Kitbag Conversations - Episode 30: Author Peter Maguire

Episode Date: November 7, 2022

This week I was joined by Peter Maguire, an internationally accredited author who's work focuses on Cambodia, international crime, narcotics, surf culture and is now a professor at UNC Wilmington. We had an absolute fantastic conversation where we talked about: -His youth and early work -The War on Terror -Current and future projects -And the geo-political arena we currently find ourselves in If you would like to read his work, you can go to https://www.amazon.com/Peter-Maguire/e/B001H6P32G. Additionally, if you would like to read more, follow his substack at https://petermaguire.substack.com/

Hello everyone and welcome back. This week I'm joined by Peter McGuire, an internationally recognized author who focused on topics such as the Nuremberg trials, International Criminal Law, the Khmer Rouge, International Smuggling, he's a veteran of the Jocco podcast, a professor of UNC Wilmington and much, much more. Peter, you have the most interesting resume I've seen so far and I would really like to talk about a few things for the next hour or so. All right. Well, thank you. Dive in. All right. So looking at your basic complete story, it's you came from a very interesting

mother, father, where a hoodlum essentially is a teenager from what I guess you lived in Australia for a little bit, where a drug smuggler got captured in Tijuana, a surfer for a little bit, got interested in international conflict. I'm just, yeah, just from the beginning. Well, no, I was a low ball teen pot smuggler. That was it. And yeah, and got busted actually in New Mexico at 19 and had to have a serious reckoning looking at New Mexico state penitentiary. And luckily, I held my mud and didn't get caught and went on to college and left that part of my life behind me. But yeah, it was limited just to marijuana. And that was a big part of the culture I grew up in. I wrote about it in my book, tie sticks, surfer smugglers, surfer scammers,

and the untold story of the marijuana trade. And yeah, and, you know, again, it was part of our Southern California culture. And, you know, I moved past it and continued to surf and still surf. But then I went on to college and graduate school and got my doctorate and wrote my PhD dissertation on the Nuremberg trials. And my advisor was the chief counsel at Nuremberg, Brigadier General Telfer Taylor. My great grandfather had been a judge at Nuremberg. So at 28, I was one of the world's experts on the long theory of war. At a time before the human rights industry and all that, you know, during really at the end of the Cold War. And I then went to Cambodia to investigate the Khmer Rouge war crimes because in my mind, that was the real

violation of the never again promise that not only had the Khmer Rouge carried out genocide and killed 20% of their population in three years, 10 months and 20 days. The world powers kind of stood idly by, including the United Nations. And so I wondered how did this happen if this was supposedly something that was never to happen again, and came out of it wiser and much more cynical. The topic of the Khmer Rouge is one of those where everyone kind of like turns a blind eye, where it's everyone knows about it, but no one really addresses it. So it's interesting to see that you threw a considerable amount of time into the topic itself. And I understand that you were there during 9-11. You spent a lot of time in Cambodia. I was there. The first time I went was

in the beginning of 1994. And again, this was as the war in former Yugoslavia was flaring. And when I was in Cambodia, I was watching Rwanda on television at a French bar and looking at this. And it was very clear to me that this was the most egregious case of clear genocide, really since the Khmer Rouge or World War II. And again, the UN was kind of talking in nice, sonorous phrases, but not doing anything significant. And in former Yugoslavia the same. I mean, I knew guys from DevGru and other elite units that were there, and they were told to stand down over and over when it came to capturing war criminals, when it came to bombing Serb positions. So there was this kind of disconnect between civilian and military

leadership, as there was in Cambodia, where you had the French foreign legion rapid reaction force that British, I mean, Australian SAS, you had really top flight soldiers in country under UN command, and the UN consistently wouldn't let them off the leash. And so the generals, Laurie Dan and Redu in the French generals in Cambodia, they resigned and said, hey, you know, we're here to fight, you don't want us to fight. Well, why are we here? So I, again, I became quite cynical about this kind of Faustian bargain that, oh, we'll watch a genocide televised as it was in Rwanda, as it was in former Yugoslavia, and we'll give you justice, we'll have trials and truth and reconciliation and accountability, these very amorphous,

unquantifiable things. And I was like, why? You know, so yeah, so that was the beginning of my education. It's interesting, you mentioned the French foreign legion, because I think a lot of people forget that the French just weren't in Vietnam, they were in all of Indochina. Oh, yeah, comes to something like the Khmer Rouge or West Africa, the French impact and influence in the region was very strong and is still very strong today, especially in Western Africa, where someone like England just gives up their territories, like you want independence, fine, they leave, but then the French plan, we'll take our name off the lease, but we're still living here, we're not going anywhere. Well, and an important thing that most people don't know is that in

order to get the French to join the European Defense Community Treaty, the EDC that evolves into NATO, the bargain that's made is that the United States will cover your retreat or allow you to pull out of Indochina, Southeast Asia. And so we begin to assume their burden, especially after DnB and Fu, and you know, they're taking big losses. And so in exchange to get the French to agree to EDC NATO, you know, we get sucked in to Southeast Asia. DnB and Fu is such a funny battle because the Frenchman land and they go, the only way we're going to lose is if the Vietnamese can bring an artillery piece at the top of that ridge. Impossible. Impossible. No, in general, Jop, and you know, these are fierce, fierce, you know, I am my own censored, can I swear?

They're some fierce motherfuckers, you know, and they fought the Chinese, an interesting little sort of footnote to the Khmer Rouge is that after, you know, the Khmer Rouge, April 17th, 1975 to January 1979, then the Vietnamese chased their asses out. And then the Chinese launched a kind of punitive invasion against Vietnam, because the Chinese, much to their chagrin, and though they like to deny it as they do everything today, they were the key sponsors, they were the key intellectual architects of the Khmer Rouge, the Khmer Rouge, you know, the Chinese had their great leap forward, the Khmer Rouge had the ultra great, great leap forward, kind of like the ultra MAGA. And so, but in any case, you know, the Chinese, without them, the Khmer Rouge would never

have done, you know, what they had done in my opinion. And when the Vietnamese chased them out, you know, they launched this punitive invasion into Northern Vietnam, and the Vietnamese fought them, you know, I wouldn't say quite to a standstill, but it was a very bloody short war. And, and it was kind of resolved more or less diplomatically would like, okay, Vietnam, you don't talk about that anymore, you just we're going to move on now. And, and that's the kind of tense piece that emerged from it. But during that time, 75, all the way into the early 90s, you had a remarkable thing, you had China, Thailand, the United States, all supporting the Khmer Rouge that everyone knew had committed genocide in the name of anti-communism. And you

had a really kind of interesting communist be communist war, you had the Russian, you know, Marxist Leninists against the Maoists, and, and so the key proxy for Vietnam were the East Germans. And so, yeah, so it was, it was interesting, because at the time, many people thought communism was a monolithic force, it wasn't. And so, that division was really revealed in in Cambodia. So, another conflict in Southeast Asia that, again, is kind of overlooked is the melee emergency where the Brits fought the Chinese back guerrillas in Malaysia. Oh, yeah. And it's, and so, but the British won there. And so there's, I'm sure you've read the book, learning to eat super the knife where the Brits won the Americans lost in Vietnam and two similar

bat wars, essentially, but the Brits won. Was there any indication that the Chinese the surgeons went from like Chinpeng and his little goons went from Malaysia into Cambodia to assist in the Chinese operations since they spent so much time already fighting against the Western Forks? No, not that I know of. It was more, yeah, I mean, initially the Vietnamese supported the Khmer Rouge, you know, and so it was, you know, the King Siena of Cambodia was a fairly decadent, corrupt guy. And he had walked this tightrope where he sort of tried to appease and please and play everyone off of one another. And he fell off the tightrope. So much blame lies on on Sienaq in that, you know, he allowed the Vietnamese to operate the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

He allowed arms shipments to come into Sienaq. Now, Sienaq Bill, now the home of a giant Chinese military base. And so the Chinese actually have really absorbed Cambodia now in our lifetimes. And I watched it happen. And so, you know, basically, I wouldn't say they, you know, they left for a time but took a strategic pause as it were. But China is very firmly in control of much of that region, you know, from, you know, even arguably Burma. Under the Belt and Road Initiative of enslaving the ports and the airfields and building local infrastructure in return for a debt they cannot repay. So they are the belt and virus initiative. Yeah. Yeah. And and also, I mean, I remember just seeing these gigantic skyscrapers and

luxury condominiums and giant malls with Ferrari dealerships in Bangkok. And then I'm saying like, who's what? Like, who's buying all this crap? And it made no sense. And so, you know, so now we're, it's kind of like, which society is going to collapse under its own weight first? And ours or China. And the thing about China is with the dictatorship, you have a lot more liberty in, in crushing dissent and, you know, hiding unpleasant economic statistics as they recently did. This is a regime I absolutely don't trust and, and don't believe any official figures that come out and I'm not a fan of theirs and they're not a fan of mine. Mm hmm. When did you leave Cambodia in the early 2000s? Because the question I have is,

was it like a really rapid America starts pivoting to the Middle East? Or like, after 9 11, so the Chinese start to kind of sink their fingers? Absolutely. Yeah. Well, it's interesting because, yeah, 9 11 occurs. And, and then yeah, the whole focus is on the Middle East. But what also happens is Jamal Islam and the radical cells start to migrate to Southeast Asia. And so, you know, I'm in there, you know, 2003, four or five. And, you know, these giant mosques are come popping up, being built with Saudi money. And, you know, Hanbali, the Bali bomber is hiding out there. And so you begin to see, you know, foreign forces coming in and trying to rattle, collies the Cham Muslims, the Cambodian Muslims, who I had great relations with and, and, you know,

just really trusted with my life and, and, you know, went through a lot with different translators and drivers and stuff like that. And I honestly preferred the Chan Muslims on some level because they didn't drink, they didn't gamble, they were very straight. And the Buddhist, my Buddhist friends were fun. And, but, you know, I would pay them and then they would disappear and they would say, Oh, Bong, I'm so sorry. You know, I, my brother-in-law and I went and played cards and, you know, the, I was winning and the Buddha was filling it. And so, and so when, you know, it became all, you know, all, you know, Islam, Muslim is bad and, and, and kind of trying to vilify the whole thing, it was very hard for me. But I did see, you know, these other forces, particularly from

Saudi Arabia coming in, trying to stir the pot, trying to radicalize what had, had before been, you know, victims of genocide under the Khmer Rouge. What about the Filipino Muslims out of, like, Mindanao in that entire region? Were they ever in Cambodia? No, and, and pretty heavy guys. Like, I don't know that neck of the woods as well, but I know that, but that's always been a hotbed, you know, really since 1898. And, and the U.S. war on the Philippines, you know, some, like, in my opinion, absolute dipshit, Max Booth, who I don't know how still even gets his articles printed, but is, I think, the Grand Puba, the Council on Foreign Relations, he cited that as the model for the war on terror, that we should be just like the U.S. and the war on the Philippines.

And, and that at the time to me was, was just astonishing. Oh, yeah. It's shocking, just in your face. Never lent. But you know what? There is no penalty in being consistently wrong in American letters and commentary. I mean, we see the same, you know, the same people bubbling up with the same tired, non-oppositional ideologies and strategies. And if you don't go along with it, you're somehow a subversive or a sympathite of whoever, you know, and I was, you know, I was writing critically of U.S. foreign policy while working as a defense contractor, working on combat rescue stuff. So it was, it's been a strange road. I'm sure you're not a fan of savage words of peace, then. No, no. Yeah. It's almost the gold standard for like a young analyst in the military.

Yeah. And, and, you know, and he was, the guy's just been wrong about everything. And he again, you know, they, he's still there banging on. And what, what was interesting to me was the convergence of the neo-conservatives and the neoliberals after 9-11. I mean, not after 9-11, when Trump got elected, so that many of the neo-conservatives got to redeem themselves by being never Trumpers, anti-Trumpers. And they were absolved of their sins. And, and in my opinion, they will never be absolved of their sins. And they can go to Walter Reed, and they can ask for, you know, absolution from the one-legged veterans, the veterans with, you know, traumatic brain injuries, the veterans that they sent out on the crusades. So it's very easy for civilians

like Booth, who have never been in a fistfight, much less a firefight to talk tough, and suffer no, you know, nothing. And so that's my problem. One of my favorite books that I read when I was an analyst in the Marine Corps was Counter Incertancy by General Petraeus and General Lemos, which was how to win a counter incertancy in 90 days, essentially. And you're like, well, here we are 16 years later and we lost. So it's, yeah. But now, but now Petraeus is yapping on to Lix Grass, the French newspaper, saying we need American boots on the ground in Ukraine. They can't win once the ground freezes, blah, blah, blah. So Petraeus, like, you know,

thanks for coming out. Like, you know, you, yeah, I mean, I, I have people that I like and respect who are very close to him, but, but not him. It's like, was it General McChrystal got fired after talking, you know, shit about Obama to Rolling Stone magazine, and every soldier in Afghanistan was very happy because he closed all the Burger Kings in like Bagram. They're like, oh, fuck that guy. These Marines and soldiers have too much time in their hands where they had Burger King closing. It's like, okay. No, it's, it's all very confused, you know, and, and, yeah, I don't, you know, that whole thing of, I had a, you know, a Marine from, I think, the one nine who was in the first invasion of Iraq, and, and he's a good friend

from martial arts. And he, he said that, you know, 18 years old, you know, in the invasion. And, and he said, yeah, you know, as we're driving out after we supposedly win, all I see are these like pop up these semi tractor trailers with like pop up Burger King and 24 hour fitness and all this stuff coming in. And he's like, what? Oh, my cat's coming to join me. You got something important to say, beat it. So anyway, you know, and then, and then he said, yeah, and then my next tour, we were fighting the guys that I was allies with on my first tour, you know, and I was 20 and pretty dumb and a kid from Georgia. But even that didn't seem to make sense to me. And so, yeah, the whole, the idea that you're going to send soldiers to fight a war, but you're going to

transport your culture to a war zone, and you're going to have combat soldiers talking to their wives on that to me, doesn't make much sense, you know, like war is a serious business and you want to, you want your warriors to be focused on the war and not not half there and half not there. Another good book is, you know, war is a racket by Smithley Butler, two metal avanars, Marine veteran. But as soon as he gets out of the Marine Corps, writes this huge book about how much this is like everything we did was wrong. You're like, well, it's okay to say that after you've already done everything you've made your millions. It's now you're in this cushion where you can start talking shit. But yeah, but my, you know, my favorite Marine is Senator Jim Webb.

And, you know, Jim, you know, is a great guy. And sadly, he isn't in a senior leadership position in the US military or the US government. And, you know, we have some great people in the US military. But what I see in my experience is that the best guys get frozen at, you know, Lieutenant Colonel and rarely make Colonel because they actually say what they think or speak unpleasant truths. And, you know, and I recently read an article about midiates where, you know, it was like mid level idiots, you know, that it kind of know how to go along and get along and navigate the political wins and things like that. And I think that's really where we have an over abundance of them, both in government and military, and, and we're suffering as a result.

And one of those where I remember last year when the US was leaving Afghanistan and the West was pulling out and just rapid and it was in your face and everyone was watching the people fall off the planes and the telegram channels with the ANA fighters and Afghan Special Forces fighters who worked with the US for 20 years, they went 9 11 2 is going to hurt because you really messed this one up. Oh, yeah, you got leadership was so incompetent. Yeah. I mean, I completely concur and people said, Oh, my God, it's like the evacuation of Saigon. And I said, No, no. And, and actually I sent a piece I wrote on my substack sour milk to, you know, Jim Webb and, and Jim, and I said, This isn't Saigon. This is Phnom Penh. This is when the Khmer Rouge marched in.

And we, you know, we abandoned our allies who we said were abandoned and, and they were, you know, they were basically dragged out of the French Embassy and taken to the country club across the street and decapitated on the tennis courts. And, and so I, I really believe that, you know, Phnom Penh and Cambodia was the analogy not Saigon. It was much worse. And then I had friends that, you know, from the professional military who had navigated their way through the ranks and stuff. And they kind of poo pooed me. Oh, well, you know, geez, you know, we were never there. We did what we needed to do in Afghanistan. I was like, Man, the, you know, the, you know, I believe that impressions are often more important than empirical facts and international

politics. And my professor, Robert Jervis wrote a great book about this and basically argued that, that, you know, base people take facts and then they shape them to fit, you know, their preexisting beliefs. And, and, and I really thought that the, the visuals out of Afghanistan were horrific for American power and prestige. And, and it was all forgotten in not really not to our former allies, but in Washington and, you know, the mainstream news and everything else. And then we're off to our next, you know, unopposable war in Ukraine. And I, and I kind of said very early on, like, look, George Kennan said Ukraine as a part of NATO, like this is a red line. This is not, you know, a Victoria Newland. I absolutely distrust and her whole neocon family.

So let's take a couple of deep breaths. Let's take a look at 2014. Let's take a look at, you know, the leaked audio of her rigging that election and everything else. And man, I took rounds for that. And, and, you know, like, I'm the great subversive or something. And I'm not patriotic or whatever. It was, it was somewhat astounding. But I did continue to write. I think I wrote about five more pieces on Ukraine. And a lot of people loved them and would contact me off the record behind the scenes. Thanks for saying that. But it was not a popular position. And I was surprised by how much flak I took for questioning the idea that we would push Russia into China's lap, that we would risk World War Three, that we didn't have a clear

and obtainable political objective, which is Klaus Spitz 101. And we still don't really have a clear and obtainable political objective. It went from, you know, freeing the Ukrainian territories. And now it's a regime change war. And now, and that's the part that's, that, you know, and that's, that's serious. I mean, that's, you know, now, now the Saudis, we basically lost. Now we have a whole running off. Yep. Yeah, we have a whole new geopolitical calculus that we ignore at our own peril. And, and I don't know who the grownups are anymore. I don't see, I see a bunch of public relations spinsters. And I watched the great Miss Jean Pierre, I forget her first name in the press conferences. And, you know, she reminds me of like one of my undergraduates who didn't do her

reading. And it's, it's not, it's not comforting. You know, I feel like we don't, we don't really have leadership at the moment. One second here. I absolutely agree with what you're talking about. The just the leadership general direction of what does it mean to win is completely like you could absolutely obliterate an entire regiment or something with artillery, but I don't see any McDonald's at Hanoi or Kabul or anything. So we really didn't win. It's exactly. So that's like when it comes to the Russians, it's their war is more ideological, ideological, it's cultural. It's, they see it as more a reintegration of the former themselves. It's bringing the family back. But in the West, we can look at that as, oh, they're infringing on their

national identity of being an independent state where it's like, all right, well, if they don't want to be a Russian, let them figure it out. Like this is a kind of silly cultural imperialism that's, you know, it was why we lost Afghanistan. Oh, okay, let's not just focus on getting, you know, Da Shdoom and the remnants of Massoud's gang and running the al-Qaeda guys out like easy day, like the Saudis, you know, they paid their way in there. There would have been an easy deal to be made with the various entities in Afghanistan to rid them of that presence once and for all. But instead, it turned into a nation building exercise. And we have to convert this culture that's been this way since time immemorial into something that looks like America. And

it's one or the other. Do you want to win or do you want to get involved in this kind of, you know, nation building real social work exercise? And we, that's where we tried and we failed grossly. And even worse, those who really stuck their necks out for us are now in grave jeopardy. And if they haven't left already, so, you know, it's worse, you know, it's worse than just kind of like a, you know, a mistake or a tactical error. It's really setting your allies up for something truly catastrophic. As the ANA guys like, yeah, oh, yeah, we're going to be here for you guys and all that. And then it's like, oh, geez, thanks for coming out. As the ISI guys are going door to door checking cell phones and, you know, they're out of luck. They can't even,

you know, they can't even get into the United States. They'd been better off flying to Tijuana and coming off across the southern border with everybody else than trying to go to the US government and expect anything. I mean, that was truly shameful. When it comes to the idea of nation building, it's in technical terms, you if you can't kill them, you can't convert them. Then it's like, what are we doing there? Number one, so it's like, unless you're making them an American or the 51st state, that's, and everyone says Americans an imperial estate, which number one, yes, an empire of bases, of course, but the number two is, but the nation building, where if the analysts come out and say it's going to take 1000 years for Afghanistan to get to the Bronze Age,

and they go, I guess we're staying 1000 years, and then it's just a flip switch where it's like, if the Brits tried the Russians tried the Russians were brutal and peaceful of all three, and then it's, and it's almost like in, I'm sure you remember earlier this year, after the US withdrew from Afghanistan last year, the Russians started putting their troop build up to Central Asia to fill that power vacuum because they understood that. Absolutely. I believe they both understood that there is an insane power right here that the US just gave them all their cool toys. And so there's this weird coalition of the willing between Pakistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and I think Kazakhstan or something where they said, we need to contain Afghanistan. It's, yeah, it's, yeah,

there was definitely a lot of, and like you said earlier, no one really addressed it after we watched these cool newsreels and everyone's like, all right, what else is going on? So, yeah, no, no, it was, it was, yeah, it was on some level, it was probably too painful to, for people to try to quantify and, and we just sort of turned a blind eye to it and we're like, well, that's all over and we did what we did and we never plan, you know, and we just kind of revised our, our political objectives. But for me, who, you know, had a lot of friends who were there and fought there and some died there and I had friends who fought the Russians as well. And, and as you correctly point out, the level of brutality that the Russians threw at the Mujahideen in their war,

if they couldn't break them with that, what, you know, what were we expecting? And, of course, and you could look at Ukraine today, we see videos of, you know, Bukha and all these things with the mass rape of women and then you can go to World War II, look at the mass rape of women all the way up into the Berlin Wall and go, I'm pretty sure if you go to multiple villages in Afghanistan, you're just going to see ginger Afghans. It's, oh yeah, their dads are Russians. And so if they couldn't break them psychologically that way, that is America showing up saying, I'm here to help wasn't going to help. If the doctrinal end states did not fluctuate every administration that every six months in general would show up, it was,

yeah, it's definitely one of those topics where everyone could look back and go, oh, if I was there, I would have done this, but it's, it's the forever war of what are we doing? You know, exactly. And, you know, and that's a very important point. And that's the incoherence of American foreign policy because we, every four to eight years, we do a 180 or, you know, and so there's no, there's no real coherence. We don't have a kind of professional diplomatic core. We get, you know, the used car salesman who raised a bunch of money for a candidate. Suddenly, he's the ambassador and suddenly, you know, yeah, the stories I can tell you about some of those political appointees. It's just, it's embarrassing for all of us as Americans. And, and I'm not that

big a fan of the State Department either. So I don't know, maybe that used car salesman is an improvement upon some of them. We need this not Washington outsider to figure something out. Yeah. Like all the duty and hearts of iron. Come on. No, it's funny because I just, I consistently see great people, you know, defense attachés here and there, this and that, and they're just frozen because they're proactive. They're forward thinking. They're opinionated in a good way. And there's just no room for that. And that's, that's the idiots, the mid-level idiots. These are the people running the show. And these are the, you know, these are the, the, the kickball captain and the, you know, class president and, you know, and they, they go along and they get along and they,

they're consensus builders and they don't want to rubble feathers, but, but they'll stick a shiv in your back and the, you know, in the back room when you're not there. So, and they, and they speak in that kind of lilting way where every affirmative statement ends like it's a question. And, and so it's a, it's a deception. It's looking at, say the British after Sue was, they got absolutely crushed by the Egyptians, by outside us and the Russians said, hey, plain ice, you're not allowed to do this anymore. And then us after Vietnam, there was that syndrome of, oh yeah, nobody respects us internationally. The Brits got it back after the Falklands in 82 and us after, one can argue Grenada, but it was really Gulf War one where it annihilated the

fourth largest arm in the world in a hundred hours. And so looking at how the Russians have strategically biffed their invasion of Ukraine and the Chinese having like this internal almost turmoil or stagnation. It's almost like America may have a lightning war in West Africa or something here soon to kind of flex their muscles of, yes, we're still legitimate power. Oh, so are the Brits and everyone else in NATO. So yeah, but I, you know, again, but then again, who would it be? It's yeah, and also, you know, are, you know, the recruiting goals, the military is at an odd crossroads now and, and depleted, I mean, as a former contractor, you know, just the resource, so many of the resources going to Ukraine and, and having real difficulty meeting recruiting

goals and stuff like that, that it's no interesting to see both the more American right and left meeting in the middle of going, why are we still supporting Ukraine? It's because they see the $80 billion going to Ukraine, but then they say you couldn't give us $30 billion to save small businesses over the last two years. And so a lot of the average American is getting very upset about what's going on in their handling of Ukraine. And how was the squad, how was the squad's letter, you know, that, that went out just, and it wasn't even that extreme, basically the progressive Democrats saying like, well, you know, and, and McCarthy basically said the same thing, this shouldn't be an open ticket. This isn't an open checkbook. And, and they immediately

walked it back, you know, the most left-wing Democrats, and they fold it like a house of cards. And that was so telling to me. And I thought, oh, my, you're, you're, you're progressive values really, really showing and shining through. So, you know, again, it's a non-oppositional ideology. And that's a very troubling thing where there is no debate tolerated, whether it's, you know, and, and I don't, I'm not saying I disagree, agree to have an absolute ironclad belief about it. But as a democracy, we should be able to openly debate things like whether the Ukraine war and, and, and not having a political goal and having our goal morph into regime change for Russia. And what are the implications of that with the world's largest nuclear arsenal kind of going

up into the wind? And, you know, yes, serious implications or, you know, pushing Russia into China's arms or having, you know, Saudi Arabia make us look like cheap fucking dime store tricks, you know, and us just saying like, oh, well, please be nice to us before the election. I mean, that was most pathetic. You know, that letter that the Saudi prince or the Saudis released, I don't know, three weeks ago or something, basically saying that, you know, that we're going our own way and oh, and by the way, Biden came to us and begged to not slow down oil production. That was humiliating. And if anybody has a hard time figuring that out, I mean, that theoretically is our client state with the military that we pay for, and frankly,

is not a very good military. It is with our help and our resources, but against their Middle Eastern peers, they I don't think they do so well. I mean, I've heard horrifying stories from friends in the US military who have gone over to train the so-called Saudi special forces. And, you know, they they've, you know, the Yemenites have given them all that they can bargain for. So they've definitely, you know, kind of gone over the tips of their skis and should be should be checked, power checked. And I don't think we should be taking any shit from the Saudis. The Yemeni situation is another one where it's the largest humanitarian crisis on the planet. The people have cholera. They have dysentery. The people are, it's, I

think of what, an eighth or something like a fourth of the country's owned by al-Qaeda. They're still a thing. Everyone kind of forgot about that. The Houthis are funded by Iran, who are funded by Hezbollah, who are kind of indirectly supported by the Russians. And that entire region is like you said earlier, where Saudi Arabia is very wealthy and they could fund anything they would like. But you also have like Qatar or the UAE on both sides of the war in Libya, who also produce oil that went to Europe. And so now the Russians secured the oil fields. And it's just a new Niger below them with all the French-Iranian deposits were secured by the Russian mercenaries. And when the French said, that's why we're staying here and the West Africa said,

get out. And then it's, the West is in a period of cultural stagnation of what to do next, essentially. It's, yeah. And all, but I mean, Qatar, UAE and the Saudis, we have serious leverage there. And, and we could exercise it. And, and I don't, I don't really know. I don't know, you know, who's asleep at the wheel or I don't know what. I interviewed Andy Milburn from the Mozart group not long ago on sour milk. And I said, you know, well, okay, you make a reasonable case. But, you know, the political leaders can't even really define a political objective. And he said, because there is not the, you know, he said, you know, say what you will about Nixon and Kissinger and this and that, but at least they understood like Veltpolitik, you know, these people understand

public relations, Twitter, Instagram, and like a 90 second news cycle. And so I get the feeling that they're making it up as they go along. I don't get any, you know, Sullivan Blinken, Blinken, the worst named diplomat in American history. These are not people that inspire confidence in me. And again, more people who have never been in a fistfight, much less a firefight, and they're very promiscuous with the blood of those who enlist and serve. And I have a problem with that. When it comes to America's low retention rates and issue and also recruitment is an issue in the entire military where I know the Marine Corps is downsizing and they kind of meet their goals because, you know, America doesn't want to or need a Marine Corps, they want one, but it's

the idea of, and I mentioned it earlier, like a potential war coming up, which is, you know, if someone attacks us, you got to be nationalists that protect your country, go fight. But the idea of being nationalistic is supposedly bad these days. And so why would the youth in America go, well, why would I do that? Because I'm going to be labeled a Nazi or a terrorist by Twitter. So it's one of those weird cultural crossroads. But I think it's a good point. And I think we're now reaping the bitter harvest for that. So, you know, you send, you know, you send two generations of young Americans to go fight, you know, this open ended, like you said, forever wars. And it isn't just the Bush administration, which I put a lot of blame on their shoulders, but,

you know, Obama comes in and he has the opportunity for a full reset. And he dives right into Syria and Libya and is, is at every bit is incompetent. Susan Rice, Samantha Powers, you know, utter buffoons. And so same, same page. And yet, you know, the young Americans who do three, four, five combat tours, you know, you figure Vietnam War, one tour with two, you know, R&R breaks, the Marines were more, I think they were a year and a half for the R&R break. But, you know, to send like even, you know, reservists tour after tour, tour single mothers, like people really had no business on battlefields, that they could have found an intelligent way in place to use them in some other way. It was, in my opinion, very cold and cruel. And, and it would make

anybody think twice about thinking, Oh, I'm going to get to go to college for free. And, you know, yeah, you sign up. That's what you, you know, you sign up for. But, but again, tour after tour in, in wars without political objectives. I mean, I'm beating up on the, the Biden, Obama folks, but you look at, you know, what were the political objectives of Bush and Cheney was freedom and democracy. I mean, in, in places that had never existed. I mean, it was, it was just kind of childish. And, you know, again, and, and both sides are equally childish. And that, you know, you need to kind of come to obtain clear, definable and obtainable political objectives. And without those military force is, is wasted. And, and like you said,

too, you know, you can pound cities with howitzers and everything else, but if you can't occupy them, if you can't control them, what does it matter? Well, my story from my time in the military is I did a new boat tour to Northern Africa, so the Libya region. And we were doing this key leader engagement between the right and the left or the east and the west that come in the middle. But our representative to bring him together was a woman in a country that didn't believe women had rights. And also the only person who had any stake in anything coming out of Libya was the Italians. So I said, number one, she's absolutely not going to work here. Number two, why aren't the Italians doing

this? Like, why don't we facilitate this entire meeting at KLE on an Italian ship? And they went, you're not allowed to meet her. I was like, good. It's like, all right. But that's, again, the investment in the social justice ideology is greater than the investment in the political objective and outcome. And if that's the case, why are we even there? Because, you know, on some level, I mean, I saw this in Cambodia that, you know, free and fair elections. First, it was end of the civil war, disarmament. And then that clearly was not, it wasn't that it wasn't possible. It was that the UN was unwilling to do it. Then it became free and fair elections, women's rights, all these very Western things. And the Cambodians

were just looking at them like, okay, whatever. And in the end, they really got none of it. And so Cambodia is now, you know, in, I forget how many years of Hun Sen one party state, and they hold kind of elections, but opposition candidates have a bad history of falling out of a window. Yeah, they're not quite that bad. They're a little better at it than that. But, you know, they're so cowed and intimidated by the time the election comes that it's pretty clear what the outcome is going to be. And oh, of course. Yeah, especially in something like the former Yugoslavia, where NATO still has peacekeeping operations there to make everyone play nice, but the Serbians are absolutely a puppet of the Russians. And Kosovo is this weird little area where I guess we announced

they're an active state, but also you have Bosnia who wants it. And so it's many of the Croatians and like that whole area just everyone put a band-aid on and we're like, let's go try to free Tibet before we come back to this one. Oh, yeah. No. And, you know, there's you at a certain point in international politics, you have to make, you know, triage decisions, which we clearly make, right? We were really serious about and I've said this for many years about human rights and all that, blah, blah, blah. It would have started in the Congo, in Rwanda, you know, where there's been this incredibly, you know, just terrific civil wars that, you know, shift and swirl and, you know, more brutality than pretty much anywhere on earth. And, you know, people just turn a blind eye to it.

And Africa is, was the test for us and we failed that test. And, yeah. One of the other wars that I think is very proxy by association is the Bush war in Angola between the South Africans and the Cubans where it's, oh, yeah, nobody liked the apartheid because they were like, they were part of us and they got really racist and then they broke off and then, but also Cuba started with the Russians, but they're also fighting Angola. So we're like, let's let these guys kill each other. I don't care who wins. No, even better is you had Chevron paying the Cubans to protect their refineries against US backed Jonas Zavimbi. And so you had, you had Reagan freedom fighters and Zavimbi was one of them. And, and as were the Khmer Rouge,

the Khmer Rouge reinvented themselves as anti-communist Reagan freedom fighters. And I have, yeah, I know you can't make it up. And I have videotape of Ing Seri, Khmer Rouge guy who has tried for war crimes saying, oh, yes, we are freedom fighters against communism now 1980 a year out. Like that's how cynical these guys were. But yeah, that's what you had exactly in Angola. And you had, you know, you basically had Chevron having to hire Cuban troops to protect their refineries from US backed insurgents. And so then those insurgents were backed by the Soviets where the other guys were backed by the Chinese. So those two didn't like each other. And then it's that whole, that just Southern Africa, like the Congo South is probably

the most interesting post World War two experience. Because like you said, there was the Congo, but the Belgians left, fell into civil war. And so international mercenaries, reading soldier of fortune went, I'm going to go there. I'm going to change my name for a few minutes. Oh, yeah. We had Rhodesia and, you know, Ian Smith. And, and they were, yeah, yeah. And, and, you know, now you have total, your total mess. And nobody wants to talk about it. But South Africa and yeah, it's hardly a success story. Part time was one of those have a few beers and do a what if America went to like South Africa to help keep the apartheid coming instead of getting involved in it or Vietnam. It's like, it definitely would be an uncertainty because they were down there.

But it's, it's like what society look like today? What would the world look like? I can't play counterfactual. I tell my students that not allowed. Yeah, red flag. Yeah. Yeah. But going into your, your books, do you have anything up on like anything planned coming next? Yeah, I want to write a book on the Mayagüez incident, the last battle of the Vietnam War, where three Marines were left behind and captured and killed by the Khmer captured after probably at least a week and then killed by the Khmer Rouge. Remarkable bravery in that 24 hour battle. From the Marines, the Air Force PJs, the Navy, an incredible political cowardice from the Ford administration, Henry Kissinger. That's the book I'd really like to write. But

you know, it's very hard to get advances to write that kind of book. And it isn't subject matter or anything. It's just, oh, the Vietnam War, nobody's interested in. And Jaco, you know, kind of beat me up. And it's like, wow, I just published it. Yeah, I did listen to the episode with Jaco. It was three and a half hours. It was dense. Yeah, he did a great job. And he really did his homework. And that's the story that needs to be told, you know, really for the sake of American soldiers, you know, Marines. And I will eventually tell it. I'm finishing a second Hickson Gracie book right now, the Jiu Jitsu champion. And I really want to write a book on the famous wrestler, Judo Jean LaBelle. And so I'm chipping away at that. Yeah. Who was,

yeah, who Brad Pitt portrayed in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, beating up Bruce Lee, which wasn't really the true story. Allegedly, Jean... It's a Tarantino movie, yeah. Yeah. And allegedly, Jean choked Steven Segal unconscious on the set of his own movie when Jean was like almost 60. And I think I would safely say Jean LaBelle was the gray, he died recently, was the greatest American fighter of the 20th century, and the true pioneer of mixed martial arts in America. And was, you know, one of Ron Rousey's key coaches, Boss Rooton, and just a remarkable, remarkable character who crossed so many lines and lived a bunch of different lives. That's amazing. I do want to ask you a question. Did you see the footage of Steven Segal training

Russian soldiers in Moitai or whatever in Belarus? He was just walking around in a leather jacket in snowboarding glasses, like, this is what you got to do. And the Russians were eating it up. I bet. Well, you know, it's, yeah, no, he's just an... Yeah, under siege too, Kiev, like it's... No, he's just, he is who he is. And I, you know, I don't, I don't know him. I've never met him. He's really big. But, but beyond that, I just don't know much about him. But I know that, you know, that he's no Jean LaBelle. It's, yeah, the footage came out of, you know, it was within the last 48 hours of the Russians about to invade. And there's a picture of Steven Segal just walking around. Everyone went, what?

But he's a self-proclaimed, you know, best friend of Putin. But Putin says, I mean, I've seen his movies, but it's what we call his best friends. Yeah, he's, and he was a, you know, agency operative, and of this and of that. And, you know, it's endless. And, yeah, you know, as, you know, Jean LaBelle, we, I got to train with Jean once. And, and we said, you know, what's the story about Jean with choking Steven Segal out? And he said, like, big fellow with a ponytail makes more in the day than you and I will make in our lives. And then he kind of looked and smirked at us. And he's like, I don't think I'll be working for him again. And, yeah, and, you know, but I mean, Jean LaBelle was truly scary. I mean, he was, he was the referee in the Anoki Muhammad Ali fight. He, yeah, he's like,

he's everywhere, guys. Yeah, well, and he was also Bruce Lee's martial arts teacher. Because when Bruce Lee was on the green hornet, he was beating up on the stuntman. So Jean was a stuntman and the stunt coordinator called him and said, hey, I got this guy from Hong Kong and he's like beating up my guys. Can you kind of sort him out? And so Jean was a 1954 AAU Judo champion, 1955 AAU Judo champion, both his weight category and unlimited. So 163, he beat everybody from every category. Then after he won everything, he went to Japan and won 17 of 18 matches against the best judo guys in Japan. The one match he lost was by a shady decision. Then he became a crazy pro wrestler. And his mother was the head promoter

at the Olympic Auditorium in LA. So he grew up with Freddie Blasey, gorgeous George. He was friends with Muhammad Ali. And, and so he understood the fight game like nobody. And yeah. And so Jean became this crazy pro wrestler and kind of played that character. But he had wrestled with Carl Goch, Luthes, Ed the Strangler, Lewis. And, and, you know, he was he had boxed with Sugar Ray Robinson. I mean, he was also almost a pro level boxer. So this guy truly was a mixed martial artist. And he fights Milo Savage, the number five at one time, middleweight contender in America. He fights him in a no rules fight in 1963 in Utah. And, and chokes him unconscious. And this guy. Yeah. That's, that's phenomenal. Yeah. Do you still surf these days? Lots. Yeah. Not to not to take away from the

entire story. But yeah, recreationally, since you do all these crazy things with this amazing resume, it seems like, like, I read your, your work and what is this interview from The Surfer's Journal. Yeah. So that's still an active I write for The Surfer's Journal. And yeah, I surf all the time. I surf usually two to four or five days a week, depending on the waves. But when I body surf a lot, I'm in the ocean a lot. And I like the ocean. I grew up in the ocean. Do you go to surf city or something? No, right. So okay. Yeah, because I used to live on the June and it was a kind of a hike to go surfing down there. But no, no, I'm in just in rightsville beach. And

yeah, and the water is very warm here most of the year. It's yeah, it's very pleasant. Not the waves aren't that big, but yeah, I like that whole area. It's I think Wilmington was called like the happiest city in America, five years in a row or something. It's there's no stress down there until you marines come in on Saturday nights downtown and just get up to no good. Oh, yes, definitely had many a good nights down in a that made like crap though and all those cool bars. I told Jim Webb's son, I said, Oh yeah, oh, you're gonna be come on down to Wilmington. He goes, Oh, I don't know. I think there's still a worn out for me there. I used to love going there every single Saturday in

November and just see the marines and their blues. And I would just like wear a beanie and say like, Oh, thank you for your service, man. I would never be able to do this. They're like, I do you want to drink, man? I do anything for a civilian. I was like, thanks. But oh, yeah, those were fun. But Peter has been an absolute honor. This has been a fantastic conversation. Well, thank you for having me. And yeah, call anytime and come on, come on down and visit. I'll take you for a surf and you can buy me a beer when I'm in DC. It sounds good. All right, I really appreciate it. So much. Okay, all right.