QAA Podcast - Boom! (E307)

Starting point is 00:00:00 POMAYOR. If you're hearing this, well done. You've found a way to connect to the internet. Welcome to the QAA podcast, episode 307. Boom! As always, we are your host, Jake Rakitansky, Julian Field, Mike Prysner, and Travis View. The blinding light fills the screen for an instant,

Starting point is 00:00:49 then multiplies into pirouettes of smoke. A split second prior, it had been a cyber truck parked in front of the Las Vegas Trump Hotel. Bands of light modeled by tree shade, a set of gold-plated revolving doors, a vehicle built of angles and reflections. Inside the truck, the dead body of a 37-year-old man with a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head, along with gas canisters and firework mortars cobbled into a makeshift bomb. A green beret with five bronze stars in a rental vehicle that made him feel like...

Starting point is 00:01:19 Batman or Halo. Footage shows a moment of stillness followed by a festive explosion, a pyrotechnic show reaching for an audience through the lenses of security cameras. We aspire in death to be a single pixel in the spectacle's high-definition Jumbotron. We hope to graduate from viral short-form video to Netflix tile, securing our place in the American Pantheon. But without the screens, we end up just another bird hitting a window pane, unnoticed. Welcome to the first QAA main episode of 2025. Shut up, Jake.

Starting point is 00:01:54 Do not interrupt me again. I was saying that that was beautiful. I love you so much. Such a beautiful. Don't do it again. We hope you are well-rested listeners because we're coming in swinging. I'm furious, a variety of things, and I'm taking it out on Jake immediately, even though he didn't predict this because I was so nice to him when he came over. Yeah, that was really, man, he really pulled a bait and switch on me.

Starting point is 00:02:15 Two hugs, a coffee, made me a coffee. Told me I looked, told me I looked, told me my hair looked good, all of these things. I didn't need that last one. Sh, shh, shh, told me it looked real thick, much more filled in the last time he saw me. Oh, we've got quite a program for you. Our guest is Mike Prysner of the Empire Files, Eyes Left, and the fantastic documentary, Gaza Fights for Freedom. Of course, also upcoming documentary, Earth's Greatest Enemy, which is coming out this year. You may also remember him as the writer of our two-parter on Tulsi Gabbard, or perhaps for his multiple guest appearances on this show, or maybe even for his powerful and committed friendship with Julian Field.

Starting point is 00:02:57 Mike's also a veteran of the U.S. military, and we thank him for his service. Mike, I love the troops, and welcome back on the show. You are welcome, you're welcome. We all, of course, fought for your right to have a podcast. That's specifically, I think more men of age should be sent to defend podcasters' rights. Something tells me that the podcasts they're defending are like the Joe Rogans of this world. And ours is like, not as well liked, especially after this one. You have like one guy with like a half-loaded magazine.

Starting point is 00:03:27 We're, our guy is like Tom Hanks, like, as he's dying, shooting at the tank as it's, you know, coming out of. If there are people actively serving listening, quit. You should quit and you should leave. And Mike can help you. Call the GI Rights Hotline. It's there 24-7, confidential professional advice on how to get out quick. Yes, that's what we're here to do is promote exit from a military that will make you one day fight for Joe Rogan. and we'll also be exploring the Las Vegas cyber truck explosion, the New Orleans mass murder,

Starting point is 00:04:02 and the trend of domestic terrorist attacks carried out by people with U.S. military training. I'm not sure why I said all of that with like a semi-loughing voice. I'm disturbed by my own tone. Mike, how are you doing, though, in general? How's it going? Good. I mean, just, of course, worried about all you guys down there in L.A. I mean, I, you know, just moved from there about a year ago, and it was the fires in 2020

Starting point is 00:04:22 that kind of made me sketched out having a newborn. at that time and couldn't go outside for months because of the air quality and all that. So I left because I knew that's not the place I wanted to be when the inevitable climate crisis hits, but it's hitting. And we're here. We stayed. Yeah. Well, we left briefly and then came back.

Starting point is 00:04:38 Yeah, left briefly, came back, and still here. Yeah. We'll be getting into that. Yeah, we'll talk about that. In a little news hit. But before all that, PizzaGate News. All right. So here's how we're going to start off.

Starting point is 00:04:54 this parade of grim, absurd violence. The story of Edgar Madison Welch, better known as the Pizza Gate shooter, was fatally shot by police in Canapolis, North Carolina on January 4th, 2025. So you may remember in December of 2016, Welch drove from North Carolina to Washington, D.C., armed with a rifle to investigate the Pizza Gate conspiracy theory. He specifically was operating on the false idea that the pizzeria comet ping pong contained enslaved and abused children. He fired inside the restaurant, but surrendered peacefully after finding no evidence to support

Starting point is 00:05:30 his claims. He later commented, quote, the intel on this wasn't 100%. Oh, you trusted Jack Posobic? Really? That didn't come through for you? No, yeah. Yeah, it turns out that that Sernovich Intel wasn't as good as he had hoped. Now, no one was injured during the incident.

Starting point is 00:05:48 Welch pleaded guilty to related charges, and in 2017 was sentenced to first. four years in prison. Now, it tragically seems like Welch was not able to get his life back on track after his release. During a traffic stop earlier this month, officers recognized Welch as a passenger in the car with an outstanding felony probation violation warrant. According to police, when they attempted to arrest him, Welch drew a handgun and pointed at the officers. Despite commands to drop the weapon, he did not comply, prompting two officers to open fire. This is the initial report on what happened. So Welch was transported to a hospital

Starting point is 00:06:25 where he succumbed to his injuries two days later. So a tragic end to a already very tragic and absurd story. Jesus Christ. And like the conspiracy theory I've seen floating around online, started by an online jokester, of course, is that he is related to

Starting point is 00:06:40 a hawk to a girl, Haley Welsh. Yeah, yeah. That sucks. God. That sucks, man. They're like, let's just combine creatures. Why not? Like, let's just combine things that we've heard about. Everything is, you know, equivalent.

Starting point is 00:06:57 I think I'm losing my voice. The fires. Yeah, speaking of which, breaking news, Mel Gibson's home has burned to the ground, and as a result, Jake Rockatansky's home has burnt to the ground as we discovered that he is living in Mel Gibson's

Starting point is 00:07:12 basement. Actually, Jake, living in Mel Gibson's brain. Jake, more like he's living in mine. Bill Gibson, by the way, on his recent appearances, looks like a structure that was, like, burned and, like, only the kind of framework of it is left up. Yeah, yeah, he's...

Starting point is 00:07:33 I can't believe that he's still around and part of the conversation and getting work. I imagine he's getting phased out of that. No, he's right now on the media tour for the second Jesus movie, the resurrection or whatever. Oh, man, I can't believe that they're keeping this guy around after all of the horrible things that he's on record. Yeah, Hollywood would never allow a horrible person to stick around for...

Starting point is 00:07:56 Well, but, like, Mel Gibson's decades. He's not even that good, and he's all like... But he's also not as bad as other people they've covered up for. True, true. I don't believe Mel Gibson is just, like, a mass rapist, like Weinstein. I don't know. Hard to say with some of these guys. Okay, well, let's... We're not claiming that about Mel Gibson.

Starting point is 00:08:14 We are claiming his house burned down, and I'm going to take back, obviously, my jocular mannerism. Not funny. A lot of people we know have lost their homes. People we know have lost sometimes, like, their community places of work and stuff like that. It sucks. It's truly apocalyptic. My throat does hurt. And for once, it's not from sucking dick.

Starting point is 00:08:37 Yeah. No? It's hard to laugh. I mean, it's really, yeah, it's hard to laugh. It's very scary. I live, you know, up in the valley, and we were pretty close to other areas, parts of our neighborhood that we're having to evacuate and like Julian said yeah we we know a bunch of people a friend of the show Mike Rothschild had his house burned down and i don't know Travis you're also

Starting point is 00:08:59 still we're all still in fire danger by the way yeah yeah yeah yeah fire season is not over yet uh you like in my region the national weather service issued a red flag warning for the next couple days which basically means it's it's the kind of uh hot and windy condition that fires love so yeah So, like, I am prepared to take off if that is required of me. I have to say, I have a feeling that I would be a good evacuee. I'd be prepared. I'd be poised. You know, I'm handling very well.

Starting point is 00:09:31 That's what I thought, you know, it's funny because I play a lot of survival simulators. Now, you would be a good evacuator, as in you have diarrhea often. It really doesn't, it really doesn't, you know, because for us, it was like, it started slow, right? it was like, okay, there's going to be really bad wins. And so that was what we were worried about. So we were, you know, the night. They were shaking, like the building was kind of swaying and my windows were being forced open, like slowly.

Starting point is 00:09:59 Like, I thought the glass on one of my windows was just going to break because it's like thin. Like it started with the wind and so we like kind of put away stuff in the backyard, you know, like chairs and plants and stuff that could easily blow over and break all this stuff. And we were like, okay, well, it's like all that stuff is, you know, locked down like all right we're okay then it was a terrifying night where like julian was saying the wind was just we thought that the glass was was gonna shatter because the winds were so yeah so bad and the images already coming out yeah were insane from like the palisades and all that i mean

Starting point is 00:10:32 just looked so so bad i mean people have probably seen that image of like the macdonald's sign with like the embers just being like shot you know resembling tracers like just it looked it looks It looked crazy, and, yeah, I was like, well, fuck. Like, tomorrow I'll probably go down to Torrance and spend some time with my brother. I mean, now, even coming back, I've taped up all my windows with, like, painting tape so that there's no, like, air coming through. And I'm trying to, like, you know, keep the air somewhat purified through, like, a variety of different machines. But it's, yeah, it's not great. There was, like, ash pooling at the base of all of my windows because they're not sealed properly.

Starting point is 00:11:11 Yeah. Power out. Like, we had our power out for, like, more than 20. 24 hours. And that morning, like the Wednesday morning, really when the fires were starting to, just kind of starting to break out was we were like running around the street because like all the garbage bins were flying everywhere. And we were like, oh my God, the garbage bins have become projectiles like in the middle of the road. And all of this, there was a screen door in my yard, like not mine. Somebody else's screen door. Free screen door. And so we, I'm going to put it out.

Starting point is 00:11:41 Like after this all blows over, I'm going to put it back out and put a sign on it. Be like, Yours? Anybody's screen door? Put a little price. Put a little price on it. But my wife and I, we had just gotten, like, a new used car, but new for us. And we were like, okay, well, let's park that, like, under the awning and the driveway so that the debris won't hit it. And we can have my old piece of shit, like 2010 car, kind of exposed to the elements. Well, when it came time that we were like, okay, they're evacuating, like, other areas close to us.

Starting point is 00:12:12 let's like get out of here and like beat the panic. I get into my 2010 car to like start it and it's fucking dead. It won't start because I haven't driven it in like three weeks. So we end up having to like put the car in neutral, like push it ourselves like just out enough so that we can back our car that we want to escape in, drive over our lawn. It was it felt like I was in my own mini like Tom Cruise action scene. But, like, all these things, like, you know, these moments, you're like, okay, well, what do I take? And I'm, like, looking at my, like, proton pack.

Starting point is 00:12:48 And I'm like, oh, I've got three proton packs, like my prize possession, all my Ghostbusters stuff. And I'm like, eh, like, I can leave that. Like, eh, I can leave that. And, like, the stuff we ended up taking were, like, photo albums, like, death certificates, social security cards, passports for some reason, as if we're going to be doing any international travel anytime students. What are you going to do, leave them to burn? Because you don't like to travel? that much?

Starting point is 00:13:11 Yeah, it's like... What are you talking about? Well, it's just like, the things you take are just like these very, like, I don't know, just, it's interesting. Like, all the stuff that we acquire over time that we love, like our favorite things, our favorite little things, you know, when it comes down to it, you're kind of like, eh, I can replace that. Yeah, if it's just objects, you know, but if it has, like, sentimental value or something

Starting point is 00:13:32 irreplaceable, like photos, like physical photos or writing. I have this one thing that I didn't grab that, like, I've now since packed and our car just in case things get bad again this week because the winds are supposed to pick up again today. One thing that I forgot, though, is my grandmother's collection of Morgan Silver Dollars. She has, like, the Silver Dollar collection that goes back to, like, 1870 something. Oh, did you forget to pack your coins? I forgot to pack like these like family, like family heirloom coins. It was like probably the most valuable thing I have and I just left it. We're moving on from Jake. I know I don't know. Some people have lost their home and you're talking about your damn silver

Starting point is 00:14:16 dollars. Well, those who will retain value after the economy collapses. I'm talking to fucking Travis, libertarian extraordinaire who lives out in the woods. Of course you would support you on the silver coins. Mike, what's your take on the silver coins? I think they're fireproof, so you didn't really have to worry about it. Well, not the books that they're in. Not the books. Oh, yeah. Oh, the value. No, it's fine. You got to save your silver dollars. You did attach your your grandma to the story so it makes it seem slightly more touching? Well, she's dead. Well, that's... Jesus Christ,

Starting point is 00:14:47 she's dead. She's so dead. I know, man. Don't even... You're using this against me. Why are you semi-smiling? Like, you've caught me. You want to hear something really funny? Like you got me on this one. Funny really quick about my dead grandmother. No, why? Why would you say it that way? Okay, go ahead. She loved smoking cigarettes so much

Starting point is 00:15:03 that when we buried her, when we buried her, my cousin took out a sig and threw it into the the grave. And my dad turned to me and he goes, I half expected a hand to come out and crap. She liked smoking so much. Dude, I hope someone fucking throws a little siggy into my grave. I hope so, too. You know what? Throw one into mine. Yeah. Be my, I, you know, I'm off nicotine. I'm off nicotine now, but it's very tough. Nicotine, hardest thing to quit, I think, for me. Anyways, we are so far off.

Starting point is 00:15:32 We're so far off. This is what happens when Julian and I are in the studio together. Yeah, we forget that there are two other people on the other end of the Skype. I'm actually, I actually have my hand on his thigh. No, he doesn't. He's got his hands on a little tin of nicotine that I'm also eyeing. Listen, I'm just going to pack as many of these into my gums because if I walk outside, the air is like toxic. But I still do for smokes, but I smoke less. So now I have these little evil things that give me horrible heartburn if I allow the juice to trickle into back my throat. But whatever, it's doing something. It's got to do something. You got to do fucking something.

Starting point is 00:16:09 Well, for me, that's... I got to limit that something. 2025, we're not even like two weeks in, like basically two weeks in. It's absolute fucking chaos. It's chaos. People are fucking blowing themselves up. The city is fucking burning. Ah, God.

Starting point is 00:16:27 Travis admitted in group chat that he wasn't as prepared as he thought he was, that his generator didn't quite work the way. Everything's falling apart. He doesn't, like his generators, he doesn't need that. What he needs is a neighbor with a better generator, and then he needs his Glock. So what I said was, I have a solar and battery system. Like, yeah, the battery, for some reason, it didn't, it worked for like a day and a half. But, yeah, I'm going to have to dig in there and make sure that's like, you know, works, works next time.

Starting point is 00:16:57 But, yeah. Day and a half is good. How is the illegal silencer that you installed on your Glock as well as the clip that's too long for California law that you told me also that you put on your- magazine, man. Come on, Mike's here. Shut the fuck up. Tell me about, is it, does it work now? No, no, that's that's, that's, all of that is untrue.

Starting point is 00:17:17 No, I'm, my, I am perfectly, I'm perfectly compliant with California firearms law, say that. Or so he claims, we can only know by investigating him further, and or door knocking him, honestly. Okay, we gotta

Starting point is 00:17:33 we gotta get back on track. Travis, actually, I do, I will need you for the next part in which you've done the work on the, yeah, cyber truck. Yeah, I mean, like New Year's Day, like, you know, I woke up a little late and checked the news, and Jesus Christ is already a nightmare, day one, like the morning of day one. So, yeah, the new year started with not one, but two, high-profile violent incidents committed by current or former U.S. soldiers. First, there was the multiple casualty terror attack in New Orleans, and then the

Starting point is 00:18:07 was the cyber truck bombing in Las Vegas. Now, there's no evidence that these incidents are connected to each other, besides maybe conceptually. So both men served in Afghanistan in 2009, both previously served at the largest U.S. Army base, Fort Liberty, formerly called Fort Bragg in Fayetteville, North Carolina. And both incidents involved an electric truck that the men rented from the car sharing app, Turo. Okay, that's the most, like, damning thing.

Starting point is 00:18:37 Who the fuck knows about this app? Well, you know, I did test it. I googled rent cyber truck and then separately rent pickup truck. And Turo was the top search result of both of those searches. So, you know. They have the best SEO, apparently, for this right now. Their SEO game is top tier. Yeah, for guys who want to commit murder with their vehicles.

Starting point is 00:18:57 If you type in, I want to kill myself by exploding a cyber truck, Turo is number one. You know, I'm really curious about how Turo is doing. This is a real test. of like all publicity is good publicity story. You think people saw that? Turro, let me check that. Hey, you know, it actually is quite convenient to rent this truck that these terrorists rented a truck from.

Starting point is 00:19:16 If you want to feel like Batman or Halo, Turo is number one. Yeah. So let's start with the deadlier and more tragic of the two incidents. So that is the, yes, the mass casualty terrorist attack committed by Shamsuddin Jabbar, a 42-year-old Texas man. Over the evening of New Year's, Jabbar drove a Ford F-150 lightning truck from Houston to New Orleans.

Starting point is 00:19:42 During the journey, he recorded and posted videos to Facebook, declaring his allegiance to the Salafi jihadist group, ISIS. In one of the clips, Jabbar said that he initially intended to harm his family, but decided against it believing it would not have illustrated the, quote, war between the believers and the disbelievers. Once he arrived at Bourbon Street, he planted two improvised. explosive devices, packed in coolers. And at about 3.15 a.m. on New Year's Day, he got back in the car and proceeded to plow through New York Revellers, killing 14 and injuring dozens more. Shortly afterwards, he exited the car wearing a ballistic vest and helmet and began firing at responding police officers, injuring two. He subsequently died in a shootout with those officers. Police recovered an ISIS flag in Jabbar's

Starting point is 00:20:31 truck and at least three cell phones. He was not a very good bomb maker, evidently. The vehicle also contained a transmitter that was supposed to detonate the IEDs, but the bombs did not go off because, according to investigators, Jabbar did not have access to a detonator and instead tried to use an electric match, which is apparently commonly used for like fireworks or household rocketry. That did not work. So, Travis, just to kind of, you know, split hairs here, which ISIS are we talking about? Was he part of the good ISIS that is now in charge of Syria or the bad ISIS that we used to be fighting. Yeah, well, you know, I'm getting a little confused with the different ISIS is now. There seems to be a bizarre world splitting. Yeah, well, you know,

Starting point is 00:21:12 I think, yeah, investigation, I guess is still preliminary. Based on the information so far, he was, you know, freelancing. You know, I don't know if there's any evidence he had contact with any other self-described members of ISIS. What do you make of that, Mike, you know, this kind of like ISIS sheen on, on what is kind of an all-American guy otherwise, you know, except if you're just like one of those people who's like, well, his name's Jabbar. Right, which wasn't his given name. You know, it's a name he adopted. And, you know, what we know about this guy is he had like three divorces or going through

Starting point is 00:21:44 his third divorce. He had a lot of failed businesses. So his time after the army was just one of repeated failure and debt and being, you know, his house possibly getting foreclosed and all this stuff. You know, this whole idea of like, oh, I was going to murder my wife and kids, but then I decided to do an ISIS attack instead. And like, oh, the reason I didn't murder my wife and kids is because. it wouldn't demonstrate my loyalty to ISIS.

Starting point is 00:22:05 And it's like, it had nothing to do with the fact that I'm jealous that my ex-wife is sleeping with another guy or I'm mad that I got, you know, that my wife left me or anything like that. It's just such a weird, you know, the fact that he's trying to be like, oh, it has nothing to do with me being mad about this relationship. This is just about my religious devotion. You know, this is obviously just like a cop out. And then it's just like, you know, the classic person who has failed and has extreme anti-social behaviors that then does the most extreme antisocial thing you can do,

Starting point is 00:22:30 which is just murder a bunch of innocent people. Yeah, you're right. There was a court records that some reporters dug up about his divorce that indicated that his monthly expenses, partly due to like child support payments, exceeded his income by thousands of dollars. So he was not in a good place financially. He was drowning. He was not in a good place in his relationships. Every part of his life was not going in a good direction. And that almost certainly contributed to his violent radicalization. I mean, do you think that ISIS for him was just kind of like a symbol of like fuck this country and fuck this military that I served under? Look where I'm at now. I thought I thought I was, you know, kind of risking my life for something better. Yeah, I mean, clearly that could be it. It's like he had just become a totally insane person, you know. And it's like the idea of, I think the appeal of ISIS to people like that is that ISIS is just known for being the most brutal killers. You know, I mean, when that, you know, when that they arose as a phenomenon, it was just like,

Starting point is 00:23:28 this is the most brutal shit anyone's ever imagined and all of the videos come. And so I think that's the attraction to people like that who just hate humanity and society. I mean, ISIS is a natural thing to gravitate towards because they're kind of this caricature of evil that exists in real life. Yeah, for people my age, this was like, when we first got to college and got Ardell's, you know, dude, you got Adel, the videos that were circulating in that very early time on like rotten.com or whatever. I can't even remember the names of these like horrible sites. were like these like horrible decapitation videos that were like going around and that it was kind of like, you know, it was like a new era of faces of death. I don't know if anybody's old enough to remember those old like VHS movies, but it was like, oh, did you see the, you know, did you see that video, the guy, you know, oh, have you seen the unknown soldier video where the guy's throat gets? There was like a time when that stuff was kind of, you know, where this like these snuff films were kind of like circulating, you know, I, you know, I can't watch violence.

Starting point is 00:24:27 anymore because I watched enough of those videos when I was like 19 or 20 that I felt like a piece of me like died with the people in the video like I still am hung over from like some of that like horrible content. Yeah and I mean others have covered this more in depth and it's probably not our area of specialty but like the links between the foundation of ISIS and like all the intervention in the Middle East is pretty it's a pretty straight line a lot of the times it's like, you know, disaffected young men who were serving in armed forces abroad. They're just like from one day to the next disbanded and told, well, yeah, you don't have like a source of income anymore and you can't go back to fighting. And so they're like, well, yeah,

Starting point is 00:25:10 no, absolutely. I mean, that's the kind of the tragic irony of the thing is that inspired by ISIS, which would not exist were it not for the U.S. occupation and division of Iraq, really. I mean, it's a direct outgrowth of that war. This guy who joined the army during that time, you know, ends up using that as his motivation to carry out this attack. And so it's, you know, not to say that he wouldn't have done it if ISIS didn't exist, but it ended up being the thing he latched on to, which was a result of U.S. foreign policy, clearly. Okay, yeah, Travis, take us back into your soft hands. So, yeah, hours after this incident at approximately 8.39 a.m.,

Starting point is 00:25:48 a Tesla cyber truck parked outside of the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas exploded very suddenly. Seven bystanders suffered minor injuries. The explosion also sent off fireworks that went off in several directions. As soon reported that there was a man in the vehicle, well, a dead man, and he was the one who set off the explosion. It was Matthew Livelsberger, a 37-year-old U.S. Army Green Beret. Now, the explosion is not what killed him, though. He evidently fatally shot himself moments before the explosion.

Starting point is 00:26:19 He shot himself with a desert eagle, the, like, car. cartoon gun. Yeah. Like the most unwieldy kind of like, it's kind of the cyber truck of guns, honestly. Like very aesthetic, way too high caliber, and like kind of known for being crummy and unreliable, actually, like if you were to use it in a combat situation. I don't know. Am I wrong about this, Mike?

Starting point is 00:26:44 No, I mean, it kind of matches the other elements of the suicide, you know? It's like you got the Desert Eagle, you got the cyber truck, you got Trump Tower, and you got the fireworks, you know, and you know that he was like, he was a big fan of fireworks. And so like, and my initial thought of this, and this may still even be like what really was behind it all. It was like, you know, army suicides, especially among guys who have been in combat, which Livelsberger was quite a bit, are just like extremely common. And so it was, you know, this guy, my thought was, oh, this guy instead of just being another guy who just shoots himself, which happens like every day in the military, in fact, at a rate of like 1.5 per day. You know, he just went out with a

Starting point is 00:27:21 being surrounded by all the things he loved. You know, he loved Trump. He loved Musk and the cyber truck. He loved fireworks. So he's like, I'm not just going to be another one of these guys that shoots himself. I want to shoot myself, but I want to do it with all these cool things and make it look really cool when I got out. And so that was kind of my initial thought. And then, you know, of course, there's more information now that could mean, there's other other motivations, but, you know, it just seemed pretty straightforward, you know, went out with a real bang, like in a very literal way. Yeah. Yeah, you know, it's interesting that though, Well, the Jabbar's terrorist attack had the highest casualty count, but in his service, he was, he didn't serve in a combat role, though he was deployed to Afghanistan.

Starting point is 00:27:59 Littlesburger, however, was, you know, he was kind of more of a hardcore operator. He enlisted in the Army in 2006. He served in various capacities, including communications, intelligence, and operations with the special forces. He deployed actually twice to Afghanistan and served in Ukraine, Tajikistan, Georgia, and the Congo. So at the time of the incident, he was stationed at Fort Carson, Colorado, and in Germany, and he was awarded, yeah, highly decorated, like Julian mentioned at the top of the episodes. He wore it two bronze stars, including one with a Valor Device for Courage Under Fire, a combat infantry badge in an Army commendation medal with Valor. The show Inside Edition uncovered that Littlesberger appeared in a 2013 episode of a History Channel's

Starting point is 00:28:44 Ultimate Soldier Challenge. Jesus fucking Christ. Oh, everything is just television. It's just screens. And we've got a clip of those screens. It's a reality show that pits teams of elite soldiers from around the world against each other. Matt and Tim from the U.S. Army Special Forces, better known as the Green Berets. Matthew Livelsberger and his partner Tim Kennedy, both Green Berets, appeared on the

Starting point is 00:29:16 Ultimate Soldier Challenge 12 years ago on the History Channel. While the other guys are still setting up, the Americans take their first shot at the sniper on the top of the tower. They not only won, it wasn't even close. Wow. A little recruitment video for the Army there. Yeah, it worked on me. I'm like, well, yeah, these guys are driving and shooting?

Starting point is 00:29:39 They look like they know what they're doing. Unlike those loser countries. Yeah, those loser countries still setting up their fucking bono. Yeah. It's like, what, you don't, yeah, what, you don't remember the button, the button commands to pull out of your knox? The button command. Sir, we are not enrolling you into a video game.

Starting point is 00:29:58 Are you aware of this? Guy who understands combat, like, only through, like, ARMA simulators and, like, complicated control, complicated control schemes. While these Danish assholes were respecting rules of engagement, we are, we had already blown the head off the target. Yeah, like how on. And they're also riding around in a golf cart shooting stuff. It's a great scene.

Starting point is 00:30:21 Well, that's kind of what they gave them in fucking rock, right? Yeah, they really do use vehicles like that. But it's just funny to see it on TV. Yeah, it is. Yes, the golf course of the world, also known as every country outside of America. On the history channel, no less, you'd think they would do a little bit better. Yeah, they're great in general, so I don't know what happened here. They're like, we have two of these highly trained green beret soldiers hunting down ancient

Starting point is 00:30:45 aliens I mean it's actually not a bad show concept where you have just teams from different militaries that actually like fight each other you know like death match style no it looks like an awesome show Mike yeah I know you're saying what I'm thinking okay looks like a really fun

Starting point is 00:31:01 I was watching that I was like how did I never like see this like a competition show could be an Olympic sport yeah like a competition show with real guns okay Travis please take us back to the story of the dead band so here's an interesting detail So Matthew Littelsberger used artificial intelligence, specifically chat GPT, to plan the explosion. Oh, my God.

Starting point is 00:31:22 Now, it's been called the first recorded use of generative AI in planning an attack on U.S. soil. So he queried the AI for information on explosives, firearms, and legal regulations. For example, he asked about the legal limit for purchasing Tannerite, which is a kind of brand of explosive targets in Colorado. and the equivalence of Tannerite to TNT and whether a 50 caliber desert eagle pistol could detonate it. People are not talking enough about the jobs, the FBI jobs that will be lost because ChattyPT can do the incitement themselves.

Starting point is 00:31:58 He also asked the AI about the largest gun store in Denver and the legality of fireworks in Arizona. So, you know, a lot of it seems like stuff you could Google, but you just happened to use AI. that's awesome for all his research did you see that he perhaps drove to the long lost the wrong Las Vegas first or if you look at his yeah his map as he went to Las Vegas New Mexico first yeah yeah and then drove to Las Vegas Nevada that does check out though that chat GPT would just be like well we don't know you want to go to Paris I'm sending you to Paris Texas well and so many people

Starting point is 00:32:34 nowadays I mean you know use chat GPT or whatever AI assistant comes with their browser as a search engine now. Instead of going to Google, they just ask chat GPT because, you know, it'll give you a more focused sort of answer, I guess. So do you do this? Because it seems like you're saying, no, not me. He uses way too much water and power to ask chat GPT to do things. But why do you have a twinkle in your eye? You're adding the twinkle. I'm not, I have no twinkle. Okay. Livesberger drove all the way to Vegas from his home in Colorado Springs to commit this act. According to the New York Post, this odyssey started on December 26, the day after Christmas, when he reportedly broke up with his wife over his alleged infidelity.

Starting point is 00:33:18 However, I should also mention on January 12th, Levelsberger's widow, Jennifer Davis, issued a statement denying that part of the reporting, saying that the couple did not have plans or intentions of breaking up or separating. Okay. On December 28th, he rented the cyber truck, and as first reported by the Denver Gazette, that same day, day, he hit up his girlfriend, Alicia Erit, who he hadn't spoke to since 22, with a message, I'm up in Denver. Are you single? Jesus fucking Christ. Okay, well, even if his wife steps out, like, clearly Matt's not exactly a fucking angel here.

Starting point is 00:33:55 That is such a good line. Immediately saying, are you single? What a romantic. I know. What a romantic. I mean, he was in the midst of a suicidal mania, I think. Explain some of his behavior. Wow, okay.

Starting point is 00:34:08 Well, that's not funny anymore. This episode really is just trying to take my joy from me. And all of us. They exchanged a few text messages over the next few days. And on the morning of New Year's Eve, he sent pictures and videos showing off the cyber truck. And this is when he sent the widely reported, you know, boasting about how much he liked about the cyber truck. He said, it's the shit. I feel like Batman or Halo.

Starting point is 00:34:36 Ah, man. To think that somebody who is an operator has this brain is like so, it just shows you like, we're so fucking cooked. I mean, you are, yeah, exactly, you are a real special ops guy. Why do you feel the need to be like, oh, man, but man, when I forgetting the wart hog from Halo, that that's the fantasy. Like even real special operators fantasize about being in, like, video games. Yeah, it doesn't make too much sense to me. These text messages that he sent to his ex-girlfriend gave no indication about how he intended to use the car. Eric also told news outlets that Littlesberger was struggling with injuries he sustained in the military.

Starting point is 00:35:17 He had two back surgeries from his days as a paratrooper and also suffered brain injuries that she said that he hid from his superiors. Is this like very common, by the way, Mike? Like people who just want to kind of stay working in the military just will hide. something like brain injury? Oh, for sure. No, it's pretty on brand, you know, especially for someone in his line of work. You know what I mean? It's like because when you're deemed unfit, you know, physically, you know, you just get bumped down to doing, you know, what they consider lame jobs and things like that. And so, yeah, there's definitely a lot of covering up what you're going through just so you can stay in that position as one of the cool guys instead of getting bumped down to the

Starting point is 00:35:56 cool guys. Yeah. Now, as for the motive for the incident, the Las Vegas Police Department shared two letters that were allegedly retrieved from one of his two phones that were found in the cyber truck. One of these letters called on service members and veterans to forcibly seize Washington, D.C. and purge the government of Democrats. Okay. It said this. Military and vets move on D.C. starting now. Milicious facilitate and augment this activity. Occupy every major road along Fed buildings and the campus of Fed buildings by the hundreds of thousands. Lock the highways around down with semis right after everybody gets in. Hold until the purge is complete. The purge. Try peaceful means first, but be prepared to fight to get the Dems out of the Fed government and military

Starting point is 00:36:40 by any means necessary. They all must go and a hard reset must occur for our country to avoid collapse. I mean, it's a little spooky because that kind of is what's happening right now. There are veterans and military mobilizing to go to demonstrate in D.C. to support the confirmation of Heggseth, as Secretary of Defense. because he's one of these, you know, extreme right military guys who's kind of from the same kind of ideology and background that it appears that Livelsberger is from, but definitely a significant, you know, portion of people in the military and vets, you know, it's, you know, we can talk about it more later, but, you know, we detailed it in that episode where we talked about the J6 detainees and how many of them were veterans and stuff like that. That is a phenomenon in the military, and they are mobilizing a D.C. right now to make sure Hegg Seth gets the confirmation so that he can take over and de-woke the military. That sounds bad. be fine.

Starting point is 00:37:31 The second letter that was retrieved condemned the cruelty of elites and the numbing effect of overconsumption. So he seems to have been influenced by right-wing populist rhetoric, which by its nature also contains some sentiments that resonate with progressives. So that one said this. We are crumbling because of a lack of self-respect, morals, and respect for others. Greed and gluttony has consumed us. The top 1% decided long ago they weren't going to bring everyone else with them.

Starting point is 00:37:59 them. You are cattle to them. We have strayed from family values and corrupted our minds, and I am a prime example of having it all, but at never being enough. A lot of us are just sitting around waiting to die. No sunlight, no steps, no fresh air, no hope. Our children are addicted to screens by the age of two. We are filling our bodies with processed foods. The income, inequality in this country and cost of living is outrageous. The number of homeless on our street is embarrassing and disgusting. Have some pride and take care of this. Yeah. It goes on to condemn DEI, which is, of course, the organizational framework of diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Starting point is 00:38:35 He calls Kamala Harris the DEI candidate. He also states, quote, our soldiers are done fighting wars without end states or clear objectives. Yeah, it's like this thing of like, things are run badly. We need to do the right wing stuff, but more clean and better. And I don't know anything about how capitalism works, so no idea, you know, what, what to actually kind of target here in case of a violent uprising. And also, I, you know, I think Trump, who's definitely not a top one percent, he doesn't believe we're cattle. He's, he's the good one. Yeah. And it's really, that's kind of like an emblematic. That last line is done fighting

Starting point is 00:39:13 wars without end states or clear objectives. You know, both Livelylberger and Jabar, you know, they're all like my generation of that, right? I mean, that joining around or just right before, right after 9-11, where, you know, both the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were just became known as the debacles where there is like, no, what are we doing here? What's the actual point? Which is, of course, ultimately revealed in the Afghanistan papers, which showed that the whole time the military command knew that the war was completely unwinnable. And eventually we would have to retreat, yet they still were telling the public like, oh, yeah, we're going to beat the Taliban and all this stuff. And so, you know, from people on the inside, it's pretty obvious that every single

Starting point is 00:39:49 mission you're doing has no point other than to go just walk around or drive around waiting to get blown up. And even though this wasn't like a political formulation of why the war is wrong, but just, you know, the very basic kind of base level understanding of there's really no point to all of this, which, you know, people thrived in that environment like Livelsberger who went into the special operations. And, you know, even though there's this situation of there's no point to all this, we can still run around driving the golf carts and shooting out the windows and looking really cool and being the badass on base and we get home and everything. But, you know, really that that line there, I think, is something that anyone from my generation, especially those

Starting point is 00:40:25 who deployed, you know, really feels. And so it's not surprising it was. as part of, you know, the communications that we've seen from him. Mm-hmm. Yeah, the most confusing bit in that letter that was published from Livelsberger was the line in which he denies that he was committing a terrorist attack with this explosion. So that line says this. This is not a terrorist attack. It was a wake-up call.

Starting point is 00:40:48 Americans only pay attention to spectacles and violence. What better way to get my point across than a stunt with fireworks and explosives. So, yeah, this really baffled me because an act of spectacular. violence that has the ultimate goal of influencing observers in order to advance the political goal is what terrorism is. Well, this is American, though. It's pro-American, so it's not terrorism. Okay?

Starting point is 00:41:10 Because otherwise, you'd have to start saying that some of these things that the American military is doing is terrorism, and we can't be having that. Yeah, there's like, obviously, there's not, it's not easy sometimes to, like, really nail down to find terrorism in a consistent way. And, of course, it's politically influenced. And, of course, there's, like, if they try it's, because it has negative, connotations, you know, as it's not always defines very cleanly. And so I like this line from this, this 2003 International Center for Counterterrorism Report

Starting point is 00:41:39 works on defining terrorism. And it says, quote, for the terrorists, the victims of terrorism serve as generators of emotions, of which terror is the most powerful in order to intimidate, coerce, impress, provoke, or otherwise influence one or more third parties. The production of fear is not the ultimate purpose is a means to an end. The reaction of target audiences is what is primarily sought. So when Liffelsberger essentially says, I'm not committing a terrorist attack, I'm just using spectacles and violence to get my point across to Americans.

Starting point is 00:42:09 Like, that's an incoherent expression. I don't know, which means that despite the fact he was highly involved in prosecuting the war on terror in his deployments to Afghanistan, he died never actually understanding what terrorism is or why terrorists do it. Mike, Mike, speak on this. I need to hear your opinion here because I do. think the word terror and terrorists are just, yeah, at this point, misused. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:42:34 I mean, I don't know, man. I mean, I think that he clearly, like, you know, this guy was really good at killing people, I'm sure. And so if he wanted to, like, kill people in the attack, he obviously would have been able to do a better job. It was kind of gross the way they turned it into like an ad for cyber truck being like, oh, this was going to be this massive explosion that blew up the whole lobby of Trump Tower, kind of, especially when they thought it was, you know, not a Trump supporter.

Starting point is 00:42:56 But just the power of the cybertruck. you know, prevented that and saved all these lives. I know. Versus, you know, his goal was just to have a huge, fancy, cool-looking explosion to draw a lot of, draw a lot of attention to it. But yeah, you know, whether or not it should be, you know, called terrorism, it fits that definition that Travis read for sure. But it's also just, it's like this, clearly just this guy was suicidal, right?

Starting point is 00:43:18 I mean, if his whole thing was, I need to expose this stuff and get my message out and all that stuff, it's like, you're an active duty green berate who's heavily decorated. Like, you could easily get your point out there, especially. with right-wing media, the fact that operator influencers, like special operators in general, like, you know, these brands that are like operator-branded, like there's just such a huge ecosystem for that stuff. He clearly could have gotten his points out and created a wake-up call for Americans as an active-duty Green Beret speaking out. And so, you know, like with Jabbar, I mean, there's so many similarities of just people being suicidal and self-destructive and then trying to

Starting point is 00:43:53 come up for some bigger rationale for why they're doing it. That's a really good point. Yeah, had a channel, it would be advertised to me on YouTube shorts. Yeah, what is sad is that, like, somebody who gets to this point, like, that's the only time where they're going to be somewhat honest about what's going on because of the repercussions of such a thing from the very military that employs you, right? I mean, there's a reason why there's not more active duty green berets coming out because it's like, yeah, like you're basically made to feel like you're betraying your country and your brothers just by becoming a whistleblower on things that are clearly both morally wrong but also like illegal under various international laws and even sometimes under the

Starting point is 00:44:32 codes of the military itself. Yeah, exactly. So he ends the letter this way. Why did I personally do it now? I needed to cleanse my mind of the brothers I've lost and relieve myself of the burden of the lives I took. Consider this last sunset of 24 and my actions, the end of our sickness and a new chapter of health for our people, rally around the Trump, Musk, Kennedy, and ride this wave to the highest hedge for all Americans. We are second to no one. Wow. God bless the American Empire.

Starting point is 00:45:02 That's what I fucking love about all of this. It's like it's just a debate over how effectively you can maintain your number one position as an empire and hegemony, as even mentioned. I mean, it could not be more absurd. And I think what's really weird to me about this, what I have trouble understanding is he's like, I'm killing myself essentially on the eve of like a golden age of Trump. and Musk and all of it like wouldn't you think like oh man something to live for like the Democrats have lost and the guy who I love and the tech guru quote unquote who I love they're coming together and they're going to save the world and we should rally around them and but yet like I don't want to stay alive to see that is really I don't know it just feels like there's

Starting point is 00:45:47 there's like very conflicting ideologies there yeah yeah it's basically just I want to do all these awful evil things that have oppressed people forever that have damaged me beyond repair both physically and mentally. But we need to do them without like this, you know, garbage DEI stuff and, you know, everything that's polluting the purity of empire. Yeah. And he was also in the military under Trump, too. I mean, there was already a Trump term where all of this shit that he was complaining about, you know, still existed. Yeah. But rally around Trump, though. It was going to be different this time. Yeah. So it got stranger because we later learned that on New Year's Eve, Livelisberger sent an email to Sam Shumate, a retired Army

Starting point is 00:46:30 Intel officer who runs an Instagram account that's popular with military veterans. He also does like a blog, a video blog. You want his Shoemate to connect him to media outlets to broadcast concerns he had over drone technology and war crimes, he said, that he witnessed in Afghanistan. So in that email, Livelsberger claims that the sightings of drones, which have, you know, been dismissed as sightings like commercial aircraft or sometimes. stars are actually Chinese in origin in our, quote, Gravitic propulsion systems powered aircraft.

Starting point is 00:47:01 Now, there's no evidence of this appears to be like a paranoid illusion. I'm not sure where he's getting this from. But the next section of the email is like more interesting. So he claims that he has knowledge about war crimes that were covered up during air strikes in 2019 in the Nimruz province of Afghanistan. He specifically says that he conducted targeting for strikes on buildings that killed hundreds of civilians and that U.S. forces continue these strikes after their intelligence identified these civilians. So I looked into this. So he's referring to a real incident that happened

Starting point is 00:47:30 in Afghanistan. So the Nimru's area strikes were a, it was kind of a convergence between America's two main wars against abstract categories, the war on terrorism and the war on drugs. And November of 2017, the military announced the start of an air campaign against drug enterprises that were allegedly under Taliban control. On May 9th, 2019, war planes bomb, 30 alleged drug labs in Nimruh's province and neighboring Fara province, killing dozens of people. The United Nations investigated this incident and released a report on it. The report says that the investigation verified 39 civilian casualties, including 14 children and one woman, and they received credible information to substantiate an additional 37 casualties.

Starting point is 00:48:14 The report found, quote, while some of the sites may have been associated with illicit activity, they did not meet the definition of legitimate military objectives under international law. The U.S. military, of course, investigated itself and found no wrongdoing. The military also disputed the substance of the report and claimed that the labs were producing revenue for the Taliban and that people working in them were Taliban fighters and, quote, lawful military targets, according to them. What I found interesting is that Littleberger is essentially claiming that this incident is actually much more horrific than even what the United Nations claims, because, like, number one, it claims that there were hundreds of civilians. casualties instead of the reported 30 to 76 range. And number two, he claims that attacking forces

Starting point is 00:48:55 had intelligence of the civilian presence, but the official position from the U.S. military on this matter, as I learned for that U.N. report, is, quote, comprehensive intelligence confirmed that all personnel inside laboratories were Taliban combatants. Of course. Yeah, you always want to put your best soldiers in the drug lab. Yeah, yeah. I mean, this is like, this is one of those things. I was like, I was reading this. I was like, oh, come on. Like, you know, Chinese, you know, gravity power. It's like that's silly. But I read this. And I was like, well, that's, that's, you know, more interesting claim. But I think it's perhaps, again, not a good way to deliver this message. Now, if you're going to blow the whistle on war crimes that has a brave, noble thing to do,

Starting point is 00:49:37 I highly encourage you. This is not a good way to do it. We want you alive. And we want you, you know, talking to reporters. There are people you can contact to get this information out. That's more effective than emailing your buddy with a podcast and then killing yourself. Yeah, you know, when I saw the drone thing, I was like, oh, man, it's this whole thing just a product of like the New Jersey drone sightings phenomenon, things like that. And of course, him saying he has secret information about gravity propulsion and all that stuff. You know, it's, that could have just been totally concocted by him. But, you know, there are a lot of rumors that fly around, you know, someone like Leibelsberger would have probably a top secret security clearance being in the special operations. But even within, which sounds a lot

Starting point is 00:50:15 cooler than it is. And like even within that world, like, you know, as I remember it, there are a lot of rumors that fly of like, oh, I saw this piece of top secret intel and that says this is, that's crazy. And then it just gets passed around and telephoned and all that stuff. And so it's possible that he was told by someone that we have this thing that is clearly fake. And then, you know, that played into his other thing. But, you know, this idea that he, you know, had information or, you know, was involved in this atrocity that happened in Afghanistan, which of course is completely believable. I mean, beyond the UN investigation, it's pretty par for the course for the US and Iraq and Afghanistan. And there's numerous, numerous incidents like that that we can point to. But it does

Starting point is 00:50:51 highlight, you know, if this guy was genuinely having like a struggle over this and that being something that contributed to a suicide, it does kind of raise something that's a lesser known. You know, everyone's kind of familiar with PTSD, right? It's like, yeah, you're in combat. You have like a physical stress response to noises or visual things or smells that kind of trigger how you were feeling in this situation where that was a combat situation. I think that's the most. understood thing among mental health issues facing veterans. But there's this thing called moral injury that has a lot of weight as well that isn't PTSD at all. It's something completely different where it's just the burden in the weight of having participated in things that

Starting point is 00:51:26 conflict with your conscience. And so that, you know, as as as wild of a guy, as it seems Livelsberger was, you know, it seems quite possible that he, you know, was suffering from moral injury in addition to PTSD and all the other shit and physical problems and all the other things that were going on in his life that obviously contributed to, you know, him taking this dramatic act, which, you know, at a base level was, you know, just another military suicide. Not to mention attacks on drug labs, you know, in Afghanistan is a very funny thing to do considering, like, the entire, like, Afghanistan being converted to, like, a poppy, main, like, export country was also at the hands of the U.S. military.

Starting point is 00:52:03 Oh, yeah. And the whole, and the puppet president, Karzai, just being one of those big drug lords, you know. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. The guys on the U.S. side were doing it also. You know, they're getting rid of a certain kind of drug. The drugs that the Taliban were using for funding. It's a drug term for. It's like a dealer taking out like the other dealer, the other dealer's operations.

Starting point is 00:52:22 So, Mike, during your recent appearance on Democracy Now, you reference a study showing that service in the military has become the, quote, number one predictor of a mass casualty event. So could you like, could you explain this study a little bit for our audience? Yeah. So, you know, that fact comes from the national consortium. for the study of terrorism and responses to terrorism at the University of Maryland. And so it's like the main grouping of academics that study terrorism. You know, and they found that there's actually been quite an increase in this too since 2011. But since 2011, there is about 45 incidents per year involving former members of the military. And so between the years, they looked at the years

Starting point is 00:53:00 between 1990 and 2022, 170 individuals with U.S. military backgrounds plotted 154 individual mass casualty terrorist attacks in the United States, which is, you know, more than five per year. That is approximately 25% of all individuals who plotted mass casualty extremist acts during this span. Veterans are only 6% of the U.S. population, yet 25% of mass casualty extremist attacks planned were, you know, people from the veterans community. And 73% of those were associated with far-right ideology. You know, and this was reported by the intercept, like the day after the attack, which gave data from their latest report that had previously been unreleased. And so, yeah, I mean, that's the fact, is that, you know, more so than mental health.

Starting point is 00:53:47 You know, like, people typically think of, like, you know, mass shootings or mass casualty attacks, mental health being the number one identifier. It's actually not. It's outpaced by having been in the military. So why do you think military service is such a recurring factor in these incidents? So, of course, there's a lot of different reasons for that. You know, in the U.S., of course, we have a spectrum of social problems. You know, we have epidemics of addiction, of suicide, of depression, of loneliness, of violence against women, of mass shootings and mass violence, you know, like in 2024, there was an average of 11, you know, what we are considered mass shootings per week. You know, when it comes to mass casualty events by individuals like this, there's a lot of

Starting point is 00:54:26 markers, right? I mean, America has a big gun culture with a lot of guns around. We have a mental health crisis, which is, of course, rooted in despair and alienation and total lack of services. And most of these perpetrators, you know, of mass violence in general are dudes or men who have, like, weird shit towards women. So that's an element of it also. All of these things are really exacerbated in the U.S. military. You know, there's, of course, many different consequences of having the biggest military empire the world has ever seen, which is kind of always at war on multiple fronts. I mean, when you mentioned all the places that Livelsberger had been in combat, most Americans wouldn't know that we were doing military operations in those countries.

Starting point is 00:55:05 And of course, there's many more. And one of those consequences of having just a big military empire is the violence abroad coming back home. In general, you know, America has a mass violence problem, which U.S. militarism, you know, plays into as just a dominant cultural future, you know, glorifying and exporting mass amounts of violence. And also with a government that presides over this extreme level of social problems that refuses to do anything to address it, yet always continues to pour more and more money into the military industrial complex. So we have a society now that's racked with hopelessness and alienation. Those consequences often manifest, as I mentioned, as drug and alcohol addiction, homelessness, suicide, other diseases of despair. But other

Starting point is 00:55:46 times they manifest as destruction of others, not just self-destruction, be it domestic abuse, especially towards women, sexual assault, especially towards women, murder or other acts of violence. So the U.S. military, which exists in this context of having a deeply disturbed and violent society. You know, targets people who in general are most impacted by those social problems, you know, some number of them who already have mental health issues or a propensity for violence. And, you know, I got to say that, especially during the peaks of the Iraq and Afghanistan war, there were people attracted to the military specifically because they had an attraction to violence or homicidal ideation. And the military was a very welcoming place for those

Starting point is 00:56:24 people. Like, if you wanted to go kill someone, there is a very easy way to do it. You walk into the recruiter's office, sign up for infantry, and you're very likely going to be. in Iraq. And then, you know, there's sadly a lot of non-combatant Afghans and Iraqis who are dead because they had the misfortune of encountering people who joined for that reason. So, you know, the U.S. military recruits about a quarter million people per year from this world, this country that we live in. It takes these people into an institution that teaches you how to kill and actually makes killing seem very badass. And, you know, that's kind of this hierarchy in the military is how close to direct killing are you, right? So like Livelsberger being at the top, being the special

Starting point is 00:57:00 forces, you know, those are the guys that run into people's house, do hard hits, you know, run into people's houses, shoot them in their beds and stuff like that. And then there's just like a pyramid of how badass you are that really is connected to how much and what kind of killing that you do. And so you're, there's kind of this culture of violence in the military that's depicted in a different way, of course, internally. You know, like, for example, when I was in, like, I can't tell you, like how many times they made us watch the movie Black Hawk down. Like, especially when we're in training, it's like anytime there's downtime, it was like, sit down and watch Black Hawk Down, which is a movie about a complete debacle where an idiot

Starting point is 00:57:33 commander fucks up and gets a bunch of people killed. But it's the military loves it because the guys do a lot of killing. It's badass. They're running around, shooting people, like getting in crazy situations. And so you're kind of indoctrinated with this, like, kind of fantasy world without actually seeing, you know, what really is happening. So anyways, you take all these people from this already fucked up society, bring them into this world that's also fucked up and kind of probably compounds your problems, if you have any mental health issues or propensities for this kind of stuff, and then spits them back out into a life that many find much harder than it was before they joined. Jabar being a great example. Join the military as a way to turn his life around, comes out of

Starting point is 00:58:08 the military, and just all his failures are compounded in such a bigger way. And so most people who deal with that, you know, don't go the route of Live Wolfberger and Jabbar, but some, inevitably, some number of people are going to. And that's why, you know, military services, you know, just has become this top indicator. I have a question. Yeah. Maybe you don't know the answer to, but a guy like Livelsberger, a green beret, top decorated, you know, special ops guy. How many people, on average, do you think he would, somebody like in his position would kill? Are we dozens, hundreds?

Starting point is 00:58:39 I mean, I have no idea. Impossible to tell? Yeah, I mean, he's, I would say that, like, a- - For the K-D ratio, you video game ask for? No, I just, like, want to know, like, are these guys coming back home with the conscience of, like, a hundred lives, you know, on their conscience? I don't know. I have no idea.

Starting point is 00:58:54 The public has no idea. what these guys do other than that like you know i remember i had a friend who was uh had like an older brother who was in the military he was uh not special forces or anything like that and it was like a big kind of like secret around the family that like he had killed six people and like he had told that in confidence to to people and it kind of and he was you know he had a couple screw loose so i'm just curious well you know in special forces in particular like you know your job is to command an army of locals that you kind of bring in as your fight And so a lot of special forces guys, you know, they're in a lot of direct combat, but they're also commanding local forces to be kind of the front lines for them as well. And so there's, of course, probably a lot of direct incidents Livelsberger had where he's the one pulling the trigger. But then you have all these, you know, indirect things where it's like you're commanding guys, a bunch of Afghan nationals that you have under your command that you're sending them into a village where you're knowing they're doing a bunch of fucked up stuff and acting way more outside the bounds of the rules of war that you are even abiding by. And then, you know, in reference to his remorse about the bombings in

Starting point is 00:59:55 Afghanistan, you also, you know, you're calling it indirect fire, you're calling in air strikes, especially in your special ops. You have a lot of air support, which unleashes a huge amount of killing. And so, you know, it's kind of impossible to tell for someone like Livelylberger what, you know, what he would consider the number of people he killed. I mean, of course, there's people he probably shot, but then there's also this, in general, what he was involved in was causing a lot of death as well. He claimed in that letter he was involved in targeting for an operation that led to deaths of hundreds of civilians. I again, unfortunately, he was not a good state of mind when he, wrote this letter. So I'm not saying it's a very credible testimony. But he seemed to sincerely

Starting point is 01:00:30 believe that. And that course, that must have, like, weighed on him. Yeah, it's pretty believable. And, you know, we know from like the Iraq war logs released by WikiLeaks that, you know, and any time there's these precision airstrikes happening, you're killing a lot of civilians with them. So, you know, kind of taking a bit of a left turn here, I've seen a lot of conspiracy theories online about these kinds of violent incidents being coordinated or some sort of deep state plot. I know people point a lot to, you know, Fort Liberty or formerly known as Fort Bragg, for instance. I mean, what do you make of this specific claim that, you know, that this is some sort of coordinated thing, that it could be a type of strategy of tension to ratchet up support for the

Starting point is 01:01:11 military? Yeah, well, Jabbar, you know, people point to Jabbar and Livelylberger, both having been at Fort Bragg, which, you know, if you know anything about the Army, that is not unusual at all. It's the biggest base by population. you have about 100,000 soldiers there at any given time, but they're cycling in and out. It's not like there's 100,000 soldiers in every four years, a new batch of 100,000 comes in. People are constantly leaving, coming in, there for training, there for duty stations, and things like that. And also, they were not even there at the same time.

Starting point is 01:01:39 And so over a 20-year period, everyone who's been in the Army, you're going to have a lot of people who are in the Army who were at Fort Bragg. But it's not even just that, you know, the kind of culture at Bragg is it's not just any military base, which I think is another reason why it's not suspicious that both these guys served at Bragg who went on to do obscene things, right? It houses, you know, not just the Army's core conventional units, like the 82nd Airborne, but the U.S. Army's Special Operations Command. So Ranger Regiment, the Green Berets, the Black Ops component of the military, like the Navy like Navy's SEAL Team 6, Army's Delta Force. So all the really like dark shit that the Army does, like people are going there to brag or now Fort Liberty to train to do that stuff, to receive the training, and to be sent overseas to actually do it.

Starting point is 01:02:23 So the culture at Bragg is one that is marked by that. Even if you're not directly in those things, imagine that environment of being all of the black ops of the military are kind of housed there and sent around the world and then back to back to Bragg. Yeah, and there's a huge culture there of, you know, lots of suicides. There's like drug running rings. There's tons of child abuse happening there. You know, it is also just by the numbers a very dark place.

Starting point is 01:02:52 Absolutely. I mean, there's actually a book coming out soon about this by a journalist named Seth Harp, who's also an Iraq war vet who became anti-war. But he started investigating this in 2020, because in 2020 at then Fort Bragg, there were 44 soldiers on base who died that year that were kind of unsolved deaths. And quite a number of them were clearly homicides, like execution type, like homicides. And so, and what he's been able to uncover is that, you know, you have like Navy SEALs there who are not just doing a lot of cocaine and MDMA and heroin, but are also, like, trafficking

Starting point is 01:03:25 it. And there's almost, like, drug gang wars happening on the base between different soldiers and things like that. You know, that's the, I don't know if that's the best description of it, but it's basically the gist. I mean, so you have all of these issues of high levels of domestic abuse, of child sexual abuse, of sexual abuse in general, which is endemic to the military as it is. But then, you know, this kind of mystique of special operators, right? I mean, we're so kind of, it's kind of all around us in U.S. culture that special operators are just the coolest, most badass, professional silent killers. But when you look at the kind of stuff they're engaged in, it kind of demystifies that. It's that, you know, they're doing drugs, running drugs,

Starting point is 01:04:00 killing each other, killing their wives, stuff like that. You know, it reminds me of like, you know, when I got back from Iraq in 2004, you know, I was stationed at Fort Drum, you know, there was all of these, there was this kind of rash of killings of special forces guys coming home from Iraq and killing their wives. And it ended up being. spun into like this conspiracy theory rumor that it was because all of the drugs and vaccines that they gave us before we deployed. Because, you know, they inject you with 20 different things, puts you on some weird malaria medication that gives you scary dreams. And that that's why all these guys were coming back and killing their wives. When kind of the obvious answer is these guys are

Starting point is 01:04:33 just running around Iraq killing people for a year. It had all this, you know, misogynist baggage as well, compounding it, come home and then are carrying out violence against women. I mean, that's kind of the obvious answer. But, you know, the, the environments that these people exist in, it could kind of, you can spin it into something that there's some other explanation other than the obvious one, but it's you know, kind of the obvious one. There's another conspiracy theory linking you to Chelsea Manning and Spencer Rapone because you all three served in Fort Drum. So I'm going to give you one last chance to come clean, Mike. Oh, yeah. Well, you know, I mean, we are part of a sciap that, you know, we turn people against the military, but with a secret agenda to help the military.

Starting point is 01:05:13 Devious. But like, if you ask the conspiracy theorist like about Fort Brager, now Fort Liberty, like everything you just listed about the drugs and the runnings and the homicide and the violence. Like all of these are wildly fascinating phenomenon, you know, bad stuff, but fascinating nonetheless. And yet you ask the conspiracy theorist about it. And it's like, oh, well, it's MK Ultra. They're being, they're being MK Ultrad at the base and turned into human bombs, essentially, that can be triggered for political gains here, here and there. It's just like once again, it's like there's all

Starting point is 01:05:45 this real stuff that's very much worth being looked into, and yet the conspiracy community, the first thing I saw when people started linking these two terrorist attacks together, they both had been at Fort Bragg as they were like, MK. Ultra. Definitely MK. Ultra. What's going on at Fort Bragg? You know, it's crazy.

Starting point is 01:06:01 It's just like they rely on the hits. It's not enough, man. It's never enough, dude. You got to have it be better. We're juicier. The story's got to be somehow. You know, we all need us a little something extra, Otherwise, this is some pretty grim business. Right. It's like there's this need for people, especially, you know, on the right wing, to take some of the ownership out of like this violence, you know, and these like horrible acts, especially if they've spent a lot of their energy, you know, championing military and veterans and, you know, they might be vets themselves.

Starting point is 01:06:31 Nobody really wants to come to terms with the idea that this job essentially leaves people, you know, so wounded that they come back and they, you know, carry out these horrible acts. And so to say, oh, it's MK. Ultra, they were programmed to be like this. And somebody gave them the code word and they went and rent to the cyber truck and blew themselves up. Like, you know, I mean, yeah, it's the fantasy of competence, right? It's like, no, it's not enough that, like, this is a giant evil enterprise. Yeah. They also have to be super intelligent and they have to have smart targeting and they have to know exactly what they're doing. It's like, yeah, I don't know.

Starting point is 01:07:04 I mean, sometimes that's true. Sometimes that's true, but in this case, I don't know. What do you make of it, Mike? Yeah, no, it's the same as, you know, the Trump attempted assassins and these people always want to try to make it to something else other than that this is just very American things that are happening. You know, I know that I don't want people to just like be scared of veterans because like veterans have all these markers because, you know, most people who go into the military

Starting point is 01:07:26 come out, you know, whether or not they're dealing with their own personal struggles, you know, are not the type of people like Jabar or Livelylberger and things like that. And can go on to lead kind of normal and healthy lives. But, you know, we do see, we do have to explore like kind of the ecosystem that they are coming out of and why it is a phenomenon that there are people who are capable of committing mass violence who are being churned out of the military. You know, there's the things that kind of link these two guys, like obviously mental health is like a big one. And, you know, the Army in particular, you know, both of these guys being in the Army, The Army is a huge institution with a lot of resources and a lot of fucking money.

Starting point is 01:08:01 You know, it could be a place that sees people struggling with mental health issues and is able to actually help these people. But really, you know, we see the opposite. And I think going back to like what, you know, what really is the cause of this stuff, you know, you know, the suicide rate and the active duty military is on average like more than one per day. And that doesn't include, you know, among veterans, it's like seven per day. When you include people who, you know, go and get out of the military.

Starting point is 01:08:24 And among veterans, it's 60% higher than the general population. population. So there's something about the military that makes you more likely to commit suicide, but also it's higher if you have been in combat or in a combat role and exposed to this stuff, but that doesn't mean that all of them are from that. I mean, it just goes back to this idea that you are taking people who are already in a fucked up life position or have bad experiences or kind of have more propensity to this kind of thing or more likelihood of mental health issues, taking them into an institution that just makes those things worse. And so that's why you have a high number of suicides in the military that are people who never deployed at all. And just to give an

Starting point is 01:08:59 example of why that is, it's like the military's goal is just to keep people to maintain the fighting force, right? If they let everyone out who's like, I'm suicidal or I'm struggling with depression or whatever, you know, they'd be losing hundreds of people all the time and having to give them benefits and things like that. The goal of the military command is to keep people, keep people fighting and to keep their numbers up and all that shit. And so just one kind of personal anecdote of a case that I worked on. You know, this is back in, you know, 2010, 2011, where there was a soldier who was ordered to murder and injured combat in Iraq in a really gruesome way. He tried to commit suicide in Iraq, sent home, tried to commit suicide on his trip home, got to his base, tried to commit

Starting point is 01:09:39 suicide a third time, was sent to Army mental health, and they said, this guy is a low risk for suicide. His command then ridiculed him and then put him in a barracks room by himself, where he eventually hanged himself. And, you know, working with soldiers in his unit, kind of everyone was going through the same thing. You had guys coming back from a horrible deployment who were telling the mental health care on the base, I am suicidal, I am going to kill myself, or I have PTSD. And the commander on the base, he ended up getting fired as a result of our organizing there. He was just ordering the doctors, don't diagnose PTSD. Say these are preexisting conditions, and then they were trying to deploy them all back to Iraq and to Afghanistan again. And so that's

Starting point is 01:10:14 just a little snapshot of what the kind of environment a lot of these people are existing. And so someone like Livelsberger, who, you know, there's a stigma around seeking help for mental health issues in general. So it causes people to not. And then even when people do, they're kind of put through this ringer where it kind of make things worse when the army could be serving a purpose of actually catching these people before they commit suicide and or going out and committing, you know, a terrorist attack or something like that. Of course, there's other things that play into it, like the right wing aspect, you know, the data I gave at the beginning, the fact that almost 75% of these people have right wing ideologies. I mean, that's a whole other can of worms, but that's something that is definitely relevant as well. Well, yeah, thanks so much, Mike, for lending your expertise to a pretty fucking grim episode to kick off 2025. What are you going to do, folks?

Starting point is 01:10:58 I was going to say, yeah, and I know we've been talking about suicide a lot on this. And, Mike, do you know offhand, are there resources for veterans who are struggling with mental health, something that's worth plugging after talking about all this stuff? Yeah, you know, maybe I could, we could add some to the description, but, you know, anyone who's been in the middle, like, you call, anytime you try to call the VA, the first thing you hear in the recording is, if you are having thoughts of suicide, press this number, call this number. And so, you know, the VA, of course, is much better than the military of dealing with it because, you know, they're in the business of helping veterans, where the military is in the business of keeping them fighting so they can send them somewhere. And so, you know, it's, once people get out, it's a lot easier. But when people are still in, that's where it's really rough. And really the best resource for those people who are in, And in a bad situation is calling the GI Rights Hotline, which you could find at GI Rightshotline.org. Because there's absolutely ways for you to get out of that situation. It seems really difficult, but you can get out of the military really fast through a variety of ways if that's what you need to do. And those are the people to be able to help you.

Starting point is 01:12:01 Great. We'll add links in the description. And I guess we'll also add some links for people who want to help with supporting people who were displaced by the fires and dealing with all of that. So yeah, fucking Micah, is there anything that you'd like to shamelessly plug other than obviously these very important resources? Yeah, you know, I think as a way to maybe end on a high note and not just the dark downer note is that it's not like a lot of veterans go through a very opposite experience where they end up being transformed by what they participate in and move to try to turn those

Starting point is 01:12:39 things into something positive. And there are so many people historically throughout the history of the United States who have, you know, become part of movements for good, trying to write the wrongs that they are part of in the military. And so, you know, they're at eyes left, you know, the podcasts that I do to, you know, we have a lot of those stories there where you can hear those transformation stories from people who were in. And in fact, the most recent episode that we did on that is a guy who was a green beret, just like Livelsberger, who was in Afghanistan, you know, close to the same time that Livelsberger was and took those experiences in a very different direction and is now

Starting point is 01:13:10 an anti-war activist and advocate and things like that. And so there's, you know, there's other directions people go. And I think that, you know, the more that we can try to bring those people into our world, right? Because, you know, as I mentioned earlier, most of these incidents are people, are veterans who have been attracted to right-wing politics. And there's a huge history there. People can go back and check out that episode on the J-6, incarcerated J-6 people for that full history. But there's a, the right-wing is strategically trying to bring these people in. The right-wing from Identity Europa and Oathkeepers and Proud Boys, like all of these organizations seek out disaffected struggling veterans to try to bring them into organizations

Starting point is 01:13:48 and to say that the answer to your suffering is to be around a bunch of bros who want to go out and fight people and save our country and whatever shit that they use so that the right wing very much focuses on this. And so it's very important for those who are not on the right wing to be able to counter that poll that exists. And so that's, you know, I think learning as much as you can about it and knowing how to communicate and reach out to people in this community if you're not a vet yourself, is an important task for those who consider themselves progressives. Great. And definitely, you know, if you're a listener, watch out for the Earth's greatest enemy, which is coming out you were saying later this year. Yeah, another film about the

Starting point is 01:14:26 consequences of empire, about how much the U.S. military is destroying the planet, which factors very much in to the crisis y'all are dealing with down there in Southern California. That's right. Okay. And then that's the end of our big comeback episode. Jake. How are you feeling? Sorry it wasn't happier. Well, sometimes things can be a little bit like that. Uplifting stuff at the end. And, you know, it's important to remember that you never, you don't hear about the good things.

Starting point is 01:14:52 You don't hear about the Green Beret who got out of the military and, you know, turn their life around or, or use that energy to try to spread good in the world. We hear about these horrible things that happen on the news. So I think it's a good, good reminder from, from Mike, that good things do happen. there are there are good things happening out in the world los angeles has been incredible actually don't you know there are places that are turning away donations because people have brought the mutual aid has been really heartwarming so much people are getting involved in ways and you know L.A. has this um reputation of kind of being selfish and standoffish and um you know every every person for themselves but in the wake of this it's it's been kind of incredible to see everybody that's in my my you know

Starting point is 01:15:37 immediate and extended circle doing whatever they can to to provide help if they were lucky enough to not have their home destroyed in these fires. And if you're a local looking to help or even outside of the city or state, you can go to Mutual Aid, L.A. We'll put a link in the description as well. There's plenty of different ways that you can find to be helpful. We love you very much. Thank you for being patient with us as we kind of displaced and undisplaced and shifted around with all of these evacuation warnings and stuff, but we are back in the podcasting seat, and we will have Live back as well on the next premium,

Starting point is 01:16:14 some sort of illness due to acid reflux. Just blowing up her spot. Yeah, sorry, Liv. We gotta give some reason. Otherwise, it feels like we're just keeping her away. Yeah. Not a fact. No, we want Liv.

Starting point is 01:16:28 Live Agar. This is just me imitating the comments below every episode. Live Agar. That's you. That's you. That's all of you. And we love you for it. Thank you for listening to an episode of the QAA podcast. If you want to sign up for more of our stuff,

Starting point is 01:16:44 five bucks a month. We'll get you access to a second episode for every main. And you can find those at patreon.com slash QAA. Jake, any message of love? Listeners, until next week, I know the deep dish will bless you and keep you. We have auto-keyed content based on your preferences. I was told that Donald Trump has been receiving regular updates on the situation on the ground in New Orleans. He is being briefed on this by a source familiar with the matter.

Starting point is 01:17:25 But I want to read for you what Donald Trump posted this morning in reaction to everything that's unfolding down there in New Orleans. He wrote, quote, our hearts are with all of the innocent victims and their loved ones. including the brave officers of the New Orleans Police Department, the Trump administration will fully support the city of New Orleans as they investigate and recover from this act of pure evil. Now, as you mentioned, Phil, Donald Trump also kind of commented on the crime rate in the United States. I'm going to read this for you too as well and then explain a bit.

Starting point is 01:17:56 So he said, quote, when I said that the criminals coming in are far worse than the criminals we have in our country, that statement was constantly refuted by Democrats and the fake news media. But it turned out to be true. The crime rate in our country is at a level that nobody has seen before. Now, to be clear, we actually have some new reporting from our colleagues, Evan Perez and Priscilla Alvarez. And they are reporting that the suspect in Wednesday's deadly New Orleans crowd attack was a U.S. citizen, according to a source familiar with the matter as well, telling that to our colleagues. So look, I think, you know, there's still a lot of questions that need to be answered here. Officials have not really released additional information on the suspect.

Starting point is 01:18:35 is a U.S. citizen. So that part of Donald Trump's statement kind of speculating about the suspect's identity, we're told is not true. He is a U.S. citizen. But Donald Trump, of course, weighing in and saying that his incoming administration will do what they can to help with this investigation, Phil.

QAA Podcast - Boom! (E307)

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