The Team House - Former CIA Paramilitary Officer Mick Mulroy | EYES ON | Ep. 31

Episode Date: July 9, 2024

Support the show here:https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouseToday we're joined by former CIA Paramilitary Officer Mick Mulroy to talk Ukraine/Russia and Israel/Hamas.Find Mick here:https://www.loboinstitute.org/Support the show here:https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouseFind Andy here:Twitterhttps://twitter.com/i/flow/login?redirect_after_login=%2Fandymilburn8LinkedInhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewmilburn2023Substackhttps://amilburn.substack.com/Andy's bookhttps://www.amazon.com/When-Tempest-Gathers-Mogadishu-Operations/dp/1526750554Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support.

Hey guys, it's Jack. I just wanted to talk to you today about a way that you can help support the podcast if you're not already. To support the channel is to become a Patreon member. So we have Patreon memberships that start at just $5 a month. And when you sign up, you get access to all of our episodes ad free. That's the big bonus for that. I mean, we also do some Patreon bonus episodes for our subscribers. But this is the biggest and best way that you can support the Team House. channel and podcast if you'd like to, and we really appreciate that. So go and check us out at patreon.com slash the team house. Hello, everyone. Welcome to another episode of IZOM. I'm Andy Milman. Hey, before we go into the intro of everyone else, so you don't have to come back

to me. Very excited today to have the famous Mick Mulroy, famous but very self-facing and modest, so he's hard to get hold of Mick Mulroy back. Mick needs, you know when you say no, it needs no introduction, then you go ahead and introduce him. Anyway, unless you've been sleeping under a rock in the team house environment and really have ignored what is going on with the coolest of coolest guests, Mick has been a habitual guest on the team house. Former Dazdi for the Middle East, Mick is glaring him maybe because before I've said special operations regardless, you know. And of course, senior paramilitary officer in the CIA, most importantly, a former Marine, which brings the ratio of this show back to three to one. Okay. All right.

I've put over to you, Jason, and Dee. While Mick thinks desperately, how do I follow that one up? I'm Jason Lyons. I'm Damichy. And this is, I'm figuring it more and more every day, every week. this is like a Marine SIE up. We're running. It eventually happens everywhere.

Marines are saying. I think they're going on in your wall. Cool to us. What, I mean, things you can talk to us about. Or the stuff that you can. That's okay. We're all friends here. Just random thoughts?

Well, I at first like to highlight the great work that Jack Murphy did on Willie Markison. Yeah. So I've been talking to him about that for a long time. And Willie is a legend in the SF community, the Ranger community, and the paramilitary community. And that's where I knew him. Literally, I think the first time I met Willie was in the early stages of Afghanistan. And me and another ground branch guy were walking across the front of Ariana, where the station would eventually be.

And Willie was there. And he said, hey, can you guys take me up to that place called Bogger. room, you know, he said, you guys looked like your PM dudes, which we were like, okay, that's probably a compliment. And then he had one backpack in like a body armor and a rifle and

I don't know, he had to be in his 60s by then, but. Wow. I met Willie. And he was, and you know, he really, and he is a very self-effacing modest individual who

was super reluctant to talk to Jack and and not obviously because of Jack, but because he just didn't want to highlight himself. So we really had to get his friends to highlight him to get to a point where we had, you know, had that confidence from Willie. And he, and he, and I really do hope,

and that's obviously up to the Pentagon to do this. But his distinguished cross, Army Cross, getting upgraded to a Medal of Honor. Really? Something they have to obviously go through the process, and I fully trust that they'll do it correctly, and that'll be the right answer. But I can tell you as, I guess, not a objective observer. Somebody greatly admires them. I've talked to his friends.

I've talked to people who have been there, and they all thought that that should be the case. So if they're talking to the people that were co-located with them, they're talking to his peers from that time, I think they will come up. with the right answer. So I just wanted to start off of that. Yeah, I mean, they did like super, it took them like a long time to, to write this piece. And it's huge. And Sean. Yeah. It's definitely a book. Like I think it'll become, they'll make it a book eventually too. Yeah. He's 11. I got to meet him, meet him probably 2000 and starting in 2009 up until I left the agency. And so we'd have lunch whenever I was back at headquarters, me and him in a Mick, I don't know if you knew Bobby Harris.

He was, yeah, he was my mentor while I was there at the agency. And so he introduced me and just those guys were just like when I first met Willie, I first walked into his office. He just had this look on his face, this like serious look. And I was like, oh boy. And then immediately he just cracked the joke and was just the coolest guy. So it's definitely been an honor to know him. Yeah, absolutely.

He was like the grand, grand, pop of yes Billy Wall right we have a couple we have a lot we have a lot of legends there absolutely

but a big whereas Billy Wall you know I mean it's not that he does the lecture circuit but he is he has been more out there right

so kudos to yeah Jack and the team house for another thing and Sean Naylor Sean Naylor too yeah Taylor yep

good deal man John was a bit part of that to 100%. So make, tell us everything. Tell us everything that's going on in Ukraine. I want to know coordinates. Ah, okay. Well, this is the closest alligator in the boat.

So next week I might be going is the NATO summit in Washington. Right. So that's coming at a time when you have, you know, some political questions about the future support to Ukraine. I guess this is a way to put it, you know, with Le Penh's party, what is it, national something, national union. It was the national front, but it's changed. I forget. National socialists? I'm just joking.

It's the, you know, I guess you could say the far right. I mean, it always was the far right. Yeah, definitely been. Far right. And then, but I don't know how you get elected by the majority if you're on far right. right or left, but I get the point. She's definitely far right by most calculations. Most troubling, of course, is her already stated questioning of continuing support to Ukraine is my biggest concern, especially when it comes to stability in Europe, right? And I think it's important to point out that,

you know, some people kind of couch this as some kind of charity. It's not at all. I mean, if you take it from the U.S. perspective, I mean, how much taxpayer dollars we spend on our national security, a lot, right? And I do think our strength is relative to our adversaries, right? So if you have somebody willing to deplete your adversary up to 50% of their military capacity, it's not charity. It's a good investment, right? I mean, it's just flat out dollars and cents. I do think there's a ethical and moral requirement to defend democracies, but even if you don't,

you could take that out of the equation and still say, well, it still makes sense to contribute arms and munitions, weapon systems and everything we can to plead our probably most dangerous adversary, right? I mean, I think China's considered more, you know, significant. especially with their economy and their capacity. But Russia seems to be the most dangerous in the West. Progressive. Yeah. I mean, one country out of those two did invade another country, right?

So, and even if, I mean, the bottom line is obviously Russia is a significant adversary. And Ukraine is taking not only the funds and support from the U.S., but also NATO, and they're putting it to good work. I mean, they get criticized for how their counteroffensive went, which I don't think was necessarily fair, because the same people that criticize them overinflated what would likely happen, right? And then, and they criticize them for not being able to do it. But that also came at a time when there was a significant lull in support. So, if anything, it was the fault of the supporters, not the fault of the people executing the offensive, right? I mean, if you look at the way the U.S. military would have won about that,

I don't even know that we would have done it without even air parity, let alone superiority. We've never had to do anything remotely like that. Exactly. Nothing remotely like that. And anyone who says that we have and tries to throw the Gulf War or anything from the Second World War just does not understand the modern battlefield. Exactly. and we're using old techniques, Sosa, with the limited amount of smoke. I mean, they were, you know, I mean, it was ridiculous.

What we taught them was inadequate to the task. I'm not, that's not a criticism. We just don't have that frame of reference. You can't expect them. And what they get down to like 10 to 1 ratio of artillery, you know, for every one they had and were coming their way. So, I mean, if there's any fault in that, I think. it's for fault of the supporting element, right?

The U.S. and NATO for, or especially the U.S., I should say. I mean, we had the lull with the political machinations of the support. Now that's been passed, the National Security Supplemental. You know, hopefully we're going to catch up, and we're going to give them what they need to actually win and not just survive. I got a quick question for you because this is really confused the shit out of me. I mean, you and I come from communities that are not traditionally liberal or left-wing, right? You know, we like to think a politically bipartisan, but yes, let's be honest, we tend to be on the right of center.

And yet, to a man, and I've never met one woman, I have never, I have not met a guy who is wearing a uniform or who is in the agency, who has said anything other than, or former, by the way, anything. other than we need to support Ukraine. It's a no-brainer. So what I don't understand is the population beyond who consider themselves conservative and yet are blocking what is a no-brainer, as you point out, money for lives, right? We're substituting. It's expensive, but nothing is as expensive as, you know, a dead American, right? So it is a bargain, as you point out. How can people not understand that? Do you think it's a lack of education or do you think it's just such hardwired partisanship that nothing can show them the reality of geopolitics? I agree, Andy, it's been baffling to me.

I mean, the only thing that I can, and I'm not a partisan person, I don't belong to a political party, but I would agree with you. Most people in the military and the CIA, at least when it comes to national security, tend to fall in the right side of the spectrum, right? Maybe not so much in, you know, domestic issues and stuff like that, but certainly on the national security side, you know, strong offense and kind of a, without the partisanship, the Reagan type view, right? I don't know where there's people when the Republican Party, to be honest. I know they're still there. I talk to them. I see them. I just never hear, I never hear them represented it, represented, excuse me, in the, in the party anymore, even though there are plenty out there.

And that's troubling because if it's just purely partisan and they're looking at, you know, talking points or what have you and somehow they came up with that we shouldn't support Ukraine, I just don't, I can't follow the logic. I really, I really can't. And if if they think that appeasement, which has been proven to be the wrong course of action so many times in history and not just in history, but in that part of the world, they think that's the way to go. I mean, I just can't see how they could logically get there. But, I mean, I do see different political side. So I do think I can see even if I agree with one or the other. But this is one of those things. I just don't see how they could, you know, follow logical steps

and get to the point that we should appease, try to force Ukraine into feeding territory. I mean, American mentality. Can you imagine somebody took over part of you in the West? Somebody came to us and said, give away Texas or something? I mean, it would be like, you know, Right? So I don't understand why that's the case. I do, of course, you know, I mean, around the edges, you know, are they spending it in all the right areas? Well, I think that should be the case for all security assistance we give. We should always audit it. We should always ensure that it's not going to the wrong places. It's not unique to Ukraine. So that don't even view that as a real argument because the answer is, well, we should always do that. You know, whether it's going to Israel or going to Ukraine or whoever. which we do. And they're all subject to everything from Leahy vetting to as much as we can monitoring.

You know, I get it. In Ukraine, we had a huge issue with accountability, but that was because of our own policies. You know, I mean, you're going to pour money into a country with some history of corruption. Some of it's going to get creamed off. But at the end of the day, you haven't lost a single American soldier. It comes back to that, you know. So at the end of the day, it's like, hey, you've got to, you've got to understand this. And that's, that is my concern. During the Cold War, of course, there was the, you know, the logic of containment that was consistent, right? But we've lost that now. And my concern is not so much Ukraine or, I mean, whatever the country is of the day, but are standing on the world because no one knows, you know, in the discussions now and, you know, Europe, no one knows what our policy is going to be after November vis-a-vis Ukraine. And that is really concerning. Right, and NATO, right?

So we're on the summit. Yeah. One of the big things about the summit, of course, is talking about how Ukraine could eventually get into NATO, right? And that's going to be a touchy subject because if they come in when they're still fighting Russia, then you'll have an article five situation. So, I mean, one could argue, although you can't undo the past, is that if we would have let him in NATO when they asked 14 years ago, they wouldn't be a war going on right now.

But that's, that's, you know, again, that's water on the bridge. That's going to be one of the big discussions this week in Washington. The other one, I'm sure, which may not be on the agenda, is what's going to happen if there's a change of administrations? You know, is there really a desire to, I don't think you can pull out of NATO, but certainly reduce our, presence, reduce our participation, and maybe even a move to pull out of NATO. I don't know. That is completely not in our interest. It's the most significant military coalition in history.

And the only time it's responded to Article 5 is for the U.S. Yeah, for the U.S., right? How long was NATO in Afghanistan, right? I mean, look at it for NATO other than the U.S. look at it from their perspective. I mean, and they were losing people too, of course, as you guys all know.

The other part of that is this idea that somehow, and everybody should pay what they're required, right, the 2%. But that's in their own national defense. It's not a country club, right? You're not chipping in, so we're paying

more because these guys are paying the bartender. We're not going to reduce our defense spending. So everybody knows if everybody went up to 4% in NATO, the U.S. is still not going to go, oh, you know what? We're going to reduce it. Never going to happen. We're going to respond ourselves to be able to fight on our own. We'll find some other way to waste that money.

Yes. We're not going to cut our bill. So it's not one of those things. And that's how it seems to get couched. NATO is, as they should, and now I think Russia is focusing their concentration here, they should pay more for their own national offense. We should have, but that is, the U.S. should lead it. We should lead NATO and becoming even more effective to the point where Russia would never even consider attacking it. That's the best defense is to be so strong that nobody would ever,

you know, dare mess with it. It's not the show. I mean, I couldn't, I mean, I couldn't agree more. One, one positive aspect, though, is, and I think this is independent of U.S. decisions, you've got countries like Poland really stepping up into a position of leadership, you know, in the eastern flank, raising their GDP to 4%, you know, even the Czech Republic. You know, so even countries that aren't frontline countries are all now kind of stepping up to the plate for domestic political reasons as much as, you know, geopolitical realization that the U.S. is no longer a necessarily as staunch a partner. as perhaps they've, you know, they've previously thought.

That's absolutely right. I mean, maybe this is rhetoric. It's still not good. It says the wrong message, but nothing happens. But in the event that it's not just rhetoric and it's significant, and then hopefully there'll be some voices that have influence if there is a change in administration. Yeah.

It can turn this around, right? And really focus the most senior leaders into understanding how significant NATO is. is for the U.S. in our national security. So, Mick, what are your thoughts on the recent Biden administration authorization of U.S.-built weapons use inside Russian borders? And is it, from what I'm reading, it's not as big a deal as people are making it, then I'm reading in other places that it is a huge sea change. What are your thoughts on that?

Yeah, Jason. So, I mean, again, that's another one of the times. sites 2020. I mean, I think I would have pushed, if I was there, talking the president, to give the type of weapon systems that they needed to actually win earlier on. I understand the balance. We didn't want to push Russia to the point where they felt it was actually at war with NATO. But I think by slow roll in that, we actually prolong the conflict itself. And that Same thing with the actual use of the weapon systems in Russia. And to my understanding, unless it's changed, is it's mostly, you know,

you can respond to the point of origin of an attack into Ukraine, right? So, and most of these attacks are going directly at civilian populations. So, you know, the quickest answer to me was, we'll stop shooting freaking cruise missiles at cities. And then you wouldn't get the income, right? It seems like that anybody would follow that as a course of action. And maybe it expands to beyond that after a while. If Russia doesn't change its posture on withdrawing, quite frankly, then it should probably increase. But I think it was probably should have happened earlier, but it was a good decision by the administration to allow them to do.

Mick, do you know if the British and the French have put similar restrictions on Ukrainian use of storm shadow and scalp missiles in particular? So I heard, and I do some informal advising with another group of folks to the MOD over there, I heard that they don't. The French don't. That said, the same Le Penin interview I just read about support to. NATO said she would not allow them to use French systems at all at Russia. So that could be going from having more expanded under Macron's policy to be able to do things beyond just what they could do with, at least from the French side, the French systems, to not be able to use them at all in Russia.

So that will just make ours more important for them to be able to use. Absolutely. And I would say, I mean, if you've read the 10-point plan of Zeletsky, it's all reasonable, of course. And it's something I think that hopefully the NATO summit confirms this week. Yeah, a very, very heavy emphasis on air defense for obvious reasons. But I agree with you. Drip feeding NATO weapons systems or U.S. weapons systems has allowed the Russians to adapt. That's right.

if we would have just looked at it, we could have turned it over to the Pentagon, as you well know, Andy had just said, what would we do to, what would we, how would we plan and what would we need to do this? And then we should have just supported them based on that. You know what I mean?

We've had all these. This is what we need to do it. This is what we're going to put all our allies. And we're going to find out who's going to participate. And then this is what they need to get this done. And that should be the overall campaign. 100% instead of constantly saying, what do you need, what do you need?

which changed and by the time that we could deliver, often their requirements had moved on. You know, there are certain things that are persistent like air defense, like long-range precision fires. But, yeah, I think that's a great idea, Mick. I mean, it's a great point. You know, we're providing all this stuff. So let us do some analysis and help the Ukrainians at the same time, same time ensure that what we're providing has a definite, purpose and is being used in a coherent way in a coherent campaign.

Exactly. And then it's support them wherever we can on the ground, you know, intelligence-wise, whatever they need, right? Because the way to get this done is to win. You know what I mean? It's to push Putin to such a place that he either starts withdrawing in mass or comes to the table with something that the Ukrainian people can accept. And it should be up to them, right?

They're the ones, it's their country, and they're the ones that have been doing all the fight and dying here. So, I mean, I think their allies include the U.S. that support them and what they're willing to accept and what they're not willing to accept. It's the perfect opportunity for a light touch approach, right? Unfortunately, we go black and white. We say black or white in a sense. We say, okay, we're either all in boots on the ground and then we flood the place, right? or or we restrict it totally. No one's going in there.

No one's going anywhere remotely near the line of fire. And now we've restricted ourselves and cut off all opportunities for for useful use of proxies or in order to, you know, to further our own goals. We just aren't learning from our adversaries. But, and I don't mean to get on the bandwagon,

but to your point, yeah, you know, Mick, I mean, as you know, I mean, a consistent paramilitary presence with sources all the way through would have been enabled a really consistent and escalating in a good way on the Ukrainian side campaign. But I think we really stymied ourselves by having kind of this blanket prohibition of having USG guys on the ground. And I think we have to relook at that again, that it was, an absurd reaction to over-perceived risk, and it prevented us from really leveraging to good, you know, our special operations forces, as we keep saying, we're going to do. When push comes to shove, we pull them all out because we're scared they're going to get hurt.

You know, the same thing goes for agency paramilitaries. Yeah, and I think that's, I mean, one lesson learned. There's plenty in this conflict is having that. continuous relationship with the special operation community, DOD, CIA, pays off, right? These relationships endure. They give us the capacity to not only train their special operations, which can sometimes be the, and they were the original resistance, right, when people started going, oh, hell, the key business is going to fall in three days, right?

A lot of those guys, and now it's the entire Ukrainian military, but a lot of them at first, were the special operations force running around with man portable weapons that we'd been with them. So I think it gives us an end. It gives us knowledge of what's going on and what could happen. And if there is a need to surge and then fully support a partner force like this, we already have the framework for it. And I think we saw that in Ukraine for sure. And it does, quite frankly, show whichever adversary decides to attack our partners at the U.S.

is there. You know, one of the, not to get off on a story, but a story that was told to me when I first got to G.B. If you think back in the Peloponnesian wars, the Spartans and the Athenians had allies all around the Mediterranean, right? And one of the Spartan allies was, which now in Sicily. and they were losing pretty dramatically to, you know, Athenian amphibious force that landed there. And apparently the Spartans only sent, I think, five or six dudes, right? And one of them was a general, and you could tell, by the way, the main went. And according to the person that told me this in G.B.,

who like me was somewhat of a history nut, when they just saw the Spartans and their scarlet capes on the, on the top, it totally changed the battle, right? They didn't even know there's only six of them, right? You know, but they saw them, they said, holy crap, the Spartans are here, right? And I always thought of that when it comes to, especially all U.S. military,

but especially the special operations components, right? They have so much more effect on the battle space than their numbers. Yeah. So when they look up and they see those, you know, Green berets, those seals, those Marsock Raiders, there's, even just the rumor of them. Go down the list. Right, right? It's almost like seeing those Spartans on the horizon up on the, on the rich line. I think, I think that does provide a lot of power of the United States that's, it's hard to calculate what it is exponential. I hate to bring you back to an area where you devoted so much of your life but

after after I'm discussing you know Ukraine which is already told I always tough of my you know my list but what about the Middle East I mean can you can you give us just a quick wrap up and solve everything in say 20s yeah no you know you have a few cocktails and you think you solved that every night and then you can't remember what the answer was right um yeah so i just got back uh from there um you know i am involved i might speak for the the group i'm part of but i uh we are involved in the humanitarian effort in the gaza uh the maritime corridor um that's very specific but of course i cover it for abc non stop so i think right now uh we were seeing prime minister nanyahu he's supposed to be here this

month. It's going to be a pretty busy bunk in D.C. And it looks like he will stop by the White House and then he'll go give a joint speech to cars. I think it's become, you know, policies in politics is always somewhat together. But now we're seeing it like essentially completely merge on both sides, right? So you have the current, the Biden administration talking to people like Benny Gantz, who is a more moderate individual who's likely to be the biggest contender for the Prime Minister against Netanyahu whenever that happens. And he's very popular in the U.S. And for good reason, he's a very competent former chief of staff of the IDF general.

And was the defense attach to the U.S. from Israel. So there's, he's not only known for his reputation, he's known personally. But so the divide administration is talking to him, which obviously Nanyad doesn't like too much. And now Nanyahu is going to go and obviously talk to senior public leaders on the hill. And he's been, I think, a bit critical, although I don't know if it was warranted on the delivery of weapons and munitions to Israel this time. So you're kind of seeing the politics and policy merge. on the on the on the Gaza side I think

unfortunately the biggest proponent of a ceasefire in these negotiations is not one of the components that can actually ultimately make the decision right if that makes sense

so it's the US right the US is like at any means possible passing UN and I and I don't disagree with it it needs to happen but there is there is reasons that Israel will or at least Prime Minister

or MNehu will not accept it unless he can be sure that he can continue the war till his military objectives are right and there's a reason for Hamas not to accept any ceasefire that can then be turned around and they can go back

into hostilities. They don't want to give up any of the hostages every time they do they consider that self weak and it's pretty clear that Hamas could care less about the civilian population in Gaza. So it's really just about Hamas and the Hamas leadership. So I think even though it's not publicly said that from the Israeli side,

they think they just continue on or moving into phase three, you know, more counterinsurgency centric, that they can just put more pressure directly on Hamas leadership. Like keep tracking them down, tracking them down. And when they come close, then all of a sudden you'll see Hamas, begging for a ceasefire because that's what they care about. Right. So I think that that's what they think. And then politically, they might see a change in administration and believe that they would have more leeway than they are getting under Biden. And then Hamas ultimately wants to survive past any into a ceasefire.

And by survive, I mean, their leadership. I don't think they care too much about their troops. And they obviously don't care anything about the civilian population there, in my opinion. So what, I was going to ask you to what, you know, as we look at this, I mean, it just seems insoluble, right? Because there's just no alignment of all interest, even within the Israeli cabinet. But interesting, the interesting thing I think is that there is not growing, but it's already a huge segment of the U.S., I mean, the Israeli population, they've long been disillusioned, but they've long been disillusioned. Netanyahu and now they see Gans as kind of their champion with the goal of freeing the hostages. In other words, they want to see freeing hostages front and center.

And now you notice Gantz is kind of talking that way too, right? He's even implicitly criticizing Netting Yahoo. So I guess my question is, what do you think about the prospects of that being kind of an internal cabinet? Who will reshuffle, right, led by Gans? Obviously opposed by Smoldrich and Ben Gavere. We do pay a bit of attention because it does affect our operations there. And I think, you know, if you look at the recent law adjustment, which requires Orthodox to serve, and I'm not as rarely side it, but to be frank, to see a bunch of older males,

walking out on the street protesting that they have to be drafted when they have 18 and 19 year old kids that, you know, would rather be doing their art major, men and women, young men and women being drafted is kind of an embarrassment, you know, like, hey, man, I'm not sure why you think you're so special. But, but, but and that's what the more important of what Mick thinks, that's what the Israeli population thinks, right? But apparently this is, this is cause, a rift in the far right of the coalition. So if it does cause such a rift that they, it ruptures it,

then Prime Minister Danielov stand for election. And I think just looking at the polls that, that Benny Gantz stands a very good chance. I'm not a political analyst in Israel, but that's what people, and I know I have a lot of Israeli friends, as you might guess. And I think they think that's the case.

And they think that they would get a moderate who might help them, you know, when it comes to international, support, but also a moderate who has impeccable credentials as a military leader, which is what they need right now. Because, you know, the one thing we haven't talked about yet is a potential for a northern front here, right, which could dramatically overwhelm what's happening in Gaza right now. It could be super substantial and really catastrophic to the region. So I think they're in the end, I think a majority of the Israeli population actually support that.

So it's possible that it could happen. Supporting a war in the north, you mean? Yeah, the ground incursion to essentially push Hezbollah back to the UN Resolution 1701, the Latani River. You know, I mean, it's almost as though it's a fait accompli, and both sides could argue that they're already at war. You know, I mean, I was up in the north last week, I think it was Thursday, and... There was something like 200 rockets came across. It was Wednesday or Thursday. Right.

And you could see that, I mean, the fires every, you can see the smoke, at least, a lot of the fires all along. And 60,000 people evacuated, you know, on the Israeli side. And then Hezbollah has lost nine or 10 brigade commander level guys. And then most recently, NASA, not, you know, no relation to Gamal. NASA, but they're losing some brigade level leadership, and now they're losing some of their guys who are there at the beginning, right? Right. You know, the old guard from the early 80s, and there's only about four or five of them left along with Nasrallah. So it looks almost as though, you know,

that the Israeli government is pushing, you know, they are, on one perception, they're doing this to antagonize the push his bullet at the point of war. But other people are saying within the IDF, hey, look at the guys we're killing. Until NASA, these are all brigade level guys. They're not top level guys. It's still, we're still playing within the rules of the game. Right. That's right.

So what do you, I mean, do you think Nasrallah? What do you think? I mean, I'm not, I'm not suggesting that you're Nasrallah whisper, although that was your nickname. What do you think, what do you think he's, what do you think he's thinking now? What do you think he wants? you know i mean i think there's probably a lot that he's taking new account he's thinking is iran really going to back me if this actually kicks off right because you know they're they're like the original proxy group and you know apparently they're gold star um but it's pretty clear to me that

and we just saw some pretty interesting shifts in elections in iran right i don't know i total expected that um yeah yeah right moderate in as the president yeah yeah yeah Right. So, and then if you're Nasrallah, you're thinking, okay, did I pick a fight with the biggest dude on the block, the block being the Middle East? And then my big brother has decided that he just not going to come to my support. I mean, there's that, right? And yes, in India, you know, they're making all the rhetoric that there's no rules of engagement, which means they're going to target the Israeli civilian population, which they have been the entire time. So no newsflash there. I do think the U.S. is doing everything we can to mitigate this from happening. Part of that is the ceasefire in Gaza, right? So if there's a ceasefire in Gaza, it'll probably reduce the tensions with Hezbollah. They say so that it will. And then it really does come down to whether the Israeli population believes it's safe enough to go back, right?

Because I think you said it was around 60,000 people. I think that's right, that are displaced. And that doesn't necessarily mean Hezbollah has to be pushed back to the Latini. It all depends on what they're doing, right? So if they're not launching rockets and missiles nonstop, then, you know, and the Israeli population believes that they won't start, then they would be able to go back. If that's the case, this could be, I think, avoided. If it's not, then I think from the Israeli perspective, they're eventually going to have to bite the bullet and do some kind of ground incursion. and that would be bloody, ugly, for the IDF, of course, and for Hezbo, of course.

But it also could really, I mean, the precision got ammunition, you hear different stats, but to say the 150,000 rockets and missiles stats is accurate. I mean, I saw one, I think, pretty accurate report that the Hezbo could launch 3,000, mostly precision guys missiles a day for 30 days right I don't know any air defense system that could withstand that iron so the US would likely have to get involved militarily at least to mitigate these threats from the air as soon as that happens and this is now more than just a conflict between Israel and Hezbollah it could be a between Israel, United States, Hezbollah, Iran, and Iran's, you know, could launch all sorts of barrages

like they already have. You know, you're seeing, you know, proxy forces from Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, all saying they're going to side. I don't know what that means necessarily, but I guess if they needed more fighters, it could surge there. It would be much more significant. And Hezbollah claims they have 100,000 fighters, right? So even if that's exaggerated, it's certainly much more than Hamas had.

So it would be, it would dwarf the current conflict in Gaza. And it would just add to an incredibly tense situation in which, you know, Israel could feel like it's completely up against the ropes at a time when Iran starts racing toward a getting a nuclear weapon. So, you know, nothing, nothing that anybody wants to see in the Middle East. And you mentioned the rockets and missiles, which has been a problem set that we've all been focused on. I mean, I'm sorry, that was a very lazy collective. Collective now. But, I mean, as far as in the special operations community, and you remember, I mean, generally within DOD focused on Hezbollah,

but mostly in the soft community. But now it's not just the rocket. and missiles, it's the drones. And I was just up in Northern Command on Friday talking to, they've got a drone command within Northern Command headed by a Ukrainian guy. I mean, he's Ukrainian-Israeli, but he was exo a National Guard unit out in Ukraine. Anyway, he's a drone expert. He's bringing a lot of TTPs from Ukraine in.

And his concern is this, number one. and he was very, even in an official interview, you know, on a base, he's saying, we're just not getting resourced. I need more guys. I need this. Hasbolo operators are really, really good, and they're able to operate their drones offline now. So our GPS drone jamming does no good. And they, as you know, penetrated as far south as south of Haifa and not just, you know, significant size drones. So that that huge is a huge concern, just like. layered on top of everything else, too. And the Israelis are behind. It's interesting because they're so far ahead in areas of sophistication.

And we talk about, well, they, you know, a qualitative military edge. And yet here in a very key area, they as United States are struggling with a short-range air defense issue and are looking to be overwhelmed. Yes. And if you have a chance, Owen West actually has an article in the Wall Street Journal about AI and drones. I read that. Yeah, really good. I do think to your point, Andy, like one of the things that we can get out of having our folks in places like Ukraine, working at least in support of them,

is to take the new modern cutting-edge technology knowledge to be able to export it to other partners. right? Yeah. 100%. That is critical. And this is a great example. To provide drones that are fairly sophisticated but expendable, blue-collar drones, right?

You know, that we can provide in large enough quantities instead of these $30 million platforms, you know, which we can't give to anyone. And we can't even fly when there's an SA6. That's right, right? Necessities of Mother ofvention, right? They're a subtle, I think. So if you look at, like, who is the underdog in each one of those conflicts, they tend to look for what you're talking about. Really inexpensive, but highly innovative means to be able to take it to the enemy.

So in Ukraine, it's the Ukrainians, right? They're killing, you know, multi-million dollar tanks, etc., with relatively inexpensive, you know, manipulated with a commercial drone. and, you know, RPG warhead and what have you. And that is what Hezbo is going to do to Israel, right? So we can take what we learn from being with the Ukrainians to do that, what the vulnerabilities of those types of things are. So I think that's, it's a reason, one of the reasons, there's many, but one of the reasons we have a SOCOM, right, or in my case,

a special activity center that isn't geographically tied anywhere. So we go everywhere. we support partners and we take what we learned or what they learned from there to our own benefit to the other to other partners that we'd like to see you know succeed which of course should be all our partners that's the whole point and allies i'd love to see that happen in a more coherent fashion you know that it's kind of forget i even said that that was an empty well we don't even gather our own lessons learned in a but but yes Yeah, it's very interesting to see how tactics have migrated,

Ukrainian tactics have migrated, but also Russian tactics have migrated to Hezbollah because the Russians have become, of course, very proficient with FPVs, which are the real threat now. And interestingly enough, you know, the Ukrainians talking about training FPV operators and putting them through, you know, an initial selection. I mean, it's making me think this really,

is going to be a very important MOS of the future, right? An FPV pilot. I mean, those guys are going to be gold. I hope we're training them. I hope we're recruiting them right now. But the Israelis have started. Hezbollah is already way ahead. And of course, the Russians and Ukrainians, it's a major, it's an industry.

And down to their task organization at the squad level, now they have four drone operators. squad just the way we have whatever, saw gunner and 2 or 3 gunner at the rich a thing. That's right. Absolutely. So we'll see what, I mean, they're pushing hard for the ceasefire

right now. I think the U.S. does want it more than both parties involved, but if it does work for Israel, then I think we'll see at least the first phase of it, which would be the hostages

females, non-soldier females, the elderly, and I think the injured will come out first. The IDF will draw from populated centers. They're already moving into phase three, so it seems like they'd be doing that anyway. And then, of course, from the humanitarian perspective, there would be more aid coming in, which is super important because right now the most, if not all of the 2.2 million population is in some form of acute. food insecurity and in the north borderline famine. And one of the biggest problems remains distribution, right, within the strip makers. As much as bottlenecks on passage, the real issue is once it gets in,

ensuring it goes to where it's supposed to go. That's right, because whether it comes in from the maritime means or the ground crossings, when the trucks start moving, they often don't get to the further away communities because every community has to go through is also starving, right? So it's, they're getting loose. And it's a problem all over across the board, but the easiest way, none of it's easy.

Let me take that back. The best way to solve that is to flood the zone with aid so that, you know, parents can see that, okay, there's a lot of food coming in. It's being stored at these facilities. I'm going to be able to feed my kids. kids tomorrow. So I'm not going to have to bump bum rush a speeding truck, right? That's what I think's needed there, and it needs to come from every direction, you know, ground, maritime, and to a certain

extent, air, although that's really expensive. But it's, there's some places up there where air is the only way to reach it, right? So that's what's going on right now with that. And I certainly hope that if there is a ceasefire that there is a opportunity to flood the zone with food and really critical medicine because Hamas is obviously a despot, horrible terrorist organization, but, you know, little kids in Gaza deserve to be treated with dignity, respect, and certainly get all the things they need for life sustainment. And as every civilian there, not just the kids, but they are. They are not, they shouldn't be part of them, the bargaining when it comes to the stuff. So if this ceasefire is implemented and it holds, let's just say a month, two months,

but things start heating up in the north with Hezbollah and all eyes start turning north. Do you put it past the moss to stick with that ceasefire or take full advantage of the fact that everything is turned north? That's a good question, Jason, because if you think about it, I mean, how many people really think that Hamas is going to have a ceasefire forever? Because, I mean, their terrorist organization and their primary mission is to destroy Israel. So if you say, we're never going to fight Israel, then like, what's the point? I mean, I hope they do. I hope they do. Let's all hope they do.

The other part to that and the point I think of your question is, if the IDF starts twacking Hezbollah, Hezbollah is going to be like, hey, guys, you need to create something down in the, down in Gaza to kind of distract or, at least add to the plate of the IDF. If you hold the ceasefire and they're allowed to basically take a knee in Gaza and just focused on Hezbollah, then I think Hezbollah will expect Hamas to do something. And that maybe that actually breaks the ceasefire. I don't know. Hopefully that's not the case, but I think there'll be a lot of pressure.

And it might be pressure exerted by Iran too. And also I guess, sorry, the offshoot question would be, if that does happen, can the IDF sustain that, you know, operations in the north and then having to turn right back south again? Good question. Right. It's not just the IDF in its current capacity, but they rely heavily like we do when they go to war on reserves. Right. I think Andy just got back there. Half the bartenders you talked to over there just got back from Gaza, right? So it's, they're just, and it's an incredibly resilient culture in the sense that, you know, life is normal in most parts of Tel Aviv and half those guys just got back from, and gals, just got back from, from God.

But that's very difficult to sustain. It has a huge impact on their economy on all these young people's, you know, lives. It's one thing to be called up and go spend six months and then to be called up again and again and again. it's very disruptive, right? They have mandatory service, and a lot of them have already done it. So it's both a capacity, like straight out capacity militarily,

but it's also political because it's a democracy. Eventually, people be like, we have to go back to our lives. And the business people are like, we have to get these people back to work. I was just going to say, I was just thinking, like, what if that 18, or that 19, 20-year-old kid who's done two pumps, you know, two tours up in the north,

and in the South. What if he says, I'm not going? I'm not, I've done it. I'm not going. What happens? Right. And the irony there, not to get to dwell into their politics, all this is change we talk about it is a lot of these far right folks that, quite frankly, are pushing for no ceasefire and new fronts are the very people that aren't required to serve, right? So, you know, from that 18, 19 year old kids just wants to go be a music major at the University of Tel Aviv or something, this is starting to get frustrating.

And I don't say that as just a guess. I've talked to them, right, when I'm there. And they fully support their country. Obviously, I don't want their hostages back, as everybody should. But they're starting to see that this is an uneven obligation, I think. I don't have that speak for every one of them, but that's a consistent theme. They didn't seem to have any problem serving. But if this gets drug out, they're going to want to see a lot more people serving and not just them. Mick, tell us where we could find. You tell us about the Lobo Institute,

everything you guys are working on. Oh, yeah. So the Lobo Institute is essentially a association of people that have worked in the conflict sphere from the military, from the intelligence, but also from the UN, from the Peace Corps, to NGOs. and we've done things like we've worked for the U.N. in Yemen.

We've worked at the State Department on a humanitarian issue in Afghanistan. We're doing this humanitarian corridor for a group called Fogbo. We do a lot of those type of things, and we also have an NGO that deals with the use of ending the use of children as soldiers. We just had a documentary on that. I should go find the book and do a shameless plug, but I don't have it here. It's in there. There was an author here in Montana, a great author, wrote a book on it, and it's helping fund our NGO, which is called In Child Soldier.

So that's, I mean, in a nutshell, and we do tactical training, which keeps us engaged with Socom up here in Montana, which is, I have to say, one of the most fun things we do. And as you guys might notice, it seems like those guys just keep getting younger and younger. So we do, we're across the board, but we primarily focus on humanitarian issues in conflict zones. Great. Yeah, I'm going to throw the link into the description for the Lobo Institute. Excellent. Boys, anything else? Andy?

Oh, that's, as always, it's been great having you on, Beck. And chatting with all of you. Guys, don't forget to check out the Lobo Institute, obviously. Also, check out our Patreon, Patreon. on.com slash the team outs. I help support the show. Andy Milburn, Colonel Andy Milburn, his substack, his Twitter, all the links are into the description. So check them out there. Thank you guys. It's by my book. Appreciate it. And his book, of course. His book is great. Yeah. Thanks everyone. Thanks again, Mick. And see you back. Well, maybe we'll do an eyes on reunion.

We're coming up on our, what is it now, eight months, seven months, a reunion in Whitefish. yeah that'd be great we just plant it so I'm here let me talk to the boss D tacos and he's trying to spend our travel budget is what he's doing he's an asshole but I may be able to we can do a lot for the FW man

yes as you can probably know this place is packed full of veterans right especially some agency folks like if there's a zombie you probably want to get the whitefish yeah Far nicer than Poxy, New York.

All right. All right, thanks, guys.