The DC Shooter Worked for CIA | EYES ON GEOPOLITICS

the CIA. With the CIA, Mick, you obviously have you know, pretty intimate knowledge about what you know, what the units were doing there and stuff like that. I saw a lot going on in terms of not I guess politically where like you know, the administration pulled away like Eddie and all immigration and versus for like any pending visas for folks coming from Afghanistan to the United States. So there's it's become kind of this like back and forth.

You see it in the veteran community and people who have worked with you know, indigenous folks that helped us, you know tremendously. You probably wouldn't have been able to do any of the things we did there without them. They're kind of being demonized and stuff. And obviously what this guy did was abhorrent and fucking horrible and he should rot in jail. But I don't think that, you know,

labels the entire community, right, So, Nick, what are you thinking about like that? I know you have You're pretty tight with you know, you know these a lot of these people and stuff like.

people on a pier in North Carolina. Another marine. So obviously marble on all fronts, but we don't condemn the army in the Marine Corps, and it's entirety for the actions of those individuals. So that's where i'd start, And yes, I'm very familiar. There's a certain restrictions on what I can say the person. To my knowledge, and this isn't from my bitten knowledge from being in the service, in the in the agencies, just from the press releases he was.

He was an assaulter with one of the one of the main units that we had over there, and he according to the media, ten years he was in service. And I can tell you that that unit saw some of the hardest fighting in Afghanistan. It was almost NonStop, right, So even if you look at folks that went over there and came back when over then came back on our side, these guys never left. So it was it

was operations every night. I would like to point out, although it's not really relevant to this, is this idea that they were like a walking human rights violation is patently untrue. And if it was the case, then there's a whole generation of CIA officers and military officers that condoned it, and essentially we're okay with it because we were completely embedded in charge. So I just find that to be It's one of those things each as you

can't defend itself because we can't really talk. But it's just untrue, whether it's you know, a foreign journalist writing it or a US And if it is the case, then they should have a they should have had a DJ investigation, and the oversight committee should be going crazy. But you know why they're not because it's not true.

that would avoid the obligation, right. I think inherent any obligation to bring you in and make you a potential citizen is that you're not a threat to our fellow citizens. So I do think what should happen here is they should follow the facts. This could it's probably a PTSD thing. I don't know that, but if I'm looking at what happened a revolver driving across the country, the ambush style thing. But again, the fact should lead, or the facts lead,

not speculation by me or anybody else. I don't think there's a problem with, uh, you know, reviewing our vetting process. But I think we should accept that any vetting process is mitigation of a threat. It's never going to be elimination of a threat. And that includes us like going into the military or the CIA, or you know, vetting to be a doctor or a lawyer or whatever it's it is. I think we have a very effective system. There's nothing wrong with reviewing it to determine whether we

actually do That's one side of this. I also would strongly urge not condemning an entire population of people based on the actions of one. Obviously that's a American, but some of the you know, the flip side not of that, but the flip side of relooking at who we're letting in is a lot of these countries don't have records. They don't actually have what we need to do vetting.

Not not this SIV because we kept those records, but a lot of people coming in from some countries like there isn't anything there there, they can't really inspect it. It's might understand. If if that's not true, then then I don't know why we would have a band on them. If it is true, then we're going to need to review that. But that because this expanded from this individual in this program to like everybody coming from you know, is it thirty countries, I would just caution that that

should be reviewed. But ultimately, if we can do solid vetting, I don't think they should be restricted, but we should really look at our processes. I think that's very fair. But hopefully and I saw several people who have been champions start coming out of these groups, and I, you know, on behalf of them. I appreciate that, because it's not easy to be talking about this right now. From that perspective.

It's way easier just to be the one saying them all out and all that, and that's just not I think fair, just like it wouldn't be fair.

It was likely involved. You know, you mentioned to the scale of combat that these units were in, and you know, I wish you could talk a little bit more about about the you know, in general terms about these units, because yes, indeed they were and a degree of combat and for a period far longer than most American troops could even imagine you know, Americans rotated in and out, but the Afghans and the Iraqis, for that matter, they

lived these wars. There was no escape from them. Again, you know, every time we start talking about this, we feel compelled to say, but what they did was horrible.

But you know, PTSD is an awful thing too, you know, And that sounds like such a vapid, facile thing to say, But it it changes people traumatically, all right, I mean, doesn't it? You know, I mean it it makes good people do bad things.

feel this desire for vengeance. We want to strike back, We want to now say, okay, ban every Afgham from ever coming in. But that's not the solution, you know, because the problems that course, what the things that have happened, are infinitely more complex. It's the same thing with the Marines you mentioned making the discussions that we had leading

up to to the you know this podcast. The two Marines who did horrific things and murdered innocent people, right and you look back though at their create, they weren't always like that. So what changed them? You know? Again? And okay, so what you know, what's the solution. What

the solution obviously isn't to let these people off. And there's a solution perhaps is to look, I mean, there's multiple things, but it's a social issue, deeply buried social issue, and the answer is not simply to cut off immigration. And last thing I was saying this, Mick, I'm sure you agree. I like saying that anyway because it gives me some sense of authority. But you know, this country's made it hard enough for Afghan veterans, the friends of

the United States to come in. The last thing that we need to do is make it even more difficult. That's that's my opinion. You know, we've deserted our allies in many ways. We've we've raised barriers, we've left them, you know, not just Afghans, you name it. I mean before them to some extent, the Rockies, uh, and and of course you know the Vietnamese. I mean, we haven't been good about about enabling people who have helped us in these wars to come to the United States. We

don't need to raise even more barriers. That's just my thought, good point.

get here? Because a bunch of CI paramilitary and UH military Special operations vets brought them from Laos when we decided we didn't want to do that anymore. And all those people were going to get slaughtered a lot, brought them, brought them over and Vietnam. Right, So there's now there's a memorial UH in Arlington. Not a lot of people

know it, but you can. You can google it and find it to our indigenous partners from Lewes and Vietnam and their service to the United States turned that conflict. That's not any different with the Afghans who put it all on the line, and quite frankly they've been annihilated by the Taliban for working with us. So I'm all about making sure that they are sound and not a threat. I think if they're going to review things now, they

should also review who is helping them, right. So lots sometimes you get into a status where you can be here but you can't work. Think of the problem with that, right So, if there's something keeping somebody from going get gainfully employment and then we're complaining about them not being employed, you can see the problem there, right. So, And I understand there's a lot of bureaucracy and there's only so

much folks can do. But I think if we're going to do a review, if we see here, we ought to also do a review to how to help people essentially help themselves. So if they're in some status that doesn't allow them to work, let's change that. Let's change that and let them work and basically make a living and not be you know, a burden to others, either taxpayers or other folks. It's a big part. It's a big issue of self worth. I think we all know that.

So let's let's review it for everything, both suitability to be here and what are we doing to make them successful, because that's I think in all of our interests in society at large. But again, absolutely horrible event, and I certainly understand and sharing the.

point out that that's not the case. And I can tell you there's there's people in the US military Special Operations, you know, SOCOLM all the way to the top and the HC all the way to the top that have worked on these programs and spent a lot of time

years like myself, with these programs. They I think, to put it bluntly, we would have lost thousands of more soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines if it wasn't for these units, not just what they're referring to is the zero units, but also the commandos and the other units that worked directly with the US military exclusively. If it wasn't for them, we would have lost Meek and google how many casualties they had.

Those would have been Americans, right And by the time we left in that really disaster withdrawal, very few Americans were on the front lines. We were losing, y had very few casualties, which is why I was so opposed to just the way we left, rather than leaving a residual force. We largely got to that position because of

these other units stepped up to the fight and they did so without hesitation, and I think that has to be remembered. Another interesting point for these particular units is there was never a friendly fraticide ever, and that was, you know, a unfortunate occurrence in other units but we

never had one, we never won attempted one. In fact, when I was at the Pentagon, I would be asked as they did a review of the whole Green on Blue fratriccide in Afghanistan, and I was pulled in, not as you know, the policy guy, but the guy who spent a lot of time with these units. And the question was why. I think it is because we were completely embedded with them. We had folks that went back continuously to the same area. And you know, I'm not

saying that wasn't done. It just wasn't really done but by the military. And I don't really know the answer, but that it's important point and it's actually been studied. So the idea that this person would come here and then do this is just it's it's an anathema to me, and it's just horrible obviously for the individuals, but also for the community and everything that's been done by so many people to try to help these folks get into

the United States. I just hope we review that and do the right thing going forward, and that's both the security of our citizens and also carrying out our obligations to those that should be here.

through Afghan forces. You know, obviously in the end the war was not successful, but by and large those efforts were more successful I'm generalizing here than than our conventional type operations. And that's kind of that's kind of a trend, right wouldn't you agreement? See how I do that? But you know, the the lighter touch that we have with

more specialist troops, the better we do. Know, you think about El Salvador, you think about Columbia, you think about the Afghanistan after twenty fourteen, as you put it, that we were continuing the war. You know, we we were holding ground, We were doing relatively well with very with relatively low casualties because of our use of indigenous troops and special operations troops. It's a really it's kind of

an interesting comment. And yet when we go in large scale conventional forces, we kind of make ourselves a target, and operating that sort of environment insurgency does require, it requires specialist troops. People are going to disagree with me

for that, but it does. You know, I think about our time and I was with a conventional infantry unit. I was commander of a conventional infantry battalion before I went over to special operations, and yeah, we did you know, of course we I'd like to say we did a great job, and but we paid heavily for it. And the average battalion going through Ambar back then was losing.

You know, this is no exaggeration, between twenty five and forty five sometimes higher than that dead and several hundred wounded, and our gains were very temporary. But then going back as a commander of a Siegure SODIF where we took very few casualties, we you know, we were able to

have a tremendous effect on the Islamic state. Yes, different environment, but my point is simply this that that that is I think an important thing to learn about going ahead, that that the light touch you know, is maybe we consider going into Venezuela now that it's that that the big invasions just don't work so well for us, right, But the influence, the putting in of highly trained teams to work with indigenous forces, that's worked pretty well over the years, even.

It's counterproductive as it tends to build more insurgents. It's kind of inductive because it's very i mean politically sensitive, which matters in the democracy when you see you know, young men and women be coming back and wars that don't have an end date. So it's it's absolutely that we have the ability to do partner force operations in these long term low intensity conflict although they don't look so low intensity to the people that are in them,

but you know what I mean, it's imperative. So and this is now you can see how this is coming back around on each other in order to have the ability to do this, you have to have trust. You don't have if you don't maintain your obligations. If it's simply everything's temporary and no commitment is valid, it's going to make it very difficult for the US to do

significant partner force operations in the future. And not that I'm running to get into the next one at all, but if it happens, we have to have the ability to do that. And it really is a combination of the advisors for lack of a better description, and the force itself. It's a combination of the two. You can't choose to have like some remote proxy force like Iran

doesn't expect it to be that effective. It has to be the combination which fuses experience, operational place planning, intelligence, support, all these things in with a unit that's willing and able to have this joint mission and of course about by human rights, just like it was a US unit. But that's going to be necessary going forward. You never know what's going to happen, and we tend to find ourselves in more regular wars than we do conventional wars,

but we have to be ready for both. And I think I think this kind of ties the two together. And I know, I think we're talking about Venezuela next, hopefully we're talking about a long term counter insurgency operation there. We need to have the capacity in our in our in our quiver, if you will, going forward. You know, I was I was there when we did the irregular

war formatics. That was a big part of it. You know, we got to understand that the history of warfare is primarily, if you look at the majority of them, irregular, right, So we have to be able to do both, and one's not better than the other or anything like that. Conventional forces, you know, if there's you know, if there's a Third World War, you know, the special operations folks like myself and Andy are going to be I think participants.

But aside THEO compared to you know, the major efforts are going to be conventional, but the irregular wars, we've got to be ready to to fight it. Part of it is having a h a word that you could trust from other groups around the world.

Is with these these advisor teams were taking casualties not from the Taliban, well from hidden Taliban, as it were

among Afghan troops, and yet among the special operations forces those incidents were far lower. And I think you know what is different. I think part of it is, and again you hit on this, Mick, was just the nature of how we operate. Those Special operations forces operate deeply embedded in indigenous forces. They don't go home in the evening to a separate camp. You know, the contrast was

clearly there in Afghanistan. You can look at the you can look at the numbers and the fact that yes, fratricide where it did occur on the special abrations side, but it was at a lower level rate. And in Iraq it was almost unheard of among special oberations forces. And yet it did occur amongst somebody advised sin sutly

against conventional forces. I mean in Mosall two thousand and five, for Mares, one of the worst suicide bombings in Iraq against US troops occurred and was and you know, sadly, an Iraqi soldier blew himself up in the in the mess hall on Farb Mares killed fourteen soldiers, number of

contractors and some locals. And yet you know, I was in Mosall at the time, living in a ruined hospital with Iraqi in Iraqi company, with you know, six other gringos and same you know, literally living in the same room as these guys, and it never it just never occurred to us, you know, even after that incident. And I think it gets to you know, why why am I talking about this, because it gets into the nature of what special operations do.

have learned this. Security isn't putting yourself behind layers of security fences and high tech automated weapons, et cetera, et cetera. Security comes from really understanding not just your adversary, but but you know the population, the people you're working with, what motivates them. And as hoky though it may sound, it comes with sharing their experiences and the danger with them.

And the last thing I'll say on that is so returning as Sugere Sot of command to Iraq in twenty sixteen, when there was this policy of remote advice and assists.

I don't know if you remember that. You know where you virtual advice and assists, right, You had this virtual kit that that you could give your partner and they went on and fort the enemy, the Islamic state, and you've stayed on the fob and you could track them like it was a game, right, and you knew whether lead trace were so you could call in air support. And there were people who really thought that was going

to work just as well as having soft teams. Moving with living with Iraqi, you know Iraqi and Kurdish security forces and of course we learned that, No, it doesn't. In the end, we ended up having to accompany them, and of course you do. And there's always going to be that human element. It's never going to be replaced by technology, and that is you know, that's your security, and that's your that's your path to successfully in those environments.

they saw the Spartans standing there, uh. And part of it was just already the Spartans had the reputation of you know, the ultimate warrior, and part of it they didn't know how much, how many more Spartans would be coming, but it completely changed the bat It inspired the Sicilians, It challenged the fortitude of the Athenians who were slaughtering

the Sicilians until then. And so I use that often because it really does, I think, show what advisors, which special operation forces, green Berets, Seals, Marsac raiders, paramilitary folks

can do with a willing and capable indigenous partner force. And it's not new obviously, that was Melbany's war, but it has that effect, and I think we could do a lot more which would save a lot of American lives if we embrace that as one of our main models in a regular warfare. And it can play a part obviously in a substantial conventional fight too, right because that as we saw in the last twenty years, we had both going on at the same time. So it's

almost always relevant. And I know this is we've gotten now talking about partner forces, but it does have relevance to what we started, which is this.

they're so but they're low density, high demands. So you know, there are being efforts like building these s FAB brigades which have now been you know that that plan has been abandoned. And in the Marine Corps, I know we what does s FAB mean? Security force assistance? Right brigades? So they were brigades whose sole mission was to do

what we were talking about, working with indigenous forces. The British had formed a radar regiment, a ranger regiment right out of you know, it's not it's mission not the same as US radar regiment. Sorry ranger, I keep defaulting to.

the aspects, liking aspects future war. And we could talk on this show about the rise of private military companies too, and the the resurgence of private military companies across the battlefield where you're talking Ukraine from our experience, you know, most recently in Israel, because they fulfill a lot of you know, a lot of functions of course, using soldiers to do the same things a little bit different the

government's and more skin in the game. But nevertheless, the principles are saying that you're you're leveraging foreign forces to do frankly, your dirty work, right to take the casualties through the brunt of the fighting. And it's it's it's a good idea, but striking that right formula of using the right guys, because again not every soldier or marine makes a good advisor. So you have to have some

kind of selection process. Maybe it doesn't have to be as tight as the Special Operations selection process, but you need something.

the area of Venezuela. Where are we at with that? What's it looked like? Is there any diplomatic talks? Why are we even doing this? But I mean we've asked that question a million times.

it a lot, so I reiterate everything set for some kind of action, and when you're making statements like closing the airspace over an entire country, one can expect that that means something unless this is some giant bluff. We have also talked about how worly run Venezuela is and how a boring Maduro is, which is ultrue. Just to give you an idea, it should be one of the

wealthiest countries in Latin Ameria. Oka has been said of that, and eight million people how to leave the country because they couldn't find food, right, So it is terribly run and Maduro's illegitimate. So if they were to uprise and install some like the the recent Nobel Peace Prize recipient Ria Machada, that'd be great. I just don't know how we can necessarily orchestrate that unless that's what's going on right now behind the scenes with you know, the clandestine

diplomacy if you want to call it. That probably led by the agency. If he leaves, then I think he will get credit. He'd be in the president will get credit for like okay, and that would be good for the people of Venezuela. If it doesn't work, and you know, there's stuff on the internet saying that he is scared to try to leave because there's Cuban intelligence officers around him that won't let him, I don't know if that's true.

Then it's either a big bluff or we do something, And I think that something is probably going to be limited to air strikes. But it's important to note that if we start, you know, attacking them. Even if it's the drug infrastructure, which can include ports, airports, they might attack us, right, So conventionally it's not even a match. But it's important to point out they do have anti ship missiles air launch from the s thirties. I think they have Cage thirty one Alphas, which are Russian made

supersonic launch from an aircraft. I think there's like one hundred and forty kilometer range, and they do this weird deal where they it's kind of like nap the earth of the ocean. It stays very close, so it makes it very difficult to intercept, and then it is to get closer. It gets closer and closer to the water. Right, they are effective against destroyers, which we have destroyers. I'm

not an expert in that. If we have listeners that are they should hopefully they'll chime in and say, yes, it's a threat, but it's not that big of a threat. I think from people I talk to that they're like, yes, it is a threat, and if they launch them at the same time, it could be problematic, but we have a lot of ways to mitigate it. But my point being is we blow up a drug factory. They launched these anti ship missiles and there's also sea based ones

that they have Iranians versions. One destroyer's hit casualties Americans. That's how this escalates. We all know us. If we take casualties, we're not going to stop. We're not going to say okay, let's turn around and go. That's not

the way America rolls. That's how this could escalate. So I would just highlight that that is a potential and if we are actually going to do any kind of ground based operations with troops, potentially like special operations to apprehend Maduro, that brings a lot of risks to a lot of risks. You know there is the place is completely apparently submersed in surface to air missiles thanks to Russia. So that's also with significant issue. We dealt with that before.

I'm not saying that means we don't go, but these are the risks that the administration is taking, especially with the level of sport that you pointed out of the American people and no authorization of Congress that I can see. So that looks like where we're headed.

I would, I think, you know, not that anybody's asking me if this is where we were headed, I would seriously talk about the consequences, the worst case scenarios, and try to bring the US population on board rather than this tract toward it.

that's the way it goes. And when you when they're a discernible American interests, that that justify that risk. But it's hard to it's hard to discern what those interests are right now. Not connected to the drug trade. Are we going to overturn an unpopular and tyrannical despot. Maybe, but we don't have a good history in doing that either. I mean we can, we can overturn them, but we're not good at dealing what comes afterwards, and we just don't seem to be collectively learning that lesson.

issue that's caused the consternation against Maduro. Potentially a large scale conflict could enhance it and give our adversaries an opportunity to try to further embed themselves in a country in our end sphere. So these are all I mean, there's never going to be a right or a perfect decision in this complicated manner, but hopefully all these factors are being considered when it comes to because this could

go in the wrong way and right. And even at the start, there doesn't seem to be a US interest from the population, from the Poles and doing anything because the poll question is simply military action, which could include just air strikes for one day, right, So h this should probably be talked through and they should either gain some support or rethink what they're doing. Obviously, I think stopping the drug flow is important, but this is well

beyond that. Colombia, Peru, even Mexico or bigger contributors to the drug and I don't think aybody's talking about going to war and all three of those countries.

I know you saw this movie. I want to see it. You know, quite rightly, we held in Nuremberg trials and that was and that was that was good, right, not just because we're the victors, but those were in accordance with international norms. And there are such a thing, it's international norms of behavior, and and you know, murdering people killing unarmed civilians, killing innocence, killing prisoners, let alone. You

know what happened during the Holocaust. All those things are clearly on the dark side of good and bad, right, But there is definitely a gray area. And when you're working for when you're serving the military of the United States of America, and your automatic default is that what you're going to be ordered to do is legal, it's not always easy to tell what is legal and what is not. We've dealt with this ourselves in our own recent history with enhanced interrogation, Okay, and I'm not you know,

I'm not taking sides on on that. I'm saying that Supreme Court came out and said subsequently that a whole bunch of stuff was illegal that at the time people some people thought was legal and were ordered to do.

So I just want to throw that out there, without without jumping on either side, just to say that in this debate right now about illegal and legal orders, it's clear to me that many people do not understand the issue.

overused dogument. But it's absolutely the case. We should be we should be frightened by the prospect of the weak Congress, of the Congress that does not ever want to challenge the executive, regardless of who's in power.

be coming out soon, and I'm excited about that. So I don't know if you want to say anything now or we'll call it for later. It's up to you, guys.

current on the high Side. So it's another way for us to get the information out to you as social media algorithms are pretty iffy and you never really know what you're gonna get. So this is a once a week email. It'll slide into your inbox and it will have you know the greatest hits of that week.