Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, welcome to another episode of Eyes on Geopolitics.
Speaker 1: It's been it's felt like a few years this past
Speaker 1: week with the amount of news that's been going on.
Speaker 1: We have Jack Murphy, Andy Milburn, and Jonathan Hackett. Here
Speaker 1: a little bit of house cleaning. Check out Jonathan's new
Speaker 1: book about Irani and covert operations. It's incredible. The link
Speaker 1: is in the description. He was also on the Team
Speaker 1: House about a week ago. Maybe less. Check out that
Speaker 1: that episode as well. Encyclopedic knowledge of what goes on
Speaker 1: in Iran. Of course, our dear leader Jack Murphy's joining
Speaker 1: us today. Jack. Ye, I dragoon Jack late late in
Speaker 1: the game to come on. I'm surprised, he said, Yes, Yeah.
Speaker 2: I just set up my whole audio and video system.
Speaker 2: This is a new computer, so I had to like
Speaker 2: rush to set it up in the last thirty minutes.
Speaker 1: It's working good though.
Speaker 3: It's very impressive.
Speaker 2: Hey, anything for you guys, man and Andy Milburn shut
Speaker 2: some star quality.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Andy Milburn looking felt as possible. Who cuts your
Speaker 1: hair in do you do?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 1: You have you have a barber that.
Speaker 2: Is absolutely the retired marine colonel haircut right there, Like
Speaker 2: that guy is exactly what you think he is.
Speaker 3: It's actually shorter than I had it when I was
Speaker 3: an active duty.
Speaker 2: You just need like a cigar stub in the corner
Speaker 2: of your mouth.
Speaker 1: Just chewing on one. Not even all right, So we've
Speaker 1: had mayhem going on in the world over the last week.
Speaker 1: We're gonna start off with Israel bombing Cutter, targeting Hamas
Speaker 1: political leadership and the negotiation team who was supposedly negotiating
Speaker 1: the piece or the ceasefire. It seems there was a
Speaker 1: bit of like, uh, you know, the Mussad chief and
Speaker 1: IDF chief people were not down for this, and bb
Speaker 1: Net and Yahoo went ahead and did it. Tar just
Speaker 1: came out today and like strongly condemned Israel and stuff
Speaker 1: like that. Where you guys at, what do you guys
Speaker 1: track in Who's going to go first? I'm gonna pick
Speaker 1: John Hackett to go first. Our guest goes first.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I thinks so to me, this represents kind of
Speaker 4: what has already been going on, where we see there's
Speaker 4: the larger Israeli government and then there's a smaller component
Speaker 4: of that government making certain decisions kind of on their
Speaker 4: own or at least against the greater interest of the
Speaker 4: larger apparatus, and to me it represents a shift in
Speaker 4: what Israel has been doing in the Middle East, where
Speaker 4: they've been relying on the United States for backing and
Speaker 4: things like that. And I think as each little bite
Speaker 4: at the apple has been taken, they realize that they
Speaker 4: can take bigger bites with very little consequence or no consequence.
Speaker 4: There's a big difference between making statements and condemnation and
Speaker 4: then doing something. And there's a lot of statements in
Speaker 4: condemnation and very little of doing something to prevent future
Speaker 4: acts from happening, or to even do something to moderate
Speaker 4: current actions, like in Qatar, but not just Qatar, same
Speaker 4: things happening in southwest Syria right now in Durra where
Speaker 4: Israel sent a ground force into Dura across the nineteen
Speaker 4: seventy four ceasefire line. Again taking little bites at the
Speaker 4: apple to see how far can we nibble before we
Speaker 4: can make a bigger bite.
Speaker 5: And this is not a new technique.
Speaker 4: We saw this also with the assassination of Hesbala leaders,
Speaker 4: then moving up the chain killing Nocerola, seeing what was
Speaker 4: the reaction to that, then killing Hania and Iran, seeing
Speaker 4: what was the reaction to that. Further back killing Mossen
Speaker 4: Fachriza day the nuclear scientists almost ten years ago, seeing
Speaker 4: what was the reaction to that, and then killing six
Speaker 4: more scientists after that. You know, so this is probably
Speaker 4: not an isolated strategic move.
Speaker 5: It's probably an.
Speaker 4: Early move in a longer term plan for some further
Speaker 4: end state that we as observers think like, oh my gosh,
Speaker 4: they just hit Katar. That's crazy. That's not what they're
Speaker 4: all about. What they're doing is testing to see what
Speaker 4: happens in Qatar with what we are trying to achieve,
Speaker 4: and of course there's a longer term game plan to that.
Speaker 4: Hitting the negotiators is pretty provocative, but there are further
Speaker 4: provocative acts that could do, especially where we have our
Speaker 4: own Ascent and soccapp forces stationed there. And that's the
Speaker 4: only golf country that Trump has recently visited. In fact,
Speaker 4: it was the first time a US president ever visited
Speaker 4: Katar very recently, and to do that is a huge provocation,
Speaker 4: not just to the golf countries but also to the
Speaker 4: United States to say this part of the Israeli government
Speaker 4: that's making these decisions can do it without even US
Speaker 4: support or knowledge. Because as far as I know, the
Speaker 4: US was not informed until the bombs are either in
Speaker 4: the air or already had struck.
Speaker 1: Melbourne.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I am I.
Speaker 2: John.
Speaker 3: By the way, welcome, good to think, good to have
Speaker 3: you on. I agree with I agree with John what Sjohn
Speaker 3: said with I think one caveat though. So normally when
Speaker 3: Israel kind of pushes a limit, tests the waters, there
Speaker 3: is something that they consider of great national interest to
Speaker 3: them at state, right, you know when they were going
Speaker 3: after the nuclear scientists, you know, and you can trace
Speaker 3: this all back to I mean, they've jeopardized US relations
Speaker 3: before in a big way, even back in the time
Speaker 3: of the Soviet era. Do you remember when they were
Speaker 3: trying to get they were trying to negotiate with the
Speaker 3: Soviet government to get to enable Jews to emigrate to Israel.
Speaker 3: And part of that deal was allegedly espionage information from
Speaker 3: the United States about our sources and methods against the
Speaker 3: Soviet Union. And that's what Pollard was apparently involved in.
Speaker 3: And so that was a big risk, remember back then,
Speaker 3: using an agent against US an ally. But they took
Speaker 3: that risk. It was worth it to them, and they
Speaker 3: got away with it, right, I mean Pollard went to jail,
Speaker 3: but that was it. There were no more repercussions. I
Speaker 3: would say that this is different in that it's not clear. Well,
Speaker 3: let me put word of this a different way. Furthering
Speaker 3: is really national interest by doing this? It's not. There
Speaker 3: was There's not a clear line, and I think that's
Speaker 3: why Mossad and the IDF were against the strike. There
Speaker 3: was a lot of risk involved jeopardizing negotiations in Doha
Speaker 3: with her Mass by breaking that that unkind of unspoken
Speaker 3: rule that not to strike in Doha and doing that.
Speaker 3: It's not clear that they gained anything by it. That
Speaker 3: they removed her Ma anyone really effective within her maas
Speaker 3: with the strike. And what they have done is they've
Speaker 3: thumbed their nose at the United States. I don't think
Speaker 3: that's been made clear in the media how much they
Speaker 3: did that because either they informed the United States in
Speaker 3: which case we enabled or allowed a strike on a
Speaker 3: on a Middle Eastern partner who is allowing us, you know,
Speaker 3: to keep keep our troops on their territory in a base,
Speaker 3: in other words, implicitly providing our protection to that country,
Speaker 3: and we've allowed it out to strike. I don't I
Speaker 3: agree with you. John I don't think that happened that way.
Speaker 3: I think we found out at the last minute, but
Speaker 3: we didn't. We haven't objected vaciferously. Again, you know, whether
Speaker 3: we whatever you think of Kada, we have a base
Speaker 3: there that is important to us national interests. And by
Speaker 3: the way, we don't pay anything for that base. We
Speaker 3: pay very little for that base. So and yes, those
Speaker 3: of us who've been there for an extended time will
Speaker 3: tell you it's a shith hole, but it is a
Speaker 3: strategically placed shithle. And and so you know, I just feel,
Speaker 3: regardless of the way you look at this, whether we
Speaker 3: knew about it beforehand, whether we found out the last minute,
Speaker 3: didn't object, we've we've lost a massive amount of credibility
Speaker 3: again in the Middle East. And you know, of course
Speaker 3: that leaves a le vacuum. And Netania thumb his nose
Speaker 3: at us. He thumbed his nose at a large segment
Speaker 3: of his own government and his own advisors. And why
Speaker 3: did he do it? The only possible answer that I
Speaker 3: can come up with isn't that this was in pursuit
Speaker 3: of Israeli's interests. These were in pursuit of Netanyahu's interest
Speaker 3: because he stands to gain by letting the war in Gaza.
Speaker 3: Drag On and his own generals are telling him that
Speaker 3: continued military operations will gain little, they will damage the economy,
Speaker 3: and of course they will continue to have catastrophic effects
Speaker 3: on the Palestinian population in Gaza, about whom no one
Speaker 3: really seems to care that much. So I think as there, Yeah, sorry, go.
Speaker 4: On if I could, Yeah, just to help understand the
Speaker 4: geopolitics here, Israel received six billion dollars a year of
Speaker 4: security assistance from the US that was granted after the
Speaker 4: Agreement on Marsadat back in seventy nine. And there's of
Speaker 4: course Jordan and Egypt also receive lesser amounts that are
Speaker 4: part of that agreement. But if you look, as you mentioned,
Speaker 4: with Katar pays for our presence there, They pay us
Speaker 4: to be there, and similar with the Emirates, the Emirates
Speaker 4: pays US to do foreg military sales.
Speaker 5: There's a form military sales case.
Speaker 4: For the US Marine Corps to train the Presidential Guard
Speaker 4: and the Emirates, and the emirateis actually pay the US
Speaker 4: forces salaries to defact to the Defense Financing Accounting Service,
Speaker 4: while those US forces are partnered with those emirateis So
Speaker 4: it's just very interesting to see the disparity where these
Speaker 4: golf partners are paying their way to work with us,
Speaker 4: whereas on the Israel side, we are paying Israel to
Speaker 4: not listen to us. Essentially, it's an interesting chasm between
Speaker 4: these two because I think many Westerners might think that
Speaker 4: we're just supporting all these nations the same way, and
Speaker 4: that's not true. Some of the nations are pulling all
Speaker 4: of their own weight and they're there making sacrifices like
Speaker 4: Qatar and the Emirates or Saudi Arabia to have us there,
Speaker 4: sacrificing some of their sovereignty and some of their resources
Speaker 4: for us to be there, and the opposite is true
Speaker 4: in Israel.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a great point. I mean, it's just another
Speaker 3: sad indication of the bigger picture, the fact.
Speaker 6: That we are any criticism of this ral is vboten
Speaker 6: are our own ambassador there seems to be subservient to
Speaker 6: their foreign policy.
Speaker 3: And you know, another point about this strike, It did
Speaker 3: the Abraham Accords no good, you know, I mean, yes,
Speaker 3: Qatar is not a signatory, but UAE and Saudi Arabia, uh, well,
Speaker 3: Saudi Rai potentially, and this is just driven a further
Speaker 3: witch and that in in and that that Abraham accords
Speaker 3: were we're driven by US foreign policy and we just
Speaker 3: seem to have turned our back on all of this.
Speaker 1: And yeah, and the reasoning that who said he gave
Speaker 1: the reasoning about hitting the Qatar in the Hamas delegation
Speaker 1: was because there was a terrorist attack in Israel a
Speaker 1: few days before that. I think in the West Bank.
Speaker 1: I might be wrong, I could be totally off on it,
Speaker 1: but there wasn't like a shooting there that killed I
Speaker 1: think six Israeli's Jerusalem, right Jerusalem, there you go, Yeah.
Speaker 3: And that's the population there. I've heard more than missile strikes.
Speaker 3: But again, I you know, who knows. I doubt that
Speaker 3: that was front and center net and yao, who's motivation for?
Speaker 3: Because there was no direct correlation between the people he
Speaker 3: was going after, certainly not between the people who were killed,
Speaker 3: because it still hasn't be verified that they were even
Speaker 3: members of a mask alone mass leaders. And notice, normally
Speaker 3: the Israelis trumpet this and come out with names and
Speaker 3: all this. They've been remarkably silent about it this time,
Speaker 3: which suggests maybe that they weren't didn't get the people
Speaker 3: that they were after.
Speaker 2: Hey, guys, it's Jack. I just want to talk to
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Speaker 1: Yeah, Jackie, you say something, go ahead, brother, No, not really.
Speaker 2: I mean the only kind of thing that you know,
Speaker 2: I'd like to tease out of you guys, if it's possible,
Speaker 2: is you know, the question that's unavoidable is how does
Speaker 2: this end. You've both kind of mentioned how Israel is
Speaker 2: making this strategic gambit, but it seems to be a
Speaker 2: incoherent foreign policy and that there are different factions within
Speaker 2: Israel that have different motivations and maybe one faction thinks
Speaker 2: longer than the other, right, you know, one of them
Speaker 2: might be for short term political gain. How do you
Speaker 2: see this playing out for Israel over the next ten
Speaker 2: or twenty years. This sort of a total breach of
Speaker 2: you know what we would have called the Westphalian system,
Speaker 2: right that they can cross these international boundaries and strike
Speaker 2: whoever they want, wherever they want with and sometimes it
Speaker 2: seems without a lot of rhyme or reason.
Speaker 4: I'll just say real briefly then Andy, you can be
Speaker 4: longer on this, But the West Vhalian sovereignty is just
Speaker 4: a social contract. As long as everybody agrees and follows
Speaker 4: their agreement, it's great. If certain actors are not following it,
Speaker 4: then other groups have to either choose to sanction or
Speaker 4: not sanction those bad behaviors.
Speaker 5: And right now, the US, that's.
Speaker 4: The only superpower that can sanction those behaviors, is not
Speaker 4: sanctioning them. And until those conditions changed, there's one trajectory
Speaker 4: that this could go down. If those conditions do change,
Speaker 4: there's the opportunity for a new trajectory to a different outcome.
Speaker 4: And right now I think the Israeli government, or at
Speaker 4: least the Netnyagu cabinet, is taking a very opportunistic approach
Speaker 4: to this moment, which they did during the first Trump
Speaker 4: presidency as well, where they tried to ge as much
Speaker 4: as they could out of these four years. It squeezed
Speaker 4: the most benefit without a clear probably idea about five
Speaker 4: to ten years from now. Rather, they were looking at
Speaker 4: the US domestic politics and trying to use US domestic
Speaker 4: politics to increase their own outcomes. But I'll hand it
Speaker 4: over to you Andy to be more in depth on that.
Speaker 3: So no, it can be more in depth. But I
Speaker 3: would say that I think by the way we say Westphili,
Speaker 3: it's the Treaty of Westphalia from sixteen forty eight that
Speaker 3: basically established the concept of the nation state, a sovereign
Speaker 3: nation state with inviolable borders, right. And it was at
Speaker 3: a time obviously when democracy was not alive and well,
Speaker 3: but it was based anyway on regardless of the good
Speaker 3: or bad of the It was literally sorry, at the
Speaker 3: time they were sovereign states, they were kingdoms. And then
Speaker 3: I mean, I would say that that concept is in
Speaker 3: atrophy to say the least. I mean, we violated it.
Speaker 3: We robustly a couple of times, right, most notably of
Speaker 3: course in in Iraq. And we use then the concept
Speaker 3: of you know, the right to protect and and the
Speaker 3: concept that you have you abdicate your right to sovereignty
Speaker 3: if you're doing certain things and preemptive a great Uh,
Speaker 3: the preemptive defense, I guess is the term and you
Speaker 3: know that that we used at the time, but nevertheless
Speaker 3: we we we can the concept then and since then
Speaker 3: we've turned our back on it, most recently, I think
Speaker 3: with Ukraine and all this, all these these verbal gyrations
Speaker 3: to try and show that somehow as Ukraine's fault for
Speaker 3: getting invaded in the first place. But back to back
Speaker 3: to the discussion about Jack, what you're saying about Israel.
Speaker 3: I think it's really I think it's really interesting. Mean,
Speaker 3: first of all, we're all aware that since seven October
Speaker 3: we've seen a giant moved to the right within Israeli society.
Speaker 3: I mean, that's been taking place since the assassination of
Speaker 3: Rabine back in when was that nineteen ninety was it
Speaker 3: ninety five?
Speaker 5: Was it?
Speaker 4: I think it's ninety six, right after Oslo two.
Speaker 3: Yeah, But since then there's been a study shift and
Speaker 3: then it's accelerated, and so you've got now within Israel
Speaker 3: actions that previously it would be attacked by the Israeli public,
Speaker 3: of a percentage of the Israeli public now being condoned.
Speaker 3: And I'm talking about what's happening in Gaza the only
Speaker 3: time you hear opposition, and you hear significant opposition of
Speaker 3: the government. It's not based on what's happening to the Palestinians.
Speaker 3: It's based on what potentially is happening to the hostages.
Speaker 3: And that again was largely the basis for the opposition
Speaker 3: against the Doha strike. And you have sometimes in the
Speaker 3: United States. I think we get in this view because
Speaker 3: we see our own government kind of following along in
Speaker 3: path of the Israelis just almost obsequiously agreeing to everything
Speaker 3: that they do. But elsewhere in the world, Israel is
Speaker 3: becoming a pariah, you know, among European governments. And may
Speaker 3: that may not matter to Israel, but down the line
Speaker 3: when the US administration changes, that may matter a great deal.
Speaker 3: I'm not talking purely in financial terms, but you can't.
Speaker 3: You can't without consequence make yourself a prior for long
Speaker 3: periods of time. And I think there are Israelis so
Speaker 3: concerned about that. And I think too, when you're talking
Speaker 3: about direct threats to Israel, this feeling that, hey, all
Speaker 3: we need to do is flatten Guaza and kill all
Speaker 3: the Palestinians we can and the problems will go away.
Speaker 3: And likewise, in Lebanon, of course that's that's not going
Speaker 3: to happen. I mean, his Bolla is down for the
Speaker 3: for the time being. But can you imagine, you know,
Speaker 3: we we are familiar with counterinsurgency. The Israelis don't understand counterinsurgency.
Speaker 3: I mean, that's the bottom line. And they don't understand
Speaker 3: that you generate, you generate recruits for the cause by
Speaker 3: doing the things that you were doing that and that
Speaker 3: again is just going to build up a pressure of
Speaker 3: steam that sooner or later is going to burst again.
Speaker 3: You know, you can't clamp down one hundred percent time
Speaker 3: on all these territories. Israel's economy is suffering, and that's
Speaker 3: another reason why NETNA is indefinite extension of the war
Speaker 3: and Gaza is unpopular because it's affecting individual Israelis across
Speaker 3: the board. They've mobilized three hundred thousand reserves, which is
Speaker 3: a reservists over and over again, which is a huge
Speaker 3: percentage of a ten million person population, and the economy
Speaker 3: has suffered severely. I mean, I've been Disrael three or
Speaker 3: all times since seven October, and the tourist industry is
Speaker 3: down the toilet, and you know, unfortunately it's the same
Speaker 3: in Jordan. It's the same in neighboring countries. The long
Speaker 3: term economic impact of these continued wars is there is
Speaker 3: something that.
Speaker 2: Israel is also having, like these really interesting and maybe
Speaker 2: potentially catastrophic internal demographic issues. We see the stuff going
Speaker 2: on with the ultra Orthodox, and recently I think there
Speaker 2: was a move to cut welfare to this population. Partly
Speaker 2: or at least it's tied into the fact that they
Speaker 2: won't serve in the IDF, they won't comply with conscription.
Speaker 2: And do you see that as having like some pretty
Speaker 2: drastic internal effects on Israel in the coming years.
Speaker 3: That's a really good that's a really good point about
Speaker 3: the Hasidic Jews. Bottom line is I don't I don't
Speaker 3: see that as being such a rift that so the
Speaker 3: move to the move to to enforce the fact that
Speaker 3: they have to join the military, to conscript them, it's
Speaker 3: genuinely very popular in Israel because there's been building tension
Speaker 3: and resentment against that community and just a little bit
Speaker 3: of a background. They were, you know, in the in
Speaker 3: the post war years, at the birth of birth of Israel,
Speaker 3: they were the civic Jews were brought in and given
Speaker 3: these protections in a purposeful policy to rebuild them as
Speaker 3: part of Jewish and Israeli culture after you know, the Holocaust,
Speaker 3: and like a lot of preservation programs, though it has
Speaker 3: got it's got out of control. Right, It's like the
Speaker 3: I mean, you name it. I'm trying to without being
Speaker 3: too facetious and thinking of you know, wildlife. They don't
Speaker 3: have a predator, you know. But the point is that
Speaker 3: they build and build. They don't contribute to the economy,
Speaker 3: they don't work. They just you know, they learn about
Speaker 3: the Torah and they thought the Jewish religion, which has
Speaker 3: always been considered an important aspect of Israeli culture. But
Speaker 3: they don't work in you know, they don't work in
Speaker 3: it or in companies, and they don't serve in the military.
Speaker 3: And that in particular has caused resentment because they tend
Speaker 3: to be you know, they tend to be vociferous too
Speaker 3: in the support of Zionism, and they tend to you know,
Speaker 3: they represent a disproportion number of the settlers on the
Speaker 3: West Bank, et cetera, et cetera. So there is a feeling,
Speaker 3: at least there was before seven October, and it has
Speaker 3: continued within Israeli society that they contribute to a lot
Speaker 3: of the problems and a lot of tensions, but they
Speaker 3: don't they're not prepared to defend the country, and so
Speaker 3: conscripting them has largely been a positive move. But net
Speaker 3: Nyaho's walking a typewrote because he does receive political support
Speaker 3: from that community along. You know, I'm not combining, I'm
Speaker 3: not conflating right wing Zionists with Hasidic Jews, but I'm
Speaker 3: just saying there's a big shaded area on the Venn diagram,
Speaker 3: and Neil does thrive a lot of his support from
Speaker 3: both circles of the diagram. But to your point, yeah,
Speaker 3: I think there's a there's a tremendous amount of division
Speaker 3: Israeli's society over the war, but it's centered on the
Speaker 3: hostages rather than what's happening to Gaza.
Speaker 4: I'd also add on to that that the demographic issue
Speaker 4: that you bring up, and he makes a good point
Speaker 4: that there's this coalition that the current government has support
Speaker 4: that's not a majority of the country. And actually it's
Speaker 4: a plurality country where there are many different groups. It's
Speaker 4: not like in the United States where you have kind
Speaker 4: of two big parties.
Speaker 5: It's actually even more complicated.
Speaker 4: Than Lebanon's politics, where there are many many parties in
Speaker 4: Israel that some of them only have one person representing
Speaker 4: that party in their parliament in an esset. And we
Speaker 4: have to also remember that in twenty eighteen, Israel past
Speaker 4: the basic law that said it's a Jewish state. It's
Speaker 4: like a purely Jewish state for Jewish people only. But
Speaker 4: the question remains of the twenty five percent of the
Speaker 4: population of Israeli citizens that are Palestinian. And then there's
Speaker 4: another percentage of the population that also serves in the
Speaker 4: military and is dying for the State of Israel, and
Speaker 4: those are the Drus. The Jrus are not Jewish, and
Speaker 4: some would say they're not Muslim. It depends how you
Speaker 4: define what Dru's religion is. But that's a significant part
Speaker 4: of the population that is fighting and dying for the state.
Speaker 4: And there's tension beyond the concurrent past two years of
Speaker 4: war that we're looking at. If you remove that from
Speaker 4: the equation and look at what's actually happening domestically, there
Speaker 4: are a lot of fissures under the surface of domestic
Speaker 4: politics that once this conflict is in the past, those
Speaker 4: fissures will begin to bubble up once again, just like
Speaker 4: they were in two years ago. Right before October seventh happened,
Speaker 4: there were protests in the street in some ways related
Speaker 4: to these demographic fissures that, like I said, again, will
Speaker 4: bubble up.
Speaker 3: Yeah, some stage, Israel not be both a Jewish state
Speaker 3: and a democratic state, you know. And yas Arafat used
Speaker 3: to say, eventually we will win through the womb of
Speaker 3: the Palestinian woman, and that there may be some truth
Speaker 3: in that, you know. That's that's partly why the Israelis
Speaker 3: were so keen to bring in immigration in the you know,
Speaker 3: in the seventies and eighties, because they you know, I
Speaker 3: suppose they could, but they're unlikely disenfranchised to twenty five
Speaker 3: percent the population that are Palestinian, but they have a
Speaker 3: much higher birth rate than the Israeli population. And to
Speaker 3: John's point, yeah, actually there's a lot of Drus and
Speaker 3: Bedouins in the IDF. If you read about nahalas the
Speaker 3: fall of the not not the Kabberts, but the base itself.
Speaker 3: The fact that so many of the garrisons survive was
Speaker 3: attributed to a not Drus but a better win officer
Speaker 3: who who died defending basically about fifteen IDF soldiers who
Speaker 3: had taken taken shelter in the kind of the control
Speaker 3: room there. So yeah, it's I mean, it's a great point.
Speaker 3: It's there's there's all kinds of fractures within within Israeli society,
Speaker 3: the left right, you know, the split between the left
Speaker 3: and right that was always there is not so prevalent.
Speaker 3: The left seems to have kind of drifted away, but
Speaker 3: there is definitely vociverous opposition to Netnia, who he's a
Speaker 3: very divisive figure, is reelly seemed to either love him
Speaker 3: or hate him. And then you know the the other
Speaker 3: demographics that John was talking about, and of course you've
Speaker 3: got the old animosity too between John what of the
Speaker 3: non Ashkenazi Israeli is called them and the mizrath in Ashkenazi. Yeah,
Speaker 3: Sephardim in the last decade have have kind of come
Speaker 3: to prominence both within the id F and and and
Speaker 3: also in the government than they used to be.
Speaker 4: And there's even segregation within public schools between Misrahi, which
Speaker 4: are Arab Jews that were there before Israel was created,
Speaker 4: versus the Ashkenazi, specifically where some schools actually separate whether
Speaker 4: you're Misrahi or Ashkenazi, and the Mizrahis are considered less
Speaker 4: capable of attending class with the Ashkenazis, which are European origin.
Speaker 3: John, what about what about Saint Moroccan Jews. I mean
Speaker 3: there was a big immigration immigrants Theopean Jews. Yeah, I
Speaker 3: mean I've heard that there's that there's prejudice against this well,
Speaker 3: at least from that community that they consider that they
Speaker 3: are sometimes regarded as being second tier citizens, so that there's.
Speaker 4: A a preference for Ashkenazi in leadership positions. And then
Speaker 4: within the military ranks and within schools and other public
Speaker 4: service places, there's certainly separation preferences that you can see
Speaker 4: expressed where Mizrahim, especially the Arab origin, are at the
Speaker 4: lowest level. Then you have Ethiopians and things around there,
Speaker 4: and then there's the Safhardom are kind of in the middle,
Speaker 4: and then Ashkenazi at the top.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's pretty I'm sorry.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, you guys ever read that pretty like
Speaker 2: brutal quote from Netan Yahoo from like thirty years ago
Speaker 2: where he was talking about the black soldiers in the
Speaker 2: IDF and he said like, yeah, the blacks are okay
Speaker 2: as long as they're led by white officers like, oh
Speaker 2: my god, jeezuz.
Speaker 3: That sounds something like you know from the twenties, right, yeah,
Speaker 3: about the Indian Army, British Indian Army.
Speaker 1: I want to touch on like West Bank and what's
Speaker 1: going on there, because there's a lot of rumblings about
Speaker 1: Israel looking to completely it too, occupy even more spots
Speaker 1: to make it impossible for the Palestinian sides to be
Speaker 1: able to you know, travel to each other and stuff.
Speaker 1: Uh and people in the news are kind of saying
Speaker 1: that it's in reaction to a lot of the European
Speaker 1: states calling for a two state solution, which you know,
Speaker 1: I thought was like the broad policy for all of
Speaker 1: us in the West, maybe not inside of Israel, but
Speaker 1: what are they doing in terms of gearing up towards
Speaker 1: That's like from what you guys have heard or seen
Speaker 1: or mud wrestle for who goes first, Andy, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: pick then I'm taking control here.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I don't I don't have any profound insights,
Speaker 3: but I will say this. I was I was in
Speaker 3: uh I was in the West Bank at this time
Speaker 3: last year. I went into uh Ramala and it was
Speaker 3: pretty I mean, it was very very tense. I've been
Speaker 3: to the West Bank before, but the difference was was stark,
Speaker 3: and it's I mean, I may have just hit at
Speaker 3: a bad time. Streets were, you know, unusually empty patrols everywhere.
Speaker 3: And actually I was pulled over by pulled aside by
Speaker 3: some Palestinians because I was dumb me I was taking
Speaker 3: photographs and they made some people my rate. But but
Speaker 3: you know, I mean a year or two before, no
Speaker 3: one would have cared. You would have seen even tourists there.
Speaker 5: But the.
Speaker 3: I know it sounds like a kind of a very
Speaker 3: sharp thing to say, but a sense of occupation there
Speaker 3: was very strong. You know, it used to be. And
Speaker 3: I forget how the areas were categorized A, B and C,
Speaker 3: where the terms for the Israeli is used. And so
Speaker 3: there are certain areas that were pleased by the Palestinians,
Speaker 3: and the Israeli's only went in there to do targeted rates.
Speaker 3: And you know, occasionally and for the most part, all
Speaker 3: you saw there were Palestinians where those areas now are
Speaker 3: regularly being patrolled by Israelis and and and there are
Speaker 3: regular infringements by of course settlers into Palestinian areas. Sometimes
Speaker 3: very aggressively, and you've probably seen in the media about
Speaker 3: times where they'll just, you know, a bunch of yahoos
Speaker 3: will run in armed yahoos and set fire to a
Speaker 3: Palestinian town and shoot a few people and then leave
Speaker 3: and sadly with impunity. And so it's just not a Yeah,
Speaker 3: it's a pretty pretty fraud atmosphere there. It's hard unless
Speaker 3: you've been there to imagine what it's like. But did
Speaker 3: to your point, No, I mean I don't. I don't
Speaker 3: see any I don't see that situation getting any better.
Speaker 3: I really don't. I mean there's no because there are
Speaker 3: no I use the term sanctions in the broad term,
Speaker 3: but there's nothing to prevent the Israelis doing what they're
Speaker 3: doing on the West Bank right now. There's nothing to
Speaker 3: prevent the settlers running wild whenever they want to and
Speaker 3: basically running pograms on the Palestinians, which is what is happening.
Speaker 3: And if you think I'm exaggerating, you're wrong. You know,
Speaker 3: I mean burning down, burning down in Thai villages, shooting people.
Speaker 3: It happens. It has been happening regularly, and for the
Speaker 3: most part, people turn a blind eye to it.
Speaker 4: I think part of the problem also is lack of
Speaker 4: knowledge about these events from the outside because for a
Speaker 4: long time they were all they weren't reported well for
Speaker 4: whatever reason. But then with the October seventh war starting,
Speaker 4: there's a lot of signal coming from the Gaza conflict,
Speaker 4: and that actually creates noise against the West Bank issues.
Speaker 4: So there's very limited time for people to read, media,
Speaker 4: listen to media, watch it. So what they're seeing instead
Speaker 4: is the things that are pulling them, gravitating toward the
Speaker 4: Gaza issues because they can only many people can only
Speaker 4: focus on one issue, on a foreign topic at a time,
Speaker 4: you know, so Israel right now it's Gaza, and they
Speaker 4: can't They don't have time to separate what's going on
Speaker 4: in Gaza, what's happening in West Bank, what's happening in
Speaker 4: goal On Heights, what's happening with southern Lebanon, Because that's
Speaker 4: also really important right now that the Lebanese forces, Levenes
Speaker 4: armed forces are basically empowered to defend the country. Hezbola
Speaker 4: is weakened, but they're not empowered enough to actually defend
Speaker 4: their country because if they are, then they can't counterbalance
Speaker 4: against Israel. So like for a long time, they haven't
Speaker 4: been allowed to have an air force. That's one example.
Speaker 4: But when people are looking at these issues, they're thinking, oh, Gaza.
Speaker 4: It's a very small moment of time that they have
Speaker 4: to focus on this. And I remember in twenty nineteen,
Speaker 4: I was at working at the US embassy in Jordan
Speaker 4: and we had the quote unquote peace agreement that we
Speaker 4: were signing with the Palestinians to Jared Kushner was over
Speaker 4: there setting up how the West Bank would connect to
Speaker 4: Gaza and there would be this Palestinian state, and looking
Speaker 4: at it on a map, it was crazy to look
Speaker 4: at because it's not a state. It's two pieces of
Speaker 4: land connected by a heavily militarized piece of road. And
Speaker 4: all this which was you know, that was on paper,
Speaker 4: now we're seeing it actually happening. Because this is a
Speaker 4: long standing strategy of creating facts in the ground since
Speaker 4: nineteen forty six. It's always been this way, where there
Speaker 4: will be an idea, a plan like an Oslo one,
Speaker 4: Oslo two, or nineteen sixty seven, seventy three, nineteen seventy eight,
Speaker 4: all these times where there have been public agreements between
Speaker 4: Israel Palestinians that have been mediated by Norway, by the
Speaker 4: United States by whomever, and if those agreements don't pan out,
Speaker 4: Israel just continues moving forward anyway. And actually with Smotrich
Speaker 4: right now in the West Bank, that's what Smotrich's idea
Speaker 4: is as Minister, is to slowly do exactly what they
Speaker 4: said they were going to do back in twenty nineteen,
Speaker 4: which is to separate Judea and Samaria physically, and that
Speaker 4: way that people living in the north of the West
Speaker 4: Bank cannot move to the south of West Bank. Right now,
Speaker 4: it's difficult for then, but it's not impossible, but the
Speaker 4: plan is to make itmpletely impossible. And by doing that,
Speaker 4: you now create three land masses inside of this eleventeen regions.
Speaker 4: You have Gaza, you have Judea, and you have Samarias,
Speaker 4: three separate physical entities, which further degrades Palestinian authority. And
Speaker 4: of course there's no more Hamas government in Gaza, so
Speaker 4: now you have two ungoverned spaces that essentially takes power
Speaker 4: away from many Palestine leadership and state there of course
Speaker 4: is to not have any Palestine leadership anywhere, and it's
Speaker 4: part of Israel only one state solution.
Speaker 1: Jeez, Jack Murphy, I mean I don't have anything to add.
Speaker 2: I think, you know the other question that I wanted
Speaker 2: to ask you guys, And I know we'll probably jump
Speaker 2: into Ukraine and Russia next, but it seems like between
Speaker 2: Russia and Israel, both of these countries are in a competition,
Speaker 2: in a race, almost to see which one of them
Speaker 2: can light the fuse on World War three. First, I mean,
Speaker 2: kind of back to my original question, I guess, I mean,
Speaker 2: these countries are violating international norms, true sovereignties, crossing international borders,
Speaker 2: all this stuff with with actual physical, you know, kinetic attacks.
Speaker 2: What is this bode for world order in the next
Speaker 2: couple of decades.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think I think to me, the saddest part
Speaker 3: of this is US compliance. And I mean, I just
Speaker 3: you know, we we we just ceased to to be
Speaker 3: a factor, right, And the more we cease to be
Speaker 3: a factor, the more everyone kind of thumbs that those
Speaker 3: the United States. I mean, I think, you know, this
Speaker 3: may sound, this may sound naive, but I think certainly
Speaker 3: those of us who warn uniform did it for because
Speaker 3: we believed that our country represented values. And when we
Speaker 3: went to war, I won't say that was okay, but
Speaker 3: it was okay. Because we felt in our halfs that
Speaker 3: they that you know it, even if we didn't believe
Speaker 3: directly in that war, that overall our country was a
Speaker 3: force for good in the world, right, And that's why
Speaker 3: we went. And we went for other reasons, yes, for
Speaker 3: those to left, right und of us, but that was
Speaker 3: the bottom line that we were proud to wear the
Speaker 3: uniform those reasons. And so now it is rather disheartening,
Speaker 3: to say the least, to find that our country no
Speaker 3: longer represents those values and sadly sometimes represents opposite values.
Speaker 3: And you know, Jack, to your point, what happened in
Speaker 3: Poland anyone who thinks and John knows more about this
Speaker 3: than I do. But what happened in Poland was not
Speaker 3: an accident. It was Russia probing again native defenses. You
Speaker 3: don't fly nineteen drones deep into Polish air space because
Speaker 3: of a navigational era, right, And it's and that wasn't
Speaker 3: aniceolated incident. There would been one hundred and fifty kinetic
Speaker 3: attacks on European soil. When I say kinetic, I'm including sabotage,
Speaker 3: including the you know, things like.
Speaker 2: Well that's what John was saying about. Coming to take
Speaker 2: another bite at the apple, right, Yeah, we're gonna We're
Speaker 2: gonna do it, and we're going to see what you
Speaker 2: you know, we're it's kind of get the comp believe,
Speaker 2: like what are you going to do about it?
Speaker 3: And what are we doing about it? Nothing? You know,
Speaker 3: I mean a robust NATO responder. I mean article falls, nothing,
Speaker 3: article forms like right to consult. It's like absolutely nothing.
Speaker 3: What Native should be doing is moving air defense systems
Speaker 3: up to the border and shooting down drones that are
Speaker 3: even heading for NATO airspace. I mean that is absolutely legitimate.
Speaker 3: Those drones were launched from Belarus. I mean it's you know,
Speaker 3: so we we should be doing things to Belarus too,
Speaker 3: but certainly preemptive contact, engagement of the threat, and and
Speaker 3: that sends a message loud and clear, and we you know,
Speaker 3: yes we are. We're at the same time we're reinforcing
Speaker 3: Ukraine's air defense. But that is yeah, we're not even
Speaker 3: doing that. You know, the Russians have been you name it,
Speaker 3: from nor from cables in the North Sea and the
Speaker 3: Baltic Ocean, I think, you know, cutting fiber optic cables,
Speaker 3: to attempting to poison water supplies, to planting and scendry
Speaker 3: devices in warehouses, you know, in the UK it's a
Speaker 3: sabotage of Ryan metal facilities. In Germany, I mean across
Speaker 3: the board, it's been they've just there's just been no
Speaker 3: attempt even to keep things covert. You know, it's almost
Speaker 3: a joke. And it does seem like there was.
Speaker 2: New era in world water where you know, we're going
Speaker 2: to see these like increasingly provocative actions that I think
Speaker 2: would have been not completely unthinkable, but they were rather
Speaker 2: uncommon and rare, and now they're seeming almost commonplace.
Speaker 4: I think what's happening is they're actually not new. Russia
Speaker 4: has had a typical probing mentality, and what has happened
Speaker 4: is in the past, whoever they're probing will react in
Speaker 4: a way that stops the probe, and Russia's seeing how
Speaker 4: far can I get the problem? Right now, is nobody's
Speaker 4: stopping the probe. I think about like the Cuban missile
Speaker 4: crisis for example, that's an excellent example of a provocation
Speaker 4: to see how far can Russia get? Well, it almost
Speaker 4: got to a nuclear war. And if you look in Syria,
Speaker 4: when the Wagner Group moved eastward toward our own positions,
Speaker 4: we stopped the provocation. Same thing with Russian SU thirty
Speaker 4: five's flying over Turkish air space from Syria. Turkey stopped
Speaker 4: that provocation in its tracks and Russia pulled back and
Speaker 4: didn't try again. And right now what's happening is Russia
Speaker 4: is seeing that, oh, at my periphery, nobody's stopping me,
Speaker 4: so I'm going to expand my periphery. And this actually
Speaker 4: happened in two thousand and eight with the invasion of Georgia.
Speaker 4: They're still there in Osuth, Ossetia. They're still issuing Ossetian
Speaker 4: passports to Georgians living in this occupied space, and same
Speaker 4: with Abkhazia and even Transnistria and Eastern Moldova, like there
Speaker 4: are a lot of places where russ has just pushed
Speaker 4: out the edges to see how far can the edges go,
Speaker 4: and they create new edges when they're not stopped. And
Speaker 4: right now what we're seeing is them attempting to create
Speaker 4: new edges, and until somebody stops them, those edges will
Speaker 4: become their own interior. And that's something that has to
Speaker 4: stop from the NATO perspective. But as we were saying earlier,
Speaker 4: if Trump is making these ultimatums about unless NATO countries
Speaker 4: all stop buying Russian oil. We're not going to help. Well,
Speaker 4: that's not how NATO has written. That's that contract is
Speaker 4: very clear about what NATO means. It's about defense, it's
Speaker 4: not about economics. Economics certainly is a part of defense
Speaker 4: and vice versa. But that treaty is to help each
Speaker 4: other period.
Speaker 5: That's what it's for. Yeah.
Speaker 3: The interesting thing is, I think, I mean, we are
Speaker 3: seeing European nations step up to the plate far more
Speaker 3: than before. And they've been driven there partly by kind
Speaker 3: of US apathy, but also by awareness of the threat,
Speaker 3: especially with Poland and the Czech Republic and the Baltic
Speaker 3: nations of all up spending on that GDP considerably. I mean,
Speaker 3: Poland is now a leader within NATO and has completely
Speaker 3: modernized its armed forces. In the process of completely modernizing
Speaker 3: its armed forces, the Baltics are by their own foreign
Speaker 3: policy statements. You know, if you watch them, they are not,
Speaker 3: especially Estonia. They don't shrink from out to our out
Speaker 3: and out confrontation Russia because they are sure that war
Speaker 3: is coming to them. And they have very better memories,
Speaker 3: of course of Soviet the Soviet occupation, and in fact
Speaker 3: in Ukraine. We had a number of Estonians in the
Speaker 3: Mozart group and if you look at you know, in
Speaker 3: the Foreign Legion there, and some of those guys were
Speaker 3: active duty I'm not lying, active duty Estonian soldiers taking
Speaker 3: leave of absence, and that government was kind of turning
Speaker 3: a blind eye, you not. Yeah, that's no exaggeration because
Speaker 3: they knew that they were next. So I think you're
Speaker 3: seeing a lot of that the UK, of course, you know,
Speaker 3: even under labor, government is all in on. That's the
Speaker 3: ironic thing. I mean, you know that you've got essentially
Speaker 3: a socialist government in the UK, and yet they are
Speaker 3: all in on defending Ukraine against the Russian threat, and
Speaker 3: yet we are we have backpedal. So I'm just looking
Speaker 3: for silver linings and all of this, I guess, Jack,
Speaker 3: because that's my role.
Speaker 1: So Andy, you're the supreme commander of NATO. What are
Speaker 1: you What are you ordering?
Speaker 3: All right? Well, definitely, I mean just what I said,
Speaker 3: I mean, I I would I would say the rules
Speaker 3: of engagement are to engage Russian drones and missiles in
Speaker 3: Ukrainian air space if they're heading towards NATO, I mean
Speaker 3: from a distance. All right, don't let them. I mean
Speaker 3: it's too late to let them cross the border. That is,
Speaker 3: that's common sense, it's aggressive act. You know, when, as
Speaker 3: John has pointed out, the Russians, we're always you know,
Speaker 3: there's this there's this this political dynamic within the United
Speaker 3: States that you hear this mantra about escalation and we're
Speaker 3: being dragged into World War three, which is absolute, absolute bullshit.
Speaker 3: The Russians don't escalate when you confront them. They escalate
Speaker 3: when you back down, and that anyone who thinks otherwise
Speaker 3: just isn't reading recent history or twentieth century history. And
Speaker 3: so that's what we should be doing, just like I think,
Speaker 3: you know, the way to drive negotiations and to come
Speaker 3: to a ceasefire isn't to be nice, to poot and
Speaker 3: lay out the red carpet, and it's to say, hey, buddy,
Speaker 3: these are the repercussions if you don't. We're all in,
Speaker 3: and we're going to fast track Ukraine into NATO, and
Speaker 3: we are going to ramp up support for NATO in
Speaker 3: a way that you cannot imagine. And it's not going
Speaker 3: to be you know, I mean support for the Ukraine
Speaker 3: in a way that you kind of Mentionine.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the only that's the only language that the
Speaker 2: Russians seem to understand. You know, you can't just go
Speaker 2: and talk to them nicely. And for some reason, the
Speaker 2: current administration has this idea like we should just be
Speaker 2: nice to dictators and like they'll play ball with us,
Speaker 2: and we see over and over again, I mean that's
Speaker 2: not the case.
Speaker 3: Yeah, twenty five years he's been playing this game. And
Speaker 3: I was just watching a news for reel because I'm
Speaker 3: a sad individual, you know, I watch old news reels
Speaker 3: from on YouTube late at night, and I was watching
Speaker 3: one from the UK where he visited Tony Blair back
Speaker 3: in Putin back in two thousand and one, and that
Speaker 3: was all this stuff in the news about it's a
Speaker 3: new Russia and then blah blah blah, and you know,
Speaker 3: the days of Russia being on our enemy are over,
Speaker 3: you know, of course, Samply, that's absolute bullshit.
Speaker 1: I mean that was the same song and dance with
Speaker 1: George W. Bush too. You know, it looked in his
Speaker 1: eyes and yeah, fell in love or whatever the quote is.
Speaker 3: You know what I mean, Like, yeah, I saw a
Speaker 3: man who I could negotiate with.
Speaker 2: Hey, John McCain said when he looked into his eyes.
Speaker 2: The only thing he saw was a K, A G,
Speaker 2: and a B.
Speaker 1: So they should make it. They should make a T
Speaker 1: shirt about for that man.
Speaker 3: I'm I'm just I'm not yet comfortable enough to look
Speaker 3: so closely into another man's eyes.
Speaker 1: More about like talking about how the US is kind
Speaker 1: of like, for lack of a better word, shrinking from
Speaker 1: this this fight. The new national defense strategy that we
Speaker 1: talked about last week, a little bit that was like rumored,
Speaker 1: is like it's coming out more and more that like it.
Speaker 1: We're pivoting from China and Russia being you know, the
Speaker 1: near peer threats that we're focusing on to regional and domestic.
Speaker 1: How does that explain to me what a one trillion
Speaker 1: dollar defense budget means when you're not focusing on the
Speaker 1: actual people who are the as close peer to peer
Speaker 1: competitors as we have.
Speaker 2: The real threats are Venezuela and Greenland.
Speaker 1: Of course, Yeah, I said it in the group chat,
Speaker 1: like Venezuela, Mississippi, Indate, Venezuela.
Speaker 3: What do we go fund busted some North?
Speaker 1: Yeah? I think what it is the Candians with.
Speaker 4: A democratic country, though you have domestic politics driving foreign policy.
Speaker 4: Every four years or every two years, depending on.
Speaker 5: What we're talking about.
Speaker 4: And right now, the national discourse is all about immigration, cartels,
Speaker 4: drugs in the United States, which means that US foreign
Speaker 4: policy is going to reflect those domestic issues to some degree.
Speaker 5: If that's if that's.
Speaker 4: In the same line of agreement as those in the Senate,
Speaker 4: Congress and the White House, and that's that's what it
Speaker 4: is right now, and even the Judiciary, everyone is focused
Speaker 4: on the exact same direction of domestic response to these
Speaker 4: international issues and looking at the NDS and what will
Speaker 4: eventually be the national military strategy underneath that.
Speaker 5: If we're focusing on the.
Speaker 4: War on drugs quote unquote war on drugs, that means
Speaker 4: that our national defense policy will also focus on that,
Speaker 4: which means we're going to point our guns southward, which
Speaker 4: always kind of shakes me a little bit because you
Speaker 4: have to think about, Okay, these drugs are coming from
Speaker 4: the South, but they came from somewhere else before that,
Speaker 4: especially synthetic drugs like pentanila. And even back in twenty fourteen,
Speaker 4: I was in Southeast Asia and we were working on
Speaker 4: an issue over there where metham vetamine precursors were coming
Speaker 4: out of India and China, because at the time there
Speaker 4: were only three factories in the world that produced the
Speaker 4: ephedrine that was used in metham vetamine. One of them
Speaker 4: was in India and two of them were in China.
Speaker 4: This was like more than ten years ago, and India
Speaker 4: agreed at the time to police that, which then meant
Speaker 4: China was the only one still selling them to cartels.
Speaker 4: As you were saying, Jack, like, why why aren't we
Speaker 4: stopping the Chinese precursor points because that would cut off
Speaker 4: the supply of synthetics to Mexico and other states in
Speaker 4: the southern South America. But instead we're just kind of
Speaker 4: swatting at the end at the later on down the
Speaker 4: road people that are just making money off this thing
Speaker 4: that came to them from somewhere else. I think that's
Speaker 4: very ignorant, to put it bluntly, to be hitting this
Speaker 4: you know seller who got it from somewhere else and
Speaker 4: the people before them got it from somewhere else. Is
Speaker 4: there's a long supply chain, just like any economy, and
Speaker 4: instead of chaling on that supply chain.
Speaker 2: Do you buy into or I mean, do you do
Speaker 2: you support the thesis out there that you know, the
Speaker 2: Chinese feel that they have suffered this century of humiliation
Speaker 2: and that you know, the precursor chemicals being flooded into
Speaker 2: Central and South America by them is to them. They
Speaker 2: see it as revenge for the opium wars.
Speaker 4: I think that is something that could be argued in
Speaker 4: favor of, but I don't think it's actually what's going on.
Speaker 5: I think it's.
Speaker 4: Probably more that China is a modernizing economy. It has
Speaker 4: been since Dengjaopang nine to seventy eight made his famous
Speaker 4: statement about the black cat white cat still a cat
Speaker 4: kind of thing with capitalism coming into China, but it's
Speaker 4: not capitalism. I think China they're having a lot of
Speaker 4: economic problems right now with their own domestic real estate
Speaker 4: issues and other like large scale domestic economic problems, and
Speaker 4: probably money coming into the country is good money, and
Speaker 4: it's not a concern of where does that money come from.
Speaker 4: It's more about how do we keep up the pretense
Speaker 4: of our country rapidly modernizing.
Speaker 5: Well.
Speaker 4: One way to do that is huge industrial scale espionage
Speaker 4: against the United States defense industry and also against other
Speaker 4: technology in the United States, capitalizing on rare earth minerals
Speaker 4: and also production domestic production of electronic vehicles, like all
Speaker 4: these kind of like market centered things, and one of
Speaker 4: those market centered things is precursor chemicals and other things
Speaker 4: that go to other countries. And it's not so much
Speaker 4: about like, oh, let's do this perniciously to hurt America.
Speaker 4: Instead it's we need to do something about making as
Speaker 4: much money as possible right now so that our economy
Speaker 4: doesn't look like it's in shambles, because once it's in
Speaker 4: shambles and the whole thing we've been saying, the potentkan
Speaker 4: village we've been building will collapse, and they don't want
Speaker 4: that to happen.
Speaker 5: And I think that's probably more realistically what's happening in
Speaker 5: the minds behind the scenes.
Speaker 2: So they're institutionalizing the illicit economy for economic purposes.
Speaker 5: Well, it's only illicit to us.
Speaker 4: I mean, they have their own way, they have their
Speaker 4: own laws, they have their own perspectives.
Speaker 5: I mean it's for us.
Speaker 4: It's terrible and people are dying here. But how much
Speaker 4: does that matter to the factory owner that owns the
Speaker 4: A Federing factory. Probably not very much. He cares a
Speaker 4: lot more about the closer term issue of his balance
Speaker 4: sheet keeping it red or black, you know.
Speaker 3: Andrew, Yeah, no, I I was soaking all of that
Speaker 3: in the I think, yeah, I think that's a great point.
Speaker 3: And there's certainly a prevalent feeling, not that I can
Speaker 3: speak for the Chinese public at large, but we are
Speaker 3: not liked there, you know, and we haven't been for
Speaker 3: a long period of time. And I'm saying as someone
Speaker 3: who grew up in Hong Kong. But you know, if
Speaker 3: you look back at I'm reading a book right now,
Speaker 3: which I do occasionally by a guy who is New
Speaker 3: York Times correspondent in Beijing, happened to be there on
Speaker 3: ninety eleven, you know, people that were cheering what was happening.
Speaker 3: And so I don't think I don't think anyone in China,
Speaker 3: you know, I think they regard fentonol and drugs as
Speaker 3: being a uniquely American problem because of our rather what's
Speaker 3: the word keying culture and our self absorption and all
Speaker 3: of these things. And so it's, yes, certainly not their problem,
Speaker 3: and it's something that we're trying to blame on the
Speaker 3: rest of the world. So we'd guess from their viewpoint,
Speaker 3: from our viewpoint, you know, I I think that yes,
Speaker 3: one can overplay the military threat that China poses to
Speaker 3: the United States. But that's not the problem. The problem
Speaker 3: is the fact that there are areas of potential Chinese
Speaker 3: expansion that do not align with our national interests, and
Speaker 3: so simply pivoting away from Asia, not that we ever
Speaker 3: really pivoted towards agent, but pivoting away can only be
Speaker 3: a negative thing. I mean, I forget what percentage of
Speaker 3: the world's economy, of the world's trade has to do
Speaker 3: with agent, but it's a significant amount. Whether or not
Speaker 3: you care about the future of Taiwan, there are issues
Speaker 3: there that go deeper than just defensive territory. They have
Speaker 3: to do with the global economy. They have to do
Speaker 3: again with the credibility of the United States, and so
Speaker 3: turning away from that and can only be negative. And
Speaker 3: you know it's not as though, I mean, we've got
Speaker 3: the largest, most powerful military in the world. So the
Speaker 3: either The last point on this, I would say is
Speaker 3: if we're focusing on our domestic borders, really, I mean,
Speaker 3: it's like, isn't isn't that a little bit of overkill?
Speaker 3: Why not protect our national interest overseas because there's no
Speaker 3: such thing. I mean, this viewpoint that this kind of
Speaker 3: isolation is viewpoint that there is United States and then
Speaker 3: there's some cut off line somewhere just offshore or south
Speaker 3: or north of our borders, and that we don't have
Speaker 3: to worry about anything beyond that is it was archaic
Speaker 3: in the nineteenth century and I just don't understand it now.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think things like Plant Columbia are very positive
Speaker 4: and we should probably replicate the successes from that. Rather
Speaker 4: than just using our military instrument to do military effects
Speaker 4: like strikes and things like that, we should be thinking
Speaker 4: more about security cooperation, more about security assistance. China's thinking
Speaker 4: about security cooperation much more every day. If you look
Speaker 4: at the Solomon Islands, they basically got an election to
Speaker 4: vote in their favor. Domestically in the Solomon Islands, Sogavare
Speaker 4: was elected, who is anti US, He's pro China, and
Speaker 4: China's been doing this all over the South China are
Speaker 4: the different small countries around there gaining support for recognizing
Speaker 4: China instead of Taiwan. So that's happening South America. They're
Speaker 4: speaking with governments there and militaries there. They're bringing Chinese
Speaker 4: police to train domestic police in those countries. This is
Speaker 4: a perfect textbook opportunity for the US to use security
Speaker 4: cooperation as an instrument of military power, a positive one
Speaker 4: that actually empowers people and shows those people what the
Speaker 4: US can do for you, and then what you can
Speaker 4: do for yourself once we've worked ourselves out of a job,
Speaker 4: because that's the point of security cooperation. And it worked
Speaker 4: in Colombia and it can work throughout South America, especially
Speaker 4: this is such a close area to the United States,
Speaker 4: as you're saying, Andy, like our borders are secured by
Speaker 4: our partners. That's how it should be, especially in Mexico.
Speaker 4: Mexico should be one of our greatest security cooperation partners,
Speaker 4: and instead we're looking at it as this enemy state,
Speaker 4: a rogue state with rogue provinces that are the biggest
Speaker 4: threat to the US right now, which is ludicrous.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So that brought up a really interesting point. When
Speaker 3: you look at the places and conflicts where the United
Speaker 3: States has been successful, they aren't where we've poured in
Speaker 3: conventional troops. It has been where we have had a
Speaker 3: light touch, and Columbia is a great example. You know,
Speaker 3: arguably there are others, arguably El Salvador, though I understand
Speaker 3: that you know, for a while we were supporting a
Speaker 3: pretty horrific regime. But the point is that we moved
Speaker 3: it in the right direction and helped counter a counterinsurgency
Speaker 3: without pouring troops into that. And we don't pay enough
Speaker 3: attention to that. Everyone's fixated in rock in Afghanistan. But
Speaker 3: when it comes to foreign policy, pivoting here or that
Speaker 3: doesn't mean massive basin and it doesn't have to be
Speaker 3: all for deployed troops, but it does mean it does
Speaker 3: mean persistent presence. But that persistent presence could be a
Speaker 3: very light touch. And I know, you know, Jack and
Speaker 3: I are probably a little jaded and not jaded but
Speaker 3: biased in this. But special operations forces are a great example.
Speaker 3: Marines are a great example too, Uh, the Army, the
Speaker 3: Army s FA brigades. Conceptually we're a great example, but
Speaker 3: of course they've been done away with, you know, so
Speaker 3: we don't seem to be progressing and learning these lessons.
Speaker 1: And Jonathan is a former marine and special operator.
Speaker 3: We're an all marine show. I'm sorry, Jack, We're we're
Speaker 3: an old marine show.
Speaker 1: They got Nick and Jason aren't here today because I
Speaker 1: can't angle fucking four of you.
Speaker 5: Well then we'd have a fire Team.
Speaker 3: It could solve these problems a little bit. The will
Speaker 3: are you going to get sponsorship from the Marine Corps?
Speaker 1: I'm trying to, honest to God, I'm trying to.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I would think that seeing us on
Speaker 3: the show would just be a huge recruiting drive.
Speaker 1: And frankly, I was kind of shocked at their marketing
Speaker 1: budget year it over year.
Speaker 3: It's it's like one hundred and ninety million a year
Speaker 3: or something. Yeah, is that right?
Speaker 1: Yeah, they signed a ten year deal for one point
Speaker 1: nine bill I don't know how they allocate it, but
Speaker 1: let's say, let's call it one ninety. They could shoot
Speaker 1: us over a mill I won't even notice it's gone.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, honestly, this podcast probably puts more kids
Speaker 2: into the military every year than their entire recruiting budget does.
Speaker 3: Well. Actually, the I forget the name of the ad agency.
Speaker 3: It's something Thompson, right. Yeah, and they do some great commercials,
Speaker 3: but the commercial I mean, but they few and kind
Speaker 3: of few and fall between.
Speaker 1: Yeah. They've actually merged. It's called VML.
Speaker 3: Now that's that right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've been stalking their employees.
Speaker 3: Yeah you should. Yeah, and you're right, Jack, I mean,
Speaker 3: certainly I mean I would have joined the military all
Speaker 3: over again. After watching half a dozen episodes of The Team.
Speaker 2: House, watching your own interviews on the Team House, do that.
Speaker 2: That guy's so cool.
Speaker 1: I want to do that. What's what his accent though
Speaker 1: he's American?
Speaker 3: What's your favorite? What's your favorite episode? Jack? And aside
Speaker 3: from the ones with me?
Speaker 2: Well, man, that's a tough one. Yeah, that's a really
Speaker 2: tough one.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna ask you d next.
Speaker 2: So the one, okay, so, the one of the funniest
Speaker 2: one is the episode we did with Phil Campion s
Speaker 2: a S guy. I was laughing throughout the entire That
Speaker 2: guy is so funny.
Speaker 3: He's a funny guy. Yeah, was he the one that
Speaker 3: he was the one telling the story about the the
Speaker 3: where the plane was hijacked on the Toomac and they
Speaker 3: send the guy out to the s A S guy
Speaker 3: out to empty the empty the shitter and he pressed
Speaker 3: the wrong button.
Speaker 1: He got he got sprayed.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was that was Peel.
Speaker 3: Sorry, he run he runs his own podcast. It's pretty good.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, he has a lot of a lot of
Speaker 2: the UK guys on there. Forces I think it's called.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: But actually that brings us into topic number three D
Speaker 2: do you want to roll into that?
Speaker 1: All right? So there's been a lot of drama going
Speaker 1: on I guess in the vet Bro podcast space. Uh
Speaker 1: they're not even vet Bros. Like one of them, David
Speaker 1: Hookstead and a friend of ours Combat Story Ryan Fugit. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they've taken down their Delta Force videos and interviews with
Speaker 1: Delta Force former Delta Force operators. I guess voluntarily because
Speaker 1: I don't know. My guess, well, Jack's guess is like
Speaker 1: that some crotchety old you know, command sergeant majors and
Speaker 1: stuff are busting the balls of the former Delta guys
Speaker 1: and they are now in turn telling these guys to like,
Speaker 1: oh maybe can you take it down for me? So
Speaker 1: it's not you know, we're not up there, like they're
Speaker 1: not breaking up seconds for the most part tame interviews.
Speaker 1: We just want to say right here, right now, that
Speaker 1: Teamhouse will fucking not be doing that ever. Like I
Speaker 1: don't care if Sergeant's Slaughter calls my phone, I don't
Speaker 1: give a fuck. Uh, that's not going to happen ever. Now, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's going to happen. Bro.
Speaker 2: A little bit of a backstory on that. So, I
Speaker 2: mean the things that have happened publicly. You've seen some
Speaker 2: pretty high profile stuff with Tim Kennedy, John McPhee and
Speaker 2: some other guys, some pretty big controversies at least in
Speaker 2: the in the veteran space, you know, maybe not in
Speaker 2: America at large, but you've seen some of those things escalate.
Speaker 2: And then as far back about a year ago, I
Speaker 2: was furnished with a email dot I was asked not
Speaker 2: to share, but I'll tell you what it's about. It's
Speaker 2: an email that went out from Delta Force's Public Affairs
Speaker 2: officer with comments from the unit CSM. And you know,
Speaker 2: obvious the commander had to be in the mix somewhere
Speaker 2: in that. But so the PAO sent this email out
Speaker 2: to all of what they call veteran unit members or
Speaker 2: former unit members like fums. So it goes out to
Speaker 2: all of them, and basically it was admonishing them to
Speaker 2: stop doing podcasts and reiterating that they do not support
Speaker 2: doing podcasts, they do not support guys writing books, they
Speaker 2: do not support guys telling their stories on whatever medium
Speaker 2: it may be. And then you know the kind of
Speaker 2: boiler plate, you know, preamble, national security secrets, blah blah
Speaker 2: blah blah, blah, and so that went out. And the
Speaker 2: interesting thing about that email was, I mean, they're within
Speaker 2: their rights, I think, to remind people of classification and
Speaker 2: say don't break classification. I get that part. But the
Speaker 2: PAO went further and encouraged former unit members to socially
Speaker 2: shame and scold their teammates. Yes, it said call them
Speaker 2: out on social media. That's in the email, like that
Speaker 2: I have, and that's pretty wild, Like, why is an
Speaker 2: army PAO telling private citizens to socially shame on social
Speaker 2: media other private citizens. That's pretty wild to me and
Speaker 2: to my mind, Uh, steps across some mounds. You know,
Speaker 2: I'm out of the military. The military can inbox me
Speaker 2: as much as they want. I don't work for them, sorry, bro, Like,
Speaker 2: I'm out now.
Speaker 5: So I.
Speaker 2: Don't know for a fact, but I suspect that this
Speaker 2: is probably the unit CSM or you know, trooper squadron
Speaker 2: level CSMs that are getting pissy about all these former
Speaker 2: unit members doing podcasts and some of them becoming very controversial.
Speaker 2: McPhee is the most prominent one, I think, and I'm
Speaker 2: not going to weigh in on that. You can make
Speaker 2: of that what you will.
Speaker 3: What's the background of them. I'm aware of the whole
Speaker 3: Tim Kennedy.
Speaker 2: Thing, allegations of embellishing stories and making up stories. And
Speaker 2: then there was this big expose I guess you could say,
Speaker 2: where stuff came out about how he was kicked out
Speaker 2: of the unit and then he was kicked out of
Speaker 2: Special Forces and retired as an infantry E eight and
Speaker 2: the whole background of like there's allegations of spousal abuse
Speaker 2: and other things there. Yeah, and excuse me, they took
Speaker 2: away his time, as I understand it. So I think
Speaker 2: probably there are there are senior leaders in the unit
Speaker 2: that got upset that all this stuff is playing out publicly.
Speaker 2: And I will also say the same thing that I
Speaker 2: said on Seth Harp's interview, because I've had these conversations
Speaker 2: with people. The thing that Jaysok in Delta Force fears,
Speaker 2: probably more than anything, is increased oversight. They absolutely do
Speaker 2: not want the United States government putting more oversight on them.
Speaker 2: They don't want legislation. They absolutely don't want more legislation
Speaker 2: coming in because as things are like, the oversight on
Speaker 2: Jaysock is fairly light. They have a lot of freedom
Speaker 2: to do the things that they want to do. And
Speaker 2: there are fears that this sort of like public controversies
Speaker 2: that like Vetbro podcast circuit, is going to have an
Speaker 2: influence on you know, people's perceptions and ultimately on lawmakers' perceptions,
Speaker 2: and they start to feel, hey, this unit's out of control.
Speaker 2: We need to get this under control.
Speaker 5: Too.
Speaker 1: Is kind of like the straw that broke the camel's back.
Speaker 2: It's possible, Yeah, it's possible.
Speaker 4: Yeah, a wide message about Relentless Strike and they were like,
Speaker 4: do not acknowledge that this book exists. Do not read
Speaker 4: it if you see it in the bookstore, do not
Speaker 4: touch it. If someone gives it to you, give it back.
Speaker 4: I think it was like twenty fourteen or fifteen. It
Speaker 4: was like a whole unit wide email about that so childish,
Speaker 4: and now.
Speaker 3: It's required reading when you check into JAYSUK.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's funny how that works, isn't it. You go
Speaker 2: for being a pariah of being mandatory reading.
Speaker 1: So our messages were not taking down any of the
Speaker 1: ADULTA forced guys email videos.
Speaker 2: And no one has come to me as of yet.
Speaker 2: I have heard you if they do, like, no one
Speaker 2: has come to me, But I still, you know, I
Speaker 2: believe that you know, if you believe in freedom of
Speaker 2: speech and freedom of the press, then those are things
Speaker 2: you have to stand up for sometimes, you know, especially
Speaker 2: when it's the military is just trying to bully you
Speaker 2: and bully people around you, you really have to stand
Speaker 2: up to that. And this isn't a thing like where
Speaker 2: a federal judge is sending out orders to podcasters like
Speaker 2: take down notices like you will be in contempt of
Speaker 2: court if you do this. I don't think there's any
Speaker 2: premise that they, you know, any law that allows them
Speaker 2: to do that because of the constitutional freedoms we have,
Speaker 2: So all they can do is kind of like threaten people,
Speaker 2: and you kind of have to. You have to stand
Speaker 2: firm against that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we've also been asked by certain guys, former operators
Speaker 1: to take out like benign stuff from our interviews, like
Speaker 1: shit about like Thermo barracks. Yeah, doing that.
Speaker 2: It's happened once or twice where I think guy's got
Speaker 2: some pushback from their former colleagues or their friends, and
Speaker 2: they've asked me like can you take down this interview
Speaker 2: or whatever, And I'm like, hey, look if you can
Speaker 2: point out to me where there are national security secrets
Speaker 2: being divulged that could endanger operations or personnel. I will
Speaker 2: review that. I will look at it, and I'll have
Speaker 2: to make a decision. But if there's a legitimate national
Speaker 2: security issue, I will consider removing that part of the interview.
Speaker 7: And yeah, when the one.
Speaker 2: Person came back to me, it was like, oh, the
Speaker 2: Thermo Barrack grenades are classified, and I'm like, there's a
Speaker 2: Wikipedia page on this, Like I'm not gonna sorry.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, so we urge the vet bro podcast here.
Speaker 3: I just want to add that very few people have
Speaker 3: suffered more than I have after a team house interview
Speaker 3: from it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and he got screwed over, that's right, you got like,
Speaker 2: uh like security clearance reviewed, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I got them all kinds of Yeah. I mean
Speaker 3: for talking about I'm not I'm not gonna talk about
Speaker 3: it here now. But it wasn't it wasn't a security violation. No,
Speaker 3: I got it back. But it took fourteen months. And
Speaker 3: not just that, but you remember the whole Ukraine interview
Speaker 3: where I talked about violations of the law of art
Speaker 3: conflict by Ukrainians, you know, and just saying hey, listen,
Speaker 3: this happens too, and in order to go after the Russians.
Speaker 3: At the time, it was you know, I felt like
Speaker 3: no one had more right to criticize what was going
Speaker 3: on in Ukraine and when I was risking my life
Speaker 3: every day in Ukraine for the Ukrainian cause. But my
Speaker 3: point was simply, hey, I want to be on the right,
Speaker 3: on the side of good, and there are things that
Speaker 3: the Ukrainians have to clean up too, and in order
Speaker 3: to be able to point the finger out the Russian
Speaker 3: So that was that was the gist of what I
Speaker 3: was saying. And actually Zelenski agreed with me, because he
Speaker 3: said much the same thing two days later, but without
Speaker 3: the death threats presumably, but unbelievable. I mean, that was
Speaker 3: the the spin offs from that or the like videos
Speaker 3: that went more viral than the Team Mouse video with
Speaker 3: just clips of me was saying.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that got us in the New York Times, I
Speaker 2: remember that, Yeah, yeah, you're welcome, Thank you, Andy. Any
Speaker 2: other bombshells you want to drop here again?
Speaker 3: Where former soft veterans drink hard alcohol in a living room.
Speaker 1: Second, that's an apt description of the show. I feel
Speaker 1: like the same.
Speaker 3: The same article called me a solo a solo flyer
Speaker 3: deeply steeped in violence. So yeah, a solo fire with
Speaker 3: the background deeply steeped in violence.
Speaker 2: He's a traveling minstrel of death.
Speaker 3: Anyway, he's Yeah, but we all survived. But I didn't
Speaker 3: call you. I didn't call you guys and cry.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it is what it is, right, Yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean I've said stupid things at the time, kind of.
Speaker 1: I mean yeah, but the clearest thing was absolute nonsense.
Speaker 1: I mean it's like so ridiculous.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was so overblown and over the top. When
Speaker 2: Andy was making a pretty reasonable comment that didn't strike
Speaker 2: me as controversial at all.
Speaker 1: And the funny thing is when we try to extract
Speaker 1: top secret stuff from you during the show, like the
Speaker 1: first episode or second episode, when we were talking about
Speaker 1: isis uh and what was going on there? You were like,
Speaker 1: you were like, back off.
Speaker 3: Now, he's got a good memory. Yeah, even even after
Speaker 3: the show where I where I collapsed and fell half
Speaker 3: unconscious in a snowbank.
Speaker 2: That was great. We drank the three of us together,
Speaker 2: drank like a bottle and a half of whiskey that night.
Speaker 1: Not recommended when you're on a podcast.
Speaker 3: Those days, I just want to add, those days are
Speaker 3: in the past now for the team house.
Speaker 2: Those were kind of is kind of the wild.
Speaker 3: West days of the early early shows, you know where
Speaker 3: Jack would say he was going to the restroom and
Speaker 3: we wouldn't see him again the rest of the show.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I have I have a super cut of
Speaker 1: those moments that is only allowed for Patriots agents.
Speaker 3: And it was hard liquor, I mean the studio.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you cut them everything way back.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there was no water or you could trankless whiskey.
Speaker 2: Smoking cigars and drinking whiskey. Yeah, it'll come back at
Speaker 2: some point.
Speaker 1: It'll come back for the five hundred four hundredth episode maybe.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's amazing. How many years has had? Five years?
Speaker 3: Six years?
Speaker 1: Right, twenty nineteen.
Speaker 3: It's longer than five years, because yeah, it's twenty nineteen.
Speaker 2: Yeah, John, do you want to tell people where they
Speaker 2: can go? Show people your book and tell people where
Speaker 2: they can go to find it?
Speaker 5: Oh, this book right here?
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, but this whole thing, this whole thing just
Speaker 1: sitting here.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 4: This is Iran's shadow Weapons, unconventional warfare, intelligence operations, and
Speaker 4: covered action. It came out in July, but it's a
Speaker 4: bunch of declassified information that I got through few of
Speaker 4: Information Act requests, and also a lot of foreign language
Speaker 4: media that I was able to translate myself, and a
Speaker 4: lot of foreign government documents, like there's a lot of
Speaker 4: Iranian documents that got leaked that are now translated in
Speaker 4: there for the very first time.
Speaker 5: That shows kind of like how everything happens behind the scenes.
Speaker 4: If you ever wondered, like how do they try to
Speaker 4: assassinate people in the US.
Speaker 5: Well, I lay it all out in there, like very
Speaker 5: very detailed. There's no opinion in the book.
Speaker 4: It's all analysis because you know, I'm an intelligence guy.
Speaker 4: That's my background, and this is basically a very long
Speaker 4: intelligence report.
Speaker 5: That's kind of how I look at it.
Speaker 4: And about twenty five percent of the pages are references,
Speaker 4: so you can go and look up on your own
Speaker 4: and make your.
Speaker 5: Own decisions about it.
Speaker 4: You can find it on Amazon or Barnes and Olgo
Speaker 4: or whatever wherever you want. Kindle version, there's a hardcover
Speaker 4: or hard copy version.
Speaker 5: I'm working on an audiobook for it. I have to
Speaker 5: contract somebody for that. To the publisher.
Speaker 3: Hey tell yourself, John, you've got it. They tell me
Speaker 3: not to that smooth points, Yeah.
Speaker 5: They told me no.
Speaker 4: They started throwing all this technical stuff like oh, you've
Speaker 4: got to have the sound levels here, and like.
Speaker 5: Blah blah blah blah blah. Clear they're trying to like
Speaker 5: shock on me with it.
Speaker 3: I did it in during COVID in the closet in
Speaker 3: my bedroom and and so seriously, so all the clothes
Speaker 3: hanging around acted to muffle the noise. And uh, it's
Speaker 3: actually it's actually not bad. You go into a zen mode.
Speaker 3: At least I had to.
Speaker 2: But you do.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, d you should do that too. I
Speaker 3: think a well, you've got to write a book first.
Speaker 3: You have to write, right, Yeah, and in your kind
Speaker 3: of Greek Brooklyn. Seriously, it would it would sell well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think so.
Speaker 3: For sure. It has made a movie.
Speaker 1: I didn't write a book, but I made a movie.
Speaker 3: That's that's a good movie.
Speaker 1: Actually, it's fine, it's good. I watched it. Thanks Jack,
Speaker 1: Thank you, Ady, God bless you guys. Check out Jonathan's book.
Speaker 1: The link is in the description. I've made it easy
Speaker 1: for you. It's incredible Iran Shadow Weapons. It's a great
Speaker 1: reference material. Andy Milburn When the Tempest Gathers his incredible memoir.
Speaker 1: Link is in the description. As always, we're waiting on
Speaker 1: the other book about the Israel Gaza war, Waiting with
Speaker 1: baited breath, Jack Murphy, we defy his book on Special
Speaker 1: Force on the Unknown Chapters of Special Forces History. That
Speaker 1: link will be in the description as well. I need
Speaker 1: to write a book. Everyone's got a books here? The fuck? Jack?
Speaker 3: Who's who's published that?
Speaker 2: I published that book? Yeah on Amazon. Yeah, I have
Speaker 2: a I have a publisher I am working with. I'll
Speaker 2: have a new novel out in June that I'll tell
Speaker 2: folks about. It's a military thriller.
Speaker 1: I've read it. It's very good.
Speaker 3: No, it helps to offline here about your experience is
Speaker 3: self publishing.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, we can rap about that.
Speaker 1: I mean after the show.
Speaker 2: I don't want to keep Jonathan here or any Yeah.
Speaker 1: Patreon dot com slash the Teamhouse and get you Team
Speaker 1: House episodes and I episodes completely a free and early
Speaker 1: check it out. Help support to show. YouTube is fucking
Speaker 1: us over uh And that's it. I appreciate it, guys.
Speaker 1: As always a great time.
Speaker 3: Where's my T shirt?
Speaker 2: Hey guys, I want to tell all of you today
Speaker 2: about a new newsletter that we're launching that encompasses both
Speaker 2: the Teamhouse podcast, the eyes On podcast, and the high
Speaker 2: Side news outlet, which I run with Sean Naylor.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 2: The newsletter is gonna be once a week. It's gonna
Speaker 2: come into your inbox and you're gonna get the most
Speaker 2: current podcasts on eyes On and the Teamhouse and whatever's
Speaker 2: topical or current on the high Side. So it's another
Speaker 2: way for us to get the information out to you
Speaker 2: as social media algorithms are pretty iffy and you never really.
Speaker 7: Know what you're gonna get. So this is a once
Speaker 7: a week email.
Speaker 2: It'll slide into your inbox and it will have you
Speaker 2: know the greatest hits of that week.
Speaker 7: It's really good. Checking it out.
Speaker 2: The website for it is Teamhouse Podcast dot kit dot
Speaker 2: Comlah should join Teamhouse Podcast dot kit dot com slash join.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 2: You go there and you enter into your email list
Speaker 2: or you enter your email into the little thing on
Speaker 2: the website and you're good to go and that'll be it.
Speaker 2: So we really appreciate your support and I hope you'll
Speaker 2: consider signing up.
Speaker 3: Where's the link.
Speaker 7: The link will also be down the description if you're
Speaker 7: looking for it there
Speaker 3: And that's Teamhouse Podcast, dot Kit, k I t Kilo India,
Speaker 3: Tango dot com, backslash join