Hey, guys, it's Jack. I just wanted to talk to you today
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go and check us out at patreon dot com slash the Teamhouse. Hello everyone,
welcome to another episode of Iizon. I'm Andy Milman. Hey, before
we go into the intro, everyone else so you don't have to come back
to me. Very excited today to have the famous Mick Molroy, famous but
very self effacing and modest, so he's haunted. Get hold of Mick Molroy
back needs you know when you say no, it needs no introduction, then
you go ahead and introduce him anyway, unless you've been sleeping under a rock
in the Teamhouse environs and really had ignored what is going on with the coolest
of coolest guests. Mick has been a habitual guest on the team House,
former former dansty for the Middle East. Mick is clearing him maybe because before
I've said special operations regardless, you know, and and of course senior paramilitary
officer in the CIA, most importantly a former marine, which brings the ratio
of this show back to three to one. Okay, all right over to
you, Jason and d Well thinks of well, Mick thinks desperately, how
do I follow that one up? Jason Lyons ADMITI and this is I'm figuring
it more and more every day every week. This is like a marine sigh.
Up, We're running it eventually happens everywhere. Is awesome thing going on
in your will cool to us? What I mean, things you can talk
to us about are the stuff that you can It's okay, we're all friends
here, Ah, just random thoughts. Well, I'd first like to highlight
the great work that Jack Murphy did on Willie Murkison. Yeah. I've been
talking to him about that for a long time, and WILLI is is a
legend in the SF community. The Ranger community and the paramilitary community, and
that's where I knew him. Literally, I think the first time I met
Willie was in the early stages of Afghanistan and me and another ground branch guy
were walking across the front of Ariana where the station would eventually be, and
Willy was there and he said, Hey, can you guys take me up
to that place called bog Roam. You know, he said, you guys
look like your PM dudes, which we were like, okay, that's a
that's probably a compliment. And then he had one backpack and like a body
armor and a rifle and I don't know, and he was he had to
be in his sixties by then, but wow, I met Willy that he
was and you know, he really and he is a very self effacing,
modest individual who was super reluctant to talk to Jack, and not obviously because
of Jack, but because he just didn't want to highlight himself. So we
really had to get his friends to highlight him to get to a point where
we had, you know, had that confidence or from Willy and he and
he and he and I really do hope and that's obviously up to the Pentagon
to do this, but his Distinguished Cross Army Cross and getting upgraded to a
Medal of honor something. They have to obviously go through the process, and
I fully trust that they'll do it correctly and that'll be the right answer.
But I can tell you, as I guess, not a objective observer,
somebody's greatly admires him. I've talked to his friends, I've talked to people
who have been there, and they all thought that that should be the case.
So if they're talking to the people that were co located with him,
they're talking to his peers from that time, I think they will come up
with the right answer. So I just wanted to start off with that.
Yeah, I mean they did, like super it took him like a long
time to write this piece and it's huge and Sean and Sean, Yeah,
it's definitely a book. Like I think it'll become a they'll make it a
book eventually too. Yeah. I got to meet him, to meet him
probably two thousand and starting in two thousand and nine up until I left the
agency, and so we'd have lunch whenever I was back at headquarters, meet
and him in a make I don't know if you knew Bobby Harris. He
was, Yeah, he was my mentor. I was there at the agency
and so he introduced me, and uh, just those guys were just like
when I first met Willie I first walked into his office, he just had
this look on his face, this like serious look, and I was like,
oh boy, and then immediately he just cracked a joke and was just
the coolest guy. So it was It's definitely been an honor to know him.
Yeah. Absolutely, he was like the grand grandpop of yes Billy Yeah,
yeah, him and Billy Wall, right, we have a couple.
We have a lot of like we had a lot of legends there, absolutely,
but a big big whereas Billy Wall you know yeah, I mean it's
not that he does to lecture suck it, but he is he has been
more out there, right, So kudos to yeah, Jack and the and
the team house for another thing. And Sean Naylor. Sean Naylor to Taylor,
Ye, dealing Donald was a bit part of that too. So Mat
tell us everything, tell us everything that's going on, and you I want
to know coordinates. Ah, okay, well what's the closest alligate of the
boat? So next week I might be going is the natal summit in Washington,
Okright, so that's coming out of time when you have, uh,
you know, the political questions about the future support to Ukraine. I guess
this is the way to put it, you know, with La Pens Party,
what is it national or something national? You know, it was the
National Front but it's changed. Uh, I forget national socialists. I'm sure
nice, right, but it's the it's the you know. I guess you
could say the far right, I mean always was it is, all right,
yeah, definitely been far right and then. But I don't know how
you get elected by the majority if you're on far right or left. But
I get I get the point. She's definitely far far right by most calculations.
Uh. Most struggling, of course, is Heer already stated questioning of
continuing support to Ukraine is my biggest concern, especially when it comes to stability
in Europe. Right, And I think it's important to point out that,
you know, some people kind of couch this as some kind of charity.
It's not at all. I mean, if you take it from the US
perspective, I mean, how much taxpayer dollars we spend on our national security
A lot? Right, And I do think our strength is relative to our
adversaries. Right, So, if you have somebody willing to deplete your adversary
up to fifty percent of their military capacity, it's not charity. It's a
good investment, right, I mean, it's just flat out dollars and cents.
I do think there's an ethical and moral requirement to defend democracies. But
even if you don't, you could take that out of the equation and still
say, well, it's still makes sense to contribute arms and munitions, weapon
systems and everything we can to deplete our probably most dangerous adversary, right.
I mean, I think China is considered more uh, you know, significant,
especially with their economy and their capacity, But Russia seems to be the
most dangerous, right yeah. I mean one country out of those two did
invade another country. Right, So, and even if I mean, the
bottom line is obviously Russia is a significant adversary and Ukraine is taking not only
the funds and support from the US but also NATO, and they're putting it
to good work. I mean, they get they get criticized for how their
counter and counter offensive win, which I don't think was necessarily fair because the
same people that criticize them overinflated what would likely happen right and then and then,
and they criticize them for not being able to do it. But it
also came at a time when there was a significant lull in support. So,
if anything, it was the fault of the supporter, is not the
fault of the people executing the offensive, right. I mean, if you
look at the way the US military would have went about that, I don't
even know that we would have done it without even air parody, let alone
superiority. And we've never had to do anything remotely like that, exactly remotely
like that. And anyone who says that we have and tries to throw the
Gulf wall or anything from the Sycamore Wall just does not understand the modern battlefield,
you know. And we're using all techniques SOSA with the limited amount of
smoke. I mean, they were, you know, I mean it was
ridiculous. What we taught them was inadequate to the task. That's not a
criticism. We just don't have that frame of reference. You can't expect them
and what they get down to like ten to one ratio of artillery, you
know, for everyone they had and were coming their way. So, I
mean, if if there's any fault in that, I think it's the fault
of the supporting element, right, the US and NATO. For especially the
US, I should say, I mean, we had the lull with the
political machinations of the support. Now that's been past the National Security supplemental,
you know, hopefully we're going to catch up and we're gonna we're going to
give them what they need to actually win and not just survive. Right,
I've got a quick question for you, because this is really confused the shit
out of me. I mean, you, you and I come from communities
that are not traditionally liberal or left wing. Right, you know, we'd
like to think politically bipartisan. But yes, let's be honest, we tend
to be on the right of center. And yet to a man, and
I've never met one woman, I've never I have not met a guy who
is wearing uniform or who is in the agency who has said anything other than
or former by the way, anything other than we need to support Ukraine.
It's a no brainer, you know. So what I don't understand is the
population beyond who consider themselves conservative and yet up blocking what is a no brainer
is you point out money for Lives right were substituting. It's expensive, but
nothing is as expensive as you know, a dead American right, so it
is a bargain. As you point out, how can people not understand that?
Do you think it's a lack of education or do you think it's just
such hardwired partisanship that nothing can show them the reality of geopolitics. I agree,
and it's been baffling to me. I mean, the only thing that
I can. And I'm not a partisan person. I don't belong to a
political party, but I would agree with you. Most people in the military
and CIA, at least when it comes to national security tend to fall in
the right side of the spectrum right. Maybe not so much in uh,
you know, domestic issues and stuff like that, but certainly on the national
security side, you know, strong defense and kind of a without the partisanship,
the Raking and type view right. I don't know where there's people win
in the Revolican Party, to be honest, I know they're still there.
I talked to them, I see them, I just never hear I never
hear them represented it represented, excuse me, in the in the party anymore,
even though there are plenty out there, and uh, and that's troubling
because if if it's just purely partisan and they're looking at you know, talking
points of what have you, and somehow they came up with that we shouldn't
support Ukraine, I just don't. I can't follow the logic. I'd really,
I really can't. And and if if they think that appeasement, which
has been proven to be the wrong course of action so many times in history,
and not just in history, but in that part of the world,
they think that's the way to go, I mean, I just can't see
how they could logically get there. But I mean I do see different political
side, so I do think I can see even if I agree with one
or the other. But this is one of those things. I just don't
see how they could, you know, follow logical steps and get to the
point that we should appease try to force Ukraine into heating territory. I mean
American mentality. Can imagine somebody took over part of you, Wes, somebody
came to us and said give away Texas or something. I mean, it
would be like, yeah, right, So I don't understand why that's the
case. I do, of course, you know, I mean around the
edges, you know, they spending it in all the right areas well.
I think that should be the case for all security assistants we give. We
should always audit it, we should always ensure that it's not going to the
wrong places. It's not unique to Ukraine. So that don't even view that
as a as an argument, because the answer is that, well, we
should always do that, you know, whether on Israel or going to Ukraine
or whoever, which we do, and they're all subject to everything from lehi
vedding to as much as we can monitoring. You know, I get it.
In Ukraine we had a huge issue with accountability, but that was because
of our own policies, you know what I mean. It's you're going to
pour money into a country with some history of corruption, some of it's going
to get creamed off. But at the end of the day, you haven't
lost a single American soldier. It comes back to that, you know,
So at the end of the day, it's like, hey, you've got
to You've got to understand this, and that's that is my concern. During
the Cold War, of course, there was the you know, the logic
of containment that was consistent, right but we've lost that now. And my
concern is not so much Ukraine or I mean whatever the country is of the
day, but our standing on the wall because no one knows, you know,
in the discussions now in Europe, no one knows what our policy is
going to be off the November vice of the Ukraine, and that is really
sunning, right and NATO right. So yeah, one of the big things
about the summit, of course, is talking about how Ukraine could eventually get
into NATO, right, And that's going to be a touchy subject because if
they come in when they're still fighting Russia, then you'll have an ARTA flight
situation. So I mean, one could argue, although you can't do the
past, is that if we would let them in NATO when they asked fourteen
years ago, they wouldn't be a war going on right now. But that's
that's uh, you know again, that's what aren't the bridge. That's going
to be one of the big discussions this week, uh in Washington. The
other one, I'm sure, which may not be on the agenda, is
what's going to happen if there's a change of administrations, you know, if
if is there really a desire too I don't think you can pull out of
NATO, but certainly reduce our presence, reduce our participation, and maybe even
a move to pull out of NATO. I don't know, that is completely
not in our interests. It's the most significant military coalition in history, and
the only time it's responded to Autoicle five is on the US. Yeah,
for the US. Right, how long was NATO in Afghanistan? Right?
I mean, look at it, NATO other than the US, look at
it from their perspective. I mean, and they were losing people too,
of course, as you guys all know. The other part of that is
this idea that somehow and everybody should pay what they're required, right, the
two percent. But that's in their own national defense. It's not it's not
a country club, right, there's not a you're not chipping in, So
we're paying more because these guys are pinning the bar. Right, We're not
going to reduce our defense spending. Yeah, Like, so everybody knows if
everybody went up to four percent and NATO, the US is still not going
to go, oh, you know what, we're going to reduce it never
gonna happen. We're gonna find ourselves to be able to fight on our own.
Well, we'll find some other way to waste that money. Yes,
we're not going to cut our bill, So it's not it's not one of
those things. And that's how it seems to get couched. NATO is they
as they should And now I think there Russia is focusing their concentration here.
They should pay more for their own national defense. We should have, but
that is US should lead it. We should lead NATO in becoming even more
effective to the point where Russia would never even consider attacking it. That's the
best defense is to be so strong that nobody would ever you know, dare
mess with you. It's not I couldn't. I mean, I couldn't agree
more. One. One positive aspect though, is and I think this is
independent of US decisions. You've got countries like Poland really stepping up into a
position of leadership, you know, in the eastern flank, raising their GDP
to four percent, you know, even the Czech Republic. You know,
even so, even countries that aren't frontline countries are all now kind of stepping
up to the plate for domestic political reasons as much as you know, geopolitical
realization that the US is no longer a necessarily as launch a partner as perhaps
they you know, they previously thought that's absolutely right. And I mean,
maybe this is rhetoric. It's still not known, does the wrong message,
but nothing happens. But in the event that it's not just rhetoric and it's
significant, and then hopefully there'll be some voices that have influence if there is
a change administration. Yeah, it can turn this around, right and and
really focus the most senior leaders into understanding how significant NATO is for the US
in our national security. So, Mick, what are your thoughts on the
recent Biden administration authorization of US built weapons use inside Russian borders and is it
I'm reading from what I'm reading it's not as big a deal as people are
making it. Then I'm reading in other places that it is a huge sea
change. What are your thoughts on that, Jason, So, I mean,
again, it's another one of those hindsight's twenty twenty. I mean,
I think I would have pushed, if I was there talking to the President
to give the type of weapons systems that they needed to actually win earlier on.
I understand the balance. We didn't want to We didn't want to push
Russia to the point where they felt it was actually at war with NATO.
But I think by slow roll in that we actually prolonged the conflict itself.
And that same thing with the actual use of the weapon systems in Russia.
And to my understanding, unless it's changed, is it's it's mostly you know,
you can respond to the point of origin of an attack into Ukraine,
right so, and most of these attacks are going directly at civilian populations,
so you know, the quickest answer to me was, well, stop shooting
freaking cruise missiles at cities and then you wouldn't get you wouldn't get the incoming
right. I mean, it seems like that anybody would follow that as a
course of action, and maybe it expands to the beyond that after a while.
If if Russia doesn't change its uh, you know, it's posture on
withdrawing quite frankly, then it should probably increase. But I think it was
it was probably should have happened earlier, but it was a good decision by
the administration to allow them to do MCXINO. If the the British and the
French have put similar restrictions on Ukrainian use of storm Shadow and Scalp missiles in
particular. So I heard, and I do some informal advising with another group
of folks to the mod over there. I heard that they don't. The
French don't. That said the same La Pennan interview I just read about support
to NATO said she would not allow them to use French systems at all at
Russia. So that could be going from having the more expanded under mccrone's policy
to be able to do things beyond just what they could do with, at
least on the French side, the French systems to not being able to use
them at all in Russia. So that'll just make ours more important for them
to be able to use absolutely, And I would say, I mean,
if you've read the ten point plan of Zeletski, it's all reasonable, of
course, and it's something I think then hopefully the NATO summit confirms this week.
Yeah, very very heavy emphasis on air defense for obvious reasons. But
I agree with you trip feeding NATO weapon systems or US weapon systems has allowed
the Russians to adapt. That's right. If we would have just looked at
it, we could have turned it over the Pentagon as you well know,
Andy had just said what would we do to what would we how would we
plan and what would we need to do this, and then we should have
just supported them based on that, you know what I mean, all these
this is what we need to do it, this is what we're all our
allies, and we're going to find out who's going to participate, and then
this is what they need to get this done. And that should be the
overall campaign one hundred percent instead of constantly saying what do you need? What
do you need? Which changed and and by the time that we could deliver
often their requirements had moved on. You know, there are certain things set
up system like ad offense, like long range precision fiens. But yeah,
I think that's a great idea, man, I mean it's a great point.
You know. Let we're providing all this stuff, so let us do
some analysis and help the Ukrainians at the same time, same time and sure
that what we're providing has a definite purpose and is being used in a coherent
way in a coherent campaign exactly. And then the support wherever we can on
the ground, you know, intelligence wise, which whatever they need, right,
because the way to get this done is to win. You know,
what I mean is to push Putin to such a place that he either starts
withdrawing a mass or comes to the table with something that the Ukrainian people can
accept. And it shouldn't be up to them, right, they're the ones,
it's their country, and they're the ones that have been doing all the
fighting and dyeing here. So I mean, I think there are allies,
include the US that support them and what they're willing to have to work to
want to accept. It's the perfect opportunity fore a light touch approach. Right.
Unfortunately, we go black and white. We say black or white in
a sense, we say okay, we're either all in boots on the ground
and then we flood the place right or or we restrict it totally. No
one's going in there, no one's cutting, no one's going anywhere near remotely
near the line of fire. And now we've restricted ourselves and cut off all
opportunities for useful use of proxies or in order to you know, to further
our own goals. We we just aren't learning from our from our adversaries.
But and I don't get on the bandwagon, but to your point, yeah,
you know, Meke, I mean, as you know, I mean
a consistent paramilitary presence with sources all the way through would have been enabled a
really consistent and escalating in a good way on the Ukrainian inside campaign. But
I think we really slimied ourselves by having kind of this blanket prohibition of having
USG guys on the ground. And I think we have to re look at
that again that it was an absurd reaction to over perceived risk and it prevented
us from really leveraging to good you know, our special operations forces, as
we keep saying we're going to do, when when push comes to shove,
we pull them all out because we're scared they're going to get hurt. You
know. The same thing goes for agency paramilitaries. Yeah, And I think
that's I mean, one lesson are there's plenty in this conflict, is having
that continuous relationship with the Special Operations Community d O d CIA pays off.
Right. These relationships endure. They give us the capacity to not only there
special operations which can sometimes be the and they were the original resistance. Right
when people started going, oh hell, the key V isn't going to fallow
three days, right, that a lot of those guys and now it's the
entire Ukrainian military, but a lot of them at first were the special operations
for US running around with man portable weapons. That we've been with them,
so I think it gives us an inn. It gives us a knowledge of
what's going on and what could happen, and if there is a need to
surge and then fully support a partner force like this, we already have the
framework for it. So and I think we saw that in Ukraine for sure.
And it does quite frankly show whichever adversary decides to tack our partners that
the US is there. You know, one of the not to get off
on a starlets story, but a story that was told to me when I
first got to gb If you think back in the Peloponnesian Wars, the Spartans
and the Athenians had allies all around the Mediterranean, right, and the one
of the Spartan allies was now in Sicily, and they were losing pretty dramatically
to you know Athenian amphibious force that lanted there. And apparently the Spartans only
sent I think five or six dudes, right, and one of them was
a general and you could tell by the way there the main went. And
apparently, according to the person that told me this in gb who like me,
was somewhat of a history unt, when they just saw the Spartans and
their scarlet capes on the on the top, it totally changed the battle,
right. They didn't even know there's only six of them, right, you
know, but they saw them. They said, holy crap, the Spartans
are here, right and and and and I always thought of that when it
comes to especially all US military, but especially the special operations components. Right
there, they have so much more effect on the battlespace than their numbers.
Yeah, so when they look up and they see those you know, green
berets, those seals, those barsok raiders, there's uh even just the rumor
of them right right, It's it's almost like seeing those Spartans on the on
the horizon up on the on the ridge line. I think I think that
does provide a lot of uh power of the United States. That's it's hard
to calculate what it is exponentially. Mick. I hate to bring you back
to an area where you devoted so much of your life, but after after
I'm discussing you know, Ukraine, which is already taught, always tough of
my you know my list, but what about the Middle East? I mean,
can you can you give us just a quick wrap up and solve everything
and say yeah, no, you know you have a few cocktails and you
think you solved that every night and then you can't remember what the answer was,
right, Yeah, So I just got back from there. You know,
I am involved, and I speak for the group I'm part of,
but we are involved in the humanitarian effort in the Gaza, the maritime corridor.
That's very specific. But of course I covered for ABC NonStop. So
I think right now you were seeing Prime Minister Nanya, who's supposed to be
here this month, is gonna be a very pretty busy bunth in DC,
and it looks like he will stop by the White House and then he'll go
give a jointe speech the cars. I think it's become you know, policies
in politics is always somewhat together, but now we're seeing it like essentially completely
merge on both sides. Right, So you have the current Diviiden administration talking
to people like Benny Gantz, who is a more moderate individual who's likely to
be the biggest contender for the Prime Minister against NYA who whenever that happens.
And he's very popular in the US and for good reason. He's a very
competent former a chief of staff of the IDF, General h and was the
defense at to the US from Israel. So there's he's not only known for
his reputation, he's known personally. But so the Divide administration is talking to
him, which obviously doesn't like too much. And now men yeah, is
going to go and obviously talk to senior public leaders on the Hill, and
he's been I think a bit critical, although I don't know if it was
warranted on the delivery of weapons ammunitions to Israel at this time. So you're
kind of seeing the politics and policy merge on the on the Gaza side,
I think out of Fortunately, the biggest proponent of a ceasefire in these negotiations
is not one of the components that can actually ultimately make the decision right,
if that makes sense to So it's the US right, the US is at
any means possible passing you in, and I don't disagree with it. It
needs to happen, But there is reasons that Israel, or at least Prime
ministrom Man, Yeah, who will not accept it unless he can be sure
that he can continue the war untill his military objectives are at right, and
there's a reason for Hamas not to accept any ceasefire. They can then be
turned around and they can go back into hostilities. They don't want to give
up any of the hostages. Every time they do they consider that self weak.
And it's pretty clear that a mosque could care less about the civilian population
in Gaza. So it's really just about Amas and Amash leadership. So I
think, even though it's not publicly said that from the Israeli side, they
think they just continue on. They're moving into phase three, you know,
more counterinsurgency centric, that they can just put more pressure directly on the Hamas
leadership, like keep tracking them down, tracking them down, and when they
come close, then all of a sudden you'll see Hamas begging for a seaspire
because that's what they care about, right, So I think that that's what
they think. And then politically they might see a change in administration and believe
that they would have more leeway than they are getting under Biden. And then
how Maas ultimately wants to survive past it into a ceasefire, and by survive
I mean their leadership. I don't think they care too much about their troops,
and they obviously don't care anything about the civilian population there in my opinion,
So what I was going to ask you to what you know, as
we look at this, it just seems insoluble, right, because there's just
no alignment of all interests, even within the Israeli cabinet. But interesting,
the interesting thing I think is that there is a not growing, but it's
already a huge segment of the US I mean, is really population. They've
long been disillusioned but Net and Yahoo and now they see Gance as kind of
their champion with the goal of freeing the hostages. In other words, they
want to see freeing hostages front and center. And now you notice Gance is
kind of talking that way too, right, He's even implicitly criticizing Net and
Yahoo. So I guess my question is what do you think about the prospects
that they're being company internal cabinet who will reshuffle right led by Gance obviously opposed
by Smoldrich and Benabin. We do pay a bit of attention because it does
affect our operations there and I think, you know, if you look at
the recent law adjustment which requires Orthodox to serve and I'm not Asraeli, but
to be frank to see a bunch of older males walking down the street protesting
that they have to be drafted when they have eighteen and nineteen year old kids
that you know, would rather be doing their art. Major men and women,
young men and women being drafted is it's kind of an embarrassment, you
know, like, hey man, I'm not sure why you think you're so
special. And that's what the more important to what Mick thinks, that's what
the Israeli population things right. But apparently this is this has caused a rift
in the far right of the coalition. So if it does cause such a
riff that they it ruptures it, then Prime Minister Danielle will have to stand
for election. And I think just looking at the polls that Benny Gance stands
a very good chance. I'm a I'm not a political anelist in an Israel,
but that's what people and I know I have a lot of is Reeli
friends, as you might guess, and I think they think that's the case,
and they think that they would get a moderate who might help them,
you know when it comes to international support, but also a moderate who has
impeccable credentials as a military leader, which is what they need right now,
because you know, the one thing we haven't talked about yet is potential for
a northern front here right which could could dramatically overwhelm what's happening in Gaza right
now. It could be super substantial and really catastrophic to the region. So
I think they're in the and I think a majority of that really population actually
support that, So it's it's possible that it could happen. Supporting that war
in the north, I mean, yeah, the ground incursion to essentially push
Hesbela back to the the UN resolution seventeen oh the Tanny River, you know.
I mean, it's almost as though it's a FATA complete and both sides
could argue that they're already at war, you know. I mean I was
up in the north last week, I think it was Thursday, and there
was something like two hundred rockets came across it was Wednesday or Thursday, drones
and you could see that, I mean, the fires every you can see
the smoke at least a lot of the fires all along, and sixty thousand
people evacuated, you know, on the Israeli side, and then Hezbolla has
lost nine or ten brigade commander level guys, and then most recently Nasa not
you know, no relation to to Gamal Nasa, but you know, they're
losing some brigadier leadership, and now they're losing some of their guys who are
there at the beginning right right, you know, the old guy from the
early eighties, and there's only about four or five of them left, along
with Nazrala. So it looks almost as though you know that the Israeli government
is pushing, you know, they are. They on one perception, they're
doing this to antagonize the push has ballowed at the point of war. But
other people are saying within the IDF, hey look at the guys we're killing
until Nasa. These are all brigade level guys. They're not top level guys.
It's still we're still playing within the rules of the game. Right,
that's right. So what do you I mean do you think Nazrala, what
do you think I mean? I'm not I'm not suggesting that you're in Nazrula
whisper, although that was your nickname. What do you think? What do
you think he's what do you think he's thinking? Now? What do you
think he wants? You know? I mean, I think there's probably a
lot. Did he take new account? He's thinking? Is Iron really going
to back me if this actually kicks off? Right? Because you know they're
they're like the original proxy group and you know apparently they're gold Star. But
it's pretty clear to me that, I mean, we just saw some pretty
interesting shifts and elections in Iran, right, I don't know, I totally
expected that. Yeah, but yeah, moder it in as the president.
Yeah. Right? So and then if you're in Israla, you're thinking,
Okay, did I pick a fight with the biggest dude on the block,
the block being the Middle East? And then my big brother has decided that
he is not going to come to my support. I mean, there's there's
that, right, yes, And you know they're making all the rhetoric that
there's no rules of engagement, which means they're going to target uh, the
Israeli civilian population, which they have been the entire time. So no news
flash. D I do think the US is doing everything we can to mitigate
this from happening. Part of that is the cease Far and Gaza, right,
So if there's a cease Far and Gaza, it'll probably reduce the tensions
with Hesbel out there. They say so that it will. And then it
really does come down to whether the Israeli population believes it's safe enough to go
back, right, Because I think you said it was around sixty thousand people.
I think that's right that are displaced, and that doesn't necessarily mean Hesbel
has to be pushed back to the Latani. It all depends on what they're
doing, right, So if they're not launching rockets and missiles non stop,
then you know, and the Israeli population believes that they won't start, then
they would be able to go back. If that's the case, this could
be I think avoided. If it's not, then I think from the Israeli
perspective, they're eventually going to have to bite the bullet and do some kind
of ground incursion and that would be bloody ugly for the IDF of course,
and Forsbel, of course, but it also could really I mean, the
precision got ammunitions. You hear different stats. But to say the one hundred
and fifty thousand rockets and missiles stats is accurate, I mean I saw one
I think pretty accurate report that the hesblog could launch three thousand mostly precision guys
mission missiles a day for thirty days. Right. I don't know any air
defense system that could withstand that iron So the US would likely have to get
involved militarily at least to mitigate these threats from the air as soon as that
happens. And this is now more than just a conflict between Israel and Hesbelo.
It could be between Israel, the United States, hesbela Ran and Iran's
you know, could launch all sorts of barrages like they already have. And
you know you're seeing you know, Proxy four is from Pakistan, Afghanistan or
rock Syria, Yemen all saying they're gonna sigh. I don't know what that
means necessarily, but I guess that they needed more fighters they could surge there.
Uh, it would be much more significant. And has book claims they
have one hundred thousand fighters, right, so even if that's exaggerated, it's
certainly much more than a mas at, So it's it would be it would
dwarf the current conflict in Gaza. Uh and it would just add to an
incredibly tense situation in which, you know, Israel could feel like it's completely
up against the ropes at a time when Iran's starts racing toward a getting a
nuclear weapon. So, you know, nothing, nothing that anybody wants to
see in the Middle East. And you mentioned the rockets and missiles, which
has being a problem set that we've all been focused on. Uh No.
I mean, I'm sorry that was very u a lazy collective clicktive now,
but I mean as far as in the special operations community, and you remember,
I mean generally within DoD focused on his balla, but mostly in the
soft community. But now it's not just the rockets and missiles, it's the
drones. And I was just up in Northern Command on Friday talking to They've
got a drone command within Northern Command headed by a Ukrainian guy. I mean
he's Ukrainian Israeli, but he was exo a National Guard unit out in Ukraine.
Anyway, he's a drone expert. He's bringing a lot of the TTPs
from Ukraine in and his concern is this number one and he was very even
in an official interview, you know, on a base he's saying, we're
just not getting resourced. I need more guys, I need this. His
Boller operators are really really good and they're able to operate their drones offline now,
so our GPS jamming that's no good. And they as you know,
rated as far south as south of hyper and not just you know, significant
size rone, so that that huge is a huge concern, just layered on
top of everything else. Two and the Israelis are behind. It's interesting because
they're so far ahead in areas of sophistication and you know, we talk about
well they you know, qualitative military edge, and yet here in a very
key area they as the United States are struggling with a short range air defense
issue and are looking to be overwhelmed. Yes, and if you have a
chance. Ohen West actually has an article on the Wall Street Journal about AI
and drowns. I read that. Yeah, really good. I do think
to your point, Andy, like, one of the things that we can
get out of having our folks in places like Ukraine working at leads in support
of them is to take the new modern cutting edge technology knowledge to be able
to export it to other partners, right, yea, that is critical and
this is a great example to provide drones that are fairly sophisticated but expendable,
blue collar drones, right, you know that, uh, that we can
provide and large enough quantities instead of these thirty million dollar platforms you know,
which we can't give to anyone and we can't even fly when there's an essay
six. Right, that's right, right. Necessity is the mother of invention,
right aristotal I think so if you look at like who is the underdog
in each one of those conflicts, they tend to look for what you're talking
about, really inexpensive but highly innovative means to be able to take it to
the enemy. So in it's the ukraineents, right, they're they're killing you
know, multi million dollar tanks et cetera with relatively inexpensive you know, manipulated
with a commercial drone and you know RPG warhead and what have you. And
that is what Hesbal is going to do to Israel. Right, So we
can take what we learn from being with the Ukrainians to do that on what
the vulnerabilities of those types of things are. So I think that's it's it's
it's it is a reason. One of the reasons, there's many, but
one of the reasons. We have a soakon right, or in my case,
a special activity center that that isn't geographically tied anywhere. So we go
everywhere. We support partners, and we take what we learned or what they
learned from there to our own benefit, to the other, to other partners
that we'd like to see, you know, succeed, which of course should
be all our partners. That's the whole point analysis. I'd love to see
that happen in a more coherent fashion. You know, it's kind of forget
I even said that that was an MPT. Well, we don't even gather
our own lessons learned. But yes, yeah, it's very interesting to see
how tactics have migrated. Ukrainian tactics have migrated, but also Russian tactics have
migrated to Hisboala because the Russians have become a course, very proficient with fpvs,
which are the real front now. And interestingly enough, you know the
Ukrainians talking about training FPV operators and putting them through you know, an initial
selection. I mean, it's making me think this really is going to be
a very important MOS of the future, right an FPV pilot. I mean,
those guys are going to be gold. I hope we're training them.
I hope we're recruiting them right now. But the Israelis have started. His
BOLLA is already way ahead, and of course the Russians in Ukrainians, it's
a major it's an industry down and down to the down to that toss organization
at the squad level. Now they have four drone operators in every squad,
just the way we have, you know whatever, small kinna and two or
three things. That's right, absolutely, so we'll see what I mean,
they're pushing hard for the csfire right now. I think the US does wanted
more than both parties involved. But if it does work for Israel, then
I think we'll see at least the first phase of it, which would be
the hostages, females, non soldier females and the elderly, and I think
the injured will come out first. The IDF will draw from populated centers.
They're already moving into phase three, so it seems like they'd be doing that
anyway. And then of course, from the humanitarians perspective, they would be
more aid coming, which is super important because right now the most if all,
of the two point two million population is in some form of acute food
insecurity and in the north borderline famine, and one of the biggest problems remains
distribution right within within the strip makers as much as as much as bottlenecks on
passage. The real issue is once it gets in, ensuring it goes to
where it's supposed to go. That's right, because whether it comes in from
the maritime means or the ground crossings, when the trucks start moving, they
often don't get to the further away communities because every community has to go through
is also starving, right, So it's it's they're getting right. It's a
problem all across the board. But the easiest way, none of it's easy,
and we take that back. The best way to solve that is to
flood the zone with aid to so that you know, pair can see that,
Okay, there's a lot of food coming in. It's being stored at
these facilities. I'm going to be able to feed my kids tomorrow, so
I'm not going to have to bum bum rush a speeding truck, right,
That's what I think is needed there, and it needs to come from every
direction, you know, ground, eri time and to a certain extent air
although that's really expensive, but it's there's some places up there where there is
the only way to reach it, right. So that's that's what's going on
right now with that, and I certainly hope that if there is a ceasefire,
that there is an opportunity to flood the zone with food and really critical
medicine, because the Moss is obviously a despot, horrible terrorist organization, but
you know, little Kitchen Gaza deserve to be treated with dignity, respect and
certainly get all the things they need for life sustainment. And as every civilian,
they're not just the kids, but they are not. They shouldn't be
part of them the bargain when it comes to this stuff. So if this
ceasefire is implemented and it holds, let's just say a month, two months,
but it's things start heating up in the north with Hesbela and all eyes
start turning north. Do you do you do you put it past the Moss
to stick with that seaspire or take full advantage of the fact that everything is
turned north. That's a good question. Jason, because if you think about
it, I mean, how many people really think that Hamas is going to
have a ceasefire forever? Because I mean their terrorist organization and their primary mission
is to destroy Israel. So if you say we're never going to fight Israel,
and I'm like, what's the perfect point? And I hope they do.
I hope they do. Let's all hope they do. The other part
to that, and the point I think of your question is if if the
IDEF starts tracking Hesbel Hesbal is going to be like, hey, guys,
you need to create something down and the down in Gaza to kind of distract
or at least add to the plate of the IDF. If you hold the
seasfire and they're allowed to basically steak a knee in Gaza and just focused on
Hezbola, then I think Hesbela will expect Hamas to do something and that maybe
that that actually breaks the ceasefire. I don't know. Hopefully that's not the
case, but I think there'll be a lot of pressure, and it might
be pressure exerted by or On too, and also that I guess, sorry,
the offset offshoot question would be if that does happen, can the idea
sustain that, you know, operations in the north and then having to turn
right back south again. Good question. Right, it's not just the idef
and its current capacity. But they rely heavily like we do when they go
to war on reserves, right, I think. And you just got back
there. Half the bartenders you talked to over there just got back from Coza,
right. So it's they're just and it's an incredibly resilient culture in the
sense that you know, it's life is normal in most parts of Tel Aviv
and half those guys just got back from in gals just got back from from
God. But that's very difficult to sustain. It has a huge impact on
their economy, on all these young people's you know, lives. It's one
thing to be called up and go spend six months, and then to be
called up again and again and again. It's very disruptive. Right. They
have mandatory service and a lot of them had already done it. So it's
it's both a capacity, like straight out capacity militarily, but it's also political
because it's a democracy. Eventually people be like, we have to go back
to our lives, and in the business people are like, we have to
get these people back to work. I'm just going to say, I was
just thinking, like, what if that eighteen or that nineteen twenty year old
kids who's done two pumps, you know, two tours up in the north
end in the south. What if he says, I'm not going I've done,
not knowing what happens, right, and the irony there not to get
two twelve into their politics or this change we talked about. It is a
lot of these far right folks that quite frankly are pushing for no cease fire
and new fronts are the very people that aren't required to serve right. So
you know from that eighteen nineteen year old kids just wants to go be a
music major at the University of Tel Aviv or something. This is starting to
get frustrating. And I don't say that as just a guess. I've talked
to them, right, but I'm there and they fully support their country.
Obviously, I all want their hostages back, as everybody should, but they're
starting to see this as an uneven obligation. I think, not not to
speak for every one of them, but that's a consistent theme. They didn't
seem to have any problems serving but if this gets drug out, they're going
to want to see a lot more people serving and not just them. Yeah,
Mick, tell us where we can find you. Tell us about the
Lobo Institute everything you guys are working on. Oh yeah, So the Lobo
Institute is essentially an association with people that have worked in the conflicts sphere,
from the military, from the intelligence, but also from you know, the
U N and from the Peace Corps to Edgio's and we've done things like we've
worked for the UN and Yemen. We've for the State Department on a manditarian
issue in Afghanistan. We're doing this Humanitarian Corps or for a group called fog
BO. We do a lot of those type of things. And that's that's
And we also have an NGO that deals with the use of ending the use
of children as soldiers and we just had a we had a documentary on that.
I should go find the book and do a shameless plug, but I
don't have it here. It's there. That was an author here in Montana,
a great author wrote a book on it. And it's helping funder NGO,
which is called in Old Soldier. So that's I mean, in a
nutshell and we do task the training which keeps us engaged with socom up here
in Montana, which is, I have to say, one of the most
fun things we do. And as you guys might notice, it seems like
those guys just keep getting younger and younger. So we do. We're across
the board, but we primarily focus on humanitarian issues and conflict. Sounds great.
Yeah, I'm gonna throw the link in the description for the Lobo Institute
excellent boys. Anything else? Andy, Oh, that's as always spak Brady,
having you on Mick and chatting with all of you guys. Don't forget
to check out the Lobo Institute obviously. Also check out our Patreon, Patreon,
dot com, Slash the team house, help Sport, the show,
Andy Milburn, Colonel Andy Milburn, his substack, his Twitter. All the
links are into the description, so check them out there. Thank you guys,
by mine appreciate it. And his book of course, his book is
great. Yeah, thanks everyone, Thanks again. Mick, And well maybe
we'll do an eyes On reunion but coming up on our what is it now?
Eight months? Seven months? The reunion and Whitefish. Yeah, that'd
be great. They just plan here. Uh, let me talk to the
Boss de Tacos, and he's trying to spend our travel budget. He's doing
He's an asshole, but I may be able. We could do a live
the f W man. Yeah, probably know this place is packed full of
veterans, right, especially some folks like if there's not you probably want to
get the white Fish on Nicer than POxy New York. Okay, right,
all right, thanks guys,