the

109
00:07:35.120 --> 00:07:39.920
further you get into a four year
degree, the less likely it is that

110
00:07:39.959 --> 00:07:42.959
you're going to pass a lifestyle polly. And so if the agency can kind

111
00:07:42.959 --> 00:07:47.560
of give you, you know,
a pathway early, it creates incentives to

112
00:07:47.680 --> 00:07:53.720
not do things that make you flunk
out. You know. So for folks

113
00:07:53.720 --> 00:07:58.360
out there watching, and I know
that they're you often are a lot of

114
00:07:58.399 --> 00:08:01.800
young people watching these shows that are
interested in pursuing a career in the intelligence

115
00:08:01.839 --> 00:08:05.439
community, Can you kind of lay
out what your job as an analyst was

116
00:08:07.079 --> 00:08:09.319
for people who just have like no
knowledge and just you know, they maybe

117
00:08:09.319 --> 00:08:13.959
they understand we have spies out there
meeting in cafes with people and trying to

118
00:08:13.000 --> 00:08:18.560
get information, But what's what's the
analyst side of it? Yeah, so

119
00:08:20.120 --> 00:08:22.319
I think, you know, there's
some flaws in this analogy. I but

120
00:08:22.319 --> 00:08:26.680
I think it's helpful to explain it
to people who don't understand the inner workings

121
00:08:26.680 --> 00:08:31.399
of the agency. Like I think
about it in a way as clanestant journalism.

122
00:08:31.519 --> 00:08:35.519
Right, there's a story, uh, that you're writing for and the

123
00:08:35.600 --> 00:08:41.279
job is primarily you know, writing
and briefing. Right, You're you're answering

124
00:08:41.279 --> 00:08:46.039
a question story for a consumer of
that information. And that could be the

125
00:08:46.039 --> 00:08:50.039
president, that could be the director
of the CIA, that could be you

126
00:08:50.080 --> 00:08:52.720
know, the Secretary of Defense,
that could be people on the National Security

127
00:08:52.759 --> 00:08:58.720
Council. You know, people who
are making policy right or informing policy.

128
00:08:58.759 --> 00:09:03.200
We're sort of we're not doing that
right. We're providing an input to the

129
00:09:03.600 --> 00:09:07.559
policy making process that is trying to
answer a particular question about what's going on

130
00:09:07.639 --> 00:09:11.120
in the world and why does it
matter for us? And what might we

131
00:09:11.200 --> 00:09:16.120
be able to do to shape that
you know thing to be more amenable to

132
00:09:16.159 --> 00:09:20.960
our interests. So you're taking in
as part of that process, you're taking

133
00:09:20.000 --> 00:09:24.720
in all different kinds of information.
Right, So you might have let's take

134
00:09:24.759 --> 00:09:26.919
Syria as an example. You know, we might have human sources that have

135
00:09:28.039 --> 00:09:31.960
access to people inside the government who
are providing us information secrets. Right,

136
00:09:31.000 --> 00:09:35.919
They're providing us with secrets from Syria
that help us understand better and you know

137
00:09:37.120 --> 00:09:41.279
what the Syrians are thinking are doing
about a particular topic. There's satellite imagery,

138
00:09:41.320 --> 00:09:45.519
there's you know, open source press
stuff, there's academic field work.

139
00:09:45.519 --> 00:09:50.080
There's signals, intercepts, phone calls, faxes, emails, things like that.

140
00:09:50.600 --> 00:09:54.600
You're taking all that information in and
trying to make sense of it to

141
00:09:54.679 --> 00:10:00.559
answer that question for the policymaker,
so that you know, the parallels to

142
00:10:00.639 --> 00:10:05.559
journalism are Okay, you've got sources, right, you have people. Let's

143
00:10:05.559 --> 00:10:07.960
take the case of you know,
human sources as an example, Like,

144
00:10:07.000 --> 00:10:11.639
you've got people who are providing this
information that maybe they shouldn't be. So

145
00:10:11.679 --> 00:10:15.720
if you're writing a story about you
know, corporate misdeeds, in the United

146
00:10:15.720 --> 00:10:18.720
States, you might have sources inside
that company who are providing you with,

147
00:10:18.320 --> 00:10:22.240
you know, with with email records
or things like that from inside the corporation.

148
00:10:22.240 --> 00:10:26.080
They shouldn't be. You have to
think about asset protection and how you

149
00:10:26.120 --> 00:10:30.679
actually communicate with that person all that
kind of stuff, you know. But

150
00:10:30.799 --> 00:10:35.960
in this context, it's information that's
you know, highly classified and obtained in

151
00:10:35.000 --> 00:10:41.200
ways that were that those sources and
methods known, people would get killed or

152
00:10:41.399 --> 00:10:45.840
valuable collection programs would be compromised.
So you're you're putting all this stuff together

153
00:10:45.960 --> 00:10:48.399
and you know, frankly, the
output of it, you know, is

154
00:10:48.440 --> 00:10:52.720
a little bit underwhelming in some cases, because it's like you might take a

155
00:10:52.840 --> 00:10:56.879
very serious, complicated topic like what's
going to happen next in Syria, right,

156
00:10:56.919 --> 00:11:01.000
which is the thing we were constantly
trying to answer twenty eleven and twenty

157
00:11:01.039 --> 00:11:05.600
twelve and twenty thirteen, and you
boil it down to like a page or

158
00:11:05.639 --> 00:11:09.399
two and that goes to you know, whatever that you know, whoever that

159
00:11:09.440 --> 00:11:13.120
senior policymaker is, and it's one
piece of the information that they receive on

160
00:11:13.120 --> 00:11:18.519
that topic. But you're sort of
feeding you're feeding that consumer base with with

161
00:11:18.639 --> 00:11:22.480
information about these questions that that are
important to the policy making process. And

162
00:11:22.480 --> 00:11:26.399
that's that's pretty much what you're doing
as an analyst, you know, and

163
00:11:26.440 --> 00:11:33.399
it's distinct from other aspects of you
know, the primary other job inside CEA,

164
00:11:33.480 --> 00:11:37.039
although there are many is you know, the folks who are actually trying

165
00:11:37.080 --> 00:11:43.720
to recruit, develop, you know, and spot human assets and actually collect

166
00:11:43.759 --> 00:11:48.759
that information. So I'm I'm distinct
from a collector of information and that I'm

167
00:11:48.799 --> 00:11:52.679
analyzing the information that the collectors provide. But you guys could assist them in

168
00:11:52.720 --> 00:11:58.000
finding like, hey, this guy
in this ministry would be a prime target

169
00:11:58.120 --> 00:12:01.000
for you to try to pitch.
Yeah, exactly, like we would help

170
00:12:01.000 --> 00:12:07.080
in the process of Now you know, oftentimes, uh, there's a lot

171
00:12:07.120 --> 00:12:09.919
of stovepiping in this business, right, these are big bureaucracies that don't always

172
00:12:09.919 --> 00:12:13.480
function particularly well. But in an
ideal world, yes, you know,

173
00:12:13.519 --> 00:12:20.279
we were providing input to the collectors
on where there might be gaps there.

174
00:12:20.279 --> 00:12:24.919
You know, are particular are analysts
with like targeting specialties who do a lot

175
00:12:24.960 --> 00:12:28.399
of the work that you're describing there, which is like here's the fifteen people

176
00:12:28.960 --> 00:12:31.799
you know that we'd be interested in, you know, in knowing more about

177
00:12:31.840 --> 00:12:37.279
inside the Syrian mod right, and
here are the gaps that we have about

178
00:12:37.360 --> 00:12:43.320
you know, the Syrian militaries plans
and intentions and capabilities and kind of feed

179
00:12:43.399 --> 00:12:46.320
that stuff to the collectors and the
hopes that they can go and find people

180
00:12:46.320 --> 00:12:50.600
who actually have that information. What
what was that that communication pipeline like for

181
00:12:50.679 --> 00:12:54.960
you as a junior analyst and then
as you know, as you grew and

182
00:12:56.039 --> 00:13:01.679
became known or became sort of got
your bona feedees in the sense of first,

183
00:13:01.720 --> 00:13:07.639
you're receiving information and you're always receiving
information right where there's the message traffic

184
00:13:07.720 --> 00:13:11.840
that's coming through, but you're putting
your analysis, you know, on it.

185
00:13:11.279 --> 00:13:16.279
But were there I know that there
are specific people for taskings, but

186
00:13:16.480 --> 00:13:20.120
how much input would you have in
those tasks? Could you reach out to

187
00:13:20.200 --> 00:13:24.879
a case saucer and say, hey, these are some other pieces of the

188
00:13:24.879 --> 00:13:28.840
puzzle. Not necessarily this is a
person you should target, but in these

189
00:13:28.080 --> 00:13:33.399
sources are these assets that you have, you know, these are the pieces

190
00:13:33.480 --> 00:13:41.200
that were sort of missing. Yeah, yeah, you know, that was

191
00:13:41.799 --> 00:13:46.200
very hit or miss, depending on
the personalities involved. I think I can

192
00:13:46.240 --> 00:13:50.840
think of a number of examples where
you know, it felt like we just

193
00:13:50.879 --> 00:13:54.759
couldn't really get close to the collectors
on things. And then others where you

194
00:13:54.799 --> 00:14:01.200
know, we would actually be in
the meetings with the assets because we you

195
00:14:01.240 --> 00:14:05.039
know, knew a ton about the
particular topic that that asset was feeding and

196
00:14:05.159 --> 00:14:07.879
you know, sort of the assets
reporting on and we're a helpful partner for

197
00:14:07.919 --> 00:14:13.519
the case officer in conducting that meeting
right to get the information. Because ideally

198
00:14:13.559 --> 00:14:20.159
you'd say we're in lockstep with the
collectors because we're you know, really the

199
00:14:20.600 --> 00:14:26.639
most downstream part of the process before
we get to the consumer, right,

200
00:14:28.399 --> 00:14:31.799
So there's a lot of value in
the analysts and the collectors being really linked

201
00:14:31.840 --> 00:14:39.399
up. But I found it was
pretty pretty spotty how solid that connective tissue

202
00:14:39.519 --> 00:14:43.320
was. And you know, I
think that's you know, we're talking a

203
00:14:43.320 --> 00:14:45.919
little bit before the show about modernization. I think that was you know,

204
00:14:45.960 --> 00:14:50.519
one of the primary uh you know, sort of problem statements in that in

205
00:14:50.559 --> 00:14:56.200
that bit of a reorg was like, can we create better connection between you

206
00:14:56.240 --> 00:15:01.600
know, analysts and operations and the
tech folks to make sure that this place

207
00:15:01.679 --> 00:15:07.679
actually you know, does espionage better. But it was it was all over

208
00:15:07.720 --> 00:15:11.879
the place, truly, well,
I mean as you know, as sort

209
00:15:11.960 --> 00:15:16.480
of the shop, you know,
whatever shop you're in, as sort of

210
00:15:16.519 --> 00:15:22.799
the shop as the subject matter experts. I mean, were there ever instances

211
00:15:22.320 --> 00:15:26.159
where you could turn around to like
a case officer and go, hey,

212
00:15:26.519 --> 00:15:33.200
none of this fits, Like your
source is absolutely full of shit, you

213
00:15:33.240 --> 00:15:41.320
know. I would say there was
a slightly different tinge to that conversation when

214
00:15:41.480 --> 00:15:46.279
when we felt like this source was
producing stuff that was bizarre. It was

215
00:15:46.399 --> 00:15:50.519
less direct than that. I think
that when you go to the operational side

216
00:15:50.559 --> 00:15:54.919
and they're doing the vetting, that
conversation can be that blunt, you know,

217
00:15:56.000 --> 00:16:00.919
not in cable traffic but in person. But on the analytics side,

218
00:16:02.080 --> 00:16:04.720
it's a little bit more anodyne.
It'd be like, hey, these five

219
00:16:04.759 --> 00:16:11.240
reports, like they don't track with
the second right, like what's going on?

220
00:16:11.440 --> 00:16:17.000
You know, or just frankly,
it's maybe some a stream of reporting

221
00:16:17.080 --> 00:16:21.440
from from an asset that's like this
isn't particularly valuable, yea, you know,

222
00:16:22.080 --> 00:16:26.799
so we would we would not do
it that that bluntly because we're frankly,

223
00:16:27.799 --> 00:16:32.360
you know, especially on the analytics, on the analytics side, when

224
00:16:32.399 --> 00:16:34.600
you're not talking about like CT like
we're sort of removed enough from it where

225
00:16:34.600 --> 00:16:40.200
we're like not capable of making as
you know, sort of direct and harsh

226
00:16:40.200 --> 00:16:42.840
eva. So you never said that, but you never sent a cable back

227
00:16:42.879 --> 00:16:47.120
saying, hey, the taliband,
do not have that sixteens. Get your

228
00:16:47.120 --> 00:16:51.879
ship together and and fire this source. No, I mean well we would.

229
00:16:51.960 --> 00:16:53.200
We would, you know, be
like hey, this piece of like

230
00:16:53.360 --> 00:16:59.120
third hand human that you collected here
is like this is crazy, like what

231
00:16:59.559 --> 00:17:03.759
is this? You know? And
and that then kind of filters back into

232
00:17:03.879 --> 00:17:07.200
the DA side of things where they
try to piece together like, Okay,

233
00:17:07.400 --> 00:17:10.759
the analyst said, this is garbage. Here's ten pieces of contradictory information.

234
00:17:11.400 --> 00:17:14.960
Did this person make it up because
they wanted us to pay them or did

235
00:17:14.960 --> 00:17:18.599
they Is this a game a telephone
or is this an effort to sort of

236
00:17:18.880 --> 00:17:22.200
you know, is this a more
systematic effort to sort of mislead us on

237
00:17:22.240 --> 00:17:26.160
a particular topic and we need to
cut this person loose so that would get

238
00:17:26.279 --> 00:17:30.160
kicked back to the to THEDO side
to sort of work through that. Yeah,

239
00:17:30.279 --> 00:17:33.400
So can you tell us about the
you know, we've talked about the

240
00:17:33.400 --> 00:17:37.079
farm. You know, people talked
about you know, sort of their case

241
00:17:37.160 --> 00:17:41.519
offts or training. Can you tell
us about what the the analysts pipeline.

242
00:17:41.559 --> 00:17:48.039
How do they train somebody to be
an analyst? So they I think it

243
00:17:48.160 --> 00:17:52.400
took us. It's probably changed,
but at the time, you know,

244
00:17:52.039 --> 00:17:56.960
more than ten years ago, they
basically took you off your account for somewhere

245
00:17:56.000 --> 00:18:02.200
between four and six months and put
you at a you know, you're still

246
00:18:02.359 --> 00:18:04.680
like you weren't living away from your
family, but you were going to it,

247
00:18:04.720 --> 00:18:08.759
you know, one of these sort
of outbuildings and like herned in or

248
00:18:08.759 --> 00:18:11.279
rest in or one of these other
places, and you know, the DC

249
00:18:11.680 --> 00:18:15.720
urbs. And you had a class
of people who are with you, all

250
00:18:15.720 --> 00:18:19.440
other analysts from all over the d
I uh, you know, maybe twenty

251
00:18:19.519 --> 00:18:26.240
twenty five of us, and they
basically walk you through, you know,

252
00:18:27.279 --> 00:18:32.559
a very excruciating deep dive and how
you actually think critically, which you know

253
00:18:32.640 --> 00:18:34.880
low and behold a lot of people
coming out of before your university are really

254
00:18:34.880 --> 00:18:40.880
smart but don't actually know how to
think critically. How do you write clearly

255
00:18:41.160 --> 00:18:45.599
and you know, without value judgments
or colorful language or any of this kind

256
00:18:45.599 --> 00:18:49.079
of stuff that you know if you've
been again you know, writing papers and

257
00:18:49.319 --> 00:18:52.519
in I our program, you know
you have there there's a you know,

258
00:18:52.720 --> 00:18:56.440
a voice that you might have that
they try to stamp out and turn into

259
00:18:56.480 --> 00:19:00.279
something that's like, hey, you're
writing stuff as You're not writing as David

260
00:19:00.359 --> 00:19:04.319
McCloskey, right, you're you're the
CIA, So like, what how do

261
00:19:04.319 --> 00:19:08.559
you strip everything down? This isn't
an article in the New Yorker. Correct

262
00:19:10.039 --> 00:19:15.519
correct, So it's really this kind
of like down, you know, take

263
00:19:15.559 --> 00:19:17.960
the thing down to the studs,
like how do you think? How do

264
00:19:18.000 --> 00:19:21.960
you write? How do you take
in? We're going to give you a

265
00:19:21.960 --> 00:19:25.559
lot of the exercises. We're like, here's a packet with like six hundred

266
00:19:25.599 --> 00:19:30.200
pieces of information. You have to
write an article on this, and it's

267
00:19:30.240 --> 00:19:33.400
like a page and you know,
and like how how do you put together

268
00:19:33.039 --> 00:19:37.160
the what, the why and so
what, substantiate it, rite it clearly

269
00:19:37.720 --> 00:19:41.920
you know, and do it in
like you know, a page and hand

270
00:19:41.960 --> 00:19:45.759
that off. It's really hard,
you know. That's that's that is not

271
00:19:45.880 --> 00:19:51.519
something you know, it's not a
skill that's really taught in most most undergrad

272
00:19:51.519 --> 00:19:53.640
programs. And frankly, if someone's
coming a lot of analysts, you know,

273
00:19:53.759 --> 00:19:57.079
particularly the kind of analysts who might
come in more like mid career,

274
00:19:57.519 --> 00:20:02.480
are coming out of academic backgrou sounds
they're not doing that for the most part.

275
00:20:02.519 --> 00:20:03.880
You know, you can learn it, but a lot of people haven't

276
00:20:03.880 --> 00:20:08.039
been practicing that. So it's a
lot of that, a lot of briefing

277
00:20:08.119 --> 00:20:11.440
practice. So like you sit down, I mean a lot of a lot

278
00:20:11.480 --> 00:20:15.839
of the customers, you know,
down at the White House or DD or

279
00:20:15.960 --> 00:20:19.440
certainly in Congress or like really unpleasant
to deal with, surprise, surprise,

280
00:20:19.480 --> 00:20:25.400
and so you know, how do
you actually engage with somebody who you know

281
00:20:25.599 --> 00:20:27.920
you need to brief them, but
they're also you might hate the CIA,

282
00:20:29.079 --> 00:20:32.319
it might be a dick. You
know, how do you interact with people

283
00:20:32.359 --> 00:20:37.039
like that? And it's a lot
of role playing and a lot of writing,

284
00:20:37.160 --> 00:20:41.759
So you kind of you do that
for almost half a year. You

285
00:20:41.839 --> 00:20:44.039
end up doing also as part of
that, at least you used to a

286
00:20:44.200 --> 00:20:48.400
rotation where like they take you and
actually put you in a different part of

287
00:20:48.400 --> 00:20:52.480
the agency, so they kind of
you get a different perspective on how the

288
00:20:52.519 --> 00:20:56.960
place works that's not on your team, which I think is pretty valuable.

289
00:20:57.720 --> 00:21:02.000
And then they put you back in
and you're you're kind of on the line.

290
00:21:02.039 --> 00:21:04.519
But that's more or less the art
of it is there for people who

291
00:21:04.599 --> 00:21:08.160
might be interested in this and know
if they have what it takes to be

292
00:21:08.240 --> 00:21:12.799
an analyst. Is there like an
industry standard textbook out there that you can

293
00:21:12.839 --> 00:21:17.400
get on you know, your favorite
bookseller or whatever. Is there? You

294
00:21:17.440 --> 00:21:25.880
know? Are there any sources question? I though, there's a book that's

295
00:21:26.039 --> 00:21:30.559
escaping me. There was a book
we used, It's gonna bug me.

296
00:21:30.680 --> 00:21:37.079
There's a book we used about intelligence
analysis and sort of how you think about

297
00:21:37.559 --> 00:21:45.920
how you manage different kinds of cognitive
biases when you're when you're writing and thinking.

298
00:21:45.559 --> 00:21:52.160
That is kind of the It was
the foundational text in the program because

299
00:21:52.200 --> 00:21:56.559
so much of it is like stripping
out those biases so that you actually provide

300
00:21:56.559 --> 00:22:00.319
objective and clear information. It's going
to drive me nuts. Data. No,

301
00:22:00.480 --> 00:22:03.480
I'll have to I'll have to double
back with you on that. But

302
00:22:03.480 --> 00:22:06.799
there's a there is a good book
that's publicly available that would give people a

303
00:22:06.839 --> 00:22:11.240
sense of like here's here's if you're
going through that. You know that program

304
00:22:11.319 --> 00:22:14.839
at CIA, like everyone's going to
read this and go through it. Take

305
00:22:14.920 --> 00:22:17.960
take two minutes to think about it. If you want, I have to

306
00:22:18.400 --> 00:22:22.200
do this. Ad read here real
quick. Start to interrupt you but if

307
00:22:22.240 --> 00:22:23.799
you think of it, I'd love
to take a look at it myself.

308
00:22:25.359 --> 00:22:30.000
So our first sponsor for tonight's show
Augusta Precious Metals. If you're like me,

309
00:22:30.079 --> 00:22:33.119
you've wanted to buy gold for years. Lots of commercials out there,

310
00:22:33.160 --> 00:22:37.000
but who can you really trust.
I didn't want a bad investment. Uh.

311
00:22:37.599 --> 00:22:41.640
I didn't want to miss the boat
either. Does that sound familiar?

312
00:22:41.880 --> 00:22:45.559
Fortunately, we've got great news.
If you have an IRA or A four

313
00:22:45.640 --> 00:22:48.400
oh one K and want to buy
physical gold, eliminate fear and uncertainty from

314
00:22:48.400 --> 00:22:53.599
the process by using the new Gold
IRA Company Integrity Checklist that helps you evaluate

315
00:22:53.599 --> 00:23:00.519
and choose the best gold IRA company. I use it to vet august Precious

316
00:23:00.559 --> 00:23:04.119
Metals and they're absolutely phenomenal. Use
the checklist to choose the best gold IRA

317
00:23:04.359 --> 00:23:10.440
company. To get your free Gold
IRA Company Integrity Checklist today, text Team

318
00:23:10.559 --> 00:23:15.160
t e A M to six eight
five nine two. Again text t e

319
00:23:15.240 --> 00:23:18.119
A M to six eight five nine
two. That's Team to six eight five

320
00:23:18.240 --> 00:23:22.920
nine two, or go to Augusta
Precious Metals dot com. And our second

321
00:23:22.920 --> 00:23:30.480
spots for the night is our favorite
sports drink, Vitamin One, created by

322
00:23:30.720 --> 00:23:33.920
veteran you know business created by former
guests and s F legend Mike Taylor.

323
00:23:34.440 --> 00:23:37.960
Uh, if you haven't watched this
episode, watch it right after you watch

324
00:23:38.039 --> 00:23:42.440
this. It's Friday night, you've
got nothing better to do. But vitamin

325
00:23:42.519 --> 00:23:48.079
one is fantastic. It's honestly the
best sports drink out there. It's light,

326
00:23:48.240 --> 00:23:52.519
it's flavorful, it's not syrupy or
heavy. There's no sugar like a

327
00:23:52.559 --> 00:23:56.480
lot of other sports drinks. Vitamins
B one, B five, B six,

328
00:23:56.519 --> 00:24:02.440
P twelve by it to nyasin,
electrolytes everything you know, it's got

329
00:24:02.440 --> 00:24:04.279
what the body needs. Electrolytes.
Yeah, we drink it here in the

330
00:24:04.279 --> 00:24:10.880
office all the time, NonStop.
It's fantastic. But vitamin one you can

331
00:24:10.880 --> 00:24:14.000
find it on Amazon. Uh,
and the link is down the description.

332
00:24:14.559 --> 00:24:22.279
Is there also a website drink dot
com drink vitamin one dot com. You

333
00:24:22.359 --> 00:24:26.079
go to the Amazon Okay, yeah, so yeah, you can get it

334
00:24:26.119 --> 00:24:30.640
off Amazon. But it's a fantastic
drink. Highly recommend it. So back

335
00:24:30.680 --> 00:24:37.119
to you, Back to you,
David. Yeah, it's Uh. Now

336
00:24:38.119 --> 00:24:45.960
with with the analysis and when they're
training you that you know in this craft,

337
00:24:48.039 --> 00:24:51.119
is it just a matter of like
eliminating your cogn and bias and how

338
00:24:51.160 --> 00:24:56.319
to write is there because obviously you
guys are using you know, things,

339
00:24:56.440 --> 00:25:00.960
you know, these I don't know
if it's if it's classified, but i'll

340
00:25:00.920 --> 00:25:06.200
but these programs, you know,
to create link change and things like that,

341
00:25:06.279 --> 00:25:10.279
are they also teaching you sort of
how to put these puzzles together and

342
00:25:10.319 --> 00:25:18.559
stuff. Well, I am sure
that the trading has become much more rigorous,

343
00:25:18.640 --> 00:25:25.359
like in the types of probably software
programs that are used, and frankly,

344
00:25:25.599 --> 00:25:29.680
like now in a world where you're
talking about you know, AI assistant

345
00:25:29.680 --> 00:25:33.079
search and things that I don't I
couldn't speculate exactly as to what they've you

346
00:25:33.119 --> 00:25:37.240
know, how they've updated it.
But you're hitting on something which you're right,

347
00:25:37.279 --> 00:25:44.839
that I've missed, which is like
there's a there's a weighing of which

348
00:25:44.880 --> 00:25:48.119
I think is still true even in
the you know, the world that we're

349
00:25:48.119 --> 00:25:52.200
living in now. A skill in
learning how to weigh the information that you

350
00:25:52.279 --> 00:25:55.640
have in front of you, and
frankly, so much of it as contradictory.

351
00:25:55.720 --> 00:25:57.440
It's like what do you do with
you know, you take my example

352
00:25:57.440 --> 00:26:02.200
of like here's a packet of six
hundred sources of information, Well, you

353
00:26:02.240 --> 00:26:03.759
know, one hundred and fifty of
them are crap, but they're not going

354
00:26:03.839 --> 00:26:07.000
to say they're crap. You're gonna
have to figure out that their crap.

355
00:26:07.480 --> 00:26:11.079
And you know, another hundred are
going to contradict the ones that you actually

356
00:26:11.079 --> 00:26:11.839
need to use to write, Like, so, how do you sort of

357
00:26:11.880 --> 00:26:15.960
sort through that? Because it's not
all just going to point in one direction,

358
00:26:15.079 --> 00:26:18.920
right, There's going to be stuff
that points you or sends you down

359
00:26:18.920 --> 00:26:22.400
different rabbit trails, And so I
think, yeah, you're right, it's

360
00:26:22.440 --> 00:26:25.000
not just the sort of elimination of
bias, but it's also like how do

361
00:26:25.039 --> 00:26:32.359
you figure out what's good information and
what's bad information? Right? That is

362
00:26:33.400 --> 00:26:38.079
easier said than done, and it's
often very unclear, you know, which

363
00:26:38.160 --> 00:26:42.240
is another reason why, like we
use a lot of it. It drives

364
00:26:42.240 --> 00:26:48.440
policymakers freaking nuts. They hate it
because it's we use this sort of probabilistic

365
00:26:48.519 --> 00:26:55.240
language. Now we're like, hey, we have you know, medium confidence

366
00:26:55.279 --> 00:26:56.119
in something, right, Well,
what the hell does that? You know?

367
00:26:56.200 --> 00:26:59.920
What does that mean? I mean
we we we wrote stuff was like

368
00:26:59.880 --> 00:27:03.839
we have low confidence in this assessment. And you know sometimes these like you

369
00:27:03.880 --> 00:27:07.079
know, briefing where you're forced to
go in with that kind of line.

370
00:27:07.119 --> 00:27:11.279
I mean, you just get this
like eye roll from the from the person

371
00:27:11.319 --> 00:27:14.480
across the table where they're like geez, I mean that's like, this is

372
00:27:14.519 --> 00:27:18.920
the most useless piece of garbage you
could bring. You know, Obama said

373
00:27:18.039 --> 00:27:22.440
about the Ben Widen raid when they
were briefing him, and at some point

374
00:27:22.559 --> 00:27:23.880
he was like, just stop making
up the numbers, guys, Like it's

375
00:27:23.880 --> 00:27:27.640
a flip of the coin, right, Yeah, no, that's I mean,

376
00:27:27.880 --> 00:27:33.279
that's you know, that's true.
And I mean I think if I

377
00:27:33.319 --> 00:27:37.279
were across the table, I would
have wanted to maybe reach across and strangle

378
00:27:37.480 --> 00:27:41.680
a younger version of me multiple times
while delivering those kind of mealy mouthed assessments.

379
00:27:41.720 --> 00:27:45.480
But you there is a there's a
logic to it, which is like,

380
00:27:45.680 --> 00:27:49.119
we are providing the CIA's assessment.
It's not my own personal opinion.

381
00:27:49.319 --> 00:27:52.519
You know, if I'm a think
tanker and I go down and I talked

382
00:27:52.519 --> 00:27:55.599
to a bunch of people on the
hill, like I'm not speaking for brook

383
00:27:55.599 --> 00:27:59.440
Hangers or the American Enterprise Institute or
whatever, you know, the International Crisis

384
00:27:59.480 --> 00:28:03.000
Group, Like I'm I'm speaking for
myself, right. Agency analysts aren't doing

385
00:28:03.039 --> 00:28:07.400
that, and so it's a lot
more. There's a you know, pretty

386
00:28:07.400 --> 00:28:11.400
big rigamarole to go through to like
actually get a piece of paper that has

387
00:28:11.440 --> 00:28:14.359
the ci AS judgment on it,
and if you stray from that, you

388
00:28:14.359 --> 00:28:17.400
know, it doesn't go so well
for your career. And the thing is

389
00:28:17.400 --> 00:28:22.039
is that, even though it's probably
frustrating to the people hearing it, even

390
00:28:22.079 --> 00:28:26.119
if something's low probability, if it's
if it's you know, it's like you

391
00:28:26.119 --> 00:28:30.839
know, and it's sort of the
carbon methodology of you know, target assessment.

392
00:28:32.119 --> 00:28:38.000
Even if it's low probability but it's
high like high consequence, you have

393
00:28:38.079 --> 00:28:41.960
to tell somebody, right, you
can't, you can't, you can't go,

394
00:28:42.039 --> 00:28:45.480
well, we know they're going to
be you know, asked up at

395
00:28:45.559 --> 00:28:48.839
us if we go and say this
is a low probability you know, or

396
00:28:48.920 --> 00:28:55.000
low confidence sort of. Because the
flip side to that is like if you

397
00:28:55.079 --> 00:29:00.440
have intelligence of appending terror attack,
but you're you think this is all the

398
00:29:00.519 --> 00:29:04.720
sources bus it's almost certainly not going
to happen. But if it does happen

399
00:29:04.799 --> 00:29:08.559
and you were sitting on that intelligence, right, oh boy, right,

400
00:29:10.559 --> 00:29:12.400
that's right, yeah, And I
think yeah, the most direct you know

401
00:29:14.160 --> 00:29:18.240
that the CT example would be the
best one where there's a I think you

402
00:29:18.279 --> 00:29:19.440
know, it's like a duty to
Warren, right, it's what it was

403
00:29:19.440 --> 00:29:25.480
called. Like inside CTC, you
would sometimes get you know, pieces that

404
00:29:25.519 --> 00:29:27.480
were written, or you know,
briefings that were done, or it's like,

405
00:29:27.519 --> 00:29:30.720
I mean the ct analysts would say
like, yeah, probably not.

406
00:29:30.960 --> 00:29:33.720
But what am I you know,
I can't what am I supposed to be?

407
00:29:33.720 --> 00:29:37.200
I'm supposed to just kind of I
can't off and go home without telling

408
00:29:37.200 --> 00:29:40.559
you about this. I mean,
yeah, you can't do that. And

409
00:29:40.599 --> 00:29:44.640
there were there were a number of
instances on you know, on Syria and

410
00:29:44.759 --> 00:29:48.599
even more sort of strategic topics where
you know, it felt like, okay,

411
00:29:48.079 --> 00:29:52.039
the impact of this is such that
we need to share the sort of

412
00:29:52.039 --> 00:29:56.599
low confidence assessment with you, you
know, but less less so when you're

413
00:29:56.640 --> 00:30:02.839
not talking about like, you know
the impact of this being people might die.

414
00:30:03.119 --> 00:30:07.880
Yeah, So let's uh, let's
jump into that. Because I'm continually

415
00:30:07.960 --> 00:30:12.279
fascinated with with Syria and our involvement
in it. It sounds like you were

416
00:30:12.319 --> 00:30:15.559
there, you were from the very
beginning. You were Syria before Syria was

417
00:30:15.640 --> 00:30:18.480
cool, right, right, Yeah, it was not cool at the time.

418
00:30:18.720 --> 00:30:22.480
Yes, that's right, it was. It was a solid one PDB

419
00:30:22.599 --> 00:30:26.920
a year account prior to the war
and no more. There wasn't a whole

420
00:30:26.960 --> 00:30:30.519
lot of attention on it. I
mean there wasn't a few things, but

421
00:30:30.559 --> 00:30:33.759
it was. Yeah, it just
spiked obviously once the uprising started. Yeah.

422
00:30:33.839 --> 00:30:37.920
Yeah, So like maybe we want
to talk a little bit about the

423
00:30:37.920 --> 00:30:41.440
prologue to it. I mean,
the Arab spring Gadaffi goes down in twenty

424
00:30:41.519 --> 00:30:48.000
eleven and then this thing migrates over
to Dara and Syria. As an analyst

425
00:30:48.119 --> 00:30:51.519
sort of what are you seeing,
What's what's the vibe in the office around

426
00:30:51.519 --> 00:30:56.960
this time? For time frame,
Yeah, you know, I would say

427
00:30:56.079 --> 00:31:03.680
basically every analyst once too Knee just
started, which would have been December,

428
00:31:04.759 --> 00:31:10.119
I think of twenty ten. It
was before the new year, and Ben

429
00:31:10.119 --> 00:31:15.799
Aley goes I think in like January
or something like that, and every analyst

430
00:31:15.920 --> 00:31:21.519
I know who was working on any
sort of Middle Eastern autocracy had like a

431
00:31:21.640 --> 00:31:26.000
piece in drafts about why it wasn't
going to happen in their country, and

432
00:31:26.000 --> 00:31:30.799
it was said in like slightly It
wasn't said that directly, but everybody had

433
00:31:30.839 --> 00:31:37.400
good reasons, low probability or you
know, I think the way we ended

434
00:31:37.440 --> 00:31:41.640
up framing it was like, here's
all the different obstacles to a protest movement,

435
00:31:41.720 --> 00:31:44.279
right, and let's tick through those, which was an intellectually honest way

436
00:31:44.279 --> 00:31:45.200
of saying, like, yeah,
there's a lot of obstacles to it,

437
00:31:45.279 --> 00:31:52.880
but you know, it was it
was a fascinating time to be on the

438
00:31:52.880 --> 00:31:56.440
account. I mean, I was
actually in the region in January and February,

439
00:31:56.599 --> 00:32:01.240
and I watched like that Night of
the Camels and when you know,

440
00:32:01.279 --> 00:32:07.440
when Bark brought in those those goons
on like literally riding camels through the protesters

441
00:32:07.480 --> 00:32:10.839
and like schwhacking them with clubs and
like polo stick. It was crazy.

442
00:32:10.880 --> 00:32:17.000
I remember watching that in Davascus and
like you could just kind of see people

443
00:32:19.279 --> 00:32:27.240
in Syria watching this stuff and realizing
that there was a very profound shift occurring

444
00:32:27.559 --> 00:32:31.039
that wasn't predictable, right, but
like you just you don't know when these

445
00:32:31.079 --> 00:32:35.599
kind of things would happen, but
it was. It was akin to I

446
00:32:35.640 --> 00:32:37.920
think what happened in you know,
Eastern and Central Europe in eighty nine,

447
00:32:37.960 --> 00:32:43.039
where all of a sudden, it's
just like things are changed and there's this

448
00:32:44.079 --> 00:32:52.400
mass psychological shift that occurs in Syria, they you know, Syrians called it

449
00:32:52.480 --> 00:32:55.599
like the wall of fear, right, that there was this barrier to any

450
00:32:55.640 --> 00:33:02.519
kind of political activity or action or
resistance to the security services and the regime

451
00:33:02.599 --> 00:33:08.799
apparatus. And very quickly people realized, you know, maybe it doesn't have

452
00:33:08.880 --> 00:33:14.559
to be this way, and there
was a lot of dry you know,

453
00:33:14.599 --> 00:33:17.960
there was a lot of kindling.
Obviously in the country. You had pretty

454
00:33:19.039 --> 00:33:23.519
significant socioeconomic deprivation. You had the
linger and effects of a drought that had

455
00:33:23.559 --> 00:33:28.119
been going on in the east for
four or five years at that point,

456
00:33:28.200 --> 00:33:32.400
had led to these crazy migrations of
people around these shanty towns, you know,

457
00:33:32.440 --> 00:33:39.039
around Damascus and Aleppo. You had
you know, really predatory regime patronage

458
00:33:39.039 --> 00:33:45.759
networks that extracted from the country and
from ordinary people and didn't disperse, you

459
00:33:45.799 --> 00:33:52.200
know it in any way. Equally, you had security services that were really

460
00:33:52.200 --> 00:33:54.079
the only effective arm of the state
at that point, you know, I

461
00:33:54.119 --> 00:34:00.160
mean most of the rest of the
regime's institutions had been pretty hollowed out out

462
00:34:00.400 --> 00:34:05.799
and were ineffective. Like the only
ones that worked really were like the four

463
00:34:05.920 --> 00:34:09.760
major security services in Syria. And
so the population, like the surface area

464
00:34:09.800 --> 00:34:15.440
with the population was happening through the
security services, which are Alai dominated,

465
00:34:15.920 --> 00:34:22.239
and you know, you have these
kind of guys who don't make a lot

466
00:34:22.280 --> 00:34:27.079
of money and have to extract it
through graft and corruption from the population.

467
00:34:27.280 --> 00:34:30.239
And it was you know, you
have a youth bulge, you have you

468
00:34:30.280 --> 00:34:32.519
have all the things right, like, so this is a place that's pretty

469
00:34:32.599 --> 00:34:37.480
primed for and I mean at that
point, the outside family had been in

470
00:34:37.519 --> 00:34:43.519
power for forty years, you know, so you're dealing with a pretty ossified

471
00:34:43.639 --> 00:34:50.519
structure that's lost a lot of its
legitimacy, right, And then all of

472
00:34:50.559 --> 00:34:55.079
a sudden people thought it could be
different. And there was in Thera down

473
00:34:55.199 --> 00:35:00.800
south there was a group of teenagers
who put up some graffiti. They got

474
00:35:00.840 --> 00:35:05.000
arrested. And there's a whole bunch
of different varying accounts on this, but

475
00:35:05.599 --> 00:35:09.719
we're probably tortured and certainly significantly mistreated. And there was sort of a back

476
00:35:09.760 --> 00:35:14.960
and forth between some of the elders
in the city and the security services,

477
00:35:15.000 --> 00:35:17.800
and the kids probably got killed,
a few of them, I believe,

478
00:35:20.880 --> 00:35:23.159
And there were protests and then you
sort of had this cycle start of like

479
00:35:23.239 --> 00:35:29.639
protests, people get killed by the
security services, there's funeralals. Moore protests

480
00:35:29.679 --> 00:35:35.800
breakout and just sort of spiraled from
there. One of the interesting things is

481
00:35:35.840 --> 00:35:38.679
that those kind of incidents like between
the population the security services had been going

482
00:35:38.719 --> 00:35:43.360
on for a number of years prior. You know, we tend to think

483
00:35:43.400 --> 00:35:45.039
of it as like, oh,
nothing happened, and then all of a

484
00:35:45.039 --> 00:35:47.559
sudden this happened. Well, not
really like these kind of things had been

485
00:35:47.639 --> 00:35:52.360
happening, It was just that this
was the first time it happened in this

486
00:35:52.440 --> 00:35:59.000
new context of you know, we
can push for something to be different,

487
00:36:00.199 --> 00:36:02.280
and maybe the regime won't kill us, you know, maybe we can get

488
00:36:02.280 --> 00:36:07.559
away with it. And that's how
it started, you know, And it

489
00:36:07.639 --> 00:36:13.159
started really and truly as a pretty
peaceful protest movement for a while, and

490
00:36:13.159 --> 00:36:15.880
then the dynamics change, which we
can talk about you guys like to,

491
00:36:15.960 --> 00:36:21.000
but it you know, that first
bit of the of The one other thing

492
00:36:21.039 --> 00:36:27.159
I would say which I think is
important, is that that first year or

493
00:36:27.199 --> 00:36:31.760
so of the uprising, you know, a lot of the press, like

494
00:36:31.800 --> 00:36:34.880
if you go back and read the
regional press, or if you read a

495
00:36:34.880 --> 00:36:38.199
lot of the American press, you
would think that the regime had started a

496
00:36:38.280 --> 00:36:43.199
kind of scorched earth military campaign,
like right, off the bat, and

497
00:36:43.239 --> 00:36:47.199
it's just not true. The regime's
response initially was more waffling than anything.

498
00:36:47.280 --> 00:36:52.800
It was the sort of haphazard use
of force so that it wasn't effective,

499
00:36:52.920 --> 00:36:58.760
and then giving concessions too little and
too late so that they wouldn't actually appease

500
00:36:58.840 --> 00:37:02.960
people. And they really failed in
that first year, I think from a

501
00:37:04.039 --> 00:37:07.800
lack of decisiveness more than anything.
And then you know, as things became

502
00:37:07.800 --> 00:37:12.599
more militarized, they started, you
know, in early twenty twelve, to

503
00:37:12.639 --> 00:37:16.400
do a much more kind of score
shirt military campaign, which was like we're

504
00:37:16.400 --> 00:37:22.480
just going to destroy places in order
to suppress the opposition. And then you

505
00:37:22.519 --> 00:37:24.840
had, you know, you mentioned
that you were you were living in Damascus

506
00:37:24.920 --> 00:37:28.880
around this time frame. I could
you talk a little bit about like your

507
00:37:28.880 --> 00:37:32.559
personal experience as well as like some
of your observations, either work wise,

508
00:37:32.599 --> 00:37:36.840
but also just sort of that experience
of living there and interacting with the people.

509
00:37:37.719 --> 00:37:43.800
Yeah, so, look, I
I was there before the uprising started,

510
00:37:44.000 --> 00:37:52.159
Okay, I I mean it was
a absolutely beautiful city filled with people

511
00:37:52.199 --> 00:38:00.920
who you know, were incredibly generous
to most Americans that they met. It

512
00:38:01.000 --> 00:38:07.079
is a you know, wonderfully especially
in the center I mean, wonderfully cosmopolitan

513
00:38:07.119 --> 00:38:10.559
place, exceptional food, exceptional cult. Like, it's just I loved it,

514
00:38:10.639 --> 00:38:17.719
and it had a very kind of
undefiled feel to it because it hadn't

515
00:38:17.760 --> 00:38:21.199
been you know, it hadn't really
been open to a lot of sort of

516
00:38:21.239 --> 00:38:28.000
Western consumerism because of the sanctions.
Yeah, that's right, and it just

517
00:38:28.079 --> 00:38:35.039
it was pretty a magical place,
you know, and it was filled like

518
00:38:35.079 --> 00:38:38.239
at the time, any Syrian even
though you could kind of see that people

519
00:38:38.280 --> 00:38:43.280
were watching what was going on in
the region and starting you could kind of

520
00:38:43.280 --> 00:38:45.000
almost see the gears turning when you
would talk to them. But if you

521
00:38:45.039 --> 00:38:50.119
ask them the question of like,
hey, could this happen here, They're

522
00:38:50.199 --> 00:38:52.440
like, no, you know,
there's no way, Like it won't happen

523
00:38:52.519 --> 00:38:58.119
here, but you could you could
also tell that like something is shifting it

524
00:38:58.239 --> 00:39:02.320
profoundly in the way that that people
pausing with a cigarette held between two fingers,

525
00:39:02.960 --> 00:39:07.480
looking just kind of looking off into
the distance. Yeah, there's a

526
00:39:07.480 --> 00:39:12.679
certain like a certain wonder I think
to seeing something like that happen, right,

527
00:39:13.639 --> 00:39:17.960
But I love I love the city, and you know, it was

528
00:39:19.079 --> 00:39:22.760
interesting though, like being in Damascus
and then like I went down, I

529
00:39:22.760 --> 00:39:28.199
mean, I drove down to a
month before things started, because there's this

530
00:39:28.280 --> 00:39:35.920
really beautiful Roman amphitheater down there,
and that city you could just like,

531
00:39:35.920 --> 00:39:38.400
the vibes are so different to city. You get out of the car and

532
00:39:39.119 --> 00:39:46.079
was that Paul Mira you know,
no, no, oh okay, yeah,

533
00:39:46.440 --> 00:39:50.079
you know, I just did like
a day trip down there, And

534
00:39:50.800 --> 00:39:52.679
as soon as you get out of
the car, it's like this feeling of

535
00:39:52.719 --> 00:39:57.920
hey, people are looking at you
like they don't want you here, you

536
00:39:57.960 --> 00:40:01.639
know. And and it had a
very different and feel to it that when

537
00:40:01.679 --> 00:40:06.000
I look back and kind of think
about the way the protest movement started,

538
00:40:06.000 --> 00:40:07.719
but you can just kind of it's
one of those places where you can kind

539
00:40:07.719 --> 00:40:12.679
of feel the the suffering, you
know, and the fact that this is

540
00:40:12.679 --> 00:40:15.679
a this is a people who are
being excluded from the cultural life, the

541
00:40:15.719 --> 00:40:21.679
economics and the politics of the state, right and and we're pretty we're pretty

542
00:40:21.679 --> 00:40:28.480
primed for something. It felt very
different from Damascus, and I mean,

543
00:40:28.519 --> 00:40:30.920
we can we can we move the
timeline forward if you want to talk about

544
00:40:30.960 --> 00:40:36.239
how how it developed from there.
What of course stands out in my mind

545
00:40:36.280 --> 00:40:40.960
that I'd like to hear your your
thoughts on, is how how the protest

546
00:40:42.039 --> 00:40:47.559
movement led to an armed insurrection,
and then how that became specifically Islamized.

547
00:40:49.000 --> 00:40:55.480
I think it's it's probably the topic
to hit well. So, you know,

548
00:40:59.119 --> 00:41:07.079
the the regime had an interest from
early days in militarizing the conflict because

549
00:41:07.559 --> 00:41:12.480
it could not figure out how to
deal with, you know, a large,

550
00:41:13.280 --> 00:41:15.519
pretty peaceful protest movement which was like, hey, people are just out

551
00:41:15.559 --> 00:41:22.840
in the streets on Friday in large
numbers, demanding significant political change, like

552
00:41:22.880 --> 00:41:27.960
it's very This was not a government
that could deal with them, and so

553
00:41:28.239 --> 00:41:35.840
they did have an interest in creating
and helping to create an armed opposition to

554
00:41:35.960 --> 00:41:42.800
itself so that it could fight it
and it could create fault lines that are

555
00:41:42.960 --> 00:41:46.920
already existed in the society around largely
ethnic and sectarian lines, but it could

556
00:41:47.000 --> 00:41:52.079
sort of firm those up and use
them as a way to divide and kind

557
00:41:52.119 --> 00:41:58.280
of conquer the political system. And
one of the things that the regime did

558
00:41:59.079 --> 00:42:07.519
was they released Joddi's from Sadnaia in
April I think of twenty eleven. They

559
00:42:07.559 --> 00:42:12.480
released a number of guys who had
fought in Iraq and who had come back

560
00:42:12.559 --> 00:42:19.119
and who had been arrested, probably
by SMI Syrian military intelligence, you know,

561
00:42:19.239 --> 00:42:22.559
for for activities in Syria, and
a lot of those guys you know

562
00:42:22.679 --> 00:42:29.400
from I LIB up in the northwest, and they became the founders of a

563
00:42:29.519 --> 00:42:35.599
number of very successful salapigiatist groups that
fought against the regime, and they were

564
00:42:35.679 --> 00:42:39.960
let go in April of twenty eleven. So I think the regime fed some

565
00:42:40.000 --> 00:42:43.840
of this. At the same time, you also had people, and many

566
00:42:43.920 --> 00:42:47.920
of them were Iraq war veterans who
had foughts and you know, against US

567
00:42:49.000 --> 00:42:52.280
in Iraq and then had gone back
to Syria. You know, you had

568
00:42:52.320 --> 00:43:01.559
people who very reasonably saw that the
regime wasn't going to ansel itself and who

569
00:43:02.159 --> 00:43:07.360
you know, hated the security services
with a passion for good reason in many

570
00:43:07.400 --> 00:43:12.679
cases, and who were very excited
about the prospect after a few months of

571
00:43:12.679 --> 00:43:15.079
protests and the realization of like,
hey, Jem's not going to do anything

572
00:43:15.400 --> 00:43:22.199
to go out and kill security services
officers, right, many of whom are

573
00:43:22.320 --> 00:43:25.320
are ALOI and most of the study
insurgent, most of the insurgents were Sunni

574
00:43:25.320 --> 00:43:32.559
Arap you know. So there was
a dynamic that started really, I mean,

575
00:43:32.639 --> 00:43:37.519
I think it was by spring of
twenty eleven, we were starting to

576
00:43:37.519 --> 00:43:43.079
see like, hey, there are
some low levels of violence here that could

577
00:43:43.119 --> 00:43:47.559
get out of control pretty quickly.
And from there it just kind of you

578
00:43:47.599 --> 00:43:53.280
know, you had the dynamic of
just that that sort of spiral internally,

579
00:43:53.320 --> 00:43:59.280
but then you started to have you
know, external actors getting involved, to

580
00:43:59.360 --> 00:44:01.360
sort of equipment, you know,
fund to train it first of all in

581
00:44:01.360 --> 00:44:07.480
a very haphazard way, but you
know, the sort of fuel those dynamics

582
00:44:07.519 --> 00:44:10.519
internally and it became violent. And
are you talking about like the two thousand

583
00:44:10.519 --> 00:44:15.239
and eleven to like two thousand and
twelve thirteen time frame where yes, that's

584
00:44:15.320 --> 00:44:21.480
right. How was what was American
policy like at that time? Because it

585
00:44:21.519 --> 00:44:30.400
initially initially like we were saying that
uh Assad was a reformer, uh you

586
00:44:30.440 --> 00:44:35.760
know, we were you know,
all on you know, his side,

587
00:44:36.519 --> 00:44:42.320
and then then then our policy is
saying he's got to go, and right,

588
00:44:42.559 --> 00:44:47.000
and how one, how did that
influence if it did you guys?

589
00:44:47.079 --> 00:44:55.960
And to do you like if if
if if the US says Assad has to

590
00:44:57.000 --> 00:45:01.559
go, do people in the country
who are against his regime, do they

591
00:45:01.559 --> 00:45:09.559
feel like that's the wink wink we
got jaboo of attitude? Yeah? I

592
00:45:09.559 --> 00:45:13.840
think that's bought on. I mean, you know, I would say,

593
00:45:13.920 --> 00:45:15.639
And there were different sort of phases
to the way we engage with this,

594
00:45:15.760 --> 00:45:23.280
but one thing that was consistent throughout
was the chasm between our rhetoric and what

595
00:45:23.320 --> 00:45:29.280
we actually did. You know,
there was just a tremendous gap the entire

596
00:45:29.320 --> 00:45:34.679
time between what we would say and
and what happened actually on the ground and

597
00:45:34.719 --> 00:45:42.480
what we did. And that made
everybody confused. Not in a good way.

598
00:45:43.039 --> 00:45:47.039
It wasn't it was people in Syria. Say that again, when you

599
00:45:47.119 --> 00:45:51.079
say every made everybody confused? Do
you mean people in Syria? Do you

600
00:45:51.079 --> 00:45:54.559
mean people people people in Syria?
Allies in the region. You know,

601
00:45:54.800 --> 00:45:59.239
I think we had you know,
Syrians who thought, okay, if you

602
00:45:59.360 --> 00:46:05.079
say which I think I believe President
Obama in like the late summer of twenty

603
00:46:05.079 --> 00:46:10.000
eleven said ASA, it needs to
step aside, said I don't know if

604
00:46:10.039 --> 00:46:17.920
Obama said I know, and you
know Syrians took that to mean, okay,

605
00:46:17.960 --> 00:46:22.679
they're gonna the Americans are gonna help
us make him step aside for the

606
00:46:22.719 --> 00:46:30.599
most part, and you know Arab
partners Sauby's, George's you know, sort

607
00:46:30.599 --> 00:46:35.119
of said okay, that means you're
gonna help to you know, fund and

608
00:46:35.239 --> 00:46:39.800
back and maybe equipment, train and
opposition, right, And I think that

609
00:46:39.880 --> 00:46:45.480
we we just sort of got half
pregnant on that. You know. It

610
00:46:45.559 --> 00:46:50.880
was like, we're gonna do some
things kind of in a very tepid way,

611
00:46:51.400 --> 00:46:57.280
We're not really gonna get involved,
and we never provided any kind of

612
00:46:57.280 --> 00:47:01.480
clarity. And I think the regime
pretty quickly figured this out and sort of

613
00:47:01.559 --> 00:47:07.280
used it to its advantage. But
we just never were able to muster.

614
00:47:07.519 --> 00:47:10.800
And you know, there's a good
conversation we could have about whether it would

615
00:47:10.840 --> 00:47:14.760
have been in the cards for us
to really be involved in a much more

616
00:47:15.800 --> 00:47:20.519
robust way, to like effectively create, you know, an alternative to ASSAD.

617
00:47:21.000 --> 00:47:24.199
I'm not sure if that would have
ever been possible. But we didn't

618
00:47:24.199 --> 00:47:30.960
do ourselves any favors by you know, getting totally over our skis with what

619
00:47:30.000 --> 00:47:35.800
we said what was going on in
the ground. And I think, you

620
00:47:35.840 --> 00:47:38.400
know, honestly, what was going
on with a lot of the stuff we

621
00:47:38.400 --> 00:47:45.000
were writing and with our engagement with
the NSC was like they had watched they

622
00:47:45.039 --> 00:47:50.840
meeting the White House had watched Kay
Tunisia goes Mubar, it goes now his

623
00:47:50.960 --> 00:47:54.360
regime doesn't go, but like he's
gone, good daf he's gone. Never

624
00:47:54.400 --> 00:47:59.280
Mind that we acted as the air
force for that, but let's put that

625
00:47:59.320 --> 00:48:01.519
aside for us second. And so
there was this sort of narrative of like,

626
00:48:02.440 --> 00:48:08.239
this is predetermined, he's gone.
It's just a matter of the circumstances.

627
00:48:08.639 --> 00:48:14.920
And so I think the I think
that the Obama administration thought that they

628
00:48:14.920 --> 00:48:19.920
could kind of step to the side, say whatever they wanted, and in

629
00:48:19.920 --> 00:48:23.400
like six to eight months he would
be gone and that would be a win

630
00:48:23.519 --> 00:48:28.360
for US policy. And so it
was really a policy of sort of strategic

631
00:48:28.400 --> 00:48:31.599
communications above all else. And then
he stepped to the side and sort of

632
00:48:31.639 --> 00:48:37.360
let history do its work. And
the Syrian regime is a lot more resilient

633
00:48:37.519 --> 00:48:43.360
and determined than any of these other
sort of you know, political systems that

634
00:48:43.400 --> 00:48:46.159
had gone down. So they didn't, but that was the dynamic at the

635
00:48:46.159 --> 00:48:51.079
time. So anything we put out
as analysts, they would talk about outside

636
00:48:51.159 --> 00:48:53.400
staying power or some of these sort
of violent dynamics and the conflict, like

637
00:48:54.239 --> 00:49:00.880
there wasn't there wasn't a receptive audience, you know, downtown for that kind

638
00:49:00.880 --> 00:49:06.400
of stuff. It and it's weird
that, you know, after like Tito

639
00:49:06.480 --> 00:49:12.239
and Yugoslavia, after Saddam, you
know, after Ghadafi and the violence and

640
00:49:12.400 --> 00:49:15.320
you know, reactivation of the slave
trade and all this other stuff that that

641
00:49:15.880 --> 00:49:21.320
like America still hasn't learned that lesson
is, yes, there are some really

642
00:49:21.360 --> 00:49:25.719
shitty people running these countries. But
then when you eliminate this shitty person who's

643
00:49:25.760 --> 00:49:31.480
just shitty for the for the fact
of being shitty, that you know,

644
00:49:31.599 --> 00:49:40.559
these randomly drawn countries breakdown into sectarian
tribal like warfare and we have no solution

645
00:49:40.639 --> 00:49:44.840
for it. Right, We're like, we don't like you, so you're

646
00:49:44.880 --> 00:49:49.639
gone and everybody left over. Sorry
about that, but hey, you don't

647
00:49:49.639 --> 00:49:53.880
have a dictator anymore. Right.
Yeah. I've struggled with this too,

648
00:49:53.920 --> 00:50:00.360
because I am I think it's probably
pretty challenging to like look back at the

649
00:50:00.360 --> 00:50:04.559
past generation of US foreign policy decision
making and think that we've done a good

650
00:50:04.639 --> 00:50:10.880
job. You know, it's been
not great and significantly worse than the generation

651
00:50:10.920 --> 00:50:17.519
of foreign policy making decisions that that
sort of came before it. And so

652
00:50:17.599 --> 00:50:21.440
I don't quite know why that is. And I think, I mean,

653
00:50:21.480 --> 00:50:23.400
Sirio is symptomatic of that, where
you look at you say Okay, well,

654
00:50:23.960 --> 00:50:27.920
guys, you know, you don't
have to be a genius to look

655
00:50:27.920 --> 00:50:30.280
at that and the con sectarian makeup
of this country and to do a quick

656
00:50:30.320 --> 00:50:37.519
breeze through how the security services are
organized to kind of understand that, like,

657
00:50:37.880 --> 00:50:43.400
this thing isn't going to break well. You know, so maybe we

658
00:50:43.400 --> 00:50:47.800
should be more thoughtful about, you
know, or at least more cognizant that

659
00:50:49.400 --> 00:50:53.320
it's been designed that if you break
it, it's going to explode and destroy

660
00:50:53.360 --> 00:51:00.239
the country. You know, that
was a thing that was known inside you

661
00:51:00.239 --> 00:51:02.239
know, the intelligence community at the
time, was like, you can't rip

662
00:51:02.280 --> 00:51:07.440
this thing apart without a significant amount
of bloodshed. Now we could debate whether

663
00:51:07.480 --> 00:51:12.360
that's worthwhile to you know, achieve
some political outcome, but like it's not

664
00:51:12.400 --> 00:51:14.159
going to go well. I mean, all you had to do is look

665
00:51:14.199 --> 00:51:17.079
at the way that rock broke and
say like, well, okay, this

666
00:51:17.159 --> 00:51:21.239
is going to be a huge mass. And there's some sort of willful blindness

667
00:51:21.280 --> 00:51:24.599
to that that I I'm still not
quite sure where it comes from or why

668
00:51:24.599 --> 00:51:30.519
it's persistent for so long as you
as you talk about this, you know,

669
00:51:30.559 --> 00:51:34.280
I have to wonder if there isn't
an aspect the cynical as I am

670
00:51:34.320 --> 00:51:38.079
about about you know, the real
politic of things, but that there's maybe

671
00:51:38.079 --> 00:51:42.639
an ideological bent at the White House. I mean, you're you know,

672
00:51:42.719 --> 00:51:46.079
Obama would give that quote about you
know, the arc of history moves towards

673
00:51:46.199 --> 00:51:51.440
truth or something like this, and
it sounds like that's what you're saying,

674
00:51:51.440 --> 00:51:53.920
that there's this this idea that we
could step aside in history would move in

675
00:51:53.960 --> 00:52:00.199
the right direction towards democracy. Yeah. I think that was a significant part

676
00:52:00.239 --> 00:52:04.880
of it. I also think,
you know, you look at the I

677
00:52:04.920 --> 00:52:07.639
think you know that that administration and
particular came in and said like, we

678
00:52:07.679 --> 00:52:14.079
don't want any more problems in the
Middle East, please know, And uh,

679
00:52:15.480 --> 00:52:19.480
I think there was this sort of
this like knee jerk, like you

680
00:52:19.519 --> 00:52:23.159
know, like let's just do nothing. Well we had just pulled out of

681
00:52:23.159 --> 00:52:29.599
a rack too, which right,
right, yeah, And and there was

682
00:52:29.639 --> 00:52:36.719
probably you know again it's like,
yes, we should not be spending you

683
00:52:36.800 --> 00:52:42.480
know, we should not be spending
eighty percent of our national security decision making

684
00:52:42.519 --> 00:52:46.119
time on this region. That's a
mistake. We're over rotated, right.

685
00:52:47.760 --> 00:52:53.000
But you also, but that doesn't
mean that we can just sort of and

686
00:52:53.079 --> 00:52:57.480
I think, I mean ultimately where
I where I fault them, because I

687
00:52:57.480 --> 00:53:00.280
wouldn't you know, I don't envy
the decisions they had to make, and

688
00:53:00.599 --> 00:53:06.440
I don't think that Syria like there
was no clinging answer here from the get

689
00:53:06.159 --> 00:53:12.000
go period. But you know,
it's it's sort of willful ignorance to just

690
00:53:12.920 --> 00:53:20.000
basically run the policy as a communications
policy and kind of let everything else Jesus

691
00:53:20.119 --> 00:53:27.039
drag behind it in a really sort
of, you know, incoherent and flaccid

692
00:53:27.079 --> 00:53:31.000
manner, like you just can't drag
all the other elements of policy behind combs.

693
00:53:31.119 --> 00:53:36.239
That's I think what the mistakes.
So as that that incoherent, flaccid

694
00:53:36.320 --> 00:53:40.320
policy played itself out, you have
the rise of Isis they bust across an

695
00:53:40.320 --> 00:53:47.239
international border into Iraq, wager genocide
against the Yazdes and sing Jar start moving

696
00:53:47.280 --> 00:53:53.159
towards Baghdad. Now we have what
we would probably call in the military a

697
00:53:53.239 --> 00:54:00.960
clusterfuck a full blow signical term,
cluster a shit sam which once again in

698
00:54:01.039 --> 00:54:07.679
that region. And as we discussed
this, I think one of the other

699
00:54:07.800 --> 00:54:13.840
important things to talk about is I
don't know what your view is, I'd

700
00:54:13.880 --> 00:54:16.719
like to ask you, but I
get the sense that there was some conflicting

701
00:54:16.800 --> 00:54:22.039
missions because there was, on one
hand, the removal of the Assad regime.

702
00:54:22.079 --> 00:54:28.639
There's a regime change program, but
there was also a counter Isis program,

703
00:54:28.679 --> 00:54:32.840
and so now we are trying to
remove the government, but also the

704
00:54:32.880 --> 00:54:36.679
group that is also trying to remove
the government, like, whoa, what

705
00:54:36.719 --> 00:54:38.320
the hell are we doing here?
And I mean, I want to copy

706
00:54:38.400 --> 00:54:45.920
at that by even saying, you
know, and to some degree we could,

707
00:54:46.039 --> 00:54:52.519
because you mentioned the Salafis right that
that the regime had released and suddenly

708
00:54:52.719 --> 00:55:00.320
these people who ostensibly orchestrated nine to
eleven, right, this, this group

709
00:55:00.440 --> 00:55:07.280
of Islamic fundamentalists are now our allies
in the region, and we're and this

710
00:55:07.360 --> 00:55:14.280
is pre isis, and we're arming
them and giving them the weaponry that you

711
00:55:14.280 --> 00:55:21.840
know, that to to overthrow a
side or bashir and they're like, oh,

712
00:55:21.960 --> 00:55:28.159
maybe we'll go this direction instead,
Right That that I mean, is

713
00:55:28.199 --> 00:55:32.760
that is that accurate? That that? I think I think we were.

714
00:55:35.679 --> 00:55:38.760
I mean, look, you know, it's it's a it's a war zone,

715
00:55:38.760 --> 00:55:44.079
it's a civil war, so there's
going to be mess around where things

716
00:55:44.400 --> 00:55:49.599
end up and all of that.
All Right, that said, I think

717
00:55:49.599 --> 00:55:55.480
we were careful about ensuring that we
were not linked up with you know,

718
00:55:58.280 --> 00:56:01.840
salafijihatas of the global bent let's say, which I think in this context in

719
00:56:01.920 --> 00:56:07.639
Syria is an important distinction, and
it is one that is often kind of

720
00:56:07.639 --> 00:56:14.519
lost in the conversation. It was
like there was a distinction between groups that

721
00:56:15.239 --> 00:56:19.519
were of that, you know,
a very sort of conservative studdhism is bent.

722
00:56:20.360 --> 00:56:27.400
But we're you know, not at
all thinking about attacking Europe, our

723
00:56:27.480 --> 00:56:30.400
allies, US, you know,
outside of Syria, like they were prosecuted,

724
00:56:30.280 --> 00:56:35.480
that there would be Islamic nationalists like
the Muslim Brotherhood or even the shaban

725
00:56:35.760 --> 00:56:40.239
As opposed to waging external loops,
and those groups existed in Syria, right.

726
00:56:40.280 --> 00:56:45.360
That was That's that was a real
dynamic in the war from you know,

727
00:56:45.519 --> 00:56:51.760
pretty early on. But I do
think that and this and this is

728
00:56:51.840 --> 00:56:55.400
you know, just the reality of
this conflict was like, I mean,

729
00:56:57.840 --> 00:57:04.239
was there ever an opportunit community to
really create an alternative to ASA that would

730
00:57:04.239 --> 00:57:07.960
have been palatable to us though that
could have taken power Intomascus controlled most of

731
00:57:08.000 --> 00:57:13.480
the country and administered the place in
a way that was like friendlier to our

732
00:57:13.519 --> 00:57:17.840
interests, you know, I mean, man, that is it's hard for

733
00:57:17.880 --> 00:57:24.639
me to imagine it really is.
And you know, you know, I

734
00:57:24.679 --> 00:57:30.719
think Jack, to your point,
like the the ct I actually give us

735
00:57:30.800 --> 00:57:36.920
higher marks on the ct mission,
right, because we were much more coherent.

736
00:57:37.119 --> 00:57:44.480
Like the Syria policy when Isis started
to become a much more significant issue,

737
00:57:44.920 --> 00:57:46.920
sort of broke into two pieces.
Was like, you know, sort

738
00:57:46.960 --> 00:57:53.400
of the anti regime policy, which
was an incoherent mass, and the anti

739
00:57:53.480 --> 00:57:58.639
Isis campaign, which you know,
we you know, you talk about all

740
00:57:58.719 --> 00:58:02.159
kinds of problems there, but like
was much more coherent in its objectives and

741
00:58:02.199 --> 00:58:07.119
in its resourcing. We had,
you know, a tremendous gap between rhetoric

742
00:58:07.239 --> 00:58:12.760
and resourcing on the regime side,
the anti regime side. I think on

743
00:58:12.800 --> 00:58:16.039
the counter Isis side, that gap
was much narrower, Right, We were

744
00:58:16.119 --> 00:58:22.599
resourcing a fight to achieve an objective
of diminishing the territory and influence of the

745
00:58:22.639 --> 00:58:29.320
Islamic state. But the series of
policy effectively kind of became a kind of

746
00:58:29.360 --> 00:58:34.599
risis policy, and the regime stuff
just kind of pilled away in my opinion,

747
00:58:34.840 --> 00:58:37.039
over that period of time, because
it was also getting to the point

748
00:58:37.079 --> 00:58:40.239
where it's like you know, as
you know, that sort of corresponded with

749
00:58:40.280 --> 00:58:46.880
the Russian intervention in the fall of
twenty fifteen, Asad starts to retake ground

750
00:58:47.480 --> 00:58:52.239
on the backs of Russian air power, and it becomes pretty clear by you

751
00:58:52.280 --> 00:58:54.719
know, sixteen or seventeen that he's
not going anywhere, in my opinion,

752
00:58:57.119 --> 00:59:00.599
and that's why the counter regime program's
kind of you're saying, they just sort

753
00:59:00.599 --> 00:59:06.519
of faded away naturally over time as
this became sort of an unrealistic option.

754
00:59:07.480 --> 00:59:08.360
I think. So, I don't
know, and again I don't think we

755
00:59:08.440 --> 00:59:12.320
ever really said that, right,
I mean, you know, it just

756
00:59:12.360 --> 00:59:17.079
sort of became more or less a
fact of our policy that like, okay,

757
00:59:17.119 --> 00:59:22.599
we're just gonna I honestly think something
collectively happened in said the National Security

758
00:59:22.599 --> 00:59:24.840
BROCNCY, where everyone just kind of
threw their hands up and said, you

759
00:59:24.880 --> 00:59:30.440
know what, like it's too hard, Well, I mean, anything with

760
00:59:30.480 --> 00:59:35.639
it. The big inflection point,
I mean, didn't it come after Gauda

761
00:59:35.920 --> 00:59:39.119
and some of the chemical weapons attacks
and Obama was talking there's there's this talk

762
00:59:39.159 --> 00:59:44.679
about the red line, and and
there were things that got there. There

763
00:59:44.719 --> 00:59:47.480
were the machinery of the US government
in the Department of Defense. I was

764
00:59:47.519 --> 00:59:52.159
ready to go in and drop the
hammer. Yeah, and I mean Obama

765
00:59:52.239 --> 00:59:57.159
took that kind of like famous walk
in the Rose Garden with his National security

766
00:59:57.159 --> 00:59:59.880
advisor and came back and said,
no, we're not going to do it.

767
01:00:00.159 --> 01:00:04.639
Yeah, that's right. Yeah,
I do think that that was an

768
01:00:04.679 --> 01:00:08.000
inflection point for sure. I mean
I think there was that August of August

769
01:00:08.079 --> 01:00:15.000
or September of thirteen after the attack
in Duma, and yeah, you know

770
01:00:15.079 --> 01:00:20.239
that that is another great example of
just the sort of hey, here's that

771
01:00:20.400 --> 01:00:23.760
is the primary example of we said
this thing, and we did just just

772
01:00:23.920 --> 01:00:28.920
like we just didn't. We just
didn't do anything. And you know that

773
01:00:28.960 --> 01:00:34.440
one is I think particularly agree just
to me, because we didn't have to

774
01:00:34.480 --> 01:00:38.119
remove the regime. We we could
have just punished it, which is what

775
01:00:38.239 --> 01:00:43.920
militarily Trump ended up doing early in
his presidency. Yeah, like we could

776
01:00:43.920 --> 01:00:47.880
have done that, you know,
multiplied by ten and said this is what

777
01:00:49.000 --> 01:00:52.280
happens, don't do it again.
You know, you it again. It's

778
01:00:52.320 --> 01:00:58.159
going to be five times worse than
this, And we chose not to for

779
01:00:58.239 --> 01:01:06.199
reasons I still I still struggle with. And so I let's see pushing the

780
01:01:06.239 --> 01:01:12.719
conflict forward, we get to that
twenty sixteen twenty seventeen time frame, now

781
01:01:12.760 --> 01:01:19.199
the US military is in northeastern Syria, linked up with the the SDF,

782
01:01:19.360 --> 01:01:23.760
you know, the Kurds that we've
cobbled together into this Arab alliance. How

783
01:01:24.000 --> 01:01:29.159
did things start to you know,
move how did this conflict evolved from an

784
01:01:29.199 --> 01:01:37.519
American foreign policy in even you know, defensive strategy standpoint. Well, I

785
01:01:37.559 --> 01:01:43.760
mean, so at that point things
were pretty cantonized, right, I mean,

786
01:01:43.840 --> 01:01:47.519
you effectively had like the idea that
Syria would sort of be reconstituted in

787
01:01:47.519 --> 01:01:52.280
the near term as like a functioning
political entity was basically gone. The regime

788
01:01:53.800 --> 01:02:00.559
was still very weak relative to you
know, pre uprising, but kind of

789
01:02:00.559 --> 01:02:07.360
coalesced into you know, the most
powerful militia in the country. And you

790
01:02:07.480 --> 01:02:15.599
had what i mean five external powers
that were you know, intervening in some

791
01:02:15.719 --> 01:02:20.559
form or fashion on the regular you
know, US, the Israelis, the

792
01:02:20.599 --> 01:02:29.679
Iranians, the Turks, the Russians. So you know you ended up,

793
01:02:29.719 --> 01:02:32.159
i mean, my frame for the
conflict at some point sort of became like

794
01:02:34.199 --> 01:02:40.920
this is just a bunch of warlord
fiefdoms and it's not useful. It's like

795
01:02:42.159 --> 01:02:47.119
the concept of Syria like is ceasing
to be a useful analytic construct, Like

796
01:02:47.239 --> 01:02:54.800
it's just a bunch of you know, mafioso groups that are fighting over populations

797
01:02:54.840 --> 01:03:05.440
and resources with the help of different
foreign backers. And you know, we

798
01:03:05.920 --> 01:03:08.519
you know, I think our presence
there in that time periods still made some

799
01:03:08.519 --> 01:03:14.559
sense in the counter Isis mission.
And you know, this is maybe not

800
01:03:14.639 --> 01:03:17.760
a help, like there's probably some
problems with this analytical frame, but like

801
01:03:17.840 --> 01:03:22.079
I kind of look at the very
small number of Americans that we had an

802
01:03:22.079 --> 01:03:28.480
Afghanistan that sort of supported this broad
there was this broader architecture of like elite

803
01:03:29.519 --> 01:03:32.639
cohesion and political will to do things
that was bucked up by having us there.

804
01:03:32.639 --> 01:03:36.679
And I think having a small number
of Americans up in the Northeast like

805
01:03:37.039 --> 01:03:39.199
sort of does the same thing for
many of our partners. So there,

806
01:03:39.239 --> 01:03:45.280
you know, I sort of see
their being continued value in that. But

807
01:03:45.960 --> 01:03:51.039
you know, we effectively came to
a point where the Syria policy is articulated

808
01:03:51.079 --> 01:03:55.079
by really both the you know,
sort of the Trump and the Biden White

809
01:03:55.079 --> 01:04:00.519
houses kind of became you know,
at some point I saw something it was

810
01:04:00.559 --> 01:04:03.400
like five or six different kind of
policy objectives and it's like this, there's

811
01:04:03.440 --> 01:04:09.440
almost so much here that there's nothing
and it's just on this kind of autopilot

812
01:04:09.559 --> 01:04:14.559
of let's make sure, let's make
sure there isn't some kind of like catastrophic

813
01:04:15.559 --> 01:04:19.920
terror attack in Europe or in the
United States that emanates from this place,

814
01:04:20.039 --> 01:04:24.880
be at Isis or be at some
of the sort of you know og al

815
01:04:24.960 --> 01:04:31.800
Qaida guys who took up roots there
in the Northwest, and you know it

816
01:04:31.800 --> 01:04:34.800
it really just kind of sputtered,
It sputtered out of the headlines. I'm

817
01:04:34.840 --> 01:04:40.480
sure it has sputtered out of like
significant you know, the number of like

818
01:04:41.159 --> 01:04:44.960
Deputies Committee and Principles Committee meetings in
the White House on Syria in the past,

819
01:04:45.039 --> 01:04:45.880
you know, a few years.
I'm sure it's has gone down to

820
01:04:46.039 --> 01:04:53.159
nothing. It's it's really I don't
know, it's it's on one sense,

821
01:04:53.199 --> 01:04:58.559
it's just it's sort of like analytically
very difficult to come up with anything useful

822
01:04:58.599 --> 01:05:00.119
to say on like what we should
you And you know, it's just like

823
01:05:00.159 --> 01:05:05.199
it's everything is just kind of sputtered
out in a very sort of profoundance into

824
01:05:05.280 --> 01:05:11.039
a status quo. Yeah, yeah, exactly where I you know, I

825
01:05:11.079 --> 01:05:14.840
think at some point the regime,
you know, the regime will probably continue

826
01:05:14.840 --> 01:05:18.480
to CLAWBAXT some parts in like the
northwest and whatnot, and maybe eventually in

827
01:05:18.519 --> 01:05:20.960
the northeast, you know, if
we decide to leave, and if they

828
01:05:20.960 --> 01:05:26.039
can reach some kind of deal with
you know, with the Kurds up there,

829
01:05:26.159 --> 01:05:30.840
which both of those things would would
feel pretty reasonable to me. But

830
01:05:30.280 --> 01:05:34.880
I think that, you know,
the Syrian regime is a very patient entity,

831
01:05:35.159 --> 01:05:39.239
or the militia that used to be
known as the Syrian regime, it's

832
01:05:39.280 --> 01:05:41.360
a very patient entity, and they'll
just kind of wait. I mean,

833
01:05:41.440 --> 01:05:46.039
I think it's a generation of waiting
for them, and I mean I think

834
01:05:46.039 --> 01:05:49.119
you touched upon it. But before
moving on, I mean, is that

835
01:05:49.159 --> 01:05:56.440
how you see our presence? Why
are continued American military presidence presence in northeast

836
01:05:56.440 --> 01:06:00.760
Syria? To your mind, it's
about maintaining that at this quote, about

837
01:06:00.760 --> 01:06:05.239
assuring some of our allies, and
about ensuring that there aren't external ops directed

838
01:06:05.239 --> 01:06:09.599
out of Syria. Yeah, that's
how I see it at this point.

839
01:06:09.679 --> 01:06:15.199
Yeah, you know, I think, and I think relative to the amount

840
01:06:15.320 --> 01:06:19.400
of you know, blood and treasure
that's been expended, it feels to me

841
01:06:19.519 --> 01:06:24.360
like it's a pretty reasonable invest But
at this point, and it's kind of

842
01:06:25.400 --> 01:06:27.440
I don't know, it's one of
those things where you look at it and

843
01:06:27.440 --> 01:06:30.719
you say, well, it could
be a lot worse. Right, There

844
01:06:30.719 --> 01:06:34.360
could be a lot you know,
there could be external attacks plan from Syria

845
01:06:34.440 --> 01:06:39.079
regularly right there. You know,
you could have a situation where, you

846
01:06:39.079 --> 01:06:43.519
know, the Islamic state or rumb
elements of it begin to take more tears.

847
01:06:43.559 --> 01:06:47.400
So there's there's all kinds of sort
of bad outcomes that I could imagine

848
01:06:47.440 --> 01:06:50.840
if we did not have a small
presence there. That to my mind,

849
01:06:50.880 --> 01:06:55.760
sort of if I'm putting my you
know, my policy maker shoes on,

850
01:06:55.880 --> 01:07:00.320
it probably continues to justify us have
that presence there. I also think that

851
01:07:00.760 --> 01:07:03.480
I bet if you took a poll
amost Americans and asked them, you know,

852
01:07:03.559 --> 01:07:09.719
do we have troops in Syria right
now? I do wonder if people

853
01:07:10.079 --> 01:07:12.400
my senses, most people, I
mean, they wouldn't know where Syria was

854
01:07:12.440 --> 01:07:15.519
in the map. And then B
would probably say say no, they're all

855
01:07:15.559 --> 01:07:17.320
they're all in Ukraine now or something
crazy like that. You know. So,

856
01:07:19.360 --> 01:07:23.880
And as for you personally, as
your career went on in the in

857
01:07:23.920 --> 01:07:29.960
the agency, how did you feel
about all these developments one thing after the

858
01:07:29.960 --> 01:07:33.920
next as we slide into this sort
of from this sort of fantastical thinking about

859
01:07:33.960 --> 01:07:39.480
regime change and democracy to the sort
of like status quo. I don't want

860
01:07:39.480 --> 01:07:42.800
to use the term frozen conflict.
It's not that, yeah, but it

861
01:07:42.840 --> 01:07:45.239
is a status sort of a status
quo conflict from an American point of view.

862
01:07:46.119 --> 01:07:50.880
Yeah, you know, it made
me really sad actually mostly, and

863
01:07:51.079 --> 01:07:55.559
it honestly, it was one of
the reasons why I started writing the thing

864
01:07:55.599 --> 01:08:00.679
that became Damascus Station the first book, was because you know, I had,

865
01:08:00.800 --> 01:08:02.119
like I had lived there at that
point. I'd spent most of my

866
01:08:02.360 --> 01:08:06.320
young adult life at that stage working
on this country and thinking about it,

867
01:08:06.400 --> 01:08:11.000
and a lot of friends who were
Syrian and like, it just made me

868
01:08:11.079 --> 01:08:16.439
really sad because the human elements of
it. You know, we talked about

869
01:08:16.439 --> 01:08:23.880
that analytic trading up front and our
conversation, like you're sort of conditioned when

870
01:08:23.880 --> 01:08:27.880
you're writing at the agency to like
strip a lot of the humanity out of

871
01:08:27.880 --> 01:08:31.640
things and to just report report things
from a higher level, right, Like,

872
01:08:31.640 --> 01:08:34.760
like that human element the emotions that
come with it are not you know,

873
01:08:35.159 --> 01:08:42.159
they're they're they're not encouraged in the
writing. And when the war became

874
01:08:44.279 --> 01:08:45.840
this kind of when it became clear
it was going to be this long,

875
01:08:46.239 --> 01:08:54.239
bloody kind of grind, and that
you know, we were more interested in

876
01:08:54.840 --> 01:09:00.840
prolonging the suffering of the Aside regime
than we were in resolving the conflict.

877
01:09:00.880 --> 01:09:04.079
I mean, I don't think we
were in a position to resolve the conflict,

878
01:09:04.119 --> 01:09:06.680
but I think we got to a
point where effectively we said, look,

879
01:09:08.199 --> 01:09:11.239
there needs to be more violence,
so the regime comes to the table

880
01:09:11.319 --> 01:09:15.680
to stop. You know, just
as a person as a human, I

881
01:09:15.800 --> 01:09:17.800
kind of, you know, with
some skin in the game in the country,

882
01:09:17.840 --> 01:09:21.399
and obviously a lot less skin than
any Syrian had, but with more

883
01:09:21.439 --> 01:09:30.880
than most Americans. Man, I
was just like pretty frustrated and really kind

884
01:09:30.880 --> 01:09:33.760
of wrecked by it. And so
when I left, you know, I

885
01:09:33.800 --> 01:09:38.800
just kind of started to I started
to write as a way to kind of

886
01:09:38.800 --> 01:09:42.760
deal with that, because at the
at the kind of heart level, it

887
01:09:42.840 --> 01:09:45.399
just didn't really it stops kind of
sitting well with me. And there was

888
01:09:45.439 --> 01:09:49.920
a point where it became a little
hard to kind of just maintain that you

889
01:09:49.960 --> 01:09:55.479
know, thirty thousand foot view,
like just the facts kind of perspective,

890
01:09:55.600 --> 01:09:58.199
because it just felt like, oh, well, you know, we're going

891
01:09:58.239 --> 01:10:00.880
to have just millions and millions of
people who are to get displaced in this

892
01:10:00.880 --> 01:10:02.279
whole country is going to get rec
all, the infrastructure is going to be

893
01:10:02.279 --> 01:10:08.960
destroyed, It's gonna get taken over
in pieced out by the worst warlords and

894
01:10:09.000 --> 01:10:13.439
psychopaths in the game here. And
you know, the people who suffer going

895
01:10:13.479 --> 01:10:15.680
to be all the normal people who
are like, hey, I just want

896
01:10:15.680 --> 01:10:20.359
to go and work at the bakery
and you know, sell cars and like,

897
01:10:20.479 --> 01:10:23.760
you know, just do all the
normal stuff and go to school.

898
01:10:23.840 --> 01:10:28.159
And like it's just all those people
who are the ones who end up being

899
01:10:28.600 --> 01:10:31.720
you know, the sort of the
collateral damage and these kind of conflicts,

900
01:10:31.720 --> 01:10:34.920
and it just kind of made me
sick. And what you're with that that

901
01:10:35.039 --> 01:10:42.119
you you left? I left in
fourteen Okay, yeah, now out of

902
01:10:42.159 --> 01:10:49.920
curiosity, like not defending a sad
because a sad like Saddam like Tito,

903
01:10:50.039 --> 01:10:55.039
like they're they're shitty human beings,
right, They're like they're not good people.

904
01:10:56.199 --> 01:11:00.439
But were those people in those you
know, villages and those outlying areas

905
01:11:00.520 --> 01:11:06.439
outside of the regime terror were were
were they still able to like live their

906
01:11:06.520 --> 01:11:15.000
lives prior to the warlords, like
before the uprising started? Or yeah,

907
01:11:15.199 --> 01:11:24.520
yeah, I mean, it was
it kind of like it wasn't. I

908
01:11:24.560 --> 01:11:27.199
mean, for a lot of people, it was pretty desperate, right,

909
01:11:29.560 --> 01:11:33.720
But it wasn't this. It wasn't
And that's not being off in the town

910
01:11:33.760 --> 01:11:38.000
square, right, right, And
well, and yeah, you didn't have

911
01:11:38.000 --> 01:11:41.880
half the population displaced, and you
know, you didn't have a ninety percent

912
01:11:42.239 --> 01:11:45.319
poverty rate, and you didn't have
you know, two hundred and fifty billion

913
01:11:45.319 --> 01:11:51.000
dollars of infrastructure damage or any of
these kind of things. But you know,

914
01:11:51.199 --> 01:11:56.039
the thing that I I think one
of the most sad things about this

915
01:11:57.199 --> 01:12:02.640
is that you look at the way
society was sort of divided, and you

916
01:12:02.640 --> 01:12:11.479
look at the way the regime was
constructed, and there is a certain inevitability

917
01:12:11.920 --> 01:12:15.840
to the violence and chaos and the
destruction of like you can't you know,

918
01:12:16.199 --> 01:12:21.159
hafe Zalasa designed his government so that
you couldn't just like exercise him and the

919
01:12:21.199 --> 01:12:27.520
family and the country continues to function
and you put better people in and then

920
01:12:27.520 --> 01:12:31.840
you're rolling Like he designed it so
that you couldn't do that without an extreme

921
01:12:31.920 --> 01:12:36.680
level of violence, and that most
people understood that, so that they didn't

922
01:12:36.720 --> 01:12:42.920
do it right. So, you
know, but I struggled with this idea

923
01:12:42.920 --> 01:12:46.880
of like there was a certain inevitability
to the way this went down, or

924
01:12:46.920 --> 01:12:51.279
at least you would have said it's
probably the most likely outcome, right,

925
01:12:53.039 --> 01:12:56.800
And on the one hand, and
then on the other hand, you look

926
01:12:56.840 --> 01:13:05.920
at the people who came out to
protest early on, who were essentially asking

927
01:13:06.159 --> 01:13:13.399
for dignity in a system that deprived
them of that, and that kind of

928
01:13:13.880 --> 01:13:18.520
contrast is just, I think,
really a devastating one because you look at

929
01:13:18.520 --> 01:13:24.079
the reasonableness and the humanity of a
lot of those of those people right who

930
01:13:24.079 --> 01:13:29.000
are like, hey, I just
don't want to have to get approval to

931
01:13:29.000 --> 01:13:33.960
get married from the local head of
the political security directorate, or I don't

932
01:13:33.960 --> 01:13:40.720
want to pay bribes to add a
second floor to my home that will impoverish

933
01:13:40.760 --> 01:13:44.279
my family and I need that space
in order to sort of house my kids.

934
01:13:44.359 --> 01:13:49.960
Like you could not legally work,
you can not get a passport,

935
01:13:50.119 --> 01:13:55.880
yeah, I mean, yeah,
it's so, you know, and we

936
01:13:56.039 --> 01:14:00.520
see this and again, I mean, I think Iraq as a great example

937
01:14:00.520 --> 01:14:05.479
in the sense of Saddam was horrible, his sons were horrible. Like the

938
01:14:05.920 --> 01:14:12.359
things that they've done to the courage
to their own citizens. It's well documented.

939
01:14:12.359 --> 01:14:16.800
We know about it. And then
you know, when we look at

940
01:14:16.800 --> 01:14:25.359
a regime like Assad, when we
look at these regimes like what particularly in

941
01:14:25.359 --> 01:14:30.640
the Arab world, I think because
we do have the Salafi kind of hanging

942
01:14:30.680 --> 01:14:39.439
out in the wings right, like
ready the salafis what like for you,

943
01:14:39.560 --> 01:14:45.880
with your experience and your knowledge,
if we were to rewind time and you

944
01:14:45.920 --> 01:14:50.159
were the king of America and could
make the decisions, do you do you

945
01:14:50.199 --> 01:14:57.399
think there were right or wrong decisions
to make in that area? Yeah,

946
01:14:57.560 --> 01:15:03.880
I think think that we Boy,
you know it is it's the absolute hardest

947
01:15:03.920 --> 01:15:11.520
question to answer. I think there
was probably a period of time that was

948
01:15:11.600 --> 01:15:17.560
like the first six months where and
again, you know, I think from

949
01:15:17.560 --> 01:15:21.840
a I struggle with I struggle with
answering the question because on a geostrategic level,

950
01:15:21.840 --> 01:15:26.920
when you look at serrior, like
not from a human level, but

951
01:15:27.039 --> 01:15:30.319
from the strategic like, is it
worth it? Right? Like, is

952
01:15:30.359 --> 01:15:34.079
it worth the amount of attention that
we pay on a country that at the

953
01:15:34.079 --> 01:15:36.279
time, you know, it's twenty
two million people, they don't have mucleately

954
01:15:36.279 --> 01:15:41.840
weapons, they don't have oil.
They have geography that matters, right,

955
01:15:41.920 --> 01:15:46.760
But that's that's kind of it.
So I struggle with whether we would ever

956
01:15:46.800 --> 01:15:49.760
be able to really effectively resource something
that's like, hey, let's help create

957
01:15:49.760 --> 01:15:56.720
a political alternative to the to the
regime that exists. But I think there

958
01:15:56.800 --> 01:16:04.600
was a period in those first six
months where we may have had an opportunity

959
01:16:04.880 --> 01:16:15.880
too, you know, more effectively
support the protest movement and to create try

960
01:16:15.960 --> 01:16:20.640
to create you know, some kind
of coalition inside the region and in Europe

961
01:16:21.479 --> 01:16:29.680
that could have done more to support
peaceful protest in the country and to try

962
01:16:29.680 --> 01:16:35.800
to create you know, some kind
of you know concession, some kind of

963
01:16:35.800 --> 01:16:40.399
structure where there might have been concessions
from the regime or you know, at

964
01:16:40.479 --> 01:16:45.279
least cultivating that protest movement. I
think we could have done more. But

965
01:16:45.640 --> 01:16:50.399
as soon as it went violent and
started to get really violent, kind of

966
01:16:50.439 --> 01:16:55.119
that fall into the you know,
early twenty twelve, so like eight to

967
01:16:55.159 --> 01:16:58.800
twelve months down the road from when
the protests first started, you know,

968
01:17:00.720 --> 01:17:04.039
there just weren't there weren't institutions.
There weren't institutions in the country, groups

969
01:17:04.079 --> 01:17:09.560
in the country. That's that that
we could have really probably affect, like

970
01:17:10.239 --> 01:17:15.039
supported to affect change that would have
been amenable with our interest, that would

971
01:17:15.039 --> 01:17:16.520
have been really hard, and it's
hard for me to imagine what that could

972
01:17:16.520 --> 01:17:20.239
have looked like for sure, But
I think more could have been done early

973
01:17:20.319 --> 01:17:25.239
on. But would it have led
to a different outcome? I don't know.

974
01:17:25.359 --> 01:17:29.760
I just think that we could have
done more well. And you know,

975
01:17:29.960 --> 01:17:34.720
like sometimes when I look at these
situations, I wonder where why Assad

976
01:17:34.840 --> 01:17:40.720
and not Mugabi? Like why aren't
we going? Like you know, why

977
01:17:40.760 --> 01:17:44.119
why do we pick one day?
But if they had a substantial protest movement

978
01:17:44.119 --> 01:17:48.720
against Mugabi, maybe we would have, you know, maybe. But the

979
01:17:48.720 --> 01:17:53.520
thing is, is it it's it's
just a question why do we pick?

980
01:17:53.800 --> 01:17:56.159
Yeah? Right, you know,
why not? Why not me? And

981
01:17:57.119 --> 01:18:01.279
right? One? One dictator over
another, you know, to say,

982
01:18:01.399 --> 01:18:06.039
oh, this person is a shitty
person. Uh, you know, I

983
01:18:06.039 --> 01:18:14.279
mean look at Gadafi, right,
Gadafi was playing ball with us essentially well,

984
01:18:14.319 --> 01:18:16.880
And you know, I think I
think that if Gadafi, if the

985
01:18:16.920 --> 01:18:21.119
dominoes had gone down in a different
order, we I think we might have

986
01:18:21.199 --> 01:18:26.840
done to Asade what we did to
Gadafi or something that that was a sads

987
01:18:26.920 --> 01:18:30.840
fear, wasn't it? Well it
was, and I wasn't the fact that

988
01:18:30.880 --> 01:18:35.479
Libya wasn't going so well that you
know, pretty early that spring was kind

989
01:18:35.479 --> 01:18:39.479
of like, hey, we're already
over rotated here, guys. We can't

990
01:18:39.479 --> 01:18:42.880
go and do something in Syria.
You know, if if Syria had gone,

991
01:18:43.520 --> 01:18:47.439
if the order had been Tunisia,
Egypt, Syria and not Libya in

992
01:18:47.479 --> 01:18:50.399
there, you know, we might
be looking at a very different region right

993
01:18:50.399 --> 01:18:56.760
now. But yeah, I mean, you know, you're you're points a

994
01:18:56.760 --> 01:19:02.760
good one, like why why Asad? And you know, why not others?

995
01:19:02.800 --> 01:19:06.199
And you know, I think I
do think there was an element here

996
01:19:06.279 --> 01:19:14.239
of he was vulnerable. He's vulnerable, and you know there's there are always

997
01:19:14.239 --> 01:19:19.520
these kind of fever dreams of you
know, we're gonna roll back Iranian influence,

998
01:19:19.680 --> 01:19:25.239
and you know, with him with
us that being such a critical Irani

999
01:19:25.239 --> 01:19:26.800
An ally, I think there was
a sense of like, well, we

1000
01:19:26.840 --> 01:19:33.000
can deal the Iranians a blow here, which that that mattered too. I

1001
01:19:33.000 --> 01:19:38.880
think a lot of the people making
policy that season for sure. But yeah,

1002
01:19:39.239 --> 01:19:43.920
that when you go back to the
Bush administration and say sort of the

1003
01:19:43.960 --> 01:19:46.239
same thing, is it like Iran
has never been a friend of ours,

1004
01:19:46.680 --> 01:19:51.279
and Saddam, for for all of
his evils and faults, was always an

1005
01:19:51.319 --> 01:19:57.119
opponent of Iran, and yet and
yet we're like, oh screw you,

1006
01:19:57.720 --> 01:20:01.680
and and somehow our policy makers because
I don't want to see the analysts,

1007
01:20:01.680 --> 01:20:06.039
because analysts I think are brilliant.
Like analysts I think see this stuff.

1008
01:20:06.039 --> 01:20:13.319
And whether people pay attention to them
or not is you know, is another

1009
01:20:13.359 --> 01:20:19.760
issue. But the whole idea,
you know, you talk about our recent

1010
01:20:19.920 --> 01:20:26.119
history, right, our recent administrations, you know, in World War Two,

1011
01:20:26.159 --> 01:20:28.439
it's like if you break it,
you buy it. Like we're not

1012
01:20:28.560 --> 01:20:32.560
leaving Germany until Germany is self sufficient. We don't just hand it over like

1013
01:20:32.600 --> 01:20:35.119
in a rock. You go,
you go in, you break it,

1014
01:20:35.159 --> 01:20:39.800
and you go, here are you
guys? We're not occupiers. We don't

1015
01:20:39.800 --> 01:20:43.199
want to be occupied. This gift
of democracy is the gift of democracy.

1016
01:20:43.479 --> 01:20:46.680
We're just going to hang out and
help you, but we're not gonna rebuild

1017
01:20:46.720 --> 01:20:49.920
all of the infrastructure. That's right. Well, And I think, you

1018
01:20:49.920 --> 01:20:55.159
know, I think if you dug
like Metternick out of his grave, or

1019
01:20:55.279 --> 01:20:59.199
you took some of the guys who
helped build the system after World War two,

1020
01:20:59.840 --> 01:21:00.720
you know, and you sat them
down and you're like, hey,

1021
01:21:01.079 --> 01:21:05.960
I'm gonna give you like a two
hour briefing on us policy in the Middle

1022
01:21:05.960 --> 01:21:12.359
East over the past twenty five years. I mean they would probably leave that

1023
01:21:12.439 --> 01:21:15.640
and be like, you guys are
morons, Like what, I don't understand

1024
01:21:16.479 --> 01:21:26.079
fundamentally what you've done, and like
it is it's hard. I'm over drastically

1025
01:21:26.119 --> 01:21:28.439
oversimplifying. But you know, as
you kind of look back at the ark

1026
01:21:28.479 --> 01:21:30.880
of all this and think about the
way that Syria fits into it, you're

1027
01:21:30.920 --> 01:21:34.560
just like, I don't understand,
like I do not, I don't get

1028
01:21:36.800 --> 01:21:43.920
it has to be the case that
there is some combination here of like this

1029
01:21:44.000 --> 01:21:50.439
region doesn't matter all that much to
us. Really, we can't be you

1030
01:21:50.479 --> 01:21:55.640
know, I would say low marks
for the sort of humans who have been

1031
01:21:55.680 --> 01:21:59.399
making most of the policy over the
past two generations on this, you know,

1032
01:21:59.439 --> 01:22:01.079
so like or the past generation on
this, like they haven't done a

1033
01:22:01.079 --> 01:22:08.800
good job. And you know,
we're also sort of profoundly enamored with this

1034
01:22:08.880 --> 01:22:15.439
region, so there's sort of these
fantasies about it that make us behave in

1035
01:22:15.840 --> 01:22:21.279
very irrational way stop and go irrational
ways of like we're disengaged or you know,

1036
01:22:21.359 --> 01:22:27.119
we've got we're fighting, you know, told time, Yeah, right,

1037
01:22:27.239 --> 01:22:30.760
make up our mind. Yeah,
So David, you left in twenty

1038
01:22:30.800 --> 01:22:35.600
fourteen. And what I mean,
did you have this idea that you wanted

1039
01:22:35.640 --> 01:22:39.600
to go and be a spy novelist
right off the bat, or was there

1040
01:22:39.600 --> 01:22:43.439
another another job? I mean,
presumably you didn't go back to being a

1041
01:22:43.439 --> 01:22:45.319
cashier at Wendy's. I mean,
what what was what was the next step

1042
01:22:45.359 --> 01:22:49.880
off for you? Dust off the
old red apron and go back into the

1043
01:22:49.920 --> 01:23:00.720
business. I no, I left
and took a consulting job and the thing

1044
01:23:00.840 --> 01:23:04.520
that became Damaska Station. I started
writing, like I basically had three months

1045
01:23:04.600 --> 01:23:08.760
after I left the agency, four
months after I left the agency to when

1046
01:23:08.760 --> 01:23:13.239
I started that job, and that's
when I was just kind of processing stuff

1047
01:23:13.239 --> 01:23:18.960
and writing and it was all very
unstructured. It was very poorly written.

1048
01:23:19.359 --> 01:23:24.439
It wasn't I wasn't writing it to
be a book, you know, I

1049
01:23:24.600 --> 01:23:30.000
was just kind of writing for me. And you know, I took because

1050
01:23:30.039 --> 01:23:33.159
at the jobs started, I kind
of just put that away. And but

1051
01:23:33.159 --> 01:23:36.359
but in that time period I had
found like I really love this, Like

1052
01:23:36.399 --> 01:23:41.359
I actually loved writing and I found
it and you know, again we kind

1053
01:23:41.359 --> 01:23:45.239
of we talked about that kind of
an adyne analytical writing that you do at

1054
01:23:45.239 --> 01:23:48.720
the agency. I felt really like
freed from that, you know, for

1055
01:23:48.760 --> 01:23:53.199
the first time in a long time
off like I can I can actually write

1056
01:23:53.199 --> 01:23:56.079
with emotion and color, and like
I can play around with language, and

1057
01:23:56.439 --> 01:24:00.520
I can play around with I can
find my voice and figure out what works.

1058
01:24:00.560 --> 01:24:05.039
And that to me was this wonderfully
freeing, fun process where I felt

1059
01:24:05.079 --> 01:24:11.039
like I was really kind of,
you know, in in tune with the

1060
01:24:11.159 --> 01:24:15.439
universe. And I loved it.
And so I ended up having an opportunity

1061
01:24:15.880 --> 01:24:19.720
after about five years of consulting to
take some time off, and I was

1062
01:24:19.760 --> 01:24:25.720
just I was just burned out.
And I went back to the manuscript and

1063
01:24:25.720 --> 01:24:30.079
I reread it, and I'm like, Okay, this sucks, but you

1064
01:24:30.119 --> 01:24:33.760
know, I want to rediscover that
magic. And I think I would like

1065
01:24:33.800 --> 01:24:36.560
to write a spy novel, like
I'd like to actually try, Like it's

1066
01:24:36.600 --> 01:24:40.279
just all to see if I can
do it right, like write something that

1067
01:24:41.279 --> 01:24:44.119
I want to write, and write
something that somebody else might want to read.

1068
01:24:44.159 --> 01:24:45.840
And so I kind of came back
to it, I think, with

1069
01:24:45.479 --> 01:24:50.319
space, with maybe more maturity on
the writing side, to think about how

1070
01:24:50.319 --> 01:24:54.439
do I actually craft a story that
someone wants to consume? And then frankly,

1071
01:24:54.479 --> 01:24:58.960
some distance from Syria, where I
wasn't just like dealing with it.

1072
01:24:59.000 --> 01:25:03.359
I could, I could kind of
harnessed that emotion that was still there,

1073
01:25:03.439 --> 01:25:09.359
but I could use it in service
of the characters in the story. And

1074
01:25:09.399 --> 01:25:14.039
so I you know, in those
six months, I just started to go

1075
01:25:14.079 --> 01:25:16.800
back to the to the writing,
and Damascus Station, you know, kind

1076
01:25:16.800 --> 01:25:21.239
of by hook and by crook came
out of it. So, I mean,

1077
01:25:21.359 --> 01:25:25.880
the in the book really is beautifully
written and has this sort of like

1078
01:25:26.479 --> 01:25:30.399
authenticity that really I think could only
come from somebody who you know, lived

1079
01:25:30.399 --> 01:25:36.760
in Syria and also has an intimate
familiarity with the Central Intelligence Agency that really

1080
01:25:36.800 --> 01:25:42.760
comes through in this book. Do
you want to tell the folks out there

1081
01:25:42.840 --> 01:25:46.680
you know what your book, what
Damascus Station is about? Yeah? Sure.

1082
01:25:46.840 --> 01:25:55.119
So it's a story about a CIA
case officer named Sam and Hysyrian recruit

1083
01:25:55.159 --> 01:26:01.319
Mariam, who they break a kind
of fundamental rule of espionage and and fall

1084
01:26:01.359 --> 01:26:05.840
into this forbidden relationship. They go
into Damascus to hunt down the killer of

1085
01:26:05.880 --> 01:26:11.319
another CIA case officer, and in
so doing really kind of come face to

1086
01:26:11.319 --> 01:26:14.840
face with the tension and the conflict
and the passion and their own relationship,

1087
01:26:15.600 --> 01:26:19.600
but also into conflict with a really
pretty brutal pair of Syrian brothers, one

1088
01:26:19.600 --> 01:26:26.119
of whom is also much more than
than meets the eye, and these guys

1089
01:26:26.159 --> 01:26:29.840
are kind of guarding this very dark
secret at the heart of the Syrian regime.

1090
01:26:29.960 --> 01:26:31.880
So, you know, it became
I think, as I wrote,

1091
01:26:32.000 --> 01:26:34.840
obviously it's a Spine novel, so
it's about espionage, and I'm trying to

1092
01:26:34.880 --> 01:26:40.800
deal pretty pretty realistically and authentically where
possible with you know, the kind of

1093
01:26:40.840 --> 01:26:44.479
not just the tradecraft with the agency, but it's it's ethos, it's culture,

1094
01:26:44.560 --> 01:26:48.319
or what it's actually like to be
ACI you know, officer. But

1095
01:26:49.199 --> 01:26:54.680
I hope it's also about kind of
love and loyalty and and also like what

1096
01:26:54.720 --> 01:26:57.600
it means to be a human in
the middle of a really awful conflict.

1097
01:26:58.960 --> 01:27:02.439
You know. I told the story
through the lens of multiple Syrian that took

1098
01:27:02.520 --> 01:27:08.520
multiple Syrian perspectives on this, because
I really wanted to try to get down

1099
01:27:08.560 --> 01:27:13.359
to the humanity of like what are
actual people doing and experiencing in the war

1100
01:27:13.479 --> 01:27:15.479
and kind of get away from you
know, for me, one of the

1101
01:27:15.479 --> 01:27:18.159
cleansing things was kind of getting away
from like I don't have to come up

1102
01:27:18.159 --> 01:27:21.359
with the answer on Syria policy or
say what we should have done. I

1103
01:27:21.399 --> 01:27:27.000
can just tell a story from the
standpoint of different different Syrians in the conflicts.

1104
01:27:27.039 --> 01:27:30.000
So you know, I hope in
some sense it's that too. And

1105
01:27:30.720 --> 01:27:33.840
yeah, no, I mean now
that you say that, it does jump

1106
01:27:33.920 --> 01:27:39.399
out there. You know, the
sort of Syrian protagonist of the book is

1107
01:27:39.439 --> 01:27:43.920
a member of the elite class,
maybe doesn't even understand how much privilege she

1108
01:27:44.000 --> 01:27:46.079
has. There's that interesting scene where
her and her friend break down on the

1109
01:27:46.119 --> 01:27:50.479
side of the road and are helped
out by people who are literally dirt poor,

1110
01:27:51.560 --> 01:27:57.760
and you kind of played that that
that culture clash out very well.

1111
01:27:58.600 --> 01:28:03.840
Yeah, no, it's it's funny. That's one of my favorite scenes in

1112
01:28:04.119 --> 01:28:11.399
the novel, because I think that
there's this kind of class, you know,

1113
01:28:11.439 --> 01:28:15.279
in central Damascus who they're in a
bubble. They're they're all connected to

1114
01:28:15.319 --> 01:28:18.800
the regime in some way, shape
or form, and you know, you're

1115
01:28:18.840 --> 01:28:25.479
sort of some of them, are, you know, presumably coming face to

1116
01:28:25.520 --> 01:28:29.279
face with this reality that like there
are elements of this being sort of a

1117
01:28:29.279 --> 01:28:32.359
slave society that they're running here,
you know, And and how do you

1118
01:28:33.359 --> 01:28:36.840
in the character in the book,
you know, like how do you deal

1119
01:28:36.880 --> 01:28:42.399
with that as this very privileged daughter
of the elite, who's like not necessarily

1120
01:28:42.439 --> 01:28:48.760
doing anything wrong wrong, you know, but who is elevated above these people

1121
01:28:48.920 --> 01:28:54.520
and in control of them in some
way. What do you do when you

1122
01:28:54.560 --> 01:29:00.359
were just sort of dumped into direct, you know, direct direct face to

1123
01:29:00.399 --> 01:29:04.039
face kind of confrontation with them where
you're forced to see them as people,

1124
01:29:04.399 --> 01:29:08.640
you know, and not just as
the other or these you know, we

1125
01:29:08.680 --> 01:29:13.600
can sort of put them out of
these shanty downs and not think about them.

1126
01:29:13.640 --> 01:29:15.359
So, you know, a lot
of the book, I mean,

1127
01:29:15.640 --> 01:29:20.760
there's you know, another Syrian protagonist
who's a security officer who kind of is

1128
01:29:20.800 --> 01:29:24.439
all be having to wrestle with some
of the same questions, but who I

1129
01:29:24.479 --> 01:29:30.479
think comes to a very different set
of answers, you know, And something

1130
01:29:30.520 --> 01:29:34.439
that I think our our listeners will
be interested in. What caught my interest

1131
01:29:34.880 --> 01:29:41.760
in your book is that part of
the plot, without giving too much away,

1132
01:29:42.359 --> 01:29:46.640
part of the plot is that their
president gives a lethal finding on somebody

1133
01:29:46.680 --> 01:29:54.560
in Syria word that David's not allowed
to use assassination. It's not an assassination,

1134
01:29:54.840 --> 01:30:00.199
it's just a lethal finding. And
I thought it was fascinating reading the

1135
01:30:00.359 --> 01:30:06.279
novel about that, like you kind
of like detail that entire process, and

1136
01:30:06.319 --> 01:30:11.039
it's a work of fiction, folks, but it was very fascinating. I

1137
01:30:11.079 --> 01:30:15.760
thought to read as you kind of
like walk through step by step how that

1138
01:30:15.800 --> 01:30:20.479
takes place from the legal side,
from the policy side, and how a

1139
01:30:20.560 --> 01:30:26.800
finding like that gets pushed through to
how out in uh you know, the

1140
01:30:26.880 --> 01:30:33.520
Premier Intelligence Services secret facility that we're
not allowed to name, where the rehearsals

1141
01:30:33.600 --> 01:30:39.600
for that plot are acted out,
and how this conspiracy takes shape and ultimately

1142
01:30:40.159 --> 01:30:44.199
is enacted in Syria. I thought
that whole sequence of events was a very

1143
01:30:44.239 --> 01:30:48.319
interesting part of this novel. I
had a lot of fun doing that.

1144
01:30:48.439 --> 01:30:53.359
And I think, you know,
one of the things that one of the

1145
01:30:53.399 --> 01:30:57.920
things I wanted the book to be
again without it becoming boring or pedantic,

1146
01:30:58.079 --> 01:31:00.000
was was a bit of an intelligence
perceive droll. You know, I think

1147
01:31:00.000 --> 01:31:06.600
you don't there isn't and this isn't
This isn't a knock on the genre in

1148
01:31:06.600 --> 01:31:10.960
the least, but just there's just
not a lot of spy fiction that does

1149
01:31:11.000 --> 01:31:15.960
that, you know, And and
I when I come across it, you

1150
01:31:15.960 --> 01:31:20.039
know, I enjoy that a lot. So I was kind of writing this

1151
01:31:20.439 --> 01:31:24.399
for my own, you know,
nightstand in a lot of ways of like

1152
01:31:24.520 --> 01:31:27.439
I like, I like books that
get under the hood a little bit and

1153
01:31:27.479 --> 01:31:30.680
give us the inside baseball and kind
of make us wait for the payoff and

1154
01:31:30.720 --> 01:31:36.640
the action because they kind of build
to it, and and so I wanted

1155
01:31:36.720 --> 01:31:42.359
to go through those steps because I
thought, I think it's really interesting how

1156
01:31:43.119 --> 01:31:45.039
this thing of like okay, okay, we're gonna we're gonna kill somebody.

1157
01:31:46.479 --> 01:31:54.319
There's a whole system and there's there's
a whole system of legality and bureaucracy and

1158
01:31:54.359 --> 01:32:00.199
then just sort of like machining like
and production that goes into this. It's

1159
01:32:00.359 --> 01:32:04.439
like technicians that have this hyper specific
job that we're focused on this one thing

1160
01:32:05.479 --> 01:32:08.800
that's right. And I thought it
was I just think it's fascinating. So

1161
01:32:09.000 --> 01:32:12.560
I kind of wanted to do that, do that end to end, and

1162
01:32:12.600 --> 01:32:16.279
I was I was glad they didn't
edit too much out. Yeah, I

1163
01:32:16.279 --> 01:32:19.439
mean you did. Uh, you
know, people like you that served in

1164
01:32:19.479 --> 01:32:23.560
the agency and even you know,
some people might not realize we've read a

1165
01:32:23.560 --> 01:32:27.079
novel that has to go through the
PRB, the Public Review Award's right,

1166
01:32:27.119 --> 01:32:30.520
Well, what was that process like
for you was it difficult. It was

1167
01:32:30.560 --> 01:32:35.520
actually pretty straightforward. Yeah, you
know, I've heard from colleagues who have

1168
01:32:35.520 --> 01:32:42.119
to go through the d D process
that it's much harder and just like much

1169
01:32:42.159 --> 01:32:46.359
more disorganized and chaotic and slow.
The agency is actually pretty streamlined at this,

1170
01:32:46.439 --> 01:32:48.720
Like I think, you know,
I like to think it's because the

1171
01:32:48.760 --> 01:32:53.960
person reading the books maybe just really
loves them, but they read them pretty

1172
01:32:54.039 --> 01:32:58.399
quickly and get them back to me, you know, in I don't know,

1173
01:32:58.600 --> 01:33:03.720
under two weeks with pretty reasonable edits
both times, like and I source

1174
01:33:03.800 --> 01:33:08.640
them because I'm a little bit OCD, so like Damasca Station went to them

1175
01:33:08.640 --> 01:33:12.720
with like three hundred footnotes or something
like that, like, hey, here's

1176
01:33:13.279 --> 01:33:15.880
you know, I because because I
worked on Syrian, so with that one

1177
01:33:15.920 --> 01:33:18.279
in particular, I wanted to be
buttoned up. So I just said,

1178
01:33:18.279 --> 01:33:20.920
okay, here's you know in this
book, this page, here's where I

1179
01:33:20.920 --> 01:33:24.840
got this. So don't you don't
have to do a specific thing, like

1180
01:33:25.079 --> 01:33:28.159
you don't have to think it came
out of my you know, the classified

1181
01:33:28.239 --> 01:33:30.319
regions in my brain, right and
so, and I'm sorry I interrupt you,

1182
01:33:30.359 --> 01:33:35.880
but when you say source, you
mean you show them like open source.

1183
01:33:36.600 --> 01:33:42.119
Yeah, you know, the open
source like references, so that it's

1184
01:33:42.239 --> 01:33:46.279
I, look, this is already
out there in like the public uh,

1185
01:33:46.319 --> 01:33:53.159
you know, in the public knowledge. So I'm saying something that hasn't been

1186
01:33:53.199 --> 01:33:57.199
reported on or that's right. And
like one one fun example that I think

1187
01:33:57.199 --> 01:33:59.840
I actually had the book back here, like there's a there's a there's a

1188
01:34:00.079 --> 01:34:03.039
being in the yeah it is.
So there's a book by Sam Dagger called

1189
01:34:03.479 --> 01:34:10.600
Asad or We Burned the Country,
which is a good history of the war

1190
01:34:10.760 --> 01:34:14.800
and has he's got some great sources
inside the Syrian game. And there's a

1191
01:34:15.039 --> 01:34:19.680
thing in there about how assa because
Asad's a philanderer and he sleeps with the

1192
01:34:19.760 --> 01:34:26.720
wives of other members of the Syrian
elite to kind of demonstrate his his control

1193
01:34:26.840 --> 01:34:30.279
over the system, and that that's
sort of been a pattern and that's a

1194
01:34:30.319 --> 01:34:35.119
specific fact. It's referenced in the
book. And I wanted to make sure

1195
01:34:35.119 --> 01:34:38.840
that, like the PRB isn't like, oh my gosh, where did this

1196
01:34:38.920 --> 01:34:41.319
you know, where did this come
from? And so it's like, okay,

1197
01:34:41.319 --> 01:34:43.920
well it's on you know, page
one hundred and thirty five of Sam

1198
01:34:43.960 --> 01:34:48.680
Dagger's book footnote you know, you
can find the book here's here's the page

1199
01:34:48.720 --> 01:34:53.439
number, here's the title. All
that and that tends to that that's an

1200
01:34:53.479 --> 01:34:58.520
effective way to kind of make sure
that, like I'm separating the classified regions

1201
01:34:58.520 --> 01:35:01.319
of my brain from what's available in
that was actually like a major plot point

1202
01:35:01.319 --> 01:35:08.079
in one of Mark Granny's books about
about Syria. Was it really yeah,

1203
01:35:08.800 --> 01:35:14.399
as Melvis true, as Melbrook says, it's good to be the king and

1204
01:35:15.239 --> 01:35:17.760
the other the other thing. You
know, So I read your your forthcoming

1205
01:35:17.800 --> 01:35:21.039
novel as well. We'll talk about
in a moment, but I wanted to

1206
01:35:21.039 --> 01:35:26.000
talk for a moment about the commonalities
between these two books because when I think

1207
01:35:26.039 --> 01:35:29.600
of your work, at least that
I'm familiar with so far, the one

1208
01:35:29.600 --> 01:35:34.720
thing that really jumped out at me
that where you're really strong is in describing

1209
01:35:34.920 --> 01:35:41.560
the life of a person, like
an actual human being living and existing in

1210
01:35:41.720 --> 01:35:46.479
an authoritarian regime. And it's a
view that I think is so alien to

1211
01:35:46.560 --> 01:35:51.920
Americans. You know that there there
are the views are going to be very

1212
01:35:51.960 --> 01:35:56.680
black and white, not not a
lot of nuance in there. You really

1213
01:35:56.680 --> 01:36:00.439
describe these people who are part of
the regime, are part of the predominant

1214
01:36:00.520 --> 01:36:06.880
system. They're not necessarily bad human
beings, but they are part of the

1215
01:36:06.920 --> 01:36:11.720
system for all the good or all
the bad, whatever you think about that,

1216
01:36:11.760 --> 01:36:14.560
they're a part of it, and
they're trying to find a way to

1217
01:36:15.039 --> 01:36:17.520
exist in it, just a scape, you know, with without having their

1218
01:36:17.560 --> 01:36:23.920
heads chopped off. Right, Yeah, no, it's I think that that

1219
01:36:24.039 --> 01:36:29.039
is true thematically across both books.
And I'll say that neither of them started

1220
01:36:29.039 --> 01:36:33.079
with any intent around doing that.
It was just sort of discovered the process

1221
01:36:33.119 --> 01:36:42.520
of discovering these characters and writing them
like that, that reality started to become

1222
01:36:42.640 --> 01:36:45.000
very clear to me. So,
like in the Syrian example, you know,

1223
01:36:45.039 --> 01:36:50.199
there's two primary characters, Mariam and
Ali, who are having to deal

1224
01:36:50.239 --> 01:36:54.600
with this idea of like, hey, I don't I might actually be very

1225
01:36:54.640 --> 01:36:58.279
privileged. There might be a lot
of things that I have in the system,

1226
01:36:58.399 --> 01:37:01.000
but my level of sort of age
and see, it's pretty limited,

1227
01:37:02.880 --> 01:37:14.479
and my ability to sort of exist
as a human like morally is compromised before

1228
01:37:14.520 --> 01:37:18.239
I've done anything, you know,
before I've before I've actually made a choice.

1229
01:37:18.319 --> 01:37:23.319
There's that line in the book that
like we're chained to Asad's throne or

1230
01:37:23.359 --> 01:37:27.239
something like that, right, yeah, yeah, no, And I think

1231
01:37:28.039 --> 01:37:33.119
I think that is true in the
Syrian system. And you know it was

1232
01:37:33.319 --> 01:37:39.600
when I when I came to Russia
for Moscow X. Like again, I

1233
01:37:39.640 --> 01:37:42.880
didn't start with this idea of like
I'm going to tell a story about living

1234
01:37:42.920 --> 01:37:47.119
in an authoritarian system. But my
my major Russian character named Anna is a

1235
01:37:47.520 --> 01:37:51.479
Russian intelligence officer. She works for
the SVR, Russia's Foreign intelligence service,

1236
01:37:51.880 --> 01:37:56.199
and she works effectively as a knock
for the SVR. What they would call

1237
01:37:56.199 --> 01:37:59.840
there all butcher of the Russian if
I say it, but they call it

1238
01:37:59.840 --> 01:38:04.079
the apparatus of attached employees. So
it's basically she's a an SBR officer who's

1239
01:38:04.079 --> 01:38:12.199
a banker. And I was really
struck as I just started to kind of

1240
01:38:12.920 --> 01:38:17.159
do research on not on like high
level questions of Russian policy and history and

1241
01:38:17.159 --> 01:38:20.239
whatnot, but like what is it
what's it like to be a Russian?

1242
01:38:20.600 --> 01:38:28.560
You know? And I was really
struck by this concept of like the wily

1243
01:38:28.680 --> 01:38:31.800
man. I don't know if you've
heard about this, this way of characterizing

1244
01:38:31.880 --> 01:38:40.039
kind of Russian interactions with the state
of It's just so the parallels to Syria

1245
01:38:40.119 --> 01:38:44.920
were very profound because again it's it's
it's an authoritarian system. Same as Syria.

1246
01:38:45.039 --> 01:38:47.800
It's obviously a different cultural context and
a different system in a lot of

1247
01:38:47.800 --> 01:38:53.199
ways, but you have this feeling
of like how the state sort of just

1248
01:38:53.439 --> 01:39:05.079
is. It's both extremely predatory but
also worthy and eternal, and you know,

1249
01:39:05.199 --> 01:39:10.439
I sort of especially in Russia,
you have this idea of like,

1250
01:39:10.479 --> 01:39:13.000
Okay, well, I'm not really
going to protest. I'm going to be

1251
01:39:13.119 --> 01:39:16.000
very patient, I'm not going to
resist. I'm just going to kind of

1252
01:39:16.000 --> 01:39:25.239
adapt to the system. And i
have kind of a passive displeasure or even

1253
01:39:25.279 --> 01:39:30.199
like a mockery of the system,
but I'm not going to demand kind of

1254
01:39:30.239 --> 01:39:35.000
like full rights and freedom in the
way that we would define it. And

1255
01:39:35.119 --> 01:39:41.880
I think there was like there's like
just this idea of I'm trying to eke

1256
01:39:42.039 --> 01:39:48.520
out for myself inside this very messed
up kind of double speak, double think

1257
01:39:48.600 --> 01:39:57.119
world, and I'm going to try
to get what I can, and that's

1258
01:39:57.199 --> 01:40:01.800
kind of it. So so you
have these little moments where people are asserting

1259
01:40:01.840 --> 01:40:09.680
their own dignity and their own humanity, but it's far short of how we,

1260
01:40:10.680 --> 01:40:13.680
you know, as Americans, would
define kind of a full measure of

1261
01:40:13.720 --> 01:40:18.359
freedom an agency, and so the
character you know, especially this on a

1262
01:40:18.439 --> 01:40:24.359
character in Moscow X is like she's
coming at the world with that as her

1263
01:40:24.439 --> 01:40:29.800
starting point, like like she's not
trying to be free in the way that

1264
01:40:29.840 --> 01:40:32.119
we are. She's actually there's a
line in the novel about how when she

1265
01:40:32.199 --> 01:40:35.359
finally sort of I don't want to
spoil anything, but she basically says,

1266
01:40:35.439 --> 01:40:39.720
like, you know, I've stolen
from a thief and I'm going to get

1267
01:40:39.720 --> 01:40:43.000
away with it, and like that's
the win, Like I you know,

1268
01:40:43.239 --> 01:40:48.000
like you're a thief, I'm taking
from you. That's my victory. Right,

1269
01:40:48.520 --> 01:40:51.960
everybody's getting their own, so I'm
going to get mine too. That's

1270
01:40:53.039 --> 01:40:57.279
right. That's right, And fundamentally, in a system that's unjust and a

1271
01:40:57.399 --> 01:41:02.279
moral is there any such thing as
breaking the law? Like like like breaking

1272
01:41:02.279 --> 01:41:05.800
the law like that? Like is
that is that? Is it a moral

1273
01:41:05.920 --> 01:41:12.119
to break the law in an a
moral system? You know? Tough questions.

1274
01:41:12.159 --> 01:41:14.520
I mean, you know, the
one day in the life of Ivan

1275
01:41:14.560 --> 01:41:17.039
Denis the Bitch, they're asking those
questions, you know, in the Gulag.

1276
01:41:17.199 --> 01:41:20.920
But but I feel like that's an
ethical question for every citizen of every

1277
01:41:20.960 --> 01:41:28.560
country, Like when ye right,
wouldn't you believe that laws or certain laws

1278
01:41:28.560 --> 01:41:33.720
are immoral or whatever else. The
rather commonality between the two books is that

1279
01:41:33.800 --> 01:41:40.319
the character Artemis, yes, who
is in So these books exist in the

1280
01:41:40.319 --> 01:41:45.119
same in the same world very much. Uh So Artemis in Damascus Station is

1281
01:41:45.159 --> 01:41:49.000
like, in my opinion, a
batshit cos uh you would not want to

1282
01:41:49.039 --> 01:41:53.279
work for which? Which? Which
is a real thing? Yes? Yes,

1283
01:41:53.600 --> 01:41:57.760
fair, fair, fair, that's
fair. And then in Moscow X,

1284
01:41:57.840 --> 01:42:00.840
she's leading this you know, this
special access program called Moscow X that

1285
01:42:00.920 --> 01:42:06.079
you guys will read about when the
book comes out. Who is Artemis based

1286
01:42:06.119 --> 01:42:10.720
on? I mean, I'm not
I'm not looking for a name, but

1287
01:42:10.840 --> 01:42:14.520
here you are spilled the team,
we got it. We can handle it.

1288
01:42:16.000 --> 01:42:23.920
So initially, like all all my
characters have started, like when I

1289
01:42:23.960 --> 01:42:27.720
start to write them, I write, I write scenes, and I write

1290
01:42:28.079 --> 01:42:30.479
Baxter and dialogue stuff that I know
is probably not going to be in the

1291
01:42:30.479 --> 01:42:34.560
finished product, to like just kind
of get to know the character. And

1292
01:42:34.840 --> 01:42:40.920
most of them start as composites of
actual people. And I will not give

1293
01:42:40.960 --> 01:42:44.399
the names because if I gave the
names for Artemis Proctor, I know I'm

1294
01:42:44.439 --> 01:42:47.760
not asking down and I would be
hunted down and murdered and I want to

1295
01:42:47.800 --> 01:42:54.720
stay alive. But there are a
couple case officers that informed her character,

1296
01:42:55.760 --> 01:43:00.520
uh and and kind of started like
as I was initially crafting her and initially

1297
01:43:00.520 --> 01:43:03.319
writing her, like I was thinking
about them, and so I just kind

1298
01:43:03.319 --> 01:43:09.680
of started riffing with with that a
compositive a couple female case officers that I

1299
01:43:09.760 --> 01:43:16.319
knew, and like any good character
that's gonna work in fiction pretty quickly,

1300
01:43:17.319 --> 01:43:23.039
Yeah, that composite got left behind. She became her own entity with her

1301
01:43:23.039 --> 01:43:29.359
own voice, and we were just
kind of off to the races. But

1302
01:43:29.640 --> 01:43:33.479
she was a character you couldn't deny. That's right, Yeah, exactly.

1303
01:43:33.479 --> 01:43:35.720
I mean, and most of the
most of the good ones are because they

1304
01:43:35.760 --> 01:43:40.039
just start to like, Okay,
I can kind of hear I know what

1305
01:43:40.079 --> 01:43:43.800
she sounds like, I know what
she says, you know, like I'm

1306
01:43:44.079 --> 01:43:47.680
I'm in communion with with wherever she
exists in the universe, so like I'm

1307
01:43:47.680 --> 01:43:55.840
moving her onto the page. That
But but she is a good vessel for

1308
01:43:56.920 --> 01:44:01.720
a lot of great stories that I
have gotten from DO colleagues over the years,

1309
01:44:01.720 --> 01:44:08.600
like like the most unshamed crazy stuff
that you get, you know,

1310
01:44:08.760 --> 01:44:12.680
from listening to stories from these guys, Like and there's a lot of crazy

1311
01:44:12.760 --> 01:44:18.359
stuff she is because she is so
she's some combination of like competent and also

1312
01:44:18.479 --> 01:44:24.600
deranged. She's a great sort of
you know, mouthpiece for a lot of

1313
01:44:24.600 --> 01:44:29.319
that stuff. So talk to us
about Damascus X, the book is coming

1314
01:44:29.319 --> 01:44:32.359
out next month. What is what? What is this novel about? Because

1315
01:44:32.359 --> 01:44:38.199
it's a totally different subject than Damascus
Station. Did I say Damas So?

1316
01:44:38.279 --> 01:44:42.239
Yeah, that Freudian set. Damascus
X was a real thing in real life

1317
01:44:42.239 --> 01:44:45.520
when you guys got booted out of
Syria and you were living in another place

1318
01:44:45.920 --> 01:44:51.279
for a little while. Moscow X
the book that's coming out in October.

1319
01:44:51.359 --> 01:44:56.920
What what's that? What's this novel
about? Yeah? So I am.

1320
01:44:57.760 --> 01:45:00.359
I started with a concept and you
know, we can talk about how real

1321
01:45:00.399 --> 01:45:06.880
events have sort of I mean made
writing this thing very hard because I started

1322
01:45:06.880 --> 01:45:11.199
and I said, okay, what
what would it look like if from a

1323
01:45:11.239 --> 01:45:15.800
covert action standpoint, the CIA really
took off the gloves against Putin. That's

1324
01:45:15.840 --> 01:45:17.840
kind of where it started, is
like, what's from a from a CIA

1325
01:45:17.920 --> 01:45:20.439
standpoint? What what can we do? So the book, you know,

1326
01:45:20.479 --> 01:45:25.640
Moscow X is a fictional component inside
the real Russia house that's kind of charged

1327
01:45:25.680 --> 01:45:30.760
with this outside the box pretty aggressive
approach to dealing with Russians, and the

1328
01:45:30.840 --> 01:45:35.680
idea that comes out from some measure
of sort of you know, geopolitics,

1329
01:45:35.680 --> 01:45:44.520
but also pro Artemis Procter's personal green
events, is to convince Vladimir Putin that

1330
01:45:44.640 --> 01:45:49.520
a coup is a flipped when one
is not, and to destabilize or sort

1331
01:45:49.520 --> 01:45:56.000
of weekend, you know, his
regime. Accordingly, so the agency taps

1332
01:45:56.560 --> 01:46:00.119
two officers under non official cover,
commercial cover. One one is a lawyer

1333
01:46:00.319 --> 01:46:06.039
in Europe. The other one runs
a family thoroughbred horse sort of breeding and

1334
01:46:06.079 --> 01:46:14.279
dealing operation in Mexico to go and
actually target and recruit one of Putin's money

1335
01:46:14.279 --> 01:46:17.720
men to get access to some of
his personal funds. The money man is

1336
01:46:17.800 --> 01:46:23.159
married to a woman named Anna who
we talked about her earlier, who is

1337
01:46:23.199 --> 01:46:26.520
an intelligence officer at the CIA.
Doesn't know that, and she's also just

1338
01:46:26.560 --> 01:46:30.399
sort of playing her own game entirely. And the book is really the cat

1339
01:46:30.399 --> 01:46:36.479
and mouse between the agency and between
Anna and Vadi and her husband. And

1340
01:46:38.079 --> 01:46:40.600
you know, as I wrote it, it kind of became the story of

1341
01:46:40.640 --> 01:46:48.079
like vengeance and what does it mean
to tell the truth? What does identity

1342
01:46:48.199 --> 01:46:54.520
look like in a world where you're
most of the most of the intelligence officers

1343
01:46:54.560 --> 01:46:59.600
in the book are under pretty exotic
forms of cover that are very demanding on

1344
01:46:59.680 --> 01:47:02.359
humans, and so like what does
identity look like in that world? And

1345
01:47:02.359 --> 01:47:05.800
then you know, what does what
does all of that look like in kind

1346
01:47:05.800 --> 01:47:11.960
of the real context of the sort
of covert war between Washington and Moscow.

1347
01:47:12.680 --> 01:47:16.079
So that's that's what the book's about. And again, our listeners out there

1348
01:47:16.119 --> 01:47:20.439
will be very interested in this book
that it's about Knox people who are working

1349
01:47:20.439 --> 01:47:27.039
on a nonofficial cover and again the
it's fictionalized, but the procedural aspects of

1350
01:47:27.079 --> 01:47:31.800
that and like maybe how something like
that kind of sort of works, including

1351
01:47:31.800 --> 01:47:38.880
like the national resources side of it, how you bring American citizens into maybe

1352
01:47:38.880 --> 01:47:41.479
a COVID action program. I mean, there's a lot of stuff in this

1353
01:47:41.520 --> 01:47:46.439
book that I think people will be
interested to read. Yeah, I am,

1354
01:47:46.760 --> 01:47:49.960
I agree, I hope so.
And you know, it was it

1355
01:47:50.039 --> 01:47:53.960
was it was fun to deal with
the commercial side of the house, the

1356
01:47:54.000 --> 01:47:56.399
commercial cover side of the house here. You know, for a couple of

1357
01:47:56.439 --> 01:48:00.199
reasons. One was just the reality
of trying to write. You know,

1358
01:48:00.560 --> 01:48:04.880
the demands of a story and fiction
are such that like if you have if

1359
01:48:04.920 --> 01:48:10.720
a big point at the novelist a
relationship between the intell pace officers and assets,

1360
01:48:10.760 --> 01:48:14.159
like they need to spend time with
each other. And if you're writing,

1361
01:48:14.279 --> 01:48:20.239
if you're writing a story about agency
operations in Russia and you're using officers

1362
01:48:20.279 --> 01:48:24.880
who are under like embassy cover,
you know you're not spending a lot of

1363
01:48:24.880 --> 01:48:31.479
FaceTime with Russian assets inside Russia in
that context. Right when you strip away

1364
01:48:31.560 --> 01:48:34.960
the sort of you know, diplomatic
cover side of it and talk about Knox,

1365
01:48:35.079 --> 01:48:39.239
like, you know, from standpoint
of fiction, you're in a much

1366
01:48:39.279 --> 01:48:43.960
more flexible world where things that wouldn't
be possible in kind of the world of

1367
01:48:44.039 --> 01:48:48.960
Damascus Station fast forwarded to Russia are
all of a sudden possible. And then

1368
01:48:49.039 --> 01:48:54.960
you know kind of more I guess
technically as you kind of look at the

1369
01:48:55.000 --> 01:49:00.359
way that human intelligence is being collected
and will be collected in the future because

1370
01:49:00.359 --> 01:49:02.399
of you know, ubiquitous technical surveillance
all that kind of stuff, Like it's

1371
01:49:02.479 --> 01:49:08.359
increasingly challenging for people who are under
sort of official forms of cover to even

1372
01:49:08.439 --> 01:49:12.399
do this stuff anywhere. So you're
you're starting to, you know, see

1373
01:49:12.439 --> 01:49:15.800
this kind of flexibility or a need
for this kind of flexibility in the way

1374
01:49:15.800 --> 01:49:18.800
the CI runs human intelligence gathering operations, and I think playing around with that

1375
01:49:18.880 --> 01:49:23.560
and this book was was a lot
of fun. So the book comes out

1376
01:49:23.600 --> 01:49:26.960
next month. I assume it's got
to be up for pre orders now if

1377
01:49:26.960 --> 01:49:30.399
people want to go and grab it, I think it's gonna be. I

1378
01:49:30.399 --> 01:49:32.920
think it's gonna be a big hit. I enjoyed Moscow X more than I

1379
01:49:33.000 --> 01:49:38.680
enjoyed Damascus Stations, So that's good. I think I'm glad to hear that.

1380
01:49:38.760 --> 01:49:44.640
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it
uh, it was harder to write.

1381
01:49:45.640 --> 01:49:51.880
It nearly killed me, but I'm
I'm really happy with how it with

1382
01:49:51.880 --> 01:49:56.159
how it turned out. And I
think I don't know, I don't know

1383
01:49:56.199 --> 01:49:59.239
who talked about Jack. I think
there was some like gunplay. I think

1384
01:49:59.319 --> 01:50:01.439
in Damascus Station that that sort of
broke you towards the end, because I

1385
01:50:01.479 --> 01:50:05.119
just I you know, there were
some moments I was wondering, this has

1386
01:50:05.399 --> 01:50:09.880
come up on our show before,
and I was wondering if if Jack sent

1387
01:50:09.920 --> 01:50:14.439
you any hate mail about about weapons. He didn't send me any hate mail,

1388
01:50:14.560 --> 01:50:16.520
No, he just he was He
gave an honest he gave an honest

1389
01:50:16.520 --> 01:50:19.560
review of Damaska Station. If I
recall yeah. I mean, I thought

1390
01:50:19.560 --> 01:50:24.760
it was a really good book.
There are there's a couple scenes of the

1391
01:50:24.800 --> 01:50:28.880
female protagonist going rambo that were a
little bit I was like, oh my

1392
01:50:28.920 --> 01:50:31.600
gosh, those are fun to write. Though. Yeah, no, that's

1393
01:50:31.720 --> 01:50:38.079
yeah, that's fair, And I
think there's probably marginally less of that in

1394
01:50:38.079 --> 01:50:41.960
this novel. I think my sort
of sensibility when it comes to these stories

1395
01:50:41.960 --> 01:50:46.560
as I like, I like to
push that a bit like I'm trying.

1396
01:50:46.600 --> 01:50:50.079
I'm not trying to do the full
shoot him up thing, which is wonderfully

1397
01:50:50.159 --> 01:50:55.359
entertaining but totally divorced from reality.
And I'm also not trying to do the

1398
01:50:55.399 --> 01:50:59.720
full kind of you know, well
many procedures. I will I will.

1399
01:51:00.520 --> 01:51:02.199
I will also say, you know, David, because I mean, you

1400
01:51:02.199 --> 01:51:05.600
are really a really talented author,
and if you were to do a book

1401
01:51:05.920 --> 01:51:12.920
that was more looking at either the
agency, paramilitary arm and that side of

1402
01:51:12.960 --> 01:51:15.319
things, I would be very very
interested to read that as well. Like

1403
01:51:15.359 --> 01:51:19.000
if you were to write a book
more in that direction or the or the

1404
01:51:19.079 --> 01:51:24.479
Jaysock Agency collaboration, like I would
be I would be all in for that.

1405
01:51:24.600 --> 01:51:27.359
If you will just make sure Jack
gets a chance to look at it,

1406
01:51:27.359 --> 01:51:31.119
because you will get the hate mail
about the wrong caliber of weapon,

1407
01:51:31.760 --> 01:51:34.479
like I hit up Mark Rainey.
Yeah, that's that's what I was thinking

1408
01:51:34.520 --> 01:51:38.239
about again, that was that was
an advanced copy. I was like hoping

1409
01:51:38.279 --> 01:51:43.159
he could fix it before it was
published. Yeah, Well, do you

1410
01:51:43.319 --> 01:51:46.399
have a writing process? Did you
develop one? Do you know the end

1411
01:51:46.439 --> 01:51:53.279
of your book when you start?
So, uh, it's been you know,

1412
01:51:54.319 --> 01:51:58.880
I feel like my process is a
total mess, and I just don't

1413
01:51:58.880 --> 01:52:00.520
I don't think there's a better,
a better way for me to do it,

1414
01:52:00.520 --> 01:52:04.560
because I've experimented with like outlining,
and I found that doesn't work for

1415
01:52:04.600 --> 01:52:10.800
me at all. So what I've
done, or where I've sort of landed

1416
01:52:11.560 --> 01:52:17.560
is I usually start with an image
in my head of the climactic scene in

1417
01:52:17.600 --> 01:52:21.479
the novel, like where all of
the tension is going to build too and

1418
01:52:21.560 --> 01:52:28.720
sort of where it's going to explode. With Damasca Station, it started with

1419
01:52:28.760 --> 01:52:32.119
an image of people. It literally
started with an image of a couple sort

1420
01:52:32.159 --> 01:52:38.479
of face to face in a serial
interrogation center, which is what happens in

1421
01:52:38.520 --> 01:52:42.239
the book. And then in Moscow
X, it started with the image of

1422
01:52:42.239 --> 01:52:47.079
a woman riding away from a burning
house on horseback, and that was it,

1423
01:52:47.640 --> 01:52:51.760
And so I was like, how
do I get there? And the

1424
01:52:51.800 --> 01:52:57.479
whole process of writing the book was
like trying to get to that scene.

1425
01:52:59.079 --> 01:53:01.840
And I didn't know, Like the
woman on horseback, I didn't know what

1426
01:53:01.880 --> 01:53:04.399
her name was, I didn't know
she was Russian, I didn't know whose

1427
01:53:04.399 --> 01:53:09.640
house it was. But I was
like, I felt that that was where

1428
01:53:09.680 --> 01:53:15.000
the book should get to, and
I started to write with that in mind.

1429
01:53:15.319 --> 01:53:17.119
The story actually started. This is
why it's such a mess. The

1430
01:53:17.159 --> 01:53:20.000
story started in Texas, and it
was gonna the whole novel was going to

1431
01:53:20.079 --> 01:53:27.119
take place in Texas. And I
wrote about seventy five hundred pages of that

1432
01:53:27.239 --> 01:53:30.760
and it didn't work, and I
just threw it away and started over.

1433
01:53:30.279 --> 01:53:36.399
I guess I wasn't right, So
I usually start with that image. I

1434
01:53:36.399 --> 01:53:41.760
started to play around with the characters, you know, and try to understand

1435
01:53:41.880 --> 01:53:45.439
voice and kind of who they are
and all of that. But then I'll

1436
01:53:45.479 --> 01:53:48.319
just kind of Usually what I do
is I try to get about two thousand

1437
01:53:48.600 --> 01:53:54.399
to three thousand words in a day, and I'll show up with the coffee

1438
01:53:54.399 --> 01:53:58.039
shop. I always write from a
coffee shop, same coffee shop, usually

1439
01:53:58.079 --> 01:54:02.920
the same table, same cup coffee, and I'll sit down after drop the

1440
01:54:03.000 --> 01:54:08.720
kids off in school, all right
until lunch. I'll eat lunch, I'll

1441
01:54:08.760 --> 01:54:12.479
get another cup of coffee, all
right in the afternoon, get those three

1442
01:54:12.520 --> 01:54:16.119
thousand words in. It's a good
day, and you know, I just

1443
01:54:16.319 --> 01:54:20.720
you just knock it out that way
I usually end up writing. I would

1444
01:54:20.720 --> 01:54:26.199
say, if the novels are somewhere
around one hundred and twenty five thousand words,

1445
01:54:26.199 --> 01:54:31.840
I probably write about five hundred thousand
words to get the novel. And

1446
01:54:32.279 --> 01:54:36.600
you know, I don't know how
to do it another way. The comparison

1447
01:54:36.680 --> 01:54:42.039
I like, or the sort of
analogy I like to use is like,

1448
01:54:42.119 --> 01:54:46.720
if you're gonna put together a thirteen
or fourteen track album, you know you

1449
01:54:46.760 --> 01:54:53.039
didn't write thirteen songs. Probably you
wrote thirty, right, those were the

1450
01:54:53.079 --> 01:54:59.159
tracks that made it, you know, And so it's it's hard to know

1451
01:55:00.079 --> 01:55:02.439
what the final thing is going to
be unless you write a lot more.

1452
01:55:02.479 --> 01:55:04.600
And like, you know, I
sort of play around with it that way

1453
01:55:04.640 --> 01:55:11.319
and figure out where I'm going to
get the most punch, and it's it's

1454
01:55:11.800 --> 01:55:15.920
you know, I've sort of I've
finished the third one now and and I'm

1455
01:55:16.000 --> 01:55:23.000
kind of putting the final touches on
that and you know, like I have

1456
01:55:23.119 --> 01:55:26.600
started each of them thinking it will
be easier this time because I've already written

1457
01:55:26.600 --> 01:55:30.439
books and it hasn't gotten easier yet. Let's just put it that way.

1458
01:55:30.560 --> 01:55:35.520
What's KEYTS book three at all?
Yeah, it's it's a sort of modern

1459
01:55:35.560 --> 01:55:42.359
homage to Tinker Taylor. So it's
a legit mull Hunt in the CIA.

1460
01:55:43.760 --> 01:55:51.119
It's Proctor in the sort of George
Smiley role, and uh yeah, it

1461
01:55:51.159 --> 01:55:56.439
was. It was. It was
very fun to write because it's really it's

1462
01:55:56.520 --> 01:56:01.960
really more her like, it's kind
of her story. And the working title

1463
01:56:02.039 --> 01:56:06.079
right now is the seventh Floor,
so the you know, CI executive floor.

1464
01:56:08.359 --> 01:56:14.720
But that one is pretty much done
and hopefully cool. Have some news

1465
01:56:14.760 --> 01:56:17.079
on when that will come out,
you know, hopefully pretty soon. That's

1466
01:56:17.119 --> 01:56:21.600
awesome, man, we'll have you
on when when that book is out or

1467
01:56:21.680 --> 01:56:28.279
coming out? Great. Anything else
that you want to tell people about,

1468
01:56:28.359 --> 01:56:32.359
anything that we failed to cover here
tonight, I don't think so. I

1469
01:56:32.399 --> 01:56:35.239
mean we hit a lot. This
is fun, guys, This is really

1470
01:56:35.279 --> 01:56:39.199
fun. Thanks thanks for having me
on. It's fun to I'll go back

1471
01:56:39.239 --> 01:56:43.119
and relive Syria and talk about the
books. This is great. Where where

1472
01:56:43.159 --> 01:56:46.319
can people find you, where should
they go and look for your books?

1473
01:56:46.800 --> 01:56:50.720
Yeah, so you can. You
can find me at David McCloskey books dot

1474
01:56:50.760 --> 01:56:55.840
com. That's my site. You
can find the books pretty much anywhere.

1475
01:56:55.920 --> 01:56:58.279
I mean, you know, you
can put m on Amazon and get them

1476
01:56:58.279 --> 01:57:00.640
on Target, Walmart. If want
to support your local indie bookstore, which

1477
01:57:00.680 --> 01:57:04.479
is always something I recommend, and
go to Indie Bound and find a local

1478
01:57:04.520 --> 01:57:09.560
indie near you and they'll hook you
up with the book. You can get

1479
01:57:09.560 --> 01:57:11.760
it on you know, Apple Books, and you can get it anywhere.

1480
01:57:11.960 --> 01:57:15.760
The audio book is not up for
pre order yet, which is kind of

1481
01:57:15.760 --> 01:57:18.399
frustrating, but it'll be up very
soon and it'll be out, you know,

1482
01:57:18.479 --> 01:57:24.000
shortly after the release. So for
those of you know, those listeners

1483
01:57:24.000 --> 01:57:27.000
who just do audio books, that's
that's coming and you'll be able to pre

1484
01:57:27.079 --> 01:57:30.159
order that really soon. And for
our viewers and listeners, they'll be able

1485
01:57:30.159 --> 01:57:32.359
link down the description for people want
to go and check out his books.

1486
01:57:33.479 --> 01:57:38.920
I also want to give a quick
shout out to our friends at Kassa Karabeo

1487
01:57:40.119 --> 01:57:45.359
who make gave us some really awesome
cigars that don Nello Torpedoes are really good.

1488
01:57:45.720 --> 01:57:48.720
If you go to Kassa Karabeo dot
com. You'll be able to check

1489
01:57:48.760 --> 01:57:55.319
them out really enjoying their stuff.
I'm we have a few questions, op.

1490
01:57:55.319 --> 01:57:58.359
Actually, first off, the sent
me an email that he picked up

1491
01:57:58.359 --> 01:58:03.079
and chat. Someone chat asked if
the book you were referring to is called

1492
01:58:03.399 --> 01:58:10.520
Psychology of Intelligence Analysis by Richard J. Howard. There you go, There

1493
01:58:10.600 --> 01:58:15.239
you go, that's it. Yes, somebody nailed it. Somebody nailed it,

1494
01:58:15.279 --> 01:58:17.920
is there. There's got to be
another analyst out there watching or something

1495
01:58:17.960 --> 01:58:23.960
like that. That's exactly right.
That's exactly right, Paul, Thank you

1496
01:58:24.039 --> 01:58:27.840
very much for the genation. I
don't see a question if there If there

1497
01:58:27.960 --> 01:58:30.600
was a question to ask that,
please just type in the chat right now

1498
01:58:30.600 --> 01:58:35.079
and we'll pick it up olms.
Thank you very much. Cheers. And

1499
01:58:35.159 --> 01:58:42.439
a couple from our patron subscriber subscribers. How would you explain TikTok to the

1500
01:58:42.520 --> 01:58:46.760
everyday person and why they should be
worried? Oh? Man, Uh,

1501
01:58:50.359 --> 01:58:57.680
I don't know if I feel qualified
to answer that question. Uh so,

1502
01:58:57.760 --> 01:59:03.640
I don't. I mean, I
guess everyone should probably be worried in large

1503
01:59:03.640 --> 01:59:09.560
part because it's highly addictive and it's
like wrecking people's brains and capacity to focus

1504
01:59:09.640 --> 01:59:13.840
on information. So that's one element
of it, I mean, on the

1505
01:59:13.840 --> 01:59:16.359
other side of it, And again
I don't. You know, there are

1506
01:59:16.399 --> 01:59:21.319
far more authoritative sources than I on
this, but you know, I don't

1507
01:59:21.359 --> 01:59:25.239
have a great sense of like how
much of this information. I mean,

1508
01:59:25.279 --> 01:59:27.560
maybe you guys know the answer better
than I do. It was like actually

1509
01:59:27.760 --> 01:59:32.159
harvestable by the Chinese, and uh, you know, you have to think

1510
01:59:32.159 --> 01:59:34.600
about who you're giving that information too. But I don't have a I don't

1511
01:59:34.600 --> 01:59:38.960
have a highly educated answer on this
other than I don't. I don't.

1512
01:59:39.439 --> 01:59:43.960
My reasons for not using it are
purely because I already find my attention fragmented

1513
01:59:44.039 --> 01:59:48.079
and I feel like I would prefer
to not give it to cat videos and

1514
01:59:48.199 --> 01:59:53.199
other such nonsense. I mean,
friends don't let friends do communism. Folks

1515
01:59:53.520 --> 01:59:58.920
are great, but yeah, I
think that like one of the discoveries about

1516
01:59:58.920 --> 02:00:03.680
TikTok. Obviously, Facebook and Google
they're all they're all horrible in terms of

1517
02:00:03.800 --> 02:00:10.039
what they collect personally, But I
think TikTok was actually you were getting it

1518
02:00:10.239 --> 02:00:14.600
wide wide permissions to access a lot
of shit on your phone that it wasn't

1519
02:00:14.600 --> 02:00:19.760
even connected to. Yeah, and
look, I mean it's it's like it's

1520
02:00:19.800 --> 02:00:25.920
like twenty three. Well, I
won't say any genetic information, but you

1521
02:00:25.960 --> 02:00:30.520
know, it's like, you know
a lot of these, you know my

1522
02:00:30.680 --> 02:00:33.600
heritage tests, you know where you
can get your genetics. It's like the

1523
02:00:33.680 --> 02:00:38.000
Chinese own most of those. And
you can say, I'm a nobody,

1524
02:00:38.039 --> 02:00:42.439
it doesn't matter. But at the
end of the day, maybe it matters

1525
02:00:42.399 --> 02:00:47.079
to your grandkids, you know that
that Yeah, that's that's right, that's

1526
02:00:47.159 --> 02:00:55.960
right. I mean, yeah,
yeah, I'm just I'm glad I don't

1527
02:00:55.960 --> 02:00:59.359
have I I have not. I
know. It's a number of authors who

1528
02:00:59.479 --> 02:01:03.439
use them for like book promo and
stuff like that, and I've so far.

1529
02:01:03.520 --> 02:01:05.720
I mean, maybe it's more out
of sheer laziness, but I have

1530
02:01:05.800 --> 02:01:11.640
so far stayed off the stayed off
the talk. Yet do it call me

1531
02:01:11.760 --> 02:01:15.960
Ishmael. Do you think that the
Intelligent community correctly managed to start of the

1532
02:01:16.079 --> 02:01:20.840
Russo Ukrainian War or do you think
there was a credibility problem that led to

1533
02:01:20.880 --> 02:01:30.439
missed opportunities? I mean, with
the caveat that, I you know,

1534
02:01:31.079 --> 02:01:34.079
I haven't been reading any of the
actual intel on that, right, I'm

1535
02:01:34.079 --> 02:01:39.640
just sort of reading what kids leaked
out and what's available publicly. I don't

1536
02:01:39.640 --> 02:01:45.479
know. I mean, it felt
to me like I would give the administration

1537
02:01:45.600 --> 02:01:51.079
and the I see pretty high marks
from the standpoint of we knew it was

1538
02:01:51.119 --> 02:02:00.760
coming and we effectively, you know, I think largely effective sort of leaked

1539
02:02:00.840 --> 02:02:05.319
information or provided information into the public
sperience allies to like demonstrate that that was

1540
02:02:05.359 --> 02:02:12.359
going to occur. So relatively high
marks there from sort of a plans and

1541
02:02:12.439 --> 02:02:16.239
intentions standpoint, Like, it seems
like the assessments were pretty good. Again,

1542
02:02:16.279 --> 02:02:23.560
I'm not reading them. What I
have seen again from leaks about like

1543
02:02:24.079 --> 02:02:29.680
our assessment of the Russian military's capabilities
and the Ukrainian you know, military's capabilities,

1544
02:02:30.439 --> 02:02:34.920
doesn't seem like the analysis there has
held up so well. That's an

1545
02:02:34.920 --> 02:02:40.399
inherently harder question to answer, right
because you're talking about the dynamics of a

1546
02:02:40.479 --> 02:02:44.800
war. But that feels like it
was sort of missed. But again,

1547
02:02:45.119 --> 02:02:47.119
you know, I'm I'm looking at
this from way on the outside, and

1548
02:02:47.159 --> 02:02:49.720
I'm coming at a lot of this
from the standpoint of, you know,

1549
02:02:49.920 --> 02:02:55.079
researching a novel, right, not
not writing policy papers for a think tank.

1550
02:02:56.359 --> 02:03:01.399
But so I think I'd say relatively
high marks on kind of what's putin

1551
02:03:01.520 --> 02:03:06.079
up to and then not as great
on what will the dynamics of the conflict

1552
02:03:06.159 --> 02:03:10.960
actually end up being. I mean, it seems like we dramatically underestimated the

1553
02:03:11.000 --> 02:03:16.640
Ukrainians capacity to resist and organize and
fights, and we overestimated the Russians.

1554
02:03:17.920 --> 02:03:21.479
You know. I think there's sort
of this kind of tendency. It's as

1555
02:03:21.520 --> 02:03:29.119
either of you the Russians is like
completely incompetent or all knowing and all capable

1556
02:03:29.239 --> 02:03:33.479
and you know, the answers you
know, somewhere in between U. And

1557
02:03:33.720 --> 02:03:39.199
it seems like we didn't. We
didn't get that right out of curiosity as

1558
02:03:39.239 --> 02:03:44.159
an analyst, Uh, you know, were you did you ever feel as

1559
02:03:44.199 --> 02:03:47.239
though you were ever that you were
ever under political pressure, whether it was

1560
02:03:47.279 --> 02:03:57.760
from an administration or from internally in
the agency to provide answers that somebody else

1561
02:03:57.880 --> 02:04:05.119
wanted? You know? The first
thing I'd say on this one is like

1562
02:04:05.359 --> 02:04:10.960
the agency, at least on the
analytics side, I think we're generally really

1563
02:04:10.960 --> 02:04:16.000
does take politicization seriously, or at
least it did. I don't know now,

1564
02:04:16.960 --> 02:04:20.680
but like they beat that into you
right off the bat of like you're

1565
02:04:20.720 --> 02:04:25.520
speaking truth to power, You're going
to speak up if you know, someone

1566
02:04:25.720 --> 02:04:29.439
you know says something that's wrong,
Like and I was in meetings with you

1567
02:04:29.439 --> 02:04:34.159
know, director Portrayus where like very
junior people would like contradict him, you

1568
02:04:34.199 --> 02:04:40.960
know, and say things that that
he didn't agree with, and you're like,

1569
02:04:41.079 --> 02:04:44.560
that's that's positive. Right. There's
something in sure sort of bloodstream of

1570
02:04:44.600 --> 02:04:50.199
the organization that's that's pushing people to
do that. So you know, that

1571
02:04:50.279 --> 02:04:55.000
was always very serious, and like
if someone raised issues around politicization like that

1572
02:04:55.079 --> 02:04:59.079
got noticed, like that you didn't
want to be involved as a manager and

1573
02:04:59.199 --> 02:05:02.560
like a comp linked about that.
I do think that there were sort of

1574
02:05:02.600 --> 02:05:12.000
subtle forms of it, Like it
was because of that overarching structure, the

1575
02:05:12.119 --> 02:05:16.359
way that policy, the way that
the you know, the White House would

1576
02:05:16.399 --> 02:05:23.760
sort of influence things was a little
bit more of like, okay, let's

1577
02:05:23.760 --> 02:05:26.680
take this, let's take us out
staying power as an example, Like,

1578
02:05:27.439 --> 02:05:32.000
it wasn't that a piece would be
rewritten to say that he will fall.

1579
02:05:32.720 --> 02:05:38.239
It was that things would get watered
down through the writing of the PDB,

1580
02:05:38.560 --> 02:05:42.600
and oftentimes when things got to like
the DNI kind of level, they would

1581
02:05:42.600 --> 02:05:50.960
be mushified to either say nothing or
to sort of soften the analysis so that

1582
02:05:51.000 --> 02:05:58.079
you could kind of ignore it or
interpreted in different ways, or things would

1583
02:05:58.079 --> 02:06:01.680
just be kind of maybe more omit, like pieces that were very clear and

1584
02:06:01.760 --> 02:06:04.680
hard hitting and I think substantiate it
would sort of be like, oh,

1585
02:06:04.720 --> 02:06:08.039
well, you know, maybe that's
just not going to go into the PDB.

1586
02:06:08.399 --> 02:06:12.720
Yeah, because there's only like ten
articles that'll get in anyway, and

1587
02:06:12.960 --> 02:06:15.239
there's always something else that could rise
to the top. So maybe that's just

1588
02:06:15.239 --> 02:06:17.720
not going to be there. Maybe
that's going to go to you know,

1589
02:06:17.840 --> 02:06:20.479
the senior director for the Middle East
and North Africa. But you know,

1590
02:06:20.640 --> 02:06:24.760
it's it's it's not going to go
to the president, you know, that

1591
02:06:24.880 --> 02:06:30.439
kind of thing. So it's and
trying to understand why that was being done

1592
02:06:31.039 --> 02:06:33.920
was impossible, you know, like, is it is it? Is it

1593
02:06:33.960 --> 02:06:38.760
really because we got bumped because there
was a more important China piece that needed

1594
02:06:38.800 --> 02:06:42.600
again in the book, or are
you looking at this and saying, oh,

1595
02:06:42.600 --> 02:06:44.680
this is a stinker. Like I
don't want to go into the oval

1596
02:06:44.720 --> 02:06:47.479
with this thing, because then someone's
gonna yell at me or we're gonna have

1597
02:06:47.520 --> 02:06:50.039
an argument, and I don't want
to do that because I want to continue

1598
02:06:50.039 --> 02:06:55.119
to get invited into the oval.
It was always hard to tell, you

1599
02:06:55.159 --> 02:06:59.600
know, as an analyst, so
you had to tread very carefully before you

1600
02:06:59.640 --> 02:07:02.840
started to say, okay, that's
that's politicization. But I think I think

1601
02:07:02.840 --> 02:07:09.359
there were I think in total you
saw that on the serious side of things,

1602
02:07:10.399 --> 02:07:15.279
there were We knew that there were
analytic lines that the administration just didn't

1603
02:07:15.279 --> 02:07:17.680
want to hear well and not and
maybe not just the administration, you know,

1604
02:07:18.319 --> 02:07:23.760
not pointing it, you know,
any president or their administration, but

1605
02:07:23.920 --> 02:07:29.159
even and even inside the because the
agency isn't this monolithic thing. It's made

1606
02:07:29.199 --> 02:07:35.720
up people who want to get promoted, yeah, and and have different motivations

1607
02:07:35.760 --> 02:07:41.960
for why they're doing what they're doing. So yeah, I'm not necessarily like

1608
02:07:42.159 --> 02:07:47.439
calling out the administration for anything,
just that I was just curious as to

1609
02:07:48.319 --> 02:07:51.520
was there, Like you said,
you know, there was there. Things

1610
02:07:51.560 --> 02:07:56.119
might be get watered down. Somebody
didn't want to be the very bad news.

1611
02:07:56.479 --> 02:07:59.079
I mean, even with Channa.
Now we hear that either on the

1612
02:07:59.079 --> 02:08:03.640
bank of they're on the brink of
bankruptcy and b they are ready to take

1613
02:08:03.640 --> 02:08:11.840
over Taiwan and create but it's also
two things can be true. Yes,

1614
02:08:13.159 --> 02:08:16.560
yeah, that's right, that's that's
absolutely right. Two things could be true,

1615
02:08:16.760 --> 02:08:24.199
and you know, like you have
you can have people who just for

1616
02:08:24.359 --> 02:08:28.840
very like it's it's not like a
nefarious right, I'm trying to silence the

1617
02:08:28.880 --> 02:08:33.319
analysts like that wasn't going on.
It's more like, hey, you know,

1618
02:08:33.800 --> 02:08:37.359
if I'm the you know, d
d N I, and I'm the

1619
02:08:37.359 --> 02:08:39.640
one who's kind of in charge of
the PDB, and I'm the one going

1620
02:08:39.640 --> 02:08:43.479
and I'm the one giving the briefing
man, you know, and there's some

1621
02:08:43.560 --> 02:08:46.560
real human tension there between bringing bad
news and having access. You know,

1622
02:08:48.199 --> 02:08:52.800
like you sort of have you have
to be really thoughtful about how you kind

1623
02:08:52.800 --> 02:08:56.079
of meter that out because you can't
you can't be bringing pieces every day that

1624
02:08:56.119 --> 02:09:01.199
are like slapping the administration Syria policy
and the you know, like there's just

1625
02:09:01.239 --> 02:09:03.960
gonna be a limited tolerance for that, and eventually they're gonna be like,

1626
02:09:03.920 --> 02:09:07.359
we don't want this guy to come
here anymore, like send us somebody else,

1627
02:09:07.520 --> 02:09:13.520
you know. So I you know, I think when you get down

1628
02:09:13.520 --> 02:09:16.600
to that human level, it starts
to become less nefarious and much more just

1629
02:09:16.720 --> 02:09:20.439
like someone someone's trying to do their
job and kind of get by you.

1630
02:09:24.880 --> 02:09:28.760
What is your perspective on sportwashing by
Saudi Arabia. Should US sports fans attempt

1631
02:09:28.760 --> 02:09:35.439
to push back and Saudia Saudia influence
or control over domestic league's teams, or

1632
02:09:35.640 --> 02:09:41.760
just except that it's that it's inevitable. Well, I mean I could.

1633
02:09:41.760 --> 02:09:43.720
I don't know what we do about
it. I can tell you that I

1634
02:09:43.760 --> 02:09:48.159
just I find it sort of kind
of gut wrenching and sicketing in general,

1635
02:09:50.079 --> 02:09:54.319
just to have them buy all this
stuff off. I don't really have like

1636
02:09:54.880 --> 02:09:58.359
much of an analytic basis behind any
of that, other than just you know,

1637
02:09:58.439 --> 02:10:05.800
I'd preferred not have all these like
wonderful athletes purchased by Saudi Arabia.

1638
02:10:05.359 --> 02:10:09.479
Yeah, but I don't know.
I mean, what do you do about

1639
02:10:09.520 --> 02:10:11.880
it? I don't. I don't
know. I haven't. I haven't thought

1640
02:10:11.920 --> 02:10:16.760
about it much. It just kind
of gives me a knee jerk sick reaction

1641
02:10:16.840 --> 02:10:20.359
to see it happening. Yeah,
like I'm all fault any of the athletes

1642
02:10:20.359 --> 02:10:22.439
for doing it, because it's like
this is crazy amounts of money and all

1643
02:10:22.439 --> 02:10:26.159
this kind of stuff. But yeah, it's just it's frustrating. It kind

1644
02:10:26.159 --> 02:10:31.520
of actually gives me the same sickening
feeling like and there's a minor analogy,

1645
02:10:31.600 --> 02:10:35.000
but but it sort of says it
speaks to the same thing of like when

1646
02:10:35.039 --> 02:10:41.680
I look at I'm a big baseball
fan, right, and when you look

1647
02:10:41.720 --> 02:10:48.720
at what's happened to the game with
just things like the name, the way

1648
02:10:48.760 --> 02:10:52.000
that stadiums and ballparks are named now
and all have corporate, corporate names attached,

1649
02:10:52.520 --> 02:10:58.359
or the way that sort of gambling
has now totally infused the life of

1650
02:10:58.399 --> 02:11:01.640
the sport. Like there you're watching
LabTV and they've got all these like parlays

1651
02:11:01.720 --> 02:11:05.600
up on the screen and stuff like
that. It's like, I don't like

1652
02:11:05.760 --> 02:11:11.880
this stuff intruding into the game.
And I understand why it's doing this,

1653
02:11:13.000 --> 02:11:16.760
and I understand that it's important to
the economics game, but you kind of

1654
02:11:16.760 --> 02:11:20.680
wish at some point that like some
corporation would be like, it's our civic

1655
02:11:20.760 --> 02:11:24.880
duty to help sponsor this stadium,
but it doesn't mean that we have to

1656
02:11:24.960 --> 02:11:28.039
call it, like, you know, Progressive Field, Like we can continue

1657
02:11:28.079 --> 02:11:31.279
to it can continue to be called
Jacob's Field, but we're going to support

1658
02:11:31.319 --> 02:11:35.239
it because like we're a citizen of
this city, right, And I think

1659
02:11:35.279 --> 02:11:37.479
I feel a similar sort of like
nature of like I want to see the

1660
02:11:37.479 --> 02:11:43.159
Saudi stuff of, Like I understand
why this is the case, and I

1661
02:11:43.199 --> 02:11:48.800
really wish that these like beautiful games
weren't just bastardized by you know, corrupt

1662
02:11:48.079 --> 02:11:56.279
corporate and political entities. Yeah,
and then why do you think Arab spring

1663
02:11:56.520 --> 02:12:03.560
fell short? And judging by events
in the could the same spring happened here

1664
02:12:03.720 --> 02:12:07.279
but for the wrong reasons? I
don't know if I want to touch that

1665
02:12:07.439 --> 02:12:22.600
the latter part of that one.
I think, I mean, the Arab

1666
02:12:22.680 --> 02:12:28.439
Spring didn't I mean it? Yeah, I think failure is probably right,

1667
02:12:28.479 --> 02:12:31.119
although I would say that it was
very like the way it came out was

1668
02:12:31.239 --> 02:12:37.479
very uneven, and it depended a
lot on the sort of political context in

1669
02:12:37.520 --> 02:12:41.239
the system and the structure of the
society in which those sort of mass kind

1670
02:12:41.279 --> 02:12:48.199
of uprisings occurred. Right. Things
shook out very differently in sort of you

1671
02:12:48.239 --> 02:12:52.840
know, one man or one family
sort of presidential republics quote unquote than they

1672
02:12:52.880 --> 02:12:58.319
did in like constitutional monarchies. Right, So things came out very differently and

1673
02:12:58.399 --> 02:13:05.800
like Jordan, you know, and
and in Bahrain even than they did in

1674
02:13:05.880 --> 02:13:11.239
like Syria, right, and in
Libya. But what I would say is

1675
02:13:11.279 --> 02:13:16.840
like in terms of just not getting
to really any kind of solid kind of

1676
02:13:16.840 --> 02:13:20.920
democratic outcomes in any major Arab state. I mean, I would say,

1677
02:13:20.000 --> 02:13:26.000
look, you're talking about generating a
couple of generations now of a region that

1678
02:13:26.159 --> 02:13:39.199
is extremely uninstitutionalized, dealing with massive
socioeconomic issues, youth bulge, you know,

1679
02:13:39.239 --> 02:13:43.479
issues with educating and just kind of
getting people into jobs, like all

1680
02:13:43.520 --> 02:13:48.079
these kind of major systemic problems.
You have a tremendous amount of sort of

1681
02:13:48.920 --> 02:13:54.520
you know, geopolitical rivalry inside this
region between different between largely like a sort

1682
02:13:54.560 --> 02:13:58.640
of Saudu led camp and a Irani
and camp. So you have all these

1683
02:13:58.680 --> 02:14:03.159
like structural problem It's like those things
like trying to get to some kind of

1684
02:14:05.159 --> 02:14:13.640
stable democratic order in a system like
that is like almost impossible. So you

1685
02:14:13.720 --> 02:14:18.079
know, that'd be what I'd say, Like, it's just the deck was

1686
02:14:18.159 --> 02:14:26.039
completely stacked against any country getting to
a much better outcome, and not not

1687
02:14:26.079 --> 02:14:30.960
by like millennia of history, but
just by like the last couple of generations

1688
02:14:31.000 --> 02:14:33.439
of the way this this region has
developed. Yeah, I mean basically since

1689
02:14:33.760 --> 02:14:39.239
since Westerners redrew the or drew up
the country lines. So a lot of

1690
02:14:39.239 --> 02:14:43.000
times, yeah, I mean drew
up the country lines, like I mean

1691
02:14:43.039 --> 02:14:48.239
the way that, uh, it's
an extremely militarized region that also lacks a

1692
02:14:48.239 --> 02:14:52.960
lot of like institutional structures and processes
that kind of limit conflict and things like

1693
02:14:52.000 --> 02:14:56.439
that. So it's like, you
know, you're not You're not in a

1694
02:14:56.800 --> 02:15:00.359
and it's a it's a region that
has that has dealt with a huge jimahana

1695
02:15:00.399 --> 02:15:03.680
of external and intervention by great powers
too, So you're like, you're not,

1696
02:15:03.000 --> 02:15:07.319
You're not dealing with like a great
Petrie dish here for a for a

1697
02:15:07.359 --> 02:15:13.880
democratic experiment. You know. A
couple more questions came in Jackson, thank

1698
02:15:13.920 --> 02:15:16.960
you very much. Ever interact with
ground branch guys, any plans for ground

1699
02:15:18.560 --> 02:15:24.800
ground branch specific novel? Do it? I mean like I'd be interested in

1700
02:15:24.840 --> 02:15:28.319
doing it. I didn't have much
interaction with them when I was on the

1701
02:15:28.319 --> 02:15:33.720
inside, to be honest, So
it would be I would have to I'd

1702
02:15:33.720 --> 02:15:37.640
have to lay some real groundwork in
source networks and things like that to actually

1703
02:15:37.720 --> 02:15:41.479
understand how it all functions. But
I would, I mean, I would

1704
02:15:41.520 --> 02:15:46.359
be very open to doing doing a
book that that focused there. I imagine

1705
02:15:46.359 --> 02:15:48.840
there'd be a tremendous amount of material
and it'd be a lot of fun to

1706
02:15:48.880 --> 02:15:52.439
do, so very open to it, but no plans as of now.

1707
02:15:52.600 --> 02:15:56.880
Uh and M Corbyn, thank you
very much. Thoughts on CCP's means of

1708
02:15:56.920 --> 02:16:07.720
waging war by ever means up to
actual confrontation with US military apparatus, Oh,

1709
02:16:07.000 --> 02:16:11.920
the idea that the way the CCP
is waging war on the US,

1710
02:16:13.239 --> 02:16:18.039
do you think it'll ever mean or
lead up to an actual confrontation with your

1711
02:16:18.439 --> 02:16:26.479
military? And just whatever your answer
is, if we ever do or don't

1712
02:16:26.520 --> 02:16:30.560
go to war with the CCP,
people will quote this saying you people will

1713
02:16:30.560 --> 02:16:33.399
go back. Yeah, this is
going to be a very important piece of

1714
02:16:33.440 --> 02:16:43.040
the historical records. I need to
think, well, we'll live in shame

1715
02:16:43.680 --> 02:16:46.879
or on or based on your answer
right now? Man, I feel like

1716
02:16:46.879 --> 02:16:50.479
this has been a very casual and
fun interview up to this point and now

1717
02:16:50.520 --> 02:16:54.799
it's not anymore. It always gets
here though, like where we are,

1718
02:16:56.760 --> 02:17:01.680
got you journalists at the best three
drinks later here we are Oh, man,

1719
02:17:01.799 --> 02:17:05.680
I mean I like, uh,
I mean, I guess the answer

1720
02:17:05.719 --> 02:17:09.760
is I don't know. But then
beyond that very useful answer, I would

1721
02:17:09.799 --> 02:17:18.000
say it would seem it would seem
to me like there will be some like

1722
02:17:18.040 --> 02:17:20.840
if I were, if I had
to put money on it, right,

1723
02:17:20.840 --> 02:17:24.760
it seemed like we're headed that direction, right, And you're not talking about

1724
02:17:24.760 --> 02:17:28.879
in the next five years or twenty
years or one hundred years, but it's

1725
02:17:28.799 --> 02:17:33.280
it seems it's going there. It's
going there. Yeah, like it just

1726
02:17:33.360 --> 02:17:39.280
think structurally, you have a country
that's like, hey, we would prefer

1727
02:17:39.360 --> 02:17:43.959
to write more of the rules,
and East Asia you're doing that right now.

1728
02:17:45.479 --> 02:17:50.399
And how is that conflict going to
be resolved? You know? So

1729
02:17:50.520 --> 02:17:54.079
it seems like it's probably coming And
I don't know, I don't have no

1730
02:17:54.120 --> 02:17:58.520
concept of what form it will take
or anything like that. But you know,

1731
02:18:01.559 --> 02:18:03.680
if I had to, if I
had to wage or I would think

1732
02:18:03.719 --> 02:18:07.639
that would happen in the next you
know, generation or so for sure.

1733
02:18:09.000 --> 02:18:15.399
And that is the end of the
questions. Uh, somebody asked about a

1734
02:18:15.479 --> 02:18:22.639
chicken. No, I'm just kidding. No, Uh, that's it all

1735
02:18:22.719 --> 02:18:26.280
right. So yeah, thank you
David for coming on the show. Man.

1736
02:18:26.319 --> 02:18:30.440
I appreciate it. Yeah, thanks
for having me, guys, this

1737
02:18:30.479 --> 02:18:33.280
was fun. I really appreciate you
having me on. And next Friday we're

1738
02:18:33.319 --> 02:18:37.719
gonna have Brent Tucker on the show, former Delta operator, So we hope

1739
02:18:37.760 --> 02:18:41.719
to see you guys. Then Monday, we don't we have some Monday d

1740
02:18:43.239 --> 02:18:46.600
We have a Patreon bonus episode sometime
next week. We're gonna figure out a

1741
02:18:46.680 --> 02:18:50.360
day. Okay, Yeah, I'm
not gonna be able to come in Monday.

1742
02:18:52.239 --> 02:18:58.559
And uh uh Moscow relation and Damascus
X Damascus Station or Damascus Station of

1743
02:18:58.600 --> 02:19:03.840
Moscow. Uh sorry, the MASCO
Station of Moscow X. Yeah, but

1744
02:19:03.840 --> 02:19:09.440
but read them. Uh you'll get
the nitty gritty like real stuff from real

1745
02:19:09.479 --> 02:19:11.680
people. I mean, that's what
more can you ask for? All Right,

1746
02:19:11.760 --> 02:19:16.440
guys, Amen, So we will
see all of you next Friday.

1747
02:19:16.479 --> 02:19:16.239
Take care of everyone.