Speaker 1: Welcome to mid Rats with Sal from Commander Salamander and
Speaker 1: one from Eagle Speak at Seer Shore your home for
Speaker 1: a discussion of national security issues and all things maritime.
Speaker 1: And welcome on board everybody. This is Sal along with
Speaker 1: my co host Eborginial Eagle One. We appreciate you join
Speaker 1: us for another edition of mid Rats today, and if
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Speaker 1: and roll on in today's show, what we're going to
Speaker 1: look at is, as everybody knows, unless you're in I
Speaker 1: think it's California and Arizona, maybe a couple of other
Speaker 1: states are still counting votes for some reason everybody. The
Speaker 1: election is behind us. So we know that former President
Speaker 1: Trump will be President Trump again, the forty seventh president
Speaker 1: of the United States, and he's already starting to put
Speaker 1: together his national security team. And whenever you have a
Speaker 1: new commander in chief coming along, he's going to pick
Speaker 1: new people, the better aligned with his philosophy and his
Speaker 1: business and there'll be some opportunity and some pratfalls. Well,
Speaker 1: that's what we're going to talk about today with our guest,
Speaker 1: Jerry Dunlavy. He's the author of Kabul, which we had
Speaker 1: him on before, and he's the former investigative journalist for
Speaker 1: the Washington Exammer and former senior investigator for the House
Speaker 1: Foreign Affairs Committee. And it's just a couple of weeks
Speaker 1: after the election. So for those out in the provinces,
Speaker 1: how are things in the Imperial City?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: So you know what I can say is I was
Speaker 3: here in twenty sixteen for President Trump's surprise win and
Speaker 3: an inauguration, and it was shocked, was the was the
Speaker 3: general was the general feeling at the time for most
Speaker 3: of professional DC shock and horror, And this time around
Speaker 3: it really is much more subdued so far, and I
Speaker 3: think that they really are behind the scenes trying to
Speaker 3: figure out what their resistance two point zero is going
Speaker 3: to is going to look like. Obviously, in this first term,
Speaker 3: President Trump faced an inordinate amount of what we would
Speaker 3: call lawfair. The Trump Russia collusion hope, I would say,
Speaker 3: largely dominated the first half of his presidency in his
Speaker 3: first term. What do they have in store this time around,
Speaker 3: I don't know yet. But what I do know from
Speaker 3: the sort of the issues that I've been working on
Speaker 3: very intently the last number of years, is I hope
Speaker 3: that the incoming Trump administration is ready for what they're
Speaker 3: going to face. Because when it comes to just the
Speaker 3: narrow issue of accountability for the tobacco in Afghanistan, Pentagon
Speaker 3: brass and top officials and generals have managed to escape
Speaker 3: any and all accountability. That's because the Biden Harris administration
Speaker 3: didn't want them accountable for anything. But it's also because
Speaker 3: there was some complicity from the people in Congress who
Speaker 3: are supposed to be overseeing at the military. You know,
Speaker 3: I worked on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Republican led
Speaker 3: House Foreign Affairs Committee, and the chairman, I'm chairman McCall
Speaker 3: by design wet the military brass off the hook for
Speaker 3: their mistakes. It's my sense that President Trump, on this
Speaker 3: issue and on many, many, many issues, is looking for
Speaker 3: accountability and is frankly looking for some scalps. And the
Speaker 3: pushback is going to be tremendous from the entrenched bureaucracies,
Speaker 3: like the entrench bureaucracy at the Pentagon, and also from
Speaker 3: the media. It is going to be an intense battle
Speaker 3: every step of the way. And so I just I
Speaker 3: hope that they're prepared for that because they're going to need, uh,
Speaker 3: they're going to need to be ready for what's facing them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a It's an interesting situation because he spent
Speaker 2: a lot of time during the campaign talking about the
Speaker 2: gold Star families, talking to the gold Star families. There
Speaker 2: was a whole uproar about him going to the to
Speaker 2: the Arlington Cemetery and with them. So, you know, how
Speaker 2: how how how deep do you think his commitment is
Speaker 2: to keeping some of those promises that he was making
Speaker 2: to people like the gold Star families and to other
Speaker 2: people who were very concerned about the ability of senior officials,
Speaker 2: both the military and otherwise, to to sidestep I was
Speaker 2: being held accountable for the abilities they either messed up
Speaker 2: or didn't get at all. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Well, look, I really hope that the commitment that he's
Speaker 3: made on this is gonna is going to get followed
Speaker 3: through on. I do have the sense that he is
Speaker 3: genuine in his desire to get answers for the gold
Speaker 3: Star families and genuine in his frustration with the military
Speaker 3: dodging any and all responsibility for the debacle in Afghanistan
Speaker 3: in twenty twenty one. I mean, look, there's twenty years
Speaker 3: of mistakes, twenty years of horrible mistakes, with that war
Speaker 3: culminating in a defeat after a two decade war. I
Speaker 3: traced the proximal cause for why the Taliban took over
Speaker 3: Afghanistan in August of twenty twenty one to President Biden's
Speaker 3: unilateral withdrawal announcement in April of twenty twenty one, because
Speaker 3: that withdrawal announcement meant not just the pulling of US troops,
Speaker 3: but if US troops were leaving, that meantal native troops
Speaker 3: were leaving. It also meant the pulling of US logistics,
Speaker 3: US support, US ISR, everything that we had built the
Speaker 3: Afghan military round. So that was the proximate cause in
Speaker 3: twenty twenty one. However, it wasn't just President Biden made
Speaker 3: big mistakes in twenty twenty one. The State Department made
Speaker 3: every mistake that they possibly could. The White House National
Speaker 3: Security Council did a terrible job, but the military brass
Speaker 3: and the intelligence community also failed in twenty twenty one,
Speaker 3: and they have managed to escape.
Speaker 2: The hot steat.
Speaker 3: And so I do hope that the that the incoming
Speaker 3: Trump administration, the incoming Secretary of Defense, whoever it might be,
Speaker 3: denominee is Pete Hegseth, who I think is unconventional but
Speaker 3: would actually h has do an excellent job. I think
Speaker 3: he has the right mindset, excellent job with this. When
Speaker 3: it comes to accountability, the Pentagon Brass needs to be
Speaker 3: held for the state mistakes that they made. When it
Speaker 3: comes to the Abbeygaid attack in particular, there are still
Speaker 3: questions that that remain that have not been pursued related
Speaker 3: to that attack, and the military sentcome in particular has
Speaker 3: done everything that it could to shield itself from any
Speaker 3: real inquiry into what happened and into whether that attack
Speaker 3: could have been preventable. And so I I, you know,
Speaker 3: I have a lot of hope that the incoming Trump
Speaker 3: administration is able to use the awesome powers that they
Speaker 3: will have to pry those answers out of of the
Speaker 3: deep recesses of the d O D and to obtain
Speaker 3: some some accountability for everyone that fought in that war
Speaker 3: and for everyone that that lost someone in that war.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's I was trying to send me a yeah,
Speaker 2: raise of it. As much trouble with that as it
Speaker 2: has on talking. I mean, there are a lot of
Speaker 2: there are a lot of these issues that go on,
Speaker 2: and you've talked about the law fair that was engaged
Speaker 2: gets President Trump early on as an administration, which and
Speaker 2: even before when when they were I guess it was
Speaker 2: last that the last election, the the Intel officials who
Speaker 2: signed off saying that they thought that the Hunter Biden
Speaker 2: laptop was a was a Russian thing, which you have
Speaker 2: been totally disproven. And then but they they've suffered no
Speaker 2: consequences as far as I know, for for making such
Speaker 2: a an interesting claim.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, And the thing to keep in mind about this,
Speaker 3: this Hunter Biden laptop or this October surprise in the
Speaker 3: twenty twenty election that I do think played a role
Speaker 3: in tamping down on the reporting surrounding the Hunter Biden
Speaker 3: laptop and gave everyone's sort of something to point to,
Speaker 3: to handwave and dismiss this Hunter Biden laptop in the
Speaker 3: final days of the campaign to try and get Joe
Speaker 3: Biden over the finish line, and it was successful. And
Speaker 3: you know, what we have learned and what we now
Speaker 3: know is that this Hunter Biden laptop letter that was
Speaker 3: signed by these fifty one former intelligence officials, including four
Speaker 3: or five former heads of the Central Intelligence Agency, is
Speaker 3: that this letter was written with the express purpose of
Speaker 3: giving Joe Biden a talking point in his debate with
Speaker 3: President Trump. And so this was a by design a
Speaker 3: political document. And Mike Morrell, former acting CIA director, who
Speaker 3: was the main author of this letter and the main
Speaker 3: recruiter of this letter, recruiting the signatories for the letter,
Speaker 3: he says that it was actually conversation with Anthony Blink,
Speaker 3: who was then on Biden's campaign but obviously went on
Speaker 3: to be a fairly disastrous Secretary of State. But it
Speaker 3: was it was the Morel's conversation with Blincoln that prompted
Speaker 3: him to write this letter in the first place. And
Speaker 3: so this was a This was former intelligence officials who
Speaker 3: had the highest clearances and that held the highest levers
Speaker 3: of power in our intelligence community, signing on to a
Speaker 3: political document with the purposes of influencing a presidential election,
Speaker 3: and with the purposes of influencing a presidential election, by
Speaker 3: the way, with claims that had no basis, that the
Speaker 3: claims that the Hunter Biden laptop was somehow a Russian
Speaker 3: information operation, that the Russians were behind it, never had
Speaker 3: any basis, and yet you know, they leaned on their
Speaker 3: credentials to claim it anyway. That is a great example
Speaker 3: of the politicization of intelligence that we have seen. And
Speaker 3: you can see that not just with that, not just
Speaker 3: with the Hunter Biden laptop letter, but you could see
Speaker 3: that with the efforts to push this Trump Russia collusion saga.
Speaker 3: I would call it the Trump Russia collusion hoax. The
Speaker 3: deployment of Christopher Steele's dossier, which was funded by the
Speaker 3: Clinton campaign and the DNC, but then was used by
Speaker 3: the FBI not just to dean Fiz awards and surveillance,
Speaker 3: but was also used and placed in an annex to
Speaker 3: the Intelligence Community assessment on Russian election influence in the
Speaker 3: twenty sixteen election. And then Christopher Steele and his main
Speaker 3: sub source. They were given credibility to allow the FBI
Speaker 3: to continue an investigation for years, which then transformed into
Speaker 3: the Muller investigation and on and on, an investigation that
Speaker 3: never really had a proper predicate or proper basis to
Speaker 3: begin with. And so the politicization of the intelligence community
Speaker 3: is a huge problem. We've seen it in dramatic ways
Speaker 3: the past years, and so that is going to be
Speaker 3: a big focus of the incoming Trump administration as well.
Speaker 3: And there will be a lot of pushback by the
Speaker 3: media and from inside of the bureaucracy of the intelligence community.
Speaker 3: But look, the intelligence community has earned scrutiny that it's
Speaker 3: going to get because look, I am someone that believes
Speaker 3: in the importance of our spy agencies. We have serious
Speaker 3: adversaries that we're facing, and we need spy agencies that
Speaker 3: are not just effective, but that also have the trust
Speaker 3: of the American people. And they've lost that trust and
Speaker 3: it's not going to be regained without real scrutiny and
Speaker 3: real reform.
Speaker 2: Well what Sal's asking this, but what what is the
Speaker 2: expectation that the accountability will be more than just talk.
Speaker 2: I mean, we've got some resistance within the Republican legislators,
Speaker 2: UH to a president froms agenda and you know, is
Speaker 2: there a path for that that accountability for the intelligence people,
Speaker 2: the military and Afghanistan and the the other fun things
Speaker 2: that have happened. What's that? What's that going to look like?
Speaker 2: Who's going to lead it? Uh? And what would be
Speaker 2: the what kind of impact won't have? I mean, as
Speaker 2: you say, there's you know, I'm always thinking of resistant
Speaker 2: circuits with electricity out of theres a lot of resistance
Speaker 2: in the in the circuits.
Speaker 3: Absolutely. I mean, look, there is absolutely an opportunity here
Speaker 3: to get accountability, to get accountability for intelligence officials who
Speaker 3: abuse their power, to get accountability for million terry officials
Speaker 3: and intelligence officials who failed in Afghanistan in twenty twenty one.
Speaker 3: The opportunity is there. I do think that the desire
Speaker 3: for accountability from the incoming Trump administration is there. But
Speaker 3: they are going to face a lot of resistance. It's
Speaker 3: going to be what the media is going to raise
Speaker 3: hell about this, and the entrench bureaucracies are going to
Speaker 3: raise hell as well. And so it's going to take commitment.
Speaker 3: It's going to take real commitment to get it done.
Speaker 3: I mean what does accountability look like. I can say
Speaker 3: with the start of accountability looks like on some of this. Obviously,
Speaker 3: when it comes to Hunter Biden laptop letter, I think
Speaker 3: that pulling the security clearances of the fifty one former
Speaker 3: intelligence officials who signed on to this letter as a
Speaker 3: no brainer. They deployed their credentials for the sole purposes
Speaker 3: of impacting a presidential election, inserting themselves into a presidential
Speaker 3: race with baseless claims. They didn't just change an election potentially,
Speaker 3: But what I think that you know, another thing that
Speaker 3: that's overlooked here is they did a stream damage to
Speaker 3: the credibility of the intelligence community, and they did damage
Speaker 3: the American people's ability to trust that intelligence officials are
Speaker 3: going to be a political just the facts, rather than
Speaker 3: inserting themselves into, you know, juring themselves into presidential races
Speaker 3: with political agendas. And so I think pulling their clearances
Speaker 3: is a no brainer. And that's that's that's an easy start.
Speaker 3: When it comes to Afghanistan, as I mentioned, there's a
Speaker 3: lot of accountability to go around for what happened in
Speaker 3: twenty twenty one. The State Department failed, the NSC failed,
Speaker 3: but the military and the IC failed too. And I've
Speaker 3: spent a lot of time over the past few years
Speaker 3: really focusing in on the military piece of this. And
Speaker 3: it is just a fact that a Chairman Millie presented incorrect,
Speaker 3: wildly incorrect information about the facts on the ground in
Speaker 3: twenty twenty one in Afghanistan, and he claimed that the
Speaker 3: Afghan military was five thousand to three hundred and fifty
Speaker 3: thousand strong, which was never true, a wild inflation of
Speaker 3: the size of the Afghan military, because look, the Afghan
Speaker 3: military had well known ghost soldier problems. It was never
Speaker 3: at three hundred and twenty five thousand or three hundred
Speaker 3: and fifty thousand, It was never at three hundred thousand.
Speaker 3: It was always smaller than that. But it was especially
Speaker 3: true in the summer of twenty twenty one when after
Speaker 3: we had pulled our troops and our logistics and our
Speaker 3: ISR and our air support and everything that we had
Speaker 3: built the Afghan military around, combined with a massive Taliban offensive,
Speaker 3: a very effective, one very smart Taliban offensive, the Afghan
Speaker 3: military was falling apart. And so he was promoting this
Speaker 3: fiction about the size and strength and capability of the
Speaker 3: Afghan military that he knew was not true. And on
Speaker 3: top of that, he was testifying about the speed and
Speaker 3: scale of the Taliban advances and if anyone ever was
Speaker 3: following the Long War Journal at the time, the Long
Speaker 3: War Journal was a tracking district by district Taliban control,
Speaker 3: largely using open source and Millie's claims about the speed
Speaker 3: and scale of the Taliban advance were way behind where
Speaker 3: the Long War Journal was and so he either didn't
Speaker 3: know how quickly the Taliban was taking over or again
Speaker 3: he was just misleading about this Taliban advance. And the
Speaker 3: reason why I'm harping on this is that the military
Speaker 3: brand and military generals have done a very good job
Speaker 3: of avoiding their piece of the accountability for what happened
Speaker 3: in August of twenty twenty one, Milli especially, And so
Speaker 3: accountability is going to be looking at all of those
Speaker 3: military commanders and military generals and this and and and
Speaker 3: really holding them to account for what they did. We
Speaker 3: need a real accounting of the decisions that they made
Speaker 3: and uh, you know, a real public accounting of the
Speaker 3: of the mistakes that they made, because the military needs
Speaker 3: to embrace we need to embrace the reality that the
Speaker 3: war in afghan And was a defeat and that in
Speaker 3: twenty twenty one. The military brass unfortunately was a part
Speaker 3: of why that defeat occurred.
Speaker 2: Yeah, one of the one of the first thing is
Speaker 2: the long word general is a great m hm, great
Speaker 2: source of information from a lot of things. They do
Speaker 2: a really good job. I mean, he's the point, he's
Speaker 2: he's President Trump has said indicated he wants Radcliffe to
Speaker 2: be his CIA director and you know, how how what
Speaker 2: what does that look like in from your view given?
Speaker 2: I mean what I saw was when you resigned from
Speaker 2: the from the commission that was looking into the Afghan thing,
Speaker 2: the the you had a Republican that was a Republican
Speaker 2: as you said, Republican group led group, and and they
Speaker 2: were they were reluctant to get into that stuff that
Speaker 2: you've you've pointed out. Now, I mean, what is is there?
Speaker 2: I guess my question is is that is that resistance
Speaker 2: there because they get what they do what they do
Speaker 2: to get along with with the bureaucracy and everybody else.
Speaker 2: Is it or is it just is it possible to
Speaker 2: have bringing enough people of the nature of proposed Secretary
Speaker 2: of Defense that are you know, they're they just had
Speaker 2: enough of this stuff and they're not going to put
Speaker 2: up with with that kind of nonsense.
Speaker 3: It's a great question. It's one of the most important questions.
Speaker 3: So let let me let me take a stab at it.
Speaker 3: So the thing that I discovered, unfortunately with my position
Speaker 3: as a senior investigator on the House Foreign Affairs Committee
Speaker 3: investigating the withdrawal from Afghanistan, is there is real institutional
Speaker 3: capture of a number of the oversight committees on Capitol Hill.
Speaker 3: The what that that the House Armed Services Committee should
Speaker 3: be the committee that is doing real oversight of the
Speaker 3: military and the military piece of this, but that was
Speaker 3: just not not the case. The House Intelligence Committee should
Speaker 3: have done real oversight of the intelligence failures in Afghanistan
Speaker 3: twenty twenty one, but that was really not the case.
Speaker 3: The House Foreign Affairs Committee took on sort of the
Speaker 3: entire breadth of the investigation, the State Department side, the
Speaker 3: military side, all of it. But there is institutional capture there.
Speaker 3: There was a desire to sort of put all of it,
Speaker 3: all the blame on the State Department and let the
Speaker 3: military off the hook. What Chairman Millie is a very
Speaker 3: talented politician, and I think that sometimes maybe people forget
Speaker 3: that to get to be the chairman of the joint chiefs.
Speaker 3: You often have to be a politician as well as
Speaker 3: a you know, person with a long history of military service,
Speaker 3: and he's a very effective politician. He did a very
Speaker 3: good job of getting the househorn. The Republican led House
Speaker 3: worn Affairs Committee, specific Lee Chairman McCall to let them
Speaker 3: off the hook by design, because we had General Millie
Speaker 3: and General McKenzie in front of our committee, testifying in
Speaker 3: front of Congress on TV, and that was a great
Speaker 3: opportunity to really hold their feet to the fire about
Speaker 3: the mistakes that they made. The mistakes that Millie made,
Speaker 3: I mean, I mentioned just a couple of them, the
Speaker 3: inflation of the Afghan military size and strength being totally
Speaker 3: behind the eight ball, on the speed of the Taliban advances.
Speaker 3: General McKenzie as well. I mean, people forget this, but McKenzie,
Speaker 3: as the commander of Central Command, flew out to Doha
Speaker 3: around August fifteenth of twenty twenty one to me with
Speaker 3: the Taliban and the Taliban's leader there. Broader offered to
Speaker 3: keep the Taliban out of Cobble and to let the
Speaker 3: United States bring in as many US forces as we
Speaker 3: wanted to to secure the city to conduct our evacuation,
Speaker 3: and McKenzie turned that down. That offered down on the spot,
Speaker 3: and that was a green light for the Taliban to
Speaker 3: come in. And that meant the US was relying on
Speaker 3: the Taliban to provide security outside of Kabo Airport, and
Speaker 3: that I think is a big reason why isis K
Speaker 3: was able to clack off an ied and kill thirteen
Speaker 3: US service members. But the point I'm making here is
Speaker 3: that these generals escape that accountability in part because a
Speaker 3: Republican chairman let them. I don't think that, for instance,
Speaker 3: a Secretary of Defense Pete Hagseth would let that fly.
Speaker 3: And so I do think that there's going to be
Speaker 3: a real accounting of the mistakes that not just the
Speaker 3: White House National Security Council made and State Department made,
Speaker 3: but also a real counting of the mistakes that the
Speaker 3: military brass made in Afghanistan in twenty twenty one. When
Speaker 3: it comes to Ratcliffe at CIA LOO, he's gonna have
Speaker 3: his work cut out for him as well for restoring
Speaker 3: the American people's trust in the institution of the Central
Speaker 3: Intelligence Agency. Does he have the commitment to do what
Speaker 3: needs to be done. I do think that he does.
Speaker 3: I can talk just a little bit about covering him
Speaker 3: when he was the director, the Director of National Intelligence
Speaker 3: in twenty twenty, look he raised the alarm in a
Speaker 3: very significant way about the threat posed by the Chinese
Speaker 3: Communist Party, the threat posed not just militarily but also
Speaker 3: the foreign influence efforts that the CCP was carrying out,
Speaker 3: and in fact, in the twenty twenty election, there was
Speaker 3: an assessment that was done by the intelligence community about
Speaker 3: a foreign influence and foreign interference in the twenty twenty election,
Speaker 3: and the consensus was that Russia tried to influence it
Speaker 3: to help Trump, that Iran tried to influence the twenty
Speaker 3: twenty election to hurt Trump. But then there was a
Speaker 3: division inside of the intelligence community about what China did,
Speaker 3: and a big swath of the IC tried to make
Speaker 3: the argument that China did not try to influence the
Speaker 3: twenty twenty election. But the National Intelligence Officer for Cyber
Speaker 3: was joined by.
Speaker 4: D.
Speaker 2: And I.
Speaker 3: Ratcliffe at the time in assessing that China did try
Speaker 3: to influence the twenty twenty election to hurt Trump. And
Speaker 3: because of Ratcliffe, we actually got a sort of an
Speaker 3: analysis of the IC and sort of an analysis of
Speaker 3: the intelligence community seeming to be hesitant to be as
Speaker 3: aggressive related to the Chinese intelligence services and Chinese influence
Speaker 3: as they are compared to, you know, confronting Russia and
Speaker 3: Russian intelligence and Russian influence. And so Radcliffe kind of
Speaker 3: demonstrated his willingness to bought heads with sort of the
Speaker 3: IC bureaucracy there, and he also helped to declassify a
Speaker 3: lot of information related to the Trump Russia collusion hopes
Speaker 3: as well as DNI, and that was something that was
Speaker 3: also unpopular within the IC bureaucracy. So I have a
Speaker 3: lot of hope with the potential to make some real
Speaker 3: progress in reforming the IC, depoliticizing the IC, restoring trust
Speaker 3: in the IC, and also in making the IC more
Speaker 3: effective in confronting our actual adversaries, which is not turning
Speaker 3: our intelligence inward targeting American political foes, instead making sure
Speaker 3: that we have the most effective intelligence services possible to
Speaker 3: address the very serious threats that we have, and to
Speaker 3: fix the IC's ability to confront those threats. Because they
Speaker 3: they failed to see what was coming in Afghanistan, that
Speaker 3: they they failed to see how the war Ukraine was
Speaker 3: going to go, and so I really worried that they
Speaker 3: have not fixed this and that when it comes to
Speaker 3: a major power confrontation, whether it's with Iran or Russia
Speaker 3: or China, the IC has a lot of work that
Speaker 3: it has to do to make sure that they're ready.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we got this is another one of Salas questions.
Speaker 2: We've got three big national security issues right now, the
Speaker 2: Red Sea and the hoo Thies, the Iranian proxies Russia
Speaker 2: Ukrainian war, and the Israel and versus Iranian proctice is
Speaker 2: er round for that matter. What what do you think
Speaker 2: the new administration is going to do to adjust the
Speaker 2: American responses to those challenges.
Speaker 3: Well, a big, a big problem here is that. Look,
Speaker 3: I mean President Trump is coming and he's been dealt
Speaker 3: a pretty bad hand here. The world is a much
Speaker 3: more dangerous place than it was four years ago, and
Speaker 3: there's going to be a big hole to dig out of.
Speaker 3: The UH. The war in UH look a big, a
Speaker 3: big lesson for the Russia's invasion of Ukraine, I think
Speaker 3: is a lesson about to terrence. First off, the Dibaco
Speaker 3: in Afghanistan certainly influenced Pudin's decision to invade Ukraine. I
Speaker 3: think that Putin looked at the US and NATO as
Speaker 3: being in a shambles, and saw that as his best opportunity,
Speaker 3: his best chance to do what he's wanted to do
Speaker 3: a long time, which is due a full scale invasion
Speaker 3: of Ukraine. But another missing lesson here has been the
Speaker 3: failure of deterrence in twenty twenty one. In early twenty
Speaker 3: twenty two, the failure to deter Russia. For all the
Speaker 3: talk that President Biden had about being tough on Russia,
Speaker 3: he failed to enforce sanctions against Nordstream two, which was
Speaker 3: a sort of Putin's geopolitical toy that the Trump administration
Speaker 3: had sanctioned so much that had ground its construction ground
Speaker 3: to a halt. President Biden refused to enforce sanctions there
Speaker 3: and refused to take basic steps to try to deter
Speaker 3: Russia from its invasion. So I think a big lesson
Speaker 3: there is going to be a lesson about the importance
Speaker 3: of deterrence. I think that there is a similar lesson
Speaker 3: to be learned about Iran. There is no question that
Speaker 3: the Biden Harris administration unshackled Iran. I think from the
Speaker 3: shackles that the Trump administration had largely put the Iranian
Speaker 3: regime in they removed, they did not enforce sanctions. There
Speaker 3: was an influx of cash to Iran that allowed the
Speaker 3: regime to greatly strengthen its funding and arming of its proxies.
Speaker 3: And hey, I mean we're talking about the Red Sea
Speaker 3: and the Houthis. One of the first things that the
Speaker 3: Biden administration did was take the Houthies off of the
Speaker 3: Foreign Terrorist Organization's list that the Trump administration had put
Speaker 3: them on. And so a lot of this is just
Speaker 3: going to be about getting back to a serious national
Speaker 3: security policy that is serious about our adversaries and is
Speaker 3: serious about the terrens. So that's kind of the Russia
Speaker 3: Ukraine piece and the Middle East piece. When we're talking
Speaker 3: about our potential confrontation with China. We are in a
Speaker 3: real world of hurt right now. Our defense industrial base
Speaker 3: cannot produce enough munitions at this time to even supply
Speaker 3: what the Ukrainian forces need to fight off the Russian invasion.
Speaker 3: The depletion would be almost immediate in a fight with
Speaker 3: the Chinese navy in the South China Sea. So there
Speaker 3: is going to be need to be a huge effort
Speaker 3: to reinvigorate our defense industrial base. Our shipbuilding capability is atrocious,
Speaker 3: especially when you compare it to the Chinese Communist Party's ability.
Speaker 3: I mean, they are orders of magnitude better at building
Speaker 3: ships than we are. And so that is going to
Speaker 3: be there's going to be need to be a serious
Speaker 3: effort to strengthen our military capabilities. And for four years
Speaker 3: we've gotten ourselves into a lot of trouble and there's
Speaker 3: going to be a big hole to climb out of.
Speaker 2: One of the other topics that has come up is
Speaker 2: that the effect of DEI and some of these other
Speaker 2: programs that have been installed and mandatorily installed in almost
Speaker 2: all the departments of the government is there. You see
Speaker 2: that part of the effort that Musk and vi the
Speaker 2: Remas Swami are going with this doge programs, You think
Speaker 2: that's going to be part of their effort is to
Speaker 2: make sure that that stuff is weeded out under as
Speaker 2: President Trump has says he wants to get get it
Speaker 2: out of those out of the I don't think I
Speaker 2: mean he wants to get that ticket of programs out
Speaker 2: of the how of the government.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so we'll see what role Musk and Viveq play in,
Speaker 3: you know, sort of trying to dismantle some of this
Speaker 3: DEI stuff. I think the real battle is going to
Speaker 3: be within these departments and agencies, and it's going to
Speaker 3: depend on the people who are who are leading them.
Speaker 3: Within the Pentagon, there is there is no doubt that
Speaker 3: the military brass within d O D, in the military leadership,
Speaker 3: has allowed this DEI a critical race theory, sort of
Speaker 3: left wing divisive racial ideologies to take hold within how
Speaker 3: the military goes about deciding on placements and promotions, deciding
Speaker 3: what we teach cadets at our military can enemies. It's
Speaker 3: a real problem. It is a real problem. And you know,
Speaker 3: Chairman Milly famously sort of defended all of this in
Speaker 3: the summer of twenty twenty one. People will remember his
Speaker 3: sort of you know, his defense of teaching critical race theory,
Speaker 3: and you know, his pronouncement that he wants to understand
Speaker 3: white rage. There was a there was a big effort
Speaker 3: in twenty twenty one that were still that has continued,
Speaker 3: but it really launched in twenty twenty one. Within the military.
Speaker 3: There was the stand down that happened in twenty twenty one.
Speaker 3: There were huge efforts to make the military focus on
Speaker 3: climate impacts. There was the institution of sort of this
Speaker 3: this DEI stuff within the military and the military academies
Speaker 3: and all of that I think takes away from what
Speaker 3: the focus of the military needs to be, which is
Speaker 3: on having a cohesive and effective war fighting force. And
Speaker 3: I think that all of this DEI stuff, rather than
Speaker 3: helping people to embrace UH are you know, the incredible
Speaker 3: diversity that the United States has, I think that is
Speaker 3: divided people and has actually turned that diversity into a
Speaker 3: divisive negative within within the military. I think it's a
Speaker 3: real problem. And there has been this effort within the
Speaker 3: intelligence community as well the UH. The intelligence community has
Speaker 3: a DEI office, for instance, and the de I office
Speaker 3: pushes out its newsletter and its pronouncements across the intelligence community.
Speaker 3: And one just instance of that was in an issue
Speaker 3: of this UH. This magazine, which is one of the
Speaker 3: few issues of the magazine that's been was released through
Speaker 3: FOYA so people can take a look at it. The
Speaker 3: ode and ized de I on this told people to
Speaker 3: stop using phrases like Islamic jihad, jihadis, Islamic terrorism, Islamic extremism, extremism,
Speaker 3: Sunni extremism, Shia extremism. Told people to stop using these
Speaker 3: very helpful terms. I think for understanding understanding terrorist groups
Speaker 3: like al Qaeda, Hesbolah isis Hamas, and instead kind of
Speaker 3: crazily recommended that that people use the term curry Jites instead.
Speaker 3: And I don't need to go into a big theological
Speaker 3: discussion with the audience here, but the curry Jites were
Speaker 3: a Islamic sect hundreds of years ago that sort of
Speaker 3: labeled anyone that didn't agree with their version of Islam
Speaker 3: as sort of apostates. And so the I see recommending
Speaker 3: that we refer to terrorist groups as carageites, and so
Speaker 3: we're sort of injecting ourselves into like a theological debate then.
Speaker 3: And the problem is, of course that every different Islamic
Speaker 3: group and sect label each other as carageites, like al
Speaker 3: Qaeda says that Isis are carriageites. Isis as al Qaida
Speaker 3: or Caurageites, sort of a useless term. But this is
Speaker 3: this is the this is the intelligence community's de I
Speaker 3: office telling people that there's harmful terminology like jihadis, so
Speaker 3: don't use it anymore.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: I think that that sort of sentiment is probably much
Speaker 3: more widespread than we know, and probably spreads not just
Speaker 3: to the challenge of dealing with jihad, but probably also
Speaker 3: deal to the challenge of dealing with the Chinese communist parties.
Speaker 3: We need to make sure that within the intelligence community
Speaker 3: people are able to describe the enemy for who who
Speaker 3: he is. And so this is what I'm trying to
Speaker 3: say here, is that this DEI stuff is not just
Speaker 3: problematic for I think, creating division within the ranks and
Speaker 3: for hurting recruitment, but is also problematic for the mission
Speaker 3: of the Pentagon and the IC, which is confronting our enemies.
Speaker 3: So whoever's leading these agencies is going to have to
Speaker 3: uproot this stuff. It's important and it will help with
Speaker 3: the effectiveness of the force. I think that it will
Speaker 3: help with recruitment, and it will also help with confronting
Speaker 3: these very serious challenges that we have.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it was interesting that Pete heads with
Speaker 2: God hammered pride to it was gonna it was online
Speaker 2: to be I guess guarding the the inauguration, and they
Speaker 2: saw his somebody saw his cross. There's some cross on
Speaker 2: his chest, and then some old Latin phrase, and they
Speaker 2: decided he could be an internal danger to the military,
Speaker 2: because you know, those were alleged symbols of white supremacy.
Speaker 2: So he's he goes in with this history. I'm fascinated
Speaker 2: to see what you think he will do with these
Speaker 2: these programs. And I also would like to, you know, say,
Speaker 2: for the first time in a long time, we've got
Speaker 2: people who are being putting these offices who who were
Speaker 2: not you know, five star, four star, three star generals.
Speaker 2: Are these are guys are like he was a major.
Speaker 2: We get at the vice president was an E four,
Speaker 2: and we all know the power of the for mafia,
Speaker 2: but but his you know it, it's refreshing to be
Speaker 2: to see people from the lower food chain. We haven't
Speaker 2: had that in a while since Nixon and Kennedy, who
Speaker 2: were I think lieutenant's uh and of course Lena Johnson
Speaker 2: was a lieutenant commander, but I refused to really accept
Speaker 2: his surface as being a much more of the p RCH.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, look, you know, when it comes to when
Speaker 3: it comes to hegxs's own personal experience with the what
Speaker 3: when when the military when it became sort of this
Speaker 3: smart idea to turn ourselves inward in twenty twenty one,
Speaker 3: the stand Down Order, this effort to you know, allegedly
Speaker 3: try to root out extremists within the ranks of the military.
Speaker 3: You know, at the end of the day, after this
Speaker 3: sort of internal scrutinizing of ourselves, it turned out that
Speaker 3: out of the millions of people who are serving, it
Speaker 3: was the tiniest number of extremists that it was actually
Speaker 3: if it probably shocked the people that were well into it.
Speaker 3: How this is not a significant problem within the military.
Speaker 3: But you saw Hegseeth get targeted based on the most
Speaker 3: ridiculous stuff possible. I mean a you know, a Jerusalem
Speaker 3: Cross tattoo and as Daveu's vault a tattoo you know
Speaker 3: God wills it is what that means. You know, this
Speaker 3: is an extremely baseless thing to use to target you know,
Speaker 3: a major in the Army Guard who has done two tours,
Speaker 3: has done tours in Afghanistan. I Rock has been awarded
Speaker 3: bronze stars. And but you see what can happen when
Speaker 3: this sort of mentality, this sort of you know, anything
Speaker 3: that I don't like, any anyone that I don't agree with,
Speaker 3: I'll find a way to target them and label them,
Speaker 3: you know, like a white supremacist or white nationalists based
Speaker 3: on based on nothing. I mean, this does harm to
Speaker 3: the military, and it creates distrust among people when there
Speaker 3: shouldn't be It creates unnecessary friction when when there there
Speaker 3: shouldn't be any. And so, you know, I think that
Speaker 3: hag Seth has made it very clear. He wrote a
Speaker 3: book the The The War on Warriors, and he's made
Speaker 3: it very clear that this sort of stuff needs to
Speaker 3: stop and the military needs to get back to having
Speaker 3: a cohesive force that that can that can that can
Speaker 3: win wars. And look, you know, Lloyd Austin had had
Speaker 3: a long and successful, uh military a career.
Speaker 1: He was a.
Speaker 3: You know, a general Chairman Millie, four star general, and
Speaker 3: you know what did that get us?
Speaker 2: Though?
Speaker 3: You know, we we had to give a Lloyd Austin
Speaker 3: a waiver to be the Secretary of Defense because you know,
Speaker 3: recently retired generals are are not supposed to be heading
Speaker 3: the Defense Department. That is supposed to be a you know,
Speaker 3: a role with real civilian oversight, but one that's that's
Speaker 3: not going to be run by general. We had to
Speaker 3: give him a waiver. But people like Austin and uh
Speaker 3: and Millie, you know, you look, you look at the
Speaker 3: last four years, and we're not in a better spot
Speaker 3: because of it. And so I see value in you know,
Speaker 3: a decorated Army major who's committed to to fixing things
Speaker 3: being given a shot at doing it, and and you know,
Speaker 3: I I hope he's I hope he's successful.
Speaker 2: Yeah, uh Sousa's You know, the the two outside forces
Speaker 2: that have killed more Americans over the last half decade
Speaker 2: has been longer net COVID and fentanyl. Yet the the
Speaker 2: IC seems uninterested in either topic. You have a feel
Speaker 2: for why that is.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Well, look, when it comes to COVID nineteen, and
Speaker 3: you know, I worked on this quite intently as an
Speaker 3: investigative reporter. I think that the evidence is overwhelming that
Speaker 3: COVID nineteen's origin is from dangerous gain of function research
Speaker 3: at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, the Wuhan Lab in Wuhan, China.
Speaker 3: There is extreme hesitancy within the US government, especially within
Speaker 3: the Biden Harris administration over the last four years to
Speaker 3: come to that firm conclusion. Part of it is that
Speaker 3: the US government, through the NIH was funding some of
Speaker 3: the groups who were working with the Wuhan Lab on
Speaker 3: these dangerous back coronavirus experiments. And so there are people implicated,
Speaker 3: there are salaries implicated, there are you know, maybe people's
Speaker 3: pensions might be at risk if we come to that conclusion.
Speaker 3: Within the intelligence community, the intelligence community has failed on
Speaker 3: this issue to hum to a solid conclusion about the
Speaker 3: origins of COVID nineteen. Now, the FBI has assessed that
Speaker 3: with a medium confidence that COVID came from that lab
Speaker 3: in Wuhan. The Energy Department has assessed with low confidence
Speaker 3: that it came from that lab in Wuhan. And then
Speaker 3: you have a scattering of a small number of agencies
Speaker 3: that apparently believe with low confidence that COVID nineteen emerged
Speaker 3: from nature, which I find highly doubtful. And then the
Speaker 3: rest of the intelligence community, including the Central Intelligence Agency,
Speaker 3: has not come to an assessment after four or five
Speaker 3: years of being able to work at this issue. I
Speaker 3: think that's crazy, and it speaks to a I think
Speaker 3: a combination of a lack of capability and a lack
Speaker 3: of will within the IC. But that's that's a problem
Speaker 3: if the IC is unwilling or unable to figure something
Speaker 3: like this out. And I think that part of it
Speaker 3: speaks to on the inability piece of it, I think
Speaker 3: part of it speaks to our intelligence community is not
Speaker 3: equipped yet to deal with the challenges emanating from China,
Speaker 3: whether it is Chinese, the Chinese military threat, Chinese for
Speaker 3: an influence, or a global pandemic emanating from there. They're
Speaker 3: not They're not able to do it. I can I
Speaker 3: can say just from my experience as an destigated reporter,
Speaker 3: that Ratcliffe, for instance, is very passionate about getting the
Speaker 3: IC on the ball here in dealing with China, and
Speaker 3: that he has assessed himself as the former head of
Speaker 3: the Office of Director of National Intelligence, that all the
Speaker 3: evidence points to COVID nineteen coming from coming from a
Speaker 3: lab in Muhan. When it comes to fentanyl, look, this
Speaker 3: is just another area where the Biden Harris administration has
Speaker 3: not done enough. Fentanyl is the number one driver of
Speaker 3: the drug abuse deaths in this country, and the Chinese
Speaker 3: Communist Party plays a significant role not just in the
Speaker 3: fentanyl precursor production, but also in the facilitation of the
Speaker 3: payments as well. Chinese banking and money laundering is very
Speaker 3: key to the Mexican cartel operations that are bringing this
Speaker 3: fentanyl across our borders making a big profit on it.
Speaker 3: Some of those profits, lots of those profits are going
Speaker 3: to the Mexican drug cartels, but a lot of those
Speaker 3: profits are also going into Chinese banks for money laundering
Speaker 3: as well. We have not done enough. It is a
Speaker 3: massive crisis. The Biden Herris administration has done a little bit,
Speaker 3: but a little bit is not enough. And there is
Speaker 3: plenty of evidence, including from the Slight Committee on the
Speaker 3: Chinese Communist Party in Congress, that this is a Chinese
Speaker 3: Communist Party, a Chinese state sanctioned operation, this fentanyl operation,
Speaker 3: this collaboration with the Mexican drug cartels. And then whether
Speaker 3: China is responsible for a global pandemic because of the
Speaker 3: dangerous military linked virus research that they're doing, or whether
Speaker 3: they're responsible for fentanyl deaths. I think that the CCP
Speaker 3: has been responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands
Speaker 3: of Americans, probably into the millions now when you combine COVID,
Speaker 3: the COVID pandemic, and the fentinyl crisis, and we as
Speaker 3: a country are not treating that as the reality. I mean,
Speaker 3: we are not treating China the way that you would
Speaker 3: think you would treat a country that is so irresponsible
Speaker 3: and so callous with American life as they have been.
Speaker 3: And so I do hope that there's a pivot here
Speaker 3: in the way in the mentality that we have on
Speaker 3: towards the CCP.
Speaker 2: Do you think some of that, I would say lack
Speaker 2: of diligence pursuing them? But have have many of our
Speaker 2: officials been co opted by the Chinese? And somewhere or another,
Speaker 2: but we had was it say, well that I was
Speaker 2: dating a Russian Chinese intelligence agent? Who else? Who else
Speaker 2: has co opted that kind of way?
Speaker 3: I think that that's part of it. But I do
Speaker 3: think that in terms of co option by the CCP,
Speaker 3: it's a fairly small part of it. Now you do
Speaker 3: see it, though you do see it in elected officials
Speaker 3: the Swallow instance. I mean that the CCP ran a
Speaker 3: very effective operation there with with Christine Fang, who is
Speaker 3: almost certainly was an agent of the Chinese Ministry of
Speaker 3: State Security targeting him at a young age, back when
Speaker 3: he was just on a city council, very close to him,
Speaker 3: and him only the FBI only briefing him on this
Speaker 3: reality when he was about to get a perch on
Speaker 3: the House Intelligence Committee. Credit to China for running an
Speaker 3: effective op there. And and really when you look at
Speaker 3: Chinese influence in terms of specific co option, their real focus,
Speaker 3: and where they really can be effective is sort of
Speaker 3: on what's called this, you know, the sub national level,
Speaker 3: targeting local and state officials and getting them co opting them.
Speaker 3: They they're very effective at using their what China calls
Speaker 3: its Friendship associations, which are really just part of its
Speaker 3: United frontwork department. That's kind of where they're effective, exploiting
Speaker 3: their sister city arrangements, exploiting they are even more soft
Speaker 3: power things like Confucius Institutes and that sort of thing.
Speaker 3: When it comes to US policy, I think it's a
Speaker 3: less uh, and I think this has been the case
Speaker 3: for for decades. Unfortunately, less of an instance of China
Speaker 3: specifically co opting individuals, although that does happen with some frequency.
Speaker 3: It's more that China did a very very very good
Speaker 3: job of touting it as a peaceful riser. It's China's
Speaker 3: peaceful rise, that's what That's what they were they were
Speaker 3: all about, and did a very good job of getting
Speaker 3: businesses and politicians on the hook for a cheap money,
Speaker 3: cheap labor, cheap goods, a quick way to make a
Speaker 3: big buck in China, and uh huh. The fall of
Speaker 3: the Soviet Union and after the Tianeman Square massacre. There
Speaker 3: was no real reason for like geostrategic areas and whatsoever,
Speaker 3: for the United States to continue to offer China the
Speaker 3: friendly hand that we did. But instead, the United States
Speaker 3: continued to help China build up its economy, which because
Speaker 3: the Chinese Communist Party sees all of this as interconnected,
Speaker 3: a growing Chinese economy meant a growing Chinese military and
Speaker 3: growing Chinese intelligence services. And I just think that it
Speaker 3: is going to take a long time to turn the
Speaker 3: ship around to reverse that mentality, because I think it's
Speaker 3: really an entrenched mentality that has to you know, has
Speaker 3: to dissipate because we helped China in its rise for
Speaker 3: so long, reorienting the US government and the military and
Speaker 3: the intelligence services towards confronting China and seeing it not
Speaker 3: as a partner often not even just as a friendly competitor,
Speaker 3: but as an adversary. That takes a long time, and
Speaker 3: it's going to take real commitment and structural change. And
Speaker 3: I hope that that is sort of the mentality that
Speaker 3: the Trump admin Is is coming in with, because that
Speaker 3: US sort of you could see during the Trump administration,
Speaker 3: because of a lot of you know, the good things
Speaker 3: that they did there, the US government started to reorient
Speaker 3: itself towards taking China seriously as a threat, and the
Speaker 3: American public did as well. You can see that, and
Speaker 3: that was a big, real accomplishment of the first Trump administration.
Speaker 3: But there is so much more to do, and Trump
Speaker 3: has four years to do it, so we'll see.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think that's it. We've taken up a little bit
Speaker 2: extra the time the way regionally planned. And I appreciate
Speaker 2: you coming out of the show and being with us
Speaker 2: and being a good sport about her sales technical goldies.
Speaker 3: And my technical differ difficulties.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we'll point the we'll point the figure the bad guys,
Speaker 2: I mean at the innocent victims of technology. Well, tell us,
Speaker 2: tell us, tell us. Before I let you go though,
Speaker 2: tell us, uh what you're up to, where where people
Speaker 2: can find what you're working on and uh and when
Speaker 2: they can see it?
Speaker 3: Absolutely so Yeah. I I I recommend that people just
Speaker 3: check me out on Twitter at Jerry Dunleavy. Right now,
Speaker 3: I'm focused a lot on continuing to my my drumbeat
Speaker 3: about accountability for the military brass and the ic for
Speaker 3: the debacle in Afghanistan, and on talking about all of
Speaker 3: these issues really, these these are these are challenges that
Speaker 3: the Trump administration is gonna is going to face, but
Speaker 3: they're also opportunities for them to really do the right
Speaker 3: thing in depoliticizing the intelligence community, depoliticizing d D, holding
Speaker 3: IC officials and DoD officials accountable for mistakes that they made,
Speaker 3: and forgetting the United States ready for the great power
Speaker 3: competition that that we are in whether we like it
Speaker 3: or not. So follow me on Twitter. That's what I'm
Speaker 3: up to and that's that's what I'm gonna keep working on.
Speaker 2: Okay, well, that's great. Thank you Ken for being with us,
Speaker 2: and wish are the best of luck and maybe we'll
Speaker 2: have you back on soon and we'll find out what's
Speaker 2: gonna happen when we need your.
Speaker 3: Always always appreciate it. I I think your Guys show
Speaker 3: is great and uh so you're your listeners are very
Speaker 3: wise for tuning in for all your episodes.
Speaker 1: Thank you very much. Have a good night, Thank you, Jerry,
Speaker 1: and thank you everybody. I hope you have a great
Speaker 1: Navy day. Cheers.
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