# Inside the Insane F-15 WSO Rescue in Iran by U.S. SOF | EYES ON GEOPOLITICS

An episode of [The Team House](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1492797340), 6 Apr 2026, 1 h 03 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/pscrb.fm/rss/p/clrtpod.com/m/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/71118835/f15_rescue_spreaker.mp3

This episode breaks down the dramatic rescue of a downed F-15 pilot inside Iran and what it reveals about modern warfare, intelligence, and risk. The panel digs into how the operation unfolded, the role of CIA and JSOC, and the bigger question—whether the U.S. has a real strategy as the conflict escalates. From tactical success to strategic uncertainty, this is a clear-eyed look at what comes next. Jack's news outlet: https://thehighside.substack.com/ Support the show on Patreon:⬇️ https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouse Subscribe to our new newsletter!!!! https://teamhousepodcast.kit.com/join Find Jon Hackett here:⬇️ Jon's books: https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B0C5L659N5?ccs_id=e11a2062-f8d3-498e-bfd7-7d2f3869caf6 Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thejonathanhackett Twitter: https://x.com/jonathanhackett Check out Mick's new podcast here:⬇️ Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/at/podcast/pub-and-porch-applied-stoicism/id1836955475 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1k3QPmkAMwnGJxMLDwUSSd?si=n6piIu8XRcag1Z0K43A3bQ Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@UCd0Hq6QFk8CoTu5j-VU0Ong Find Mick Mulroy here: Fogbow ⬇️ https://fogbow.com/ Lobo Institute ⬇️ https://www.loboinstitute.org/ Twitter ⬇️ https://x.com/mickmulroy?s=21&t=-Ze3F_Ix2vlJ18KFvORTCA LinkedIn ⬇️ https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-patrick-mulroy-31198b52/ Bluesky ⬇️ https://bsky.app/profile/mickmulroy.bsky.social Mick’s publications ⬇️ https://www.loboinstitute.org/publications/publications-of-michael-mick-patrick-mulroy/ Find Marc P here: https://x.com/Mpolymer Find Andy Milburn here: Twitter ⬇️ https://twitter.com/i/flow/login?redirect_after_login=%2Fandymilburn8 LinkedIn ⬇️ https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewmilburn2023 Substack ⬇️ https://amilburn.substack.com/ Andy’s book ⬇️ https://www.amazon.com/When-Tempest-Gathers-Mogadishu-Operations Bluesky ⬇️ https://bsky.app/profile/andy-milburn.bsky.social Find Jason Lyons here: LinkedIn ⬇️ https://www.linkedin.com/in/jason-lyons-666873316?u Bluesky ⬇️ https://bsky.app/profile/bgsilverback73.bsky.social "Karl Casey @ White Bat Audio" 00:00 — Start 00:01 — Full Panel Intro & Breaking News Setup 00:40 — F-15 Pilot Rescue & Jack Murphy Breaks the Story 01:30 — Tactical Success vs Strategic Reality 02:30 — How the Rescue Actually Happened (FARP, Little Birds, Airstrikes) 05:30 — What Went Wrong: Lost Aircraft & Extraction Problems 08:00 — CIA Role, Deception Ops & Public Disclosure Debate 10:30 — ISOPREP & Behind Enemy Lines Survival 13:00 — What Shot Down the F-15? SAMs, Reapers & Air Threats 16:30 — Civilian Resistance Inside Iran Helping the Pilot 20:00 — Intelligence Failures: Are We Focused on the Wrong Things? 28:00 — Policy vs Intel: Is Leadership Ignoring the Intelligence? 35:00 — Escalation Path: Strikes on Infrastructure & What Comes Next 43:00 — Endgame: Ground War Risk, Deadlines & Strategic Outlook Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support.

## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, welcome to another episode of Eyes on Geopolitics.
[0:03] Speaker 1: Oh my god, where people are lining in, they're packing
[0:06] Speaker 1: in the place. Andy Milburn's here, Hi, Andy. We just
[0:09] Speaker 1: started recording Jack Murphy, Jonathan Hackett, Oh, Mark poly Moreopolis too.
[0:15] Speaker 2: This is this is unprecedented, full full, full house here today.
[0:22] Speaker 2: This is the first time it's happened.
[0:24] Speaker 3: Not even wash my teeth or wash my face yet.
[0:27] Speaker 4: Great job, d Well, give you a slice of us.
[0:31] Speaker 5: Thank you.
[0:31] Speaker 1: I appreciate that. I don't need a big spot either.
[0:34] Speaker 1: I don't need a big slice either.
[0:36] Speaker 2: That's almost appear after saying the crew jokes about why
[0:40] Speaker 2: I won't even say what they were about on Signal Dan.
[0:45] Speaker 1: About Jack's pending OnlyFans No, okay, so great news for once.
[0:51] Speaker 1: Great not about the only fans, but about the fifteen
[0:54] Speaker 1: Weapons System officer being rescued by a special Operations raid
[0:59] Speaker 1: that I'm gonna give kudos to where they deserve that.
[1:02] Speaker 1: Jack Murphy broke first and everyone doubted him. But let's
[1:06] Speaker 1: go back to the story, because that's the most important thing.
[1:09] Speaker 3: Who doubted him?
[1:11] Speaker 1: Come on, bro, come on, bro. He saw the people chair.
[1:14] Speaker 1: But don't get me crazy, Mark.
[1:15] Speaker 4: It doesn't it doesn't matter. It's just a peanut gallery.
[1:20] Speaker 2: Heded before we turn to the Jack Show, And I
[1:23] Speaker 2: do want to say up front, yeah, I'm I'm overjoyed
[1:27] Speaker 2: and very happy that we rescued an Air Force colonel
[1:30] Speaker 2: from the hinterland of Iran. There's no there's no downside
[1:34] Speaker 2: to that. But I am concerned that there's a there's
[1:38] Speaker 2: kind of this incredible focus on this one very small event.
[1:43] Speaker 2: I mean, it is a human life's never small. I
[1:46] Speaker 2: understand that's why we've been we've all been at war,
[1:51] Speaker 2: and we know saving one dude is good news, but
[1:54] Speaker 2: it's a very small piece of the whole. And and
[1:58] Speaker 2: and in the long run, Yes, we do these things.
[2:02] Speaker 2: I think one of you said, I think Marx, that
[2:04] Speaker 2: we do these things very well, or expected to do
[2:06] Speaker 2: very well. We have the world class organization that's dedicated
[2:09] Speaker 2: to it. I don't want to diminish it. But what
[2:12] Speaker 2: comes next and what else have we been doing or
[2:14] Speaker 2: not doing? I think should be focus of at least
[2:19] Speaker 2: five percent of the show. But I don't want to
[2:21] Speaker 2: take away from Jack's already walked out.
[2:23] Speaker 1: And he's like, yeah, how dare you sorry?
[2:29] Speaker 2: This was awesome?
[2:30] Speaker 1: Man.
[2:30] Speaker 2: I'm back and I'll shut up.
[2:31] Speaker 3: It's awesome. That would have been legendary.
[2:34] Speaker 1: Yeah, so, I mean everybody knows the news now. Major
[2:37] Speaker 1: raid happened, some hiccups on the way out as well,
[2:40] Speaker 1: but everyone got back safe. We had to blow up
[2:42] Speaker 1: a couple of Sea one thirties and a little bird,
[2:45] Speaker 1: but all the Americans were safely returned to like friendly airspace.
[2:51] Speaker 1: So a good story. And yeah, you're right Andy, like
[2:55] Speaker 1: the rest of it's a shit show. But you know,
[2:58] Speaker 1: where do you guys want to start? Think we need
[3:00] Speaker 1: to harp talk about this for sure a little bit,
[3:03] Speaker 1: and then we'll talk about you know, the impending you know,
[3:07] Speaker 1: bombing bridges and power plants day that's coming up on Tuesday.
[3:12] Speaker 1: But yeah, Jack, tell us run it down for us
[3:15] Speaker 1: and then we'll get into it and let the guys
[3:16] Speaker 1: take over.
[3:17] Speaker 6: Yeah, no, that sounds good. I'll try to keep it
[3:19] Speaker 6: brief to be clear too. I mean, I don't know
[3:22] Speaker 6: everything and.
[3:23] Speaker 4: Don't want to put myself up like I do.
[3:26] Speaker 6: You know, this thing is still developing, and the military itself,
[3:30] Speaker 6: i'm sure, is still doing all their after action reviews
[3:32] Speaker 6: to try to.
[3:32] Speaker 4: Figure out for themselves exactly what happened.
[3:36] Speaker 6: But the broad pieces of it. As you know, there
[3:38] Speaker 6: was a fifteen pilot on the ground. He was escaping
[3:41] Speaker 6: and evating for about twenty four hours inside Iran, and
[3:46] Speaker 6: from what we can tell about the effort to get
[3:50] Speaker 6: him back, they did a lot of airstrikes to keep
[3:54] Speaker 6: the Iranians off of his back. The Iranians have blotted
[3:58] Speaker 6: a lot of assets into the area where that we
[4:00] Speaker 6: searching for him, and meanwhile we have to get you know,
[4:04] Speaker 6: a ground team helicopters in.
[4:05] Speaker 4: To actually extract the guy.
[4:08] Speaker 6: And as we now know, they set up what's called
[4:10] Speaker 6: a FARP or a Ford air refueling point. So for
[4:14] Speaker 6: like people who aren't familiar when you have to fly
[4:17] Speaker 6: helicopters but also airplanes sometimes especially long distances, you have
[4:21] Speaker 6: to set up some sort of like a fuel depot.
[4:24] Speaker 6: You know, I did this many moons ago for little
[4:27] Speaker 6: birds in a wreck, you know, just driving out somewhere
[4:30] Speaker 6: and taking a fuel blibit out, leaving it in a
[4:32] Speaker 6: field for a little bird pilot. Sometimes this is a
[4:34] Speaker 6: little bit more elaborate. There's a C one thirty aircraft
[4:37] Speaker 6: blown in that was refueling some of these helicopters, and
[4:41] Speaker 6: this kind of plays into you know, how the pilot
[4:44] Speaker 6: was actually pulled out of there. So they occupied this
[4:46] Speaker 6: improvised landing strip, set up the FARP, and the pilot
[4:50] Speaker 6: was eventually pulled out by little birds. So those were,
[4:53] Speaker 6: of course the smaller lighter aircraft that won sixty applies
[4:58] Speaker 6: shorter range than CH forty seven or MH sixty, So
[5:04] Speaker 6: that kind of explains why the refueling part was so
[5:06] Speaker 6: important to this. And I don't know all the tactical
[5:09] Speaker 6: decisions that were made and why they used this airframe,
[5:12] Speaker 6: but perhaps part of it was because he was in
[5:15] Speaker 6: these mountains.
[5:15] Speaker 4: Reportedly, I don't know.
[5:18] Speaker 6: I don't know how bad it was if you'd like
[5:20] Speaker 6: hanging on the side of a cliff or something, but
[5:22] Speaker 6: maybe it was difficult to get to so they went
[5:26] Speaker 6: in and extracted him. But then on the way out,
[5:29] Speaker 6: the C one thirty got, as I understand, a wheel
[5:32] Speaker 6: stuck in the sand they like sunk into the dirt,
[5:35] Speaker 6: and the crew was trying to dig it out, and
[5:38] Speaker 6: that resulted in some delays. It took them a while
[5:40] Speaker 6: to get out off of that far and the delta
[5:43] Speaker 6: force element that was standing by as a quick reaction
[5:46] Speaker 6: for us was actually called in they came in and
[5:49] Speaker 6: helped blow.
[5:50] Speaker 4: Up the aircraft.
[5:51] Speaker 6: I mean, I know one S one thirty was blown
[5:54] Speaker 6: some media reports are saying two C one thirties. I
[5:57] Speaker 6: also believe at least one helicopter was blown it up.
[6:01] Speaker 6: I guess they just determined that they could not recover
[6:03] Speaker 6: them and get them home for whatever reason. And after
[6:08] Speaker 6: that happened, you know, whichever new aircraft, probably helicopters that
[6:12] Speaker 6: they flew in the QRF on, they got everybody on
[6:15] Speaker 6: those and flew them back home and they were they
[6:19] Speaker 6: were back over the Persian Golf probably around eleven thirty
[6:24] Speaker 6: Eastern Standard time last night, and that was pretty much
[6:28] Speaker 6: the end of the operation as far as that's concerned.
[6:31] Speaker 4: But I mean, the air strikes are still ongoing.
[6:33] Speaker 6: So that's like the thumbnail sketch, and we'll find out
[6:37] Speaker 6: a lot more in the coming days and weeks.
[6:39] Speaker 4: I'm sure.
[6:41] Speaker 2: Why did they fly out of check?
[6:44] Speaker 4: I'm not sure.
[6:44] Speaker 6: Well, I know a couple of places where Jaysak has
[6:47] Speaker 6: been pre positioned, but yeah, I probably wouldn't get into
[6:50] Speaker 6: that right.
[6:51] Speaker 4: Now, but but some were in the Persian Golf.
[6:54] Speaker 2: You know. That's very helpful.
[6:59] Speaker 7: Yeah, that's that's tracking with everything. Obviously Jack is the
[7:02] Speaker 7: one that broke it. So well done, Jack. I was
[7:05] Speaker 7: tracking it all day yesterday, as we all know, because
[7:07] Speaker 7: we were changing uh texts all day, and I think
[7:11] Speaker 7: that's uh spot on, at least from what I know.
[7:14] Speaker 7: I would also agree just to start with with with
[7:18] Speaker 7: Andy that this is this is incredible. Uh. You know,
[7:21] Speaker 7: Great News really does highlight the ethos of the US military.
[7:26] Speaker 7: We never leave somebody behind and we take extraordinary method
[7:30] Speaker 7: measures to get them back. And also, you know point
[7:34] Speaker 7: out and I know Mark's gonna have something to say
[7:36] Speaker 7: about this great job, start with great job to say,
[7:39] Speaker 7: to say, the agency, uh, they are telling people essentially
[7:43] Speaker 7: they use a deception campaign and then found this individual
[7:46] Speaker 7: and then vectored in uh these heroic operatives of Jaysok
[7:51] Speaker 7: to recover them. Great News would really like to see
[7:55] Speaker 7: people adhere to the you know, uh silent professionals because
[8:00] Speaker 7: it does compromise I think things in the future. So
[8:03] Speaker 7: we're talking about it because it's in every news outlet
[8:06] Speaker 7: in the world right now. But I'd also point out
[8:10] Speaker 7: it isn't unique to this experience. If you remember about ABD,
[8:14] Speaker 7: it was like a race to tell every possible thing
[8:17] Speaker 7: that went in to that as well, and it exposed
[8:20] Speaker 7: a lot of things that we shouldn't have, So I'd
[8:22] Speaker 7: start with that. But the Kudo's part as usual when
[8:25] Speaker 7: you compare when you pair Jaysok and the agency, super
[8:30] Speaker 7: good things can happen. And then I would shift right
[8:33] Speaker 7: now and say, now we've got to figure out what's
[8:35] Speaker 7: shot down they have fifteen? Is it a new weapon
[8:39] Speaker 7: system that was introduced, If it was, who did it?
[8:42] Speaker 7: I don't believe the Iranians that they somehow just developed
[8:45] Speaker 7: it on their own in the middle of a war,
[8:47] Speaker 7: and whether that's going to have an impact. And then second,
[8:50] Speaker 7: and I'll hold until we get to this point. The
[8:52] Speaker 7: war goes on. The war goes on like we're running
[8:56] Speaker 7: out of deadline. Here it looks like it's Tuesday. Now
[8:59] Speaker 7: we're talking about bomb and infrastructure, which of course is
[9:03] Speaker 7: going to have a legal connotation to it, bridges which
[9:05] Speaker 7: might indicate ourations going.
[9:08] Speaker 4: To jump in real quick, Mick and the.
[9:10] Speaker 7: Mult resolutions then going to go.
[9:15] Speaker 6: On the day that the F fifteen went down, there's
[9:18] Speaker 6: a Reaprich stot down and then yesterday another one down.
[9:21] Speaker 6: So I think they are using it's called like the
[9:25] Speaker 6: tie are surface to air missile. It's something that they
[9:28] Speaker 6: make that that's what's suspected. But there are Russian S
[9:31] Speaker 6: three hundred s four hundred systems out there.
[9:33] Speaker 4: I don't know if we've destroyed all of them or not.
[9:38] Speaker 3: Hey, one thing I just wanted to throw out there
[9:39] Speaker 3: because because I sent it in our in our most
[9:42] Speaker 3: wonderful chat we have, if anyone ever gets a hold
[9:44] Speaker 3: of that, we're all screwed, by the way. But I
[9:47] Speaker 3: was just thinking back to and again with my backgrounds
[9:49] Speaker 3: a little bit different than everybody else. I was not
[9:51] Speaker 3: in the military before, but I was in the agency
[9:53] Speaker 3: obviously and did a lot of stuff with with Mick
[9:55] Speaker 3: and others. And I just remember going through the is
[9:57] Speaker 3: of prep protocols on the infill into into bad that
[10:00] Speaker 3: when I was a Task Force one sixty on their
[10:02] Speaker 3: bird and I was flying in there. I'm like, I
[10:03] Speaker 3: forgot everything I was supposed to remember and so uh
[10:07] Speaker 3: and so I want to know from you guys, do
[10:08] Speaker 3: you actually And Nick? Nick was honest in the chat,
[10:11] Speaker 3: He's like, yeah, I kind of remember, did you remember
[10:14] Speaker 3: your protocols for you know, behind end of me a line?
[10:17] Speaker 3: Stuff like yeah, just.
[10:18] Speaker 1: Let everybody know what ISO PREP means.
[10:21] Speaker 3: It's it's probium. Shouldn't be be talking about it. It's
[10:24] Speaker 3: just a protocols of you know, if your when you're.
[10:27] Speaker 6: The ISOPREP card isn't classified, you can find it online isolated.
[10:32] Speaker 6: It's basically just information that you fill out so that
[10:35] Speaker 6: in case do you become a POW during a war,
[10:38] Speaker 6: that you can be identified and there are some.
[10:42] Speaker 3: Signals and stuff about your background that you're you're gonna
[10:45] Speaker 3: over radio and if someone said if if a rescue
[10:49] Speaker 3: force is coming at you. But I literally was like,
[10:52] Speaker 3: I have no idea what I said. I'm totally screwed.
[10:54] Speaker 3: So I'm gonna go through everybody. Jack, did you remember
[10:57] Speaker 3: your isoprep protocols?
[10:58] Speaker 4: I think so. I think the Quiet Finn were so
[11:01] Speaker 4: blatantly obvious. There's no way I get like, like, what
[11:03] Speaker 4: high school did you go to?
[11:05] Speaker 8: You know, things like that, Andy, Yeah, I know, I'm
[11:11] Speaker 8: with you. I don't think I could. I can't remember
[11:14] Speaker 8: them because when you.
[11:15] Speaker 6: Imagine, imagine the Delta Force team comes in to rescue
[11:18] Speaker 6: Andy Milburn or Mark Paula Moreopolis and they're like Mark,
[11:22] Speaker 6: what's your hometown?
[11:23] Speaker 4: Like I don't remember, Bro, Like oh, sorry, Sorry, dude,
[11:26] Speaker 4: you gotta leave.
[11:29] Speaker 2: I had I had more sophisticated once in that John,
[11:33] Speaker 2: but Jack, I thinks, I'm sorry, go ahead, I just.
[11:36] Speaker 3: Wanted to do Paul, Jonathan, did you remember him?
[11:38] Speaker 7: So?
[11:38] Speaker 5: I didn't remember it when I was going into country,
[11:40] Speaker 5: but then when I was working on personal recovery planning,
[11:42] Speaker 5: I realized how important actually all that stuff was, and
[11:45] Speaker 5: I was like, I should probably start remembering this stuff.
[11:48] Speaker 3: And you already admitted you've.
[11:51] Speaker 7: Yeah, I think Jonathan remembers everything, right, Yes, I have
[11:57] Speaker 7: been in situations where I started thinking about.
[11:59] Speaker 2: Him a Jack. What situation you'd use isoprep, and that
[12:05] Speaker 2: didn't really apply in this case.
[12:06] Speaker 4: Right.
[12:07] Speaker 2: Presumably the pilot had a beacon, and I'm for some
[12:12] Speaker 2: reason there was some delay and pick either in picking
[12:14] Speaker 2: up the signal, or they located the signal but it
[12:17] Speaker 2: was in an unaccessible area, or maybe someone was telling me,
[12:23] Speaker 2: actually a better pause here, because I don't think this
[12:25] Speaker 2: is classified. But there's different protocol for beacon activation when
[12:29] Speaker 2: you're in combat from when you're training and training it
[12:31] Speaker 2: goes on automatically, but there may have been the delay, right,
[12:35] Speaker 2: and that's normally how you how you located down pilot.
[12:39] Speaker 6: This is yeah, this is outside my area of expertise.
[12:42] Speaker 6: I'm not really an aviation guy, but I had someone
[12:45] Speaker 6: tell me that the beacon is supposed to activate when
[12:47] Speaker 6: they etjackt from the aircraft. But it also has something
[12:50] Speaker 6: to do with like the angle of the aircraft and
[12:53] Speaker 6: how they come out, like the pitch of the aircraft
[12:55] Speaker 6: can affect that. I don't understand how that works, but
[12:58] Speaker 6: apparently it does make a difference. And as far as
[13:02] Speaker 6: how they actually located him, I don't know. No one's
[13:05] Speaker 6: told me, you know, for certain this is how it happened,
[13:07] Speaker 6: but I'm sure with the beacon or survival.
[13:10] Speaker 4: Radio that they ended up picking him up on.
[13:13] Speaker 3: There's also, let me just throw in here, because Mick
[13:15] Speaker 3: alluded to it and it has been in the press.
[13:16] Speaker 4: There's there's some.
[13:19] Speaker 3: I guess reporting in multiple organizations actually basically everybody that
[13:25] Speaker 3: the agency had some role in the recovery. Not only
[13:28] Speaker 3: there was a deception campaign, but also in the actual recovery.
[13:31] Speaker 3: And Mick alluded to just kind of what bothered me,
[13:33] Speaker 3: and I was, of course, you know, howling about it
[13:35] Speaker 3: in our chat. Just the notion of this is not
[13:37] Speaker 3: something that should be for public consumption. And it's clear
[13:39] Speaker 3: that kind of agency public relations folks were sending this
[13:43] Speaker 3: out at about two o'clock in the morning to news
[13:44] Speaker 3: organizations talking about that the agency had something to do
[13:47] Speaker 3: with it, and you know, so we don't know what
[13:49] Speaker 3: that means, how they were able to locate him. The
[13:52] Speaker 3: quote they said is that it was based on exquisite capabilities.
[13:56] Speaker 3: You know, you don't know if that's signals intelligence, if
[13:58] Speaker 3: it's any kind of noisy did recovery, you know, human
[14:01] Speaker 3: intelligence network. Who the heck knows what it is? Things
[14:03] Speaker 3: that people do and train for and prepare for. But
[14:06] Speaker 3: I think we all would have preferred that not be out.
[14:10] Speaker 2: Uh.
[14:10] Speaker 3: And you know, it just goes to that notion of
[14:12] Speaker 3: and mix right that you know, this administration is going
[14:15] Speaker 3: to do the same thing that other administrations did. You know,
[14:17] Speaker 3: Obama came out and all the all the details of
[14:21] Speaker 3: the about about operation to kilbyin Laden certainly filtered out.
[14:24] Speaker 3: But it's better off if if if this is not
[14:27] Speaker 3: it turns into kind of who's bragging about it? You know,
[14:29] Speaker 3: what's the what's the old saying that you know, success
[14:32] Speaker 3: has a success as a thousand fathers, you know, failure
[14:34] Speaker 3: is an orphan. I can assure you that the agency
[14:37] Speaker 3: would not have been emailing press organizations if this thing
[14:39] Speaker 3: went kind of tits up, and so, you know, it's
[14:44] Speaker 3: much better. I would much prefer if that would not
[14:46] Speaker 3: be in public, because you don't know if they could
[14:48] Speaker 3: potentially compromise stuff. And it does go to the notion
[14:51] Speaker 3: of in this administration, everybody is really working for one individual,
[14:54] Speaker 3: and that's the President, and everyone's got to try to
[14:56] Speaker 3: impress them. And so heck Seth is going to brag
[14:58] Speaker 3: about this, as is John ra Cliff. It would just
[15:01] Speaker 3: be better if this was kept kept quiet and again,
[15:04] Speaker 3: a tremendous operation. I did have a list of someone
[15:07] Speaker 3: sent me a list of things that were lost. Obviously,
[15:10] Speaker 3: it was the F fifteen and A ten, two Payhawks
[15:14] Speaker 3: as well, three little Birds, two C one thirties, and
[15:16] Speaker 3: at least three m Q nine's. And I don't know
[15:18] Speaker 3: if that's accurate or not.
[15:19] Speaker 6: The Reapers sound right, the Painhawks. I don't think they
[15:24] Speaker 6: were shot down, but they were shot up.
[15:26] Speaker 4: Pretty pretty shut up. Yeah.
[15:28] Speaker 3: I mean that's about a half billion dollars worth of
[15:30] Speaker 3: airframes there.
[15:31] Speaker 6: I would put the pilots were hit substantially as I
[15:34] Speaker 6: understand it.
[15:36] Speaker 3: So again it's a it's a it's so bringing and
[15:39] Speaker 3: just incredible that this this kernel gets to go home
[15:42] Speaker 3: on Easter to his family, and I'm sure we'll hear
[15:44] Speaker 3: a lot more about him because it once again and
[15:46] Speaker 3: this is this is just the way it is. We're
[15:48] Speaker 3: going to see him at the White House, there's no
[15:50] Speaker 3: doubt about that. But last last point on this, exactly
[15:55] Speaker 3: what what Mick had said is there's got to be
[15:57] Speaker 3: now a discussion of what happens next, because Trump put
[15:59] Speaker 3: out of the True Social Post basically with a little
[16:03] Speaker 3: ali lot far in the end, which I don't know
[16:04] Speaker 3: if it's weird or racist or whatever the hell it is,
[16:06] Speaker 3: but basically, you know, promising all sorts of armageddon in
[16:09] Speaker 3: the next forty eight hours. If Aron didn't open up
[16:11] Speaker 3: the straight up our moves, we'd start hitting infrastructure targets.
[16:14] Speaker 3: So interesting that the White House couldn't kind of bask
[16:17] Speaker 3: in the victory of this. They then put this out,
[16:19] Speaker 3: and now the discussion does have to shift into what
[16:21] Speaker 3: comes next.
[16:23] Speaker 4: And so here we are.
[16:25] Speaker 3: It's Sunday, and that deadline I guess is on Tuesday.
[16:30] Speaker 1: Yeah, let me get hackety here. John what should take
[16:32] Speaker 1: on all this.
[16:34] Speaker 5: Well, when we talked about the non standard of sister recovery,
[16:36] Speaker 5: I think it's important to know that there are people
[16:38] Speaker 5: in the region that would be there to help, whether
[16:41] Speaker 5: that whether we ask them to help or not. So
[16:43] Speaker 5: in some cases we would have set up some structures
[16:45] Speaker 5: to have that, but in other cases there are people
[16:46] Speaker 5: there that are just like, we want to help the
[16:47] Speaker 5: American in the area because we don't support the regime.
[16:50] Speaker 5: And there were some videos circulating yesterday evening in that village,
[16:53] Speaker 5: the particular village that he was on the northwest corner
[16:56] Speaker 5: of vehicles barricading the roads to prevent the IRUNI and
[17:00] Speaker 5: security forces from actually affecting a search, and these people
[17:04] Speaker 5: had their cars just kind of strewn all about. If
[17:05] Speaker 5: you see the video, it's very interesting. It's almost like
[17:07] Speaker 5: a passive resistance because if you remember, the regime's aircraft
[17:11] Speaker 5: are all destroyed, are obliterated mostly so they can't be
[17:13] Speaker 5: used for the search and rescue. They can't use helicopters,
[17:16] Speaker 5: they can't use any of these air assets except drones.
[17:19] Speaker 5: So they're basically on the ground trying to drive to
[17:21] Speaker 5: the location. And if you look on a map, this
[17:22] Speaker 5: is like powder dirt area. It's really rough. Like when
[17:26] Speaker 5: I heard the CEA when thirty got stuck there, I
[17:28] Speaker 5: was not surprised because it's basically like that moon dust
[17:30] Speaker 5: that you'd see in like Helmet Province for example. If
[17:32] Speaker 5: anyone's been to Afghanistan, it's listening that you just get
[17:35] Speaker 5: stuck in it.
[17:35] Speaker 7: It's it's really tough.
[17:36] Speaker 5: And that's the same problem we had with Desert One
[17:38] Speaker 5: in nineteen eighty that landing site that it was just
[17:40] Speaker 5: this moon dust that just eats stuff when it lands
[17:43] Speaker 5: on it. So it was actually very nice to see
[17:46] Speaker 5: that the locals they're resisting the regime to try to
[17:49] Speaker 5: help that American gain sometimes just a little bit of
[17:51] Speaker 5: envelope of time to get up probably into that higher
[17:53] Speaker 5: grounds that could be rescued.
[17:54] Speaker 6: That's interesting that and that area is the Lore area.
[17:57] Speaker 4: That's that region.
[18:00] Speaker 5: So that stay one, the pilot was actually lucky you
[18:03] Speaker 5: have gone down in that area. It's right south of
[18:04] Speaker 5: Shiraz and these people, the Lori people are very tribal,
[18:08] Speaker 5: very like closely connected to each other, and they've been,
[18:11] Speaker 5: you know, trying to get rid of the regime out
[18:12] Speaker 5: of that area for a long time. So probably the
[18:15] Speaker 5: first No, wid they heard about this, they said, hey, guys,
[18:17] Speaker 5: let's go out and start doing something.
[18:20] Speaker 2: Before we we go on to perhaps more momentous. I
[18:26] Speaker 2: was surprised to see I think it's the Wall Street
[18:28] Speaker 2: Journal cover the story that you guys were just talking
[18:31] Speaker 2: about the deception claim by the agency, saying, and it
[18:35] Speaker 2: gets back to it, it does seem extraordinary, doesn't it
[18:38] Speaker 2: that an intelligence agency would would announce that, because, especially
[18:43] Speaker 2: for Mick and Mark, doesn't that potentially compromise a method
[18:49] Speaker 2: if they did use that method, they compromises using it again.
[18:54] Speaker 2: I mean, they're saying that they they somehow planted a
[18:58] Speaker 2: story that gain momentum that the men had already been recovered. No,
[19:04] Speaker 2: I don't know how they did that. I mean, if
[19:05] Speaker 2: it was, but but it's not. It just I'm not
[19:11] Speaker 2: commenting that it seems unseemly, but it just seems extraordinary
[19:15] Speaker 2: unless there was enless there's some motive other than chess beating.
[19:20] Speaker 3: No, it's it's I think it's bragging. It's it's it's
[19:23] Speaker 3: the notion of people try to take credit and everyone's
[19:25] Speaker 3: vying for their kind of supremacy. And then national security pantheon. Uh, uh,
[19:30] Speaker 3: you know that's why. You know, Ratcliffe and Tulca Gabbard
[19:32] Speaker 3: and Marco Rubio all have offices at the White House.
[19:34] Speaker 3: They spend a lot of time there. I just I
[19:38] Speaker 3: you know, so so I think, you know, is it
[19:39] Speaker 3: is it going to compromise you know, sources and methods.
[19:43] Speaker 3: I don't know, but it certainly doesn't help. And and
[19:46] Speaker 3: the problem is now now that that everyone kind of
[19:48] Speaker 3: has a sniffing around on this. I mean, you can't
[19:51] Speaker 3: email reporters at two o'clock in the morning, which is
[19:53] Speaker 3: which is what the agency did. Uh uh. Then the
[19:58] Speaker 3: reporters were then using the quote, according to a senior
[20:00] Speaker 3: administration official, but it's not it was It was the
[20:03] Speaker 3: agency public relations staff. So now they're gonna start digging.
[20:06] Speaker 3: They wouldn't have been digging without this. And when when
[20:09] Speaker 3: reporters in Washington start digging, they're eventually gonna get the
[20:11] Speaker 3: story and someone's gonna say something. And so to me,
[20:13] Speaker 3: that was kind of just unnecessary.
[20:16] Speaker 1: Hey what's up, guys? This is d uh. Do us
[20:18] Speaker 1: a favorite and check out our Patreon page. It's patreon
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[20:51] Speaker 1: appreciate it, and we appreciate you guys listening. Thanks a bunch.
[20:58] Speaker 2: And for for the agency guys, hey, I mean we
[21:00] Speaker 2: have representatives from all over here, right, even the range
[21:03] Speaker 2: of regiment equal opportunity, but for for Meck and Mark specifically,
[21:12] Speaker 2: and I think you made a comment about this Mark
[21:14] Speaker 2: actually in our chat. But there are again, you know,
[21:18] Speaker 2: I'm not downplaying this, but there are more important things
[21:20] Speaker 2: in an intelligence agency should be focusing on during this war.
[21:27] Speaker 2: You know, I hate to hold up moss Ads as
[21:30] Speaker 2: an example, but presumably they know a fair amount about
[21:34] Speaker 2: what's going on Iranian intentions that they've they've clearly infiltrated
[21:39] Speaker 2: Iran's regime to quite an extent, and they you know,
[21:43] Speaker 2: there's very been very little talk about what the Iranians
[21:46] Speaker 2: do next. We broadcast what we're doing. Presumably we're relying
[21:49] Speaker 2: on the on the Israelis to do this or I mean,
[21:54] Speaker 2: do we are we too focused on minutia? I guess
[22:00] Speaker 2: and the intelligence community is where I'm heading and written
[22:03] Speaker 2: two reliant on our opponents too.
[22:06] Speaker 3: I want Mick to answer it because I'm going to
[22:08] Speaker 3: raise something with them. This is where kind of mix
[22:09] Speaker 3: old world and what he did, and the paramilitary side
[22:13] Speaker 3: is so good. You know, there's twenty years of the
[22:15] Speaker 3: g WAT and we perfected this and it's and I
[22:18] Speaker 3: had I dabbled in it when I was a base
[22:19] Speaker 3: chief and then I worked on some some ISR stuff.
[22:21] Speaker 3: But you know, the kinetic part of it, manhunting or
[22:25] Speaker 3: or personnel recovery or you know a kind of COVID action,
[22:28] Speaker 3: that's what Mick and his sac colleagues did and we're
[22:32] Speaker 3: really good at it. What I do question now is
[22:35] Speaker 3: are we good at penetrating the Iranian regime in terms
[22:38] Speaker 3: of you know, an asset in the Supreme Leader's office,
[22:40] Speaker 3: you know plans and intentions. This is strategic intelligence that
[22:42] Speaker 3: can formulate decision making And I wonder if the agency
[22:46] Speaker 3: kind of got drunk on its own success in g
[22:50] Speaker 3: WAT stuff. And I'm guilty of it, and you know,
[22:52] Speaker 3: and we wouldn't even say guilty. That's what we're tasked
[22:54] Speaker 3: to do. But are we good at kind of hard
[22:57] Speaker 3: target foreign intelligence operations where we can help president as
[23:00] Speaker 3: National security team say what's the Iranians going to do next? Then, Mick,
[23:04] Speaker 3: that's teeing it up for you.
[23:05] Speaker 7: Yeah, thanks, Mark, I mean, you know, we just had
[23:09] Speaker 7: to summit out here, and on the intel side, it
[23:11] Speaker 7: was all different components of the agency. It wasn't just
[23:13] Speaker 7: you know, the PM dudes. I think sometimes we to
[23:18] Speaker 7: be frank, we get too much credit, not credit, but like,
[23:21] Speaker 7: this is so much attention because of the it plays
[23:25] Speaker 7: well put it that way, when a lot of what
[23:27] Speaker 7: the agency does is behind the scenes and nobody talks
[23:30] Speaker 7: about it, and they do incredible work. So I actually, yes,
[23:34] Speaker 7: we're very good at finding people. That's why I was
[23:36] Speaker 7: pointing out. You put Jaysuck and the CIA together, we
[23:38] Speaker 7: can do a lot of this stuff and it's it's
[23:40] Speaker 7: the most significant operations that we all talk about, and
[23:43] Speaker 7: we should still be able to do that. And we
[23:44] Speaker 7: should be able to do all of this. By the way,
[23:46] Speaker 7: it's not it's like a DC thing to say it's
[23:48] Speaker 7: either or like, oh, either you do paramilitary stuff or
[23:51] Speaker 7: you penetrate the crime on like, let's do both. Then
[23:56] Speaker 7: I think we do actually have really good human ass
[24:00] Speaker 7: if you look at, like for the war in Ukraine,
[24:03] Speaker 7: how much information we actually had. I think there's a
[24:06] Speaker 7: lot of examples of that where I think it actually
[24:08] Speaker 7: breaks down and I get a lot of this from
[24:10] Speaker 7: my last job. Is do people listen to it right?
[24:15] Speaker 7: Because it you know, if if even if you have
[24:18] Speaker 7: the best penetration, the best you know analyst and the
[24:22] Speaker 7: analytical product, it still has to be listened to by
[24:25] Speaker 7: the policymakers. If they all go on their own presumptions
[24:28] Speaker 7: as if they're just thoughts or just as important as
[24:32] Speaker 7: you know, the agency's analytical peace on what putin intends
[24:37] Speaker 7: to do is equal, then it's it just doesn't necessarily work.
[24:41] Speaker 7: So a part of it is is whether it's used correctly.
[24:46] Speaker 7: I always thought that when we discuss policy the intelligence community,
[24:50] Speaker 7: so it's not just the age of course, that should
[24:52] Speaker 7: be what sets the facts. If if they don't set
[24:56] Speaker 7: the facts, then it's just personal presumptions and agendas that
[25:00] Speaker 7: sets effects. Then we go from there on discussing, you know,
[25:03] Speaker 7: what we should do based on that. And I think
[25:07] Speaker 7: that's where and I'm not just in you know, this administration,
[25:11] Speaker 7: but other administrations where they just they treated as just
[25:14] Speaker 7: another data point, and I think we need to get
[25:17] Speaker 7: back to like, no, that's the entire eighteen.
[25:19] Speaker 3: One thing on that. Hear you and everyone knows that
[25:22] Speaker 3: president probably doesn't, you know, Marco Rubio still gets the PDB,
[25:27] Speaker 3: the President's Daily Brief, so does Dan King and the chairman,
[25:30] Speaker 3: so does Pete hags f. Basically the entire National Security
[25:33] Speaker 3: Cabinet gets the PDB. So with that argument that that
[25:36] Speaker 3: would then say that okay, the intelligence, the analysis, everything
[25:40] Speaker 3: was there, and then the entire national security team ignored it,
[25:43] Speaker 3: as did the president. And so to me, that's where
[25:45] Speaker 3: I kind of that's where I think the congressional oversight's
[25:48] Speaker 3: got to come in. Where's Hipsey and Sissy saying what
[25:50] Speaker 3: was in the PDB, what was brief to people and
[25:54] Speaker 3: what did you x y Z Cabinet members say to
[25:56] Speaker 3: the president. Because the argument that everything was there and
[25:59] Speaker 3: every thing was solid and good, find the president doesn't listen.
[26:02] Speaker 3: But then you know, does Ratcliffe not brief him? What
[26:04] Speaker 3: about Telsea Gabbard? What about Dan Kane, what about Pete Heggsath,
[26:07] Speaker 3: what about Mark Rubio? And so then the process really
[26:10] Speaker 3: has fallen down if what are they scared of telling
[26:12] Speaker 3: the president the truth? Or is he just not listening?
[26:14] Speaker 3: So that's where I think there needs to be some
[26:16] Speaker 3: more kind of certainly media attention.
[26:19] Speaker 7: Yeah, so just quickly on that. I mean, I think
[26:21] Speaker 7: you're spot on, and I think we're going to find out. Right,
[26:23] Speaker 7: So the eminent for it was it wasn't it, you know, uh,
[26:27] Speaker 7: a regime change? What did the intelligence community say collectively
[26:32] Speaker 7: about the possibility of that happening? If it's in there
[26:35] Speaker 7: that said it's not going to happen, And then we
[26:36] Speaker 7: went out and said it was. I mean, that's a choice.
[26:39] Speaker 7: It's not a crime, of course, it's just a difference
[26:42] Speaker 7: of opinion. But we'll find out how accurate the intelligence community.
[26:46] Speaker 4: Was on a really good point.
[26:48] Speaker 7: It's going to come out eventually.
[26:50] Speaker 2: Works of course, you know, everyone asks the question, how
[26:54] Speaker 2: does Israel, with one of the most technically cumbetent intelligence
[26:59] Speaker 2: community is in the world, miss all the pointers and
[27:03] Speaker 2: pointers there were are plenty, and the answer is they
[27:05] Speaker 2: didn't miss them, but no one was listening because they
[27:08] Speaker 2: were so programmed into thinking that Hamas was not a threat.
[27:12] Speaker 2: But the reports were being made and the briefs were
[27:15] Speaker 2: being made. But I just want to follow on question
[27:18] Speaker 2: for you guys, because I mean, isn't it fair to say?
[27:20] Speaker 2: It's kind of rhetoric question, right, But isn't it fair
[27:23] Speaker 2: to say? I mean, the US intelligence community is held
[27:27] Speaker 2: most accountable probably among all Western intelligence communities, right, I mean,
[27:32] Speaker 2: since you know things like the Church Commission, the requirement
[27:35] Speaker 2: to share certain intel with the committees, and so isn't
[27:41] Speaker 2: it the case that where there are failures, at least
[27:44] Speaker 2: there is accountability and follow up and the reckoning.
[27:49] Speaker 6: So Hipsie and Sissy kind of likehigh Congress into the
[27:54] Speaker 6: intelligence community in a way that I don't think really
[27:56] Speaker 6: exists even in other Western countries.
[28:00] Speaker 4: Like, hey, Congress, you're culpable for this as well.
[28:02] Speaker 7: Mm. Yeah, I mean, i I'm most other services close
[28:08] Speaker 7: to the par with US, they don't do near the
[28:11] Speaker 7: same amount of oversight. I mean I've talked there, right,
[28:14] Speaker 7: an't I mean I've talked to these rallies that say, like, hey,
[28:18] Speaker 7: all our lawyers do is write our wills. That's it, right,
[28:24] Speaker 7: we obviously, I mean it's with different country. I'm not
[28:27] Speaker 7: I'm not complaining or saying she changed, but the idea
[28:31] Speaker 7: of the old rogue is.
[28:36] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[28:37] Speaker 6: But it's an interesting kind of like dynamic that you know,
[28:39] Speaker 6: we have, like we were powerful inteligence community, but at
[28:42] Speaker 6: the same time, like I mean, just the team House
[28:46] Speaker 6: podcast that we do. Tell me what country would clear
[28:50] Speaker 6: its intelligence officers former intelligence officers to come and like
[28:53] Speaker 6: talk about the profession and and have some sort of
[28:56] Speaker 6: interface with the public. So America is in a very
[28:58] Speaker 6: like kind of unique position in that sense.
[29:01] Speaker 2: Not only that, but drink hot alcohol in a living
[29:03] Speaker 2: room setting.
[29:05] Speaker 6: That's that's you Milburn, New York Times, New York Times.
[29:14] Speaker 1: That Yeah, we're very proud of that.
[29:19] Speaker 3: Jack, I just got a note from someone. Uh and
[29:22] Speaker 3: you'll like this because it's very high brow. I'm not
[29:24] Speaker 3: going to tell you it is from the Atlantic though,
[29:25] Speaker 3: is Atlantic pretty reputable place? And let me let me
[29:30] Speaker 3: let me find this hold on. Here goes he wrote,
[29:35] Speaker 3: you said something.
[29:36] Speaker 4: He goes.
[29:36] Speaker 3: Jack's take smiley face. He said he has very good sources.
[29:42] Speaker 3: There you go.
[29:45] Speaker 1: You're getting to sitewn to cite Jack and his next
[29:49] Speaker 1: in his next article.
[29:53] Speaker 3: You know, well, I something to be said. I mean,
[29:57] Speaker 3: you know, and just not to not to toot your
[29:59] Speaker 3: horn too much. But you know, the you know, the
[30:02] Speaker 3: importance of kind of independent journalism is huge. And one
[30:06] Speaker 3: of the things and I think it's worth talking to
[30:08] Speaker 3: a little bit, is that you know what bothers me
[30:10] Speaker 3: as is both you know, just like Mick, you know,
[30:13] Speaker 3: we work for established organizations. Is a lot of the
[30:15] Speaker 3: reporting is just regurgitation of some senior administration official calling
[30:19] Speaker 3: someone a reporter and you know, giving them their spin
[30:22] Speaker 3: and then it turns out to you know, and then
[30:23] Speaker 3: they just kind of spew it out and that drives
[30:25] Speaker 3: me crazy. That's not deep dive reporting. That's not actually
[30:28] Speaker 3: getting to the facts. And you know, there's you know,
[30:31] Speaker 3: everybody kind of follows Axios religiously because they have a
[30:34] Speaker 3: direct line into the administration on stuff. But it literally
[30:37] Speaker 3: is a propaganda arm. And I there's folks and I
[30:40] Speaker 3: know them. If you understand that, it's fine, I do
[30:43] Speaker 3: want to hear what, you know, what Axios reports in
[30:45] Speaker 3: the Middle East, but I also know that you know
[30:46] Speaker 3: it's coming from Jared Kushner and Steve Steve Whitcough directly.
[30:50] Speaker 3: It's interesting, but it's not news, and so you know,
[30:53] Speaker 3: what you do and some others is actually really important
[30:56] Speaker 3: because it's deep dives a lot of times, it's long,
[31:01] Speaker 3: kind of hard, you know, several investigations, but you do
[31:06] Speaker 3: get people to talk to you and talk to you
[31:08] Speaker 3: not as a you know, as you know, an administration
[31:11] Speaker 3: official spewing the line. It's it's actually what actually is happening.
[31:15] Speaker 3: So kudo's on that.
[31:17] Speaker 6: I appreciate that, Mark, And you know, I'll just point out,
[31:20] Speaker 6: you know, I write a lot of this sort of
[31:22] Speaker 6: investigative stuff with Sean Naylor on the high side, and
[31:25] Speaker 6: we have a couple JSCK pieces we're working on now
[31:29] Speaker 6: that I can't get into at the moment, but one
[31:33] Speaker 6: of them will be coming out probably you know, in
[31:36] Speaker 6: the coming weeks, and then the other depending on how
[31:39] Speaker 6: things shape up in the Middle East, how that went,
[31:42] Speaker 6: when that when if that will ever see the light
[31:44] Speaker 6: of day. But yeah, thanks thanks for that. Mark, appreciate it.
[31:48] Speaker 3: Hey, Jonathan, I got a question for you because I
[31:50] Speaker 3: think where we should she would shift. Sorry, d I'm
[31:52] Speaker 3: stealing your thunder on one quoting I just want to
[31:54] Speaker 3: make sure we get this in here. Is so, we
[31:57] Speaker 3: just saw this really extraordinary ground up. It was a
[31:59] Speaker 3: ground up. There's a pilot or an aviator down, sorry,
[32:02] Speaker 3: Whizzo down. The clearly US special forces on the ground.
[32:05] Speaker 3: We lost maybe half a billion dollars worth of aircraft,
[32:08] Speaker 3: of firefight, all the stuff that happened. Thank god, everything's
[32:10] Speaker 3: okay now, Jonathan, we're talking about you know, the eighty
[32:13] Speaker 3: second Airbornes there, the seventy fifth Ranger Regiment, there's you know,
[32:16] Speaker 3: the MEU is now on station. What does the events
[32:20] Speaker 3: of the last several several days mean for US forces
[32:23] Speaker 3: on the ground in Iran? It seemed to me the
[32:25] Speaker 3: Iranians put up a bit of a fight, and and so,
[32:28] Speaker 3: you know, is it something American people should get Okay,
[32:30] Speaker 3: better get prepared because you know, we're not going to
[32:32] Speaker 3: get lucky again. That just doesn't happen time after time.
[32:35] Speaker 3: And so, you know, what are your thoughts on now
[32:37] Speaker 3: future ground operations, especially with Trump, you know, threatening armageddon.
[32:41] Speaker 5: It's interesting you asked that because actually right before this
[32:43] Speaker 5: I was on with BBC and they asked me the
[32:45] Speaker 5: exact same thing. There you go and I'll tell them.
[32:48] Speaker 5: I'll tell you what I said to them, basically that
[32:50] Speaker 5: the personal Recovery Mission is a contingency operation that's bolted
[32:53] Speaker 5: on to the main operation, and it's not going to
[32:56] Speaker 5: shift the direction of flow of what's happening in the
[32:59] Speaker 5: decision space. Both with Admiral Cooper, I'm with the President
[33:01] Speaker 5: all the way between the two of them. So we
[33:04] Speaker 5: executed that well successfully, but it doesn't change really like
[33:07] Speaker 5: the momentum of the larger operation going on. And still
[33:11] Speaker 5: I think the President is trying to decide do I
[33:13] Speaker 5: do a ground invasion or not, do I take hard
[33:15] Speaker 5: Island or not? Do I do the uraniem or not?
[33:16] Speaker 5: And I think, you know, there's a lot in the
[33:18] Speaker 5: administration pushing him toward the infrastructure option, which would be
[33:21] Speaker 5: a disastrous choice for a variety of reasons, not just
[33:24] Speaker 5: from the international law perspective, but also like, if you
[33:26] Speaker 5: want the will of the people in Iran to remain
[33:28] Speaker 5: on your side, don't take out their electricity, their water,
[33:31] Speaker 5: their food, their safety, what remains of it. And we've
[33:34] Speaker 5: talked about this on the show before that in two
[33:35] Speaker 5: thousand and three, we had a very successful invasion in
[33:38] Speaker 5: the first few months and we made some strategic mistakes
[33:40] Speaker 5: on how we handle the people in the country and
[33:42] Speaker 5: that turned out very badly for every person involved on
[33:45] Speaker 5: every side. And I think that we're nearing that kind
[33:48] Speaker 5: of ledge right now as far as decision which direction
[33:50] Speaker 5: do we move and I think hitting the infrastructure which
[33:53] Speaker 5: certainly take us toward that bad outcome. And I think
[33:57] Speaker 5: that's what is probably the pressure going on right now
[34:00] Speaker 5: in where do we go? But that personal recovery mission,
[34:03] Speaker 5: I think is kind of a nicely packaged success that's
[34:08] Speaker 5: not exactly connected to that main effort that we're seeing
[34:11] Speaker 5: moving forward.
[34:12] Speaker 1: Launch it. There's a lot of you guys, someone has
[34:15] Speaker 1: something to say.
[34:16] Speaker 3: Yeah, so Andy or Jack, I'm somewhat you know, in
[34:19] Speaker 3: terms of our ground ops.
[34:20] Speaker 2: Next, what is this?
[34:21] Speaker 1: What is this name?
[34:23] Speaker 2: Yeah?
[34:24] Speaker 4: I mean h John?
[34:25] Speaker 2: Actually John, He John's John's like the darling of the BBC.
[34:34] Speaker 2: But because he's because he's tired sometimes of being the
[34:37] Speaker 2: poster boy the British public, he farms out in a little.
[34:41] Speaker 2: He's like, yeah, you know, I've got a friend who
[34:42] Speaker 2: can probably answer those questions better. And so I appeared
[34:46] Speaker 2: on the Telegraph podcast with Oliphant right Rowland Oliphant, which
[34:52] Speaker 2: is a real name, talking about potential ground operations, and uh,
[34:56] Speaker 2: I'll keep this very quick because you guys, you know,
[34:59] Speaker 2: I don't want over state the obvious. But we talk
[35:01] Speaker 2: through five different types of ground operations from targeted from
[35:06] Speaker 2: targeted raids in the Straits of hor Moose, going after
[35:09] Speaker 2: specific target sites with an immediate withdrawal, right all the
[35:14] Speaker 2: way through to the Uranium mission, which we can now discard,
[35:17] Speaker 2: by the way, because the presidents said Uranium's not important.
[35:20] Speaker 2: So that narrows it down to four potential ground operations.
[35:23] Speaker 2: And I'll list them just for the sake of if
[35:26] Speaker 2: I've missed anything, let me know. So number one, lowest
[35:28] Speaker 2: risk targeted raids. By the way, when I talk about raids,
[35:31] Speaker 2: and I talk about marines being involved, and this is
[35:33] Speaker 2: for argument among you guys, whether you're marines or not.
[35:36] Speaker 2: But we're not talking about AAVs and amphibious shipping in
[35:41] Speaker 2: the straits of hall Moose. That would be insane, beyond
[35:45] Speaker 2: you know, even even my battalion commanders, previous battalion commander's
[35:50] Speaker 2: perception of risk. You know, we're probably talking long range
[35:54] Speaker 2: insertion using the twenty two's with a massive aviation stack overhead,
[35:59] Speaker 2: so it's a it really is limited. You can it's
[36:03] Speaker 2: just like the mission that just took place. You can't
[36:06] Speaker 2: sustain that. And definitely right, so anyway, targeted rates going
[36:10] Speaker 2: after two things, you know, things that that we that
[36:15] Speaker 2: could not be destroyed from the air, radar storage facilities,
[36:21] Speaker 2: missile launchers. Your missile launchers, by the way, are notoriously
[36:25] Speaker 2: difficult to hit from the air. Right because BDA, I
[36:29] Speaker 2: think one of you said, and I couldn't agree more.
[36:32] Speaker 2: BDA is always bullshit unless you put boots on the
[36:35] Speaker 2: ground to verify BDA. So you've got a kind of
[36:37] Speaker 2: a you've got the destruction element and then you've got
[36:40] Speaker 2: the confirmation element and putting boots on the ground to
[36:43] Speaker 2: do that, and the rates can train to do that,
[36:46] Speaker 2: and it's feasible. I didn't say it's a good idea,
[36:48] Speaker 2: all right, it's still high risk and you don't really
[36:52] Speaker 2: get a strategic game because even if you knock out
[36:54] Speaker 2: all these threats on the straight in the straits of
[36:57] Speaker 2: all moves on those half a dozen eye you haven't
[37:01] Speaker 2: eliminated the threat because you've got you've got like a
[37:04] Speaker 2: thirty mile coastline just to the north and even if you,
[37:07] Speaker 2: by the way, even if you secure that coastline, Iranians
[37:10] Speaker 2: can lob things over the head of troops on the
[37:12] Speaker 2: ground from the Iranian hinterland as we know, and still
[37:16] Speaker 2: hit shipping. So it's a difficult problem. Set number two
[37:19] Speaker 2: is Carg Island. Why we would want to seize Carg Island,
[37:23] Speaker 2: I don't know, but let's just save for the sake
[37:24] Speaker 2: of argument. We're doing it to seize the export infrastructure
[37:27] Speaker 2: so that we have leverage and driving Iran to the
[37:31] Speaker 2: negotiations table. There's a couple of problems with that that
[37:34] Speaker 2: anyone can talk about. That Iran has other ports they
[37:36] Speaker 2: can export oil from, not at the great same degree.
[37:39] Speaker 2: But also if we if we close down a round's
[37:42] Speaker 2: ability to export oil, we remove their incentive for keeping
[37:47] Speaker 2: the straits open. That all so, and plus now you've
[37:50] Speaker 2: got to keep you're only doing that. You only have
[37:53] Speaker 2: that leverage as long as you have troops on the
[37:55] Speaker 2: ground and entry is easy, forceable entry is relatively easy.
[38:00] Speaker 2: Esteem and force protection are going to be a real challenge,
[38:04] Speaker 2: and it gets exponentially worse day by day that you
[38:06] Speaker 2: have troops hanging out on on Carg Island and uh
[38:12] Speaker 2: and so you know you've got a third type raid
[38:16] Speaker 2: where you're you're seizing the islands in the Gulf. Same
[38:19] Speaker 2: problems with that even worse now you don't have a
[38:21] Speaker 2: plan withdraw they're not really raids. Now you are a
[38:24] Speaker 2: sitting target a girl again well within range. So you
[38:27] Speaker 2: see where I'm heading on this. Where is the strategic
[38:30] Speaker 2: effect that you are having as you ramp up the
[38:33] Speaker 2: risk for your own forces? Very limited. The last one
[38:37] Speaker 2: would be a landing. The support bander of Jask right,
[38:42] Speaker 2: it's right at the mouth of the straight opposite Oman
[38:46] Speaker 2: would be a suitable landing site. Again, it would be
[38:49] Speaker 2: long range healer born insertion. I say that that's probably
[38:52] Speaker 2: a particular you know, that would be a good beachhead
[38:55] Speaker 2: to use. But but and then and then secure key
[38:59] Speaker 2: to rain up and down the coast. So you'd have
[39:01] Speaker 2: to push north and west. You'd have to push inland
[39:04] Speaker 2: a little bit to protect your your beachhead. You're not
[39:07] Speaker 2: talking about two mews now, you're talking about a division
[39:11] Speaker 2: sized element. So two mews might move in and seize terrain,
[39:15] Speaker 2: but then you're going to have to put in army guys, right,
[39:18] Speaker 2: that's you know, the I can bring myself to say
[39:22] Speaker 2: that word to and again, you're a fixed target and
[39:26] Speaker 2: now and now you've got Iranian ground forces maneuvering against
[39:30] Speaker 2: you on interior lines, and you've got all the problems
[39:33] Speaker 2: of sustainment. You're going to have to fly shit in
[39:35] Speaker 2: from Oman, and your risk ramps up and up. So
[39:39] Speaker 2: I'll pause there and just say it's really difficult for
[39:42] Speaker 2: me to see a strategic gain from any ground operations
[39:47] Speaker 2: that would be worth the risk.
[39:50] Speaker 5: And Andy if I could elaborate on that a little bit.
[39:52] Speaker 5: So we're talking about the inside of the Straits of
[39:54] Speaker 5: Hormus in the Persian Gulf with all those scenarios, But
[39:57] Speaker 5: that excludes the five hundred kilometers of line that's outside
[40:01] Speaker 5: the straight upfoor moves that also belongs to Iran, that
[40:03] Speaker 5: also has sports at it there, and there are IRGC
[40:06] Speaker 5: Navy port facilities on that outer portion, which, to put
[40:09] Speaker 5: it in context, is the entire length of the northern
[40:11] Speaker 5: Oman shoreline as well. Yeah, massive amount of territory and
[40:14] Speaker 5: train that you cannot just go and seize with a
[40:17] Speaker 5: single marine unit.
[40:19] Speaker 2: Yep, you would. You would need tens and tens of
[40:21] Speaker 2: thousands of troops. They would be a full scale invasion.
[40:25] Speaker 6: I think you know and your spot agree with all
[40:29] Speaker 6: the mind tactics and stuff works and why it's probably
[40:34] Speaker 6: not a good idea, But I mean, I just wanted
[40:37] Speaker 6: to chime in about you know, Okay, that's probably you
[40:40] Speaker 6: know your your point of view is probably the correct one,
[40:42] Speaker 6: but which one is going to be the prevailing point
[40:44] Speaker 6: of view on this topic?
[40:46] Speaker 4: And I think that you know, perhaps what last night.
[40:49] Speaker 6: Proved to some people was that actually we can do
[40:53] Speaker 6: ground operations in Iran after all. So I think we
[40:57] Speaker 6: may be going down a different route. And you know,
[41:00] Speaker 6: since the Maduro raid, maybe learning some of the wrong weatons,
[41:04] Speaker 6: as some of you guys pointed out, like your luck
[41:06] Speaker 6: is only going to hold out for so long before
[41:08] Speaker 6: something really bad happens, And maybe we're making a mistake
[41:12] Speaker 6: here and seeing Jaysak is this easy button that you
[41:14] Speaker 6: can mash to resolve some of these problems. And I
[41:19] Speaker 6: think we are moving down the road to special operations,
[41:22] Speaker 6: raids and maybe other more conventional stuff too.
[41:28] Speaker 2: But this is and we've talked about this on the
[41:30] Speaker 2: team house before too, but this is where you know,
[41:33] Speaker 2: we treat full star generals like viceroys. They are treated
[41:37] Speaker 2: like kings in the US military. They and that's why
[41:40] Speaker 2: so many of them cease to believe that they're even
[41:42] Speaker 2: human beings. But the downside of that, the downside of
[41:46] Speaker 2: that is this, this, this is the time to really
[41:48] Speaker 2: dig in your hills and say, hey, boss, that's the
[41:53] Speaker 2: risk isn't worth the game? Right? And there is such
[41:56] Speaker 2: a thing as an obligation to the Constitution, which can
[41:58] Speaker 2: be translated it's an all obligation to what you you
[42:01] Speaker 2: do know is right for well for it's just for
[42:06] Speaker 2: not just the rank and file. But what is or
[42:08] Speaker 2: is not an American interest. I'm on thin ice here
[42:11] Speaker 2: because people are going to say I'm challenging civilian control
[42:13] Speaker 2: the military. I'm not. I'm just saying best military advice
[42:17] Speaker 2: means more than hey, he didn't take my advice, So
[42:20] Speaker 2: we just went ahead and did it right.
[42:22] Speaker 6: Yeah, threw away a thousand lives because I didn't want
[42:24] Speaker 6: to say that's yeah, but I.
[42:26] Speaker 2: Said it wasn't a good idea.
[42:27] Speaker 3: But hey, man, I got in an argument last week
[42:31] Speaker 3: about this.
[42:33] Speaker 7: Let me talk about Andy's point first. What I agree
[42:37] Speaker 7: with it all? And I haven't seen that level of
[42:39] Speaker 7: description quite frankly, uh out there and it needs to
[42:43] Speaker 7: be we need to actually talk about this what this
[42:45] Speaker 7: was actually entailed, because people just say, oh, we got
[42:47] Speaker 7: marines and a mew and it's that's a very small element, right,
[42:51] Speaker 7: It's going to have to be much more than the
[42:53] Speaker 7: current capability we have in the region. So, and what
[42:58] Speaker 7: I'd say is, yes, if you tell marines and rangers
[43:01] Speaker 7: to take the objective, they will freaking take the objective
[43:04] Speaker 7: like they're a very similar species. And they don't. They don't,
[43:08] Speaker 7: they don't not accomplish the mission. But the question isn't
[43:11] Speaker 7: necessarily can we it should we? And if we if
[43:15] Speaker 7: we think we should, we have to think about the
[43:17] Speaker 7: consequences because there's a chance that we take carg Island
[43:20] Speaker 7: and we will take casualties. But the marines and rangers
[43:23] Speaker 7: or whoever's assigned to that and all these other objectives,
[43:27] Speaker 7: they'll take it. But what if it doesn't have the
[43:29] Speaker 7: strategic impact we would like to see? What if the
[43:31] Speaker 7: Iranians say, Okay, I guess you have carg Island, We're
[43:33] Speaker 7: just going to target you now until you withdraw. What
[43:36] Speaker 7: if we get on the actual mainline of our on
[43:40] Speaker 7: just like Andrew just described, and then it's all about
[43:43] Speaker 7: being able to stay there, and what if we leave
[43:47] Speaker 7: and then they close the straits down immediately. We have
[43:50] Speaker 7: to have a long term plan. We have to be
[43:51] Speaker 7: thinking that way. It isn't just you know, the military
[43:54] Speaker 7: can do it, so let's do it. That isn't necessarily
[43:58] Speaker 7: strategic thinking. That's it's essentially civilians trying to do tactical
[44:02] Speaker 7: and operational thinking. So we should have several steps ahead.
[44:06] Speaker 7: How is this going to advance our strategic objectives? And
[44:10] Speaker 7: start looking and I know that we are. I think
[44:12] Speaker 7: we are for a diplomatic resolution because this just keeps
[44:15] Speaker 7: getting escalated and escalated, and it's important to point out
[44:20] Speaker 7: and somebody actually Vietnam Vetch just pointed this out to
[44:22] Speaker 7: me this week. You know, the ground operations in Vietnam
[44:26] Speaker 7: started with sending in the Marines to take the airport
[44:29] Speaker 7: into Dang and they said it was going to be
[44:31] Speaker 7: a limited duration and a limited amount of forces, and
[44:34] Speaker 7: we all know what happened from there. I'm not saying
[44:36] Speaker 7: that's what's going to happen here, but we got to
[44:37] Speaker 7: think this can't just be incremental. You have to think
[44:40] Speaker 7: beyond the next uh, you know, the next UH phase
[44:45] Speaker 7: of the campaign. Why are we doing this? And how
[44:47] Speaker 7: would we get out of it if it doesn't work?
[44:50] Speaker 7: And you know, you know, ego sometimes make us stay
[44:53] Speaker 7: places much longer than we should where it's when it's
[44:56] Speaker 7: already gone past any kind of advantage that we were
[44:59] Speaker 7: to Here, here's.
[45:00] Speaker 3: A question for you guys, because now I think we're
[45:02] Speaker 3: getting to the discussion. I just joked before, Mick, we
[45:04] Speaker 3: had a bit of a tussle last week about about
[45:07] Speaker 3: this issue, just in terms of how much senior US
[45:10] Speaker 3: military leadership should be kind of telling truth to power
[45:12] Speaker 3: and and then what if what if the policymaker doesn't listen?
[45:16] Speaker 3: But just taking that even a different stuff. I think
[45:20] Speaker 3: last week or several days ago, the Army chief of
[45:22] Speaker 3: Staff was removed. Uh do you all, with your experience
[45:26] Speaker 3: and your contacts, have faith uh in well, let's let's
[45:32] Speaker 3: the civilian leadership at D O D, but also that
[45:35] Speaker 3: there are the right people in place on even on
[45:37] Speaker 3: the on the uniform side. I mean, it's it's so
[45:39] Speaker 3: so when the Army chief of Staff, who even Fox
[45:41] Speaker 3: News came out, you know, the General King, Uh, General
[45:44] Speaker 3: King came out and was not happy about this. Uh,
[45:47] Speaker 3: you know, what is the climate there in terms of
[45:50] Speaker 3: dissent is the wrong word. It's just you know, telling
[45:52] Speaker 3: truth to power. Hey, we should not do this. You know,
[45:55] Speaker 3: what are your thoughts on that? Because I mean everybody
[45:58] Speaker 3: I talked to and this is a great expert panel
[46:01] Speaker 3: here is of the same mindset, like, what are we
[46:03] Speaker 3: doing in terms of introducing ground forces? This is crazy?
[46:07] Speaker 3: Where's the uniformed senior leadership on this? And what about
[46:10] Speaker 3: the civilian leadership of the Pentagon.
[46:11] Speaker 7: I'll be quick because I got to jump back on
[46:13] Speaker 7: which is why I'm wearing I think we've seen twenty
[46:17] Speaker 7: four I mean, Jack might correct me if I'm wrong.
[46:20] Speaker 7: Twenty four senior like flag officers be you know, retired early.
[46:25] Speaker 7: To me, that indicates that what you're saying they should
[46:28] Speaker 7: be doing, they're doing they are saying, and they're getting fired.
[46:32] Speaker 7: So what my concern is we're going to get down
[46:36] Speaker 7: to people who a can't even retire yet, but also
[46:40] Speaker 7: are the people who aren't going to push back. But
[46:42] Speaker 7: I do think the fact that we've seen that level,
[46:44] Speaker 7: which has got to be unprecedented in such a short
[46:49] Speaker 7: period of time, that they are doing what you say
[46:51] Speaker 7: they should be doing, that they are saying this is
[46:53] Speaker 7: a bad idea. I disagree when you relieve the chief
[46:56] Speaker 7: of staff of the army, So a four star general
[46:59] Speaker 7: who went from a private to a general in the
[47:03] Speaker 7: middle of a war, that indicates that he was doing
[47:07] Speaker 7: what you you're you're saying that he should be doing.
[47:10] Speaker 7: I don't have any direct knowledge of that, but and
[47:12] Speaker 7: he's just one of me. Right, We've seen, uh, we've
[47:15] Speaker 7: seen a lot of.
[47:17] Speaker 3: Good things that's in the future that in terms of
[47:19] Speaker 3: decision making. I mean, so in some ways I hear
[47:22] Speaker 3: what you're saying, but you know that means we might
[47:24] Speaker 3: be decisions.
[47:26] Speaker 7: They're not accepting descent. Yeah, that's a problem.
[47:29] Speaker 5: I think the Selbi Wood was also booted right before
[47:32] Speaker 5: the Maduro rate as well, because he opposed the lead
[47:35] Speaker 5: up to that.
[47:35] Speaker 1: Andy, what are your thoughts, I mean, you're the most
[47:37] Speaker 1: senior former, you know, big wig full Bird. What are
[47:42] Speaker 1: your thoughts?
[47:44] Speaker 2: Well, I think you know, I mean, you know my thoughts, right,
[47:47] Speaker 2: And I mean we talked about this on the team house,
[47:50] Speaker 2: and of course it's an obligation. Everyone knows that there
[47:55] Speaker 2: is an obligation to give best military advice. What people
[47:58] Speaker 2: differ on is what happens when that advice is turned
[48:02] Speaker 2: down right, And it's very interesting, you know. I mean,
[48:06] Speaker 2: I can I can opine about it, but it's very
[48:11] Speaker 2: interesting to hear four style generals talk about this and
[48:14] Speaker 2: it and there is no agreement. You know. I've talked
[48:16] Speaker 2: to General Vogue tell about it. I've talked to admirals
[48:20] Speaker 2: the riders about it, and they both they have a
[48:22] Speaker 2: different view. So it's so my point is, it's kind
[48:25] Speaker 2: of interesting that we don't nurture our officers as they
[48:28] Speaker 2: go up the chain. We teach them a lot of things.
[48:31] Speaker 2: We teach them all this joint operations shit, but they
[48:34] Speaker 2: do we don't teach them what are the proper actions
[48:37] Speaker 2: at that nexus between at the strategic leadership nexus between
[48:42] Speaker 2: the civilian leadership and the military, And so they're ill
[48:45] Speaker 2: prepared for it and they're trying to make their own decisions.
[48:48] Speaker 2: There's only been until this point, there's only been one
[48:51] Speaker 2: general who has resigned on a question of principle because
[48:56] Speaker 2: his advice wasn't taken, and that was a marine freestyle
[49:00] Speaker 2: by the name of Greg Nubolt in two thousand and
[49:03] Speaker 2: three over going to the war in Iraq, and it
[49:06] Speaker 2: didn't make big news. He was he was the what's
[49:13] Speaker 2: the basically the joint the joint staff operations officer for
[49:17] Speaker 2: Rumsfeldt and kept saying, hey, this is a bad idea,
[49:21] Speaker 2: bad idea, and then in the end resigned and wrote
[49:25] Speaker 2: an article about it for Time magazine and was was vilified.
[49:30] Speaker 2: I mean, remember the rock War, and it kicked off,
[49:34] Speaker 2: everyone owned it and then subsequently everyone disowned it. But
[49:37] Speaker 2: at the time he was vilified for what he did.
[49:40] Speaker 2: But I you know, I happen to be a fan
[49:43] Speaker 2: of he was my new commander and it was the
[49:45] Speaker 2: only principal decision of resignation that I have seen among
[49:49] Speaker 2: a senior officer. And that's disturbing. That's all I'll say
[49:52] Speaker 2: is that we, you know, the officers at that rank
[49:56] Speaker 2: should understand the procedure. What does happen? What does happen
[50:00] Speaker 2: if I think this is going to result in a
[50:03] Speaker 2: catastrophic or or just massive loss of life for no gain.
[50:09] Speaker 2: I mean, and this, and the last thing I'll say is,
[50:12] Speaker 2: you know, I've been shot in the face for talking
[50:14] Speaker 2: about this before. But the reason, the reason why our
[50:17] Speaker 2: sene rosters don't understand about this is they they're not
[50:22] Speaker 2: they're not taught to, They're not taught to discuss it
[50:24] Speaker 2: because everyone's afraid of being seen to challenge civilian leadership,
[50:28] Speaker 2: which it's not. And it is the cause, absolutely the
[50:32] Speaker 2: cause of disasters like Afghanistan because Congress, as we've seen,
[50:38] Speaker 2: you know, the war powers actors is shape. No one
[50:42] Speaker 2: wants to debate the war. And so what's the next
[50:45] Speaker 2: line of defense? Well, the next line of defense or
[50:47] Speaker 2: the senior military officers right, and again, I don't think
[50:52] Speaker 2: that their duty is simply to give their best military
[50:56] Speaker 2: advice and then meekishly accept whatever comes and off them off.
[51:00] Speaker 2: And I'm not talking about this administration. I'm talking about
[51:04] Speaker 2: generally speaking as a as a, as a profession of arms.
[51:09] Speaker 2: It's a massive gap in our in our collective education.
[51:13] Speaker 3: Didn't you always have your resignation letter in your top drawer?
[51:17] Speaker 2: Yeah, like Eisenhower right before D Day, supposedly so he said.
[51:21] Speaker 2: I think he wrote it off to D Day when
[51:23] Speaker 2: it was this success. But there you go.
[51:25] Speaker 6: I think I think it was Chris Miller who told
[51:28] Speaker 6: me there's like some sort of standing rule about you
[51:31] Speaker 6: don't have more personal mementos in your office than you
[51:35] Speaker 6: can carry in like one box, because if you get canned.
[51:41] Speaker 3: I think like that. Hey, Jack, I got a quick
[51:44] Speaker 3: question for you before before we go, and has to
[51:46] Speaker 3: do with you know, this this threat from Trump in
[51:49] Speaker 3: terms of infrastructure attacks, and there's you know, and you know,
[51:54] Speaker 3: I'm certainly not a lawyer, but there is some question
[51:56] Speaker 3: on you know, there was two things. One is to
[51:59] Speaker 3: the degree of these are valid military targets or potentially
[52:02] Speaker 3: war crimes. And I'm not arguing for that, but that's
[52:04] Speaker 3: out there. There's a lot of questioning, say, well, wait
[52:06] Speaker 3: a second, if we start hitting civilian targets, is that
[52:10] Speaker 3: is that the right thing to do legally? And then
[52:12] Speaker 3: the other part is what you know, is that actually,
[52:14] Speaker 3: as we're trying to win the hearts and minds of
[52:16] Speaker 3: the Iranians, at some point, doesn't this shift to punishing
[52:18] Speaker 3: the Iranian people? Is that a good idea there? But
[52:21] Speaker 3: it does look like we're, you know, only several days
[52:23] Speaker 3: or hours even away from doing this, if we haven't
[52:25] Speaker 3: started to be doing it already. And so I just
[52:27] Speaker 3: wanted to know kind of from your perspective on what
[52:31] Speaker 3: seems to be the next phase.
[52:33] Speaker 6: I mean, I think it's a terrible idea. We're talking
[52:35] Speaker 6: about power plants, desalination, plants things like this. There is
[52:41] Speaker 6: like legally an argument to be made if they're like
[52:44] Speaker 6: dual use facilities. It's like maybe you're producing physile material
[52:49] Speaker 6: for a nuclear reactor, but you can also use that
[52:52] Speaker 6: to produce nuclear weapons not Now you get into a
[52:54] Speaker 6: kind of a debate about like how much of this
[52:56] Speaker 6: is civilian and how much of it is military.
[53:01] Speaker 4: It's the same thing.
[53:02] Speaker 6: Like the conversation has come up recently about data centers
[53:05] Speaker 6: and are these data centers that are being hit lawful targets.
[53:08] Speaker 6: Some data centers are dual use, and our jags have
[53:13] Speaker 6: looked at this issue in the past, including data centers
[53:16] Speaker 6: in America where DoD contracts space out inside them for
[53:20] Speaker 6: its own stuff. They determined that those data centers would
[53:24] Speaker 6: be lawful targets in a war. So if the Iranians
[53:26] Speaker 6: were to blow up a data center in the United
[53:29] Speaker 6: States that the DoD shares space with, that would be
[53:34] Speaker 6: probably a lawful target. Again, I'm not a lawyer, but
[53:36] Speaker 6: as I understand it, it would be considered legal. So
[53:40] Speaker 6: those are some of the questions you get into. But
[53:42] Speaker 6: then when you're talking about like a desalination plant that's
[53:44] Speaker 6: there to produce you know, potable water for people, electrical
[53:49] Speaker 6: power plant. I mean this is like, yeah, you're depriving
[53:52] Speaker 6: the Iranian civilian population of the things they need to survive,
[53:56] Speaker 6: and it's absolutely going to drive them.
[53:59] Speaker 4: Towards the regime and away from Austin.
[54:01] Speaker 3: Well we're there, We're almost there. Yeah, I think I
[54:04] Speaker 3: think they're running.
[54:05] Speaker 6: Out of military targets is part of it. You know,
[54:08] Speaker 6: So this is sort of the frustration that's being vented.
[54:11] Speaker 6: You know, it's, in my opinion, an emotional decision being made.
[54:14] Speaker 1: Also, I want to just mention, like if we did
[54:16] Speaker 1: go after the Isfahan facility for the uranium, you know,
[54:20] Speaker 1: and we we set up shop for you know, a
[54:23] Speaker 1: couple of week, two to three weeks, right while we're
[54:25] Speaker 1: digging this up, and we have a ranger or eighty
[54:29] Speaker 1: second airborne security position setting a perimeter while our guys
[54:33] Speaker 1: are going in there digging, and we have stacked up
[54:36] Speaker 1: on stacked up on stack of air power bombing the
[54:38] Speaker 1: shit out of whoever it comes close to them. You're
[54:40] Speaker 1: talking three weeks of like sustained operations. Where like yesterday,
[54:45] Speaker 1: the the you know, Twitter and the Internet was a
[54:47] Speaker 1: blaze with like videos and things like that, and like
[54:50] Speaker 1: while this is like just I try to picture what
[54:53] Speaker 1: it would look like if we actually went through We're
[54:56] Speaker 1: trying to snatch the uranium, and like, just in the
[54:59] Speaker 1: world where are we live in now, things are going
[55:01] Speaker 1: to get out and we're going to be able to
[55:02] Speaker 1: see this NHD right like GEO located. I just wonder
[55:08] Speaker 1: what that would do with Like just I don't know
[55:11] Speaker 1: people's thoughts on this war, and even our own, the
[55:14] Speaker 1: guys who fight the war. I don't know. It just
[55:17] Speaker 1: sounds insane to me to think about.
[55:18] Speaker 4: Yeah, it is.
[55:19] Speaker 6: I'm not going to say too much about it, but
[55:22] Speaker 6: I think at this stage, at this stage in the game,
[55:26] Speaker 6: at some point, we're going to have to go in
[55:28] Speaker 6: and get that enriched uranium in some manner. Now, that
[55:32] Speaker 6: could happen that there's a ceasefire and we go in
[55:34] Speaker 6: under those pretexts, or maybe we go in unarmed under
[55:37] Speaker 6: those pretexts after a ceasefire and get it out of there,
[55:41] Speaker 6: you know, peacefully, or we go in there in a
[55:43] Speaker 6: denied environment and we do it by force but leaving.
[55:48] Speaker 6: You know, it's reported something like four hundred kilograms of
[55:52] Speaker 6: enriched uranium.
[55:54] Speaker 4: Under the desert.
[55:55] Speaker 6: You can't just leave it there, because sooner or later
[55:58] Speaker 6: some asshole is going to go and dig it up.
[55:59] Speaker 4: And you don't need four hundred kilograms. You just need
[56:01] Speaker 4: a couple of milligrams of it to.
[56:03] Speaker 6: Cause a really big problem, to create a dirty bomb
[56:06] Speaker 6: or something like that and detonate that and you know,
[56:09] Speaker 6: in the Middle East or Europe or whatever. So we
[56:13] Speaker 6: can't just leave that fissile material out there in the desert,
[56:16] Speaker 6: like at some point, in some manner, we're going to
[56:19] Speaker 6: have to get it.
[56:20] Speaker 3: And Jack, don't forget that was the war objective. That's
[56:23] Speaker 3: the that is the key objective of this entire campaign
[56:27] Speaker 3: is that you cannot I don't care. Like I tried
[56:31] Speaker 3: to make a stupid analogy the other day, like, all right,
[56:34] Speaker 3: so we've sunk the entire Iranian Navy and beaten the
[56:38] Speaker 3: crap out of their you know, their their land forces. Well,
[56:40] Speaker 3: that's like you know, the the Los Angeles Dodgers beating
[56:43] Speaker 3: the Vienna Little League baseball team. Like that's not I mean,
[56:46] Speaker 3: that's of course we should be doing that. But the
[56:48] Speaker 3: key objective is the hu is is this is the
[56:51] Speaker 3: running nuclear program. If that that if that is not
[56:53] Speaker 3: action properly, whether it's militarily diplomatically, both we have failed
[56:58] Speaker 3: and so to me, that would you know, that's why
[57:01] Speaker 3: I actually agree with you. And again it goes to
[57:03] Speaker 3: the whole signal versus noise thing, like you know, there's
[57:05] Speaker 3: a lot of noise out there, but the signal is
[57:07] Speaker 3: that this is going to have to be taken the
[57:09] Speaker 3: care of in some fashion. D quick question for you
[57:12] Speaker 3: here here's I don't know how we do this. You
[57:15] Speaker 3: have tremendous there's tremendous listeners here in this whether it's
[57:19] Speaker 3: an eyes on or the teamhouse, but it's this, it's
[57:22] Speaker 3: and it's a really unique network of you know, national
[57:25] Speaker 3: security uh folks, formers, current special operations, INTEL. I wonder
[57:31] Speaker 3: what a poll would be if you took a poll
[57:33] Speaker 3: of all the listeners of both shows, of all your shows,
[57:36] Speaker 3: do they support this war or not? And I say
[57:38] Speaker 3: that only because I keep running into people in this world,
[57:41] Speaker 3: in this ecosystem who are really against it, and I'm
[57:45] Speaker 3: and and that's not always the case, but I think
[57:47] Speaker 3: it was based on the fact Trump ran on not
[57:49] Speaker 3: doing this, but also everyone still has a lot of
[57:51] Speaker 3: trauma from Iraq and Afghanistan. But it would be really
[57:54] Speaker 3: interesting to know is your listeners, which are in a
[57:56] Speaker 3: which have a massive you know, there's a massive number
[57:59] Speaker 3: of them. What would be the percentages who are in
[58:01] Speaker 3: favor of this or not so? D this is your
[58:03] Speaker 3: task to find out how we do this would be.
[58:04] Speaker 1: Really get freaking homework, dude. It's unbelievable. Yeah, it would
[58:08] Speaker 1: be extremely interesting.
[58:09] Speaker 7: Yeah.
[58:10] Speaker 1: I mean, if I had a bet, I would say
[58:12] Speaker 1: most people are against it.
[58:14] Speaker 6: I think I think, yeah, probably one third in support
[58:18] Speaker 6: and two thirds against.
[58:19] Speaker 4: That would be my space. Yeah.
[58:21] Speaker 1: I think it reflects the country frankly, like I really do,
[58:25] Speaker 1: because I mean you've talked about it last week, Mark,
[58:28] Speaker 1: Like you know, the vet Bro Industrial comprac Plex. You
[58:30] Speaker 1: see them more and more like they're not down with
[58:33] Speaker 1: what's going on.
[58:34] Speaker 6: I with that an event recently, you know, a special
[58:37] Speaker 6: Forces event. Uh, and met up with a guy who
[58:41] Speaker 6: I know is a big time Trump supporter. Very nice guy,
[58:44] Speaker 6: but it was interesting that he had apparently, you know,
[58:47] Speaker 6: fallen out of love with Trump over this Iran war.
[58:49] Speaker 4: He was not pleased at all. So I mean that's
[58:54] Speaker 4: just a little a little anecdote.
[58:56] Speaker 3: I was with, you know, I was with the family
[58:57] Speaker 3: member last night, big big Trump guy, big guy. Uh,
[59:02] Speaker 3: I'm not happy about this. I mean, I was really surprised.
[59:04] Speaker 3: It's not there's no rally around the flag piece of it.
[59:07] Speaker 3: So you know, we'll see. But i'd be cool if
[59:09] Speaker 3: we could find out, I mean out of I want.
[59:12] Speaker 1: To try and figure out how to do it. Maybe
[59:13] Speaker 1: on our YouTube page or something like that, we could
[59:15] Speaker 1: set up a poll. Yeah, anything else, Jack, what else
[59:21] Speaker 1: do you track and before we take off?
[59:24] Speaker 3: Yeah?
[59:24] Speaker 4: I can't really get too much into it.
[59:27] Speaker 6: Working on a couple of pieces for the high Side
[59:29] Speaker 6: that hopefully will be out in the near future.
[59:32] Speaker 7: Cool.
[59:33] Speaker 1: I want everyone to go check out the high Side.
[59:35] Speaker 1: That link is in the description. That's Jack's news outlet
[59:38] Speaker 1: with Sean Naylor, who Army Times reporter wrote the actual
[59:42] Speaker 1: book on jay Sock. Jaysock was freaking out when it
[59:46] Speaker 1: was released. I've heard and now it's like required reading.
[59:49] Speaker 1: Really gives you like a real look at what Jaysck's about,
[59:54] Speaker 1: how it's structured and stuff like that. That's an incredible book.
[59:57] Speaker 1: So that's the high Side. The link is in the description,
[1:00:00] Speaker 1: so grab it there, Mark p. Of course, all the
[1:00:03] Speaker 1: links are down there as well. All the boys that
[1:00:06] Speaker 1: are on they had to all jump off because they
[1:00:07] Speaker 1: had other media obligations and they big time us. It's fine,
[1:00:10] Speaker 1: we'll never forget. We'll never forget, but it's fine. Check
[1:00:15] Speaker 1: their check their links out in the description down below.
[1:00:19] Speaker 1: It just had the white Fish Security Summit and Whitefish Montana.
[1:00:23] Speaker 1: So next year I think the eyes On and Teamhouse
[1:00:25] Speaker 1: boys are going to be there, so it's gonna be excited.
[1:00:28] Speaker 4: Folks up there.
[1:00:29] Speaker 6: Daryl Blocker, is Berry, a bunch of Team House guests
[1:00:33] Speaker 6: were up there for that.
[1:00:35] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[1:00:35] Speaker 1: Yeah, it's from all things that I've heard, it sounded
[1:00:38] Speaker 1: like a great event. So if you guys are around
[1:00:41] Speaker 1: the area, take a look. That link is in everything
[1:00:44] Speaker 1: you need to know. Guys, if you want to find
[1:00:46] Speaker 1: these guys, the links are down in the description. And
[1:00:48] Speaker 1: the best place you can go to support the show
[1:00:50] Speaker 1: is Patreon, dot com slash the Teamhouse. You get both
[1:00:53] Speaker 1: Team House episodes and I On episodes ad free and early.
[1:00:57] Speaker 1: You can actually watch the Teamhouse episodes live as we
[1:00:59] Speaker 1: shoot them, and you support the show. So as always, guys,
[1:01:04] Speaker 1: most likely I wouldn't be shocked if, like I had
[1:01:07] Speaker 1: some of the guys at some point this week doing something,
[1:01:10] Speaker 1: because I'm sure something something chaotic is going to happen
[1:01:14] Speaker 1: at some point that we should talk about. So thanks again.
[1:01:18] Speaker 7: Guys.
[1:01:18] Speaker 6: This book by the way, after you're oh, man, that's
[1:01:21] Speaker 6: a that's an amazing book.
[1:01:24] Speaker 4: Yeah, we had him on the show, Chris Co.
[1:01:26] Speaker 3: Yeah, that's what you guys, crazy good you ever had
[1:01:29] Speaker 3: So I was like, you're mad man. I want to
[1:01:31] Speaker 3: read the book first and then then I'll listen to
[1:01:33] Speaker 3: the show.
[1:01:33] Speaker 5: Yeah.
[1:01:33] Speaker 4: Yeah, let me know what you think.
[1:01:37] Speaker 1: Right, Thanks guys, All right, guys, all.
[1:01:39] Speaker 4: Right, take care.
[1:01:43] Speaker 6: Hey guys, I want to take a moment to tell
[1:01:45] Speaker 6: you about the Team House Podcast Newsletter. If you go
[1:01:48] Speaker 6: and subscribe, it's totally free, and what it will do
[1:01:52] Speaker 6: is aggregate all of our data, all of our content
[1:01:55] Speaker 6: that we put out, the things that are on the
[1:01:58] Speaker 6: Team House, on our Geo politics podcast, Eyes On, things
[1:02:03] Speaker 6: that I write journalistically with Sean Naylor on the high Side,
[1:02:07] Speaker 6: anything else that we have going on, books, we recommend
[1:02:11] Speaker 6: upcoming guests that we have coming on the show, and
[1:02:14] Speaker 6: also you know, filtering in some fun stuff in there
[1:02:17] Speaker 6: as well. If you go and check it out, we
[1:02:20] Speaker 6: send it out just once a week. We don't want
[1:02:21] Speaker 6: to spam you guys. It's just a kind of roll
[1:02:24] Speaker 6: up of all of our content.
[1:02:26] Speaker 4: On a weekly basis.
[1:02:27] Speaker 6: You can find our newsletter at teamhouse podcast dot kit
[1:02:31] Speaker 6: dot com slash join again. The website for that is
[1:02:35] Speaker 6: teamhouse podcast, dot kit dot com slash join So we
[1:02:40] Speaker 6: hope to see you there.
[1:02:41] Speaker 4: The link will be down the description

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