Cleared Hot - Powered By BRCC - ISIS in America

Episode Date: January 3, 2025

Have we arrived at a time when ISIS is now in our country? Will the terrorist attack and murder in New Orleans be a one-off or the new normal? What can people who are concerned about future attacks do? It's time to take a hard look in the mirror, accept the reality of our situation, and then act accordingly.   Today's show sponsors: Pique LIfe: Get 20% off + a FREE rechargeable frother and glass beaker with your first purchase with my link: https://Piquelife.com/CLEAREDHOT Timeline: Timeline is offering 33% off your order of Mitopure while supplies last go to:  https://timeline.com/CLEAREDHOT33  

Well, here we are. Getting ready to make a video that I don't want to make. Answering a question on a topic that I wish conceptually at least we didn't have to think about. But we do. Is ISIS here? Are they in the United States? And if they are, what can we do, if anything, about it to protect ourselves, our love? loved ones in our country. That's where we're going today. And this is not the video that I wanted to

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Short answer first. Yes, ISIS is here in the United States. Now, let's unpack that just a little bit. Let's unpack what I actually would have rather been talking about. And I actually know probably more than anything. The first thing I need to do is I need to time capsule this episode a little bit or timestamp it or water market, however you would describe it. because the information that I'm going to be talking about is current up until, I don't know,

five minutes ago when I did the last little touch up to make sure that I could at least talk about what was breaking information or current information in this moment. It is the 2nd of January today in the early afternoon. This episode comes out on the 3rd of January of Friday. And one of the reasons that I didn't want to make this video or I don't like making videos like this. There's a few. One, I don't, I'm not a provocateur by any stretch. I'm not looking at headlines trying to grasp something from a headline that I could throw together and put it on the internet, even though it might be a really good strategy for a content creator. And me saying

those things, I'm speaking about myself and things that I am not necessarily looking to do. Nothing but respect for people who want to take that as their path forward. It just, it's not me. It's not ever felt like something that I want to do. I don't consistently watch the headlines and look for those things. The information I have now will, I mean, I would like to think what has been released will be accurate moving forward. But what will definitely change is that people and organizations are going to add to what is available to me in this moment. And that's why I say we have to time capsule this a little bit. My initial answer is yes.

ISIS is here, and I will unpack that further, but that is based on current information I have now. So just keep that in the back of your mind. If you're listening to this a month from now, however you may find it, wherever you may find it, understand that the farther it gets away from the 2nd of January, the more information that we will have, the more will come out about this. And hopefully we'll be able to get some better answers. We have to also talk about what I know and what I don't know. I don't know a lot more about this situation than I do.

And there are actually two concurrent situations that are in the news right now. And my personal guess, I was going to say assessment, but it's not that. It's a guess. My personal guess is that they are not connected. There was a terrorist attack in New Orleans. We're up into the moment I'm recording this. Fifteen people have lost their lives. Another 30, I believe, are in the hospital.

officers were injured. I'm going to, I have to guess, either in the exchange of gunfire afterwards or the vehicle potentially could have struck them as well. And then at the Trump Hotel in Las Vegas, a cyber truck exploded. And it sounds like it was loaded with not explosives, but fireworks, which, I mean, have largely the same essence of explosives. A lot of the same components, we could say, a lot of the same ingredients if you were making a stew. And, when I first saw both of these instances or incidents, people I believe were trying to connect the two. I think at this point, it is already unraveling a little bit and showing that although the timing is what could only be considered odd, they don't seem to be connected. From my understanding, the driver of the Tesla truck was in the Tesla truck at the time.

And as a total side note, if you go and watch the video, if that person in the Tesla truck, who I believe had a military background, actually believe both of these individuals engaged in military service in some degree. I have not seen or read or heard a robust background breakdown for either, other than I think most people are saying at this point, there was no overlap or connection between the two while they were in the military. one of the things we encountered overseas were VB IEDs, vehicle-borne IEDs. The Tesla truck could actually be the worst designed vehicle to use as a VB IED. If you look at the video of the explosion, it seems like almost all of the energy and force was directed upwards, which for anybody around that vehicle at the time,

and I'm not saying it didn't do damage in all directions, but it seemed like the vast majority of the force was directed upwards. And I'm sure into the front cabin of the vehicle where the driver was currently located, that, I mean, it sucks for him, but kind of optimal for anybody else that was around there because it didn't ring out in a 360-degree direction. So I don't know what that says. I mean, I guess if you make a vehicle that is made out of that material and pretty indestructible from what I have heard, maybe that's a, a good thing to protect from Fibi IED usage or it would not be the number one vehicle that you would want to use. Of course, you could overload it and overmatch it and that would solve that problem.

But I don't think you're going to do that with fireworks. So slight tangent there. But those are the things that I know about the cyber truck. Here's what I know about the attack in New Orleans. It was initiated with a vehicle. The driver of the vehicle was a U.S.-born citizen. I believe the vehicle was rented. Actually, I believe both the cyber truck and the truck used in New Orleans were both rented on an app called Turo, which I understand what that is, but I've never been on the app.

So that's the limit of my knowledge is knowing what it's called. The individual in New Orleans, the attack occurred at 3.15 a.m. in a very crowded section of Bourbon Street, as it's known to be on New Year's Eve. I think it's safe to say that that was not an accident. There was an ISIS flag in the vehicle. He had two firearms. He exited the vehicle and started shooting and was killed after he had exit the vehicle. He has made social media posts in support of ISIS in alignment to ISIS with the desire to not only harm his family, but others.

And honestly, that's about what I know detail-wise in both of those situations. The truck in Las Vegas has not been categorized up until the moment, 101 p.m. on the second of January, has not been categorized as a terrorist attack. Will that change? Only time will tell. The attack in New Orleans has 100% been categorized as a terrorist attack. And by all accounts and outside optics and perspectives, that's exactly what it looks like it was. which leads me back to the question, is ISIS in the United States? Yes, they are. Now, is it this attack that makes me feel that way? No. I have had a concern and a suspicion since my time overseas. And actually, let me be really clear on this too. Let's go back in time to the way back machine at the beginning of the global war on terrorism. 2000 and 2 slash 3 for most people in both Afghanistan and Iraq. Iraq specifically was in 2003 where it kicked off.

It started with the first words I heard were Al-Qaeda and then the Taliban, which then morphed into ISIS, which then morphed into ISIL. And quite frankly, I can't keep up with the six-headed snake that every time that you become effective at smashing it down, it turns into something else. other than to say that I know that it morphs. And when they determine that we are successful in one avenue, they maneuver and they do something else, which is what a smart adversary would do. The vast majority of my time overseas, and I think this is true of most people who deployed overseas, occasionally you would encounter people that were dedicated, trained, committed

ISIS, al-Qaeda, ISIL-level operators. The vast majority of the time you were dealing with people in the periphery. I would put them at, I'll call them, this is a weird way to think about this,

in the terrorist organization structure, if you were to look at that like a business, I would put the more serious entities, the people who are full-time players in this world, they would be the C-suite, CEO, CFO, C-O, things of that nature. The Taliban of the world, or Afghanistan, as it should be, they're gangsters and thugs a lot of the time. They're people who may be doing something else for most of their day and they're going to go unbury an AK from time to time and maybe patrol an area or exert some muscle, whatever it may be.

But it's not their full-time J-O-B. Those are the people that we were encountering more often than not. Now, Iraq and I think Afghanistan to a degree as the theaters of war matured, it shifted a little bit. There was a Syrian influence. There was an Iranian influence. There were people traveling through Syria through the Western Euphrates River Valley. And you were seeing technology and explosives and tactics that were evolving. And again, at the end of the day, I think those C-suite people at the top of these organizations were responsible for that.

But they bring their foot soldiers in. So when I look at ISIS being in the United States and the suspicion that I had, even back then in the early aughts, as I've heard them call it. I really like that term, the double lots, if you will, was that regardless of how effective we were overseas, it was a problem we were never going to completely solve because I don't know if you can truly kill off an ideology, especially with military power. Now, I say that and that is how we ended World War II. That is how we destroyed imperialized Japan. Now, in World War II, specifically, right, we eradicated Nazism. in the country of Germany, but not completely. And there are still complete and utter idiots in the United States who are still have still have their head wrapped around the ideology of Nazism. So yes, we had great military effect in World War II.

But it didn't get rid of the ideology. And as long as that ideology survives and has the ability to travel and infect other people, regardless of how ridiculous the concepts may sound, I don't think. it's possible to eradicate it. The difference, obviously, between World War II time period and the time period that we are living in right now is access to information. The first time I remember hearing about somebody being radicalized again at these higher level, ISIS al-Qaeda levels, were the San Bernardino shooters, where it was a husband and wife, and it's been a long time since I've actually talked with one of the officers who was involved in this, so my details were a little bit hazy. Husband and wife,

it was near Christmas time, at a Christmas party. I believe it was a rec center. and they went in there and they absolutely wreaked havoc. Both of them ended up losing their life. There were explosive device that were involved in that. The radicalization, the exposure to the ideology, it only occurred over the internet. To the best of my knowledge, they'd never actually interfaced with somebody from a face-to-face in-person perspective that could have recruited them or radicalized them or indoctrinated them. They did it to themselves. and that is why I think ISIS is in this country.

And that's one aspect, I should say, of why I think ISIS is in this country. And unfortunately, this is not the end, in my opinion. If I was a betting person, which I am not, and I certainly would not bet on something like this. But if you put a gun to my head and said, you have to bet on whether or not these things will stop or they will continue, my answer, my honest answer, as much as it breaks my heart from somebody who spent a gun, good portion of their life trying to stop things like this from happening in this country, my chips would go towards it's going to happen again. I hate to say that, but it is legitimately how I feel. There's access to information and that just seems to be accelerating. And I don't know how we stop that. There are consequences to unchecked border policy and allowing a

nation is allowing the right word. I don't know. For allowing a condition in a nation where a border is incredibly fluid. And unfortunately, most of the time in this country, the conversation has to be tied around politics. If we can strip that aside and just talk about an inability to keep people out of your country or an unwillingness, whether because of a social optic or a political object or everything in between to draw a line in the sand and be unwilling to hold it, there are consequences from that. There are people who have dove into this much deeper than myself. Sean Ryan has done some fantastic podcast with people who are in this space. They have their fingers on the pulse of what is going on in these environments.

and they are, my words, not necessarily theirs, screaming at the top of their lungs that something needs to be done and something needs to be changed. So we have information and we have access to actually come into the country. Now, one of the first things that was reported about what happened in New Orleans. was that it was not a standalone attack, meaning an individual. And I don't know if I mentioned this in the beginning when I was talking about what I do know versus what I don't know. One of the things that just was released was that this person, they called him a lone wolf. So they said he was acting by himself.

Initially, they were saying there was up to five people that could have potentially been involved with this. I hope it is an individual. But given the conditions that I just described, especially the border, it is possible or it would be possible, if not plausible, that something like this happens where somebody is not acting alone. I am very glad that that has not happened yet. It would not surprise me, not even one else, if it were to happen because of the combination of those two things, the ability to move people and the ability to access information that is evil. I do not know what else to describe that level of radicalization and the beliefs of those

individuals who wrap themselves around that ideology. So, yeah, they're here, both in spirit and in person. and it begs a question, what can you do? What should we do? Even before that question, though, and this is something that I have had deep conversations with, because when something catastrophic like this happens, and there is no other word for it than catastrophic and horrific, when something like that happens, people will rightly say, who would target innocent people like that? Why would they do that? And the answer is a tough pill to swallow.

And my own personal experience interfacing with people like this, they don't value life in the same way that we do. They are interested in making a statement. They are interested and willing to destroy themselves because at a baseline level, their beliefs are largely the exact opposite of the virtues and the values and the beliefs of this country.

People can argue all day long, whether or not the United States of America is a good country or a great country, or if it ever was either of those things, whether we're a global oppressor or whether or not we provide more aid to this world than any other country and most other countries combined.

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Regardless of who you are and where you are, you have an access somewhere on the globe. There is somebody out there who does not believe what you believe. maybe it's the exact opposite of what you believe. And the beauty is the vast majority of human beings are capable of holding the exact opposite opinion of somebody else and not doing anything about it other than sometimes spirited conversations and disagreements. They can agree to disagree. Even if they can not agree to disagree, they can coexist without destroying each other. Now, the radical elements of that are not interested in that. They are interested in their way for everybody or nothing for anyone.

And that is what, that is not what. That is why an individual chooses to make an attack in this manner on people that, from my understanding, he lived in Texas. This attack occurred in New Orleans. The vehicle was rented and driven there. He doesn't know these people. He doesn't know what they stand for. But he knows that January 1st, New Year's Eve is a time and place where there will be a lot of people. And he can inflict maximum damage on people that he has never met and has no understanding of what they believe. And why would somebody do that? Because they don't care and they're evil. Because the ideology and the radicalization is about destruction. It's about control. It is. It is. is legitimately pure evil. And I say that as somebody who has looked into the whites of the eyes of these individuals.

And I don't know of any other way to stop them or solve this problem other than putting their lights out. And I don't mean temporarily. So we have an axis. We all do. Thankfully, almost nothing will do anything or almost nobody will do anything with that other than disagree with you. But it begs a question, what can we do? I'm going to bifurcate this into two places. There is a state and federal government and then there is that at an individual.

At a national level or at a state level, we as individuals, I'm not so sure that there is anything that we can really do. Other than vote. If you are living in an environment and a condition that you think is not actively participating, in growing something like this, but is creating an environment where things like this can happen unchecked, you have an opportunity to do something about that. Yes, it may only occur every two to four years, but it is an actionable step that you can take. It's better than sitting on the sidelines and watching the news when you wake up on New Year's Day, hoping to see pictures of, let's look at the celebrations that occurred around the world. And instead, what you see, and honestly, what I recommend

does everybody put this episode on pause and go onto the internet and find some images of people that were driven over by this vehicle whose bodies are contorted on the ground in shapes that human bodies are not meant to be in. Do that for a second. Think on that for a second. And then ask yourself, what's it going to take for me to get off the fence and do something about this? And again, I'm talking about at the state or federal level.

you can vote. You can voice your opinion and you can stay engaged. From a policy level, things take time to change. From a national security level, most of us as individuals, right, we're not going to have any ability to impact any of this. And that sucks. So we need the right policies. We need the right people in place to execute those policies. And we need to have a spine as a country to stand for what we believe.

believe in. Because if we don't believe in our ability to protect our own citizens, or if in general, we are unwilling to stand for our beliefs because we're going to offend one group or the other, then let's just throw the towel and admit that we don't believe in anything and we don't stand for anything. That's not who I am as a person. That's not how I was raised. That's not how I'm raising my kids. That's not how I want to interface in our society. And that's not what I want to look like to the world. But I'm just a dude sitting here in northwestern Montana running my mouth about a horrific incident that just occurred. But what I will say is this, I think it was avoidable. Now, there's always going to be things that slip through the cracks. They shouldn't be ignored.

But if we notice a leaking faucet in your house, do you ignore it or you do go fix it? My answer is, you should probably go fix it before the leak becomes worse, because it becomes a pipe problem, before it becomes a water saturation problem. And the next thing you know, you got a huge insurance claim or massive damage to your house, let alone that could turn into mold and all those other cascading downstream effects. That's the way I look at problems like this. They don't happen overnight. So we have to reverse engineer and figure out what happened and fix all the way back up to the leaking sink. That's where we have to attack this problem.

At a personal level, what can you do? Step one. Recognize that this threat is real. recognize that regardless of who you are, how amazing of a person that you are, kind, empathetic, giving, engaged in your community, mother or father of fill in the blank, you have an access out there somewhere. And if you encounter somebody like this, they will not take the time to get to know you. They will not care about what you believe.

They will end your life in probably the most horrific means possible. The threat is real. Now, having said that, I am not, I am not somebody who ever wants to be called an alarmist. I am not saying that terrorists are around every corner. I am not saying that ISIS is around every corner. I think statistics quite clearly show that to go back to the example of turning on the TV on a, you know, the second of January. What you recognize rapidly is that in most places in the world, this isn't what happened. So it is, I think, safer to say that the odds are likely in your favor, but that doesn't mean that you should ignore them. The best piece of advice that I can give, because I was thinking exactly about New Orleans, this occurred at just after 3 o'clock in the morning on Bourbon Street. I've been to Bourbon Street. I had been really shit-faced on Bourbon Street. At 3 o'clock in the morning, on just after New Year's Eve, on the early hours of New Year's Day, there is not immense a competition. occurring on Bourbon Street. It's not a Grandmaster chess competition. It is people getting

after it. And I tell you what, if you are a consenting adult of legal age, I support it. Go live your life. I am not going to tell you how to party. I'm not going to tell you what to do. But when I was looking at this situation, and again, I'm older than I was, much older than I was when I was shit-faced on Bourbon Street. And I should add to that some subcontext. It happened multiple times because of an idiot. And actually, it doesn't have really have to do with being an idiot. I was young and I was living my young life to the fullest of my ability.

And I happen to pass through New Orleans from time to time. I'm looking at this now. I'm 47 years old. The first thing I think of in my head is I totally understand why those people were there. I hope they were having an amazing time. What happened was galactically catastrophic. but what could those people have done? Really, all you can do is reduce your exposure to risk.

If you take a look at these type of attacks, I would say they're going to fall into probably two categories. One of them is targeting of high profile individuals. Some people might say, well, that just happened in New York with the CEO of the pharma company. I'm not going to, I'm not going to attach that one. They may be charging him with a terrorist-related act. For me, something about that doesn't sit right. He might have been very misguided, but I'm not so sure that that one rises to the level of terrorism. What I'm talking about is the targeting of a high-level individual, and you can fill in the blank and whatever that

means to you, whether that's a public office, political figure. So an individual, and they would do so, of course, because of the impact and point that that would make. The other one, and this happens often or has been the case often, it doesn't happen often. This has been the case often when this happens overseas. Individuals look for high density population concentrations. And that's where they do things like this, because it is inflicting maximum damage and destruction. It was around Christmas time, I believe it was a semi-truck in Europe. I don't remember the number of casualties off the top of my head.

Similar in concept, though, I think you can understand the point that I'm getting to. They weren't necessarily high-profile individuals. It was a densely concentrated area of people where you can inflict maximum damage with a blunt or gross object. In both cases, it was vehicle. So this guy had two guns in New Orleans, and it seems like he had every intent to continue the party after he got out of the vehicle. He got burned down, which is amazing.

But still, the loss of life is unbelievable. As I get older in life, I have no desire to be in those locations at those times. I look at this in just about every situation in my life, especially when I'm with my family or my wife. I do have a different level of tolerance to risk if it is just me by myself because I'm making decisions for myself. I can move faster. I know what I am capable of. I know what I am not capable of. when I have children, loved ones with a group,

now you're throwing in the lowest common denominator. You need to be able to operate as a team, but not on the peak skill level of one person. It is literally the lowest common denominator because you have to take that into account for your capability. So exposure to the threat. Well, what I don't want is people to bubble wrap their life and be terrified.

of ever leaving their house. So I'm not saying people should reduce their risk in their life to zero. I can't think of a more boring way to watch the time pass on a sundial. But perhaps take the time to consider where you're going and what you're going to be doing and the risk associated with that. I'll give you another example of a high, densely populated concentration of human beings, the Las Vegas shooter who had an elevated position. over a jam-packed area of human beings that had nowhere to go.

It was not accidental that that individual selected that location or the high ground or the weaponry that he used. It gives an individual, the lone wolf, if you will, the opportunity to inflict damage beyond their numerical numbers. Because as one person, it's tough. So what do you do? You add in force multipliers. Okay. Train. I don't know how to say that more clearly.

I think it was my buddy Ivan 30 seconds out. Expect to self-rescue. Be prepared to be your own first responder. I agree both of those things. You need to be able to solve, at least for a little bit of time, the vast majority of problems that you are going to encounter. If you're reliant upon somebody else, an entity or an organization or a government system,

they're not going to be there to rescue you in the moment of crisis, more likely than not. Are there fringe examples of that? Sure, I guess there probably are. But more often than not, there are people figuring things out in the moment on their own, hoping to hang on until a higher level of care arrives. So what can you do?

To me, self-defense is about ranges, the range at which a ballistic tool would be effective. the range at which kicking and striking would be effective, and the range at which your hands on somebody would be effective. When it gets to the ballistic tool environment, I am not familiar with the gun laws in Louisiana. When it comes to conceal carry, what I will say is this in almost every state,

if not every state that I have ever had a concealed carry permit in. As soon as you combine alcohol with the concealed carry permit, the firearm is supposed to go away. So if you're going to follow the letter of the law, I bet you no weapons should have been present there on Bourbon Street, except for that of the law enforcement. If you're going to carry concealed, follow the law, right?

That there's a reason that it's existed. And you're really risking losing that ability and probably potential legal consequences if you deviate from that. Also, beyond that, let's say that you're like, screw it. I'm going to have my gun on me just in case it happens. Training on a range is so different than training in an environment where the backdrop is full of other innocent human beings. and when a truck is barreling down on you, which you probably would not have seen coming,

is it safe for you to pull out a firearm and start engaging that vehicle? I mean, how much time have you practiced shooting at night? How much time have you practiced shooting in a moving vehicle? Do people know where they need to aim if there is glass in between themselves and the person that they're trying to hit? Do they understand the deflection characteristics of a windshield versus a side window? It goes on and on and on. And I'm going to tell you right now, the vast majority of people, almost everybody doesn't have the answers to those questions and they haven't practiced those things, let alone the backdrop.

It's not safe for you to be taking those shots as it is. Okay. So, but whatever. Let's say you're a freaking gunslinger. You're sober, but you're a gunslinger and you're there because that's what you believe in. Cool. You are a Muay expert. You could headkick somebody into the next century.

You are a boxing expert. You're a black belt in jujitsu. So you have ranges managed from kicking and punching and headbutting and everything in between to somebody touches you and you are just going to fold them up like a pretzel. Okay. Which one of those skills is going to serve you best when a vehicle is barely down on you? That's right. Not a single one of them.

And I advocate at all times that people be as proficient as possible in all of those skills. They just can't solve every problem, right? because in that situation, how are they going to help you? They're not. You know what would have helped you in that situation, assuming you weren't crushed by this vehicle, is the ability to help others. Training can't only be offensive. You have to have sustainment training, and I mean training to sustain others.

For everybody who tells me about their EDC, their everyday carry, they take pictures and its gun, knife, keys, all of these things. And nowhere present in those pictures is a tourniquet, is a stop-the-bleed kid. In vehicles, they have truck guns, and they have ballistic plates and helmets and night vision goggles. And no bed backpack. No ability to stop blood from seeping out of holes created by others. The best assistance that could have likely been rendered in this situation was the ability and knowledge for people to help others. to sustain their life until a higher level of care gotten out.

Some of these injuries that I have seen, there's nothing that likely could have been done. And honestly, I mean, maybe that's a more humane way for somebody to end their life as opposed to struggling horrifically and painfully through the last moments of their life as they bled out. I think I definitely would take the former over the latter. Your ability to help

in that moment in New Orleans probably was the most important thing you could have brought to the battlefield and that is lost so often so even though in that situation a truck getting ready to hit you the offensive skills wouldn't have helped the defensive skills

I know for a fact would have made an incredible incredible difference so those are the two pieces of advice that I have recognize that it is real and that the threat is there and just take a look at your behaviors and actions when it comes to participating in these higher threat environments. And again, I don't want to have people try to nerf or bubble wrap their

life. It's not the way to live. And I think if everybody locked themselves in their house, that ideology is taking footsteps towards victory. So that's not what I want. But at least think about it. At least make it part of your decision making process, except that it's real, understand the type of targets that they attack, the locations, the type of people and the why associated behind that, train. There is no downside to training. Will you get, I'm going to pick Jiu-Jitsu. Anybody's listened to the podcast knows I participate in Jiu-Jitsu. I share that time with my wife. I love it. It's been fantastic for me. I love the community. Do you get mentally and physically improved and stronger? Yes, absolutely. Is it a cool skill set? Yes. Is there a community

based around it. Yes, can you scratch your competitive itch? Yes, it's awesome. I've seen the same thing in shooting. I've seen the same thing again in Muay Thai and in boxing and wrestling and all of these things. There's no downside to training. I mean, what's the worst case scenario? You are an incredibly competent and capable version of yourself. Ah, that sucks, right? Who wants that? How about everybody? Everybody should want that. You should be as dangerous as humanly possible and then never use it. Because in your journey to becoming dangerous, you're going to become such a better version of yourself. You actually probably end up becoming more empathetic and more kind. That has been my experience.

Those who are the most capable of violence are the least likely to use it and often most generous kind people that I have ever been around. So we recognize it. We train for it. And we train to help our fellow citizens and those in need. That's the only advice that I can offer you. Yes, they're here. They've been here for a long time. We need to start acting accordingly.

That's all I got.